1 . Rome can be pricey for travelers, which is why many choose to stay in a hostel (旅社). The hostels in Rome offer a bed in a dorm room for around $25 a night, and for that, you’ll often get to stay in a central location (位置) with security and comfort.

Yellow Hostel

If I had to make just one recommendation for where to stay in Rome, it would be Yellow Hostel. It’s one of the best-rated hostels in the city, and for good reason. It’s affordable, and it’s got a fun atmosphere without being too noisy. As an added bonus, it’s close to the main train station.

Hostel Alessandro Palace

If you love social hostels, this is the best hostel for you in Rome. Hostel Alessandro Palace is fun. Staff members hold plenty of bar events for guests like free shots, bar crawls and karaoke. There’s also an area on the rooftop for hanging out with other travelers during the summer.

Youth Station Hostel

If you’re looking for cleanliness and a modern hostel, look no further than Youth Station. It offers beautiful furnishings and beds. There are plenty of other benefits, too; it doesn’t charge city tax; it has both air conditioning and a heater for the rooms; it also has free Wi-Fi in every room.

Hotel and Hostel Des Artistes

Hotel and Hostel Des Artistes is located just a 10-minute walk from the central city station and it’s close to all of the city’s main attractions. The staff is friendly and helpful, providing you with a map of the city when you arrive, and offering advice if you require some. However, you need to pay 2 euros a day for Wi-Fi.

1. What is probably the major concern of travelers who choose to stay in a hostel?

A．Comfort.	B．Security.
C．Price.	D．Location.

2. Which hotel best suits people who enjoy an active social life?

A．Yellow Hostel.	B．Hostel Alessandro Palace.
C．Youth Station Hostel.	D．Hotel and Hostel Des Artistes.

3. What is the disadvantage of Hotel and Hostel Des Artistes?

A．It gets noisy at night.	B．Its staff is too talkative.
C．It charges for Wi-Fi.	D．It’s inconveniently located.

2 . My life as a tax-paying employed person began in middle school, when, for three whole days, I worked in a baking factory.

My best friend Betsy’s father was a manager at Hough Bakeries, which, at Easter time, _________ little bunny (兔子) cakes for all its _________throughout Cleveland. It happened that the plant downtown needed eight kids for _________ help during our spring break, for which I had no_________ beyond listening to my favorite records. I’d _________ minimum wage. I’d see how a factory_________. My parents thought all of this was a grand idea and called Betsy’s dad with their _________.

Our_________in the factory were simple: Place cakes on a moving belt. Attach icing (糖霜) ears. Apply icing eyes and nose._________ bunny from the belt. This was ____________ than it sounds.____________ a bit and the cakes pile up. As I told my parents at dinner that first night, it was all a little more high-pressure than I’d   ____________ .

Dad __________. The son of a grocer, he’d spent the summers of his childhood____________ food in Benardsville, New Jersey. This was the sort of work that made you____________ the dollars you earned and respect those who did the work, he told me.

1.

A．sold

B．ordered

C．made

D．reserved

2.

A．stores

B．families

C．schools

D．citizens

3.

A．generous

B．financial

C．technical

D．temporary

4.

A．plans

B．problems

C．excuses

D．hobbies

5.

A．offer

B．earn

C．set

D．suggest

6.

A．worked

B．closed

C．developed

D．survived

7.

A．ambition

B．permission

C．experience

D．invitation

8.

A．joys

B．ideas

C．roles

D．choices

9.

A．Save

B．Keep

C．Stop

D．Remove

10.

A．harder

B．better

C．longer

D．cheaper

11.

A．Calm down

B．Slow down

C．Stay on

D．Move on

12.

A．indicated

B．witnessed

C．expected

D．remembered

13.

A．cried

B．smiled

C．hesitated

D．refused

14.

A．tasting

B．finding

C．sharing

D．delivering

15.

