1 . One of my wonderful memories is about a Christmas gift. Unlike other gifts, it came without wrap (包装).

On September 11th, 1958, Mum gave birth to Richard. After she brought him home from hospital, she put him in my lap, saying, “I promised you a gift, and here it is.” What an honour! I turned four a month earlier and none of my friends had such a baby doll of their own. I played with it day and night. I sang to it. I told it stories. I told it over and over how much I loved it!

One morning, however, I found its bed empty. My doll was gone! I cried for it.Mum wept and told me that the poor little thing had been sent to a hospital. It had a fever. For several days, I heard Mum and Dad whispering such words as “hopeless”, “pitiful”, and “dying”, which sounded ominous.

Christmas was coming. “Don’t expect any presents this year,” Dad said, pointing at the socks I hung in the living room.“If your baby brother lives, that’ll be Christmas enough.” As he spoke, his eyes filled with tears. I’d never seen him cry before.

The phone rang early on Christmas morning. Dad jumped out of bed to answer it. From my bedroom I heard him say, “What? He’s all right?” He hung up and shouted upstairs. “The hospital said we can bring Richard home!”

“Thank God!” I heard Mum cry.

From the upstairs window, I watched my parents rush out to the car. I had never seen them so happy. And I was also full of joy. What a wonderful day! My baby doll would be home. I ran downstairs. My socks still hung there flat. But I knew they were not empty; they were filled with love!

1. What happened to the author on September 11th, 1958?

A．He got a baby brother.

B．He got a Christmas gift.

C．He became four years old.

D．He received a doll.

2. What does the underlined word “ominous” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Impossible.	B．Boring.
C．Difficult.	D．Fearful.

3. Which word can best describe the feeling of the father when Christmas was coming?

A．Excitement.	B．Happiness.
C．Sadness.	D．Disappointment.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．A sad Christmas day.

B．Life with a lovely baby.

C．A special Christmas gift.

D．Memories of a happy family.

2 . My mother is a diligent and kind woman. She is very busy from morning till night. As a teacher, she works hard.     1     Both my brother and I love her dearly as she loves us.

My mother has been teaching math at a middle school in my hometown. She goes to work early in the morning and does not return home until late in the afternoon.     2     She treats them with patience and teaches them well. For her excellent quality and very good teaching results, she has been elected as a model teacher several times.

    3     Every day, when she comes back home from work, she sets about doing housework, sweeping the living room and bedrooms or cleaning the furniture, and putting everything in good order. She seems to be busy all the time. As she has been very busy working every day, she looks older than her age. But she looks as cheerful and happy as ever. Mother never buys expensive dresses for herself, but she often buys some inexpensive but high-quality clothes for us.     4     She just eats a plain meal outside when she is too busy to cook herself. She lives a busy yet simple life, without any complaints.

Often, she says to us, “work while you work, and play while you play. That is the way to be happy and gay. If you do not work, you will become lazy and be of no use to society”. What a piece of good advice this is!     5     This advice of hers will always serve as a guide to my behavior. My mother is great indeed, and I always feel proud of her.

A．As a mother, she takes good care of us and gives us every comfort.

B．She enjoys listening to classic music.

C．She never goes to expensive restaurants to enjoy meals.

D．She loves her students and cares for them.

E．My mother is hard-working and never wastes money.

F．Can you tell us something about your mother?

G．I never forget it and always bear it in my mind.

