1 . The doorbell rang one mid-December evening. I frequently had unexpected visitors in those early days after my husband’s ________. But when my 6-year-old son opened the door, nobody was there. ________, on the doormat was a box, tied with a silver ________ and a note that said “On the First Day of Christmas...” A mystery.

Sam had died that fall, ________ me the single parent of our two boys, 6 and 8. My sons and I had already ________ to deal with Halloween, and Thanksgiving without Daddy. Still, I was afraid of Christmas. How could December have ________ without my husband?

The next night, the doorbell rang again. Another ________ came, decorated with the same silver ribbon (带子) and ________ the same card reading “On the Second Day of Christmas...”

For the next couple of nights, my boys waited near the front door to see who was leaving the gifts, but the bearer would always choose the moment they left to ________.

I didn’t know who the secret Santa was. But there was one thing I did know. In those dark days of ________, somebody was shining a light our way with a simple but ________ message: “You are loved.” It was such a strange feeling, to be left in darkness on the one hand and drawn so firmly toward ________ on the other. I believe hope will make a(n) ________.

After 11 days of offerings, we weren’t sure what to ________ when we approached home on that 12th night. I trusted there would be ________.

1.

A．promotion

B．death

C．retirement

D．operation

2.

A．Otherwise

B．Besides

C．Instead

D．Therefore

3.

A．rope

B．paper

C．flower

D．ribbon

4.

A．leaving

B．finding

C．naming

D．considering

5.

A．agreed

B．planned

C．managed

D．promised

6.

A．arrived

B．returned

C．ended

D．escaped

7.

A．book

B．toy

C．box

D．pet

8.

A．designing

B．including

C．showing

D．making

9.

A．get through

B．set off

C．move on

D．turn up

10.

A．regret

B．sadness

C．anger

D．disappointment

11.

A．annoying

B．funny

C．urgent

D．powerful

12.

A．dream

B．light

C．future

D．home

13.

A．difference

B．effort

C．comparison

D．contribution

14.

A．support

B．offer

C．expect

D．appreciate

15.

A．something

B．nothing

C．anything

D．everything

2 . It’s said that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at what’s on their bookshelves. What do my bookshelves say about me? Well, I’d always thought of myself as a cultured person, but my bookshelves told a rather different story.

So, in October 2011, I registered my blog, ayearofreadingtheworld.com, and posted a short appeal online. I explained how narrow my reading had been and asked anyone who cared to suggest what I read from other parts of the planet. I had no idea whether anyone would be interested, but within a few hours, people started to get in touch.

Books came from surprising sources. My Panamanian read, for example, came through a conversation I had with the Panama Canal on Twitter, which advised I try the work of the Panamanian author Juan David Morgan. I found Morgan’s website and sent him a message, asking if any of his Spanish-language novels had been translated into English. And he said nothing had been published, but he did have an unpublished translation of his novel “The Golden Horse”, and he emailed it to me.

Morgan was by no means the only wordsmith to share his work with me in this way. From Sweden to Palau, writers and translators sent me self-published books and unpublished manuscripts (手稿) of books that hadn’t been picked up by Anglophone publishers or that were no longer available, giving me privileged glimpses (初步的感受) of some remarkable imaginary worlds.

The books I read that year have opened my eyes to many things. That can be an uncomfortable experience, particularly when I’m reading a book from a culture that may have quite different values to my own. But it can also be really enlightening. Wrestling with unfamiliar ideas can help clarify my own thinking and show up blind spots in the way I might have been looking at the world.

When I looked back at much of the English-language literature I’d grown up with, I began to see how narrow a lot of it was, compared to the richness that the world has to offer. Little by little, that long list of countries that I’d started the year with changed from a rather dry, academic register of place names into living, breathing entities.

1. Why did the author create the blog “A Year of Reading the World”?

A．To learn from others’ bookshelves.

B．To broaden her cultural horizons.

C．To get recommendations from readers.

D．To find out the literary works she lacked.

2. What did the author think of the responses from writers and translators?

A．They presented a challenge to the author.

B．They blocked the author’s reading journey.

C．They offered unique access to literary worlds.

D．They inspired confidence in the author’s project.

3. How does reading diverse cultural books benefit the author?

A．Provide her with unfamiliar topics.

B．Make her absorbed in other cultures.

C．Show fields she needs to learn more about.

D．Reveal areas she lacks insight in her worldview.

