Man has always wanted to fly. Some of the greatest men in history have thought about the problem. One of these, for example, was the great Italian artist, Leonardo da Vinci. In the sixteenth century he made designs for machines that could fly. But they were never built.,
Throughout history, other less famous men have wanted to fly. An example was a man in England 800years ago. He made a pair of wings from chicken feathers. Then he fixed them to his body and jumped into the air from a tall building. He did not fly very far. He fell to the ground and broke every bone in his body.
The first real step took place in France in 1783. Two brothers, the Mongolfiers, made a very large “hot air balloon”. They knew that hot air rises. Why not fill a balloon with it? The balloon was made of cloth and paper. In September of that year, the King and Queen of France came to see the balloon. They watched it carry the very first air passengers into the sky. The passengers were a sheep and a chicken. We do not know how they felt about the trip. But we do know that the trip lasted 8 minutes and that the animals landed safely. Two months later, two men did the same thing. They rose above Paris in a balloon of the same kind. Their trip lasted twenty-five minutes and they traveled about 8 kilometers. Leonardo da Vinci .
| A．said that man would fly in the sky one day |
| B．built a kind of machine which never flew |
| C．drew many beautiful pictures of the birds |
| D．made designs of flying machines |
Eight hundred years ago an Englishman .
| A．made a kind of flying machine |
| B．tried to fly with wings made of chicken feathers |
| C．wanted to build a kind of balloon |
| D．tried to fly on a large bird |
In fact, the Englishman who tried to fly .
| A．lost his life | B．flew only 8 minutes |
| C．was not wounded | D．succeeded in flying |
The very first air passengers in the balloon were .
| A．the King and Queen | B．two Frenchmen |
| C．two animals | D．the Mongolfiers |
For many parents, raising a teenager is like fighting a long war, but years go by without any clear winner. Like a border conflict（冲突）between neighboring countries, the parent-teen war is about boundaries: Where is the line between what I control and what you do?
Both sides want peace, but neither feels it has any power to stop the conflict. In part，this is because neither is willing to admit any responsibility for starting it. From the parents’ point of view, the only cause of their fight is their adolescents’ （青少年）complete unreasonableness. And of course, the teens see it in exactly the same way, except oppositely. Both feel trapped.
In this article, I’ll describe three no-win situations that commonly arise between teens and parents and then suggest some ways out of the trap. The first no-win situation is quarrel on unimportant things. Examples include the color of the teen’s hair, the cleanness of the bedroom, the preferred style of clothing, the child’s failure to eat a good breakfast before school, or his tendency to sleep until noon on the weekends. Second, blaming. The goal of a blaming battle is to make the other admit that his bad attitude is the reason why everything goes wrong. Third, needing to be right. It doesn’t matter what the topic is—politics, the laws of physics, or the proper way to break an egg—the point of these arguments is to prove that you are right and the other person is wrong，for both wish to be considered an authority—someone who actually knows something—and therefore to command respect. Unfortunately, as long as parents and teens continue to assume that they know more than the other, they’ll continue to fight these battles forever and never make any real progress. Why does the author compare the parent teen war to a border conflict?
| A．Both can continue for generations. | B．Both are about where to draw the line. |
| C．Neither has any clear winner. | D．Neither can be put to an end. |
What does the underlined part in Paragraph 2 mean?
| A．The teens blame their parents for starting the conflict. |
| B．The teens agree with their parents on the cause of the conflict. |
| C．The teens accuse their parents of misleading them. |
| D．The teens tend to have a full understanding of their parents. |
Parents and teens want to be right because they want to__________.
| A．give orders to the other | B．know more than the other |
| C．gain respect from the other | D．get the other to behave properly |
What will the author most probably discuss in the paragraph that follows?
| A．Causes for the parent-teen conflicts | B．Examples of the parent-teen war |
| C．Solutions for the parent-teen problems | D．Future of the parent-teen relationship |
Read the following directions on a bottle of medicine：
“Take two tablets(药片)with water, followed by one tablet every eight hours, as required, For maximum(最大量) night-time and early morning relief(缓解疼痛), take two tablets at bed - time, Do not take more than six tablets in twenty-four hours.
For children six to twelve years old, give half the amount for a grownup. For children under six years old, ask for your doctor’s advice.
Reduce the amount if nervousness, restlessness, or sleeplessness occurs,”The directions on this medicine bottle clearly warn the patient not to take more than _____ .
| A．twenty-four tablets a day. | B．eight tablets a day. |
| C．six tablets a day. | D．three tablets a day. |
We can infer from the directions that ______ .
| A．the medicine could cause some people to feel nervous. |
| B．children may take the same amount that grown-ups take. |
| C．one may not take this medicine before going to bed. |
| D．the medicine is a liquid. |
If one cannot sleep, it is suggested that he _____ .
| A．take two tablets before going to bed. | B．take less than two tablets before going to bed. |
| C．stop taking the medicine. | D．ask advice of a doctor. |
Obviously the medicine _______ .
| A．may be dangerous to small children. |
| B．cannot be taken by children under twelve years old. |
| C．may be taken by children but not by grown-ups. |
| D．may be taken by grown-ups but not by children. |
Robert Frost was one of America’s best known and most honored serious writers. But his fame came late in his life.
He was born in San Francisco, California in 1874. He lived in California during his early childhood. He was named after the chief Southern general in America’s Civil War. The general’s name was Robert Edward Lee. The poet was named Robert Lee Frost, because his father wanted to honor the general.
