A MOTHER’S DAY SURPRISE
The twins were filled with excitement as they thought of the surprise they were planning for Mother’s Day. How pleased and proud Mother would be when they brought her breakfast in bed. They planned to make French toast and chicken porridge. They had watched their mother in the kitchen. There was nothing to it. Jenna and Jeff knew exactly what to do.
The big day came at last. The alarm rang at 6 a.m. The pair went down the stairs quietly to the kitchen. They decided to boil the porridge first. They put some rice into a pot of water and left it to boil while they made the French toast. Jeff broke two eggs into a plate and added in some milk. Jenna found the bread and put two slices into the egg mixture. Next, Jeff turned on the second stove burner to heat up the frying pan. Everything was going smoothly until Jeff started frying the bread. The pan was too hot and the bread turned black within seconds. Jenna threw the burnt piece into the sink and put in the other slice of bread. This time, she turned down the fire so it cooked nicely.
Then Jeff noticed steam shooting out of the pot and the lid starting to shake. The next minute, the porridge boiled over and put out the fire. Jenna panicked. Thankfully, Jeff stayed calm and turned off the gas quickly. But the stove was a mess now. Jenna told Jeff to clean it up so they could continue to cook the rest of the porridge. But Jeff’s hand touched the hot burner and he gave a cry of pain. Jenna made him put his hand in cold water. Then she caught the smell of burning. Oh dear! The piece of bread in the pan had turned black as well.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右。2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
As the twins looked around them in disappointment, their father appeared.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The twins carried the breakfast upstairs and woke their mother up.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________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 HostelIf 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 PalaceIf 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 HostelIf 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 ArtistesHotel 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. |
| A．Yellow Hostel. | B．Hostel Alessandro Palace. |
| C．Youth Station Hostel. | D．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 . 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. |
| A．Boring. | B．Well-paid. |
| C．Demanding. | D．Dangerous. |
| A．Counting the pages. | B．Recognizing the “nodding”. |
| C．Catching falling objects. | D．Performing in his own style. |
| 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. |
The Xi’an City Wall is the most complete city wall that has survived China’s long history. It
We accessed the wall through the South Gate. The wall is 12 meters high and from here you can see streams of people moving inside and outside the City Wall.
After
We
5 . According to Jessica Hagy, author of How to Be Interesting, it’s not difficult to make yourself interesting at a dinner party.
People love to talk about themselves. If you can start the conversation with a question other than “What do you do for a living?”, you’ll be able to get a lot more interesting conversation out of whomever it is you’re talking to.
And what about that other dinner-party killer: awkward silence? If you’re faced with an awkward silence at a dinner party, the only thing that always gets everyone talking again is to give the host a compliment (赞扬).
So being interesting at a dinner party isn’t that hard.
| A．How do you know the host |
| B．The first step is to go exploring |
| C．If you ask the question “How did you get here?” |
| D．Be prepared to have awkward conversations with strangers |
| E．Or turn the conversation into a topic where they have little to say |
| F．What about that person who had too much to drink or won’t stop talking |
| G．He or she is the person who is feeling the weight of that awkwardness the most |
6 . We live in a town with three beaches. There are two parts less than 10 minutes’ walk from home where neighborhood children gather to play. However, what my children want to do after school is pick up a screen — any screen — and stare at it for hours. They are not alone. Today’s children spend an average of four and a half hours a day looking at screens, split between watching television and using the Internet.
In the past few years, an increasing number of people and organisations have begun coming up with plans to counter this trend. A couple of years ago film-maker David Bond realised that his children, then aged five and three, were attached to screens to the point where he was able to say “chocolate” into his three-year-old son’s ear without getting a response. He realised that something needed to change, and, being a London media type, appointed himself “marketing director from Nature”. He documented his journey as he set about treating nature as a brand to be marketed to young people. The result was Project Wild Thing, a film which charts the birth of the World Network, a group of organisations with the common goal of getting children out into nature.
“Just five more minutes outdoors can make a difference,” David Bond says. “There is a lot of really interesting evidence which seems to be suggesting that if children are inspired up to the age of seven, then being outdoors will be on habit for life.” His own children have got into the habit of playing outside now: “We just send them out into the garden and tell them not to come back in for a while.”
