1 . Zoe Chambers was a successful PR (Public Relations) consultant (顾问) and life was going well—she had a great job, a beautiful flat and a busy social life in London. Then one evening in June last year, she received a text message telling her she was out of work. The first two weeks were the most difficult to live through.” she said. “After everything I’d done for the company, they dismissed me by text!I was So angry and I just didn’t feel like looking for another job. I hated everything about the city and my life.”

Then, Zoe received an invitation from an old school friend, Kathy, to come and stay. Kathy and her husband, Huw, had just bought a farm in north-west Wales. Zoe jumped at the chance to spend a weekend away from London, and now, ten months later, she is still on the farm.

“The moment I arrived at Kathy’s farm, I loved it and I knew I wanted to stay.” said Zoe. “ Everything about

my past life suddenly seemed meaningless.”

Zoe has been working on the farm since October of last year and says she has no regrets. “It’s a hard life, physically very tiring. ” she says. “In London I was stressed and often mentally exhausted. But this is a good, healthy tiredness. Here, all I need to put me in a good mood is a hot bath and one of Kathy’s wonderful dinners. ”

Zoe says she has never felt bored on the farm. Every day brings a new experience. Kathy has been teaching her how to ride a horse and she has learnt to drive a tractor. Since Christmas, she has been helping with the lambing-—watching a lamb being born is unbelievable, she says, “It’s one of the most moving experiences I’ve ever had. I could never go back to city life now. ”

1. When working as a PR consultant in London, Zoe thought she lived a        life.

A．satisfying

B．tough

C．meaningless

D．boring

2. The most important reason why Zoe went to visit Kathy’s farm is that          .

A．Zoe lost her job as a PR consultant

B．Kathy persuaded her to do so

C．Zoe got tired of the city life

D．Zoe loved Wales mare than London

3. How does Zoe feel about the country life according to the passage?

A．Tiresome and troublesome.

B．Romantic and peaceful

C．Mentally exhausting but healthy

D．Physically tiring but rewarding.

4. Which of the following is closest to the main idea of the passage?

A．A friend in need is a friend indeed.

B．Where there is a will, there is a way.

C．A misfortune may turn out a blessing.

D．Kill two birds with one stone.

2 .        People often fall ill because of me. ____ , they can hardly blame me; it is largely their own ____. A tired person may get ____, especially when he goes to crowded places with polluted air. A sudden change in ____ is another factor. In hot summer, people turn on the air-conditioner upon returning home. They will catch a cold easily.
       My latest victim is an energetic student. After school, he played football hard for two hours. Though ____, he still went to the cinema .Then he got back home and took a cold shower immediately.
       I seized this golden chance to ____ him. He reacted, trying to ____ me , but I was already ____ deep in his throat. He kept sneezing(打喷嚏) and his nose was running ____ he put on some warm clothes, it didn’t work, for there were too many of us. Besides, his sore throat kept ____ him, and he developed a cough to force me and my family out, but ____ .
       The next day he couldn’t go to ____. He had lost his appetite and was not as ____ as before. His mother made him orange juice every few hours for more vitamin C, which would help his ____.
       For two days he was ____ by his mother. As he rested more, his defense strengthened and I began to feel the ____.   I knew I had to ____ him before long. But I am not the one who gives up easily, and I made every effort to fight back ____, it was my turn to feel ____ now, for his defense system was starting an all-out attack against me. I became ____ and finally my time was over.
       Do you know what I am?1.

A．Therefore

B．Besides

C．However

D．Then K

2.

A．business

B．responsibility

C．excuse

D．fault

3.

A．punished

B．blamed

C．caught

D．killed

4.

A．temperature

B．season

C．place

D．condition

5.

A．excited

B．hurt

C．late

D．tired

6.

A．injure

B．bother

C．attack

D．destroy

7.

A．get on with

B．get rid of

C．put up with

D．take hold of

8.

