1 . Boys’ schools are the perfect place to teach young men to express their emotions and involve them in activities such as art, dance and music. Far from the traditional image of a culture of aggressive masculinity (阳刚), the absence of girls gives boys the chance to develop without pressure of following that tradition, a US study says.

Boys at single-sex schools are said to be more likely to get involved in cultural and artistic activities that help develop their emotional expressiveness, rather than feeling they have to follow the “boy code” of hiding their emotions to be a “real man”.

The findings of the study are so against received wisdom that boys do better when taught alongside girls.

Tony Little, headmaster of Eton, warns that boys are being faded by the British education system because it has become too focused on girls. He criticizes teachers for failing to recognize that boys are actually more emotional than girls.

The research argues that boys often perform badly in mixed schools because they become discouraged when their female schoolmates do better earlier in speaking and reading skills. But in single-sex schools teachers can tailor lessons to boys’ learning style, letting them move around the classroom and getting them to compete in teams to prevent boredom, writes the study’s author, Abigail James, from the University of Virginia.

Teachers can encourage boys to enjoy reading and writing with “boy-focused” approaches such as themes and characters that appeal to them. Because boys generally have sharper vision to learn best through touch, and are physically more active, they need to be given “hands-on” lessons where they are allowed to walk around. “Boys in mixed schools view classical music as feminine (女性的) and prefer what centers on violence and sexism, ” James writes.

Single-sex education also makes it less likely that boys would feel they have to follow the tradition that men should be “masterful and in charge” in relationships. “In mixed schools boys find themselves pushed to act like men before they understand themselves well enough to know what that means,” the study reports.

1. The author believes that a single-sex school will _________.

A．force boys to hide their emotions to be “real men”

B．help to develop masculine aggressiveness in boys

C．encourage boys to express their emotions more freely

D．naturally make boys accept the traditional image of a man

2. It is commonly believed that in a mixed school boys _________.

A．perform relatively better

B．grow up more healthily

C．behave more responsibly

D．receive a better education

3. What does Tony Little say about the British education system?

A．It fails more boys than girls academically.

B．It focuses more on mixed school education.

C．It fails to give boys the attention they need.

D．It places more pressure on boys than on girls.

4. According to Abigail James, one of the advantages of single-sex schools is _________.

A．teaching can be tailored to suit the characteristics of boys

B．boys can focus on their lessons without being absent-minded

C．boys can choose to learn whatever they are interested in

D．teaching can be designed to promote boys’ team spirit

2 . What’s this by my door? A handwritten letter from am old university friend. It stands out among the bills and junk mail like gold. Given its rareness, the Government should be praised for announcing that the new secondary school should include lessons that teach students how to write personal and business letters in the correct form.
Letter-writing skills have fallen off a lot in the age of eamils and text messages. Many pupils leave school only able to write a letter for a job application, let alone other kinds of letters. You can’t turn back the clock, but you can stick to your own rules to protect old-fashioned values. Someone who leaves school unable to write a letter is going into the adult world unprepared. And if teachers don’t ram home that message， who else will?
Usually, it does not matter whether someone can write a letter or not — other means of communication will serve. And with computerised spell-checks, people can get by for years without the kind of letter-writing skills. But it is the rare occasion that matters when things can not be made clear with a simple text. When the former England cricket(板球) captain Andrew Strauss decided to leave his job, he had sent handwritten letters to his teammates. Many people thought it unbelievable. But among the disbelief there was something else: admiration, even among the Twitter generation(一代).
I have been a letter-writing lover all my adult life, and am just about to sit down and pen a reply to my university friend. And I hope the sight of a letter by his door will give him as much pleasure as his did me.
1. How did the author feel when receiving the handwritten letter?

A．Disappointed.

B．Excited.

C．Worried.

D．Proud.

2. The underlined part“ram home that message”in Paragraph 2 means“______”.

A．teach the students the importance of letter writing

B．teach the students how to protect traditional values

C．teach the students the importance of communication

D．teach the students how to write letters of application

3. The author mentions Andrew Strauss’s example in order to show that________.

A．letter-writing skills are very important

B．handwritten letters can bring admiration

C．handwritten letters are more important than emails

D．whether someone can write a letter makes little difference

4. What’s the text mainly about?

A．A study on why handwritten letters become less popular.

