It was Saturday when the entire summer world was bright and fresh. Tom looked at the fence, which was long and high, feeling all enthusiasm leaving him. He dipped his brush into the whitewash before moving it along the top board of the fence. He knew other boys would arrive soon with all minds of interesting plans for this day. As walking past him, they would tease him for having to work on a beautiful Saturday—which burnt him like fire.
He, putting his hands into his pockets and taking out all he owned with the expectation of letting someone paint, found nothing that could buy half an hour of freedom. At this dark and hopeless moment, a wonderful idea occurred to him, pouring a great bright light into his mind. He took up his brush and continued to work pleasantly with calm and quietness.
Presently, Ben Rogers came in sight—munching an apple and making joyful noises like the sound of a riverboat as he walked along. Tom went on whitewashing, paying no attention to the steamboat.
“Hello!” Ben said, “I’m going swimming, but you can’t go, can you?”
No answer. Tom moved his brush gently along the fence and surveyed the result. Ben came nearer. Tom’s mouth watered for Ben’s apple while he kept painting the fence.
Ben said, “That’s a lot of work, isn’t it?”
Tom turned suddenly saying “Here you are! Ben! I didn’t notice you.”
“I’m going swimming,” Ben said. “Don’t you wish you could go? Or would you rather work?”
Tom said, “Work? What do you mean ‘work’?”
“Isn’t that work?”
Tom continued painting and answered carelessly, “Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. All I know is it suits Tom Sawyer.”
“Do you mean that you enjoy it?”
“I don’t see why I oughtn’t to enjoy it.”
“Does a boy have a chance to paint a fence frequently” said Tom.
Ben stopped munching his apple.
Tom moved his brush back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a little paint here and there. Ben watched every move, getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed1. After a short time, he said, “Tom, let me whitewash a little.”
Tom seemed to be thinking for a moment before he said, “No, Aunt Polly wants this fence to be perfect. If it was the back fence, maybe you could do it. But this fence beside the street is where everybody can see it. It has to be done right.”
“Oh, come on, let me try. I’ll be careful. Listen, Tom. I’ll give you part of my apple if you let me paint.”
“No, Ben, I’m afraid—”
“I’ll give you all the apple!”
Tom handed the brush to Ben with unwillingness on his face but alacrity in his heart. While the riverboat worked and sweated in the hot sun, Tom, an artist sat in the shade close by, munching his apple, and planning how he could trick more of the boys.
Before long there were enough boys each of whom came along the street; stopped to laugh but soon begged to be allowed to paint. By the middle of the afternoon, Tom had got many treasures while the fence had had three layers of whitewash on it. If he hadn’t run out of whitewash, he would have owned everything belonging to the boys in the village.
Tom said to himself that the world was not so depressing after all. He had discovered a great law of human action: in order to make a man cover a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.By using “Tom continued painting and answered carelessly”, the author shows Tom ______ when he was talking to Ben.
| A．made mistakes | B．damaged things | C．was natural | D．wasn’t concentrating |
The underlined word “alacrity” in the last but two paragraph most probable means “______”.
| A．kindness | B．discouragement | C．sympathy | D．eagerness |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage? ________
| A．Tom did not want to go swimming at all |
| B．Tom was asked to help Aunt Polly paint the fence |
| C．Tom did not get along well with his friends |
| D．Tom was very busy that Saturday afternoon. |
We can draw a conclusion from the last paragraph that _______.
| A．forbidden fruit is sweet. | B．a friend in need is a friend indeed. |
| C．all good things must come to an end. | D．a bad excuse is better than none. |
One reaction to all the concern about tropical deforestation（砍伐森林） is a blank（茫然的） stare that asks the question, "Since I don't live there, what does it have to do with me?"
The answer is that your way of life, wherever you live in the world, is tied to the tropics in many ways. If you live in a house, wash your hair, eat fruits and vegetables, drink soda, or drive a car, you can be certain that you are affected by the loss of tropical forests.
