5 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Surveys indicate that a third of Britons regularly eat on their own. OpenTable, an online restaurant booking app, found that solo dining in New York increased by 80% during the past 5 years. And in Japan, the world capital of solo dining, a trend for "low interaction dining¹¹ has taken off. Restaurants are opening which facilitate the ultimate solo dining experience: passing bowls of noodles through black curtains into individual booths.

Is this a worrying trend? We think so. Research is revealing the negative impacts of eating alone, which has been found to be linked to a variety of mental and physical health conditions, from depression and diabetes to high blood pressure.

So it's cheering that hundreds of food sharing initiatives have sprung up around the world. There's London's Casserole Club, for example, whose volunteers share portions of home-cooked food with people in their area who aren't always able to cook for themselves, in which case they put an end to food waste. Or there is South Africa's Food Jams, social gatherings in which participants are paired up, preferably with strangers, and given a portion of the meal to prepare. Many participants interviewed mentioned that their loneliness was greatly relieved. Such initiatives offer lessons of all kinds to those thinking about how our food systems need to change. They also somewhat compensate for the undesirable outcomes sole eating brings.

So why do people stop eating together? There are   a variety of reasons. Authors such as Michael Pollan argue that it is due to the fact that people attach less value to home-based labor, including cooking. The widening of the workforce, which brought many women out of the kitchen and into the workplace during the 20th century, also contributed. Meanwhile, the growth in insecure and inconsistent working patterns among a growing proportion of the population also discourages meals eaten communally.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6 . Whenever Michael Carl, the fashion market director at Vanity Fair, goes out to dinner with friends, he plays something called the phone pile game:Everyone places his __________ in the middle of the table;whoever looks at their device before the check arrives __________ for the dinner.

Brandon Holley, the former editor of Lucky magazine, had trouble __________ her mobile phone when she got home from work. So about six months ago, she began putting her phone into a milk tin the moment she walked in. It remains there until after dinner.

And Marc Jacobs, the fashion designer, didn’t want to sleep next to a noisy phone. So he __________ computers and phones from his bedroom, a house rule he __________ with audiences during a screening of his film Disconnect.

As smartphones continue to __________ into our lives, and wearable devices like Google Glass threaten our personal space even further, users say these disconnecting __________ are improving their relationships and their brains.

“Disconnecting is something that we all __________ , “Lesley M.M, Blume, a New York writer, told The New York Times. “The expectation that we must always be available to everyone creates a real problem in trying to __________ private time. But that private-time is more important than ever.”

A popular method for __________ is to choose a box for your cellphone, like Ms. Holley. “If my phone is lighting up, it’s still a distraction, so it goes in the __________ “she said.

Others choose new __________ . “No screens after 11 pm, “said Ari Melber, a TV host. “I found the evenings were more __________ , and I was sleeping better, “he said.

Sleep is a big factor, which is why Peter Som, a fashion designer, doesn’t”want to sleep __________ something that is full of photos and emails”, said Mr. Som, who keeps his phone charging in the living room overnight.”It __________ is a head-clearer.”

1.

A．wallet

B．handbag

C．watch

D．phone

2.

A．pays

B．waits

C．prepares

D．reaches

3.

A．examining

B．ignoring

C．charging

D．finding

4.

A．banned

B．observed

C．collected

D．adjusted.

5.

A．communicated

B．agreed

C．dealt

D．shared

6.

A．keep their word

B．make their way

C．take their time

D．fix their attention

7.

A．techniques

B．achievements

C．images

D．appliances

8.

A．learn

B．produce

C．receive

D．need

9.

A．figure out

B．take up

C．set aside

D．get over

10.

A．distributing

B．entertaining

C．monitoring

D．disconnecting

11.

A．box

B．room

C．pocket

D．bag

12.

A．games

B．orders

C．sections

D．rules

13.

A．urgent

B．upsetting

C．relaxing

D．virtual

14.

A．ahead of

B．next to

C．beyond

D．within

15.

