1 . In America, when the eighth graders leave the middle school, they are often worried about moving to the high school. It is a hard time for them, but it can be an exciting one as well. To make it easier, students need to get familiar with their school.
Even though they’ve done this already in the middle school, it’s still important to find where their classrooms are. Most schools take students to the high school for a visit at the end of their eighth-grade year. And, most schools also have a freshman speech for parents and students before the first year begins. Sometimes the main office will give away a map of the school. This can help students and parents to find different places in the school.
One way to know your high school more and make new friends is to join a club or play a sport. Schools often offer chances to join different clubs and sports. Fall activities begin in August before the first day of school. If you are not interested in sports, there are clubs for any interest, such as drama, dance, chess, photography, community service, etc. These clubs allow students from different grades. By joining an activity, students can find new friendships, not to mention improving their chances in future college applications (申请). The school office will have a list of activities offered at the school and information on how to join them.
What’s more, to have a great start to a high school year, students can write down some of their worries, and ask for help from teachers and school workers.
1. According to the text, most students feel ________ when entering the high school.| A．excited | B．nervous | C．lonely | D．disappointed |
| A．Before the eighth-grade year starts. |
| B．Right after the high school year starts. |
| C．At the beginning of the new term in the high school. |
| D．At the end of their eighth-grade year |
| A．There are fewer students from higher grades in the school clubs. |
| B．The school clubs in high school only welcome sports fans. |
| C．Summer activities begin before school starts. |
| D．The school office can help new students join school clubs. |
| A．To tell the new students how to learn in high school |
| B．To introduce new schools. |
| C．To give the teachers some advice. |
| D．To give advice to new high school students. |
2 . A Walking Tour in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Rocky Mountain National Park covens about 41 square miles with dozens of mountain peaks. More than 250 species of birds will delight your senses and more than 900 types of wildflowers will keep you marveling（感到惊奇）a their beauty.
Your Colorado walking tour officially begins. To ensure that you arrive on time we strongly suggest that arrive one day before the departure date.
Day 1 The trip begins a 1:00 p. m. Travel by bus to Rocky Mountain National Park. Check in our accommodations，enjoy a fresh lunch and head into the park for our first hike.
Day 2 During today’s hike we will cover 3.8 mile. We’ll stop to enjoy both “The Pool” and Fern Falls on our way to Fern Lake. You’ll enjoy every minute of today’s hike and then spend a relaxing evening n the town of Estes Park.
Day 3 Glacier Gorge .the main section of the Park, has some of the most beautiful attractions in the Park. Today we’ll push our boots u the trail to Black Lake，about 4.7 miles. With views of Longs Peak, we’ll hike Past a major waterfall and several smaller lakes before arriving at Black Lake.
Day 4 Today we’ll head t1o Wild Basin, southeast of the main park area, for a hike to Ouzel Lake. Wild Basin traverses（穿过）through Aspen forest past rushing streams, to a high mountain lake where we will enjoy a picnic lunch.
Day 5 The Flat Top Mountain area will delight your senses with thick forests and meadows of abundant wildflower Our feet will carry u for about 8.8 miles.
Day 6 Catch the Estes Park Shuttle to Denver International Airport or continue on your own to other adventures!
1. Where will people sleep on the second day?| A．By Black Lake. | B．By Fem Lake. |
| C．On Flat Top Mountain. | D．In the town of Estes Park. |
| A．Day 1. | B．Day 2. | C．Day 3. | D．Day 4. |
| A．Lots of flowers. | B．Major waterfall. | C．Rushing streams. | D．A lake. |
3 . For any person who must speak in public, to business or pleasure groups, humor is a helpful and necessary tool for getting your message across. Why does humor work a lot? There are several reasons.
People will enjoy what you have to say if it is presented with humor. But，more importantly，if you are in a situation where important，and perhaps controversial (有争议的) ，ideas must be presented to less than open minds, humor allows those ideas to be presented in a nonthreatening(无威胁的) manner. Abraham Lincoln was famous for his ability to relate humorous stories to make a point. Humor used carefully throughout a presentation will also keep the listeners' interest high. In a word, individuals learning how to use humor in their speeches can strengthen arguments, support interesting presentations and, most of all，entertain their audience in a positive and comfortable way.
While popular culture may well hold many kinds of humor，some of it has no place in presentations that are designed to educate and encourage the audience. If you want to become a professional excellent comedian whose goal is 100% entertainment, then you may be able to use some of the reference materials like The Art of Using Humor in Public Speaking. They can help you develop your skills and sources of humor. To that end, your participation in this study of humor will become necessary. Hopefully, you will come to appreciate the special difficulty of entertaining the audience with good and clean humor.