Someone once asked another American writer, Ernest Hemingway, how to become a writer. The best thing, he said, was to have an unhappy childhood. If this is true, Robert Frost’s childhood was unhappy enough to make him a very good writer. Robert Frost’s father was a reporter who wanted to be a politician. He often drank too much wine and became angry. Robert was the victim (受害者) of his anger.
Robert Frost finished high school in 1891. After high school, Robert’s grandfather offered to pay his costs at Dartmouth College. But Robert left the school after a few months. He did not like it. He spent the next few years working at different jobs. At one time, he worked in a factory. Later, he repaired shoes. He was a teacher. He was a reporter. Always, he wrote poetry.
Robert Frost attended Harvard University for two years. After that, he returned to the many jobs he held before. For a while, Frost tried to take care of a farm in the state of New Hampshire. He was not a successful farmer. And he continued to write poetry. He said that until 1930, he earned only about ten dollars a year from writing.
In 1912, he decided to try to make a new start. He took his family to Britain. The cost of living was low. In Britain, Frost found a publisher for his first book of poems. The book was called A Boy’s Will. When it appeared in 1913. Frost received high praise from British readers. Praise was something he had not received in his own country.
Ezra Pound, another American poet living in Britain, read the poems and liked them very much. He wrote a magazine article about Frost. He also helped get Frost’s second book of poems published in America. That book was called North of Boston.The followings are writers EXCEPT ________.
| A．Robert Edward Lee | B．Robert Lee Frost |
| C．Ernest Hemingway | D．Ezra Pound |
The passage wrote about Hemingway in order to show that
| A．he had great influence on Frost’s poetry and life |
| B．Frost’ s poetry style was the same as Hemingway’s |
| C．Frost was unhappy because he was the victim of his father |
| D．Frost spent his childhood unhappily |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．Once Frost’s first book was published he gained great praise in his country. |
| B．After leaving Harvard University, he began to learn to write poetry. |
| C．Frost was found lo have a gift in poetry while he studied in high school. |
| D．Robert Frost’s father was angry and drank a lot because he didn’t realize his dream. |
What’s the passage mainly about?
| A．Robert Frost’s unhappy childhood. | B．Robert Frost’s first and second book. |
| C．Robert Frost’s family and jobs. | D．Robert Frost’s life and poetry. |
A friend is better than fortune. A friend is worse than poison in some cases.
The two sentences above have opposite meanings and seem to be unreasonable, but they can be explained as follows: the first refers to all good friends who drive us towards good while the second all bad ones who lead us into bad ways.
My ideal friend is of course a good friend whose goodness is shown below — he has no bad habits, such as smoking and drinking. He lives in frugality (节俭). He studies hard so as not to waste his golden time. At home he honors his parents and loves his brothers; at school he respects his teachers and shares the feelings of his classmates. He treats those truly who are true to him. In a word, he has all the good characteristics that I don’t have. I can follow him as a model. With his help I can be free from all difficulties.
Indeed, if I have such a person as my friend, I shall never fear difficulty and I shall never know the existence of the word “failure”.This passage tells us ____.
| A．how to make friends with others |
| B．how to help friends |
| C．what kind of person the writer’s friend is |
| D．what kind of person we should make friends with |
According to the writer, an ideal friend refers to _______.
| A．a friend without bad habits |
| B．a famous man |
| C．a perfect man |
| D．a respectable man |
From the passage we can learn that ________.
| A．the writer and his ideal friend have a lot to learn from each other |
| B．the writer has a lot to learn from his ideal friend |
| C．the writer’s ideal friend has a lot to learn from him |
| D．the writer has only a little to learn from his ideal friend |
From the second paragraph, we can infer the writer is sure that _______.
| A．friendship means a great deal to him |
| B．nothing can be done without friends |
| C．he who does not smoke or drink must be a good friend |
| D．good friends should always help each other |
Nowadays, the increase in the prices of agricultural products is one of the greatest concerns of the people and the government. The government has announced a series of policies(政策) to prevent the prices from rising further. Rising housing prices is still a big concern for the people, but since farm products are needed every day, the increase in their prices has made life very difficult for them.
Many people may think the increase will help farmers. But have higher prices of farm products really benefited the farmers?
Take the increase in vegetable prices in the first half of this year for example. Though natural disasters such as droughts and spring frost did not cause the prices of farm products to increase greatly—in fact, prices of some products did not increase at all—vegetables have become dearer by as much as 20 percent compared to that of last year. This means only a small part (or even none) of the extra money that city people have paid to buy farm products has gone to the farmers. The extra cost actually has gone to middlemen.
As the fact shows, just increasing prices of farm products will have negative influence on the entire economy. On one hand, the price increase has created some abnormal phenomena, which hurts farmers’ interests. On the other hand, resources will enter the agriculture because of the high price of farm products, which would finally create negative effect on the whole economy.
In such a case, it would be better to leave the market to decide the prices instead of raising farm products’ prices to protect the interests of farmers. Actually, such a way will be better for farmers in the long run. What does the author mainly want to tell us by writing the passage?
| A．Farmers benefit a lot from the price increase. |
| B．Price increase has not helped farmers. |
| C．We should be sorry for farmers. |
| D．Price increase has a bad effect on economy. |
Many people think the increase in the prices of farm products benefits ______ .
| A． nobody | B．the country | C．middlemen | D．farmers |
The following statements are true EXCEPT ______ .
| A．the government has done something to prevent the prices from rising further |
| B．it is better for farmers to leave the market to decide the prices in the long run |
| C．natural disasters did not cause the prices of farm products to increase greatly |
| D．rising housing prices has made life very difficult for people |
What is probably the author’s attitude to raising the farm products’ prices?
| A．Negative. | B．Indifferent.(漠不关心的) |
| C．Enthusiastic. | D．Positive. |