We were standing at the top of a church tower. My father had brought me to this spot in a small town not far from our home in Rome. I wondered why.
“Look down, Elsa,” father said. I gathered all my courage and looked down. I saw the square in the center of the village. And I saw the crisscross (十字形) of twisting, turning streets leading to the square. “See, my dear,” father said gently. “There is more than one way to the square. Life is like that. If you can’t get to the place where you want to go by one road, try another.”
Now I understood why I was there. Earlier that day I had begged my mother to do something about the awful(糟糕的) lunches that were served at school. But she refused because she could not believe the lunches were as bad as I said.
When I turned to father for help, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he brought me to this high tower to give me a lesson. By the time we reached home, I had a plan.
At school the next day, I secretly poured my luncheon（午餐）soup into a bottle and brought it home. Then I asked our cook to serve it to mother at dinner. The plan worked perfectly. She swallowed one spoonful and sputtered（喷溅出）” The cook must have gone mad！” Quickly I told her what I had done, and Mother stated firmly that she would take up the matter of lunches at school the next day!
In the years that followed I often remembered the lesson father taught me. I began to work as a fashion designer two years ago. I wouldn’t stop working until I tried every possible means to my goal. Father’s wise words always remind me that there is more than one way to the square.The author’s father took her to the top of a church tower to _____.
| A．enjoy the beautiful scenery of the whole town |
| B．find out how many ways lead to the square |
| C．inspire her to find out another way to solve her problem |
| D．help her forget some unpleasant things earlier that day |
What did the author want her mother to do earlier that day?
| A．Do something delicious for lunch. |
| B．Taste her awful lunch. |
| C．Dismiss the mad cook. |
| D．Speak to the school about lunch. |
By sharing her own experiences, the author tries to tell us ____________.
| A．when one road is blocked, try another |
| B．how bad the lunch of her school is |
| C．how wise her father is |
| D．about the church tower near her home |
| HORSE RACING YEAR ROUND 3pm, every Sunday City Stadium No children allowed |
100 YEARS OF PICTURES THEN AND NOW(Photo Show) February 1~April 30 City Art Museum at 750 High Street 10 am~5pm, Tuesday to Sunday |
| WEEKEND SALES 2pm~6pm, this Sunday EVERYTHING 20%~50% OFF Visit us at Block G, Grandview Mall |
DANCE PARTY Celebrate an important day Brings your friends 7 pm~10pm, Sunday night Country Club ￥10, an adult; ￥2, a child |
Jane can go to to celebrate her birthday with her friends.
| A．City Stadium | B．Country Club |
| C．Grandview Mall | D．City Art Museum |
All people can be allowed to watch the horse races except .
| A．adults | B．women |
| C．children | D．old men |
When will you not be able to see the photo show?
| A．March 8th | B．April 10th |
| C．February 1st | D．May 1st |
What can you do if you only have time between 5 pm to 6 pm on Sunday?
| A．Go to the weekend sales. |
| B．Go to see the photo show. |
| C．Go to the dance party. |
| D．Go to watch the horse racing. |
How much will Mr. Smith pay if he takes his two daughters to the dance party?
| A．￥12 | B．￥14 | C．￥30 | D．￥6 |
About ten years ago when I was an undergraduate in college, I was working as a practice student at my University’s Museum of Natural History. One day while working at the cash register (收银机) in the gift shop, I saw an elderly couple come in with a little girl in a wheelchair.
As I looked closer at this girl, I saw that she was kind of set on her chair. I then realized she had no arms or legs, just a head, neck and main body. She was wearing a little white dress with red dots.
As the couple wheeled her up to me I was looking down at the register. I turned my head toward the girl and gave her a wink. As I took the money from her grandparents, I looked back at the girl, who was giving me the cutest, largest smile I have ever seen.
All of a sudden her handicap was gone and all I saw was this beautiful girl, whose smile just melted me and almost instantly(即刻) gave me a completely new sense of what life is all about. She took me from a poor, unhappy college student and brought me into her world: a world of smiles, love and warmth.