A．definitely

B．originally

C．scarcely

D．considerately

7 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the following passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

The death of languages is not a new phenomenon. Languages usually have a short life span as well as a very high death rate. Only a few, including Egyptian, Chinese, Greek, Latin, have lasted more than 2,000 years.

What is new, however, is the speed at which they are dying out. Europe’s colonial ruling caused a sharp decrease in language kinds, reducing at least 15 percent of all languages spoken at the time. Over the last 300 years, Europe has lost a dozen, and Australia has only 20 left of the 250 spoken at the end of the 18th century.

The rise of nation-states has also been decisive in selecting national languages. By making great efforts to establish an official language in education, the media, national governments have tried to reduce minority languages.

This process of language standardization has been improved by industrialization and scientific progress, which have created new methods of communication that are fast, straightforward and practical. Language kinds came to be seen as a difficulty to trade and the spread of knowledge. Monolingualism (单种语言) became an perfect choice.

More recently, the internationalization of financial markets, the spread of information by electronic media and other aspects of globalization have led to the danger to “small” languages. A language not on the Internet is a language that “no longer exists” in the modern world. It is out of the game.

The serious effects of the death of languages are clear. First of all, it is possible that if we all ended up speaking the same language, our brains would lose some of their natural functions for language inventiveness. We would never be able to figure out the origins of human language or resolve the mystery of “the first language”. As each language dies, a chapter of human history closes.

Multilingualism (多语种) is the most right solution. The destruction of the first will lead to the loss of the second. Creating a language without any links to a people’s culture and way of life stifles the expression of their language gift. A language is not only used as the main instrument of human communication, it also expresses the world vision of those who speak it, their ways of using knowledge. To safeguard languages is an urgent matter.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . Smartphones are our constant companions. For many of us, their glowing screens are a ubiquitous (十分普遍的) presence, drawing us in with endless distractions. They are in our hands as soon as we wake, and command our attention until the final moments before we fall asleep.

Steve Jobs would not approve.

In 2007, Jobs took the stage and introduced the world to the iPhone. If you watch the full speech, you will be surprised by how he imagined our relationship should be with this iconic invention. This vision is so different from the way most of us use these devices now.

In his remarks, Jobs spent an extended amount of time demonstrating how the device utilized (应用) the touch screen before detailing the many ways Apple engineers had improved the age-old process of making phone calls. It’s the best iPod we’ve ever made,” Jobs exclaimed at one point. “The killer app is making calls,” he later added. Both lines drew thunderous applause.

The presentation confirms that Jobs imagined a simpler iPhone experience than the one we actually have more than a decade later. For example, there was no App Store when the iPhone was first introduced, and this was by design. Jobs was convinced that the phone’s carefully-designed native features were enough. He did not seek to completely change the rhythm of users’ daily lives. He simply wanted to take experiences we had already found important－listening to music, placing calls, generating directions－and make them better.

The minimalist (简约主义者) vision for the iPhone Jobs offered in 2007 is unrecognizable today－and that is a shame.

Under what I call the “constant companion model,” we now see our smartphones as always-on portals (通道) to information. We have become so used to it over the past decade that it is easy to forget the novelty (新奇之处) of the device. It seems increasingly clear to me that Jobs probably got it right from the very beginning: Many of us would be better-off returning to his original minimalist vision for our phones.

Practically speaking, to be a minimalist smartphone user means only using your device for a small number of features that do things of value to you. Otherwise, you simply put it away outside of these activities. This approach dethrones (废黜) this device from the position of a constant companion down to a luxury object, such as a fancy bike, that gives you great pleasure when you use it but does not dominate your entire day.

Early in his 2007 keynote, Jobs said, “Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” What he didn’t add, however, was the follow-up promise: “Tomorrow we’re going to reinvent your life.” The smartphone is fantastic, but it was never meant to be the foundation for a new form of existence.

If you return this innovation to its original role, you will get more out of both your phone and your life.

