A friend of mine named Paul received an expensive car from his brother as a Christmas present．On Christmas Eve when Paul came out of his office，a street urchin was walking around the shining car．“Is this your
car，Paul？”he asked．
Paul answered，“Yes，my brother gave it to me for Christmas.” The boy was surprised．“You mean your brother gave it to you and it didn't cost you anything？Boy，I wish…” He hesitated．
Of course Paul knew what he was going to wish for．He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what the boy said surprised Paul greatly.
“I wish,” the boy went on，“that I could be a brother like that.” Paul looked at the boy in surprise, then he said again, “Would you like to take a ride in my car？”
“Oh yes，I'd love that．”
After a short ride，the boy turned and with his eyes shining，said，“Paul，would you mind driving in front of my house？”
Paul smiled a little．He thought he knew what the boy wanted．He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big car. But Paul was wrong again. “Will you stop where those two steps are？” the boy asked．
He ran up to the steps. Then in a short while Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little crippled brother. He sat him down on the step and pointed to the car.
“There he is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn't cost him a cent. And some day I'm going to give you one just like it…then you can see for yourself all the nice things in the Christmas windows that I've been trying to tell you about.”
Paul got out and lifted the boy to the front seat of his car. The shining-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began an unforgettable holiday ride.
注：urchin 顽童 hesitate 犹豫 crippled 残疾 cent 美分The street urchin was very surprised when ________．
| A．Paul received an expensive car |
| B．Paul told him about the car |
| C．he saw the shining car |
| D．he was walking around the car |
From the story we can see the urchin ________．
| A．wished to give his brother a car |
| B．wanted Paul’s brother to give him a car |
| C．wished he could have a brother like Paul's |
| D．wished Paul could be a brother like that |
The urchin asked Paul to stop his car in front of his house ________．
| A．to show his neighbors the big car |
B．to show he had a rich friend |
| C．to let his brother ride in the car |
| D．to tell his brother about his wish |
We can infer（推断）from the story that ________．
| A．Paul couldn't understand the urchin |
| B．the urchin had a deep love for his brother |
| C．the urchin wished to have a rich brother |
| D．the urchin's wish came true in the end |
Halloween is the one night of the year where being scared is supposed to be good fun. However, amid all the harmless activities like trick-or-treating, sometimes genuinely frightening and disturbing things can happen. October 31 has been the date of some horrific murders and unexplained disappearances, which are far more terrifying than any ghosts, goblins, or witches. Because they happened to take place on Halloween, the following mysteries have an extra aura of creepiness to them, and they remain unsolved to this day.
1
Hyun Jong was a 21-year-old South Korean student attending Pennsylvania State University. In 2001, after leaving the Halloween party in a club, she was dropped off at her apartment by her friends at 4:00 AM. This was the last anyone ever saw of her. A search was conducted of her apartment. There was no sign of any struggle, but many of her belongings were there, indicating that she had gone inside after being dropped off. But what happened to her afterward? Although some evidence indicated her death, her body has never been found.
2
On Halloween night in 1977, the parents of 19-month-old Nima Louise Carter placed their child inside her crib. The next morning, Nima’s parents were shocked to discover that she was missing. Since the windows were locked, it’s theorized that someone must have been hiding in the closet and took the child out of the house while her parents were asleep. The police took it as child abduction. A month later, a group of kids were playing in an abandoned house four blocks away. When they opened up the house’s refrigerator, they received a horrifying shock when the body of an infant came tumbling out. The child was identified as Nima Louise Carter, who died of suffocation(窒息).
3
Chris Jenkins was a 21-year-old student who visited a bar on Halloween night in 2002. After leaving the bar around midnight, Chris disappeared without a trace. He remained a missing person for four months until his body was discovered in the Mississippi River. Since Chris was still wearing his Halloween costume, all indications were that he died shortly after he disappeared. Since his cause of death was determined to be drowning, authorities initially(初步的) believed it was an accident or suicide. His parents refused to believe this and appealed for a more careful investigation. Finally, in 2006, the death was reclassified as a murder case.
