1 . Many people write to newspaper and magazines to express their opinions. Letters to the editor must carry the writer’s full name, address and telephone number, although the information is not necessary for publication. This requirement to provide personal particulars is a clear indication that writers are held responsible for what they say. When a writer wants his voice heard, he needs to claim ownership of his voice. Responsibility is the name of the game.

“People today prefer living together to putting their signatures on a marriage certificate because they refuse to accept responsibility for the relationship,” said social worker Ken Yip, “and this is what is causing a lot of family problems.” When we sign a paper, for example, a business contract or a bank document, the signature is a seal of consent, an agreement to take the matter seriously. Most governments and many organizations will not process written complaints if they do not bear the writer’s signature. The absence of a signature, they explain, tells us that the writer cannot be too serious and therefore does not deserve a reply.

There are people who wish to remain anonymous (匿名的) for various reasons. Multi-billionaire Mr. King donates generously to charity several times a year. He gives simply because he wants to help but not for the publicity his donations may bring, and he does not want his good deeds to make news. In other cases, people insist on anonymity because they are afraid of the consequences of revealing their identity. Crime witnesses may be willing to assist the police, but most are unwilling to give their names when reporting a crime.

Name or no name? The answer is very personal and lies in how much we want to get involved. We all have a name. It is a matter of responsibility to use it when we make a statement, a claim or an accusation. We all want to honor our own name, and it is only by stamping our expression of an opinion with our own name that we honor what we say.

1. What does the writer mean by saying “Responsibility is the name of the game”?

A．Writers need to provide their personal information in the game.

B．Publication must bear the writer’s full name, address and phone number.

C．Writers should be responsible for their names.

D．Names are required to indicate writers’ responsibility for what they say.

2. The second paragraph suggests that a paper without a signature may _______.

A．not get a reply

B．help to end a relationship

C．be accepted all the same

D．become a family problem

3. Some people don’t want their names known because they are ________.

A．hesitant to make a donation

B．unwilling to draw public attention

C．afraid of an accusation

D．ready for involvement

4. The passage is mainly about _______.

A．honor and writers

B．identity and signature

C．signature and responsibility

D．anonymity and signature

2 . “Selfie” may have been named Oxford Dictionary’s word of 2013. In effect，so widely known has the selfie become that in the past 12 months，its frequency in the English language has increased by 17000 percent，said Oxford dictionaries. However，its popularity has just earned it another honour-being voted the most annoying and overused term of the past 12 months. But I’d like to offer that maybe it isn’t so bad.
According to the Oxford online dictionary, selfie is a photo that one takes of oneself， often from a smart phone，and send them to a social media website. Women and men alike decorate their Facebook and Twitter accounts with these pictures，sometimes with exaggerated facial expressions，such as large smiles or puckered lips(噘嘴).
Let’s think about it. Someone takes about 10 selfies each time they do，and they only end up posting one or two of those. They pick the one that they feel makes them look the best. Isn’t that beautiful? In that one picture，somebody has given himself or herself confidence. Self-image is vital. In today’s society，we are so crazy about being perfect. But perhaps，with that one selfie，we feel as if we fit that need. We feel handsome，beautiful，confident，smart，happy，and content. For that moment，everything bad or terrible that has ever happened to us seemed to have been erased，for that smile or that pucker is what gives us the determination to love ourselves.
A spoken-word poem I saw lately set me thinking：If I ask you what you love，the answers will most likely roll of your tongue. You love to read. You love to write. You love birds，music…your mom，your brother，your sister，your daughter，your best friend，your dog. How long do you think you could go on and on before you said，“I love myself.”?
The poem hit me like a ton of bricks. I’ve struggled with confidence all of my life. And I still do. And in no way am I saying that taking a selfie is a gateway to that confidence. However，the selfie does deserve some credit for allowing individuals to express themselves. Just as Pamela Rutledge put it，“There are many more photographs available now of real people than models.”
1. According to the writer, we live in a society where ________.

