One Friday morning, Andrew announced to his wife that he finally decided to ask his boss for a salary raise. All day Andrew felt worried --- what if Mr. Larchmont refuses to grant his request? Andrew had worked so hard and of course, he deserves a wage increase.
The thought of walking into Larchmont’s office left Andrew weak in the knees. Late in the afternoon he finally mustered up the courage to approach his superior. To his delight and surprise, the ever-frugal Harvey Larchmont agreed to give him a raise!
Andrew arrived home to a beautiful table set with their best china, and candles lit. His wife, Tina had prepared a fine meal including his favorite dishes. Immediately he figured someone from the office might have broken the good news to her!
Next to his plate Andrew found a lettered note, reading: "Congratulations, my love! I knew you'd get the raise! I prepared this dinner to show just how much I love you. I am so proud of your accomplishments!" He read it and stopped to reflect on how sensitive and caring Tina was.
After dinner, Andrew was on his way to the kitchen when he observed a second card had slipped out of Tina's pocket onto the floor. He picked it up. He read: "Don't worry about not getting the raise! You deserve it anyway! You are a wonderful provider and I prepared this dinner to show you just how much I love you even though you did not get the increase."
Suddenly tears swelled in Andrew's eyes. Total acceptance! Tina's support for him was not conditional upon his success at work.
The fear of rejection is often softened when we know someone loves us regardless of our success or failure. Why was Andrew worried about asking for a salary raise?
| A．He was afraid of being turned down. |
| B．He didn’t think he ought to get a raise. |
| C．He wife didn’t support him in this. |
| D．His superior had refused him once. |
What does the underlined word “muster” in the second paragraph probably mean?
| A．To gather something. |
| B．To make use of something . |
| C．To create something. |
| D．To consume something |
Andrew felt ______ when he discovered the truth.
| A．angry | B．disappointed | C．relaxed | D．moved |
Tina prepared a good meal, _________.
| A．because she knew her husband would make it |
| B．because she wanted to comfort her husband |
| C．but she didn’t know what the result would be |
| D．and she wrote a letter to her husband. |
Here is a poster on a middle school website. Read the website poster.
Going, Going, Gone!
The Haynes Middle School Parent-Teacher Organization invites you to attend our latest fund-raiser, The Fourth Annual Haynes School Auction (拍卖)!
Saturday, May 10
☆6:00 p.m. ~ 11:00 p.m.
☆In the school hall
☆6:00 p.m.~ 6:30 p.m.: All items for auction are previewed.
☆6:30 p.m.~ 7:00 p.m.: Silent auction begins.
☆7:00 p.m.~ 7:30 p.m.: Highest bidders (出价人) from silent auction are determined.
☆7:30 p.m.~ 11:00 p.m.: Main auction begins.
Items (物品) up for bid in the silent auction vary in value from $ 5.00 to $ 30.00.
Items up for bid in the main auction include the following:
●Airline tickets to a place of your choice
●Weekend getaways at first-class hotels
●Season tickets to the Chicago Bears football game
●$ 50 gift tickets to local gift shops, restaurants, and salons
Don’t miss the boat! Book your tickets today.
Last year, tickets were sold out within four days!
Tickets are sold on a first-come, first-served basis.
$ 15.00 per person
All the money from the auction will be given to the Haynes School computer lab.Which of the following is NOT mentioned as being up for bid at the auction?
| A．A movie pass to the local cinema. | B．A weekend stay at a hotel. |
| C．A ticket to a restaurant. | D．Airline tickets. |
The more items that are given or bought for auction, ________.
| A．the less money that will be charged for the tickets to the auction |
| B．the more money that can be raised to support the computer lab |
| C．the faster the ticket will be sold to the auction |
| D．the higher the value that will be placed on the items in the silent auction |
Which of the following is most likely to happen at the year’s auction?
| A．The airline tickets will receive higher bids than any other item. |
| B．All items up for bid will be sold for at least twice their value. |
| C．More money will be raised this year than in any other year before. |
| D．Tickets for the event will be sold out in less than one week. |
The phrase “first-come, first-served” tells you that ________.
| A．people can buy the tickets on the first day only |
| B．the person who is the first to arrive will receive a ticket at no charge |
| C．food and drinks will be served at the auction |
| D．tickets are sold in the order of who arrives first to buy them |
A “blogger” is a person who writes on an Internet website called a “blog”. The word “blog” is a short way of saying “web log”, or “personal website”. Anyone can start a blog, and they can write about anything they like.
There are millions of blogs on the Internet today. They provide news, information and ideas to the people who read them. They contain links to other websites. And they provide a place for people to write their ideas and react to the ideas of others.
A research company called Perseus has studied more than 3,000 web logs. It says that blogs are most popular with teenage girls. They use them to let their friends know what is happening in their lives. The study also says that more than 100,000 bloggers stopped taking part in the activity after a year.
However, some people develop serious blogs to present political and other ideas. For example, the Republican and Democratic parties in the southern state of Kentucky recently started their own blogs. And American companies are beginning to use blogs to advertise their products.
At the same time, some long-standing blogs have ended. Last week, blogging leader Dave Winer closed his free blog service “weblogs.com”. He said the site became too costly to continue. He started the blog four years ago, and thousands of people had written on it. They are now upset because they did not know that the site was closed
One blog that is still going strong is called Rebecca’s Pocket. Rebecca Blood created the website in 1999. She wrote about the history of blogs on the site. That article led to a book called The Weblog Handbook. It has been translated into four languages so far.
