1 . When I spent the summer with my grandmother, she always set me down to the general store with a list. Behind the counter was a lady like no one I’d ever seen.
“Excuse me,” I said. She looked up and said, “I’m Miss Bee.”
“I need to get these.” I said, holding up my list. “So? Go get them.” Miss Bee pointed to a sign. “There’s no one here except you and me and I’m not your servant, so get yourself a basket from that pile.”
I visited Miss Bee twice a week that summer. Sometimes she shortcharged me. Other times she overcharged. Going to the store was like going into battle. All summer long she found ways to trick me. No sooner had I learned how to pronounce “bicarbonate of soda” and memorized its location on the shelves than she made me hunt for it all over again. But by summer’s end the shopping trip that had once taken me an hour was done in 15 minutes.
“All right, little girl,” she said. “What did you learn this summer?” “That you’re a meanie (小气鬼)!” I replied. Miss Bee just laughed and said, “I know what you think of me. Well, I don’t care! My job is to teach every child I meet life lessons. When you get older you’ll be glad!” Glad I met Miss Bee? Ha! The idea was absurd…
Until one day my daughter came to me with homework troubles. “It’s too hard,” she said. “Could you finish my math problems for me?”
“If I do it for you, how will you ever learn to do it yourself?” I said. Suddenly, I was back at that general store where I had learned the hard way to add up my bill by myself. Had I ever been overcharged since?
1. What did the author’s grandmother always ask her to do during her summer vacation?| A．Go to see the lady in a store. | B．Make lists for her shopping. |
| C．Buy something in the general store. | D．Send lists to the lady in the general store. |
| A．Teaching kids lessons was Miss Bee’s job at that time. |
| B．She neither shortcharged the author nor overcharged her. |
| C．Her tricks made the author finish shopping in a shorter time. |
| D．She used to learn to pronounce the names of some goods in the store. |
| A．express her opposition to Miss Bee |
| B．tell readers Miss Bee’s influence on her |
| C．show her satisfaction with her kid’s homework |
| D．inform readers of her irresponsibility for her kid |
| A．A Precious Lesson By Meanie | B．Being a Responsible Mother |
| C．Making a Meaningful Life List | D．An Unforgettable Summer Travel |
2 . From now on, never spend your precious time thinking of reasons for your failures and shortcomings. Instead, realize that the seeds of success were planted within you when you were born. Only you have the power to make those seeds grow.
The seeds, and the power to grow them, are contained in the most awesome (令人惊叹的) machine ever created: the human mind. Success is a choice and not a chance. You were born a winner. You were born rich. You can be a success if only you make the right choice.
You cannot be successful without first developing your self-esteem (自尊). Your level of self-esteem is always based on the degree of control that you are able to exercise over yourself, and thus over your life. People with low self-esteem are people who do not believe that they have any power, or responsibility for their lives. They are leaves tossed(摇摆)by the winds of chance blown about with any sudden change in the weather.
You can exercise control over your life only to the degree that you believe that you are responsible for everything that happens in your life. Failures think that everything happens by accident and chance. Successful people realize that they are responsible.
Everything happens as a result of something. If we can identify the cause, we can control the effect. We are responsible for what we choose to think and believe. One generally rises to the level that one expects. We are responsible for setting our expectations. Our success is dependent upon our level of confidence.
If you associate with positive-thinking people, you are definitely going to achieve success. On the contrary, the opposite happens. We are responsible for finding, planting, and nurturing (养育) the seeds that contain future victory, born from setbacks (挫折).
In short, in all areas of your life, whether they be financial, physical, emotional, or spiritual, you are responsible. Once you recognize this, accept it, and firmly believe it, you are on the road to success.
