1 . Along the hallway (走廊), I saw mixed expressions on the faces of my students: excited, nervous, and worried.No doubt about it: they were this term’s freshmen. My own first day at high school flashed into my mind.
Since our family had just moved to the place, I didn’t know anyone at the school. On arriving, I picked up a map and my schedule (日程表). Oh, my goodness, what a large school it was! Nervously, I looked about for where my first class was to be held.
When I finally found my class, everyone was talking and laughing together, and I felt so lonely. Throughout the day, each period brought some new faces I had not seen before. But when my English class came around, I had a surprise: an old classmate! It was Ben, who had left my middle school right after sixth grade. We talked and joked about middle school and the clubs we were in together. My nerves eased (放松) a little.
Next was the P E. class. This was the first class that I found without difficulty. Sitting through the boring introduction to the class by the teacher, I started talking to a girl sitting near me. I found out that her family had just moved here too, and she didn’t know anyone either. As we talked, we discovered that we had a lot in common, and had a lot of classes together. This girl ended up becoming my best friend. I am so glad that I met her.
By the end of that day, I was full of optimism (乐观). I knew that high school would be an amazing experience.
1. The writer of this passage is a __________.| A．parent | B．college student | C．high school student | D．high school teacher |
| A．the school was very large | B．the map did not show the way |
| C．the teacher would be serious | D．the first class would be difficult |
| A．met her old classmate Ben | B．made friends with a girl |
| C．had P.E. class together with Ben | D．finally found her first class |
| A．Nervous. | B．Bored. | C．Hopeful. | D．Satisfied. |
2 . Every year, students across the U.K.engage in the annual ritual (仪式) of telling college and university admissions officers why they deserve a seat at the school of their choice.However, this task is filled with anxiety and fear.
Keep your individuality in the spotlight.
Committees value authenticity.They want to hear your voice.This essay may give you the time and space to explain why a particular achievement means too much to you.But resist the urge to exaggerate: admission counselors read thousands of essays each year.
Sound like yourself.Don’t use words you wouldn’t normally use.Don’t use fancy language you wouldn’t use in real life.Imagine yourself reading this essay out loud to a classroom full of people who have never met you.
| A．They can spot something unreal. |
| B．This rule works in all the aspects of your life. |
| C．Writing about oneself can be highly stressful. |
| D．Keep a confident tone even if you’re not feeling that way. |
| E．Remember, it’s all about you rather than a fashionable subject. |
| F．An informative and powerful essay focuses on the readers’ needs. |
| G．Experts often recommend looking for something unique of your life story. |
3 . When was the last time you told someone they inspire you to go to work each morning?
Teachers at Oak Park High School in Kansas City, Missouri, did just that this September, when they pulled individual students out of class to tell them just how much they appreciated them. The students’ reactions, which were captured on video and shared on YouTube, ranged from shy thanks to hugs and tears.
“I have been challenged to find a student who makes me want to come to school every day,” says one teacher in the video, “and that’s you.”
Jamie McSparin, a teacher in charge of the school’s academy program for at- risk sophomores (二年级学生) and juniors, posed the challenge, writes ABC News. “Initially when we pulled the kids out, they all thought they were in trouble,” McSparin told ABC News. “Any teacher-student interaction always seems to be negative, and that was something that bothered me, too. No matter if they’re good kids or troublemakers, they always thought they were in trouble,” she says.
McSparin says she got the idea for the project after attending a professional development workshop this summer called the power of positivity. “I like the idea of letting students know they are appreciated, because we do appreciate them, I just don’t think we say it enough,” she told local news outlet WDAF-TV.
It’s safe to say the challenge was effective.
“I feel special,” said one of the boys in the video. “You should,” said his teacher. “You are special.”
1. What does the underlined word “ posed” in Paragraph4 mean?| A．Presented | B．Rejected | C．Ignored | D．Evaluated |
| A．Nervous | B．Thrilled | C．Curious | D．Encouraged |
| A．The trouble caused by students. | B．The need of shooting the video. |
| C．A seminar named the power of positivity. | D．A program related to students’ interactions. |
| A．Challenge is unavoidable in life. | B．Everyone needs to be appreciated. |
| C．Positivity outweighs negativity. | D．News media contribute to students’ progress. |
4 . Get involved with our research
Some of our research projects rely on the generosity of people like you. Whether it’s using your home PC, taking part in a clinical trial, or simply volunteering your time for a study, you may be able to contribute to some of the ground-breaking projects which make the University of Oxford a world leader in research. Watch this space for ways in which you could get involved.
