1 . It was this very morning that Garrone let us know what he is like.

The master had not yet arrived, and three or four boys were bullying Crossi, the one with the red hair who has a dead arm and whose mother sells vegetables. They were hitting him in the face with chestnut shells. And he, alone on the end of the bench, became quite pale, begging that they leave him in peace.

All at once, Franti sprang upon a bench. Pretending that he was carrying a basket on each arm, he aped the mother of Crossi when she used to come to wait for her son at door. Many began to laugh loudly and Crossi was trembling and turning red with anger.

Suddenly Crossi seized an inkstand and threw it at the other’s head with all his strength, but Franti moved aside, and the inkstand struck the master who entered at the moment, full in the breast. All flew to their places and became silent with terror. The master, quite pale, went to his table, and said in a controlled voice:

“Who did it?”

No one replied.

The master cried out once more, raising his voice still louder, “Who is it?”

Then Garrone, moved to pity for poor Crossi, rose sharply and said resolutely, “ It was I.”

The master looked at him, looked at the confused scholars, then said in a calm voice, “It was not you.”

And after a moment. “The culprit shall not be punished. Let him rise!”

Crossi rose and said, weeping “They were striking me and insulting me, and I lost my head and threw it.”

“Sit down,” said the master. “Let those who provoked him rise.”

Four rose and hung their heads. “You,” said the master, “have insulted an unfortunate companion; you have struck a weak person who could not defend himself. You have committed one of the most shameful acts!”

Then he went over to Garrone and looked him straight in the eye, and said to him, “You are a noble soul.”

Garrone profited by the occasion to murmur some words, I know not what, in the ear of the master; and he, turning towards the four boys, said abruptly, “I forgive you.”

1. What finally provoked Crossi to throw an inkstand?

A．Franti made fun of Crossi’s mother walking with a dead arm.

B．Franti imitated the way Crossi’s mother carried her basket.

C．The boys hit Crossi in the face hard with chestnut shells.

D．The boys pulled Crossi upon a bench and laughed at him loudly.

2. The underlined word “culprit” probably means ________.

A．advocate

B．leader

C．captain

D．offender

3. The master praised Garrone as a noble soul because ________.

A．he dared to speak his mind	B．he forgave the four bullies
C．he took the blame for Crossi	D．he brought bad guys to justice

4. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A．A Generous Deed	B．A Domestic Incident
C．Making the Right Choice	D．To Believe or Not to Believe

2 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. engagement B. specific C. observed   D. wandering   E. resembled F. follow G. implements H. finding I. improvements J. translate K. require

Brain Training through Virtual Reality

Scientists have long sought to prevent sharp memories from dulling with age, but the problem remains persistent. Now new research suggests virtual reality might help older people recall facts and events based on     1     details.

The study involved 42 healthy older adults from the San Francisco Bay Area. Half spent a dozen hours over four weeks playing a virtual-reality game called Labyrinth; they wore headsets and walked in place,     2     virtual neighbourhoods while completing tasks. The other half, in the control group, used electronic tablets to play games that didn’t     3     finding positions or recalling details. After 15 sessions, the latter performed roughly the same as before on a long-term memory test based on picking out objects they had seen about an hour earlier. But the Labyrinth players’ scores rose, and they were less frequently tricked by objects that     4     the ones they had viewed.

Those     5     “brought them back up to the level of another group of younger adults who did the same memory tests,” says Peter Wais, the researcher who designed the VR game. The game likely stimulates the hippocampus — a brain area important for long-term memory. What the Wais’s team is trying to do is uniquely suited to VR,” says Meredith Thompson, who studies learning through VR games but was not involved in the new study. “VR can provide greater     6     than other games,” she says, adding that after this proof-of-concept study, “it would be great to actually     7     people over time and see what this type of game does for long-term memory.” Wais’s team is now investigating how long the     8     effects last and which elements of the training have the most impact.