A．selfie leads to success

B．a good image decides one’s status

C．one’s poor performance can be erased

D．being perfect is highly valued

2. The spoken-word poem mentioned in the 4th paragraph implies ________.

A．our pleasure to enjoy beauty

B．our need to love people around us

C．our tendency to ignore ourselves

D．our real love to share with others

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

A．praise

B．grade

C．trust

D．fame

4. In the writer’s opinion, selfie ________.

A．brings about people’s sense of confidence

B．is merely popular among teenagers

C．tells the true meaning of life

D．is an annoying phenomenon on the Internet

3 . Grandparents Answer a Call

As a third－generation native of Brownsville, Texas, Mildred Garza never planned to move away.Even when her daughter and son asked her to move to San Antonio to help with their children, she politely refused.Only after a year of friendly discussion did Ms.Garza finally say yes.That was four years ago.Today all three generations regard the move as a success, giving them a closer relationship than they would have had in separate cities.

No statistics show the number of grandparents like Garza who are moving closer to adult children and grandchildren. Yet there is evidence suggesting that the trend is growing.Even President Obama’s mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, has agreed to leave Chicago and move into the White House to help care for her granddaughters. According to a study by grandparents.com, 83 percent of the people said Mrs.Robinson's decision will influence grandparents in the American family.Two－thirds believe more families will follow the example of Obama’s family.

“In the 1960s we were all a little wild and couldn't get away from home far enough or fast enough to prove we could do it on our own,”says Christine Crosby, publisher of Grand, a magazine for grandparents. “We now realize how important family is and how important it is to be near them, especially when you’re raising children.”

Moving is not for everyone. Almost every grandparent wants to be with his or her grandchildren and is willing to make sacrifices, but sometimes it is wiser to say no and visit frequently instead.Having your grandchildren far away is hard, especially knowing your adult child is struggling, but giving up the life you know may be harder.

1. Why was Garza’s move a success?

A．It strengthened her family ties.

B．It improved her living conditions.

C．It enabled her to make more friends.

D．It helped her know more new places.

2. What was the reaction of the public to Mrs.Robinson’s decision?

A．17% expressed their support for it.

B．Few people responded sympathetically.

C．83% believed it had a bad influence.

D．The majority thought it was a trend.

3. What did Crosby say about people in the 1960s?

A．They were unsure of themselves.

B．They were eager to raise more children.

C．They wanted to live away from their parents.

D．They had little respect for their grandparents.

4. What does the author suggest the grandparents do in the last paragraph?

A．Make decisions in the best interests of their own.

B．Ask their children to pay more visits to them.

C．Sacrifice for their struggling children.

D．Get to know themselves better.

4 . Plastic surgery (整形手术) is not only popular in the US, but is also spreading across Asia. It is reported that South Korea is now the world’s largest market for plastic surgery.

In order to change their looks, 20 percent of women aged between 19 and 49 in Seoul said they had gone under the knife. The growth of South Korea’s pop music industry increases the popularity. Many patients visit clinics with photos of singers, asking doctors to copy their noses or eyes.

Joo Kwon, who founded one of the largest clinics in Seoul, recently opened a hotel to better serve customers. People will spend about $ 17,675 in a single visit. An increasing number of customers are non-Koreans, from China, Japan, the Middle East and even Africa. Leaders in South Korea say that this will help the Korean economy.

However, Mr. Kwon warned that young people should be careful when taking such operations. “I think South Korea doesn’t understand the word ‘beauty’, because everyone looks pretty much the same. It is also related to low self-confidence. I think the situation will somewhat become better in the future as the society becomes more different. But it will take quite a bit of time until we get there,” he told reporters.

Last year, a booklet (小册子) was given out to Korean high school students by the government. There was a story that a local woman who was crazy about plastic surgery ended up with an ugly face.

1. What is the main cause of the increase in plastic surgery in South Korea?

A．The increasing understanding of beauty.	B．The increasing number of clinics.
C．The rise of the pop music industry.	D．The rise of the Korean economy.