A．reproducing

B．waiting

C．hiding

D．disappearing

9.

A．Since

B．Once

C．Whether

D．Although

10.

A．reminding

B．upsetting

C．comforting

D．influencing

11.

A．escaped

B．succeeded

C．regretted

D．failed

12.

A．bed

B．work

C．school

D．hospital

13.

A．peaceful

B．afraid

C．active

D．happy

14.

A．recovery

B．development

C．study

D．growth

15.

A．protected

B．nursed

C．scolded

D．affected

16.

A．loss

B．operation

C．pressure

D．movement

17.

A．leave

B．catch

C．forget

D．beat

18.

A．Uncertainly

B．Unfairly

C．Unusually

D．Unfortunately

19.

A．painful

B．tired

C．nervous

D．ashamed

20.

A．bigger

B．weaker

C．smaller

D．stronger

3 . An increase in students applying to study economics at university is being attributed to (归因于)the global economic crisis (危机) awakening a public thirst for knowledge about how the financial system works.
Applications for degree courses beginning this autumn were up by 15% this January, according to UCAS, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. A spokesman for the Royal Economic Society said applications to do economics at A-level were also up.
Professor John Beath, the president of the society and a leading lecturer at St Andrews University, said his first-year lectures-which are open to students from all departments-were drawing crowds of 400, rather than the usual 250.
“There are a large number of students who are not economics majors, who would like to learn something about it. One of the things I have done this year is to relate my teaching to contemporary events in a way that one hasn’t traditionally done.” He said.
University applications rose 7% last year, but there were rises above average in several subjects. Nursing saw a 15% jump, with people’s renewed interest in careers in the public sector(部门), which are seen as more secure in economic crisis.
A recent study showed almost two thirds of parents believed schools should do more to teach pupils about financial matters, and almost half said their children had asked them what was going on, although a minority of parents felt they did not understand it themselves well enough to explain.
Zack Hocking, the head of Child Trust Funds, said: “It’s possible that one good thing to arise from the downturn will be a generation that’s financially wiser and better equipped to manage their money through times of economic uncertainty.”
1. Professor John Beath’s lectures are_______ .

A．given in a traditional way

B．connected with the present situation

C．open to both students and their parents

D．warmly received by economics

2. Careers in the public sector are more attractive because of their_________ .

A．greater stability	B．higher pay
C．fewer applications	D．better reputation

3. In the opinion of most parents, __________ .

A．economics should be the focus of school teaching

B．more students should be admitted to universities

C．the teaching of financial matters should be strengthened

D．children should solve financial problems themselves

4. According to Hocking, the global economic crisis might make the youngsters_____________ .

A．wiser in money management

B．have access to better equipment

C．confident about their future careers

D．get jobs in Child Trust Funds

5. What’s the main idea of the text?

A．Universities have received more applications.

B．Economics is attracting an increasing numbers students.

C．College students benefit a lot from economic uncertainty.

D．Parents are concerned with children’s subject selection.

4 . How I Turned to Be Optimistic

I began to grow up that winter night when my parents and I were returning from my aunt＇s house, and my mother said that we might soon be leaving for America. We were on the bus then. I was crying, and some people on the bus were turning around to look at me. I remember that I could not bear the thought of never hearing again the radio program for school children to which I listened every morning.
I do not remember myself crying for this reason again. In fact, I think I cried very little when I was saying goodbye to my friends and relatives. When we were leaving I thought about all the places I was going to see—the strange and magical places I had known only from books and pictures. The country I was leaving never to come back was hardly in my head then.
The four years that followed taught me the importance of optimism, but the idea did not come to me at once. For the first two years in New York I was really lost—having to study in three schools as a result of family moves. I did not quite know what I was or what I should be. Mother remarried, and things became even more complex for me. Some time passed before my stepfather and I got used to each other. I was often sad, and saw no end to “the hard times. ”
My responsibilities in the family increased a lot since I knew English better than everyone else at home. I wrote letters, filled out forms, translated at interviews with Immigration officers, took my grandparents to the doctor and translated there, and even discussed telephone bills with company representatives.
From my experiences I have learned one important rule: Almost all common troubles eventually go away! Something good is certain to happen in the end when you do not give up, and just wait a little! I believe that my life will turn out all right, even though it will not be that easy.
1. How did the author get to know America?