It remains unclear how test performance in a laboratory setting might     9     to real-world situations. The outcome, needs to be repeated, ideally with a much larger group, before it’s treated as a strong     10    .

3 . It is a tradition of corporate architecture. A company’s top executives get offices on the top floor with the biggest windows and best views. However, nowadays some bosses choose to “hot-desk”（轮用办公桌） with everyone else.

One argument for such a(n) ________ can be made. Staff morale （士气）would ________ if the employees are stuffed in open-plan offices while the executives occupy the spacious offices. When the executives sit alongside their teams, they will be more in touch with how projects are going and how staff are feeling. In theory, if the executives are ________, employees are more likely to approach them with problems.

But the bosses present all the time may ________ hurt morale. One of the joys of office life is the freedom to enjoy a bit of joking with colleagues. This may include the odd joke about the ________. In the presence of their boss, staff will be ________ in what they talk about and the tone of their comments. They may feel the need to sound serious at all times, for fear that the quality of their commitment to their work come into doubt. ________, the manager may be right behind them.

You also have to wonder whether executives will really spend every morning searching for a place to sit. Some hot desks will be a lot hotter than others. Once the chief financial officer has picked a desk on day one, the junior staff will ________ that particular spot on subsequent days. In contrast, anyone who works closely with a particular executive will be ________ to pick a desk close by.

The lingering（逗留不走的）boss presents other ________. Anyone who has worked in an open-plan office will acknowledge that other colleagues’ talking can make it hard to ________ at times. Managers may find themselves constantly being approached by team members with questions or problems for them to solve. Many people resort to headphones to shut out the background noise and to ________ their unavailability. But if managers do that, they run the risk of seeming shut off from their colleagues.

One study found that at firms that ________ to open-plan design, face-to-face interactions fell by 70%. Like an animal caught on open ground without cover, many people do not like being constantly observed. In the ________ of a physical barrier, they create a fourth wall, ________ their desire for privacy by facial expressions or brief replies to questions.

1.

A．image

B．shift

C．community

D．assembly

2.

A．spill

B．surface

C．suffer

D．survive

3.

A．reliable

B．capable

C．manageable

D．visible

4.

A．initially

B．definitely

C．officially

D．equally

5.

A．management

B．development

C．experiment

D．department

6.

A．unclear

B．unwelcome

C．uneasy

D．unfortunate

7.

A．At least

B．After all

C．In fact

D．In short

8.

A．steer clear of

B．keep track of

C．fall short of

D．get rid of

9.

A．reminded

B．tempted

C．assured

D．warned

10.

A．purposes

B．promises

C．protests

D．problems

11.

A．comment

B．concentrate

C．calculate

D．communicate

12.

A．signal

B．conceal

C．reverse

D．avoid

13.

A．subjected

B．applied

C．switched

D．admitted

14.

A．presence

B．relevance

C．absence

D．preference

15.

A．crediting

B．interpreting

C．substituting

D．indicating

4 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Repair Café

When things around the house stop working, what do you usually do with them? If you’re     1     a lot of people, you probably just throw them away.

This tendency has led to the modern nickname: the throwaway culture. There are many reasons for this trend. In some areas     2     it’s difficult to find people who can make repairs, fixing things can be quite expensive. Also, some small appliances are so inexpensive that it’s often much     3     (easy) to just buy a new one.

In 2009, Martine Postma from the Netherlands decided there must be a better way. Her solution was Repair Cafés: places where people can take damaged or     4     (tear) items. There they will find tools, resources and volunteer experts who are willing to help with repairs.

Postma’s first Repair Café opened on Oct. 18, 2009, in Amsterdam, and was a huge success. News of the café spread, and people began asking     5     they could start their own. In 2011, Postma established the Repair Café Foundation. This nonprofit organization provides guidance to those hoping to begin their own neighborhood repair group.

Today, there are roughly 2,000 Repair Cafés around the world with meetings typically     6     (occur) once a month. Around 25 objects per session are repaired.     7     is free, but donations are greatly appreciated.

