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 . Tom Sawyer Play Is an Adventure

A 35-minute hand-clapping, foot-stomping musical version of a Mark Twain favorite returns with this Tall Stacks festival.

“Tom Sawyer: A River Adventure” has all the good stuff, including the fence painting, the graveyard, the island and the cave. It is adapted by Joe McDonough, with music by David Kisor. That’s the local stage writing team that creates many of the Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati’s original musicals, along with the holiday family musicals at Ensemble Theatre.

This year Nathan Turner of Burlington is Tom Sawyer, and Robbie McMath of Fort Mitchell is Huck Finn.

Tumer, a 10th-grader at School for Creative and Performing Arts, is a familiar presence on Cincinnati’s stages. He is a star act or of Children’s Theatre, having played leading roles in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “The Wizard of Oz,” and is fresh from Jersey Production “Ragtime”.

McMath is a junior at Beechwood High School. He was in the cast of “Tom Sawyer” when it was first performed and is a Children’s Theatre regular, with five shows to his credit. This summer he attended Kentucky’s Governor’s School for the Arts in Musical Theatre.

Note to teachers: Children’s Theatre has a study guide demonstrating how math and science can be taught through “Tom Sawyer.” For downloadable lessons, visit the official website of Children’s Theatre.

1. Who wrote the music for “Tom Sawyer: A River Adventure”?

A．David Kisor.	B．Joe McDonough.
C．Nathan Turner.	D．Robbie McMath.

2. What can we learn about the two actors?

A．They study in the same school.	B．They worked together in ”Ragtime“.
C．They are experienced on stage.	D．They became friends ten years ago.

3. What does Children’s Theatre provide for teachers?

A．Research funding.	B．Training opportunities.
C．Technical support.	D．Educational resources.

3 . We may weep for the dodo, but could and should we bring this lovely bird back from the dead? De-extinction is the science of restoring lost species and it has been in the news for decades.

The story in modern times began in 1990 when Michael Crichton published his science fiction novel Jurassic Park, in which he imagined a world where scientists were able to bring dinosaurs back to life. Crichton imagined that polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology could be a way to amplify (放大) tiny quantities of dinosaur DNA and thus build a living embryo.

Sadly, biologists soon realized that DNA in fact breaks down super-fast; even after 100 years, DNA from museum skins of dodos was decayed (腐烂) beyond repair. They could be sequenced (测定序列) using massive computational power, but then only with considerable uncertainty. And even if you capture a DNA sequence, there’s still the problem of how you get living cells to read that sequence and express proteins that make the dinosaur or the dodo.

But why would anyone want to see mammoths, or something like them, roaming (漫游) present-day Siberia? Well, they were undoubtedly amazing beasts. As well as hunting them, our distant ancestors painted their likenesses in caves across Europe. Fascinating as they may be, there's some ecological justification for the project too.

It was this diversity of land surface, broken up by heavy limbs and randomly fertilised by faeces (排泄物), that supported so much flora (植物群). Without the mammoths, that diversity disappeared. Return them and landscapes would once again be with a variety of species, including flowers and bushes.

True, it’s not de-extinction in the sense of bringing a long-dead species back to life. Instead it’s more like making a “dodo” by engineering a modern pigeon, its closest relative, to become huge and flightless. The result would be a big, fatty pigeon that, whether it looked like a dodo or not, would probably fulfil some of its ecological roles.

As a palaeontologist, I would of course love to see living dinosaurs, mammoths and dodos. In some ways, though, I am relieved that the optimistic claims for cloning and genetic technologies have not been borne out. The slowdown gives us time to consider the outcomes—and hopefully avoid some of Michael Crichton’s more fevered imaginings.

1. What is paragraph 2 of the text mainly about?

A．A science fiction review.	B．The development of DNA.
C．An inspired guess of de-extinction.	D．The application of PCR technology.

2. What’s the barrier to cloning a living embryo?

A．DNA is hard to keep for long.	B．Computational power is limited.
C．Biologists are opposed to it.	D．Living cells can􀆳t be sequenced.

3. Why are people interested in cloning extinct species?

A．They expect to seek hunt fun.	B．They lack sources of modern art.
C．They need them for research.	D．They want to see biodiversity.

4. What’s the author’s attitude toward cloning extinct species?

A．Cautious.

B．Unclear.

C．Dismissive.

D．Approving.

4 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

The frightening day of our diving test was here. Our parents thought we were lucky to have an Olympic-size swimming pool at the school. My mom stressed that the swimming pool was one of the best in our city. But I didn’t feel happy about it at all. Instead, I felt afraid of the swimming pool. It was mainly because I was terribly shy.