3 . Decision-making under Stress
A new review based on a research shows that acute stress affects the way the brain considers the advantages and disadvantages, causing it to focus on pleasure and ignore the possible negative (负面的) consequences of a decision.
The research suggests that stress may change the way people make choices in predictable ways.
“Stress affects how people learn,” says Professor Mara Mather. “People learn better about positive than negative outcomes under stress.”
For example, two recent studies looked at how people learned to connect images(影像) with either rewards or punishments. In one experiment, some of the participants were first stressed by having to give a speech and do difficult math problems in front of an audience; in the other, some were stressed by having to keep their hands in ice water. In both cases, the stressed participants remembered the rewarded material more accurately and the punished material less accurately than those who hadn’t gone through the stress.
This phenomenon is likely not surprising to anyone who has tried to resist eating cookies or smoking a cigarette while under stress –at those moments, only the pleasure associated with such activities comes to mind. But the findings further suggest that stress may bring about a double effect. Not only are rewarding experiences remembered better, but negative consequences are also easily recalled.
The research also found that stress appears to affect decision-making differently in men and women. While both men and women tend to focus on rewards and less on consequences under stress, their responses to risk turn out to be different.
Men who had been stressed by the cold-water task tended to take more risks in the experiment while women responded in the opposite way. In stressful situations in which risk-taking can pay off big, men may tend to do better, when caution weighs more, however, women will win.
This tendency to slow down and become more cautious when decisions are risky might also help explain why women are less likely to become addicted than men: they may more often avoid making the risky choices that eventually harden into addiction.
1. We can learn from the passage that people under pressure tend to ______.

A．keep rewards better in their memory

B．recall consequences more effortlessly

C．make risky decisions more frequently

D．learn a subject more effectively

2. According to the research, stress affects people most probably in their ______.

A．ways of making choices	B．preference for pleasure
C．tolerance of punishments	D．responses to suggestions

3. The research has proved that in a stressful situation, ______.

A．women find it easier to fall into certain habits

B．men have a greater tendency to slow down

C．women focus more on outcomes

D．men are more likely to take risks

4 . 假如你是大学一年级新生李华。开学之初，你的英语老师Ms Li希望了解每位同学的英语学习情况，并征求教学建议。请按以下要点用英语给她写一封信。
1. 对英语学习的认识；
2. 自己目前的英语水平；
3. 自己英语学习存在的主要问题；
4. 对英语教学的两点建议。
注意：
1. 词数100左右；
2. 信的开头和结尾已给出。
Dear Ms Li,
I’m very happy to have you as our English teacher.                       
                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                             
Thank you!

Li Hua

5 . Speak confidently and think logically. Year 13 schoolboy Arunabh Prakash can't agree more. Anmabh is one of the five students that will represent New Zealand at the 26th World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC) to be held in Thailand from August 5 to l5 this year.
"You've got to be persuasive, regardless of the fact that you believe in a topic or not," says the 17-year-old.
"There are a lot of speakers who are eloquent (雄辩的) but find it difficult to think logically and then there are those who have a good argument but can't deliver."
Endurance (忍耐) is another quality he says one must have in the heated arena (赛场) of expressing opinions and ideas.
"There are times when you have to debate for five hours at a go and are completely exhausted. It's quite intense. You must have the energy to debate for long hours," says Arunabh, who began debating in year 10.
The WSDC is a debating competition in the world for high school students from different countries. It involves four prepared debates and four impromptu debates — debates without specific preparations.
To gain selection for the national team for the global final, Arunabh had to compete with regional teams. Despite the mounting pressure, he says he was confident of winning.
"We didn't loose a debate in the first two days. And we had a very strong team. We were confident of our ability to win," he says.
1. What can we know about Arunabh from the text?

A．He started debating at the age of ten.

B．He is on his country's national debating team.

C．He argues only on the topics that he believes in.

D．He is unsure of winning the debating competition.

2. According to Arunabh, what are important in debating?

A．Eloquence and logic thinking.	B．Confidence and dreams.
C．Endurance and experience.	D．Talent and teamwork.

