What is it that makes people laugh? More than two thousand years ago the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle defined (定义) jokes as the pleasure that results from a feeling of triumph by showing we’re better than someone else in a certain way. According to Aristotle and many other philosophers, all jokes depend mainly on showing inferiority in another person or group of persons--that is, putting it clearly, on showing that they are worse off than ourselves. Jokes raise our good opinion of ourselves at someone else’s expense.
Showing how much better than other people we are is only one reason we like jokes. Someone may also use a joke to express their anger or their cruelty or any other kind of action that is not acceptable to us. We feel free to laugh when we hear about someone sliding on a banana skin. The joke lets us express those attitudes which are usually unacceptable to society. This is probably the reason why some of the jokes, especially those involving cruelty, are so popular with certain people.
Besides, all jokes depend on our enjoyment of laughing at something that is strange and out of place because it’s different from things which are happening around it. The same situation can be either sad or pleasant, depending entirely on how strange and out of place it is. If a girl in a bathing suit falls into a swimming pool, we don’t laugh because nothing unusual has happened. But if a man in a smart suit falls in, the situation is at once unusual in a pleasant way and we laugh. A good joketeller will always try to build up a situation in which one thing is expected until something unexpected suddenly happens, and so we laugh.According to Aristotle, all jokes depend mainly on________.
| A．showing inferiority in another person or group |
| B．resulting in a sense of success |
| C．having a good opinion of other people |
| D．making people laugh unexpectedly |
What’s the main idea of Paragraph 2?
| A．Showing we are better than other people is the only one reason we like jokes. |
| B．When people are angry, they would like to hear jokes. |
| C．People who like jokes are usually cruel. |
| D．To express those attitudes usually unacceptable to society is one of the reasons we like jokes. |
What will a good joketeller always try to do?
| A．Make a sad situation into a pleasant one. |
| B．Make different things happen at the same time. |
| C．Make an unexpected thing happen in an expected situation. |
| D．Make people laugh at something unusual and out of place. |
Let children learn to judge their own work. A child learning to talk does not learn by being corrected all the time: if corrected too much, he will stop talking. He notices a thousand times a day the difference between the language he uses and the language those around him use. Bit by bit, he makes the necessary changes to make his language like other people’s. In the same way, children learning to do all the other things: they learn to do without being taught to walk, run, climb, whistle, ride a bicycle, compare their own performances with those of more skilled people, and slowly make the needed changes. But in school we never give a child a chance to find out his mistakes and correct them for himself. We do it all for him. We act as if we thought that he would never notice a mistake unless it was pointed out to him, or correct it unless he was made to. Let him work out, with the help of other children if he wants it, what this word says, what the answer is to that problem, whether this is a good way of saying or doing this or not.
If it is a matter of right answer, as it may be in mathematics or science, give him the answer book. Let him correct his own papers. Why should we teachers waste time on such routine (常规) work? Our job should be to help the child when he tells us that he can’t find the way to get the right answer. Let the children learn what all educated persons must some day learn, how to measure their own understanding, and how to know what they know or do not know.
68. According to the passage, the best way for children to learn things is by _.
A. listening to skilled people’s advice
B. asking older people many questions
C. making mistakes and having them corrected
D. doing what other people do
69. Which of the following does the writer think teachers should NOT do?
A. Give children correct answers.
B. Allow children to make mistakes.
C. Point out children’s mistakes to them.
D. Let children mark their own work.
70. According to the writer, teachers in school should ________.
A. allow children to learn from each other
B. point out children’s mistakes whenever found
C. give children more book knowledge
D. correct children’s mistakes as soon as possible
There is a wonderful story about a young girl who had no family and no one to love her.
One day, feeling very sad and lonely, she was walking through a grassland when she noticed a small butterfly caught in a thorn （荆棘） bush. The young girl carefully released the butterfly. Instead of flying away, the little butterfly changed into a beautiful fairy. The young girl rubbed her eyes in disbelief.
“For your wonderful kindness,” the good fairy said to the girl, “I will give you any wish you would like.” The little girl thought for a moment and then replied, “I want to be happy.”
The fairy leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. Then the fairy disappeared.
As the little girl grew up, there was no one in the land as happy as she. Everyone asked her secret of happiness. She would only smile and answer, “The secret of my happiness is that I listened to a good fairy when I was a little girl.”
When she was very old and on her deathbed, the neighbors all gathered around her， that her unbelievable secret of happiness would die with her. “Tell us, please,” they begged, “Tell us what the good fairy said.” The lovely old woman simply smiled and said, “She told me that everyone, no matter how secure they seemed, no matter how old or young, how rich or poor, had need of me.”
64. ______ the girl felt sad and lonely.
A. There were many friends but
B. There was nobody to love her so
C. There was nothing to do
D. Seeing the butterfly was caught
65. Noticing the butterfly was caught by the thorn, the orphan girl ______.
A. helped the butterfly escaped from the thorn
B. felt sorrow, but she didn‘t go up to help it
C. fell down on it too
D. failed to help it release from the thorn
66. The only thing that the little girl wanted was________.
A. to be richB. to have her own parents
C. to have a lot of friends D. happiness
67. The neighbors all gathered around the old happy woman when she was dying,because ______.
A. they loved this woman deeply and they didn‘t wanted her to die
B. the woman had lots of money to be shared as soon as she died
C. they wanted to know the secret of her lifetime happiness
D. they wanted to pray for her after her death
The most important holiday in spring, especially for Christians（基督徒）, is Easter. This Christian holiday is not on the same date every year, but it’s always on a Sunday. It can be any Sunday between March 22 and April 25. Many people celebrate Easter by buying new clothes. Children celebrate by hunting for colored eggs that their parents have hidden around the house. People also give Easter baskets filled with candy and other goodies to one another to celebrate the day.
