When asked to point out one or two things that are most important to themselves, many put friends ahead of homes, jobs, cloth and cars.
A true friendship carries-a-long history of experience that determines who we are and keeps us connected. It is a treasure we should protect. Unfortunately, the better friends you are, the more probably you’ll have disagreements. And the result can be what you don’t want an end to the relationship.
The good news is that most troubled friendships can be mended First, don’t let your pride get in your way. Most of us can forgive each other when differences are brought out in the open . second, apologize when you’re wrong – even if you’ve been wronged. Over the course of a friendship, even the best people make mistakes. Sometimes, it may be best if the wronged person takes the lead and apologizes. When you apologize, give your friend a chance to admit that he has been wrong. Third, see things from your friend’s point of view. And finally, accept that friendships change as our needs and lifestyle change. Making friends can sometimes seem easy. The hard part is keeping the connections strong during the natural ups and downs that have an effect on all relationships . My suggestion: Consider friendship an honor and a gift , and worth the effort to treasure and nurture .What would be the best title for the text?
| A．Easy Ways to Make Friends |
| B．Ups and Downs in Friendship |
| C．How to Mend a Troubled Friendship |
| D．How to Take the Lead in Making Friends |
The “wronged person” underlined in the text refers to a person .
| A．who has been mistaken for another |
| B．who has been blamed unfairly |
| C．who has treated friends badly |
| D．who has admitted his mistakes |
According to the text a friendship can last long only if ．
| A．we have much in common |
| B．we know our friends’ mistakes |
| C．we treat our disagreements wisely |
| D．we have know one another for long |
What should we do if we follow the author’s second suggestion?
| A．Stick to our own prints of view |
| B．Avoid making mistakes |
| C．Make an apology first |
| D．Change our lifestyles |
Parents often believe that they have a good relationship with their teenagers. But last summer, Joanna and Henry noticed a change in their older son, suddenly he seemed to be talking far more to his friends than to his parents. “The door to his room is always shut,” Joanna noted.
Tina and Mark noticed similar changes in their 14-year-old daughter. “She used to cuddle up(蜷伏) with me on the soft and talk,” said Mark.“Now we joke that she does this only when she wants something. Sometimes she wants to be treated like a young lady. The problem is figuring out which time is which.”
Before age 11, children like to tell their parents what's on their minds.“In fact, parents are first on the list,” said Michael Riera, author of Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers.“This completely changes during the teen years.” Riera explained.“They talk to their friends first, then maybe their teachers, and their parents last.”
Parents who know what's going on in their teenagers' lives are in the best position to help them. To break down the wall of silence, parents should create chances to understand what their children want to say, and try to find ways to talk and write to them. And they must give their children a mental break, for children also need freedom, though young.Another thing parents should remember is that to be friend, not a manager, with their children is a better way to know them.“The door to his room is always shut” suggests that the son_______.
| A．is always busy with his studies |
| B．doesn't want to be disturbed |
| C．keeps himself away from his parents |
| D．begins to dislike his parents |
What troubles Tina and Mark most is that _______.
| A．their daughter isn't as lovely as before |
| B．they can't read their daughter's mind exactly |
| C．they don't know what to say to their daughter |
| D．their daughter talks with them only when she needs help |
Which of the following best explains “the wall of silence” in the last paragraph?
| A．Teenagers talk a lot with their friends. |
| B．Teenagers do not want to understand their parents. |
| C．Teenagers do not talk much with their parents. |
| D．Teenagers talk little about their own lives. |
What can be learned from the passage?
| A．Parents are unhappy with their growing children. |
| B．Parents have suitable ways to talk with their teenagers. |
| C．Parents should be patient with their silent teenagers. |
| D．Parents should try to understand their teenagers. |
Common indoor plants may prove to be a valuable weapon in the fight against rising levels of indoor air pollution. Those plants in your office or home are not only pretty, but NASA scientists are finding them to be surprisingly useful in absorbing possible harmful gases and cleaning the air inside modern buildings.
