There are many things people do with their spare time.Have you ever thought about tuning(调音)your own piano for fun and profit？Are you a piano teacher or player who really does not want the expense of hiring a piano tuner and feels that you could do it yourself with a little training？Well，this is your lucky day.All you need are the right tools，a piano and patience.
So，why would I want to tune my piano？There are many reasons for tuning your own piano.
·It is a very pleasant thing to do.
·You can make up to $80 each time tuning other people's pianos.
·There are millions of pianos in the world and thousands of new ones are being sold every day.There are not enough piano tuners available to tune them all.
·You can provide a valuable service for friends，family and others.
·You can teach yourself very cheaply and then develop it into a parttime or fulltime business.
You may have thought that only a trained expert could do this，someone who had devoted years of study and developed a sense of perfect pitch(音高)．In the past，tuning a piano was as much an art form as it was a technology exercise，but now the balance is swaying(摇动) more towards the technology and the final result is as good or even better than tuning by ear.
A few simple tools and a laptop computer with tuning software are all that are required.The real secret is the tuning software，which makes the whole process extremely easy.It means you do not have to train your ears but just look at the laptop screen to know when the piano string is in tune.
I have put together an ebook in my website with all the information you need to get started tuning your own piano, where to get the free software and where to buy the tools.
I hope I have inspired you to think about piano tuning and actually give it a go.You will find it a very rewarding and pleasant activity even if it remains just a hobby.The writer asks two questions in the first paragraph to ________.
| A．show his doubt on the topic |
| B．ask readers to answer the questions clearly |
| C．encourage readers to make comments on the topic |
| D．attract readers to more information on this topic |
According to the passage，why should you learn to tune pianos?
| A．To offer help to piano tuners. |
| B．To save money and earn money as well. |
| C．Because it can help you make a piano yourself. |
| D．Because it can help you learn how to play the piano. |
What makes piano tuning easier now?
| A．Advanced technology. |
| B．More effective training. |
| C．More chances of practicing. |
| D．Traditional tuning methods. |
If you want to get the tuning software and tools，you can ________.
| A．get them for free from the piano sellers |
| B．buy them from the writer's online shops |
| C．make them yourself according to the passage |
| D．surf the writer's website for the information |
In the last paragraph，the writer mainly wants to show that ________.
| A．one must be active to play the piano |
| B．piano tuning will be popular in the future |
| C．it's valuable to take piano tuning as a hobby |
| D．it's difficult to tune pianos without professional training |
Having returned from her round trip, the angry woman stood outside the ticket office of the station. “The railway owes me ￡12,” She said to Harry Jenks, the young man working at the office. “You sold me a ticket for May 22nd, but there was no ship from Jersey that night. So my daughter and I had to stay in a hotel. It cost me ￡12. ”
Harry was worried. He remembered selling the woman a return ticket. “Come into the office, Madam,” he said politely. “I’ll just check the Jersey timetable for May 22nd.”
The woman and her little girl followed him inside. She was quite right, as Harry soon discovered. There was no sailing on May 22nd. How could he have made such a careless mistake? He shouldn’t have sold her a ticket for that day. Wondering what to do, he smiled at the child. “You look sunburnt,” he said to her. “Did you have a nice holiday in Jersey?”
“Yes,” she answered shyly, “The beach was lovely. And I can swim, too!”
“That’s fine,” said Harry.
“My little girl can’t swim a bit yet. Of course, she’s only three…”
“I’m four,” the child said proudly, “I’ll be four and a half.”
Harry turned to the mother, “I remember your ticket, Madam,” he said. “But you didn’t get one for your daughter, did you?”
“Er, well---” the woman looked at the child, “I mean…she hasn’t started school yet. She’s only four.”
