How often one hears children wishing they were grown up, and old people wishing they were young again. Each age has its pleasures and its pains, and the happiest person is the one who enjoys what each age gives him without wasting his time in useless regrets.
Childhood is a time when there are few responsibilities to make life difficult. If a child has good parents, he is fed, looked after and loved, whatever he may do. It is impossible that he will ever again in his life be given so much without having to do anything in return. In addition, life is always presenting new things to the child-things that have lost their interest for older people because they are too well-known. But a child has his parents, he is not so free to do what he wishes to do. He is continually being told not to do things or being punished for what he has done wrong. When the young man starts to earn his own living, he can no longer expect others to pay for his food, his clothes, and his room, but has to work if he wants to live comfortably. If he spends most of his time playing about in the way that he used to as a child, he will go hungry. And if he breaks the laws of society as he used to break the laws of his parents, he may go to prison. If, however, he works hard, keeps out of trouble and has good health, he can have the great happiness of building up for himself his own position in society. according to the second paragraph, the writer thinks that _______.
| A．life for a child is comparatively easy |
| B．a child is always loved whatever he does |
| C．if much is given to a child, he must do something in return |
| D．only children are interested in life |
After a child grows up, he ________.
| A．will have little time playing |
| B．has to be successful in finding a job |
| C．can still ask for help in time of trouble |
| D．should be able to take care of himself |
Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．People are often satisfied with their life. |
| B．Life is less interesting for old people. |
| C．Adults are freer to do what they want to do. |
| D．Adults should no longer rely on others. |
The main idea of the passage is ________.
| A．life is not enjoyable since each age has some pains |
| B．young men can have the greatest happiness if they work hard |
| C．childhood is the most enjoyable time in one’s life |
| D．one is the happiest if he can make good use of each age in his life |
The paragraph following this passage will most probably discuss _______.
| A．examples of successful young men |
| B．how to build up one’s position in society |
| C．joys and pains of old people |
| D．what to do when one has problems in life |
Arriving in Sydney on his own from India, my husband ,Rashid, stayed in a hotel for a short time while looking for a house for me and our children.
During the first week of his stay, he went out one day to do some shopping. He came back in the late afternoon to discover that his suitcase was gone. He was extremely worried as the suitcase had all his important papers, including his passport.
He reported the case to the police and then sat there，lost and lonely in strange city, thinking of the terrible troubles of getting all the paperwork organized again from a distant country while trying to settle down in a new one.
Late in the evening, the phone rang. It was a stranger. He was trying to pronounce my husband's name and was asking him a lot of questions. Then he said they had found a pile of papers in their trash can（垃圾桶）that had been left out on the footpath.
My husband rushed to their home to find a kind family holding all his papers and documents. Their young daughter had gone to the trash can and found a pile of unfamiliar papers. Her parents had carefully sorted them out, although they had found mainly foreign addresses on most of the documents. At last they had seen a half-written letter in the pile in which my husband had given his new telephone number to a friend.
That family not only restored the important documents to us that day but also restored our faith and trust in people.We still remember their kindness and often send a warm wish their way.
| 1． |
What did Rashid plan to do after his arrival in Sydney?
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| 2． |
The girl's parents got Rashid's phone number from.
|
| 3． |
What does the underlined word"restored"in the last paragraph mean?
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| 4． |
Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
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Scientists today are making greater effort to study ocean currents (洋流) . Most do it using satellites and other high-tech equipment. However, ocean expert Curtis Ebbesmeyer does it in a special way -- by studying movements of random floating garbage. A scientist with many years’ experience, he started this type of research in the early 1990s when he heard about hundreds of athletic shoes washing up on the shores of the northwest coast of the United States. There were so many shoes that people were setting up swap meets to try and match left and right shoes to sell or wear.
Ebbesmeyer found out in his researches that the shoes — about 60,000 in total — fell into the ocean in a shipping accident. He phoned the shoe company and asked if they wanted the shoes back. As expected, the company told him that they didn't. Ebbesmeyer realized this could be a great experiment. If he learned when and where the shoes went into the water and tracked where they landed, he could learn a lot about the patterns of ocean currents.
The Pacific Northwest is one of the world's best areas for beachcombing(海滩搜寻) because winds and currents join here, and as a result, there is a group of serious beachcombers in the area. Ebbesmeyer got to know a lot of them and asked for their help in collecting information about where the shoes landed. In a year he collected reliable information on 1, 600 shoes. With this data, he and a colleague were able to test and improve a computer program designed to model ocean currents, and publish the findings of their study.
As the result of his work, Ebbesmeyer has become known as the scientist to call with questions about any unusual objects found floating in the ocean. He has even started an association of beachcombers and ocean experts, with 500 subscribers from West Africa to New Zealand. They have recorded all lost objects ranging from potatoes to golf gloves.The underlined phrase swap meets in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ______________.
| A．fitting rooms |
| B．trading fairs |
| C．business talks |
| D．group meetings |
Ebbesmeyer phoned the shoe company to find out _____________.
| A．what caused the shipping accident |
| B．when and where the shoes went missing |
| C．whether it was all right to use their shoes |
| D．how much they lost in the shipping accident |
How did Ebbesmeyer prove his assumption?
| A．By collecting information from beachcombers. |
| B．By studying the shoes found by beachcomber. |
| C．By searching the web for ocean currents models. |
| D．By researching ocean currents data in the library. |
Ebbesmeyer is most famous for ___________________.
| A．traveling widely the coastal cities of the world |
| B．making records for any lost objects on the sea |
| C．running a global currents research association |
| D．phoning about any doubtful objects on the sea |
What is the purpose of the author in writing this passage?
| A．To call people's attention to ocean pollution. |
| B．To warn people of shipping safety in the ocean. |
| C．To explain a unique way of studying ocean currents. |
| D．To give tips on how to search for lost objects on the beach. |
Like many new graduates, I left university full of hope for the future but with no real idea of what I wanted to do. My degree, with honors, in English literature had not really prepared me for anything practical. I knew I wanted to make a difference in the world somehow, but I had no idea how to do that. That’s when I learned about the Lighthouse Project.
