Try reading the following sentences as fast as you can. “ She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are surely seashells. So if she sells shells in the seashore, I’m sure she sells seashore shells.”
Not very easy, was it? What you’ve just read is called a tongue twister（绕口令）. It is an exercise made up of sounds that are hard to pronounce in order to help people pronounce words faster and more correctly. Try the next example.
“Peter Piper picked a peck of picked peppers, Did Peter Piper pick a peck of picked peppers? If Peter Piper picked a peck of picked peppers, where’s the peck of picked peppers Peter picked?”
Tongue twisters usually do not have much meaning. They are just designed to improve people’s ability（能力）to pronounce words. Although they may be very difficult, these exercises are very important to people who are trying to speak English correctly. This is because tongue twisters help people to tell the differences between similar sounds.
So if you wish to pronounce words more smoothly, you’d better try picking out some tongue twisters and practicing them.Tongue twisters are helpful in improving ________ skills.
| A．listening | B．writing | C．pronunciation | D．communication |
The first tongue twister is hard because _________.
| A．it is very boring to read |
| B．it teaches us a lot of knowledge |
| C．we don’t know who “she” is |
| D．the sounds of “s” and “sh” are similar |
What does the “ability” mean in Paragraph 4?
| A．Pronouncing words faster and more correctly. |
| B．Pronouncing words faster |
| C．Knowing the meaning of words. |
| D．Picking out tongue twisters smoothly. |
Nathan Sawaya's childhood was a lot of fun. He drew cartoons, wrote stories, and played with plastic toy bricks (积木). His grandparents bought his first set of toy bricks when he was five years old and he's been building with toy bricks ever since. He even took his building bricks to college with him! Instead of books and a computer, he had a model of Greenwich Village made of bricks on his desk.
Nathan started as a lawyer but gave up His highly-paid (高薪的) job to become an artist that uses toys in his art. He uses toy bricks to build everything from the Statue of Liberty(自由女神像) to Superman! He has more than 1.5 million colored bricks in his working room in New York which he uses to make pieces of art. He started by building small models but then decided to do something big and created a self-portrait (自画像). It took him two days just to build the eyes.
Nathan's work has appeared in museums around the world. Children love his art because it is made out of the same toys that they play with at home and adults love his work because it is fascinating. Since it began in2007, Nathan's exhibition "The Art of the Brick" has been very popular with museum visitors everywhere.
"I'm proud that I took a dream I had as a child, to become an artist, and I have actually made a job out of it," says Nathan. "To do what you love in life is the most important thing."What did Nathan put on his desk at college?
| A．The Statue of Liberty. |
| B．Superman. |
| C．His serf-portrait. |
| D．A Greenwich Village modal. |
Why did Nathan give up his job as a lawyer?
| A．Because he made little money out of a lawyer. |
| B．Because he wanted to make toys for the children. |
| C．Because he decided to become an artist of toy bricks. |
| D．Because he was going to work in the museum instead. |
What does the underlined word "it" in Paragraph 3 refer to?
| A．Nathan's work. | B．Nathan's exhibition. |
| C．Nathan's art. | D．Nathan's self-portrait |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．The Brick Artist | B．The Brick Exhibition |
| C．Toy Bricks for Adults | D．The Artist's Childhood |
When I crossed a small road on my first day in Kolkata, I was surprised because I heard a bell-not a horn (喇叭), It was a tiny man pulling a rickshaw, He stopped and picked up two children from the front door of their house and pulled them to school. For many people, the rickshaw in Kolkata has many advantages, When the traffic is bad, rickshaws find a way through the traffic. If your miss your bus and there aren't any taxis, you can always find a rickshaw in Kolkata. Rickshaws are from your house to the market and waits for you. Then he loads (装载)all your things, drops you off outside your home and helps you unload, No other type of public transport offers this kind of service.
From June to September, Kolkata gets heavy rain. Sometimes it rains for 48 hours without a break. In some parts of the city, the roads flood (水淹), and anything with an engine(发动机) is useless, But the rickshaw drivers never stop working, even with water all around them.
But not everyone thinks rickshaws are a good thing. The local government want to ban rickshaws. They believe it is wrong for one man to pull another person when there is modern transport in the city. However, there is a problem with this plan. Many of the rickshaw drivers come from the countryside. The only job they can find in Kolkata is pulling a rickshaw, If the city bans rickshaws, these men won't have a job. So for the moment, the people of Kolkata still go by rickshaw.What is the main idea of Paragraph 1?
| A．The rickshaw drivers carry things for local people in Kolkata. |
| B．Parents need rickshaws for taking children to school in Kolkata. |
| C．Rickshaws can find a way through the bad traffic in Kolkata. |
| D．Rickshaws are very useful for the people' s daily life in Kolkata. |
What does the underlined word "ban" mean?
| A．make | B．increase | C．forbid | D．collect |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．The rickshaws in Kolkata have loud horns. |
| B．The rickshaw is still a part of public transport in Kolkata. |
| C．The local government offer many other jobs to the rickshaw driven. |
| D．The people in Kolkata are supposed to take rickshaws instead of cars. |
How much are the musical tickets for two children?
