2 . I’m a seventeen-year-old boy preparing for my A Level exams at the end of the year. In the society where my peers (同龄人) and I live, we tend to accept the rat race values. As students, we want to get good grades so that we can get good jobs. I enjoy studying and have consistently received A’s in my classes. There was a year when I finished first in my class in the final exams. It was a great accomplishment.
Another one I am pleased with is that I managed to improve the relationship between Mum and Dad. Dad was a successful businessman who was rarely at home. Mum was a housewife who always felt bored and constantly nagged (唠叨) him to let her go to work. Their constant arguing bothered me, so I advised Dad that Mum would be better off with a part-time job. He agreed, and their relationship has improved since then.
My most proud achievement, however, is my successful work in the local old folks’ home. My grandparents had raised me since I was a child. I wept (哭泣) bitterly when they died. Unlike many of my classmates, I do not take part in my school’s community service to earn points. I enjoy my voluntary work and believe I’m contributing to a worthwhile cause. This is where I can help. I talk to the elderly, assist them with their daily life, and listen to their problems, glory days and the hardships they experienced.
Last year, I hosted a successful New Year party for the elderly and they enjoyed a great time. Many expressed a desire to attend another party the following year. When I reflect on my accomplishments, I’m especially proud of my service at the old folks’ home, so I hope to study social work at university and work as a social worker in the future. I wish to be more skilled in attending to the less fortunate and find great satisfaction in it, after all.
1. What can be inferred about the author from the first paragraph?| A．He is content with his learning achievements. | B．His good grades got him a good job. |
| C．He refuses to compete with his peers fiercely. | D．His views on social values are well known. |
| A．A bystander (旁观者). | B．A judge. | C．A helper. | D．A destroyer. |
| A．The contribution to volunteering. | B．The success in exams. |
| C．The recovery of confidence in life. | D．The work in school’s service. |
| A．To gain a well-paid job. | B．To give his life a purpose. |
| C．To better help the disadvantaged. | D．To meet his grandparents’ expectations. |
3 . Finally came Wednesday! I walked onto campus feeling nervous even though I had walked on these same grounds for two years because my junior high school is next door. Everything looked and felt different now that I was in senior high.
I looked at my schedule. First period-German. Our German teacher was very friendly and I liked her from the beginning. What I didn’t like, though, was that I was surrounded by students from other grades, with only five familiar faces.
Then I had to walk all the way across campus and up three flights of stairs to get to my second period-biology. Our biology teacher is Ms Campeau, and I think that she will teach us a lot this year because she is very to the point. She also has her unique way of saying be quiet; she says“alligator”. She explained that she is the king, or should I say queen, of the class because alligators are the “king of the swamps (沼泽)”.
My third class was English. After surviving two periods without too much of a challenge, I began to feel good. However, the third period changed everything. Mr Valassidis, my English teacher, told us that we would have to write 40 essays (文章) and read AP-level books such as The 0dyssey this year. I love reading and writing, but 40ESSA YS?AP-level books? Now I was scared. He also talked about how important it was to be focused. Last year was not a very “focused” year for me. While doing homework, I was often talking on the phone, or busy with a conversation online. I planned on stepping it up this year because I wanted to stay an honours student.
1. What did the author mainly write about in this passage?| A．Her new teachers. |
| B．Her plan for the new year. |
| C．Her first day of senior high. |
| D．Her schedule for Wednesday. |
| A．Sit still. | B．Stop talking. |
| C．Look at the blackboard. | D．Listen carefully. |
| A．Unattractive. | B．Informative. |
| C．Very tiring. | D．Pretty easy. |
| A．She couldn’t focus on her work. |
| B．She found the class demanding. |
| C．She didn’t like the teacher. |
| D．She did poorly at school. |
注意：
1. 词数 80 词左右;
2. 可以适当增加细节，使行文连贯。
Dear Lori,
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
5 . I grew up with a four-year gap between myself and my younger brother. It was a distance (距离) in age to keep us close as we got older, but also an age gap to make sure we lived our own lives in completely different ways. Having a younger brother while I was a girl was a lot of work, for there was a lot of fighting.
However, as we’ve got older, we’ve become closer, and I’ve learned several things in life from my younger brother that I didn’t realize I needed before.
My younger brother is one of the most talented and creative souls (灵魂) I’ve known. He’s continually feeding his creativity with new art forms and new instruments. He always seeks to understand and learn more about the world around him. He’s helped remind me through his actions and words that giving up on creativity is something a person should never do.
My younger brother has also been through hard times, but he’s able to focus on learning from the hard times, unlike me, who tends to hold on to every little thing from my life. It’s always been difficult for me to let things go and move on, but my younger brother has been an inspiration (灵感来源) for me to try harder at letting go.
My younger brother has always been a more introverted type, and if you speak to him, you’re lucky to get over three words out of him at a time. Because of this, he’s certainly learned the whole “actions speak louder than words” thing. But, I’ve realized from my brother that I needn’t speak to fill the silence. Sometimes, it’s necessary to spend some of your time in silence and reflect in it.
