Few of us haven't read Cinderella, the story of a young woman living in poverty who meets the prin
ce of her dreams, Some might not want to admit it, but there is a hidden Cinderella in everyone's heart—we all wish we could achieve recognition or success after a period of obscurity(默默无闻) or neglect.
Mary Santiago has that secret dream, too.Her story is featured in Another Cinderella Story, a film set in a US high Mary is shy but loves to dance.Compared with other girls, she is invisible.However, her world changes completely when a famous teenage pop singer, Joey Parker, appears.
Joey is everything the rest of the boys in her class are not—kind, handsome and desirable.Mary and Joey's paths cross at a ball.They meet and falHn love with each other.But when Mary has to.rush back home, she leaves behind
her MP3 player, which becomes the only clue Joey has to find the girl of his dreams.Of course, there is a wicked(邪恶的) stepmother, who turns out to be Dominique Blatt and she takes in Mary after her dancer mother dies.Dominique treats Mary like a maid and does everything she can to make sure Mary doesn't get into the top dance school.Her two daughters are equally determined to stop Joey falling for Mary, even if that means embarrassing her.
The story, though it mostly follows Cinderella, does add a few modem day twists to the classic fairy tale.Refreshingly, the film, unlike many high school films, does not focus on looks, although the actors are all beautiful.There is also a lot less materialism in Another Cinderella Story than in many similar movies.
"The movie takes the Cinderella fairytale as its jumping off point," writes movie critic Amber Wilkinson."The focus is firmly on following your dream."The first paragraph is mainly to _____.
| A.build interest and lead us to Mary's secret dream |
| B.remind us why Cinderella is popular all the years |
| C.inform us of the main topic of the whole passage |
| D.tell us how interesting the fairy tale Cinderella is |
In the movie, Mary Santiago is the main character who .
| A.is brave in expressing her iove |
| B.is attended badly by the stepmother |
| C.has a dream of meeting a prince |
| D.is embarrassed by the pop singer |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A.Joey is just like other boys in Mary's class. |
| B.Mary's mother influences her a lot m singing. |
| C.Not many people have a dream to be realized. |
| D.The MP3 player helps Joey in finding Mary. |
The passage is mainly _____.
| A.an introduction to a film |
| B.a review about a film |
| C.an essay about dreams |
| D.an advertisement of Cinderella |
According to the passage.Another Cinderella Story _____.
| A.follows Cinderella with nothing new |
| B.pays more attention to the looks of the actors |
| C.encourages young people to follow their dreams |
| D.focuses more on materialism than other films |
His first successful fight was for the equal rights of black people in South Africa. Then, as the first black president, he fought to unite the country and organize the government. Now Nelson Mandela has set his sights on a new enemy, AIDS.
On March 19 the former president, hosted his second AIDSawareness concert. He warned that 25 million people in Africa were already infected with the fatal disease.
Mandela was born in a small village in South Africa in 1918. He was adopted by the chief of his tribe and could have been a chief himself and lived a happy country life.
But he refused to be a chief when his people lived under racial discrimination(歧视). He decided to fight for equal rights for all the people in South Africa. Before 1990, under the country’s Racial Segregation Law, coloured people and white people lived separately. Black people were treated unfairly even when taking a bus. Blacks had to stand at the back of the bus to make room for white people even when there were only a few of them on board.
For his opposition to the system, Mandela was arrested and spent 27 years in prison. He was freed in 1990 and became the president of the country after the first election was held in which everyone could vote.
Mandela was not only a political fighter who attacked with speeches. He was also a trained boxer and fought in the ring when he was young.
“Although I did not enjoy the violence of boxing, I was interested in how one moved one’s body to protect oneself, how one used a strategy both to attack and retreat,”he wrote in his autobiography.
As a skillful fighter, he chose music as his weapon against AIDS. He hopes to win another victory against AIDS.When was Mandela arrested?
| A.In 1963. |
| B.In 1990. |
| C.When he refused to be a chief. |
| D.When he became the president. |
Nelson Mandela succeeded in doing the following EXCEPT ________.
| A.winning the equal rights for the black people in South Africa |
| B.uniting South Africa |
| C.organizing a government in South Africa |
| D.controlling the spread of AIDS |
Which of the following statements can best describe the life of Nelson Mandela?
| A.Struggle is his life. |
| B.Sports make his fame. |
| C.Fight for equal rights. |
| D.A great fighter against the government. |
Travel Information
| Placeofinterest |
![]() WaterCube |
![]() WestLake |
![]() Disneyland |
![]() DragonTower |
| Location(位置) |
Beijing |
Hangzhou |
HongKong |
Harbin |
| PhoneNumber |
010-28135589 |
0571-68345579 |
00852-28029822 |
0451-81187899 |
| PriceofTicket |
¥60 |
¥50 |
¥300 |
¥150 |
| Feature |
Specialbubbly(气泡状的)design |
TheBrokenBridge |
Cartooncharacters |
Skywalk |
It is said that the love story about Xu Xian and the White Snake happened on _____.
| A.Dragon Tower | B.West Lake |
| C.Water Cube | D.Disneyland |
If a person in Hangzhou feels like visiting Water Cube, he should call _____to get information.
| A.010-28315589 | B.0451-82187899 |
| C.0571-68345576 | D.0l0-28135589 |
Disneyland, which attracts a lot of tourists from home and abroad every year, is in_____ according to the travel information.
| A.Beijing | B.Harbin |
| C.Hong Kong | D.Hangzhou |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the travel information?
| A.Water Cube is special in design. |
| B.The price of a ticket for West Lake is the highest. |
| C.In Disneyland.you can’t see any cartoon characters. |
| D.The price of a ticket for Dragon Tower is the lowest. |
Many people have tried to simplify the spelling of English words. Unlike other languages , English sometimes spells the same sounds in very different ways . For example , there is “light “but” white”, ”loan ”but “phone” ,and there are at least seven different ways of pronouncing “ough”: ”though”, ”through “,”bough”. “cough” ”enough “, “ought” and “thorough “.
