I’m lying on my back in my grandfather’s orchard(果园),looking up at the branches above me.It is one of the last days of summer.Already the days are shorter and the nights are cooler.Some kinds of apples are already ripe(成熟的).Others will be ready to pick soon.I think of my grandmother’s apple pie,and how I used to make it with her.She died last year,before the apple harvest,and I have not had her pie since.I really miss her.I hear bees busily humming about,visiting the late summer flowers.The gentle hum of their wings nearly sends me to sleep.
The sky is as blue as my grandfather’s eyes.Above me,big white clouds race across the sky like pieces of cotton blowing in the w ind.School starts in another week,and time seems to have slowed down.
“Sophie!”calls my grandfather.“Is that you?”I stand up,take his hand,and tell him all about my day as we walk through the orchard.We talk about apples,and bees,and Grandma.He tells me that he misses her too.
He puts his rough,brown farmer’s hand around my shoulder and pulls me close.“You know,Sophie,”he says,“I spent the morning in the attic(阁楼),and you’ll never guess what I found.It’s the recipe(烹饪法) for Grandma’s apple pie.I used to help her make it sometimes.I can’t do it all alone,but you used to help her too.Maybe between the two of us,we ca n work it out.Want to try?”
“But it won’t be the same without Grandma,” I tell him.
“That’s true,”he says,“but nothing_is_the_same_without_Grandma.Still,I don’t think that she would want us never to have another apple pie.What do you say?” I nod yes,and we walk towards home...towards an afternoon in the farmhouse kitchen,making Grandma’s famous apple pie.We learn from the passage that Sophie .
A.likes to watch clouds in the attic |
B.comes to the orchard after school |
C.enjoys Grandma’s apple pie very much |
D.picks many apples in the orchard |
Sophie’s grandfather spent the morning in the attic______ .
A.looking for Grandma’s recipe for apple pie |
B.helping Sophie’s grandmother make apple pie |
C.trying to make apple pie all alone for Sophie |
D.talking about apples,and bees,and Grandma with Sophie |
The underlined part in the last paragraph shows
A.how much Sophie’s grandmother loved Sophie |
B.how much Sophie’s grandfather likes apple pies |
C.how much Sophie loves her grandfather’s orchard |
D.how much Sophie’s grandfather misses Grandma |
Which of the following might be the best title for the passage?
A.My grandfather’s orchard | B.My grandmother’s apple pie |
C.A morning in the attic | D.The last days of summer |
A young woman carrying a three-year-old child got on a bus. The conductor hurried to give her a warm welcome and then kindly asked the other passengers to make more room for the woman and her child. On seeing this, people began to talk. "You know this conductor used to be very rude. Now suddenly he has changed his bad behavior , "said a middle-aged man.
"Yes, he should be praised and we must write a letter to the company," said a second passenger. "That's right," another lady said, "I wish a newspaper reporter were here so that more people could learn from this conductor. "
Just then a gentleman who looked like a teacher turned to the conductor and said , "Excuse me, but can I know your name, please? Your excellent service must be praised..."
Before he could open his mouth, the three-year-old child sitting on the young woman's lap interrupted, "I know his name. I call him Dad."
56. One passenger suggested writing a letter to the company to ______ .
A. make a demand for more buses B. thank the conductor for his good service
C. criticize the conductor for his rude behavior
D. invite a newspaper reporter to write about the conductor
57. What was the gentleman?
A. A teacher. B. A newspaper reporter.
C. Not known from the story. D. The conductor's friend from his company.
58. The word "him" in the last paragraph refers to _______.
A. the gentleman B. the conductor C. the middle-aged man D. the three-year-old child
59. It is clear from the story that the conductor _______.
A. has changed his attitude towards his work B. has now been kind and polite to all passengers
C. has not changed his rude behavior to passengers
D. has now been kind and polite to women with children
As kids, my friends and I spent a lot of time out in the woods. “The woods” was our part-time address, destination, purpose, and excuse. If I went to a friend’s house and found him not at home, his mother might say, “Oh, he’s out in the woods, ” with a tone (语气) of airy acceptance. It’s similar to the tone people sometimes use nowadays to tell me that someone I’m looking for is on the golf course or at the gym, or even “away from his desk.” For us ten-year-olds, “being out in the woods” was just an excuse to do whatever we feel like for a while.
