1 . When I tried out for the football team during the summer before 9th grade, I never imagined how important this sport would become in my life. Football is a
In the first year, I played on the defensive line. This was an amazing
In September, during my junior year, my name was mentioned in the local newspaper as the key defensive lineman on the team. After playing a fantastic season, I was given the
In this sense, the world of football has taught me an important life lesson:
| A．tough | B．popular | C．typical | D．dynamic |
| A．set | B．control | C．test | D．require |
| A．mistakes | B．adventures | C．accidents | D．injuries |
| A．performance | B．position | C．moment | D．advantage |
| A．with | B．over | C．through | D．into |
| A．valuable | B．lost | C．extra | D．regular |
| A．pride | B．choice | C．name | D．honor |
| A．Unfortunately | B．Similarly | C．Happily | D．Gradually |
| A．practices | B．tryouts | C．seasons | D．operations |
| A．But | B．Or | C．So | D．And |
| A．examined | B．changed | C．provided | D．completed |
| A．shoulder | B．hand | C．leg | D．foot |
| A．explore | B．avoid | C．love | D．support |
| A．Knowledge | B．Belief | C．Experience | D．Opinion |
| A．enjoyable | B．possible | C．sensible | D．responsible |
2 . Misty didn’t always feel so confident in herself. The challenges she has faced over almost 20 years of dancing have made her strong.
At the young age, Misty was a shy child and
Today, Misty says, “I’ve learned to embrace my appearance, skin color, and figure.” She wants to help other dancers
| A．liked | B．ignored | C．needed | D．avoided |
| A．By this means | B．With courage | C．Over time | D．At her age |
| A．cheered | B．made | C．brought | D．picked |
| A．strength | B．confidence | C．weight | D．knowledge |
| A．first | B．only | C．special | D．poorest |
| A．happiest | B．best | C．toughest | D．scariest |
| A．down | B．up | C．away | D．out |
| A．happened | B．turned | C．worsened | D．improved |
| A．change | B．like | C．accept | D．believe |
| A．devotion | B．fortune | C．experience | D．patience |
3 . My teacher held up a piece of broken glass and asked, “Who broke this window?”
Thirty boys tried to think about not only what they had done, but also what the teacher might have found out. She seldom became angry, but she was this time.
“Oh,” I thought. I was the one who broke the window. It was caused by a naughty throw of a baseball. If I admitted guilt, I would be in a lot of trouble. How would I be able to pay for a big window like that? I didn’t even get an allowance. “My father is going to have a fit as a result of it,” I thought. I didn’t want to raise my hand, but some force much stronger than I was pulled it skyward (朝向天空). I told the truth, “I did it.” It was hard enough to say what I had done.
My teacher took down a book from one of our library shelves and I had never known my teacher to strike a student, but I feared she was going to start with me.
“I know how much you like birds,” she said as she stood looking down at my guilt-ridden face. “Here is the field guide about birds that you are constantly checking out. It is yours now. It’s time we got a new one for the school anyway. You will not be punished, but remember that I am not rewarding you for your misdeed (恶行), but I am rewarding you for your truthfulness.”
I couldn’t believe it! I wasn’t being punished and I was getting my own bird field guide — the very one that I had been saving up money to buy.
The lesson my teacher taught me stays with me every day, and it will echo forever.
1. From the story, we can learn that the boy .| A．didn’t break the window on purpose |
| B．lacked the courage to admit his guilt |
| C．tried to think about what he had done |
| D．didn’t know what the teacher had found out |
| A．be punished by the teacher |
| B．make his father angry |
| C．pay for the broken window |
| D．get a bird field guide |
| A．Afraid—Surprised—Thankful. |
| B．Frightened—Amazed—Proud. |
| C．Regretful—Guilty—Excited. |
| D．Nervous—Afraid—Satisfied. |
| A．Every coin has two sides. |
| B．Honesty is always valued. |
| C．Bad luck never comes alone. |
| D．You can’t be too careful. |
Coming from the Bronx, Jennifer Lopez knew from an early age it would be tough to achieve her dream. In an interview in 2002 she remembered, “I had such a will in me. I had such a passion in me. I could overcome my situation. But a lot of people will get beaten down and be held back by that.” Lopez was not beaten down by her situation. She worked hard dancing, singing, and acting in theaters and her hard work paid off with small roles in television and films.
