The day my husband fell to his death,it started to snow,just like any November day.His body, when I found it,was lightly covered with snow.It snowed almost every day for the next four months,while I sat on the couch and watched it pile up.One morning,I shuffled downstairs and was surprised to see a snow remover clearing my driveway and the bent back of a woman shoveling(铲)my walk.I dropped to my knees and crawled through the living room. And back up stairs so those good people would not see me. I was embarrassed.My first thought was,how would I ever repay them? I didn’t have the strength to brush my hair, let alone shovel someone’s walk.
Before John’s death,I took pride in the fact that I rarely asked for help or favors,I defined myself by my competence and independence.So who was I if I was no longer capable and busy? How could I respect myself if all I did was sit on the couch every day and watch the snowfall?
Learning how to receive the love and support that came my way wasn't easy. Friends cooked for me and I cried because I couldn't even help them set the table. “I'm not usually this lazy, ”I wept.Finally,my friend Kathy sat down with me and said, "Mary,cooking for you is not a burden. I love you and I want to do it. It makes me feel good to be able to do something for you.”
Over and over,I heard similar emotions from the people who supported me during those dark days.One very wise man told me, “You are not doing nothing. Being fully open to your sorrow may be the hardest work you will ever do.”
I am not the person I once was, but in many ways I have changed for the better. My heart is now filled with thanks for people around me.I have been surprised to learn that there is incredible freedom that comes from facing one’s worst fear and walking away whole. I believe there is strength, for sure, in accepting a dark period of our life.Which of the following is True according to the passage?
A.The writer’s friend was unwilling to cook for her. |
B.The writer had been busy with her life before. |
C.The writer recovered from her sorrow quickly with his friend’s help. |
D.The day her husband died,it was snowing heavily. |
We can describe the writer before her husband died as the following EXCEPT __.
A.hard-working | B.independent |
C.smart | D.capable |
.The underlined word“shuffled”in Paragraph 1 probably means ___________.
A.stepped steadily | B.walked slowly |
C.ran swiftly | D.fell sadly |
.We can infer from the passage that ____________.
A.the writer found her husband immediately he fell off the roof |
B.the writer became strong-willed immediately after John's death |
C.the people around the writer were friendly and supported her |
D.before John’s death, the writer never asked others for help |
.The writer wrote the passage to ___________.
A.share her sad story with us |
B.express her guilty conscience(良心)to the people who helped her |
C.show her thanks to the people who love and support her |
D.tell us the changes she has made because of her husband’s death |
My Favourite Books
Jo Usmar is a writer for Cosmopolitan and co-author of the This Book Will series(系列)of lifestyle books. Here she picks her top reads.
Matilda
Roald Dahl
I once wrote a paper on the influence of fairy tales on Roald Dahl's writing and it gave me a new appreciation for his strange and delightful words. Matilda's battles with her cruel parents and the bossy headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, are equally funny and frightening, but they're also aspirational.
After Dark
Haruki Murakami
It's about two sisters-Eri, a model who either won't or can't stop sleeping, and Mari, a young student. In trying to connect to her sister. Mari starts changing her life and discovers a world of diverse "night people" who are hiding secrets.
Gone Girl
Gillian Fynn
There was a bit of me that didn't want to love this when everyone else on the planet did but the horror story is brilliant. There's tension and anxiety from the beginning as Nick and Amy battle for your trust. It's a real whodunit and the frustration when you realise what's going on is horribly enjoyable
The Stand
Stephen King
This is an excellent fantasy novel from one of the best storytellers around. After a serious flu outbreak wipes out 99.4% of the world's population, a battle unfolds between good and evil among those let. Randall Flagg is one of the scariest characters ever.
(1)Who does "I" refer to in the text?
A. |
Stephen King. |
B. |
Gillian Flynn. |
C. |
Jo Usmar. |
D. |
Roald Dahl |
(2)Which of the following tells about Mari and Eri?
