1 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词。

People take up hobbies because these activities offer enjoyment, friendship, knowledge, and relaxation. Sometimes they even yield     1     profit. Hobbies help people relax after     2     of hard work, and provide a balance between work and play. Hobbies also offer interesting activities for persons who have retired. Anyone, rich or poor, old or young, sick or well, can     3     a satisfying hobby,     4     of his age,     5    , or income.

2 . Some of the best advice I ever heard was: “Get 3 hobbies, one to keep you physically active, one to express yourself creatively, and one to make you social.” I don’t know if that’s a famous quote but it really inspires me.

Set some physical goals for yourself. Maybe it’s running a marathon, maybe it’s lifting your own body weight, maybe it’s riding a unicycle to work every morning.     1     Just having a goal that’s not immediately obtainable but gives you something to work towards will help give you some direction.

    2     Maybe buy a recorder and learn to play Disney songs, or grab some paints and follow along with a famous painter, or write plays about your dreams, or build tiny furniture. Just something that requires your imagination and creation. Perhaps you’ll never learn how to play that instrument or how to paint. It’s unimportant.     3    

Finding a hobby is probably the hardest one right now. I would recommend some goal-oriented video games with voice chat. I started playing VR paintball last month, which was incredibly helpful for me. You might also want to look into joining an online Dungeons & Dragons game.     4     Chatrooms and forums are fine, but you should make sure you’re using your voice, and hearing other people’s voices.

If you get these hobbies started and set personal goals for yourself in each hobby, you’ll soon start feeling more fulfilled.     5     If after about a month you don’t like one, then try switching to a different hobby in the same category. Eventually, you’ll discover something you like.

A．Find a way to be creative.

B．It doesn’t matter what it is.

C．Talk to your children about creation.

D．It is extremely important to have a clear goal.

E．Try to do each hobby for at least 30 minutes a day.

F．Just get started and move onto another if you have to.

G．You need to find something that requires you to actually talk with others.

3 . William was one of my students. He adored plants but struggled with his reading. After the mid-term test, William’s ______ showed no sign of improvement. Until the last few weeks of the year, when we ______ the life cycle of plants, William excelled. I'd never seen him so ______ in the classroom.

As a class project, each child planted a sunflower seed in one of the containers and ______ its growth. I did this every year, with varying ______. Planting the seeds was exciting for many of the students, the ______ part much less so. It took too long to see results from daily watering, and most kids lost ______ and interest. As a result, they forgot to ______ their sunflowers-to-be.

But not William. Every afternoon, William made sure all the containers were ______ and nurtured (培育). By the last week of school, the ______ were about four inches tall, which really ______ me. In years past, few seeds successfully produced new shoots. And those that did had never gotten so tall. But these were ______. These were William’s sunflowers.

This is what it means to be a ______. At that moment, I knew I didn’t have to ______ William. I’d seen that special seed planted inside him. Others would too. And, one day, he’d start to ______, mature and shine —just like his sunflowers.

1.

A．intelligence

B．image

C．condition

D．grade

2.

A．studied

B．changed

C．completed

D．disturbed

3.

A．realistic

B．invested

C．odd

D．embarrassed

4.

A．limited

B．forecast

C．maintained

D．admired

5.

A．results

B．achievements

C．ratings

D．methods

6.

A．best

B．growing

C．easy

D．picking

7.

A．chance

B．courage

C．patience

D．ability

8.

A．show off

B．sell out

C．carry away

D．care for

9.

A．filled

B．watered

C．cleaned

D．repaired

10.

A．plants

B．containers

C．shoots

D．seeds

11.

A．puzzled

B．bothered

C．benefited

D．amazed

12.

A．similar

B．different

C．natural

D．organic

13.

A．teacher

B．gardener

C．parent

D．teenager

14.

A．criticize

B．praise

C．evaluate

D．concern

15.

A．bend

B．explore

C．grow

D．respond

4 . Alex Davani is mostly an A-student at Don Juan Avila Middle School, but he was not good at math last year. To get better grades in math, Davani learned to solve the Rubik’s Cube.

Davani wasn’t the only one. Teacher Ron McDevitt gave all his students a chance of getting a high grade if they could beat the cube, and he gave more scores for faster times. “A Rubik’s Cube is a lot like math,” explained McDevitt. “If you make one bad move with the cube, you have to go back a step or start over. At math, it’s the same way. It forces you to go slowly and be patient.”

For Davani, solving the cube was great fun. With about six months of practice, he could solve the Rubik’s Cube in under 30 seconds. So Davani decided to enter a world competition in Las Vegas. Davani is placed in the middle among about 800 competitors, and with more practice, he hopes to raise his position next year. He also got to meet cubers from 37 countries, and had lunch with four of the best cubers.

So how does Davani solve the cube so quickly? “It’s mostly just practice,” he said. “You will form muscle memory after lots of practice. You memorize the method and you don’t even have to think about it. Your fingers move naturally.”

“I teach my kids how to solve it and they can vanquish me now,” said McDevitt whose best record is around two minutes, much longer than many of his students. “I’ve never had a student take it as far as Davani and compete. That’s pretty cool.”

