Henry Loomis served as director of the Voice of America for seven years starting in 1958.Mr Loomis played an important role in creating the Special English service .
Henry Loomis was born in 1919 Tuxedo Park , New York. His father was Alfred Lee Loomis , a rich New York City businessman .In 1940, Henry Loomis dropped out of Harvard University to join the United States Navy .He was able to put to good use his knowledge of radar technology that he had learned about because of his father’s work .After graduating at the top in his naval(海军的) training class, Henry Loomis became a teacher at the Navy's radar training school in Hawaii. By the end of World War Two, Henry Loomis had received many honors for his service, including a Bronze Star and an Air Medal. He left the Navy in 1946 to begin graduate（研究生）studies.
Henry Loomis later moved to Washington, D.C. to begin another part of his career in public service. He held positions in the Department of Defense and other agencies: In 1958, he became director of the Voice of America.
During his travels around the world, Mr. Loomis saw that English was becoming an
important international language. He believed that it was important to make English easier to
understand by listeners of VOA broadcasts whose native language was not English. So Mr. Loomis asked VOA program manager Barry Zorthian to develop a way to broadcast to listeners
with a limited knowledge of English:
The result of this effort was Special English: The first Voice of America broadcast in Special English took place on October 19th, 1959. Those against his ideas at the time said the Special English method of broadcasting at a slower rate with a limited vocabulary would never work, it was not practical. American embassies（大使馆） demanded that the program be called off. But Mr. Loomis supported the program.
Soon, VOA began to receive hundreds of letters from listeners praising the program. Special English programs became some of the most popular on VOA. We are pleased to say that our programs still are.We can know from the passage that Henry Loomis______．
| A．was born in a poor family |
| B．did well in his naval training class |
| C．stayed in the Navy for nearly 8 years |
| D．joined the army immediately after graduating from university |
What is the second paragraph mainly about?
| A．Henry Loomis's childhood. |
| B．Henry Loomis's whole business. |
| C．Henry Loomis's background. |
| D．Henry Loomis's army life. |
What led to Henry Loomis's idea of Special English programs?
A. His experience in the Navy.
B. His experience in the Department of Defense.(国防部)
C. His early dream of promoting the influence of VOA.
D. His finding VOA programs are too difficult for non-native listeners.Those who were against his ideas of Special English programs said______
| A．Special English programs were not practical |
| B．it would cost too much to make Special English programs |
| C．it was unnecessary to broadcast Special English programs |
| D．Special English programs wouldn't help listeners in improving their English |
Earlier this year I traveled to Turkana in Kenya. I was there to take pictures of the “broken food system”.
As a special visitor, I was greeted with songs and dances. The locals used to sing and dance all the time but now Turkana is silent and has been for some years. No one is singing or dancing any more because they have no food, nothing to celebrate. Many of them are surviving on a little corn a day and water, which they can get just every two days.
I met Tede Lokapelo, a local farmer who described the experience of a six-year drought(干旱). Tede used to have 200 goats, but now he has only seven left. He told me that this drought has taught him a hard lesson: It is too difficult to keep animals. He lives on animals. His traditional way of life has been completely destroyed now. Without the food aid(援助) they got, Tede is certain that they would starve because there are no other ways to feed themselves left.
Sadly, the same can be heard in almost any developing country around the world. Almost one billion people go to bed hungry each night. The food system is broken. In Turkana, not enough rain has fallen since 2005. They measure(测量) rainfall not in days or weeks but in minutes. More and more people are being forced to rely on food aid, but people like Tede don’t want food aid. They want to work and develop their country. It’s our responsibility(责任) to change the situation so that they can support themselves.
