1 . To Be a Deaf DJ

I was born in England with perfect hearing. In 1990, when I was five, my family moved to the United States. I started getting ear infections every three months or so. We didn’t have health insurance at the time, and when I got a third infection, my parents couldn’t afford the treatment. I went deaf in my right ear and was left with 50 percent hearing in my left. Over time, my remaining hearing dropped to 20 percent, where it is today. My doctors predicted that I would be thoroughly deaf by now, and I think I’m doing pretty well.

There was always music on in my house in my childhood. I loved listening to Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson. My dad was a DJ, so he played disco, folk, rock, and music from other countries. For my 18^th birthday, my dad asked me to deejay at the restaurant. After doing that for a few weeks, I was interested in it. I desired to learn more. I e-mailed DJ Shiftee, a distinguished New York City DJ, “I know you like a challenge. How about teaching a deaf person to deejay?” He wrote back the next day, “Challenge accepted.” He tutored me twice a week for two years, helping me develop correct technique. I practiced four hours a day.

Now when I’m performing, muscle memory takes over. When I started, I wouldn’t tell the club managers that I was deaf. I would just show up, introduce myself, and start playing music. At the end of the night, someone would say, “Oh, here’s the check.” And I’d say, “What? Oh, I can’t hear.” They were always so astonished. Sometimes I would bring doctor’s notes because they wouldn’t believe me. It was reassurance that they were giving me opportunities to perform because I was brilliant, not out of sympathy. Eventually people started calling me “that deaf DJ,” and the name stuck.

What fascinates me about deejaying is the creativity. I use software that turns the music into lines of color on a computer screen. I’m visually hearing the music. The next time you go dancing, cover your ears, and you’ll start seeing that you’re able to hear the music in a different way. Music is not all about hearing. I pay all sorts of get-togethers now, from college parties to corporate events. I also go to elementary schools for the deaf and talk to the students about motivation and believing in themselves. I tell the parents, “My advice to you is let your kids chase their dreams. I’m a deaf DJ, so why not?”

1. Which of the following might result in the author’s hearing loss?

A．Monthly ear infection.	B．Moving to the U. S.
C．Family financial hardship.	D．The doctors’ prediction.

2. How did DJ Shiftee help the author during his youth?

A．He taught him correct skills.	B．He discovered his talent for DJ.
C．He played at the restaurant for him.	D．He cultivated his taste for foreign music.

3. The underlined expression in Paragraph 3 “the name stuck” probably means that ________.

A．the author was in low spirits	B．the author impressed people deeply
C．the audience felt disappointed by the player	D．the audience looked down upon the player

4. We can conclude from the passage that the author loves deejaying because ________.

A．working as a DJ involves creating	B．music helps him to see the world virtually
C．he motivates the kids to realize their dream	D．he desires to challenge something impossible

2 . Directions: Read the passage carefully. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Life on a Ship

We three children were very excited when we walked up the gangway (舷梯) of the British flagship China Star and saw officers, crew and staff rushing around. A Chinese housekeeper led the way and helped Uncle Jean and Aunt Reine with our luggage. Victor, Claudine and I lagged behind. The housekeeper was tall and thin and towered over everyone.       1     As we followed him down a narrow corridor towards our cabins, Victor whispered to me, “One thing about having no hair at all on your head, you always look neat!”

Though I was still feeling nervous and tongue-tied because it had only been three days since Aunt Reine took me out of St. Joseph’s, I laughed out loud. That was the effect Victor had on people.     2     “Boys to the right and girls to the left,” said Uncle Jean. Our two cabins were directly opposite each other. Inside, everything was neat, bare and clean. While Aunt Reine, Claudine and I were unpacking, there was a knock on the door.

Victor stood there, wearing a bright-red and orange life-jacket. “Why are you wearing that?” Claudine protested. “Our ship hasn’t even sailed yet!” “In case the China Star starts going down. Then you’ll really be sorry you’re not wearing one yourself. Here! Let me show you something!”     3     Our cabin was below deck. Outside we could see nothing but deep dark water.

Claudine became alarmed. “Mama, how often does a ship sink?” she asked. Before Aunt Reine had time to reply, Victor quipped with a straight face, “Only once!” Aunt Reine and I could not help laughing in spite of ourselves. But then Victor did something my brothers would never have done. He took off his life-jacket, slipped it on his sister and showed her how to adjust the straps.     4     At night, our housekeeper brought in a tiny roll-out bed because there were three of us.

A．Once Victor hid in a lifeboat for half an hour while we searched everywhere.

B．His head was completely hairless, and he was obviously unsteady.

C．He and Claudine made me feel at ease as soon as I met them.

