1 . 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。

Going to Mount Huangshan reminds me of the popular Beatles’ song “The Long and Winding Road”.     1     is so breathtaking about the experience is the out-of-this-world scenes. The rolling sea of clouds you see once you are at the top will remind you how tiny we     2     (human) are.

The hot spring at the foot of the mountain is something you must try after the climb. It will     3    (undoubted) help you get refreshed! The amazing thing about the spring is that the colder the temperature gets, the     4     (hot) the spring! Strange, isn’t it? But that’s how nature is — always leaving us     5     (astonish).

What comes next is the endless series of steps. You can’t help wondering how hard it     6     (be) for the people then to put all those rocks into place. Though it is the only unnatural thing on your way up the mountain, still it highlights the whole adventure     7    offers a place where you can sit down to rest your     8     (ache) legs.

As the song goes, this long and winding road “will never disappear”, and it will always stick in the visitor’s memory. It sure does in     9     (I). While you’re in China, Mount Huangshan is     10     must to visit!

2 . 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.

3 . My husband and I just spent a week in Paris.    1    So the first thing we did was rent a fantastically expensive sixth-floor apartment the size of a cupboard. It was so tiny that we had to leave our suitcases in the hallway.

The place wasn’t entirely authentic, though. Unlike a normal Parisian apartment, the plumbing (水管) worked.     2    Our building even had a tiny lift with a female voice that said, “Ouverture des portes,” in perfect French. That is the only French phrase I mastered, and it’s a shame I don’t have much use for it.

Parisians are different from you and me. They never look lazy or untidy. As someone noted in this paper a couple of weeks ago, they eat great food and never gain weight.     3     French strawberries do not taste like cardboard. Instead, they explode in your mouth like little flavor bombs.

    4     On our first morning in Paris, I went around the corner to the food market to pick up some groceries. I bought a handful of perfectly ripe small strawberries and a little sweet melon. My husband and I agreed they were the best fruit we had ever eaten. But they cost $18!

In France, quality of life is much more important than efficiency.

You can tell this by cafés life. French cafés are always crowded.    5    When do these people work? The French take their 35-hour workweek seriously — so seriously that some labor unions recently struck a deal with a group of companies limiting the number of hours that independent contractors can be on call.

A．Not all the customers are tourists.

B．The quality of life in France is equally excellent.

C．There was a nice kitchen and a comfortable bed.

D．The amazing food is mainly consumed by local farmers.

E．That’s not the only reason the French eat less than we do.

F．Our aim was to see if we could live, in some way, like real Parisians.

G．The food is so delicious that you don’t need much of it to make you happy.

4 . By day, Robert Titterton is a lawyer. In his spare  time though he goes on stage beside pianist Maria Raspopova — not as a musician but as her page turner. “I’m not a trained musician, but I’ve learnt to read music so I can help Maria in her performance.”

Mr Titterton is chairman of the Omega Ensemble but has been the group’s official page turner for the past four years. His job is to sit beside   the pianist and turn the pages of the score so the musician doesn’t have to break the flow of sound by doing it themselves. He said he became just as nervous as those playing instruments on stage.

“A lot of skills are needed for the job. You have to make sure you don’t turn two pages at once and make sure you find the repeats in the music   when you have to go back to the right spot.” Mr Titterton explained.

Being a page turner requires plenty of practice. Some pieces of music can go for 40 minutes and require up to 50 page turns, including back turns for repeat passages. Silent onstage communication is key, and each pianist has their own style of “nodding” to indicate a page turn which they need to practise with their page turner.

But like all performances, there are moments when things go wrong. “I was turning the page to get ready for the next page, but the draft wind from the turn caused the spare pages to fall off the stand,” Mr Titterton said, “Luckily I was able to catch them and put them back.”

Most page turners are piano students or up-and-coming concert pianists, although Ms Raspopova has once asked her husband to   help her out on stage.

“My husband is the worst page turner,” she laughed. “He’s interested in the music, feeling every note, and I have to say: ‘Turn, turn!’ Robert is the best page turner I’ve had in my entire life.”

1. What should Titterton be able to do to be a page turner?

A．Read music.	B．Play the piano.
C．Sing songs.	D．Fix the instruments.

