The Gold Coast family holidays are always great fun whether you are from Australia or from abroad. There are beautiful beaches, adventure parks, nature parks and so much more.
There are so many sights to see here. It is a pity to drive in a car and you’ll miss a great part of it. Australia is home to many animals and birds that can only be seen when moving slowly and going into the areas that they live.
When you are on a bicycle, you have the advantage of being able to stop whenever you want to see an interesting animal or bird that you have never seen before. It is a quieter mode （方式） of transportation as well, so you might even be able to take a picture. When you are on the beach, you can breathe that clean air and view the beauty of the water and sand. It is a totally different experience from either simply sunbathing or passing it in a car.
There are many choices of hiring a bicycle to experience the Gold Coast attractions. There are stores that will fit a bike perfectly to your size. These bikes for both adults and children are in many styles and colors to please any taste. If you have ever wanted to try a tandem bike （双人单车）, now is your chance, because they have those too.
A bicycle hire on Gold Coast is something that everyone should try at least once. This is a wonderful chance for anyone who likes to cycle and it is also a cheap way to travel with your family.You’d better not drive in a car on Gold Coast because ________.
| A．you will break the traffic rules |
| B．you will cause much noise |
| C．you can’t enjoy the beautiful sights well |
| D．you can’t drive into some parks |
The following advantages of hiring bikes are mentioned EXCEPT that ________.
| A．you can take photos of animals |
| B．it is a cheap way of traveling |
| C．you can get a clearer sight of animals |
| D．it is a good way to do sunbathing |
What is paragraph 4 mainly about?
| A．How to hire bikes on Gold Coast. |
| B．What kinds of bikes there are in stores? |
| C．What bikes are the most popular? |
| D．Who can hire bikes on Gold Coast? |
What’s the author’s attitude towards a bike hire on Gold Coast?
| A．He supports it very much. |
| B．He thinks it’s a personal choice. |
| C．He doesn’t like this way of traveling. |
| D．He thinks it’s only good for adults. |
The young policeman, Constable Rider, walked more quickly than usual, because of the cold, but he did not consciously (有意识地) neglect any part of his work. His torch flashed on doorways and windows as he looked for anything that was at all suspicious, and when he ever thought that anything was unusual, he went to try the door and window, probably unheard by the people sleeping in the room just above his head. As he turned a corner, he heard a slight rustling sound — it might be a cat, it could even be a dog, although few dogs wandered about at night. Rider saw nothing.
A cat then? Usually if you disturbed a cat, it ran off and jumped, and you heard or noticed something else. By doing a lot of night, you learned to notice these things, but now all Rider noticed was the silence which had followed the rustling sound. So he acted cautiously. He did not flash his torch about the houses near the corner but walked on, and, a little way from the spot where he heard the sound, stopped and bent his head, as if he was lighting a cigarette. A policeman who stopped to light a cigarette seemed the most unsuspicious policeman in the world.
There was still no sound. There were bushes in the garden of the house where Rider had first heard it and he knew that a man could hide there out of sight. But if he went back, it would warn any such man. So instead he stood and shone his torch at the window nearest him, and as if he had noticed something unusual, he walked towards it and opened the wooden gate, which made no sound at all. He reached the entrance and shone the torch on the keyhole of the front door — and as he did so, the rustle came again, this time much more softly. He looked round quickly.What was Constable Rider doing on this very cold evening?
| A．Looking for anything out of the ordinary. |
| B．Looking for something that had been lost. |
| C．Being careful not to disturb people. |
| D．Being careless in carrying out his duties. |
When he heard the rustling sound, he _______.
| A．thought that it was probably not caused by a dog |
| B．knew that he had disturbed a cat |
| C．knew not to take any notice of such a noise |
| D．realized that he had turned a corner |
As he then heard no more sounds, Rider decided _______.
| A．that he had been mistaken, and walked on |
| B．that he might as well have a cigarette |
| C．to flash his torch on a window near the corner |
| D．not to show that he had noticed anything |
Why did Constable Rider not to right back to the house on the corner?
| A．He had seen a man hiding there. |
| B．He didn’t want to use his torch. |
| C．It would show that he had noticed something. |
| D．There was still no sound from the garden. |
Elizabeth Freeman was born about 1742 to African American parents who were slaves. At the age of six months she was acquired, along with her sister, by John Ashley, a wealthy Massachusetts slaveholders. She became known as “Mumbet” or “Mum Bett.”
