1 . 假设你是红星中学高二学生李华。你校英国留学生Jim最近在学习汉语的过程中遇到了许多困难，希望你给他一些学习汉语的建议，请你给Jim回信，提出你的建议，内容包括：
l. Jim遇到的困难；
2.你的建议。
注意：1.词数100左右；
2.开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear Jim,
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yours,

Li Hua

3 . “How are you?” is a nice question. It's a friendly way that people in the United States greet each other. But “How are you?” is also a very unusual question. It's a question that often doesn't have an answer. The person who asks “How are you?” expects to hear the answer “Fine”, even if the person's friend isn't fine. The reason is that “How are you?” isn't really a question, and “Fine” isn't really an answer. They are simply other ways of saying “Hello” and “Hi”.

People also don't say exactly what they are thinking when they finish conversations with other people. For example, many conversations over the phone end when one person says “I've got to go now”. Often, the person who wants to hang up gives an excuse: “Someone's at the door”; “I’ve got to put the groceries（杂物）away.” “Something is burning on the stove（炉子）.” The excuse might be real, or it might not. Perhaps the person who wants to hang up simply doesn't want to talk any more, but it isn't very polite to say that. The excuse is more polite, and it doesn't hurt the other person's feeling.

Whether they are greeting each other or ending a conversation, people often don't say exactly what they are thinking. It is an important way that people try to be nice to each other, and it's all part of the game of languages.

1. “How are you?” is an unusual question because it is ______.

A．used more often than any other question

B．more friendly than any other question

C．not treated as a question

D．hard to answer

2. Which is a rude way to say goodbye?

A．“Something is burning on the stove.”

B．“I've got to put the groceries away.”

C．“Someone's at the door.”

D．“I want to hang up.”

3. When a person says, "I've got to go now"; “Someone's at the door”, he ______.

A．is going to call back later

B．may not be telling the truth

C．is leaving for another place

D．hurts the other person's feelings

4. Part of the game of languages is ______.

A．try to be nice and polite to each other

B．always say what you are thinking

C．never disagree with others

D．never speaking your mind

4 . A Fluent Advantage

When schools go through budget cuts, foreign language classes are often placed on the cutting block. School administrators often do not understand how important foreign language study is for their students’ success in the real world. Far from cutting language classes, schools should be demanding them for all students. Studying a foreign language should be required in middle schools.

Language study strengthens students’ minds. Many studies have indicated that multilingual people—people who speak more than one language—are better at certain tasks. Specifically, multilingual people have better executive function than people who speak only one language. Executive function is the way the brain manages all the information it’s given, such as performing different tasks and deciding what to focus on. In brain scans, multilingual people show increased activity in the areas of the brain that control executive function. Researchers have guessed that this advantage exists because multilingual people must constantly decide which words from which language to use. As a result, multilingual people get lots of practice with executive function. Their brains can then apply those skills to other tasks, like paying attention or multitasking. This effect is especially strong for people who grow up speaking more than one language. The earlier students start language classes, the more benefits they may get from language study.

Moreover, language study helps prepare students for their future careers. Today, language skills are in high demand on the job market and more and more businesses work in many countries across the world. As businesses become global, they need people who can communicate easily across national borders. To prepare for their careers, more students should be learning foreign languages. From 2010 to 2015, the demand in the United States for workers who speak a second language doubled. This trend included workers of all skill levels and backgrounds.

Of course, in order to make better use of the advantages of foreign language study, middle school foreign language classes should not just make students memorize new words and sounds.

They must also teach students about new cultures. Foreign language classes should be required to include lessons about history, literature, customs, and government along with the languages themselves. These subjects will help students become better global citizens and support their studies in other subjects.

Requiring middle schoolers to study a foreign language offers them opportunities to sharpen their brains. It also gives them tools that will help them become productive members of today’s global society.

1. How does the author feel about foreign language study in middle schools?

A．More foreign language classes should be offered in middle schools.

B．Taking a foreign language class in middle schools should be a choice.

C．Foreign language classes should be cut because of the limited funds.

D．Studying a foreign language should be a middle school requirement.

2. The author believes ______.

A．people who speak more than one language have better executive function

B．being able to work in another country doubles people’s job opportunities

C．people learn languages better as young people than when they are older

D．people’s executive function improves after foreign language classes

3. What’s the author’s purpose of writing Paragraph 4?

A．To sum up his argument.	B．To put forward a solution.
C．To emphasize his point of view.	D．To introduce an additional suggestion.

4. Which of the following shows the development of ideas in the passage?
I: Introduction P: Point Sp: Sub-point (次要点) C: Conclusion

A．	B．
C．	D．

5 . A crucial period for learning the rules and structure of a language lasts up to around age 17 or 18, say psychologist Joshua Hartshorne of MIT and his colleagues.

Previous research had suggested that grammar-learning ability developed in early childhood before hitting a dead end around age 5. However, Hartshorne’s team reports online in Cognition that people who started learning English as a second language in an English-speaking country by age 10 to 12 ultimately mastered the new tongue as well as folks who had learned English and another language at the same time from birth. Both groups, however, fell somewhat short of the grammatical fluency displayed by English-only speakers. After ages 10 to 12, new-to-English learners reached lower levels of fluency than those who started learning English at younger ages because time ran out when their grammar-absorbing ability fell starting around age 17.