NASA have announced the finds of a 2-year study that suggested the common indoor plants may provide a natural way of helping fight against “Sick Building Syndrome(综合症)”.
Research into the use of biological processes as a means of solving environmental problems, both on Earth and in space habitats, has been carried out for many years by Dr. Bill Wloverton, a senior research scientist at NASA.
Based on preliminary evaluations(初步评估) of the use of common indoor plants for indoor air purification(净化),NASA funded a study using about a dozen popular varieties of attractive plants to determine their effectiveness in removing several key pollutants linked with indoor air pollution. NASA research on indoor has found that living plants are so efficient at absorbing pollutants in the air that some will be launched into space as part of the biological life support system aboard future orbiting space stations.
While more research is needed, Wolverton says the study has shown that common indoor plants can remove certain pollutants from the indoor environment. “We feel that future results will provide an even stronger argument that common indoor plants can be a very effective part of a system used to provide pollution free homes and work places,” he concludes.
“Combining nature with technology can increase the effectiveness of plants in removing air pollutants,” he said.
NASA research has always shown that living, green and flowering plants can remove several poisonous chemicals from the air inside buildings. You can use plant in your home or office to improve the quality of the air to make it a more pleasant place to live and work—where people feel better, perform better, and enjoy life more.The main idea of the passage is _______.
| A．plants are very useful to human beings |
| B．indoor plants can help remove indoor air pollution |
| C．indoor plants should be raised in both homes and offices |
| D．NASA have studied indoor plants for many years |
Why do you think NASA are very interested in indoor plants?
| A．Some indoor plants would be used in space stations. |
| B．They want to find a way to cure Sick Building Syndrome. |
| C．They need indoor plants to carry out their experiments. |
| D．Indoor plants are pretty and attractive. |
The underlined word “pollutants” refers to _______.
| A．some kinds of indoor plants | B．ways to solve air pollution |
| C．research on indoor plants | D．poisonous chemicals in the air |
Artificial(假的) flowers are used for scientific as well as for decorative purposes. They are made from a variety of materials, such as wax and glass, so skillfully that they can scarcely be distinguished from natural flowers. In making such models, painstaking and artistry are called for, as well as thorough knowledge of plant structure. The collection of glass flowers in the Botanical Museum of Harvard University is the most famous in North America and is widely known throughout the scientific world. In all, there are several thousand models in colored glass, the work of two artist-naturalists, Leopold Blaschka and his son Rudolph.
The intention was to have the collection represent at least one member of each flower family native to the United States. Although it was never completed. It contains more than seven hundred species representing 164 families of flowering plants, a group of fruits showing the effect of fungus diseases, and thousands of flower parts and magnified details. Every detail of these is accurately reproduced in color and structure. The models are kept in locked cases as they are too valuable and fragile for classroom use.Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
| A．An Extensive Collection of Glass Flowers |
| B．The Lives of Leopold and Rudolph |
| C．Flowers Native to the United States |
| D．Material Used for Artificial Flowers |
It can be inferred from the passage that the goal of Leopold and Rudolph was to _______.
| A．create a botanical garden where only exotic flowers grew |
| B．do a thorough study of plant structure |
| C．make a copy of one member of each United States flower family |
| D．show that glass are more realistic than wax flowers |
The underlined word “it” refers to _______.
| A．the intention | B．the collection |
| C．one member | D．each flower family |
The name “cowboy” conjures up many different images from movies, songs and TV. These imagined cowboys range from white-hat-wearing heroes to gun-shooting hooligans(流氓).But, cowboys are actually real people from US history.
When the US Civil War ended, many soldiers had no place to call home. So, they began to drift to the country's rural West. Ranchers(农场主) hired these men to take care of the cattle and work around the ranch. When the ranch owner wanted to sell the cattle, the cowboys would round up the herd from the open prairie(牧场) and drive the cattle miles to the market.
