When it comes to friends, I desire those who will share my happiness, who possess wings of their own and who will fly with me. I seek friends whose qualities illuminate（照亮）me and train me up for love. It is for these people that I reserve the glowing hours, too good not to share.
When I was in the eighth grade, I had a friend. We were shy and “too serious” about our studies when it was becoming fashionable with our classmates to learn acceptable social behaviors. We said little at school, but she would come to my house and we would sit down with pencils and paper, and one of us would say, “Let’s start with a train whistle today.” We would sit quietly together and write separate poems or stories that grew out of a train whistle. Then we would read them aloud. At the end of that school year, we, too, were changing into social creatures and the stories and poems stopped.
When I lived for a time in London, I had a friend, He was in despair and I was in despair. But our friendship was based on the idea in each of us that we would be sorry later if we did not explore this great city because we had felt bad at the time. We met every Sunday for five weeks and found many excellent things. We walked until our despairs disappeared and then we parted. We gave London to each other.
For almost four years I have had remarkable friend whose imagination illuminates mine. We write long letters in which we often discover our strangest selves. Each of us appears, sometimes in a funny way, in the other’s dreams. She and I agree that, at certain times, we seem to be parts of the same mind. In my m
ost interesting moments, I often think: “Yes, I must tell….”We have never met.
It is such comforting companions I wish to keep. One bright hour with their kind is worth more to me than the lifetime services of a psychologist（心理学家），who will only fill up the healing（愈合的）silence necessary to those darkest moments in which I would rather be my own best friend. In the eighth grade, what the author did before developing proper social behavior was to ______.
| A．become serious about her study |
| B．go to her friend’s house regularly |
| C．learn from her classmates at school |
| D．share poems and stories with her friend |
In Paragraph 3, “We gave London to each other” probably means ______.
| A．our exploration of London was a memorable gift to both of us |
| B．we were unwilling to tear ourselves away from London |
| C．our unpleasant feeling about London disappeared |
| D．we parted with each other in London |
According to Paragraph 4, the author and her friend _______.
| A．call each other regularly |
| B．have similar personalities |
| C．enjoy writing to each other |
| D．dream of meeting each other |
What is the best title for the passage?
| A．Unforgettable Experiences |
| B．Remarkable Imagination |
| C．Lifelong Friendship |
| D．Noble Companions |
It seems that many college graduates are unsure of what to do with their lives, so they jump back into the college scene by default(违约). But graduate school is costly, time consuming and requires a lot of in-depth study, and also parents will lay down more money and banks will supply more student loans.
However, there are some students who should be pursuing graduate degrees. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, professors and ministers are a few examples of those who will benefit from class work past a bachelor’s degree. Their professions call for additional courses and more specialization and therefore higher education is a must. Still, all students in general should not adopt the idea that graduate school is necessary for individuals who want to make more money. Working hard right after college can lead to promotions in the future. It seems that it does more good to network or internship（实习）with professionals while pursing a bachelor’s degree than it does to complete a master’s and distant oneself from the world of work.
If a student graduates with a four-year degree and immediately enters the work force , he will most likely start an entry-level pay. In a couple of years this employee will gain seniority and experience, therefore increasing their chance for pay rise. He will learn the information at his job-site that he did not learn in school. His bachelor’s degree loan can be immediately chipped away ,and his maturity level can increase as real work related responsibilities set in. But, if the student pursues a master’s degree, he may be able to demand more pay initially when he finally goes job hunting, but years of serious money making as well as work experience will already be lost.
Students should not shy from the workforce just because uncertainty follows graduation. Those who pursue a graduate degree just because they do not want to leave school and because they view the “real world” as scary should think again. Using graduate studies as a hiding place from the full-time job is a waste of time.College graduates who go to work can _____ than those who pursue graduate degrees.
| A．make more money in the future | B．acquire more experience |
| C．get a better job | D．become more responsible |
The underlined words “chipped away” can most possibly be replaced by_______.
| A．given out | B．set down | C．thrown away | D．paid off |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．College graduates shouldn’t pursue graduate degrees |
| B．College graduates should think twice |
| C．How can college graduates make more money? |
| D．Students use graduate school to avoid reality |
Are we too quick to blame and slow to praise? It seems that while most of us are only too ready to apply to others the cold wind of criticism, we are somehow unwilling to give others the warm sunshine of praise.