3. The WSDC is a debating competition ______.

A．based in Thailand

B．for young New Zealanders

C．with prepared and unprepared debates

D．lasting for five days

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．The Skills of Debating

B．Growing from the Regional Team

C．Schoolboy to Compete on the International Stage

D．The 26th World Schools Debating Championships

6 . There's a great article in the New York Times this week about the tradition of buying a coffee for a stranger at the same time that you buy your own. They call it ______, the name for "suspended (暂留的) coffee" in its birthplace. In some cafes, folks in need may claim a suspended coffee and drink it without cost.
No doubt the free coffee will be welcomed by people who love coffee but for one reason or another don't have the money to buy one. But I also like the opportunity it offers customers to become philanthropists (慈善家). Every time they order a coffee, they can give one to somebody in need.
This is a tradition that began some 100 years ago in Naples, Italy. In Naples, as reported by the Times, people love this kind of giving:
"To me, the philosophy of the suspended coffee is that you are happy today, and you give a coffee to the world, as a present." — Luigi Solito
"It's a simple act of generosity: an act in which donors and recipients (接受者) never meet each other. The donor doesn't show off and the recipient doesn't have to show gratitude." —Laura Cozzolino
"Coffee consumptions started earlier than the unification (统一) of Italy by more than 200 years, so the traditions around it are very ancient. In Naples, coffee is a world in itself, both culturally and socially." — Andrea Illy
The practice of buying suspended coffees has grown in popularity — with websites popping up and hundreds of cafes from Canada to Brazil to Hungary to the US offering the service.
1. Who are suspended coffees intended for?

A．Cafe goers.

B．People who can't afford a coffee.

C．Philanthropists.

D．Coffee lovers who live in Naples.

2. How can someone get a suspended coffee?

A．He can ask for one in any cafe.

B．He can apply for one on websites.

C．He can buy one in a cafe offering the service.

D．He can drink one in a cafe that has prepaid coffees.

3. What does Laura Cozzolino think of buying suspended coffees?

A．She thinks it is a great way of charity.

B．She thinks it is a cheap gift to strangers.

C．She thinks it is an ancient Italian custom.

D．She thinks it is spreading widely in the world.

4. The underlined words in Paragraph 1 are words of ______.

A．French	B．Old English
C．Italian	D．American English

7 . If the hackings (黑客行为) taught us anything in 2014, it's actually nothing.
Password management firm SplashData released its list of the worst passwords of the year and it's just as terrible as you'd think. The most common leaked password in 2014 was "123456," followed by "password" — both topped the list the year before, too.
While numbers were as popular as ever as passwords, sports terms like “baseball" and "football" were used more often. Birthday years were common too (especially 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992) and names like "Michael", "Jennifer" and "Hunter" are also among the top 100 worst passwords of 2014.
Here's a look at the top 10 worst passwords of the year:
1. 123456 (Unchanged from 2013)     6. 234567890 (Unchanged)
2. password (Unchanged)        7. baseball (New)
3. 12345 (Up 17)            8. dragon (New)
4. 12345678 (Down 1)          9. football (New)
5. qwerty (Down 1)             10. monkey (New)
This year's worst passwords are painfully weak, but what were once considered clever password strategies — using symbols, capitalizations, the number 3 in place of the letter "e" — are old tricks.
It's now recommended to pick a different password for each account you use — you wouldn't use the same key in all of your locks, and the same goes for passwords.
Companies like Facebook, Twitter and Apple are now trying to make hacking more difficult on their services by offering two-factor authentication (认证), which is basically like double locking your door at night. Each time you want to log into (登录) that account, the company will send a code to your phone — it changes after each login attempt, so hackers would have to be in physical possession of your smartphone to know the code.
1. What can we learn from the text?

A．Hackers leaked many more passwords in 2014.

B．Symbols were among the top 10 worst passwords.

C．123456 was the most common leaked password in both 2013 and 2014.

D．People are getting more experienced in picking their passwords.

2. How many passwords were ranked lower on 2014's top 10 worst password list?

A．One.

B．Two.

C．Three.

D．Four.

3. What is recommended in the text to have safer passwords?

A．Using long and strange passwords.

B．Changing passwords regularly.

C．Replacing "e" by "3" when setting passwords.

D．Choosing different passwords for different accounts.