4. Which can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Exploring the Global Literary Landscape

B．The Challenge of Reading the World

C．Uncovering Stories from Every Country

D．The Impact of Culture on the Worldview

3 . I used to believe that only words could catch the essence of the human soul. The literary works contained such distinct stories that they shaped the way we saw the world. Words were what composed the questions we sought to uncover and the answers to those questions themselves. Words were everything.

That belief changed.

In an ordinary math class, my teacher posed a simple question: What’s 0.99 rounded to the nearest whole number? Easy. When rounded to the nearest whole number, 0.99=1. Somehow, I thought even though 0.99 is only 0.01 away from 1, there’s still a 0.01 difference. That means even if two things are only a little different, they are still different, so doesn’t that make them completely different?

My teacher answered my question by presenting another equation (等式): 1= 0.9, which could also be expressed as 1=0.99999.... repeating itself without ever ending.

There was something mysterious but fascinating about the equation. The left side was unchangeable, objective: it contained a number that ended. On the right was something endless, number repeating itself limitless times. Yet, somehow, these two opposed things were connected by an equal sign.

Lying in bed, I thought about how much the equation paralleled our existence. The left side of the equation represents that sometimes life itself is so unchangeable and so clear. The concrete, whole number of the day when you were born and the day when you would die. But then there is that gap in between life and death. The right side means a time and space full of limitless possibilities, and endless opportunities into the open future.

So that’s what life is. Objective but imaginative. Unchangeable but limitless. Life is an equation with two sides that balances itsef out. Still, we can’t ever truly seem to put the perfect words to it. So possibly numbers can express ideas as eually well as words can. For now, let’s leave it at that: 1= 0.99999... and live a life like it.

1. What does the author emphasize about words in paragraph 1?

A．Their wide variety.	B．Their literary origins.
C．Their distinct sounds.	D．Their expressive power.

2. What made the author find the equation fascinating?

A．The repetition of a number.	B．The way two different numbers are equal.
C．The question the teacher raised.	D．The difference between the two numbers.

3. Which of the fllowing can replace the underlined word “paralleled” in paragraph 6?

A．Measured.

B．Composed.

C．Mirrored.

D．Influenced.

4. What is a suitable title for the text?

A．The Perfect Equation	B．Numbers Build Equations
C．An Attractive Question	D．Words Outperform Numbers

4 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写一段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

During that hot summer, little Sammy and his sister Marie spent their vacation at their grandparents’ farm. The farm was filled with fun and adventure, but one day, an unfortunate accident occurred. While playing, Sammy accidentally shot his grandmother’s beloved pet duck with a slingshot (弹弓). Panicked, he quickly hid the duck behind a pile of old wood in the yard. He was afraid to tell his grandmother the truth, worried about being punished.

However, what he didn’t know was that his sister Marie had seen the entire event. The next day, when Grandma asked Marie to wash the dishes, Marie seized the opportunity to shift the responsibility onto Sammy. She said, “Sammy told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today, Grandma.” Sammy was shocked and confused because he had not said such a thing. Marie approached him and whispered threateningly, “Remember the duck?” It was then that Sammy realized Marie had seen his secret and was now using it to make him do the housework she didn’t want to do.

This situation continued for several days. Whenever there were household chores to be done, Marie would threaten Sammy with “Remember the duck?”. Sammy felt an increasing burden of guilt and responsibility.

注意：续写词数应为 80左右。

Finally, he couldn’t bear the secret and pressure any longer and decided to tell everything to Grandma

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5 . I grew up with the same group of kids from age 5 to age 12. We lived in the same community, shared the same schools and experienced all the ups and downs of that period.

Then I hit junior high and a whole new world opened up to me. It seemed everyone was there, friends from football teams and people from the summer workshop. They welcomed me, figuring that I had to be cool to know so many people. I was a different person with each new group of friends and began to distance myself from the “kindergarten group”.

However, it wasn’t long before these so-called new friends left me when they found out I really wasn’t cool enough to be there. This was one of the hardest times in my life. I felt alone and was very disappointed in myself. It was then, when I thought I had nowhere else to go, that I tried to make my way back into the “kindergarten group”. I organized a camp-out and invited them to come. I had thought they were going to be cold and exclude me as I had done to them. But they all turned up and we just picked up right where we left off. There was absolutely no hate, only comfort and an unexpected sense of belonging. They gave me room to grow and learn my own lessons, my own way, in my own time.

From them, I have learned two things: the type of friends I want, and the type of friend I want to be. We will all continue to grow separately together, all the while providing the unconditional love, understanding and support only friends like these are capable of.

1. How did the author feel about her school life according to Paragraph 2?

A．Shocked.

