I was in my third year of teaching creative writing at a high school in New York, when one of my students, 15-year-old Mikey, gave me a note from his mother. It explained his absence from class the day before.
I had seen Mikey himself writing the note at his desk. Most parental-excuse notes I received were penned by my students. If I were to deal with them, I’d be busy 24 hours a day.
The forged excuse notes made a large pile(堆), with writing that ranged from imaginative to crazy. The writers of those notes didn’t realize that honest excuse notes were usually dull: “Peter was late because the alarm clock didn’t go off.”
Isn’t it remarkable, I thought, how the students complained and said it was hard to put 200 words together on any subject? But when they produced excuse notes, they were brilliant.
So one day I typed out a dozen excuse notes and gave them to my classes. I said, “They’re supposed to be written by parents, but actually they are not. True, Mikey?” The students looked at me nervously.
“Now, this will be the first class to study the art of the excuse note—the first class, ever, to practice writing them. You’re so lucky to have a teacher like me who has taken your best writing and turned it into a subject worth studying.”
Everyone smiled as I went on, “You used your imaginations. So try more now. Today I’d like you to write ‘An Excuse Note from Adam to God’ or ‘An Excuse Note from Eve to God’. ” Heads went down. Pens raced across paper. For the first time ever I saw students so careful in their writing that they had to be asked to go to lunch by their friends.
The next day everyone had excuse notes. Heated discussions followed. The headmaster entered the classroom and walked up and down, looking at papers, and then said, “I’d like you to see me in my office.”
When I stepped into his office, he came to shake my hand and said, “I just want to tell you that that lesson, that task, whatever the hell you were doing, was great. Those kids were writing on the college level. Thank you.”What did the author do with the students found dishonest?
| A．He reported them to the headmaster. |
| B．He lectured them hard on honesty. |
| C．He had them take notes before lunch. |
| D．He helped improve their writing skills. |
The author had the students practice writing excuse notes so that the students could learn ______.
| A．the importance of being honest |
| B．how to write excuse notes skillfully |
| C．the pleasure of creative writing |
| D．how to be creative in writing |
The underlined word “forged” in the second paragraph means“______”.
| A．dull | B．copied | C．dishonest | D．parental |
What did the headmaster think of the author’s way of teaching?
| A．Excellent. | B．Difficult. | C．Incorrect. | D．Reasonable. |
In 1955, a man named Raymond Kroc entered a partnership with two brothers named Mcdonald. They operated a popular restaurant in California which sold food that was easy to prepare and serve quickly. Hamburgers, French fries, and cold drinks were the main foods on the limited menu. Kroc opened similar eating places under the same name, “McDonald’s” and they were a quick success. He later took over the company and today it is one of the most famous and successful “fast-food” chains(连锁店) in America and the world.
Why was his idea so successful? Probably the most important reason was that his timing was right. In the 1950s, most married women stayed home to keep house and take care of their children. During the 1960s, the movement for equality(平等) between men and women and an economy(经济) that needed more families to have two money-earners resulted in many women returning to the workplace. This meant that they had less time and energy to do housework, so they depended more on fast-food restaurants.
Single parents also have little time to spend in the kitchen. People living alone because of divorce(离婚) or a preference for a “single lifestyle” also depend on this type of food, since cooking for one is often more trouble than it is worth.
Fast food is not part of the diet of all Americans. Another of the 1960s was called back-to-nature movement. More and more Americans based their diets on natural foods. This preference for natural foods continues to this day. These products can now be found not only in the special health food store but also in many supermarkets.The passage is mainly about ____.
| A．how and why “McDonald’s” became successful |
| B．the effect social and economic changes have on people’s eating habits |
| C．why Americans prefer natural food |
| D．American eating habits |
Which of the following was NOT a reason for Raymond Kroc’s success?
| A．His partnership with the McDonald brothers. |
| B．A changing economy. |
| C．The back-to-nature movement. |
| D．Women’s equality movement. |
We can infer from the passage that ____.
| A．natural foods can also be found in McDonald’s |
| B．many married women in America returned to work in the 1960s |
| C．McDonald’s fast food is popular among the young |
| D．divorce caused people to change their eating habits |
The Cambodian government says more than 378 people died and hundreds more were injured in a stampede (踩踏) during the celebrations of the annual Water Festival late Monday in Phnom Penh.
Less than 24 hours after the tragedy(悲剧), Cambodia's most serious loss of life in decades(十年), the government founded an organization to investigate(调查) how so many died on what was meant to be one of the nation's most joyous occasions.
