In the United States, when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is about, It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbours.
The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $ 125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighbourhood outside New York City. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he 
saw that rich people had servants. Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbours.
It was like a race, but one could never finish this race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They moved back to an apartment(公寓房间) in New York City.
Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich life--style of their neighbours. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series (系列) of short stories, He called it ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ because ‘Jones’ is a very common name in the United States.’ Keeping up with the Joneses’ came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand’s series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.
People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are ‘Jonses’ in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.Some people want to keep up with the Joneses because they ______.
| A．want to be as rich as their neighbours |
| B．want others to know or to think that they are rich |
| C．don’t want others to know they are rich |
| D．want to be happy |
It can be inferred from the story that rich people like to ________.
| A．live outside New York City |
B．live in New York City |
| C．live in apartments | D．have many neighbours |
The underlined word neighbourhood in the second paragraph means ________.
| A．a person who lives near another | B．people living in an area |
| C．an area near the place referred to | D．an area in another town or city |
According to the writer, it is ________to keep up with the Joneses.
| A．correct | B．interesting | C．impossible | D．good |
Do you long for lasting camp memories? Sure we can guarantee it.
Shadow Ridge Summer Camps offer so many exciting things for campers to do. Unlike other camp programs that include horses as a small part of their program, at Shadow Ridge horses ARE the program ! We are 100% horse from stable（马厩）management, nature walks, and track rides to bedroom furnishings.
Horses help us achieve many of our aims. Girls can learn to develop responsibility, self-confidence and personal connections in their lives while having fun. Using horses as a wonderful tool for education, our camps offer an interesting place for growth and learning:
Imagine each girl having her very own horse to spend time with and a best friend to love and take care of. Each camper is responsible for a horse for the week. Our riding program provides a lot of riding and lesson time. Campers will learn how to take care of the horse and the tack（马具）, as well as how to ride. Days are filled with horse-related activities to strengthen the connection between each girl and horse, as the girls learn to work safely around the horses.
At Shadow Ridge we try to create a loving, caring family atmosphere for our campers. We have “The Bunkhouse”（4 girls）, the “Wranglers Roost”（4 girls）, and “The Hideout”（2 girls）in our comfortable 177-year-old farm house. All meals are home cooked, offering delicious and healthy food for the hungry rider.
Our excellent activities create personalized memories of your child’s vacation. Each child will receive a camp T-shirt and a photo album （usually 300-500 pictures） of their stay at camp.
Our camps are offered during June, July and August 2013, for small groups of girls aged13-16 years, not only from Canada but also other parts of the world.
We will send you full program descriptions at your request.What is the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To attract people to the camps. |
| B．To talk about camping experiences. |
| C．To describe the programs of the camps. |
| D．To explain the aims of the camps. |
What do we know about the camp programs at Shadow Ridge?
| A．Campers are required to wear camp T-shirts. |
| B．Horses play a central role in the activities. |
| C．Campers learn to cook food for themselves. |
| D．Horse lessons are offered all the year round. |
The programs at Shadow Ridge mainly aim to help people ________.
| A．understand horses better | B．enjoy a family atmosphere |
| C．have fun above other things | D．achieve an educational purpose |
The passage is written mainly for ________.
| A．horse riders | B．teenage girls |
| C．Canadian parents | D．international travelers |
Without proper planning, tourism can cause problems. For example, too many tourists can crowd public places that are also enjoyed by the inhabitants居民of a country. If tourists create too much traffic, the inhabitants become annoyed and unhappy. They begin to dislike tourists and to treat them impolitely. They forget how much tourism can help the country’s economy. It is important to think about the people of a destination country and how tourism affects them. Tourism should help a country keep the customs and beauty that attract tourists. Tourism should also advance the well-being (health and happiness) of local inhabitants.
Too much tourism can be a problem. If tourism grows too quickly people must leave other jobs to work in the tourism industry. This means that other parts of the country’s economy can suffer.
On the other hand, if there is not enough tourism, people can lose jobs. Businesses can also lose money. It costs a great deal of money to build large hotels, airports, air terminals航空集散站, first-class roads and other support facilities needed by tourist attractions. For example, a major international-class tourism hotel can cost as much as 50 thousand dollars per room to build. If this room is not used most of the time, the owners of the hotel will lose money.
Building a hotel is just a beginning. There must be many support facilities设施as well, including roads to get to the hotel, electricity, sewers下水道to handle waste, and water. All of these support facilities cost money. If they are not used because there are not enough tourists, jobs and money are lost. Which of the following has most probably been discussed in the paragraph that goes before the passage?
