Oprah Winfrey, born in 1954, is all American talk show host, best known for her multi-award-winning talk show. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world. It's no surprise that her endorsement(认可)can bring overnight sales fortune that defeats most, if not all, marketing campaigns. The star features about 20 products each year On her “Favorite Things” show. There’s even a term for it: the Oprah Effect.
Her television career began unexpectedly. When she was 16 year old, she had the idea of being a journalist to tell other people’s stories in a way that made a difference in their lives and the world. She was on television by the time she was 19 years old. And in 1986 she started her own television show with a continuous determination to succeed at first.
TIME magazine wrote, “People would have doubted Oprah Winfrey’s swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of big size. As interviewers go, she is no match for Phil Donahue. What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, rich humor and, above all understanding. Guests with sad[stories to tell tend to bring out a tear in Oprah’s eye. They, in turn, often find themselves exposing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience.”
“I was nervous about the competition and then I became my own competition raising the bar every year, pushing, pushing, pushing myself as hard as I knew. It doesn't matter how far you might rise. At some point you are bound to fall if you’re constantly doing what we do, raising the bar. If you're constantly pushing yourself higher, higher the law of averages, you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: there is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction” as Oprah addressed graduates at Harvard on May 30, 2013.The Oprah Effect refers to _______
| A．the effect on a business | B．the power of Oprah’s opinions |
| C．the impact on talkshows | D．the assessment of Oprah’s talk show |
What can be inferred about Oprah’s television career?
| A．She once gave up on her choice |
| B．Her swift success has been expected. |
| C．It lives up to her parents’ expectation. |
| D．She must have been challenged by white males. |
The message from Oprah to graduates at Harvard is that _______.
| A．success comes after failure |
| B．failure is nothing to fear |
| C．there is no need to set goals too high |
| D．pushing physical limits makes no sense |
Which of the following best describes Oprah Winfrey?
| A．Dull and pushy. | B．Honest but tough. |
| C．Caring and determined. | D．Curious but weak. |
This year 2,300 teenagers ( young people aged from 13-19 ) from all over the world will spend about ten months in U.S. homes. They will attend U.S. schools, meet U.S. teenagers, and form impressions (印象) of the real American teenagers. American teenagers will go to other countries to learn new languages and have a new understanding of the rest of the world.
Here is a two-way student exchange in action. Fred, nineteen, spent last year in Germany with George's family. In return, George's son, Mike, spent a year in Fred's home in America.
Fred, a lively young man, knew little German when he arrived, but after two months study, the language began to come to him. School was completely different from what he had expected — much harder. Students rose respectfully (尊敬地) when the teacher entered the room. They took fourteen subjects instead of the six that are usual in the United States. There were almost no outside activities.
Family life, too, was different. The family's word was law, and all activities were around the family rather than one of the members. Fred found the food too simple at first. Also, he missed having a car.
“Back home, you pick up some friends in a car and go out and have a good time. In Germany, you walk, but you soon learn to like it.”
At the same time, in America, Mike, a friendly German boy, was also forming his idea. “I suppose I should criticize (批评) American schools.” he says. “It is far too easy by our level. But I have to say that I like it very much. In Germany we do nothing but study. Here we take part in many outside activities. I think that maybe your schools are better in training for citizens. There ought to be some middle ground between the two.”The whole exchange program is mainly to ____.
| A．help teenagers in other countries know the real America |
| B．send students in America to travel in Germany |
| C．let students learn something about other countries |
| D．have teenagers learn new languages |
What did Fred and Mike agree on?
| A．American food tasted better than German food. |
| B．German schools were harder than American schools. |
| C．Americans and Germans were both friendly. |
| D．There were more cars on the streets in America. |
What is particular (特别的) in American schools?
| A．There is some middle ground between the two teaching buildings. |
| B．There are a lot of after-school activities. |
| C．Students usually take 14 subjects in all. |
| D．Students go outside to enjoy themselves in a car. |
What did Mike think after experiencing the American school life?
