Chinese writer Mo Yan has won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature, announced the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on Thursday．The win makes Mo Yan the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel in its 111-year history．Informed of his win today, the author, who was having dinner at home, was “overjoyed and scared"．
Born in 1955 to parents who were farmers, Mo Yan－a pen name for Guan Moye, grew up in Gaomi in Shandong province in eastern China． At the age of 12, he left school to work, first in agriculture, later in a factory. In 1976, he joined the army and during this time began to study literature and writing．
He published his first book in 1981, but found literary success in 1987 with Hong Gaoliang Jiazu, which was successfully filmed in the same year, directed by famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou. In his writing, Mo Yan draws on his youthful experiences and on settings in the province of his birth and his works show the life of Chinese people as well as the country's unique culture and folk customs．Mo Yan is known as a prolific（多产的）writer．In addition to his novels, he has published many short stories and essays on various topics. Despite his social criticism, he is seen in his homeland as one of the most famous contemporary authors．Dozens of his works have been translated into English, French, Japanese and many other languages．
The awarding ceremony will be held on December 10．The winner will win a medal, a personal diploma and a cash award of about $l million．Mo Yan developed his ability for writing when he was _ .
| A．on a farm | B．in a factory | C．in the army | D．in a school |
One of Mo Yan's characteristics of writing is that he ________.
| A．explains difficult matters in simple words |
| B．focuses on social problems in the country |
| C．describes his characters in a unique way |
| D．writes about topics he is familiar with |
What's the best title for this passage?
| A．How Mo Yan Gets Nobel Prize |
| B．Mo Yan Wins Nobel Prize in Literature |
| C．An Introduction to Nobel Prize |
| D．A World Famous Writer, Mo Yan |
We can all contribute to a greener world．Just follow these ten golden rules:
●Stop getting junk mail．Billions of junk mail can be sent every year．Half of it is never opened．Get-your name off mailing lists．If 100,000 people stopped getting junk mail today, it would save 150,000 trees a year．
●Stop reading newspapers．All over the world, millions of newspapers are thrown away every day, 44 million newspapers in the USA alone —that's half a million trees a week．Either recycle your newspapers or read the hews online．
●Buy clothes made from organic materials．Conventional cotton farming seriously pollutes the environment, most of which uses ch
emical pesticides （农药） and fertilizers． Organic is better!
●Switch to solar energy．In one day, the sun will provide enough energy to power the planet．Why aren't we using it?
●If you have to drive, share the ride．Most cars in the USA have only one occupant．Also, 25 percent of car rides are less than 1．5 kilometres．Get out and walk!
●Unplug your PC, TV and VCR．Simply turning them off isn't enough．Sets left on standby are still using 25 percent of their power．
●Hold on to your balloons．Helium-filled balloons which fly away usually end up in a lake or river, where they can choke aquatic (水生的) creatures．Sav
e your balloons and use them again．Or better still, don't use them at all．
●Feed the birds．Wild birds need food, especially in v/inter when other sources can be scarce．The greater the range of foodstuffs you put out for them, the more types of birds you will attract．
●Plant a garden at your school．Learn the connection between the land and the table．Plant vegetables to eat, flowers to admire and trees to improve the air．.
What is the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To provide some health advice on how to work． |
| B．To suggest some ways how to make full use of solar energy． |
| C．To advise protecting environment and saving energy． |
| D．To advise on how to recycle waste and save energy． |
.
．The underlined expression "left on standby" in the sixth rule means____．
| A．ready to start and use electricity | B．ready to be turned off |
| C．ready to be repaired | D．ready to be．put away |
.
