I still remember the day when my mom said, “Let’s get you some new clothes.” You can imagine that to any little girl that would mean the world, but to me it meant the universe, because we were not very rich. After she said that, all I could think about was what kinds of clothes I would choose. To my surprise, my mom allowed me to pick out three dresses: a pink one, a blue one and a yellow one. The yellow one was my favorite.
I had a best friend named Seema, whose family was even poorer than ours. We played and studied together, and spent the best days of our childhood laughing at the silly stories we made up. I was excited to show her my three beautiful new dresses. She loved them all and was happy for me, but tearfully explained to me that her father could only afford to buy her clothes for her birthday. I felt sorry, and then did something that surprised even myself: I asked her to pick out one of my dresses for herself. To my disappointment, she picked up my favorite—the yellow one. Please remember, I was only seven years. My heart almost popped out (跳出) of my chest. But as she held it against her body, and I saw how brightly she smiled, I stopped feeling any hurt. I told her it looked lovely on her.
I’ll always remember Seema’s smile, and how at that moment nothing mattered more. When you value your friendships, nothing else matters! We’re still best friends today.Why did the new clothes mean the universe to the author?
| A．She loved dressing up more than anything else. |
| B．She thought they would make her more beautiful. |
| C．Her family was poor, and new clothes were very rare. |
| D．Her mother only bought her new clothes for her birthday. |
The author let Seema pick out one of her dresses because she wanted to _______.
| A．show her pity for Seema’s family | B．show off her family’s wealth |
| C．make Seema become her best friend | D．exchange it with Seema’s dress |
When Seema chose the yellow dress, the author was disappointed because ________.
| A．she was not generous | B．she didn’t expert to lose her favorite dress |
| C．Seema chose her favorite dress on purpose | D．Seema was careless about her feelings |
What can we conclude from the passage?
| A．Getting a best friend means losing other things. | B．Being generous is not easy. |
| C．Children like sharing their favorite things. | D．Friendship is precious (珍贵的). |
Why People Get Tattoos
Jack lay, quiet and unmoving for thirty minutes while a stranger repeatedly stabbed (刺) him with sharp needles, causing blood to pour steadily out of his leg. Jack was getting a tattoo. His friend Tony had recently gotten a tattoo, and Jack was so impressed by it that he decided to get one too. Peer pressure, media influence, and personal expression are some of the common reasons for wearing tattoos today.
The desire to be accepted by one’s friends or peers can have a great influence on what a person does. Sometimes, wearing a tattoo can be a sign that you belong to a certain group. Gangs often use special clothes and tattoos to identify their particular group. Some of these groups wear only brand – name clothes. Others wear tattoos. When a person’s friends are all doing something, that person is more likely to do the same thing.
The media is another big influence behind the popularity of tattoos in North America. A wide variety of media images(人物，图像) show tattoos－people appearing in commercials selling expensive cars, famous sports heroes with tattoos in magazines, fashion models wearing designer clothes that show their bodies tattooed with detailed and colourful patterns. These media images link tattoos to ideas of wealth, success, and status. As a result, many people decide to get a tattoo for its fashion and status value.
Many people decide to wear tattoos in order to express their artistic nature, their beliefs, or their feelings－in other words, to show their individuality(个性). A musician in a rock band may get a tattoo of a guitar on the arm. Some environmentalists may tattoo pictures of endangered animals on their shoulders. A tattoo can be a public sign to show what is important in a person's life.
As you can see, there are many reasons why young North Americans get tattoos. A tattoo can be part of a group's uniform, a sign of fashion or an expression of individuality. The decision to get a tattoo is most often a result of the influence of friends or media or the desire to express oneself. For Jack, it was a mixture of all three.
72. Jack has got tattoos in order to .
| A．show his great bravery | B．gain a special experience |
| C．make himself more healthy | D．be different from others |
73. According to the passage, media images are linked to .
| A．traditional lifestyle | B．social position |
| C．cultural background | D．public interest |
74. We can infer from the passage that .
| A．some people get tattoos out of pressure |
| B．tattoo is related to religious belief |
| C．getting tattoos costs a lot of money |
| D．most people with tattoos are artists |
75. Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
CP: Central Point P: Point Sp: Sub – point (次要点) C: Conclusion
High school dropouts（辍学者）earn an average of $ 9,000 less per year than graduates. Now a new study dispels a common belief why they quit. It’s much more basic than flunking out（不及格）.
Society tends to think of high school dropouts as kids who just can’t cut it. They are lazy，and perhaps not two bright．So researchers were surprised when they asked more than 450 kids who quit school about why they left.