“A four-year-old child must have a ticket, Madam. A child’s return ticket to Jersey costs…let me see…￡13.50. So if the railway pays your hotel, you will owe ￡1.50. The law is the law, but since the fault was mine… ”
The woman stood up, took the child’s hand and left the office.Harry was worried because ________.
| A．the woman was angry with him |
| B．he had not done his work properly |
| C．the Jersey timetable was wrong |
| D．the little girl didn’t have a return ticket |
Harry started talking to the little girl ________.
| A．because he was in difficulty and did not know what to do |
| B．because he had a little girl about the same age as this girl |
| C．because he wanted to be friendly to the little girl who looked so nice |
| D．when he suddenly realized that he could find a way out from the little girl |
When Harry said, “The law is the law, but since the fault was mine…” he means that ________.
| A．they must follow it without other choice, even though the fault was his |
| B．he had to be strict with the woman because of the law, although he didn’t want to |
| C．the woman had to pay him ￡1.50 and the railway would pay her for the hotel |
| D．she should pay ￡1.50, but he had made a mistake, she could go without paying |
How did the woman feel when she left the office?
| A．angry | B．peaceful | C．embarrassed | D．nervous |
With the rapid progress of technology, the English language is changing fast. All the people have to face a choice: either ignore the development of the language and spend the rest of our lives wishing Shakespeare were alive, or keep pace with the Internet age, welcoming the new English which someone has once called Weblish. “you can’t avoid it for the simple reason that wherever a new language comes along, it surely impacts (影响) the language as a whole,” says Dr David Crystal, a famous language professor at the University of Wales.
However, there is great trouble with keeping up with the new English because there are so many new words and the old ones no longer mean what we thought they did. In the past if someone said they didn’t have “Windows”, you would have to suppose they lived in a cave without windows. But now, it is probably because they use a Mac, which is a computer. Spam, which once meant a not-so-good-kind of canned meat, now stands for unwanted “junk (垃圾)” email.
Spelling is changing too. Weblish loves to see nouns happily become verbs ( for example, “Please bookmark this site”), and verbs become nouns (“Send me the download”).Verbs and prepositions are regularly thrown together to become new nouns or adjectives(for example, dial-up, logon, print-out, pull-down, upload), while others are created from a simple pairing of nouns: cyberspace, ethernet, Internet, hyperlink, metatag and netspeak. We can infer from the first paragraph that _____ .
| A．English has completely become Weblish |
| B．some people wish Shakespeare were still alive |
| C．people may have different attitudes towards Weblish |
| D．people who know English have to learn a new language |
What is the main idea of the second paragraph?
| A．Now English has many new words. |
| B．English words have changed a lot. |
| C．Old English words are no longer used at all. |
| D．People have difficulty in understanding some new words related to computers and the Internet. |
The best title for this passage would be “_____”.
| A．Technology and English |
| B．Keep Up with the Latest Weblish |
| C．Don’t Forget English |
| D．The Advantage and Disadvantages of Weblish |
SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEKEND
Captain Goodfellow
Do your children enjoy interesting stories, funny games, and exciting dances? Captain Goodfellow will be ready to teach all these things to children of all ages at the City Theatre on Saturday morning at 10:00, free.
Walking Tour of the Town
Forget your worries on Saturday morning. Take a beautiful walk and learn about its history. Meet at the front entrance of City Hall at 9:30. Wear comfortable shoes!
Films at the Museum
Two European films will be shown Saturday afternoon at the Museum Theatre. See Broken Window at 1:30. The workers will be at 3:45. For further information, call 4987898.
International Picnic
Are you tired of eating the same food every day? Come to Central Park on Saturday and enjoy food from all over the world. Delicious and not expensive. Noon to 5:00 pm.
Do You Want to Hear “The Zoo”
“The Zoo”, a popular rock group from Australia, will give their first US concert tomorrow night at 8:00 at Rose Hall, City College. You can probably eat Chinese, Italian, and Arab food __________.
| A．at the front entrance of City Hall |
| B．at the game |
| C．at 5:00 pm |
| D．at Central Park on Saturday |
You can see movies at __________.
| A．the City College | B．the Museum Theatre |
| C．the City Theatre | D．the Central Park |
Walking Tour of the Town will be taken __________.
| A．outside | B．in the City Hall |
| C．at the gate | D．at the zoo |
“The Zoo” is __________.
| A．a park with lots of animals there |
| B．a US concert |
| C．a music group |
| D．an interesting event |
Once again, I was in a new school. So was a girl in my class named Lisa. That’s where the similarities ended.