1. How many reasons does the author give for using humor?| A．Two. | B．Three. |
| C．Four. | D．Five. |
| A．To educate the audience. | B．To encourage the audience. |
| C．To entertain the audience. | D．To exchange with the audience. |
| A．It was good for training one's skills of humor. |
| B．It helped the readers relax after work. |
| C．It gave some tips on how to live a positive life. |
| D．It was a textbook for professional excellent comedians. |
| A．finishing | B．conclusion |
| C．stop | D．result |
4 . Nearly all our food comes from the soil. Some of us eat meat, of course, but animals live on plants. If there were no plants, we would have no animals and no meat. So the soil is very necessary for life. The top of the ground is usually covered with grass or other plants. There may be dead leaves and dead plants on the grass. The waste matter(粪) from animals also falls on it.
All soil needs food. If we do not give it any, the plants will be weak. Farmers found that animals' waste is the best food for the soil, but chemical fertilizers(化肥) are also very useful. The same crop should not be grown in the same place every year; it's better to have a different crop. A change of crop and the use of a good fertilizer will keep the land good.
1. What would happen first without plants?| A．People would have more crops. | B．Animals would die. |
| C．There would be more food. | D．There would be less soil. |
| A．Leaves, plants, grass and waste live on each other. |
| B．There would be no animals without meat. |
| C．There would be no plants without animals. |
| D．People, animals, plants and soil live on each other. |
| A．Chemical fertilizers. | B．Plants and grass. |
| C．Animals' waste. | D．Different crops. |
| A．Because we can keep the soil rich this way. |
| B．Because we don't have enough land. |
| C．Because we want to have a different food. |
| D．Because we do this as a habit. |
5 . I was 9 years old when I found out my father was ill. It was 1944, but I can remember my mother’s words as if it were yesterday, “Kerrel, I don’t want you to take food from your father, because he has AIDS. Be very careful when you are around him.”
AIDS wasn’t something we talked about in my country when I was growing up. From then on, I knew that this would be a family secret. My parents were not together anymore, and my dad lived alone. For a while, he could take care of himself. But when I was 12, his condition worsened. My father’s other children lived far away, so it fell to me to look after him.
We couldn’t afford all the necessary medication for him, and because Dad was unable to work, I had no money for school supplies and often couldn’t even buy food for dinner. I would sit in class feeling completely lost, the teacher’s words muffled(消声) as I tried to figure out how I was going to manage. I did not share my burden(负担) with anyone. I had seen how people reacted to AIDS. Kids laughed at classmates who had parents with the disease. And even adults could be cruel. When my father was moved to the hospital, the nurses would leave his food on the bedside table even though he was too weak to feed himself.
I had known that he was going to die, but after so many years of keeping his condition a secret, I was completely unprepared when he reached his final days. Sad and hopeless, I called a woman at the nonprofit National AIDS Support. That day, she didn’t know any about me and my father, but kept me on the phone for hours. I was so lucky to find someone who was so kind. She saved my life.
I was 15 when my father died. He took his secret away with him, having never spoken about AIDS to anyone, even me. He didn’t want to call attention to AIDS. I do.
1. What was Kerrel’s life like when she was little?| A．She often took food from her father. |
| B．She had to be careful when staying with her father. |
| C．She didn’t look after her father until she was 15. |
| D．She worked hard to pay for her father’s medication. |
| A．She couldn’t understand her teacher. |
| B．She had special difficulty in hearing. |
| C．She was too concerned to focus on the lesson. |
| D．She was too tired to hear her teacher’s words. |
| A．She thought it was shameful to have AIDS. |
| B．She was afraid of being looked down upon. |
| C．She found no one willing to listen to her. |
| D．She wanted to obey her mother. |
| A．A secret never spoken. | B．The sufferings of my father. |
| C．The terrible AIDS. | D．Dark days in childhood. |
Once there were two mice, a city mouse and a country mouse. They were distant relatives. One day the city mouse,
Delighted, the country mouse accepted the
7 . If your cellphone suddenly stops working, don't blame the service provider. The malfunction(故障) might have been caused by something bigger—a solar storm. Experts expect that the earth will see more solar activities in the near future. The malfunction of electronic devices is just one of the effects.
Sunspots(太阳黑子) serve as an indicator(标志) of the sun’s activity. For the past two years, sunspots have mostly been missing. Their absence, the longest in nearly 100 years, has taken even sun watchers by surprise.
When the number of sunspots drops at the end of each 11-year cycle, solar storms die down and all become much calmer. This "solar minimum" doesn’t' t last long. Within a year, sunspots and solar storms begin to build toward a new crescendo—the next solar maximum.