I was so shy that I always sat at the back of the room in class so I’d not be called upon to read. As for the present physical education class each Monday morning, I would work my way to the back of the line forming at the diving board so I would not have to practice the dives.

Now, it was another Monday morning - the morning of our diving test. My blood ran cold when the teacher Ms. Robbins announced that we would be graded for our final on the most difficult dive- the jackknife. And she added, “This diving test is important. The one who fails has to spare time in the following Monday mornings to practice diving in this swimming pool and attend this test again.”

My body kept shaking with fear as the line to the scary diving board shortened. As I watched, each student seemed to perform the challenging dive effortlessly. And shortly I would have to attempt something that I had never even practiced before.

Then I remembered someone telling me that when you picture yourself doing a skill over and over, it’s just as effective as physically practicing that skill. So I watched carefully as each classmate jumped at the end of the board once, added a jump for height, folded their body in half to reach for their toes, and finally straightened out like an arrow for going into the water. After carefully watching for a while, I was actually in a state of surprise, because all of a sudden I realized that it was possible for me to perform these four steps of diving.

Eventually all classmates except me finished jumping. The teacher announced that it was my turn.

注意：1. 续与词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

With my heart knocking wildly, I walked down the diving board towards its end.

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Knowing I failed, I climbed out of the pool, embarrassed.

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6 . For my daughter's 19th birthday, we bought her tickets to go and see Linkin Park, as they were playing in our city. We didn't really have the ________ but we knew how much this band meant to her.

The night before she was like a ________ at Christmas. Every so often she got up and came to ________ with us, because she couldn't ________ . On the night of the concert it was good to see her so ________ and excited, as she and her boyfriend set off.

Needless to say when they ________ after midnight, with T-shirts and lots of pictures of the band, ________ her telling about how fantastic they had been, we knew the money had been well ________ . This will be a memory she would never forget, and nor would we.

________ full of excitement from the night before, the following day they ________ to go shopping on the other side of the city. My husband and I laughed, loving the fact that she had not ________   that quality as she grew up.

Later that day they returned, with faces full of happiness and warmth. They presented my husband and me with a ________ each. On each present were the words "Because you are the ________ mum/dad in the world. "When we expressed our thanks and told her she didn't have to, we asked her why she had bought us gifts. Her answer was simply "Just because I love you."

This wasn't something ________ from our daughter; she had always given us gifts when she wanted to express her ________ , and each gift was always a welcome surprise. It could have been anything, it wouldn't have mattered, and it was the act itself and the feelings behind it.

1.

A．money

B．time

C．interest

D．news

2.

A．worker

B．baby

C．kid

D．parent

3.

A．dance

B．learn

C．walk

D．sit

4.

A．speak

B．sleep

C．stand

D．leave

5.

A．healthy

B．happy

C．pretty

D．surprised

6.

A．stayed

B．left

C．returned

D．turned

7.

A．worrying about

B．caring for

C．looking at

D．listening to

8.

A．lent

B．earned

C．saved

D．spent

9.

A．Still

B．Only

C．Just

D．Also

10.

A．continued

B．tried

C．decided

D．struggled

11.

A．kept

B．lost

C．realized

D．discovered

12.

A．gift

B．prize

C．ticket

D．picture

13.

A．richest

B．oldest

C．best

D．cleverest

14.

A．important

B．ordinary

C．new

D．valuable

15.

A．feelings

B．concerns

C．understandings

D．opinions

8 . Have you heard of these four monuments?

Carhenge. Floralis Genérica. Traffic Light Tree. Hand of the Desert — these are four unusual monuments from around the world you might like to visit.

• Carhenge

Carhenge is in Alliance, Nebraska (USA). As the name suggests, it has a lot in common with Stonehenge, the famous stone circle on Salisbury Plain. But while Stonehenge was built with stones, Carhenge was created with cars. The monument was made in 1987 by a local artist Jim Reinders and his family. He used old cars and even an ambulance. At first, the people of Alliance didn’t like it, but they soon changed their minds after it became popular with tourists, who brought lots of money to the town.

• Floralis Genérica

Floralis Genérica is a massive statue of a flower. It stands in a pool of water in front of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Eduardo Catalano, a native of Argentina, gave the statue as a gift to the city in 2002. Every morning, the flower opens. Ask anyone who has seen it and they’ll tell you that watching it open is an unforgettable sight. In fact, many people believe it is one of the most beautiful statues in the world.

• Traffic Light Tree

The Traffic Light Tree is situated at Heron Quay, in one of London’s financial districts. The tree has 75 sets of traffic lights. It was created by French artist, Pierre Vivant, and was installed in 1998. A computer controls the lights, which are turned on and off randomly. The roundabout where the tree is was voted the most popular roundabout in the UK in a recent survey.

