Two years ago my grandmother was going to turn 75. My family discussed what was the best way to celebrate. Should we throw her a party? Should we take her on a trip? We remembered that she had touched so many people’s lives, and there were so many people for her to consider. Then someone got the idea that we should include everyone in the celebration by turning it into a tribute（献礼）to my grandmother.
We secretly sent out letters to the people in Grandmother’s address book and asked them to send a letter with a memory that they had shared with her. People sent us letters with poems, stories and pictures. The deep feeling that was shared through the response（回应）surprised us. We compiled（编辑）these letters into a memory book and amazed her with it on the morning of her birthday.
The unusual thing about my grandmother’s friends was not the number that she had, but the connection they shared. In many ways this book of friendship was the greatest achievement of my grandmother’s life.
I believe that developing true friendships is one of the most important things that anyone can do in one’s lifetime. It is not a matter of the number of friends one has, but the quality of the connection. If one has had at least one true friendship before dying, then one can say one has lived a successful life. I have made many friends and I believe I have begun to develop the same types of friendships my grandmother kept up over her lifetime. I only hope that I will be as successful as she has been.How did the author’s family celebrate Grandmother’s birthday ?
| A．They took her on a trip across the country. |
| B．They gave her a memory book of friendship. |
| C．They invited all her friends to her birthday party. |
| D．They asked all her friends to send her cards. |
When receiving her birthday gift, the author’s grandmother probably felt _____.
| A．disappointed and lonely | B．sorry and sad |
| C．surprised and pleased | D．nervous and excited |
According to the passage, the author probably agrees that _____.
| A．the more friends you have, the better |
| B．friends are more important than family |
| C．understanding leads to greater success |
| D．true friendship is very important to us |
Which of the following words can best describe the author’s grandmother?
| A．Kind. | B．Great. | C．Graceful | D．Pleasant |
Online Communication
In an age when technology moves faster than most can keep up with, a small group of people still remain in the time of old-fashioned letter. Frankly speaking, I was once certain that traditional letters could never be replaced by other means of communication.
But a story about online communication changed my mind.
An old man, who suffered a lot from Parkinson’s disease, was not able to talk clearly and could hardly write his name. Living totally alone, he managed to keep in touch with nearly all the members of his family. How did he achieve this? He clicked out words on his computer keyboard.
I, therefore, managed to get an E-mail box as soon as the opportunity came. My life changed. E-mail, and all online communication, is something truly different. It has capabilities（能力） that few other products can match.
E-mail is convenient. It takes less time with its fast speed and 24-hour connection. The slow postal service is no match. If you wouldn’t want to have a face-to-face talk with your manager, you might talk with him through E-mail even if you are in the same office.
Naming all the good things about online communication is not easy. But wait. E-mail can be inconvenient. It can waste time and energy. Just think what may happen when you take a short vacation and return to find your e-mail box filled with 200 unread messages. You could easily spend half a day clearing junk ads.
Then, online communication will keep us staying at our computer while it connects us to distant strangers. Once we throw ourselves into the machine, we may forget the human touches we once held so dear. I’m sure there is and always will be a place for the old-fashioned letter, phone call, and face-to-face meeting… even in the world of modern communication.
As I listen to the sound of the modem(调制解调器), I was excited at stepping out to the outside world but, at the same time, I sensed a loss of control over something valuable in my personal life.What is the most probable meaning of the underlined word “junk” in paragraph6?
| A．old and useless | B．New and useful | C．Short but valuable | D．Long but clear |
What does the writer think of online communication?
| A．It should replace old-fashioned letters completely. |
| B．It is perfect and always does good to you. |
| C．It is extremely useful and convenient, but it may be inconvenient or even harmful. |
| D．It does more harm than good. |
What caused the writer to become interested in E-mail and online communication?
| A．The sound of the modem. | B．His own illness. |
| C．The changing of his life. | D．A sick old man’s experience. |
According to the writer, traditional means of communication will never disappear because ________.
| A．they are convenient and popular though they are slow |
| B．they help to keep the friendly relationship between people |
| C．most people cannot keep up with the development of technology |
| D．modern means of communication does too much harm |
How did the sick old man keep in touch with his family members?
| A．With the help of his computer. | B．By writing letters with his pen. |
| C．By making telephone calls. | D．By visiting them regularly. |
Homestay provides English language students with the opportunity to speak English outside the classroom and the experience of being part of a British home.
What to Expect
The host will provide accommodation（住宿） and meals. Rooms will be cleaned and bedcovers changed at least once a week. You will be given the house key and the host is there to offer help and advice as well as to take an interest in your physical and mental health.
Accommodation Zones
Homestays are located in London mainly in Zones2，3 and 4 of the transport system. Most hosts do not live in the town centre as much of central London is commercial and not residential(居住的). Zones 3 and 4 often offer larger accommodation in a less crowed area. It is very convenient to travel in London by Underground.
