1 . Richard Campbell is a secondary school student. He is 15 years old. He lives in a small town in the north of England. Every morning, he gets up at eight o'clock, puts on his uniform and walks to school.
One hour later, the lessons start. The students usually study maths, English, history and geography in the morning. They usually study music and drawing and they play sports after lunch. They have a ten-minute break between classes. They also spend a long time in the school library, reading books and doing their homework.
Richard likes his school very much. His favourite subjects are English and geography, but he doesn’t like maths because he is not good at it.
Richard and all his friends spend the whole day at school. Lunch is at one o'clock. He doesn’t like the food that the school serves. This is why he often brings a packed lunch from home. He always has his lunch in the dining hall, but some of his friends sometimes eat in the courtyard or outside the school gate.
At weekends, he always goes out with his friends because he doesn’t go to school. On Saturday, he always goes to the cinema or to the sports centre. On Sunday, he just goes for a walk with his dog.
1. What time do Richard’s lessons begin in the morning?| A．At 8:00. | B．At 8:30. |
| C．At 9:00. | D．At 9:10. |
| A．Maths and English. | B．English and geography. |
| C．History and maths. | D．Geography and history. |
| A．In the dining hall. | B．At home. |
| C．In the courtyard. | D．Outside his school gate. |
| A．He reads and does homework. |
| B．He goes to see films or does sports. |
| C．He walks his dog or does exercise. |
| D．He spends a long time in the library. |
Bad news sells. If it bleeds, it leads. No news is good news, and good news is no news. Those are the classic rules for the evening broadcasts and the morning papers. But now that information is being spread and monitored(监控) in different ways, researchers are discovering new rules. By tracking people’s e-mails and online posts, scientists have found that good news can spread faster and farther than disasters and sob stories.
“The ‘if it bleeds’ rule works for mass media,” says Jonah Berger, a scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. “They want your eyeballs and don’t care how you’re feeling. But when you share a story with your friends, you care a lot more how they react. You don’t want them to think of you as a Debbie Downer.”
Researchers analyzing word-of-mouth communication—e-mails, Web posts and reviews, face-to-face conversations—found that it tended to be more positive than negative(消极的), but that didn’t necessarily mean people preferred positive news. Was positive news shared more often simply because people experienced more good things than bad things? To test for that possibility, Dr. Berger looked at how people spread a particular set of news stories: thousands of articles on The New York Times’ website. He and a Penn colleague analyzed the “most e-mailed” list for six months. One of his first findings was that articles in the science section were much more likely to make the list than non-science articles. He found that science amazed Times’ readers and made them want to share this positive feeling with others.
Readers also tended to share articles that were exciting or funny, or that inspired negative feelings like anger or anxiety, but not articles that left them merely sad. They needed to be aroused(激发) one way or the other, and they preferred good news to bad. The more positive an article, the more likely it was to be shared, as Dr. Berger explains in his new book, “Contagious: Why Things Catch On.”
1. What do the classic rules mentioned in the text apply to?
| A．News reports. | B．Research papers. |
| C．Private e-mails. | D．Daily conversations． |
| A．They’re socially inactive. |
| B．They’re good at telling stories. |
| C．They’re inconsiderate of others. |
| D．They’re careful with their words. |
| A．Sports new. | B．Science articles. |
| C．Personal accounts. | D．Financial reviews. |
| A．Sad Stories Travel Far and Wide |
| B．Online News Attracts More People |
| C．Reading Habits Change with the Times |
| D．Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks |
3 . Secret codes (密码) keep messages private. Banks, companies, and government agencies use secret codes in doing business, especially when information is sent by computer.
People have used secret codes for thousands of years.
There are three main types of cryptography.
A code uses symbols to replace words, phrases, or sentences. To read the message of a real code, you must have a code book.
| A．It is very hard to break a code without the code book. |
| B．In any language, some letters are used more than others. |
| C．Only people who know the keyword can read the message. |
| D．As long as there have been codes, people have tried to break them. |
| E．You can hide a message by having the first letters of each word spell it out. |
| F．With a code book, you might write down words that would stand for other words. |
| G．Another way to hide a message is to use symbols to stand for specific letters of the alphabet. |
4 . A teenager needs to have a sense of independence in their life to feel secure (安全的). To some teenagers independence means a lot to them, and I think that some parents don’t allow their teenagers enough independence.
