Brittnie Pemberton listened attentively as Jim Herrick took her and her mother, Tanya, on a brief tour of San Diego State University on Thursday. Her dream is much closer to reality after she received a promise from the university. The university promised that she would get a full four-year scholarship to the school as long as she met the entrance requirements.
Brittnie, 10, laughed. Her mom cried.
They live at the Salvation Army Door of Hope, a living center for homeless women and their children. Photojournalist Linda Solomon met them in August when she came to the
facility and taught boys and girls, ages three-and-a-half to 13, how to take pictures. She gave them all disposable cameras and told them to capture images that reflected their dreams. The children's images - a big house, a church, a playground, a backyard and more - are kept. This is a project called“Pictures of Hope" organized by the Salvation Army
"I wish to go to college, so I took a picture of the sign out in front of San Diego State University," Brittnie said last month. The Fletcher Elementary School fifth-grader was pointing to the Christmas card bearing her photograph.
Adrienne Finley, development director at the Salvation Army, hosted a reception for Solomon, who told Finley about the president of a small university who gave a child the scholarship she dreamed of last year.
Finley called his old friend, Herrick, who serves as the SDSU President. "We have a wonderful opportunity here to make a difference in a little girl's life," Finley said. Soon her mom and Brittnie were face to face with SDSU President Jim Herrick.
"You must be Brittnie," he said, reaching out to shake her hand. She quickly pulled her hands out of the pockets of the new SDSU sweatshirt she had been given that morning.
They sat down at a table in his office and talked about college, about science, about her love of math and his hope that she and other girls wouldn't lose interest in those subjects, as happens to many girls as they grow older.
Then they talked about how much discipline she would need over the next eight years to make her dream come true. Both signed the paper outlining their agreement to the terms of the scholarship. Back outside on the sunny campus, Brittnie admitted she's tempted sometimes not to do her homework. "But not anymore," she said.According to the first paragraph, we can know that________.
| A．it is certain that Brittnie will be admitted into SDSU |
| B．Brittnie will not need to pay for her university education if she can study in SDSU. |
| C．Jim Herrick promised Brittnie’s mother to offer her a job in SDSU. |
| D．Brittnie made a promise that she would never give up her dream. . |
The Salvation Army Door of Hope is intended to ______.
| A．recruit young men and young women to help others |
| B．provide shelters for homeless moms and their children |
| C．carry out some projects to help those who are in trouble |
| D．help homeless people no matter who they are |
According to the passage, the following statements are true EXCEPT_______.
A. Linda Solomon taught children photography to inspire them.
B. Children told people about their dreams through their pictures.
C. Brittnie took a picture standing at the gate of SDSC.
D. Brittnie’s picture was so good that it was printed on a Christmas card.From what Ferrick said to Brittnie, we can infer that_______.
| A．Ferrick has a strong belief that Brittnie will be a scientist in the future. |
| B．Brittnie, as well as some other girls, is interested in both science and math. |
| C．some girls would not be so good in science and math as boys as they grow older. |
| D．Brittnie will never lose interest in science because of her deep love |
Which of the following words can best describe Brittnie’s feelings when she signed
the agreement about the scholarship ?
| A．Encouraged | B．Calm | C．Nervous | D．Proud |
A relationship is defined as a state of connectedness between people. Although in today’s society with its crazy rhythm of everyday life, when people tend to live in thickly populated cities, spending most of their time in the office and hardly knowing their neighbor’s name, we still find ourselves in some kinds of relationships-with friends, family, or colleagues.
Family relationships are the first relationships people enter. Parents and relatives influence our emotional development by creating a model that we are sometimes bound to follow all our lives, often subconsciously （潜意识地）. In day-care, at school, then in the office we spend a lot of time among fellow students and co-workers. We learn to keep business relationships, to work in a team environment, then form smaller groups of like-minded people and finally select some of them as our friends.
What is a true friendship? How does it start? Are we destined to become friends with certain people or can we actually plan whom to be friends with？
“Everybody‘s friend is nobody’s.” said Arthur Schopenhauer. Unlike a companionship based on belonging to the same team or group, friendship is a very personal and selective type of relationship. It calls for trust, sincerity, and emotional bonds.
Sociologists believe that most people are looking for similarities in views, social status, and interests when choosing friends. No wonder that our friends are often people of the same age, sex, and education. Another important factor is joint activity and solidarity. This is the reason why many of us befriend our colleagues and other people who work in the same field.
