The deserts of the world are not all covered with sand. Many of them have surfaces of rock or clay or small stones. They are not flat, either. They often have high hills and deep valleys. There is some plants’ life in many parts of the desert. There is little rain in the desert, but it does fall often enough for most plants.
The deserts of the world are not uninhabited(not lived by people). People also live outside oases(绿洲), but these people are not farmers. They have camels, goats, donkeys, sheep, etc. These animals can live on the desert plants and do not need much water.
The people of the desert have to move constantly from place to place, they must always look for grass or desert plants for their animals. They usually live in tents. When there is no more food for their animals, they fold up their tents, pat them on their camels and donkeys, and move to another place. In good years, when there is enough food for their animals, they trade their skins and their goats and camel hairs with the people of oases for wheat and fruit. But in bad years, when there is not enough food for their animals, the people of the desert would attack the oases people. But they are also hospitable, no man in the desert would ever refuse to give a stranger food and water.according to the passage, deserts are mostly made up of _______.
| A．clay | B．rock |
| C．sand | D．stones |
The underlined word “hospitable” has the meaning of being _______.
| A．brave | B．cruel |
| C．strange | D．kind |
In the desert _______.
| A．it rains in spring only |
| B．it rains for a short time every month |
| C．there is some rain, but far from enough |
| D．the rainfall is just enough for the plants |
People live _______.
| A．only inside the oases | B．only outside the oases |
| C．both inside and outside the oases | D．in places with regular rainfalls |
From the passage we know that life _______.
| A．is hard in deserts | B．is happy in deserts |
| C．is impossible in deserts | D．in deserts in much better now |
How the Americans view love
An old song says that " love makes the world go around" If you watch Americans on Valentine's Day, you can believe it. The whole country breaks out with little red hearts. Lovestruck people give cards, flowers and candy to their sweethearts.
The American concept of love and romance begins with dating. Young people date in several ways. At first they might have group dates with several boys and girls together. Later, they start going on single date - just one boy and one girl.
When two couples go out together, it's called double dating. A friend might even arrange a blind date for you with someone you don't know who your partner will be until the time of the date.
American young people see a date as a time just to have fun. They don't always have a romantic interest in mind. Someone may go out with one person this week, and another the next. After a while, a boy and a girl may decide they want to go steady. This means they think of each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. It also
means they don't want to date anyone else. Romance is beginning to bloom.
Romance love is v
ery much a part of American culture. Movies, TV shows and books in America all picture people falling in love. Actually, people all over the world search for happiness in a loving relationship. Maybe love does make the world go around. How do you understand the understand sentence in the first paragraph?
| A．Many young people's hearts break in America that day. |
| B．You can see many pictures of little red hearts all over America that day. |
| C．People all over the world show their hearts to each other that day. |
D．people go out with their warm hearts t hat day |
How many ki
nds of dates a
re mentioned in the passage?
| A．2 | B．3 | C．4 | D．5 |
What does blind date mean?
| A．You can not see who is your partner during the date. |
| B．The partner of your date is a stranger. |
| C．Your date is arranged secretly. |
| D．You will not know your partner until the date begins. |
W
hich of the following statement is true about American's view of romantic?
| A．Romance love is the most important thing in the world |
| B．People all over the world search for romance love |
| C．Date is one thing, romantic is another. |
| D．They can find their ideal love in movies, TV shows and books |
The holiday's upon us. Finally, after months of study, you have some time to yourself. so, why not read a book? Well, some people will say, "Why bother with books? We have the Internet
and other media that offer a lot more colorful entertainment. Books are history!" But don't be fooled. There's still a lot to be said for reading.
One clear reason is that a well-chosen book is a wonderful source of vocabulary, so long as you have a good dictionary, of course. Believe me, it's far easier to get new English words and phrases from a book or article than it is from the TV or the Internet.
But an even more important point is that books give you something that modern media simply can not. The average webpage is picture-heavy and the text is often designed to make it as easy to read as possible. While "easy" may be attractive, unfortunately it's little use for many long-term develo
pment 
of reading skills and the general language level. For that, there's still no substitute (替代品）of a book.
But perhaps the best single reason is that simply choosing what you read and doing it independently means that it's something you do by yourself. You can choose what you want to read. It's hard work, but something down the line, you will find that what once seemed like a duty is now a pleasure. We asked three bookworms -- an English teacher, a book editor and a film critic - to pick some favorite reads for you. How many reasons for reading a book does the author mention in the passage?
| A．One | B．Two | C．Three | D．Four |
According to this passage, we basically need a ______ in reading.
| A．computer | B．dictionary | C．notebook | D．pencil |
In the author's opinion, reading on the Internet may ________
| A．develop long-term reading skills | B．improve the general language ability |
| C．not take the place of reading books | D．be an effective way of reading |
The passage is written mainly to ____________.
| A．share the pleasure of reading books | B．advise readers to read books |
| C．stress the importance of reading online. | D．help readers to choose good books. |
You are walking down the street, minding your own business when you see a snowball. No big deal, right? Except the snowball is as tall as you are. And weighs about a ton. Did we mention that it is June?
That’s the experience thousand of Londoners had when they crossed paths with “ Snowball in Summer,” Goldsworthy makes sculpture （雕塑）from all sorts of things he finds outside – leaves, earth, and rocks, as well as ice and snow. He wanted to find out how busy people would react to an unexpected snowball melting in their midst.