Meal Plans Available
♢ Continental Breakfast♢ Breakfast and Dinner ♢ Breakfast, Packed Lunch and Dinner
It’s important to note that few English families still provide a traditional cooked breakfast. Your accommodation includes Continental Breakfast which normally consists of fruit juice, cereal（谷物类食品），bread and tea or coffee. Cheese, fruit and cold meat are not normally part of a Continental Breakfast in England. Dinners usually consist of meat or fish with vegetables followed by dessert, fruit and coffee.
Friends
If you wish to invite a friend over to visit. you must first ask your host’s permission. You have no right to entertain friends in a family home as some families feel it is an invasion of their privacy.
Self-Catering Accommodation in Private Homes
Accommodation on a room-only basis includes shared kitchen and bathroom facilities and often a main living room. This kind of accommodation offers an independent lifestyle and is more suitable for the long-stay student. However, it does not provide the same family atmosphere as an ordinary homestay and may not benefit those who need to practise English at home quite as much.Which of the following will the host provide?
| A．Room cleaning. | B．Medical care. | C．Free transport. | D．Physical training. |
The passage is probably written for
| A．hosts willing to receive foreign students |
| B．foreigners hoping to build British culture |
| C．English learners applying to live in English homes |
| D．travellers planning to visit families in London |
According to the passage. What does continental Breakfast include?
| A．Dessert and coffee. | B．Fruit and vegetables. |
| C．Bread and fruit juice. | D．Cereal and cold meat. |
What can be inferred from Paragraph 3?
| A．Zone 4 is more crowded than Zone 2. |
| B．The business centre of London is in Zone 1. |
| C．Hosts dislike travelling to the city centre. |
| D．Accommodation in the city centre is not provided. |
Why do some people choose self-catering accommodation?
| A．To experience a warmer family atmosphere. |
| B．To enrich their knowledge of English. |
| C．To entertain friends as they like. |
| D．To enjoy much more freedom. |
I learned how our attitudes made a big difference in our everyday lives from my friend Mary.
She doesn’t have any pets. I happened to see her outside on a -30 degree morning walking a dog. I felt sorry for Mary, out there walking a dog that’s not hers in such cold weather. I thought maybe she was saying to herself, “Yeah, this is why I don’t have any pets! I hate walking dogs.”
Later that day I saw Mary and said, “I saw you out there walking a dog this morning. Are you unhappy because you had to walk it on such a cold day?” To my surprise, she said that she enjoyed getting out there and walking the dog and that she got good exercise because of the dog. She also said she had talked to her brother, the dog’s owner, who was on holiday in Orlando, Florida with his family. He said his children were enjoying Disney World and the resorts (胜地). His four-year-old son had breakfast with Mickey Mouse and said it was the best day in his life. Mary said, “If I can help my brother and his family have a wonderful time relaxing for a week, knowing that their pet is being loved and cared for, what more could I ask for?” She added, “It’s worth it for me to make the sacrifice (牺牲) so that they can go and have fun.”
I learned a lesson from Mary. What do we know about Mary?
| A．She liked exercising outside before that day. |
| B．In fact she likes taking care of dogs very much. |
| C．She likes helping others. |
| D．She was sorry for not going on holiday with her brother. |
Why did the author feel sorry for Mary?
| A．It was a cold morning. |
| B．He thought Mary was suffering because of others. |
| C．Mary didn’t have any pets. |
| D．He found Mary was unhappy to walk the dog. |
Mary’s brother and his family could have a wonderful holiday because __________.
| A．the children could have breakfast with Mickey Mouse |
| B．the children enjoyed Disney World and the resorts |
| C．Mary did not go with them |
| D．Mary looked after their dog |
What lesson did the author learn from Mary?
| A．Traveling is fun, and walking dogs is also fun. |
| B．Walking dogs will make you feel warm. |
| C．Helping others is also a kind of enjoyment. |
| D．Walking dogs is also a kind of exercise. |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．The author mistook Mary that morning. |
| B．Mary would raise a dog after helping her brother. |
| C．Mary made a lot of sacrifices for her brother. |
| D．Mary disliked raising any pets. |
When I was seven, my parents gave me a doll, a doll’s house and a book. The Arabian Nights, came wrapped in red paper. I was just ready to read when my mother walked into my room．
“Isn’t your doll just beautiful?” my mother asked. I looked at the doll, with fair hair in a pink dress----I’ll have to call her “she” because I never gave her a name. I folded my lips and raised my eyebrows, not really knowing how to let my mother down easily.
“This doll is different.” My mother explained, trying to talk me into playing with it.
Thinking the doll needed love, I hugged her tightly for a long time. Useless, I said to myself. Finally, I decided to play with the doll’s house. But since rearranging the tiny furniture seemed to be the only active possible, I lost interest. I caught sight again of the third of my gifts The Arabian Nights, and I began to read it. From that moment, the book was my constant companion.
Every day I climbed our garden tree, nestled among its branches, I read the stories in The Arabian Nights to my heart’s content. My mother became concerned as she noticed I wasn’t playing with either the doll or the little house. She insisted that I take the doll up the tree with me.