Not only     8     the cafés provide help with repairs, they also strengthen community ties. Neighbors get to know one another as they work together on projects. In addition, valuable knowledge is passed along and preserved. Items are kept rather than thrown away, meaning less trash in landfills.     9     an average broken item weighs a kilo, it’s been estimated that 2,000 Repair Cafés prevent 35,000 kilos of trash every month. That     10     (add) up to about 420,000 kilos per year!

5 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1.

A．It will be on for at least a week.

B．The critics gave it good reviews.

C．It can be rented for home screening.

D．It doesn’t have any special effects.

2.

A．It enables him to get some exercise out of the house.

B．It makes him get in touch with real life more.

C．It offers him a better viewing experience.

D．It is cheaper than watching a movie at home.

3.

A．Less frightening.	B．More entertaining.
C．Less noisy.	D．More relaxing.

4.

A．A tall guy once blocked her sight.

B．Someone’s phone suddenly rang up loudly.

C．Someone in front of her kept standing up.

D．A tall guy stood up to get some snacks.

6 .

A．They were packing up their stuff.

B．They were watching a car race.

C．They narrowly escaped a car crash.

D．They got lost in the heavy traffic.

7 . It seems to me that all writers, including those brilliant ones, need encouragement particularly in their early years. I always knew I could write,but that just meant I wrote a little better than my peers. I hope that I might one day write well enough to derive income from my efforts. Oddly enough,this never occurred to me until I met a special teacher in life.

There was a kind teacher at Hyde Park High School in Chicago,who simply by concentrating her attention on me, made me believe that I might be able to master the knack of writing well enough to consider the craft as a profession. Miss Marguerite Byme taught English,which of course, involved writing skills.Whatever instruction she shared with me was exactly the same as all her other students enjoyed, but the only difference was that she encouraged me to begin the process of submitting things I was writing, in those days, chiefly poems.

To my surprise, the Chicago Tribune not only thought enough of several of my verses to publish them, but also paid me, inadvertently, the highest compliment a fledgling author can receive. The editor wrote a confidential letter to Miss Byme, asking her to see, if by any chance, one of her students, a certain Stephen Allen, might be guilty of copying. The editor's suspicions had been aroused, because he was kind enough to say, he found it hard to believe that a seventeen-year-old student could create material on such a professional level.When Miss Byme shared the letter with me, I was overjoyed! It was wonderfully heartening.

Miss Byme made me realize that I should not hide my light. This made me collect my courage to enter a writing contest. The assignment was to write an essay titled "Rediscovering America". I was literally astonished when I received a letter saying that I was the winner of the contest.The prize was a thousand dollars. My mother, at the time, was not even aware that I was interested in writing, or if she had somehow found out about it, she took little notice.When I arrived home that evening with the letter, she was indifferent and did not ask how the evening had gone.

Without encouragement, even talented students will continue to perform below expectations. For example, at the same high school, there was a teacher whose Spanish language classes I attended but from whom I unfortunately learned very little simply because of the woman's cold sarcastically critical attitude. She seemed to know nothing about nurturing students. Soon, I withdrew from her classroom literacy instruction.

Years later, I was able to repay my debt to Marguerite Byme by dedicating one of my books, Wry on the Rocks------A collection of Poems.to her. I have enjoyed a lifetime writing books and television scripts because of her urge.

1. Miss Byme treated me differently from other students in that ________.

A．she encouraged the author to try to earn money from writing

B．she gave the author private instructions on writing skills

C．she advised the author to contribute his writing works

D．she taught the author the knack of writing as a profession

2. The editor wrote a letter to Miss Byme because ________.

A．he regretted overpaying the author

B．he had doubts about the author's writing abilities

C．he wanted to inform her of the author's talent

D．he wanted to befriend a future star writer

3. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The author had set the goal of writing professionally since childhood.

B．The share of the editor's letter made the author ashamed of his behavior.

C．The author won the writing contest which made his mother proud of him.

