C
Imagine a world 400 years ago where children were used as chimney sweeps. The pay was low, it was a dirty trade and there was little reward for the men who did the job and even less for children.
Medway’s annual Sweeps Festival recreates the joy and laughter enjoyed by the chimney sweeps at their traditional holiday: the one time of the year the sweeps could leave the soot（烟灰） behind and have some fun. The sweeps’ holiday was traditionally held on 1 May each year. Locally, they used to mark the occasion by staging a procession through the streets of Rochester.
Their fun continued with the Jack-in-the-Green ceremony, a seven-foot character that they used to waken at dawn on Blue Bell Hill, Chatham. The Jack-in-the-Green would walk with the chimney sweeps in their parade. When the Climbing Boys’ Act 1868 made it illegal to employ young boys to carry out the trade, the traditional procession gradually began to fade. The final May celebration was held in the early 1900s.
The modern day Rochester Sweeps Festival is a colorful mix of music, dancing and entertainment with more than 60 Morris sides and entertainers celebrating throughout the three-day festival. The festival was revived in 1981 by local businessman Gordon Newton, a keen historian. He decided it was time to bring it back and over the years he has helped develop the festival into what it is today — an excellent performance of traditional Britain.
Gordon researched the Sweeps’ tradition and organized a small parade, involving local Morris teams. In time, Medway Council took over organization of the festival but Gordon remained actively involved. Today he is festival producer and plays melodeon（簧风琴） for several Morris teams. Doug Hudson is the festival’s music director, a role he has held for many years. Through Gordon’s vision and hard work, Doug’s musical ability and the council’s help, the Rochester Sweeps Festival has become the largest May Day celebration of its kind in the country.
66. According to the writer, chimney sweeps ____________.
A. were highly respected B. were well rewarded
C. led a hard life in the past D. worked in good conditions
67. Medway’s Sweeps Festival ____________.
A. has been organized by the Jack-in-the-Green
B. dated back to the May celebration in the early 1900s
C. is held to honor those chimney sweeps every other year
D. has become a time for chimney sweeps to enjoy themselves
68. The underlined word “revive” in the 4th paragraph most probably means ___________.
A. realize B. review C. recreate D. recognize
69. It can be inferred from the passage that ____________.
A. the festival has never been supported by the local government
B. The festival is a good way to see British folk customs in action
C. youngsters has been forbidden to be chimney sweeps since 1981
D. the modern festival lasts five days celebrating the coming of spring
70. What is the passage mainly concerned about?
A. Sweeps Festival history B. Medway’s traditional holidays
C. Climbing Boys’ Act 1868 D. a procession in Rochester
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 Roses 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-yourself”, 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 couldn’t possibly do two jobs | D．keeps house and looks after his children |
When the writer says that Jim has a full-time job at home, he means Jim_________.
| A．makes shoes in his home | B．does extra work at night |
| C．does his own car and home repairs | D．keeps house and looks after his children |
There was a king who gave his daughter a beautiful diamond necklace. The necklace was stolen and his people in the kingdom searched everywhere but could not find it. So the king asked to search for it and put a reward for＄50,000 for anyone who found it.
One day, a clerk was walking home along a river when he saw something shinning in the river and when he looked, he saw the diamond necklace. He decided to try and catch it to get the ＄50,000 reward.
He put his hand in the river and tried to catch the necklace, but somehow missed it and didn’t catch it. He took his hand out and looked again and the necklace was still there. He tried again.
But strangely, he still missed the necklace! He came out and started walking away, feeling sad. Just then, an old man walking by saw him, and asked him what was the matter. The clerk didn’t want to share the secret with him, thinking he might take the necklace for himself, so he refused to tell him anything.
The old man could see this man was troubled. He again asked the clerk to tell him the problem and promised that he would not tell anyone about it. The clerk told him about the necklace and how he tried and tried to catch it, but kept failing.
