The hardworking businessman Jones used to work all day in his shop and so hard-working was he that at times he would make the sparks(火星) fly from his hammer.
The son of Mr. Smith, a rich neighbor, used to come to see him every day and for hours and hours he would enjoy himself watching how the man worked.
“ Young man, why don’t you try your hand to learn to make shoe tacks (钉) , even if it is only to pass the time ? ” said Jones. “ Who knows, one day, it may be of use to you .”
The lazy boy began to see what he could do. But after a little practice he found that he was becoming very skilled and soon he was making some of the finest tacks.
Old Mr. Smith died and the son because of the war lost all his goods. He had to leave home and was forced to live in another country. It so happened that in this village there were many shoemakers who were spending a lot of money buying tacks for their shoes and even at times when they paid high prices they were not always able to get what they wanted, because in that part of the country there was a high demand for soldiers’ shoes.
Our young Mr. Smith, who was finding it difficult to earn his daily bread, remembered that once upon a time he had learned the art of making tacks and had the sudden idea of making a bargain with the shoemakers. He told them that he would make the tacks if they would help to get him settled in the workshop. The shoemakers were only too glad of the offer. And after a while, Mr. Smith found that he was soon making the finest tacks in the village.
“ How funny it seems, ” he used to say, “ even making tacks can make money. My trade is more useful to me than all my former riches.”The young man learnt to make shoe tacks because ___________.
| A．his father told him to | B．he wanted to learn a skill |
| C．Jones encouraged him to | D．he just wanted to pass his time |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage ?
| A．Old Mr. Smith enjoyed making the shoe tacks. |
| B．Jones had said the young man must be in need of the skill. |
| C．The higher prices they paid, the more tacks the shoemakers would get. |
| D．The young man earned his living by his skills learnt when he was young. |
What can we learn from the story ?
| A．Practice makes perfect. |
| B．Skill makes life easy. |
| C．A good beginning makes good ending. |
| D．Every man has his gift. |
LEEDS, England—A Leeds University psychology professor is teaching a course to help dozens of Britons forgive their enemies.
"The hate we hold within us is a cancer, " Professor Ken Hart said, adding that holding in anger can lead to problems such as high blood pressure and heart disease.
More than 70 people have become members in Hart's first 20-week workshop in London—a course he says is the first of its kind in the world.
These are people who are sick and tired of living with a memory. They realize their bitterness is a poison they think they can pour out, but they end up drinking it themselves, said Canadian- born Hart.
The students meet in groups of eight to ten for a two-hour workshop with an adviser every fortnight.
The course, ending in July, is expected to get rid of the cancer of hate in these people. "People have lots of negative attitudes towards forgiveness," he said, "People confuse forgiveness with forgetting. Forgiveness means changing from a negative attitude to a positive one."
Hart and his team have created instructions to provide the training needed.
"The main idea is to give you guidelines on how to look at various kinds of angers and how they affect you, and how to change your attitudes towards the person you are angry with," said Norman Claringbull, a senior expert on the forgiveness project.
Hart said he believes forgiveness is a skill that can be taught, as these people "want to get free of the past".From this passage we know that________.
| A．high blood pressure and heart disease are caused by hate |
| B．high blood pressure can only be cured by psychology professors |
| C．without hate, people will have less trouble connected with blood and heart |
| D．people who suffer from blood pressure and heart disease must have many enemies |
If you are angry with somebody, you should________.
| A．attend Hart’s course |
| B．never meet him or her any longer |
| C．persuade him or her to have a positive talk with you |
| D．treat him or her positively instead of negatively |
In Hart's first 20- week workshop, people there can ________.
| A．meet their enemies | B．change their attitudes |
| C．enjoy the professor's teaching | D．learn how to quarrel with others |
If you are a member in Hart's workshop, you'll________.
| A．meet in eight or ten groups |
| B．get rid of the illness of cancer |
| C．attend a gathering twice a month |
| D．pour out everything stored in your mind |
The author wrote this passage in order to________.
| A．persuade Britons to go to Hart's workshop |
| B．tell us the news about Hart's workshop |
| C．tell us how to run a workshop like Hart's |
| D．help us to look at various kinds of angers |
When you’re an employee of a company, no matter the size, it’s common to see co-workers promoted, or transferred to a different department. But there is another way to move around—by creating a new position for yourself. I did this several years ago, though I wasn’t actively looking for a different job.
In 2007, I was hired at the Transamerica Life Insurance Company, as a customer service representative in the distributions services department. I processed requests for distributions from our annuity(养老金)policy holders around the country. Someone might have forgotten to sign a form, for example, or might have omitted security information. To solve the problem, I’d mail the person a letter.