With the invention of barbed wire(铁丝网),the cowboy era(1865-1890) began to come to an end. But people in the East had always been curious about their lifestyle. Many country/western songs during this time tried to capture the true cowboy spirit. Newspapers published cowboy tales in serial form and adventure novels followed. The bigger the fiction, the better the sales. These novels often portrayed cowboys as cruel and violent men. Cowboys carried the bad reputation for many years afterwards.
When movies began to be popular in the 1920s,the cowboy image changed again. Now, a cowboy became the great white knight(骑士) that loved his horse more than the beautiful ladies he rescued. As the cowboy of the “Old West” spent more time with his horse than the ladies, this era's image was not entirely false.
Then, in the 50s,Hollywood began producing so-called “spaghetti westerns(意大利西部片)”.They earned the nickname because Italian companies financed the films and TV shows. This started the decade's “Cowboy Craze”.While this didn't last long, it made modern country/western music, fashion and dance extremely popular.
In recent years, with the help of musicians, radio stations and bars, cowboy nostalgia(怀旧情绪) has returned. Even though his image is still changing—somewhere between ballad singing country boy and barroom fighter—there's one thing for sure, you can't keep the cowboy down.The purpose of this story is to _______.
| A．introduce cowboy movies and novels |
| B．introduce various productions associated with cowboys |
| C．show the cowboy's everlasting charm |
| D．inform us about the cowboy's spirit |
Before they became cowboys, they _______.
| A．served in the army | B．worked as bar-room fighters |
| C．owned ranches | D．were adventurous explorers |
During “the cowboy era” mentioned in the story, _______.
| A．the cowboy often came to the rescue of ladies in newspaper tales |
| B．the distant Wild West appealed to people in the East |
| C．cowboys were shown as cruel and violent men on the silver screen |
| D．country music started the cowboy craze which swept the whole country |
By saying “you can't keep the cowboy down”,the writer means that _______.
| A．cowboys are real people in history | B．cowboys still fascinate people |
| C．you can't make cowboys unhappy | D．you can't grasp the cowboy spirit |
If you've been joining in chat room conversations, or trading e-mail with Web pals, you have become one of the millions who write in a peculiarly short form of English.
And you've got a sense of humor about short forms like SOHF(="sense" of humor failure) to describe Internet newcomers who don't understand you.
Across the globe, every night teenagers and their elders are “talking” online—many of them are talking at the same time.
It's fast: try talking to six people at once. It's brief: three or four words per exchange. It takes wit, concentration, and quick fingers.
And it requires tremendous linguistic economy. There's neither time nor space for explanations. Why consume precious key-strokes telling six friends you have to leave for a moment to take care of your little brother when BRB(="be" right back) will do? Want to enter a conversation? Just type PMFJI(="pardon" me for jumping in). Interested in whom you're talking to? Type A/S/L, the nearly universal request to know your pal's age, sex and location. You may get 15/M/NY as a response from your pal.
If something makes you laugh, say you're OTF(="on" the floor),or LOL(="laughing" out loud),or combine the two into ROTFL(="rolling" on the floor laughing).
And when it's time to get back to work or go to bed, you type GTG(="got" to go) or TTYL(talk to you later).
People want to write as fast as possible, and they want to get their ideas across as quickly as they can. Capital letters are left in the dust, except when expressing emotion, as it takes more time to hold down the “shift” key and capitals. Punctuation is going, too.In order to talk to several people at the same time on the Internet_______.
| A．you have to speak fast and fluently |
| B．you have to express your ideas in a brief way |
| C．you should speak with wit and humor |
| D．one should pay much attention to the accuracy of the words |
If you get 17/F/NY as an answer to your A/S/L, it means_______.
| A．the person on the other end is 17 from New York and he is fine |
| B．you are talking to a girl who is 17 and lives in New York |
| C．you are talking to 17 girls who are from New York |
| D．the person who are talking to you is a 1.7-foot tall New York girl |
To save time on the Internet_______.
| A．some people leave their letters in the dustbin |
| B．some people never use “shift” in their writing |
| C．many people leave the capital and punctuation |
| D．people seldom use capital letters or punctuation |