B．A concern about the bad results of technology.

C．A call for more attention to letter writing.

D．A touching story between two friends.

3 . When 19-year-old Sophia Giorgi said she was thinking of volunteering to help the Make-A-Wish Foundation (基金会)，nobody understood what she was talking about .But Sophia knew just how important Make – A –Wish could be because this special organization had helped to make a dream come true for one her best friends .We were interested in finding out more ,so we went along to meet Sophia listen to what she had to say .
Sophia told us that Make – A –Wish is a worldwide organization that started in the United States in 1980.”It’s a charity(慈善机构)that helps children who have got very serious illnesses. Make – A –Wish help children feel happy even though they are sick, by making their wishes and dreams come true ,” Sophia explained .
We asked Sophia how Make – A –Wish had first started .She said it had all begun with a very sick young boy called Chris ,who had been dreaming for a long time of becoming a policeman .Sophia said lots of people had wanted to find a way to make Chris’s dream come true ----so, with everybody’s help , Chris, only seven years old at the time ,had been a “policeman” for a day .” when people saw how delighted Chris was when his dream came true, they decided to try and help other sick children too ,and that was the beginning of Make – A –Wish,” explained Sophia
Sophia also told us the Foundation tries to give children and their families a special, happy time. A Make-A-Wish volunteer visits the families and asks the children what they would wish for if they could have anything in the world. Sophia said the volunteers were important because they were the ones who helped to make the wishes come true. They do this either by providing things that are necessary, or by raising money or helping out in whatever way they can.
1. Sophia found out about Make-A-Wish because her best friend had .

A．volunteered to help it	B．benefited from it
C．dreamed about it	D．told the author about it

2. According to Sophia, Make-A-Wish        .

A．is an international charity

B．was understood by nobody at first

C．raises money for very poor families

D．started by drawing the interest of the public

3. What is said about Chris in Paragraph3?

A．He has been a policeman since he was seven.

B．He gave people the idea of starting Make-A-Wish

C．He wanted people to help make his dream come true.

D．He was the first child Make-A-Wish helped after it had been set up.

4. Which of the following is true about Make-A-Wish volunteers?

A．They are important for making wishes come true.

B．They try to help children get over their illnesses.

C．They visit sick children to make them feel special.

D．They provide what is necessary to make Make-A-Wish popular.

4 . Working with a group of baboons (狒狒) in the Namibian desert, Dr. Alecia Carter of the Department of Zoology, Cambridge University set baboons learning tasks involving a novel food and a familiar food hidden in a box. Some baboons were given the chance to watch another baboon who already knew how to solve the task, while others had to learn for themselves. To work out how brave or anxious the baboons were, Dr. Carter presented them either with a novel food or a threat in the form of a model of a poisonous snake.
She found that personality had a major impact on learning. The braver baboons learnt, but the shy ones did not learn the task although they watched the baboon perform the task of finding the novel food just as long as the brave ones did. In effect, despite being made aware of what to do, they were still too shy to do what the experienced baboon did.
The same held true for anxious baboons compared with calm ones. The anxious individuals learnt the task by observing others while those who were relaxed did not, even though they spent more time watching.
This mismatch between collecting social information and using it shows that personality plays a key role in social learning in animals, something that has previously been ignored in studies on how animals learn to do things. The findings are significant because they suggest that animals may perform poorly in cognitive (认知的 ) tasks not because they aren’t clever enough to solve them, but because they are too shy or nervous to use the social information.
The findings may impact how we understand the formation of culture in societies through social learning. If some individuals are unable to get information from others because they don’t associate with the knowledgeable individuals, or they are too shy to use the information once they have it, information may not travel between all group members, preventing the formation of a culture based on social learning.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?

A．The design of Dr. Carter’s research.

B．The results of Dr. Carter’s research.

C．The purpose of Dr. Carter’s research.

D．The significance of Dr. Carter’s research.

2. According to the research, which baboons are more likely to complete a new learning task?

A．Those that have more experience.

B．Those that can avoid potential risks.

C．Those that like to work independently.

D．Those that feel anxious about learning.

3. Which best illustrates the “mismatch” mentioned in Paragraph 4?

A．Some baboons are intelligent but slow in learning.

