In the United States, friendships can be close, constant, intense, generous, and real, yet fade away in a short time if things change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greeting for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while—then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship where it's left off and are delighted.
In the States, you can feel free to visit people's homes and share their holidays without fear that you are taking on a lasting obligation. Do not hesitate to accept hospitality because you cannot give it in return. No one will expect you to do so for they know you are far from home. Americans will enjoy welcoming you and be pleased if you accept their hospitality easily.
Once you arrive there, the welcome will be full and warm and real. Most visitors find themselves easily invited into many homes there. In some countries it is considered inhospitable to entertain at home, offering what is felt as "merely" home cooked food, not "doing something" for your guest. It is felt that restaurant entertaining shows more respect and welcome. Or for various other reasons, such as crowded space, language difficulties, or family custom, outsiders are not invited into homes.
In the United States, both methods are used, but it is often considered more friendly to invite a person to one's home than to go to a public place, except in pure business relationships. So, if your host or hostess brings you home, do not feel that you are being shown inferior treatment..
. In the United States, friendships might ________ if things become different.
| A．disappear little by little | B．last forever |
| C．be heartbreaking | D．end suddenly |
.
All the following factors but ________ prevent people from inviting their friends home for
dinner according to the passage.
| A．different languages | B．naughty children |
| C．different customs | D．small houses |
.
. We can infer that ________ in America according to this passage.
| A．friendships are difficult to get but easy to lose |
| B．it is hard for a person to pick up the friendship when he comes across his long lost friend |
| C．you might be considered as a person hungry for social activities if you accept an invitation too easily |
| D．people care little about where they are invited to go for dinner |
.
. Why is giving a dinner party at home considered less hospitable in some countries?
| A．Because eating at the restaurant is a sign of respect. |
| B．Because having dinner at home seems less friendly. |
| C．Because dishes prepared at home are less delicious. |
| D．Because a dinner at the restaurant is more expensive. |
Some people are lucky enough to be born with a good sense of direction and even if they have only visited a place once, they will be able to find it again years later.
I am one of those unfortunate people who have poor sense of direction and I may have visited a place time after time but I still get lost on my way there. When I was young I was so shy that I never dared ask complete strangers the way and so I used to wander round in circles and hope that by some chance I would get to the spot I was heading for.
I am no longer too shy to ask people for direction, but I often receive replies that puzzle me. Often people do not like to admit that they didn’t know their hometown and will insist on telling you the way, even if they do not know it; others, who are anxious to prove that they know their hometown very well, will give you a long list of directions which you can not possibly hope to remember, and still others do not seem to be able to tell between their left and their right and you find in the end that you are going in the opposite direction to that in which you should be going.
If anyone ever asks me the way to somewhere, I always tell them I am a stranger to the town in order to avoid giving them wrong direction but even this can have embarrassing results.
Once I was on my way to work when I was stopped by a man who asked me if I would direct him the way to the Sunlight Building. I gave my usual reply, but I had not walked on a few steps when I realized that he had asked for directions to my office building. However, at this point, I decide it was too late to turn back and search for him out of the crowd behind me as I was going to meet with someone at the office and I did not want to keep him waiting.
Imagine my embarrassment when my secretary showed in the very man who had asked for directions of my office and his astonishment when he recognized me as the person he had asked.Who showed the right way to the interviewee according to the passage?
| A．A warm-hearted old lady did such a thing |
| B．The writer did it for himself. |
| C．The secretary did so. |
| D．Someone we don’t know. |
Why did the writer consider himself to be an unlucky dog?
| A．Because he always forget the way to home |
| B．Because of his poor sense of direction |
| C．Because he did not have any friend. |
| D．Because he used to be shy and dared not ask others the way. |
How did the visitor feel when he was showed into the very room?
| A．He felt astonished | B．He felt embarrassed. |
| C．He felt very sad. | D．He felt strange |
What is the writer going to do when someone asks him for direction?
| A．He will direct the right way to the person willingly. |
| B．He will give the very person long list of direction |
| C．He will reply to it by the means of being a stranger to the town |
| D．He is going to show the man an opposite direction. |
Settled by the Celts, invaded by the Romans and the Normans, and ruled by the English, Wales’ population has regularly changed over the ages. Wales, particularly South Wales, became a melting pot of European nationalities and cultures. At first workers from England, Ireland and the rural areas of Wales rushed into the coalfields of South Wales. By 1911, workers from Ireland, Italy and Spain had joined the industrial workforce there. Many of these newcomers were prepared to work for less pay.