A．withdraw

B．donate

C．receive

D．appreciate

3 . We live in a town with three beaches. There are two parts less than 10 minutes’ walk from home where neighborhood children gather to play. However, what my children want to do after school is pick up a screen — any screen — and stare at it for hours. They are not alone. Today’s children spend an average of four and a half hours a day looking at screens, split between watching television and using the Internet.

In the past few years, an increasing number of people and organisations have begun coming up with plans to counter this trend. A couple of years ago film-maker David Bond realised that his children, then aged five and three, were attached to screens to the point where he was able to say “chocolate” into his three-year-old son’s ear without getting a response. He realised that something needed to change, and, being a London media type, appointed himself “marketing director from Nature”. He documented his journey as he set about treating nature as a brand to be marketed to young people. The result was Project Wild Thing, a film which charts the birth of the World Network, a group of organisations with the common goal of getting children out into nature.

“Just five more minutes outdoors can make a difference,” David Bond says. “There is a lot of really interesting evidence which seems to be suggesting that if children are inspired up to the age of seven, then being outdoors will be on habit for life.” His own children have got into the habit of playing outside now: “We just send them out into the garden and tell them not to come back in for a while.”

Summer is upon us. There is an amazing world out there, and it needs our children as much as they need it. Let us get them out and let them play.

1. What is the problem with the author’s children?

A．They often annoy their neighbours.	B．They are tired of doing their homework.
C．They have no friends to play with	D．They stay in front of screens for too long.

2. How did David Bond advocate his idea?

A．By making a documentary film.	B．By organizing outdoor activities.
C．By advertising in London media.	D．By creating a network of friends.

3. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “charts” in paragraph 2?

A．records

B．predicts

C．delays

D．confirms

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Let Children Have Fun	B．Young Children Need More Free Time
C．Market Nature to Children	D．David Bond: A Role Model for Children

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 from of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

The fairest woman in the world was Helen.     1     was the fame of her beauty that there was not a single young prince in all of Greece that didn’t wish to marry her. When her suitors assembled in her home to make a formal proposal for her hand there were so many from such powerful families that her reputed father King Tyndareus, was afraid to select one from amongst them, fearing that the others would unite against him. He therefore demanded first a solemn path from all     2     they would stand up for the cause of Helen’s husband, whoever he might be, if any wrong was done to him through his marriage. Then Tyndareus chose Menelaus, the brother of Agamemnon, and made him King of Sparta as well.

So matters stood when Paris gave the golden apple to Aphrodite. The Goddess of Love and Beauty knew very well where the most beautiful woman on earth was     3     (find). She led the young shepherd straight to Sparta, where Menelaus and Helen received him graciously as their guest. The ties between guest and host were strong. But Paris broke that sacred bond. Menelaus, trusting completely to it, left Paris in his home and went off to Crete.

Menelaus returned to find Helen gone, and he called upon all of Greece to help recover her. The chieftains responded     4     they were obliged to do. They eagerly arrived for the great expedition,    5     (cross) the sea and lay mighty Troy in ashes. Two of the first rank, however, were missing: Odysseus. King of the Island of Ithaca, and Achilles, the son of Peleus and the sea nymph Thetis. Odysseus, who was one of     6     (shrewd) men in Greece, did not want to leave his house and family to embark on a romantic adventure overseas for the sake of a faithless woman. He pretended, therefore, that he had gone mad, and when a messenger from the Greek

Army had arrived, the King was plowing a field and sowing it with salt     7     seed. But the messenger seized Odysseus’ little son and put him directly in the way of the plow. Instantly the father turned the plow aside, thus     8     (prove) that he had all his wits about him. However reluctant, he had to join the Army.

Achilles was kept back by his mother. She sent him to the court of Lycomedes and made him wear women’s clothing, hiding him among the maidens. Odysseus was dispatched by the chieftains to bring him out. Disguised as a peddler he went to the court     9     Achilles was said to be, with gay ornaments in his pack such as women love, and also some fine weapons. While the girls flocked around the trinkets, Achilles fingered each of the swords and daggers. Odysseus knew him then, and he had no trouble at all in making him disregard what his mother had said and     10     (go) to the Greek camp with him.

