1 . I feared it was going to be a terrible firework season this year. The bangs (巨响)_________   before the first of July and lasted three more days. I have never been a big fan of fireworks since I was a boy. It was then that a local fair _________   a huge firework show near our house and I saw how the huge _________   terrified our dogs. I sat on the_________ in the house with them during the whole show, holding their_________ bodies.

I know a lot of people enjoy the_________ light shows the fireworks can put on at times. They can be bright and beautiful. Still, I find that I_________ the gentler lights of summers to these noisy ones. I love seeing the moon rising _________ above the hills in the evening. The shining stars always look so wonderful when you take the time to_________ into the sky and watch them shine.

I also__________   the beautiful, blinking lights of the fireflies (萤火虫) at this__________   of year. Seeing their lovely, little lights as they__________ around always fills my heart with joy and light as well. It feeds my soul and reminds me of what a glorious__________ we live in.

I think we all might do better to develop and grow the gentler__________ within ourselves. They are meant to be__________ with others. They are meant to be shined.

1.

A．bounced

B．resounded

C．ripened

D．resigned

2.

A．launched

B．assessed

C．canceled

D．assigned

3.

A．bonus

B．noise

C．sight

D．feast

4.

A．carpet

B．fountain

C．grass

D．roof

5.

A．frightening

B．exciting

C．calming

D．trembling

6.

A．subsequent

B．vivid

C．single

D．primitive

7.

A．prefer

B．apply

C．compare

D．devote

8.

A．initially

B．substantially

C．slowly

D．obviously

9.

A．break down

B．look up

C．rise up

D．flow away

10.

A．seize

B．release

C．raise

D．fancy

11.

A．time

B．age

C．edge

D．mercy

12.

A．lie

B．flee

C．fly

D．stick

13.

A．world

B．community

C．dream

D．flat

14.

A．sounds

B．levels

C．lights

D．images

15.

A．helped

B．shared

C．compared

D．communicated

2 . About 30 years ago, an acoustic neuroma (听神经瘤) was found inside my body. The removal of the neuroma caused my temporary balance issues and permanent hearing loss in one ear. Apart from this, I was fine.

Unexpectedly, the neuroma came back years later. It had to be removed again. Otherwise it would threaten the rest of my brain. When I awoke from the second operation, I had stroke-like symptoms. The whole right side of my body almost stopped functioning, and still does.

Overnight my whole identity had changed. I used to effortlessly leap up the stairs two at a time, but now it takes fifteen minutes to struggle. Attempts at the recovery of the old me proved to be fruitless. My family role also shifted from a father to a dependent child, and coupled with my communication problems, this led to increased frustration (沮丧) and anger.

There were concerns too about whether I would ever be accepted again in the wider world. Soon after this I just managed to swim in a pool. A ten-year-old boy I didn’t know came up and asked me if I had been on the water slide yet. As politely as possible, I said no, and we struck up a conversation about it. For the first time a stranger was speaking to me as an equal like before. Though insignificant then, it opened doors to a whole new way of being seen, and seeing myself.

To make sure the neuroma did not reappear, I received radiation treatment for two hours regularly, during which I loved listening to music by Tom Waits, an eccentric (古 怪的) singer most people dislike, but I don’t care. For me, life after brain injury is like Waits’ odd works. Out of failure, ugliness, and horror-the most unpromising raw material-a beautiful diamond can be created that shines out even more brightly because of its dark surroundings.

1. What happened to the author after his single-sided deafness?

A．He lost the ability to keep balance.

B．His acoustic neuroma regrew.

C．He underwent two operations in a row.

D．His vision was accidentally damaged.

2. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The author’s efforts to rebuild his disabled body.

B．The author’s self-reflection on his cultural identity.

C．The different attitudes of the author’s family to him.

D．The considerable impact of the author’s brain injury.

3. How did the author find his talk with the boy?

A．Reasonable.

B．Engaging.

C．Life-changing.

D．In-depth.

4. What lesson did the author learn from Tom Waits’ music?

A．Music is the universal language of mankind.

B．Suffering often leads to new self-discovery.

C．Kindness is the language that the deaf can hear.

D．Live for yourself, not for the approval of others.

3 . At a family picnic for employees of the company where my father worked, they held a contest for children. I was 13, full of enthusiasm, so I _________ myself into it.

