ItalianLakesandGreekIslands（12-优题课

In many cultures white is often associated with something positive. A white-collar job, for instance, is the kind of job many people look for, working with your brain and not your hands.
White has a clean and pure image. That is why doctors, dentists, and nurses usually wear white uniforms. Babies are dressed in white at baptisms（洗礼）and brides wear white wedding gowns at weddings. White in these cases is the symbol of innocence or purity.
Sometimes white is used in expressions that are not good. “Whitewash” is one such expression. At first, “whitewash” meant to paint over something with white paint to make it look better. However, it means something different today: to hide or to cover up mistakes or failures.
A “white elephant” is another example of white used in a negative way. In ancient Thailand, a white elephant was regarded as a sacred animal, but it was very expensive to keep. The kings of those days presented a white elephant to the people they wanted to ruin. Once they received this holy, royal animal as a gift, they were not allowed to sell or kill it. Today, a “white elephant” means something that is big, useless, and unwanted. In America, when people want to get rid of their furniture or clothes, they often have a “white elephant sale”.
The text is mainly about________.

A．the meanings of white in English culture

B．the history of some English idioms

C．some interesting customs in English culture

D．some useful English words and expressions

Which expression has an historical background?

A．White-wash.	B．White-collar.
C．White elephant.	D．White elephant sale.

In which statement does “white” have a negative meaning?

A．A boy is dressed in white at baptisms.

B．A bride wears a white wedding gown.

C．A man whitewashes his crime.

D．A girl finds a white collar job.

From the text we can learn that _______.

A．a white-elephant sale is useful to the poor

B．the white color is important in our daily life

C．a white-collar job used to be easy to get

D．expressions with white have different meanings

The author develops the text mainly by ______.

A．analyzing its cause and effect

B．providing typical examples

C．comparing different ideas

D．following the time order

The common cold is the world's most widespread illness, which is plagues (瘟疫) that flesh receives. The most widespread fallacy (谬误) of all is that colds are caused by cold. They are not. They are caused by viruses passing on from person to person. You catch a cold by coming into contact, directly or indirectly, with someone who already has one.
If cold causes colds, it would be reasonable to expect the Eskimos to suffer from them forever. But they do not. And in isolated arctic regions explorers have reported being free from colds until coming into contact again with infected people from the outside world by way of packages and mail dropped from airplanes.
　　During the First World War soldiers who spent long periods in the trenches (战壕) cold and wet, showed no increased tendency to catch colds. In the Second World War prisoners at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp (奥斯维辛集中营), naked and starving, were astonished to find that they seldom had colds.
　　At the Common Cold Research Unit in England, volunteers took part in experiments in which they gave themselves to the discomforts of being cold and wet for long stretches of time. After taking hot baths, they put on bathing suits, allowed themselves to be dipped with cold water, and then stood about dripping wet in drafty room. Some wore wet socks all day while others exercised in the rain until close to exhaustion. Not one of the volunteers came down with a cold unless a cold virus was actually dropped in his nose.
　　If, then, cold and wet have nothing to do with catching colds, why are they more frequent in the winter? Despite the most pains-taking research, no one has yet found the answer. One explanation offered by scientists is that people tend to stay together indoors more in cold weather than at other times, and this makes it easier for cold viruses to be passed on.
　　No one has yet found a cure for the cold. There are drugs and pain-killer pills such as aspirin, but all they do is relieve the symptoms.
How many examples are offered by the writer to support his argument?

A．4

B．5

C．6

D．3

Which of the following does not agree with the chosen passage?

A．The Eskimos do not suffer from colds all the time.

B．Colds are not caused by cold.

C．People suffer from colds just because they like to stay indoors.

D．A person may catch a cold by touching someone who already has one.

Arctic explorers may catch colds when _______.

A．they are working in the isolated arctic regions

B．they are writing reports in terribly cold weather

C．they are free from work in the isolated arctic regions

D．they are coming into touch again with the outside world

Volunteers taking part in the experiments in the Common Cold Research Unit _______.

A．suffered a lot	B．never caught colds
C．often caught colds	D．became very strong

The passage mainly discusses _______.

A．the experiments on the common colds

B．the fallacy about the common cold

C．the reason and the way people catch colds

D．the continued spread of common colds

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), the great nineteenth century English novelist, was born near Portsmouth. His father ran heavily into debt and when he was twelve, he had to go and work in a factory for making boot polish. The only formal education he received was a two-year schooling at a school for poor children. In fact, he had to teach himself all he knew. He worked for a time as junior clerk in a lawyer's office. After that, he worked as a reporter in the law courts, and later in parliament, for London newspapers. His career as a writer of fiction began in 1833 with short stories and essays in periodicals, and in 1837 his comic novel The Pickwick Papers made him the most popular author at his time in England.
　　He was a great observer of people and their places because he was attracted by life and conditions in mid-nineteenth century London. He wrote 19 novels all his life and in many of them, Dickens gave a realistic picture of all classes of England society, showing deep sympathy for the poor and unfortunate, exposing the injustice and inhumanity（不人道） of the bourgeoisie（布尔乔亚阶级）.
　　Many of his novels like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and so on drew attention to the unsatisfactory social conditions that existed in England over a hundred years ago.
　　Dickens criticized capitalist society from the point of view of bourgeois humanism. He wished to see improvement in the living conditions of the poor, but failed to find any effective means to achieve that end.
Dickens only received a little formal education because______.