But during this period, workers, dissatisfied with regular pay cuts, poor safety, the growing trend of employers to pay workers with tokens (代币), which could only be spent in the company store, returned to the land. In 1891, the rural population of Wales was about 616,000 and by 1911 just over 649,000 people lived and worked in these areas.
The rural population continues to grow slowly even today. People from richer parts of the UK, particularly southern England, are buying holiday or retirement homes in Wales. In some areas this has led to a shortage of affordable housing for local people. This, combined with the lack of employment prospects in rural Welsh communities, has started a new movement of people in search of jobs and homes into the towns and cities of Wales and to other parts of the UK and Europe.
As so many Welsh people have migrated to other countries over the last 200 years, it’s really no surprise that many visitors come to see friends and relatives — there were 229,000 visitors in 1998. These visitors strengthen their links to their land of origin and continue to support the Welsh economy. During the hot summer days, about 28% of the visitors visit the countryside and nearly 70% visit the seaside.Why was South Wales so attractive to people in the early 20th century?
| A．Because its coal industry needed a large number of workers |
| B．Because people could get the highest pay there. |
| C．Because it was rich in many different kinds of culture |
| D．Because people could buy holiday or retirement homes there. |
From the last paragraph, we learn that most visitors come to Wales for the purpose of _____.
| A．visiting their friends and relatives |
| B．supporting the Welsh economy |
| C．enjoying a cool and pleasant summer |
| D．all of the above |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Wales, a land with a population on the move |
| B．Wales, a land with a promising past and future. |
| C．Wales, the biggest melting pot of Europe. |
| D．Tourism, the main economic source of Wales |
What does the writer want to tell us in the second paragraph?
| A．Welsh workers couldn’t get any pay for their work. |
| B．The working conditions were terrible at this time. |
| C．Many people got tired of city life at this time. |
| D．The rural population of Wales didn’t decline at this time |
| HIGHFIELD COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL SCHOOL REPORT Form Teacher:G. Baker Pupil’s Name: Simon Watkins Term:Summer 2014 Form:Ⅳ B
FORM TEACHER’S REMARKS HEADMASTER |
Based on the school report, which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．Simon didn’t bother his teacher to revise French. |
| B．Simon is able to pay attention to history for long |
| C．Simon is a determined learner in English. |
| D．Basically, Simon did a good job in science |
According to the comments of the Physical Education teacher, Simon_______.
| A．likes to work with his classmates |
| B．is too talkative in the class |
| C．doesn’t exercise his body at the right time |
| D．becomes weak because he doesn’t exercise at all |
Which of the following statements best describes Simon?
| A．He needs to improve his attitude to certain subjects |
| B．His potential has been fully reflected in science classes. |
| C．His grade in maths makes him a born scientist. |
| D．He has made great progress in language classes |
The first day our professor challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t know. I looked around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady smiling at me.
She said, “Hi, handsome. My name is Rose. I’m 87. Can I give you a hug?” I laughed, “Of course you may!” and she gave me a giant squeeze. “Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?” I asked. She jokingly replied, “I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of children.” “No seriously,” I said. “I want to realize my dream!” she told me. Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and everyone liked to listen to this “time machine”.
At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet and I’ll never forget what she taught us. “There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up. If you are 19 and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn 20. If I am 87 and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn 88. We have less time to live on. Anybody can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do.”