．Which of the following will NOT protect trees from being cut down to make paper?
| A．Not buying newspapers． | B．Don't accept junk mail． |
| C．Read your newspaper online． | D．Read only one newspaper． |
We can make mistakes at any age．Some mistakes we make are about money．But most mistakes are about people．One might say, "Did Jerry really care when I broke up with Helen?" "When I got that great job, did Jim really feel good about it, as a friend? Or did he envy my luck?" When we look back, doubts like these can make us feel bad．
Why do we go wrong about our friends? Sometimes what people want to say hides their real meaning．And if we don't really listen, we miss the feeling behind the words． Suppose someone tells you, "You're a lucky dog．" Is he really on your side? If he says, "You are a lucky guy", that's being friendly．But if he says "a lucky dog", there's a bit of envy in those words．Maybe he doesn't see it himself．But he puts you down a little if he brings in the "dog"．What he may be saying is that he doesn't think you deserve your luck．
"Just think of all the things you have to be thankful for" is another noise that says one thing and means another．It could mean that the speaker i
s tryin
g to get you to see your problem as part of your life as a whole．But is he trying to? Wrapped up in this phrase is the thought that your problem isn't important．It's telling you to think of all the starving people in the world when you haven't got a date for Saturday night．
How can you tell the real meaning behind someone's words? One way is to take a good look at the person talking．Do his words fit the way he looks? Does what he says agree with the tone of voice, his posture, or the look in his eyes? Stop and think．The minute you spend thinking about the real meaning of what people say to you may save another mistake．
Therefore, when you hear someone saying, 
please try to know what he really means．Don't just listen to what he says with your ears but feel the words he uses with your head．In this way you may m
ake fewer mistakes．.
．In the 1st paragraph, the writer says something that happened between him and his friends ____．
| A．He feels happy, thinking of how nice his friends were to him |
| B．He feels he may not have read his friends' true feelings correctly |
| C．He doesn't think it was a mistake to have broken up with his friend |
| D．He is sorry that his friends let him down |
.
This passage is mainly about ____．
| A．how to avoid mistakes about money and friends |
| B．what to do when you listen to others talking |
| C．how to avoid mistakes in understanding what people tell you |
| D．why you keep people friendly without trusting them |
.
．According to the author, the reason why we go wrong about our friends is that
| A．we fail to listen carefully when they talk |
| B．people tend to be angry when we check what they say |
| C．people usually state one thing but mean another |
| D．we tend to doubt what our friends say |
.
．The underlined word "it" in the second paragraph refers to____．
| A．being friendly | B．a bit of envy |
| C．a lucky dog | D．your luck |
When I was fourteen, I earned money in the summer by cutting lawns（草坪）, and within a few weeks I had built up a body of customers. I got to know people by the flowers they planted that I had to remember not to cut down, by the things they lost in the grass or struck in the ground on purpose. I reached the point with most of them when I knew in advance what complaint was about to be spoken, which particular request was most important. And I learned something about the measure of my neighbors by their preferred method of payment: by the job, by the month--- or not at all.
Mr. Ballou fell into the last category, and he always had a reason why. On one day, he had no change for a fifty, on another he was flat out of checks, on another, he was simply out when I knocked on his door. Still, except for the money apart, he was a nice enough guy, always waving or tipping his hat when he’d see me from a distance. I figured him for a thin retirement check, maybe a work-relayed injury that kept him from doing his own yard work. Sure, I kept track of the total, but I didn’t worry about the amount too much. Grass was grass, and the little that Mr. Ballou’s property comprised didn’t take long to trim (修剪).
Then, one late afternoon in mid-July, the hottest time of the year, I was walking by his house and he opened the door, mentioned me to come inside. The hall was cool, shaded, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the dim light.
“ I owe you,” Mr Ballou, “ but…”
I thought I’d save him the trouble of thinking of a new excuse. “ No problem. Don’t worry about it.”
“ The bank made a mistake in my account,” he continued, ignoring my words. “ It will be cleared up in a day or two . But in the meantime I thought perhaps you could choose one or two volumes for a down payment.
He gestured toward the walls and I saw that books were stacked (堆放) everywhere. It was like a library, except with no order to the arrangement.
“ Take your time,” Mr. Ballou encouraged. “Read, borrow, keep. Find something you like. What do you read?”
“ I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I generally read what was in front of me, what I could get from the paperback stack at the drugstore, what I found at the library, magazines, the back of cereal boxes, comics. The idea of consciously seeking out a special title was new to me, but, I realized, not without appeal--- so I started to look through the piles of books.