For nearly 30 years Mumbet served the Ashley family. One day, Ashley’s wife tried to strike Mumbet’s sister with a spade. Mumbet protected her sister and took the blow instead. Furious, she left the house and refused to come back. When the Ashleys tried to make her return, Mumbet consulted a lawyer, Theodore Sedgewick. With his help, Mumbet sued(起诉) for her freedom.
While serving the Ashleys, Mumbet had listened to many discussions of the new Massachusetts constitution. If the constitution said that all people were free and equal, then she thought it should apply to her. Eventually, Mumbet won her freedom---- the first slave in Massachusetts to do so under the new constitution.
Strangely enough, after the trial, the Ashleys asked Mumbet to come back and work for them as a paid employee. She declined and instead went to work for Segdewick. Mumbet died in 1829, but her legacy lived on in her many descendants(后裔). One of her great-grandchildren was W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the founder of the NAACP, and an important writer and spokesperson for African American civil rights.
Mumbet’s tombstone still stands in the Massachusetts cemetery where she was buried. It reads, in part: “She was born a slave and remained a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal.”What do we know about Mumbet according to Paragraph 1?
| A．She was born a slave |
| B．She was a slaveholder |
| C．She had a famous sister |
| D．She was born into a rich family |
Why did Mumbet run away from the Ashleys?
| A．She found an employer |
| B．She wanted to be a lawyer |
| C．She was hit and got angry |
| D．She had to take care of her sister |
What did Mumbet do after the trial?
| A．She chose to work for a lawyer |
| B．She found the NAACP |
| C．She continued to serve the Ashleys |
| D．She went to live with her grandchildren |
What is the test mainly about?
| A．A story of a famous writer and spokesperson |
| B．The friendship between a lawyer and a slave |
| C．The life of a brave African American woman |
| D．A trial that shocked the whole world |
One afternoon last week, I saw three tearful children from my son’s school being comforted by teachers. That morning, my 11-year-old had stomach pains, retching（干呕）into a bowl. Talking to other mothers later, I heard about other children with stomachache or difficult sleeping the night before.
What caused so much pain? Sports day. Sports day might be necessary at a highly-competitive independent school, but not at a village primary school. For the children who can fly like the wind, sports day cause no problem. For those who are overweight or just not good at sport, it is nightmare（噩梦）. Even for those who enjoy running but fall halfway down the track in front of the entire school and their parents, it can prove a disease.
Why do we put our children through this annual suffering? Some may say competition is character building; or it’s taking part, not winning, that’s important; or that’s a tradition of school life. I just felt great pity for those children in tears or in pain.
Team games at the end of sports day produced some close races, wild enthusiasm, lots of shouting — and were fun to watch. More importantly, the children who were not so fast or quick at passing the ball were hidden a little from everyone’s eyes. Some of them also had the thrill of being on the winning side.
I wish that sports day could be abandoned and replaced with some other less competitive event. Perhaps an afternoon of team games, with a few races for those who want them, would be less stressful for the children and a lot more fun to watch.Sports day is still an annul event in this school probably because __________.
| A．this is an independent school |
| B．it is a tradition of the school |
| C．it helps children lose weight |
| D．children enjoy watching sports |
What does the author think about team games?
| A．They should include more stressful races. |
| B．They are acceptable to different children. |
| C．They should be abandoned at primary school. |
| D．They are less fun for those who love running. |
What is the author’s attitude towards sports day?
| A．Critical. | B．Neutral. |
| C．Positive. | D．Ambiguous. |
It was a cold winter day. A woman drove up to the Rainbow Bridge tollbooth (收费站). “I’m paying for myself, and for the six cars behind me,” she said with a smile, handing over seven tickets. One after another, the next six drivers arriving at the tollbooth were informed, “Some lady up ahead already paid your fare.”
It turned out that the woman, Natalie Smith, had read something on a friend’s refrigerator: “Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” The phrase impressed her so much that she copied it down.
Judy Foreman spotted the same phrase on a warehouse wall far away from home. When it stayed on her mind for days, she gave up and drove all the way back to copy it down. “I thought it was beautiful,” she said, explaining why she’d taken to writing it at the bottom of all her letters, “like a message from above.” Her husband, Frank, liked the phrase so much that he put it up on the classroom wall for his students, one of whom was the daughter of Alice Johnson, a local news reporter. Alice put it in the newspaper, admitting that though she liked it, she didn’t know where it came from or what it really meant.
