America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while — then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can
be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower
more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.
Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.
Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.
For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!The writer of this passage must be ______.
| A．an American | B．a Chinese |
| C．a professor | D．a student |
From the last two paragraphs we can learn that when we arrive in America to visit an American friend, we will probably be ______.
| A．warmly welcomed at the airport |
| B．offered a ride to his home |
| C．treated hospitably at his home |
| D．treated to dinner in a restaurant |
The underlined words “generous with our time” in Paragraph 3 probably mean ______.
| A．strict with time | B．serious with time |
| C．careful with time | D．willing to spend time |
A suitable title for this passage would probably be “______”.
| A．Friendships between Chinese |
| B．Friendships between Americans |
| C．Americans’ hospitality |
| D．Americans’ and Chinese’s views of friendships |
We can make mistakes at any age. Some mistakes we make are about money. But most mistakes are about people. “Did Jerry really care when I broke up with Helen?” “When I got that great job, did Jim, as a friend, really feel good about it?” “And was Paul friendly just because I had a car?” When we look back, these thoughts can make us feel bad. But when we look back, it is too late.
Why do we go wrong with our friends, or our enemies? Sometimes what people say hides their real meanings. And if we do not really listen, we miss the feeling behind the words. When someone tells you, “You’re a lucky dog!” Is he really on your side? If he says, “You’re a lucky guy!” that is being friendly. But “a lucky dog”? There is a bit of envy (嫉妒) in those words. What he may be saying is that he does not think you deserve (应得) your luck.
“Just think of all the things you have to be thankful for” is another phrase that says one thing and means another. It could mean that the speaker is trying to get you to see your problem. But this phrase contains the thought that your problem is not at all important.
How can you tell the real meaning behind someone’s words? One way is to take a good look at the person talking. Do his words fit the way he looks? Is what he says shown by the tone of voice? The look in his eyes? Stop and think. The minute you spend thinking about the real meaning of what people say to you may save your another mistake. When the writer thinks of some of the things that happened between him and his friends, he .
| A．feels happy, thinking how nice his friends are to him |
| B．feels he might not have understood his friend’s true feelings |
| C．thinks it a mistake to have broken up with his girl friend |
| D．is sorry that his friends let him down |
When the writer talks about the saying, “You’re a lucky dog!” he is saying that .
| A．the speaker is just friendly |
| B．this sentence suggests the same as “You’re a lucky guy!” |
| C．the word “dog” should not be used to apply to people |
| D．sometimes the words show that the speaker is a bit envious |
This passage tries to tell you how to .
| A．avoid mistakes about money and friends |
| B．get an idea of friendly people |
| C．avoid mistakes in understanding what people tell you |
| D．keep people friendly without trusting them |
The writer suggests that should be trusted.
| A．everybody | B．nobody | C．all the people | D．not all the people |
History is full of examples of leaders joining together to meet common goals. But rarely have two leaders worked together with such friendship and cooperation as American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. They both were born in wealthy families and were active in politics for many years. Both men loved the sea and the navy，history and nature.
Roosevelt and Churchill first met when they were lowerlevel officials in World War One. But neither man remembered much about that meeting. However，as they worked together during the Second World War they came to like and trust each other. Roosevelt and Churchill exchanged more than one thousand seven hundred letters and messages during five and a half years. They met many times，at large national gatherings and in private talks. But the closeness of their friendship might be seen best in a story told by one of Roosevelt’s close advisors，Harry Hopkins. Hopkins remembered how Churchill was visiting Roosevelt at the White House one day. Roosevelt went into Churchill’s room in the morning to say hello. But the president was shocked to see Churchill coming from the washing room with no clothes at all. Roosevelt immediately apologized to the British leader for seeing him naked. But Churchill reportedly said: “The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to hide from the president of the United States.” And then both men laughed.
The United States and Great Britain were only two of several nations that joined together in the war to resist Hitler and his Allies. In January,1942，twentysix of these nations signed an agreement promising to fight for peace，religious freedom，human rights，and justice. The three major Allies，however，were the most important for the war effort: the United States，Britain，and the Soviet Union. Yet，Churchill and Roosevelt disagreed about when to attack Hitler in western Europe. And Churchill resisted Roosevelt’s suggestions that Britain give up some of its colonies. But in general，the friendship between Roosevelt and Churchill，and between the United States and Britain led the two nations to cooperate closely.What can be inferred from the passage?
| A．Roosevelt and Churchill had much in common. |
| B．Roosevelt and Churchill had nothing in common. |
| C．Roosevelt and Churchill had no difference but cooperation. |
| D．Roosevelt and Churchill always joined together to meet common goals. |
Which of the following about Roosevelt and Churchill is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Since World War One they had believed in each other. |
| B．They exchanged just 27 letters and messages per month during the 5.5 years. |
| C．Harry Hopkins never let out the closeness of their friendship. |
| D．Roosevelt and Churchill hadn’t been presidents before World War One. |
We can know from the passage that________.
| A．Roosevelt and Churchill did not always agree with each other |
| B．over two differences between Churchill and Roosevelt were mentioned |
| C．Churchill urged Roosevelt to give up some of its colonies |
| D．the differences between Roosevelt and Churchill had an effect on their cooperation |
In Canada you can find dogs, cats, horses, etc. in almost every family. These are their pets. People love these pets and have them as their good friends. Before they keep them in their houses, they take them to animal hospitals to give them injections(注射) so that they won’t carry diseases. They have special animal food stores, though they can get animal food in almost every kind of stores. Some people spend around two hundred Canadian dollars a month on animal food.
