1 . When I was 12 years old, I already knew that my teen years were going to be the worst years of my life. I was a total outsider, bullied （欺凌）at school. I felt completely alone in my small town.
But by starting to do volunteer work when I was 14, I turned my problem into a passion for helping others. The opportunity to practice kindness made me feel like my life had a greater purpose. The more positive energy 1 shared, the more kindness and appreciation I received, I realized that my purpose in life would be to reach out to people, specifically teenagers, and help them feel less alone.
Books were my true friends back then. I was so thankful that the authors wrote those books. The kindness they offered me with their books saved my life. One of my biggest dreams was to become an author so I could write books that would help other teenagers the way those books helped me.
After surviving the terrible experiences at school and at home, 1 made a choice to take the optimistic, positive road in the next steps of my journey. My dream career, one I thought was only possible for the authors I loved, is what I am doing now. I have been a full-time author of teen novels since 2007 and am grateful for this amazing opportunity to reach out to readers every single day.
Kindness saved me when I needed help the most. Even small acts of kindness can change someone's life. You never know what someone else is going through. But by practicing daily kindness, you become an architect of positive change.
1. What was the author's life like when he was 12?| A．Boring. | B．Peaceful. | C．Joyful. | D．Unhappy. |
| A．It helped him find the goal of life. |
| B．It made him energetic in his life. |
| C．It helped to shape his dream career. |
| D．It helped him understand others' lives better. |
| A．he was inspired by his teacher. |
| B．he found he had a talent for writing. |
| C．he could pass positive energy to readers. |
| D．he wanted to share his teenage experiences. |
| A．Say 'no' to bullies bravely. |
| B．Make positive changes in our lives. |
| C．Treat others with kindness in daily life. |
| D．Learn to care more about others' feelings. |
2 . In 1971 a young man who grew up very poor was traveling across the country, trying to make a new start for himself. Along the way he had completely run out of（用光了...） money and was forced to spend the night in his car. This continued until one morning, after a week of sleeping in his car, he walked nervously into a restaurant and ordered a big breakfast.
After eating his first good meal in weeks, he found himself lying to the waiter, telling him he had lost his wallet. The waiter, who was also the owner, walked behind the chair where the young man had been sitting. He bent down, and came up with a $20 bill that looked as if it had fallen on the floor and said, “Son, you must have dropped this,”the owner said. The young man couldn’t believe his luck! He quickly paid for the breakfast, left a tip, bought gas with the change, and headed West.
On the way out of town, he began to understand what the owner did. Maybe nobody dropped the money at all.“Maybe that fellow just knew I was in trouble and he helped me in a way that didn’t embarrass(使尴尬)me. So I just made a promise to help other people if I can.”
Later, he worked very hard and became a rich man. Now he lives near Kansas City. Each year he gives away thousands of dollars. He is known as the “Secret Santa” because at Christmas time each year, he personally hands money out to those on the street and at restaurants. Last year, he gave more than $50,000 away in Kansas City.
1. The young man was traveling across the country in 1971 to ______| A．look for a good restaurant | B．improve his life |
| C．show his new car to others | D．hand out dollars |
| A．It was very lucky of him to get his lost money back. |
| B．It was very honest of the owner to return his money |
| C．the owner helped him in a way that didn’t hurt his feeling |
| D．another person who had breakfast in the restaurant lost the money |
| A．the man did carry out his promise |
| B．the man was not successful in the end |
| C．the owner was paid back the money |
| D．Santa give the man money each year |
| A．One good turn deserves another |
| B．Where there is a will，there is a way |
| C．He who travels far knows much |
| D．Give love wings(翅膀) and it may fly higher |
3 . Like many young people, I dreamed of growing up and becoming a successful writer one day. My first part-time job came when I was 18 years old. I was working in a paint factory. Because of the terrible smell of paint, it became normal for me to temporarily pass out during my lunch time.
I discovered content mills, where a writer could devote his time to writing soul-destroying online copy. It provided a little pay, but I wouldn’t faint. So I quit my day job. But it is difficult to work from home. At times, I would lose all passion for writing 500 words about a bed for a few pounds, but the terrible smell of paint reminded me to get back to writing.
