1 . A professor was teaching his class. All the students were listening to his _______ with great interest. But there was one student whose_______ of mind showed he was in a bad mood.

The professor took notice of this student on the first day but did not say anything. But when this _______ for a week, he asked. “You are _______ in spirits all the time. What is the matter? Have some trouble?”

“Sir, that...” the student said. “... something has happened in my past, _______ which I remain troubled. I don’t know what to do.”

The professor was a(n) _______ good person. He called the student at his house in the evening.

When the student _______ the professor’s house, he was greeted with a _______ welcome. The professor went to the kitchen and started making lemonade for his student. He _______put more salt in the lemonade.

__________ the student had a taste of it, his mouth became sour. __________ this, the professor asked, “Did you not like the lemonade?”

“No, sir, this is not the __________. Just a little more salt in the drink,” the student said. “Now it’s useless. I will throw it away.” The professor __________ his hand to get the glass of drink from the student. But the student refused, saying, “No, sir. If you add more__________, the taste will be fine.”

Upon hearing this, the professor became serious and said, “You are right. That’s what I want to__________. Just as salt cannot be taken out of the lemonade, those bad experiences also cannot __________ life. Adding more sugar can change the taste of lemonade. In a(n) __________way, sweetness has to be dissolved (溶解) in life to forget bad experiences. I want you to take the sweetness in your life into __________ now.”

To his relief, the student __________ him and decided from then on he would not be troubled by the __________.

1.

A．custom

B．lecture

C．request

D．arrangement

2.

A．absence

B．attitude

C．presence

D．target

3.

A．held on

B．lived on

C．went on

D．moved on

4.

A．along

B．away

C．up

D．down

5.

A．due to

B．in spite of

C．in addition to

D．far from

6.

A．hardly

B．extremely

C．informally

D．previously

7.

A．arrived at

B．searched for

C．took over

D．escaped from

8.

A．rude

B．romantic

C．cold

D．warm

9.

A．purposely

B．absolutely

C．sadly

D．gratefully

10.

A．So long as

B．As soon as

C．Unless

D．Even if

11.

A．Feeling

B．Hearing

C．Seeing

D．Smelling

12.

A．deal

B．amount

C．luck

D．case

13.

A．reached

B．removed

C．released

D．relaxed

14.

A．salt

B．sugar

C．oil

D．wine

15.

A．suffer from

B．get through

C．get across

D．break up

16.

A．result from

B．be separated from

C．recover from

D．be saved from

17.

A．ultimate

B．natural

C．original

D．similar

18.

A．energy

B．advice

C．account

D．effort

19.

A．confused

B．warned

C．understood

D．rejected

20.

A．mass

B．majority

C．duty

D．past

2 . I once taught in a small private school. Each morning at nine o'clock all the students, ranging in age from three to seven years old, gathered in the Great Room for a warm-up in preparation for the day.

One morning the headmistress made an announcement to all the children gathered,“Today we begin a great experiment of the mind.” She held up two ivy(常春藤) plants, each potted in an identical container. She continued, “Do they look the same?”

All the children nodded. So did I, for, in this way, I was also a child.

“We will give the plants the same amount of light, the same amount of water, but not the same amount of attention,” She said. “Together we are going to see what will happen when we put one plant in the kitchen away from our attention and the other plant right here in this room. Each day for the next month, we shall sing to our plant in the Great Room and tell it how much we love it, and how beautiful it is. We will use our good minds to think good thoughts about it.”

Four weeks later my eyes were as wide and disbelieving as the children’s. The kitchen plant was leggy and sick-looking, and it hadn’t grown at all. But the Great Room plant, which had been sung to and surrounded by positive thoughts and words, had increased threefold in size with dark leaves that were filled with energy.

In order to prove the experiment, the kitchen ivy was brought to the Great Room to join the other ivy. Within three weeks, the second plant had caught up with the first ivy. Within four weeks, they could not be distinguished, one from the other.

I took this lesson to heart and made it my own.

1. Why did the headmistress do the experiment?

A．She wanted to teach me a lesson.

B．She expected the students to learn to grow plants.

C．She meant to prove the impact of good minds on growth.

D．She intended to show students how to save a sick-looking plant.

2. What happened to the ivy in the kitchen at last?

A．It stopped growing and died.

B．It was leggy and sick with dark leaves.

C．It looked almost the same as the other one.

D．It grew better than the one in the Great Room.

3. What can be a suitable title for the passage?

A．Life Means Growth

B．Things Grow with Love

C．Equality Makes a Difference

D．Positive Thoughts Really Count

3 . When I was a middle school student, all the cool kids wore the same brand of expensive jeans. I begged my parents for a pair of these highly priced jeans. Instead of _________ my desire, my mother told me that _________ I could save half of the price of the pants, she would pay the other half.

I took part-time jobs. It took months, but I could finally _________ the jeans I desired. As _________, my mother bought me the must-have jeans. Then I learned some lessons: those tight jeans were actually _________, which ended up in the closet; but most importantly, I realized the _________ of hard work.

Now I have _________ of my own and I’m teaching them the value of a dollar in the same way. As parents, we seem to be surrounded by _________ such as “Can I have…” and “I want...”. According to a study, parents are not _________ to talk to their children about finances. But I think talking to teens about money should be as __________ as brushing our teeth.

In our house, the kids do the chores they choose, and ask me or my husband to __________ their work. After that, cards written with corresponding value are given to them. On Fridays, they take out their cards and __________ the value. Even when our youngest earns more than the oldest, the oldest doesn’t __________.

Now when we go to stores, the kids bring their __________ and choose their items more __________ than ever.

1.

A．denying

B．guessing

C．explaining

D．expressing

2.

