1 . Directions: Read the following two passages. Fill in each blank with one proper word or the proper form of the given word to make the passage coherent. Make sure that your answers are grammatically correct.

Special Days Around the World

Teachers’ Day

    1     people in many countries celebrate World Teachers’ Day on 5^th October, in Argentina it is on 11^th September — the anniversary of the death of former president, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in 1888. What Sarmiento believed passionately in was the importance of education: He wrote ‘Schools are the very basis of civilization’. Children traditionally write poems for their teachers and give them an apple, make a cake or buy flowers. In Vietnam, Educator’s Day is in November. Many students visit their former teachers in their homes     2    (give) them presents, or give news about themselves. And at some schools in India, senior students become teachers, and teachers become students for the day!

World Book Day

In many countries, Book Day     3    (fall) on 23^rd April every year. It originated in Catalonia in 1923 when booksellers decided to honour the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, who died on that day in 1616. In 1995, World Book Day became an international event,     4    (celebrate) reading and books. People exchange presents — usually a book and a rose. There are also events such as writing competitions, and in Madrid there is a public reading of Cervantes’s     5    (great) work — Don Quijote — which lasts 48 hours! In the UK and Ireland, all schoolchildren receive a £1 book token (礼品券), and many children now dress up as     6     favourite character from fiction!

Respect for the Aged Day

Grandparents’ Day is popular in many countries, but in Japan, a country where nearly 30 percent of the population are over 60, older people     7    (treat) with special respect. The third Monday of September is ‘Respect for the Aged Day’,     8     became a national holiday in 1966. Everyone has a day     9     school or work and people organize celebrations for the older people of the village or community where they live. Young people dress up in traditional clothes. They sing and dance and there will be a meal specially     10    (prepare) for the older people. Nowadays, people also visit relatives and the older people in their families, for a three-day weekend.

2 . Every year the United Sates exports "cultural products" to the rest of the world while it only imports similar products from other countries equal to about one percent of the amount exported. Movies, for example, are one such_______. The movie industry in countries like England and Italy is almost completely_______on American exports. Both countries report that 85% to 95% of all movie tickets sold each year are for movies produced in the United States. Millions of people worldwide buy American pop, rap, and rock music. Billions of people drink Coca-Cola and eat McDonald's hamburgers. American software_______the computer market.

Can all of the above products be called "cultural", however? That depends on how one_______culture. Most people _______culture into two forms: "high" culture and "low" culture. High culture is the kind produced by writers and_______. It is more concerned with stimulating thought in the people who view or use it and does not_______care how marketable people find it Low culture,_______ is viewed as a product usually for entertainment and is only as good as how well it sells. Because it is_______by masses of people, this type of culture can also be called "mass culture". The________between low and high culture are not very clear.

Pierre Guerlain, a professor of English and American Studies in France, points out that when a cultural product is imported, the product cannot cover the existing culture, thus________it. The imported product is changed to adapt to the local context. Anyone who believes that a society which imports American products of mass culture will become a ________of America is being naive(幼稚的).

America may seem to have the strongest hand in exporting cultural products, but there is a boomerang(相反的) ________for being more of an exporter than importer. Because Europeans and Japanese import so many cultural products from the United States, they know a lot more about American culture________than Americans know about European or Japanese culture. It is a definite advantage for the Europeans and Japanese to be bilingual as well as bicultural. These countries can use their knowledge of American society and________to increase their chances of success in the American market

1.

A．aspect

B．product

C．example

D．project

2.

A．fixed

B．emphasized

C．called

D．dependent

3.

A．dominates

B．abandons

C．enters

D．grasps

4.

A．defines

B．presents

C．absorbs

D．creates

5.

A．prefer

B．divide

C．alter

D．view

6.

A．designers

B．technicians

C．composers

D．artists

7.

A．comprehensively

B．temporarily

C．necessarily

D．representatively

8.

A．as a result

B．as a whole

C．on the average

D．on the other hand

9.

A．consumed

B．produced

C．invested

D．sponsored

10.

A．connections

B．distinctions

C．ranges

D．advantages

11.

A．overcoming

B．accepting

C．attracting

D．replacing

12.

A．source

B．supplier

C．copy

D．target

13.

A．effect

B．feedback

C．disadvantage

D．idea

14.

A．in particular

B．in general

C．in contrast

D．in the meantime

15.

