Treasure hunts have excited people’s imagination for hundreds of years both in real life and in books such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Is-land. Kit Williams, a modern writer, had the idea of combining the real excitement of a treasure hunt with clues found in a book when he wrote a children’s story, Masquerade, in 1979. The book was about a hare, and a month before it came out Williams buried a gold hare in a park in Bedfordshire. The book contained a large number of clues to help readers find the hare, but Williams put in a lot of “red herrings”, or false clues, to mislead them.
Ken Roberts, the man who found the hare, had been looking for it for nearly two years. Although he had been searching in the wrong area most of the time, he found it by logic，not by luck. His success came from the fact that he had gaine4d an important clue at the start. He had realized that the words: “One of Six to Eight” under the first picture in the book connected the hare in some way to Katherine of Aragon, the first of Henry VIII’s six wives. Even here, however, Williams had succeeded in misleading him. Ken knew that Katherine of Aragon had died at Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire in 1536 and thought that Williams had buried the hare there. He had been digging there for over a year before a new idea occurred to him. He found out that Kit Williams had spent his childhood near Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, and thought that he must have buried the hare in a place he knew well, but he still could not see the connection with Katherine of Aragon, until one day he came across two stone crosses in Ampthill Park and learnt that they had been built in her honor in 1773.
Even then his search had not come to an end. It was only after he had spent several nights digging around the cross that he decided to write to Kit Williams to find out if he was wasting his time there. Williams encouraged him to continue, and on February 24th 1982, he found the treasure. It was worth 3000 in the beginning, but the excitement it had caused since its burial made it much more valuable.Which of the following describes Roberts’ logic in searching for the hare?
| A．Henry VIII’s six wives |
| B．Katherine’s burial place at Kimbolton |
| C．Williams’ childhood in Ampthill |
| D．Katherine of Argon |
What is the subject discussed in the text?
| A．An exciting historical event. |
| B．A modern treasure hunt. |
| C．The attraction of Masquerade. |
| D．The importance of logical thinking. |
It was an autumn morning shortly after my husband and I moved into our first house. Our children were upstairs unpacking，and I was looking out of the window at my father moving around mysteriously on the front lawn. “What are you doing out there?” I called to him.
He looked up, smiling. “I’m making you a surprise.’’ I thought it could be just about anything. When we were kids, he always created something surprising for us. Today, however, Dad would say no more ，and caught up in the business of our new life ，I eventually forgot about his surprise.
Until one gloomy day the next March when I glanced out of the window，I saw a dot of blue across the yard. I headed outside for a closer look. They were crocuses (番红花）throughout the front lawn 一 blue, yellow and my favorite pink ，with little faces moving up and down in the cold wind. I remembered the things Dad secretly planted last autumn. He knew how the darkness and dullness of winter always got me down. What could have been more perfectly timely to my needs?
My father’s crocuses bloomed (开花）each spring for the next five seasons, always bringing the same assurance： Hard times are almost over. Hold on, keep going, and light is coming soon.
Then a spring came with only half the usual blooms and the next spring there were none. I missed the crocuses ，so I would ask Dad to come over and plant new bulbs. But I never did. He died suddenly one October day. My family were in deep sorrow, leaning on our faith.
On a spring afternoon four years later, I was driving back when I felt depressed. It was Dad’s birthday, and I found myself thinking about him. This was not unusual — my family often talked about him, remembering how he lived up to his faith. Suddenly I slowed as I turned into our driveway. I stopped and stared at the lawn. There on the muddy grass with small piles of melting snow ，bravely waving in the wind, was one pink crocus.
How could a flower bloom from a bulb more than 18 years ago, one that hadn’t bloomed in over a decade? But there was the crocus. Tears filled my eyes as I realized its significance.