A．From her relatives.	B．From her mother.
C．From Books and pictures.	D．From radio programs.

2. Upon leaving for America the author felt ________.

A．confused	B．excited
C．worried	D．amazed

3. For the first two years in New York, the author ________.

A．often lost her way

B．did not think about her future

C．studied in three different schools

D．got on well with her stepfather

4. What can we learn about the author from Paragraph 4?

A．She worked as a translator.

B．She attended a lot of job interviews.

C．She paid telephone bills for her family.

D．She helped her family with her English.

5. The author believes that ________.

A．her future will be free from troubles

B．it is difficult to learn to become patient

C．there are more good things than bad things

D．good things will happen if one keeps trying

5 . Being in an unfamiliar school can be frightening. If you start a new school, you'll have to worry about making friends. Here are some simple tips which help you make new friends more easily.
·Try speaking to the students you're sitting next to in class. As they're close by, it is easy to chat to them first.
·Try to speak to everyone in your class. You will study here for three years, so it helps if you get along well with them.
·If you don't have many friends in your class, try and make new friends in your neighbor classes. You can also chat to them at lunchtimes and after school.
·Join a lunchtime or afterschool club. You'll get to meet kids of all years that way.
·Ask your teacher to pair you With another student.
·Use your "celebrity status"(名人身份）! Since you're the new person, you'll have got celebrity status, which you can use for a couple of weeks.
·Talk to classmates, remember to smile, and be open and friendly. Don't break in while your classmates are speaking. When your classmates talk to you, you should listen carefully and look at them in the eye to make them feel important.
·As you grow older, it's natural to make new friends and sometimes that means you begin to grow apart from your old friends. So try and make time for all your friends. But what if a friendship group is pushing you out? If this is happening to you, ask someone you're friendly with what has happened .If the friendship is hopeless, try to find new friends.
1. According to the passage, moving to an unfamiliar school is_______.

A．interesting

B．exciting

C．uncomfortable

D．boring

2. What is the purpose of the passage?

A．To explain how to make new friends easily.

B．To show how to be used to new school life．

C．To encourage people to make new friends.

D．To introduce how to live in a new school.

3. It is suggested that you should ________.

A．try to study well to be popular with the classmates

B．try all your best to help your new classmates

C．sit close to a familiar classmate in the classroom

D．catch every opportunity to communicate with others

4. To make your classmates feel that they are important to you, you can

A．smile while talking with them	B．watch and listen to them carefully
C．be friendly and open to them	D．make use of your celebrity status

5. If a friendship group is leaving you out, you should

A．make your different friends know each other

B．forget them and make new friends at once

C．try to know the reason from a close friend

D．turn to your teachers or parents for help

6 . Winners Club
You choose to be a winner!
The Winners Club is a bank account specially designed for teenagers. It has been made to help you better manage your money. The Winners Club is a transaction account（交易账户）where you receive a key-card so you can get to your money 24/7 – that’s 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
It’s a club with impressive features for teenagers:
No account keeping fees!
You’re no millionaire so we don’t expect you to pay large fees. In fact, there are no account keeping or transaction fees!
Excellent interest rates!
You want your money to grow. The Winners Club has a good rate of interest which gets even better if you make at least two deposits（储蓄）without taking them out in a month.
Convenient
Teenagers are busy – we get that. You may never need to come to a bank at all.   With the Winners Club you can choose to use handy tellers and to bank from home using the phone and the Internet···You can have money directly deposited into your Winners Club account. This could be your pocket money or your pay from your part-time job!
Mega magazine included
Along with your regular report, you will receive a FREE magazine full of good ideas to make even more of your money. There are also fantastic offers and competitions only for Winners Club members.
The Winners Club is a great choice for teenagers. And it is so easy to join. Simply fill in an application form. You will have to get permission from your parent or guardian (so we can organize that cool key – card) but it is easy. We can’t wait to hear from you. It’s the best way to choose to be a winner!
1. The Winners Club is a bank account intended for ________.