2. What is Mr. Kwon’s attitude toward plastic surgery?

A．He feels it is worth a try.	B．He is strongly against it.
C．He is not interested in it.	D．He is objective about it.

3. We can learn from the last paragraph that ________.

A．plastic surgery is supported by the government

B．high school students are encouraged to have plastic surgery

C．high school students in South Korea are fond of plastic surgery

D．plastic surgery is bad for people’s health

4. What is the main idea of the text?

A．How to have plastic surgery.

B．Why women have plastic surgery.

C．The famous singers in South Korea.

D．Rapid growth of plastic surgery in South Korea.

5 . Reading is the ability to process text, understand its meaning and to integrate it with what the reader already knows. Of all the reading skills speed-reading is a necessary skill in the Internet age. We skim over articles, e-mails and WeChat to try to grasp key words and the essential meaning of a certain text. Surrounded with information from our electronic devices, it would be impossible to cope if we read word by word, line by line. But a new trend calls on people to unplug and enjoy reading slowly, listing benefits beyond the intelligent stimulation.

A recent story from The Wall Street Journal reported on a book club in Wellington, New Zealand, where members meet in a cafe and turn off their smartphones. They sink into cozy chairs and read in silence for an hour. Unlike tradition book club, the point of the slow reading club isn’t exchanging ideas about a certain book, but to get away from electronic devices and read in a quiet, relaxed environment. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Wellington book club is just one example of a movement started by book lovers who miss the old-fashioned way of reading before the Internet and smartphones.

Slow readers, such as The Atlantic’s Maura Kelly, say a regular reading habit sharpens the mind, improves concentration, reduces stress levels and deepens the ability to sympathize. Another study published last year in Science showed that reading novels helps people understand others’ mental states and beliefs, a fundamental skill in building relationships.

Yet technology has made us less attentive readers. Screens have changed our reading patterns from the top-to-right, left-to-right sequence to a wild skimming and skipping pattern as we hunt for important words and information. Reading text punctuated with links leads to weaker comprehension than reading plain text. The Internet may have made us stupider, says Patrick Kingsley from The Guardian. Because of the Internet, he says, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of interesting news, but we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, reflect, and relate all these facts to each other.

Slow reading means a return to an uninterrupted, straight pattern, in a quiet environment free of distractions. “Aim for 30 minutes a day,” advises Kelly from The Atlantic. “You can squeeze in that half hour pretty easily if only during your free moments, you pick up a meaningful work of literature,” Kelly said. “Reach for your e-reader, if you like. Kindles make books like War and Peace less heavy, not less substantive, and also ensure you’ll never lose your place.”

1. The book club in Wellington mentioned in Paragraph 2 shows____________.

A．the new trend of slow reading	B．the decline of electronic devices
C．the importance of exchanging ideas	D．the increasing number of club readers

2. According to Patrick Kingsley, people are stupider partly because of_____________.

A．a non-stop reading pattern	B．the straight, left-to-right screen
C．a wide range of interesting news	D．the lack of reflection

3. According to the passage, slow reading___________.

A．contributes to understanding among people

B．promotes the current technology advances

C．provides people with a quiet environment

D．cures the memory loss of elderly people

4. What’s the best title for the passage?

A．Benefit of Reading Clubs	B．Return of Slow Reading
C．Reading of the Internet Age	D．Influence of Speed Reading

6 . In its early history, Chicago had floods frequently, especially in the spring, making the streets so muddy that people, horses, and carts got stuck. An old joke that was popular at the time went something like this: A man is stuck up to his waist in a muddy Chicago street. Asked if he needs help, he replies, “No, thanks. I've got a good horse under me.”

The city planner decided to build an underground drainage (排水) system, but there simply wasn't enough difference between the height of the ground level and the water level. The only two options were to lower the Chicago River or raise the city.

An engineer named Ellis Chesbrough convinced me the city that it had no choice but to build the pipes above ground and then cover them with dirt. This raised the level of the city's streets by as much as 12 feet.

