English is an excellent language to learn. It is important for study, business and travel. Read the information below and learn more about listening and reading skills.
Listen to English radio.
One of the best ways to improve your English listening is to listen to English radio on your mobile phone.
•You should listen to the radio shows for more than 30 minutes every day.
•Try to understand what is said. Don’t just let the English wash over you. If you find the listening too fast, try to pick out the key words to get a general idea of it.
•You can also make a note of any words or phrases(短语) that you don’t understand. Look them up in the dictionary later. Then listen to the show again.
Watch English movies and TV shows.
Another fun way to improve your listening is to watch English movies and TV shows.
•Try to choose movies or TV shows that you will enjoy. This will make the listening more interesting. When you like the movie or TV show, you may forget your task is to practice listening. You just enjoy it.
•However, you should not watch movies or TV shows with Chinese translations(翻译) on the screen. It will be difficult for you to focus on English.
Read an English book, newspaper or magazine(杂志).
Reading is an important part of learning a language, so don’t forget to practice!
•Choose a book that you are really interested in. It can be an English novel or a magazine. Then start working your way through it. If you find it boring, it’s difficult for you to finish reading it.
•Again, try to understand what you’re reading. Pick out any words or phrases that you don’t understand. Then look them up in the dictionary.
Learning any language requires hard work and skills, so find good methods and work hard.
If the listening is too fast, you should try to .
| A．listen more than 30 minutes |
| B．get a general idea of it |
| C．make a note of the phrases |
| D．use an English dictionary |
When you enjoy a movie, you may .
| A．need more interesting exercises |
| B．forget you are practicing listening |
| C．write down the Chinese translations |
| D．focus on new words and phrases |
When you choose a book, you’d better make sure .
| A．you are interested in it |
| B．it is famous in the world |
| C．you can finish it quickly |
| D．there are many new words in it |
What is the passage mainly about?
| A．When to practice listening and reading. |
| B．What is needed for listening and reading. |
| C．Why listening and reading are important. |
| D．How to improve listening and reading skills. |
Have you ever complained（抱怨）why life is so tiring? Are your studies sometimes not successful? Well, friends, cheer up and smile all the time . If you see the world with your warm heart, you will find that the whole world smiles to you.
While in school, sometimes you are tired of your lessons, but have you ever noticed the happy smile on your teacher’s face when you did a good job?
One day it is fine . Just before you want to go out, it suddenly starts to rain . Maybe you would feel very sad and start complaining about the weather . But dear friends, why don’t you sit down and listen to the free concert that the nature offers you? And with the timely rain, crops in the fields will grow better and better and farmers will have a good harvest .
Although everyone wants to succeed in what he tries to do, sometimes failure can’t be avoided . I think failure(失败) is not terrible, and the terrible thing is that we are afraid of it and give up hope. When we face failure, we must be confident in ourselves, draw a useful lesson from it and try our best to finish what we have decided to do. As a popular saying goes, “Failure is the mother of success.”
Attitude（态度）decides everything. With an optimistic（乐观的）attitude life is easy and pleasant. Let’s smile to whatever we meet and the whole world will smile to us.
根据短文内容选择最佳答案。（每小题2分，满分10分） People sometimes complain __________ .
A. their studies are successful
B. they have no enough money
C. life is tiringAccording to the passage, in school, _________ .
A. the students don’t like their lessons
B. the teachers will be happy if the students do good jobs
C. the teachers are tired of their workIf there is a timely rain, ____________ .
A. you want to go out
B. you can listen to a concert
C. crops will grow betterWhen we face failure, we ___________ .
A. don’t know what to do
B. may give up hope
C. shouldn’t be afraid of itThe best title of this passage is ___________ .
A. Smile and the World Smiles to You
B. Complaining about Life
C. Failure is the Mother of Success
A bag is useful and the word “bag” is useful too. It gives us some interesting phrases(短语). One is “ to let the cat out of the bag.” It is the same as “to tell a secret”. There’s an old interesting story about it.
Long ago, when people sold things in big cloth bags, a woman asked a man for a pig. The man held up his cloth bag. There seemed to be a little pig in it. The woman asked to see it. When the man opened the cloth bag, a big black cat ran out. Not a pig! The man’s secret was out and everyone knew it.
Now when someone lets out a secret, he “ lets the cat out of the bag”. And that is the story where the interesting phrase came from.
根据短文内容判断正误。（正确写A，错误写B, 每小题1分，满分5分）The phrase “to let the cat out of the bag” came from an old interesting story .
The woman wanted to buy a pig .
The man knew there was nothing in his cloth bag .
At the end of the second passage（短文） “--- everyone knew it”, “it” refers to the man’s secret .
John “let the cat out of the bag” means he puts the cat away from the bag .
Living and dealing with kids can be a tough job these days, but living and dealing with parents can be even tougher.
If I have learned anything in my 16 years, it is that communication is very important, both when you disagree and when you get along. With any relationship, you need to let other person know how you are feeling. If you are not able to communicate, you drift apart.When you are mad at your parents, or anyone else, not talking to them doesn’t solve anything.
Communication begins with the concerns (关心) of another. It means that you can’t just come home from school, go up to your room and take no notice to anyone. Even if you just say “Hi”, and see how their day was for five minutes, it is better than nothing.
