Too many people want others to be their friends，but they don’t give friendship back.That is why some friendships don’t last long.To have a friend，you must learn to be one.You must learn to treat your friend the way you want your friend to treat you.Learning to be a good friend means learning three rules：be honest；be generous；be understanding.
Honesty is where a good friendship starts.Friends must be able to trust one another.If you do not tell the truth，people usually will find out.If a friend finds out that you haven’t been honest，you may lose the friend’s trust.Good friends always count on one another to speak and act honestly.
Generosity means sharing and sharing makes a friendship grow.You do not have to give your lunch money or your clothes.Naturally you will want to share your ideas and feelings.These can be very valuable to a friend.They tell your friend what is important to you.By sharing them，you help your friend know you better.
Sooner or later everyone needs understanding and helping with a problem.Something may go wrong at school.Talking about the problem can make it easier to solve.Turning to a friend can be the first step in solving the problem.So to be a friend you must listen and understand.You must try to put yourself in your friend’s place so you can understand the problem better.
No two friendships are ever exactly alike. But all true friendships have three things in common. If you plan to keep your friends，you must practice honesty，generosity and understanding. Some friendships don’t last very long because ________.
| A．there are too many people who want to make friends |
| B．some people receive friendship but don’t give friendship back |
| C．those who give others friendship receive friendship from others |
| D．they don’t know friendship is something serious |
According to the passage，honesty is ________.
| A．something countable |
| B．the base of friendship |
| C．as important as money |
| D．more important than anything else |
Which of the following isn’t mentioned in the passage?
| A．Always tell your friends the truth. |
| B．Sharing your mind with your friends is of great value. |
| C．Discussing your problems with your friends often helps to solve the problem. |
| D．A friend who gives you his lunch money is a true friend. |
The best title of this passage is_________.
| A．Honesty Is the Best Policy |
| B．A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed |
| C．How to Be Friends |
| D．Three Important Points in Life |
Attempt a guess at the following question: In the English-speaking world, which country has the least affordable homes? You are wrong if you guessed the US, even with the housing bubble （气泡） and main sadness. Nor is it the UK, where prices have risen because demand is far from supply. According to a recent survey of 227 cities around the globe, you must go south of the equator （赤道） to Australia to find the priciest homes．
The report measured a city’s housing market along the following guidelines. An “affordable” home required three times or less of the average family’s income to purchase. At four times earnings, a home fell into the “unaffordable” category. And a “seriously unaffordable” home needed five times a family’s income. In Australia, homes in the least affordable city cost just about 9.5 times the average income. Sydney, Perth, and Melbourne were only a little under this figure．
Australian officials offered little comment, apart from a general statement on the dismal findings. These prices make the possibility that many Australians will one day own a home largely unbelievable. Land rationing （配给制） and excessive development charges have raised prices, and the problem will only be solved through urgent action by the Rudd government．
Some American cities were also included on the least affordable list, four of which were in California. America is still involved in a mortgage（抵押）crisis, though, affecting the affordability of homes. Yet a number of US cities garnered “affordable” status, namely Dallas and Kansas. Australia had no cities listed in the top fifty places with affordable homes．
The survey suggests that you can find affordable homes in most places, just not if you’re Australian and choose to live down under．To buy an affordable house, you should pay _____．
| A．3 times or less of the average family’s income |
| B．4 times or less of the average family’s income |
| C．5 times or less of the average family’s income |
| D．9.5 times or less of the average family’s income |
What caused the prices of houses to increase in Australia?
| A．The rising family’s income． |
| B．The demand over supply. |
| C．The excessive development charges． |
| D．The decrease of land． |
The underlined word “dismal” in Paragraph 3 may mean _____．
| A．cheerful | B．satisfactory |
| C．difficult | D．sad |
What might be the most suitable title for the passage?
| A．Affordable Houses | B．A House is a Dream First |
| C．Housing Bubble | D．Homes Too Expensive |
Do you know what really troubles me? For some reason, words with silent letters have always bothered me. For example, consider these words: know, design, island, school, wrist, naughty, and salmon. All of these words have at least one letter that is not typically pronounced, and these words are just a very small part of words with silent letters in them.