A．values

B．economy

C．policies

D．characteristics

3 . An opinion poll was conducted in the early 1990s to find out the cultural attitudes of residents of five countries in Western Europe (Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Germany). One thousand people, forming a representative sample of the adult population, from each of the five participating countries were interviewed.

The poll assumed that literature, history, science, arts, law, economics and so on would be regarded as significant elements of culture by all participants, but it set out to examine the areas which they considered the most important forms of cultural expression. In addition, the poll required interviewees to indicate in a questionnaire the type of education they considered most appropriate for the modern world, the best channels of knowledge and arts they most valued.     1    

The results of the poll show interesting differences between the participating nations in terms of which components of culture they regard as most important forms of cultural expression. For the French and Italians, literature comes well at the top of the list.     2     History occupies second place for the French, the Italians and Germans but is given very low priority by the British. For the Spanish these four areas are more or less equal, with mathematics having a slight edge.

It seems that members of each country in the survey have a common definition of culture but that definition varies from country to country.     3     The French and Italians are literary peoples, the British scientific and the Germans practical and hard-working.

France has the distinction, according to the results of the poll, of being the country which provokes most interest from its British. Italian and German neighbors.     4     The French also placed Italy first. Italy occupies second place for both the British and the Germans. It would seem, then, that the “literary” nations of France and Italy are more culturally exciting than the scientific British or the practical Germans!

A．In contrast, mathematics is given priority by the British and economics,/politics by the   Germans.

B．There are clear differences in the views of various European nations.

C．The interviewees were also asked which European country they found most attractive from a cultural point of view.

D．Spanish interviewees indicated more interest in Italy than in France.

E．The residents of the five countries of the survey share the view that books are the best way of broadening knowledge.

F．The variations tend to support the national stereotypes we have of one another.

4 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

The man who put romance back into roses for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is when unromantic people splurge (挥霍) on overpriced roses and expensive restaurants. It doesn’t have to be this way.     1    For this we have to thank David Austin, the rose guru (专家，大师), who died at 92 on 18 December last year.

Mr. A, as his staff knew him, brought romance back to roses, creating the English Rose, a marriage between fragrant Old Roses and the repeat-flowering Hybrid Tea varieties which had largely replaced them before the young son of a Shropshire farmer decided to change all that.

    2    But still most of the nurseries were unconvinced. It took another 20 years until his Mary Rose and Graham Thomas (named after his horticultural mentor) established Austin and his English Roses—colorful, repeat-flowering, deeply fragrant—in the hearts and gardens of British growers.

The rest is Chelsea-gilded history. Graham Thomas was later voted the world’s favorite rose and his Gertrude Jekyll was twice-named the UK’s favorite.

We have three roses on our London roof terrace: a spicy apricot that a few years ago won best plant at Chelsea; a Bengal Crimson from Great Dixter and a perfect yellow David Austin, named, I think, after an actress.     3    

So steer clear of the more obvious flower choices for the 14th. Roses, like people, are rarely at their best after a long-haul (长途运输) flight.     4    Maybe think about buying a rose for summer flowering. It is what Mr. A deserves and would have wanted.

A．Search out something personal, surprising and special.

B．The roses you receive today have been paid for in advance.

C．The love we share makes life so beautiful, and I love you more than roses can say.

D．As I write, the name escapes me but never the repeated flowering and its fragrance.

E．It took a decade of dedication before Austin’s Rosa Constance Spry was released in 1961.

F．Roses don’t have to come in red buds and straight stems, and they don’t have to smell of desperation.

5 . “What is civilization?” asked Kenneth Clark 50 years ago in the influential BBC series on the subject. “I don’t know, and I can’t define it in abstract terms, yet. But I think I can recognize it when I see it, and I’m looking at it now.” And he turned to gesture behind him, at the soaring Gothic towers and flying buttresses of Notre Dame (巴黎圣母院).

It seems inhuman to care more about a building than about people. That the sight of Notre Dame going up in flames has attracted so much more attention than floods in southern Africa which killed over 1,000 arouses understandable feelings of guilt. Yet the widespread, intense grief at the sight of the cathedral’s collapsing steeple (尖塔) is in fact profoundly human—and in a particularly 21st-century way.

It is not just the economy that is global today, it is culture too. People wander the world in search not just of jobs and security but also of beauty and history. Familiarity breeds affection. A building on whose sunny steps you have rested, in front of which you have taken a selfie with your loved one, becomes a warm part of your memories and thus of yourself.