Lopez’s big breakthrough came in 1996 when she played the main role in the movie Selena. For this movie, Lopez got paid $1 million and became the highest paid Latin actress of all time. Since then, she has had starring roles in several successful movies, including Out of Sight with George Clooney.
Then, Lopez turned her attention toward music. In 1999, she released her first album, On the 6. Two songs from the album, “If You Had My Love” and “Waiting for Tonight”, both reached number one on the Billboard music charts. The album sold more than three million copies around the world.
After starring in The Cell (2000), Lopez released her second album, J. Lo, in 2001. The album went straight to the top of the billboard chart. At the same time when her album came out, Lopez’s new movie, The Wedding Planner, opened in theaters. It became the number one movie at the box office. This meant that Lopez was the first entertainer to ever have a number one album and a number one movie at the same time!
But her entertainment career was not the only thing Lopez focused on that year. 2001 was also the year Lopez started her own line of clothing, called J. Lo, and she married Cris Judd, a dancer who performed in her videos. The marriage did not last long, and Lopez and Judd divorced nine months later.
In 2002, Lopez starred in the films Enough and Maid in Manhattan, which became Lopez’s biggest movie yet, earning $19 million.
1. In what movie did Lopez play the main role in 1996?2. How many copies was the Lopez’s first album sold around the world?
3. What is the passage mainly talking about?
4. Do you think will and passion are important to make a person successful? Give your reasons. (about 40 words)
| furniture, fortune, measure, drop out of, dormitory, guilty, turn one’s back on, be regarded as, charity, make little sense |
Sixteen years ago, Jason was a college professor with a huge six-bed room house and a
6 . Growing up in rural Malawi, Africa, William Kamkwamba learned to accept that life was hard. He lived with his parents and seven sisters in a small clay house without electricity or running water. Like most boys in his village, William was expected to assist his parents on the family farm, as well as keep up with his school work. Each night, like most Malawians, his family went to bed early because the kerosene oil they needed to light the lamps was costly.
When he was 10, a terrible drought left many Malawians hungry and William’s family was no exception. At the age of 13, William and many other children were forced to drop out of school when their parents could no longer afford his schooling. William had to work even harder to help his family, but he wasn’t ready to give up his education. He went to the local library and took out some books to study. One book, called Using Energy, sparked William’s interest in science and gave him an idea that significantly changed his future.
In the book, William found a picture of a windmill, and a brief description of how it could be used to generate electricity from wind. He knew that there was plenty of wind in his village, and realized that if he could build a windmill like that, he could give his family and the people in his village a much better life. There was just one problem. The book didn’t explain how to build a windmill, and neither did any of the other books in the library.
What happened over the next year demonstrated William’s incredible ambition and determination. He began to collect any kinds of materials he thought could be useful—scraps of wood, broken bicycles, old shoes—and started to build a windmill next to his family’s house. He endured many challenges and failures. Other people in his village called him crazy and said his idea would never work. Finally, at the age of 14, William completed his first windmill. When they saw electric lights and heard the sound of music on the radio coming from William’s house, the village people came running. He had done it. William Kamkwamba had found a way to capture the wind.
Kamkwamba’s autobiography, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, tells the story of how the rest of the world came to know about his achievements. With the help of international supporters, his village now has clean running water, solar powered lighting, and electric power. As a result of his actions, Kamkwamba was invited to study engineering at Dartmouth College, one of the top-ranking universities in the U. S. He also travels the world and gives talks about how he made his dream a reality.
