Want to say "hello" from Disneyland? Send a post card!
Beautiful scenes（戏剧）of paradise (乐园), wild animals, silly pictures — you can find them all in one place. Where? On a post card! Have people always sent post cards? No. Before post cards, people liked sealed letters.
The idea for the first decorated (装饰) post card came to John P. Charlton in 1861. He thought a simple card with decorations would be a great way to send a note. Then in the late 1800s, post cards with pictures appeared. By law, people had to write their note on the front ——on the picture! The back was only for the address. Several years later, England allowed a divided-back post card. Then people could write their note on the back left side and put the address on the right. During the early 1900s, the golden age of post cards, picture post cards became a craze of the world. In 1908, Americans alone mailed over 677 million post cards. Today, post cards are the third most popular collection in the world after stamps and coins.We can see some silly pictures on the post cards.
Post cards were produced before sealed letters.
In 1861, the first decorated post card appeared.
Post cards were most popular during the early 1900s.
Stamps, coins and post cards are the most popular collections in the world.
More than a hundred years ago, an American produced (创造) a game. He called it indoor tennis. The Americans were not interested in it at first so he sent it to his London friends and it became very popular (流行) in Britain. The game was then played across the dining-room table or on the floor with the net hung between two chairs. In the early days ，the balls were made of cork (软木) or rubber. The bats(球拍) were made of wood.
A few years later a hollow (空心) ball like the one we use today was invented. The game then quickly spread all over the world. An Englishman once made a bat covered with rubber. He first played the game in England and called it "ping - pong". "Ping" was the sound of the bat when it hit the ball, and "pong" was the sound of the ball when it hit the table. Who invented the game of ping-pong?
| A．A Chinese. | B．An Englishman. | C．An American. | D．We don't know. |
The game was first called ________ by its producer(创造者).
| A．ping- pong tennis | B．table tennis | C．our-door tennis | D．indoor tennis |
What did the British think of the game?
| A．Moving (感人的). | B．Interesting. | C．Terrible. | D．boring. |
In the early days，the ball was________.
| A．hollow | B．covered with rubber |
| C．made of cork or rubber | D．made of wood |
The name of ping-pong has something to do with __________.
| A．sound | B．size | C．history | D．place |
There are many kinds of cars in this world. My grandfather thinks this is because cars are like their drivers. He says, “Rich people have expensive cars, big people have large cars, and old people drive old cars.” But I don’t agree with him.
My neighbor, Mrs. Hill, is 82 years old. She drives only on Tuesday, and then she drives only to the bank. She never drives more than 30 kilometers an hour. Do you think Mrs. Hill has a very old and small car? No! Her car is new. It’s very large, and it can go 200 kilometers an hour!
My friend Mike is an artist. He paints beautiful pictures with lots of colors. But his car is black. Mrs. Bates has a very, very old car. It often has some trouble. Does she drive that kind of car because she is poor? No, she has four restaurants and two million dollars in the bank. My uncle Joe has a very small car. Every Sunday, he drives to the country with his wife, his three children, his mother and his dog.
Now, you have read about my friends and their cars. Do you agree with my grandfather? Maybe you have a car. Does it say something about you?The writer’s grandfather thinks ___.
| A．a person has the same kind of car as himself (herself) |
| B．different people have cars of the same kind |
| C．poor people have large cars |
| D．artists have black cars |
Mrs. Bates has an old car ___.
| A．because she is poor |
| B．because she is rich |
| C．because she likes old cars |
| D．and the passage doesn’t tell us why |
Though Uncle Joe has a very small car, ___.
| A．he has a dog |
| B．he has a large family |
| C．he has no children |
| D．he has few members in his family |
The writer’s friend Mike paints ___.
| A．pictures in black |
| B．colorful pictures |
| C．colorless pictures |
| D．pictures with only a few colors |
The writer thinks ___.
| A．his grandfather’s idea about cars is right |
| B．cars are often the same as their drivers in many ways |
| C．artists shouldn’t drive black cars |
| D．a car doesn’t say anything about its owner |
Diving or Drowning
A rich young man decided that he would like to do some diving in the sea, so he bought a rubber suit and all the other things that he needed, and took some lessons at a diving school. Then one day he walked into the water by himself and began to explore the bottom of the sea.
He saw a lot of beautiful fish and other things, and then, after half an hour, he suddenly saw a man waving his arms and legs around wildly near the bottom of the sea. He was wearing only a bathing suit.