When you visit people’s houses, they would be very glad to show you their pets and they are very proud of them. You will also find that almost every family has a bird feeder in their garden. All kinds of birds are welcomed to come and have a good meal. They are free to come and go and nobody is allowed to kill any animal in Canada. They have a law against killing wild animals. If you killed an animal, you would be punished. If an animal happened to get run over by a car, people would be very sad about it.
People in Canada have many reasons to like animals. One of them might be: Their family ties are not as close as ours. When children grow up, they leave their parents and start their own life. Then the old will feel lonely. But pets can solve this problem. They can be good friends and never leave them alone.The passage mainly talks about ______.
| A．how to keep diseases from pets | B．Canadians have pets as friends |
| C．how to take good care of pets | D．life of the old in Canada |
Pets are given injections in animal hospitals ______.
| A．in order to keep them safe | B．after being taken home |
| C．because they carry diseases | D．because they are sick |
The word “bird feeder” in the second paragraph probably means ______.
| A．a person who gives food to birds | B．a container that has food for birds |
| C．something that catches birds | D．an animal that eats birds |
InCanada, childrenleavetheirparentswhenthey grow up because ______.
| A．they don’t love their parents any more |
| B．they can only find jobs far from their parents |
| C．their parents’ houses are too small |
| D．they wouldn’t depend on their parents any more |
Which of the following is TRUE?
| A．Peoplebuyanimal foodonlyattheanimalfood stores. |
| B．Pets eat better than people. |
| C．Almost every family has a birdcage(鸟笼) in his house. |
| D．Any bird can come to the bird feeders to eat. |
Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She was known around the world for using poetry to increase understanding of black culture in America.
During the 1940’s and the 1950’s, Gwendolyn Brooks used her poems to describe conditions among the poor, racial (种族的) inequality and drug use in the black community. She also wrote poems about the struggles of black women.
But her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black people. She combined traditional European poetry styles with the African American experience.
Gwendolyn Brooks once said that she wrote about what she saw and heard in the street. She said she found most of her materials through looking out of the window of her second-floor apartment in Chicago, Illinois.
In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago, where many black people live. In her poems, the South Side is called Bronzeville. It was “A Street in Bronzeville” that gained the attention of literary experts in 1945. Critics praised her poetic skills and her powerful descriptions about the black experience during the time. The Bronzeville poems were her first published collection.
In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. She won the prize for her second book of poems called “Annie Allen”. “Annie Allen” is a collection of poetry about a Bronzeville girl as a daughter, a wife and a mother. She experiences loneliness, loss, death and poverty (贫穷).
Gwendolyn Brooks said that winning the prize changed her life.
Her next work was a novel written in 1953 called “Maud Martha”. “Maud Martha” attracted little attention when it was first published. But now it is considered an important work by some critics. Its main ideas about the difficult lives of many women are popular among female writers today.Gwendolyn Brooks became world-famous because.
| A．she was an expert on the language of poetry |
| B．she introduced black culture by writing poems |
| C．she fought for black rights by writing poems |
| D．her poems showed the lives of black women |
Which of the following can we learn from the text?
| A．Gwendolyn Brooks’ poems focused on black people in Africa. |
| B．Winning the Pulitzer Prize for Literature was important to Brooks. |
| C．Gwendolyn Brooks used to suffer a lot from drugs. |
| D．Gwendolyn Brooks was very strict with herself. |
How did Gwendolyn Brooks get ideas for most of her poems?
| A．By observing life. | B．By having talks. |
| C．By reading widely. | D．By traveling. |
We can infer that the book “Annie Allen” mainly deals with.
| A．family life | B．inequality | C．adventure | D．failure |
There is an old Chinese tale about a woman whose only son died. Sadly, she went to the holy man and asked, “What magical things do you have to bring my son back to life?”
Instead of sending her away or reasoning with her, he said to her, “Fetch me a mustard (芥菜) seed from a home that has never known sadness. We will use it to drive the sadness out of your life.” The woman happily went off at once in search of that magical mustard seed.
She first came to a splendid house, knocked at the door and said, “I am looking for a home that has never known sadness. Is it such a place? It is very important to me.”
They told her “You’ve certainly come to the wrong place” and began to describe all the tragic things that had happened to them recently.
The woman said to herself, “I have had misfortune of my own. Who is able to help these poor, unfortunate people?” She stayed to comfort them, and then went on in search of a home that had never known sadness. But wherever she went, she found one tale after another of sadness and misfortune. She became so involved in other people’s sorrow that finally she forgot about her search for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that it had, in fact, driven the sadness out of her life.Which of the following does the story lead us to believe?
| A．Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. |
| B．Time passed cannot be called back again. |
| C．You can’t feel happy unless compared with others. |
| D．You can’t expect to know the result until you have tried. |
Instead of sending the woman away, the holy man.
| A．asked her to help him first |
| B．tried to comfort her with kind words |
| C．asked her to look for a thing that didn’t exist at all |
| D．tried to encourage her by talking with her |
Leaving the holy man, the woman.
| A．was full of hope | B．was filled with sadness |
| C．was determined to try again | D．became discouraged |
The best title for the text would be “”.
| A．A woman’s misfortune | B．A nice surprise |
| C．The holy man’s faith | D．Cure for sadness |