Language experts say that spoken English was almost the same in the American colonies and Britain two hundred years ago.Americans began to change the sound of their speech after the Revolutionary War in seventeenseventysix. They wanted to make it different to separate themselves from the British in language，in the same way they separated themselves from the British government.
Some American leaders proposed major changes in the language.Benjamin Franklin wanted a whole new system of spelling.His reforms were not accepted. But his ideas did influence others.One was Noah Webster.
Webster wrote language books for schools.He believed the United States should have a system of its own language as well as government.Webster published a dictionary of the American language in eighteentwentyeight. It established rules for speaking and spelling the words used in American English.
Webster wrote that all words should be said in the order of the letters that spell them.This is why Americans use the letters“e-r”to end many words instead of the British“r-e.”He spelled the word“center，”for example，“c-e-n-t-e-r，”instead of the British“c-e-n-t-r-e.”
Webster’s rule for saying every part of a word made American English easier for foreign settlers to learn.They learned to say“waistcoat，”for example，the way it is spelled instead of the British“weskit.”
The different languages of many people who came to the United States also helped make American and British English different.Many of their foreign words and expressions became part of English as Americans speak them.
Sometimes Americans and British people do not understand each other because of different word meanings. For example，the word“jumper”in Britain means a sweater.In the United States，it is a dress.The British word“brolly” is an“umbrella”in America.And the British call potato chips“crisps”．All of these differences led British writer George Bernard Shaw to joke that Britain and America are two countries separated by the same language!What does the underlined word“it”in the first paragraph refer to?
| A．Separating themselves from the British in language. |
| B．Written English in America. |
| C．Spoken English in America. |
| D．Spoken English in Britain. |
Why did American want their language to differ from British English?
| A．Because they found British English hard to speak. |
| B．Because they found British English hard to spell. |
| C．Because they wanted to have their own language and government. |
| D．Because foreign settlers wanted them to change their language. |
Why do Americans use the word“meter”instead of the word“metre”？
| A．Because Benjamin Franklin didn’t like the word“metre”． |
| B．Because the word“meter”was absorbed from other languages. |
| C．Because Webster thought the word should be said in order of the letters that are spelt. |
| D．Because Webster thought American English should be made easier for foreign settlers to learn. |
Which of the following is NOT one of the reasons why English began to change in America?
| A．The government leaders. |
| B．Noah Webster. |
| C．Immigration to America. |
| D．The difficulty Americans had in understanding the British. |
What does the passage mainly talk about?
| A．Noah Webster’s simplifying the spelling of English words. |
| B．Differences and similarities between British and American English. |
| C．The reasons why American English was formed and its development. |
| D．Varieties of English throughout the world. |
It took place at the Biltmore Hotel, which, to my eight-year-old mind, was just about the fancies place to eat．My , my mother, and I were having lunch after a morning spent shopping．I ordered a Salisbury steak．When brought to the table, it was by a plate of peas．I do not like peas now．I did not like peas then．I have always hated peas．And I was not about to eat them now．"Eat your peas," my grandmother said．
"Mother," said my mother in her voice．"He doesn't like peas．Leave him alone."
My grandmother did not reply．She in my direction, looked at me in the eye, and said the words that changed my life: "I'll pay you five dollars if you eat those peas."
I had absolutely no idea of the coming ． I only knew that five dollars was an enormous, nearly amount of money, and as awful as peas were, only one plate of them stood between me and the of that five dollars．I began to force the terrible things down my ．
My mother was very angry．My grandmother had that look of someone who has thrown down an unbeatable trump card（王牌）．"I can do what I want, Ellen, and you can't stop me." My mother glared at her mother．She glared at me.
I, of course, kept shoving peas down my throat．The made me nervous, and every single pea made me want to throw up, but the magical image of that five dollars before me, and I finally swallowed down every last one of them．My grandmother handed me the five dollars in a（n） way．My mother continued to glare in silence．And the ended．Or so I thought．
My grandmother left for Aunt Lillian's a few weeks later．That night, at dinner, my mother served my favorite foods．Along with them came a big, steaming bowl of peas．She offered me some peas, and I certainly 16 ．My mother fixed me with a cold 17 as she put a huge pile of peas onto my plate．Then came the words that were to 18 me for years．
"You ate them for ," she said．"You can eat them for love."
What possible argument could I gather against that? There was none．I ate them that day and every other time they were thereafter．
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If your preschoolers turn up their noses at carrots or celery, a small reward like a sticker(贴画) for taking even a taste may help get them to eat previously disliked foods, a UK study said.