At the year’s end, Rose finished the college degree she had dreamed about all those years. One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep. Over 2,000 students attended her funeral honoring the wonderful woman who taught us such an important message.Rose was considered a “time machine” because she _____.
| A．always followed a strict time schedule |
| B．was never late for any of her classes |
| C．always appeared in time whenever she was needed |
| D．had lived a long and rich life |
According to Rose, growing up is different from growing older because _______.
| A．growing up means young people have enough time to waste |
| B．growing up means one has more chances or time to choose what one likes |
| C．there is no need for one to worry about death |
| D．growing up doesn’t need as much effort or talent as growing older |
From the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2, we can learn that ______.
| A．it is not polite to talk about a person’s real age in public |
| B．going to college at a very old age is looked down upon |
| C．Rose looked younger than her real age in the writer’s eyes |
| D．the writer didn’t believe Rose was as old as she said |
Rose came to study in college at such an old age for the purpose of __________.
| A．challenging her old age |
| B．meeting someone rich and attractive |
| C．realizing her long dream about college education |
| D．not having any regrets in her life |
Last year I ruined my summer vacation－a two-week vacation at my wife’s family cabin on a lake in northern Ontario, located at the boundary of the US and Canada－by bringing along a modern convenience that was too convenient for my own good: the iPad.
Instead of admiring the beauty of nature, I checked e-mail. Instead of paddling an old canoe, I followed my Twitter feed. Instead of devouring great (or merely amusing) novels, I stuck to my workday diet of four newspapers each morning.
And that was the problem: I was behaving as if I were still in the office, sticking to the unending news cycle. My body was on vacation but my head wasn’t.
So this year I made up my mind to try something different, a social media experiment in reverse: withdrawal from the Internet. Could I manage to unplug?
I knew it wouldn’t be easy, since I’m not good at self-denial. But I was determined. I started with a physical restraint: handing the iPad to my wife, who helpfully announced that she was going to use it to read a 630-page novel for her book club and would not be inclined to relinquish the tablet for even a moment.
Then, a stroke of luck: The cell phone signal at the Canadian cabin was spottier than in the past, making my attempts at cheating an experience in frustration.
I was trapped, forced to comply with my own good intentions. Largely cut off from e-mail, Twitter and my favorite newspaper websites, I had little way to connect to the world except for radio－and how much radio can one listen to, really?
I had no choice but to do what I had planned to do all along: read books. I experienced criminal plots on the streets of Los Angeles, cutthroat battles between cancer labs and the psyche of a London social butterfly in 1922. And there were old magazines to read.
I’m not claiming that I cut myself off from the Internet completely. Every few days, we biked into the nearest town and, as a reward, sat on a park bench in front of the public library to use its Wi-Fi. And back at the cabin, we suffered through a slow dial-up connection once a day to check e-mail.
This tale of self-denial has a happy ending－for now, at least. With determination and deep breathing, plus the strong support of my wife, I succeeded in my vacation struggle against the Internet, realizing finally that it was me, of course, not the iPad, that was the problem.
I knew I had won when we passed a Starbucks and my wife asked if I wanted to stop to use the Wi-Fi. “Don’t need it,” I said, trying not to sound too pleased.
However, as we return to post-vacation situation, a test begins: Can I stay on the wagon now that I’m back at work? There are times when the compulsion to know what’s being said right now is overwhelming (and for me, sometimes it’s crucial to my livelihood). And I have no intention of giving up my membership in the cult of immediacy. But I hope to resist the temptation to reflexively check my e-mail every five minutes, which often leads, as long as I’m looking, to checking my Twitter feed and a website or two.
A vacation is supposed to help you reset your brain to become more productive. Here’s hoping this one worked.What ruined the writer’s trip last year?
| A．That he was worn out because of the schedule. |
| B．That he forgot to bring amusing novels with him. |
| C．That he read too much newspaper last year. |
| D．That he was distracted by too many things unrelated to the trip. |
What does the underlined word ‘restraint’ mean?
| A．A calm and controlled behavior. |
| B．A relaxing move. |
| C．A strong determination. |
| D．An unshakable faith. |
What did the writer do to get in touch with the outside world during the trip?
| A．Reading online newspapers. |
| B．Following his friends’ Twitter. |
| C．Checking email every now and then. |
| D．Listening to the radio. |
Why did the writer claim that his self-denial process have a happy ending?
| A．He has completely turned down the Internet. |
| B．He gave up his habit of checking the latest news online. |
| C．He realized that his body was on vacation but his head wasn’t. |
| D．It dawned on him that it was people that are in control of their behavior. |
What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Say no to electronic devices. |
| B．Relationships harmed by distractions. |
| C．Abandoned distractions ease break. |
| D．Things that can take your mind off. |