1 . Welcome to American United Travel Company. We’ll help you spend a perfect holiday. For over 6 years, we have been organizing value for money summer holidays, whether it’s a late holiday deal or your main summer holiday. Whether you’re looking for a romantic getaway, a luxury 5-star holiday, or you just want to relax and soak up the sun, we’ve got access to the very best flight and hotel deals throughout the world. We are proud to offer you various services unlike other tour companies where we offer one-stop shop for complete tourism.

Our Services Include

Tours. Meet & Assist Services. Airport Transfer. MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Conferences, Exhibitions) private Jets. Ground handling (24 hours) VIP services on arrival & departure. Adventure Tour.

Means of Transportation Reservations

We operate for all means of transportation available in the country, starting with buses for groups to car rental to individuals.

Guidance

We have the most qualified guides who speak French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish. We bank on their communication skills as well as their knowledge in various fields.

Fancy Dinners

We prepare outdoor dinners in particular places such as castles, beaches, old and traditional houses, etc. Usually, these dinners are arranged according to the clients’ choices.

Luggage Concierge

Don’t worry about luggage size and weight when travelling. Give your bags to Luggage Concierge in advance and they will be waiting for you at your destination when you arrive.

Call one of our experienced travel consultants on 18884700610 to secure one of these fantastic deals.

1. What is special about United Travel company?

A．It provides one-stop complete tourism.	B．It supplies the best flight and hotels.
C．It offers transfer service.	D．Its guides speak various languages.

2. What can you do with your luggage before travelling?

A．Send it to your destination directly.	B．Carry it by yourself.
C．Keep it as light as possible.	D．Hand it to Luggage Concierge.

3. What’s the purpose of the text?

A．To diversify the economy.	B．To attract tourists.
C．To conserve the environment.	D．To entertain readers.

2 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. Where does Mark usually read news now?

A．In a newspaper.

B．In a magazine.

C．On the Internet.

2. What makes the woman surprised about the machine?

A．It has a small glass window.

B．It can make a pizza in a short time.

C．It offers four types of pizzas at a time.

3. What does the woman think of the machine?

A．It is quite necessary.

B．It might not be popular.

C．It will certainly succeed.

4. What is an advantage of the machine?

A．The 24-hour service.

B．Tasty pizza made by it.

C．The low production cost.

3 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. When will the man go to the restaurant?

A．On Tuesday.

B．On Wednesday.

C．On Thursday.

2. Who will have dinner with the man?

A．A couple.

B．Some friends.

C．His family.

3. What will the man do next?

A．Provide personal information.

B．Tell the waitress his arriving time.

C．Ask for a table at the non-smoking area.

4 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. How did the speakers feel about visiting the park?

A．Tired.

B．Happy.

C．Disappointed.

2. What does Amy plan to do tomorrow?

A．Study for an exam.

B．Attend a party.

C．Go to the movies.

3. What kind of movie will the speakers watch?

A．A romantic movie.

B．A comedy.

C．A horror movie.

5 . Shortly before he turned 60, Mark Fuhrmann realized what he wanted. He, now, at 65, has just returned from a second voyage. His 6,835 mile-round trip from Nova Scotia took in the great lakes of the US, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic.

Fuhrmann started these journeys “to kickstart retirement” from the maritime PR business he ran in Oslo for the past 30 years. Before he set off, in June last year, he swapped (交换) his house for a flat, and greatly reduced his possessions. “It was good to get rid of all of those things and say: ‘This isn’t a phase; this is a new season,’” he says.

Amazingly, he didn’t plan his trip, beyond committing to fundraise for Medecins Sans Frontières. “I thought: ‘I’ll try to do 40km each day.’ But I never knew where I was going to lay down my head.”

