Johnny the Explorer
Johnny was three when he ran away from home for the first time. Somebody left the garden gate open. Johnny wandered out, crossed some fields and, two hours later, arrived in the next village. He was just able to give his name and address.
By the time he was seven, Johnny used to disappear from home two to three times a year. Sometimes he covered quite long distances on foot. Sometimes he got on a bus or even a train, and simply sat there until someone asked for his ticket. Generally the police brought him home. “Why do you do it?” they used to ask. “I just like seeing places,” Johnny told them.
Johnny continued to “see places” although everyone tried to stop him. His parents used to watch him closely, and so did his teachers; but sooner or later Johnny managed to slip away. As he grew older, his favorite trick was to hide on a long distance truck. Sometimes he travelled hundreds of miles before anyone discovered him.
It is hardly surprising that eventually Johnny managed to board a plane. He was twelve at the time. It was a cargo plane and, a few hours later, Johnny found himself in Cairo. How did he get on board? No one knows! According to Johnny himself, it was easy: he just went into the airport, walked along some passages and got on board the nearest plane.
In spite of all this, Johnny did well at school. He enjoyed mathematics and languages and, perhaps not surprisingly, he was especially good at geography. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” his teachers asked him. “An explorer!” he answered. “But it’s difficult to become an explorer in this modern age,” they tried to tell him. But it was no use: Johnny knew what he wanted!
Just before he left school, Johnny saw a notice in a daily paper. A long journey was about to go to Brazil to travel up the Amazon River. There were jobs for three young people “willing to work hard and with a sense of adventure”. Johnny applied, and two months later, he was on his way to Brazil.At what age did Johnny board a plane for the first time?
| A．Three | B．Seven | C．Twelve | D．Not mentioned |
Johnny frequently left home because ______.
| A．he preferred to stay alone |
| B．he enjoyed seeing new places |
| C．he couldn’t do well at school |
| D．he didn’t get along well with his parents |
People around Johnny ______.
| A．tried to stop him from slipping away |
| B．kept following him to get him back |
| C．booked tickets for him if necessary |
| D．were clear about how he travelled abroad |
From the passage, we can learn that ______.
| A．Johnny worked for a daily paper |
| B．Johnny lacked a sense of adventure |
| C．Johnny went exploring along the Amazon River |
| D．Johnny went to Brazil two months after he finished school |
Good afternoon, and welcome to England. We hope that your visit here will be a pleasant one. Today, I would like to draw your attention to a few of our laws.
The first one is about drinking. Now, you may not buy alcohol in this country if you are under 18 years of age, nor may your friends buy it for you.
Secondly, noise. Enjoy yourselves by all means, but please don’t make unnecessary noise, particularly at night . We ask you to respect other people who may wish to be quiet.
Thirdly,crossing the road. Be careful. The traffic moves on the left side of the road in this country. Use pedestrian crossings and do not take any chances when crossing the road.
My point is about litter. It is an offence to drop litter in the street. When you have something to throw away, please put it in your pocket and take it home, or put it in a litter bin.
Finally, as regards smoking , it is against the law to buy cigarettes or tobacco if you are under 16 years of age.
I’d like to finish by saying that if you require any sort of help or assistance, you should contact your police station, who will be pleased to help you.
Now, are there any questions?The underlined word “contact ” in the seventh paragraph means _______.
| A．get along with | B．get in touch with | C．join | D．report |
How many laws are there discussed in the speech ?
| A．Three. | B．Four. | C．Five | D．Six. |
The main purpose of this speech would be to __________.
| A．prepare people for internation travel |
| B．declare (宣布) the laws of different kinds |
| C．give advice to travelers to the country |
| D．inform (告知) people of the punishment for breakig laws. |
You are not allowed to ______ when you have something to throw away.
| A．drop it in the street | B．put it in your pocket |
| C．take it home | D．put it in dustbin |
Although English is not as old as Chinese , it is spoken by many people around the world every day. English speakers are always creating new words and we are often able to know where most words come from.
Sometimes, however, no one may really know where a word comes from. Did you ever think about why hamburgers are called hamburgers, especially when they are not made with ham? About a hundred years ago, some men went to America from Europe. They came from a big city in Germany called Hamburg. They didn’t speak good English, but they ate good food. When some Americans saw them eating round piece of beef, they asked the Germans what it was. The Germans didn’t understand the question and answered, “We come from Hamburg.” One of these Americans owned a restaurant, and had an idea. He cooked some round piece of bread and started selling them. Such bread came to be called “hamburgers”. Today, “hamburgers” are sold in many countries around the world.
Whether this story is true or not, it certainly is interesting. Knowing why any word has a certain meaning is interesting, too. This reason, for most English words, can be found in any large English dictionary.Hamburg is ____________
| A．a kind of food | B．a round piece of beef |
| C．the name of a village | D．a city in Germany |
According to the passage, ___________.
| A．few Americans like hamburgers |
| B．hamburgers are made with beef |
| C．hamburgers are made with ham |
| D．hamburgers were first sold about a century ago |
According to the writer, which of the following can often be found in any large English dictionary?
| A．Where all the new words come from. |
| B．Where those Germans came from. |
| C．The reason why a word has a certain meaning. |
| D．The reason why English is spoken around the world. |
From the story, we can know that the word “hamburger” comes from ___________.
| A．China because it has a long history |
| B．English because Germans don’t speak good English |
| C．The round piece of beef which those people from Hamburg were eating |
| D．English speakers because they always create new words |
When George was thirty-five, he bought a small plane and learned to fly it. He soon became very good and made his plane do all kinds of tricks (特技).
