Dear Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul,
Most people don’t really know what pressures a typical teenager has to go through. Sure, our parents and grandparents were once teens, but things are so different now. It has never been to tougher (严格)to a teenager.
It had never been more important to be in the “right group” or to have the “right brand” of shoes. And those are the easy things to deal with. We also face problems with family, friends, relationships and school pressures.
When it gets to be too much, I turn to my friends. One friend I could not live without is Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. Your books have been so inspiring to me and have helped me to deal with and understand the problems I go through.
For example, I went through a confusing time with my friends when we got to junior high. I had known these friends since kindergarten, and when we began junior high it seemed like some of them began to change. We started hanging out with different groups, and we slowly grew so far apart that it seemed as if we had never been friends. I felt confused and hurt.
Sometime during this period I read the story Friends Forever in Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul Ⅱ.I felt so much better after reading it. It was like a weight had been lifted from me when I realized that many friendships went through changes and that we weren’t the only friends to experience them.
People change, but that doesn’t mean we have to lose the friendships we once shared. My friends and I still spend time together when we can and care about each other a lot. That things are different doesn’t mean I have to forget about all the good times we had. I will always keep the memories in a safe place in my heart.
Sincerely,
PeterAccording to the author, parents and grandparents
| A．didn’t have to overcome difficulties when in their teens. |
| B．don’t fully understand the pressures of being a teenager now |
| C．can easily deal with things such as choosing friends and shoes. |
| D．don’t need to give help to teenagers with pressures and problems |
Why did the author feel confused and hurt when he got to junior high？
| A．Because he was afraid that he had lost his friends. |
| B．Because he and his friends weren’t in the same school. |
| C．Because he was too busy to be with his friends. |
| D．Because his friends refused to hang out with him. |
What does the underlined word “them” in Para．5 refer to？
| A．Friendships． | B．Changes． | C．Friends． | D．Pressures |
In the letter the author mainly tells us that
| A．people change but friendships always last. |
| B．changes sometimes cause hurt and confusion |
| C．people will go through many changes in life |
| D．friendships should be kept with skills |
Having experienced a shocking electrical accident, which caused him to become both blind and deaf, James Franco’s world became completely dark and quiet for almost ten years. The loss of sight and hearing threw him into such sorrow that he tried a few times to put an end to his life. His family, especially his wife, did their best to tend and comfort him and finally he regained the will to live.
One hot summer afternoon, he was taking a walk with a stick near his house when a thunderstorms started all at once. He stood under a large tree to avoid getting wet, but he was struck by the lightning. Witnesses thought he was dead but he woke up 20 minutes later, lying face down in muddy water. He was trembling badly, but when he opened his eyes, he could hardly believe what he saw: a tree and muddy road. When Mrs. Franco came running up to him, shouting to their neighbors to call for help, he could see her and hear her voice for the first time in nearly ten years.
The news of James regaining his sight and hearing quickly spread and many doctors came to examine him. Most of them said that he regained his sig
ht and hearing from the shock he got from the lightning. However, none of them could give a compellent answer as to why this should happen. The only reasonable explanation given by one doctor was that, since James lost his sight and hearing as a result of a sudden shock, perh
aps, the only way for him to regain them was another sudden shock. The reason why James attempted to kill himself was that _________.
| A．a terrible electrical accident happened to him |
| B．nobody in the whole world cared about him |
| C．he was struck by the lightning once more |
| D．he had to live in a dark and silent world |
What was James doing when he was struck by the lightning?
| A．Taking a walk with a stick |
| B．Putting an end to his life |
| C．Sheltering from the rain under a tree |
| D．Lying on the ground |
What does the underlined word “compellent” in paragraph 3 mean?
| A．Unexplained. | B．Convincing. |
| C．Wrong | D．True |
Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
| A．A Terrible Electrical Accident |
| B．What a Sudden Shock |
| C．An Unforgettable Experience |
| D．James Franco and His wife |
When I had breast cancer I had to have chemotherapy (化疗). The hardest part of that entire experience was losing my hair. It was like having a tattoo(纹身) across my forehead that said “chemotherapy patient.” I am a very active and athletic person, so to have people looking at me with pity as if I was an invalid was very hard to take. Of course they never said anything, but if I got in an elevator. Everyone looked away because they didn’t know what to say. But I didn’t blame them.