4
Sometime during the early morning Halloween hours of 1981, a Manhattan couple named Ronald Sisman and Elizabeth Platzman were murdered in their apartment. The couple was severely beaten before being shot in the head, execution-style, and the apartment was in a complete mess. Sisman was rumored to be involved in drugs, so authorities initially believed that to be the motive for the killings. However, the case took a turn when a prisoner claimed that one of his fellow inmates(狱友) had somehow predicted the crime weeks before it actually happened. The police then questioned the inmate, yet no insightful information was brought out.Whose body was found inside a fridge?
| A．Chris Jenkins | B．Hyun Jong |
| C．Nima Louise Carter | D．Sisman Platzman |
What does the underlined “this” refer to in the third case?
| A．the authorities’ initial conclusion |
| B．the cause of their son’s death |
| C．their son’s death |
| D．the investigation |
Of the four cases, at first the police had wrong conclusions except in _______
| A．the Hyun Jong case | B．the Nima Louis Carter case |
| C．the Chris Jenkins case | D．the Platzmans case |
Which of the following facts is mentioned in the passage?
| A．Chris Jenkins’ parents persuaded the police to dig deeper into their son’s death. |
| B．Ronald and Elizabeth were beaten to death in their apartment. |
| C．Someone must have hidden inside Hyun Jong’s apartment and took her away. |
| D．Nima Louis Carter was frozen to death in a fridge. |
The English language was first introduced to the Americas by British colonization, beginning in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia. Similarly, the language spread to numerous other parts of the world as a result of British trade and colonization elsewhere and the spread of the former British Empire, which, by 1921, held sway over a population of 470–570 million people, approximately a quarter of the world's population at that time.
Over the past 400 years the form of the language used in the Americas—especially in the United States—and that used in the United Kingdom have diverged in a few minor ways, leading to the versions now occasionally referred to as American English and British English. Differences between the two include pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, idioms, and formatting of dates and numbers. A small number of words have completely different meanings in the two versions or are even unknown or not used in one of the versions. One particular contribution towards formalizing these differences came from Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary (published 1828) with the intention of showing that people in the United States spoke a different dialect from Britain, much like a regional accent.
It may be the case that increased worldwide communication through radio, television, the Internet and globalization has reduced the tendency towards regional variation. This can result either in some variations becoming extinct (for instance, the wireless, being progressively superseded by the radio) or in the acceptance of wide variations as "perfectly good English" everywhere.
Chief among other native English dialects are Canadian English and Australian English, which rank third and fourth in the number of native speakers. For the most part, Canadian English, while featuring numerous British forms alongside native Canadianisms, shares vocabulary, phonology and syntax with American English, leading many to recognize North American English as an organic grouping of dialects. Australian English likewise shares many American and British English usages alongside plentiful features unique to Australia, and retains a significantly higher degree of distinctiveness from both the larger varieties than does Canadian English. South African English, New Zealand English and the Hiberno-English of Ireland are also distinctive and rank fifth, sixth and seventh in the number of native speakers.Which of the following native English dialects ranks fifth in the number of native speakers?
| A．Canadian English |
| B．South African English |
| C．the Hiberno-English of Ireland |
| D．Australian English |
Which of the following is NOT the reason why the English language spread to numerous parts of the world?
| A．British colonization |
| B．the spread of the former English Empire |
| C．British trade around the world |
| D．a large British population |
It can be inferred from the passage that_____
| A．Australian English has developed more characteristics of its own than Canadian English. |
| B．it is obvious that some variations will become extinct due to worldwide communication. |
| C．everyone will be speaking “perfectly good English” in the future. |
| D．almost a quarter of the world’s population spoke British English in 1921. |
This passage is intended __________________
| A．to persuade us to speak perfectly good English in the future. |
| B．to draw people’s attention to the extinction of different English dialects. |
| C．to give the readers some useful information on variation of the English language. |
| D．to do a research on how the English language has influenced the world. |
Many years ago there was a huge oil refinery fire in a small town. Flames shot hundreds of feet into the air. The sky was thick with grimy black smoke. The heat was intense—so intense that firefighters had to park their trucks a block away and waited for the heat to die down before they could begin to fight the fire. However, it was about to rage out of control.