1. Why did Davani learn to solve the Rubik’s Cube?

A．To enrich his life.	B．To get a higher grade in math.
C．To develop a new interest.	D．To prepare for a competition.

2. In what way is the Rubik’s Cube like math?

A．They both require patience.	B．They both test people’s memory.
C．They both need people to finish quickly.	D．They both teach people to learn from mistakes.

3. What is Davani’s secret to solving the cube so quickly?

A．He learns from others’ experience.	B．He has strong muscles.
C．He has good memory.	D．He practices hard.

4. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “vanquish” in the last paragraph?

A．Believe.

B．Follow.

C．Beat.

D．Award.

5 . 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。

The world of Chinese literature is one that is familiar     1     us all. But have you ever stopped to wonder     2     works are read outside of China and how they are received？Today，four Sinologists and translators share their experience of Chinese literature     3     us.

Petko: The Shaolin Temple I watched gave me so many reasons     4     fall in love with China. I particularly like classical Chinese literature, especially works from the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Annelous: I became interested in languages at a young age.     5     (start) high school, I began reading     6     (book) about Chinese history and culture.

Joachim: At the age of 15, my mother bought me a copy of the classic Shi Ji. After     7    (read) it, I realised the true genius of China's “Grand Historian”, Sima Qian. His     8     (write) had a profound effect on me.

Mai: I     9     (gradual) fell in love with Chinese literature when I started working as a translator. I don't care if a writer is popular or not. What interests me most is the work     10     (it).

6 . 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。

Can you imagine making a structure (结构体) out of toothpicks that is strong enough     1    （hold）up a student’s desk? I can’t. But because of such a school project Stan Munro     2    （throw）into his career as a “toothpick engineer” years ago.

One winter break in primary school, my brother’s schoolwork was writing thank-you notes while     3    （I）was making a hut out of toothpicks! Facing a pile of toothpicks, I still remember I was totally at     4    loss what to do next. Under some guidance of my father, I started the     5    （pain）task. Finally, the countless toothpicks became a whole structure with everything     6    （stick）together by glue. Though the process took a lot of patience and was rough for me, there were no words to describe the sense of     7    （proud）after finishing it. Importantly, that helped me find I was better at other things, like writing and playing the piano.     8     Stan Munro, I wasn’t born to be a toothpick engineer!

Isn’t it great that the school provides us with the chance to try different things,     9     gets us to discover our unknown talents? It’s amazing to find what we try in school helps us figure out what we     10    （true）want to do when growing up.

7 . “What is the story of your piano?” a new friend asked over dinner. My piano sits in the corner of my small living room.

My piano has a story? “All pianos have stories” she said. Suddenly, my piano’s story came flooding out of me fully-formed as if I’d always had this tale to tell.

I loved music since childhood. I started with the recorder and moved on to instrument like the violin, trumpet (小号) and guitar. But playing the piano had always been my dream, a dream our family could not afford.

I grew up in an immigrant Chinese family in Toronto. My father waited tables in a Chinese restaurant, and my mother worked in a Chinese laundry. Despite our poor childhood, my siblings (兄弟姐妹) and I were always fed with love. I can’t remember which birthday it was when she spared the money to buy me a doll. Of course, by then I’d grown out of the age of wanting dolls, but she worked too hard to know that, and I never told her. I happily and gratefully accepted the doll because I loved the gift that was her loving me enough to buy it for me.

So it was eventually with my piano. It was in my last year of high school. I took piano lessons for about a year before university forced me to stop. I had to make a decision: to work towards the more practical goal of medical school or my love for music. Finally I chose to stop piano lessons.

I moved that piano around with me over the next decade — until my son was born. He showed an early interest in music, so I put him in piano lessons. I played that piano through my son — although guitar was finally his instrument of choice .

I’ve come to realize that for my career, I’ve let all personal pleasures fall away. I figured I’d get back to playing the piano when I retire. Maybe it’s time to get that piano retuned (重新调音) again, this time for myself, before it’s too late to enjoy. Maybe that’s something we all should do right now .

Sometimes a single question can open whole paths of thinking and discovery. So, what is the story of your piano?

1. What do we know about the author from the first four paragraphs?

A．She was born in a musical family.

B．She had a poor but happy childhood.

C．Her interest in dolls never faded.

D．Her parents were too busy to care for her.

2. What is the main reason the author stopped learning piano?

A．Her parents persuaded her to do so.

B．She faced study and career pressure.

C．She couldn’t afford piano lessons.

D．Her university didn’t provide such lessons.

3. What will the author probably do in the near future?

A．Restart her piano dream.

B．Ask her son to learn piano.

C．Buy a new piano for herself.

D．Focus on her medical career.

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the article?

A．To explain the influence of music on her.

B．To encourage readers to play an instrument.

C．To look back on her childhood experience.

D．To share her story about an unrealized dream.

8 . 语法填空

On the     1     (one) day of my senior high school life in the USA,I showed a great interest in one of the     2     (lecture),marketing lecture. My teacher, Mrs. Tolman,     3     (recommend) that I should register a     4     (nation) marketing club called DECA which attracts many students with interest in business. So I did,

The first challenge was     5     (collect) money for the marketing competition later in the year by selling candles. Mrs. Tolman said the competition was due (到期的) in a week and that 40 percent of the income (收入) would go into my personal ac-count,     6     made me     7     (addict) to the selling.