So the great fleet made ready.

5 . 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.

Human memory is notoriously (众所周知地) unreliable. Even people with the sharpest facial recognition skills can only remember so much.

It’s tough to quantify how good a person is     1     remembering. No one really knows how many different faces someone can recall, for example, but various estimates tend to hover in the thousands – based on the number of acquaintances a person     2     have.

Machines aren’t limited this way. Give the right computer a massive database of faces, and it can process what it sees – then recognize a face it     3     (tell) to find – with remarkable speed and precision. This skill is     4     supports the enormous promise of facial-recognition software in the 21^st century. It is also what makes contemporary surveillance (监控) systems so scary.

The thing is, machines still have limitations when it comes to facial recognition. And scientists are only just beginning to understand what those constraints are.     5     (figure) out how computers are struggling, researchers at the University of Washington created a massive database of faces – they call it MegaFace – and     6     (test) a variety of facial-recognition algorithms(算法) as they scales up in complexity. The idea was to test the machines on a database that included up to 1 million different images of nearly 7,000 different people – and not just a large database     7     (feature) a relatively small number of different faces, more consistent with what’s been used in other research.

As the databases grew, machine accuracy dipped across the board. Algorithms     8     were right 95% of the time when they were dealing with a 13,000-image database, for example, were accurate about 70% of the time when     9     (face) with 1 million images. That’s still pretty good, says one of the researchers, Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman. “Much better than we expected,” she said,

Machines also had difficulty adjusting for people who look a lot alike –either doppelgangers (长相极相似的人), whom the machine would have trouble       10     (identify) as two separate people, or the same person who appeared in different photos at different ages or in different lighting, whom the machine would incorrectly view as separate people.

6 . I’ve been in an 18-year love-hate relationship with a black walnut tree.

It’s a unique tree. In late September or early October, falling fruits as hard as baseballs threaten the skulls (头骨) of you, your children, your neighbors and those that reside next door to them. Umbrellas in the yard are a must while dining in early August, and as for me, I wear my bike helmet while working in the garden.

The black walnut also releases a chemical substance through its roots as a competitive strategy. It’s poisonous to several common plants. There have been many new plant varieties that I brought home with hopes that maybe the black walnut would accept them, but they failed to flourish.

What does work are native plants that naturally grow in the area. Native plants are important to have around since they provide beneficial pollinators (传粉者) like birds, bees and butterflies with seeds and contribute to a healthy and biodiverse environment. Native plants for this area are generally easy to grow, so they experience less stress.

Have I thought of getting rid of this giant pain in my tiny backyard? Yes, however, getting rid of this tree standing at 50 feet with an 87-inch trunk is next to impossible. It’s also protected under the law. Rightfully so. Trees are important to the urban forest and for all of those that inhabit it.

Sometimes I think about my life without the black walnut. I can’t imagine a spring without the birds who arrive every year and loudly sing their songs before dawn. I’d miss falling asleep on lazy weekend afternoons as I look up into its leaves.

Every spring, I wonder what the season holds: What are the chances of being knocked unconscious while barbecuing? Like any good relationship, I’ll never be pleased. I’m stuck with this tree, so I’ll listen to its needs and give it the space it requires. In return, my walnut offers a habitat for wildlife and a reminder.

1. Why does the author wear a bike helmet while working in the garden?

A．To protect the injured skull.	B．To prevent herself from sunburn.
C．To avoid being hit by the nuts.	D．To reduce the chance of getting bitten by bees.

2. What is the tree’s survival strategy?

A．It attracts beneficial pollinators.

B．It lets out poison to drive away pests.

C．It produces a chemical fatal to some plants.

D．It competes for nutrition with similar species.

