I’m sure you know the song “Happy Birthday”. But do you know who wrote the song and for whom it was written?
The retired professor, Archibald A. Hill in Lucasville, USA could tell us the story. Ninety-seven years ago, two of Mr. Archibald Hill’s aunts, Miss Patty Hill and Miss Mildred Hill were asked to write some songs for a book called “Song Storied for the Sunday Morning”. Miss Patty Hill and Miss Mildred Hill were both kindergarten teachers then. They loved children very much and wrote many beautiful songs for the book. One of them was the famous “Good Morning to You.” The song said, “Good morning to you, good morning to you, dear children, good morning to all.” This song was very popular at that time among kindergarten children. But not many grown-ups knew it. A few years later little Archibald was born. As his aunt, Miss Patty Hill sang the song “Happy Birthday” to the melody（曲调）of “Good Morning to you” to her little nephew（侄子）. She sang the song like this: Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Archie! Happy birthday to you!
Miss Patty Hill and her sister had never expected that this song would become so popular, but it really did. People all over the world like the song because of its simplicity in tune（曲调简单）and friendliness in words.Archibald A. Hill was __________.
A. English B. Russian
C. American D. AustralianWhy did Miss Hiss wrote songs?
| A．Because they are musicians. |
| B．Because they love children. |
| C．Because they were asked to write for a book. |
| D．Because their nephew asked them to do so. |
The sentence “it really did” means __________.
| A．The song really became popular |
| B．Their wish would really come true |
| C．People all over the world like to listen to the song |
| D．Yes, but the song didn’t become popular |
When I asked my daughter which item she would keep; the phone, the car, the cooker, the computer, the TV, or her boyfriend, she said “the phone”. Personally, I could do without the phone entirely, which makes me unusual. Because the telephone is changing our lives more than any other piece of technology.
Point 1 The telephone creates the need to communicate, in the same way that more roads create more traffic. My daughter comes home from school at 4:00 pm and then spends an hour on the phone talking to the very people she has been at school with all day. If the phone did not exist, would she have anything to talk about?
Point 2 The mobile phone means that we are never alone. “The mobile saved my life,”says Crystal Johnstone. She had an accident in her Volvo on the A45 between Otley and Skipton. Trapped inside, she managed to make the call that brought the ambulance(救护车) to her rescue.
Point 3 The mobile removes our secret. It allows marketing manager of Haba Deutsch, Carl Nicolaisen, to ring his sales staff all round the world at any time of day to ask where they are , where they are going, and how their last meeting went.
Point 4 The telephone separates us. Antonella Bramante in Rome says, “We worked in separate offices but I could see him through the window. It was easy to get his number. We were so near——but we didn’t meet for the first two weeks!”
Point 5 The telephone allows us to reach out beyond our own lives. Today we can talk to several complete strangers simultaneously ( 同时地) on chat lines (at least my daughter does. I wouldn’t know what to talk about). We can talk across the world. We can even talk to astronauts (if you know any) while they’re space-walking. And, with the phone line hooked up to the computer, we can access(存取) the Internet, the biggest library on Earth.How do you understand‘Point 1 —The telephone creates the need to communicate,…’？
| A．People don’t communicate without telephone. |
| B．People communicate because of the creating of the telephone. |
| C．People communicate more since telephone has been created. |
| D．People communicate more because of more traffic. |
Which of the following best shows people’s attitude towards mobile phones?
| A．Mobile phones help people deal with the emergency. |
| B．Mobile phones bring convenience as well as little secret to people. |
| C．Mobile phones are so important and should be encouraged. |
| D．Mobile phones are part of people’s life. |
It is possible to talk to several complete strangers simultaneously through _______.
| A．the TV screen |
| B．a fax machine |
| C．the phone line hooked up to the computer |
| D．a microphone |
The best heading for the passage is _________.
| A．Phone Power | B．Kinds of Phone |
| C．How to Use Phones | D．Advantage of Phones |
Envy seems to be bad-but it doesn't have to be. Researchers are finding that, if approached the right way, there can actually be an advantage.
Psychologists classify envy in two ways: negative and positive. With positive envy, you are motivated by another person's success and struggle to follow it. With negative envy, you want to cut the advantaged person down so you look better by comparison. Let's say you feel sufferings of envy after your rival(对手) at another firm gets promoted. Negative envy might drive you to destroy his success, but positive envy would inspire you to work harder and get promoted, too.
Studies show positive envy can be a great motivator(动力). In a 2011 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers in the Netherlands conducted a series of experiments with more than 200 university students. Researchers found that when they caused feelings of positive envy----as opposed to admiration or negative envy----in the students, it drove them to want to study more and perform better on a test measuring creativity and intelligence. While admiration may feel better, the researchers found, it doesn't motivate performance like the pain and frustration of envy.