Independence has something to do with freedom. Some kids are not allowed to go anywhere alone, and the only thing their schedule includes is going to school, coming home, going to sleep, and repeating the process the next day. Parents tend to be afraid that their kids can get hurt if they go outside into the world. But if parents control their kids too much, they may never learn to live on their own. The best way for a teenager to learn lesson is through experience. I think it is beneficial for teenagers to have freedom.
Teenagers’ lack of freedom can also stop them from having good friendship at school. Some might say this is a good thing, because it helps them focus more on their school work. I argue that this can only discourage them not to do their school work. Some parents do not allow their children to be around their friends outside the school, thinking that this will get them into trouble. But I don’t think so. Instead, isn’t this a good reason for parents to get their children a cellphone? Cellphones allow teenagers to stay in touch with their parents, and communicate with friends.
Privacy is another issue between parents and their teenagers. Teenagers tend to enjoy relaxation by themselves in their own room. This also gives them a sense of independence. It often annoys teenagers when their parents enter their room when they are not home. I know that my mom always goes in my room when I’m not home, and this has brought me to the point where I have asked many times to get a lock on my door.
1. What is the main idea of the second paragraph?| A．It benefits teenagers to have freedom. | B．Some parents allow their kids no freedom. |
| C．Kids know how to live independently. | D．Kids have a dull routine every day |
| A．it is unnecessary for a kid to have a cellphone |
| B．kids should focus on the school work |
| C．parents should make it easy for kids to communicate with their friends |
| D．good friendships between kids harm their school work |
| A．Angry | B．Lucky | C．Disappointed | D．Calm |
| A．keep her father from reading her dairy | B．stop thieves from going in |
| C．protect herself from any harm | D．prevent her mother entering her room |
5 . Grandparents Answer a Call
As a third－generation native of Brownsville, Texas, Mildred Garza never planned to move away.Even when her daughter and son asked her to move to San Antonio to help with their children, she politely refused.Only after a year of friendly discussion did Ms.Garza finally say yes.That was four years ago.Today all three generations regard the move as a success, giving them a closer relationship than they would have had in separate cities.
No statistics show the number of grandparents like Garza who are moving closer to adult children and grandchildren. Yet there is evidence suggesting that the trend is growing.Even President Obama’s mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, has agreed to leave Chicago and move into the White House to help care for her granddaughters. According to a study by grandparents.com, 83 percent of the people said Mrs.Robinson's decision will influence grandparents in the American family.Two－thirds believe more families will follow the example of Obama’s family.
“In the 1960s we were all a little wild and couldn't get away from home far enough or fast enough to prove we could do it on our own,”says Christine Crosby, publisher of Grand, a magazine for grandparents. “We now realize how important family is and how important it is to be near them, especially when you’re raising children.”
Moving is not for everyone. Almost every grandparent wants to be with his or her grandchildren and is willing to make sacrifices, but sometimes it is wiser to say no and visit frequently instead.Having your grandchildren far away is hard, especially knowing your adult child is struggling, but giving up the life you know may be harder.
1. Why was Garza’s move a success?| A．It strengthened her family ties. |
| B．It improved her living conditions. |
| C．It enabled her to make more friends. |
| D．It helped her know more new places. |
| A．17% expressed their support for it. |
| B．Few people responded sympathetically. |
| C．83% believed it had a bad influence. |
| D．The majority thought it was a trend. |
| A．They were unsure of themselves. |
| B．They were eager to raise more children. |
| C．They wanted to live away from their parents. |
| D．They had little respect for their grandparents. |
| A．Make decisions in the best interests of their own. |
| B．Ask their children to pay more visits to them. |
| C．Sacrifice for their struggling children. |
| D．Get to know themselves better. |
6 . In 2000, Andréa Speranza achieved her dream of becoming a firefighter joining the Halifax Regional Fire Service. Her job was exactly as satisfying as she imagined it would be, except for one thing: she still hadn’t seen another woman in her role — not in a magazine, not on television, not in real life. Even today, less than five percent of firefighters in Canada are women. Speranza decided that she wanted to help young women see that they, too, could have a career like hers.