3. Which of the following DOESN’T account for the author’s love-hate relationship with the tree?

A．The volume of its fruits may bring inconvenience.

B．The tree outcompetes the native plants in the garden.

C．The tree is home to numerous birds and other creatures.

D．The presence of the tree takes up much space of the garden.

4. The author most probably got a reminder from the tree that ________.

A．it’s better to give than to take

B．trees and plants have their own ways to flourish

C．even a good relationship is not always trouble-free

D．acceptance, instead of resistance, is the better way to be

7 . Gone are the days when a mother’s place was in the home: in Britain women with children are now as likely to be in paid work as their unburdened sisters. Many put their little darlings in day care long before they start school. Mindful that a poor start can spoil a person’s chances of success later in life, the state has intervened ever more closely in how babies and toddlers are looked after. Inspectors call not only at nurseries but also at homes where youngsters are minded; three-year-olds follow the national curriculum. Child care has increasingly become a profession.

For years after the government first began in 2001 to twist the arms of anyone who looked after an unrelated child to register with the schools, the numbers so doing fell. Kind but clueless neighbours stopped looking after little ones, who were instead herded into formal nurseries or handed over to one of the ever-fewer registered child-minders. The decline in the number of people taking in children now appears to have halted. According to data released by the Office for Standards in Education on October 27th, the number of registered child-minders reached its lowest point in September 2010 and has since recovered slightly.

The new lot are certainly better qualified. In 2010 fully 82% of nursery workers held diplomas notionally equivalent to A-levels, the university-entrance exams taken mostly by 18-year-olds, up from 56% seven years earlier, says Anand Shukla of the Daycare Trust, a charity. Nurseries staffed by university graduates tend to be rated highest by inspectors, increasing their appeal to the pickiest parents. As a result, more graduates are being recruited.

But professionalization has also pushed up the price of child care, defying even the economic depression. A survey by the Daycare Trust finds that a full-time nursery place in England for a child aged under two, who must be intensively supervised, costs £194 ($310) per week, on average. Prices in London and the south-east are far higher. Parents in Britain spend more on child care than anywhere else in the world, according to the OECD, a think-tank. Some 68% of a typical second earner's net income is spent on freeing her to work, compared with an OECD average of 52%.

The price of child care is not only eye-watering, but has also become a barrier to work. Soon after it took power the coalition government pledged to ensure that people are better off in work than on benefits, but a recent survey by Save the Children, a charity, found that the high cost of day care prevented a quarter of low-paid workers from returning to their jobs once they had started a family. The government pays for free part-time nursery places for three-and four-year-olds, and contributes towards day-care costs for younger children from poor areas. Alas, extending such an aid during stressful economic times would appear to be anything but child’s play.

1. Which of the following is true according to the first paragraph?

A．Nursery education plays a leading role in one’s personal growth.

B．Pregnant women have to work to lighten families’ economic burden.

C．Children in nursery have to take uniform nation courses.

D．The supervision of the state makes child care professional.

2. It can be learned from Paragraph 2 and 3 that ___________.

A．the registered child-minders are required to take the university-entrance exams

B．the number of registered child-minders has been declining since 2001

C．anyone who looks after children at home must register with the schools

D．the growing recognition encourages more graduates to work as child-minders

3. The high price of child care __________.

A．prevents mothers from getting employed

B．may further depress the national economy

C．makes many families live on benefits

D．is far more than parents can afford

4. What is the author’s attitude towards the professionalization of child care?

A．Objective.

B．Skeptical.

C．Supportive.

D．Biased.

5. Which of the following would be the subject of the text?

A．The professionalization of child care has pushed up its price.

B．The high cost of child nursing makes many mothers give up their jobs.

C．The employment of more graduates makes nurseries more popular.

D．Parents in Britain pay most for child nursing throughout the world.