The host gave each child a cloth handkerchief and told us the winner would be the one who cast it the _________. The first throwers, took mighty wind-ups, but when the cloth left their hands, it _________ and landed on the ground a few inches in front of them. The crowd roared with _________. Not until then did I realize it was not meant to _________ any real skill, but simply for laughs. However, it stimulated my _________ for thinking outside the box.

It _________ me to see the kids throwing harder when the handkerchief always caught the air and died. It was obvious that using the same _________ would not work. Suppose I tied a(an) _________ inside the handkerchief? When they inspected it, I’d be __________. So I began tying the handkerchief around itself to make it small and __________ packed together to keep it from unfolding. When I approached the line, people were already laughing, __________ a big strong-looking boy like me casting it just a few inches.

I took a long wind-up, and the balled handkerchief __________ off maybe 60 feet away. The laughing __________ in collective shock. I had not broken the rules. What I learned from this contest was that, in order to live creatively, you have to __________ the less-used parts of your brain, and not accept stereotypes(刻板印象), slogans and unquestioned ideas.

1.

A．admitted

B．threw

C．trapped

D．talked

2.

A．farthest

B．strongest

C．highest

D．biggest

3.

A．escaped

B．wrinkled

C．opened

D．appeared

4.

A．pain

B．applause

C．laughter

D．anger

5.

A．demonstrate

B．apply

C．improve

D．learn

6.

A．responsibility

B．imagination

C．demand

D．passion

7.

A．delighted

B．frightened

C．amused

D．annoyed

8.

A．cloth

B．technique

C．rule

D．line

9.

A．ant

B．rock

C．leaf

D．shoe

10.

A．fined

B．disqualified

C．dismissed

D．banned

11.

A．loosely

B．randomly

C．firmly

D．delicately

12.

A．anticipating

B．enjoying

C．stopping

D．confirming

13.

A．dashed

B．jumped

C．shot

D．rocketed

14.

A．died

B．roared

C．continued

D．weakened

15.

A．glance through

B．tap into

C．give up

D．go over

4 . In today’s motivational literature, failure is often viewed as something to be celebrated. Inspirational speakers are fond of quoting the words of the novelist Samuel Beckett-“Fail again. Fail better.” It seems that disappointments are an essential stepping stone to success, a turning point in our life story that will ultimately end in victory.

However, psychological researches find most of us struggle to handle failure constructively. In other words, we fail to “fail forward”. We find ways to devalue the task at which we failed, and become less motivated to persevere and reach our goals. This phenomenon is known as the “sour-grape effect”, which was discovered by Professor Hallgeir Sjastad.

Sjastad explains that “sour-grape effect” is a self-protective mechanism. “Most of us picture ourselves as competent people, so when external feedback (反馈) suggests otherwise, it poses a serious threat to that self-image,” he says. “The easiest way out is to deny or explain away the external signal, so we can reduce the inconsistency and preserve a positive sense of self. We do this even without noticing.”

If you have one bad interview for your dream job, you might convince yourself that you don’t really want it at all, and stop applying for similar positions. The same goes if you fail to impress at a sports trial, or if a publisher rejects the first submission of your manuscript (手稿).“We tend to explain away our shortcomings and convince ourselves our ‘Plan C’ is actually our ‘Plan A’,” Sjastad says.

It doesn’t mean we should persevere in goals all the time. It can be healthy to change ambitions if the process is no longer making us happy. But the “sour-grape effect”may lead us to come to this decision prematurely, rather than hanging on a little and seeing whether we might learn and improve.

Failures are unavoidable. By learning to face the disappointment instead of devaluing its importance and pretending nothing happened, you may find it easier to achieve your goals.

1. Why does the author mention the speech of inspirational speakers in paragraph 1?

A．To offer an example to handle failure.

B．To describe a shallow understanding of failure.

C．To introduce a common attitude towards failure.

D．To emphasize the importance of experiencing failure.

2. What can we learn from the paragraph 3 about the “sour-grape effect”?

A．It protects us from false feedback.

B．It pictures us as competitive people.

C．It poses a severe threat to self-image.

D．It denies negative feedback to ourselves.

3. What does the underlined word “prematurely” in paragraph 5 mean?

A．Unhappily.

B．Mistakenly.

C．Hurriedly.

D．Carelessly.

4. Which statement would the author most probably agree with?

A．Don’t escape when our self-image is broken.

B．Don’t quit when goals no longer make you happy.

C．Never hesitate to replace “Plan A” with “Plan C”.

D．Never forget to maintain a positive sense of self.

5 . Dr. Smith of New York works at a center for children who can’t learn well. One day a father brought his son to him for________ at his office.