2. Which of the following best describes Titterton’s job on stage?

A．Boring.	B．Well-paid.
C．Demanding.	D．Dangerous.

3. What does Titterton need to practise?

A．Counting the pages.	B．Recognizing the “nodding”.
C．Catching falling objects.	D．Performing in his own style.

4. Why is Ms Raspopova’s husband “the worst page turner”?

A．He has very poor eyesight.	B．He ignores the audience.
C．He has no interest in music.	D．He forgets to do his job.

5 . We journalists live in a new age of storytelling, with many new multimedia tools. Many young people don’t even realize it’s new. For them, it’s just normal.

This hit home for me as I was sitting with my 2-year-old grandson on a sofa over the Spring Festival holiday. I had brought a children’s book to read. It had simple words and colorful pictures — a perfect match for his age.

Picture this: my grandson sitting on my lap as I hold the book in front so he can see the pictures. As I read, he reaches out and pokes (戳) the page with his finger.

What’s up with that? He just likes the pictures, I thought. Then I turned the page and continued. He poked the page even harder. I nearly dropped the book. I was confused: Is there something wrong with this kid?

Then I realized what was happening. He was actually a stranger to books. His father frequently amused the boy with a tablet computer which was loaded with colorful pictures that come alive when you poke them. He thought my storybook was like that.

Sorry, kid. This book is not part of your high-tech world. It’s an outdated, lifeless thing. An antique, like your grandfather. Well, I may be old, but I’m not hopelessly challenged, digitally speaking. I edit video and produce audio. I use mobile payment. I’ve even built websites.

There’s one notable gap in my new-media experience, however: I’ve spent little time in front of a camera, since I have a face made for radio. But that didn’t stop China Daily from asking me last week to share a personal story for a video project about the integration of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province.

Anyway, grandpa is now an internet star — two minutes of fame! I promise not to let it go to my head. But I will make sure my 2-year-old grandson sees it on his tablet.

1. What do the underlined words “hit home for me” mean in paragraph 2?

A．Provided shelter for me.	B．Became very clear to me.
C．Took the pressure off me.	D．Worked quite well on me.

2. Why did the kid poke the storybook?

A．He took it for a tablet computer.	B．He disliked the colorful pictures.
C．He was angry with his grandpa.	D．He wanted to read it by himself.

3. What does the author think of himself?

A．Socially ambitious.	B．Physically attractive.
C．Financially independent.	D．Digitally competent.

4. What can we learn about the author as a journalist?

A．He lacks experience in his job.	B．He seldom appears on television.
C．He manages a video department.	D．He often interviews internet stars.

6 . When the explorers first set foot upon the continent of North America, the skies and lands were alive with an astonishing variety of wildlife. Native Americans had taken care of these precious natural resources wisely. Unfortunately, it took the explorers and the settlers who followed only a few decades to decimate a large part of these resources. Millions of waterfowl (水禽) were killed at the hands of market hunters and a handful of overly ambitious sportsmen. Millions of acres of wetlands were dried to feed and house the ever-increasing populations, greatly reducing waterfowl habitat.

In 1934, with the passage of the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act (Act), an increasingly concerned nation took firm action to stop the destruction of migratory (迁徙的) waterfowl and the wetlands so vital to their survival. Under this Act, all waterfowl hunters 16 years of age and over must annually purchase and carry a Federal Duck Stamp. The very first Federal Duck Stamp was designed by J.N. “Ding” Darling, a political cartoonist from Des Moines, lowa, who at that time was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as Director of the Bureau of Biological Survey. Hunters willingly pay the stamp price to ensure the survival of our natural resources.

About 98 cents of every duck stamp dollar goes directly into the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund to purchase wetlands and wildlife habitat for inclusion into the National Wildlife Refuge System — a fact that ensures this land will be protected and available for all generations to come. Since 1934, better than half a billion dollars has gone into that Fund to purchase more than 5 million acres of habitat. Little wonder the Federal Duck Stamp Program has been called one of the most successful conservation programs ever initiated.