Drought is impossible to avoid but famine(饥荒) is manmade, and unless enough money is provided to develop a basic infrastructure(基础设施) for people in the area, thousands more lives are sure to be lost. Why do people in Turkana no longer sing or dance any more?
| A．Because they have no time. |
| B．Because they are tired of them. |
| C．Because they are always hungry. |
| D．Because they have other interesting things to do. |
During the drought Tede had experienced, ______of his goats were killed.
| A．200 | B．193 | C．7 | D．6 |
Which of the following is NOT true about Tede Lokapelo?
| A．He was a farmer in Kenya. |
| B．He has never received any food aid. |
| C．His traditional way of life ha s been changed. |
| D．He found it hard to raise animals after the drought. |
What’s the author’s purpose in writing the text?
| A．To show drought is serious in the world. |
| B．To tell readers the serious situation of food shortage(短缺). |
| C．To ask more people to give food aid to people in Kenya. |
| D．To make it clear what is the right way to help people suffering from drought. |
When the lazy days of summer arrive and the schedule is filled with swimming，camp，and family vacations，it can be a challenge to find time for learning. But kids’ reading skills don’t have to grow cold once school’s out. Here are some ways to make reading a natural part of their summer fun：
Explore your library. Visit your local library to borrow books and magazines that your kids haven’t seen before. Many libraries have summer reading programs, book clubs, and reading contests(比赛) for even the youngest borrowers. With a new library card，a child will feel extra grownup by borrowing books.
Read on the road. Going on a long car trip？Make sure there are some books at the back seat. When you stop driving，read the books aloud. Get some audio books in libraries and listen to them together during driving time.
Make your own books. Pick one of your family’s favorite parts of summer—whether it’s baseball，ice cream, or the pool—and have your child draw pictures of it or cut out pictures from magazines. Stick(粘贴) the pictures onto paper to make a booklet(小册子)and write text for it. When you’re done，read the book together. Reread it whenever you like!
Keep in touch. Kids don’t have to go away to write about summer vacation. Even if your family stays home，they can send postcards to tell friends and relatives about their adventures(冒险经历). Ask a relative to be your child’s pen pal and encourage them to write each week.
Keep up the reading habits. Even if everything else changes during the summer，keep up the reading habits around your house. Read with your kids every day—whether it’s just before bedtime or under a shady tree on a lazy afternoon. And don’t forget to take a book to the beach！Just brush the sand off the pages — it’s no sweat! The purpose of the passage is to________.
| A．encourage parents to read |
| B．give advice on raising kids |
| C．raise a good summer reader |
| D．suggest places for vacations |
If you drive on a long trip in summer，you can________.
| A．visit the local library and join book clubs |
| B．borrow some audio books to listen to |
| C．keep in touch with friends by sending postcards |
| D．read your own picture books with your son |
By saying “Just brush the sand off the pages—it’s no sweat”，the author means________.
| A．taking away the sand on the book is very difficult |
| B．a special book is needed when you’re reading on the beach |
| C．one can remove the sand on the book with a brush easily |
| D．there’s no trouble reading even on the beach |
Who are the possible readers of the passage?
| A．Parents. | B．Students. | C．Teachers. | D．Editors. |
Which statement(阐述) is true according to the text?
| A．During summer vocation, kids’ reading skills must grow cold. |
| B．Kids have to go away to write about summer vacation. |
| C．With a library card，a child will feel extra grownup by borrowing books. |
| D．Because everything else changes during the summer，it is hard to keep up the reading habits. |
Friendships can be difficult — because often people aren't as honest and open as they should be. Sometimes, people finally get hurt.
Most problems with friendships come up because people are just too selfish to care about the things that their friends need. They care about their own needs much more, which makes it hard for friendships to work. However, being selfish is part of human nature. A person is put together in order to take care of themselves and their own needs, not necessarily those needs of other people. Even though being selfish is something that all humans are born with, it is something that everyone should be against.
The best thing to remember when you are a friend to anyone is that you need to treat your friends the same way that you'd like to be treated(对待). This is wonderful advice for a friendship, because it is really the only way to make sure that you are giving your friends everything you would want to be given in a friendship. Whenever you have a question about how you should treat a friend, it is easy to find an answer simply by asking yourself what you would like your friend to do for you, if he or she was in your shoes.
