Today, almost everyone has heard of Harry Potter. The books detailing his experiences at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry have aroused passion, creativity, and interest in reading throughout the world.
But have you ever considered why you are a fan of the Harry Potter series?
JK Rowling has created a list of characters and an environment for them to inhabit that appeals to both adults and children.
The fantasy aspect of the wizarding world expands the imagination, and takes the mind to new and exciting places. Anything could happen there. Her stories contain parts of the believable and unbelievable, changing the predictability that readers commonly come across and bear in fiction.
The main theme of the series, including good versus evil, prejudice, love, death, sacrifice, friendship and loyalty, in actuality contributes to the ever-lasting nature of the stories. At the same time, these themes remind us of classic literature, offering mature readers tales that wear like a comfortable pair of shoes, while introducing younger readers to concepts they will meet throughout their lives.
Much of the appeal also comes from the characters. In each book, JK Rowling introduces and describes the characters in such a way that we wonder not only about their futures, but also about their pasts. Even supporting characters are suddenly more than just extras in the background. And what of Harry Potter himself? We care about Harry, because we watch him grow from an innocent boy to a powerful wizard. We see him as both Hero and Victim. He experiences endless love and extreme pain, and as readers, we experience them with him.
This perfect combination of emotion, suspense and fantasy, together with the fact that JK Rowling is a superb storyteller is the reason why we are Harry potter fans. People are fond of Harry Potter series. With books like these, it’s hard not to be.Harry Potter series become popular partly because____________.
| A．they remind us of the childhood and environment we had in the past |
| B．they take us to a world beyond our imagination and expectation |
| C．they offer us ever-lasting nature of the stories |
| D．they set an example of hero for us to follow |
What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 6 mean?
| A．The supporting characters are not necessary in the story. |
| B．Readers care only about Harry but not those supporting characters. |
| C．Even the supporting characters are attractive in the story. |
| D．Those supporting characters only appear all of a sudden. |
The themes of the Harry Potter series do not contain____________.
| A．prejudice and love | B．good and evil |
| C．death and sacrifice | D．safety and peace |
People care for Harry Potter because ____________.
| A．they think of classic literature when reading the story |
| B．they find different experiences from theirs on Harry |
| C．they share the experiences with Harry |
| D．they like JK Rowling’s description very much |
Farah was sitting in the kitchen going over the party list with her mother. The exams were over and Farah wanted to invite her friends for a party.
“Farah, aren’t you going to invite Hafsa?” her mother asked. Hafsa had been her best friend since childhood.
“Mother, you know I am now a part of Purple Girls Club and we have some rules about people we can be friends with,” Farah answered.
“Really? And what are the rules?” her mother asked.
“Well, only very pretty girls can be part of our group. And Hafsa is so…you know …dark.”
“I canno
t believe it,”her mother said angrily.
As Farah left the kitchen, her father called her from the living room.
Farah went to her father and paled when she saw the exam report in his hands. “Farah, what has happened to your grades? You have failed in Mathematics,” her father said.
Farah had no answer. The truth was that the activities of Purple Girls Club left her with very little time for studies.
“Farah, it says that you can take part in supplementary exams（补考）. If your grades don’t improve then, I’ll cancel（职消）your trip to Spain.”
Farah went to her room and called Gina, the leader of Purple Girls Club. “Gina, can you help me to complete my notes before the exams?”
Gina laughed. “Exams? Who cares about exams?”
One by one, she called her friends in the club but no one seemed to care or wanted to help.
Farah knew Hafsa would help her. Farah also knew Hafsa had been hurt by her, but Hafsa said, “If you need any help, just let me know. We can study together till your exams.”
Next Monday, as two friends entered the school together, Gina called out.
“Farah, you know our rules. You cannot be friends with those who do not belong to our club.”