It’s strange how mean we are about praising. Perhaps it’s because few of us know how to accept praise gracefully . Instead , we are embarrassed and ignore the words we are really so glad to hear. Because of this defensive reaction, direct praise is surprisingly difficult to give.
Do you ever go into a house and say, “ What a tidy room!” Hardly anybody does. That’s why housework is considered such a boring job. Shakespeare said, “ Our praises are our wages.” Since so often praise is the only wage a housewife receives, surely she is worthy of praise.
Mothers know naturally that for children an ounce of praise is worth a pound of scolding. Still, we are unaware of children’s small achievements and we seldom apply the rule. One day I was criticizing my children for quarrelling. “Can you never play peacefully?” I shouted. Susanna looked at me confused. “ Of course I can,” she said. “But you don’t notice us when we do.”
Teachers agree about the value of praise. “ I believe that a student knows when he has handed in something above his usual standard,” writes a teacher, “ and that he is hungry for a belief comment in the margin to show him that the teacher is aware of it, too.”
Behavioral scientists have done countless experiments to prove that people have a tendency to repeat an act which has been immediately followed by a pleasant result. In one such experiment, a number of schoolchildren were divided into three groups and given arithmetic tests daily for five days. One group was constantly praised for its previous performance; another group was criticized; the third was ignored. Not surprisingly, those who were praised improved dramatically. Those who were criticized improved ,too, but not so much. And the scores of the children who were ignored hardly improved at all. Interestingly, the brightest children were helped just as much by criticism as by praise, but the less able children, who reacted badly to criticism, needed praise the most.
To give praise costs the giver nothing but a moment’s thought and a moment’s effort—perhaps a quick phone call to pass on good comments , or write an appreciative letter. It is such a small investment—and yet consider the results it may produce. We will not only bring joy into other people’s lives, but also, very often, added happiness into our room.” I can live for two months on a good compliment.” said Mark Twain.
Title : Profits of Praise
| Theme |
Compared with_____ |
| Reasons for unwillingness to give praise |
We feel embarrassed and ignore the words pleasant to our ears____ We have ____ |
| Importance of praise in some cases |
A housewife ___ A mother is supposed to be aware of their children’s small achievements and ___ A student waits ____ |
| Findings of experiments on profits of praise |
Everybody___ Those who receive constant praise have made dramatic improvement. Unlike brilliant children, less able children ___ |
| ________ |
It pays to make a moment’s ___ |
The common cold is the world's most widespread illness, which is plagues(疫病) that flesh receives.
The most widespread mistake of all is that colds are caused by cold. They are not. They are caused by viruses(病毒) passing on from person to person. You catch a cold by coming into contact, directly or indirectly, with someone who already has one. If cold causes colds, it would be reasonable to expect the Eskimos to suffer from them forever. But they do not. And in isolated Arctic regions explorers have reported being free from colds until coming into contact again with infected people from the outside world by way of packages and mail dropped from airplanes.
During the First World War soldiers who spent long periods in the trenches(战壕), cold and wet, showed no increased tendency to catch colds.
In the Second World War prisoners at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp(奥斯维辛集中营), naked and starving, were astonished to find that they seldom had colds.
At the Common Cold Research Unit in England, volunteers took part in Experiments in which they gave themselves to the discomforts of being cold and wet for long stretches of time. After taking hot baths, they put on bathing suits, allowed themselves to be with cold water, and then stood about dripping wet in drafty room. Some wore wet socks all day while others exercised in the rain until close to exhaustion. Not one of the volunteers came down with a cold unless a cold virus was actually dropped in his nose.
If, then, cold and wet have nothing to do with catching colds, why are they more frequent in the winter? Despite the most pains—taking research, no one has yet found the answer. One explanation offered by scientists is that people tend to stay together indoors more in cold weather than at other times, and this makes it easier for cold viruses to be passed on.
No one has yet found a cure for the cold. There are drugs and pain suppressors(止痛片) such as aspirin, but all they do is to relieve the symptoms(症状).The writer offered _______ examples to support his argument.
| A．4 | B．5 | C．6 | D．3 |
Which of the following does not agree with the chosen passage?
| A．The Eskimos do not suffer from colds all the time. |
| B．Colds are not caused by cold. |
| C．People suffer from colds just because they like to stay indoors. |
| D．A person may catch a cold by touching someone who already had one. |
Arctic explorers may catch colds when ________.
| A．they are working in the isolated Arctic regions |
| B．they are writing reports in terribly cold weather |
| C．they are free from work in the isolated Arctic regions |
| D．they are coming into touch again with the outside world |
The passage mainly discusses ________.