Trying to read on a branch 15 feet off the ground while holding on to the silly doll was not easy. After nearly falling off twice, I tied one end of a long vine around the doll’s neck and the opposite one around the branch, letting the doll hang in mid air while I read. I always looked out for my mother, though. I sensed that my playing with the doll was of great importance to her. So every time I heard her coming, I lifted the doll up and hugged her. The smile in my mother’s eyes told me my plan worked.
The inevitable(不可避免的) happened one afternoon. Totally absorbed in the reading, I didn’t hear my mother calling me. When I looked down, I saw my mother staring at the hanging doll. Fearing the worst of scolding, I climbed down in a flash, reaching the ground just as my mother was untying the doll. To my surprise, she didn’t scold. She kept on staring at the doll．
The next day, my father came home early and suggested he and I play with the doll’s house. Soon I was bored, but my father seemed to be having so much fun, I didn’t have the heart to tell him. Quietly I slipped out, picking up my book on my way to the yard. So absorbed was he in arranging and rearranging the tiny furniture that he didn’t notice my quick exit.
Almost 20 years passed before I found out why the hanging-doll incident had been so significant for my parents. By then I was a parent myself. After recalling the incident, my mother said all those years she had been afraid whether I would turn out to be a most loving and understanding mother to my son．
My mother often thanks God aloud for making me a good parent, pointing out that with education I might have been a rich dentist instead of a poor poet. I look back on that same childhood incident, recalling my third gift, the book in red-paper, and I take advantage of the experiences that have made me who and what I am. Sometimes I pause to wonder at life’s wonderful ironies （讽刺）.Why didn’t the author give the doll a name?
| A．Because the gift was given by her parents. |
| B．Because the girl didn’t care much for the doll. |
| C．Because her parents would give the doll a name. |
| D．Because the doll had little in common with her. |
The author’s account of a childhood incident shows that, as a young girl, she viewed her parents as people who.
| A．hoped to shape their children’s future |
| B．were unconcerned about their behavior |
| C．ruined their children’s dreams completely |
| D．might withdraw their love at any moment |
What can we infer from the last paragraph?
| A．The mother is now satisfied with her daughter’s career. |
| B．The daughter now regrets what she did when she was a girl. |
| C．The mother thinks the daughter’s achievements are unsatisfactory. |
| D．The daughter wishes that she had been allowed more freedom as a child. |
Global warming is causing more than 300,000 deaths and about $125 billion in economic losses each year, according to a report by the Global Humanitarian Forum, an organization led by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general.
The report, to be released Friday, analyzed data and existing studies of health, disaster, population and economic trends. It found that human-influenced climate change was raising the global death rates from illnesses including malnutrition and heat-related health problems.
But even before its release, the report drew criticism from some experts on climate and risk, who questioned its methods and conclusions. Along with the deaths, the report said that the lives of 325 million people, primarily in poor countries,were being seriously affected by climate change. It projected that the number would double by 2030.
Roger Pielke Jr., a politicalscientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studies disaster trends, said the Forum’s report was “a methodological embarrassment” because there was no way to distinguish deaths or economic losses related to human-driven global warming amid（在...中间） the much larger losses resulting from the growth in populations and economic development in vulnerable(易受伤害的) regions. Dr. Pielke said that “climate change is an important problem requiring our utmost attention.” But the report, he said, “will harm the cause for action on both climate change and disasters because it is so deeply flawed(有瑕疵的).”
However, Soren Andreasen, a social scientist at Dalberg Global Development Partners who supervised the writing of the report, defended it, saying that it was clear that the numbers were rough estimates. He said the report was aimed at world leaders, who will meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a new international climate treaty.
In a press release describing the report, Mr. Annan stressed the need for the negotiations to focus on increasing the flow of money from rich to poor regions to help reduce their vulnerability to climate hazards while still controling the emissions of the heat-trapping gases. More than 90% of the human and economic losses from climate change are occurring in poor countries, according to the report. What is the finding of the Global Humanitarian Forum?
| A．Rates of death from illnesses have risen due to global warming. |
| B．Global temperatures affect the rate of economic development. |
| C．Malnutrition has caused serious health problems in poor countries. |
| D．Economic trends have to do withpopulation and natural disasters. |
What do we learn about the Forum’s report from the passage?
| A．It caused a big stir in developing countries. |
| B．It was warmly received by environmentalists. |
| C．It caused a lot of interest in the scientific circles. |
| D．It was challenged by some climate and risk experts. |
What is Soren Andreasen’s view of the report?
| A．Its conclusions are based on carefully collected data. |
| B．It is vulnerable to criticism if the statistics are closely examined. |
| C．It will give rise to heated discussions at the Copenhagen conference. |
| D．Its rough estimates are meant to draw the attention of world leaders. |
What does Kofi Annan say should be the focus of the Copenhagen conference?
| A．How human and economic losses from climate change can be reduced. |
| B．How rich countries can better help poor regions reduce climate hazards. |
| C．How emissions of heat-trapping gases can be reduced on a global scale. |
| D．How rich and poor regionscan share responsibility in curbing global warming. |