1 . When I was in fourth grade, I worked part-time as a paperboy. Mrs. Stanley was one of my customers. She’d watch me coming down her street, and by the time I’d biked up to her doorstep, there’d be a cold drink waiting. I’d sit and drink while she talked.

Mrs. Stanley talked mostly about her dead husband, “Mr. Stanley and I went shopping this morning.” she’d say. The first time she said that, soda(汽水) went up my nose.

I told my father how Mrs. Stanley talked as if Mr. Stanley were still alive. Dad said she was probably lonely, and that I ought to sit and listen and nod my head and smile, and maybe she’d work it out of her system. So that’s what I did, and it turned out Dad was right. After a while she seemed content to leave her husband over at the cemetery(墓地).

I finally quit delivering newspapers and didn’t see Mrs. Stanley for several years. Then we crossed paths at a church fund-raiser(募捐活动). She was spooning mashed potatoes and looking happy. Four years before, she’d had to offer her paperboy a drink to have someone to talk with. Now she had friends. Her husband was gone, but life went on.

I live in the city now, and my paperboy is a lady named Edna with three kids. She asks me how I’m doing. When I don’t say “fine”, she sticks around to hear my problems. She’s lived in the city most of her life, but she knows about community. Community isn’t so much a place as it is a state of mind. You find it whenever people ask how you’re doing because they care, and not because they’re getting paid to do so. Sometimes it’s good to just smile, nod your head and listen.

1. Why did soda go up the author’s nose one time?

A．He was talking fast.	B．He was shocked.
C．He was in a hurry.	D．He was absent-minded.

2. Why did the author sit and listen to Mrs. Stanley according to Paragraph 3?

A．He enjoyed the drink.	B．He wanted to be helpful.
C．He took the chance to rest.	D．He tried to please his dad.

3. Which of the following can replace the underlined phrase “work it out of her system”?

A．recover from her sadness	B．move out of the neighborhood
C．turn to her old friends	D．speak out about her past

4. What does the author think people in a community should do?

A．Open up to others.	B．Depend on each other.
C．Pay for other’s help	D．Care about one another.

3 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Cities are diverse ecosystems, and a large number of species share our urban areas. As our city spreads, we need think about     1     it is like for other species to have human neighbors.

Because cities     2     (build) for humans, they do not always provide suitable habitats for wildlife. For example, most city parks are kept neat and tidy so that humans will find them     3     (pretty) than before. But when we cut grass or plant flowers, we destroy natural habitats.

When a bridge in Austin, Texas was repaired, engineers added small gaps running along the length of its bottom,     4     made a good home for bats, and soon the bridge was the home of thousands of bats. At first, people were afraid     5     the bats. Now, they have come to value     6     (they) winged neighbors. The bats are a tourist     7     (attract), and they eat lots of bugs every night.

There are also structures built with the objective of     8     (bring) wildlife into the city. The Beijing Olympic Forest Park is a good example. The park     9     (use) native plants and created open, natural spaces for wildlife. The result is a zone where over 160 species of birds can move about     10     (free). If we learn to share our space, we can become better neighbors to the wildlife around us.

4 . It is believed that raisins (葡萄干) were discovered in the Middle East, where they were treasured. Any food that wouldn't spoil in the hot sun was very valuable. Prehistoric drawings in France show that raisins have been enjoyed in southern Europe for thousands of years.     1     In 1000 B.C. the Jews paid their taxes with raisins. Two jars of raisins in ancient Rome could buy one slave boy.     2    

In North America, the original mistake of leaving grapes to wither (枯萎) on the vine was not the only time raisins accidentally became popular. In the 1870s many people were growing grapes in California.     3     Most Americans had never heard of raisins at that time. In September, 1873 a severe heat wave struck the area. Before the growers could pick all their grapes, they withered on the vine. The grapes were lost. One grower took the dried grapes to a grocer in San Francisco.     4     The new accidental raisins grew into a major industry in California. Today almost all the raisins eaten in the United States are grown in California. California produces a third of the world's raisins.

    5     Raisins also provide potassium, magnesium, calcium and certain B vitamins. Without added preservatives (防腐剂), raisins will stay fresh, delicious and nutritious if kept in a cool place. Raisins are tiny, portable and above all delicious.

A．They have been used for necklaces and as religious symbols.

B．Raisins are children's favorite snacks.

C．The grapes were either eaten as fresh fruit or were made into wine.

D．The grocer was unwilling to buy the dried grapes.

E．Raisins are high in iron, which is important to children's growing bodies.

F．Roman doctors believed raisins could cure anything from mushroom poisoning to old age.

G．The grocer's customers discovered that raisins made a delicious treat.

5 . In our day-to-day lives, we must interact with a wide variety of people. Some of them are easy to get along with, but others can be more challenging. It' s impossible to like everyone.    1    With the right attitude and good social skills, you really can get along with just about everyone.

    2    People with a genuinely positive attitude are seen as more attractive and charming by others. The more you can cultivate this outlook in your own life, the more people will like you.

Don't make promises you can't keep. It can be difficult to say no to people, especially when you want to get along with everyone and may whole-heartedly want to say yes to everything.    3    This is part of communicating effectively.

