When 19yearold Sophia Giorgi said she was thinking of volunteering to help the MakeAWish Foundation (基金会)，nobody understood what she was talking about. But Sophia knew just how important MakeAWish could be because this special organization had helped to make a dream come true for one of her best friends. We were interested in finding out more, so we went along to meet Sophia and listen to what she had to say.
Sophia told us that MakeAWish is a worldwide organization that started in the United States in 1980. “It's a charity (慈善机构)that helps children who have got very serious illnesses. MakeAWish helps children feel happy even though they are sick, by making their wishes and dreams come true，” Sophia explained.
We asked Sophia how MakeAWish had first started. She said it had all begun with a very sick young boy called Chris, who had been dreaming for a long time of becoming a policeman. Sophia said lots of people had wanted to find a way to make Chris's dream come true，so with everybody's help, Chris, only seven years old at the time, had been a “policeman” for a day. “When people saw how delighted Chris was when his dream came true, they decided to try and help other sick children too, and that was the beginning of MakeAWish，”explained Sophia.
Sophia also told us the Foundation tries to give children and their families a special, happy time. A MakeAWish volunteer visits the families and asks the children whatever they would wish for if they could have anything in the world. Sophia said the volunteers were important because they were the ones who helped to make the wishes come true. They do this either by providing things that were necessary, or by raising money or helping out in what way they can.Sophia found out about MakeAWish because her best friend had ________.
| A．benefited from it | B．volunteered to help it |
| C．dreamed about it | D．told the author about it |
According to Sophia, MakeAWish ________.
| A．is an international charity |
| B．was understood by nobody at first |
| C．raises money for very poor families |
| D．started by drawing the interest of the public |
What is said about Chris in Paragraph 3?
| A．He has been a policeman since he was seven. |
| B．He gave people the idea of starting MakeAWish. |
| C．He wanted people to help make his dream come true. |
| D．He was the first child MakeAWish helped after it had been set up. |
Which of the following is true about MakeAWish volunteers?
| A．They are important for making wishes come true. |
| B．They try to help children get over their illnesses. |
| C．They visit sick children to make them feel special. |
| D．They provide what is necessary to make MakeAWish popular. |
A friend is better than fortune. A friend is worse than poison in some cases.
The two sentences above have opposite meanings and seem to be unreasonable, but they can be explained as follows: the first refers to all good friends who drive us towards good while the second all bad ones who lead us into bad ways.
My ideal friend is of course a good friend whose goodness is shown below — he has no bad habits, such as smoking and drinking. He lives in frugality (节俭). He studies hard so as not to waste his golden time. At home he honors his parents and loves his brothers; at school he respects his teachers and shares the feelings of his classmates. He treats those truly who are true to him. In a word, he has all the good characteristics that I don’t have. I can follow him as a model. With his help I can be free from all difficulties.
Indeed, if I have such a person as my friend, I shall never fear difficulty and I shall never know the existence of the word “failure”.This passage tells us ____.
| A．how to make friends with others |
| B．how to help friends |
| C．what kind of person the writer’s friend is |
| D．what kind of person we should make friends with |
According to the writer, an ideal friend refers to _______.
| A．a friend without bad habits |
| B．a famous man |
| C．a perfect man |
| D．a respectable man |
From the passage we can learn that ________.
| A．the writer and his ideal friend have a lot to learn from each other |
| B．the writer has a lot to learn from his ideal friend |
| C．the writer’s ideal friend has a lot to learn from him |
| D．the writer has only a little to learn from his ideal friend |
From the second paragraph, we can infer the writer is sure that _______.
| A．friendship means a great deal to him |
| B．nothing can be done without friends |
| C．he who does not smoke or drink must be a good friend |
| D．good friends should always help each other |
Nowadays, the increase in the prices of agricultural products is one of the greatest concerns of the people and the government. The government has announced a series of policies(政策) to prevent the prices from rising further. Rising housing prices is still a big concern for the people, but since farm products are needed every day, the increase in their prices has made life very difficult for them.
Many people may think the increase will help farmers. But have higher prices of farm products really benefited the farmers?
Take the increase in vegetable prices in the first half of this year for example. Though natural disasters such as droughts and spring frost did not cause the prices of farm products to increase greatly—in fact, prices of some products did not increase at all—vegetables have become dearer by as much as 20 percent compared to that of last year. This means only a small part (or even none) of the extra money that city people have paid to buy farm products has gone to the farmers. The extra cost actually has gone to middlemen.
As the fact shows, just increasing prices of farm products will have negative influence on the entire economy. On one hand, the price increase has created some abnormal phenomena, which hurts farmers’ interests. On the other hand, resources will enter the agriculture because of the high price of farm products, which would finally create negative effect on the whole economy.
In such a case, it would be better to leave the market to decide the prices instead of raising farm products’ prices to protect the interests of farmers. Actually, such a way will be better for farmers in the long run. What does the author mainly want to tell us by writing the passage?
| A．Farmers benefit a lot from the price increase. |
| B．Price increase has not helped farmers. |
| C．We should be sorry for farmers. |
| D．Price increase has a bad effect on economy. |
Many people think the increase in the prices of farm products benefits ______ .
| A． nobody | B．the country | C．middlemen | D．farmers |
The following statements are true EXCEPT ______ .
| A．the government has done something to prevent the prices from rising further |
| B．it is better for farmers to leave the market to decide the prices in the long run |
| C．natural disasters did not cause the prices of farm products to increase greatly |
| D．rising housing prices has made life very difficult for people |
What is probably the author’s attitude to raising the farm products’ prices?
| A．Negative. | B．Indifferent.(漠不关心的) |
| C．Enthusiastic. | D．Positive. |
Parents have widely different views on the problem of pocket money. Four new fathers were asked this question and this is how they answered.