Most of the victims(牺牲品) were young people in their teens and twenties. They were some of the estimated(估计) two million who had flooded to Phnom Penh for the Water Festival, which marks the end of the rainy season.
Most suffocated on the bridge, which thousands of people were using to leave Diamond Island, an entertainment(娱乐) area in the middle of the river. Others drowned(溺水) after jumping from the bridge into the water.
Buot Panha, 19, said shortly after 9:30 on Monday evening he ended up trapped(围困) with his friends in the middle of the bridge, fighting to breathe while terrified people struggled all around him.
Being tall saved his life, since he could stretch(伸出) his neck to take in oxygen(氧气). Shorter people were unable to do that, he says, which may be why two-thirds of the victims were women.
He tried to help a woman who was trapped with two children near him. She was screaming for people to help. Being tall, Buot Panha grabbed(抓住) one child and pushed him above the crowd to help him breathe.
But then some of the young men were told to jump off the bridge into the river to make room. So he handed back the child, squirmed his way to the edge, and jumped.
Some like Buot Panha were fortunate, jumping into the river below and swimming for the shore. But many simply could not move, and died where they lay.
Buot Panha says his first Water Festival will be his last. He vows(发誓) never to come back.The passage is mainly about ________.
| A．Water Festival celebrations | B．a stampede in Cambodia |
| C．a teenager, Buot Panha | D．a woman and her children |
What is the main idea of Paragraph 2?
| A．It is the biggest tragedy in decades in Cambodia. |
| B．It is the most serious loss of life in decades in Cambodia. |
| C．The government ordered an investigation. |
| D．Water Festival is Cambodia’s most joyous occasion. |
The underlined word “suffocated” (in Paragraph 4) probably means ________.
| A．breathed in | B．felt uncomfortable |
| C．died from too little oxygen | D．left in a hurry |
Most of the deaths were caused as a result of _________.
| A．being unable to breathe | B．being drowned |
| C．violence | D．the rainy season |
Which of the following is TRUE about Buot Panha according to the passage?
| A．His being tall saved him in the river. |
| B．He struggled through the crowd to save one child. |
| C．It was his first time to attend the Water Festival alone. |
| D．He will never come back to Phnom Penh for the Water Festival. |
Thousands of people living in the Chinese capital will celebrate the start of the Chinese New year by heading for the ski resorts (滑雪场). Never mind that Beijing’s dry weather seldom produces snow. It is cold enough in winter for snow-making machines to make a covering for the hills north to the capital. And the rapid growth of a pleasure-seeking middle class has formed the basis for this new craze(热潮).
Since Beijing’s first ski resort was opened ten years ago, the sport has enjoyed astonishing increase. There are now more than a dozen resorts. Clothes markets in the city have added bright colored ski suits to their winter collections. Mr. Wei, a manager of a newly-opened ski resort in Beijing, sees the growth of an industry that could soon lead Chinese to head for the ski resorts of Europe. In recent years, ski resorts offering natural snow have opened in China. But many are in faraway areas of the country and can’t really match the equipment and services of some ski resorts in Europe.
Beijing’s skiing craze is partly a result of the recent increase in private (私有的) cars. This has led to the growth of a leisure industry in the capital’s suburbs (郊区), which until the late-1990s were unreachable to ordinary people. According to Mr. Wei, about 40% of the visitors to his resort come in their own cars. The rest are bused in by schools, businesses or government offices.
The problem is making money. Starting ski resorts requires quite a lot of money; hiring land from the local government, preparing the hills, buying snow machines, making sure there are enough water and electricity to run them, and buying ski equipment for hiring out to customers.
The ski resort where Mr. Wei works cost nearly $4 million to set up. And as so often in China when someone comes up with a good idea, many others rush in and price wars break out. Beijing now offers some of the cheapest ski training classes in the world, though with most people rather new to the sport, expecting a few more doing the same job.What does this text mainly talk about?
| A．Convenience for skiers brought about by private cars. |
| B．Skiing as a new way of enjoying one's spare time. |
| C．Things to be considered when starting a ski resort. |
| D．A sudden increase of ski training classes in Beijing. |
Why are some Chinese likely to go skiing in Europe?
| A．To visit more ski areas. |
| B．To ski on natural snow. |
| C．For a large collection of ski suits. |
| D．For better services and equipment. |
The underlined words “leisure industry” in Paragraph 3 refer to
| A．transport to ski resorts |
| B．production of family cars |
| C．business of providing spare time enjoyments |
| D．part-time work for people living in the suburbs |
What is the main problem in running a ski resort?
| A．Difficulty in hiring land． |
| B．Lack of business experience． |
| C．Price wars with other ski resorts |
| D．Shortage of water and electricity. |
A child, who has once got interested in a tale, likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to “tell” a story than just “read” it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce his own as an improvement on the printed text, according to his child’s actual situation, so much the better.