Most people would agree that a friend is someone who always listens and understands. Understanding in this context implies a lot of meanings-compassion, sympathy, and emotional closeness. It’s a process in which your friend reads your emotional state, shares your feelings, identifies himself or herself with you.What is the best title of this passage？_______
| A．Family and Relationships |
| B．How to Make Friends with Colleagues |
| C．What is a True Friendship |
| D．People and Relationship |
According to the passage, which of the following affects us most when choosing friends？
| A．Kindergarten. | B．Family. | C．School. | D．Office. |
Why are our friends usually of the same age，sex，and education？
| A．Because they are clever and well-behaved. |
| B．Because most of us are looking for similarities in views，social status, and interests when choosing friends. |
| C．Because they help us with our work and share our happiness and sorrow. |
| D．Because they cooperate with us well. |
Which of the following statements is NOT true？
| A．A companionship is based on belonging to the same team or group. |
| B．Friendship needs trust, sincerity, and emotional bonds. |
| C．Relationships are friendships between people. |
| D．Understanding is a process in which the friend reads our emotional state, shares our feelings, identifies himself / herself with us. |
The bus driver and his passengers were being hailed （拥戴） as heroes last night after rescuing a woman from her burning car following a crash on the Bluff Highway. The 60-year-old woman was taken by ambulance to Southland Hospital after firefighters battled for 30 minutes to cut her from her car.
Acting Senior Sergeant Brock Davis of Invercargill, said emergency services were called to the scene of the crash at the crossroads of Motorimu Rd and State Highway I shortly before 5：00 p.m. yesterday.
Mr. Davis said a Mitsubishi car driven by a 30-year-old man traveling north on the highway and the woman’s southbound （南行的） Suzuki Alto collided （碰撞）. The man suffered slight injuries in the crash, he said.
Invercargill Passenger Transport Ltd driver Bill McDermott and his passengers—New Zealand Aluminum Smelters Ltd workers were first on the scene and alerted emergency services. The scene at the spot was disordered, Mr. McDermott said.
“There was a car on its side and a guy wandering around who was quite excited,” he said. “We stopped, got out and found a lady trapped in her car …… then we noticed flames in the engine bay and the smell of petrol.” Mr. McDermott took a fire extinguisher（灭火器） from the bus, doused （泼洒） the flames, and several other workers controlled traffic.
However, he said his actions were “no big deal”. He was not willing to take any credit for helping the woman.
“The praise goes to all the guys that jumped off that bus.” Invercargill Senior Station officer Alan Goldsworthy, who was an officer in charge at the scene, said there was a possibility the car could have burst into flames if Mr. McDermott and the smelter workers had not helped. “They should acquire a good pat on the back.” he said.It can be known from the passage that the car accident happened _______.
| A．at noon | B．in the afternoon | C．in the morning | D．at night |
Who should get the biggest praise according to the reporter?__
| A．Brock Davis. | B．Bill McDermott. | C．Allan Goldsworthy. | D．The firefighters. |
Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage？______
| A．The first witnesses of the accident were passers-by. |
| B．The woman driver was driving north before the accident. |
| C．The firefighters spent half an hour helping the woman out. |
| D．With the bus driver and his passengers’ help, the woman’s car didn‘t burst into flames. |
The underlined sentence “They should acquire a good pat on the back” in the last paragraph really means ________.
| A．the government should give each of the heroes a gold medal of honor |
| B．the saved woman should offer as much money to the heroes as she can |
| C．the good deeds of the heroes are well worthy of great appreciation |
| D．everybody there should pat the heroes on the back gently and thankfully |
I left university with a good degree in English Literature, but no sense of what I wanted to do. Over the next six years, I was treading(在...上面走) water, just trying to earn an income. I tried journalism, but I didn’t think I was any good, then finance, which I hated. Finally, I got a job as a rights assistant at a famous publisher. I loved working with books, although the job that I did was dull.
I had enough savings to take a year off work, and I decided to try to satisfy a deep-down wish to write a novel. Attending a Novel Writing MA course gave me the structure I needed to write my first 55,000 words.
It takes confidence to make a new start — here’s a dark period in-between where you’re neither one thing nor the other. You’re out for dinner and people ask what you do, and you’re too ashamed to say, “Well, I’m writing a novel, but I’m not quite sure if I’m going to get there.” My confidence dived. Believing my novel could not be published, I put it aside.
Then I met an agent（代理商）who said I should send my novel out to agents. So, I did and, to my surprise, got some wonderful feedback. I felt a little hope that I might actually become a published writer and, after signing with an agent, I finished the second half of the novel.
The next problem was finding a publisher. After two-and-a-half years of no income, just waiting and wondering, a publisher offered me a book deal — that publisher turned out to be the one I once worked for.