Several months later, the money got better. I was given consistent work writing for one of the largest entertainment websites in the world. The job was simple: I complained about everything that was wrong with society and they paid me£ 50 for each article. A guy from the website asked if would be interested in leaving my small town life to move to the big city of Manchester to become a professional writer for them. I accepted,
After a pretty successful year, I was offered a promotion. Just 18 months earlier, I was suffering from the smell of paint on a daily basis and now I was managing a team of nine writers. I had come a long way.
1. What happened to the writer when he was in a paint factory?| A．He became unconscious due to the bad smell of paint. | B．He lost his breath during lunch time. |
| C．He loved his part-time job. | D．He passed out for a long time. |
| A．The writer quit his job to get a higher salary. |
| B．The writer declined to become an in - house writer. |
| C．The writer was in charge of a team of 9 writers now. |
| D．The writer fainted daily due to the bad pay. |
| A．The smell of paint was unpleasant. | B．He lost consciousness while writing. |
| C．He was given consistent work. | D．He was given a little pay for writing |
| A．A man can do no more than he can. |
| B．Follow dreams and never give up. |
| C．The last leg of a journey just marks the halfway point. |
| D．No pains, no gains. |
4 . A group of scientists trained dogs to detect(发现)a crop disease called citrus greening. The disease has affected orange, lemon and grapefruit trees in the American states of Florida, California and Texas. The dogs can detect the disease weeks to years before it appears on tree leaves and roots, the researchers report. Using dogs is also faster, less costly and more exact than having people collect hundreds of leaves for lab analysis.
Timothy Gottwald is a researcher in the study. He said, “This technology is thousands of years old — the dog's nose. We’ve just trained dogs to hunt new prey：the bacteria that cause a very damaging crop disease.”
Citrus greening is caused by a kind of bacteria that are spread by a tiny insect that feeds on the leaves and stems of citrus trees. Once a tree is infected(感染)，there is' no cure. The disease has also hurt citrus crops in Central and South America and Asia. In one experiment involving grapefruit trees in Texas, trained dogs were correct 95 percent of the time in telling the difference between newly infected trees and healthy ones. “The earlier you detect the disease, the better chance you have at stopping healthy trees being infected by removing infected ones,” Gottwald said.
Professor Matteo Garbelotto says the new research shows that dogs can detect an infection well before present methods. He has been involved in similar research but had no part in the new study.
Laura Sims is a plant scientist. She praised the steps taken to find out if the dogs were detecting the bacteria itself or a plant's reaction to an infection. To do that, the researchers infected different kinds of unrelated plants with the bacteria in a laboratory. The dogs were still able to pick out the infected plants.
Gottwald said, "You've seen dogs working in airports, detecting drugs and explosives. Maybe soon you will see them working on more farms."
1. What does the text say about citrus greening?| A．It mainly damages tree branches. |
| B．It' s impossible to detect at an early stage. |
| C．Dogs can better detect it than humans. |
| D．Humans have to analyze tree roots to detect it. |
| A．By tasting. | B．By touching. |
| C．By observing. | D．By Sniffing. |
| A．help infected trees to recover | B．keep it from spreading further |
| C．improve the quality of fruit. | D．better protect infected trees |
| A．Dogs will take the place of humans to conduct risky jobs. |
| B．Trained dogs make no mistakes in citrus greening detection. |
| C．Dogs use plants' reaction to an infection to help with their detection. |
| D．Using dogs for citrus greening detection will be more widespread. |
5 . As a volunteer teacher, I moved into an apartment with eagerness. Sorting all the necessary paperwork out, I got ready to start my work. Great, or so I thought. At 4 a.m. And at several intervals after that, I was rudely awoken by the cock that lives opposite me. Fantastic! I now have 5 extra alarms every morning.
In the following weeks, I also started to notice a trend. Things in my flat started to break at the rate of one object per day, like the hot water line, bowls, cups, shower, doors or glass shelves. Yes, I am clumsy but things just fell apart.