But the holiday is more than new clothes and good things to eat. On Easter, many people go to church to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection（复活）from the dead.
Most people color them. Some people hide them. Others just eat them. But no matter what one does with Easter eggs, they are an important Easter tradition throughout the Western world.
People from many different cultures celebrate Easter. In both America and Belgium, children look for Easter eggs hidden on lawns and in bushes. In America， children believe the eggs are hidden by the Easter bunny（复活节兔子）. But in Belgium, the hidden eggs are supposed to have fallen from church bells. In Bulgaria, red Easter eggs are lucky in churches; Bulgarian families also hit these Easter eggs together to see whose is the strongest. The winner looks forward to good fortune that year. Still dozens of other Easter traditions exist. In parts of Austria, for example, children sing from door to door and are rewarded with colorful eggs.
60. Easter comes _______.
A. on the same date every year
B. on Sunday on March 22
C. on Sunday on April 25
D. on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25
61. To celebrate Easter, people ___________.
A. go shopping, hide colored eggs and children hunt for them
B. give Easter baskets filled candy and goodies to one another
C. buy new clothes, hide colored eggs and children look for them around the house
D. both B and C
62. For Christians the more important thing to do on Easter is________.
A. buying new clothes
B. going to church to celebrate Jesus‘ resurrection
C. eating delicious food and paint color eggs
D. exchange beautiful gifts each other
63. People from different cultures have different ideas about Easter egg， _________.
A. In both American and Belgium, children hunt for Easter eggs hidden in rooms and in bushes
B. In American, children believe the eggs are hidden by the Easter bunny
C. In Belgium, the hidden eggs are thought to have fallen from doorbells
D. In America, the hidden eggs are supposed to have fallen from doorbells
第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分。满分40分）
Speak, speak, speak!
Practise speaking as often as you can. Speaking to yourself is good practice.
Try recording yourself whenever you can.
Compare your pronunciation with the master version（原版）to see how you can do better and have another go. If you do this several times, you will find that each time is better than last.
Why not learn with someone else?
It helps if you can learn with someone else. If you can persuade a friend or family member to study with you, it will make you keep working.
Don't get stuck by a word you don't know.
Practise improving ways of getting your meaning across when speaking spontaneously（本能地），even if you don't know the exact words or phrases. Think of things you might want to say whenever you have spare time. Use facial expressions, hand movements, anything to make yourself understood.
Language learning is also about intuition（直觉）．
Guesswork is an important way to learn a new language. When listening to recorded material, you aren't expected to understand everything first time round. If you play the same piece several times, you will most probably understand something new each time.
Build up your vocabulary.
A wide vocabulary is the key to successful language learning but don’t try to learn too much at once. It’s best to study frequently, for short periods of time. Take at most six or seven items of vocabulary and learn them. Put them into sentences to fix them in your mind, and then come back to them later.
And above all, have fun!
56. What’s the purpose of this passage?
A. To tell us the importance of practicing speaking as often as we can.
B. To tell us a few tips to help us learn a new language well.
C. To tell us that guesswork is an important way to learn a new language.
D. To tell us that a wide vocabulary is the key to successful language learning.
57. What’s the meaning of the underlined phrase in the first part?
A. Have another try or attempt. B. Move away from a place to another.
C. Enter a certain state or condition. D. Follow or take a certain course.
58. To learn English well, we shouldn’t _______ according to the passage.
A. practice speaking as often as possible
B. study frequently, for short periods of time to build up our vocabulary
C. try to understand everything and stop when we meet a new word
D. try to persuade a friend or family member to study with us
59. According to the passage, to learn a new language well, the most important thing is ______.
A. speaking as much as possible B. having fun
C. a wide vocabulary D. guesswork
[1] Look at the center circles of Diagram A and Diagram B. Which of the centre circles looks larger?
[2] Take a first look and you probably think that the centre circle in Diagram A is smaller than that in Diagram B. In fact, they are exactly the same size.
[3]Then look at the picture on the right.What do you see? A vase? Or two faces? Does the picture change quickly from one to the other again and again? Maybe or maybe not, but you can see them at the same time.
[4]“What’s happening? Is something wrong with my eyes?” You may wonder at what you see. Don’t worry. Here is how it goes:
[5]When we look at things, our eyes send messages to our brains and then our brains interpret (解释) the information. However, sometimes our brains interpret the received information in a wrong way. It seems that our eyes are playing a joke on us. This often happens and we call it “Visual illusion(幻觉)”.
[6] Movie makers often make use of illusions. They make the objects around actors much smaller or bigger than usual. This makes us believe that the actors are much larger or smaller than they usually are. The movies Jurassic Park and Honey J shrunk the kids just make use of illusions.
66. In which column of a magazine can you read the above text?
A. Culture. B. Science. C. Humour. D. Education.
67. The centre circle in Diagram A looks smaller than that in Diagram B, That’s because____.
A. something is wrong with our eyes
B. the two circles are not of the same size
C. our brains interpret the information wrongly
D. pictures change quickly from one to the other
68. In the picture on the right, it seems that Line AB is shorter than lane
CD, but in fact lane AB is as long as Line CD. Which paragraph
can explain what has happened to our eyes?
A. The second one. B. The third one.
C. The fifth one. D. The sixth one.
69. What’s the right order according to the text?
a. We look at things with our eyes.
b. Our brains interpret the messages.
c. Our brains tell us what we have seen.
d. Our eyes send messages to our brains.
A. a-d-b-cB c-a-b-d C a-c-d-b D. b-e-a-d
70. Movie makers make use of visual illusions to .
A. help the actors look better B. make the actors much braver
C. help the actors become stronger D. make the actors seem different in size