What is the hottest English word of 2013? It’s “selfie”, according to Oxford dictionaries. Selfie is a photo that one takes of oneself, according to the Oxford online dictionary. People usually take selfies with a smartphone(智能手机) and send them to a social media website.
The word was first used in 2002. In the past 12 months, its frequency (出现频率) in the English language has increased by 17,000 percent, said Oxford dictionaries. Now, almost everybody knows it.
“Almost every day, I take a photo of myself at school, and save it in my Qzone (QQ空间),” said Huang Xu, 13, from Hunan. These photos record her happy and sad moments.
Pop stars also take a lot of selfies. Li Chunping, 14, from Harbin, is a big fan of Yang Mi. “She has used many selfies to tell us what’s going on in her personal life,” said Li.
What makes people love selfies? Some people say it’s narcissism (自恋). “The rise of the selfie is a perfect symbol for our narcissistic culture. We’re crying out: Look at me!” said US psychiatrist(精神科医生) Carole Lieberman.
Young people are using selfies to make friends online, Jonathan Freedland wrote in The Guardian. “The usual purpose of taking a selfie is to share online. They express a human need to connect with others,” wrote Freedland.
Huang Xu agrees with that. “During summer vacation, my classmates and I shared many selfies online. Hair or clothes were not our interests. Through these photos, we got to know each other’s holidays and feelings,” said Huang Xu.
| A．a person with a smartphone |
| B．a smartphone which can take photos |
| C．a photo taken by oneself |
| D．an English dictionary |
| A．More than ten years ago | B．In 2013 |
| C．When smartphones appeared | D．Nobody knows |
| A．only famous people enjoy taking selfies |
| B．all people love selfies because of narcissism |
| C．people love to share selfies online |
| D．US psychiatrist Carole Lieberman hates selfies |
| A．Paragraph 4 | B．Paragraph 5 | C．Paragraph 6 | D．Paragraph 7 |
| A．Selfies and narcissism | B．Selfies and sharing |
| C．Selfies and smartphones | D．Selfies, the hottest word in 2013 |
Dinner customs are different around the world. If you are a guest in Ghana(加纳), this information will help you a lot.
In Ghana, dinner is usually from four in the afternoon to six in the evening. But there are no strict rules about time. Whenever a guest arrives, a family offers food. When you go to a home, the person who receives guests takes you to the living room first. At this time everyone welcomes you. Then you go to the dinning room. There you wash your hands in a bowl of water. All the food is on the table. In Ghana you usually eat with your fingers. You eat from the same dish as everyone else .But you eat from one side of the dish only. It is not polite to get food from the other side of the dish. After dinner, you wash your hands again in a bowl of water.
Most meals in Ghana have a dish called fufu. People in Ghana make fufu from the powder (粉末)of some plants. Sometimes they cut the fufu with a saw(锯子)because it is very hard. You must chew(咀嚼 )fufu well, or you may get sick. You eat fufu with the fingers of your right hand only. From the passage we know that in Ghana
| A．the rules for dinner time are not strict |
| B．dinner is always at six in the evening |
| C．a family offers food only at four in the afternoon |
| D．people usually invite their guests to dinner late in the evening |
If you are a dinner guest in Ghana, the host always takes you to____.
| A．the dining room first | B．the living room first |
| C．the kitchen first | D．the garden first |
People in Ghana usually eat ________.
| A．from one side of a dish to the other |
| B．from the other side of the dish |
| C．with their fingers |
| D．with their spoons |
In fact, most meals in Ghana _____________
| A．are cooked with the flowers of some plants |
| B．have fufu in them |
| C．are too hard to eat |
| D．are not very hard . |
When you eat fufu, you’d better
| A．cut it with a saw | B．use your right hand only |
| C．chew it well | D．all of the above. |
The picture shows 18-year –old Katy Ross in Nepal, a small country in north India. Katy left school 8 months ago and soon she will go to university .She loves traveling and decides to visit Asia before she goes to university. Katy is living with a family in the capital of Nepal. She has learnt a lot about the country since she arrived 4 months ago. The family has two children but many uncles and cousins live with them in their big house. They have taken Katy to many parties.
Katy teaches for four hours a day at a small school. All the classes are in English and the pupils have spoken English since the age of six. The older children speak English very well. Katy has taught writing, grammar and art, all in English. She enjoys art most. And she thinks the children like the lessons best , too.