“ You actually read all of these?”
“ This isn’t much,” Mr. Ballou said. “ This is nothing, just what I’ve kept, the ones worth looking at a second time.”
“ Pick for me, then.”
He raised his eyebrows, cocked his head, and regarded me as though measuring me for a suit. After a moment, he nodded, searched through a stack, and handed me a dark red hardbound book, fairly thick.
“ The Last of the Just,” I read. “ By Andre Schwarz-Bart. What’s it about?” “ You tell me,” he said. “ Next week.”
I started after supper, sitting outdoors on an uncomfortable kitchen chair. Within a few pages, the yard, the summer, disappeared, and I was plunged into the aching tragedy of the Holocaust, the extraordinary clash of good, represented by one decent man, and evil. Translated from French, the language was elegant, simple, impossible to resist. When the evening light finally failed I moved inside, read all through the night,
To this day, thirty years later, I vividly remember the experience. It was my first voluntary encounter with world literature, and I was stunned (震惊) by the concentrated power a novel could contain. I lacked the vocabulary, however, to translate my feelings into words, so the next week. When Mr. Ballou asked, “ Well?” I only replied, “ It was good?”
“ Keep it, then,” he said. “ Shall I suggest another?”
I nodded, and was presented with the paperback edition of Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa ( a very important book on the study of the social and cultural development of peoples--- anthropology (人类学) ).
To make two long stories short, Mr. Ballou never paid me a cent for cutting his grass that year or the next, but for fifteen years I taught anthropology at Dartmouth College. Summer reading was not the innocent entertainment I had assumed it to be, not a light-hearted, instantly forgettable escape in a hammock (吊床) ( though I have since enjoyed many of those, too). A book, if it arrives before you at the right moment, in the proper season, at an internal in the daily business of things, will change the course of all that follows..The author thought that Mr. Ballou was ______________.
| A．rich but mean | B．poor but polite |
| C．honest but forgettable | D．strong but lazy |
. Before his encounter with Mr. Ballou, the author used to read _____________.
| A．anything and everything | B．only what was given to him |
| C．only serious novels | D．nothing in the summer |
. The author found the first book Mr. Ballou gave him _____________.
| A．light-heated and enjoyable | B．dull but well written |
| C．impossible to put down | D．difficult to understand |
. From what he said to the author we can gather that Mr. Ballou _______________.
| A．read all books twice | B．did not do much reading |
| C．read more books than he kept | D．preferred to read hardbound books |
. The following year the author _______________.
| A．started studying anthropology at college | B．continued to cut Mr. Ballou’s lawn |
| C．spent most of his time lazing away in a hammock | |
| D．had forgotten what he had read the summer before |
. The author’s main point is that _____________.
| A．summer jobs are really good for young people |
| B．you should insist on being paid before you do a job |
| C．a good book can change the direction of your life |
| D．a book is like a garden carried in the pocket. |
Greenspace facilities (设施) are contributing to an important degree to the quality of the city environment. Fortunately it is no longer necessary that every lecture or every book about this subject has to start with the proof of this idea. At present it is generally accepted, although more as a self-proved statement than on the base of a closely reasoned scientific proof. Recognizing the importance of greenspaces in the city environment is a first step on the right way, this does not mean, however, that enough details are known about the functions of greenspace in towns and about the way in which people are using these spaces. As to this subject I shall within the scope (范围) of this lecture, enter into one aspect only, namely the recreative function of greenspace facilities.
The theoretical separation of living, working, traffic and recreation which for many years has been used in town and country planning, has in my opinion resulted in more attention for forms of recreation far from home, while there was relatively little attention for improvement of recreative possibilities in the direct neighborhood of the home. We have come to the conclusion that this is not right, because an important part of the time which we do not pass in sleeping or working, is used for activities at and around home. So it is obvious that recreation in the open air has to begin at the street door of the house. The city environment has to offer as many recreation activities as possible, and the design of these has to be such that more required activities can also have recreative aspect.