What's special about this latest cycle is that the sun is having trouble starting the next solar cycle. The sun began to calm down in late 2007, so no one expected many sunspots in 2008. They should return in 2010. Scientists have predicted that the next solar cycle could be the most active on record: more sunspots and more solar storms. However, sunspots are mostly missing now
Since the earth is in close contact with the sun, strong solar activities can bring trouble to our life. People of the 21st century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Air travel and radio communications can be affected by strong solar activities. A big solar storm could cause 20 times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.
What the sun will do next is beyond our ability to predict. Most astronomers think that the solar cycle will go on but at low level. However, there is also evidence that the sun is losing its ability to produce sunspots. By 2015, they could be gone altogether.
1. The sun watchers feel surprised at| A．the longest sunspots' absence | B．the largest sunspot number |
| C．the malfunction of electronic devices | D．the serious damage by sunspots |
| A．small number | B．high level |
| C．usual cycle | D．fresh start |
| A．Solar activities do no harm to our daily life |
| B．Hurricane Katrina is also a type of solar storms |
| C．It's difficult to predict sunspots. |
| D．From now on there're no sunspots. |
8 . Do you know Australia? Australia is the largest island in the world. It is a little smaller than China. It is in the south of the earth. Australia is big, but its population is not large. The population of Australia is nearly as large as that of Shanghai.
The government has made enough laws to fight pollution. The cities in Australia have got little air or water pollution. The sky is blue and the water is clean. You can clearly see fish swimming in the rivers. Plants grow very well.
Last month we visited Perth, the biggest city in Western Australia, and went to a wild flowers' exhibition. There we saw a large number of wild flowers we had never seen before. We had a wonderful time. Perth is famous for its beautiful wild flowers. In spring every year Perth has the wild flowers' exhibition. After visiting Perth, we spent the day in the countryside. We sat down and had a rest near a path at the foot of a hill. It was quiet and we enjoyed ourselves. Suddenly we heard bells ringing at the top of the hill. What we saw made us pick up all our things and run back to the car as quickly as we could. There were about three hundred sheep coming towards us down the path.
Australia is famous for its sheep and kangaroos (袋鼠). After a short drive from any town, you will find yourself in the middle of white sheep. Sheep, sheep everywhere are sheep.
1. Australia is ________.| A．the largest country in the world |
| B．as large as Shanghai |
| C．not as large as China |
| D．the largest island in the north of the earth |
| A．few laws to fight pollution |
| B．enough laws that it can fight pollution |
| C．enough laws that it can hardly fight pollution |
| D．enough laws because the pollution is very serious |
| A．Perth is famous for its beautiful wild flowers. |
| B．Perth is bigger than any other city in Western Australia. |
| C．Perth lies in the west of Australia |
| D．Perth is the largest city in Australia. |
| A．Australia is famous for its sheep, kangaroos and wild flowers |
| B．We ran back to the car because we were in the middle of white sheep. |
| C．Three hundred sheep came towards us because they saw us |
| D．If you go to the countryside in Australia, you will see a large number of white sheep. |
1. 参加运动的重要性；
2. 推荐一项日常运动及理由。
注意：1. 词数100左右；2. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear fellow students,
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Students’ Union
10 . Last year I took my 76-year-old father out for a trip in the Utah west desert. In the early
We waited for 24 hours to see if anyone happened to
I didn’t know whether I fell
Sometimes a little help is the
| A．morning | B．evening | C．afternoon | D．noon |
| A．closed | B．worked | C．broke | D．dropped |
| A．surprise | B．safety | C．expectation | D．trouble |
| A．cut down | B．pass by | C．set off | D．by accident |
| A．walk | B．play | C．look | D．return |
| A．thinking of | B．hoping for | C．suffering from | D．worrying about |
| A．building | B．road | C．railway | D．station |
| A．failed | B．made | C．lost | D．refused |
| A．perfect | B．nearest | C．similar | D．biggest |
| A．smile | B．idea | C．ride | D．push |
| A．movement | B．research | C．jump | D．rest |
| A．better | B．harder | C．faster | D．cleaner |
| A．tired | B．silent | C．ill | D．asleep |
| A．so | B．but | C．unless | D．because |
| A．Finally | B．Actually | C．Immediately | D．Particularly |
| A．healthy | B．warm | C．alive | D．weak |
| A．receive | B．find | C．change | D．finish |
| A．difference | B．experience | C．task | D．nobody |
| A．handling | B．visiting | C．risking | D．stopping |
| A．sometimes | B．often | C．always | D．never |