| A．It is extremely important to develop tourism. |
| B．Building roads and hotels is essential. |
| C．Support facilities are highly necessary. |
| D．Planning is of great importance to tourism. |
Too much tourism can cause all these problems EXCEPT
| A．a bad impact on other industries |
| B．a change of tourists’ customs |
| C．over crowded of places of interest |
| D．pressure on traffic |
Not enough tourism can lead to
| A．an increase of unemployment |
| B．a decrease in tourist attractions |
| C．the higher cost of support facilities |
| D．a rise in price and a fall in pay |
It is good for local people to be well aware that tourism will
| A．use up large amount of water |
| B．weaken their economy |
| C．help establish their traditions |
| D．help improve their life |
To master a language one must be able to speak and understand the spoken language as well as to read and write．Lenin and his wife Krupskaya translated a long English book into Russian．But when they went to England in 1980, English people couldn’t understand what was said to them．These days more foreigners are coming to China and more and more Chinese are going out to foreign countries to work or study．So the spoken language is becoming more and more important．Speaking, of course, can’t go without listening．If you want to pronounce a word correctly, first you must hear it correctly．The sounds of the Chinese and English language are not exactly the same．If you don’t listen carefully, you’ll find it difficult or even impossible to understand the native speakers．
Well, what about writing? Like speaking, it’s to exchange ideas．People generally use shorter words and shorter sentences in their writing．The important thing is to make your idea in your head and then to write it in clear lively language
Chinese students read far too slowly．If you read fast, you understand better．If you read too slowly, by the time you have reached the end of a page you have forgotten what the beginning is about．When you meet with new words, don’t look them up in the dictionary．Guess the meaning from the context．You may not guess quite correctly the first time, but as new words come up again and again in different contexts, their meaning will become clearer and clearer．If you look up every word, you’ll never finish a book．
Students of a foreign language need a particular knowledge, the knowledge of the life, history and geography of the people whose language they’re studying．They should study these subjects in the foreign language, not only in translation．In this way one can kill two birds with one stone: learn a foreign language and get some knowledge of the foreign country at the same time．How many points are there in the passage?
| A．Two | B．Three | C．Four | D．Five |
In his first point the writer told us
| A．how to speak English |
| B．how to read and write |
| C．why spoken English is important |
| D．why English people couldn’t understand Lenin |
In his last point the writer advised us
| A．to kill two birds with one stone |
| B．to learn two languages at a time |
| C．to study all the subjects in a foreign language |
| D．to get some knowledge of the foreign country whose language you are studying． |
“To kill two birds with one stone” means
| A．to get some particular knowledge |
| B．to get more than what one pays |
| C．the stone is too big |
| D．the birds are blind enough |
Songkran（泰国泼水节）is the traditional Thai New Year that starts on April 13 annually. It’s also callled the “Water Festival” because people believe that water will wash away bad luck and make people fresh.
On the day, we spinkle洒small drops of water to bless monks and elders. Their hands are spinkled with perfumed(有香味的) water. In addition, this festival is for rain because it is the hottest season.
Nowadays, during the Songkran Festival, people always wet down everybody who walks past their houses or walks down the streets with cups or buckets水桶 of water. Everyone gets wet, but it is all in a spirit of friendliness, blessing and fun. People who get wet actually do not get angry because they know that it is traditional.
People will go to the temples to bathe沐浴Buddha images佛像and give special food to the monks. People do good things such as fish or birds and other animals released释放from their cages. On this day, everywhere in Thailand, people celebrate and enjoy the festival, especiallly in the northern part of Thailand.
We can see many foreigners join in the events and enjoyed this festival with Thais. Everybody also enjoys public events such as beauty contests, parades游行, andmarching bands. 游行乐队
The Water Festival gives us freshness, happiness and fun because the weather is very hot. I hope everyone will travel to Thailand and enjoy this festival.The traditional Thai New Year ________.
| A．is celebrated at the beginning of each year. |
| B．comes three months before that of each countries. |
| C．is celebrated in a special way with its own activities. |
| D．is the same as in other parts of the world. |
People sprinkle water during the Songkran Festival, because they______.
| A．have nothing else to do |
| B．believe it will bring good luck |
| C．have too much water in their country |
| D．want to use water to fight with each other. |
When Thai New Year comes, people think it ________ to make others wet through.
| A．traditional | B．unfriendly | C．curious | D．strange |
Besides sprinkling water, people also_______ in this festival.
| A．invite honorable foreign guests to join in them |
| B．give freedom to some animals |
| C．attend rich feasts宴会 and have fun with others |
| D．bathe together to wash away bad luck |
In Canada you can find dogs, cats, horses, etc. in almost every family. These are th eir pets. People love these pets and have them as their good friends. Before they keep them in their houses, they take them to animal hospitals to give them injections(注射) so that they won’t carry diseases. They have special animal food stores, though they can get animal food in almost every kind of stores. Some people spend around two hundred Canadian dollars a month on animal food. When you visit people’s houses, they would be very glad to show you their pets and they are very proud of them. You will also find that almost every family has a bird feeder in their garden. All kinds of birds are welcomed to come and have a good meal. They are free to come and go and nobody is allowed to kill any animal in Canada. They have a law against killing wild animals. If you killed an animal , you would be punished. If an animal happened to get run over by a car, people would be very sad about it.
People in Canada have many reasons to like animals. One of them might be: Their family ties are not as close as ours. When children grow up, they leave their parents and start their own life. Then the old will feel lonely. But pets can solve this problem. They can be good friends and never leave them alone.The passage mainly talks about ______.
| A．how to keep diseases from pets |
| B．Canadians have pets as friends |
| C．how to take good care of pets |
| D．life of the old in Canada |
Pets are given injections in animal hospitals ______.
| A．in order to keep them safe | B．after being taken home |
| C．because they carry diseases | D．because they are sick |
The word “bird feeder” in the second paragraph probably means ______.
| A．a person who gives food to birds |
| B．a container that has food for birds |
| C．something that catches birds |
| D．an animal that eats birds |