I arrived at the bus station much too early for the London bus, which was not to leave until five to twelve. I pushed through the crowds, looking for somewhere to sit down. Scores of people were standing about, or struggling along with their bags and the cases to find the right lines. There was a party of school girls. I could see teachers trying to keep them in order. But there was nowhere for me to sit.
I stepped into the station buffet. I looked up at the clock there. It was only twenty to twelve. I found a seat opposite a large mirror on the wall. Just then a friend of mine called Jim came in and sat with me. "What time is your bus?" asked Jim. "Oh, there's a plenty of time yet," I answered. "Oh, I'll get some drinks then," said Jim. We talked while drinking. Then I looked at the clock again. "Good heavens! It's going backward!" I cried. "A moment ago it was twenty to twelve and now it's half past eleven." "You are looking at the clock in the mirror," said Jim. I could kick myself for being so stupid. I had not realized that the marks for one and eleven on the face of the clock were the same. The next bus was not to leave for another hour. I have never liked mirror since then. The London bus left ________.
| A．at five to twelve | B．before five to twelve |
| C．after five to twelve | D．until five to twelve |
The writer went to the station buffet because ________.
| A．he was thirsty |
| B．he saw the station buffet was not so crowded |
| C．it was still early for his bus and he couldn't find a place to sit at the bus station |
| D．he had changed his mind; he wouldn't go to London |
The writer sat ________.
| A．behind a mirror | B．facing a mirror |
| C．under a mirror | D．near a mirror |
Jim came to the station buffet at about ________.
| A．twenty to twelve | B．twenty past twelve |
| C．half past one | D．twenty past eleven |
What time was it when the writer looked at the clock again?
It was ________.
| A．half past eleven | B．twelve thirty |
| C．twelve twenty | D．eleven thirty |
Not many years ago, a wealthy and rather strange old man named Johnson lived alone in a village in the south of England. He had made a lot of money in trading with foreign countries. When he was seventy-five, he gave￡12,000 to the village school to buy land and equipment for a children’s playground.
As a result of his kindness, many people came to visit him. Among them was a newspaperman. During their talk, Johnson remarked that he was seventy-five and expected to live to be a hundred. The newspaperman asked him how he managed to be healthy at seventy-five. Johnson had a sense of humor. He liked whisky (威士忌酒) and drank some each day. “I have an injection (注射) in my neck each evening,” he told the newspaperman, thinking of his evening glass of whisky.
The newspaperman did not understand what Johnson meant. In his newspaper he reported that Johnson was seventy-five and had a daily injection in his neck. Within a week Johnson received thousands of letters from all over Britain, asking him for the secret of his daily injection.The gift of money to the school suggests (暗示) that Johnson ___________.
| A．had no children | B．was a strange man |
| C．was very fond of children | D．wanted people to know how rich he was |
Many people wrote to Johnson to find out ___________.
| A．what kind of whisky he had | B．how to live longer |
| C．how to become wealthy | D．in which part of the neck to have an injection |
The newspaperman ___________.
| A．should have reported what Johnson had told him |
| B．shouldn’t have asked Johnson what injection he had |
| C．was eager to live a long life |
| D．should have found out what Johnson really meant |
When Johnson said he had an injection in his neck each evening, he really meant that ___________.
| A．he liked drinking a glass of whisky in the evening |
| B．he needn’t an injection in the neck |
| C．a daily injection in the evening would make him sleep well |
| D．there was something wrong with his neck |
Most recently, it’s very common in students who need a parent present for job interviews.
Naturally, it’s easy to blame the students in these situations, but the bigger problem is us. We—as parents—are so eager to protect our kids that we fail to realize that this in itself is harming them. As the mother of two young sons, I have to remind myself all the time that the biggest responsibility I have as a parent is to help them develop the skills needed to live in, to live without me. So, I’ll let them fail.
I’ll let them fail because as long as they are safe and warm inside their comfort zones, they will never grow. And failure—along with loss, heartbreak, disappointment, etc.—will be part of growth for them. Call me the anti-tiger mom, but leaving them alone is my way of helping them become equipped to fit in this world as we know it today. From terrorism (恐怖主义) and seemingly endless natural disasters, to our national debt and beyond, if we expect the next generation to stand up to the very real problems of our time, we need to stop feeding them and start teaching them how to fish.