This of course created a new problem: dirt practically buried the first floors of every building in Chicago. Building owners were faced with a choice: either change the first floors of their buildings into basements, and the second stories into main floors, or hoist the entire buildings to meet the new street level. Small wood-frame buildings could be lifted fairly easily. But what about large, heavy structures like Tremont Hotel, which was a six-story brick building?

That's where George Pullman came in. He had developed some house-moving skills successfully. To lift a big structure like the Tremont Hotel, Pullman would place thousands of jackscrews (螺旋千斤顶) beneath the building's foundation. One man was assigned to operate each section of roughly 10 jackscrews. At Pullman's signal each man turned his jackscrew the same amount at the same time, thereby raising the building slowly and evenly. Astonishingly, the Tremont Hotel stay open during the entire operation, and many of its guests didn't even notice anything was happening. Some people like to say that every problem has a solution. But in Chicago's early history, every engineering solution seemed to create a new problem. Now that Chicago's waste water was draining efficiently into the Chicago River, the city's next step was to clean the polluted river.

1. The author mentions the joke to show ______.

A．horses were fairly useful in Chicago

B．Chicago's streets were extremely muddy

C．Chicago was very dangerous in the spring

D．the Chicago people were particularly humorous

2. The city planners were convinced by Ellis Chesbrough to_______.

A．get rid of the street dirt	B．lower the Chicago River
C．fight against heavy floods	D．build the pipes above ground

3. The underlined word “hoist”in Paragraph 4 means “_______”.

A．change	B．lift
C．repair	D．decorate

4. What can we conclude about the moving operation of the Tremont Hotel?

A．It went on smoothly as intended.

B．It interrupted the business of the hotel.

C．It involved Pullman turning ten jackscrews.

D．It separated the building from its foundation.

5. The passage is mainly about the early Chicago's ______.

A．popular life styles and their influences

B．environmental disasters and their causes

C．engineering problems and their solutions

D．successful businessmen and their achievements

7 . How long can human beings live? Most scientists who study old age think that the human body is ___ to live no longer than 120 years. However, 110 years is probably the longest that anyone could hope to live — if he or she is ___ healthy and lucky. Some scientists even say we can live as long as 130 years! Yet, our cells simply cannot continue to reproduce ___. They wear out, and as a result, we get old and ___ die.

Even though we can’t live forever, we are living a ___ life than ever before. In 1900, the average American life span(寿命)was only 47 years, but today it is 75 years!

When does old age begin then? Sixty-five may be out-of-date as the ___ line between middle age and old age. After all, many older people don’t begin to experience physical and mental ___ until after age 75.

People are living longer because more people ___ childhood. Before modern medicine changed the laws of nature, many children died of common childhood ___. Now that the chances of dying ____ are much lower, the chances of living long are much higher due to better diets and health care.

On the whole, our population is getting older. The ____ in our population will have lasting effects on our social development and our way of life. Some people fear such changes will be for the worse, while some see ____, not disaster. Today, many men and women in their "golden years" are healthy, still active, and young in ____ if not in age.

As our society grows old, we need the ____ of our older citizens. With long lives ahead of them, they need to ____ active and be devoted.

1.

A．designed

B．selected

C．improved

D．discovered

2.

A．completely

B．generally

C．apparently

D．extremely

3.

A．rapidly

B．harmlessly

C．endlessly

D．separately

4.

A．eventually

B．hopelessly

C．automatically

D．desperately

5.

A．busier

B．longer

C．richer

D．happier

6.

A．finishing

B．guiding

C．waiting

D．dividing

7.

A．stress

B．damage

C．decline

D．failure

8.

A．survive

B．enjoy

C．remember

D．value

9.

A．problems

B．fears

C．worries

D．diseases

10.

A．poor

B．young

C．sick

D．quiet

11.

A．changes

B．recovery

C．safety

D．increases

12.

A．dreams

B．chances

C．strengths

D．choices

13.

A．mind

B．appearance

C．voice

D．movement

14.

