One summer I was driving from my hometown of Tahoe City, California, to New Orleans. In the middle of the desert, I came upon a young man standing by the roadside. He had his thumb out and held a gas can in his other hand. I drove right by him. There was a time in the country when you’d be considered a stupid person if you passed by somebody in need. Now you are a fool for helping. With gangs, drug addicts, murderers, thieves everywhere, “I don’t want to get involved” has become a national motto.
Several states later I was still thinking about the hitch-hiker(免费搭车的人). Leaving him standing in the desert did not bother me so much. What bothered me was how easily I had reached the decision. I never even lifted my foot off the accelerator(加速器).
Does anyone stop any more? I wondered. I recalled Blanche DuBois’s family line: “I have always depended on the kindness of the strangers”. Could anyone rely on the kindness of the strangers these days? One way to test this would be for a person to journey from coast to coast without any money, relying only on the good will of his fellow Americans. What kind of Americans would he find? Who would feed him, shelter him, and carry him down the road?
The idea interested me.
So I decided to travel from the Pacific to the Atlantic without a penny. It would be a cashless journey through the land of the almighty dollar. I would only accept offers of rides, food and a place to rest my head. My final destination would be Cape Fear in North Carolina, a symbol of all the fears I’d have to conquer during the trip.
I rose early on September 6, 1994, and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge with a 50-pound pack on my back and a sign displaying my destination to passing vehicles: “America”.
For six weeks I hitched 82 rides and covered 4,223 miles across 14 states. As I traveled, folks were always warning me about someplace else. In Montana they told me to watch out for the cowboys in Wyoming; in Nebraska they said people would not be as nice as in Iowa. Yet I was amazed by people’s readiness to help a stranger, even when it seemed against their own best interests. Why did the author drive past the young man in the desert without stopping?
| A．Because he failed to notice this man. |
| B．Because he was driving too fast. |
| C．Because he was afraid of being cheated. |
| D．Because he thought the young man didn’t need help. |
What was it that made the author upset?
| A．Making the decision of not offering help so easily. |
| B．Leaving the young man alone in the desert. |
| C．Being considered a fool. |
| D．Keeping thinking about the young man. |
What is the structure of the text?
| A．①—②③④—⑤—⑥⑦ |
| B．①②—③④—⑤⑥⑦ |
| C．①②—③④⑤⑥—⑦ |
| D．①②③—④—⑤⑥⑦ |
The author decided to travel without a penny in order to ___________.
| A．find out how long he could survive without help |
| B．figure out how strangers thought of his plan |
| C．go through the great difficulty in surviving unexpected environment |
| D．find out whether strangers would offer help to him |
The following part might probably___________.
| A．describe how the author fooled the strangers |
| B．describe how strangers went out their way to help the author |
| C．explain why people refused to help strangers |
| D．explain how the author overcame his difficulties on the way |
I was 9 years old when I found out my father was ill. It was 1994, but I can remember my mother's words as if it were yesterday: “Kerrel, I don't want you to take food from your father, because he has AIDS. Be very careful when you are around him.”
AIDS wasn't something we talked about in my country when I was growing up. From then on, I knew that this would be a family secret. My parents were not together anymore, and my dad lived alone. For a while, he could take care of himself. But when I was 12, his condition worsened. My father's other children lived far away, so it fell to me to look after him.
We couldn't afford all the necessary medication for him, and because Dad was unable to work, I had no money for school supplies and often couldn't even buy food for dinner. I would sit in class feeling completely lost, the teacher's words muffled as I tried to figure out how I was going to manage.
I did not share my burden (负担) with anyone. I had seen how people reacted to AIDS. Kids laughed at classmates who had parents with the disease. And even adults could be cold. When my father was moved to the hospital, the nurses would leave his food on the bedside table even though he was too weak to feed himself.
I had known that he was going to die, but after so many years of keeping his condition a secret, I was completely unprepared when he reached his final days. Sad and hopeless, I called a woman at the nonprofit National AIDS Support. That day, she kept me on the phone for hours. I was so lucky to find someone who cared. She saved my life.
