The Grand Canyon（科罗拉多大峡谷） is a large river canyon in Arizona． It is over220 miles long and over a mile deep in some places． Its widest point is 18 miles wide． The canyon is considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World．
Over millions of years， the Colorado River wore away rocks as it passed through the area．Slowly， the river made the path deeper and deeper． Now， the canyon is surrounded by steep walls on either side， while the river continues to flow at the bottom of the canyon．
Besides its large size，the Grand Canyon is also known for its magnificent colors．The canyon is made of layers of rock（岩层）， and each layer of rock has a different depth and color．Geologists have identified almost 40 different layers of rock exposed by the rivers erosion．
The climate in canyon area is primarily desert， with both high and low temperatures． The upper rims of the canyon often receive snowfall．The air quality is usually very high，although dust storms and smoke from fires can change the air．
The Grand Canyon is home to a variety of plants and animals． Plants range from various species of cactus pine forests． Many types of animals live in the area，including the bald eagle，bobcats，bats and gila monsters．Six different kinds of rattlesnakes have been found in the area．
Today， the canyon is part of the Grand Canyon National Park． About five million tourists visit the park each year．
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One day, I happened to meet an Englishman in the street and soon we began to talk. As I was talking about how I was studying English, the foreigner seemed to be very surprised, gently shaking his head and saying, “You don’t say! You don’t say!” I was puzzled, and I thought, “Perhaps this is not a right thing to talk about.” So I said to him, “Well, shall we talk about the Great Wall? Have you ever been there?”
“Certainly, everyone back home will laugh at me if I leave here without seeing it. The Great Wall is wonderful!” “Yes, it is one of the wonders in the world. And people of many countries have come to visit it.” As I went on telling him more about it, he stopped me again, “You don’t say!”
I couldn’t help asking, “Why do you ask me not to talk about it?”
The foreigner said, “I don’t say that. Why do you think so?”
“Didn’t you say ‘you don’t say!’?” I asked again.
Hearing this, the foreigner laughed loudly. He began to explain, “’You don’t say!’ means ‘Really?’ Perhaps you know little about English idioms.”
Wow! How foolish I was! Since then I have been careful with English idioms. The writer began to talk about the Great Wall because ______.
A. the Englishman told him to do so
B. he tried to find a new and right topic
C. he couldn’t talk about his study any moreWhen the writer asked, “Why do you ask me not to talk about it?”,
the Englishman felt ______.
A. angry B. interested C. surprisedHere “You don’t say!” means ______.
A. “Stop talking!”
B. “really?”
C. “Look out.”The story may happen in ______.
A. China B. England C. AustraliaThis is a story about ______.
A. nice trips
B. good manners
C. English idioms
Not long ago, people thought babies were not able to learn things until they were five or six months old. Yet doctors in the United States say babies begin learning on their first day of life.
Scientists note that babies are strongly influenced by their environment. They say a baby will smile if her mother does something the baby likes. A baby learns to get the best care possible by smiling to please her mother or other caregivers. This is how babies learn to connect and communicate with other human beings.
One study shows that babies can learn before they are born. The researchers placed a tape recorder on the stomach of a pregnant woman. Then, they played a recording of a short story. On the day the baby was born, the researchers attempted to find if he knew the sounds of the story repeated while in his mother. They did this by placing a device in the mouth of the newborn baby.
The baby would hear the story if he moved his mouth one way. If the baby moved his mouth the other way, he would hear a different story. The researchers say the baby clearly liked the story he heard before he was born. They say the baby would move his mouth so he could hear the story again and again.
Another study shows how mothers can strongly influence social development and language skills in their children.
Researchers studied the children from the age of one month to three years. The researchers attempted to measure the sensitivity of the mothers. The women were considered sensitive if they supported their children’s activities and did not interfere (干涉) unnecessarily. They tested the children for thinking and language development when they were three years old. Also, the researchers observed the women for signs of depression (消沉).
The children of depressed women did not do as well in tests as the children of women who did not suffer from depression. The children of depressed women did poorly in tests of language skills and understanding what they hear.
These children also were less cooperative and had more problems dealing with other people. The researchers noted that the sensitivity of the mothers was important to the intelligence development of their children. Children did better when their mothers were caring, even when they suffered from depression.
| A．The environment. | B．Mother’s sensitivity. |
| C．Education before birth. | D．Their peers (同龄人) |
| A．To prove that babies can learn on the first day they are born. |
| B．To prove that babies can learn before they are born. |
| C．To show mothers can strongly influence intelligence development in their babies. |
| D．To indicate early education has a deep effect on the babies’ language skills. |
| A．The children of women who did not suffer from depression. |
| B．The children of depressed but caring mothers. |
| C．The children of depressed mothers who cared little for their children. |
| D．The children with high communication abilities. |
| A．Scientific findings about how intelligence develops in babies. |
| B．Scientific findings about how the environment has an effect on babies’ intelligence. |
| C．A study shows babies are not able to learn things until they are five or six months old. |
| D．Scientific findings about how babies develop before birth. |
A turkey named Courage gave thanks to President Obama for saving his life on the day before Thanksgiving. Honouring a 62-year-old tradition, the President pardoned(赦免)the bird on Thanksgiving eve.
The tradition of a turkey pardon at Thanksgiving began with President Truman in 1947. Courage comes from Ellsworth, Iowa. The name Courage was chosen by voters (投票人)who took part in a survey posted on the White House website. The lucky turkey walked on the lawn of the Rose Garden and posed for the cameras at the presidential podium(讲台).