Hold on, keep going, and light is coming soon. The pink crocus bloomed for only a day, but it built my faith for a lifetime.According to the first three paragraphs, we learn that ______.
| A． it kept bothering the author not knowing what the surprise was |
| B． the author was unpacking when her father was making the surprise |
| C． it was not the first time that the author’s father had made a surprise |
| D． the author knew what the surprise was because she knew her father |
Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
| A． The author usually felt depressed in the season of winter. |
| B． The author’s father planted the crocuses to lift her low spirits. |
| C． The author often thought about her father after he died. |
| D． The crocuses bloomed each spring before her father died. |
The author’s father should be best described as ______.
| A． a part-time worker who loved flowers |
| B． a kind-hearted man who lived with faith |
| C． a full-time gardener with skillful hands |
| D． an ordinary man with doubts in his life |
What can be the best title for the passage?
| A． Crocuses — My Source of Faith | B．Crocuses— Father’s Surprise |
| C． A Pink Crocus — My Memory | D．Crocuses in Blossom — My Favorite |
It is widely known that any English conversation begins with The Weather. Such a fixation with the weather finds expression in Dr. Johnson’s famous comment that “When two English meet, their first talk is of weather.” Though Johnson’s observation is as accurate now as it was over two hundred years ago, most commentators fail to come up with a convincing explanation for this English weather-speak.
Bill Bryson, for example, concludes that, as the English weather is not at all exciting, the obsession with it can hardly be understood. He argues that “To an outsider, the most striking thing about the English weather is that there is not very much of it.” Simply, the reason is that the unusual and unpredictable weather is almost unknown in the British Isles.
Jeremy Paxman, however, disagrees with Bryson, arguing that the English weather is by nature attractive. Bryson is wrong, he says, because the English preference for the weather has nothing to do with the natural phenomena. “The interest is less in the phenomena themselves, but in uncertainty.” According to him, the weather in England is very changeable and uncertain and it attracts the English as well as the outsider.
Bryson and Paxman stand for common misconceptions about the weather-speak among the English. Both commentators, somehow, are missing the point. The English weather conversation is not really about the weather at all. English weather-speak is a system of signs, which is developed to help the speakers overcome the natural reserve and actually talk to each other. Everyone knows conversations starting with weather-speak are not requests for weather data. Rather, they are routine greetings, conversation starters or the blank “fillers”. In other words, English weather-speak is a means of social bonding.The author mentions Dr. Johnson’s comment to show that______.
| A．most commentators agree with Dr. Johnson |
| B．Dr. Johnson is famous for his weather observation |
| C．the comment was accurate two hundred years ago |
| D．English conversations usually start with the weather |
What does the underlined word “obsession” most probably refer to?
| A．A social trend. |
| B．An emotional state. |
| C．A historical concept. |
| D．An unknown phenomenon. |
According to the passage, Jeremy Paxman believes that______.
| A．Bill Bryson has little knowledge of the weather |
| B．there is nothing special about the English weather |
| C．the English weather attracts people to the British Isles |
| D．English people talk about the weather for its uncertainty |
What is the author’s purpose of writing the passage?
| A．To explain what English weather-speak is about. |
| B．To analyse misconceptions about the English weather. |
| C．To find fault with both Bill Bryson and Jeremy Paxman. |
| D．To convince people that the English weather is changeable. |
Not all bodies of water are so evidently alive as the Atlantic Ocean, an S-shaped body of water covering 33 million square miles. The Atlantic has, in a sense, replaced the Mediterranean as the inland sea of Western civilization. Unlike real inland seas, which seem strangely still, the Atlantic is rich in oceanic liveliness. It is perhaps not surprising that its vitality has been much written about by ancient poets.
"Storm at Sea", a short poem written around 700, is generally regarded as one of mankind's earliest artistic representations of the Atlantic.
When the wind is from the west
All the waves that cannot rest
To the east must thunder on
Where the bright tree of the sun
Is rooted in the ocean's breast.
As the poem suggests, the Atlantic is never dead and dull. It is an ocean that moves, impressively and endlessly. It makes all kinds of noise-it is forever thundering, boiling, crashing, and whistling.
It is easy to imagine the Atlantic trying to draw breath-perhaps not so noticeably out in mid-ocean, but where it meets land, its waters bathing up and down a sandy beach. It mimics(模仿) nearly perfectly the steady breathing of a living creature. It is filled with symbiotic existences, too: unimaginable quantities of creatures, little and large alike, mix within its depths in a kind of oceanic harmony, giving to the waters a feeling of heartbeat, a kind of sub-ocean vitality. And it has a psychology. It has personalities: sometimes peaceful and pleasant, on rare occasions rough and wild; always it is strong and striking.
| 1． |
Unlike real inland seas, the Atlantic Ocean is.