That was ten years ago. I’m a successful business person now and whenever I get down and think about the troubles of the world, I think about that little girl and the remarkable (非凡的) lesson about life that she taught me.Which of the following is TRUE about the writer?
| A．He is a success in his business. |
| B．He was good at natural history at university. |
| C．He ran a gift shop in the university. |
| D．He graduated from Natural History University. |
At a second sight, the writer found the little girl .
| A．was badly injured |
| B．was unable to move |
| C．was only able to smile |
| D．was tied on the wheelchair |
The underlined word “handicap” in Paragraph 4 probably means .
| A．sitting on a wheel chair |
| B．the troubles of the world |
| C．being unable to use parts of the body |
| D．the ability to teach lessons about life |
In the writer’s opinion, the little girl was not disabled at all because .
| A．she gave him an important lesson |
| B．she had the cutest and biggest smile |
| C．she had a healthier heart than many other people |
| D．she offered him the courage in business |
Which of the following can be the best title for this text?
| A．A World of Smiles |
| B．The Smile of a Girl |
| C．A Badly Disabled Girl |
| D．The Secret of a Businessman |
Eighteen-year-old Dana Kiger is happily running after balls on the soccer field. But not long ago, she couldn’t remember her love of the game, her parents’ faces or even her name.
At 16, the Tennessee honor student and star athlete was hit from behind while playing in a soccer game. She fell to the ground, her head striking the hard ground. The blow knocked out nearly all of Kiger’s memories.
With no physical(身体的) injury or unusual change in her brain, doctors thought Kiger’s memory would return in a few days. But it did not. And two and a half years later, it still hasn’t. Kiger—who has no memory of her family, her childhood or her life before her injury—has had to create new memories, restart relationships and relearn old skills.
“The only thing I had …I could walk, write, but I didn’t know what to write,” Kiger said of the days after the accident. “Physically, I was OK, I guess, but mentally(精神上) I was troubled.” Doctors say long-term amnesia(健忘症) brought on by a less severe brain injury like Kiger’s is unusual. “It’s very rare for people to have this lasting problem with memory recovering,” said Dr Roger Hartl at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Kiger’s parents tried to help their daughter return to the life she once lived. “She didn’t know what food was,” Kiger’s mom said. “She said, ‘What is that?’ I said, ‘Lettuce.” She said, ‘Do I like it?’ I said, ‘That’s up to you to decide.’”
Kiger’s natural ability on the soccer field was the one part of her earlier life that died immediately. And soon, she’ll begin a new life at Slippery Rock University, where she plans to study physical therapy(治疗). Kiger said that while parts of her past still remain a mystery, she’s focused(集中于) on what’s to come. “It is about my future,” she said.What would be the best title for this text?
| A．Parents Worried about Child’s Injury |
| B．Soccer Injury Wipeed Out Teen’s Memory |
| C．Teen Suffered from Bad Memory |
| D．Doctors Helped Teen Recreate Memories |
The second paragraph is mainly written to .
| A．show Kiger was an excellent athlete |
| B．introduce Kiger’s school performance |
| C．remind students of being careful in sports |
| D．explain the cause of Kiger’s losing memory |
According to the doctors, the case of Kiger is .
| A．natural | B．frightening |
| C．surprising | D．common |
From the dialogue between Kiger and her mother, we can infer that .
| A．life was new to Kiger |
| B．her family were united |
| C．her mother was positive |
| D．Kiger liked eating lettuce |
According to the text, which of the following is TRUE of Kiger?
| A．Now she appears on the soccer field again. |
| B．She has recovered from her physical injury. |
| C．At age 16, she began showing interest in soccer. |
| D．She will explore her past memories in college. |
In most languages, a greeting is usually followed by “small talk”. Small talk means the little things we talk about at the start of a conversation. In English-speaking countries people often make small talk about the weather. “Nice day, isn’t it?” “Terrible weather, isn’t it?”. But there is something special about small talk. It must be about something which both people have the same opinion about. The purpose of small talk is to let both people agree on something. This makes meeting people easier and more comfortable. People usually agree about the weather, so it is a safe topic for small talk. But people often disagree about religion(宗教)or politics so these are not suitable topics for small talk in English. The topics for small talk also depend on where the conversation is taking place. At football matches, people make small talk about the game they are watching: “A great game, isn’t it?” At bus-stops, people may talk about the transport system(体制): “The bus service is terrible, isn’t it?”