Miss Blood says Rebecca’s Pocket get about thirty thousand visitors a month. She writes about anything and everything — politics, culture and movies. She recently provided medical advice. And she wrote about how to prevent being stolen from online bank accounts.The text is mainly written to _______.
| A．introduce an Internet website called “blog” | B．introduce a short way of saying “web log” |
| C．tell readers about blogs | D．tell readers how to write blogs |
From the text we can learn that blogs cover almost everything except _______.
| A．different ideas | B．medical advice | C．advertisements | D．account p ass words |
Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the text?
| A．Politicians don’t use blogs at all. | B．A lot of bloggers no longer write or read blogs. |
| C．Those who like to use blogs are mostly teenage girls. | |
| D．Dave Winer closed his “weblogs.com” because of the money shortage. |
The reason why Rebecca’s Pocket is still going strong is that _______.
| A．it was created by a woman | B．it is about the history of blogs |
| C．it provides useful information and advice | |
| D．it has editions in at least four different languages |
What do you do if you are hit in the mouth and one of your teeth is knocked out? A dentist(牙医)may be able to put the tooth back in for you, but you have to get to the dentist first．In the meantime, you have to store the tooth so that it will stay healthy．
The simplest thing to do is put the tooth back into your mouth, or you could put it in milk．Frank Courts, a dentist at the University of Florida, worked with other researchers to find the safest way of keeping knocked-out teeth．He tried putting teeth into milk, into water, and into cell-culture medium(细胞培养液)．He also tried, just drying the teeth in the open air．He used teeth that had to be removed from people’s mouths for various reasons．The teeth were put into one of the solutions(溶液)or stored in the air for one hour．Then cells from the root of the teeth were scraped-off the teeth．Dr．Courts and the others then studied how healthy these cells were．
The cell-culture medium worked best to keep a knocked-out tooth healthy outside the mouth．However, few people keep cell-culture medium handy at home or in school．
The next best thing was milk．But Dr．Courts said that the best thing of all was to wash the tooth and put it right back into its socket(牙槽)in the mouth．For some people, though, this is just too painful or upsetting．So milk will do, until you get your tooth (and your mouth)to a dentist．This passage is mainly about．
| A．how a dentist can save a knocked-out tooth |
| B．how to keep a knocked-out tooth healthy |
| C．how Dr．Courts and other researchers made their experiments |
| D．how to put a knocked-out tooth back into its socket |
The best way to keep a knocked-out tooth healthy outside the mouth is to store it .
| A．in cell-culture medium | B．in milk | C．in water | D．in the open air |
Milk can be used instead of cell-culture medium to put a knocked-out tooth in because．
| A．milk works better to keep the tooth healthy | B．milk causes less pain |
| C．cell-culture medium is not usually handy | D．cell-culture medium is more expensive |
“Dr．Courts said that the best of al1 was to wash the tooth and put it right back into its socket in the mouth．”In the sentence, the word “best” means .
| A．cheapest and healthiest | B．least painful and cheapest |
| C．quickest and least painful | D．easiest and healthiest |
The best way of learning a language is using it. The best way of learning English is talking in English as much as possible. Sometimes you’ll get your words mixed up(混合)and people will not understand you. Sometimes people will say things too quickly and you can’t understand them. But if you keep your sense of humor(幽默感),you can always have a good laugh at the mistakes you make. Don’t be unhappy if people seem to be laughing at your mistakes. It’s better for people to laugh at your mistakes than to be angry with you, because they don’t understand what you are saying.The most important thing for learning English is:“Don’t be afraid of making mistakes because everyone makes mistakes.”What should you do in learning English?
| A．Be careful not to make any mistake. | B．Write as quickly as you can. |
| C．Speak English as much as you can. | D．Laugh all the way. |
When people laugh at your mistakes, you should______.
| A．not care | B．be happy | C．feel worried | D．be unhappy |
When you make a mistake, you should______.
| A．keep quiet | B．get angry | C．be kind | D．keep your sense of humor |
The story tells us: “________”
| A．Only foolish people make mistakes | B．Few people make mistakes |
| C．People never make mistakes | D．There is no one who doesn’t make mistakes |
Light travels at a speed which is about a million times faster than the speed of sound. In one second, light travels about 300,000km, but sound travels only 344m. You can get some idea of this difference by watching the start of a race. If you stand some distance away from the starter, you can see smoke come from his gun before the sound reaches your ears. This great speed of light produces some strange facts. Sunlight takes about 8 minutes to reach us. If you look at the light of the moon tonight, remember that the light rays（光线）left the moon 1.3 seconds before they reached you. The nearest star is so far away that the light which you can see from it tonight started to travel towards you four years ago at a speed of nearly 2 million km per minute. In some cases the light from one of tonight’s stars started on its journey to you before you were born.
Thus, if we want to be honest, we cannot say “ The stars are shining tonight.” We have to say, “ The stars look pretty. They were shining four years ago but their light has only just reached Earth.” Light speed is ________ than sound speed.
| A．millions times faster | B．a million times slower |
| C．about millions of times faster | D．about a million times faster |
If you stand 200 meters away from a man who is firing a gun to start a race, you will find out that _____.
| A．you can hear the gun before you see the smoke. |
| B．sound does not travel as fast as light. |
| C．the sound of the gun will reach you before the man fires his gun. |
| D．sound travels about a million times faster than light. |
What does “ it” refer to?
| A．moon light | B．light rays | C．the nearest star | D．the moon |
The scientific way of saying “ The stars are shining tonight” should be________.
| A．the stars have been shining all the time. |
| B．the stars seen tonight will be shining four years later. |
| C．the stars were shining long ago but are seen tonight. |
| D．the starlight seen today could be seen four years ago. |