During the winter of 2008, he rolled 13 giant snowballs near his home in Scotland. He filled each one with a surprise in the center – such as berries, feathers, little stones or sheep’s wool – which would appear as the snow melted. The finished snowballs were stored in a deep freeze until summer, then transported to London in refrigerated trucks. At midnight on June 21, 2008, while the city slept, Goldsworthy and his helpers rolled their snowballs into place.
People walking to work or school must have thought the sky was falling when they stumbled across snowballs the size of baby elephants. Some of them had never even seen snow in real life, and they couldn’t help touching them in great surprise. As the snow started to melt, things got even more interesting. The perfectly round snowballs took on different shapes as the stuff inside began to poke through. Two days later, most of Goldsworthy’s snowballs were gone, and their fillings scattered. But Londoners were left with a really good story about that odd summer day when the snowball came. What is really special about the snowballs is that ______________________.
| A．they lie in the street |
| B．they are in the shape of baby elephants. |
| C．they have berries, feathers, little stones and feathers in them. |
| D．they appear in June. |
What was the purpose of Goldsworthy in making the snowballs?
| A．To find out people’s reactions to them |
| B．To call up people’s memory of the cold winter. |
| C．To show off his skills in sculpture. |
| D．To let people experience the cold winter. |
Why did Gold
sworthy and his helpers roll their snowballs into place at mid-night?
A. They didn’t want to disturb other people.
B. It was quite at that time.
C. They wanted to avoid the traffic jam.
D, They wanted to give people a surprise.
Once an Englishman named Jack Brown went to Russia for a holiday. He stayed there for several months and then came home again. Some of his friends visited him a few days after he got back. “I had a very dangerous trip while I was in Russia.” Jack said to them. “I wanted to see a friend of mine in the country and the bad weather made me very late. So I was still travelling through a forest in sleigh<雪橇>when the sun went down. It was a long way fro
m my friend’s house when about 20 wolves began to follow my sleigh. It was very dark in the forest. There was thick snow on the ground. It was cold, and there were no houses for miles and miles. First I heard the wolves, and the noise was terrible! The horses heard them, too. They were frightened and began running faster. Then I saw long, grey forms among the trees, and soon the wolves were near us. They were running very fast, and they didn’t seem to get tired like the horses.” “What did you do?” one of his friends asked. “When the wolves got very near,” Jack answered, “I put up my gun and shot the first wolf. The sleigh was moving about, but I hit the animal and killed it. Then all the other wolves stopped and ate it, so our sleigh got away from them for a few minutes.” “Then they finished their meal, and I heard them coming again. The moon was shining brightly on the snow, and after a few minutes I saw them among the trees once more. They came nearer again, and then I shot another of them, and the others stopped once more to eat it.” “The same thing happened again and again, and my horses became more and more tired and ran slower and slower until, after about two hours, only one wolf was still alive and following us.”
“Wasn’t it too fat to run?” one of his friends asked. Jack told
his friends what happened to him when he was______________.
| A．in England one winter evening | B．in Russia one winter evening |
| C．in America one winter morning | D．in Russia one winter morning. |
In the sentence “They finished their meal.” “meal” here means ___________.
| A．the food Jack had brought with him | B．the meal prepared by Jack’s friends. |
| C．the wolf which had been killed by Jack | D．the dead animals on the way |
According to what Jack said, the last wolf ______________.
| A．had eaten up all the other wolves | |
| B．ran much faster than the other wolves | |
| C．was the strongest of all | D．was very fat and didn’t run fast. |
From what Jack’s friend said we know that _____________________.
| A．all the wolves had been shot by Jack. |
| B．the last wolf was too fat to run |
| C．Jack was telling the truth |
| D．the friends did not believe what Jack had said. |
As prices and building costs keep rising, the “do-it-yourself” (DIY) trend in the US continues to grow.
“we needed furniture for our living room,” says John Ross, “and we just didn’t have enough money to buy it. So we decided to try making a few tables and chairs.” John got married six months ago, and like many young people these days, they are struggling to make a home at a time when the cost of living is very high. The Rosses took a 2-week course for $280 at a night school. Now they build all their furniture and make repairs around the house.
Jim Hatfield has three boys and his wife died. He has a full-time job at home as well as in a shoe-making factory. Last month, he received a car repair bill for $520. “I was deeply upset about it. Now I have finished a car repair course. I should be able to fix the car by myself.”
John and Jim are not unusual people. Most families in the country are doing everything they can to save money so they can fight the high cost of living. If you want to become a “do-it-youselfer”, you can go to DIY classes. And for those who don’t have time to take a course, there are books that tell you how you can do things yourself.We can learn from the text that many newly married people_______.
| A．find it hard to pay for what they need |
| B．have to learn to make their own furniture |
| C．take DIY courses run by the government |
| D．seldom go to a department store to buy things |
John and his wife went to evening classes to learn how to ______.
| A．run a DIY shop | B．make or repair things |
| C．save time and money | D．improve the quality of life |
Jim decided to become a do-it-yourselfer when______
| A．his car repairs cost too much |
| B．the car repair class was not helpful |
| C．he could not possibly do two jobs |
| D．keeps house and looks after his children |