1. What was a cause of the waterfowl population decline in North America?

A．Loss of wetlands.	B．Popularity of water sports.
C．Pollution of rivers.	D．Arrival of other wild animals.

2. What does the underlined word “decimate” mean in the first paragraph?

A．Acquire.	B．Export.
C．Destroy.	D．Distribute.

3. What is a direct result of the Act passed in 1934?

A．The stamp price has gone down.	B．The migratory birds have flown away.
C．The hunters have stopped hunting.	D．The government has collected money.

4. Which of the following is a suitable title for the text?

A．The Federal Duck Stamp Story	B．The National Wildlife Refuge System
C．The Benefits of Saving Waterfowl	D．The History of Migratory Bird Hunting

7 . Over the last seven years, most states have banned texting by drivers, and public service campaigns have tried a wide range of methods to persuade people to put down their phones when they are behind the wheel.

Yet the problem, by just about any measure, appears to be getting worse. Americans are still texting while driving, as well as using social networks and taking photos. Road accidents, which had fallen for years, are now rising sharply.

That is partly because people are driving more, but Mark Rosekind, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said distracted（分心）driving was "only increasing, unfortunately."

"Big change requires big ideas." he said in a speech last month, referring broadly to the need to improve road safety. So to try to change a distinctly modern behavior, lawmakers and public health experts are reaching back to an old approach: They want to treat distracted driving like drunk driving.

An idea from lawmakers in New York is to give police officers a new device called the Textalyzer. It would work like this: An officer arriving at the scene of a crash could ask for the phones of the drivers and use the Textalyzer to check in the operating system for recent activity. The technology could determine whether a driver had just texted, emailed or done anything else that is not allowed under New York's hands-free driving laws.

"We need something on the books that can change people's behavior,” said Félix W. Ortiz, who pushed for the state's 2001 ban on hand-held devices by drivers. If the Textalyzer bill becomes law, he said, "people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cell phone."

1. Which of the following best describes the ban on drivers' texting in the US?

A．Ineffective.	B．Unnecessary.
C．Inconsistent.	D．Unfair.

2. What can the Textalyzer help a police officer find out?

A．Where a driver came from.	B．Whether a driver used their phone.
C．How fast a driver was going.	D．When a driver arrived at the scene.

3. What does the underlined word "something" in the last paragraph refer to?

A．Advice.

B．Data.

C．Tests.

D．Laws.

4. What is a suitable title for the text?

A．To Drive or Not to Drive? Think Before You Start

B．Texting and Driving? Watch Out for the Textalyzer

C．New York Banning Hand-Held Devices by Drivers.

D．The Next Generation Cell Phone: The Textalyzer-

8 . Writing an essay is a difficult process for most people. However, the process can be made easier if you learn to practice three simple techniques.

    1     When you are first trying to think of ideas for an essay, put your pen to your paper and write nonstop for ten or fifteen minutes without letting your pen leave the paper. Stay loose and free.     2     Don’t worry about grammar or spelling. Even though this technique won’t work for everyone, it helps many people get a good store of ideas to draw on.

The next technique is to write your draft rapidly without worrying about being perfect.     3     Yet, by learning to live with imperfection, you will save yourself headaches and a wastepaper basket full of crumpled (弄皱) paper. Think of your first draft as a path cut out of the jungle—as part of an exploration, not as a complete highway.

The third technique is to try printing out a triple-spaced (三倍行距) copy to allow space for revision.     4     As a result, these writers never get in the habit of crossing out chunks (大块) of their draft and writing revisions in the blank space. After you have revised your draft until it is too messy to work from anymore, you can enter your changes into your word processor.     5     The resulting blank space invites you to revise.

A．Make sure your handwriting is neat.

B．Let your pen follow the waves of thought.

C．The second draft of the essay should be better.

D．First of all, learn the technique of nonstop writing.

E．Too many writers try to get their drafts right the first time.

F．Many beginning writers don’t leave enough space to revise.

G．Then you can print out a fresh draft, again setting your text on triple-space.

9 . My life as a tax-paying employed person began in middle school, when, for three whole days, I worked in a baking factory.