The old man then told him that perhaps he should try looking upward, toward the branches of the tree, instead of in the river. The clerk looked up and true enough, the necklace was hanging on the branch of a tree. He had been trying to take a reflection of the real necklace all this time. The clerk tried to get the diamond necklace to __________.
| A．make the king happy. | B．keep it for himself. |
| C．get the big reward. | D．sell it at a high price. |
Before the old man asked the clerk what was the matter, the clerk .
| A．was searching in the water | B．was trying to find help |
| C．felt rather tired | D．was not feeling good |
Where did the clerk find the necklace at last?
| A．On the tree | B．On the bank | C．In the river | D．In the sand |
What might be the best title for the passage?
| A．A beautiful diamond necklace | B．A king’s promise |
| C．A lucky young clerk | D．Changing the way of thinking |
I remember a day when I was a little kid. I was making a sandwich in the kitchen when I noticed the date on one of the wine bottles.
“ Dad, dad!” I cried. “This wine is too old to drink.”
“ Son, hold on,” he said.
“ No, you can’t drink this tonight! This bottle of wine was made 10 years ago.”
“ Wait, let me tell you…”
“ Would you like me to throw it away from you?” I asked.
“ Son, wait a second,” he said. “Son, some wines get better over time. The longer you wait to drink it, the better it will be. Although this may seem strange, it is true.”
When I was young, I didn’t have any understanding of what this meant, but now, this would have been very helpful to remember as I went through my teenage years.
In our society, we forget this simple rule: The longer you want for certain things, the better they will be. But we want the best job as quickly as possible; we want to graduate from college in as few years as possible; we even speed through our homework just to chat with friends. When we do this, we lose something of great importance.
We all want to get to the next step so quickly that perhaps we don’t get ready enough to get there. This has a negative effect on our society. When trying to go to the right college, we will do anything to get in and when we rush through our class-work, we may not study enough for the test, and end up failing. We need to be ready for whatever comes, ready for the unexpected. Wine gets better over time, so do the things in our paths of life.Why did the author tell his father not to drink the bottle of wine?
| A．Because it smelt terrible. |
| B．Because it was mixed with something else. |
| C．Because his father drank too much that night. |
| D．Because it had been kept for years. |
What the author’s father said __________.
| A．made the author puzzled when he was a little child. |
| B．was too simple a rule to be meaningful to the author. |
| C．threw the author into deep thought then. |
| D．was an excuse to drink the wine. |
In the author’s opinion, if we do things too quickly, we will __________.
| A．do it better | B．save much time |
| C．graduate from college more quickly | D．miss something useful to us in life |
Which of the following best reflects the main idea of the passage?
| A．Well begun is half done. | B．More haste（匆忙）, less speed. |
| C．Failure is the mother of success. | D．Nothing is impossible to a willing heart. |
CBC is a famous air company which has over twenty planes carrying passengers and goods, flying along 12 fixed lines all over the world. Its service is very good but some passengers are still not satisfied with it and that is why in 2004 and 2005 the company received letters of complaints from consumers or passengers who pointed out over a dozen kind of problems which are divided in groups in the following table. Those concerning passengers’ things carried on the plane are baggage problems. Customer service refers to service work which passengers are not satisfied with. Overselling of tickets is about the fact that more seats are sold and as a result the plane is too crowded to be safe. Refund problems appear when passengers fail to receive the money paid back to them because of what they have lost. Fares are problems concerning the price of tickets.
Consumer Complaints Received By the CBC
| Category |
2004 |
2005 |
| Flight problems |
20.2% |
22.1% |
| Baggage |
18.3% |
21.8% |
| Customer service |
3.1% |
11.3% |
| Over sales of seats |
10.5% |
11.8% |
| Refund problems |
10.1% |
8.1% |
| Fares |
6.4% |
6.0% |
| Reservation & Ticketing |
5.8% |
5.6% |
| Tours |
3.3% |
2.3% |
| Smoking |
3.2% |
2.9% |
| Advertising |
1.2% |
1.01% |
| Credit |
1.0% |
0.8% |
| Special passengers |
0.9% |
0.9% |
| Others |
6.0% |
5.3% |
| Total Number of Complaints |
2,988 |
1,792 |
About how many complaints about Credit were received by the CBC in 2004?
| A．28 | B．29 | C．30 | D．31 |
By about what percentage did the total number of complaints decrease from 2004 to 2005?
| A．40% | B．60% | C．75% | D．100% |
If the circle graphs below show total consumer complaints for 2004, which graph shows a dark part that is about Flight problems and Refund problems together?
