1 . What are some of the essential qualities of adventurers and explorers? Read the text describing one of the greatest explorers of nature and his adventures to find out the answer.

ENDURANCE

THE STORY OF ERNEST SHACKLETON, HERO OF THE ANTARCTIC

The story began in 1914, with an advertisement in a British newspaper: “Men wanted for a hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful.”

The man who had placed the advertisement was the explorer, Ernest Shackleton. He planned to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea via the South Pole, something no one had ever done before. More than 5,000 men applied to join the expedition. Only twenty-eight were chosen.

Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, left England on 8 August 1914 and it reached the Weddell Sea in December, the Antarctic summer. But the weather was exceptionally bad and on 17 January 1915, the Endurance got stuck in ice. Unable to move, Shackleton and his men had to wait for eight months in complete darkness and freezing cold.

Finally spring came, but it brought disaster. As the ice melted, the ship broke in half. The crew had to abandon ship and camp on the ice for two months. When the Endurance finally sank on 21 November 1915, Shackleton and his men tried to survive by floating on the ice. Eventually the ice melted and Shackleton put his men into three small lifeboats and headed for the nearest land.

After five days at sea, they reached Elephant Island. The men were cold, exhausted, and weak from the journey and the lack of food. There was no chance of rescue in this remote place, so Shackleton decided to continue to South Georgia. He knew there was a Norwegian whaling station there, where he could get help, but it was a journey of 1,300 kilometres. Leaving the others on Elephant Island, Shackleton chose five men to accompany him to South Georgia in a tiny, seven-metre-long lifeboat.

After fifteen exhausting days with winds of sixty kilometres an hour and waves of up to fifteen metres high, they arrived in South Georgia. The weather was so bad that they couldn’t land for two days. Even when they landed, their journey wasn’t over. The whaling station was sixty kilometers away on the other side of the mountainous island. No one had ever crossed South Georgia on foot before.

The men marched continuously for 36 hours. They had no tent and could not stop to rest for more than a few minutes—if they fell asleep they would die of the cold. Starved and frozen, they finally reached the station.

On 30 August 1916, two years after the expedition began, they returned to Elephant Island in a small boat provided by the Chilean government. The other twenty-three men were still waiting. Miraculously, not one person had died.

Shackleton even returned to Antarctica. In 1921, he set out again to sail round the continent, but died during the journey in 1922. He was buried in South Georgia, remembered by history as a man who showed exceptional leadership and unbelievable endurance.

·Personal Touch
1. If you had the opportunity, would you try an expedition like the one led by Ernest Shackleton? Why or why not?
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Digging In
·Comprehension
Answer the questions.
2. Who was Ernest Shackleton?
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3. Why did Shackleton and his men have to wait for eight months in 1915?
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4. How long did it take Shackleton and his men to finish the expedition?
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5. How many people died during the expedition?
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6. Fill in the blanks in the table.

Qualities of Ernest Shackleton	Facts
A persistent explorer	•It took Shackleton and his men about four months to reach the Weddell Sea. •They got stuck in ice and waited for about ______ months. •They abandoned ship and camped ______ for two months. •It took them five days to reach Elephant Island. •It took them ______ to reach South Georgia. •They marched continuously for ______ to reach the whaling station.
A(n) ______ leader	•Shackleton found no chance of ______ and decided to continue to South Georgia. •He knew it was a journey of ______. •He chose five men to ______ him and left the others on Elephant Island.
A trustworthy man	•When Shackleton returned with his men in a boat provided by the Chilean government, the other twenty-three men were still waiting on Elephant Island.

Answer the questions.
7. Why is Shackleton looked up to as a hero despite his failure to reach the South Pole?
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8. Which proverb(s) below can be used to describe Shackleton’s adventures? Why?
A. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
B. Better safe than sorry.
C. The early bird catches the worm.
D. Don’t cry over spilled milk.
E. No pain, no gain.
F. Actions speak louder than words.

3 . 【课文原文】

We Regret to Inform You...

“We regret to inform you...” These are the words that every writer dreads receiving, but words every writer knows well. The response from a publisher comes back and the writer eagerly opens and reads it, their hearts sinking when they reach that final sentence. You may have spent years giving up your weekends and free time to write your life’s work, yet still this is often not enough. Everyone knows that success rarely happens overnight, but perhaps not many know that a lot of highly successful writers have previously faced rejection.

Take for example J. K. Rowling. When she received her first rejection letter, she decided that it meant she now had something in common with her favourite writers, and stuck it on her kitchen wall. Rowling had spent years surviving on little money, spending all her time writing. When she finally finished her first book, she received comments from publishers along the lines of “too difficult for children”, “too long”, “Children would not be interested in it”．Nevertheless, she persevered. “I wasn’t going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen,” she later posted. After a total of twelve rejections, one publisher eventually agreed to print 500 copies of her first book, and as we know, Harry Potter became a global success, with over 400 million books sold and translated into more than seventy different languages.

All too often writers of great works have had to face criticism along with rejection. J. D. Salinger started writing short stories in high school, but later struggled to get his works published. “We feel that we don't know the central character well enough” was the criticism he received on his manuscript for The Catcher in the Rye. Despite rejections from several publishers, J. D. Salinger refused to give up. Even when serving in the US Army during the Second World War, he carried six chapters of The Catcher in the Rye with him and worked on the novel throughout his war service. When it was eventually published, the book became an immediate best­seller and went on to sell millions and millions of copies.