The challenges were psychological, physical, and sometimes life-threatening. In Florida, he was chased by an alligator (短吻鳄), but narrowly escaped from it. In the Boston area, he saw “a black fin moving towards me like a snake”. He lay his oar (划桨) across his lap and waited. “If a great white shark can swim leisurely, that’s exactly what it did. It just passed me,” he says. Ten minutes later, Fuhrmann pulled his kayak (小艇) into a cove, where he ran into a man who invited him into his home for coffee and apple pie. His whole trip was filled with these switchbacks and moments of connection with strangers, which Fuhrmann experienced as “a call to authenticity”.

What does he mean? “Nature is born within us. If you avoid that, you avoid experiencing something that is vital to who you are as a person. I want real things — life isn’t about having more. I think we need to accept where we are at this stage of life, at 60 or 65.”

“I look at retirement as a season,” he says. He started his latest voyage because “I wanted to have a better understanding of who I was. I wanted to have time for my thoughts to wander, to restart, to discover the value and power within myself.”

1. Why did Fuhrmann get rid of most of his possessions?

A．To make donations to charity.	B．To start a new life in retirement.
C．To make up for his business loss.	D．To collect money for the journey.

2. What does the underlined word “switchbacks” in paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Blessings.

B．Ambitions.

C．Defeats.

D．Challenges.

3. Which of the following might Fuhrmann agree with?

A．The meaning of life is achieving more.

B．Old people should take things as they are.

C．It is good to have nature-based experience.

D．It is advisable for aging people to play safe.

4. Why did Fuhrmann start his latest voyage?

A．To reflect on his past.	B．To discover his true self.
C．To relax his mind and body.	D．To be free from the noisy world.

6 . 最近，你班涌现出了一股时尚攀比风，有些同学甚至不惜花重金网络代购限量版球鞋。对此你打算给校英语报投稿，发表你的看法，内容包括:
1.分析产生这一现象原因;
2.该现象造成的不良影响;
3.发出积极的倡议。
注意:
1.写作词数应为80左右;
2.短文的题目和首句已为你写好(不计入总词数)。

Too much expenditure on fashion

Recently, an increasing number of students are pursuing fashion in our class.

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7 . 语法填空

Thousands of people are still missing, and the number of deaths     1     (expect) to grow even     2     (high) over the next few days. Foreign aid is being organized for the tsunami-hit countries. However, dangerous conditions and damaged roads will make it difficult to deliver food and     3     (supply).

8 . It’s often said that we human beings can dream in a foreign language. Could dreaming in a foreign language improve our memory? Does dreaming in a foreign language mean we are making progress in learning that language?

Before we look at multilingual (多语言) dreams, first we need to look at sleep. The connection between sleep and language can be applied to how we learn any language, including our native language. Even adults still learn about one new word every two days in their first language. But, if we are going to remember that new word better, what matters is that we need to connect it with what we have learned. And in order to do that, we “need to have some sleep”, says Gareth Gaskell, a professor at the University of York.

It’s during sleep that the integration (整合) of old and new knowledge happens. At might, one part of our brain — the hippocampus — takes whatever new information it receives during the day and passes it on to other parts of the brain to be stored. The role that dreams play in this night-time learning process is still being studied, but “it’s entirely possible that during multilingual dreams, the brain is trying to connect the two languages”, says Marc, a researcher at a university in Bern, Switzerland.

So having multilingual dreams could mean that our brain is trying to remember a new word or phrase. However, it could also have an emotional (情感) significance. Danuta, a professor of psycholinguistics at the University of Silesia in Poland, suggests that multilingual dreams can express “fears or wishes” around learning a foreign language, including the wish to be a local speaker or to be accepted within a certain community.

We clearly still have a lot to learn about multilingual dreams, but one thing seems certain: if you’re trying to learn a new language, you can sleep on it.

1. Why does the author mention questions in paragraph 1?

A．To compare different ideas.	B．To introduce the main topic.
C．To present different types of dreams.	D．To discuss the human language ability.

2. What is the key element in memorizing a new word according to the text?

A．The other new words.	B．The native language.
C．The gained knowledge.	D．The speaking practice.

3. What can we learn about multilingual dreams?

A．They may influence people’s sleep quality.	B．They can reflect language-learning feelings.
C．They are the best option to learn a language.	D．They help to clear up the useless information.