Biologically, we are losing the richest regions on earth when, each minute, a piece of tropical forest, the size of ten city blocks, disappears. As many as five million species of plants, animals, and insects (40 to 50 percent of all living things) live there, and are being lost faster than they can be found and described. Their loss is immeasurable.
Take rubber for example. For many uses, only natural rubber from trees will do. Synthetics are not good enough. Today over half the world's commercial rubber is produced in Malaysia and Indonesia, while the Amazon's rubber industry produces much of the world's four million tons. And rubber is an important material in making gloves, balloons, footwear and many sporting goods. Thousands of other tropical plants are valuable for their industrial use.
Many scientists strongly believe that deforestation contributes to the greenhouse effect -- or heating of the earth from increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As we destroy forests, we lose their ability to change carbon dioxide into oxygen.
Carbon dioxide levels could double within the next half-century, warming the earth by as much as 4.5 degrees. The result? A partial melt-down of polar ice caps, raising sea levels as much as 24 feet; even 15 feet could threaten anyone living within 35 miles of the coast. Unbelievable? Maybe. But scientists warn that by the time we realise the severe effects of tropical deforestation, it will be 20 years too late.
Can tropical deforestation affect our everyday lives? Now, you should have got the answer.The underlined word "synthetics" probably means .
| A．natural rubber | B．tropical materials |
| C．man-made material | D．commercial rubber |
In the last paragraph the author tries to .
| A．tell people how to avoid the tropical deforestation |
| B．persuade people to buy something synthetic |
| C．show us how important it is to protect the tropical forests |
| D．let people realise the effect of tropical deforestation |
According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?
| A．The forests are losing their function in turning carbon dioxide into oxygen. |
| B．Many of our daily uses are related to the tropical forests. |
| C．Tropical plants can be used to make industrial products. |
| D．High carbon dioxide levels will make the earth warmer. |
The author's attitude towards the tropical deforestation is .
| A．puzzling | B．cold | C．supporting | D．opposed |
Which of the following might be the best title for the passage?
| A．Tropical Forests | B．Saving the Tropical Forests |
| C．Tropical Forests and Our Life | D．The Greenhouse Effects |
Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821, on the island of St. Helena off the coast of Africa. He was 51 years old at the time. When doctors examined Napoleon's body, they said that the former emperor of France had died from cancer of the stomach. That was the cause of death recorded in the official report. However, other doctors disagreed. One doctor who was present during the examination of the body said that Napoleon died of hepatitis（肝炎）. Other historians and medical experts have suggested that Napoleon died of syphilis（梅毒）, tuberculosis（肺结核）, or perhaps malaria. Now, after careful research, a British chemist thinks that Napoleon might have been poisoned -- not by a person, but by his wallpaper.
Napoleon was sent to the island of St. Helena in 1815 after he lost the battle of Waterloo. He was a prisoner on the island. Although he had servants to attend to him, he had to live in one small building. St. Helena is a very wet island, so the walls of the building were always covered with mold. Napoleon became ill from spending too much time inside his house. Almost constantly he had a fever, chills, and felt sick to his stomach. He often felt pain in his shoulders and in his side. His skin turned yellow. He got frequent headaches, and he would become dizzy and vomit. None of the medicine that the doctors gave Napoleon seemed to help. They were not sure what was the matter. Finally, Napoleon was too weak to leave the house. One night, while he was sleeping, he went into a coma （昏迷）and died.
