My father was Chief Engineer of a merchant ship, which was sunk in World War Ⅱ. The book Night of the Uboats told the story.
Memories
In September ，1940，my mother ,sister and I went to Swansea ,where my father ‘s ship was getting ready to sail ,we brought him a family photography to be kept with him at all times and keep him safe .
Then I remember my mother lying face down ,sobbing .she had heard from a friend that the ship had been sunk by a torpedo (鱼雷).
I can remember the arrived of the telegram（电报），which in those days always brought bad news .my grandmother opened it ,it read ,safe .love ted.”
My most vivid memory is being woken and brought down to sit on my father’s knee, his arm in a bandage .
He was judged unfit to return to sea and took a shore job in Glasgow for the rest of the war, for as long as I can remember ,he had a weak heart ,mother said it was caused by the torpedoes .he said it was because of the cigarette ,whichever ,he died suddenly in his early 50s.
Ten years later I read night of the U-boat and able to complete the story .
A toast
In my room is the book and the photograph .often , glass in hand, I have wondered how I would have dealt with an explosion ,a sinking ship ,a jump into a vast ocean and a wait for rescue ?lest (以免 )we forget ,I have some more whisky and toast the heroes of the war.We can infer that the mother and children went to Swansea ________.
| A．to meet a friend | B．to see the father off |
| C．to take a family photo | D．to enjoy the sailing of the ship |
What did the author learn about the father from the telegram?
| A．he was still alive. | B．His knee was broken. |
| C．His ship had been sunk. | D．He had arrived in Glasgow. |
The underlined word “it” in Paragraph 6 refers to the father’s ________.
| A．weak heart | B．taking a shore job |
| C．failure to return to sea | D．injury caused by a torpedo |
What is the passage mainly about?
| A．A group of forgotten heroes |
| B．A book describing a terrifying battle. |
| C．A ship engineer’s wartime experience. |
| D．A merchant’s memories of a sea rescue. |
The $11 billion self-help industry is built on the idea that you should turn negative thoughts like “I never do anything right” into positive ones like “I can succeed”. But was positive thinking advocate Norman Vincent Peale right? Is there power in positive thinking?
Researchers in Canada just published a study in the journal Psychological Science that says trying to get people to think more positively can actually have the opposite effect: it can simply highlight how unhappy they are.
The study's authors, Joanne Wood and John Lee of the University of Waterloo and Elaine Perunovic of the University of New Brunswick, begin by citing (引证) older research showing that when people get feedback which they believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better. If you tell your friend who is slow to learn that he has the potential of an Einstein, you’re just underlining his faults. In one 1990s experiment, a team including psychologist Joel Cooper of Princeton asked participants to write essays against funding for the disabled. When the essayists were later praised for their sympathy, they felt even worse about what they had written.
In this experiment, Wood, Lee and Perunovic measured 68 students’ self-esteem (自尊). The participants were then asked to write down their thoughts and feelings for four minutes. Every 15 seconds, one group of students heard a bell. When it rang, they were supposed to tell themselves, “I am lovable.”
Those with low self-esteem didn’t feel better after the forced self-affirmation (自我肯定). In fact, their moods turned significantly darker than those of members of the control group, who weren’t urged to think of positive thoughts.
The paper provides support for newer forms of psychotherapy (心理治疗) that urge people to accept their negative thoughts and feelings rather than fight them. In the fighting, we not only often fail but can make things worse. Meditation (静思) techniques, in contrast, can teach people to put their shortcomings into a larger, more realistic viewpoint. Call it the power of negative thinking. The first paragraph is written _________.
| A．to raise an argument about positive thinking |
| B．to introduce the power of positive thinking |
| C．to encourage people to have positive thoughts |
| D．to introduce the $11 billion self-help industry |
According to the study of the Canadian researchers, _________.
| A．positive thinking is not as powerful as negative thinking |
| B．encouraging positive thinking may actually discourage people |
| C．happy people can think positively while unhappy people can’t |
| D．getting people to think positively can strengthen their confidence |
What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 3 mean?
| A．You are pointing out the mistakes he has made. |
| B．You are reminding him that he is not intelligent. |
| C．You are not taking his mistakes seriously enough. |
| D．You are showing he has great potential in spite of faults. |
We can learn from the last paragraph that _________.
| A．negative feelings must be got rid of |
| B．there’s no point in thinking positively |
| C．it doesn’t make sense to think negatively |
| D．negative thinking is not always negative |
Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best. For example, to absorb heat from the sun to heat water, you need large, flat, black surfaces. One way to do that is to build those surfaces specially, on the roofs of buildings. But why go to all that trouble when cities are full of black surfaces already, in the form of asphalt (柏油) roads?
