Can you remember the day when you spoke your first words? If you can, you are unusual. Try to think what the first months of your life were like, I’m sure you just spent most of your time eating, sleeping and crying. As you grew older, you were awake more of the time. It took your parents more to play with you and talk to you. You watched and listened. You began to know that people make some sounds to go with some things.
Then you began to cry to make sounds you heard. And step by step you were able to make the right sound for one thing.
On that day you came to understand the secret of the language. The secret is that a certain sound means a certain thing. One sound might be as good as another. But it is not as good as a word unless everyone agrees on its meaning. Only when a group of people use the same set of sounds of things, they can understand each other, so these people have a language.
After you found the secret of language, you learned words. Some of the words meant things, such as books, chairs and shops. Some of the words meant actions such as go and swim. And other words describe things such as good or dirty. Soon you learn to put words together to express one’s idea, such as “I want to go out and play with my friends.” This is language. By the way of language people can communicate. So we say languages mean communication. __________ can remember the day when we spoke our first words.
| A．Few of us | B．No one | C．Most people | D．Someone |
When you were a little baby, you ___________.
| A．made sounds to let people know that you wanted to eat |
| B．could not hear any sounds around you |
| C．spent most of your time eating, playing and sleeping |
| D．spent most of your time playing with your parents |
The secret of language is that ___________.
| A．one sound might be as good as another |
| B．a certain sound is for a certain thing |
| C．people can understand each other |
| D．there is a special sound for each other |
The use of language is ___________.
| A．to get everything one wants from another |
| B．to say what one wants to know |
| C．to make oneself understood by others |
| D．to share ideas, opinions, news, etc. with one another |
William Shakespeare was a writer of plays and poems. Some of his most famous plays are Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth. He wrote thirty-seven plays in all. They are still popular today.
He was born in England. At school he liked watching plays. He decided to be an actor when he finished school at the age of fourteen. In 1582,he married a farmer’s daughter. She was eight years older than he was. Their first child was a daughter. Later they had twins. In 1585, Shakespeare left his hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon. His wife and children stayed behind. No one knows why he left or what he did between 1585 and 1592.
At twenty-eight, he moved to London and joined a theatre company which opened the Globe Theatre in 1599.He became an actor, and he also wrote plays. He usually acted in his own plays. He made almost no money from his writing. But he made a lot of money from acting. With the money he bought a large house in his hometown.
At the age of forty-nine, Shakespeare retired（退休）and went to live in Stratford-upon-Avon. He died at the age of fifty-two in 1616. He left his money to his family. He left the genius（天才）to the world. You still see his plays in English and in many other languages. He is one of the most famous writers in the world.
Shakespeare wrote many famous plays except .
| A．Hamlet |
| B．Macbeth |
| C．Romeo and Juliet |
| D．Man and Superman |
Shakespeare decided to be an actor in .
| A．1578 | B．1582 | C．1599 | D．1616 |
In 1585,Shakespeare left his hometown Stratford-upon-Avon .
| A．with his wife |
| B．with his daughter |
| C．with his wife and children |
| D．Alone |
任务型阅读，阅读下面的短文，然后根据所读内容，在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。
If you think you are too shy and want to be a little bit braver, just try the following things.
Be open to others. Tell people you are shy. There is no need to hide it. When they get to know you are a shy kid, they will understand you better. This also helps you feel more comfortable in talks.
Try to smile more. When you smile, people think you are friendly and easy to talk with. Remember that other people have feelings, too; and most people don’t like the one with an angry-looking face.
Learn to be a good talker. If you find it hard to start a conversation, say something nice about people around you. Think about how great you feel when someone says something nice to you. Doesn’t it make you want to keep talking to that person?
Get your attention elsewhere. Think more about ways to enjoy parties or games. Don’t waste time worrying about your look or whether people like you or not. You will become relaxed and find it’s not so hard to talk with others.
Take one small step at a time. Each time when you say “Hi!” or smile at someone, say to yourself “ I can make it.” Keep trying and one day you’ll be braver when you talk to others.
Title: Advice on __________ to be a little braver
| Advice |
Reasons |
| Don’t |
If you tell people you are shy, they will understand you better. |
| Smile more. |
People will stay |
| Start a conversation with nice |
People will feel great and want to talk to you. |
| Pay more attention to ways to enjoy parties or games. |
You will become relaxed. |
| Encourage yourself to say “Hi!” or smile at someone. |
Keep doing this and you’ll never talk |
In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible(负责任) for social progress. Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.
I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth depended on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs(事件). The development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.
