Every spring scores of people flock to the Buzzard Festival at Hinckley, Ohio. They come to watch for buzzards. Most would be glad just to take a look at a buzzard. If they do see one of these" flying garbage cans", it will probably be circling high in the sky. From there it can watch the ground for signs of the waste and the dead animals on which it feeds.
The buzzard is the ugliest bird in the United States. In fact, it may well be the ugliest bird in the world. It has a small, bare, pink head. Its thick body is covered with dark, rough feathers.
In spite of its looks, the buzzard is important to the people of Hinckley. It is their first sign of spring. After a winter in the south, buzzards return to their homes in the north. In the Hinckley area, they always return on March 15. No one knows why. But they have come back to Hinckley Ridge on that day, sure as clocks work, for at least forty years.
The excitement starts in February. By the middle of March it has reached a high peak. Bets are placed. Prizes go to the person who sees the first buzzard. Radio stations and newspapers tell of the coming festival. And on the weekend after March 15 the people of Hinckley hold their Buzzard Festival.
The people come and look around. They chat. They eat their fill of pancakes and sausages. Then they drive past Buzzard's Roost on Hinckley Ridge.
A lot of them stop near the road at the stand set up to give information to visitors. There they can hear, from a recording, the main facts about the buzzard. They can see a stuffed buzzard. They can look at some pictures taken of buzzards in other years. With good luck and a strong pair of field glasses, they may sight one or two live buzzards high in the sky.
Buzzards may be ugly. They may be "flying garbage cans". But in Hinckley they are just as welcome as the swallows in Capistrano, California. It would be a sad spring indeed if the buzzards ever failed to come back to Hinckley Ridge. A good title for this story would be __________.
| A．The Hinckley Buzzard Festival |
| B．Buzzard, the Ugliest Bird |
| C．Why the Buzzard Has a Pink Head |
| D．The Return of“The Garbage Can" |
The buzzard is called the "flying garbage can" because it __________.
| A．is ugly | B．eats waste and dead animals |
| C．looks like a garbage can | D．collect rubbish on the ground |
The surprising thing about Hinckley's buzzards is that＿.
| A．they spend the winter in the south |
| B．they come very close to the town |
| C．they return on the same day each year |
| D．both buzzards and swallows return to Capistrano on March 15 |
At the information stand, visitors to Hinckley's Buzzard Festival can _________.
| A．learn some facts about the buzzard |
| B．easily see a live buzzard |
| C．take some pictures with the background of live buzzards |
| D．feed their fill of pancakes and sausages to buzzards |
October 31, 2009, California
Tsien Hsue-shen, PhD'39, one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, died on October 31, He was 98.
Tsien, born in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, graduated from the National Qinghua University in 1934 and in August of 1935 he left China to study at the Massachusetts Institute Technology. In 1936 he went to the California Institute of Technology to commence graduate studies .Tsien obtained his doctor degree in 1939 and would remain at Caltech for 20 years, becoming the Goddard Professor and establishing a reputation as one of the leading rocket scientists in the United States.
In 1943, Tsien and two others in the Caltech rocketry group drafted the first document to use the name Jet Propulsion Laboratory. During the Second World War, he was amongst the other scientists participated the "Manhattan Project" .After World War II he served as a consultant to the United States Army Air Force. During this time, Conlonel Tsien worked on designing an intercontinental space plane. His work would inspire the X--20Dyna-Soar which would later be the inspiration for the Space Shuttle. In1945 Tsien Hsue--shen married Jiang Ying, the daughter of Jiang Baili--one of the Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai--shen's leading military strategists. But in 1950, the Chinese-born scientist was accused of harboring Communist sympathies and stripped of his security clearance.
In September 1955 he was permitted to leave for China, where Tsien resumed his research, founded the Institute of Mechanics, and went on to become the father of China's missile program, a trusted member of the government and Party's inner circle, and the nation's most honored scientist, Tsien retired in 1991 and has maintained a low public profile in Beijing, China. The PRC government launched its manned space program in 1992 and used Tsien's research as the basis for the Long March rocket which successfully launched the Shenzhou V mission in October of 2003.The elderly Tsien was able to watch China's first manned space mission on television from his hospital bed.