If it wasn't broken, it would either be dirty or missing. Using my washing basket for the first time was pretty disgusting. When I took out my clothes, they were swiftly followed by a hundred or so bugs that were living in the bottom.
As for the general lack of equipment in the house, there was no oven, tin opener, or sharp knives. It turns out making a vegetarian burger from scratch wasn't the best idea. I had a small microwave and a grill. I thought the general understanding was never to put metal in a microwave but I went on. Smoke soon started to appear. I'm not quite sure if it was the burger or the grill but as soon as I opened the door, the electricity cut out. I spent the following 10 minutes in a dark, smoky room hunting for the power switch using the light from my mobile phone, which broke the week after and left me without a connection to the outer world.
Luckily, I'm now borrowing a phone and my luck has returned. No more things have broken (probably because there is nothing left to break). I am learning how to adapt to life with limited, broken utensils(用具)。
1. How did the author feel about her new life upon her arrival?| A．She was nervous to kick off the new job. |
| B．She was annoyed with the rude students. |
| C．She was full of enthusiasm about her new life. |
| D．She was satisfied with five alarm clocks in her room. |
| A．Her flat became dirtier. | B．She developed disability. |
| C．Things began to go wrong. | D．More clothes needed mending. |
| A．She suffered a big fire. | B．She made a terrible mistake. |
| C．She was seriously injured. | D．She broke her phone accidentally. |
| A．She will go on living here. | B．She will resign from her job. |
| C．She will move into a new flat. | D．She will buy new daily necessities. |
6 . The year I turned fifty, I resolved to do something new every day. However, balancing 365 new things with work and family, while still managing to do the laundry and get dinner on the table every night, was not always easy. In the early weeks of the project, I found it difficult to find so many new things.
It wasn’t long before my friends learned that I was open to almost anything I could consider a new thing, and the invitations began pouring in not just from friends, but friends of friends. As a result, my life was new. I went dog sledding. I attended a fashion show. I went to numerous lectures on all kinds of topics that I never would have previously considered useful or interesting and found something to appreciate in every single one. I even signed up immediately when learning about a local group trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by doing something unusual.
As time went by, whenever I learned about something that seemed remarkable, I did what I could to pursue it. Instead of “Why”, I began to ask “Why not”. Now I find it is easier to just keep my eyes open to the possibilities that surrounded me. It turned out that there were new things everywhere, and all I had to do was make a little effort to enjoy them.
I looked back on the year. It doesn’t matter to me that many of my “new things” weren’t exactly meaningful. What matters is how to make full use of them when discovering there is an endless number of new things for me. It seemed to me an obvious sign that at fifty, my life was full of promise. I could continue to grow, stretch my wings, and learn more every day for the rest of my life. I enjoyed the idea of something new, and it gave me a reason to welcome each day as an opportunity to experience the world a little differently.
1. Which of the following can best describe the author’s feeling according to Paragraph 1?| A．Better late than never. | B．Action speaks louder than words. |
| C．Saying is one thing but doing is another. | D．Experience is the best teacher. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Appreciative. | C．Cautious. | D．Tolerant. |
| A．Make the most of new things. | B．Wait for your life to start over. |
| C．Try to find more new things. | D．Never say never when in trouble. |
| A．Dream for a New Life | B．The Value of Friendship |
| C．Remarkable New Things | D．A Year of New Things |
7 . When we are young we are taught that it’s wrong to lie and we should always tell the truth. Unfortunately, most children lie even if they’re told not to. Research carried out at the Institute of Child Study at Toronto Univercity has shown that this might not be such a bad thing. Apparently (显然地), children who tell lies when they’re two years old have a good chance of becoming successful adults (成年人).
According to the research, at the age of two, 20 per cent of children lie. At the age of three, 50 per cent lie, and at four almost 90 per cent lie. By the age of 12 almost every child tells lies.
Lying needs much brain work, and the better the lie is, the more work the brain has to do. By training the brain early, researchers believe children will be able to think more clearly when they are adults.
