1 . In 1990, Hal Donaldson was 23 years old, fresh out of college and found himself in Calcutta, India, where he was asked to interview Mother Teresa.

Donaldson says about the great woman famed for feeding the hungry, “She wasn’t wearing shoes and her ankles were swollen. She sat down with me and was very polite.” After the interview, Mother Teresa asked him, “What are you doing to help the poor?” Donaldson admitted that he was young and wasn’t focused on helping others. With a smile on her face, Mother Teresa said, “Everyone can do something.”

Those words deeply struck Donaldson and forced him to face hard truths about himself.

Hal Donaldson grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. When he was 12 years old, his parents were hit by a drunk driver; his father died, and his mother was seriously injured. To make ends meet, they went on welfare. Donaldson says, “I had holes in my shoes and clothes. When you’re teased at school for that, you just want to escape.”

He managed to do just that. Donaldson got into college and turned his focus to making money for himself. He says, “I was just trying to find my way out of insignificance.” However, it’s easy to overlook others along the way. I was the guy that would see a homeless person and cross the street, so I didn’t have to confront (面对) him. My focus was on climbing to the top instead of helping those trying to climb with me.

Donaldson returned home from India with a different thought. He traveled to eight cities in America and stayed on the streets and listened to stories of the homeless. “My heart broke,” he says. “I knew I could no longer just live for myself.”

Inspired by Mother Teresa’s words and the stories he’d heard across America, Donaldson loaded a pick up truck with $300 worth of groceries and handed them out to anyone who needed help. In 1994, Donaldson created the nonprofit organization, Convoy for Hope, which works with communities across America and around the world. Their work focuses on feeding children, women’s empowerment, helping farmers and disaster services.

1. What did 23-year-old Hal Donaldson do in India?

A．He interviewed Mother Teresa.

B．He fed the hungry with Mother Teresa.

C．He attended an job-interview for a college.

D．He did something to help the poor.

2. What can we learn about Hal Donaldson from paragraph 4?

A．He was born with disability.	B．He led a hard life as a child.
C．He was well treated at school.	D．He survived as an orphan.

3. How does Hal Donaldson describe himself in college?

A．Self-centered

B．Sympathetic

C．Popular

D．Generous

4. How did Hal Donaldson change after he returned home from India?

A．He preferred traveling to volunteering.

B．He suddenly fell in love with journalism.

C．He turned his focus to living for himself.

D．He gradually devoted himself to helping others.

2 . How to Be Creative

Most of us think that creativity is a quality (品质) belonging only to artists, writers, or dancers, rather than ourselves.     1     The following tips are a great beginning for developing our creativity.

Get out of your comfort zone

We eagerly accept the familiar and fear the unknown. Break out of your usual patterns and welcome creativity into your life. As said earlier, the human brain was designed to recognize patterns.     2     In fact, our comfort zone is nothing more than a collection of patterns. As we become more efficient at recognizing and using patterns, we rely less on creativity to find new paths. We should force ourselves out of our comfort zones and open up new possibilities.

Try different things

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. We are creatures of habits and routines, and creativity hates routines (常规). If you usually drive to work, take the subway for a few days.     3       Break your routine, experiment and try something new. New things are often creative, but the same old thing never is.

    4    

Having a great idea is not enough, you must work to make it a reality. Have you ever seen a new product and realized that you thought of the same thing long ago? Yet someone else is making money with “your” idea.     5     The difference between a dreamer and a doer is action. Do whatever it takes to bring your ideas to life. If you can put them into practice, you are well on your way to improving your creativity in all areas of your life.

A．Take action

B．Seek several options

C．Think from the other person’s point of view.

D．If you normally eat in the office, have lunch under a tree.

E．We continue to create patterns for almost everything we do.

F．The truth is that we are all born with the ability to be creative.

G．We all have great ideas sometimes, but only a few people turn their ideas into realities.

3 . To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, I called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada. “A lot of people think about being bored as being lazy. And it’s absolutely not that,” he says. “Bored people want to be engaged with their world, eager to do something satisfying and exciting. But any attempt to do so is failing.”

That means boredom is usually very upsetting. And it can have physical consequences. In one of his experiments, Danckert made people extremely bored by showing them a video of two people hanging clothes to dry. He found that when people got bored, their hearts beat faster and their levels of a hormone called cortisol (皮质醇) went up, compared to when they watched another video that made them sad. These physical changes were signs that boredom was stressing them out. “It’s not like having a full-on panic attack,”Danckert says. But it’s certainly enough to make boredom unpleasant.