In his late years, since the 1980s, Tsien devoted himself to spirituality research, and advocated scientific investigation of traditional Chinese medicine, Qigong and "special human body functions".The underlined word "commence" in this passage probably means ____
| A．make up | B．get | C．begin | D．promise |
Tsien Hsue--shen got married at the age of ______
| A．45 | B．28 | C．24 | D．34 |
What is the right order of the events related to Tsien Hsue--shen ?
a. his later life
b. return to China
c. career in the U.S.A
d. his early life and education
| A．a-b-c-d | B．d-c-b-a | C．d-b-c-a | D．c-b-d-a |
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A．Tsien Hsue--shen got a doctor's degree in 1939. |
| B．Tsien Hsue--shen married Jiang Ying, the daughter of Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shen. |
| C．Tsien Hsue-shen has made a contribution to the Space Shuttle. |
| D．Tsien Hsue-shen was interested in traditional Chinese medicine, qigong and "special human body functions" in his later life. |
Egypt: Bridging the Gap between School English and Real English
Teaching English in Egypt in general and in my town Damietta in particular, is mainly directed towards helping students to pass their final exams. Unfortunately, most teachers do not adopt a long -term approach that guarantees that their students will be able to use English outside the classroom. So students only concentrate on one skill which is writing. Thus their listening and speaking skills are disabled. What is important to them is to pass the exam which is primarily based on writing .Teachers are not only concentrated with providing their students with questions that are similar to those of the final exam, particularly General Secondary Education Certificate (GSEC) Examination, so students spend most of their time answering typical exam questions.
Most students' scores are high; a lot of students get full marks. However, few students are able to communicate in English because their role plays. As a result, a lot of students complain that they are unable to understand and talk fluently with native speakers of English.
To enable students to communicate freely and spontaneously(自然地) in English, I bring features of real communication into language practice, I always ask students about their own experiences, and suggest groups of students practice what they have learned outside the classroom. This helps lower-achieving students absorb language. Furthermore, role play is a very effective way to improve speaking skills particularly if it is connected to the experience of the students.Who probably write this passage?
| A．a teacher | B．a governor | C．a student | D．a reporter |
In Egypt, the students only concentrate on ------
| A．listening skill | B．speaking skill | C．reading skill | D．writing skill |
The teachers question their students based on -------
| A．what they learn in the class |
| B．What their parents expect |
| C．The questions that are similar to those of GSEC |
| D．The ability that will be used outside the classroom |
Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
| A．Most of the students can't get high marks but can communicate with the native speakers of English. |
| B． Communicating skill is more important than writing skill. |
| C．Role play connected to the speaker's experience is more effective in improving his skill. |
| D．The lower--achieving students can do better in speaking skill than the upper achieving students. |
Who will responsible for the gap between school English and real English?
| A．Their parents | B．The students | C．The school | D．The education sys tem |
One day, while a woodcutter was cutting a branch of a tree above a river. When he began crying, God appeared and asked him, "Why are you crying?"
The woodcutter told him that he had dropped his axe into water. God went down into the water and reappeared with a golden axe.
"Is this your axe?" God asked.
The woodcutter said "No."
God again went down and came up with a silver axe." Is this your axe?" God asked.
The woodcutter said "No."
God again went down and came up with a iron axe." Is this your axe?" God asked.
The woodcutter said "Yes."
God was pleased with the man's honesty and gave him all the three axes.
The woodcutter went home happily. One day while he was walking with his wife along the river, his wife fell into the river. W hen he began crying, God appeared and asked him, "Why are you crying?"
"My wife has fallen into water."
God went down into the water and came up with Jennifer Lopez.
"Is this your wife?" God asked him.
"Yes." he said.
God was furious(狂怒的),"YOU CHEAT !Now I am going to curse you."
The woodcutter quickly said, “Forgive me my lord. It is a misunderstanding. IF I say 'No' to Jennifer Lopez, you will come up with Catherine Zeta Jones, If I also say 'No' to her, you will finally come up
With my wife and I will say, 'Yes.' Then you will give all the three to me .I am a poor man .I will not be able to look after all the three. So that's why I've to say 'Yes' "Which of the following best describes the author's tone in telling the story?
| A．Optimistic | B．Humoristic | C．Objective | D．Critical |
The impression that the woodcutter makes on you is that he is -----
| A．foolish but honest | B．foolish and honest |
| C．smart but honest | D．smart and honest |
What can you infer about Jennifer Lopez and Catherine Zeta Jones?
| A．They are the secret lovers of the woodcutter |
| B．They look much like the woodcutter's wife. |
| C．They are both rich women with a lot of gold and silver. |
| D．They are both popular with women, much worthy than his wife |
阅读下面短文并回答问题，然后将答案写到答题卡相应的位置上（请注意问题后的词数要求）。
［1］Our vocation holiday is coming. What’s your plan? Staying at home or going for an outing. My plan is going out of town with my family, for we need recreation! Recreation is the spending of time in pleasurable activities. Engaging ourselves in activities that invite happiness and peace of mind is nothing but recreation. In the fast life of today, recreation is an opportunity to take a break, the much – needed break form work.