A．parents

B．teenagers

C．winners

D．adults

2. Which of the following is TRUE about the Winners Club?

A．Special gifts are ready for parents.

B．The bank opens only on work days.

C．Services are convenient for its members.

D．Fees are necessary for the account keeping.

3. The Winners Club provides magazines which ________.

A．encourage spending

B．are free to all teenagers

C．are full of adventure stories

D．help to make more of your money

4. If you want to be a member of the Club, you must ________.

A．be an Internet user

B．be permitted by your parent

C．have a big sum of money

D．be in your twenties

5. What is the purpose of this text?

A．To set up a club.

B．To provide part-time jobs.

C．To organize key-cards.

D．To introduce a new banking service.

7 . I am a strong believer that if a child is raised with approval he learns to love himself and will be successful in his own way.
Several weeks ago, I was doing homework with my son in the third grade and he kept standing up from his chair. I kept asking him to sit down, telling him that he would concentrate better. He sat but seconds later, as if he didn’t even notice he was doing it, he got up again. I was getting annoyed, but then it hit me: I started noticing his answers were much quicker and right when he stood up. Could he be focused while standing up?
This made me start questioning myself and what I had been raised to believe. I was raised to believe that a quiet child was more likely to succeed. This child would have the discipline to study hard, get good grades and become someone important in life. Kids that were active and loud would only be objects of stares.
Now people perhaps come to realize that their kids are born with their own sets of DNA and personality features, and all they can do is loving and accepting them. As parents, throughout their growing years and beyond that, we need to be our kids’ best cheerleaders, guiding them and helping them find their way.
I have stopped asking my son to sit down and concentrate. Obviously, he is concentrating, just in his own way and not mine. We need to accept our kids, and their ways of doing things. This way may have worked for me but doesn’t mean we need to carry it through generations. There is nothing sweeter than seeing our children being individual（个人）. It makes us happy and that’s just the way I want my kids to live life.
1. According to the passage, the author tried to keep his son seated so that ________.

A．he could finish his homework on time

B．he couldn’t bother the author

C．he could pay more attention to his study

D．he could keep silent in the room

2. Inspired by the case of his son, the author began to doubt ________.

A．the importance of parents

B．the old form of education methods

C．the relationship between kids and their parents

D．the good grades of some kids

3. In the past, what kind of child is unlovable?

A．Those who are active and loud.

B．Those who are obedient and calm.

C．Those who are talkative and humorous.

D．Those who are shy and careful.

4. What does the author think of teaching children?

A．Encouragement is important.

B．A fine example is necessary in the school.

C．Children shouldn’t be punished.

D．Children can not be taught in the same way.