Two days later, Alice got a call from Anne Herbert, a woman living in Marin. It was in a restaurant that Anne wrote the phrase down on a piece of paper, after turning it around in her mind for days.
“Here’s the idea,” Anne says. “Anything you think there should be more of, do it randomly.” Her fantasies include painting the classrooms of shabby schools, leaving hot meals on kitchen tables in the poor part of town, and giving money secretly to a proud old lady. Anne says, “Kindness can build on itself as much as violence can.”
The acts of random kindness spread. If you were one of those drivers who found your fare paid, who knows what you might have been inspired to do for someone else later. Like all great events, kindness begins slowly, with every single act. Let it be yours!Why did Natalie Smith pay for the six cars behind her?
| A．She knew the car drivers well. |
| B．She wanted to show kindness. |
| C．She hoped to please others. |
| D．She had seven tickets. |
Judy Foreman copied down the phrase because she_________.
| A．thought it was beautifully written |
| B．wanted to know what it really meant |
| C．decided to write it on a warehouse wall |
| D．wanted her husband to put it up in the classroom |
Which of the following statements is closest in the meaning to the underlinedsentence above?
| A．Kindness and violence can change the world. |
| B．Kindness and violence can affect one’s behavior. |
| C．Kindness and violence can reproduce themselves. |
| D．Kindness and violence can shape one’s character. |
What can we infer from the last paragraph?
| A．People should practice random kindness to those in need. |
| B．People who receive kindness are likely to offer it to others. |
| C．People should practice random kindness to strangers they meet. |
| D．People who receive kindness are likely to pay it back to the giver. |
Science Fiction
The science fiction type of entertainment is considered by most to be fathered by Jules Verne (A Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) and H. G. Wells (The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds). Sci-Fi, as it is commonly shortened, is a fictional story in which science and technology have a significant influence on the characters and plot. Many such works are guesswork about what the future holds and how scientific findings and technological advances will shape humankind.
Writing in the late 1800s, Jules Verne was remarkably successful in his 10 guesses about future technologies of air conditioning, automobiles, the Internet, television, and underwater, air, and space travel. Unbelievably, of all places from which to choose, Jules Verne guessed Tampa, Florida, USA as the launching site of the first project to the Moon, which was only 200 kilometers away from the actual 1969 location at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
One of the best-known science fiction books is Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Published in 1949, it was not meant as a prediction, but as a warning: Orwell was describing what he saw as the outcome of the ideas, trends, and emerging technologies of his time. Many invented terms from this novel have become common in everyday use, such as “big brother” and “doublethink”. Even the author’s name has been made into an adjective—Orwellian—and has become a warning descriptor for situations where privacy is lost and the individual becomes sacrifice under a totalitarian(极权主义) government. Nineteen Eighty-Four was translated into sixty-five languages within five years of its publication, setting a record that still stands.
What helps bring science fiction into being is usually a new discovery or innovation. The author creates an analysis of the potential influence and consequences and then wraps it in a pleasant story. For example, the beginning of space exploration was followed a few years later by the Star Trek television program and movie series. Advances in genetics(遗传学) cause fantasies of the end of disease, horrors of eugenics(优生学), and thrillers where creatures disappearing long ago are brought back to life. The science fiction author’s self-determined role is that of field glasses for humanity—searching the world of future possibilities upon the road which we are traveling. What can science fiction offer to people?
| A．A forecast of how a new discovery could influence mankind. |
| B．A thoughtful look at the present drawbacks of technology. |
| C．An analysis of why a new technology could be used to harm human. |
| D．A thoughtful look at the past and what brought us to this point in history. |
Which of the following best summarizes the description of Nineteen Eighty-Four?
| A．A prediction of future technologies. |
| B．A warning of cruel and unfair ruling. |
| C．The consequence of scientific findings. |
| D．An imaginary perfect world of freedom. |
From the passage we can learn that _____.
| A．Nineteen Eighty-Four adopted some popular terms |
| B．H.G. Wells predicted the Internet in the late 1800s |
| C．Cape Canaveral was mentioned in Jules Verne’s fiction |
| D．Star Trek movie series were based on space exploration |
According to the author, what is the role of science fiction in society?
| A．A moral compass. |
| B．A reference of technology. |
| C．A record of science development. |
| D．A consideration of possibilities. |