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| 2． |
What is the purpose of using the poem "Storm at Sea" in the passage?
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| 3． |
What does the underlined word "symbiotic" mean?
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| 4． |
In the last paragraph, the Atlantic is compared to.
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Almost every machine with moving parts has wheels, yet no one knows exactly when the first wheel was invented or what it was used for. We do know, however, that they existed over 5,500 years ago in ancient Asia.
The oldest known transport wheel was discovered in 2002 in Slovenia. It is over 5,100 years old. Evidence suggests that wheels for transport didn't become popular for a while, though. This could be because animals did a perfectly good job of carrying farming tools and humans around.
But it could also be because of a difficult situation. While wheels need to roll on smooth surfaces, roads with smooth surfaces weren't going to be constructed until there was plenty of demand for them. Eventually, road surfaces did become smoother, but this difficult situation appeared again a few centuries later. There had been no important changes in wheel and vehicle design before the arrival of modem road design.
In the mid-1700s, a Frenchman came up with a new design of road-a base layer (层) of large stones covered with a thin layer of smaller stones. A Scotsman improved on this design in the 1820s and a strong, lasting road surface became a reality. At around the same lime, metal hubs (the central part of a wheel) came into being, followed by the pneumatic tyre(充气轮胎) in 1846. Alloy wheels were invented in 1967, sixty years after the appearance of tarmacked roads (柏油路). As wheel design took off, vehicles got faster and faster.
| 1． |
What might explain why transport wheels didn't become popular for some time?
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| 2． |
What do we know about road design from the passage?
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| 3． |
How is the last paragraph mainly developed?
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| 4． |
What is the passage mainly about?
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| One of the greatest gifts one generation can give to other generations is the wisdom it has gained from experience. This idea has inspired the award-winning photographer Andrew Zuckerman. He interviewed and took photos of fifty over-sixty-five-year-olds all over the world. His project explores various aspects of their lives. The photos and interviews are now available on our website. Click on the introductions to read the complete interviews. |
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Let us now have a culture of peace. —Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Spain Federico Mayor Zaragoza obtained a doctorate in pharmacy(药学) from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1958. After many years spent in politics, he became Director-General of UNESCO in 1987. In 1999, he created the Foundation for a Culture of Peace, of which he is now the president. In addition to many scientific publications, he has published four collections of poems and several books of essays. |
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Writing is a discovery. —Nadine Gordlmer, South Africa Due to a weak heart, Nadine Gordimer attended school and university briefly. She read widely and began writing at an early age. She published her first short story at the age of fifteen, and has completed a large number of works, which have been translated into forty languages. In 1991, Gordimer won the Nobel Prize for Literature. |
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Jazz is about the only form of art today. —Dave Brubeck, USA Dave Brubeck studied music at the University of the Pacific and graduated in 1942. After World War Two he was encouraged to play jazz. In 1951, he recorded his first album(专辑). Brubeck’s 1959 album has become a jazz standard. He received a Grammy lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. |
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For more figures CLICK HERE. |
Why did Andrew Zuckerman choose the fifty elders for his project?
| A．Because their wisdom deserves to be passed on. |
| B．Because they are physically impressive. |
| C．Because their accomplishments inspired him. |
| D．Because they have similar experiences. |
According to the web page, Federico Mayor Zaragoza_____.
| A．has won many awards for his work in politics |
| B．has served as the president of a university |
| C．has devoted all his life to the field of science |
| D．has made achievements in different areas |
Who most probably said “My education has been the library and books” in the interview when reflecting on his/her experience?
| A．Andrew Zuckerman. |
| B．Federico Mayor Zaragoza. |
| C．Nadine Gordimer. |
| D．Dave Brubeck. |
What is the main purpose of this web page?
| A．To show Zuckerman’s awards. |
| B．To publicize Zuckerman’s project. |
| C．To spread the wisdom of the three people. |
| D．To celebrate the achievements of the three people. |
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