Let’s come back to if boredom can kill you. Back in the 1980s, scientists asked people who worked for the British government a whole bunch of questions, including how bored they felt in their daily lives. The study tracked the participants over time. When any one of them died, the survey recorded the cause of death. In 2010, two researchers matched up these causes of death with the participants’ level of boredom. It turned out that people who said they were more bored were also more likely to have died of heart disease. “We know that prolonged exposure to stress is bad for your health,” Danckert says. A single boring day can’t kill you. But if you’re always bored, the stress could add up into something dangerous.

“Oh no,” you might be thinking. “School is boring, my friends are boring, everything is boring! What’s going to happen to me?” Don’t worry, Danckert says, “As you get older, you get less bored,” mainly because you gain more independence and have to get busy to achieve your long-term goals. And trust me: that’s anything but boring.

1. According to James Danckert, people feel bored because ______.

A．they are too lazy to do anything	B．they can’t fully understand boredom
C．they are too frightened to have a try	D．they can’t gain excitement in life

2. What can we learn from paragraph 2?

A．Doing housework will make people bored.

B．Physical changes can lead to extreme boredom.

C．People’s heart rate increases with boredom.

D．Watching something sad is a boring experience.

3. What does the underlined word “prolonged” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Continued.

B．Short.

C．Sudden.

D．Active.

4. What does Danckert recommend to save people from boredom?

A．Depending on friends.	B．Setting long-term goals.
C．Keeping yourself occupied.	D．Trusting people around you.

4 . 假定你是李华，读完外教Mr. Brown推荐的一些英文小说后，你的收获很大。请你给他写一封感谢信，内容包括：
1. 表示感谢；
2. 你的收获；
3. 希望得到进一步指导。
注意：1. 词数80左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Mr. Brown,
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yours,

Li Hua

6 . North Americans value independence, and Europeans value togetherness. I never fully understood that stereotype until two months ago, when I left Canada for a 4-month period in a lab in France. On my first day, Pierre, a Ph. D. student, tapped me on my shoulder and asked: “Coffee?” I nodded and followed him to the common room, where other grad students were filling in. I sat there, cautiously sipping the bitter liquid and trying hard not to reveal my uncultured tastes, while lab chatter filled the air.

Coffee breaks are a ceremonial part of lab culture here. The chatter sometimes turns to serious scientific topics. But mostly, the meet-ups offer a chance to wind down, to share stories about life inside and outside the lab and to sympathize with people who understand what you’re going through.

The lighthearted atmosphere and sense of community is a welcome contrast to my life in Canada, where I spent most of my workdays in isolation. I went into the lab each morning with set goals for my day. At lunch, I’d keep my eyes glued to my computer while I fed forkfuls of salad into my mouth, trying to power through my to-do list. For 9 months, I struggled to figure out why I couldn’t exactly copy the results of another study. I didn’t want to trouble my advisor too much. I was also hesitant to ask my labmates for help.

How much we were missing! Researchers need community because good ideas don’t just come from reading literature and thinking deep thoughts. It’s helpful to bounce ideas off others, and, to have a venue to share the day-to-day ups and downs of life.

Would coffee breaks have solved all my problems? Probably not. But I think sharing ideas with my peers would have helped solve my research dilemma. My time in France has taught me that it’s important to create space for organic conversations about lab life. A scientist’s life can feel isolating, but it’s not necessarily so when you’re connected to a supportive community.

1. How did the author feel when he drank coffee for the first time in France?

A．A little nervous.	B．Very happy.
C．Somewhat excited.	D．Quite curious.

2. What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about?

A．Cultural ceremonies in France.	B．Various topics of the chatter.
C．Coffee breaks in French lab culture.	D．Lab culture in French style.

3. What was the author’s life like back in Canada?

A．Comfortable and fulfilled.	B．Busy and lonely.
C．Tense but satisfactory.	D．Boring but healthy.

4. Why does the author write this passage?

A．To introduce the coffee break in Europe.

B．To explain the difference between cultures.

C．To recall his personal experience in France.

D．To convey the importance of a supportive circle.

7 . 阅读下面短文, 在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式.

Nearly one billion animals died in the Australian bushfires. That number would have been even     1    (large) if it had not been for wombats(袋熊). When the fires started, their underground homes     2    (become) places of shelter for many other lives.

