2 . The plot of the story of “The Million Pound Bank Note” centers on the impossibility of encashing (兑现) a high valued bank note by a common man. Within this story it is narrated (叙述) that only two such notes were ever issued and anyone who walks into a bank to cash that note will get himself in trouble. So, do such million pound bank notes really exist? Let’s do a bit of digging around for the purpose of satisfying the curiosity over this question.

Such high valued pound bank notes do exist, and they were usually used for transactions (交易) within banks. The Bank of England used “one million” and “hundred million” pound bank notes to keep parity (等价) with bank notes issued by Scottish and Northern Irish banks. These notes — the one million ones were called “giants” and came in A5 size and the hundred million ones were called “titans” having an A4 size — were more like IOU documents (legal forms that describe a loan between a lender and a borrower) and they were special issues from the Bank of England to meet the requirement of backing the value of everyday notes issued by banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Nine such one million pound notes were issued in connection with the Marshall Plan (the US’s post-war aid program to Western Europe), equal to the loan from the US after World War II (WWII) in 1948. After cancellation (取消), of these nine only seven were destroyed and two survived with private collectors. Such high valued notes are not usually found in the normal transactional scenes and it is believed that notes worth eight billion pounds were printed in these heavy denominations (面额) in total.

Mark Twain can create humor from narrations of unrealistic (不现实的) and often funny simple situations and “The Million Pound Bank Note” is a nice example of his storytelling abilities.

3 . Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s love of water started at an early age. Born on 11 June, 1910 in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France, by the age of just four he’d already learned to swim. Though he was pretty bad at school, he had a gift for understanding mechanical objects. As a teenager, he bought a movie camera, took it apart to understand how it worked and then put it back together again. He used it to create home movies.

In 1930, Jacques joined the French Naval Academy and planned to become a pilot, but three years later he had a car accident and got injured. To regain his power, doctors suggested that he swim, and during his travels with the French Navy in 1936 a friend gave him some goggles (护目镜) to help him see underwater. His plans to take to the sky might have been killed but luckily his eyes were opened to a magical world under the sea.

In 1950, Jacques got hold of an old British warship and turned it into a research vessel (船) that he named the RV Calypso. He used it to sail around the world and as a base for exploring underwater habitats and shipwrecks (遇难船) — from the Antarctic to the Amazon. But he soon realized that to collect money for his research he needed to get the public interested, so he began writing books and making TV series about his adventures. He finally won three Oscars for his films.

In the 1960s, Jacques joined in three futuristic projects to build underwater labs, nicknamed Conshelf Ⅰ, Ⅱ and Ⅲ. And in 1963 he and five other researchers spent 30 days living under the sea! During his many explorations, Jacques began to notice the harm humans were doing to the sea, so in 1973 he set up the Cousteau Society for the Protection of Ocean Life.

Jacques spent the rest of his life supporting environmental causes such as banning whale hunting. He died in 1997, but will always be remembered for his pioneering underwater exploration!

I have    1    friend. Her name    2    (be) Li Hua. She is a very kind girl. I like    3    (make)friends with her, because she is concerned    4    me and I can share my    5    (happy) and sorrows with her.we can get along well    6    each other. As a famous saying     7    (go), a friend in need is a friend indeed. In order    8    go to university together, we overcome many    9    (difficulty) together. I believe    10    (we) friendship will last forever.

10 . Do you know how to study ______ and make your study more effective（有效的）? We all know that Chinese students usually study very hard for long ______.This is very good, ______it doesn’t______a lot, for an effective student must have enough sleep, enough food and enough rest and______.Every day you need to go out for ______walk or visit some friends or some nice places.It’s ______for your ______.

When you return ______your studies, your mind______be refreshed(清醒) and you’ll learn more______study better.Psychologists(心理学家)______that learning takes place this way.Here take English learning______an example.First you make a lot of progress and you feel happy.Then your language study seems______the same.So you will think you’re learning______and you may give______.This can last for days or even weeks, yet you ______give up, and at some point, your language study will again take another big______.You’ll see that you really have been learning all along.If you get enough sleep, food, rest and exercise, studying English can be very effective and ______.Don’t give up along the way.Learn ______you are sure to get a good result.