B．Upset.

C．Curious.

D．Happy.

2. Why did the author organize a camp-out?

A．To make more friends.

B．To get close to nature.

C．To apologize to her friends.

D．To reconnect with her old friends.

3. What does the underlined word “exclude” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Cheat.

B．Refuse.

C．Warn.

D．Attack.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．A Friend in Need.

B．My Kindergarten Group.

C．Lessons in Friendship.

D．Friends in My New School.

6 . My memories of those nights I spent with my great-grandmother are still vivid. I_________ them all, because I have_________ else to remind me of her. While my friends_________ display treasures left to them by their grandmothers — precious china, antique silver, jewelry — all that I have of her is a scarf I’d made her.

My great-grandmother didn’t have a china-and-jewelry kind of _________. While we were under the _________, she told me many _________ stories. I felt the pain a mother feels when her only son is _________ missing after a battle. I felt the _________ a wife feels as throat cancer robs her beloved _________ of speech and ultimately of life. I felt the__________ of the Depression (大萧条), what it was like to lose your home and to __________ produce that had gone bad. My great-grandmother never cried when she __________ her past, and afterward, she always said, ” Oh, kid, it’s a great life if you don’t __________.”

A few years ago, my life took a __________ turn, and curiously, I found my great-grandmother and her stories frequently occupying my __________. I realized then that __________ she had not left me any precious objects, she had left me a treasury of stories and a wealth of__________. By turning her soul inside out to me during those nights in bed, she’d given me the greatest gift — her __________, her courage to face life head-on. Her legacy (遗赠) gave me the __________ I’d lacked. If she could survive the __________ of her life, then I knew I could, too.

1.

A．remember

B．restore

C．receive

D．remark

2.

A．something

B．anything

C．everything

D．nothing

3.

A．apparently

B．curiously

C．proudly

D．instantly

4.

A．career

B．life

C．future

D．education

5.

A．pressure

B．carriers

C．covers

D．hardship

6.

A．popular

B．sad

C．scary

D．funny

7.

A．imagined

B．resisted

C．declared

D．caught

8.

A．sorrow

B．responsibility

C．annoyance

D．justice

9.

A．son

B．daughter

C．mother

D．husband

10.

A．purpose

B．hopelessness

C．competence

D．effectiveness

11.

A．pay off

B．get through

C．hang on

D．survive on

12.

A．escaped

B．related

C．transformed

D．assumed

13.

A．weaken

B．sharpen

C．understand

D．condemn

14.

A．favorable

B．careful

C．stressful

D．preventable

15.

A．mind

B．schedule

C．status

D．analysis

16.

A．if

B．when

C．since

D．although

17.

A．memories

B．resources

C．opportunities

D．alternatives

18.

A．dream

B．caution

C．criterion

D．strength

19.

A．fate

B．will

C．cash

D．identification

20.

A．aspects

B．means

C．difficulties

D．outcomes

7 . Whenever we make a choice, whether it’s as big as getting married or as small as an argument with a friend, we are driven by our values. Values tend to be single-word concepts like freedom, equality, selflessness, honesty.     1     They’re a kind of moral GPS we can use to navigate through life. If you know your values, you have directions that point you toward the people and actions and habits that are best for you.

One way to recognize the values by which you live is look at how you spend your money.     2     Do you really spend your money wisely? we often have a strange perspective on what’s “worth it”, which doesn’t quite make sense if you reflect on it later.

Pay attention to who you talk to, what you watch, and what you do with your time.     3     If you’re just going from one day to the next without questioning your values, you’ll be swayed by what everyone else — from your family to marketing professionals — wants you to think. A thought comes into my mind and I ask myself: Does this fit my chosen values or those that others have selected for me?

    4     If you’re an overworked parent who wants to make your kids your priority, make friends with other parents who hold the same idea, so you can exchange support and advice.

Values make it easier for you to surround yourself with the right people, make tough career choices, use your time more wisely, and focus your attention where it really matters to you.     5    

A．All of these push values and beliefs.

B．Is your precious time wasted or well spent?

C．Your bills actually reflect what matters most to you.

D．That might sound rather abstract, but these values are really practical.

E．Who you surround yourself with helps you stick to your values and achieve your goals.

F．Without them we are swept away by outside voice instead of following our inner voice.

G．When we drive through a new area, we wander aimlessly if we don’t know the directions.