Though it might seem obvious that a reward could encourage young children to eat their vegetables, the idea is actually controversial, researchers wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. That’s because some studies have shown that rewards can backfire and cause children to lose interest in foods they already liked, said Jane Wardle, a researcher at University College London who worked on the study. Verbal praise, such as “Brilliant! You’re a great vegetable taster”, did not work as well.
The study found that when parents gave their small children a sticker each time they took a “tiny taste” of a disliked vegetable, it gradually changed their attitudes. The children were also willing to eat more of the vegetables—either carrots, celery, cucumber, red pepper, cabbage or sugar snap peas—in laboratory taste tests, the study said.
Researchers randomly assigned (分派) 173 families to one of these groups. In one, parents used stickers to reward their children each time they took a tiny sample of a disliked vegetable. A second group of parents used verbal praise. The third group, where Parents used no special vegetable-promoting methods, served as a “control”.
Parents in the reward groups offered their children a taste of the “target” vegetable every day for 12 days. Soon after, children in the sticker group were giving higher ratings to the vegetables—and were willing to eat more in the research lab, going from an average of 5 grams at the start to about 10 grams after the 12-day experience. The turnaround(转机) also seemed to last, with preschoolers in the sticker group still willing to eat more of the once-disliked vegetable three months later.
Why didn’t the verbal praise work? Wardle said the parents’ words may have seemed “insincere” to their children.The purpose of writing the passage is _______ .
| A．to explain why children hate to eat vegetables |
| B．to present a proper way of verbal praise to parents |
| C．to show the procedure of an experiment on children’s diet |
| D．to introduce a practical method of making children eat vegetables |
The underlined word “backfire” in Paragraph 2 probably means “_______”.
| A．produce an unexpected result |
| B．shoot from behind the back |
| C．make a fire in the backyard |
| D．achieve what was planned |
Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
| A．Most children are born to dislike carrots or celery. |
| B．Oral praise works quite well in encouraging children to eat vegetables. |
| C．Children in the sticker group will never lose interest in eating vegetables. |
| D．It remains a question whether rewarding is a good way to get children to eat vegetables. |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．Children are difficult to inspire. |
| B．Parents should give up verbal praise. |
| C．Parents should praise their children in a sincere tone. |
| D．Children like rewards, not verbal praise. |
Online Money Earning
Yes you can earn money online without any investment or without anytime limit. I have many useful easy methods for earning easy money while we all spend our useful time on the Internet by surfing, chatting, downloading and other work. There is no need to stop any other work. We can earn with or without our daily routine. Here I tell you the complete method for online earning.
First Method
Earn money with “Bux. to”. You can earn money through “Bux.to” by clicking on ads on “Bux. to” site. First you need to open an account at “Bux. to”.
“Bux. To” is a new international and FREE English based service that allows advertisers to reach thousands of potential customers by displaying their ads on our “Surf Ads” page. An exact calculated percentage of all advertising income is paid to our members. “Bux. to” makes money through advertising.
How you make money
You view websites in 30 seconds through the “Surf Ads” page. Once the 30 seconds is up, you’ll either get a green tick sign or a red “x”. The green tick sign means you’ve earned $0.01and the “x” means you have not earned money for the visit. You’ll get red x’s when you have more than one websites from the “Surf Ads” page open. When this happens, you get no credit.
Earnings example
You click 10 ads per day =$0.10
20 referrals(转送) click 10 ads per day =$2.00
Your daily earnings =$2.10
Your weekly earnings =$14.70
Your monthly earnings =$63.00
How to get paid
If you have at least $10.00 accumulated, you can click on your account balance within your states area and it will meet your request. At present, it only makes payments through “AlertPay”. It will soon be using other methods of payment.
AlertPay is the payment processing solution that we use to pay members. Your AlertPay address is the e-mail address you use to register with AlertPay. You can get a free AlertPay account at http:// alertpay. com.
Method 2 will publish soon…What is the author’s purpose of writing this passage?
| A．To tell an interesting story. |
| B．To solve a puzzling problem. |
| C．To present an exciting research. |
| D．To introduce a surprising way to earn money. |
You can earn money by ________.
| A．chatting online | B．advertising some products |
| C．clicking on advertisements | D．choosing green ticks or x’s |
What can we know from the passage?
A. You’ll earn $0.10 if you click 1 ad.
B. You can get your payments through AlertPay.
C. Your AlertPay account is not for free.
B. You’ll get many green ticks if you have many websites open.
The extraordinary Eastgate Building in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city, is said to be the only one in the world to use the same cooling and heating principles as the termite mound(白蚁堆).
