2 . It’s a hot time for Chinese language learning across the world, not only because of China’s higher position in the world but also because of the increasing economic and cultural connections between China and the other countries.

For example, the United Arab Emirates(UAE)plans to open Chinese language courses in 200 public primary and middle schools, so experienced Chinese teachers are needed.

Other Chinese courses opened across the world show the increasing need for Chinese-speaking talent. Mandarin(普通话)became an elective(选修的)foreign language in Russia＇s college entrance exam. Following English, German, French and Spanish, Mandarin has become the fifth elective test subject for the exam.

Spain has more than 40,000 people learning Chinese. Last year about 8,000 people took the Chinese Proficiency Test(HSK) exam. The number of people who took the test was the biggest, according to Xinhua News Agency.

In the USA, learning Chinese has been growing fast for many years and is now a popular choice for American children, especially those who were born in rich families. The children begin to learn Chinese at an early age because their parents believe that learning Chinese will help them build successful international business.

1. Why is Chinese language learning so hot?

A．Many foreigners like China’s culturc.

B．China helps a lot of countries to develop.

C．China has the highest position in the world.

D．China has more international influence around the world.

2. What can we know about Chinese learning around the world?

A．The UAE needs experienced English teachers.

B．All American children learn Chinese at an early age.

C．About one fifth of the Spanish learning Chinese took the HSK.

D．The Mandarin exam must be taken before going to Russia’s colleges.

3. What do American parents think of learning Chinese?

A．Helpful.

B．Difficult.

C．Boring.

D．Interesting.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．More people in the UAE begin to learn Chinese.

B．Chinese language learning is popular around the world.

C．Some foreign countries want more Chinese teachers.

D．Many American children are learning Chinese now.

3 . In traditional stick puppet shows in Shanxi, puppeteers hold up and manipulate (操控) the puppets using three rods (杆). The puppets are dressed in traditional costumes and frolic (嬉戏) on stage. They are able to change their facial expressions and perform complicated movements.

Such art can’t be created without the painstaking effort of puppet makers like Wang Maowei, 40, who is from Xiaoyi, Shanxi.

“When I chose puppet-making as a teenager, I gradually fell in love with it and decided to dedicate myself to the craft,” Wang said. In 2008, Xiaoyi’s stick puppet plays were added to the national intangible cultural heritage list.

It takes 40 to 50 days to make a stick puppet. The average height of a puppet is 75 centimeters to 1 meter, and they have different costumes to fit various plays and plots. “To make puppets, you need to have sensitivity and a basic foundation in the fine arts,” Wang said.

Traditional Xiaoyi puppet plays use the style of local operas, which are appealing to the elderly. Years ago, Wang realized that plays must cater to the market. He decided to start with the appearance of the puppets.

Stick puppets are traditionally carved from wood and are both time-consuming to make and heavy to hold. Wang found that a special kind of kraft paper is a perfect substitute (替代品). It means craftspeople can put things inside the puppets’ heads to allow them to be operated — the nose, eyes and mouth of a puppet can all move via the use of rods.

Journey to the West, a classic Chinese novel, has been frequently adapted in puppet shows. In the tale, the Monkey King can use his eyes to distinguish monsters from ordinary human beings. To recreate this power in his show, Wang makes the Monkey King puppet shoot laser beams (激光) from his eyes and spit (喷) fire from his mouth.

“It requires time and energy to create a delicate piece of work... These puppets are like my own children and I always take good care of them,” Wang said.

1. According to Wang Maowei, what specific skills are required for making stick puppets?

A．Creativity and imagination.

B．Patience and physical strength.

C．Sensitivity and a basic knowledge of fine arts.

D．Engineering and technological skills.

2. Why did Wang decide to use kraft paper for making stick puppets?

A．To reduce production time and effort.

B．To make puppets look more beautiful.

C．To reduce the costs of making puppets.

D．To make them lighter and easier to operate.

3. How does Wang make the Monkey King puppet unique?

A．By making it sing and dance.

B．By making it spit fire from its mouth.

C．By making it fly across the stage.

D．By making it shoot laser beams from its ears.