5. In the opinion of the author, children should ________.

A．have no freedom

B．be friendly to their parents

C．have their own style

D．learn from their friends

8 . When you need a job very much, you may end up taking one for which you are over qualified. Although you were initially grateful just to have the work, you now feel bored and depressed. Is there any way to change that?
Start by changing your opinion, says Caitlin Kelly, the author of Malled, a book based on her experience as a sales clerk after losing her job in journalism. “Don’t focus on what you’re not getting but what you are getting,” she says. “Be patient and work attentively with a wide range of people. It doesn’t matter what the job is –there are always things you can learn and skills you can develop.”
Hilary Pearl, the founder of a coaching firm, says, “Tell yourself the current situation isn’t the end of your career. Don’t overdramatize（过分夸大）the negative aspects but try to view the situation more philosophically: life has a series of stages, and this is one of them. Don’t forget to study even in the worst stage.”
Consider that because you’re overqualified, you may be able to learn or do things on the job that might not have been possible in a more demanding position, says Sarah Hathorn, the chief executive of Illustra Consulting. “You could spend your extra time in learning different aspects of the business and teaching others in the organization,” she says.
Is it possible to make your work more challenging, even if your job responsibilities aren’t likely to change?
Of course, you may seek tasks and responsibilities that force you to learn something new or to work harder. “You may be operating on autopilot（习惯性地）right now, but chances are that people above you are stressed,” Sarah Hathorn says. “take things off your boss’s plate and let him know which projects or tasks you want to learn more about.”
Always express your request positively, saying that you love new challenges, rather than complaining that you’re bored and underused, says Ethun, the president of the Park Avenue Group. In your down time, educate yourself about the company and its industry. “Read corporate information, analyst reports and related news articles,” she says. “If your boss accepts your suggestions, it will make you a more valuable employee.”
1. According to Caitlin Kelly, ______.

A．one should be willing to do some small things

B．being a salesman is not as important as being a journalist

C．performing your regular duties well is important

D．doing a simple job well will bring you a sense of success

2. What Hilary Pearl intends to express is that ______.

A．work is just a stage of our whole life

B．the present job doesn’t matter to us in a long run

C．one should be satisfied with his present situation

D．one should look forward instead of complaining about the present situation

3. The underlined words “take things off your boss’s plate” mean______.

A．draw your boss’s attention	B．share your boss’s burdens
C．give your boss useful advice	D．ask your boss for a better position

4. What is the common view about careers of the people mentioned in this passage?

A．One should start his career from doing a simple job.

B．One should improve himself and help others as well.

C．One should keep learning new things to improve himself.

D．One should pay much attention to the relationship with the boss.

9 .
In the course of working my way through school, I took many jobs I would rather forget. But none of these jobs was as dreadful as my job in an apple plant. The work was hard, the pay was poor; What’s more, the working conditions were terrible.
First of all, the job made huge demands on my strength. For ten hours a night, I took boxes that rolled down a metal track and piled them onto a truck. Each box contained twelve heavy bottles of apple juice. I once figured out that I was lifting an average of twelve tons of apple juice every night.
I would not have minded the difficulty of the work so much if the pay had not been so poor. I was paid the lowest wage of that time—two dollars an hour. Because of the low pay, I felt eager to get as much as possible. I usually worked twelve hours a night but did receive a low pay.
But even more than the low pay, what made me unhappy was the working conditions. During work I was limited to two ten-minute breaks and an unpaid half hour for lunch. Most of my time was spent outside loading trucks with those heavy boxes in near-zero-degree temperatures. The steel floors of the trucks were like ice, which made my feet feel like stone. And after the production line shut down at night and most people left, I had to spend two hours alone cleaning the floor.
I stayed on the job for five months, all the while hating the difficulty of the work, the poor money, and the conditions under which I worked. By the time I left, I was determined never to go back there again.
1. Why did the writer have to take many jobs at the time?

A．to pay for his schooling	B．to save for his future
C．to contribute to charities	D．to gain some experience

2. The following facts describe the terrible working conditions of the plant EXCEPT ________.

A．loading boxes in the freezing cold	B．having limited time for breaks
C．working and studying at the same time	D．getting no pay for lunch time

3. What is the subject discussed in the text?

A．The writer’s unhappy school life.

B．The writer’s eagerness to earn money.

C．The writer’s experience as a full-time worker.

D．The writer’s hard work in an apple plant.

4. How is the text organized?

A．Topic-Argument-Explanation

B．Opinion-Discussion-Description

C．Main idea-Comparison-Supporting examples

D．Introduction-Supporting examples-Conclusion