The result is Camp Courage, a program for girls aged 15 to 19 who want to learn more about firefighting. In 2006, Speranza and about 20 volunteers welcomed their first 17 participants, recruiting (招募) attendees through advertising in schools and recreation centers. Over the course of eight days, the girls discovered the ins and outs of being first responders: learning how to put out fires, deliver first aid and even use the jaws of life (救生钳) on a car.
Camp Courage now runs one session every year in Halifax and is free to attend. To offset costs, Speranza and her fellow campers fundraise by holding everything from car washes to comedy nights. Hopeful campers must also submit an essay describing how they plan to help their community, or a specific individual in need. And they have to deliver on the plan—from building a bench (长椅) for a senior at a bus stop to launching a local chapter of the Kids Help Phone.
Hundreds of girls have passed through Camp Courage, and 36 percent are doing exactly what 52-year-old Speranza hoped they would: working as first responders across the country. This past summer, the camp held its first session for young women in Halifax, as well as its first national camp in Calgary with plans to roll out more in 2023.
1. What was probably Speranza’s wish in 2001?| A．To see more female firefighters. |
| B．To make contact with more teenage girls. |
| C．To be recruited to the Halifax Regional Fire Service. |
| D．To work part-time in schools and recreation centers. |
| A．Risks. | B．Chances. | C．Details. | D．Purposes. |
| A．It is a nonprofit international organization. |
| B．It teaches the value of being helpful to others. |
| C．It requires its campers to write an essay every week. |
| D．It introduces boys and girls to the emergency services. |
| A．She had a burning ambition to play comedy. |
| B．She used to be reserved and disciplined. |
| C．She is intellectual and scholarly. |
| D．She is brave and inspiring. |
7 . Every April I am troubled by the same concern that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sky and forest appearing grey. My spirits ebb, as they did during an April snowfall when I first came to Maine. “Just wait,” a neighbour advised. “You’ll wake up one morning and spring will just be here.”
And look, on 3 May that year I awoke to a green so amazing as to be almost electric, as if spring were simply a matter of flipping a switch. Hills, sky and forest revealed their purples, blues and greens. Leaves had unfolded and daffodils were fighting their way heavenward.
Then there was the old apple tree. It sits on an undeveloped lot in my neighbourhood. It belongs to no one and therefore to everyone. The tree’s dark twisted branches stretch out in unpruned (未经修剪的) abandon. Each spring it blossoms so freely that the air becomes filled with the scent of apple.
Until last year, I thought I was the only one aware of this tree. And then one day, in a bit of spring madness, I set out to remove a few disorderly branches. No sooner had I arrived under the tree than neighbours opened their windows and stepped onto their porches(门廊; 走廊). These were people I barely knew and seldom spoke to, but it was as if I had come uninvited into their personal gardens.
My mobile-home neighbour was the first to speak. “You’re not cutting it down, are you?” she asked anxiously. Another neighbour frowned as I cut off a branch. “Don’t kill it, now,” he warned. Soon half the neighbourhood had joined me under the apple tree. It struck me that I had lived there for five years and only now was learning these people’s names, what they did for a living and how they passed the winter. It was as if the old apple tree was gathering us under its branches for the purpose of both acquaintanceship and shared wonder. I couldn’t help recalling Robert Frost’s words:
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods
One thaw led to another. Just the other day I saw one of my neighbours at the local store. He remarked how this recent winter had been especially long and complained of not having seen or spoken at length to anyone in our neighbourhood. And then, he looked at me and said, “We need to prune that apple tree again.”
1. By saying that “my spirits ebb” in paragraph 1, the author means that _______ .| A．he feels relieved | B．he is tired |
| C．he is surprised | D．he feels blue |
| A．be appealing only to the author |
| B．have been abandoned by its original owner |
| C．be regarded as a delight in the neighbourhood |
| D．have been neglected by everyone in the community |
| A．They wanted to get to know the author. |
| B．They were concerned about the safety of the tree. |
| C．They wanted to prevent the author from pruning the tree. |
| D．They were surprised that someone unknown was pruning the tree. |
| A．when spring would arrive | B．how to pass the long winter |
| C．the pruning of the apple tree | D．the neighbourhood gathering |
8 . It was the men’s skating finals of the Winter Olympics when I was 16. Someday I’d be in the Olympics. In fact, it was my dream.