“Gina, I have a new rule about friendship,” Farah replied.After Farah became a member of Purple Girls Club, she chose a friend according to a person’s .
| A．looks | B．usual activities | C．grades | D．favorite colors |
Farah became pale after going to her father because.
| A．he didn’t allow her to go to Spain | B．she didn’t do well in her exams |
| C．she had to leave Purple Girls Club | D．he asked her to improve her grades |
．Which word can best describe Hafsa?
| A．Silly | B．Beautiful | C．Rude | D．Kind |
From the passage, we can know that .
| A．Hafsa is a member of Purple Girls Club |
| B．Gina will help Farah with her exams |
| C．Gina doesn’t care about exams |
| D．Farah would like to invite Hafsa to the party |
What lesson can we learn from the passage?
| A．A friend in need is a friend indeed. | B．A perfect friend will never be found. |
| C．Be slow in choosing a friend. | D．Friendship can be developed easily. |
阅读下列短文, 从每题所给的选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卷上将该项涂黑。
C
This hotel in the trees is famous in the world. People, who know very little about Kenya, know of Treetops. When King George VI died, Princess Elizabeth was staying on the 
Treetops, and when she came down from there, “She succeeded him as the queen of the country”. Th
is hotel in the middle of the forest shows the pleasure of Africa. When you visit it, you will be sent into the heart of the forest by hotel buses, and then a guide, with a gun to protect you against big game, will go with you to the Treetops. Before and after dinner, for the whole night if you wish, you can sit on the corridor (走廊), watching animals come to the water pool. The earliest hotel Treetops was built round a large tree on the opposite side of th
e water, but that was destroyed by fire and the new hotel Treetops, which is built round several trees, is much bigger.
The dining room at
Treetops is small, and the waiters cannot walk round to serve guests, a clever “railway service” has been invented. Guests take their food as it passes slowly in front of them, along a line in the center of the table.
There are many animals around the Treetops. When you visit them, you can see:
— Animals and their babies are waiting to greet the guests.
— Animals, enjoying the Treetops pool in the daylight.
— A long bodied, long ring tailed very active cat-like animal is a special one coming out at night.
He hunts and eats anything he can overpower, and his teeth and claws can do you harm.
— Some other animals that have a thick coating of fur to keep them warm in the cold forest nights.
— Many buffaloes (水牛) coming near to the Treetops for water and salt during the day or night.
In Paragraph One, “succeeded” means ______.
| A．did what she was trying to do | B．gained her purpose |
| C．got a position on the death of the King | D．completed a difficult task |
Which of the following description about “the cat-like animal” is NOT true?
| A．It comes for food only at night. | B．It lives in the trees at Treetops. |
| C．Its teeth and claws can do people harm. | D．It can catch any other animal in the forest. |
According to the passage. Treetops is famous in the world because ______.
| A．it can show the pleasure of Americans living in Africa |
| B．Princess Elizabeth got to the crown when coming down from there |
| C．they are built round several trees to provide adventures for visitors |
| D．there are many animals that can be trained and become lovely pets |
We can learn from the passage, that the guests ______.
| A．should not play games on the Treetops | B．could enjoy their dinner as usual |
| C．could not sit on the corridor at night | D．should keep off the cat-like animals |
阅读下列短文, 从每题所给的选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卷上将该项涂黑。
B
Two experts did some experiments on two groups of people — one who tended to sleep less than the
people around them and the other group more.
According to their report that the “short sleepers” had been more or less average in their sleep needs until the men were in their teens. But at about age 15 or so, the men automatically began to cut down their nightly sleep time because of pressures from school, work, and other activities. These men tended to view their nightly periods of unconsciousness as bothersome interruptions in their daily routines.
In general, these “short sleepers” appeared with ambition, active, energetic, cheerful, and conformist (不动摇) in their opinions, and very sure about their career choices. They often held several jobs at once, or even worked full time while going to school. And many of them 
had a strong urge to appear “acceptable” or “outstanding” to their friends and associates.
When asked to recall their dreams, the “short sleepers” did poorly. More than this, they seemed to prefer not remembering them. In similar fashion, their usual way of dealing with psychological problems was to deny that the problem existed, and then to keep busy in the hope that the trouble would go away.