The rich young man was very surprised to see him, so he took out a plastic notebook and a special pencil, which could write under water, and wrote, “What are you doing here?”
He showed the notebook to the other man, who then took the pencil and wrote, “Drowning!”What did the rich young man want to do?
| A．driving | B．diving | C．walking | D．swimming |
How did he prepare himself for this?
| A．He bought all the things needed for diving. |
| B．He took a diving lesson |
| C．He bought a rubber suit and a bathing suit. |
| D．both a and b. |
What did he first see at the bottom of the ocean?
| A．some fish | B．some plants |
| C．a man with a bathing suit | D．a man with a diving suit |
What was the man doing?
| A．swimming | B．diving | C．searching for fish | D．drowning |
What did the rich young man do?
| A．He talked with him. |
| B．He pulled the man out of water. |
| C．He communicated with the man by writing. |
| D．He gave his suit to the man. |
Sally was a student. It was going to be her mother’s birthday. She wanted to buy her a present that would be nice and useful but not expensive.
A week before her mother’s birthday, she went shopping after a quick and simple lunch. When she had been looking for half an hour, she found a shop that was selling cheep umbrellas（伞）, and decided to take a black one, since her mother had lost hers the month before.
She thought, “You could carry that when you are wearing clothes of any color.” So she decided to buy a lovely black umbrella and took it back to school with her until her classes had finished.
On her way back home in the train that evening, she felt hungry because she had such a small lunch that she went along to the buffet car（餐车） for another sandwich and cup of coffee. She had left the black umbrella above her seat in the compartment（车厢）, but when she got back, it had gone! When she had left the compartment, there had been no other passengers（乘客） in it, but now there were three.
Sally began to cry when she saw that the umbrella was no longer there. The other passengers felt very sorry for her and asked what the matter was. She told them that the black umbrella she had bought for her mother was gone, and that she had to get out at the next station. After the three other passengers heard it, they asked her for her mother’s address so that they could sent the umbrella to her if someone had taken it by mistake and brought it back after Sally had got out of the train.
The next week, Sally heard from her mother. It said, “Thank you very much for your lovely presents, but why did you send me three black umbrellas?”Which of the following is the best for the sentence “You could carry that when you are wearing clothes of any color?”
| A．You can carry it when you are wearing any clothes. |
| B．Any color of your clothes will be all right. |
| C．The umbrella will be OK for your clothes in any colors. |
| D．You can take any clothes that you like to wear. |
What does the story infer（推断）?
| A．Her mother would write to her if she didn’t receive the presents. |
| B．The three umbrella were sent by the girl. |
| C．Only four people had ever been to the compartment. |
| D．Nobody brought the umbrella back. |
How many umbrellas did Sally’s mother get at last?
| A．No. | B．Only one. | C．Three. | D．Four. |
The best name of the story is ________.
| A．A Lucky Girl | B．The Missing Umbrella |
| C．A Happy Mother | D．Mother’s Present |
What does the writer want to tell us?
| A．You should take care of your things when you are traveling. |
| B．Show your love to others, and they will bring you love. |
| C．Children should often come back to see their parents. |
| D．It’s no use crying when you are in trouble. |
BEIJING---Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has visited the“left-behind” children whose parents are working in cities before Children’s Day.
During a visit to northwest China’s Shanxi Province, Wen visited the home of Yang Saike, a primary school boy in a village of Xingping City, Yang, whose parents were working in Fujian, thousands of kilometers away, was cared for by his grandparents. His parents fail to go home even once a year.
The premier held Yang in his arms and looked through his exercise books and praised him for his hard work. (83) Wen talked with many children and asked them many questions about their schooling and life.“ You are so pretty,” Wen said to Liu Mengqi, a seven-year-old girl living with her grandmother. Liu’s parents were also working in the city.
“Have you been to school yet?” Wen asked two other girls.
“ We are going to the pre-school class,” said one.
“ Mon and dad at home?” Wen asked. The children shook their heads.
“ Children cannot see their parents very often, which is a new problem in the countryside. We should give them more care and love,” said the premier.
(84) “ With fast economic（经济）development, more people in the country chose to work in cities and left their children with grandparents or relatives back home”，said Wen. The premier asked local governments to do something to protect and care for such children at home and free their parents in cities from worries about their children.
A. 根据短文内容简要回答问题。What questions did Wen Jiaobao ask the children in the countryside?
_________________________________________________________________What did the premier ask local governments do?
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B. 将短文中划线的句子译成汉语。_______________________________________________________________
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C. 请给短文拟一个适当的标题。____________________________________________________________