The American President Theodore Roosevelt almost succeeded in simplifying English spelling .In 1906, Andrew Carnegie started the Simplified Spelling Board .He was one of the richest men in the United States of America .The board’s plan was to make the spelling of words nearer to the way they sound .For example , the word “though” would be spelt “tho” and “through “would become “thru”. Other people on the board were Melvil Dewey , the head of the New York libraries , and Professor Brander Matthews of Columbia University 。They explained their idea to President Roosevelt , who thought that it was indeed logical .He immediately asked the government printer to sue simplified spelling in all government letters .
But people didn’t like the change, even if it made life easier. So the new simpler spelling was not popular. More importantly, when the American politicians (政客) discussed the plan, they did not like it either.
Because Roosevelt did not want to have any problems with the politicians, he changed his mind and told the printer to go back to the old way of spelling.
Since then no one in any government has dared to simplify English spelling. However,people do simplify some words, mainly in advertisements. For example, we often see “tonite” instead of “tonight” and “thru” instead of “through”.Many people have tried to simplify English spelling because________.
| A.English words are too long to remember |
| B.there are many mistakes in English words |
| C.lots of words are spelt in many different ways |
| D.sometimes the same sounds have different spellings. |
Who is NOT a member of the Simplified Spelling Board?
| A.Andrew Carnegie. |
| B.Melvil Dewey. |
| C.Theodore Roosevelt. |
| D.Brander Matthews. |
What was Theodore Roosevelt’s attitude towards simplified spelling?
| A.Worried. |
| B.Supportive. |
| C.Uncertain. |
| D.Doubtful. |
According to the passage, simplified spelling________.
| A.was welcomed by the US politicians |
| B.changed the way the words sound |
| C.has been used widely for over a century |
| D.was first used in US government letters. |
An English traveler found himself in Norway with only enough money to buy the ticket for him to go back home. As he knew that it would take him only two days to get to England, he decided that he could easily spend the time without food. So he bought a ticket and got on the ship. The man closed his ears to the sound of the lunch bell. When dinnertime came, he didn't go to dinning room, saying that he was not feeling very well.
The next morning he still didn't have breakfast and at lunchtime he again stayed in his room. But at dinnertime he was so hungry that he went to the dinning room and ate everything the waiter put in front of him. He got ready for the quarrel (争执).
“Bring me the bill,” he said. “The bill, sir?” said the waiter in surprise. “There isn't any bill. On our ship meals are included (包括) in the money for the ticket,” said the waiter. The story happened _____.
| A.in England |
| B.on a ship from Norway to England |
| C.in Norway |
| D.on a ship from England to Norway |
The traveler didn’t go to the dinning room first because _____.
| A.he had no money |
| B.he didn’t feel very well |
| C.he didn’t want to eat anything |
| D.he didn’t hear the sound of the bell |
The traveler went to the dinning room to eat something because _____。
| A.his friend had given him some money |
| B.the waiter had asked him to change his mind |
| C.he learned that there was no bill on the ship |
| D.he was too hungry. |
After the traveler finished eating, _____.
| A.he had a quarrel with waiter over the bill |
| B.he drank a lot |
| C.he asked the waiter to bring him the change (零钱) |
| D.he came to know that travelers on the ship had free meals |
Not all bodies of water are so evidently alive as the Atlantic Ocean, an S-shaped body of water covering 33 million square miles. The Atlantic has, in a sense, replaced the Mediterranean as the inland sea of Western civilization. Unlike real inland seas, which seem strangely still, the Atlantic is rich in oceanic liveliness. It is perhaps not surprising that its vitality has been much written about by ancient poets.
“Storm at Sea”, a short poem written around 700, is generally regarded as one of mankind’s earliest artistic representations of the Atlantic.
When the wind is from the west
All the waves that cannot rest
To the east must thunder on
Where the bright tree of the sun
Is rooted in the ocean’s breast.
As the poem suggests, the Atlantic is never dead and dull. It is an ocean that moves, impressively and endlessly. It makes all kinds of noise—it is forever thundering, boiling, crashing, and whistling.
It is easy to imagine the Atlantic trying to draw breath—perhaps not so noticeably out in mid-ocean, but where it meets land, its waters bathing up and down a sandy beach. It mimics(模仿) nearly perfectly the steady breathing of a living creature. It is filled with symbiotic existences, too; unimaginable quantities of creatures, little and large alike, mix within its depths in a kind of oceanic harmony, giving to the waters a feeling of heartbeat, a kind of sub-ocean vitality. And it has a psychology. It has personalities: sometimes peaceful and pleasant, on rare occasions rough and wild; always it is strong and striking.Unlike real inland seas, the Atlantic Ocean is______.
| A.always energetic | B.lacking in liveliness |
| C.shaped like a square | D.favored by ancient poets |
What is the purpose of using the poem “Storm at Sea” in the passage?
| A.To describe the movement of the waves. |
| B.To show the strength of the storm. |
| C.To represent the power of the ocean. |
| D.To prove the vastness of the sea. |
What does the underlined word “symbiotic” mean?
| A.Living together. | B.Growing fast. |
| C.Moving harmoniously. | D.Breathing peacefully. |
In the last paragraph, the Atlantic is compared to______.
| A.a beautiful and poetic place | B.a flesh and blood person |
| C.a wonderful world | D.a lovely animal |