| A．A better education should include something good from both America and Germany. |
| B．German schools trained students to be better citizens. |
| C．American schools were not as good as German schools. |
| D．The easy life in the American school was more helpful to students. |
If you go into the forest with friends，stay with them. If you don’t，you may get lost. If you get lost, this is what you should do. Sit down and stay where you are. Don’t try to find your friends—let them find you. You can help them find you by staying in one place. There is another way to help your friends or other people to find you. You can shout or whistle three times. Stop. Then shout or whistle three times again. Any signal given three times is a call for help. Keep up shouting or whistling. Always three times together. When people hear you，they will know that you are not just making a noise for fun. They will let you know that they have heard your signal. They will give you two shouts or two whistles. When a signal is given twice, it is an answer to a call for help. If you don’t think that you will get help before night comes, try to make a little house with branches. Make yourself a bed with leaves and grass. When you need some water, you have to leave your little branch house to look for it. Don’t just walk away. Pick off small branches and drop them as you walk in order to go back again easily. When you are lost, the most important thing to do is to stay in one place.Which signal is a call for help？
| A．shouting here and there | B．crying twice |
| C．shouting or whistling three times together | D．whistling every where in the forest |
When you hear two shouts or two whistles，you know that ____________________.
| A．someone is afraid of an animal | B．people will come to help you |
| C．someone needs help | D．something terrible will happen |
What’s the meaning of the underlined sentence？
| A．Leave branches to find your way back | B．Pick off branches to build another house |
| C．Use branches to make a bed | D．Drop branches to look for water |
The main idea of the passage is________________________.
| A．how to travel in the forest |
| B．how to spend the night in the forest |
| C．what you should do if you want to get some water |
| D．what you should do if you are lost in the forest |
From Monday until Friday most people are busy working or studying, but in the evenings and on weekends they are free to relax (放松) and enjoy themselves. Some watch TV or go to the movies; others take part in sports. It depends on individual interests. There are many different ways to spend our spare time.
Almost everyone has some kinds of hobbies. It may be anything from collecting stamps to making model airplanes. Some hobbies are very expensive, but others don’t cost anything at all. Some collections are worth a lot of money; others are valuable only to their owners.
I know a man who has a coin collection worth several thousand dollars. A short time ago he bought a rare (稀有的) fifty-cent piece worth $250! He was very happy about his buying and thought the price was reasonable (合理的). On the other hand, my youngest brother collects matchboxes. He has almost 600 of them but I doubt (怀疑) if they are worth any money. However, to my brother they are very valuable. Nothing makes him happier than to find a new matchbox for his collection.
That’s what a hobby means, I guess. It is something we like to do in our spare time simply for the fun of it. The value in dollars is not important, but the pleasure it gives us is.The underlined word “individual” in the first paragraph most probably means____ .
| A．different | B．strange | C．secret | D．one's own |
In the writer's opinion, ____.
| A．all hobbies are very expensive | B．some hobbies don't cost anything |
| C．hobbies are worthless | D．hobbies are valuable to everybody |
Something that one enjoys doing in one's spare time is a____ .
| A．job | B．pleasure | C．hobby | D．habit |
Read the following text and choose the most suitable heading from A-F for each paragraph. There is one extra heading which you do not need.
A. Reasons for the use of Podcasting
B. Definition and origin of Podcast
C. Importance of Podcasting at school
D. Advantage of Podcasts over other audio media
E. Podcasts—a further step from voice recordings
F. Devices needed for Podcasting_______
Recently a group of second-graders visited our school library to work on a “holidays around the world” project. The children created pictures showing holiday customs and then created voice recordings explaining what they drew. The incident showed very clearly the effectiveness of student-created voice recordings. Now imagine taking things one step further and creating Podcasts in a classroom setting.________
The term Podcast refers to an audio recording, linked to the Web, that can be downloaded to a personal MP3 player. The word is created from broadcast and from iPod ---the wildly popular MP3 player from Apple.________
Using audio with students isn’t new, of course. Teachers have used audiobooks at listening centers and recorded student voice on tape or CD for many years. Voice and music are the original media for teaching. Podcasts, however, can reach a much wider audience in a time frame outside the school days. Booktalking, an old way of getting kids excited about books, gets a tech assistance with Podcasting. Students can do some booktalking themselves; book review Podcasts seem to be another natural way for students to share what they know, providing an alternative to the book report.________
There are a number of excellent reasons for using Podcasting. Teachers made audio Podcasts, including visuals or video clips for any content area instruction and review. Some teachers have begun to record themselves teaching important concept
s; this creates an account of information online for kids to access when they’re stuck on a homework assignment. Audio and video files can also function as assessment tools. Imagine being a classroom teacher in September who can actually hear how his or her students were reading in June the school year before.________
You don’t need an iPod to make a Podcast. If you have a computer, a microphone, and some free software, you can make a Podcast. While an MP3 player is a popular and useful gadget, your audience doesn’t need MP3 players to listen, either: your students and their families can use the computer to play back what you’ve recorded.