Seeking poor sleepers for insomnia(失眠)research
Trouble sleeping? We are looking for poor sleepers between the ages of 18 and 65. Participation will involve spending overnights in the sleep laboratory at Oxford, monitoring your sleep/wake cycle, and completing computerized tasks. If you are interested, please contact the research team at insomnia@ndcn.ox.ac.uk
Volunteers with lazy eve wanted
We are looking for volunteers aged 18-45 with a history of lazy eye to take part in our brain scanning study. You will also be asked questions about your medical history to check your suitability for an MRI scan. Call 01865 223622 for more information.
Oxford Vaccine Group
The Oxford Vaccine Group is an independent multi-disciplinary(多学科的) clinical trials group. OVG works towards the goal of developing new and improved vaccines for the prevention of infection in adults and children. To get more information, please see the OVG website.
Oxford Experimental lab for the Social Sciences
The Oxford Internet Institute, together with the Business School, is recruiting individuals to participate in computer-based experiments involving online surfing behavior as well as economic and political decision-making. We pay our subjects well, there are no special skills required and you don’t have to come to the lab in person. Contact us at socialscience.study@ox.ac.uk for more information.
1. What is the main purpose of the passage?| A．To offer medical help to patients. |
| B．To look for experienced researchers |
| C．To introduce new research programs. |
| D．To recruit volunteers for research projects. |
| A．carry out clinical trials | B．produce better vaccines |
| C．learn more about infection | D．study the causes of diseases |
| A．Oxford Vaccine Group | B．Insomnia research group |
| C．Oxford Experimental lab | D．Brain Scanning study group |
5 . School is still out for the summer, but at Eastern Senior High School, students are hard at work. In a garden bursting with vegetables and herbs, nearly a dozen teenagers are harvesting them for the weekend’s farmers market. They work Tuesday through Saturday with City Blossoms, a non-profit that brings community gardens to schools and other places where kids gather in urban(城市的) areas.
Roshawn Little, going into her junior year at Eastern, believes that working in the garden has taught her to try all sorts of new things — like eating different kinds of vegetables more often. And she has taken those healthy behaviors home with her and her family now buy more fruits and vegetables. “ We mainly live around liquor （酒）stores and snack stores. There aren’t that many grocery stores. They’re way out, and you have to drive so far ——a common problem in low-income urban areas .”
City Blossoms is one of many groups across the country teaming up with local communities to establish school gardens, like the one at Eastern. These gardens, advocates say, are really outdoor classrooms where kids learn valuable lessons — not just about nutrition, but also about science and math, even business skills. For example, the gardens can be used for math lessons — like calculating the area of a plant bed — or learning the science of how plants grow.
On a recent weekend at the Aya farmers market, the kids work at a table decorated with handmade signs that read “onions” and “garlic”, inviting people to try their herbed salt with bread. Working at the market helps them practice public speaking skills and business skills.
Nadine Joyner of a nutrition education company has a food table next to the kids’ at the market and often buys produce from them. She is constantly impressed by the kids’ knowledge of what they’re selling — they know how to grow it, how to prepare it, and how to cook it.
1. What do students at Eastern do with the harvested vegetables?| A．Sell them on market. | B．Take them to school. |
| C．Give them to farmers. | D．Share them at home. |
| A．It is inconvenient in traffic. |
| B．It is crowded with grocery stores. |
| C．It has poor access to fresh foods. |
| D．It suffers from income inequality. |
| A．To provide nutritious food. |
| B．To improve classroom conditions |
| C．To cooperate with local community. |
| D．To create outdoor learning chances. |
6 . At a comedy night at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, members of the school's comedy(喜剧) club bring lots of laughter to their classmates with funny speeches and humorous body movements. These college student comedian’s humour entertains busy, young people and eases their stress.
Yet the club member Ariella Shua says comedy is serious work. Every comedy starts as an individual project-- each member writes their own material. Then they try it out in weekly club meetings where all club members read the material, going joke by joke and seeing what works and what doesnt. Nothing unsatisfactory will be compromised(妥协). In this way comes a satisfying comedy.
Ariella joined the club last year. Now she does not go anywhere without bringing something on which she can take notes. ''Whenever I just have a thought in my head or when I see something or overhear someone saying something in the library, I just put it down, '' Ariella explained. ''when I'm trying to write my own set, I go through that…to see if there is anything in there that I can use. ''
Club president Nicholas Scandura finds writing one of the many skills he has developed since joining the club. ''Writing jokes takes a lot of critical thinking.'' he said. The club gives its members a sense of community. When they meet, they share funny experiences. tell jokes and laugh.
Harry Kuperstein discovered the club was a natural fit. Noticing the funny qualities of different situations improved his way of looking at the world. Becoming an active member also helped him work on the future skills he'll need as a medical doctor. ''Having jokes ready to go might help smooth these interactions and make you a better public speaker, '' he said.