Which of the following statements can be inferred from the table?
a. In 2004 and in 2005, complaints about Flight problems, Baggage, and Customer service
together took more than 40 percent of all consumer complaints received by the CBC Company.
b .The number of special passengers complaints was unchanged from 2004 to 2005.
c .From 2004 to 2005 the number of Flight problems complaints increased by more than 2 percent.
| A．only a | B．only b | C．a and b | D．a and c |
From the passage we can know that _______ .
| A．customers are not satisfied with CBC |
| B．sometimes CBC sells more tickets than its plane’s fixed seats |
| C．CBC has more than twenty planes which fly to all the capital cities of the world |
| D．customers can only buy tickets with cash |
Some say everyday miracles(奇迹) are predestined(注定的)—the right time for the appointed meeting. And it can happen anywhere.
In 2001, 11-year-old Kevin Stephan was a bat boy for his younger brother’s Little League team in Lancaster, New York. It was an early evening in late July. Kevin was standing on the grass away from the plate, where another youngster was warming up for the next game. Swinging his bat back and forth, giving it all the power an elementary school kid could give. The boy brought the bat back hard and hit Kevin in the chest. His heart stopped.
When Kevin fell to the ground, the mother of one of the players rushed out of the stands to his aid. Penny Brown hadn’t planned to be there that day, but at the last minute, her shift(换班)at the hospital had been changed to see her son’s performance. She was given the night off. Penny bent over the senseless boy, his face already starting to turn blue, and giving him CPR(心肺复苏术), breathing into his mouth and giving him chest compressions. And he revived in the end.
After his recovery, he became a volunteer junior firefighter, learning some of the emergency first-aid techniques that had saved his life. He studied hard in school and was saving money for college by working as a dishwasher in a local restaurant in his spare time.
Kevin, now 18, was working in the kitchen when he heard people screaming, customers in confusion, employees rushing toward a table. He hurried into the main room and saw a woman there, her face turning blue, her hands at her throat. She was choking.
Quickly Kevin stepped behind her, wrapped his arms around her and clasped his hands. Then, he used skills he’d first learned in Scouts. The food that was trapped in the woman’s throat was freed. The colour began to return to her face.
“The food was stuck in my throat. I couldn’t breathe,” she said. She thought she was dying. “I was very frightened.”
Who was the woman?
Penny Brown. The author wrote the passage to show us that .
| A．miracles are predestined and they can happen anywhere |
| B．whoever helps you in trouble will get a reward one day |
| C．God will help those who give others a helping hand |
| D．miracles won’t come without any difficulty sometimes |
Which of the following statements is TRUE of Kevin Stephan?
| A．He was hit in the face by a boy and almost lost his life. |
| B．He was a volunteer junior firefighter, teaching the players first-aid skills. |
| C．He worked part-time in a local restaurant to save money for college. |
| D．He saved Penny Brown though he didn’t really know how to deal with food choke. |
Why did Penny Brown change her shift and was given the night off that night?
| A．She was invited to give the players directions. |
| B．She volunteered to give medical services. |
| C．She was a little worried about his son’s safety. |
| D．She came to watch her son’s game and cheered for him. |
The underlined word “revived” in the third paragraph most likely means.
| A．came back to life | B．became worse | C．failed | D．moved |
When Kevin knew the woman was Penny Brown, probably he first felt.
| A．happy | B．surprised | C．sad | D．worried |