D．There were only two narrow twin beds in our cabin, each covered with dark blue sheets.

E．He parted the curtain and looked out of the round window of the ship.

F．He jumped out as we passed below him, scaring and delighting us at the same time.

3 . The Right Thing

“Hi, Mrs. Grady,” said Mark when their neighbor opened her door. “Would you like us to shovel your sidewalk and driveway?” Shoveling was Jamie’s idea, a way to earn enough money for the new Ocean Kingdom video game that came out the next day .Mrs. Grady was happy, “That would be wonderful, boys. I think the job is getting to be too much for me.

“It will cost 10 dollars,” Jamie said.” If that’s OK “, Mark added.

“Oh dear, ”Mrs. Grady said disappointedly, “I haven’t been able to get to the bank. I can offer homemade cookies, but I realize that’s not what you had in mind.”

Mark was going to say that Mrs. Grady could pay them another time, but Jamie cut him off. “We’ll come back later.”

Mrs. Grady doesn’t look like the person who’d come to his rescue last summer when Mr. Dunn’s collie, Goldie had just wanted to play, but Mark didn’t feel comfortable around big dogs. He wanted to call for help, but his tongue seemed locked behind his teeth. Then Mrs. Grady’s front door had flown open. She must have seen him from across the street. “Hold on, Mark. I’m coming!” “Goldie” she’d called. As soon as Goldie had turned her head, Mrs. Grady had slipped between Mark and the dog. She wasn’t much taller than Mark, but she’d stood firm as a rock in front of him. “Goldie, go home!” Then she’d swept her broom to hurry the dog along. “ Get!” Goldie had obeyed.

When Mark showed thanks to Mrs. Grady, Mrs. Grady laughed. “It was nothing. Good neighbors watch out for each other, don’t they? ”

And now Mrs. Grady needed Mark as much as he’d needed her last summer. He smiled and waved at Mrs. Grady, then his shovel deep into the snow.

“Hey!” Jamie shouted. “What are you doing?” Mark couldn’t explain about Goldie and watching out for neighbors.” I like Mrs. Grady’s cookies,” he said.

1. Why did Jamie and Mark plan to clear the snow for Mrs. Grady at first?

A．To help the lady	B．To do volunteer work
C．To earn pocket money	D．To visit New Kingdom

2. Mrs. Grady couldn’t pay them most probably because     .

A．she didn’t have enough cash	B．she couldn’t find the bank
C．she thought it was worthless	D．she couldn’t afford it

3. According to the story, which of the following word cannot be used to describe Mrs. Grady?

A．Positive

B．Helpful

C．Hopeful

D．Brave

4. Which of the following proverb can best summarize the story?

A．A clear conscience	B．Kindness is repaid with kindness
C．A penny saved is a penny earned	D．Actions speak louder than work

4 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

My father was born in a small town in the United States. He wasn’t sure     1    he wanted from life, but something told him to get out and begin a new adventure. He began that adventure travelling to cities in the US, before going on to Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and the Philippines. He took his wife and three daughters with him and went     2     the road took him．

It’s easy to feel lonely when you’re on the road. As my mother said repeatedly, “We made lots of new friends on our trip, most of     3     were mechanics, since we often spent hours in repair shops.” But that was better than sitting by the roadside while waiting for the engine     4     (cool) when it was 40℃ outside.

    5     (get) along sometimes seemed impossible. There were always a lot of arguments, especially among us back-seat passengers about who had to sit in the middle.       6     it was hard, we did learn a lot about forgiveness. When we were travelling in the Philippines, we drove to Quezon City one day. It     7     have been a one-hour drive but was nearly three, due to bad roads and worse traffic. “Did you put our suitcases in the car?” My father asked my mother as we arrived in Quezon City. From the back seat, we saw her slowly turn toward my father. “No,” she said, “I thought you did.” That was how a 7-hour car trip turned into a 16-hour car trip, which was mostly spent     8     silence. On occasions like that, we had to learn to let go of our anger because we     9     (stick) in a rolling box with the same people for the rest of the journey. Though I sometimes felt like opening the car door and pushing one of my sisters out, I kept my feelings to myself. This is why road trips were like mobile universities to us. We earned our degrees in how to get along with other people just by travelling in that old car. And if we were somehow given     10     second chance at life, we would do it all over again.