| A．the fallacy about the common cold |
| B．the experiments on the common cold |
| C．the reason and the way people catch colds |
| D．the continued spread of common colds |
"Indeed," George Washington wrote in his diary in 1785, "some kind of fly, or bug, had begun to eat the leaves before I left home." But the father of America was not the father of bug. When Washington wrote that, Englishmen hade been referring to insects as bugs for more than a century, and Americans had already created lightning-bug(萤火虫). But the English were soon to stop using the bugs in their language, leaving it to the Americans to call a bug a bug in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The American bug could also be a person, referring to someone who was crazy about a particular activity. Although fan became the usual term, sports fans used to be called racing bugs, baseball bugs, and the like.
Or the bug could be a small machine or object, for example, a bug-shaped car. The bug could also be a burglar alarm, from which comes the expression to bug, that is, "to install (安装) an alarm". Now it means a small piece of equipment that people use for listening secretly to others' conversation. Since the 1840s, to bug has long meant "to cheat", and since the 1940s it has been annoying.
We also know the bug as a flaw in a computer program or other design. That meaning dates back to the time of Thomas Edison. In 1878 he explained bugs as "little problems and difficulties" that required months of study and labor to overcome in developing a successful product. In 1889 it was recorded that Edison "had been up the two previous nights discovering 'a bug' in his invented record player."We learn from Paragraph 1 that __________________.
| A．Americans had difficulty in learning to use the word bug |
| B．George Washington was the first person to call an insect a bug |
| C．the word bug was still popularly used in English in the nineteenth century |
| D．both Englishman and Americans used the word bug in the eighteenth century |
What does the word "flaw" in the last paragraph probably mean?
| A．Fault. | B．Finding. | C．Origin. | D．Explanation. |
The passage is mainly concerned with__________________.
| A．the misunderstanding of the word bug |
| B．the development of the word bug |
| C．the public views of the word bug |
| D．the special characteristics of the word bug |
Imagine going to sleep then waking up speaking another language. It may sound impossible， but it's actually happened.
The phenomenon(现象)of being able to suddenly speak another language is known as“Xenoglossia”， from the Greek words“xenos”(foreigner)and “glossa”(language)．
It once happened to a 13yearold girl from Croatia. After being unconscious(不省人事的)because of a disease for 24 hours in 2010，she woke up speaking fluent German. The girl， who came from the town of Knin in the south of Croatia，was studying German at school but she'd only started recently. Her parents said that she'd been reading German books and watching German TV at home， but that she wasn't fluent in the language.However ，since waking up， she's been able to communicate “perfectly”in German.What's really strange is that she's now unable to speak Croat，her mother language.Doctors at Split's KB Hospital have asked some experts to examine the girl as they try to find out what caused the change.Dr Mijo Milas said，“In earlier times this would have been considered as a miracle(奇迹)；we prefer to think that there must be an explanation—it's just that we haven't found it yet.”
In 2007，Matej Kus from Czech became unconscious after a motorbike accident. On waking up 45 minutes later，he could speak fluent English.Matej was only 18 years old at the time， and had just started studying the language and so was at a low level.Peter Waite，Kus's teammate said，“I couldn't believe what I was hearing.It was really clear English.It was unbelievable to hear him talk in unbroken English.”Unluckily，Matej's new language skills didn't last.Two days later， when he recovered fully from the accident， he'd completely forgotten his English.
We still don't know exactly what happened to the two people. Perhaps scientists will discover something new and exciting. But until then， keep studying!According to the passage，what is“Xenoglossia”？
| A．That someone becomes unconscious. |
| B．That someone speaks a new language in a sudden. |
| C．That someone doesn't like his mother language. |
| D．That someone is able to speak Greek suddenly. |
What does the underlined word “It” in Para.3 probably refer to?
| A．Having accidents. |
| B．Speaking fluent German. |
| C．The phenomenon of Xenoglossia. |
| D．Being unable to speak. |
We can learn from Paragraph 3 that the girl from Croatia ______.
| A．wanted to know what caused her change |
| B．believed she had a talent for language |
| C．didn't study German for a long time |
| D．didn't like learning German |
Which of the following is TURE according to the test?
| A．Matej Kus is now afraid of motorbike racing. |
| B．The girl from Croatia lost consciousness for several days. |
| C．The girl from Croatia was knocked unconscious in an accident. |
| D．Matej Kus could only speak a little English before the accident . |