1 . 阅读下面短文，请根据短文内容从方框中所给的 12 个词中选用 10 个词并用其正确形式填空。每个词只能选用一次。

have   but   borrow   that   so   until     piece   importance   pass   what   reply     week

Dave woke up at 7:00 a. m. He had been chatting with a friend on the computer    1     nearly midnight last night so he was feeling quite tired but also rather nervous because this was a day of an    2    English exam at school. Dave had been studying very hard for this exam for the last two     3     so he thought he had a good chance of    4    it.

While Dave was traveling to school on the bus, he remembered that he had forgotten to take his wallet with him    5    he didn’t have any money to buy lunch. Just after this, his friend Lucas got on the bus.

“Can I    6    some money, Lucas?” asked Dave.

“Sure, no problem,”     7     Lucas. “Here you go.”

Two boys did the English exam. While they were    8    lunch, Dave asked Lucas if he thought the exam had been difficult. Lucas smiled and picked up the slice (薄片) of chocolate cake     9    he was eating.

“It was so easy. It was a     10    of cake!” said Lucas, smiling.

2 . Like anyone else, I have social media personalities that I like to follow. I watch their Insta stories, YouTube videos and generally keep track of what they are up to by means of social media. These “celebrities (名人)” encourage me to pursue my dreams, and unlike my physical friends, are often more accessible — just a YouTube click away.

So when I found myself telling a story the other day to one of my friends at a cafe and then casually referring to one of these online personalities as “my friend”, I suddenly became aware of the blurred (模糊的) line between my physical and virtual social lives. I was retelling a YouTuber’ s story about how to practice appreciation as if it were my story to tell. The scary part is that it came so naturally that I had to pause and think twice about what had just come out of my mouth. How did I get to the point of referring to someone I had never actually spoken with as a “friend”?

Between trying to make a living and maintaining social relationships, it has become especially easy for millennials (those born between the early 1980s and 1990s) to turn to artificial social closeness to meet their basic human needs for social interactions. So how do we really know who our friends are in a world where the term “friend” seems so blurred? Is it right to call someone a friend who you’ ve never spoken with in real life?

Sometimes I worry that my online friendships are taking away the time I could be spending forming meaningful relationships in real life. In an article in Psychology Today, Alex Pattakos claims that our quest to create more and more friends through popular social media platforms has led to us feeling more disconnected in reality. His research states that we can only maintain around 150 real friendships and the desire to have more connections leads to emotional attachments to online celebrities, referred to as parasocial interactions, and consequently detachment (分离) from our real life connections.

Do you make a distinction between your online and offline “friends” ? If so, how?

1. What does the author think of his real-life friends?

A．They are more difficult to reach.

B．They often cause him much trouble.

C．They are fond of following “celebrities”.

D．They mostly lack interest in social media.

2. Which of the following puzzled the author?

A．The definition of physical friends.

B．Some phrases used in online language.

C．The proper way to practice appreciation online.

D．The distinction between physical and online friends.

3. What can we infer about “millennials” from paragraph 3 ?

A．They are skillful in AI technology.

B．They have great difficulty making a living.

C．They are eager to seek online friendships.

D．They rarely build firm social relationships.

4. What’s the author’s attitude to online friendships?

A．Casual.

B．Opposed.

C．Supportive.

D．Ambiguous.

3 . The goal of the Egg Drop Challenge was simple -- you built a _________container to keep an egg from breaking when _________over the stadium wall.

We worked alone or with a(n) _________. My best friend, Cassie, and I always worked on projects together. She is_________; I'm brainy. We are the perfect_________.

I made my sandwich while waiting for Cassie to come and _________the container. Spreading the marshmallow(棉花软糖)cream _________me an idea - cushion the egg with some marshmallow creams to _________ the shock of the impact(撞击力). I told Cassie my brilliant_________when she arrived. Then, Cassie said,“Actually. I have a __________idea. We put the egg in a basket with a parachute(降落伞)__________. It will simply float to safety.” We agreed. Neither was__________and Cassie stormed out.

This is how the__________ worked: all the kids carried their egg containers up three stairs and dropped them. If your egg broke, you were out. If the egg __________, you walked up three more__________and dropped it again. This went on until the last egg broke.

Finally, only Cassie and I were left.