8 . “A writer’s job is to tell the truth,” said Hemingway in 1942. No other writer of our time had so fiercely stated, or so consistently (一贯地) illustrated the writer’s duty to speak truly. His standard of truth-telling remained, moreover, so high and so strict that he was ordinarily unwilling to admit secondary evidence, whether literary evidence or evidence picked up from other sources than his own experience. “I only know what I have seen”, was a statement which came often to his lips and pen. What he had personally done, or what he knew unforgettably by having gone through one version of it, was what he was interested in telling about.

The primary intention of his writing, from first to last, was to seize and project for the reader what he often called “the way it was”. This is a characteristically simple phrase for a concept of extraordinary complexity, and Hemingway’s concept of its meaning subtly (微妙地) changed several times in the course of his career - always in the direction of greater complexity. At the core of the concept, however, one can invariably recognize the operation of three instruments of beauty appreciation: the sense of place, the sense of fact, and the sense of scene.

The first of these, obviously a strong passion with Hemingway, is the sense of place. “Unless you have geography, background,” he once told George Antheil, “you have nothing.” You have, that is to say, a dramatic vacuum. Few writers have been more place-conscious. Few have so carefully charted out the geographical ground work of their novels while managing to keep background so unnoticeable. Few, accordingly, have been able to record more economically and graphically the way it is when you watch the bulls running through the streets of Pamplona, Spain towards the bull-ring.

“When I woke it was the sound of the rocket exploding that announced the release of the bulls. Down below the narrow street was empty. All the balconies were crowded with people. Suddenly a crowd came down the street. They were all running, packed close together. They passed along and up the street toward the bull-ring and behind them came more men running faster, and then some stragglers (落后者) who were really running. Behind them was a little bare space, and then the bulls tossing their heads up and down. It all went out of sight around the corner. One man fell, rolled to the gutter (排水沟), and lay quiet. But the bulls went right on and did not notice him. They were all running together.”

1. What’s the main idea of the first two paragraphs?

A．Hemingway’s writing began from reality and then he would let his mind wander.

B．Hemingway’s primary purpose in writing was to report faithfully reality as he experienced it.

C．Hemingway’s writing reflects his preference for a simple story that the reader would thoroughly enjoy.

D．Hemingway would construct a story that would reflect truths that were not particular to a specific historical period.

2. It can be inferred from the passage that Hemingway preferred ______ as the sources for his work.

A．Stories that he had experienced rather than read about.

B．Stories that he had read about in newspapers or other sources.

C．Stories that he had heard from friends or chance acquaintances.

D．Stories that came to him in periods of deep thinking or in dreams.

3. The author calls “the way it was” a “characteristically simple phrase for a concept of extraordinary complexity” because ______.

A．it shows how Hemingway understated complex issues in his books.

B．it reflects Hemingway’s talent for making ordinary events difficult to understand.

C．Hemingway’s obsession for geographic details overshadowed the dramatic element of his stories.

D．the relationship between simplicity and complexity reflected the relationship between the style and content of Hemingway’s writing.

4. Why does the author include an excerpt (节选) from The Sun Also Rises in the last paragraph?

A．To vividly illustrate how exciting the bull run is.

B．To demonstrate that all kinds of runners can take part in the bull run.

C．To show Hemingway’s delicate description of the background of the bull run.

D．To place greater emphasis on the importance of geography, economically speaking.

9 . 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.

Lost at sea

Two men from the Solomon Islands have been rescued after spending 29 days lost at sea.

The men     1     (travel) to another island when heavy rain and wind took them out to sea. The two men survived on oranges they had packed, coconuts they found in the sea and by gathering rainwater.

“I look forward to going back home     2     I guess it was a nice break from everything,” one of the men, Livae Nanjikana, told The Guardian.

Nanjikana and Junior Qoloni took off from Mono Island on Sept. 3 in a motorboat to travel 200 km to Noro on New Georgia Island. However, soon after they set out, their boat was hit by heavy winds and rain, which made unclear the coastline they were following     3     a guide. 

