The man sitting opposite Robert was the Financial Controller. Everybody called him “the FC” for short. He made all the decisions about money. Robert needed some more. That was why he had to see him. The two men did not get on very well. In fact, they had always disliked each other.
“Your request is out of the question,” the FC said. Robert had difficulty in controlling himself, but he managed somehow. He explained that he wanted the money in order to make more programmes.
“And why do you want to do that?” the FC asked sharply. Again, Robert almost lost his temper. “Because more and more people are listening to my department’s programmes. There’s great demand for them,” he answered.
The FC did not seem to believe him. But Robert had a report on the numbers of listeners to all EBC programmes. The FC became less confident. Robert threw the report down on the table and told him to read it.
The FC looked at it in silence. The figures (数字) proved that he had been wrong, but he did not want to admit it. “Well,” he finally said, “I may have made a small mistake.” Robert noticed the word “may.” He got up to leave. But he had the feeling that he would get the money after all.In the story the Financial Controller was a person who was in charge of
| A．Robert’s department’s programmes | B．EBC programmes |
| C．EBC money | D．both B and C |
“Your request is out of the question.”Here “out of the question”means
| A．without any question | B．with some question |
| C．impossible | D．possible |
Robert decided to make more programmes because
| A．he wanted to meet the needs of the listeners |
| B．“the FC” disliked him |
| C．the members of his department wanted him to do so |
| D．he wanted to show himself off |
Why were more and more people listening to Robert’s programmes?
| A．Because he always lost his temper (脾气) |
| B．Because he disliked “the FC” |
| C．Because the programmes were rich and to the taste of the listeners |
| D．We don’t know |
Who do you think won the argument(争论)in the end?
| A．The Financial Controller | B．Robert | C．Nobody | D．The listeners |
You wake up in the morning, the day is beautiful and the plans for the day are what you have been looking forward to for a long time. Then, the telephone rings, you say hello, and the drama starts. The person on the other end has a depressing (令人沮丧的) tone in his voice as he starts to tell you how terrible his morning is and that there is nothing to look forward to. Are you still in a wonderful mood? Impossible!
Communicating with negative people can wash out your happiness. It may not change what you think，but communicating long enough with them will make you feel depressed for a moment or a long time.
Life brings ups and downs，but some people are stuck in the wrong idea that life has no happiness to offer. They only feel glad when they make others feel bad. No wonder they can hardly win others’pity or respect.
When you communicate with positive people，your spirit stays happy and therefore more positive things are attracted. When the knife of a negative person is put in you，you have the heavy feeling that all in all，brings you down.
Sometimes we have no choice but to communicate with negative people. This could be a co-worker，or a relative. In this case，say what needs to be said as little as possible. Sometimes it feels good to let out your anger back to the negative person，but all this does is to lower you to that same negative level and they won’t feel ashamed of themselves about that.
Negativity often affects happiness without even being realized. The negative words of another at the start of the day can attach to you throughout the rest of your day，which makes you feel bad and steals your happiness. Life is too short to feel negative. Stay positive and avoid negativity as much as possible.
1．The purpose of the first paragraph is to_________
A. make a comparisonB. offer an suggestion
C. introduce a topic D. describe a daily scene
2．How can negative people have effect on us?
A. By influencing our emotion.
B. By telling us the nature of life.
C. By changing our way of thinking.
D. By comparing their attitude to life with ours.
3. Some negative people base their happiness on_________.
A. other people’s pity for themB. making other people unhappy
C. building up a positive attitude D. other people’s respect for them
4．According to the passage，to reduce negative people’s influence on us，we are advised________
A. to change negative people’s attitude to life
B. to show our dissatisfaction to negative people
C. to make negative people feel ashamed of themselves
D. to communicate with negative people as little as possible
Mark Twain was a great writer. He was from the USA. He was born in 1835. He was also a famous speaker. He was famous for his sense of humour. Many people liked to listen to him talk because he liked to tell some interesting stories to make people laugh all the time.