“Good luck, Laura.” Cassie said, turning to me. I didn’t __________ ， figured winning would be sweeter revenge(复仇). The class called out the count of three and I let go of my box. I __________down the steps. The sidewalk was already__________ , with egg shells from previous failed drops. I found my brave egg broken. I looked at Cassie's basket, Empty. Cassie looked at me __________and we laughed. It was a(n)__________. But we had won something more important. Our friendship can survive a little bouncing.

1.

A．sealed

B．protective

C．metal

D．plastic

2.

A．placed

B．taken

C．dropped

D．carried

3.

A．parent

B．friend

C．athlete

D．partner

4.

A．creative

B．strict

C．outgoing

D．stubborn

5.

A．competitors

B．candidates

C．combination

D．communication

6.

A．watch over

B．turn up

C．work on

D．think of

7.

A．gave

B．made

C．taught

D．showed

8.

A．cause

B．suffer

C．absorb

D．withdraw

9.

A．achievement

B．performance

C．intelligence

D．design

10.

A．common

B．better

C．strange

D．contrary

11.

A．attached

B．surrounded

C．hung

D．lowered

12.

A．passed

B．persuaded

C．permitted

D．amused

13.

A．quarrel

B．class

C．competition

D．relationship

14.

A．burst

B．fell

C．won

D．survived

15.

A．containers

B．steps.

C．walls

D．meters

16.

A．care

B．recover

C．hear

D．respond

17.

A．raced

B．turned

C．put

D．brought

18.

A．mixed

B．dotted

C．decorated

D．broken

19.

A．angrily

B．seriously

C．badly

D．softly

20.

A．tie

B．failure

C．test

D．end

4 . The bell for lunch rang at Glendale Primary School. However, instead of heading to the canteen like all the other children did, Jonah, a new student at the school, went to the library. Other than the noise of the air-conditioner, the library was quiet and there was barely a soul in sight. Far in a corner, he spotted Mrs Lim, the librarian, who was too busy shelving some books to pay any attention to him. The library was near to the canteen. Jonah could hear children laughing and chatting. He wished he was outside playing with some friends but he did not let this bother him.

Suddenly, Jonah heard a sound in the corner. He looked around and saw a pair of eyes looking at him from behind, the bookshelves. Jonah turned back, eyes as wide as saucers (茶碟). “Oh dear!” he whispered. He peeked (窥视) over his shoulder again and saw a smaller boy walking towards him.

The boy pulled out the chair next to Jonah and sat down. “I’m Henry. Why are you reading here when you could be playing with your friends instead?” asked he. “Uh...” Jonah looked around the library, avoiding Henry’s gaze (注视). He did not want Henry to know the real reason why he was in the library. What would Henry think of him if he knew Jonah did not have any friends? It would make Jonah feel more uncomfortable.

As Jonah turned the page, he realized Henry was still sitting there, watching him steadily.

“I know how you feel. Just say hello to someone today,” Henry encouraged Jonah. “I promise they’ll respond. Once you’ve made the first move, it just gets easier.”

Jonah appreciated the advice and thanked him before making his way out of the library. In the hallway outside the library, a boy from Jonah’s class was crouched on the floor, picking up pens and pencils that had dropped out of his pencil case. Jonah remembered what Henry had advised him to do.

“Hello, I’m Jonah. Let me help you,” he offered.

The boy looked up at him. “Thank you! My name is Ruben.”

Victory at last, Jonah thought, feeling proud of himself.

1. What can we know from the text?

A．The thought of playing outside bothered Jonah.

B．The library was not crowded at lunchtime.

C．The librarian was annoyed by the noise outside.

D．Jonah had had lunch before going to the library.

2. Why were Jonah’s eyes “as wide as saucers” in paragraph 2?

A．He turned too quickly and felt a little dizzy.

B．He was shocked by the pair of eyes peeking at him.

C．He was too thin because of lacking enough nutrition.

D．He didn’t expect the smaller boy would come to him.

3. What does the underlined word “It” in paragraph 3 refer to?

A．Jonah’s not having any friends in the school.

B．Henry’s impoliteness in asking the question.

C．Jonah’s shyness after he found Henry’s gaze.

D．Henry’s thought of Jonah if he knew Jonah’s real situation.

4. Why was Jonah proud of himself at last?

A．He had never doubted or forgotten Henry’s advice.

B．He had completed a good deed of helping a classmate.

C．He had managed to overcome his fear and shyness.

D．He had met a classmate who was in the same situation.