The father told Dr. Smith about his son. “My son has ________ in learning and can’t even play baseball. He isn’t doing well because he doesn’t try. I have done everything for him. I have even shouted at him. But nothing ________. ”

After Dr. Smith tested the boy, he ________ his father. He asked the father to sit in front of a ________ and then gave him a pencil and a piece of paper. There was a ________ on the paper. He asked the father to look only in the mirror and ________ the lines of the star with the pencil. The father made the same ________ anyone makes. Every time he ________ the pencil, it went the wrong way. The father’s face became red.

At this ________ the doctor shouted at him, “Hurry up! Why are you ________ so long? You can’t do such an ________ thing! You don’t know left from right!” These ________ made the father very angry.

“Now you can ________, can’t you?” The doctor said to him. “Your son has felt just like that all the time. You scolded (训斥) him too often, so he didn't try any more. He was afraid of making mistakes. ”

________ the father understood everything. He put his face down. Now he felt so sorry.

1.

A．testing

B．acting

C．teaching

D．playing

2.

A．confidence

B．interest

C．experience

D．difficulty

3.

A．returns

B．helps

C．appears

D．remains

4.

A．waited for

B．searched for

C．believed in

D．called in

5.

A．mirror

B．television

C．painting

D．desk

6.

A．face

B．line

C．number

D．star

7.

A．remove

B．follow

C．cross

D．cut

8.

A．decisions

B．choices

C．mistakes

D．patterns

9.

A．touched

B．dropped

C．moved

D．sharpened

10.

A．speed

B．corner

C．end

D．point

11.

A．staying

B．taking

C．preparing

D．writing

12.

A．easy

B．important

C．obvious

D．exciting

13.

A．ideas

B．words

C．questions

D．instructions

14.

A．relax

B．leave

C．understand

D．promise

15.

A．Interestingly

B．Absolutely

C．Suddenly

D．Unfortunately

6 . 假定你是李华，你要参加学校英语报以“Practice makes perfect”为题开展的征文活动。内容包括：
1. 你对这句谚语的理解；
2. 你个人的实践经验；
3. 这句谚语对学习生活的指导意义。
注意：1. 词数80左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3. 开头已给出，不计入总词数。

Every proverb brings people some wisdom

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7 . 阅读下面短文, 在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Victor Hugo said: “The most important quality for a man is kindness.” Why is kindness important?

Kindness is     1    type of behavior marked by acts of generosity, consideration, or concern for others, without     2     (expect) praise or reward.

Aristotle defined kindness     3     “helpfulness towards someone in need, not in return for anything, nor for the advantage of the helper himself,     4     for that of the person helped”.

    5    (base) on experiments at Yale University using games with babies, some studies concluded     6     kindness is native to human beings. Researchers also carried out some other similar     7    (study) about the root of empathy (同理心) developing in the early months of life     8    (find) out the easy concern shown by children for their peers in distress.

Recently, Barbara Taylor and Adam Phillips     9    (stress) the element of necessary realism in adult kindness, as well as the way “real kindness changes people in the doing of it, often in unpredictable ways”.

Kindness is important because if everyone is kind, the whole world will be harmonious and     10    (benefit) to everyone.

8 . The most important life lesson I’ve learned from running is to run at my own pace. This lesson has guided me in many ways. _________, it made me challenge the fixed expectations of retirement and aging.

Running is a metaphor for life. I realized this while _________ for a marathon to celebrate my 60th birthday. All the other runners being faster than me made me _________. But my coach shared some valuable advice: run at your own best pace. Setting a goal or target time could be a _________. He was right. _________, I ran more easily and faster. I also enjoyed the experience much more.

I have _________ this principle to other areas of my life. Finding a rhythm is not about _________ or how many things I can get done in a day. It has more to do with what I decide to do at this stage in my life.

Running carries its own set of expectations, including what it meant to be a strong runner. But expectations also _________ to other areas of life, including what people at certain life stages should be doing or not doing. Expectations at my age can _________ how leisure time is spent, decisions about employment and even the role of a ____________.

I used to think it was young people who bore the brunt (冲击) of ____________, but older adults can experience it too. This is ____________, because often later in life is a time when we are less inclined to care about the opinions of others.

That is the message my running coach was trying to convey. ____________ what others are doing.

Their pace is not ____________ the pace you should run at. Run in your own way. It’s not better or worse -only ____________.

1.

A．In turn

B．In particular

C．In advance

D．In depth

2.