1. The underlined word “it” in the last but two paragraphs probably refers to       .

A．information	B．the smartphone
C．the always-on portal	D．the constant companion model

2. According to Steve Jobs, what was the main selling point of Apple’s first iPhone?

A．It allowed the users to have access to the internet.

B．It was actually an iPod that could make phone calls.

C．It was installed with applications by third-party developers.

D．It could fulfill people’s desire to multitask in their daily lives.

3. According to the article, a minimalist smartphone user tends to      .

A．expect to reinvent his life with the device

B．buy the latest model of iPhone and see it as a luxury

C．remove all the unnecessary applications from the device

D．spend more time working than playing with his device

4. The author’s purpose in writing the article is to      .

A．tell readers why Steve Job created the iPhone

B．remind readers not to be addicted to their smartphones

C．show readers that smartphones can greatly change our lives

D．encourage readers to block internet access on their smartphones

9 . 期中考试临 近，同学们感到学习任务重、压力大。一些同学争分夺秒甚至连课间十分钟的休息时间也用来学习。针对这一现象，请你以A Ten-minute Break为题，写一篇短文，呼吁同学们不要过于紧张，要充分利用好课间十分钟的休息时间，做到劳逸结合。要点如下：
1.十分钟的课间休息很有必要；
2.你是怎样利用这十分钟的；
3.……
注意：1.词数100左右；
2.可根据内容要点适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

10 . We love letters. Just as John Donne, a poet, _________ it, “Letters, to me and my friends mean _________ greetings; they get souls together. Thanks to letters, friends who are _________ speak.” He wrote these words nearly 400 years ago. Today, in the age of instant text message, social media, and email, they _________ ring truer than ever, because writing or receiving a letter has become such a _________ event.

A UK-wide survey undertaken by Sunday Times suggests that one in four of us has not _________ a letter for at least 10 years. That’s ten years without the bitter-sweet _________ of pacing the floor waiting for the _________; ten years without recognizing the handwriting on the envelope and eagerly _________ the letter to read its content.

We ____________ not get them any more, but we still love handwritten letters. In the same survey, one third of ____________ people interviewed say that they ____________ the content of sentimental (充满情感的) letters. Shouldn’t we make ____________ to give our friends and families what they will treasure forever? Ann Bickley went online in 2013 and offered to handwrite a letter to anyone who ____________ her. Her website received 50,000 ____________ in its first three months. Five years later, she is still the main ____________ behind one-million-lovely-letter.com and has personally written 4,000 letters offering hope and ____________ to strangers.

The thought behind a letter ____________ as much as its contents. “I never tell anyone that ____________ is going to be OK,” Ann Bickley says, “I am letting someone know that there is someone in the world who ____________ them.”

Who wouldn’t love to receive a letter like that? Let’s get writing!

1.

A．made

B．put

C．helped

D．managed

2.

A．rather than

B．less than

C．more than

D．other than

3.

A．absent

B．active

C．amused

D．admirable

4.

A．also

B．yet

C．already

D．still

5.

A．popular

B．common

C．rare

D．simple

6.

A．received

B．sent

C．written

D．rejected

7.

A．success

B．pleasure

C．concern

D．calmness

8.

A．engineer

B．doctor

C．police

D．postman

9.

A．seizing

B．tearing

C．hiding

D．carrying

10.

A．can

B．must

C．may

D．shall

11.

A．American

B．Chinese

C．Australian

D．British

12.

A．forget

B．change

C．remember

D．notice

13.

A．money

B．room

C．history

D．time

14.

A．contacted

B．interviewed

C．consulted

D．admired

15.

A．guests

B．visitors

C．friends

D．partners

16.

A．force

B．strength

C．source

D．energy

17.

A．effort

B．comfort

C．surprise

D．experience

18.

A．educates

B．guides

C．matters

D．rewards

19.

A．nothing

B．anything

C．something

D．everything

20.

A．looks after

B．cares about

C．struggles for

D．agrees with