In the 1880s, Mark Twain established and operated his own publishing firm. He also became interested in various investments, especially an elaborate typesetting machine. He lost almost $200,000 in investments in the machine between 1881 and 1894. Also, his publishing company declared bankruptcy (破产) in April 1894. Thus, in January 1895, Mark Twain found himself publicly shamed by his inability to pay his debts.
Mark Twain eventually recovered from his financial difficulties, through his continued writing and a successful lecture tour in 1895 and 1896. During this much-publicized tour, Twain lectured in such places as India, South Africa and Australia. By the time he returned, he had become an international hero. Twain enjoyed this attention, and his habits of smoking cigars or a pipe and wearing unconventional white suits contributed to his showy image. He also made use of his position as a public figure to criticize the US foreign policy.
Although he was recovering from his financial problems by 1898, Mark Twain had begun to experience tragedy in his personal life. Suzy, his oldest daughter, died of meningitis (脑膜炎) in 1896, while her parents and sister Clara were abroad. In 1903, Mark Twain sold the beloved house in Hartford, which had become too closely associated with Suzy’s death. His wife, Olivia, who had developed a heart condition, died on June 5, 1904. His youngest daughter, Jean, died on Dec. 24, 1909.
64. Which is not the reason why Mark Twain found himself in debt?
A.Because he devoted all his energy to his writings.
B.Because his publishing firm bankruptcy.
C.He lost almost $ 200 000 in investments in the machine between 1881 and 1894
D.Because he lost a large quantity of money in various investments.
65. How did Mark Twain pay off his debts?
A. By borrowing money from the bank.
B. By investing in foreign countries.
C.By writing articles and a successful lecture tour.
D.By printing his own articles and selling them for money.
66. It can be inferred that Mark Twain ________________.
A.hated smoking cigars
B.liked wearing black clothes
C.hated the US foreign policy at that time
D.hated giving lectures in the foreign countries
Japanese sailor Kenichi Horie has finished a 110-day solo (单独的) voyage across the Pacific Ocean in a boat pushed by sea waves to win another world first.
Weak waves and ocean water movements made his arrival late, which was going to be in late May.
“When waves were weak, the boat slowed down. That’s a problem that needs to be solved,” the adventure told reporters from his boat in western Japan. His 9.5-meter-long boat can move like a dolphin’s tail, and it rises or falls with the waves.
Horie reached his destination in the channel between the main Japanese islands just before midnight after covering about 7,000 kilometers from Hawaii.
Horie first made world record in 1962 when, at the age of 23, he became the first person to sail alone across the Pacific. He made the three-month voyage from his hometown in spite of breaking Japanese law, which did not allow his citizens to sail on their own out of the country, and without a passport or money.
He was arrested upon arrival in San Francisco but the city mayor freed him, gave him a 30-day visa and made him an honorary citizen. News of his achievement made him a hero back home in Japan and his book of the voyage In the Pacific was made into a film. Since then, he has completed many sailing trips across the Pacific and around the world.
After his latest adventure with an environmentally friendly theme, Horie planned to return to his hometown on Sunday. He said, “Throughout history, mankind has used wind for power, but no one has appeared to be serious about wave power.” Horie told the reporter, “I think I’m a lucky boy as this wave power system has remained untouched in fact.”Horie’s boat was mainly powered by ________.
| A．sea waves | B．sea winds | C．his strength | D．petrol |
From the passage we learn that ________.
| A．Horie undertook the voyage with a partner this time |
| B．it took Horie about twenty days more to cross the Pacific this time than in 1962 |
| C．Horie made his first voyage across the Pacific alone fifty years ago |
| D．Horie’s destination is 7,000 kilometers from San Francisco |
Horie was arrested in San Francisco after his voyage in 1962 mainly because ________.
| A．he had broken Japanese law |
| B．he had kept it a secret from others |
| C．his action had put people in danger |
| D．he had no passport to America |
Which of the following statements best proves that Horie’s latest voyage was meaningful?
| A．He was made an honorary citizen of San Francisco. |
| B．In Japan he was regarded as a hero. |
| C．His voyage had the theme of protecting the environment. |
| D．He wrote an exciting book after the voyage. |
The author wrote the article mainly to ________.
| A．start an ocean crossing movement |
| B．tell us a piece of interesting news |
| C．make Horie known to the world |
| D．encourage people to learn from Horie |
Time out
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Time out — London’s arts and entertainment weekly. This magazine offers the best listings and reviews of arts, music, films and nightlife, and it is a necessary guide to the entertainment capital of the world. If you’re not using Time out, you’re losing out on London.