1. People with low self-esteem are compared to leaves because they ______.| A．are ready to change their minds |
| B．don’t have the ability to control themselves |
| C．can’t be successful with self-control |
| D．are easily affected by windy weather |
| A．their failure is accidental |
| B．working hard will lead to success |
| C．they are responsible for success |
| D．they should make efforts to succeed |
| A．our success results from our attitudes |
| B．one can rise to the level that one expects |
| C．we should be responsible for our thoughts and beliefs |
| D．setting our expectations is essential before taking action |
| A．the proof of the author’s points |
| B．an introduction to another topic |
| C．the conclusion of the argument |
| D．a comparison between two views |
| A．The secrets of success. |
| B．How to achieve success. |
| C．Develop our confidence. |
| D．Success depends on you. |
3 . Beep! Beep! Beep! I rolled over and turned off my alarm clock. It was still
I
I shivered (打寒颤) and
Our lives here are full of sweet
| A．rainy | B．dark | C．cold | D．snowy |
| A．curious | B．afraid | C．eager | D．able |
| A．coat | B．bite | C．leash | D．flashlight |
| A．temperature | B．condition | C．environment | D．weather |
| A．method | B．path | C．plan | D．calendar |
| A．check | B．forecast | C．test | D．provide |
| A．removed | B．needed | C．packed | D．washed |
| A．tried on | B．decided on | C．relied on | D．focused on |
| A．difficult | B．ideal | C．wrong | D．safe |
| A．water | B．mud | C．dust | D．frost |
| A．patience | B．balance | C．distance | D．promise |
| A．complained | B．smiled | C．suffered | D．doubted |
| A．pre-dusk | B．mid-night | C．pre-dawn | D．post-dawn |
| A．Actually | B．Suddenly | C．Effortlessly | D．Generally |
| A．avoided | B．regretted | C．stopped | D．continued |
| A．wonder | B．reality | C．signal | D．challenge |
| A．offered | B．refused | C．intended | D．failed |
| A．found | B．admired | C．reflected | D．lighted |
| A．discoveries | B．dreams | C．seasons | D．memories |
| A．Enjoy | B．Examine | C．Admit | D．Remember |
4 . Normally, I loved birthdays. When my son and three daughters were little, my husband, Charles, and I always made sure to have dinner, followed by a big cake and presents.
Later, when the kids grew up and lived in different states, they always called to wish me a happy birthday. But this year I could have skipped the whole day, knowing there was one call I wouldn’t be receiving, the one from my daughter Patty. She’d passed away unexpectedly just a month before. One thing which made me feel a little calm was a voice message that she’d left on my cell phone the night before she died, telling me she loved me.
Over the following days I played her message of wishes over and over again, listening to the last words she said. “I love you very, very much, Mom.” Then, a couple of weeks before my birthday, while I was doing laundry (洗衣服), I accidentally dropped my phone in the washing machine. Quickly I pulled it out and dried it off, but when I checked my voicemail, Patty’s message was gone. I cried, heartbroken. Day after day I kept checking my voicemail, hoping Patty’s message would reappear. It never did.
On the morning of my birthday, I received my son’s wishes. However, all I wanted for my birthday was to hear Patty’s voice again. “Happy birthday.” Charles said, “let’s go out for dinner and a movie. It might help take your mind off things.” Charles was right. I turned off my phone, settled into my seat in the movie theater and let the film take me away. But the minute it ended I started thinking about Patty again. As we were walking out of the theater, I turned on my phone. It rang, signaling I’d gotten a voice message. Probably just my youngest daughter, Leslie, calling to wish me a happy birthday, I thought.
I dialed up voicemail and the message began. It was Patty’s voice, clear as a bell, saying again, “I love you very, very much, Mom.”
1. How did the family celebrate the author’s birthday when the children were young? (no more than 10 words)2. Why didn’t the author want to celebrate her birthday this year? (no more than 10 words)
3. How do you understand the underlined sentence in the fourth paragraph? (no more than 8 words)
4. What happened when the author was doing some washing one day? (no more than 15 words)
5. What do you think of the story? Give your reasons in your own words. (no more than 20 words)
5 . Returning to nature
Imagine getting the chance to go camping for five days. It would be an adventure (冒险) in the wild. You could row on a lake every day and leave your smartphone at home. Would you want to try this?
In June, four teenage girls from Minnesota, US, went camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (边界水域泛舟区). They had a great time——even without their smartphones.