At     8     beginning, I tried to sell some candles to my host mom. She said that if I could show the candles     9     (confident) and do a wonderful sales presentation, she would certainly buy some. I started my topic with a firm handshake. Then I focused     10     all the different kinds of candles and the special sales I could offer and convinced(说服) her that our candles were the best choices for gifts and home decorations. Finally she bought three candles.

9 . When I first started taking photographs of the night sky, I never thought I’d end up doing it for a living. I’d always been interested in photography. I used to drive my family and friends crazy because I was always taking photographs of them. Then one day I saw a poster of the Earth taken from outer space. Posters like that were really popular in the 1970s. I had seen lots of them, but there was something different about this one. It attracted me and it ended up changing my life!

It hasn’t always been easy though. I remember trying to take a picture of the Comet Hale-Bopp for a photography competition in 1997. I checked with the experts at the local weather station to make sure they weren’t expecting clouds or strong winds. At 3: 30 am I set the camera on a tripod（三脚架）in my garden, and then I began the countdown to 4: 00 am, when the comet was scheduled to appear. I recall thinking, “If everything goes as planned, the photo will show the comet as a line of light moving across a background of stars.” But suddenly everything was terribly wrong! At 3: 59 am, just as I was making the final adjustments, out the bushes came a streak（色条）of black heading straight for my feet, and before I knew it, the camera, the tripod and I were on the ground! The streak of black was my neighbor’s cat Tiddles out for his late-night exercise, and he had ruined the only chance I had for the next 2,000 years of taking photographs of the spectacular（壮观的）comet!

Missed photo opportunities aside, astrophotography is a great job, and it can also be an enjoyable hobby. Surprisingly enough, you don’t need any special equipment: just a 35 mm camera, a tripod and some slow-speed film. But you must remember to take care of your equipment.

1. What does the author mainly describe in the text?

A．How he was trained to be a weather expert.

B．How he took photographs for posters.

C．How he took photographs of people.

D．How he became an astrophotographer.

2. What changed the author completely?

A．Taking family photographs for a living.

B．Taking up astrophotography as a hobby.

C．An attractive poster of the Earth taken from outer space.

D．A popular photograph of the comet.

3. What can we learn from the text?

A．The author wanted to take a picture of the comet for a competition.

B．The author showed people how the comet moved across the sky.

C．The comet was expected to appear at 3:30 am.

D．The comet once appeared in the year of 2000.

4. What destroyed the authors last opportunity to take the picture of the comet?

A．Unexpected clouds.	B．A line of light.
C．A neighbour’s cat.	D．Strong winds.

10 . In my whole life I’ve been interested in martial arts. But it was only when I _______ in another city where there was a kung fu club that I really enjoyed it and fully understood why they call it an art. It is fighting and _______ yourself, but it’s also understanding your body more, making it stronger and healthier. Kung fu is a big _______ of Chinese culture. I have always watched kung fu movies (who doesn’t know Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan or Jet Li?), because I love their _______. When I started to practise kung fu, I realised how _______ it was and a simple kick demanded months of practice. But I loved it! A whole new world was opening to me.

After I _______ four years of kung fu in New York, I wanted to go to the _______ where this martial art originated. I went to China with a travel organisation. It was a trip that included some kung fu and tai chi lessons. It was a(n) _______ group, so there were people from all over the world. We went from Hong Kong to Guilin,Yangshuo, Xi’an, Luoyang and Shaolin Temple and _______ Beijing. We did two kung fu lessons in Yangshuo with the brothers Gao, who had a family style which was ________ Bu Di Zhen. We did one tai chi lesson in Xi’an and two more kung fu lessons in Shaolin Temple. I was ________ by Yangshuo and the Gao brothers. Yangshuo is a beautiful town in the middle of mountains and near the Li river. The Gao brothers’ family ________ of kung fu practice was close to mine in New York. I could only ________ of my next trip to China.

The next year my dream ________: I went to China again, together with some friends of my kung fu club. We ________ one month in Yangshuo, just to practise kung fu, which made me understand more of the rich culture of China.

1.

A．settled

B．shared

C．travelled

D．went

2.

A．defeating

B．saving

C．protecting

D．hurting

3.

A．barrier

B．part

C．origin

D．tradition

4.

A．behaviours

B．movements

C．qualities

D．deeds

5.

A．easy

B．perfect

C．special

D．hard

6.

A．practised

B．conducted

C．observed

D．prepared

7.

A．city

B．town

C．country

D．suburb

8.

A．local

B．native

C．national

D．international

9.

A．finally

B．directly

C．officially

D．naturally

10.

A．shown

B．seen

C．called

D．given

11.

A．disappointed

B．amused

C．impressed

D．confused

12.

A．habit

B．style

C．feature

D．rule

13.

A．think

B．know

C．approve

D．dream

14.

A．came over

B．came true

C．came up

D．came out

15.

A．spared

B．searched

C．recorded

D．contributed