B．Some baboons are shy but active in social activities.

C．Some baboons observe others but don’t follow them.

D．Some baboons perform new tasks but don’t concentrate.

4. Dr. Carter’s findings indicate that our culture might be formed through .

A．storing information

B．learning from each other

C．understanding different people

D．travelling between social groups

5 . We’ve reached a strange—some would say unusual—point. While fighting world hunger continues to be the matter of vital importance according to a recent report from the World Health Organization (WHO), more people now die from being overweight, or say, from being extremely fat, than from being underweight. It’s the good life that’s more likely to kill us these days.
Worse, nearly 18 million children under the age of five around the world are estimated to be overweight. What’s going on?
We really don’t have many excuses for our weight problems. The dangers of the problem have been drilled into us by public ­health campaigns since 2001 and the message is getting through—up to a point.
In the 1970s, Finland, for example, had the highest rate of heart disease in the world and being overweight was its main cause. Not any more. A public ­health campaign has greatly reduced the number of heart disease deaths by 80 per cent over the past three decades.
Maybe that explains why the percentage of people in Finland taking diet pills doubled between 2001 and 2005, and doctors even offer surgery of removing fat inside and change the shape of the body. That has become a sort of fashion. No wonder it ranks as the world’s most body ­conscious country.
We know what we should be doing to lose weight—but actually doing it is another matter. By far the most popular excuse is not taking enough exercise. More than half of us admit we lack willpower.
Others blame good food. They say: it’s just too inviting and it makes them overeat. Still others lay the blame on the Americans, complaining that pounds have piled on thanks to eating too much American­ style fast food.
Some also blame their parents—their genes. But unfortunately, the parents are wronged because they’re normal in shape, or rather slim.
It’s a similar story around the world, although people are relatively unlikely to have tried to lose weight. Parents are eager to see their kids shape up. Do as I say—not as I do.
1. What is the “strange” point mentioned in the first sentence?

A．The good life is a greater risk than the bad life.

B．Starvation is taking more people’s lives in the world.

C．WHO report shows people’s unawareness of food safety.

D．Overweight issue remains unresolved despite WHO’s efforts.

2. Why does the author think that people have no excuse for being overweight?

A．A lot of effective diet pills are available.

B．Body image has nothing to do with good food.

C．They have been made fully aware of its dangers.

D．There are too many overweight people in the world.

3. The example of Finland is used to illustrate ________.

A．the cause of heart disease

B．the fashion of body shaping

C．the effectiveness of a campaign

D．the history of a body ­conscious country

4. Which would be the best title for the passage?

A．Actions or Excuses?

B．Overweight or Underweight?

C．WHO in a Dilemma

D．No Longer Dying of Hunger

6 . We have two daughters Kristen is seven years old and Kelly is four. Last Sunday evening, we invited some people home for dinner. I dressed them nicely for the party, and told them that their job was to join Mommy in answering the door when the bell rang. Mommy would introduce them to the guests, and then they would take the guests’ coats upstairs and put them on the bed in the second bedroom.
The guests arrived. I introduced my two daughters to each of them. The adults were nice and kind and said how lucky we were to have such good kids.
Each of the guests made a particular fuss over Kelly, the younger one, admiring her dress, her hair and her smile. They said she was a remarkable girl to be carrying coats upstairs at her age.
I thought to myself that we adults usually make a big "to do" over the younger one because she’s the one who seems more easily hurt. We do it with the best of intentions.
But we seldom think of how it might affect the other child. I was a little worried that Kristen would feel she was being outshined. I was about to serve dinner when I realized that she had been missing for twenty minutes. I ran upstairs and found her in the bedroom, crying.
I said, “What are you doing, my dear?”
She turned to me with a sad expression and said, “Mommy, why don’t people like me the way they like my sister? Is it because I’m not pretty? Is that why they don’t say nice things about me as much?”
I tried to explain to her, kissing and hugging her to make her feel better.
Now, whenever I visit a friend’s home, I make it a point to speak to the elder child first.
1. The underlined expression “make a big ‘to do’ over” (Paragraph 4) means __________.