Julia Ruelle, 16, put the group together. Earlier this year, she won an essay contest sponsored (赞助) by a company. The award was a five-day canoe and camping adventure with up to three friends. No parents or guides would be there. This award was supposed to encourage kids to be less dependent on technology.
Ruelle had been to the area before, but she had always gone with her parents. Sharing the experience with friends would be very different. She invited three friends: Anna Wander, Madeline Wilson, and Julianna Torelli.
They came up with a daily plan. “We would wake up early every day. We were done paddling (划桨) by noon. We ate lunch at the campsite. Then it was time for hammocks (吊床), reading, writing, making friendship bracelets (手链), talking and napping,” Ruelle said.
“I’m a lot less worried about things,” Wander said when asked how she felt without her cellphone. Her favorite thing to do was lie in her hammock and look at the lake. Torelli enjoyed cooking. She made blueberry pancakes and sandwiches.
No one felt hungry or homesick. “Mental (心理的) health can be improved so much. It really helps to get away and reconnect with yourself,” Ruelle said.
1. The camping trip was unique because the girls _____.| A．had to live on a boat for several days |
| B．needed to finish many tasks |
| C．had to live without their smartphones |
| D．needed to find a guide on their own |
| A．not using her smartphone at school |
| B．asking her parents for help |
| C．working in a company |
| D．winning an essay contest |
| A．Worried. | B．Happy. |
| C．Hungry. | D．Homesick. |
| A．It is easy to get lost without our phones. |
| B．The girls didn’t make any camping plans. |
| C．Wilson enjoyed making pancakes and sandwiches. |
| D．Using smartphones less can improve our mental health. |
6 . On August 26, 1999, New York City was struck by a terrible rainstorm. Unfortunately, this happened during the morning rush hour. Many people who were going to work were
Unluckily, there were so many people waiting to
My coworkers and I spent most of the day drying off. When it was 5:00 p.m., I was ready to go home. I was about to turn off my computer
Garth’s email was short, but I learned more from that
| A．forced | B．refused | C．adjusted | D．gathered |
| A．climate | B．scenery | C．storm | D．burden |
| A．used | B．promised | C．deserved | D．happened |
| A．practice | B．routine | C．process | D．service |
| A．to | B．through | C．over | D．for |
| A．operating | B．cycling | C．turning | D．rushing |
| A．check | B．carry | C．find | D．board |
| A．street | B．ground | C．floor | D．platform |
| A．paused | B．crossed | C．reached | D．parked |
| A．wet | B．weak | C．sick | D．hurt |
| A．while | B．when | C．after | D．where |
| A．hardly | B．kindly | C．normally | D．eventually |
| A．devotion | B．offer | C．connection | D．reaction |
| A．interesting | B．urgent | C．brief | D．humorous |
| A．promise | B．appreciation | C．advice | D．importance |
7 . Take a look inside a high school classroom. You will most likely find a teacher at the front of the class and students sitting at their desks. Yet, look closer, and you might notice a familiar scene: many of these students are not paying attention. Instead, they are dozing off (打盹) or even completely asleep.
Today, the majority of high school students are not getting enough sleep. This is a serious problem, especially as students are doing more than ever with their time. They come to school early, spend hours listening to teachers and taking tests, then run off to practices and meetings, and come home to be faced with even more work. And the homework load these days is not light; teachers give hours’ worth of homework each night.
Most kids need at least nine hours of sleep per night in order to function properly. Yet the period of this nine hours shifts as a child gets older. After puberty (青春期), the body’s internal clock changes so that it is difficult for teens to fall asleep before 11 p.m. So even if a student falls asleep at eleven, they would need to sleep until at least 8 am, to get a full night’s sleep. Considering the time at which most high schools in this country begin, those nine hours are clearly being shortened. Few high schools start after 8 a.m.
However, there are schools that have paid attention to this research and pushed backward the start of their school day. In schools where the start time is after 8:30 in the morning, the teachers believe that there has been a real change in their students. They note that the students miss class less, pay more attention in class, perform better in class, and report lower levels of depression. The researchers of these studies say that the results are quite important and that more schools should consider pushing backward their start time of their school day.
