1 . 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
3 . 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. |
4 . 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 |