This visual age has given beauty new power, and social media have turned great works of art into superstars. Only a few, though, have achieved this status. Just as there is only ever a handful of world-famous actors, so the pantheon (万神殿) of globally recognizable cultural symbols is tiny: the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s David, the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid— and Notre Dame. Disaster, too, is visual. In the 24 hours after the fire started, videos on social media of the burning cathedral were viewed nearly a quarter of a billion times.

Yet the emotions the sight aroused were less about the building itself than about what losing it might mean. Notre Dame is an expression of humanity at its collective best. Nobody could look up into that arched (拱形的) ceiling without wondering at the collective genius of the thousands of unknown craftsmen who, over a century and a half, realized a vision so grand in its structural ambition and so delicate in its hand-made detail. Its survival through 850 years of political unrest—through war, revolution and Nazi occupation—binds the present to the past.

1. The BBC series in the first paragraph is mentioned to show ________.

A．Notre Dame is a typical example of civilization

B．civilization is supposed to be defined in abstract terms

C．civilization was founded in the past and lasts for decades

D．it’s cruel to care more about buildings than about people

2. Notre Dame fire has aroused worldwide concerns because ________.

A．the disaster coincided with the floods in southern Africa

B．people has lost a historical landmark to take a selfie and rest

C．France’s economic prosperity has made it a must-see place for visitors

D．cultural globalization has bred a common sense of cultural identity

3. What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A．People’s sadness at the misfortune mainly lies in the building itself.

B．People wondered who contributed to such an artistic achievement.

C．Notre Dame is a witness to Nazi invasion and French revolution.

D．Fortunately we are blessed with countless splendid works of art.

4. What might be the best title for the passage?

A．Notre Dame: The Architectural Treasure

B．Notre Dame: The Humanistic Expression

C．Notre Dame: A Victim To Natural Disaster

D．Notre Dame: A Must-be Tourist Attraction

6 . Look to many of history’s cultural symbols, and there you’ll find an ancestor of Frosty, the snowman in the movie Frozen. It appeared on some of the first postcards, starred in some of the earliest silent movies, and was the subject of a couple of the earliest photos, dating all the way back to the 1800s. I discovered even more about one of humanity’s earliest forms of life art during several years of research around the world.
For example, snowmen were a phenomenon in the Middle Ages, built with great skill and thought. At a time of limited means of expression, snow was like free art supplies dropped from the sky. It was a popular activity for couples to leisurely walk through town to view the temporary works of chilly art. Some were created by famous artists, including a 19-year-old Michelangelo, who in 1494 was appointed by the ruler of Florence, Italy, to build a snowman in his mansion’s courtyard.
The Miracle of 1511 took place during six freezing works called the Winter of Death. The city of Brussels was covered in snowmen—an impressive scene that told stories on every street corner. Some were political in nature, criticizing the church and government. Some were a reflection of people’s imagination. For the people of Brussels, this was a defining moment of defining freedom. At least until spring arrived, by which time they were dealing with damaging floods.
If you fear the heyday of the snowman has passed, don’t worry: I’ve learned that some explosive snowman history is still being made today. Every year since 1818, the people of Zurich, Switzerland, celebrate the beginning of spring by blowing up a snowman. On the third Monday of April, the holiday Sechselauten is kicked off when a cotton snowman called the Boogg is stuffed with explosive and paraded through town by bakers and other tradesmen who throw bread to the crowds. The parade ends with the Boogg being placed on a 40-foot pile of firewood. After the bells of the Church of St. Peter have rung six times, representing the passing of winter, the pile is lit. When the snowman explodes, winter is considered officially over—the quicker it is burnt down, the longer summer is said to be.
1. According to the passage, why did snowmen become a phenomenon in the Middle Ages?

A．People thought of snow as holy art supplies.

B．People longed to see masterpieces of snow.

C．Building snowmen was a way for people to express themselves.

D．Building snowmen helped people develop their skill and thought.

2. “The heyday of the snowman” （paragraph 4） means the time when___________.

A．snowmen were made mainly by artists

B．snowmen enjoyed great popularity

C．snowmen were politically criticized

D．snowmen caused damaging floods

3. In Zurich, the blowing up of the Boogg symbolizes__________________.

A．the start of the parade

B．the coming of a longer summer

C．the passing of the winter

D．the success of tradesmen

4. What can be concluded about snowmen from the passage?

A．They were appreciated in history

B．They have lost their value

C．They were related to movies

D．They vary in shape and size