There is a charge made against some fairy tales, as they probably harm children by frightening them or leaving them sad feelings. To prove it, an experiment has been done to show that children who have heard terrible fairy stories often feel more uneasy than those who have not. As for fears, there are some cases where children get timid (胆怯的) by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition may weaken the pain of fear.
There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that the stories are not objectively true, and that those giants, witches, two-headed dragons, magic carpets etc. do not really exist, so children should be taught to learn the reality by studying history, instead of being got fond of the strange side in fairy tales. Those, who prefer to create such stories, are so peculiar (奇怪的) that it is hard to argue with them. If their creative exaggeration (夸张) were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl-friend.
Not once is a fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world, but not every child is clever enough to be aware of it. Parents should choose their children’s “bed-time” reading materials with much care. Only the fairy stories containing positive effect will make a clever and caring child with rich imagination.The author considers that a fairy story is more effective when it is ______.
| A．repeated without any change |
| B．treated as no more than a joke |
| C．made some changes by parents |
| D．set in the present situation |
According to the passage, when a child hears a terrible fairy story, ______.
| A．he will get more interested |
| B．great fear can take place in him |
| C．he will like it to be repeated |
| D．an experiment is being done |
The word “sound” in Para.3 can be understood as ______.
| A．fashionable | B．forgettable | C．available | D．believable |
The author mentions “sticks” and “telephones” to prove that ______.
| A．fairy stories are all made up |
| B．fairy tales lead to misunderstanding |
| C．children are cheated by old stories |
| D．there is more concern for children |
One of the reasons why some people are not in favor of fairy tales is that ______.
| A．they are made up far from the truth |
| B．they are so full of imagination |
| C．they are not interesting at all |
| D．they make history difficult to teach |
It makes sense that parents choose fairy stories with ______ as “bed-time” reading materials..
| A．formal printings | B．creative scenes | C．positive effect | D．terrible characters |
When I lived in Spain, some Spanish friends of mine decided to visit England by car. Before they left, they asked me for advice about how to find accommodation (住所). I suggested that they should stay at ‘bed and breakfast’ houses, because this kind of accommodation gives foreign visitors a good chance to speak English with the family. My friends listened to my advice, but they came back with some funny stories.
“We didn’t stay at ‘B&B’ (bed and breakfast) houses,” they said, “because we found that most families were away on holiday.”
I thought this was strange. Finally I understood what had happened. My friends spoke little English, and they thought “VACANCIES” meant “holidays”, because the Spanish word for “holidays” is “vacaciones”. So they did not go to house where the sign outside said “VACANCIES”, which in English means there are free rooms. Then my friends went to house where the sign said “NO VACANCIES”, because they thought this meant the people who owned the house were not away on holiday. But they found that these houses were all full. As a result, they stayed at hotels!
We laughed about this and about mistakes my friends made in reading other signs. In Spanish, the word “DIVERSION” means fun. In English, it means that workmen are repairing the road, and that you must take a different road. When my friends saw the word “DIVERSION” on a road sign, they thought they were going to have fun. Instead, their car was soon stopped.
English people have problems too when they learn foreign languages. Once in Paris, when someone offered me some more coffee, I said “Thank you” in French. I meant that I would like some more. However , to my surprise the coffee pot was taken away! Later I found out that “Thank you” in French means “No, thank you”.My Spanish friends wanted advice about ______.
| A．learning English in England |
| B．finding places to stay in England |
| C．driving their car on English roads |
| D．going to England to have fun |
I suggested that they stay at ‘B&B’ houses because ______.
| A．it would be available for them to practice English |
| B．it would be much cheaper than staying in hotels |
| C．it would be convenient for them to have dinner |
| D．it would be easy to find accommodation there |
“NO VACANCIES” in English means ______.
| A．no free rooms | B．with free rooms | C．not away on holiday | D．no holidays at all |
If you see a road sign that says “DIVERSION”, you will ______.
| A．get held by the traffic policemen |
| B．have a lot of fun and enjoy yourself |
| C．find the road is blocked by people |
| D．have to take another different road |
When someone offered me more coffee and I said “Thank you” in French, I ______.
| A．didn’t really want any more coffee |
| B．wanted the coffee pot taken away |
| C．really wanted some more coffee |
| D．wanted to express my politeness |