4. To fight against hacking, some companies ______.

A．don't accept weak passwords

B．double lock their doors at night

C．combine the password with a code to prove one's identity

D．prevent hackers from stealing customers' smartphones

8 . World Read Aloud Day is celebrated each year on the first Wednesday of March. It    1    (start) by the LitWorld.org website in 2010 and has now reached 65 countries.     2    aim is to encourage people worldwide who cannot read to enjoy the benefits of a book. The website asks everyone    3    (celebrate) the day by taking a book, finding an audience, and reading out aloud. It is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write    4    (belong) to all people.

The website asks    5     (visit) to join in the movement to reduce    6    number of illiterate (不识字的) people in the world. It is    7    (absolute) necessary to help those who cannot read. The website says, “It’s time to start by reading aloud to     8    might like it. Share a book with a child who might need. Share a story with someone who would treasure it. Listen patiently to someone else’s story as they share with you.” The United Nations says, “Literacy involves a variety of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge,     9    to participate fully in society.” In that way, World Read Aloud Day     10     help make a difference.

9 . “Have a nice day!” may be a pleasant gesture or a meaningless. When my friend Maxie says “Have a nice day” with a smile, I know she sincerely cares about what happens to me. I feel loved and secure since another person cares about me and wishes me well.
“Have a nice day. Next!” This version of the expression is spoken by a salesgirl at the supermarket who is rushing me and my groceries out the door. The words come out in the same tone (腔调) with a fixed procedure. They are spoken at me, not to me. Obviously, the concern for my day and everyone else’s is the management’s attempt to increase business.
The expression is one of those behaviors that help people get along with each other. Sometimes it indicates the end of a meeting. As soon as you hear it, you know the meeting is at an end. Sometimes the expression saves us when we don’t know what to say “oh, you may have a tooth out? I’m terribly sorry, but have a nice day.”
The expression can be pleasant. If a stranger says “Have a nice day” to you, you may find it heart-warming because someone you don’t know has tried to be nice to you.
Although the use of the expression is an insincere, meaningless social custom at times, there is nothing wrong with the sentence except that it is a little uninteresting. The salesgirl, the waitress, the teacher, and all the countless others who speak it without thinking may not really care about my day. But in a strange and comfortable way, it’s nice to know they care enough to pretend they care when they really don’t care all that much. While the expression may not often be sincere, it is always spoken. The point is that people say it all the time when they like.
1. How does the author understand Maxie’s words?

A．Maxie shows her anxiety to the author.

B．Maxie really wishes the author a good day.

C．Maxie encourages the author to stay happy.

D．Maxie really worries about the author’s security.

2. By saying “Have a nice day,” a stranger may _____.

A．try to be polite to you

B．express respect to you

C．give his blessing to you

D．share his pleasure with you

3. According to the last paragraph, people say “Have a nice day”_______.

A．sincerely	B．as thanks
C．as a habit	D．encouragingly

4. What is the best title of the passage?

A．Have a Nice Day—a Social Custom.

B．Have a Nice Day—a Pleasant Gesture.

C．Have a Nice Day—a Heart-warming Greeting.

D．Have a Nice Day—a Polite Ending of a Conversation.

10 . Once there lived a rich man     1      wanted to do something for the people of his town. But first he wanted to find out whether they deserved     2     (he) help.

In the centre of the main road into the town, he placed     3      very large stone. Then he     4     (hide) behind a tree and waited. Soon an old man came along with his cow.

“Who put this stone in the centre of the road?” said the old man,    5     he did not try to remove the stone. Instead, with some difficulty he passed around the stone and continued on his way.    6      man came along and did the same thing; then another came, and another. All of them complained about the stone but not tried to remove    7    . Late in the afternoon a young man came along. He saw the stone, saying to himself, “The night     8     (be) very dark. Some neighbors will come along later in the dark and will fall against the stone.” Then he began to move the stone. He pushed and pulled with all his strength     9     (move) it. How great was his surprise at last!     10      the stone, he found a bag of money.