One day Mark Twain was going to a small town because of his writing. Before he was going to leave, one of his friends said to him that there were always a lot of mosquitoes in the town and told him that he’d better not go there. Mark Twain waved his hand and said, “It doesn’t matter. The mosquitoes are no relatives of mine. I don’t think they will come to visit me.”
After he arrived at the town, Mark Twain stayed in a small hotel near the station. He went into his room, but when he was just about to have a rest, quite a few mosquitoes flew about him. The waiters felt very sorry about that. “I’m very sorry, Mr Mark Twain. There are too many mosquitoes in our town.” One of them said to him.
Mark Twain, however, made a joke, saying to the waiter, “The mosquitoes are very clever. They know my room number. They didn’t come into the wrong room.” What he said made all the people present laugh heartily.
But that night Mark Twain slept well. Do you know why? That was because all the waiters in the hotel were driving the mosquitoes away for him during the whole night.
1. That day Mark Twain went to the town _____.
A. to see one of his friends
B. because he wanted to do something there for his writing
C. because he was told there were a lot of mosquitoes there
D. to see one of his relatives
2. The waiters felt sorry because _____.
A. they did something wrong to Mark Twain
B. their hotel was too small
C. the room was not very clean
D. there were quite a few mosquitoes in Mark Twain’s room
3. All the people present laughed heartily because _____.
A. the mosquitoes were very clever and they didn’t come into the wrong room
B. the mosquitoes knew Mark Twain’s room number
C. Mark Twain gave the waiters some nice presents
D. Mark Twain made a joke
4. From the story we know _____.
A. no mosquitoes troubled Mark Twain in the night
B. the owner of the hotel told the waiters to look after Mark Twain well at night
C. Mark Twain didn’t have a good rest that night
D. there were not mosquitoes in the hotel any longer
I was reading these interesting stories behind a group of great logos in the world. Personally Nike is my favorite one it’s so simple. And I liked the stories behind them，which made me forget all other things. McDonald’s，Apple and Mercedes Benz own great logos as well，and they are among my very favorites.
Nike
In the Greek myth，Nike is the goddess of victory and the source of inspiration for soldiers. This logo represents the wing in the famous statue of the Greek goddess. Nike’s logo was designed by Carolyn Davidson in 1971 for＄35，and was registered as a trademark in 1995.
McDonald’S
The logo was designed in 1962 by Jim Schindler like the arch-shaped signs on the side of the company’s then a walk-up hamburger stand. Later on，the two golden arches were combined together to form the M. The McDonald’s name was added to the logo in 1968.
Apple
There are different stories behind Apple’s logo. The first logo was a reference to the religious story of Adam and Eve，in which the apple represented the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. One year later，the second logo was designed in 1977 by Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne，and it described Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. This logo didn’t stay long. One year later it was replaced almost immediately by Rob Janoff’s“rainbow apple”，a rain bow-colored silhouette（轮廓）of an apple with a bite taken out of it. And then the rainbow-colored apple was replaced by the one-colored logo in 1998．It has not been changed so far.
Mercedes Benz
The Mercedes Benz logo，which was originally created by Gottlieb Daimlar in 1909，consists of a simple description of a three-pointed star that represents its rule of the land，the sea and the air. The company was founded by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. Mercedes is the name of Maybach’s elder daughter，while Benz came as a result of a combination with Benz&Cie. and DMG.
1. What does the author think of the stories of the great logos？
A. They are boring. B. They are out of date.
C. They are attractive. D. They are practical.
2．What does Nike’s logo stand for?
A. The goddess of victory. B. The source of inspiration for soldiers.
C. The statue of the Greek goddess. D. The wing of the Greek goddess.
3．We can learn that Apple’s present logo is ______.
A. the religious story of Adam and Eve B. a bitten apple with only one color
C. Newton’s sitting under an apple tree D. the rainbow-colored bitten apple
4．Which of the following time orders describes the births of the great logos？
A. Mercedes Benz—McDonald’s—Nike—Apple
B. Nike一McDonald’s—Apple—Mercedes Benz
C. McDonald’s—Apple—Nike—Mercedes Benz
D. Nike—Mercedes Benz—McDonald’s—Apple
There was a story many years ago of a school teacher-Mrs. Thompson. She told the children on the first day that she loved them all the same. But that was a lie. There in the front row was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard. He didn’t play well with the other children and he always needed a bath. She did not like him.