“When the bad weather came, it was bad, but it was     4     (bad) and became scary when the GPS died,” he said. “We couldn’t see where we were going and so we just decided to stop the engine and wait,     5     (save) fuel.”

When the rain had finally passed, Nanjikana and Qoloni had already drifted far out to sea. They spent the next 29 days     6     (live) off of limited supplies and by gathering rainwater with     7     they could make use of to keep themselves alive.

A fisherman found and rescued the two men on Oct. 2 off the coast of New Britain, Papua New Guinea, about 400 km from     8     they had started.

Nanjikana and Qoloni     9     (bring) to a local health clinic for treatment and are staying temporarily with a local man, Joe Kolealo, until they     10     return home.

10 . Switzerland is surrounded by three of Europe’s major—and most populous—countries: France, Germany and Italy. For thousands of years, the region has been a busy trade ________, both from east to west as well as from north, to south. Today, Switzerland is an indispensable part of the European transport network and ________ a superb motorway and railway infrastructure. Five international airports in Zurich, Geneva. Basel. Bern and Lugano offer direct ________ to destinations around the world.

Switzerland is a popular place to do business, a center of education and a favorite travel destination. At the heart of this success story lies a stable political system. The county has not gone through any major political changes since the foundation of the federal state inn 1848. This has created space for economic, social and artistic development. Federalism, the successful integration of different cultures, and the mechanisms of direct democracy are all means to increase the ________ of its citizens and residents. This process of forming unity out of ________ has often been seen as exemplary. And, of course, the country is small and ________, which also contributes to the high quality of life in Switzerland.

Political stability is also ________ in an economic system that manages to balance a free market economy with social responsibility.________ are very rare in Switzerland.________ its deeply rooted work ethic and high educational standards, this social harmony represents one of Switzerland’s key advantages as a place to do business and has made a major contribution to its economic development.

Stability, a well-developed sense of service and discretion, and a strong currency have turned Switzerland into a leading financial center. From a historical ________, the fact that the county was not involved in the two world wars has contributed to this development. It is a country with ________ natural resources, so the strength of its import industry has also played a significant part. Not being a member of the EU. Switzerland is also not part of the so-called Eurozone. For this reason, the use of the euro in everyday life is limited to Switzerland’s border and tourist regions.

In terms of income, assets and per capita gross national product. Switzerland ranks among the top in the world.

The ________ excellent standard of living is also based on the high level of education and corresponding work ethic.________, people work 42 hours per week. Taxes are comparatively low, both for business and for businesses and for individuals. Corporate taxation as well as the rate of value added tax are among the lowest that can be found anywhere in the world.

All these factors make Switzerland a safe country with a low crime rate. The Swiss ________ being tidy and clean, which is why recycling is popular .________ to this a rich cultural variety and beautiful scenery, and you get a quality of life that is hard to beat.

1.

A．business

B．partner

C．route

D．channel

2.

A．boasts

B．brags

C．occupies

D．claims

3.

A．networks

B．links

C．planes

D．tourBys

4.

A．welfare

B．consciousness

C．participation

D．obligation

5.

A．complication

B．diversity

C．liberation

D．simplicity

6.

A．manageable

B．negligible

C．expandable

D．exhaustible

7.

A．undermined

B．eliminated

C．underrated

D．expressed

8.

A．Crimes

B．Strikes

C．Accidents

D．Appeals

9.

A．Thanks to

B．Contrary to

C．In combination with

D．In case of

10.

A．argument

B．perspective

C．attitude

D．stance

11.

A．few

B．boundless

C．abundant

D．nonexistent

12.

A．exceeding

B．variable

C．resulting

D．unbelievable

13.

A．By contrast

B．To sum up

C．As a rule

D．Put differently

14.

A．value

B．deny

C．consider

D．suspect

15.

A．Tie

B．Contribute

C．Add

D．Adjust