Recent research, carried out by the Science Museum in London, has shown some interesting facts about the way we lie as adults. According to the research, the average British man tells three lies every day; that’s over 1,000 lies a year. However, the average woman apparently only lies twice a day.
Most people think women are better liars (说谎者) than men although in fact they tell fewer lies. Popular women’s lies include ‘Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine’, ‘I don’t know where it is, I haven’t touched it’, and ‘It wasn’t that expensive’.
Some people say you can lie as long as it’s a white lie. A white lie is a lie told to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. One of the most common lies for both men and women is ‘It’s just what I’ve always wanted’, said after opening a present from their partner.
1. What will happen to young children who lie?| A．They will possibly do wrong later. |
| B．They’re likely to succeed in the future. |
| C．They will keep lying when they grow up. |
| D．They may have a good chance of losing others’ trust. |
| A．Older children tell bigger lies than younger ones. |
| B．As they grow, they often lie about their age. |
| C．The older they are, the more likely they lie. |
| D．It’s quite natural for them to tell lies. |
| A．Men lie more than women. | B．Women are better liars than men. |
| C．Women’s lies are usually not serious. | D．Men sometimes have to lie to women. |
| A．You know me so well. | B．I don’t like the present. |
| C．You are good at picking presents. | D．I haven’t received a present I really like. |
8 . When I’m in Italy, I generally only eat Italian food. I doubt whether there’s another country in Europe that has food that can keep me coming back for more.
To eat well in Italy, finding the right restaurant is essential. I appreciate personality-driven restaurants, run by people keen(热衷的) to share their love of good cooking, and places serving family recipes. Signs of a good restaurant include a low-rent location, lots of locals, and a small, handwritten menu in one language. The menu is small because they’re only selling everything they’re cooking; it’s handwritten because it’s shaped by what is fresh today in the market; and it’s in one language because they mostly serve locals.
For a fast and cheap lunch, I look for Italian food in corner delis (熟食店): either a rosticceria, specializing in roasted meats and antipasti(开胃食物), or a hot table bar — a cafeteria offering a buffet of meat and vegetables. Another option is to drop by a neighborhood grocery store to pick up some cold cuts, cheeses, and other foods for a picnic.
Italians tend to spend a long time on each course, and dinner is the evening’s entertainment. For example, when you have a full-blown Italian dinner in a restaurant, you don’t get out until midnight; a three-hour meal is common. Waiters often provide lots of drinks that seem designed to keep you from leaving. When you want the bill, you’ll have to ask for it. To “eat and run” is seen as a lost opportunity.
A couple of years ago, I sat down at my favorite place in Verona, Enoteca Can Grande, with my friend and guide Franklin. We let the chef, Giuliano bring us whatever he wanted. Just after the antipasti arrived, Franklin’s wife phoned him and said, “Don’t eat too much cheese or dessert.” Later Franklin, who was not thin, surveyed our table. Sighing, he said, “The foods are so plentiful but I can eat few.”
“That’s a pity,” I said.
I enjoyed the food for three hours and he watched me eating for three hours. Eating in Verona was really an amazing experience.