I was 15 when my father died. He took his secret away with him, having never spoken about AIDS to anyone, even me. He didn't want to call attention to AIDS. I do.Which of the following statements about Kerrel’s father is true?
| A．He had stayed in the hospital since he fell ill. |
| B．He depended on the nurses in his final days. |
| C．He told no one about his disease. |
| D．He worked hard to pay for his medication. |
What can we learn from the underlined sentence?
| A．Kerrel couldn't understand her teacher. |
| B．Kerrel had special difficulty in hearing. |
| C．Kerrel was too troubled to focus on the lesson. |
| D．Kerrel was too tired to hear her teacher's words. |
Why did Kerrel keep her father's disease a secret?
| A．She was afraid of being looked down upon. |
| B．She thought it was shameful to have AIDS. |
| C．She found no one willing to listen to her. |
| D．She wanted to obey her mother. |
The purpose of the passage is ________.
| A．To tell people about the sufferings of her father. |
| B．To show how little people knew about AIDS. |
| C．To remember her father. |
| D．To draw people's attention to AIDS. |
Eleven-year-olds are to learn Shakespeare using the approaches taken by actors, and English teachers will be encouraged to let pupils walk around the classroom rather than read the plays while pupils are sitting at their desks.
Within the English curriculum(课程) you tend to look at a play text as a piece of literature rather than performance. But you can’t possibly understand Shakespeare’s language if you’re just reading it in your head. Shakespeare is difficult; it’s not a 21stcentury text. You have to use different ways to understand it.
The new teaching way focuses on how actors come to understand Shakespeare’s language. In fact actors have the same nervousness about Shakespeare’s language as young people in schools do. But in six to eight weeks they get to a place of complete confidence about the play. Pupils can do as well.
Exercises devised are to let children aged 11 to 14 imitate the methods of professional actors. Written and oral assessments developed alongside the lessons will show how well students have understood the texts.
In one task pupils will work on creating four key physical figures of king, warrior(勇士), lover and joker, finding which lines of their chosen character go with those features first and then acting them out. Through this they can examine how a character such as Macbeth can switch dramatically within one scene from soldier to kingly figure to trick planner. It’s really creative but you’re still getting a really wonderful model of understanding. It’s miles away from a “chalk and talk” method.
Educators think Shakespeare should be a central part of every young person’s education. Developing a love of Shakespeare at a young age often leads to a lifelong passion for literature and helps to improve a child’s reading and writing.How will young people learn Shakespeare?
| A．Reading them aloud. | B．Reciting them. |
| C．Cooperating with actors. | D．Acting them out. |
You cannot understand Shakespeare’s words easily because________.
| A．they are pieces of literature | B．their expressions are different |
| C．ordinary people cannot understand them | D．they are performances |
The underlined sentence “It’s miles away from a ‘chalk and talk’ method.” In Paragraph 5 means_____.
| A．Chalk and talk are far away from each other |
| B．It is much better than the traditional way |
| C．Chalk and talk are quite different |
| D．By chalk and talk we can understand Shakespeare |
What’s the best title of the reading passage?
| A．The New Approach to Shakespeare |
| B．The Introduction to Shakespeare |
| C．How to act Shakespeare’s plays |
| D．Shakespeare’s works in the English curriculum |
Counterfeit ( 假的) medicines are a widespread problem in developing countries. Like other counterfeits, they look like real products. But counterfeit drugs may contain too little or none of the active ingredients of the real thing.
People do not get the medicine they need. And in some cases counterfeits cause death. Twenty children in Bangladesh died last year after being given acetaminophen(醋氨酚). The medications contained ingredients that looked, smelled and tasted like the real thing. The medicine was produced by a local drug company that used a dangerous substitute to save money.
The problem of counterfeit medicines is especially serious in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The W.H.O. estimates that up to thirty percent of medicines on sale in many of those countries are counterfeit. The problem is less widespread among industrialized countries. The W.H.O. says counterfeits make up less than one percent of the illegal drug market in countries like the United States, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand.
But the agency also says as much as fifty percent of the medicine sold on the Internet is counterfeit.
Much is being done to fight counterfeit drugs. Several companies are developing ways to make counterfeits easier to identify. And there are existing methods, like a machine that can quickly identify chemicals in pills to confirm if the pills are real. Other ideas include things like special tracking codes for drug packages. People could send a text message with the code and get a message back, which proves that what they bought is listed in a database. Some drug makers and other companies put three-dimensional images called holograms (全息图)on their products as a security device.Last year twenty children in Bangladesh died because of _____.
| A．online medicines | B．unreal drugs |
| C．acetaminophen | D．unclean water |
We can draw a conclusion from the passage that______.
| A．it is very cheap and convenient to buy medicines online. |
| B．medicine companies don’t pay much attention to counterfeit drugs. |
| C．more and more people will buy products online. |
| D．we had better not buy medicines online. |
What is the main idea of the last paragraph?
| A．It reveals the reasons why counterfeit drugs are widespread. |
| B．Some measures are being taken to fight counterfeit drugs. |
| C．Special tracking codes for drug packages are used to identify counterfeits. |
| D．It shows the danger of counterfeit drugs. |
Which of the following country may have serious problems of counterfeit medicines?
| A．Canada. | B．Japan. | C．New Zealand. | D．India. |
Being that I worked in a grocery store for 7 years, I know quite a bit about impulsive purchases. In fact, I helped (sadly to say) push certain products by placing them in a certain fashion. Through said experience, I tend to know some of the best ways to counter the impulsive nature of buying things that are unnecessary.