My best friend Betsy’s father was a manager at Hough Bakeries, which, at Easter time, _________ little bunny (兔子) cakes for all its _________throughout Cleveland. It happened that the plant downtown needed eight kids for _________ help during our spring break, for which I had no_________ beyond listening to my favorite records. I’d _________ minimum wage. I’d see how a factory_________. My parents thought all of this was a grand idea and called Betsy’s dad with their _________.

Our_________in the factory were simple: Place cakes on a moving belt. Attach icing (糖霜) ears. Apply icing eyes and nose._________ bunny from the belt. This was ____________ than it sounds.____________ a bit and the cakes pile up. As I told my parents at dinner that first night, it was all a little more high-pressure than I’d   ____________ .

Dad __________. The son of a grocer, he’d spent the summers of his childhood____________ food in Benardsville, New Jersey. This was the sort of work that made you____________ the dollars you earned and respect those who did the work, he told me.

1.

A．sold

B．ordered

C．made

D．reserved

2.

A．stores

B．families

C．schools

D．citizens

3.

A．generous

B．financial

C．technical

D．temporary

4.

A．plans

B．problems

C．excuses

D．hobbies

5.

A．offer

B．earn

C．set

D．suggest

6.

A．worked

B．closed

C．developed

D．survived

7.

A．ambition

B．permission

C．experience

D．invitation

8.

A．joys

B．ideas

C．roles

D．choices

9.

A．Save

B．Keep

C．Stop

D．Remove

10.

A．harder

B．better

C．longer

D．cheaper

11.

A．Calm down

B．Slow down

C．Stay on

D．Move on

12.

A．indicated

B．witnessed

C．expected

D．remembered

13.

A．cried

B．smiled

C．hesitated

D．refused

14.

A．tasting

B．finding

C．sharing

D．delivering

15.

A．withdraw

B．donate

C．receive

D．appreciate

10 . As we age, even if we’re healthy, the heart just isn’t as efficient in processing oxygen as it used to be. In most people the first signs show up in their 50s or early 60s. And among people who don’t exercise, the changes can start even sooner.

“Think of a rubber band. In the beginning, it is flexible, but put it in a drawer for 20 years and it will become dry and easily broken,” says Dr. Ben Levine, a heart specialist at the University of Texas. That’s what happens to the heart. Fortunately for those in midlife, Levine is finding that even if you haven’t been an enthusiastic exerciser, getting in shape now may help improve your aging heart.

Levine and his research team selected volunteers aged between 45 and 64 who did not exercise much but were otherwise healthy. Participants were randomly divided into two groups. The first group participated in a program of nonaerobic (无氧) exercise—balance training and weight training—three times a week. The second group did high-intensity aerobic exercise under the guidance of a trainer for four or more days a week. After two years, the second group saw remarkable improvements in heart health.

“We took these 50-year-old hearts and turned the clock back to 30-or 35-year-old hearts,” says Levine. “And the reason they got so much stronger and fitter was that their hearts could now fill a lot better and pump (泵送) a lot more blood during exercise.” But the hearts of those who participated in less intense exercise didn’t change, he says.

“The sweet spot in life to start exercising, if you haven’t already, is in late middle age when the heart still has flexibility,” Levine says. “We put healthy 70-year-olds through a yearlong exercise training program, and nothing happened to them at all.”

Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association, says Levine’s findings are a great start. But the study was small and needs to be repeated with far larger groups of people to determine exactly which aspects of an exercise routine make the biggest difference.

1. What does Levine want to explain by mentioning the rubber band?

A．The right way of exercising.	B．The causes of a heart attack.
C．The difficulty of keeping fit.	D．The aging process of the heart.

2. In which aspect were the two groups different in terms of research design?

A．Diet plan.	B．Professional background.
C．Exercise type.	D．Previous physical condition.

3. What does Levine’s research find?

A．Middle-aged hearts get younger with aerobic exercise.

B．High-intensity exercise is more suitable for the young.

C．It is never too late for people to start taking exercise.

D．The more exercise we do, the stronger our hearts get.

4. What does Dr. Nieca Goldberg suggest?

A．Making use of the findings.	B．Interviewing the study participants.
C．Conducting further research.	D．Clarifying the purpose of the study.