“The vast majority actually had passing grades and they were confident that they could have graduated from high school.” John Bridgeland, the executive researcher said. About 1 million teens leave school each year. Only about half of African-American and Hispanic（美籍西班牙的）students will receive a diploma（证书），and actually all dropouts come to regret their decision. So, if failing grades don’t explain why these kids quit, what does? Again，John Bridgeland："The most dependable finding was that they were bored.” “They found classes uninteresting; they weren’t inspired or motivated. They didn’t see any direct connection between what they were learning in the classroom to their own lives, or to their career aspirations.”
The study found that most teens who do drop out wait until they turn sixteen, which happens to be the age at which most states allow students to quit. In the US，only one state，New Mexico，has a law requiring teenagers to stay in high school until they graduate. Only four states: California, Tennessee, Texas and Utah, plus the District of Columbia, require school attendance until age 18, no exceptions, another researcher，says raising the compulsory attendance age may be one way to keep more kids in school．
“As these dropouts look back，they realize they’ve made a mistake. And anything that sort of gives these people an extra push to stick it out and it through to the end, is probably helpful measure.”
New Hampshire may be the next state to raise its school attendance age to 18. But critics say that forcing the students unwilling to continue their studies to stay in school misses the point－the need for reform. It's been called for to reinvent high school education to make it more challenging and relevant, and to ensure that kids who do stick it out receive a diploma that actually means something.
68. Most high school students drop out of school because .
| A．they have failing grades |
| B．they take no interest in classes |
| C．they are discriminated against |
| D．they are lazy and not intelligent |
69. The underlined words “stick it out” probably means“ ”．
| A．complete schooling | B．solve the problem |
| C．love having classes | D．believe in themselves |
70. In the last paragraph, the writer is trying to .
| A．analyze the reason why students quit school |
| B．suggest raising the compulsory attendance age |
| C．raise awareness of reforming high school education |
| D．wish to make laws to guarantee no education |
71. From the passage，we can infer the following EXCEPT that．
| A．the grades of most dropouts at school were acceptable |
| B．about 500, 000 high school dropouts are black and Spanish |
| C．classes don't appeal to dropouts |
| D．on average dropouts cannot get good jobs |
Paris in the springtime was, is and always will be, something rather special. Why not experience it for yourself with this excellent break for four days? This attractive city has something to offer to everyone and with prices at just £129.
Your break begins with comfortable bus transfer (运送) from local pick-up points and travel to Paris is via cross-channel ferry, arriving at your hotel in the evening. The Ibis is an excellent quality hotel with private equipments in all rooms: satellite TV, radio, telephone and alarm clock. It has a bar and restaurant and is situated about two miles south of Notre Dame enabling you to explore Paris with ease.
The following day, after continental breakfast (included), the bus takes you on a comprehensive sightseeing tour of the city, during which you will see the Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, L’Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, in fact almost every famous landmark you have ever heard of. You then leave Paris and take a short drive to the magnificent Palace of Versailles, the home of Louis XIV. The tour ends mid-afternoon back in Paris where you will have the remainder of the day at your leisure. In the evening there is a “Paris by Night” tour showing you the beautiful buildings with bright lights.
Day three takes you to Montmarter, perhaps the most attractive quarter of Paris and home of the Sacre Coeur and the Moulin Rouge. In the afternoon you are free to explore this beautiful city as you wish, perhaps a pleasure voyage on the River Seine, wander around the beautiful gardens or look among the antique shops（古董店）. In the evening you will have the opportunity to visit the best nightclub in the city, the splendid Paradis Latain. On the final day it’s back to the UK via channel ferry.
Included in the price of £129 per person :
●Return comfortable bus travel to Paris
●Return ferry crossings
●3 nights housing in a twin bedded room in a Central Paris hotel with private facilities
●Continental breakfast during your stay
●Guided sightseeing tour of “Paris by Day” and Paris by Night”
●Visit to the Chateau of Versailles (admission not included )
●Tour around Montmartre
●Services of experienced bi-lingual tour guide at all times
64. What is the purpose of this passage ?
| A．To show the price of traveling to Paris . |
| B．To tell tourists the routes to Paris. |
| C．To introduce the city of Paris. |
| D．To attract tourists to Paris. |
65. During the stay in Paris , the tourists will .
| A．have a “Paris by Night” tour on the first evening |
| B．live in a hotel two miles away from Paris |
| C．have free time for half a day |
| D．have a pleasure voyage on the River Seine together |
66. What does the underlined word quarter mean in the passage ?
| A．An area of a town. |
| B．A period of 15 minutes. |
| C．A coin used in the US and Canada worth 25 cents. |
| D．One of four equal parts into which something can be divided. |
67. According to the passage , which of the following is true ?
| A．The Palace of Versailles is not in the center of Paris. |
| B．The tourists can telephone in the Ibis without paying. |
| C．It will take you a long time to get to Montmartre from Paris. |
| D．The tourists will spend the night in the antique shops on the third day. |
It's not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed how many nouns are being used as verbs? We all use them, often without noticing what we're doing.