Then Mrs.Thompson got to know that Teddy was actually a very good boy before the death of his mother. Mrs.Thompson got to know that Teddy was actually a very good boy before the death of his mother. Mrs.Thompson was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when, like all her other students， Teddy brought her a Christmas present too. It was his mother’s perfume(香水).
Teddy said, “Mrs. Thompson, today you smell just like my Mom used to .”After the children left she cried for at least an hour. On that very day, she stopped teaching reading, writing and math. Instead, she began to teach children.
Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. The boy’s mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he improved. By the end of the sixth grade, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class.
Six years went by before she got a note from Teddy. He wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life. He went to college. Mrs. Thompson got two more letters from him with the last one signed， Theodore F. Stoddard, M.D.(医学博士).
The story doesn’t end there. On his wedding day, Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson’s ear, “Thank you, Mrs. Thompson, for believing in me. You made me feel important and showed me that I could make a difference.”
Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back, “Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn’t know how to teach until I met you.”
1. What did Mrs. Thompson do on the first day of school?
A.She made Teddy feel ashamed.
B.She asked the children to play with Teddy.
C.She changed Teddy’s seat to the front row.
D.She told the class something untrue about herself.
2. What did Mrs. Thompson find out about Teddy ?
A.He often told lies. B.He was good at math.
C.He needed motherly care. D. He enjoyed playing with others.
3. In what way did Mrs. Thompson change ?
A.She taught fewer school subjects.
B.She became stricter with her students.
C.She no longer liked her job as a teacher.
D.She cared more about educating students.
4 Why did Teddy thank Mrs. Thompson at his wedding?
A.She had kept in touch with him. B.She had given him encouragement.
C.She had sent him Christmas presents. D.She had taught him how to judge people.
第二部分：阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。
A
Green is an important color in nature. It is the color of grass and the leaves on trees. It is also the color of most growing plants.
Sometimes, the word green means young, fresh and growing. Sometimes, it describes something that is not yet ripe or finished. For example, a greenhorn is someone who has no experience, who is new to a situation. In the fifteenth century, a greenhorn was a young cow or ox whose horns(角) had not yet developed. A century or so later, a greenhorn was a soldier who had not yet had any experience in battle. By the eighteenth century, a greenhorn had the meaning it has today—a person who is new in a job.
Someone who has the ability to grow plants well is said to have a green thumb. The expression comes from the early nineteen hundreds. A person with a green thumb seems to have a magic touch that makes plants grow quickly and well. You might say that the woman next door has a green thumb if her garden continues to grow long after your plants have died.
The Green Revolution is the name given some years ago to the development of new kinds of rice and other grains. The new plants produced much larger crops. The Green Revolution was the result of hard work by agricultural scientists who had green thumbs.
Green is also the color used to describe the powerful feeling----jealousy(嫉妒). The green-eyed monster is not a frightening creature from outer space. It is an expression used about four hundred years ago by British writer William Shakespeare in his play “Othello”. It describes the unpleasant feeling a person has when someone has something he wants. A young man may suffer from the green-eyed monster if his girlfriend begins going out with someone else. Or, that green-eyed monster may affect your friend if you get a pay rise and she does not
1. Greenhorn now refers to ____.
A. a person who is new in a job B. a new solider
C. a young horse D. None of above
2. A person who has a green thumb is a person ____.
A. who is good at growing plants
B. whose thumbs are in green color
C. whose garden is greener than others’
D. who is younger than his neighbors
3. The author is actually talking about ___
A. colors B. language C. politics D. agriculture
4. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
A. In about the 16th century, a greenhorn meant an experienced soldier.
B. The Green Revolution may have some connection with green thumbs.
C. The green-eyed monster was probably created by William Shakespeare.
D. The green-eyed monster can be used to describe a person who is jealous.