D．The author quitted Spanish course because of the teacher's negative attitude.

4. The author is writing the passage mainly to tell readers that ________.

A．writing skills should be cultivated since high school years

B．it's easy for a writer like him to make a living by writing

C．parents should take kid's interests and talents seriously

D．development of skills and abilities require adequate encouragement

8 . Why HS2 should go ahead

For the country that invented railways, Britain has shown remarkably little interest in them lately. New networks have been built around Europe in the past few decades, but the only significant stretch of ________ laid in Britain in a century is the 67-mile HS1 railway that links London to the Channel Tunnel. ________ , the country has half as much track as it had in 1963.Yet while Britain has an almost American ________ to invest in railways, its commuting(通勤) patterns are European: l0% of journeys are by rail, compared with 9% in Germany and less than 1% in America.

Britain's big ________ is that, because it has built no new high-speed lines, it runs fast intercity trains on the same track as slow commuter ones. Long ________ have to be left between slow and express trains. The need to make way for high-speed trains thus ________ the number of commuter services,and vice versa. Eight years ago,the government decided to change this by building a new 345-mile railway from London to the north of England. Though branded as High Speed 2, its principal job was to improve capacity(运输量) rather than ________ .

Rail is an increasingly significant part of the transport mix. Climate change is making carbon-efficiency even more important. At the same time, passenger numbers have gone beyond ________ . The government had expected passenger volumes to increase by 17-21% in the decade from 2011; actually, they were up by 24% within just seven years and are expected to go on ________ at a similar rate.

The benefit-to-cost ratio(效益成本比率) calculated for HS2, at around one, is hardly acknowledged. But just as the costs of big transport projects are often ________ , so are their long-term benefits. The extension to London's Jubilee tube line, ________ ,was approved with a BCR of less than one, but recent analysis suggests that it has been more like 1.75. And that includes only the profits that go directly to the railway, not the ________ consequences of the recovery of London's Docklands area, which the tube line made possible.

The main point of HS2, similarly, is its impact on the cities and towns along its ________ and beyond. Boris Johnson, the prime minister, is on a mission to promote growth in northern and western areas ________ by the country's London-centered pattern of growth. On its own HS2 won't make that happen, but doing so without a new railway would be ________ . The success of the "Northern Powerhouse" rail scheme, to link the north's big towns, depends on it.

1.

A．land

B．track

C．highway

D．water

2.

A．Besides

B．Indeed

C．Fortunately

D．Likewise

3.

A．qualification

B．eagerness

C．reluctance

D．potential

4.

A．theory

B．ambition

C．problem

D．solution

5.

A．gaps

B．lists

C．lines

D．periods

6.

A．highlights

B．increases

C．counts

D．limits

7.

A．speed

B．length

C．quantity

D．quality

8.

A．records

B．forecasts

C．averages

D．scopes

9.

A．varying

B．declining

C．growing

D．remaining

10.

A．shared

B．underestimated

C．overlooked

D．controlled

11.

A．for instance

B．as a result

C．in addition

D．out of problem

12.

A．political

B．cultural

C．economic

D．historic

13.

A．extension

B．border

C．surface

D．route

14.

A．settled down

B．put forward

C．taken over

D．left behind

15.

A．tough

B．flexible

C．innovative

D．vacant

9 . Deep below the ground, radioactive elements break up water molecules（分子）, producing ingredients that can fuel subsurface life. This process, known as radio-lysis（辐射分解）, has sustained bacteria in isolated, water-filled cracks on Earth for millions to billions of years. Now a study published in Astro-biology shows that radiolysis may have supported life in the Martian subsurface.

Dust storms, rays in the universe and solar winds ruin the Red Planet's surface. But below-ground, some life might find refuge. "The environment with the best chance of habitability on Mars is the subsurface," says Jesse Tarnas, a planetary scientist at NASA. Examining the Martin underground could help scientists learn whether life could have survived there. And the best subsurface samples available today are Martin meteorites（陨石）that have crash-landed on Earth.