Aiming for a sample of tens of thousands of volunteers, Hartshorne began by contacting friends on Facebook to take an online English grammar quiz, which used a person’s responses to guess his or her native language and dialect (方言) of English. Then volunteers filled out a questionnaire asking where they had lived, languages they had spoken from birth, the age at which they began learning English and the number of years they had lived in an English-speaking country.

In the end, the researchers analyzed responses of 669,498 native and nonnative English speakers. Statistical calculations focused on estimating at what ages people with varying amounts of experience peaking English reached peak grammar ability.

Researchers who study language learning regard the new study as fascinating, but exploratory. According to psycholinguist David Barner of the University of California, San Diego, Hartshorne’s team can’t yet say that language skill develops along a single timeline. Different elements of grammar, such as using correct word order or subjects and verbs that agree with one another, might be learned at different rates, Barner says. It’s also unclear whether the responses of volunteers to an online, 132-item grammar test reflect how well of poorly they actually speak English, he says.

What’s more, language learning involves more than a crucial period for acquiring grammar, cautions linguist David Birdsong of the University of Texas at Austin. For instance, growing up speaking two languages at once puts still poorly understood burdens on the ability to grasp grammar, he says.

In the new study, people who were bilinguals from birth fell short of peak English grammar scores achieved by English-only speakers. That’s consistent with evidence that bilinguals cannot easily turn off one language while speaking another, Birdsong says. Interactions between tongues spoken by one person may slightly depress how much can be learned about both languages, even if bilingual communication still reaches high levels, he suggests.

1. Hartshorne and his colleagues found that____ .

A．one reaches a higher level of fluency at age 10

B．one learns a second language fastest at about age 12

C．one gets a good grasp of English grammar before age 5

D．one’s ability to master grammar declines at around age17

2. Hartshorne collected data through ______.

A．social media

B．experiments in the lab

C．literature review

D．face-to-face interviews

3. David Barner believes that ______.

A．language skill develops along a single timeline

B．online volunteers do not cover a wide enough range

C．different grammar items may be acquired at different paces

D．the quiz in the new study does not include enough questions

4. What can we know about bilinguals from the last two paragraphs?

A．They can achieve a perfect grammar score.

B．Grammar learning is the biggest burden for them.

C．They are able to make a swift shift between languages.

D．Speaking two languages affects their language acquisition.

6 . 阅读下列短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

The word “diary” comes from the Latin word “diarium”,     1     means “daily allowance”. It refers to a book for writings by date. And it     2     (use) for business notes, planning activities, keeping track of scheduled appointments, or documenting     3     has already happened. Some doctors suggest that     4     (write) in a diary is a good form of self-study.

7 . Well, I'm here in London. Thank you for    1     (send) me the letter. You ask me what it's like here. I must say, it's pretty good! The language school is very efficiently organized. On the first morning we had to do a test,     2    I found rather hard. However, I got a surprisingly good mark, so I'm in the second class. I       3     (talk) little at first, because I couldn't think of the words quickly enough, but lately I've become much more fluent.

8 . Gesture is the use ol such movements to express thought, emotion, etc. A gesture can be many things. Slamming a book shut shows anger and frustration. Opening a door lor someone shows kindness. Gestures go much beyond small actions.

My friend once told me a story in high school. One day he met a girl who was on the girls’ basketball team. He said hello, gave her a hard handshake and wished her good luck as she had a game later. He came to find out he saved that girl’s life. She had planned on committing suicide and by shaking her hand and saying good luck, he made her realize someone really cared about her. I’m not saying all actions are going to change someone else’s life that much, but it may make their day better.

Gestures can be negative too. In my senior year of   high school， a guy on my football team was late and was walking down the field to practice. Everyone on the team knows our coach hates it when people are late and walk on the field. He was walking in as if he owned the place and had no care of what his teammates were thinking. His body language had never been good. The other players on the team had never liked him because of his body language.

Gestures can often say more than a person wants. One day I was mad at my parents for some pointless reason. All day I stayed downstairs. When one of them walked by, I would just stare at the TV or my phone and hope they wouldn’t try to start a conversation. When they tried to talk to me，I would give one-word answers. Sitting on the couch and watching TV by myself all day was not my intent but that was what my gestures told my parents.

One simple gesture can change a person’s thoughts, day or maybe even save their lives. If everyone made a nice gesture to someone else every day， our school， town， and world would become a better place. One single act of random kindness at a time or a kind gesture can change the world.

1. The story in Paragraph 2 shows       .

A．gestures are more important than words

B．the girl made the writer’s friend feel warm

C．the writer’s friend had affection for the girl

D．gestures may help people be positive about life

2. How is the passage mainly developed?

A．By making comparisons.	B．By following the order of time.
C．By giving examples.	D．By analyzing cause and effect.

3. Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
CP ： Central Point P ： Point Sp: Sub-point (次要点） C: Conclusion

A．	B．
C．	D．

4. Which is the best title for this passage?

A．Words Count	B．Actions Speak
C．Kindness Shines	D．Behavior Changes