Some words are even worse, consider this word: colonel. Not only are some letters not pronounced, but letters that are not even there are pronounced.
Even foreign languages, especially French, are guilty of this needless complexity and confusion. I know there must be some main historical reasons why the words are spelled and pronounced the way they are, but that does not mean bad traditions must continue to survive. Especially if they are no longer logical.
Unfortunately, there is very little that anyone can do for it, because there’s no group of people who can change or have the right to change the English language for everyone. However, the only thing we can do is make changes in the way we talk and write in hopes that it catches on. For example, I pronounce the letter “l” in salmon on purpose to make people annoyed and to sound more different or complicated. I even pronounce colonel the correct or French way.
I can only hope these two minor changes to the English language make sense to you, and you will help to keep up these minor changes forever in your everyday life.Which of the following is the main reason for silent letters?
| A．French language. | B．Historical reasons. |
| C．Some linguists | D．Bad traditions. |
The underlined phrase “catches on” probably means “________”.
| A．becomes popular | B．gets across |
| C．follows the fashions | D．doesn’t fall behind |
Which of the following is the best title for this passage?
| A．Troubles in everyday life |
| B．Traps in English words |
| C．Words with silent letters |
| D．Necessary changes of languages |
| HIGHFIELD COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL SCHOOL REPORT Form Teacher:G. Baker Pupil’s Name: Simon Watkins Term:Summer 2014 Form:Ⅳ B
FORM TEACHER’S REMARKS HEADMASTER |
According to the comments of the Physical Education teacher, Simon_______.
| A．is too talkative in the class |
| B．likes to work with his classmates |
| C．doesn’t exercise his body at the right time |
| D．becomes weak because he doesn’t exercise at all |
Which of Simon’s subjects will attract the headmaster’s attention in future?
| A．Biology and Maths. |
| B．History and French. |
| C．English and Chemistry. |
| D．Physics and Physical Education. |
Which of the following statements best describes Simon?
| A．He has made great progress in language classes. |
| B．His potential has been fully reflected in science classes. |
| C．His grade in maths makes him a born scientist. |
| D．He needs to improve his attitude on certain subjects. |
Based on the school report, which of the following statements is true?
| A．Simon didn’t bother his teacher to revise French. |
| B．Basically, Simon did a good job in science. |
| C．Simon is a determined learner in English. |
| D．Simon is able to pay attention to history for long. |
In 1939 two brothers, Mac and Dick McDonald, started a drive-in restaurant in San Bernadino, California. They carefully chose a busy corner for their location. They had run their own businesses for years, first a theater, then a barbecue(烤肉) restaurant, then another drive-in. But in their new operation, they offered a new, shortened menu: French fries, hamburgers, and sodas. To this small selection they added one new idea: quick service, no waiters or waitresses, and no tips.
Their hamburgers sold for fifteen cents. Cheese was another four cents. Their French fries and hamburgers had a remarkable uniformity(一致性), for the brothers had developed a strict routine(程序) for the preparation of their food, and they insisted on their cooks sticking to their routine. Their new drive-in became surprisingly popular, particularly for lunch. People drove up by the hundreds during the busy noontime. The self-service restaurant was so popular that the brothers had allowed ten copies of their restaurant to be opened. They were content with this modest success until they met Ray Kroc.
Kroc was a salesman who met the McDonald brothers in 1954, when he was selling milkshake-mixing machines. He quickly saw the special attraction of the brothers’ fast-food restaurants and bought the right to franchise(特许经营) other copies of their restaurants. The agreement included the right to duplicate(复制) the menu, the equipment, even their red and white buildings with the golden arches(拱门).
