6 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word. For the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

“Melting pot” means a place where people from many different ethnic groups or cultures form a united society. The idea comes from     1     (heat) metals in a container. When they melt, the metals unite and become       2     new and stronger. This term has been used to describe the United States as a nation created from people who came here from many different countries.

A Frenchman who was living in America expressed the idea more than 200 years ago. J. Hector de Crevecoeur     3     (publish) a book called Letters From an American Farmer in 1782. He wrote that America had people from many different countries. He said that they would become a new people     4     work would one day change the world.

For many years, Americans generally accept the idea     5     their country is a melting pot. They welcome immigrants from many nations. Yet some of those immigrants criticize the melting pot idea. They feel they are forced to lose their culture and language     6     (accept) in America. Other people also criticize the idea. They say the aim of the melting pot is to make different cultures disappear into the one     7     (represent) the largest group.

New groups of immigrants from Asia and Latin America are changing the United States today. Some are resisting learning American culture and language. Reports say some Americans fear that the nation is separating into many groups that have no     8     (share) purpose. Others say the melting pot is no longer changing the nation’s immigrants, but the immigrants are changing America.

Some experts who study immigration say they now compare American society     9     a salad bowl. A salad is made of many different foods. They each keep their own taste     10    being part of a successful product. In this way, cultural groups keep their customs and language and are still part of American society.

7 . Recitation

In western cultures,     1     eye contact in conversation is necessary. As a matter of fact, a westerner might consider a lack of eye contact as a lack of interest. In Spain, Italy and Greece, where people stand close together talking to each other, eye contact is more frequent and lasts longer.

In many Asian cultures, people avoid eye contact to show respect. It is done when talking with anyone in     2     or with anyone older.

Habits like this can cause problems when people do not understand them. For example, an Asian person might close his or her eyes in     3     or look down while listening to a speaker. A Western speaker might thing the person is not interested.

Eye contact is a     4     thing. A lack of eye contact may be considered impolite. But if you stare at others, it is also considered rude and should be avoided.

8 . Directions：Fill in the blanks according to the text. One word for each blank only.

Furthermore, the work flow was     1    . There was one especially absent-minded young man in the assembly line who     2         3     buttons. After a while I recognized him as“Big Jim”who used to sit behind me in math class in high school. He was very slow and all the shirts were held up at his position. Workers     4     him in line on his shift had to wait with nothing to do; therefore a great deal of time and efficiency were lost as Big Jim daydreamed while he worked. All week I wondered why he wasn’t fired.

9 . Directions：Fill in the blanks according to the text. One word for each blank only.

A different form of reading might also be done,     1         2         3     in the past: reading aloud. Few     4     bring a family closer together than gathering around and listening to mother or father read a good story. The quiet hour could become the story hour. When the quiet hour ends, the TV networks might even be forced to come up with better shows in order to     5         6         7     from our newly discovered activities.

10 . Directions：Read the following passage and fill in the blanks to complete the summary. No more than eight words for each blank.

The school that is changing American education

Two years ago, I visited a school in Brooklyn called P-TECH, the Pathways in Technology early college high school, which seemed very much like the future of education to me. It knitted together educators and job creators, giving kids not only a high school degree, but a two-year associate degree and a job guarantee at one of the country’s top blue-chip firms, IBM.

The latest great national leap forward in secondary education was during the post W.W. Ⅱ period, when state governments decided that high school education, previously optional, should be compulsory in order to ensure the kind of skilled workforce needed to compete in a new, higher tech industrial era. Now, many leaders---including the President, the education Secretary, scores of blue-chip CEOs and executives, and most top educators---believe we’re once again at such a turning point. When it comes to high school, an increasing number of them buy into the idea that not only should educators and job creators b e much more closely connected, but that as Stanley Litow, the IBM executive behind the program puts it,“six should be the new four.”The push for all American kids to have a post high school future, like Tennessee governor Haslam’s recent calls for two years of free community college for every student in the state, seems to come almost daily.

The statistics support it. A Four-year high school degree these days only guarantees a $15 an hour future. According to projections by the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, the U.S. economy will create some 47-million job openings in the decade ending 2018, but nearly two-thirds will require some post secondary education. The Center projects that only 36% of American jobs will be filled by people with only a 4-year high school degree---half of what that number was in the 1970s. What’s more, the cost of not trading up educationally could be disastrous---workers with an associate degree will earn 73% more than those with only a high school diploma.

Many leaders maintain that children should     1     and that high schools should     2    . The idea is based on     3    . On one hand, more jobs will require     4    . On the other, an associate degree will ensure     5    .