Even if you're always thinking about how you'd like to be treated, and your friends are too, there are problems that come up from time to time in each friendship, and it is important to understand how to deal with these problems so that you can build stronger and healthier friendships. Problems like friends getting boyfriends or girlfriends and not spending enough time with their friends, or even friends finding new friends and leaving old friends behind are problems that will probably come up with one or more of your friendships. It is important to know how to deal with these friend problems so that you can keep your friends and make new ones. No one wants to have a broken friendship. This passage mainly talks about ________.
| A．the importance of friendship |
| B．the advantages(益处) of friendship |
| C．the problems of friendship |
| D．the disadvantages(劣势) of friendship |
According to the writer, problems with friendship may appear when ________.
| A．one is honest | B．one is selfish | C．one is open | D．one is kind |
According to the passage, the first and most important thing to be other people's friend is ________.
| A．to treat your friend as you like to be |
| B．to give your friends whatever you have |
| C．not to hurt your friends' feelings |
| D．not to think of your own need any more |
What's the purpose of understanding how to deal with friendship problems?
| A．To have a comfortable life. |
| B．To build stronger and healthier friendships. |
| C．To be treated the way you want. |
| D．To get a boyfriend or girlfriend more quickly. |
My parents have certainly had their troubles, and as their child I’ll never know how they made it to 38 years of marriage. They loved each other, but they didn’t seem to like each other very much. Dad was too fond of his beer, and he talked down to Mom a lot. When she tried to stand up to him, a fight would unavoidably follow.
It was my dad’s disease that began to change things. The year 1998 was the beginning of a remarkable transformation for my family. My father, Jim Dineen, the always healthy, weightlifting, never-missed-a-day-of-work kind of dad, discovered he had kidney (肾)disease.
The decision to go ahead with a transplant for my father was a long and tough one, mostly because he had liver damage too. One physician’s assistant told him, “According to your file, you’re supposed to be dead.” And for a while, doctors mistakenly thought that he would need not just a kidney transplant, but a liver transplant too. Dad’s future hung in midpoint.
When the donor testing process finally began in the spring of 2003, numerous people, including me, my uncle Tom, and my mom, came back as matches of varying degree. But Mom was the one who insisted on going further. She decided to donate a kidney to my father. She said she was not scared, and it was the right thing to do. We all stepped back in amazement.
At last a date was chosen – November 11, 2003. All of a sudden, the only thing that seemed to matter Dad was telling the world what a wonderful thing Mom was doing for him. A month before the surgery, he sent her birthday flowers with a note that read, “I love you and I love your kidney! Thank you!”
Financially, the disease was upsetting to them. So my sister and I were humbled and surprised when, shortly before his surgery day, Dad handed us a diamond jewelry that we were to give to Mom after the operation. He’d accumulated his spare dollars to buy it.
At the hospital on the day of the transplant, all our relatives and friends gathered in the waiting room and became involved in a mean euchre (尤克牌游戏) tournament. My family has always handled things with a lot of laughter, and even though we were all tense, everybody was taking bets on how long this “change of conduct” would last in my parents.
We would inform Dad that if he chose to act like a real pain on any particular day after the operation, he wasn’t allowed to blame it on PMS just because he’d now have a female kidney.
The surgeries went well, and not long afterward, my sister and I were allowed to go in to visit. Dad was in a great deal of pain but again, all he could talk about was Mom. Was she okay? How was she feeling? Then the nurses let us do something unconventional. As they were wheeling Mom out of recovery room, they rolled her into a separate position to visit Dad. It was strange to see both my parents hooked up to IVs and machines and trying to talk to each other through tears. The nurses allowed us to present the diamond jewelry to Mom so that Dad could watch her open it. Everyone was crying, even the nurses.
As I stood with digital camera in hand, I tried to keep the presence of mind to document the moment. My dad was having a hard time fighting back emotion, and suddenly my parents unexpectedly reached out to hold each other’s hands.