A．he wanted to teach himself

B．he wanted to work and made a lot of money

C．he was too poor to afford any more formal education

D．he wanted some working experiences to be a novelist

According to Dickens, the society at his time in England was________.

A．just

B．poor

C．comfortable

D．unsatisfying

Which of the following novel made Dickens the most popular writer at his time in England?

A．Oliver Twist	B．The Pickwick Papers
C．A Tale of Two Cities	D．Great Expectations

According to the passage, which of the following about Dickens is true?

A．He didn't go to school at all.

B．He only wrote about poor people and showed deep sympathy for them.

C．He began to write fictions when he was 21 years old.

D．He found some effective ways to improve the living conditions of the poor.

It can be inferred from the passage that________.

A．Dickens had a miserable childhood

B．Dickens tried many different jobs before he became a professional writer

C．Dickens wrote many novels but only some of them are popular

D．Dickens criticized capitalist society and helped to improve the living conditions of the poor

In the United States, when one became rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is about. It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbours.
The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $ 125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighbourhood outside New York City. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he saw that rich people had servants, Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbours.
It was like a race, but one could never finish this race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They moved back to an apartment in New York City.
Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich lifestyle of their neighbours. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a seriesof short stories. He called it ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ because ‘Jones’ is a very common name in the United States.’ “Keeping up with the Joneses”came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand’s series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.
People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are ‘Jonses’ in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.
Some people want to keep up with the Joneses because they ______.

A．want to be as rich as their neighbours

B．want others to know or to think that they are rich

C．don’t want others to know they are rich

D．want to be happy

It can be inferred from the story that rich people like to ________.

A．live outside New York City	B．live in New York City
C．live in apartments	D．have many neighbours

The underlined word “neighbourhood” in the second paragraph means ________.

A．a person who lives near another	B．people living in an area
C．an area near the place referred to	D．an area in another town or city

Arthur Momand used the name ‘Jones’ in his series of short stories because’ Jones’ is ________.

A．an important name	B．a popular name in the United States
C．his neighbour’s name	D．not a good name

According to the writer, keeping up with the Joneses is ________.

A．correct

B．interesting

C．impossible

D．good

Long long ago people made fires from lightning(闪电)。 But they had to keep the fire burning, for they couldn’t start it again if there was no lightning. Later, they found out hitting two piece of stone together could make a spark (火花). The spark could fire dry leaves. In this way they could make the fire again if it went out. Them people also learned to make a fire by rubbing. They made a hole on a big piece of wood and put a smaller stick into the hole. They turned the stick again and again. After a few minutes they got a fire.
As years went by, people learned other ways to make a fire. Sometimes they used the heat from sun. they held a piece of glass in the right way and made a piece of paper on fire.
About two centuries ago, people began to make matches (火柴). Matches brought people a quick and easy way to make fire. Today matches are still being used, but people have more new ways to make fires. One of them is to use an electric fire starter. Of course an electric fire starter is much more expensive than a box of matches. But it is more useful.
A spark can _________.

A．fire any leaves

B．burn anything

C．burn dry leaves

D．keep fires burning

We can also get a fire by _________.

A．making a hole on a big piece of wood

B．putting a smaller stick into the hole

C．turning the stick hard for a while

D．doing all the above together

Matches have been used _________.

A．for about two thousand years

B．for about two hundred years

C．since people began to use fire for cooking

D．since people used the heat from the sun.

From this passage we know _______.

A．using matches is the easiest and most useful way to make fires

B．people don’t use matches any more since they had electric fire starters

C．today there are only two ways to make fires

D．some forest fires happen from lightning

Choose the right order of the ways to make fires people got to know _________.
a. with a match b. from the sun c. from lightning
d. by rubbing e. with an electric fire starter.

A．d ,b, c, a,e

B．d, c, b, a, e

C．c, d, b, a, e

D．c, b, d, a ,e

Leaving date	Price for one person
April 7	＄2, 099
June 2	＄2, 199
October 6	＄2, 099
November 3	＄1, 999

A．A famous hotel.	B．A beautiful resort.
C．A comfortable ship.	D．A long-distance bus.

A．Stresa	B．Olympia
C．Mykonos	D．Verona