The best compliment I ever received was when I was at work one day, wearing my scarf over my bald head, and a UPS guy came in to deliver a package. He looked me right in the eye and said, “So, are you on chemotherapy?” I said, “Yes, thank you for asking. You are the first person to actually acknowledge that fact.” It felt so good to be talked to like a “real” person, without any pity, just the facts. I asked him what made him decide to say something, and he told me that a woman he worked with had just gone through the same thing several months before.
I had some joke business cards that said my job title was “Supreme Commander of the Universe”, so whenever this same UPS guy came to deliver a package, he would also say, “Hey, Supreme Commander, how is it going?” Then my company moved to a new location, and since that time I hadn’t seen the UPS guy-Bryan- in probably two years.
I went to answer my door at home one day, and there was Bryan with a package. Small world. “Hey, Supreme Commander, long time no see!” he said. He sees so many people all day long, every day, delivering packages but he remembered me after two years. What a great compliment! Of course, I remembered him, too, because he was the only person who could see me during that time when I was “the invisible woman.”Why did the author say “It felt so good to be talked to like “real” person”?
| A．Because her friends didn’t realize the fact that she got sick before. |
| B．Because her friends didn’t want to talk with her since she had cancer. |
| C．Because her friends treated her as a patient. |
| D．Because her friends were afraid of infection. |
What can be inferred from the third paragraph?
| A．It was the author’s cancer that helped her to be remembered by a stranger. |
| B．The UPS guy had become a good friend of the author’s. |
| C．The guy was very polite. |
| D．The author didn’t want to be remembered for her cancer. |
What was the author’s attitude towards her cancer?
| A．Surprised. | B．Regretful. |
| C．Positive. | D．Depressed. |
What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．The author experienced something miserable after she had cancer. |
| B．The author got a great compliment that a stranger remembered for her cancer. |
C．the author became strong and  positive after she was ill. |
| D．The author recognized that she was not a normal person any longer. |
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| Ticket Type |
Price |
 General Admission Ticket (aged 12—64) |
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HK $ 355 |
| Senior Ticket (aged 65or above) |
100 |
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Buy at Hong Kong Disneyland Main Entrance
Guests can purchase tickets on the day of their visit at the Main Entrance Ticket Booths or Guest Relations Windows. Open daily from 30 minutes before Park opening until Park closes. In which place can you get a free gift for buying two tickets?
| A．Hong Kong Disneyland Ticket Express. |
| B．Asia World-Expo Box Office. |
| C．Hong Kong Disneyland main Entrance. |
| D．Disney’s Hollywood Hotel. |
For a young couple with a 2-year-old kid spending a day in the park, they have to pay at least .
| A．HK $ 998 | B．HK $ 854 |
| C．HK $ 499 | D．HK $ 1353 |
To buy tickets at Hong Kong Disneyland Ticket Express on Sundays, you have to get there before.
| A．10:30 pm | B．6:00 pm |
| C．8:00 pm | D．5:00 pm |
ELMONT, N. Y. (AP)---Elmont High School senior Harold Ekeh had a plan—he would apply to 13 colleges , including all eight Ivy League schools, figuring it would help his chances of getting into at least one great school.
It worked, And then some, The teenager from Long Island was accepted at all 13 schools, and now faces his next big test: deciding where to go.
“I was stunned, I was really shocked, ”Ekeh told The Associated Press during an interview Tuesday at his home near the Belmont Park racetrack, his four younger brothers running around.
He found out last week he had been accepted to Princeton University. That made him eight for eight in the Ivy League—he had already been accepted to Yale University , Brown University, Columbia University , Cornell University , Dartmouth College, Harvard University and University of Pennsylvania. His other acceptances came from Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Stony Brook University and Vanderbilt University.
“We are so proud of him, ” said his mother , Roseline Ekeh.“Hard work, dedication, prayer brought him to where he is today. ”
Born in Nigeria, Harold was eight years old when his parents brought the family to the United States.