Then, all of a sudden, from several blocks away came a fire truck racing down the street. With its brakes screeching, it hit the curb in front of the fire. The firefighters jumped out and began to battle the blaze. All the firefighters who were parked a block away saw this, and they jumped into their trucks, drove down the block and began to fight the fire, too. As a result of that cooperative effort, they were just barely able to bring the fire under control.
The people who saw this teamwork thought, “My goodness, the man who drove that lead fire truck—what an act of bravery!” They decided to give him a special award to recognize him for his bravery in leading the charge.
At the ceremony the mayor said, “Captain, we want to honor you for a fantastic act of bravery in leading the charge. You prevented the loss of property, perhaps even the loss of life. If there is one special thing you could have—just about anything—what would it be?”
Without hesitation, the captain replied, “Your Honor, a new set of brakes of my truck would be great!” How was the captain probably feeling when his truck charged down the street to the fire?
| A．enthusiastic | B．encouraged |
| C．embarrassed | D．upset |
Which of the following statements is true?
| A．The captain was driving his truck fast because he was in a hurry to fight the fire. |
| B．There was something wrong with the brakes of the truck. |
| C．The mayor praised the captain for his honesty. |
| D．The people decided to honor the captain because he fought the fire bravely. |
Why did all the firefighters park their trucks a block away from the fire?
| A．Because they were waiting for the captain to arrive. |
| B．Because the smoke was too thick to see anything. |
| C．Because the fire was about to go out of control. |
| D．Because they had to wait for the intense heat to die down a bit. |
In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity. Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.
I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs. In their single-minded pursuit of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.
However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: “I may have lost, but it doesn’t matter because I really didn’t try.” What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one’s self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve（消失）can we discover a new meaning in competition. What does this passage mainly talk about?
| A．Competition helps to set up self-respect. |
| B．Competition is harmful to personal quality development. |
| C．Opinions about competition are different among people. |
| D．Failures are necessary experiences in competition. |
The underlined phrase “the most vocal” in Paragraph 3 means ______.
| A．those who try their best to win |
| B．those who value competition most highly |
| C．those who rely on others most for success |
| D．those who are against competition most strongly |
What is the similar belief of the true competitors and those with a “desire to fail”?
| A．One’s worth lies in his performance compared with others. |
| B．One’s success in competition needs great efforts. |
| C．One’s achievement is determined by his particular skills. |
| D．One’s success is based on how hard he has tried. |
Which point of view may the author agree to?
| A．Every effort should be paid back. |
| B．Competition should be encouraged. |
| C．Fear of failure should be removed in competition. |
| D．Winning should be a life-and-death matter. |
America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us develop more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending（延伸）sometimes deeply into both families.
Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality（好客）easily.
Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they treat us warmly, they don’t show their politeness to us if it requires much time. But in China ,we are usually generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at an airport even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily plans. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full ,warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.
For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for pure business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!The writer of this passage mustbe ______.
| A．an American | B．a Chinese |
| C．a professor | D．a student |
Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
| A．Friendships between Americans usually extend deeply into their families. |
| B．Friendships between Americans usually last for all their lives |
| C．Americans always show their warmth even if they are very busy. |
| D．Americans will continue their friendships again even after a long break. |
From the last two paragraphs we can learn that when we arrive in America to visit an American friend, we will probably be ______.
| A．warmly welcomed at the airport |
| B．offered a ride to his home |
| C．treated hospitably at his home |
| D．treated to dinner in a restaurant |
A suitable title for this passage would probably be “______”.
| A．Friendships between Chinese |
| B．Friendships between Americans |
| C．Americans’ hospitality |
| D．Americans’ and Chinese’s views of friendships |