However, while some seem to be lost in the desire(渴望)to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the common players, they are strongly against competition. Most of them are young people who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these youngsters, I often observe(观察) in them a desire to fail. They seem to find failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: " I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try." What is not usually accepted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure(估量) of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one's self-worth depends on how well one performs in the competition. Both are afraid of not being valued. We can discover a new meaning in competition only as this kind of fear begins to disappear.What does this passage mainly talk about?
| A．Competition helps to set up self-respect. |
| B．Opinions about competition are different among people. |
| C．Competition is harmful to personal quality development. |
| D．Failures are necessary experience in competition. |
Why do some people favor(赞同) competition according to the passage?
| A．It pushes society forward. |
| B．It builds up a sense of duty. |
| C．It improves personal abilities. |
| D．It encourages efforts. |
What is the similar belief of the true competitors and those with a desire to fail?
| A．One's worth lies in his performance in the competition. |
| B．One's success in competition needs great efforts. |
| C．One's achievement is decided by his special skills. |
| D．One's success is based on how hard he has tried. |
Which point of view may the author agree to?
| A．Every effort should be paid back. |
| B．Competition should be encouraged. |
| C．Winning should be a life-and-death matter. |
| D．Fear of failure should be removed in competition. |
This was the first real task I received in my new school. It seemed simple: go on the Internet and find information about a man named George Washington. As I searched the name, I found that there were two famous people having the same name who looked completely different! One invented hundreds of uses for peanuts(花生), while the other led some kind of army across America. I looked at the screen, wondering which one my teacher meant. I called my grandfather for a golden piece of advice: let the coin decide. I flipped(掷) a coin and ah! Tails (背面)! My report would be about the great man who invented peanut butter, George Washington Carver.
Weeks later, I stood in front of the classroom and proudly read my homework. But things started to get strange. I looked around the room, only to find my classmates with big smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes and my stone-faced teacher. I was completely lost. “What could be causing everyone to act this way?”
Oh well, I dropped the paper and sat down at my desk, burning to find out what I had done wrong. As a classmate began his report, it all became clear, “My report is on George Washington, the man who started the American War of Independence.” The whole world became quiet! How could I know that my teacher meant that George Washington?
Of course, my subject result was awful. Sad but fearless, I decided to turn this around. I talked to the headmaster Miss Lancelot, but she said firmly: No re-dos; no new score. I felt that it was not fair, and I believed I should get a second chance. So I threw myself heartily into my work for the rest of the school year. Ten months later, I sat in the headmaster’s office again, but this time a completely different conversation. I smiled and flashed back to the terrible moment at the beginning of the year as the headmaster told me I was good enough to skip(跳过) the 6th grade and started the 7th grade next term.________ helped me decide what my report would be about.
| A．The Internet | B．My classmates |
| C．My grandpa | D．A coin |
People in the class acted strangely because ________.
| A．I was too proud of my homework |
| B．I mistook what the homework was about |
| C．the whole world suddenly became quiet |
| D．the teacher’s face turned to a stone |
We can infer(推断) from the passage that ________.
| A．the headmaster didn’t like the writer at all |
| B．the writer’s classmates felt sad at his mistake |
| C．the writer knew little about American history |
| D．the writer’s grandpa was a very wise man |
One of sweetest memories as a child is of going down to the river and sitting comfortably on the bank. There I would enjoy the peace and quiet, watch the water rush downstream and listen to songs of birds. I would also watch the bamboo trees bend under the pressure from the wind and watch them return gracefully to their original state after the wind had died down.
When I think about the bamboo tree’s ability to bend and move back, the word “resilience” comes to my mind. When it is used for a person, this word means the ability to readily recover(恢复) from shock, sadness or any other suffering. Have you ever felt like you were going to snap? Have you ever felt like you were at your breaking point? Thankfully, you have survived to talk about it.
Life is a mixture(混合) of good times and bad times, happy moments and unhappy moments. The next time you are experiencing one of those bad times or unhappy moments that take you close to your breaking point, bend, but don’t break. Try your best not to let the situation get the best of you.
An amount of hope will take you through the unpleasant suffering. With hope for a better tomorrow or a better situation, things may not be as bad as they seem. The unpleasant suffering may be easier to deal with if the end result is worth having.
If things get tough and you are at your breaking point, show resilience. Like the bamboo trees, bend, but don’t break!What does the word “snap” in the second paragraph most probably mean?
| A．break | B．change | C．win | D．complain |
What can help people get through sufferings according to the writer?
| A．Holding peace and quiet in mind. |
| B．Waiting until sufferings disappear. |
| C．Experiencing more bad times. |
| D．Hoping for a better tomorrow. |
What would be the best title of this passage?
| A．Memories of Bamboo | B．Be Like Bamboo |
| C．Enjoying Bamboo | D．Characteristics of Bamboo |
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