1. What can a successful comedy be described as?| A．A group effort | B．A personal project |
| C．A satisfying task | D．A compromised result |
| A．Creating her own style. |
| B．Going to the library regularly |
| C．Taking notes in class |
| D．Becoming a good observer |
| A．By easing his stress of being a doctor |
| B．By preparing the ground for his career. |
| C．By changing his way of communication |
| D．By developing his interest in public speaking |
| A．Laughter Is Serious Work |
| B．Humor Is an Edge in Jobs |
| C．Comedy Comes with Learning |
| D．Clubs Influence One's World View |
7 . “ Go ahead,” I told Linda. “ Pick up the rock, and see what’s under it.”
Her 4-year-old arms struggled with the rock buried in the stream bed. Her eyes got big as she examined the worms after their nest was uncovered. She watched quietly, as they walked past her foot. She gently put the rock back and said,” Are there worms under all the rocks?”
This wasn’t school — it was a nature-based summer camp in New York’s Hudson Valley that I ran when I was 17. When I turned the kids over to their parents at the end of the day, they were tired, inspired by nature and knowledge.
Finland’s “forest kindergartens” use the natural world as a jumping off point for early academic instruction to make them enjoy learning. Finland is following in the footsteps of other European countries including Denmark, where outdoor education has been common for many years.
In the Finnish program, kids spend four days of a week, from 8:30a.m. to 6:30p.m., outside with a teacher. Built into the program is quite a bit of playtime. Kids get a lot of exercise and lesson plans are freely made so teachers can use what’s at hand and in season in their lessons.
While all this sounds less strict than a classroom-based kindergarten program, the results show that these types of programs have better results for overall physical health as well as academic performance and social development. But aren’t the kids who do this coming from wealthy, educated communities — so, of course they score better on tests? In fact, the greatest gains from spending time outdoors can be found in kids who are coming from less advantageous background. At a school near Atlanta, where kids spend 30 percent of their day outside, students have improved scores more than students from any other school in their area, and most of the kids there come from poor families.
1. Why did the author ask Linda to turn over the rock?| A．To help Linda be independent. |
| B．To see if Linda had enough courage. |
| C．To give Linda a chance to study nature. |
| D．To teach Linda how to protect animals. |
| A．To help kids learn about forests. |
| B．To popularize outdoor education. |
| C．To show the importance of play. |
| D．To develop kids’ interest in study. |
| A．seem to be less tiring | B．have no fixed lesson plans |
| C．set many strict rules | D．have no teachers around |
| A．Kids joining them score higher on tests. |
| B．They help change poor kids’ families. |
| C．They do good to communities. |
| D．Kids meet people who are different from them. |
8 . If you could design your own school and study whatever you wanted, what would you choose to learn?
This isn’t an unlikely question for students at Monument Mountain Regional High School, who are taking part in an activity called the Independent Project. The program is a special school within the Massachusetts public high school that’s completely run by students - no teachers, parents, or adults are allowed - and they’re in charge of deciding their whole curriculum (课程).
These teens’ homework and what they study in the classroom are all totally up to them. Charles Tsai, a journalist, made a 15-minute film about the project that shows the wide variety of activities different students join.
Students aren’t taking this lightly - instead of reacting irresponsibly (不负责任地) to the freedom to design their own studies, they’re dealing with their own interests by writing poetry (诗歌) collections, learning instruments and taking flight lessons.
The program is this: On Mondays students come up with questions in relation to one of their school subjects, then they spend the rest of the week researching and coming up with possible conclusions to these questions. On Fridays, they present this information to their classmates.
“I think the more choices we have in our school, the more students we will help develop into the kind of citizens that we need,”Principal (校长) Marianne Young explains in the film.
In the video, teens express their satisfaction with the program because it holds different kinds of learners, even those who don’t always succeed in a traditional study situation.
“I have difficulty in reading and writing. School has always been a big problem for me,” one student named Sergio explains in the video. “If it were not for this program, I don’t know if I’d be graduating - I don’t know where I’d be right now. I think this has really been my savior (救星) and got me through the last two years of high school.”
1. What is the Independent Project about?| A．Various activities for students. | B．Student-centered curricula. |
| C．A self-designed school. | D．Teacher-free classes. |
| A．Teachers work out a curriculum for students. |
| B．Students research topics they put forward. |
| C．Teachers work together with students. |
| D．Students serve as teachers in turn. |
| A．Curious. | B．Doubtful. |
| C．Uncertain. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．He finds it hard to graduate. |
| B．He has bitter memories of high school. |
| C．He feels grateful to the Independent Project. |
| D．He performs badly in the Independent Project. |
9 . Picture a lecture session at a business school and your probably imagine students gazing at screens filled with equations（方程式）.What you might not expect is students attempting to sing “O clap your Hands”. But Bartleby was treated to this delight on a visit to Saïd Business School in Oxford earlier this year.