My children are faced with hard situations in their own life almost each day, but they try to negotiate (协商) everything now. It’s a small price to help them learn a skill they’ll use for the rest of their lives, including when I don’t come with them on job interviews.Why do parents go along with their kids on job interviews?
| A．Because they want to protect their kids from difficulties. |
| B．Because they think they can protect them from being hurt. |
| C．Because their kids are too shy to attend interviews. |
| D．Because their kids strongly request them to do so. |
According to the author, what is helpful to kids’ development?
| A．Protecting them. | B．Keeping them safe. |
| C．Leaving them alone. | D．Blaming them. |
The author believes experiencing failure in life can make kids ___________.
| A．become healthier than other kids |
| B．grow in this challenging world |
| C．develop all social skills |
| D．escape from natural disasters |
If the writer’s boy goes to a job interview, she probably will ___________.
| A．go with him to protect her kid from difficulty |
| B．stay home but give him directions over telephone |
| C．wait outside and talk with other parents |
| D．let him go to the interview by himself |
Which of the following might be the best title of the text?
| A．Never help your kids | B．Let your kids fail |
| C．Go to the interview with your kids | D．Live without parents |
The possibility that pleasant smells might reduce pain has recently been suggested by new research. In a scientific study, doctors asked 20 men and 20 women to keep their hands in very hot water for as long as possible while breathing in different smells.
As people believe that strong smells can affect the senses, volunteers were asked not to eat or drink for eight hours before the experiment began. During the experiment, volunteers were asked to take in pleasant smells such as vanilla (香草), and unpleasant smells such as durians (榴莲). The volunteers kept their hands in the water until it became too hot for them. When they could not bear the pain any more, they took their hands out of the water.
Scientists are interested in whether the senses or smell is related to pain and whether men and women have the same senses. Now, the study has proved that for women, pleasant smells reduce pain. For men, there is no change.
Dr Finkelstein has been studying smells since 1999. He says that scientists already have data from 40 volunteers. He adds that this year, scientists will test another 60 volunteers and will be in a better position to explain the results.
One explanation is that women’s sense of smell developed long ago, and is linked to recognizing the smell of babies. Scientists used to believe that mothers recognized their children by sight only. Now, they have started to believe that the sense of smell also helps, but why pleasant smells do not reduce pain in men is a question still to be answered by scientists.Before the experiment, volunteers ______.
| A．are gathered and take a training |
| B．cannot eat or drink for several hours |
| C．must wash their hands carefully |
| D．will be interviewed by Dr Finkelstein |
If both men and women are asked to keep their hands in hot water while taking in some pleasant smells, ______.
| A．women may stand the pain of the hot water longer |
| B．men may keep their hands in the hot water longer |
| C．they will probably take their hands out at the same time |
| D．we are not quite sure who will take their hands out earlier |
From the passage we learn that _________.
| A．the reason why women are sensitive to smells is clear |
| B．the experiment for the sense of smell has come to an end |
| C．unpleasant smells affect men’s senses more than women’s |
| D．scientists have not totally explained the result of the study |
Now scientists believe that _______.
| A．mothers recognize their children only by sight |
| B．men’s sense of smell developed a long time ago |
| C．strong smells have a great influence on people’s senses |
| D．smells are helpful for mothers to spot their children |
The writer wrote the passage in order to ________.
| A．supply some entertainment to us |
| B．show women’s sharper senses than men’s |
| C．inform the readers of some knowledge |
| D．call for volunteers for the experiment |
A nine-year-old kid was sitting at his desk when suddenly there was a puddle (水坑) between his feet and the front of his trousers was wet. He thought his heart was going to stop because he couldn’t possibly imagine how this had happened. It had never happened before, and he knew that when the boys found out, especially Jack, he would never hear the end of it. When the girls found out, especially Martha and Jackie, they would never speak to him again as long as he lived.