“Those painful sufferings of envy are there for an evolutionary(进化的) reason,” says Texas Christian University researcher Sarah E. Hill, “warning us that someone has something of importance to us.” Building on this theory, Dr. Hill and others conducted a series of experiments, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, to test whether envy improves attention and memory----the tools needed to copy a rival's steps to success. In one experiment, half of the participants were asked to recall past feelings of envy; the other half weren't. The two groups were then shown mock(模拟的) interviews of imaginary peers. The group filled with envy paid closer attention and better recalled details about the interview subjects. In other words, envy made them more astute（机敏的）. Not only can envy motivate us to reach for higher goals, it may even give us the cognitive push to get there.What’s the bad effect of negative envy?
| A．It makes you lose heart and gets discouraged. |
| B．It has you feel motivated. |
| C．It makes you harm or hurt others on purpose. |
| D．It reminds you to struggle to follow your dreams. |
What’s the benefit of positive envy?
| A．It inspires you to find a possible rival to try to defeat them. |
| B．It encourages you to work harder with a positive attitude. |
| C．It won’t hurt your opponents in the same firm. |
| D．It won’t destroy your success at another firm. |
Compared to admiration, positive envy can__________.
| A．make you feel worse in all sides |
| B．be more likely to get you to admire others |
| C．make you feel the pain in your performance |
| D．be more likely to get you inspired to get success |
What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Envy seems to be bad. |
| B．Keep your envy in secret. |
| C．Make full use of positive envy. |
| D．Forget about your envy now. |
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I've read online about your amazing customer service, and I must say I'm now a true believer. --- B.L. How long does it take the battery to charge up an iPhone?
| A．15 minutes. | B．30 minutes. |
| C．1.5 hours. | D．3 hours. |
What is special about the battery?
| A．It is built in an iPhone. |
| B．It is the smallest of its kind. |
| C．It can also be used as a charger. |
| D．It keeps power for about 30 days. |
Who mentions the transporting of the battery?
A. P.S. B. B.L. C. M.C. D. T.K.The customer comments on the battery are mainly about its _____.
| A．quality | B．service | C．function | D．shopping |
Dear March - Come in -
How glad I am -
I hoped for you before ...
Who knocks? That April –共和国广告广告
Lock the Door -
I will not be pursued -
He stayed away a year to call -
When I am occupied -
But trifles(琐事) look so trivial(不重要的) -
As soon as you have come ...
This lovely poem was written by Emily Dickinson, who is considered a major American poet, though she was not accorded (符合) this honor until well after her death.
Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended school for only one year. Throughout her life, she seldom left her home and visitors were few. She lived in almost complete isolation(隔离) from the outside world.
She admired the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Barren Browning, as well as John Keats. Though she was dissuaded (劝阻) from reading the poetry of her contemporary Walt Whitman by rumors of its disgracefulness, the two poets are now connected by the distinguished place they hold as the founders of a uniquely American poetic voice.
While Dickinson was extremely prolific (多产的) as a poet, she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. Upon her death, Dickinson's family discovered forty hand-bound volumes of nearly 1,800 poems. Her younger sister began to share the enormous body of work that Emily left behind.
Emily's odd punctuation, capitalization(大写), and formatting(格式) did not meet with standard publishing "approval" for earlier editions. There is a whimsical (古怪的) nature to many other poems, as the subject of death was the most frequent theme. In the poem, the poetess was speaking to ______.
| A．a little girl | B．a long-lost family member |
| C．a nice season | D．a cute animal |
What is a feature of Emily Dickinson's poems?
| A．They do not pay attention to rhymes. |
| B．They resemble those of Walt Whitman. |
| C．They have a strange format. |
| D．They reflect her personal and social life. |
According to the text, Emily Dickinson _______.
| A．was completely homeschooled and had a talent for writing poems |
| B．was greatly influenced by four of her contemporary poets |
| C．is regarded as a leading poet in American literature |
| D．published a large number of poems during her lifetime |
I was waiting for a phone call from my agent. He had left a message the night before, telling me that my show was to be cancelled. I called him several times, but each time his secretary told me that he was in a meeting and that he would call me later. So I waited and waited, but there was still no call. Three hours passing by, I became more and more impatient. I was certain that my agent didn't care about my work, and he didn't care about me. I was overcome with that thought. I started to shout at the phone, "Let me wait, will you? Who do you think you are?"
At that time I didn't realize my wife was looking on. Without showing her surprise, she rushed in, seized the phone, tore off the wires, and shouted at the phone, "Yeah! Who do you think you are? Bad telephone! Bad telephone!" And she swept it into the wastebasket.
I stood watching her, speechless. What on earth?
She stepped to the doorway and shouted at the rest of the house, "Now hear this! All objects in this room -- if you do anything to upset my husband, out you go!"
Then she turned to me, kissed me, and said calmly, "Honey, you just have to learn how to take control." With that, she left the room.
After watching a crazy woman rushing in and out, shouting at everything in sight, I noticed that something in my mood had changed. I was laughing. How could I have trouble with that phone? Her antics helped me realize I had been driven crazy by small things. Twenty minutes later my agent did call. I was able to listen to him and talk to him calmly.Why did the author shout at the telephone?
| A．He was mad at the telephone. |
| B．He was angry with his agent. |
| C．He was anxious about his wife. |
| D．He was impatient with the secretary. |
What did the author's wife do after she heard his shouting?
| A．She said nothing. | B．She shouted at him. |
| C．She called the agent. | D．She threw the phone away. |
What made the author laugh?
| A．His own behavior. |
| B．His wife's suggestion. |
| C．His changeable feelings |
| D．His wife's sweet kiss. |
What does the underlined word "antics" refer to?
| A．Smart words. | B．Unusual actions. |
| C．Surprising looks. | D．Anxious feelings. |