We sometimes told ourselves that what we were doing in the woods was exploring(探索). Exploring was a more popular idea back then than it is today. History seemed to be mostly about explorers. Our explorations, though, seemed to have less system than the historic kind: something usually came up along the way. Say we stayed in the woods, throwing rocks, shooting frogs, picking blackberries, digging in what we were briefly persuaded was an Italian burial mound.
Often we got “lost” and had to climb a tree to find out where we were. If you read a story in which someone does that successfully, be skeptical; the topmost branches are usually too skinny to hold weight, and we could never climb high enough to see anything except other trees. There were four or five trees that we visited regularly—tall beeches, easy to climb and comfortable to sit in.
It was in a tree, too, that our days of fooling around in the woods came to an end. By then some of us had reached seventh grade and had begun the rough ride of adolescence(青春期. In March, the month when we usually took to the woods again after winter, two friends and I set out to go exploring. We climbed a tree, and all of a sudden it occurred to all three of us at the same time that we really were rather big to be up in a tree. Soon there would be the spring dances on Friday evenings in the high school cafeteria.
57. The author and his friends were often out in the woods to _______.
A. spend their free time B. play golf and other sports
C. avoid doing their schoolwork D. keep away from their parents
58. What can we infer from Paragraph 2?
A. The activities in the woods were well planned.
B. Human history is not the result of exploration.
C. Exploration should be a systematic activity.
D. The author explored in the woods aimlessly.
59. The underlined word “skeptical” in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______.
A. calm B. doubtful C. serious D. optimistic
60. How does the author feel about his childhood?
A. Happy but short. B. Lonely but memorable.
C. Boring and meaningless. D. Long and unforgettable.
57-60 ADBA
Over the last 70 years, researchers have been studying happy and unhappy people and finally found out ten factors that make a difference. Our feelings of well-being at any moment are determined to a certain degree by genes. However, of all the factors, wealth and age are the top two.
Money can buy a degree of happiness. But once you can afford to feed, clothe and house yourself, each extra dollar makes less and less difference.
Researchers find that, on average, wealthier people are happier. But the link between money and happiness is complex. In the past half-century, average income has sharply increased in developed countries, yet happiness levels have remained almost the same. Once your basic needs are met, money only seems to increase happiness if you have more than your friends, neighbors and colleagues.
“Dollars buy status, and status makes people feel better,” conclude some experts, which helps explain why people who can seek status in other ways—scientists or actors, for example—may happily accept relatively poorly-paid jobs.
In a research, Professor Alex Michalos found that the people whose desires—not just for money, but for friends, family, job, health—rose furthest beyond what they already had, tended to be less happy than those who felt a smaller gap (差距). Indeed, the size of the gap predicted happiness about five times better than income alone. “The gap measures just blow away the only measures of income.” says Michalos.
Another factor that has to do with happiness is age. Old age may not be so bad. “Given all the problems of aging, how could the elderly be more satisfied? ” asks Protessor Laura Carstensen.
In one survey, Carstensen interviewed 184 people between the ages of 18 and 94, and asked them to fill out an emotions questionnaire. She found that old people reported positive emotions just as often as young people, but negative emotions much less often.
Why are old people happier? Some scientists suggest older people may expect life to be harder and learn to live with it, or they’re more realistic abour their goals, only setting ones that they know they can achieve. But Carstensen thinks that with time running out, older people have learned to focus on things that make them happy and let go of those that don’t.
“People realize not only what they have, but also that what they have cannot last forever,” she says. “A goodbye kiss to a husband or wife at the age of 85, for example, may bring far more complex emotional responses than a similar kiss to a boy or girl friend at the age of 20.”
53. According to the passage, the feeling of happiness .
A. is determined partly by genes B. increases gradually with age
C. has little to do with wealth D. is measured by desires
54. Some actors would like to accept poorly-paid jobs because the jobs.
A. make them feel much better B. provide chances to make friends
C. improve their social position D. satisfy their professional interests
55. Aged people are more likely to feel happy because they are more .
A. optimistic B. successful C. practical D. emotional
56. Professor Alex Michalos found that people feel less happy if .
A. the gap between reality and desire is bigger
B. they have a stronger desire for friendship
C. their income is below their expectation
D. the hope for good health is greater
Tell a story and tell it well, and you may open wide the eyes of a child, open up lines of communication in a business, or even open people’s mind to another culture or race.