1. Which of the following would the author agree with?| A．High school students must go to bed before 10 p.m. |
| B．High schools should begin their school day at a later time. |
| C．Most schools should push forward the start of their school day. |
| D．Kids should shorten their sleep time gradually as they grow older. |
| A．why high school students should get more sleep |
| B．what’s life like for college students at present |
| C．why high school students feel sleepy in the classroom |
| D．how to lighten high school students’ homework load |
| A．arrives | B．reduces | C．increases | D．changes |
| A．Disappointed. | B．Satisfied. | C．Puzzled. | D．Surprised. |
8 . I was born a bookworm. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t read: It was almost like breathing to me. My fictional worlds took me to all the places I needed to go and I experienced everything indirectly.
My father was in the military service when I was a child, so we moved every two years, but we insisted on going to bookshops wherever we lived. He would take me to the nearest bookshop every Saturday morning and wait patiently while I browsed (随便看看)—after all, the choosing of a new book is something that cannot be rushed. And so started my lifelong love affair with bookshops.
One day I was thinking up the setting for How to Find Love in a tiny bookshop when a feeling of calm, contentment, and excitement came over me. It was a feeling of perfect happiness. That was my light bulb moment: My book would be set in a bookshop, and I could explore what books meant to each of my characters and how they had shaped their lives.
The book isn’t just about discovering romantic love. It’s about finding the love of books: something that can sustain you throughout your life, and provide escape, entertainment, education, comfortd and wonder. And, as I learned from my own father, it’s a love you can share with everyone. There is nothing more satisfying than sharing something you have read with someone else, knowing they will love it as much as you do.
But if we are to keep bookshops alive, we need to use them, and to encourage the next generation to make them a part of their life and view bookshops as a treat, a pleasure, an adventure, a gateway, so they become something we can’t live without. Thus my challenge to you, fellow readers, is to go to your local bookshops as often as possible and come out with something that might change your life.
1. Why did the author often move when he was a child?| A．Because her father loved travelling. |
| B．Because her father was in the army. |
| C．Because her parents divorced. |
| D．Because her parents wanted to find a better school for her. |
| A．Distant. | B．Casual. |
| C．Inseparable. | D．Cooperative. |
| A．A moment of relief. | B．A moment of peace. |
| C．A moment of sudden shock. | D．A moment of sudden inspiration. |
| A．How books affect people’s lives. | B．Romantic stories of the author’s parents. |
| C．How bookshops become popular. | D．Touching stories between father and daughter. |
| A．Purchase her books. | B．Go frequent book shopping. |
| C．Share books with others. | D．Sponsor local bookshops. |
9 . Martin was returning to work in his London office after spending two weeks with his brother in New York. He was coming back with a heavy heart. It was not just that it was the end of a wonderful holiday; it was not just that he invariably suffered badly from jet lag(时差); it was that Monday morning always began with a team meeting and , over the months, he had grown to hate them.
Martin was aware that colleagues approached these meetings with hidden agenda（会议议 程）; they indulged in(沉溺于）game playing ; and he knew that people were not being honest and open. The meetings themselves were bad enough---there was all the moaning afterwards at the meeting like “I could have improved on that idea, but I wasn’t going to say.”
As this morning’s meeting began, Martin prepared himself for the usual dullness and boredom. But, as the meeting progressed, he became aware of a strange background noise. At first, he thought that he was still hearing the engine noise from the aircraft that had brought him back to London. But as he concentrated on the noise, it became a little clearer.
He realized, to his amazement, that he could actually hear what they were thinking at the same time as they were speaking. What surprised him, even more than the acquisition of this strange power, was that he discovered that what people were saying was not really what they were thinking. They were not making clear their reservations. They were not supporting views which they thought might be popular. They were not contributing their new insights. They were not volunteering their new ideas.