A．though

B．since

C．in order that

D．as long as

3.

A．ignore

B．afford

C．regret

D．offer

4.

A．witnessed

B．reported

C．promised

D．commented

5.

A．uncomfortable

B．fashionable

C．unpopular

D．exceptional

6.

A．significance

B．celebration

C．representation

D．annoyance

7.

A．students

B．kids

C．parents

D．friends

8.

A．choices

B．mistakes

C．trends

D．requests

9.

A．limited

B．afraid

C．willing

D．advised

10.

A．quick

B．early

C．convenient

D．routine

11.

A．repeat

B．inspect

C．guarantee

D．discover

12.

A．add up

B．clear away

C．go through

D．pack up

13.

A．compromise

B．separate

C．complain

D．hesitate

14.

A．souvenirs

B．cards

C．tickets

D．wallets

15.

A．widely

B．relatively

C．wisely

D．gratefully

4 . What is talent? Are you born with it? Or does it seem to develop over time? Before I start, I’d like to say that one thing everyone agrees on is that the most skilled musicians have worked hard to get there.

While it’s true that a few of us had enough “talent” to avoid extra practice to do just as well as those who did, those who worked hard easily beat us. It is, in fact, very likely that if some of us “talented ones” had actually been practicing and improving our skill, we would have achieved a whole different level.

Another aspect of talent seems to be heart and passion (酷爱). The people I see who are the most talented musicians are crazy about music. They eat, breathe, and live music and they make an extraordinary effort to make it part of their lives. As Remus Badea said, desire for the musician-to-be is significant for them to be successful. This desire is easily found in those considered to be talented. When you want and love something so bad, it drives you and your entire character can be shaped around it. Such determined passion seems to produce incredible skill and talent.

The third aspect (方面) of talent is having talent around you. When surrounded by talented musicians, it only seems natural that you start to catch up to their level Take a look at almost any group of musicians in history. The more talented people in the group the more talented the group is as a whole. A great example of this is the relationship between audio producer and artist. The artist turns up to the studio with their song, and as they work through recording it, the audio producer will often suggest various changes to the song to make it better.

1. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?

A．Pride goes before a fall.

B．It’s never too old to learn.

C．Practice contributes to talent.

D．Talent determines achievements.

2. What is the key to success according to Remus Badea?

A．Passion.

B．Character .

C．Skill.

D．Talent.

3. Why is the example mentioned in the last paragraph?

A．To introduce what real talents are.

B．To explain how a song is composed.

C．To prove talents need team spirit.

D．To show the benefits of being with talents.

4. What might the author probably agree with?

A．Music has no limits.

B．Musicians are born with talent.

C．Music favors the talented.

D．Musicians are created, not born.

5 . A study of violinists found that merely good players practised as much as better players, leaving other factors such as quality of education, learning skills and perhaps natural talent to account for the difference.

This finding challenges the 10, 000-hour rule promoted in Malcolm Gladwell’s 1993 study of violinists and pianists. Gladwell states that enough practice will make an expert of anyone. “The idea has been popular and entrenched in our culture for years. It’s not an idiom but an overstatement,” said Brooke Macnamara, the lead author. “When it comes to human skill, a complex combination of environmental factors and genetic factors explains the performance differences across people.”

Macnamara and her colleagues set out to repeat part of the 1993 study to see whether they reached the same conclusion. They interviewed three groups of 13 violinists regarded as best, good, or less accomplished about their practice habits, before having them complete daily diaries of their activities over a week. While the less skillful violinists reached an average of about 6,000 hours of practice by the age of 20, there was little to separate the good from the best, with each reaching an average of about 11,000 hours. In all, the number of hours spent practising accounted for about a quarter of the skill difference across the three groups.

Macnamara believes practice is less of a driver. “Once you get to the highly skilled groups, practice stops accounting for the difference. Everyone has practised a lot and other factors are at play in determining who goes on to a higher level,” she said. “The factors depend on the skill being learned: in chess it could be intelligence or working memory; in sport it may be how efficiently a person uses oxygen. To complicate matters further, one factor can drive another. Children who enjoy playing the violin, for example, may be happy to practise because they do not see it as a trouble.”

The authors of the 1993 study are unimpressed. Macnamara said it was important for people to understand the limits of practice, though. “Practice makes you better than you were yesterday, most of the time,” she said. “But it might not make you better than your neighhour or the other kid in your violin class.”

1. What does the underlined word “entrenched” in paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Rooted.

B．Advanced.

C．Changed.

D．Unconfirmed.

2. What can we learn about Macnamara’s study?

A．It convinced Malcolm Gladwell.	B．It involved violinists and pianists.
C．Its process was similar to the 1993 study.	D．Its result is consistent with the 1993 study.

3. What does Macnamara find about highly skilled people?

A．Practicing for 11,000 hours is their main driver.

B．They enjoy keeping diaries about their progress.

C．Environmental factors have little relation to their success.

D．More practice makes little difference to their further progress.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．What makes an expert?	B．Does practice make perfect?
C．The early bird catches the worm	D．Enthusiasm is the key to success

6 . 你最近又读了古代寓言故事《守株待兔》, 从中学到了很多生活哲理, 你打算把这则寓言故事分享给你的外国朋友John, 希望他们能对中国文化有更多的了解, 同时能从中学到一些人生的道理。要点包括：
1. 对故事的简要介绍；
2. 你从中悟出的人生哲理；
3. 你的希望……
注意：
1. 词数80左右。
2. 开头已给出, 不计入总词数。
参考词汇：树桩stump；锄头hoe；讽刺satirize
Dear John,

Glad to hear from you. I'd like to tell you something about a moral fable I recently read.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yours,

Li Hua