1. William went to the local library because ________.| A．he wanted to find some materials for his invention | B．it was his favorite way to kill time and relax |
| C．it was believed to be a way to change his fate | D．he wanted to continue his education |
| A．why the windmill is so attractive | B．how William got inspired by a book |
| C．why William decided to continue his education | D．how a windmill works to produce electricity |
| A．brave and patient | B．honest and forgiving |
| C．ambitious and determined | D．reasonable and humorous |
| A．We should strike while the iron is hot. |
| B．A good beginning makes a good end. |
| C．One who lives his dream can make a difference. |
| D．You’d better not put all the eggs in one basket. |
7 . A campaign (活动) is being launched to encourage children to surrender 30 minutes of screen time a day to head for the great outdoors.
The Wild Network — a collaboration (合作) of nearly 2,000 organisations — is attempting to attract youngsters away from the television and computer screen and to fields, woods and parks. Members of the network include the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Play England and the National Health Service (NHS) sustainable development unit. Organisers say it is the UK’s biggest ever campaign to reconnect children with nature and outdoor play, and claim it could help improve fitness, mental alertness (机敏) and general well being.
A documentary film, Project Wild Thing, which forecast the launch at more than 50 cinemas across the UK also looked at the increasingly fragile link between children and nature.
Andy Simpson, chairman of the Wild Network, said, "The tragic truth is that kids have lost touch with nature and the outdoors in just one generation. Time spent outdoors is down, roaming (漫步) ranges have fallen largely, activity levels are declining and the ability to identify common species has been lost."
Suggestions of how to get more time in nature include collecting conkers (七叶树果), camping or snail racing, and observing autumn colours on trees.
The network also aims to make suggestions to politicians on how government can do more to get children muddy and bright-eyed.
This is not the first time the message of “less screen, more play” has been brought up. Children in the 1980s were requested to do the same by the BBC TV series Why Don’t You, which somewhat confusingly called on its viewers to “switch off your TV set and go to do something less boring instead”.
1. What does the underlined word “surrender” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Give up. | B．Get around. | C．Take up. | D．Run away. |
| A．To make children read more books. |
| B．To help children tell the natural world. |
| C．To encourage children to take part in outdoor activities. |
| D．To get children out of too much homework from school. |
| A．Wild Network | B．the BBC | C．the National Trust | D．Play England |
| A．TV viewers will turn away from television. | B．Children have already been close to nature. |
| C．Politicians have controlled the campaign. | D．The government will play an important role |
8 . A new study has found that social media could be affecting the sleep of young adults.The study is a project of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine. They found that young people who often use social media are more likely to suffer from sleep disorders than those who use social media less.
The researchers say doctors should ask young adults about their use of social media when treating sleep issues."This is one of the first pieces of evidence that social media use really can affect your sleep,"said Jessica C.Levenson. She is a postdoctoral researcher in the university's Department of Psychiatry. She was the lead author of a report on the study. The researchers set out to examine the connection between social media use and sleep among young adults.
The researchers wanted to find out how often young people used social media sites like Facebook,Twitter and etc.. For the study,they gave questionnaires to nearly 1,800 adults, aged19 to 32. On average, members of the study group used social media sites one hour a day. They also visited various social media accounts 30 times per week. Thirty percent of the study's participants reported having serious problems with sleeping. Those people who used social media a lot were three times more likely to have a sleep disorder. And those who spent the most time on social media were two times as likely to suffer from sleep disturbances.
Frequent checking is big part of the problem. Levenson said the number of times a person visits social media is a better predictor of sleep problems than overall time spent on social media. If this is true, she adds, then practices that stop such behaviors may be most effective.
Researchers say social media can influence sleep patters in a number of ways. People can lose sleep by staying up too late looking at social media. Sensitive issues argued about on social media can cause "emotional, cognitive or physiological"excitement. Using an electronic device can disturb a body's natural sleep rhythms because of the light coming from cell phones or computer screens. The researchers note that in some cases, young adults who have a hard time sleeping may use social media to help them fall asleep
"It also may be that both of these hypotheses (假定) are true," says Brian A. Primack. He is director of the Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health. He is also the study's senior author. Primack says,"Difficult sleeping may lead to increased use of social media,which may in turn lead to more problems sleeping. This cycle may be particularly problematic with social media. Many forms of social media involve interactive screen time that is stimulating (刺激) and rewarding and, for those reasons, can keep you awake."