It feels like an unbelievable stroke of luck — of fate, really. When you set out to do something different, there’s no end in sight, so to find myself in a position where I now have my own name on a contract（合同）of the publisher — to be a published writer — is unbelievably rewarding.The author decided to write a novel ______ .
| A．to finish the writing course | B．to realize her own dream |
| C．to satisfy readers’ wish | D．to earn more money |
How did the writer feel halfway with the novel?
| A．Disturbed. | B．Ashamed. | C．Confident. | D．Uncertain. |
What does the author mainly want to tell readers in the last paragraph?
| A．It pays off to stick to one’s goal. |
| B．Hard work can lead to success. |
| C．She feels like being unexpectedly lucky. |
| D．There is no end in sight when starting to do something. |
How would you like to sleep with one half your brain asleep and the other half awake? Dolphins sleep this way. Recently, scientists at Indiana State University have discovered that ducks sleep this way too. They found that ducks sleep half awake so they can rest and watch for danger at the same time.
After putting their ducks in a row and videotaping them, some researchers found ducks on the end of each row spent more time asleep with one eye open, apparently looking for predators.
“The more the ducks felt threatened, the more they slept with one eye open,” said lead author Niels C. Rattenborg, a graduate student at Indiana State University, Terre Haute. “The unique aspect is not that they do it, but that they control it. When they sleep at the edge of a group, they tend to realize greater danger, so they spend more time sleeping with one half of their brain.” Ducks with one eye open were still awake enough to detect predators, said the authors of the study, which appears today in the journal Nature.
The researchers studied four groups of four ducks held in plastic boxes, which were arranged in a row. Ducks on the end were found to sleep with one eye open 31.8 per cent of the time, compared to 12.4 percent of the time for ducks in the central position.
Also, ducks in the central position did not open one eye more than the others, while ducks on each end kept the eye facing away from the group open 86.2 per cent of the time. Brain wave readings of the ducks showed that the half of the brain receiving signals from the closed eye indicated that half of the brain was sleeping. Signals from the half of the brain receiving signals from the open eye showed a state between fully awake and asleep.The under lined word “predator” is most likely to mean .
| A．an animal that is likely to be friends with ducks |
| B．a human being who looks after and feeds ducks |
| C．a scientist who does research work on animals |
| D．an animal that hunts, kills and eats other animals |
Ducks at the end of each row sleep with one eye open because .
| A．they are looking for food |
| B．they are watching out for danger |
| C．they want to enjoy the scenery |
| D．they are unique in their sleeping habit |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．Ducks with one eye open at the edge can still enjoy a certain degree of sleep. |
| B．Ducks with less sense of duty usually choose to stay in the center of a row. |
| C．Ducks on the northern end of a row would keep their eye facing the south open. |
| D．A video tape recorder was the only electronic device used in the experiment. |
Once upon a time, on an isolated island in the Java sea, lived short people who dominated(支配, 占优势) the food chain. Standing no more than three and a half feet tall, these human ancestors hunted giant rats, lumbering lizards（笨拙的蜥蜴), and miniature elephants.
It sounds a bit like a fairy tale, but it's true. Unearthed relics on the island uncovered the remains of a race of tiny human ancestors. Homo floresiensis, as the newly discovered species has been named, apparently could date back to 13,000 years ago. This means they have a lot in common with modern humans.
So how and why did these people get so small? Scientists suspect that it's due to the fact that this race lived on an isolated island with limited resources. Take the miniature elephants for example. When elephants first came to the island either by swimming or by some kind of natural land raft, they were probably close to full size. But since there wasn't much to eat, over time smaller elephants lived longer and better. The smaller the elephant was, the less it had to eat to stay strong and healthy.
Scientists call this the "island role", and it can apply to humans as well as animals. Given the island's sparse(稀少) food supply, it makes sense that the early humans living there would have evolved (进化) a body size requiring less food to survive. So bigger isn't always better. In the floresiensis, at least, getting smaller was the way to go.According to the passage, the fact Homo floresiensis are very small is based on________.
| A．the islanders in the Java Sea | B．the human ancestors |
| C．a newspaper report | D．the unearthed relics |
The underlined word "miniature" in the first paragraph most probably means______.
| A．tiny | B．active | C．rare | D．wild |
People on the island got so small because____________.
| A．they gradually developed for lack of food. |
| B．they did not have enough food to eat. |
| C．they shared less food with elephants. |
| D．they remained alive as the elephants. |
What might be the most suitable title of the passage?
| A．The history of short people | B．Short people on an isolated island |
| C．The proofs on short people | D．Short people from a fairy tale |
According to the passage, getting smaller can make people and animals ____
| A．run quickly | B．live weaker | C．live longer | D．run slowly |
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