1. What does the author think of growing up as the older sister?| A．Boring but warm. | B．Peaceful and easy. |
| C．Troubling but inspiring. | D．Enjoyable and exciting. |
| A．Trying to learn new instruments. |
| B．Focusing on little details of everything. |
| C．Moving on with the past kept in mind. |
| D．Keeping feeding her creativity. |
| A．They are talented. | B．They are quiet. |
| C．They are positive. | D．They are friendly. |
| A．It talks about the relationship between his brother and the author. |
| B．It introduces the great spirits of the author’s brother. |
| C．It is about lessons learned from the author’s brother. |
| D．Tell some advice provided by the author’s brother. |
6 . September usually marks the start of a new season—but what you call that season depends on where you are and whom you ask.
In the UK, people will tell you it’s “autumn”. However, cross the Atlantic and you'll find that people use both “fall” and “autumn” interchangeably (可互换地) when talking about this time of year. In the English language, the season has two widely accepted names. However, many people don’t understand why there are two words. Why does it have to be bewildering?
According to Dictionary. com, “fall” isn’t a modern nickname that followed the more traditional “autumn”. The two terms were actually first recorded within a few hundred years of each other.
Before either word appeared in the word list of English, the seasons separating the cold and warm months didn’t have common names. The main thing people did during the pre-winter period was collect crops, so it was called “harvest” in Old English.
Then, in the 1600s, more and more people left their farmland and moved into cities. Without farming, the term “harvest” became less useful to city dwellers (居民). Some English speakers needed another name for the season. They knew leaves fell from trees during that season, so people called the season “the fall of the leaf”, or “fall” for short. But at the end of the 1600s, “autumn”, from the French word “autompne” and the Latin “autumnus”, was introduced into England and overtook “fall” as the standard term for the harvesting season.
At the same time, British settlers were making their first long journey to North America. They brought the words “fall” and “autumn” with them. Today, using both words to describe the season is a uniquely American behavior.
1. What does the underlined word in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Confusing. | B．Interesting. | C．Shocking. | D．Inspiring. |
| A．To better describe crops. |
| B．To replace the term “harvest”. |
| C．To mark the move into cities. |
| D．To celebrate the harvesting season. |
| A．It is a French word. | B．It is preferred by farmers. |
| C．It means harvesting crops. | D．It appears later than “fall”. |
| A．Harvest and Weather | B．Fall and Autumn |
| C．The Season of September | D．The Origin of Autumn |
7 . A quick walk onto a frozen pond (池塘) could have been a disaster for these two boys.
Cruz Genet, 11, and Anthony Skopick, 10, couldn’t agree more. Were the birds out on the ice ducks or geese? There was only one way to find out. So on a cold January evening last year, the two friends walked onto the frozen pond near their homes to get a better look.
First, they threw a rock onto the ice to test it. Believing the ice would hold their weight, Anthony took a few steps, and then he crashed through the seemingly frozen surface. “There was no sound and no crack”, he told the reporter. “I just fell through immediately.”
Cruz rushed to help his frightened friend. And he fell in the pond, too. Cruz managed to lift himself out of the water and onto a harder part. He then carefully worked his way toward Anthony, but he fell in the pond again. This time, he couldn’t get out.
The two boys were in icy cold water and quickly losing feeling in their limbs (四肢). Cruz was sure that he was going to die.
Anthony’s older sister had seen the boys fall through the ice and started shouting for help. John Lavin, a neighbor driving nearby on his way to the store, heard her. He quickly pulled over. Seeing the boys, he took a nearby buoy (浮标), kicked off his shoes, and ran into the water. Lavin made his way to Cruz and Anthony and drew them back to land. They were taken to hospital, where doctors discovered that their five-minute stay in the water had lowered their body temperature nearly ten degrees.
Luckily, the boys have fully recovered, though they are still a little awestruck (敬畏的) by their fearless neighbor. “Just to think,” says Cruz, “if he hadn’t been there, I could have died.”
1. Why did the boys go to the frozen pond?| A．They had planned to go skating on the ice for a medal. |
| B．They wondered whether the ice could hold their weight. |
| C．They wanted to have a better understanding at the pond. |
| D．They were curious about what birds there were on the ice. |
| A．they threw a rock to test if the ice was strong enough |
| B．they caught a nearby buoy and kicked off their shoes |
| C．they asked their neighbor who should be the first to go |
| D．they asked Anthony’s older sister to protect them nearby |
| A．He went to find a buoy nearby. | B．He went to his neighbor for help. |
| C．He rushed in to help his friend. | D．He went to ask for his sister’s help. |
| A．A stranger passing by rescued the two boys at last. |
| B．The two boys were very thankful to their neighbor. |
| C．Cruz fell into the pond with Anthony at the same time. |
| D．Anthony’s older sister invited the two boys to the pond. |