A．show much concern about	B．have a special effect on
C．list jobs to be done for	D．do good things for

2. The guests praised Kelly for carrying coats upstairs because of her __________.

A．beautiful hair	B．pretty clothes
C．lovely smile	D．young age

3. Kristen felt sad and cried because __________.

A．the guest gave her more coats to carry

B．she didn’t look as pretty as Kelly

C．the guests praised her sister more than her

D．her mother didn’t introduce her to the guests

4. We can conclude from the passage that __________.

A．parents should pay more attention to the elder children

B．the younger children are usually more easily hurt

C．people usually like the younger children more

D．adults should treat children equally

7 . 根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。

Understanding Disabilities

There are around 650 million people in the world that have disabilities，yet most people are still quite ignorant about it.

（1）What do you think of when you see the word, ‘disability’？

Wheelchairs? White sticks? The Paralympics?     1     The legal definition of disability is that someone has a physical or mental impairment that has a great and long­term bad effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day­to­day activities.

This affects about 650 million of us, worldwide.     2     Most become disabled during the course of their life. So maybe the term TAB (Temporarily Able­Bodied) is better for people who are not disabled，because we may not stay that way forever.

（2）    3    

Imagine not being able to see, or not being able to walk. Think of all the things that would be different. How can I get my education? What about my future? Would my friends still want to hang out with me? Will strangers laugh at me in the street? Can I get my own place? What job can I do?

Clearly，having a disability can affect many things in a person's life.

（3）Disability and the law

    4     It is illegal and extremely unpleasant to discriminate (歧视) against someone who is differently abled. The label ‘disabled’ is not always helpful. Even if someone meets the legal definition，they may not see themselves that way. Instead of thinking about what is wrong with those people，or noticing what they can't do，we should look at how we like to live，and try to make it possible for everyone to join in.

After all—what is normal？    5       But better understanding would be a start.

A．How can the disabled find better jobs?

B．How does disability affect people?

C．People with disabilities don't need pity.

D．Most of us have never really thought about it.

E．We should consider more for people with disabilities.

F．Only 17% of people with a disability are born with it.

G．There are laws to prevent people with disabilities being treated unfairly.

8 . The death of languages is not a new phenomenon. Languages usually have a relatively short life span as well as a very high death rate. Only a few, including Egyptian, Chinese, Greek, Latin, have lasted more than 2,000 years.

What is new, however, is the speed at which they are dying out. Europe's colonial conquests caused a sharp decline in linguistic diversity, eliminating at least 15 percent of all languages spoken at the time. Over the last 300 years, Europe has lost a dozen, and Australia has only 20 left of the 250 spoken at the end of the 18th century.

The rise of nation-states has also been decisive in selecting and consolidating national languages and sidelining others. By making great efforts to establish an official language in education, the media and the civil service, national governments have deliberately tried to eliminate minority languages.

This process of linguistic standardization has been boosted by industrialization and scientific progress, which have imposed new methods of communication that are swift, straightforward and practical. Language diversity came to be seen as an obstacle to trade and the spread of knowledge. Monolingualism became an ideal.

More recently, the internationalization of financial markets, the spread of information by electronic media and other aspects of globalization have intensified the threat to “small” languages. A language not on the Internet is a language that “no longer exists'' in the modern world. It is out of the game.

The serious effects of the death of languages are evident. First of all, it is possible that if we all ended up speaking the same language, our brains would lose some of their natural capacity for linguistic inventiveness. We would never be able to figure out the origins of human language or resolve the mystery of "the first language". As each language dies, a chapter of human history closes.

Multilingualism is the most accurate reflection of multiculturalism. The destruction of the first will inevitably lead to the loss of the second. Imposing a language without any links to a people's culture and way of life stifles the expression of their collective genius. A language is not only used for the main instrument of human communication. It also expresses the world vision of those who speak it, their ways of using knowledge. To safeguard languages is an urgent matter.

1. Which of the following does not contribute to the death of languages?

A．Colonial conquests of Europe

B．The boom of human population

C．Advances in science and industrialization

D．The rise of nation-states

2. The underlined word “stifles” in the last paragraph probably means " ".

A．boosts	B．fuels
C．imposes	D．kills

3. The serious effects of the death of languages include all except that .

A．People would fail to understand how languages originated

B．Language diversity would become an obstacle to globalization

C．Monolingualism would lead to the loss of multiculturalism

D．Human brains would become less creative linguistically

4. What is the authors purpose of writing this passage?

A．To explain the reasons why languages are dying out.