Wombats are small, furry mammals native to Australia. There are three wombat species. Northern and southern wombats have furry noses,     3     common wombats have bare skin on noses. You shouldn’t let the     4    (appear) of wombats fool you, though. Despite their size, they are     5    (unbelievable) fast. They can run at the speed of an Olympic runner, but only for a minute and a half or so.     6     is interesting is their cube-shaped poop(粪便). They often pile up their poop     7     a way to mark their areas. Scientists believe the square shape     8    (form) to stop the poop from rolling away.

Now there are only about 500 northern wombats     9    (survive) in the wild. The species is considered to be critically endangered. Luckily, conservationists are attempting     10    (help). In the 1980s, just 35 northern wombats were left alive — so things are improving!

9 . Scientific studies show that laughter produces chemicals to make people feel better, which________clown doctors can be helpful.

I chose this________because of my experience of going to hospital when I was a kid. Although the doctors and nurses did a great job, hospitals weren’t really designed for________. I stayed there feeling________and a little bored.

After years’________training, I work as part of a program known as “hospital clowning”. Being a clown doctor means I can help people by________ them.

One day,________my curly rainbow wig and big red nose, I walked into the waiting area, where there was a familiar atmosphere of ________and tension. At that time I spotted a small girl crying in pain, with her ankle was twice its________ size. Her________parents sitting________ on plastic chairs were trying their best to________the nervous and crying girl.

While the doctor concentrated on________ her ankle, I got her________by doing a magic trick. Although she was clearly still in some pain, her scared and anxious look had been________ —first by a small smile and then by loud laughter as I________produced her sock from out of my pocket. Seeing their daughter so much happier________ made her parents more relaxed. My magic medicine did indeed seem to________.

Even today, I still________a big smile as I remember all the fun and laughter of the day. After all, it is true that________is the best medicine.

1.

A．means

B．draws

C．declares

D．announces

2.

A．responsibility

B．career

C．burden

D．dream

3.

A．patients

B．clowns

C．children

D．parents

4.

A．frightened

B．abandoned

C．annoyed

D．confused

5.

A．simple

B．general

C．familiar

D．special

6.

A．teasing

B．entertaining

C．comforting

D．educating

7.

A．taking on

B．working on

C．drawing on

D．putting on

8.

A．sacrifice

B．embarrassment

C．boredom

D．annoyance

9.

A．normal

B．formal

C．accurate

D．proper

10.

A．ambitious

B．anxious

C．cautious

D．disappointed

11.

A．happily

B．angrily

C．uncomfortably

D．luckily

12.

A．challenge

B．treat

C．guide

D．comfort

13.

A．operating

B．examining

C．controlling

D．experiencing

14.

A．attraction

B．admission

C．attention

D．assumption

15.

A．replaced

B．relieved

C．removed

D．reflected

16.

A．originally

B．magically

C．officially

D．reasonably

17.

A．in return

B．in vain

C．in turn

D．in question

18.

A．do the trick

B．play a trick

C．do no good

D．do the opposite

19.

A．stick

B．wear

C．supply

D．strengthen

20.

A．attitude

B．magic

C．behavior

D．laughter

10 . Lots of people find it hard to get up in the morning and put the blame on the alarm clock. In fact, the key to easy morning wake-up lies in resting your body clock     1    . Here is how to make one.

•     2     In order to make a change, you need to decide why it’s important. Do you want to get up in time to have breakfast with your family, get in some exercise or just be better prepared for your day? Once you are clear about your reason, tell your family or roommates about the change you want to make.

• Rethink mornings. Now that you know why you want to wake up, consider re-arranging your morning activities. If you want time to have breakfast with your family, save some time the night before by setting out clothes, shoes, and bags.     3     That’s a quarter-hour more you could be sleeping if you bought a coffee maker with a timer.

• Keep your sleep/wake schedule on weekends. If you’re tired out by Friday night, sleeping in on Saturday could sound wonderful. But compensating (弥补) on the weekends actually feeds into your sleepiness the following week, a recent study found.     4    .

• Keep a record and evaluate it weekly. Keep track of your efforts and write down how you feel. After you’ve tried a new method for a week, take a look at your record.     5     If not, take another look at other methods you could try.

A．Get a sleep specialist.

B．Find the right motivation.

C．A better plan for sleep can help.

D．And consider setting a second alarm.

E．If the steps you take are working, keep it up.

F．Stick to your set bedtime and wake-up time, no matter the day.

G．Reconsider the 15 minutes you spend in line at the cafe to get coffee.