8 . Ben was bothered every time he went through the kitchen. It was that little metal contain on the shelf above his wife Martha’s cook stove, which he had been repeatedly _________ never to touch. The reason, she said, was that it contained a “secret _________” from her late mother, and since she had no way of ever _________ the container, she was _________ that if Ben picked it up and looked inside, he might accidentally drop it and spill its _________ contents.

Ben never saw Martha cook a dish without taking the container of the shelf and sprinkling (洒) _________ a little of the contents over the ingredients. Whatever was in that container, it surely _________ Anyone who ever ate at their house felt Martha was the best _________ in the world. Looking into that container became increasingly _________ for Ben, but he never allowed himself to do so.

Then one day Martha became ill and was kept overnight in the hospital. Feeling lonely and bored in the house after returning home, Ben __________ the kitchen, and then the container on the shelf immediately came into view. It __________ his eyes like a magnet, and he quickly looked away, yet his curiosity brought him back again. He carefully took the container off the shelf, and opened it. Ben became __________ when what was inside came to I his sight. The container was empty, except for a little folded slip of paper at the bottom. He carefully picked it up and slowly __________ it under the kitchen light. Ben immediately __________ the handwriting as that of Martha’s mother. Very __________ it said: “Martha to everything you make, add a dash of love.”

1.

A．forbidden

B．told

C．inspired

D．threatened

2.

A．recipe

B．menu

C．herb

D．tobacco

3.

A．refilling

B．restoring

C．emptying

D．decorating

4.

A．pleased

B．concerned

C．puzzled

D．relieved

5.

A．valuable

B．previous

C．tasteless

D．messy

6.

A．yet

B．even

C．still

D．just

7.

A．failed

B．hurt

C．worked

D．changed

8.

A．wife

B．host

C．housekeeper

D．cook

9.

A．delightful

B．comforting

C．annoying

D．irresistible

10.

A．broke into

B．wandered into

C．ran out of

D．went back to

11.

A．opened

B．wetted

C．blinded

D．drew

12.

A．satisfied

B．calm

C．astonished

D．angry

13.

A．wrapped

B．unfolded

C．tore

D．wrinkled

14.

A．recognized

B．mentioned

C．treated

D．received

15.

A．stupidly

B．simply

C．cautiously

D．safely

9 . I understand why people say experience counts. However, when it comes to finding new solutions to problems, _______ can be an advantage. Not being _______ by conventional thinking frees me up to think differently.

I became an engineer _______. Despite completing a college course to teach nursery school, I soon _______ to focus on math. It was a _______ decision to leave teaching and pursue my fast-growing _______ for math. But with some guidance from a university professor, my education took another _______ and I graduated with a degree in engineering.

I realized my early lack of experience could be a(n) _______. Being a newcomer left me _______ to ask “stupid” questions. The answer was ________ to more experienced members of the team. The people surrounding me were happy—once I had ________ the courage—to let me ________ them and learn from them.

The team spirit was infectious (有感染力的). My questions were not ________ as stupid by colleagues; ________ they helped me look at problems from a different ________ and consider new approaches.

Most inventions begin with a(n) ________. When our team sets out to invent something new, we discuss the problem and the possible ways to ________ it. It’s a team effort and this is ________ in patent applications-they represent the team’s ideas, regardless of who ________ suggested them. Asking unusual questions helped me develop an inventor’s mind, one that is unconstrained (不受限制的) by standard ways of ________ problems.

1.

A．inflexibility

B．inexperience

C．inability

D．inaccuracy

2.

A．stimulated

B．persuaded

C．reserved

D．limited

3.

A．on purpose

B．on occasion

C．by accident

D．by order

4.

A．submitted

B．switched

C．failed

D．forgot

5.

A．tough

B．stupid

C．collective

D．necessary

6.

A．hate

B．panic

C．passion

D．confidence

7.

A．credit

B．beating

C．risk

D．turn

8.

A．trouble

B．plus

C．weakness

D．exception

9.

A．free

B．discouraged

C．bored

D．frank

10.

A．deaf

B．wrong

C．obvious

D．traditional

11.

A．taken up

B．torn up

C．used up

D．built up

12.

A．encourage

B．clarify

C．question

D．suspect

13.

A．perceived

B．appointed

C．learned

D．used

14.

A．instead

B．moreover

C．therefore

D．otherwise

15.

A．document

B．angle

C．introduction

D．country

16.

A．discussion

B．argument

C．assumption

D．problem

17.

A．hide

B．handle

C．admire

D．discover

18.

A．hatched

B．engaged

C．lost

D．reflected

19.

A．originally

B．accidentally

C．hopefully

D．politely

20.

A．creating

B．developing

C．approaching

D．experiencing