The experts also stated that those “long sleepers” were quite different indeed. They reported that those men had been lengthy sleeps since childhood. They seemed to enjoy their sleep, protected it, and were a bit concerned when they were occasionally deprived of their desired 9 hours of nightly bed rest. They tended to recall their dreams much better than the “short sleepers did.
Many of the “long sleepers” were shy, anxious, introverted (内向), inhibited (压抑), passive, mildly depressed, and unsure of themselves (particularly in social situations). Several openly express it that being asleep was a good escape from their daily problems.
All in all, proper time of sleeping should be admired, not too long, neither too short. According to the report, ______.
| A．many “short sleepers” need less sleep just by nature |
| B．many “short sleepers” are obliged to reduce sleep time by work |
| C．long sleepers sleep a longer period of time during the day |
| D．many “long sleepers” formed sleeping habit during childhood |
Many “short sleepers” are likely to hold the view that ______.
| A．sleep is a very efficient escape from the reality |
| B．sleep is just an item which should be denied by them |
| C．sleep might be a disturbing thing for their daily business |
| D．sleep is the best way to deal with psychological troubles |
It is stated in the forth paragraph that “short sleepers” ______.
| A．are ideally energetic under the pressures of life |
| B．often ignore the ill effect of not enough sleep |
C．do not know how to re lax themselves p roperly |
| D．are more unlikely to run into mental problems |
Which of the following is nearest to the meaning of “… were a bit concerned” in the fifth Para?
| A．appeared troubled | B．became energetic |
| C．felt dissatisfied | D．were much depressed |
Which of the following is NOT correct according to the passage?
| A．If one sleeps improperly, his performance suffers and his memory is weakened |
| B．The sleep patterns of short sleepers are the same as those shown by “long sleepers” |
| C．Long and short sleepers differ in their attitudes towards sleep |
| D．Short sleepers may have been better off if they have more rest |
阅读下列短文, 从每题所给的选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卷上将该项涂黑。
A
One night recently, I was driving down a two-lane highway at 
about 60 miles an hour. A car approached f
rom the opposite direction at about the same speed. As we passed each other, I caught the other driver’s eye for only a second. I wondered whether he might be thinking, as I was, how dependent we were on each other at that moment. I was relying on him not to fall asleep, not to be put off by a phone conversation, not to cross over into my lane and bring my life to a sudden end. Though we had never spoken a word to each other, he relied on me in just the same way.
Multiplied a million times over, I believe that is the way the world works. At some level, we all depend upon one another. Sometimes that dependence requires us simply not to do something like crossing over the double yellow line. And sometimes it requires us to act cooperatively, with friends or even with strangers.
As technology shrinks our world, the need increases for cooperative action among nations. In 2003, doctors in five nations were quickly organized to identify the SARS virus, which saved thousands of lives. The threat of international terrorism has shown itself to be a similar problem, one requiring team action by police and intelligence forces across the world. We must recognize that our fates are not ours alone to control.
In my own life, I’ve put great stock in personal responsibility. But, as time has passed, I’ve also come to believe that there are mom
ents when one must rely upon the good faith and judgment of others. so, while each of us faces the case of driving alone down a dark road, what we must learn is that the approaching light may not be a threat, but a shared moment of trust.The author considers it very important ______.
| A．to drive with a company | B．to have personal independence |
| C．to gain certain responsibility | D．to share trust and cooperation |
The author said that they depended on each other in the same way because ______.
| A．the approaching car was very dangerous |
| B．they both drove their car at a terrific speed |
| C．he might be killed out of the other’s careless driving |
| D．it was dark and the road was not wide enough |
From the second paragraph, we know the author drew the important lesson from ______.
| A．only one experience | B．many similar experiences |
| C．a driver on a dark road | D．many friends and strangers |
The need for cooperation increases because ______
.
| A．peoples’ fates can’t be controlled by themselves |
| B．certain viruses can spread in a quick way |
| C．terrorism can happen everywhere and every day |
| D．the world has become much more dangerous |
We can infer from the last paragraph that the author has ______.