School Sport Magazine
Cover Price: ￡4.40
School Sport Magazine is the only publication of its kind to celebrate the sporting achievements of schools, pupils and teachers in the UK. The purpose of the magazine is to report sporting news and record national and regional school sporting events as well as interviews with famous sport stars about their own sporting schooldays. Five issues (期) a year.
Time
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Every week, Time keeps you well informed of world news, covering all the matters that affect your life, from political struggles to scientific progress, environmental problems, and what’s new in business, fashion and arts. Its feature articles give you brief but true information and unique insights from world-leading journalists. Time is a great magazine, which can help you develop a truly global perspective.
FourFourTwo
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FourFourTwo is a monthly football magazine for grown-up readers. Feature articles and wonderful action photographs will keep you attracted. You can read interviews with big name football stars, from today, tomorrow and yesterday. You’ll love it!Among all of the above, there is/ are ________ weekly magazine(s).
| A．one | B．two | C．three | D．four |
Which of the following magazines will probably provide you with articles about paintings and their painters?
| A．Time Out & School Sport Magazine. |
| B．School Sport Magazine & FourFourTwo. |
| C．Time Out & Time. |
| D．only Time. |
Which of the following magazines is suitable for a 13-year-old boy who wants to know about a famous football star’s playing experiences at school?
| A．Time Out. |
| B．School Sport Magazine. |
| C．Time |
| D．School Sport Magazine or FourFourTwo. |
We can learn from the passage that ________ .
| A．all of the magazines are intended for adults. |
| B．among all the magazines, only School Sport Magazine is about sports. |
| C．Time Out & School Sport Magazine might be published in the United Kingdom. |
| D．among all the magazines, Time Out will cost you the least. |
The author’s purpose in writing this passage is to ________ .
| A．advertise four best-sellers |
| B．introduce four popular magazines to readers |
| C．ask readers to decide which of the four magazines is the best |
| D．get more people to buy these magazines |
It seems that the Englishman just cannot live without sports of some kinds. A famous French humorist once said that this is because the English insist on behaving like children all their lives. Wherever you go in this country, you will see both children and grown-ups knocking a ball about with a stick or something, as if in Britain men always remains boys and women girls! Still, it can never be bad to get exercise, can it?
Taking all amateur﹙业余的﹚ and professional﹙职业的﹚sports in Britain into consideration, there can be no doubt that football is at the top of the list. It is called soccer in the US. The game started in Britain and was played in the Middle Ages or even earlier, though as an organized game, or association football, it dates only from the beginning of the 19th century.
The next is rugby, which is called football in the US. It is a kind of football played by two teams of fifteen players rather than eleven. In rugby, an oval-shaped﹙椭圆形的﹚ball is used which can be held by hand as well as kicked. It is a pretty rough game.
In summer, cricket is the most popular sport. In fact, it has sometimes been called the English national game. Most foreigners find the game rather slow or even boring, but it enjoys great popularity among the British.
Tennis rates high on the list, too. It was introduced into England from France in the 15th century, but it was from England that it spread to almost every country in the world.
Table tennis, or ping-pong, surely is not played as much as it is in China and Japan. Basketball and volleyball were introduced into Britain during the late 19th century from America and are gaining popularity. Horse-back riding, swimming, rowing and golf all attract a lot of people.What’s the main purpose of Paragraph 1? ﹙no more than 11 words﹚
What are the differences between football and rugby from the passage? ﹙no more than 10 words﹚
According to the passage, which games were never played in Britain until the late 19th century? ﹙no more than 3 words﹚
What is the best title for this passage in your opinion? ﹙no more than 4 words﹚
It's every student's dream to do well in the national college entrance examination and enter a good university. In the eyes of students and parents, a good university should have a high ranking, and the employment rate of its graduates should be high. But be careful! The employment rate they tell you might not always be true.