A. 16 pounds, B, 35 pounds. C. 30 pounds. D. 40 pounds.When will the Teenage Drawing Competition be held?
| A．On June 7th. | B．On August 6th. |
| C．On September 20th. | D．On April 25th. |
Where can you watch Adele's performance this Sunday afternoon?
| A．At St. James' s Park. | B．At Westfield Theater. |
| C．At Westfield Shopping Center. | D．At Cambridge Theater. |
任务型阅读（共10小题，每小题1分，计10分）
Have you ever wondered what an American high school is really like? This article will describe a typical (典型的) high school and its students.
A typical American high school has several large buildings and enough space for about 1,500 students. Every student is given a locker. When students first arrive at school, they go straight to their lockers to put away or get their textbooks and to hang up their outdoor clothes. As American textbooks are expensive, students would rather loan(租借) than buy them. Students must pay back if they lost any of them.
American students have different types of school transport. They usually take a yellow school bus or walk to school if they live close enough. Sometimes their parents drive them to school. When they turn 16 years of age, most take a free driving class at school for one term. If students earn passing grades in the class and also pass their state driver’s exam, they can begin driving themselves to school.
Each day, students take six or seven classes. They must take science, math, English and social studies. They can choose art, homemaking, fashion design and other classes. In some schools students are required to take one or more of the following special classes: health education, physical education or foreign language studies. Students move to different classrooms for each subject. This is because each teacher has their own classroom. There is a five-minute break between classes, to give the students the time to hurry to their next class.
The regular school day usually ends early in the afternoon. After school more than half of the students are involved in after-school activities. These activities include sports-especially football, basketball, baseball and soccer or clubs, such as yearbook, speech, school newspaper, photograph or student government.
Title: in an American High School
| Outline |
Details |
| Introduction |
◇It gives an overview of a typical American high school and its |
| Lockers and textbooks |
◇Every student has a locker for textbooks and ◇They prefer loaning textbooks to |
| ◇Students usually go to school by bus or on foot. Sometimes their ◇They can |
|
| Classes and classrooms |
◇Students have to take main classes, elective classes and sometimes one or more ◇They go to |
| After-school activities |
◇After school most of the students take |
Arthur sat at the desk in his room, pencil in hand. He had to write a story for his English class by Friday. “I don’t know what to write about,” he complained to his dog Toby, who was asleep at his feet. Arthur was talkative when speaking to his friends, yet he had trouble finding words when he had to write.
By bedtime Arthur had drawn a picture of Toby smiling. He had drawn a tree with its branches blowing in the strong wind. He had also written a note asking his friend Lee to go to the movies on Saturday. But he had not written a single word of his story.
On Wednesday, Mrs. Solomon, Arthur’s English teacher, asked the class to turn in the first draft of their stories. His heart sinking, Arthur turned in the only work he had—the page with his name, the drawings and the note.
Arthur wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Solomon asked him to stay after class the next day. But he was surprised by what she said to him. “This is an attractive story, Arthur. The dog, the movie, the tree in the wind—I can’t wait to find out how they all fit together.”
“That isn’t my story, Mrs. Solomon,” Arthur admitted. “I haven’t been able to think of one yet.”
“Oh, I think you have the seed(种子of a story there,” Mrs. Solomon replied, “Look at your note and the pictures and see if a story comes to you.”
That night Arthur sat at his desk, and this is what he wrote: “One Saturday Mike went downstairs to meet his friend Julio at the cinema. It looked as if it might rain, so Mike carried his umbrella. Suddenly a big storm blew in, bending the trees. The noise of the wind sounded like the barking of Mike’s dog Toby. Toby really hated storms and barked whenever he wanted to be let inside. Then Mike realized that it wasn’t the sound of the wind. It was Toby. The dog was running after him down the busy street, barking. The sound was filled with blame. Mike felt guilty because he had left Toby outside. He turned and headed home with Toby running beside him. Mike let Toby in the door just as the rain started to pour down.”
Arthur had a story in the end. The last thing he did was to write his name proudly at the top of the page.Why did Arthur turn in the page with only his name, the drawings and the note at first?
| A．Because he had no time to fit them together. |
| B．Because he had difficulty in writing a story. |
| C．Because he wasn’t willing to do his homework. |
| D．Because he wanted to show his talent for drawing. |
What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 6 probably mean?
| A．Toby is an imaginative and lovely dog. |
| B．The small tree will grow into a big one. |
| C．His friend Lee can give him a lot of support. |
| D．He can develop his story based on the first draft. |
What kind of teacher do you think Mrs. Solomon is ?
| A．She is a strict teacher | B．She is a wise teacher |
| C．She is an honest teacher | D．She is an energetic teacher |
What can we infer(推断from the story?
| A．Arthur is a shy and quiet student |
| B．Arthur isn’t very satisfied with his story |
| C．There will be a storm on Saturday |
| D．Encouragement is important in teaching |