1. From the results of the questionnaire, who are more likely to have a sleep problem?| A．The participants aged from 19 to 32. |
| B．The participants visiting social media frequently |
| C．The participants using social media sites one hour a day |
| D．The participants spending the most time on social media |
| A．compare and evaluate |
| B．examine and reason |
| C．inform and explain |
| D．argue and conclude |
| A．Social Media Is Keeping Young Adults Awake |
| B．Difficult Sleeping Is Affecting Sleeping Patterns |
| C．Electric Devices Are Influencing Sleep Rhythms |
| D．Young Adults Are Suffering from Sleep Disorders |
9 . We have all experienced how easy it is for a smile to light up our day, improve our emotions and make it easier for us to recover from illnesses. But do you also know that smiling improves your chances of success in many aspects of your life?
Studies have shown that people are more likely to think that a smiling person is more confident than others. Smiling will inspire your boss to trust you on-a particular project. Standing in front of a group of people, a confident smile on your face indicates knowledge, competence. trustworthiness, and ability to carry out tasks efficiently. It also opens up the way to higher job earning opportunities.
If you meet a person for the first time and walk into the restaurant, the person is seated by the table, looking sad on the face. What would be your first thought? Either the person regrets the meeting or the person is troubled by other issues. The chances are more likely you wouldn't want to see the person anymore. Smiling makes a great first impression on anyone. Studies have shown that people are more likely to remember a person who has a friendly and sweet smile. This is because no one wants to have to deal with a person who is always worried. It is also a great way to ensure that you get callbacks from job interviews and other potential meetups.
When you smile, neurotransmitters, materials that are anti-stress, are released from your brain. They spread throughout the body,causing a happy feeling to take over the negative emotions Being positive gives you enough enthusiasm to go ahead and make more use of your day and be productive. In recent researches, it has been found that people who were unhappy with their work-life were less productive than others who loved their jobs.An individual who is not happy at what they do is unwilling to put in the efforts needed to go beyond the average. While the other who is positive is more likely to carry on more tasks and is more productive, gains more experience,and gets promoted more easily.
But when you are in an environment that is sad or pessimistic, it isn't easy to remain happy and optimistic. If you are caught up in a situation where something had gone wrong, and you are having a heavy heart, try looking for reasons to be happy,smile, and watch your day begin to change positively.
Do not forget that when you smile, you are not only making your day better but someone else's too. A smile is what it takes to make all the difference.
1. The author raises a question in Paragraph 1 mainly to________.| A．present an idea | B．settle an argument | C．lead in the experiments | D．attract the readers’ attention |
| A．is helpful in gaining knowledge | B．has both positive and negative effects |
| C．has effects on many aspects of your life | D．is a great way to make your more capable |
| A．tell readers the way to succeed | B．explain how to make a difference |
| C．show information about new studies | D．persuade readers to smile more often |
| A．why we should smile | B．how our attitude affects us |
| C．how to get on well with others | D．why we benefit from our optimism |
10 . Current digital technology gives us music of flawless quality. It also makes it easier to copy, upload and stream music without having to download it.
Researchers found that streaming an album over the Internet will use 27 times more energy than it takes to produce a single CD or vinyl record. In any given second, the music platform is serving about 2.5 million streams at the same time. If average albums contain twelve tracks, that means almost 210, 000albums’ worth of music has been streamed. It will use nearly 8,000 times more energy than what making one CD takes.
The study was published before Record Store Day—an event that encourages listeners to buy physical record.
| A．Since our digital music uses less plastic |
| B．This happens every time we stream music |
| C．As a result, streaming music becomes popular |
| D．Although streaming music is a greener alternative |
| E．Meanwhile, if you buy a CD, it’s there permanently |
| F．It wants to convey effects of streaming on economy |
| G．But the researchers aren’t advising playing music traditionally |