5 . Directions: Complete the following passages by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. overnight 　　　B. flash 　　　C. share 　　　D. enormous　　　 E. endured　　　 F. rise G. lengthy 　　　H. places　　　 I. pursue 　　　J. reflected 　　　K. plentiful

Robert Frost had aimed to be a poet since he was a teenager. But the American literary icon would not publish his first book of poetry until he was 39, and his best works would not follow until he was well into middle and old age. “Young people are good at discovering. They have a     1     here and there. It is like the stars coming out in the early evening,” he     2     at age 63, but “it is later in the dark of life that you see forms, patterns”

Frost’s     3     journey to fame during the dark of life, however, is far from the road less taken. Despite science society and silicon valley’s common belief that creativity, innovation and excellence are the near-exclusive province of the young, a surprising number of late bloomers mark the records of human history — women and men who     4     years of hardship, failure and missed opportunities before making an impact in the later stages of life. And once you move past the impressive stare of history’s Mozart-like geniuses, you find that late bloomers are quite     5    : in fact, there are many more roads to becoming an old master than a young prodigy.

Sometimes you don’t discover your passion in life until you’ve done some other things first. Sometimes you don’t get the opportunity to make the most of your experiences until relatively late in life. Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, didn’t start building his business empire until he was 53 years old. Until that point, the former Red Cross ambulance driver was a traveling salesman, peddling milk shake machines and paper cups. “I was a(n)     6     success all right,” Kroc wrote in his autobiography, “but 30 years is a long, long night.”

Sometimes, instead of opportunities, life     7     obstacles on the road to success. It wasn’t until Laura Ingalls Wilder turned 65 that her epic Little House on the Prairie series was published. By then, she had already devoted decades to being a farm wife and mother, schoolteacher, loan officer and newspaper columnist, and she had endured more than her fair     8     of hardship, from droughts to house fires. Another influential writer, Miguel de Cervantes, wrote Don Quixote in his late 50s after an eventful life in which he spent years behind bars and as a captive of Barbary pirates.

Therefore, unlike the youthful genius, whose rocket-fast     9     impresses as well as depresses the rest of the world, the late bloomer demonstrates what is possible as people     10     their own versions of full bloom.

6 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

The Shop Where It’s OK to Be Different

When Angela Makey knew her autistic (患自闭症的) son Adam wanted to open a comic shop, she laughed out loud. She knew he’d been keen on comics since childhood. But how would he   deal with   customers   and suppliers   and   all the   other jobs     1     are necessary for running a business?

At that time, Adam was looking for a job. He had a degree in philosophy and had learned to live independently, but there didn’t seem to be any suitable jobs for him. The family     2     (hope) he and his younger brother Guy, also with autism, could find work that matched their strengths: reliability, punctuality and attention to detail. But there were no available opportunities.

So the “laughable” comic shop idea began to grow on Angela. Eventually, she   used   her savings   to   buy   a shop   in   Cambridgeshire,   and   seven years   ago Niche Comics     3     (bear).

Like many autistic people, Adam loves comics for their world of rich detail and visual expression. He developed an interest in Marvel comic heroes on TV     4     he was seven years old. “They are a reminder     5     it’s OK not to be like everyone else,” Adam said. He’s now 30, and comics and their heroes are still part of his life.

In the comic shop, the brothers share their encyclopedic (渊博的) knowledge of comics with customers.   The brothers act   as guides   in this universe,     6     (introduce) customers to new comics.

The shop attracts   many   autistic customers. And being autistic     7     turns out to be a big help for the brothers to deal with customers. They are good at     8     (spot) the customers’ needs and feelings. “Maybe it’s the tone of the voice, the motion of a hand — small details that most people won’t pick up on — that I might have insight (深刻理解) into,” says Guy. Of course, the majority of customers who come to the shop are not autistic. Now the brothers get a steady stream of customers who are, both male and female,     9     young children to retired people. Once the shop had established itself, the brothers also began reaching out to people with autism beyond the shop.

Seven years on, Angela is glad she took the risk of   helping her   sons     10     (create) their dream shop. “This shop has a soul,” the mother says proudly.

7 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Discovering a Lost Brother

Kieron Graham always knew he had an elder brother named Vincent. His adoption papers,     1     (sign) when he was three months old, listed a brother named Vincent but no last name. Though Kieron spent years thinking about Vincent, he could never track him down.

That changed in December 2017, when Kieron’s adoptive parents gave him an DNA test as a Christmas gift. When his results came back, he was surprised     2     (find) he had a lot of DNA matches for relatives who had also taken the test. Most were distant connections, but one match was so strong that it     3     (label) “close family.” His name was Vincent Ghant. Kieron looked for him on Facebook and soon made a possible connection.

When they connected, it was     4     they had known each other their whole lives. As they talked, the brothers realized they lived about 20 minutes from each other.     5    (surprisingly), they attended the same university and majored and minored in the same subjects.