The company had been through several combinations, so in our department alone we had a collection of about 140 templates(模板) for letters related to distributions. The longer I worked with the letters, the more I saw how they could be improved. Some had overlapping information and could be combined. Some had incorrect grammar or needed updating. I also noticed that industry terminology(专业术语) wasn’t standard across all the versions.
When I told my department supervisor about this in 2008, she agreed that the letters needed revamping. She said I should stop what I’d been doing and start the new work. In a relatively short time, I was able to make numerous improvements and reduce the number of letters to 70. It was an informal job change until a managers’ meeting several months later.
At that meeting, a vice president who was unaware of my new work mentioned that the division’s entire stock of 1,700 letters should be reviewed. My manager told her that she knew the perfect person for the job—me. The position was still considered temporary when I took on the extra tasks, but I was able to show that the work had value, and I was officially promoted and given a raise in November 2009.According to Paragraph 1, which of the following statements is true?
| A．The author admired those who got a promotion in his company. |
| B．It is no surprise to see people around us change their positions. |
| C．The author tried his best to get a promotion in his company |
| D．The author was eager to seek another job. |
Which of the following problems with the letters is NOT mentioned in the passage?
| A．Some information was overlooked. |
| B．Some information needed to be united. |
| C．Some had grammatical mistakes. |
| D．Industry terminology didn’t meet the standard. |
The underlined word “revamping” in Paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to.
| A．repeating | B．rebuilding | C．improving | D．strengthening |
The author started to review the letters when.
| A．he was hired by the company |
| B．he was promoted |
| C．he was recommended at a managers’ meeting |
| D．his department supervisor agreed his idea |
Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
| A．Where there is will, there is a way. |
| B．Creating a position, and earning a promotion. |
| C．Don’t let the chance go, when it comes. |
| D．Ways to get a promotion. |
Millions of Americans return from long-distance trips by air, but their luggage doesn’t always come home with them. Airline identification tags（标签） can come loose, and the bags go who-knows-where. And passengers leave all kinds of things on planes.
The airlines collect the items and, for 90 days, attempt to find their owners. They don’t keep them, since they’re not in the warehouse business. And by law, they cannot sell the bags, because the airlines might be tempted to deliberately misplace luggage.
So once insurance companies have paid for lost bags and their contents, and they no longer belong to passengers, a unique store in the little town of Scottsboro, Alabama, buys them. The “Unclaimed Baggage Center,” is so popular that the building, which is set up like a department store, is the number-one tourist attraction in all of Alabama. More than one million visitors stop in each year and take one of the store’s shopping carts on a hunt for treasures.
Each day, clerks bring out 7,000 new items, and veteran（老练的）shoppers rush to paw over them. You can find everything from precious jewels to hockey sticks, best-selling novels, leather jackets, tape recorders, surfboards, even half -used tubes of toothpaste.
The store’s own laundry washes or cleans all the clothes found in luggage, then sells them. The Unclaimed Baggage Center has found guns, illegal drugs and even a live rattlesnake.
The store has a little museum where some of its most unusual acquisitions（获得物） have been preserved. They include highland bagpipes, a burial mask from an Egyptian pharaoh's tomb, and a medieval suit of armor.
Statistics indicate that less than one-half of one percent of luggage checked on U.S. carriers is permanently lost and available to the store.Paragraph1 shows that many passengers lose their luggage because______.
| A．they are forgetful |
| B．the owners of some luggage can’t be identified |
| C．they are in a hurry |
| D．there is no lost and foundoffice in many airports |
The reason why the airlines cannot sell the bags is that ______.
| A．they have to find the owners |
| B．they have to keep the bags as long as possible |
| C．some bags are expensive |
| D．they are likely to make a profit on the bags on purpose |
The Unclaimed Baggage Center is very popular because______.
| A．visitors may purchase something undervalued. |
| B．all thethings there are very cheap. |
| C．there's a large variety of goods. |
| D．visitors will enjoy some amusing activities there. |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．A little museum will keep all the precious unclaimed baggage. |
| B．The things in the Unclaimed Baggage Center are articles for daily use. |
| C．The percentage of passengers who lose their baggage for ever is small. |
| D．People are not allowed to buy the illegal things in the store. |
What is the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To introduce an attractive place to tourists. |
| B．To remind passengers of taking care of their baggage. |
| C．To advise the airlines to find the owners of the unclaimed baggage. |
| D．To introduce how the unclaimed baggage in the airports is handled in America. |
Sunny countries are often poor. A shame, then, that solar power is still quite expensive. Eight19, a British company by Cambridge University, has, however, invented a novel way to get round this. In return for a deposit of around $10 it is supplying poor Kenyan families with a solar cell able to generate 2.5 watts of electricity, a battery that can deliver a three amp（安培） current to store this electricity, and a lamp whose bulb is a light-emitting diode（二极管）. The firm thinks that this system, once the battery is fully charged, is enough to light two small rooms and to power a mobile-phone charger for seven hours. Then, next day, it can be put outside and charged back up again.