4. What does the underlined word “distinguish” in paragraph 7 most likely mean?

A．tell

B．appreciate

C．enjoy

D．prevent

4 . Long, long ago, rain stopped falling in China. The people prayed(祈祷)for rain to the Jade Emperor, who controlled everything in heaven(天庭), on the land and in the sea, but no matter how much they prayed, rain did not fall.

Four dragons in the East China Sea saw what was happening, and saw people eating grass from the ground, for the people had nothing else left to eat.

They thought of a way to help. They started swimming this way and that, scooping up water with their bodies. Then all four flew into the sky. Black Dragon flew to the north, Long Dragon to the west, Pearl Dragon to the south of China, and Yellow Dragon to the center of the country. All at once, they let the water fall from their mouths, arms, legs, and even their tails.The people could not see the dragons,         _ .“Rain!” they cried happily, and all the people and animals ran out into the rain and started to dance.

When the Jade Emperor saw the rain, he was very angry. Then he saw the four dragons flying around in the sky. He ordered Mountain God to kill the dragons.

When the four mountains landed on top of them and tried to crush(压扁) the four dragons, a strange thing happened. Suddenly four rivers formed, spreading across the whole country.

This is how the four great rivers (the Yangtze, the Yellow, the Pearl and the Heilongjiang) of China were created.

1. Why did the people pray Jade Emperor for rain?

A．Because he controlled the rain.	B．Because he had lots of rain.
C．Because he didn’t allow rain to fall.	D．Because there was much rain on earth.

2. What does the underlined word“they” refer to(指的是)?

A．The people.	B．The rivers.
C．The mountains.	D．The dragons.

3. Which of the following sentences can be put in the_      ?

A．but they could see the clouds from the sky

B．but they could see the rain falling from the sky

C．but they know the Jade Emperor helped them

D．but they think the Jade Emperor helped them

4. Which one is the best title for this passage?

A．Birth of four Chinese rivers	B．Punishment from Jade Emperor
C．Four Dragons and the Rain	D．Jade Emperor and Four Dragons

5 . ①Confucianism (儒家思想) has been followed by Chinese people for more than two thousand years.

②To help people understand how to behave towards others, Confucianism teaches the Five Constants (五常). These are ren, yi, li, zhi and xin. They are general virtues (美德) around the world. The most important two are ren and li.

③Ren is the feeling of care and love we should have for others. Confucius explained ren could best be understood as loving others. He is famous for teaching people “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” It is quite similar to what is known in the West as the Golden Rule (treat others as you wish to be treated).

④While the meaning of ren is easy to understand, li is a little harder to express. It can be thought of as duty or even respect. Generally, li is the way we should connect with people in our everyday life. In Confucian writings, discussions about li include the proper way to drink tea and how to remember ancestors (祖先). While ren is mostly about our opinions and feelings, li is about how we express our opinions and feelings towards others and towards the world around us.

⑤Perhaps the most well-known Confucian virtue is xiao. This is the duty children have to their parents. Xiao means loving, respecting, obeying and taking care of one’s parents in their old age. In Confucianism, xiao is important for a harmonious (和谐的) society: Without it, the whole world would fall into a mess.

1. What is the best Chinese translation of the underlined sentence in Paragraph 3?

A．博学于文，约之以礼。	B．学而不思则罔，思而不学则殆。
C．己所不欲，勿施于人。	D．君子和而不同，小人同而不和。

2. Which of the following is an example of li?

A．Building a peaceful society.	B．Taking care of one’s children.
C．Obeying rules for drinking tea.	D．Learning all through one’s life.

3. What’s the writer’s purpose of writing this passage?

A．To tell us about general virtues in Confucianism.

B．To let us know the long history of Confucianism.

C．To show us the new challenges in the development of Confucianism.

D．To explain the golden rules in Confucianism.

4. Which of the following shows the structure of this passage?

A．	B．
C．	D．

8 . Valentina is 9 years old living in Plano, Texas with her parents. She loves Beatrice, an American Girl doll (洋娃娃) very much. But Valentina left her beloved doll behind by chance during a flight earlier this summer. Rudy and Dominguez, Valentina’s parents, tried everything they could to reunite their daughter with her best friend, Beatrice.