1. What does the author want to show in Paragraph 1?| A．He doesn’t have many food choices in Italy. |
| B．Italian food is the best all over Europe. |
| C．He has a great tooth for Italian food. |
| D．He doesn’t like trying foreign food. |
| A．At a restaurant at a high-rent location. |
| B．At a restaurant that locals visit frequently. |
| C．At a place where waiters don’t just speak Italian. |
| D．At a place which provides various food. |
| A．Ways to eat simply and cheaply in Italy. |
| B．Ways to prepare simple food in Italy. |
| C．Places to have a picnic in Italy. |
| D．Nice places to eat in Italy. |
| A．They like ordering lots of drinks. |
| B．They don’t consider it fun. |
| C．They usually spend much time on dinner. |
| D．They don’t like ordering much food. |
9 . Goddington Theater
The Goddington Theater Ticket Office is open from 10a．m．until 4p．m．Monday to Friday，and for half an hour in the evening before the advertised start time of each performance．
Telephone bookings
*Your tickets are held at the Ticket Office for you to collect or，if you prefer，a charge（费用） of 35cents is made to post them to you if you pay by cash．We'll post them to you for free if you book by credit card．No extra charge．
Postal bookings
*You can write to the Ticket Office requesting tickets，or to confirm a reservation． Where to find Goddington Theater
*Goddington Theater can be found within the Goddington University site，next to the car park，which is available for public use after 5p．m．on weekdays and all day on weekends．
If travelling by car
*Coming from the south end of Princes Street，you will see the library on your right．Next to the library is Goddington University．Take the next turning on the right，then first right into the car park gate straight ahead of you，stopping as close as possible to the orange machine．Put a $ 1coin in the machine and the gate will rise．
If travelling by train/bus/taxi
*You will need to allow 30minutes to walk from the train station．Taxis are available from the front of the station．
*The University is a 5to 10minutes'walk from the main bus station．
*When ordering a taxi from the theater，ask to be picked up at the bottom of North Street．Taxis will not come into the car park because of the entrance charge．
1. You can book your tickets ______ ．| A．at 5 p.m on Wednesday | B．at noon on workdays |
| C．at lunch time on weekends | D．at 9 a.m on Monday |
| A．To the south of Princes Street |
| B．On the right of the Ticket Office． |
| C．At the bottom of North Street． |
| D．In the Goddington university． |
| A．Taxi drivers are unwilling to pick up customers inside the car park． |
| B．Tickets paid by cash will be posted to you at no extra charge． |
| C．You can find a free parking place in the university． |
| D．You have to collect your tickets if you pay by credit card． |
10 . The Boy Made It!
One Sunday, Nicholas, a teenager, went skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine. In the early afternoon, when he was planning to go home, a fierce snowstorm swept into the area. Unable to see far, he accidentally turned off the path. Before he knew it, Nicholas was lost, all alone! He didn’t have food, water, a phone, or other supplies. He was getting colder by the minute.
Nicholas had no idea where he was. He tried not to panic. He thought about all of the survival shows he had watched on TV. It was time to put the tips he had learned to use.
He decided to stop skiing. There was a better chance of someone finding him if he stayed put. The first thing he did was to find shelter from the freezing wind and snow. If he didn’t, his body temperature would get very low, which could quickly kill him.
Using his skis, Nicholas built a snow cave. He gathered a huge mass of snow and dug out a hole in the middle. Then he piled branches on top of himself, like a blanket, to stay as warm as he could.
By that evening, Nicholas was really hungry. He ate snow and drank water from a nearby stream so that his body wouldn’t lose too much water. Not knowing how much longer he could last, Nicholas did the only thing he could he huddled (蜷缩) in his cave and slept.
The next day, Nicholas went out to look for help, but he couldn’t find anyone. He followed his tracks and returned to the snow cave, because without shelter, he could die that night. On Tuesday, Nicholas went out again to find help. He had walked for about a mile when a volunteer searcher found him. After two days stuck in the snow, Nicholas was saved.
Nicholas might not have survived this snowstorm had it not been for TV. He had often watched Grylls’ survival show Man vs. Wild. That’s where he learned the tips that saved his life. In each episode (一期节目) of Man vs. Wild, Grylls is abandoned in a wild area and has to find his way out.
When Gxrylls heard about Nicholas’ amazing deeds, he was super impressed that Nicholas had made it since he knew better than anyone how hard Nicholas had to work to stay alive.
1. What happened to Nicholas one Sunday afternoon?| A．He got lost. | B．He broke his skis. |
| C．He hurt his eyes. | D．He caught a cold. |
| A．He found a shelter. | B．He lighted some branches. |
| C．He kept on skiing. | D．He built a snow cave. |
| A．returned to his shelter safely | B．was saved by a searcher |
| C．got stuck in the snow | D．stayed where he was |
| A．did the right things in the dangerous situation |
| B．watched Grylls’ TV program regularly |
| C．created some tips for survival |
| D．was very hard-working |