Ten years ago, this thought came into the mind of Arian de Bondt, a Dutch engineer. He finally persuaded his boss to follow it up. The result is that their building is now heated in winter and cooled in summer by a system that relies on the surface of the road outside.
The heat-collector is a system of connected water pipes. Most of them ran from one side of the street to the other, just under the asphalt road. Some, however, dive deep into the ground.
When the street surface gets hot in summer, water pumped through the pipes picks up this heat and takes it underground through one of the diving pipes. At a depth of 100 meters lies a natural aquifer (蓄水层) into which several heat exchangers (交换器) have been built. The hot water from the street runs through these exchangers, warming the ground-water, before returning to the surface through another pipe. The aquifer is thus used as a heat store.
In winter, the working system is changed slightly. Water is pumped through the heat exchangers to pick up the heat stored during summer. This water goes into the building and is used to warm the place up. After performing that task, it is pumped under the asphalt and its remaining heat keeps the road free of snow and ice. Which of the following is TRUE according to the first two paragraphs?
| A．Arian de Bondt got his idea from his boss. |
| B．Large, flat, black surfaces need to be built in cities. |
| C．Heat can also be collected from asphalt roads. |
| D．The Dutch engineer's system has been widely used. |
For what purpose are the diving pipes used?
| A．To absorb heat from the sun. |
| B．To store heat for future use. |
| C．To turn solar energy into heat energy. |
| D．To carry heat down below the surface. |
From the last paragraph we can learn that _________.
| A．the system can do more than warming up the building |
| B．some pipes have to be re-arranged in winter |
| C．the exchangers will pick up heat from the street surface |
| D．less heat may be collected in winter than in summer |
What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows?
| A．What we shall do if the system goes wrong. |
| B．What we shall do if there are no asphalt roads. |
| C．How the system cools the building in summer. |
| D．How the system collects heat in spring and autumn. |
Money Matters for Students
GETTING A GRANT（补助）
Who pays?
The Local Education Authority (LEA) for the area in which the student is living.
Who can get this money?
Anyone who gets a place on a first degree course, although a student who has already attended a course of advanced further education may not. Students must also have been resident in the UK for at least three years, which can exclude (排除) some students from overseas.
SPECIAL CASES
If a student has worked before going to college:
A student who is 26 or more before the course starts and who has worked for at least three of the previous six years will get extra money--￡155 a year if 26, increasing to a maximum of ￡615 at 29 or more.
If a student is handicapped (残疾的):
LEAs will give up to ￡500 to help meet extra expenses—such as buying a tape recorder for a blind student, extra heating or special food.
Banking:
Most of the big banks offer special services to students who open accounts (in the hope that they will stay with the bank when they become rich officials). A student won’t usually have to pay bank charges as long as the account stays in credit. Some banks allow students to overdraw by ￡100 or so, and still don’t make charges (though they do charge interest).A student from Japan who has been staying in England for a year and intends to go to college in a few months will _________.
| A．get money if he is taking a first degree course |
| B．be unable to get money from any LEA |
| C．get money from any LEA when he has finished his course |
| D．have to open a bank account before he gets any money |
Which of the following is TRUE?
| A．A student already attending a course of advanced education is sure to get a grant. |
| B．A student aged 30 can get extra money—￡615 a year. |
| C．A student usually must pay back charges when the account is in credit. |
| D．Students are allowed to overdraw by ￡100 or so in any bank. |
Why is it likely that a bank will welcome new students as their customers?
| A．They know students receive money regularly. |
| B．They charge students extra. |
| C．They hope students will be rich in the future. |
| D．They need student accounts in term-time. |
Where can you probably read this passage?
| A．A notice-board in a college. | B．A dictionary. |
| C．A newspaper. | D．A banking office. |
There is a wonderful story about a young girl who had no family and no one to love her.