Vincent was nine when Kieron was born and remembers caring for his baby brother. But times were tough, and Shawn, who worked 15-plus hours a day as a nurse, decided that     6    (place) Kieron for adoption would give him the best chance to succeed.

“She was very emotional about that time, to the point     7     it was hard for her to put into words anything about what happened,” Vincent says.

Now the brothers had the chance to make up for lost time. They decided to meet at a local tea shop that week. One of Vincent’s concerns was that Kieron     8     hate his birth family for placing him for adoption. He was relieved Kieron didn’t, and     9     he’d grown up in a loving family. After that first meeting, the brothers played football together and celebrated Christmas with their families. “We’ll keep growing our relationship     10     it’s time to leave this planet,” says Vincent. That shouldn’t be hard. As Kieron says, “We’ve got years and years to catch up on.”

8 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word t fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Mystery of the White Gardenia (栀子花)

(Every year on my birthday, from the time I turned 12, a white gardenia was delivered to my house. No card or note came with it.)

One month before my high-school graduation, my father died of a heart attack. My feelings ranged from grief to abandonment, fear and     1     (overwhelm) anger that my dad was missing some of the most important events in my life. I became completely uninterested     2    my upcoming graduation, the senior-class play and the prom (班级舞会).But my mother, in the midst of her own grief,     3    not hear of my skipping any of those things.

The day before my father died, my mother and I     4    (go) shopping for a prom dress. We’d found a spectacular one, with yards and yards of dotted Swiss in red, white and blue,     5     made me feel like Scarlett O’ Hara,     6     it was the wrong size. When my father died, I forgot about the dress.

My mother didn’t. The day before the prom, I found that dress - in the right size - draped majestically over the living-room sofa. It wasn’t just delivered, still in the box. It     7    (present) to me - beautifully, artistically, lovely. I didn’t care if I had a new dress or not. But my mother did.

She wanted her children to feel     8    (love) and lovable, creative and imaginative, filled with a sense     9     there was magic in the world and beauty even in the face of adversity. In truth, my mother wanted her children to see     10     much like the gardenia - lovely, strong and perfect - with a feeling of magic and perhaps a hit of mystery.

My mother died ten days after I married. I was 22 years old. That was the year the gardenias stopped coming.

9 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

I teach a course in marine biology at a college in central Maine. In order to give each student the individualized attention he or she     1    (deserve), I cap the class size at 15. Some years back, while calling out names from the roster (花名册) on the first day, I noticed a gray-haired woman of about 70. She     2    (hang) about at the door, with her new books like a schoolgirl.

“I’m not on the roster,” she volunteered, clearly self-conscious about all the     3    (seat) 18-year-olds looking her over. “But I was wondering if I     4    just sit in on the first class, to see what it’s about.”

There were already 15 in the class, but this woman’s eagerness impressed me, so I invited her to have a seat.

I began by chatting informally with the class to get a feel for how much knowledge they were bringing to     5    course. The result of open admissions is that professors are faced with very uneven crops of students, many of     6     know relatively little about the world around them.

In marine biology I like to see if they know the difference between fishes and seagoing mammals (哺乳动物). I often hold up a sponge (海绵) in the hope     7     someone will recognize it as an animal rather than a plant. I talk about the difference between a sea and an ocean.

    8     I questioned, most of my new students remained silent. But Natalie, the older woman, was on the edge of her seat,     9    (volunteer) answers with the quickness of a game show contestant. In time, I felt as if it were just she and I engaged in a private conversation. At the end of class, she came up to me and apologized for being the “extra” student. “I certainly wish I could take this course,’’ she said. “Will you offer it next week?” Alarmed at the prospect of losing her, I acted quickly to relieve     10    concern. “I’ll see you next class,” I said.

10 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize in no more than 60 words the main idea of the passage and how it is illustrated. Use your own words as far as possible.

One day, a poor boy who was trying to pay his way through school by selling goods door to door found that he only had one dime left. He was hungry so he decided to beg for a meal at the next house.

However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?”

“You don’t owe me anything,’’ she replied. “Mother has taught me never to accept pay for a kindness.” He said, “Then I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but it also increased his faith in the human race. He was about to give up and quit before this point.

Years later the young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where specialists can be called in to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly, now famous, was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately, he rose and went down through the hospital hall into her room.

Dressed in his doctor’s gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room and determined to do his best to save her life. From that day on, he gave special attention to her case.

After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it and then wrote something on the side. The bill was sent to her room. She was afraid to open it because she was positive that it would take the rest of her life to pay it off. Finally she looked, and the note on the side of the bill caught her attention. She read these words “Paid in full with a glass of milk. (Signed) Dr. Howard Kelly” and tears of joy flooded her eyes. Love spread through human hearts and hands.