2Recreation can berest, entertainment or adventure. There are two types of recreation. Active recreation is about engaging in adventure sports or outdoor games while passive recreation involves activities such as taking a walk on the riverside, walking on the beach, wandering in parks or taking nature walks. Both kinds of recreation have their own advantages.
With the increasing pace of life, recreation is getting more and more important. Participate in some regular physical activity, play a sport or exercise. These recreational activities have great mental effects on people. Students have made the fact evident that participation in adventure activities has a positive affect on life. Adventure motivates you, strengthens your confidence and develops self-awareness, such as hiking, cycling, fishing and outdoor games. These activities make you feel fresh and relaxed. Sports make you feel challenged, encourage you to take risks, exhibit your skills, thus building self-confidence.
Activities of recreation result in the improvement for your interpersonal skills. Recreation gives you an opportunity to meet new people and develop new friendships, It is largely believed that participating in recreational activities helps strengthen family relationships.
Recreational activities are popular across the globe. Some enjoy touring to beautiful places around the world while others take interest in pursuing their hobbies as a means of recreation. Be it of any sort, recreation needs to be made an important part of the fast life the present times!How many kinds of recreation are there in the text? What are they?(no more than 6 words)
What’s the main idea of Paragraph 3? (no more than 10 words)
Fill in the blank in Paragraph 2 with proper words.
What effects do activities of recreation have?(no more than 9 words)
Why do you become confident in yourself while having sports?(no more than 20 words)
BELJLNG-Eating at a Beijing restaurant is usually an adventure for foreigners, and particularly when they get the chance to order “chicken without sex life” or “red burned lion head”.
Sometimes excited but mostly confused, embarrassed or even terrified, many foreigners have long complained about mistranslations of Chinese dishes. And their complaints are often valid, but such an experience at Beijing’s restaurants will apparently soon be history.
Foreign visitors will no longer, hopefully, be confused by oddly worded restaurant menus in the capital if the government’s plan to correctly translate 3,000 Chinese dishes is a success and the translations are generally adopted.
The municipal（市政）office of foreign affairs has published a book to recommend English translations of Chinese dishes, which aims to help restaurants avoid bizarre translations. It provides the names of main dishes of famous Chinese cuisines in plain English, “an official with the city’s Foreign Affairs office said .” Restaurants are encouraged to use the proposed translations, but it will not be compulsory .“ It’s the city’s latest effort to bridge the culture gap for foreign travelers in China.
Coming up with precise translations is a daunting task, as some Chinese culinary techniques are untranslatable and many Chinese dishes have no English-language equivalent.The translators, after conducting a study of Chinese restaurants in English-speaking countries, divided the dish names into four categories: ingredients, cooking method, taste and name of a person or a place. For some traditional dishes, pinyin, the Chinese phonetic system, is used, such as mapo tofu(previously often literally translated as “beancurd made by woman with freckles”), baozi(steamed stuffed bun ) and jiaozi (dumplings) to “reflect the Chinese cuisine culture,” according to the book.
“The book is a blessing to tourist guides like me. Having it, I don’t have to rack my brains trying to explain Chinese dishes to foreign travellers,” said Zheng Xiaodong, a 31- year – old employe with a Beijing- based travel agency.
“I will buy the book as I major in English literature and I’d like to introduce Chinese cuisine culture to more foreign friends,” said Han Yang, a postgraduate student at the University of International Business and Economics.
It is not clear if the book will be introduced to other parts of China. But on Tuesday, this was the most discussed topic on weibo. com, China’s most popular microblogging site.What’s the best title of the passage?
| A．An adventure for foreigners who eat in Beijing. |
| B．Confusing mistranslations of Chinese dishes |
| C．Chinese dishes to have “official” English names |
| D．The effort to bridge the culture gap |
“chicken without sex life” or “red burned lion head” are mentioned in the beginning of the passage to show.
| A．some Chinese dishes are not well received |
| B．some Chinese dishes are hard to translate |
| C．some Chinese dishes are mistranslated |
| D．some Chinese dishes are not acceptable |
What measure has the municipal office taken?
| A．Recommending a book on Chinese dishes |
| B．Advocating using precise translation for Chinese dishes |
| C．Publishing a book on China’s dietary habits |
| D．Providing the names of main Chinese dishes |
What’s the meaning of daunting in paragraph 5?
| A．confusing | B．disappointing | C．discouraging | D．worthwhile |
What’s the attitude of most people to the book according to the passage?
| A．not clear | B．excited | C．favorable | D．divided |