I started my journey as a Lighthouse Project volunteer by reading as much as I could about the experiences of previous volunteers. I knew it would be a lot of hard work, and that I would be away from my family and friends for a very long time. In short, I did not take my decision to apply for the Lighthouse Project lightly. Neither did my family.
Eventually, however, I won the support of my family, and I sent in all the paperwork needed for the application. After countless interviews and presentations, I managed to stand out among the candidates and survive the test alone. Several months later, I finally received a call asking me to report for the duty. I would be going to a small village near Abuja, Nigeria. Where? What? Nigeria? I had no idea. But I was about to find out.
After completing my training, I was sent to the village that was small and desperately in need of proper accommodation. Though the local villagers were poor, they offered their homes, hearts, and food as if I were their own family. I was asked to lead a small team of local people in building a new schoolhouse. For the next year or so, I taught in that same schoolhouse. But I sometimes think I learned more from my students than they did from me.
Sometime during that period, I realized that all those things that had seemed so strange or unusual to me no longer did, though I did not get anywhere with the local language, and returned to the United States a different man. The Lighthouse Project had changed my life forever. What do we know about the author?
| A．His university education focused on the theoretical knowledge. |
| B．His dream at university was to become a volunteer. |
| C．He took pride in having contributed to the world. |
| D．He felt honored to study English literature. |
According to the Paragraph 2, it is most likely that the author
| A．discussed his decision with his family. |
| B．asked previous volunteers about voluntary work |
| C．attended special training to perform difficult tasks |
| D．felt sad about having to leave his family and friends |
In his application for the volunteer job, the author
| A．participated in many discussions |
| B．went through challenging survival tests |
| C．wrote quite a few paper on voluntary work |
| D．faced strong competition from other candidates |
On arrival at the village, the author was
| A．asked to lead a farming team |
| B．sent to teach in a schoolhouse |
| C．received warmly by local villagers |
| D．arranged to live in a separate house. |
What can we infer from the author’s experiences in Nigeria?
| A．He found some difficulty adapting to the local culture |
| B．He had learned to communicate in the local language. |
| C．He had overcome all his weaknesses before he left for home. |
| D．He was chosen as the most respectable teacher by his students. |
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 |
Who came up with the phrase according to the passage?
| A．Judy Foreman. |
| B．Natalie Smith. |
| C．Alice Johnson. |
| D．Anne Herbert. |
Which of the following statements is closest in the meaning to the underlined sentence 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. |
Samuel Osmond is a 19-year-old law student from Cornwall, England. He never studied the piano. However, he can play very difficult musical pieces by musicians such as Chopin and Beethoven just a few minutes after he hears them. He learns a piece of music by listening to it in parts. Then he thinks about the notes in his head. Two years ago, he played his first piece Moonlight Sonata（奏鸣曲）by Beethoven. He surprised everyone around him.
Amazed that he remembered this long and difficult piece of music and played it perfectly, his teachers say Samuel is unbelievable .They say his ability is very rare, but Samuel doesn’t even realize that what he can do is special. Samuel wanted to become a lawyer as it was the wish of his parents, but music teachers told him he should study music instead. Now, he studies law and music.
Samuel can’t understand why everyone is so surprised. “I grew up with music. My mother played the piano and my father played the guitar. About two years ago, I suddenly decided to start playing the piano, without being able to read music and without having any lessons. It comes easily to me ---I hear the notes and can bear them in mind---each and every note,” says Samuel.
Recently, Samuel performed a piece during a special event at his college. The piece had more than a thousand notes. The audience was impressed by his amazing performance. He is now learning a piece that is so difficult that many professional pianists can’t play it. Samuel says confidently,” It’s all about super memory---I guess I have that gift.”
However, Samuel’s ability to remember things doesn’t stop with music. His family says that even when he was a young boy, Samuel heard someone read a story, and then he could retell the story word for word.
Samuel is still only a teenager. He doesn’t know what he wants to do in the future. For now, he is just happy to play beautiful music and continue his studies.What is special about Samuel Osmond?
| A．He has a gift for writing music. |
| B．He can write down the note he hears. |
| C．He is a top student at the law school. |
| D．He can play the musical piece he hears. |
What can we learn from Paragraph 2?
| A．Samuel chose law against the wish of his parents. |
| B．Samuel planned to be a lawyer rather than a musician. |
| C．Samuel thinks of himself as a man of great musical ability. |
| D．Samuel studies law and music on the advice of his teachers. |
Everyone around Samuel was surprised because he _________.
| A．received a good early education in music |
| B．played the guitar and the piano perfectly |
| C．could play the piano without reading music |
| D．could play the guitar better than his father |
What can we infer about Samuel in Paragraph 4?
| A．He became famous during a special event at his college. |
| B．He is proud of his ability to remember things accurately. |
| C．He plays the piano better than many professional pianists. |
| D．He impressed the audience by playing all the musical pieces. |
Which of the following is the best title of the passage?
| A．The Qualities of a Musician |
| B．The Story of a Musical Talent |
| C．The Importance of Early Education |
| D．The Relationship between Memory and Music. |
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