“Beatrice means a lot to me. She brings me happiness and she’s my best friend,” Valentina said. “When she was missing, I felt like my heart was broken.”

When finding Beatrice was lost, the Texas family immediately searched everywhere for the lost doll with brown hair, including their travel bags, without success. They remembered seeing her on the plane so they called the airline (航空公司), and then sent an email to it.

The family also spread the message about the lost doll on the Internet — a message that finally reached pilot James, a first officer for American Airlines who lives not far from Plano.

James said he got the chance to help young Valentina locate (定位) Beatrice, who was last seen on July 20 on a plane in Tokyo, where the family had a stopover (中途停留) on their flight back home from Bali, Indonesia.

James said he got in touch with the Airlines’ Lost and Found at Haneda Airport in Tokyo and was able to locate the missing doll after two tries. He then took photos with Beatrice in various airports and on flights as he carried her back home to Valentina in Plano, over 5,800 miles away. One Monday, James drove to the Texas family to return Beatrice to Valentina in person. They were all moved for what James had done.

1. What can we know about Valentina?

A．She was sad at losing Beatrice.	B．She has brown hair.
C．She loved taking photos with Beatrice.	D．She lives in Tokyo.

2. What did the Texas family do first when finding Beatrice lost?

A．They sent an email to the airline.	B．They got in touch with James.
C．They searched their travel bags.	D．They spread the message online.

3. How did Valentina get her doll back?

A．She found it at home.	B．James sent it back in person.
C．She got it from the waiting room.	D．Her parents discovered it on the plane.

4. How did the Texas family feel about James act?

A．Encouraged.

B．Confident.

C．Calm.

D．Thankful.

9 . A new study shows that when heavy cognitive (认知的) work is lasted for several hours, it causes potentially poisonous materials to build up in the part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex (前额叶). This in turn changes your control over decisions, so you shift toward low-cost actions requiring no effort or waiting as cognitive tiredness sets in.

Influential theories suggested that tiredness is a sort of illusion (错觉) cooked up by the brain to make us stop whatever we are doing and turn to a more pleasing activity but new findings show that cognitive work results in a true functional change — accumulation of poisonous materials — so tiredness would indeed be a signal that makes us stop working but for a different aim: to preserve the perfection of brain functioning.

To look for evidence of this, researchers monitored brain chemistry over the course of a workday. They looked at two groups of people: those who needed to think hard and those who had relatively easier cognitive tasks.

They saw signs of tiredness only in the group doing hard work. Those in that group also showed in their choices a shift toward options with rewards at short delay with little effort. Critically, they also had higher levels of poisonous materials in the brain. Together with earlier evidence, the researchers say it supports the concept that poisonous materials accumulation makes further activation of the prefrontal cortex more costly, such that cognitive control is more difficult after a mentally tough workday.

So, is there some way around this limitation of our brain’s ability to think hard? The answer is negative. But there is good evidence that poisonous materials disappear in the brain during rest and sleep. The study result may have other practical uses. For example, the researchers say, monitoring of prefrontal metabolites (前额代谢物) could help to detect severe mental tiredness. Such an ability may help adjust work plans to avoid burnout. They also advise people to avoid making important decisions when they’re tired.

1. What is the purpose of our tiredness according to the new study?

A．To keep our brains in a good condition.	B．To make us stop whatever we are doing.
C．To force us to improve our abilities to work.	D．To change brain chemistry over the workday.

2. What negative influence can tiredness mainly have on us?

A．The loss of our abilities to work.	B．The poisoning of our brain tissue.
C．The attitude to our responsibilities.	D．The difficulty in cognitive control.

3. How did the researchers conduct their study?

A．By summing up the old data.	B．By comparing experiment data.
C．By referring to historical reports.	D．By interviewing many scientists.

4. What do researchers suggest to people who are very tired of work?

A．They get round the brain’s limitations.	B．They shouldn’t work out key decisions.
C．They try to avoid sleeping and resting.	D．They have to leave work for a holiday.