A. |
Cosmopolitan. |
B. |
Matilda. |
C. |
After Dark. |
D. |
The Stand. |
(3)What kind of book is G one Girl?
A. |
A folk tale. |
B. |
A biography. |
C. |
A love story. |
D. |
A horror story. |
We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices (装置) well after they go out of style. That's bad news for the environment - and our wallets - as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.
To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life - from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.
As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones." The Living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kid's room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house," said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We're not just keeping these old devices-we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TV's with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions(排放) more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.
So what's the solution(解决方案)? The team's data only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tables instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.
32.What does the author think of new devices?
A. |
They are environment-friendly. |
B. |
They are no better than the old. |
C. |
They cost more to use at home. |
D. |
They go out of style quickly. |
33.Why did Babbitt's team conduct the research?
A. |
To reduce the cost of minerals. |
B. |
To test the life cycle of a product. |
C. |
To update consumers on new technology. |
D. |
To find out electricity consumption of the devices. |
34.Which of the following uses the least energy?
A. |
The box-set TV. |
B. |
The tablet. |
C. |
The LCD TV. |
D. |
The desktop computer. |
35.What does the text suggest people do about old electronic devices?
A. |
Stop using them. |
B. |
Take them apart. |
C. |
Upgrade them. |
D. |
Recycle them. |
Languages have been coming and going for thousands of years, but in recent times there has been less coming and a lot more going. When the world was still populated by hunter-gatherers, small, tightly knit (联系) groups developed their own patterns of speech independent of each other. Some language experts believe that 10,000 years ago, when the world had just five to ten million people, they spoke perhaps 12,000 languages between them.
Soon afterwards, many of those people started settling down to become farmers, and their languages too became more settled and fewer in number. In recent centuries, trade, industrialisation, the development of the nation-state and the spread of universal compulsory education, especially globalization and better communications in the past few decades, all have caused many languages to disappear, and dominantlanguages such as English, Spanish and Chinese are increasingly taking over.
At present, the world has about 6,800 languages. The distribution of these languages is hugely uneven. The general rule is that mild zones have relatively few languages, often spoken by many people, while hot, wet zones have lots, often spoken by small numbers. Europe has only around 200 languages; the Americas about 1,000; Africa 2,400; and Asia and the Pacific perhaps 3,200, of which Papua New Guinea alone accounts for well over 800. The median number (中位数)of speakers is a mere 6,000, which means that half the world's languages are spoken by fewer people than that.
Already well over 400 of the total of 6,800 languages are close to extinction (消亡), with only a few elderly speakers left. Pick, at random, Busuu in Cameroon (eight remaining speakers), Chiapaneco in Mexico (150), Lipan Apache in the United States (two or three) or Wadjigu in Australia (one, with a question-mark): none of these seems to have much chance of survival.
28.What can we infer about languages in hunter-gatherer times?
A. |
They developed very fast. |
B. |
They were large in number. |
C. |
They had similar patterns. |
D. |
They were closely connected. |
29.Which of the following best explains "dominant" underlined in paragraph 2?
A. |
Complex. |
B. |
Advanced |
C. |
Powerful. |
D. |
Modern. |
30.How many languages are spoken by less than 6,000 people at present?
A. |
About 6,800. |
B. |
About 3,400. |
C. |
About 2,400. |
D. |
About 1,200. |
31.What is the main idea of the text?
A. |
New languages will be created. |
B. |
People's lifestyles are reflected in languages. |
C. |
Human development results in fewer languages. |
D. |
Geography determines language evolution. |
Good Morning Britain's Susanna Reid is used to grilling guests on the sofa every morning, but she is cooking up a storm in her latest role-showing families how to prepare delicious and nutritious meals on a tight budget.
In Save Money: Good Food, she visits a different home each week and with the help of chef Matt Tebbutt offers top tips on how to reduce food waste, while preparing recipes for under £5 per family a day. And the Good Morning Britain presenter says she's been able to put a lot of what she's learnt into practice in her own home, preparing meals for sons, Sam, 14, Finn, 13, and Jack, 11.