• Mano del Desierto (Hand of the Desert)

The Hand of the Desert is in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The sculpture was designed by the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrazabal. From a distance, it looks as if there’s a giant in the sand who has stuck his hand out of the ground.

If you’re looking for something new to see, you know where to go!

1. Why did the people of Alliance change their attitude toward Carhenge?

A．It reminded them of Stonehenge.	B．It brought them financial benefits.
C．It added beauty to their community.	D．It displayed the creativity of the designer.

2. Which of the four monuments was designed by a foreign artist?

A．Carhenge.	B．Floralis Genérica.
C．Traffic Light Tree.	D．Mano del Desierto.

3. Where is the text probably from?

A．A guide book.	B．A news report.
C．A science magazine.	D．An architecture advertisement.

9 . Every holiday season, I get nostalgic (怀旧的) and take a trip down Christmas tree lane. I think about how hard my mom worked to make the holidays special. I remember how she said and proudly displayed all of the gifts she received from us. She acted as if her plastic beaded bracelet (手镯) was made of priceless stones. Year after year, whatever we gave her, she would treasure the gifts as though she was the luckiest woman on earth.

Through the years, friends come and go, but my mom is a constant, my true best friend and biggest fan. She’s by my side not only for the good moments cheering me on with pride, but holding my hand and letting me use her shoulder to cry on through the bad. She refuses to give up on me even when I want to. She is always there to encourage me in the midst of life’s challenges and eager to celebrate life’s joys.

So as much as the salt dough ornament (装饰品) pleased her, which is in a noticeable place on her tree every year, I’ve increased its amount now to surprise her at Christmas. I ask myself. What hasn’t she done before? What is something that she would like, but would never, in a million years, buy herself?

Gifts mom will treasure. So for the one who knows you best and still loves you, find a great gift that will show how much you really care and value her support. Select a thoughtful gift based on what brings her the greatest enjoyment.

However, the best gifts, I suppose, cannot be wrapped. Set aside time to spend alone with mom. It can simply be a day together doing what she enjoys most or plan a weekend getaway to a place she has always wanted to see. It will mean more to her than you may ever know. Together you will create lasting memories she will treasure for the rest of her life.

What are your most memorable moments with your mom? For your mom, what would you value most in the holiday season?

1. Why does the author regard her mother as her best friend?

A．Because they share the same interest in Christmas decorations.

B．Because she always receives encouragement from her mother.

C．Because her mother gives her a big surprise at every Christmas.

D．Because they are pleased with whatever gifts they give each other.

2. What can we infer from the underlined sentences in the third paragraph?

A．The author’s mother never gets something for nothing.

B．The author’s mother has always been giving rather than taking.

C．The author feels ashamed of having kept her mother working too hard.

D．The author bitterly regrets having cared little for her mother in the past.

3. In the author’s opinion, what’s the best gift for moms?

A．Lasting memories.	B．Long holiday seasons.
C．Time with their children.	D．Things moms never buy in person.

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

A．Gifts Your Mom Will Treasure

B．How to Make Holidays Special

C．Memorable Moments with Your Mom

D．Mom-A Strong Supporter and the Best Friend

10 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

My father was the kind of person who could never pass by someone who needed help. He was a firm believer in the mantra (箴言)： What goes around comes around. He believed that someday he might need help, and someone would return the favor. But I didn’t quite buy it.

One weekend, my father and I took a trip to Flaming Gorge Reservoir (水库). We loved to fish at Flaming Gorge. We owned a cabin boat that was about fifteen feet in length. We put our boat in at Sheep Creek Marina (游艇停泊港). Our goal was to go as far north as possible, spend the weekend in our boat, and fish until we had our limit.

Heading toward the Wyoming side of the reservoir, we traveled some distance before we began to fish. Frankly, the fishing wasn’t very good, but we loved being out on the boat together in such a beautiful place.

Suddenly, we saw a man on the far shore waving at us. Immediately, my father fired up the motor and went toward the other side of the reservoir, where the man was still waving at us. When we arrived, I was amazed to see a beautiful big yacht (游艇) pulled onto the shore.

The man introduced himself as Mat and then thanked us warmly for coming to his assistance. His battery was dead, and he wondered if we could help him. We did, and soon his big motor roared back to life. Mat and his family were very grateful. We lost an hour of fishing. Being an impatient teenager, I was a bit annoyed at the one-hour loss, but we were soon back out on the reservoir.

The next day the fishing didn’t improve. As a matter of fact, it was terrible, so we decided to call it quits and go back to the marina. We were about two miles from the marina when we found ourselves fighting a strong headwind that slowed our progress. The waves were kicking up, and suddenly our engine decided to quit.

注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

We tried to get it running, but it simply wouldn’t start.

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On our way home, I saw an old lady waving at our car by the roadside.

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