I was arranging to meet someone for dinner last week, and I said “I’ll pencil it in my diary”, and my friend said “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not a tentative one!
Many of these new verbs are linked to new technology. An obvious example is the word fax, which is a shortening of facsimile originally, an exact copy of a book or document. We all got used to sending and receiving faxes, and then soon started talking about faxing something and promising we'd fax it immediately. So, nouns turn into verbs in two easy stages. Then along came email, and we were soon all emailing each other madly. How did we do without it? I can hardly imagine life without my daily emails.
Email reminds me, of course, of my computer and its software, which has produced another couple of new verbs. On my computer I can bookmark those pages from the World Wide Web that I think I'll want to look at again, thus saving all the effort of remembering their addresses and calling them up from scratch. I can do the same thing on my PC, but there I don't bookmark; I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb is derived from an adjective not a noun. I wasn’t really sure whether people said this, but someone told me recently that they had favorited a site I was looking for and so they could easily give me its address.
In the late 1980s I noticed that lots of my friends had acquired pagers, and kept saying things like “I’ll page you as soon as I know what time we’re meeting”. They couldn't say it to me, though; I refused to have one. So my children bought me a mobile phone, now known simply as a mobile and I had to learn yet more new verbs. I can message someone, that is, I can leave a message （either spoken or written）for them on their phone．Or I can text them, write a few words suggesting when and where to meet, for example. How long will it be before I can mobile them, that is, phone them using my mobile? I haven’t heard that verb yet, but I’m sure I will soon. Perhaps I’ll start using it myself!
60. “I’ll pencil it in my diary” in the second paragraph probably means .
| A．it was a firm arrangement |
| B．it was an uncertain arrangement |
| C．the arrangement should be written as a diary |
| D．he prefers a pencil to a pen |
61. A website address can be easily found if it has been .
| A．emailed | B．messaged | C．favorited | D．texted |
62. Which of the following has not been used as a verb yet?
| A．message | B．page | C．email | D．mobile |
63. The best title for this passage is．
| A．New Verbs from Old Nouns |
| B．The Development of the English language |
| C．New Technology and New words |
| D．Technology and Language |
If you’re training for a marathon , a proper plan for water intake (摄入) is important. Of course, there’s the risk of dehydration (脱水). But athletes now know they can also get into trouble by drinking too much. Too much water intake can lower levels of sodium (钠) in the blood . The death of a 28-year-old woman following the Boston Marathon caught the attention of many runners and led to new research.
Experts advise long distance runners to replace the liquids they sweat out. Their goal is to try to keep someone from not getting dehydrated by more than 2 percent of their body weight.
One technique for deciding how much water you need is to get the exact numbers. Runners have to weight themselves before and after a run to determine how much water they’ve lost. If their weight drops by more than 2 percent, they have not drunk enough water.
Hyponatremia occurs when runners drink so much water that blood salt levels drop off. A study published last year tested 488 runners who completed the Boston Marathon and found 13 percent of them had dangerously low blood salt levels. The first sign that runners may notice is slightly swelling in the hands. They can’t get their rings off, and then they might feel sick. They may not remember where they are. In fact, most runners get enough salt to get back to normal levels by eating just one meal after a run. Contrary to the old advice that runners should drink as much as they can to prevent dehydration , the new research has shown that the body is a remarkable machine that actually tells you via thirst when you need water .
56. The author of this passage is primarily concerned with.
| A．the signs and treatment for dehydration |
| B．the long distance runners who need help |
| C．how to manage water intake during a marathon |
| D．a 28-year-old woman who died after a Boston Marathon |
57. Why do runners have to weigh themselves before and after a run ?
| A．They can improve their performance in a run. |
| B．They can learn how much salt there is in the blood. |
| C．They can know the quantity of water they’ve lost during a run. |
| D．They can decide what kind of water they should take during a run. |
58. What conclusion can we draw from the passage ?
| A．Taking much salt during a run can avoid selling in the body. |
| B．Either too much or too little of water intake is harmful. |
| C．A rich meal is helpful to our performance in a run. |
| D．We should take enough salt during a run. |
59．According the passage, which of the following statements is correct ?
| A．Too much water intake→blood sodium levels ↓→dehydration. |
| B．Too much water intake→blood salt levels ↓→hyponatremia . |
| C．No water intake→blood sodium levels↑→hyponatremia . |
| D．No water intake →blood salt levels ↓→hyponatrenmia . |