B．To warn people of the negative aspects of globalization.

C．To call people's attention to the urgency of language preservation.

D．To argue how important it is for people to speak more languages.

9 . We humans love to make comparisons. On the market, we _______ to find the best ones. In the classroom teachers compare their students to the _______. And parents compare their child to his or her peers to _______ an idea of what is normal.

_______, comparisons of any kind come with a sting (剧痛) for everyone. When parents make it clear to anyone that their child is _______ to all other children in all ways, they put their child under _________. Some children will obey when they are pressured to _________ their parents' need for perfection; others may _______, trying to be just like any other kid, or, better still, to be just who they are. In other _______, parents who compare their child to other children might end up __________ their child is somehow "deficient (有缺点的)". And, again, they pressure their child to be __________ enough.

A most disturbing __________ of all this comparing is that it pushes children into the destructive world of competition. "In a __________ culture, a child is told that it isn't enough to be good—he or she must __________ other," writes Alfie Kohn, a parenting expert.

According to Kohn, research doesn't __________ the theory that competition brings success. One after another, researchers have concluded that children don't learn better __________ education is changed into a competitive struggle. Competition prevents a child's ability __________ not only educationally but socially, too.

So, __________ competition, cooperation! Instead of __________ other people's children, parents need to pay close attention to their own, learn who they are, discover their interests and talents, and teach them how to cooperate with others. They will need role models to __________ them.

1.

A．see

B．touch

C．sell

D．compare

2.

A．mature

B．new

C．model

D．overseas

3.

A．get

B．use

C．share

D．explain

4.

A．Therefore

B．However

C．Otherwise

D．Besides

5.

A．harmful

B．superior

C．responsible

D．thankful

6.

A．pressure

B．control

C．discussion

D．consideration

7.

A．express

B．prove

C．satisfy

D．create

8.

A．disappear

B．wait

C．resist

D．rest

9.

A．cases

B．words

C．ways

D．nations

10.

A．denying

B．deciding

C．predicting

D．concluding

11.

A．honest

B．good

C．patient

D．polite

12.

A．process

B．consequence

C．purpose

D．method

13.

A．traditional

B．scientific

C．political

D．competitive

14.

A．defeat

B．accept

C．recognize

D．choose

15.

A．test

B．challenge

C．support

D．change

16.

A．since

B．until

C．when

D．unless

17.

A．losing

B．processing

C．showing

D．reducing

18.

A．apart form

B．because of

C．as for

D．instead of

19.

A．shouting at

B．laughing at

C．looking at

D．striking at

20.

A．guide

B．force

C．invite

D．expect

10 . Social media and the mobile web have given rise to a strange phenomenon called the selfie(自拍). It refers to a picture of yourself, usually shared on any social networking website.

    1    Some selfies are extreme close-ups(特写镜头), and others show part of an arm held straight outward. A few of them even feature the subject standing in front of a bathroom mirror.

Everyone takes selfies, but the younger crowd seems to be especially involved in the trend. Young people are relatively heavier digital users. They are interested in staying connected to their friends.       2    .

There are also kinds of psychological (心理上的)actors driving people to take a selife and upload it to a social networking site.     3    . A quick and easy way to attract other’s attention is to get “likes” and comments from friends. Secondly, it’s human nature to show off your own great achievements. When you feel good about yourself or look good, it’s far too easy to take out your phone and document it all through one or several selfies.     4    That’s right. Sometimes people are bored at work, bored at school, bored at home and even bored on the toilet. Last but not least, social media is about being social. If that means uploading as many selfies as possible, then so it be. It’s fun, and it’s a cool way to sort of document your own life.

Finally, there are things to be mindful of when you’re posting. It’s easy to think you’re sharing a photo with a few people.     5    So don’t post anything online, selife especially.

A．There are lots of selfie styles.

B．The rise of selfies has become universal.

C．Social media, to some extent, is the driving force of their selife activity.

D．The desire to take, post and get “likes” on selfies goes back to a biological behavior.

E．But the whole world of social media is public and every individual can get access to it.

F．There are also people who will take selfies because they have nothing else better to do

G．The leading factor is that people want to get attention from as many people as possible.