There was a catch. Some of the students had to try conducting the chorus. The first to take the challenge was a rather self-confident young man. It didn’t take long for him to go wrong. His most obvious mistake was to start conducting without asking the singers how they would like to be directed, though they had the expertise and he was a complete beginner.
The session, organized by Pegram Harrison, a senior fellow in entrepreneurship（企业家精神）, cleverly allowed the students to absorb some important leadership lessons. For example, leaders should listen to their teams, especially when their colleagues have specialist knowledge.
Other business schools have also realized that their students can learn from the arts. At Carnegie Mellon University , Leanne Meyer has introduced a leadership-training programme that includes poetry and a book club. She believed that involvement in such pursuits can help develop empathy（同理心） in future leaders and that the programme benefits students in terms of how they promote themselves to recruiters（招聘人员）.
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) has trained many great dramatists. It also offers training courses for managers. “Acting about finding the truth in the character and in yourself.” says Walker-Wise, one of RADA'S tutors. Being a manager involves a lot more than just setting targets. It requires empathy and a knowledge of human nature. An education in the arts might help develop those qualities. Above all, the students on Harrison's Course were experiencing something Bartleby never expected to see in those attending an MBA lecture they were having fun.
1. What does “this delight" in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Singing in a business class. | B．Visiting Said Business School |
| C．Picturing a lecture session. | D．Gazing a screens full of equations. |
| A．Common and influential. | B．Educational and effortless. |
| C．Challenging and instructive. | D．Controversial and practical. |
| A．Offer promotion opportunities. | B．Value team members’ opinion. |
| C．Set specific targets. | D．Control every step. |
| A．It provides entertainment. | B．It develops goal-setting skills. |
| C．It exposes the truth in business. | D．It helps understand human nature. |
10 . In her 17 years working at Rollins College in the US, there have often been students who have appeared in Anca Voicu’s office and confessed (坦白) they have no idea what to do with their lives once they graduate. That’s why the economics professor decided to add career planning to her class, even starting before young people step onto a college campus.
Throughout this semester, Voicu’s real-world economics class has visited about 100 Winter Park High students. It has asked them to think about everything from picking the right major (专业) to the job market and the cost of higher education.
“They have to balance what they need to do and what they love to do,” said Rollins freshman Nicholas Kay, 18.
During their final class of the semester, Kay and his classmates reflected on what it was like helping younger versions (版本) of themselves explore the future. Voicu expects to continue the class so she can collect data (数据) to see if working together is making a difference.
“These kids were only eight months younger than me,” said Rollins freshman Blake Buell, an 18-year-old business management major.
The high school students also went on a tour of the Winter Park college, seeing what life was like on campus, how admissions worked and what a dorm room looked like. They asked
Rollins students questions including “How does the food taste?” and “What are classes like?” Winter Park sophomore (二年级学生) Sebastian Zendejas, 15, said it was eye-opening and helped him to understand how college could be.
“I don’t want to have a bunch of (大量的) debt when I’m leaving college,” said Zendejas, who plans to study business.
The lessons that showed students’ job availability were something many had never thought about before, said Tim Arnold, one of the four Winter Park High teachers involved in the project. The students also took personality tests to see where they might fit best.
Looking at the data and realizing how many good jobs there were in the science, technology, engineering and math fields made some of Voicu’s students feel better. “I should really stick with this,” said computer science first-year student Brandi Moore, 18.
1. Anca Voicu decided to add career planning to her class mainly to _____ .| A．establish the connection between economics and real-world problems |
| B．help students get to know and think about their future |
| C．show students what life was like on campus |
| D．collect some data to make a difference |
a. Getting high school students to consider how much college costs.
b. Teaching students how to socialize at college.
c. Giving high school students a taste of life on campus.
d. Showing data about job availability.
| A．ab | B．cd |
| C．abc | D．acd |
| A．she felt the personality test worked well |
| B．she would love to retake Voicu’s class |
| C．she is now more confident in her major |
| D．she had had serious doubts about her major |
| A．describe Voicu’s new class |
| B．give advice on career planning |
| C．remind readers of the importance of early career planning |
| D．show how colleges can help students with their future plans |
| A．it is wise to choose what we are most interested in as a major |
| B．the course benefits high school students more than college students |
| C．career planning requires the help of teachers and college students |
| D．it’s important to make a well-balanced choice when making career plans |