The very best standard of living is nothing if it is not possible to take a pleasant walk in the district, if the children cannot be allowed to play in the streets because the risks of traffic are too great, if during shopping you can nowhere find a spot for enjoying for a moment the nice weather, in short, if you only feel yourself at home after the street door of your house is closed after you.. The importance of greenspaces in the city environment _____.
| A．is still unknown | B．is paid little attention to |
| C．is accepted on the base of scientific proof | D．has been recognized |
For many years town and country planning has _____.
| A．brought living areas and places of entertainment close together |
| B．separated recreation facilities far from home |
| C．improved recreative possibilities in the neighborhood |
| D．enabled people to reach the best standard of living |
. The word “recreation” in the passage probably means,_____.
| A．activities done for pleasure or enjoyment | B．doing something again in a creative way |
| C．doing something important after work | D．required activities done after work |
According to the author, greenspaces should be designed _____.
| A．to reduce the number of recreative activities |
| B．to attract more and more people |
| C．for people to use more conveniently |
| D．for people to do recreative activities at the street door of the house |
The main idea of this passage is that _____.
| A．attention must be paid to the improvement of recreation |
| B．greenspace facilities should be used better to improve the quality of life |
| C．the city environment is providing more recreative activities |
| D．we should try our best to raise our living standard |
It came as something of a surprise when Diana, Princess of Wales, made a trip to Angola in 1997, to support the Red Cross’s campaign for a total ban on all anti-personnel landmines. Within hours of arriving in Angola television screens around the world were filled with images of her comforting victims injured in explosions caused by landmines. “I knew the statistics,” she said, “But putting a face to those figures brought the reality home to me; like when I met Sandra, a 13-year-old girl who had lost her leg, and people like her.”
The Princess concluded with a simple message: “We must stop landmines”. And she used every opportunity during her visit to repeat this message.
But, back in London, her views were not shared by some members of the British government, which refused to support a ban on these weapons. Angry politicians launched an attack on the Princess in the press. They described her as “very ill-informed” and a “loose cannon (乱放炮的人).”
The Princess responded by brushing aside the criticisms: “This is a distraction we do not need. All I’m trying to do is help.”
Opposition parties, the media and the public immediately voiced their support for the Princess. To make matters worse for the government, it soon emerged that the Princess’s trip had been approved by the Foreign Office, and that she was in fact very well-informed about both the situation in Angola and the British government’s policy regarding landmines. The result was a severe embarrassment for the government.
To try and limit the damage, the Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, claimed that the Princess’s views on landmines were not very different from government policy, and that it was “working towards” a worldwide ban. The Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo, claimed the matter was “a misinterpretation or misunderstanding”.
For the Princess, the trip to this war-torn country was an excellent opportunity to use her popularity to show the world how much destruction and suffering landmines can cause. She said that the experience had also given her the chance to get closer to people and their problems. Princess Diana paid a visit to Angola in 1997______.
| A．to voice her support for a total ban of landmines. |
| B．to clarify the British government’s stand on landmines. |
| C．to investigate the sufferings of landmine victims. |
| D．to establish her image as a friend of landmine victims. |
. What did Diana mean when she said“…putting a face to those figures brought the reality home to
me” (Para.1)?
| A．She just couldn’t bear to meet the landmine victims face to face. |
| B．The actual situation in Angola made her feel like going back home. |
| C．Meeting the landmine victims in person made her believe the statistics. |
| D．Seeing the pain of the victims made her realize the seriousness of the situation. |
Some members of the British government criticized Diana because______.
| A．she was ill-informed of the government’s policy. |
| B．they believed that she had misinterpreted the situation in Angola. |
| C．she had not consulted the government before the visit. |
| D．they were actually opposed to banning landmines. |
How did Diana respond to the criticisms?
| A．She made more appearances on TV. |
| B．She paid no attention to them. |
| C．She met the 13-year-old girl as planned. |
| D．She rose to argue with her opponents. |
What did Princess Diana think of her visit to Angola?
| A．It had caused embarrassment to the British government. |
| B．It had brought her closer to the ordinary people. |
| C．It had greatly promoted her popularity. |
| D．It had affected her relations with the British government. |