If you looked up the word “communication” in a dictionary, it would say “the exchange of ideas, the conveyance （表达）of information, correspondence （通信）, means of communication: a letter or a message”. To keep a good relationship, you must keep communication strong. Let people know how you feel, even if it’s just by writing a note.
When dealing with parents, you always have to make them feel good about how they are doing as a parent. If you are trying to make them see something as you see it, tell them that you’ll listen to what they have to say, and ask them politely to listen to you. Shouting or walking away only makes the situation worse.
Here is an example: one night, Sophie went to a street party with her friends. She knew she had to be home by midnight after the fireworks, but she didn’t feel she could just ask to go home. That would be rude. After all, they had been nice enough to take her along with them. Needless to say, she was late getting home. Her parents were mad at first, but when Sophie explained why she was late, they weren’t as mad and let it go. Communication is the key here. If Sophie’s parents had not been willing to listen, Sophie would have been in a lot of trouble.
Communication isn’t a one-way matter: it goes both ways. Just remember: if you get into a situation like Sophie’s, telling the other person how you feel-------listening is the key to communication.In the writer’s view, dealing with parents is __________ than with children.
| A．more difficult | B．much easier |
| C．less interesting | D．more interesting |
The underlined phrase “ drift apart” in Paragraph 2 means __________.
| A．keep up with others | B．move along smoothly |
| C．distance yourself form others | D．come closer to each other |
The example in Paragraph 6 shows that ___________.
| A．Sophie is very polite to her parents |
| B．Sophie’s parents are willing to listen to her |
| C．Sophie did well in explaining her being late |
| D．communication is the solutionto misunderstanding |
All the following statements are correct except “_______”.
| A．Communication is a two-way matter |
| B．It is better to say “Hi” to others than say nothing |
| C．If you don’t agree with others, you’d better let them know |
| D．When dealing with parents, you only need to listen to them |
There are many kinds of heroes. Even animals can be heroes. This passage tells about three amazing animals. Each one is a hero!
Thumper, the Dog
Thumper was a dog that lived with a family which had a three-year-old son named Benjamin. One day Benjamin wandered(闲逛) into a large field. The grass in the field was taller than he was, so he could not find his way out. Hundreds of people began to search for Benjamin. When they found him, they saw Thumper stayed with Benjamin and kept him warm. So Benjamin had stayed safe.
Lulu, the Pig 
The Altsmans had a pet pig named Lulu. One summer the couple went camping and took Lulu with them. The husband went fishing one morning. The wife didn’t feel well, so she and Lulu stayed in the camper. Suddenly Mrs. Altsman fell to the floor. Lulu pushed the camper door open and climbed out for help. When a car came by, she lay down in front of it. When the driver got out, Lulu led him back to the camper. The man called for help and Mrs. Altsman was taken to hospital.
Sugar, the Cat 
Sugar was a beautiful cat. Three years ago she wandered onto the Woods’ farm in California and Mrs. Woods began feeding her. Mrs. Woods noticed something wrong with the cat’s left leg, but this didn’t make Sugar any less special. Mrs. Woods loved Sugar. Later the couple moved to a new farm in Oklahoma. They gave Sugar to a neighbor who would take good care of her, because they knew she wouldn’t like riding in cars for days. However, Sugar walked across deserts and mountains and traveled more than 1,500 miles to the Woods’ new farm! Mr. and Mrs. Woods could hardly believe their eyes. No one knows how Sugar found her way to Oklahoma.How did Thumper help Benjamin?
| A．By searching for him in the field. |
| B．By finding the way out for him. |
| C．By staying with him all the time. |
| D．By cutting the grass around him. |
Why did Lulu lie down on the road?
| A．To get help. | B．To watch the cars. |
| C．To have a sleep. | D．To ask for a lift. |
What did Sugar do in the story?
| A．She tried to find help. |
| B．She protected her owners. |
| C．She went camping with her owners. |
| D．She went a long way to find her owners. |
Different types of maps have different uses.
| Tourist maps, for example, have signs to show places of interest in an area. When tourists read these maps, it is easy for them to find where to go and what to see in a place and it is easy for them to go and find their ways to these places. |
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| Road maps show large areas so that people can plan long journeys. Different types of roads are given different numbers. For example, if you want to go to Wood Green, you just follow No. 621 Road and keep looking at the road signs. |
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| Distribution maps (分布图) use colors or signs to show facts about an area. For example, where different languages are spoken, how many people live in an area, how cold and hot some places are, or whether a place is short of water. |
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| Some maps, such as railway maps, use straightlines to show everything. This is easy for people to read. Trains are fast. People don’t have to think about small places they go past. They just need to know the two ends of their trips. |
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Jim is going to Beijing Zoo. Which map does he need most?
| A．A tourist map. | B．A road map. |
| C．A distribution map. | D．A railway map. |
How can you tell different roads on road maps?
| A．By using different colors. | B．By finding the numbers. |
| C．By following No. 621 Road. | D．By looking at the road signs. |
Why do railway maps use straight lines?
| A．Because railways are straight. |
| B．Because people like straight lines. |
| C．Because people can read them easily. |
| D．Because railways have only two ends. |