“It was kind of difficult adjusting to the new environment and the new culture, ” he said. But he saw his parents working hard, “and I took their example and decides to apply myself”
He referenced that effort in his college essay, writing, “Like a tree, uprooted and replanted, I could have withered in a new country surrounded by people and languages I did not understand. Yet, I witnessed my parents persevere despite the potential to give in. I faced my challenges with newfound zeal; I risked insults, spending my break talking to unfamiliar faces, ignoring their sarcastic remarks. ”
Harold “is tremendously focused in everything he does.” said John Capozzi, the school’s principal, “He’s a great role model. All the students and faculty are so proud of him. ”
Harold is the second Long Island student in as many years to get into all eight Ivies. Last year, William Floyd High School’s Kwasi Enim chose to go to Yale.
Harold, who has a 100. 51 grade-point average and wants to be a neurosurgeon, said he was leaning toward Yale, and had heard from Enin, offering congratulations. Like Enin, he’s likely to announce his college choice at a press conference later this month. The deadline to decide is May 1.Which is closest in meaning to the underlined phrase“apply myself”?
| A．Word hard. | B．Write to the college. |
| C．Make a formal request. | D．Make an adjustment. |
Which of the following is true about Harold?
| A．He was born into a Nigerian family in the US. |
| B．He planted a tree once he moved to the US, |
| C．He was always welcome and popular in his schools. |
| D．He paid a lot to make his way to offeres from all Ivies. |
Harold is probably going to
| A．Harvard | B．Princeton | C．Yale | D．MIT |
What can we infer from this passage?
| A．Too many cooks spoil the soup. |
| B．He who laughs last laughs best. |
| C．One can kill two birds with one stone. |
| D．Chance favors only the prepared mind. |
Knots are the kind of stuff that even myths are made of.In the Greek legend of the Gordian knot, for example, Alexander the Great used his sword to slice through a knot that had failed all previous attempts to unite it. Knots, enjoy a long history of tales and fanciful names such as “Englishman’s tie, ” “and “cat’s paw. ” Knots became the subject of serious scientific investigation when in the 1860s the English physicist William Thomson (known today as Lord Kelvin) proposed that atoms were in fact knotted tubes of ether（醚）. In order to be able to develop the equivalent of a periodic table of the elements, Thomson had to be able to classify knots — find out which different knots were possible. This sparked a great interest in the mathematical theory of knots.
A mathematical knot looks very much like a familiar knot in a string, only with the string’s ends joined. In Thomson’s theory, knots could, in principle at least, model atoms of increasing complexity, such as the hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen atoms, respectively. For knots to be truly useful in a mathematical theory, however, mathematicians searched for some precise way of proving that what appeared to be different knots were really different — the couldn’t be transformed one into the other by some simple manipulation（操作）. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Scottish mathematician Peter Guthrie Tait and the University of Nebraska professor Charles Newton Little published complete tables of knots with up to ten crossings. Unfortunately, by the time that this heroic effort was completed, Kelvin’s theory had already been totally discarded as a model for atomic structure. Nevertheless, even without any other application in sight, the mathematical interest in knot theory continued at that point for its own sake. In fact, mathematical became even more fascinated by knots. The only difference was that, as the British mathematician Sir Michael Atiyah has put it, “the study of knots became a special branch of pure mathematics. ”
Two major breakthroughs in knot theory occurred in 1928 and in 1984. In 1928, the American mathematician James Waddell Alexander discovered an algebraic expression that uses the arrangement of crossings to label the knot. For example, t2-t+1 or t2-3t+1, or else. Decades of work in the theory of knots finally produced the second breakthrough in 1984. The New Zealander-American mathematician Vaughan Jones noticed an unexpected relation between knots and another abstract branch of mathematics, which led to the discovery of a more sensitive invariant known as the Jones polynomial.What is surprising about knots?
| A．They originated from ancient Greek legend. |
| B．The study of knots is a branch of mathematics. |
| C．Knots led to the discovery of atom structure. |
| D．Alexander the Great made knots well known. |
What does the underlined word “that” in Paragraph 3 refer to?
| A．No other application found except tables of knots. |
| B．The study of knots meeting a seemingly dead end. |
| C．Few scientist showing interest in knots. |
| D．The publication of complete tables of knots. |
According to the passage, ______ shows the most updated study about knots.
| A．t2-t+1 | B．t2-3t+1 |
| C．Alexander polynomial | D．Jones polynomial |
Which one would be the best title for this passage?
| A．Mathematicians VS Physicians |
| B．To be or Knot to be |
| C．Knot or Atom |
| D．Knot VS Mathematics |