Summer is upon us. There is an amazing world out there, and it needs our children as much as they need it. Let us get them out and let them play.
1. What is the problem with the author’s children?| A．They often annoy their neighbours. | B．They are tired of doing their homework. |
| C．They have no friends to play with | D．They stay in front of screens for too long. |
| A．By making a documentary film. | B．By organizing outdoor activities. |
| C．By advertising in London media. | D．By creating a network of friends. |
| A．records | B．predicts | C．delays | D．confirms |
| A．Let Children Have Fun | B．Young Children Need More Free Time |
| C．Market Nature to Children | D．David Bond: A Role Model for Children |
7 . “Can you say mama? Or dada?” If you’ve spent any time around a baby, chances are you’ve heard or said things like these.
Baby talk is an important piece of speech and language development. Studies show that when babies are exposed to such talk every day throughout their first year of life, they develop stronger vocabularies than other kids. And the little ones are eager for it.
Child-directed speech wasn’t always valued. Before the middle of the 20th century, researchers largely ignored it as a subject of study. Until the early 1990s, many developmental psychologists and linguists believed that without any help, we would learn how to speak and form complete sentences by ourselves.
But over the past few decades, numerous studies have found that throughout their first year of life, when babies are regularly exposed to such talk in addition to normal speech, they process, learn, and remember words presented to them in singsong tones (语调) better. One reason may have to do with how babies interact with the world.
| A．Baby talk tends to be spoken at a slower rate. |
| B．Humans aren’t the only ones that use baby talk. |
| C．They tend to ignore adult conversations and other background noises. |
| D．Luckily, parents can be taught methods to improve their parentese skills. |
| E．Some doctors even advised parents to avoid using baby talk, thinking it too silly. |
| F．The distinct tone of parentese catches their attention, allowing them to benefit from it. |
| G．The singsong tone we switch to when interacting with young children can have many names. |
Emily sighed for many times. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake off her disappointment. She and her best friend, Zatanna, had been planning a shopping day for weeks. They had been so busy for their final exams that they barely had time to text each other. Emily looked at her empty desk and was reminded of how she had exhausted herself to the breaking point to get ahead in her class, so that she could spend the whole day with Zatanna. It seemed as if their time together wasn’t as important to Zatanna considering the fact that she had called her a few minutes ago to tell her that she wouldn’t be able to keep her promise. Obviously, her other friends dragged her awayfor a weekend.
Emily tried to take a deep breath even though there was an invisible heavy weight around her heart. She hated to act like someone who was eager for attention, so she just laughed off their plans in front of Zatanna and made a half-hearted attempt to reschedule them. She sat down heavily in her chair and opened her books. “Might as well get some studying done,” she thought.
For the next couple of days, she didn’t get any texts or calls from Zatanna. Her calls went straight to voicemail and her texts were unread. She started to get worried. Zatanna never ignored her calls, Even if she was busy, she still responded, though a bit hastily (草率地). Emily didn’t think much of this and reasoned that she must have been busy with her new friends.
After a few more days of no contact with Zatanna, she felt anxious and thought of the worst-case scenario. She shook her head as if she could physically let those dark thoughts go. “I’ll visit her professor,” she thought with a determined shake of her head.
Paragraph 1:
She knew from a professor that Zatanna worked part time in the cafe on the other side of campus. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2:
Zatanna looked up, and her eyes widened.
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9 . Open an app at your smart phone and scan the code bar on the garbage can. When you throw garbage into the garbage can, it will show the weight of the garbage and the points you can get from doing so.
In some cities, a variety of multifunctional smart garbage cans are being put into use. In Beijing, for example, a smart garbage can is equipped with an LED screen, which not only shows national policies on garbage classification but also shows the correct steps for garbage sorting. It can also calculate the weight of the garbage and the accumulated points one can get. They can be traded for some articles of daily use.