There are still many things that Peter Cooke would like to try his hand at — paper-making and feather-work are on his list. For the moment, though, he will stick to the skill that he has been delighted to make perfect over the past ten years: making delicate and unusual objects out of shells.
As he leads me round his apartment showing me his work, he points to a pair of shell-covered ornaments(装饰品) above a fireplace. “I shan’t be at all bothered if people don’t buy them because I have got so used to them, and to me they’re lovely. I never meant to sell my work commercially. Some friends came to see me about five years ago and said, ‘You must have an exhibition — people ought to see these. We’ll talk to a man who owns an art gallery’”. The result was an exhibition in London, at which 70 per cent of the objects were sold. His second exhibition opened at the gallery yesterday. Considering the enormous prices the pieces command —around ￡2,000 for the ornaments — an empty space above the fireplace would seem a small sacrifice for Cooke to make.
There are 86 pieces in the exhibition, with prices starting at￡225 for a shell-flower in a crystal vase. Cooke insists that he has nothing to do with the prices and 
is cheerily open about their level: he claims there is nobody else in the world who produces work like his, and, as the gallery-owner told him, “Well, you’re going to stop one day and everybody will want your pieces because there won’t be any more.”
“I do wish, though,” says Cooke, “that I’d taken this up a lot earlier, because then I would have been able to produce really wonderful things — at least the potential would have been there. Although the ideas are still there and I’m doing the best I can now, I’m more limited physically than I was when I started.” Still, the work that he has managed to produce is a long way from the common shell constructions that can be found in seaside shops. “I have a miniature(微型的) mind,” he says, and this has resulted in boxes covered in thousands of tiny shells, little shaded pictures made from shells and baskets of astonishingly realistic flowers.
Cooke’s quest(追求) for beautiful, and especially tiny, shells has taken him further than his Norfolk shore: to France, Thailand, Mexico, South Africa and the Philippines, to name but a few of the beaches where he has lain on his stomach and looked for beauties to bring home. He is insistent that he only collects dead shells and defends himself against people who write him letters accusing him of stripping the world’s beaches. “When I am collecting shells, I hear people’s great fat feet crunching(嘎吱嘎吱地踩) them up far faster than I can collect them; and the ones that are left, the sea breaks up. I would not dream of collecting shells with 
living creatures in them or diving for them, but once their occupants have left, why should I not collect them?” If one bases this argument on the amount of luggage that can be carried home by one man, the beauty of whose work is often greater than its natural parts, it becomes very convincing indeed.What does the reader learn about Peter Cooke in the first paragraph?
| A．He has produced hand-made objects in different materials. |
| B．He hopes to work with other materials in the future. |
| C．He has written about his love of making shell objects. |
| D．He was praised for his shell objects many years ago. |
When mentioning the cost of his shell objects, Cooke ____.
| A．cleverly changes the subject. |
| B．defends the prices charged for his work. |
| C．says he has no idea why the level is so high. |
| D．notes that his work will not always be so popular. |
The “small sacrifice” in Paragraph 2 refers to _________.
| A．the loss of Cooke’s ornaments | B．the display of Cooke’s ornaments |
| C．the cost of keeping Cooke’s ornaments | D．the space required to store Cooke’s ornaments |
What does Cooke regret about his work?
| A．He is not as famous as he should have been. | B．He makes less money than he should make. |
| C．He is less imaginative than he used to be. | D．He is not as skillful as he used to be. |
What does the reader learn about Cooke's shell-collecting activities?
| A．Not everyone approves of what he does. |
| B．Other methods might make his work easier. |
| C．Other tourists get in the way of his collecting. |
| D．Not all shells are the right size and shape for his work |