Many doctors who later reviewed the reports of Napoleon's illness found that the symptoms did not show a man who suffered from stomach cancer. It seemed obvious that Napoleon had died from some other cause. In 1961, a Swedish doctor examined some of Napoleon’s hair and found a high level of arsenic（砒霜）, a chemical poison. Was Napoleon murdered? It is doubtful. Arsenic was used in many types of medicine during Napoleon’s time, so he might have taken the arsenic as a cure for his illness. Then, in 1982, Dr. David Jones from England began to look into the mystery and suggested that Napoleon might have breathed in arsenic which was in the air of his house. In the 1700s and 1800s, arsenic was used to make a kind of green paint used on cloth and wallpaper. If the paint was used on a wet wall, the arsenic would go into the air. A person in the room might breathe that air. After studying the wallpaper in the room where Napoleon died, Dr. Jones found high levels of arsenic in the green paint on the walls.The passage says that .
| A．a British doctor thinks he has found the cause of Napoleon's death |
| B．many doctors have tried to guess the cause of Napoleon's death |
| C．Napoleon could have died from poison |
| D．all of the above |
Why did Napoleon live on St. Helena?
| A．He owned the island. | B． He was a prisoner there. |
| C．His family lived there. | D．He liked the island. |
Napoleon suffered from the following symptoms except __________.
A. chills B. fever C dizziness D. bleeding The official report said that Napoleon died of____________.
| A．cancer | B．a coma | C．mold | D．poison |
According to Dr. Jones, how did the arsenic probably get into Napoleon's body?
| A． He ate it. | B．He breathed it in. |
| C． He touched it. | D． He drank it. |
My newly-rented small apartment was far away from the centre of London and it was becoming essential for me to find a job, so finally I spent a whole morning getting to town and putting my name down to be considered by London Transport for a job on the underground. They were looking for guards, not drivers. This suited me. I couldn’t drive a car but thought that I could probably guard a train, and perhaps continue to write my poems between stations. The writers Keats and Chekhov had been doctors. T.S. Eliot had worked in a bank and Wallace Stevens for an insurance company. I’d be a subway guard. I could see myself being cheerful, useful, a good man in a crisis（艰难危险时期）. Obviously I’d be overqualified but I was willing to forget about that in return for a steady income and travel privileges — those being particularly welcome to someone living a long way from the city centre.
The next day I sat down, with almost a hundred other candidates, for the intelligence test. I must have done all right because after about half an hour’s wait I was sent into another room for a psychological test. This time there were only about fifty candidates. The interviewer sat at a desk. Candidates were signaled forward to occupy the seat opposite him when the previous occupant had been dismissed, after a greater or shorter time. Obviously the long interviews were the more successful ones. Some of the interviews were as short as five minutes. Mine was the only one that lasted a minute and a half.
I can remember the questions now: “Why did you leave your last job?” “Why did you leave your job before that?” “And the one before that?” I can’t recall my answers, except that they were short at first and grew progressively shorter. His closing statement, I thought, revealed a lack of sensitivity which helped to explain why as a psychologist, he had risen no higher than the underground railway. “You’ve failed the psychological test and we are unable to offer you a position.”
Failing to get that job was my low point. Or so I thought, believing that the work was easy. Actually, such jobs — being a postman is another one I still desire — demand exactly the sort of elementary yet responsible awareness that the habitual dreamer is least qualified to give. But I was still far short of full self-understanding. I was also short of cash.The writer applied for the job chiefly because _________.
| A．he wanted to work in the centre of London |
| B．he could no longer afford to live without one |
| C．he was not interested in any other available job |
| D．he had received some suitable training |
The writer thought he was overqualified for the job because _________.
| A．he often traveled underground | B．he had written many poems |
| C．he could deal with difficult situations | D．he had worked in a company |
The length of his interview meant that _________.
| A．he was not going to be offered the job | B．he had not done well in the intelligence test |
| C．he did not like the interviewer at all | D．he had little work experience to talk about |
What does the writer realize now that he did not realize then?
| A．How unpleasant ordinary jobs can be. | B．How difficult it is to be a poet. |
| C．How unsuitable he was for the job. | D．How badly he did in the interview. |
What’s the writer’s opinion of the psychologist?
| A．He was very aggressive（有进取心的）. | B．He was unhappy with his job. |
| C．He was quite inefficient. | D．He was rather unsympathetic. |
“Mom, can I bake some bread?” We were 15, my best friend, Hanna, and I, determined to try our hands at creating some beautiful bread.