George had a friend, whose name was Mark. One day George offered to take Mark up in his plane.
Mark thought, “ I’ve traveled in a big plane several times, but I’ve never been in a small one, so I’ll go. ”
They went up, and George flew around for half an hour and did all kinds of tricks in the air.
When they came down again, Mark was glad to be back safely, and he said to his friend in a
shaking voice, “Well , George, thank you very much for those two trips in your plane.”
George was very surprised and said, “ Two trips? ”
“ Yes, my first and my last. ” answered Mark. Which of the following statements is false?
| A．George learned to fly a plane very quickly . |
| B．It took George a short time to learn to fly a plane. |
| C．George had some difficulty learning to fly a plane. |
| D．Mark decided to fly in George’s small plane. |
When George did some tricks with his small plane, Mark was _____.
| A．unhappy | B．excited | C．frightened | D．surprised |
Mark went up in George’s plane _____.
| A．twice | B．only once |
| C．several times | D．once or twice |
One day, Wilson was walking quietly along the road when someone hit him hard on the back of his neck．He looked behind him, and saw a young man whom he had never seen before．
“How dare you hit me like that?” shouted Wilson．
The young man said he had mistaken Wilson for a friend of his and that he thought Wilson was making a lot of noise about nothing．
This insult (侮辱) made Wilson even angrier, of course, and he at once decided to bring the young man before a judge．
Now, the judge, who heard the case, was a friend of the young man’s father’s, and, although he pretended to be quite fair, he was thinking about what he could do to protect the young man from being punished while at the same time not to be appearing unfair．
Finally he said to Wilson, “I understand your feelings in this matter very well．Would you be satisfied if I let you hit the young man as he hit you?”
Wilson said he would not be．The young man had insulted him and should be properly punished．
“Well, then,” said the judge to the young man, “I order you to pay ten coins to Wilson．”
Ten coins was very little for such a crime, but the young man did not have it with him, so the judge allowed him to go and get it．
Wilson waited for him to return with the money．He waited an hour, and then two hours, while the judge took care of other business．
When it was nearly time for the court to close, Wilson chose a moment when the judge was especially busy, came up quietly and hit him hard on the back of the neck．Then he said to him, “I am sorry, but I can’t wait any longer．When the young man comes back, tell him that I have passed my right to the ten coins on to you．”Why did the young man hit Wilson from behind?
| A．Wilson had hit him before． |
| B．He had mistaken Wilson for a friend of his． |
| C．Wilson was a stranger there． |
| D．Wilson made a lot of noise when he was walking． |
Which of the following explanations has the closest meaning with the underlined word “properly”?
| A．completely | B．correctly | C．immediately | D．finally |
The best title for this passage is ________．
| A．I’ve passed my right on to you |
| B．The judge and Wilson |
| C．Wilson and the young man |
| D．The young man was set free |
“I've changed my mind. I wanted to have a telescope, but now I want my daddy back." Lucien Lawrence’s letter to Father Christmas written after his schoolteacher father had been knifed to death outside his school gate, must have touched every heart. Lucien went on to say that without his father he couldn't see the stars in the sky. When those whom we love depart from us, we cannot see the stars for a while.
But Lucien, the stars are still there, and one day, when you are older and your tears have gone, you will see them again. And, in a strange way, I expect that you will find your father is there too, in your mind and in your heart. I find that my parents, long dead now, still figure in many of my dreams and that I think of them perhaps more than I ever did when they were alive. I still live to please them and I' m still surprised by their reactions. I remember that when I became a professor, I was so proud, or rather so pleased with myself, that I couldn't wait to cable my parents. The reply was a long time in coming, but when it did, all Mother said was “I hope this means that now you will have more time for the children!” I haven' t forgotten. The values of my parents still live on.
It makes me pause and think about how I will live on in the hearts and minds of my children and of those for whom I care. Would I have been as ready as Philip Lawrence have been to face the aggressors (挑衅者)，and to lay down my life for those in my care? How many people would want me back for Christmas? It's a serious thought, one to give me pause.
I pray silently, sometimes, in the dead of night, that ancient cry of a poet “Deliver my soul from the sword (剑), and my darling from the power of the dog.” Yet I know the death comes to us all, and sometimes comes suddenly. We must therefore plan to live forever, but live as if we will die tomorrow. We live on, I'm sure, in the lives of those we loved, and therefore we ought to have a care for what they will remember and what they will treasure. If more parents knew this in their hearts to be true, there might be fewer knives on our streets today.According to the whole text we can see that the first paragraph ________.
| A．explains the importance of a telescope |
| B．shows the writer's pity on the kid |
| C．acts as an introduction to the discussion |
| D．makes a clear statement of the writer's views |
In the second paragraph the author mainly wants to explain to us ________.
| A．how much he misses his parents now |
| B．why his parents often appear in his dream |
| C．when Lucien will get over all his sadness |
| D．how proud he was when he succeeded in life |
In the writer's opinion, the value of a person’s life is ________.
| A．to leave behind a precious memory to the people related |
| B．to have a high sense of duty to the whole society |
| C．to care what others will remember and treasure |
| D．to share happiness and sadness with his family |
What feeling did the author’s mother express in her reply?
| A．Proud. | B．Happy. | C．Disappointed. | D．Worried |