In my nearly 35 years of existence, I’d never seen my parents do that, and I was spellbound. I snapped a picture and later rushed home to make sure I’d captured that enormous, life-defining moment. After so many years of disagreement, it was apparent to me that they finally understood how much each loved the other. 65—70 From the first paragraph we can learn that ____________.
| A．Dad was fond of drinking | B．My parents got along well |
| C．Dad often beat Mom | D．Mom never obeyed Dad |
The underlined part “Dad’s future hung in midpoint” in Para.3 suggests that ____________.
| A．Dad was bound to die |
| B．Dad came to a serious moment in his life |
| C．Dad’s future was decided by doctors |
| D．Dad faced a tough decision in his life |
Before the surgery, which of the following words can best describe the feeling of the families?
| A．Worried and negative. | B．Anxious and helpless. |
| C．Nervous but optimistic. | D．Relaxed and positive. |
Which of the following is TRUE according the passage?
| A．Dad bought a diamond jewelry to Mom for their wedding anniversary. |
| B．Dad asked the nurse to visit Mom soon after the operation. |
| C．Despite a lot of pain, Dad was eager to know Mom’s condition soon after the operation. |
| D．On the day of the transplant, the families involved in a euchre tournament to relax themselves. |
What’s in the writer’s photo?
| A．Everyone was crying, even the nurses. |
| B．His parents were trying to talk to each other. |
| C．Dad watched Mom opening the gift. |
| D．His parents were holding each other’s hands. |
What’s the best title for the passage?
| A．Dad’s disease | B．Mom’s decision | C．The Gift of Life | D．The photo of hands |
Write a winning story!
You could win ￡1,000 in this year’s Fiction Prize and have your story printed in Keep Writing magazine. Ten other lucky people will win a cheque for ￡100.
Once again, we need people who can write good stories. The judges, who include Mary Littlejohn, the novelist, Michael Brown, the television reporter, and Susan Hitchins, the editor of Keep Writing, are looking for interesting and original stories. Detective fiction was extremely popular last year, although the competition winner produced a love story. You can write down about whatever you want but here’s some advice to start your thinking:
Write about what you know
This is the advice which every writer should pay attention to and, last year, nearly everyone who wrote for us did exactly that. Love, family, problems with friends ---- these were the main subjects of the stories. However, you need to turn ordinary situations into something interesting that people will want to read about. Make the reader want to continue reading by writing about ordinary things in a new and surprising way.
Get your facts right
It’s no good giving a description of a town or explaining how a jet engine works if you get it wrong. So avoid writing anything unless you’re certain about it.
Hold the reader’s attention
Make the beginning interesting and the ending a surprise. There is nothing worse than a poor ending. Develop the story carefully and try to think of something unusual happening at the end.
Think about the characters
Try to bring the people in your story alive for the reader by using well-chosen words to make them seem real.
Your story must be your own work, between 2,000 and 2,5000 words and typed, double-spaced, on one side only of each sheet of paper.
Even if you’re in danger of missing the closing date, we are unable to accept stories by fax or email. You must include the application form with your story. Unfortunately your story cannot be returned, nor can we discuss our decisions.
You should not have had any fiction printed in any magazine or book in this country ---- a change in the rules by popular request ---- and the story must not have happened in print or in recorded form, for example on radio or TV, anywhere in the world.
Your fee of ￡5 will go to the Writers’ Association. Make your cheque payable to Keep Writing and send it with the application form and your story to:
Keep Writing
75 Broad Street Birmingham
B12 4TG
The closing date is 30 July and we will inform the winner within one month of this date. Please note that if you win, you must agree to have your story printed in our magazine.How should writers deal with ordinary situations while writing?
| A．They should make them appealing to readers. |
| B．They should copy others’ ideas. |
| C．They should change some facts to make them interesting. |
| D．They should describe them as they are. |
What shouldn’t a writer do?
| A．Making the contents interesting. | B．Getting the facts right. |
| C．Meeting the deadline. | D．Making the end ordinary. |
Writers should present their works in the following ways except that ____________.
| A．they should write originally |
| B．they can type their stories as they like |
| C．they should follow some rules |
| D．they should hand in their stories in time |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Late stories can be faxed if necessary. |
| B．Entry needs no fee. |
| C．Winners can have their stories printed in other magazines. |
| D．All stories should be presented by mail. |