“It’s not worth the trouble,” my mother said. “It takes lots of time and makes a big mess. Our bakery bread is delicious without all that effort.”
Begging was useless. Mom’s “no” meant “No!”
But several weeks later, opportunity knocked: My parents were going out for the evening. I immediately invited Hanna to be my partner in bread-baking crime.
We studied the recipe. That was easy. “Mix oil into flour then beat in four of the eggs, one at a time, with remaining sugar and salt.”
We were not good at breaking eggs. I tried to learn from my mother.
“Gradually add eight cups of flour. When dough (面团) holds together, squeeze it.”
We took turns working like that. “Is the dough ‘holding together’?” we asked each other.
I remembered my neighbor’s instructions: “If it’s too sticky, add some flour; if too dry, add water.”
We added water. Then more flour. Then more water. By then, the mass of our dough had grown very much.
“Place dough on floured surface and squeeze till smooth,” the recipe instructed.
We took turns burying our hands in the damp dough, pinching, squeezing, and feeling it leak between fingers.
“Clean and oil bowl, then return dough to bowl. Cover and let dough rise in warm place for 1 hour.”
This was good news --- we’d have a break. On dirtied kitchen chairs, we dreamed about our beautiful bread. “See?” we would tell my mom. “Isn’t it worth the work?”
Hanna and I couldn’t help glancing at the rising process every few minutes. But nothing was happening.
“Maybe something will happen in the hot oven,” I said.
Unfortunately, when we removed the loaves from the oven, they were like hard stones.
Mom was right; it takes time and effort. It sometimes makes a mess. But still it feels good, somehow, to be part of that long, ongoing chain of bread bakers. Since that night, both Hanna and I have learned to do it right.To the writer, what her mother said was __________.
| A．law | B．rubbish | C．advice | D．warning |
Which of the following can best describe the children’s feelings while making their first bread?
| A．Confident; hopeful; disappointed. | B．Curious; hopeful; disappointed. |
| C．Interested; excited; satisfied. | D．Worried; satisfied; proud. |
Which of the following did the writer do without instructions?
| A．Placed dough on floured surface. | B．Added eight cups of flour to eggs. |
| C．Returned dough to a cleaned bowl. | D．Placed the dough into the hot oven. |
The passage mainly tells us ______________.
| A．the process of making bread | B．the conflict between mother and daughter |
| C．the first experience of making bread | D．the way of doing housework |
Reading is very important to help you learn English. To learn as much as you can from reading, you need to read different kinds of English. This book provides not only different kinds of English but also a good way to check your reading ability.
There are four parts in the book:
Part 1 is Messages: In this part somebody wants to send information in writing to somebody else .There is a test on timetables and a test on text messages.
Part 2 is People: In this part all the tests are about people. For example, there is an informal letter between friends. There is formal English in biography (传记) . There is a job application as a model to help with your writing, as well as testing your reading.
Part 3 is Places: In this part, too, many different kinds of English are shown, some informal and some formal. There is the informal English of a holiday postcard. There is also the formal English in a letter of complaint.
Part 4 is Things: You will find some descriptive writing in this part. There are descriptions of clothes and of a computer.
You can do these tests in any order you like, or you can do all the tests with a formal or informal text .I enjoyed writing this book and I hope you enjoy using it .We can find the introduction to a product in .
| A．Part 1 | B．Part 2 | C．Part 3 | D．Part 4 |
Which of the following is most probably written in informal English ?
| A．A letter of complaint. | B．A computer handbook |
| C．A letter to a friend. | D．A story of a president . |
The passage is most probably written for .
| A．test designers | B．students | C．test-takers | D．teachers |
What is the best title of the book ?
| A．Test Your Reading | B．Help with Your Writing |
| C．Learn Different Kinds of English | D．Practise English in Different Ways |