Perhaps the overall prize for perseverance should go to three sisters from Victorian England who dreamt of seeing their words in print. This, however, was a time when women were not encouraged to become writers. As the then Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, wrote to one of them：“Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be.” Nevertheless, the sisters didn’t stop trying. Their response was to write a book of poems under male names. Even when the book sold only two copies, the sisters still didn’t give up. They started writing novels, and today Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey are regarded as classics of world literature. In fact, it is within the pages of Jane Eyre that we can find these words：“I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends...”

So, it seems that talent alone isn’t enough to guarantee success. While a lot of hard work and a touch of luck play a part, perseverance is the key. Keep trying and eventually you will read the words “We are delighted to inform you...”

1. What’s mainly talked about in the passage?

A．Many famous writers have many regrets.	B．Success depends on talent.
C．Perseverance is the key to success.	D．Many famous writers have been treated unfairly.

2. What’s the author’s intention by writing the last sentence in the first paragraph?

A．To advise us to be patient.	B．To show the writer’s attitude towards success.
C．To introduce the following content.	D．To show the key to success.

3. What can we conclude about J. K. Rowling from the second paragraph?

A．She knew many famous writers had previously faced rejections.

B．She got frustrated by the first rejection letter and gave up.

C．Her first book of Harry Potter was published at her first attempt.

D．She revised her first book following the advice of publishers.

4. What is special about J. D. Salinger from other writers mentioned in this text?

A．He had faced many rejections before his novel was published.

B．He once wanted to give up trying but later changed his mind.

C．He worked on his novel when serving in the army.

D．His novel was not popular when it was first published.

5. Which of the following can best describe the three Brontё sisters?

A．Intelligent and considerate.	B．Talented and strong­minded.
C．Gentle and generous.	D．Wise and ambitious.

6. 细读课文并找出人物描写的句子
__________________________________________________________________________
7. 细读课文并找出心理描写的句子
(1)________________________________________________________________________
(2)______________________________________________________________________

5 . 1.选出黑体部分发音与其他三项不同的单词1.

A．refer

B．factor

C．carve

D．variety

2.

A．native

B．attitude

C．gas

D．character

3.

A．major

B．bought

C．talk

D．law

4.

A．subway

B．tongue

C．struggle

D．regard

5.

A．point

B．Christmas

C．dialect

D．apartment

6 . 课文语法填空

The Secrets of Your Memory

1 Why can I remember events in my childhood but not what happened last week?

We remember things     1     have strong connections in our mind,     2     (especial) emotional connections. Childhood memories are often very     3     (emotion). This is    4     when we experience things for the first time, we often have strong feelings of fear or    5     (excite). Also, interesting or funny stories from our childhood are often told again and again. As a result, we remember them much better, as     6     (retell) events helps fix experiences in our memories. What can we learn from all this? When     7     (remember) something new, try to connect it to our emotions. It is important    8     (connect) it with what we already know. Also, we can try to retell     9     we have learnt to a few others.

2 Do some people really have a photographic memory?

A person    10     a photographic memory could remember every detail of a picture, a book or an event many years later,     11     no one has proved that there are people who really have photographic memories. Yet, there are some people who do have     12     (amaze) memories. For example, Daniel Tammet can remember the first 22,514 digits of pi (π) and Stephen Wiltshire can draw a     13     (detail) picture of a city from memory after flying    14     it in a helicopter. They are both good at     15     (remember) particular things for a limited time. As most of us do not have amazing memories like them, when memorising detailed learning materials, we     16     (simple) need to focus on the important ideas and be curious    17     what we learn.     18     (ask) questions about what we learn also helps with memorisation. Another     19     (effect) technique to remember things is to group similar ideas or information together so that they can be easily     20     (connect) to things that are already known.

3 Why do I forget the new words that I     21     (learn) yesterday?

Don’t worry. This is natural for many people. In1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus published a book    22     (call) Memory and presented a famous forgetting curve. According to him, the     23     (sharp) loss of memory occurs during the very early period after learning. This means timely review during this period, with a few revisits to what is learnt, can     24     (significant) help us to remember the information. Therefore, one of the golden     25     (rule) to increase how much we remember is to review the material periodically, especially during the first day after learning. This “spaced review” soon after learning helps build stronger memories and it is     26     (effective) than waiting to review everything before exams.

4 I’m 16, but I sometimes forget things. Is my memory getting worse?

    27     (definite) not. Our memory reaches     28     (it) full power at the age of 25. At that point, we can remember up to 200 pieces of information     29     a second. After this age, however, the brain starts to get smaller. By the age of 40, we lose 10,000 brain cells every day. By middle age, our memory is significantly     30     (bad) than when we were young. So take it easy. You are at a good age     31     terms of your memory. Make good use     32     it!

7 . 选择正确选项填入空白处，补全所给句子提供的信息。

A．that bad air caused the disease B．how it could be overcome C．how cholera spread D．that the water from the Broad Street pump had been infected E．that the pump water carried cholera germs F．that the water pump was to blame

1. Cholera used to be one of the most feared diseases in the world, until a British doctor, John Snow, showed________.
2. In general, doctors in those days had two contradictory theories to explain________.
3. One theory was ________.
4. Snow suspected ________.
5. As a result of this evidence, John Snow was able to announce________.
6. The truth was ________ by waste.