Greetings and small talk are an important part of conversation in any language. The way people greet each other and the things they talk about, however, may be different from one language to another. This shows that there is much more to learn when we learn a language than just the vocabulary and the grammar of the language. We also have to learn the social behavior of the people who speak it.Small talk is .
| A．what people disagree about a topic |
| B．a kind of talk show using short words |
| C．a greeting when people meet each other |
| D．what we talk about to start a conversation |
Which of the following is a good topic for small talk?
| A．Politics. | B．Income. |
| C．Weather. | D．Religion. |
The passage suggests that when we learn a language, .
| A．we should understand the importance of the language |
| B．it’s necessary to learn about the culture of the country |
| C．we should learn about the transport system of the country |
| D．it’s enough to grasp the grammar and vocabulary of the language |
When we say “A great game, isn’t it?” we in fact .
| A．ask a question | B．discuss the game |
| C．greet the other person | D．begin a small talk |
It can be learned from the passage that .
| A．it’s important to find a suitable small talk subject |
| B．small talk depends on the purpose of the conversation |
| C．in English-speaking countries we should talk about the weather |
| D．agreeing with each other is the key to a successful conversation |
Bad news travels fast--when you watch the evening news or read the morning papers, it seems that things that get the most coverage are all tragedies like wars, earthquakes, floods, fires and murders.
This is the classic rule for mass media. “They want your eyeballs and don’t care how you’re feeling,” Jonah Berger, a psychologist at University of Pennsylvania told The New York Times.
But with social media getting increasingly popular, information is now being spread in different ways, and researchers are discovering new rules--good news can actually spread faster and farther than disasters and other sad stories.
Berger and his colleague Katherine Milkman looked at thousands of articles on The New York Times’ website and analyzed the “most e-mailed” list for six months.
One of his findings was that articles in the science section were much more likely to make the list. Those stories aroused feelings of awe (敬畏) and made the readers want to share this positive emotion with others.
Besides science stories, readers were also found to be likely to share articles that were exciting or funny. “The more positive an article was, the more likely it was to be shared,” Berger wrote in his new book. “For example, stories about newcomers falling in love with New York City,” he writes, “tended to be shared more than the death of a popular zookeeper.”
But does all this good news actually make the audience feel better? Not necessarily.
According to a study by researchers at Harvard University, people tend to say more positive things about themselves when they’re talking to a bigger audience, rather than just one person, which helps explain all the perfect vacations that keep showing up on microblogs. This, researchers found, makes people think that life is unfair and that they’re less happy than their friends.
But no worries. There’s a quick and easy way to relieve the depression you get from viewing other people’s seemingly perfect lives--turn on the television and watch the news. There is always someone doing worse than you are.Bad news covers most papers because.
| A．the public care for reading tragedies |
| B．the public intend to express sympathy for victims |
| C．mass media want to attract the public’s attention |
| D．mass media appeal to the public to help victims |
Which of the following might be e-mailed most according to Berger?
| A．The perfect vacation of your friend |
| B．The story of a determined inventor |
| C．The death of a popular zookeeper |
| D．The flood hitting a small town |
We can infer from the passage that .
| A．bad news always makes people sad |
| B．people prefer to share bad news with a bigger audience |
| C．people can relieve the depression by reading good news |
| D．good news sometimes has negative influence |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Good News Spreads Fast |
| B．Bad News Travels Fast |
| C．The Effect of Bad News |
| D．The Power of Good News |