The following is a 3- point list to counter the need to buy something shoved in your face…
Don't bring the kids.
You wouldn't believe (or maybe you parents would) how much more junk parents buy for their kids that is completely impulsive. Working as a checker at a grocery store, I quickly learned that most of the time kids were with their parents, the parents would buy something else within 10 feet of the check stand.
Bring exact cash.
I like to use my debit card because I am able to track every penny better, but holding and letting go of cash is much tougher for me personally. So, if I am going through a tough time budgeting properly, I will bring the allotted (限定的)amount of cash to the place of business and only allow that to be used.
Ignore salesman.
If you are at a department store and someone asks if you need help, try to ignore their push as much as possible. Sure, if you know nothing about laptops, get their advice, but even then I suggest doing your research pre-shop. Salesman could care less what you want. It's all about what their quota or commission is. Ignore them.Why does the author write the passage?
| A．To talk about her own shopping experiences. |
| B．To give readers some advice about resisting buying unnecessary things. |
| C．To complain about some bad experiences. |
| D．To tell us she has the habit of buying things that are unnecessary. |
Why does the author like to use debit card?
| A．Because her debit card is convenient. |
| B．Because she has not much cash. |
| C．Because she can know where every her penny goes. |
| D．Because she has many debit cards. |
Which statement about the passage is WRONG?
| A．Parents always bring something else for their children. |
| B．The author will bring the exact cash to buy things when going through a tough time. |
| C．Salesmen care much about what you want, so you can follow their advice. |
| D．The author worked in a grocery store for 7 years. |
Charlie Chaplin was one of the greatest and widely loved silent movie stars. From “Easy Street” (1917) to “Modern Times” (1936), he made many of the funniest and most popular films of his time. He was best known for his character, the naive and lovable Little Tramp. The Little Tramp, a well meaning man in a raggedy suit with cane, always found himself wobbling into awkward situations and strangely wobbling away. More than any other figure, it is this kind-hearted character that we associate with the time before the talkies (sound films).
Born in London in 1889, Chaplin first visited America with a theater company in 1907. Appearing as “Billy” in the play “Sherlock Holmes”, the young Chaplin toured the country twice. On his second tour, he met Mack Sennett and was signed to Keystone Studios to act in films. In 1914 Chaplin made his first one-reeler, “Making a Living”. That same year he made thirty-four more short films, including “Caught in a Cabaret”, “Caught in the Rain”, “The Face on the Bar-Room Floor”, and “His Trysting Place”. These early silent shorts allowed very little time for anything but physical comedy, and Chaplin was a master at it.
Though Chaplin is of the silent movie era, we see his achievements carried through in the films of today. With the appearance of the feature-length talkies, the need for more subtle acting became apparent. To maintain the audience’s attention throughout a six-reel film, an actor needed to move beyond constant comedy. Chaplin had demanded this depth long before anyone else. His strictness and concern for the processes of acting and directing made his films great and led the way to a new, more sophisticated, cinema.Which statement is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．“The little Tramp” was the only character that Charlie Chaplin acted. |
| B．Charlie Chaplin signed to Keystone Studios in 1906. |
| C．Charlie Chaplin made five short films in 1914. |
| D．Charlie Chaplin has a great effect on today’s sound film. |
What is the right order according to the passage?
a. Charlie Chaplin made the film “ Easy Street”.
b. The film “Caught in the rain” was made.
c. Charlie Chaplin first visited America.
d. Charlie Chaplin met Mack Sennett.
e. “Modern Times” was made.
A. d, c, a, e, b B d, c, b, a, e C. c, d, b, a, e D. c, d, a, b, eWhich word can best describe Charlie Chaplin according to the passage?
| A．lovable | B．kind-hearted | C．strict | D．awkward |
What do you think is the passage about?
| A．Life of Chaplin | B．Works of Chaplin |
| C．Characters of Chaplin | D．An introduction of Chaplin |