The trick is that, to be able to use the electricity, the system's keeper must buy a scratch card—for as little as a dollar—on which is printed a reference number. The keeper sends this reference, plus the serial number of the household solar unit, by SMS to Eight19. The company's server will respond automatically with an access code to the unit.
Users may consider that they are paying an hourly rate for their electricity. In fact, they are paying off the cost of the unit. After buying around $80 worth of scratch cards—which Eight19 expects would take the average family around 18 months—the user will own it. He will then have the option of continuing to use it for nothing, or of trading it in for a bigger one, perhaps driven by a 10-watt solar cell.
In that case, he would go then through the same process again, paying off the additional cost of the upgraded kit at a slightly higher rate. Users would therefore increase their electricity supply steadily and affordably.
According to Eight19's figures, this looks like a good deal for customers. The firm believes the average energy-starved Kenyan spends around $10 a month on oil—enough to fuel a couple of smoky lamps—plus $2 on charging his mobile phone in the market-place. Regular users of one of Eight19's basic solar units will spend around half that, before owning it completely. Meanwhile, as the cost of solar technology falls, it should get even cheaper. The underlined word “get round” in the first paragraph can be replaced by _______ .
| A．make use of | B．come up with | C．look into | D．deal with |
What should the user do when the electricity in the battery is used up?
| A．Buy a scratch card. | B．Recharge it outside. |
| C．Buy another solar cell. | D．Return it to the company. |
How much would users pay for the cell and scratch cards before they own a 2.5-watt solar cell?
| A．Around $10. | B．Around $80. | C．Around $90. | D．Around $180. |
It can be inferred from the last paragraph that ____________.
| A．Kenyan families would find it difficult to afford the solar cell |
| B．using the solar cell would help Kenyan families save money |
| C．few Kenyan families use mobile phones for lack of electricity |
| D．the company will make a great profit from selling solar cells |
What might be the most suitable title for the passage?
| A．Solar Energy: Starting from Scratch. |
| B．Eight19: a creative British Company. |
| C．Kenyan Families: Using Solar Energy for Free. |
| D．Poor Countries: Beginning to Use Solar Energy. |
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The 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Mo Yan for his writing that mixes folk tales, history and the modern events with hallucinatory realism（魔幻现实主义）, the Swedish Academy announced.
The 57-year-old is the first Chinese resident to win the prize. Only one other Chinese-language writer has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Gao Zingjian was honored in 2000. However, he is a French citizen.
Mr Mo said he was “overjoyed and scared” when he learned he had won the award. He will receive his Nobel diploma, a medal and more than one million dollars at a ceremony in Stockholm in December.
China is celebrating the victory of this native son. Minutes after the award was announced, millions of Chinese expressed pleasure and pride for Mo Yan on social media websites. Senior CPC leader Li Changchun has congratulated Mo Yan on winning the 2012 Nobel Literature Prize. Li says in a letter to the China Writers Association that Mo’s winning of the prize reflects the prosperity and progress of the Chinese literature.
His real name is Guan Moye. Mo Yan means “Don’t Speak.” The writer said he chose the name to remember to stop his tongue from getting him in trouble. Mo Yan’s novel Red Sorghum first became a cable hit on the big screen both at home and abroad in 1987. The film was directed by Zhang Yimou and marked the acting start of Gong Li.
As a productive author, Mo has published dozens of short stories, with his first work published in 1981. Mo Yan’s other major works include Big Breasts and Wide Hips, Republic of Wine and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out.What is the main characteristic of his works? (No more than 13 words)
_________________________________________________________________________How did Mo Yan feel when he was informed of the winning news? (No more than 5 words)
_________________________________________________________________________Why did he name himself Mo Yan? (No more than 9 words)
_________________________________________________________________________Please explain the underlined phrase “became a cable hit” in English. (No more than 5 words)
_________________________________________________________________________What does Mo Yan’s winning of the Nobel Literature Prize show? (No more than 10 words)
_________________________________________________________________________