I was tall and she was small. My thick black hair had been recently cut short into an untidy style. Her natural blonde hair flowed to her waist and looked great. I was 12 and one of the oldest in the class while she was 11 and the youngest. I was awkward and shy. She wasn’t. I couldn’t stand her, considering her my enemy. But she liked me and wanted to be friends.
One day, she invited me over and I said yes—I was too shocked to answer any other way. My family had moved six times in six years, and I had never managed to develop any friendships. But this girl who wore the latest fashions wanted me to go home with her after school.
She lived in a fun part of town that had two pizza places, an all-right bookstore, a movie theater and a park. As we walked from the school bus stop through her neighborhood, I tried to guess which house might be hers. Was it the white one with the perfect lawn or the three –story house with a front porch? I got very surprised when she led me into an old apartment building. She lived on the fourth floor in a two-room place with her mother, her stepfather, her two brothers and her sister.
When we got into the room she shared with her sister, she took out a big case of Barbies, which was my next surprise. I had never played with them. We sat on the floor, laughing as we made up crazy stories about the Barbies. We found out that we both wanted to be writers when we were older and both had wild imaginations. We had a great day that afternoon .
Lisa was loved by the whole neighborhood. The bookstore owners lent her fashion magazines; the movie theater gave her free tickets…. Soon I was included in her magic world. We slept over at each other’s houses and spent every free moment together.
Lisa, my first real friend since childhood, helped me get through the rough years of early adolescence and taught me an amazing and very surprising thing about making friends: your worst enemy can turn out to be your best friend.The writer and Lisa were similar in the way that .
| A．they were both new students |
| B．they had the same hair styles |
| C．they were both tall |
| D．they were of the same age |
One day Lisa invited the writer .
| A．to go to the movie |
| B．to go to walk in a park |
| C．to go to her home |
| D．to go to a pizza place |
In the passage the writer described Lisa as a girl who was .
| A．friendly and lovely | B．rich and happy |
| C．quiet and lonely | D．awkward and shy |
Which of the following did the writer learn from Lisa?
| A．How to make up stories. | B．How to deal with enemies. |
| C．How to live a better life. | D．How to make friends. |
A young father was visiting an old neighbor. They were standing in the old man's garden，and talking about children. The young man said，“How strict should parents be with their children？”
The old man pointed to a string（绳子）between a big strong tree and a thin young one．“Please untie（解开）that string，” he said．The young man untied it，and the young tree bent（弯）over to one side． “Now tie it again，please，” said the old man，“but first pull the string tight so that the young tree is straight again．”
The young man did so．Then the old man said，“There，it is the same with children．You must be strict with them，but sometimes you must untie the string to know how they are getting on． If they are not yet able to stand alone，you must tie the string tight again．But when you find that they are ready to stand alone，you can take the string away．”The story is about ______.
| A．how to take care of young trees |
| B． how strict parents should be with their children |
| C．how the young father should get on with his old neighbor |
| D． how to tie and untie the string |
The young man untied the string ______.
| A．in order to throw it away |
| B． so that both of the trees would grow straight |
| C．only to find that the thinner one bent over to one side |
| D． in order to let the old man teach him |
When can the string be taken away？______.
| A．When the old man has left |
| B．After you have untied it |
| C．When the young man has untied it next time |
| D．When the young tree grows strong enough |
In the story the relation（关系）of the big strong tree to the thin one is like that of ______.
| A．the young father to the old neighbor |
| B．parents to their children |
| C．the old neighbor to the children of the young father |
| D．grown ups to their parents |
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