He prayed this prayer, “Dear God, I need help now! Five minutes from now I’m dead meat!” He looked up from his prayer and here came the teacher with a look in her eyes that said he had been discovered. As the teacher was walking toward him, a classmate named Susie was carrying a goldfish bowl full of water. Susie lost her balance in front of the teacher and dumped (倒) the bowl of water in the boy’s lap. The boy pretended to be angry, but all the while was saying to himself, “Thank you, Lord!”
Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule (嘲笑), the boy was the object of sympathy (同情). The teacher rushed him downstairs and gave him gym shorts to put on while his trousers dried out. All the other children were on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. Martha even gave him her own candy. The sympathy was wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his had been turned to someone else—Susie. She tried to help, but they told her to get out.
When school was over, the boy walked over to Susie and whispered, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Susie whispered back, “I wet my trousers once, too!”The underlined sentence in Paragraph 1 means _______.
| A．the boys would never play with him |
| B．the boys would treat him as usual |
| C．he would hardly hear any praise from the boys |
| D．he would be laughed at by the boys endlessly |
After Susie dumped water in his lap, the boy was in a state of _______.
| A．disappointment | B．relief | C．anxiety | D．anger |
What did the other kids do after the incident?
| A．They offered him dry clothes. |
| B．They laughed at the boy rudely. |
| C．They helped the boy do the cleaning. |
| D．They urged the boy to get out angrily. |
Why did Susie dump water in the boy’s lap?
| A．The boy asked her to do so. | B．She just did it by accident. |
| C．The teacher told her to do so. | D．She knew the boy’s trouble. |
Besides Susie, _______ also knows what had really happened to the boy.
| A．Martha | B．Jack | C．the teacher | D．the boys |
Photos that you might have found down the back of your sofa are now big business!
In 2005, the American artist Richard Prince’s photograph of a photograph, Untitled (Cowboy）, was sold for $ 1, 248, 000.
Prince is certainly not the only contemporary artist to have worked with so-called “found photographs”—a loose term given to everything from discarded(丢弃的） prints discovered in a junk shop to old advertisements or amateur photographs from a stranger’s family album. The German artist Joachim Schmid, who believes “basically everything is worth looking at”, has gathered discarded photographs, postcards and newspaper images since 1982. In his on-going project, Archiv, he groups photographs of family life according to themes: people with dogs; teams; new cars; dinner with the family; and so on.
Like Schmid, the editors of several self-published art magazines also champion (捍卫) found photographs. One of them, called simply Found, was born one snowy night in Chicago, when Davy Rothbard returned to his car to find under his wiper(雨刷） an angry note intended for some else: “Why’s your car HERE at HER place?” The note became the starting point for Rothbard’s addictive publication, which features found photographs sent in by readers, such a poster discovered in our drawer.
The whole found-photograph phenomenon has raised some questions. Perhaps one of the most difficult is: can these images really be considered as art? And if so, whose art? Yet found photographs produced by artists, such Richard Prince, may riding his horse hurriedly to meet someone? Or how did Prince create this photograph? It's anyone's guess. In addition, as we imagine the back-story to the people in the found photographs artists, like Schmid, have collated (整理）, we also turn toward our own photographic albums. Why is memory so important to us? Why do we all seek to freeze in time the faces of our children, our parents, our lovers, and ourselves? Will they mean anything to anyone after we've gone?
In the absence of established facts, the vast collections of found photographs give our minds an opportunity to wander freely. That, above all, is why they are so fascinating.The first paragraph of the passage is used to _________.
| A．remind readers of found photographs |
| B．advise reader to start a new kind of business |
| C．ask readers to find photographs behind sofa |
| D．show readers the value of found photographs |
According to the passage, Joachim Schmid _________.
| A．is fond of collecting family life photographs |
| B．found a complaining not under his car wiper |
| C．is working for several self-published magazines |
| D．wondered at the artistic nature of found photographs |
The underlined word "them" in Para 4 refers to __________.
| A．the readers | B．the editors |
| C．the found photographs | D．the self-published magazines |
By asking a series of questions in Para 5, the author mainly intends to indicate that ________.
| A．memory of the past is very important to people |
| B．found photographs allow people to think freely |
| C．the back-story of found photographs is puzzling |
| D．the real value of found photographs is questionable |
The author’s attitude towards found photographs can be described as _________.
| A．critical | B．doubtful | C．optimistic | D．satisfied |