The dinner that has become known as the First Thanksgiving was actually a harvest festival celebrated in December of 1621. That’s when English settlers in Plymouth, Massachusetts, gave thanks for the progress they had made after a hard winter in their new country. As America grew, Thanksgiving customs also spread and got bigger. George Washington declared that the first national Thanksgiving would be on November 26, 1789. In the decades to follow, however, people celebrated Thanksgiving locally, with no official date. President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November 1863 a national day of Thanksgiving. It stayed that way until 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved it one week earlier. He wanted to lengthen the shopping period before Christmas to encourage gift-buyers and to help businesses. So Congress（议会） ruled that, after 1941, Thanksgiving would be an official federal holiday falling on the fourth Thursday of November.
This year we celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday, November. Millions of Americans got together to give thanks with friends and family. The lucky turkey, Courage, was one of them. After his pardon, Courage would be sent to Disneyland Resort in California, where he would be the grand assemble of Disney’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
| A．George Bush | B．Congress |
| C．President Truman | D．the public |
| A．celebrate the harvest of British settlers |
| B．celebrate the progress of Americans |
| C．encourage the struggle with British settlers |
| D．celebrate the joy of all Americans after a hard winter |
| A．President Obama pardoned a turkey before Thanksgiving because of the economic crisis |
| B．the turkey named Courage was pardoned by President Roosevelt before Thanksgiving |
| C．the pardoned turkey walked on the lawn of the Rose Garden on Thanksgiving eve |
| D．the pardoned turkey will appear in a celebrating parade of Thanksgiving Day |
It was New Year’s Night. An aged man was standing at a window. He raised his mournful eyes towards the deep blue sky, where the stars were floating like white lilies on the surface of a clear calm lake.
He had already passed sixty and brought from his journey nothing but errors and regrets. Now his health was poor, his mind vacant and his heart sorrowful.
The days of his youth appeared like dreams before him, and he recalled the serious moment when his father placed him at the entrance of the two roads- one leading to a peaceful, sunny place, covered with flowers, fruits and filled with soft, sweet songs; the other leading to a deep, dark cave, which was endless, where poison flowed instead of water and devils and poisonous snake hissed ( 发嘶嘶声) and crawled (爬, 爬行).
He saw the lights flowing away in the darkness. These were the days of his wasted life; he saw a star fall from the sky and disappeared, and this was the symbol of himself. His regret like a sharp arrow struck deeply into his heart. Then he remembered his friends in his childhood. But they had made their way to success and were now honoured and happy on this night.
The high church clock struck and the sound made him remember his parents’ early love for him. They had taught him and prayed for his good. But he chose the wrong way. With shame and grief he dared no longer look towards that heaven. His darkened eyes were full of tears, and with a despairing effort, he burst out a cry: “Come back, my early days!”
His youth did return, for all this was only a dream which he had on New Year Night. He was still young though his faults were real; he had not yet entered the deep, dark cave, and he was still free to walk on the road which leads to the peaceful and sunny land.
Those who still wander on the entrance of life, hesitating to choose the bright road, remember that when years are passed and your feet stumble (绊脚) on the dark mountains, you will cry bitterly, but in vain（徒劳）: “ Oh youth, return! Oh give me back my early days!”
| A．He wants to tell people it’s time to recall the past |
| B．He suggests the aged man will have a bright future |
| C．He attempts to stress（强调）the man’s sad feeling |
| D．He expects people to share the man’s sad feeling |
| A．sorrowful, fearful and regretful |
| B．hopeful, sorrowful and peaceful |
| C．regretful, painful and disappointed |
| D．disappointed, regretful and hopeful |
| A．encourage young people to take the right road |
| B．help the old man to pick up his confidence |
| C．describe the old man’s unsuccessful experience |
| D．show his sympathy for the old man |
Although people everywhere seem to enjoy drinking coffee, they don’t all have the same coffee culture. In Europe for example, coffee shops are common places for people to meet friends and to talk while they drink coffee. On the other hand, places like this were not as common in North America in the past. Instead, people in North America liked to drink coffee in their homes with friends. The coffee culture in the USA changed when Starbucks coffee shops spread across the country.
The first Starbucks coffee shop opened in 1971 in downtown Seattle, Washington, in the USA. It was a small coffee shop that cooked its own coffee beans. The coffee shop’s business did well, and by 1981 there were three Starbucks stores in Seattle.
Things really began to change for the company in 1981.That year, Howard Schultz met the three men who ran Starbucks. Schultz worked in New York for a company that made kitchen equipment. He noticed that Starbucks ordered a large number of special coffee makers, which caused his great interest. Schultz went to Seattle to see what Starbucks did. In 1982, the original Starbucks owners hired Schultz as the company’s head of marketing（市场营销）.
In 1983, Schultz traveled to Italy. The special environment of the espresso (浓咖啡) bars there caught his eyes. Back in the USA, Schultz created an environment for Starbucks coffee shops that was comfortable and casual, and customers everywhere seemed to like it. Starbucks began opening more stores across the USA. Then the company opened coffee shops in other countries as well. Today, there are more than 16,000 Starbucks coffee shops all over the world.
However, that does not mean Starbucks has not had problems. In fact, many Starbucks stores have closed over the past few years. On the one hand, this is because there were too many coffee shops competing for business in one small area. On the other hand, stores in some countries closed because the coffee culture there did not match with the “feel the same everywhere” environment offered by Starbucks.
| A．moved | B．managed |
| C．loved | D．used |
a. This man helped to make Starbucks a huge coffee company.
b. He went to Seattle to learn about the company and later worked for it.
c. Howard Schultz noticed Starbucks ordered lots of special coffee makers.
d. Starbucks began as a small coffee company in Seattle in the USA.
A. a-d-c -b B. a-d-b-c
C. d-c- b-a D. d-c-a-b
| A．All of the coffee tastes the same. |
| B．The coffee in these places was too expensive. |
| C．The people in these countries didn’t drink coffee. |
| D．There were too many coffee shops in one place. |
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