Ashish Khanna: Although many argue that pocket money helps develop children’s sense of value, I don’t agree. I wouldn’t give my child any pocket money. First of all, I never got pocket money and I seem to have a good value for money. If my child ever needed something and I felt it was a reasonable (合理的) request, I would buy it for him.
Sharad Sanghi: No, I wouldn’t give my child pocket money because I don’t want to create the perception (观念) of “her” money and “my” money. Besides, if I refuse to buy her something that I think is bad for her, she may buy it with her pocket money on the sly. In this way, I would lose control over my child’s requests. I feel it also encourages children to care more about money than anything else. I don’t want my child to start judging other children by the amount of money or pocket money they have.
Rakesh Shah: Yes, I would give my child pocket money because I feel that children should learn to spend money properly. I will give him a fixed amount every month and if he spends the money before the month is over, he will learn a lesson and not spend money so freely. He will learn what his limitations (限制) are and feel the difficulty when he has to pay for something that is over his own pocket.
Rajiv Patel: Yes, I would give my child pocket money because it is important that he learns to manage money. But I would not give it to him on a weekly or monthly basis. He would have to earn it. If he helped me finish some of my jobs or helped his mother with housework, I would reward him. This helps him realize that “money does not grow on trees” and it requires hard work to earn money.Ashish Khanna may agree that _____.
| A．he was given too much pocket money when young |
| B．he can take much control of his child by money |
| C．he will buy anything he thinks his child really needs |
| D．pocket money helps children develop a good value for money |
The underlined phrase “on the sly” in Paragraph 3 is the closest in meaning to “_____”.
| A．for free | B．at a lower price |
| C．happily | D．secretly |
Who would give his child pocket money every month?
| A．Ashish Khanna. | B．Sharad Sanghi. |
| C．Rakesh Shah. | D．Rajiv Patel. |
What do Rakesh Shah and Rajiv Patel have in common?
| A．They want their children to learn to manage money from an early age. |
| B．They ask their children to get pocket money by working. |
| C．They teach their children the difficulty of making money. |
| D．They allow their children to spend money freely. |
People often use gestures to express our feelings, but the problem is that the gestures can be understood in different ways.
It is true that a smile means the same thing in any language. So does laughter or crying. Fear is another emotion(情感) that is shown in much the same way all over the world. In Chinese and in English literature, a phrase like “he went pale and began to tremble” suggests that the man is either very afraid or he has just got a very big shock.
However, “he opened his eyes wide” is used to suggest anger in Chinese whereas in English it means surprise. In Chinese, surprise can be described in a phrase like “they stretched out their tongues!” “Stretching out your tongue” in English is an insulting(侮辱的, 无礼的)gesture or expresses strong dislike.
Even in the same culture, people differ in their ability to understand and express feelings. Experiments in America have shown that women are usually better than men at recognizing fear, anger, love and happiness on people’s faces. Other studies show that older people usually find it easier to understand body language than younger people do. Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?
| A．We can easily understand what people’s gestures mean. |
| B．It is difficult to tell what people’s gestures really mean sometimes. |
| C．Gestures can be understood by most people but words are not. |
| D．Words can be better understood by older people. |
People’s facial expressions may be misunderstood in different cultures because ______ .
| A．people from different cultures have different meanings about some facial expressions |
| B．people speaking different languages have different facial expressions |
| C．people of different ages may have different interpretations (解释) |
| D．people of different sexes may understand a gesture differently |
From the passage, we can conclude(得出结论) that ______ .
| A．words are often more difficult to understand than gestures |
| B．gestures can be more effectively used than words to express feelings |
| C．gestures can be used to express feelings |
| D．gestures are used as frequently as words to express feelings |
The best title for this passage can be ______ .
| A．Gestures | B．Feelings |
| C．Culture and Understanding | D．Gestures and Feelings |
Thomas Edison was one of ten said to be the greatest genius（天才） of his age. There are only a few men in all of the history, who have changed the lives of other men as much as the inventor of the first useful electric light. But Edison could never be happy only because someone said he was a genius.“ There is no such thing as genius,” Edison said. He said that what people called genius was mostly hard work.
But Edison was a dreamer as well as a worker. From his earliest days as a child he wondered about the secrets of nature. Nature, he often said, is full of secrets. He tried to understand them; then, he tried to learn what could usefully be done with them.
Edison enjoyed thinking. He knew that most people will do almost anything instead of the difficult work of thinking, especially if they do not think very often. But he knew, too, that thinking can give men enjoyment and pleasure.
Edison could not understand how anyone could be uninterested in life. As he loved to think, he also loved to work. On the day he became 75 years old, someone asked him what ideas he had about life. “Work,” he answered. “Discovering the secrets of nature and using them to make men happier.” He said he had enough inventions in his mind to give him another 100 years of work.Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．Edison invented the electric light. |
| B．Many other people have changed Edison’s life. |
| C．Edison has changed the life of many other people. |
| D．Few men in history can change other people’s life. |
Edison thought ____________.
| A．he could be happy if he was a genius |
| B．genius plays the most important part in one’s success |
| C．hard work could do better than genius |
| D．genius could do better than hard work |
In Edison’s opinion, ____________.
| A．thinking can supply people with enjoyment and pleasure as well as help |
| B．people’s successs lies mostly in genius |
| C．hard work is the second important thing in making people successful |
| D．there are few secrets for him to discover later |
The last sentence in the passage most probably implies(暗示） ____________.
| A．life is too short for Edison to invent more for human beings |
| B．Edison made 100 inventions in his life |
| C．Edison was able to live and work for 100 years |
| D．People of his time were ready to give Edison another 100 years’ work |