Respect differences between people. Accepting the fact that people are different from you, and that doesn't make them wrong, is part of having a positive attitude. The difference may be in terms of behavior, culture, or opinion. These differences are not only okay.    4    

Keep it short.    5    And one of the best ways to get along with difficult people is not to spend any more time with them than necessary. You are less likely to have a conflict with them if you spend less time with them.

A．Develop a positive outlook.

B．They make life more interesting.

C．Find out before you judge them for yourself.

D．But there are ways to say no without being mean.

E．Some people are a lot harder to get along with than others.

F．Yet sometimes we have to get along with people whether we like them or not

G．When you have to interact with difficult people, do your best to keep it fact-based

6 . 你校正在组织英语演讲比赛。请你以“The moment that moved me”为题，写一篇英语演讲稿参赛，内容包括:
1.感动你的瞬间；
2.感动你的原因。
注意:
1.词数100左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3.开头和结尾已为你写好。
The moment that moved me

Ladies and gentlemen,

I'm honored to stand here and present my speech.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for your listening!

7 . Though plastic shopping bags are cheap and useful, they cause widespread pollution. Now, we may have an unlikely helper to help clean up our garbage — a small wax worm.

The worm’s hidden skills were discovered by accident. About two years ago, Federica Bertocchini, a developmental biologist at the Spanish National Research Council and an amateur beekeeper, was cleaning out bees’ nest that had been filled with worms. She removed the worms and put them in a plastic bag while doing the cleaning. After finishing, she went back to the room where she had left the worms, and found they had escaped from the bag. When she checked, she saw that the bag was full of holes.

Realizing she may have made an important discovery, Bertocchini teamed up with other researchers to conduct further research. They began by placing 100 worms on some plastic bags and discovered that over a 24-hour period, the worms managed to chew through 92 milligrams of plastic. The researchers make an appropriate judgment that at this rate, the group of worms could   degrade (降解) an average-sized 5.5-gram plastic bag within a month. To rule out the possibility that chewing was causing the degradation, the researchers spread the soft wet substance inside the body of some recently dead worms on a sheet of plastic. Sure enough, even the liquid was able to eat through the material, confirming that the worms have plastic-digesting enzymes (酶).

While the news is certainly encouraging, not everyone is convinced. The Michigan State University’s Ramani Narayan believes the tiny pieces of microplastics released by the plastic-eating worms would pick up harmful substances and transport them up the food chain, causing, even more, harm to the environment and human health. Susan Selke, director of Michigan State University School of Packaging, is concerned that the worms will not be able to survive in an oxygen-free landfills where large amounts of waste material are buried under the earth.

However, Bertocchini is not planning to transport worm armies to landfills. Instead, the researcher wants to identify the enzyme that helps degrade the plastic. The researcher says, maybe we can find the molecule (分子) and produce it on an industrial level, rather than using a million worms in a plastic bag.

1. What did the experiment of using dead worms find out?

A．Worms’ chewing may cause the degradation.

B．A plastic-eating chemical exists in wax worms.

C．Dead worms are effective in dealing with plastic.

D．It takes a long time for worms to degrade plastic.

2. What is Ramani Naravan's attitude to Bertocchini's finding?

A．Objective

B．Convinced

C．Questioning.

D．Optimistic.

3. What might Bertocchini focus her later research on?

A．The structure of plastic-degrading enzymes.

B．The use of other worms in disposing plastic.

C．Wax worms’ adaptability to the landfill environment.

D．The chance of producing wax worms on a large scale.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Can wax worms save the environment?

B．Wax worms have an appetite for plastic.

C．Why do wax worms have plastic-eating skills?

D．Hungry worms join the fight against plastic pollution

8 . United States health officials say an estimated 80,000 people died of influenza (流感) and problems resulting from the flu last winter, making it the worst season since 1977. The director for the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the number to The Associated Press. Health experts were expecting the winter of 2017-2018 to be a bad year for flu deaths, but not that.

Doctor William Schaffner is an expert on vaccines, at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. Schaffner noted that 80,000 deaths are nearly twice as much as what health officials once considered a “bad year”.

CDC officials say that between 12,000 and 56,000 Americans die every year from flu-related causes, but they do not have an exact count of how many people die from the flu each year. Influenza is a relatively common disease and not always listed on death records as the official cause of death. While last winter was a bad flu season in the U.S., it was not the worst. The 1918 flu lasted nearly two years. Historians estimate that the disease was to blame for between 500,000 to 700,000 deaths during that period. The exact number is still not known.

One thing that made the 2017-2018 flu season so bad was that the flu virus was strong. Usually the disease kills the very young, the very old or those who are already sick. However, last winter, the flu killed many healthy Americans. Another thing that made the flu season so deadly was that the flu vaccine was not as effective as experts had predicted. Drug makers have made changes to the vaccine. Even though the vaccine did not work well last year, health experts still strongly suggest getting vaccinated.

1. What can we learn about influenza in the first paragraph?

A．The winter of 2017-2018 saw the deadliest flu in history.