That night I lay on our living room floor excitedly watching the battle between the Brians: American Brian Boitano facing Brian Orser in Canada. Both of them had been world champions. Both of them deserved to win. Naturally I was for Brian Boitano, a northern Californian like me. We had skated on the same ice. I held my breath in amazement. Boitano performed successfully. The gold medal! I jumped in the air when his score went up.
But what happened next is what I’ll never forget. Brian Boitano sat in front of the camera with his coach, surrounded by a group of journalists. He was talking about his career and his medal, talking to the whole world. A terrible sinking feeling went through me. I could never be in the Olympics, I thought. I could not talk in public like that. Just the idea of a press conference terrified me.
I loved skating partly because I didn’t have to talk. I could express myself with my jumps and dances better. I didn’t have to stand up and give a speech like some teachers expected. I could feel the blood rush to my face if I thought a teacher was going to call me. I stared at my shoes. I was sure I’d make a fool of myself.
The next day I was at the rink (溜冰场)as usual. I was practising a combination of jumps that had once seemed impossible. I worked very hard the next few years — on the ice and especially off. After journalists talked to me and although my heart pounded every time I spoke to them, I got to know them. They became familiar faces. And they got to know me. So when my big moment came four years after Brians, I was ready. Sometimes I think my biggest accomplishment was not winning the gold but talking to the press afterwards. When you do the thing you fear most, you put an end to fear.
Fear can stop you dead in your tracks. Fear can kill a dream. What are you afraid of? What scares you more than anything else? This year, walk right up to it and conquer it, step by step.
1. What information can we get from the second paragraph?| A．The author lived a hard life. |
| B．The author comes from Canada. |
| C．The author once skated with Orser. |
| D．The author wished Boitano to win the match |
| A．She could build up her body to be healthier. |
| B．It could help her to get closer to her idol. |
| C．She could better express herself with body language. |
| D．The possibility of her being a world champion was great. |
| A．she lived up to her coaches expectations |
| B．she became a world champion as planned |
| C．she managed to overcome her inner fear eventually |
| D．she handled the balance between her career and life |
| A．Face a fear bravely. |
| B．Practice makes perfect. |
| C．Bad times make a good man. |
| D．Failure is the mother of success. |
9 . Have you ever had problems in your life and don’t know how to be happy? If
Many teenagers think
Some school students have
| A．not | B．so | C．ever | D．any |
| A．wise | B．smart | C．useful | D．simple |
| A．orders | B．tells | C．asks | D．argues |
| A．problems | B．questions | C．ideas | D．comments |
| A．roles | B．classes | C．courses | D．subjects |
| A．says | B．writes | C．reads | D．thinks |
| A．for an example | B．such as | C．so as | D．so that |
| A．make | B．turn | C．let | D．change |
| A．what | B．how | C．that | D．whether |
| A．for | B．but | C．so | D．or |
| A．yet | B．already | C．still | D．rather |
| A．bad | B．good | C．independent | D．normal |
| A．learn | B．rescue | C．struggle | D．separate |
| A．experiences | B．difficulties | C．fears | D．problems |
| A．success | B．happiness | C．failure | D．height |
| A．way | B．means | C．manners | D．spirit |
| A．short | B．small | C．tall | D．fat |
| A．lower | B．higher | C．worse | D．better |
| A．take | B．spend | C．cover | D．cost |
| A．work | B．lesson | C．teaching | D．study |
10 . As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remember less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.
In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.
In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder (文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location (位置) better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory (交互记忆)”
According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize huge quantities of information so that they are able to access it at a later date. This doesn’t mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.
1. The passage begins with two questions to ________.| A．introduce the main topic | B．show the author’s attitude |
| C．describe how to use the Internet | D．explain how to store information |
| A．Sparrow’s team typed the information into a computer. |
| B．The two groups remembered the information equally well. |
| C．The first group did not try to remember the formation. |
| D．The second group did not understand the information. |
| A．keep the information in mind |
| B．change the quantity of information |
| C．organize information like a computer |
| D．remember how to find the information |
| A．We are using memory differently. |
| B．We are becoming more intelligent. |
| C．We have poorer memories than before. |
| D．We need a better way to access information. |