One day, feeling very sad and lonely, she was walking through a grassland when she noticed a small butterfly caught in a thorn (荆棘) bush. The young girl carefully released the butterfly. Instead of flying away, the little butterfly changed into a beautiful fairy. The young girl rubbed her eyes in disbelief.
“For your wonderful kindness,” the good fairy said to the girl, “I will give you any wish you would like.” The little girl thought for a moment and then replied, “I want to be happy.” The fairy leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. Then the fairy disappeared.
As the little girl grew up, there was no one in the land as happy as she. Everyone asked her the secret of happiness. She would only smile and answer, “The secret of my happiness is that I listened to a good fairy when I was a little girl.”
When she was very old and on her deathbed, the neighbors all gathered around her, believing that her unbelievable secret of happiness would die with her. “Tell us, please,” they begged, “Tell us what the good fairy said.” The lovely old woman simply smiled and said, “She told me that everyone, no matter how secure they seemed, no matter how old or young, how rich or poor, had need of me.”Noticing the butterfly was caught by the thorn, the orphan girl _______.
| A．helped the butterfly escape from the thorn |
| B．felt sad, but she didn′t go up to help it |
| C．fell down on it too[ |
| D．failed to help it release from the thorn |
The butterfly _________ after it was saved by the little girl.
| A．flew away | B．still died |
| C．changed into a fairy | D．was more beautiful than before |
The only thing that the little girl wanted was_________.
| A．to be rich | B．to have her own parents |
| C．to have a lot of friends | D．to be happy |
The neighbors all gathered around the old happy woman when she was dying, because ______.
| A．they loved this woman deeply and they didn′t want her to die |
| B．the woman had lots of money to be shared after she died |
| C．they wanted to know the secret of her lifetime happiness |
| D．they wanted to pray for her after her death |
Who give us life, raise us and are our constant support and wellwishers？Our mothers. That’s why millions of people across the world take Mother’s Day as an opportunity to express thanks and send best wishes to their moms.
However, the celebration of Mother’s Day is not the recent thing that many believe it to be. It was the ancient Greeks who started the tradition by celebrating their annual spring festival in honor of Rhea, the mother of many gods and goddesses.
Later, in the 1600s, Mothering Sunday came to be celebrated in England. On the fourth Sunday of Lent (大斋期), children brought flowers and special fruitcakes to show their respect for their mothers. It may be the root of the modern Mother’s Day.
Thanks to the great efforts of Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis, Mother’s Day became an official festival in the US. It is celebrated on the second Sunday in May. Later, many countries began to celebrate this day as Mother’s Day.
Today, Mother’s Day is an international festival honoring mothers. It is celebrated all over the world in different ways. In Western countries，the most common way is to treat mothers with breakfast in bed .Kids often allow their mothers to sleep till late in the morning while they prepare her favorite breakfast with their fathers. Some also make handmade gifts or buy beautiful carnations (康乃馨). It is the day when you acknowledge your mothers contribution in your life and pay a tribute (礼品) to her, often with flowers and gifts. It complements Father’s Day, the celebration honoring fathers.
Today, Mother’s Day is a day celebrated on various days in many places around the world.Why do people across the world celebrate Mother’s Day?
| A．Because they want to express thanks and send best wishes to their mothers. |
| B．Because they want to express thanks and send best wishes to Rhea. |
| C．Because Mother’s Day is an official festival in the US. |
| D．Because Mother’s Day is an international festival. |
The modern Mother’s Day came from________.
| A．Greece | B．China | C．America | D．England |
From the passage we can learn that________.
| A．Rhea is the mother of many gods and goddesses of England |
| B．many people wrongly believe Mother’s Day has a short history |
| C．in America Mother’s day is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent |
| D．on Mother’s day fathers have to get up early to prepare breakfast |
The passage mainly wants to tell us________.
| A．how to celebrate Mother’s day |
| B．what to do on Mother’s day |
| C．the historical change of Mother’s day |
| D．the meaning of Mother’s day |
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