Recently, people created a Chinese phrase "bei jiuye", which has become popular on the Internet almost overnight across China. The word "bei" has a grammatical use in Chinese: it has a function similar to the passive voice in English. But now people often use it to express their doubts about something. Here, the phrase "bei jiuye" has the literal meaning of "to be hired", but people understand that it really means "to be hired without one's knowledge" or "be hired for jobs that may not exist at all".
The story of "bei jiuye" goes like this. Zhao Dongdong, a graduate of a university in Shanxi province, was surprised to find that he got a job from a company he never applied to, which he wasn't even sure was a real place. On his last day of graduation ceremonies, he was surprised to come across the employment contract.
"God! At that time, I had not landed a job yet, but they gave me an employment contract! I wondered who on earth signed the contract with the company." When Zhao made a phone call to the company to check it out, no one answered.
He was not the only one in his college who was "hired" for a job that did not exist. One of his classmates signed a contract with a company called Xi'an Beilin Industrial Corporation, which could not be found on the Internet either. In the end, it turned out that the college had faked the contract to make it seem like the employment rate for new graduates was higher than that. By doing this, the college could build up a "good" reputation that could help it attract new students.
"Bei jiuye" is just one of many hot "bei" words on the Internet. See some of them in "Bonus". The use of "bei" is a satirical (讽刺的) way for the public to express its helplessness and criticize abuses of power, some people say. People also use "bei" words to bring attention to social problems, hoping they will be noticed by authorities.
| Standards of students’ and parents’ 1.__________ |
Having a high ranking |
| Having a high 2.______________ |
|
| 3._______ of the phrase “ Bei jiuye” |
To be hired 4._________ |
| To be hired with no knowledge or for 5.__________ jobs |
|
| 6._________ of the appearance of the phrase “ Bei jiuye” |
Seemingly 7. __________ rate for new graduates |
| To 8.___________ |
|
| 9.__________ to the hot phrase “Bei jiuye”on the Internet |
A way of expressing helpless and 10.__________ A way of fixing attention to social problems and being noticed by authorities |
Fear can be a wonderful feeling in our lives, protecting us from dangerous situations and keeping us safe. But fear can also limit our lives significantly. While it may not be conscious, fear may make us think we are unacceptable or that what we have to offer isn’t valuable. Fear may make us feel that we are not safe being ourselves.
To avoid feeling fear, we may limit our lives greatly, living in tiny boxes. Living this way gives us the illusion(假象) of safety but leaves us with an unfulfilling life of no passion. If we shine a light on many of our fears, we see they have a very limited view of what is “safe” and how to “protect” us. Many of our fears are concerned only with protecting us from humiliation(羞辱) and failure. While these fears are doing their jobs incredibly well, they are doing so with faulty and outdated programming. Many fears we have as adults are trying to protect us as they protected us when we were children. Indeed, many of our current, automatic reactions to fear were actually formed when we were children.
Even so, it’s important not to judge ourselves for feeling these types of fears. If we judge ourselves, we will bury our fears or disguise them. By denying our fears, however, we also deny our energy, creativity and passion.
So what do we do with fear? We recognize the fear for what it is--- a feeling we’ve experienced many times in the past and a feeling we will experience many times in the future. We become very familiar with our own particular brand of fears and how we allow them to control our lives. It is especially beneficial for each of us to become aware of the particular behavior patterns we’ve adopted when we feel fear, so we can look at our reactions with a sense of humor and compassion. Then, if we wish, we can choose a different response, which can be a scary yet very exciting experience.According to the first paragraph, fear sometimes .
| A．protect us when we’ve made mistakes |
| B．makes sure our feelings are not hurt |
| C．brings great change to our everyday life |
| D．makes us lose confidence in ourselves |
It can be inferred from the passage that the author .
| A．thinks it difficult to control our fear |
| B．believes fears protect us negatively |
| C．thinks it’s good to criticize ourselves |
| D．values the advantages of feeling fear |
According to the author, the ways we react to fear .
| A．vary from person to person |
| B．have been formed since childhood |
| C．develop during our growth |
| D．will not change until we get old |
The last paragraph mainly tells us .
| A．what is the essence of fears |
| B．usual reactions we have when feeling fear |
| C．how to deal with fears reasonably |
| D．the importance of humor and compassion |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Is fear managing your life? |
| B．Be calm when feeling fear |
| C．What do you fear most? |
| D．Passion, chance and fear |
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