A．protection

B．suggestions

C．contributions

D．permission

15.

A．sound

B．appear

C．turn

D．stay

8 . 目前，不少人在写作文或交流时喜欢使用网络语言。就此现象，你班最近举行了一场讨论。请根据下表的提示，客观地介绍讨论的情况及你的观点。

40%的同学认为	60%的同学认为	你的观点
1. 有点荒诞，有时让人无法理解 2. 违背了汉语的语法规则，对学习毫无帮助	1. 幽默，使语言更生动 2. 有助于表达思想	1… 2. …

荒诞ridiculous
注意：                           
1. 对所给提示，不要简单翻译，可适当增加细节，使行文连贯。
2. 词数150左右。开头已给出，不计入总词数。
Nowadays, with the development of the Internet, there came a kind of language called Web Language.

9 . The jobs of the future have not yet been invented.     1     By helping them develop classic skills that will serve them well no matter what the future holds.

1. Curiosity

Your children need to be deeply curious.     2     Ask kids, “What ingredients (配料) can we add to make these pancakes even better next time?” and then try them out. Did those ingredients make the pancakes better? What could we try next time?

2. Creativity

True creativity is the ability to take something existing and create something new from it.     3     There are a dozen different things you can do with them. Experimenting with materials to create something new can go a long way in helping them develop their creativity.

3. Interpersonal Skills

Understanding how others feel can be a challenge for kids. We know what’s going on inside our own head, but what about others? Being able to read people helps kids from misreading a situation and jumping to false conclusions.     4     “Why do you think she’s crying?” “Can you tell how that man is feeling by looking at his face? If someone were to do that to you, how would you feel?”

4. Self-expression

    5     There are many ways to express thoughts and ideas — music, acting, drawing, building, photography. You may find that your child is attracted by one more than another.

A．Encourage kids to cook with you.

B．And we can’t forget science education.

C．We can give kids chances to think about materials in new ways.

D．So how can we help our kids prepare for jobs that don’t yet exist?

E．Gardening is another great activity for helping kids develop this skill.

F．We can do this in real life or ask questions about characters in stories.

G．Being able to communicate ideas in a meaningful way is a valuable skill.

10 . The telephone rang in the police station at Richmond, California, US. “____station? A train for Santa Fe collided (相撞) a ____at the McDonald Street Crossing. Please come here at once. With an ambulance, too. A man is badly wounded,” said an anxious voice of a young woman.
“OK. We’ll come soon. Please stay there and wait.” Replied the policeman.
Within a minute, a police car and an ambulance____off. Soon they got to the crossing, but only to find everything was fine. No collision, no wounded man.
“What a dirty____!” said the policeman angrily. “ We must find out that woman and…”
They had not been able to say anything about a____when they heard the whistle of a train was nearing them quickly. All of a sudden, a truck appeared. It came____towards them, too. When it was passing the crossing, it suddenly____to move on. Right then and there, before the eyes of all the people present, the train collided with the truck heavily and struck it dozens of metres away.
When Randolph Bruce, the driver, was helped out of the damaged truck, he was badly wounded just as the young woman had predicted on the phone. As he was taken to hospital in time, he was____at last. Later the police did whatever they could to____the woman who had____them, but failed.
It is really ____that a prediction should agree with the fact so____1.

A．Weather

B．Railway

C．Fire

D．Police

2.

A．bus

B．truck

C．taxi

D．train

3.

A．turned

B．took

C．set

D．walked

4.

A．call

B．signal

C．trick

D．arrangement

5.

A．reward

B．praise

C．thanks

D．punishment

6.

A．turning

B．running

C．starting

D．passing

7.

A．continued

B．refused

C．began

D．stopped

8.

A．saved

B．dead

C．awake

D．alive

9.

A．find

B．attack

C．award

D．thank

10.

A．laughed

B．visited

C．repeated

D．telephoned

11.

A．exciting

B．pleasing

C．surprising

D．interesting

12.

A．equally

B．truly

C．exactly

D．carefully