Martin found it impossible not to respond to his new knowledge. So he started to make gentle interventions (干涉), based more on what he could hear his colleagues thinking than on what he could hear them saying. “So, John, are you really saying.....” “Susan, do you really think that?” “Tom, have you got an idea on how we could take this forward?” They looked at him, puzzled. In truth, he felt rather proud of his newly -acquired talent.
As the meeting progressed, it was clear to him that each member of the meeting was learning how to hear the thoughts of the others. The game playing started to fall away; people started to speak more directly; views became better understood; the atmosphere became more open and trusting.
The meeting ended. As people left the room, Martin found that he could still hear what they were thinking. “That was the best meeting we’ve ever had.” “All meetings should be like that,” “ In future, I’m going to say what I think.”
1. It is known from the first paragraph that Martin_____.| A．just came back from his business trip in New York |
| B．was found to suffer from a serious heart disease during the trip |
| C．had a good time during his fortnight’s stay in New York |
| D．didn’t like his work in his London office |
| A．Because it had to be held every Monday morning. |
| B．Because he was tired of hosting such a meeting |
| C．Because he couldn’t control the meeting that was out of order. |
| D．Because the meeting atmosphere wasn’t open and trusting. |
| A．still hear the engine noise of the plane though he was back |
| B．clearly hear what the members of the meeting were saying |
| C．actually control the thoughts of the members of the meeting |
| D．express what the meeting members were thinking based on their words and their thoughts |
| A．Martin made people say what they were thinking immediately the meeting began. |
| B．Martin was angry at the dullness of the meeting at the beginning of the meeting.. |
| C．Martin led people to express their real thoughts with the meeting progressing. |
| D．Many members of the meeting played games and told lies at the meeting all the time. |
| A．I was thinking of making a suggestion ---but I couldn’t be bothered. |
| B．I have got an idea on how we could take this forward. I think we should... |
| C．The usual people say the usual things, so I have no other new ideas. |
| D．I could have imagined on that idea, but I wasn’t going to say. |
10 . Dramas are usually called plays, and their creators are known as “playwrights” or “dramatists”. Some popular types of drama include comedy, tragedy, farce, opera and docudramas. Now, I’d like to tell you some popular types of drama.
Lighter in tone, comedies try to make the audience laugh and usually come to a happy ending. Comedies put unusual characters in special situations, causing them to do and say funny things. Comedies can also be sarcastic (讽刺的) in nature, creating fun serious topics. There are also several different types of comedy, including romantic comedy, a comedy of manners, and tragicomedy — plays in which the characters take on tragedy with humor while bringing serious situations to happy endings.
Tragedy is based on darker themes. Generally, tragedies show serious subjects like death, disaster, and human suffering in a way that makes the audience think. Hardly enjoying happy endings, characters in tragedies, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, are often troubled by tragic character flaws (缺点) that finally lead to their death.
A farce is a type of drama in which characters overact and present physical humor. Examples of farce include the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and the hit 1980 movie Airplane! written by David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams.
Opera is a type of drama which combines theater, dialogue, music, and dance to tell stories of tragedy or comedy. Since characters express their feelings through singing rather than dialogue, performers must be both skilled actors and singers. The tragedy La boheme by Giacomo Puccini, and the comedy Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi are classic examples of opera.
A docudrama is a relatively new kind of drama. Docudramas talk about historic events or non-fictional situations. More often presented in movies and television than in live theater, popular examples of docudramas include the movies Apollo 13 and Twelve Years a slave.
1. What do we know about comedies?| A．They don’t talk about serious topics. |
| B．They usually don’t have sad endings. |
| C．There’re always some arguments in them. |
| D．There’re four kinds of comedies mentioned. |
| A．They are often sarcastic in nature. |
| B．They usually have character weaknesses. |
| C．They usually suffer a lot before their death. |
| D．They are remembered by their ways of thinking. |
| A．Upset. | B．Cheerful. | C．Worried. | D．Thoughtful |
| A．say something funny | B．present physical humor |
| C．tell stories through dialogue | D．be good at acting and singing |
| A．Girls loving romantic stories. |
| B．Children loving funny stories. |
| C．People interested in fictional situations. |
| D．People interested in true events in history. |