Katy doesn’t have a lot of time to see Nepal, but soon she will stop teaching and travel around Nepal with a friend.“After that, ’’ Katy says,“we will visit more countries in Asia. We ’ re not sure which ones yet. ’’
| A．She is studying there. |
| B．She wants to take some pictures there. |
| C．She wants to learn more about the country. |
| D．She is an exchange student. |
| A．They are friendly. |
| B．There are three people in their house. |
| C．They are strange. |
| D．They have never taken Katy to the parties. |
| A．Eight months. | B．Six months. | C．Four months. | D．One month. |
| A．When they are 5 years old. |
| B．When they are 6 years old. |
| C．When they are 7 years old. |
| D．When they are 8 years old. |
| A．likes traveling very much |
| B．doesn ’ t want to live with a family |
| C．only teaches writing in English |
| D．will go back to school after she leaves Nepal. |
A teenage girl couldn’ t stand her family rules , so she left home.
She wanted to be a star and became famous. But she had a little education and years later, she had to ask for food on the street for a living. Now her father has died. Her mother is an old woman. But she is still her daughter. She has been to every corner of the city. Everywhere she goes, she a big photo of her daughter on the wall. At the lower part of the photo she writes,“I still love you… Come back home! ”
One day, the daughter saw one of the photos. She was so surprised that she couldn’t believe her .“Is that me?” She moved and read the words,“I still love you…” She cried. She couldn’t wait back home. When she got home, it was early morning. She pushed the door. The door opened itself. She rushed to the bedroom at once. Her mother was sleeping there. She her mother up,“It’s me! Your daughter is back home!” The mother and daughter looked at each other with excitement, full of happy tears. The daughter asked, “ is the door unlocked? A thief could get in.” The mother answered softly,“The door has never locked you left. We miss you all the time. We believe that you’ll come back some day.”
As everyone knows, parents love their children forever. Children should also understand their parents and share their happiness, sadness, even everything with their parents. _ this way, both parents and children can be happy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When we got to the hospital, we found Dad still coughed a lot, but his smile was as sure as ever. It was another attack of pneumonia(肺炎). My husband and I stayed with him for the weekend, but we had to go back to our jobs on Monday. Local relatives would help Dad get home from the hospital and look after him. But I wanted to let him know that we also cared about him. even when we weren't with him.
Then I remembered a family tradition （传统）when our children were small. Before leaving their grandparents' home after a visit, each child would write a love note to their grandparents. For days, their grandparents would smile as they read these notes of love.
So when I cleaned Dad's kitchen and made the bed for him, I wrote some notes. Some were like this, "Dad, I put the food in the fridge. " Some expressed my love, "Dad, I hope you will sleep well in your new bed. " Most notes were put downstairs where he would stay for several weeks when he was ill. But I put one note upstairs under his pillow(枕头), "Dad, if yon have found this note, you must be feeling better. We are so glad!"
"These notes helped improve his health. Several weeks later, in one of our regular phone calls, I asked Dad how he was doing. He said, "Pretty good. I just found your note under my pillow upstairs!
根据短文内容填空，每空填一词。The writer's father was sent to the ________ , so her husband and she stayed with him on that _______ .
Local relatives would help the write’s father to _____ home from the hospital and look _____ him
It was _______ for the writer’s children to write love ________ to their grandparents.
The notes only ______ the writer’s love but helped to improve her father’s ________ .
After _______ weeks , the writer was glad to find that her father felt much ______ on the phone .
On the suburb (郊区) of a town in England. there lived an old man in a nice house with a large garden. ______ He watered and fertilized (施肥) them.
One day a young man went by the garden. He looked at the beautiful flowers, imaging how happy he could be if he lived in such a beautiful place. He was very surprised about this and asked, “You can’t see these flowers, why do you take notice of them every day?”
The old man smiled and said, “I can tell you four reasons. First, I was a gardener since I was young, and I really like this job. Second, __________. Third, I can smell the sweetness of them. As for the last one ,that’s you .”
“Me? But you don’t know me,” said the young man.
“Yeah, it’s true that I don’t know you. But I know that flowers are angels（天使）that everyone knows. _____”
The blind man’s work opened our eyes and pleased our hearts, which also made his life happier. It was just like Beethoven. Beethoven himself couldn't hear his wonderful music, but his music has encouraged millions of people to face their difficulties bravely. Isn't it one kind of happiness?
把A~E五个句子填入文中空缺处，使短文内容完整、正确。