Garbage disposal is a small issue that involves everybody each day. However, it is also a big issue.
| A．Garbage sorting has been a new fashion. |
| B．Another kind of garbage can is even smarter. |
| C．It is no wonder that residents cheered for their presence. |
| D．Such a way of handling garbage has appeared in some cities. |
| E．It will affect China’s transformation towards green development. |
| F．Over 200 million tons of garbage is produced each year in some cities. |
| G．The good habit of garbage classification can improve the living environment. |
10 . Why make a film about Ned Kelly? More ingenious crime than those committed by the reckless Australian bandit are reported every day. What is there in Ned Kelly to justify dragging the mesmeric Mick Jagger so far into the Australian bush and away from his natural haunts? The answer is that the film makers know we always fall for a bandit, and Jagger is set to do for bold Ned Kelly what Brando once did for the arrogant Emiliano Zapata.
The bandit inhabits a special realm of legend where his deeds are embroidered by others; where his death rather than his life is considered beyond belief; where the men who bring him to“justice” are afflicted with doubts about their role.
The bandits had a role to play as definite as that of the authorities who condemned them. These were men in conflict with authority, and, in the absence of strong law or the idea of loyal opposition, they took to the hills. Even there, however, many of them obeyed certain unwritten rules.
There robbers, who claimed to be something more than mere thieves, had in common, firstly, a sense of loyalty and identity with the peasants they came from. They didn’t steal the peasant’s harvest; they did steal the lord’s.
And certain characteristics seem to apply to “social bandits” whether they were in Sicily or Peru. They were generally young men under the age of marriage, predictably the best age for dissidence. Some were simply the surplus male population who had to look for another source of income; others were runway serfs or ex-soldiers; a minority, though the most interesting, were outstanding men who were unwilling to accept the meek and passive role of peasant.
They usually operated in bands between ten and twenty strong and relied for survival on difficult terrain and bad transport. And bandits proposed best where authority was merely local —over the next hill and they were free. Unlike the general run of peasantry they had a taste for flamboyant dress and gesture; but they usually shared the peasants’ religious beliefs and superstitions.
The first sign of a man caught up in the Robin Hood syndrome was when he started out, forced into outlawry as a victim of injustice; and when he then set out to “right wrongs”, first his own and then other people’s. The classic bandit then “take from the rich and gives to the poor” in conformity with his own sense of social justice; he never kills except in self-defense or justifiable place; his people admire and help to protect him; he dies through the treason of one of them; he behaves as of invisible and invulnerable; he is a “loyalist”, never the enemy of the king but only of the local oppressors.
None of the bandits lived up fully to this image of the “noble robber” and for many the claim of larger motives was often a delusion.
Yet amazingly, many of these violent men did behave at least half the time in accordance with this idealist pattern. Pancho Villa in Mexico and Salvatore Giuliano in Italy began their careers harshly victimized. Many of their charitable acts later became legends.
The bandit in the real world is rooted in peasant society and when its simple agricultural system is left behind so is he. But the tales and legends, the books and films continue to appear for an audience that is neither peasant nor bandit. In some ways the characters and deeds of the great bandits could so readily be the stuff of grand opera — Don Jose on “Carmen” is based on the Andalusian bandit El Empranillo. But they are perhaps more at home in folk songs, in popular tales and the ritual dramas of films. When we sit in the darkness of the cinema to watch the bold deeds of Ned Kelly we are caught up in admiration for their strong individuality, their simple gesture of protest, their passion for justice and their confidence that they cannot be beaten. This sustains us nearly as much as it did the almost hopeless people from whom they sprang.
1. Which of the following words is NOT intended to suggest approval of bandits?| A．Bold (Para. 1). |
| B．Claimed (Para. 4). |
| C．Legend (Para. 2). |
| D．Loyalty (Para. 4). |
| A．They liked theatrical clothes and behavior. |
| B．They wanted to help the poor country folk. |
| C．They were unwilling to accept injustice. |
| D．They had very few careers open to them. |
| A．had received excessive ill-treatment |
| B．were severely punished for their crimes |
| C．took to violence through a sense of injustice |
| D．were misunderstood by their parents and friends |
| A．are sure they are invincible |
| B．possess a theatrical quality |
| C．retain the virtues of a peasant society |
| D．protest against injustice and inequality |