Tarnas and his colleague evaluated the mineral makeup and radio-active element abundance in the Martin surface using satellite and rover data. They input these data into a computer model that simulated（模拟）radiolysis to see how efficiently the process would have generated hydrogen gas and other chemical ingredients that can sustain the underground bacteria. The researchers report that if water was present, radiolysis in the Martin subsurface could have sustained life for billions of years and perhaps still could today.

Scientists previously studied Mars radiolysis, but this marks the first estimate using Martin rocks to quantify the planet's subsurface habitability. Tarnas and his colleagues also evaluated the potential richness of life in the Martin underground and found that as many as a million bacteria could exist in a kilogram of rock.

The most habitable meteorite samples analysed appeared to be made of a rock type called regolith breccia. "These are thought to come from the southern highlands of Mars, which is the most ancient area on Mars," Tarnas says.

Underground life, as described by this research, would require water and it remains unknown if groundwater exists on the planet, says Lujendra Ojha, a planetary scientist at Rutgers University. Determining whether the Martin subsurface contains water will be an important next step, but this investigation helps to motivate that search. Ojha says, "Where there is groundwater, there could be life."

1. Scientists believe the Martian subsurface might be habitable probably because _________.

A．the Martin surface absorbs rays in the universe

B．radio-lysis may exist in the Martian underground

C．radiation combines ingredients for subsurface life to survive

D．cracks in Martian meteorites overflow with bacteria

2. What's the purpose of using Martian meteorites?

A．To measure the Martian habitability below-ground

B．To simulate the process of producing hydrogen.

C．To help life find shelter from solar winds

D．To explore the source of hydrogen gas.

3. What can be inferred from the last 3 paragraphs?

A．Tarnas was the first to study Mars radiolysis.

B．The Martian underground proved to be rich in bacteria.

C．The southern highlands of Mars are the most habitable.

D．The existence of groundwater is key to the investigation findings.

4. The passage is mainly concerned with _________.

A．the reason for no life on the Martian surface

B．the source of data for the study of Martian habitability

C．the possibility of Mars sustaining life through radiation

D．the richness of radioactive elements below the Martian surface

10 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. housing        B. leisurely        C. sought        D. reference        E. primarily     F. leg G. winding        H. wildly        I. pioneered        J. major        K. highlight

18^th Century Grand Tour of Europe

The Grand Tour began in the 16^th century and gained popularity during the 17 th century. Privileged（有特权的）young European graduates     1     a trend where they traveled across the continent in search of art and cultural experiences upon their graduation. This practice, which grew to be     2     popular, became known as the Grand Tour. Specialty guidebooks, tour guides, and other aspects of the tourist industry were developed during this time to meet the needs of wealthy 20-something male and female travelers as they explored the European continent.

These young, classically - educated Tourists were rich enough to fund multiple years abroad for themselves and they took full advantage of this. They carried letters of     3     and introduction with them as they departed from southern England to communicate with and learn from people they met in other countries. Some Tourists     4     to continue their education and broaden their horizons while abroad, some were just after fun and     5     travels, but most desired a combination of both.

A typical journey through Europe was long and     6     with many stops along the way. London was commonly used as a starting point and the Tour was usually kicked off with a difficult trip across the English Channel. Crossing the wide channel was and is not easy. 17^th – and - 18^th - century Tourists risked sea-sickness, illness, and even shipwreck on this first     7     of travel.

Grand Tourists were     8     interested in visiting cities that were considered centers of culture at the time, so Paris, Rome, and Venice were not to be missed. The average Grand Tourist traveled from city to city, usually spending weeks in smaller cities and months in the three     9     ones.

The vast majority of Tourists took part in similar activities during their exploration with art at the center of it all. Once a Tourist arrived at a destination, he would look for     10     and settle in for anywhere from weeks to months, even years. Though certainly not an overly trying experience for most, the Grand Tour presented a unique set of challenges for travelers to overcome.