"We love Mexican churros, so I buy them on my phone from my local Mexican takeaway restaurant," she explains. "I pay £5 for a portion(一份),but Matt makes them for 26p a portion, because they are flour, water, sugar and oil. Everybody can buy takeaway food, but sometimes we're not aware how cheaply we can make this food ourselves."
The eight-part series(系列节目),Save Money: Good Food, follows in the footsteps of ITV's Save Money: Good Health, which gave viewers advice on how to get value from the vast range of health products on the market.
With food our biggest weekly household expense, Susanna and Matt spend time with a different family each week. In tonight's Easter special they come to the aid of a family in need of some delicious inspiration on a budget. The team transforms the family's long weekend of celebration with less expensive but still tasty recipes.
24.What do we know about Susanna Reid?
A. |
She enjoys embarrassing her guests. |
B. |
She has started a new programme. |
C. |
She dislikes working early in the morning. |
D. |
She has had a tight budget for her family. |
25.How does Matt Tebbutt help Susanna?
A. |
He buys cooking materials for her. |
B. |
He prepares food for her kids. |
C. |
He assists her in cooking matters. |
D. |
He invites guest families for her. |
26.What does the author intend to do in paragraph 4?
A. |
Summarize the previous paragraphs. |
B. |
Provide some advice for the readers. |
C. |
Add some background information. |
D. |
Introduce a new topic for discussion. |
27.What can be a suitable title for the text?
A. |
Keeping Fit by Eating Smart |
B. |
Balancing Our Daily Diet |
C. |
Making Yourself a Perfect Chef |
D. |
Cooking Well for Less |
阅读下列短文,从每题所给的ABC和D四个选项中,选出最佳选项。
Washington, D.C. Bicycle Tours
Cherry Blossom Bike Tour in Washington, D.C
Duration: 3 hours
This small group bike tour is a fantastic way to see the world-famous cherry trees with beautiful flowers of Washington, D.C. Your guide will provide a history lesson about the trees and the famous monuments where they blossom. Reserve your spot before availability - and the cherry blossoms - disappear!
Washington Capital Monuments Bicycle Tour
Duration: 3 hours (4 miles)
Join a guided bike tour and view some of the most popular monuments in Washington, D.C. Explore the monuments and memorials on the National Mall as your guide shares unique
facts and history at each stop. Guided tour includes bike, helmet, cookies and bottled water.
Capital City Bike Tour in Washington, D.C.
Duration: 3 hours
Morning or Afternoon this bike tour is the perfect tour for D.C. newcomers and locals looking to experience Washington, D.C.in a healthy way with minimum effort. Knowledge guides will entertain you with the most interesting stories about Presidents. Congress, memories, and parks. Comfortable bikes and a smooth tour route(路线) make cycling between the sites fun and relaxing.
Washington Capital Sites at Night Bicycle Tour
Duration: 3 hours (7 miles)
Join a small group hike tour for an evening of exploration in the heart of Washington, D.C. Get up close to the monuments and memorials as you bike the sites of Capitol Hill and the National Mall. Frequent stops are made for photo taking as your guide offers unique facts and history. Tour includes bike, helmet, and bottled water. All rides are equipped with reflective vests and safety lights.
(1)Which tour do you need to book in advance?
A. |
Cherry Blossom Bike Tour in Washington, |
B. |
C . |
C. |
Washington Capital Monuments Bicycle Tour. |
D. | |
E. |
Capital City Bike Tour in Washington, |
F. |
C . |
G. |
Washington Capital Sites at Night Bicycle Tour. |
H. |
(2)What will you do on the Capital City Bike Tour?
A. |
Meet famous people. |
B. |
Go to a national park. |
C. |
Visit well-known museums. |
D. |
Enjoy interesting stories. |
(3)Which of the following does the bicycle tour at night provide?
A. |
City maps. |
B. |
Cameras |
C. |
Meals. |
D. |
Safety lights. |