Today McDonald’s is really a household name. In 1976, McDonald’s had over $ l billion in total sales. Its first twenty-two years is one of the most surprising success stories in modern American business history.This passage mainly talks about _______.
| A．the development of fast food services |
| B．how McDonald’s became a billion-dollar business |
| C．the business careers of Mac and Dick McDonald |
| D．Ray Kroc’s business talent |
Mac and Dick managed all of the following businesses except _______.
| A．a drive-in | B．a theater |
| C．a cinema | D．a barbecue restaurant |
We may infer from this passage that _______.
| A．Mac and Dick McDonald never became wealthy for they sold their idea to Kroc. |
| B．the place the McDonalds chose was the only source of the great popularity of their drive-in |
| C．forty years ago there were lots of fast-food restaurants |
| D．Ray Kroc was a good businessman |
The passage suggests that _______.
| A．creativity is an important element of business success |
| B．Ray Kroc was the close partner of the McDonald brothers |
| C．Mac and Dick McDonald became broken after they sold their ideas to Ray Kroc |
| D．California is the best place to go into business |
In opposing President Barack Obama's opening to Cuba, Florida's Republican senator, Marco Rubio, explained, "This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie, the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people." Rubio has correctly touched on the hottest issue. But theory, logic and history suggest that he's wrong in his conclusions.
I would recommend to Rubio one of the classics of conservative(保守的) thought, Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom." He doesn't have to spend too much time on it. The first chapter outlines the "relation between economic freedom and political freedom." The point Friedman makes in the book is one that America's founding fathers well understood. Drawing on the political philosopher John Locke, they believed that the freedom to buy, sell, own and trade were primary elements of human freedom and individual autonomy(自治). As they expand, liberty expands.
This is not just theory, of course. Over the last two centuries, the countries that embraced "more commerce and access to money and goods" in Rubio's phrase -- Britain, America, then Western Europe and East Asia -- have moved toward greater prosperity, but also political freedom. If you exclude oil-rich countries, where money is not earned but dug from the ground, on the whole there has been a strong connection between economic freedom and political freedom.
In Latin America today, democracy(民主政治) and markets have acted to strengthen each other, transforming the continent, which 30 years ago was almost entirely ruled by dictatorships(独裁) to one that is today almost entirely ruled by democracies. After opening up its economy in the 1970s, Chile began to grow, but that growth then produced a stronger civil society that over time contributed to the end of the dictatorship within the country. Yet Cuba is an outlier, one of the last regimes in Latin America that has embraced neither markets nor ballots. The Obama administration is acting on the theory that more commerce, capitalism, contact, travel and trade will empower the people of Cuba and thus gives them a greater voice in their political future. And so the first point to make is that it will help Cubans economically -- it will raise their incomes, their standard of living, and boost access to technology. These are all good things in and of themselves.
But easing the embargo(贸易禁止) will also help Americans, who will benefit from being able to trade with a neighbor. This is the reason that conservatives have long understood that free trade is not a gift bestowed on someone. It helps both countries and in particular, helps the United States. That's why the Wall Street Journal's editorial page -- bastion of conservative thought -- has been an advocate on lifting the trade embargo against Cuba, which is a far larger step than Obama's normalization. What message does the writer try to deliver through this passage?
| A．President Obama is making a wrong move opening to Cuba. |
| B．Marco Rubio is making a mistake criticizing Obama’s normalization policy. |
| C．Obama’s policy will benefit both Cubans and Americans economically and politically. |
| D．Obama’s decision agrees with the fact that economic freedom grows with political freedom. |
How does the writer prove his point in paragraph 3 and 4?
| A．by analyzing cause and effect |
| B．by giving examples |
| C．by making comparison and contrast |
| D．by raising questions |
What does the underlined phrase “translate to” most probably mean?
| A．connect with | B．adapt to |
| C．get down to | D．lead to |
It is implied in the passage that_____________
| A．The Obama administration wants to help people in Cuba, so President Obama decided to open to Cuba. |
| B．Chile is different from other countries in Latin America in that it has both economic and political freedom. |
| C．America’s founding fathers based their ideology on the theory of Milton Friedman. |
| D．The conservatives and the Wall Street Journal are on the same page on free trade. |
Who doesn’t believe that democracy and markets strengthen each other?
| A．the writer | B．President Obama |
| C．Milton Friedman | D．Marco Rubio |