People in many places are digging up the old folk stories and the messages in them. For example, most American storytellers get their tales from a wide variety of sources, cultures, and times. They regard storytelling not only as a useful tool in child education, but also as a meaningful activity that helps adults understand themselves as well as those whose culture may be very different from their own.
“Most local stories are based on a larger theme,” American storyteller Opalanga Pugh says, “Cinderella (灰姑娘), or the central idea of a good child protected by her goodness, appears in various forms in almost every culture of the world.”
Working with students in schools, Pugh helps them understand their own cultures and the general messages of the stories. She works with prisoners too, helping them knowing who they are by telling stories that her listeners can write, direct, and act in their own lives. If they don’t like the story they are living, they can rewrite the story. Pugh also works to help open up lines of communication between managers and workers. “For every advance in business,” she says, “there is a greater need for communication.” Storytelling can have a great effect on either side of the manager-worker relationship, she says.
Pugh spent several years in Nigeria, where she learned how closely storytelling was linked to the everyday life of the people there. The benefits of storytelling are found everywhere, she says.
“I learned how people used stories to spread their culture,” she says, “What I do is to focus on the value of the stories that people can translate into their own daily world of affairs. We are all storytellers. We all have a story to tell. We tell everybody’s story.”
49. What do we learn about American storyteller from Paragraph 2?
A. They share the same way of storytelling.
B. They prefer to tell the stories from other cultures.
C. They learn their stories from the American natives.
D. They find storytelling useful for both children and adults.
50. The underlined sentence (Paragraph 4) suggests that prisoners can _____.
A. start a new life B. settle down in another place
C. direct films D. become good actors
51. Pugh has practised storytelling with _____ groups of people.
A. 2 B. 3 C. 4 D. 5
52. What is the main idea of the text?
A. Storytelling can influence the way people think.
B. Storytelling is necessary to the growth of business.
C. Storytelling is the best way to educate children in school.
D. Storytelling helps people understand themselves and others.
When I was going home to India last year, I called up my mother to ask if she wanted anything from china.
When India had not opened up its markets to the world, I carried suitcase loads of dark glasses and jeans. Thankfully, we can get all these anywhere in India now.
Still, her answer surprised me: “Green tea.”
As long as I can remember she didn’t even drink Indian tea.
I dutifully bought a big packet of Longjing and headed home to hear the story. My mother and her brother, both regular newspaper readers, believed that Chinese green tea was the wonder drug for all illnesses.
At the turn of the century, China was not really familiar to the average Indian. It was a strange country.
How things change! And how soon!
Now every town of any size seems to have a “China Market”. And everyone is talking about China.
The government of India has planned to send a team to China to see how things are done. A minister once said that India must open the doors for more foreign investment (投资) and such a step would “work wonders as it did for China”.
But it’s a two-way street. I just heard about a thousand Shenzhen office workers who have gone to Bangalore to train in software. Meanwhile, all the Indian IT majors are setting up a strong presence in China.
No wonder that trade , which was only in the millions just ten years ago, is expected to hit about US$15 billion for last year and US$20 billion by 2008, a goal set by both governments.
No wonder, my colleague wrote some weeks ago about this being the Sino-Indian (中印)century as the two countries started on January 1 the Sino-Indian Friendship Year.
But what is still a wonder to me is my mother drinking Chinese tea.
45. Why did the mother ask for Chinese green tea?
A. She was tired of Indian tea. B. She had a son working in China.
C. She believed it had a curing effect. D. She was fond of Chinese products.
46. What does the author mean by “it’s a two-way street” in Paragraph 10?
A. The exchanges between India and China benefit both.
B. Tea trade works wonders in both India and China.
C. Chinese products are popular in both China and India.
D. China and India have different traffic rules.
47. What do we know about the Indian IT industry?
A. It will move its head office to Shenzhen.
B. It is seeking further development in China.
C. It has attracted an investment of US$15 billion.
D. It caught up with the US IT industry in 2008.
48. In the text the author expresses _____.
A. his concern for his mother’s health
B. his support for drinking Chinese green tea
C. his wonder at the growth of India’s IT industry
D. his surprise at China’s recent development