B．Effective cures should be found to deal with influenza.

C．Health experts had assumed flu would be severer.

D．More people died of influenza than expected in the winter of 2017-2018.

2. How many deaths did the health officials expect in a bad year?

A．80,000.	B．40,000.
C．60,000.	D．20,000.

3. Why can't CDC officials give an exact number of deaths from flu?

A．Because flu is always considered as a common disease.

B．Because people usually don't take flu seriously.

C．Because CDC officials are unwilling to count the deaths.

D．Because flu is not always listed on death records.

4. What do experts recommend people to do in the last paragraph?

A．Change the vaccine.	B．Avoid using vaccine.
C．Get vaccinated.	D．Do research on vaccine.

9 . It is a question people have been asking for ages. Is there a way to turn back the aging process?

For centuries, people have been looking for a “fountain of youth”. The idea is that if you find a magical fountain, and drink from its waters, you will not age.

Researchers in New York did not find an actual fountain of youth, but they may have found a way to turn back the aging process. It appears the answer may be hidden right between your eyes, in an area called the hypothalamus (下丘脑). The hypothalamus is part of your brain. It controls important activities within the body.

Researchers at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that hypothalamus neural (神经的) stem cells also influence how fast aging takes place in the body.

What are stem cells(干细胞)? They are simple cells that can develop into specialized cells, like blood or skin cells. Stem cells can also repair damaged tissues and organs.

Dongsheng Cai is a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He was the lead researcher in a study on aging in mice. He and his team reported their findings in the journal Nature, Cai explained when hypothalamus function is in decline, particularly the loss of hypothalamus stem cells, and this protection against the aging development is lost. it eventually leads to aging.

Using this information, the researchers began trying to activate, or energize, the hypothalamus laboratory mice. They did this by injecting the animals with stem cells, Later, the researchers examined tissues and tested for changes in behavior. They looked for changes in the strength and coordination (协调) of the animals muscles. They also studied the social behavior and cognitive ability of the mice. The researchers say the results show that the treatment slowed aging in the animals, Cai says injecting middle-aged mice with stem cells from younger mice helped the older animals live longer.

But these results were just from studying mice in a laboratory. If the mice can live longer, does that mean people could have longer lives? The next step is to see if the anti-aging effects also work in.

1. In Paragraph 2 a “fountain of youth” is mentioned to ________.

A．introduce the main topic

B．show a hidden secret.

C．describe scientists research

D．recommend a way to stay young

2. Aging takes place in the body when _______.

A．stem cells develop into specialized cells

B．there are important activities within the body

C．hypothalamus neural stem cells fail to protect against aging

D．the hypothalamus fails to repair damaged tissues and organs

3. What do we know about the researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine from the text?

A．They did experiments to see how stem cells work.

B．They studied mice to find their connection with humans.

C．They have found a possible way to slow the aging progress.

D．They have found no changes in mice s behavior during the experiment

4. What will the researchers probably do next?

A．They will help some animals live longer.

B．They will announce the fountain of youth doesn’t exist

C．They will develop products to help people live a longer life immediately

D．They will do research to see if what they have found in mice will apply to humans.

10 . Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881—1973 ) was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. It was said that everything his brush touched turned to gold. But in truth, his works could be worth more than any precious metal. Picasso created more than 20,000 works in his life, including two of the world's 10 most expensive paintings.

Between 1907 and 1913, Picasso and his colleague Georges Braque started a revolution(革命) in painting. Before that, paintings were like windows—they were painted to look as if they had depth. You could tell which objects were "close" to you and which objects were "far away". But Picasso and Braque didn't want to paint like that any more. To them, a painting wasn't a window to the world; it was marks and lines on a flat surface. Why, they thought, should an object like a guitar be shown only from one angle (角度)? A guitar can look very different depending on which angle one looks at it from. Their answer was to show all the angles. They broke the guitar up into pieces. Their style of painting is called cubism (立体主义).

But why did they feel such a need to change things? Well, the world around them was changing, too. Science was turning people's ideas upside down. Albert Einstein's theory proved that what we knew about time and space was wrong. The world was becoming different; artists needed to start seeing and painting it differently.

The famous and terrifying painting Guernica (1937) shows a terrible scene during the Spanish Civil War. In the painting, you can actually see the sky falling. Picasso couldn't have painted it without the skills he learned during his cubist period. Breaking a guitar up into pieces was his preparation for showing the world being blown to pieces.

1. What is mainly discussed about Picasso in this article？

A．The high price of his paintings.

B．His difficulties in career.

C．The popularity of his paintings.

D．His achievements in art.

2. In what way did Picasso and Braque paint？

A．They painted objects with different depth.

B．They made their paintings look like windows.

C．They painted an object from different angles.

D．They broke objects up into pieces and painted them.

3. What caused Picasso and Braque to start cubism？

A．Einstein's theory.

B．The changing world.

C．A broken guitar.

D．Spanish Civil War.

4. Why did the author mention the painting Guernica？

A．To show the theme of Picasso's paintings.

B．To express Picasso's anger at the war.

C．To describe the preparations Picasso made before.

D．To present the artistic effect of cubism.