| A．believed in one’s own personal responsibility |
| B．counted upon himself alone in everything |
| C．had no trust in others’ good faith and judgment |
| D．had accomplished a change on his viewpoint of life |
阅读下列短文, 从每题所给的选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卷上将该项涂黑。
D
Around the globe, the tourist trade is booming and you are promised to enjoy all the comfort and convenience of modern tourism. The first-class systems of communication by air, sea and land make it possible for us to visit each other’s countries at a moderate cost. What was once the ‘grand tour’, reserved for only the very rich, is now within most people’s grasp. The package tour and chartered flights (包机) are quite popular to us. Modern travelers enjoy a level of comfort which those on grand tours in the old days couldn’t have dreamed of. With all this coming and going, you would expect greater understanding to deve
lop between the nations of the world. Not a bit of it! So what’s the sense of this mass exchange of populations if the nations of the world remain basically ignorant of each other? So there is a great misdirection in tourist business, especially in conducted tour items.
Many tourist organizations are directly responsible for this state of affairs. They purposely set out to “protect” their passengers from too much contact with the local population. Modern tourists lead a protected and separated life. They live at international hotels, where they eats their international food and sips their international drink while gazing at the natives from a distance. Designed tours to places of interest are carefully arranged. The tourists are allowed to see only what the organizers want them to see and no more. A strict schedule makes it impossible for the tourists to wander off on their own; and anyway, l
anguage is always a barrier, so they might only be too happy to be protected in this way.
At its very worst, this merely leads to a new and terrible kind of colonization. The sad thing about this situation is that it leads to the persistence of certain old ideas of other nations and countries. We don’t see the people of other nations as they really are, but as we have been brought up to believe what they are, even staying a
long with that from text books during our schooling.
You can test this for yourself. Take five nationalities, say, French, German, English, American and Italian. Now in your mind, match them with these five adjectives: musical, emotional, cold, pedantic (爱追究的), native. Far from providing us with any insight into the national characteristics of the peoples just mentioned, these adjectives just actually act as barriers, for we can’t do the job
with certainty. So, frequently, when you set out on your travels, the only characteristics you notice are those which confirm what you have already obtained as the first conceptions in your mind. And you get home only with the highly unoriginal and inaccurate impression, such as the saying, “Anglo-Saxons are hypocrites (伪君子)” and “Latin peoples shout a lot ”. However, to gain the real understanding, you only have to make a few foreign friends and you will know how ridiculousridiculousridiculousridiculous and harmful some old conceptions of other nations are. But how can
you make foreign friends when the tourist trade does its best to prevent you?
Being carried to an extreme, stereotypes can be positively dangerous. A very wild and limited outlook may stir up racial hatred and blind us to the basic fact — how reasonless it sounds! – that all people are human. We are all similar to each other, while at the same time all unique.What does “grand tour” bring people now?
| A．It only offers us reasonable cost. | B．It is the best way of modern tourism. |
| C．It is not liked by rich people. | D．It is available for the majority to enjoy it. |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．By travelling abroad, one can know a certain country well. |
| B．Making friends is impossible for anyone staying abroad. |
| C．The tourist organizations have the best way to do their duty. |
| D．Traveling conditions are much more improved than before. |
Which word in the following is the best to summarize “Latin people shout a lot”?
| A．Silent. | B．Noisy. | C．Lively. | D．Active. |
The purpose of the author’s writing is to point out ______.
| A．conducted tour should be stopped | B．the way of touring should be changed |
| C．gained knowledge can’t be renewed | D．some nations stay the same as before |
What is the author’s attitude toward the present tourism?
| A．Objective | B．Negative. | C．Critical. | D．Appreciative. |
The main idea for this passage is that ______.
A．tourism does little to increase un derstanding between nations |
| B．tourism is terrible without the work of the tourist organizations |
| C．conducted tour is so dull that nobody wants to accept it now |
| D．tourism really does something wonderful to many countries |