4. Where is the text most likely from?

A．A novel.

B．A diary.

C．A guidebook.

D．A magazine.

9 . Kindness May Keep You Healthy

If you are driving in the United States, you may see a common bumper (汽车保险杠) sticker on passing vehicles that reads:     1     The saying is meant to urge people to behave in a gentle, caring, and helpful way towards others without thinking or planning ahead.

    2     In one experiment, Brian are, an anthropologist (人类学家) at Duke University, asked a group of people to perform three acts of generosity for other individuals each week. These acts could be small, like opening a door for someone. The people who were caring, gentle and friendly towards others reported experiencing contentment, satisfaction and happiness.

However, being kind is not just emotionally beneficial. Lyubomirsky studied a group of people with the disease Multiple Sclerosis (多发性硬化).     3     Her research also pointed out that people showing kindness to others had less inflammation (炎症) in their bodies. And in other studies, Lyubomirsky said more anti-viral genes were found in people who extended a helping hand to other people

    4     In one study, researchers gave people a list of values — such as kindness, creativity, ambition, tradition, security, seeking social justice, and seeking power. When asked to pick the most important, kindness won.

“The basic reason why people are kind,” Oliver Curry, explained, the research director at Kind-lab that is a non-profit organization, “is that we are social animals. Kindness is as much a part of us as our anger, grief or desire.”    5    

A．Perform random acts of kindness

B．Acts of kindness are very powerful

C．In other words, we are designed to be kind.

D．She found that they felt better physically when helping others.

E．Research shows that doing kind things can make us feel better

F．He found that being kind makes people feel better emotionally,

G．Other research has shown that many people prize kindness above other values

10 . Most of us would like to be more creative, but we assume there is little we can do about it. Psychology professor K. Anders Ericsson claims that with enough practice, any of us can become experts. However, he is quick to add that this requires a specific kind of practice that Ericsson calls ‘deliberate practice’: that is, pushing beyond one’s comfort zone and setting goals that are above one’s current level of performance. He says he has yet to find the limits on being successful and he doesn’t believe them to be real.

Ericsson has looked primarily at artistic and athletic skills, but can these findings apply to creativity? Most experts agree that even if most people cannot hope to become creative geniuses, they can learn to become more creative through practice. Psychologists claim that there are actually two levels of creativity, which they refer to as’Big C’ and ‘small c’. Big C creativity applies to breakthrough ideas, ones that may change the course of a field or even history. Small c creativity refers to everyday creative problem solving, like creating a new recipe or improving a process, which psychologists subdivide further into similar and different thinking. Similar thinking involves examining all the facts and arriving at a single solution. In contrast, different thinking involves coming up with many possible solutions. What most people think of as creativity generally involves different thinking and can be taught, practised and learnt.

Even with practice, different thinking alone cannot make one creative, however. Scott Barry Kaufman, a cognitive psychologist, says that most creative people share one personality quality: openness to new experience. Since this quality and these processes have been identified, less creative people can try to emulate them. Normally, we tend to reproduce what we already know because creative ideas move us into unfamiliar territory involving risks and following the usual behaviors is comfortable.

Moving outside of our comfort zone, engaging indeliberate practice and tolerating contradictory ideas, risk and failure are all things we can learn to do better. It is unlikely that doing so will transform any of us into creative geniuses, but it does have the potential to increase our level of creativity.

1. Why does Ericsson think he can’t find the limits?

A．No restrictions exist.	B．Practice makes perfect.
C．Each one can succeed.	D．The goal is ambitious.

2. Which of the following is an example of ‘small c’?

A．Settling in outer space.

B．Building a plastic doghouse.

C．Developing robots to look after the old.

D．Explaining the theory of evolution in class.

3. What does the underlined word “emulate” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Justify.

B．Limit.

C．Copy.

D．Assess.

4. What message does the author seem to convey in the text?

A．We can learn to be more creative.

B．Life is full of various challenges.

C．It’s better to take deliberate practice.

D．Most can become creative geniuses.