A．training

B．struggling

C．competing

D．searching

3.

A．pitiful

B．grateful

C．impressed

D．embarrassed

4.

A．resolution

B．practice

C．limitation

D．motivation

5.

A．Against time

B．Ahead of time

C．Of all time

D．Over time

6.

A．exposed

B．compared

C．applied

D．suggested

7.

A．music

B．business

C．requirement

D．efficiency

8.

A．subscribe

B．extend

C．contribute

D．refer

9.

A．center on

B．hope for

C．decide on

D．call for

10.

A．boss

B．grandparent

C．athlete

D．citizen

11.

A．peer pressure

B．separation anxiety

C．sleeping disorder

D．age discrimination

12.

A．natural

B．unacceptable

C．ironic

D．significant

13.

A．Mind

B．Expect

C．Forget

D．Abandon

14.

A．basically

B．gradually

C．alternatively

D．necessarily

15.

A．different

B．amazing

C．common

D．fair

9 . Dear Children,

As you know, for years I’ve planned to write up the memories. Now that you are grown, I’ve signed up for a memoir writing class. You know what? It’s such a struggle!

Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night with just the right thought in my mind. Grabbing notepaper and pen, I go in the bathroom and write it down. Great! I don’t want to lose that, and in the morning it may be gone. But I’m having trouble getting back to sleep these days and find myself nodding off in my chair after dinner.

Instead of writing “I remember,” we are encouraged to be creative. The right expression came -during the night. Naturally I jumped up and got it written just the way I wanted. It’s all sort of a torture (拆磨). I’m walking around with dark circles underneath my eyes.

I spend a great deal of time staring out the window, deep in thoughts. I’ve noticed I’m having a little bit of trouble sometimes getting my eyes to focus again. I also carry around a notebook in my purse to seize the thoughts when I’m driving around or at the grocery store. The notebook takes up so much space in my purse!

It’s great to have pictures to illustrate the writings. But in finding just the right ones, I have to search around through all the boxes, and the house is in a mess. in fact, I’m becoming absent-minded, I have to admit. I forgot to turn on the coffee pot the other morning, and yesterday the potatoes burned when I was writing down this great description.

So, my dears, I’ve decided it’s fun to write all the memorable times in my life and to share the happy days of your growing up years. But I think at my age, I need my rest. Enjoy the ones I’ve written because I’ve decided not to write any more memoirs.

Love, Mom

1. What happened to the author after taking part in the memoir writing class?

A．Her memoir was soon accomplished.

B．Her sleeping quality was greatly affected.

C．She formed a habit of sleeping after dinner.

D．She became a creative writer after struggle.

2. Why did the author carry around a notebook?

A．To help her driving.

B．To communicate with people.

C．To write down her thoughts.

D．To take up the space of her purse.

3. What can we learn about the author from Paragraph 5?

A．Her memory became poor.

B．She was not good at cooking.

C．She liked drawing pictures.

D．Her house was always in a mess.

4. What is the author’s attitude to her decision of not writing memories?

A．Optimistic but confused.

B．Pessimistic but tolerant.

C．Sorrowful and frustrated.

D．Objective and sensible.

10 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

Jack graduated from a famous university this July. He went to apply for a job in a big company and had to go through interviews before getting the job.

He passed the first two interviews easily, and then it was the boss’s turn to do the last one and make the final decision whether Jack would get the job or not.

The boss learned that Jack’s academic achievements were very good all the way, from the middle school until university. Never had a year when he did not receive prizes.

The boss asked, “Did you have any part-time jobs in school?” Jack shook his head and said, “No, I didn’t have part-time jobs.” The boss went on and asked, “Was it your father who paid for your school fees?” Jack replied, “My father passed away when I was one year old. It was my mother who worked and paid for my school fees.”

The boss continued, “Where did your mother work?” Jack told him that his mother worked as a clothes cleaner. Every day she would carry baskets of clothes home. After washing and ironing the clothes, she carried the baskets back to the store where she got paid.

Then the boss politely requested Jack to show his hands to him. Jack was confused and he showed his hands in front of the boss, a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect. The boss asked again, “Jack, have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?” Jack answered, “Never. My mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Besides, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.”

The boss smiled and said, “Jack, I am satisfied with your performance in the interviews, but I have another request. When you return home tonight, go and clean your mother’s hands, and then come to see me tomorrow morning.”

注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Jack left the office, feeling confused about the strange request._________________________________.
The next morning, Jack went back to the boss’s office.____________________________________.