Architect Mick Pearce used precisely the same strategy when designing the Eastgate Building, which has no air-conditioning and almost no heating. The building—the country’s largest commercial and shopping complex—uses less than 10% of the energy of a conventional building of its size. The Eastgate’s owners saved $3.5 million on a $36 million building because an air-conditioning equipment didn’t have to be imported.
The complex is actually two buildings linked by bridges across a shady, glass-roofed atrium(天井) open to the air. Fans suck fresh air in from the atrium, blow it upstairs through hollow spaces under the floors and from there into each office through baseboard vents(通风口). As it rises and warms, it is drawn out via ceiling vents and finally exists through forty-eight brick chimneys.
During summer’s cool nights, big fans blow air through the building seven times an hour to cool the empty floors. By day, smaller fans blow two changes of air an hour through the building, to circulate the air which has been in contact with the cool floors. For winter days, there are small heaters in the vents.
This is all possible only because Harare is 1600 feet above sea level, has cloudless skies, little dampness and rapid temperature changes—days as warm as 31℃commonly drop to 14℃at night. “You couldn’t do this in New York, with its hot summers and cold winters,” Pearce said.
The engineering firm of Ove Arup&Partners monitors daily temperatures. It is found that the temperature of the building has generally stayed between 23℃and 25℃, with the exception of the annual hot period just before the summer rains in October and three days in November, when a doorkeeper accidentally switched off the fans at night. And the air is fresh—far more so than in air-conditioned buildings, where up to 30% of the air is recycled.Why was Eastgate cheaper to be built than a conventional building?
| A．No air conditioners were fixed in. |
| B．It was designed in a smaller size. |
| C．Its heating system was less advanced. |
| D．It used rather different building materials. |
What does “it” refer to in Paragraph 3?
| A．Baseboard vent. | B．Heat in the building. |
| C．Hollow space. | D．Fresh air from outside. |
Why would a building like Eastgate Not work efficiently in New York?
| A．Its temperature changes seasonally rather than daily. |
| B．New York has less clear skies as Harare. |
| C．Its dampness affects the circulation of air. |
| D．New York covers a larger area than Harare. |
The data in the last paragraph suggests Eastgate’s temperature control system_____.
| A．allows a wide range of temperatures |
| B．can recycle up to 30% of the air |
| C．functions well for most of the year |
| D．works better in hot seasons |
My passion started decades ago as a kid on a flight to India. I was attracted by how such a large airplane was able to glide(滑翔）smoothly above the clouds. I made it a goal to become a pilot. I am now a pilot for American airlines. Though being a pilot consumes my life，it is a job worth doing.
My job is slightly different compared to that of a typical pilot. Most pilots have their routes they fly. They then familiarize（使…熟悉）themselves with the routes. However, in my case，I participate in any job where a pilot is immediately required. It is true that some days I might have a workday from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon. In fact，some days，I might even begin my work at three in the morning when I am needed to fly. Sometimes, as for the typical day，I do not have one.
Having been on the job for over two decades，I have learned some important life lessons. As I greet passengers boarding the airplane，I realize I，along with other airline pilots, have enhanced(提高)the lives of those who we are serving. In fact, there is one particular experience that I will never forget. A family was walking in from the gate, explaining that their beloved one was ill and had to be taken to a big hospital in another city immediately. It was at this point that I realized just how important my job was.
Therefore, my life as an airline pilot is definitely not for everyone. However，my job is something I enjoy thoroughly and will continue to do till I am old enough. As a pilot, I have been able to experience so many different types of situations in different places throughout the world. For anyone interested in piloting, I would recommend going for it.The author dreamed of being a pilot when _______.
| A．he was travelling in India |
| B．it was about 30 years ago. |
| C．he was flying to India as a kid |
| D．he was a kid living in India |
What is the main difference between the author’s job and a typical pilot’s?
| A．The author’s working time is not regular. |
| B．The author has his regular route he flies. |
| C．The author has to get up very early every day. |
| D．The daily working time of the author is longer. |
The author realized how important his job was because he _______.
| A．could serve everyone as he does his daily work |
| B．could make his guests’ life more convenient |
| C．could take the ill patient to hospital in short time |
| D．had been to many advanced countries in the world |
What would be the best title for this passage?
| A．My pleasure in serving people |
| B．Difference in my job as a pilot |
| C．My interest in being a pilot as a boy |
| D．My job as an American airline’s pilot |
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