My Favourite Books
Jo Usmar is a writer for Cosmopolitan and co-author of the This Book Will series（系列）of lifestyle books. Here she picks her top reads.
Matilda
Roald Dahl
I once wrote a paper on the influence of fairy tales on Roald Dahl's writing and it gave me a new appreciation for his strange and delightful words. Matilda's battles with her cruel parents and the bossy headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, are equally funny and frightening, but they're also aspirational.
After Dark
Haruki Murakami
It's about two sisters-Eri, a model who either won't or can't stop sleeping, and Mari, a young student. In trying to connect to her sister. Mari starts changing her life and discovers a world of diverse "night people" who are hiding secrets.
Gone Girl
Gillian Fynn
There was a bit of me that didn't want to love this when everyone else on the planet did but the horror story is brilliant. There's tension and anxiety from the beginning as Nick and Amy battle for your trust. It's a real whodunit and the frustration when you realise what's going on is horribly enjoyable
The Stand
Stephen King
This is an excellent fantasy novel from one of the best storytellers around. After a serious flu outbreak wipes out 99.4% of the world's population, a battle unfolds between good and evil among those let. Randall Flagg is one of the scariest characters ever.
（1）Who does "I" refer to in the text?
| A． | Stephen King. |
| B． | Gillian Flynn. |
| C． | Jo Usmar. |
| D． | Roald Dahl |
（2）Which of the following tells about Mari and Eri?
| A． | Cosmopolitan. |
| B． | Matilda. |
| C． | After Dark. |
| D． | The Stand. |
（3）What kind of book is G one Girl?
| A． | A folk tale. |
| B． | A biography. |
| C． | A love story. |
| D． | A horror story. |
Why do men die earlier than women? The latest research makes it known that the reason could be that men’s hearts go into rapid decline when they reach middle age.
The largest study of the effects of ageing on the heart has found that women’s longevity may be linked to the fact that their hearts hardly lose their pumping power with age.
“We have found that the power of the male heart falls by 20-25 percent between 18 and 70 years of age.” said the head of the study, David Goldspink of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. “Within the heart there are millions of cells that enable it to beat. Between the age of 20 and 70. one-third of those cells die and are not replaced in men,” said Goldspink. “This is part of the ageing process.”
What surprises scientists is that the female heart sees very little loss of these cells. A healthy 70-year-old woman’s heart could perform almost as well as a 20-year-old one’s.
“This gender(性别)difference might just explain why women live longer than men,” said Goldspink.
They studied more than 250 healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 80, focusing on heahhy persons to remove the confusing influence of disease.
The team has yet to find why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart, said Goldspink.
The good news is that men can improve the health of their heart with regular exercise. Goldspink stressed that women also need regular exercise to prevent their leg muscles becoming smaller and weaker as they age.The underlined word “longevity” in the second paragraph probably refers to _____.
| A．health | B．long life | C．ageing | D．effect |
The text mainly talks about ______.
| A．men’s heart cells | B．women’s ageing process |
| C．the gender difference | D．hearts and long life |
According to the text, the UK scientists have known that _____.
| A．women have more cells than men when they are born |
| B．women can replace the cells that enable the heart to beat |
| C．the female heart loses few of the cells with age |
| D．women never lose their pumping power with age |
We can know from the passage that ______.
| A．scientists are on the way to finding out why the male heart loses more of the cells |
| B．the reason why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart has been found out |
| C．the team has done something to prevent the male from suffering the greater loss |
| D．wome over 70 could lose more heart cells than those at the age of 20 |
When you learn reading, nlath, and other subjects taught in school from your parents or teaehers who come to your house, it’s called homeschooling. A kid may be the only one, or he may be taught with brothers, sisters, or kids from the neighborhood.
Parents choose to homeschool their children for many different reasons. Sometimes a kid is sick and can’t go to regular school. But more often, kids are homeschooled beeause their parents feel they can give their children a better education than the local school can. Patents also may choose homeschooling because they want their children’s education to include religious (宗教的) instruction, which isn’t offered at puhlie schools.
If you don’t like school, homeschooling might seem like the perfect solution. But it’s better for everyone if homeschooling isn’t chosen just as an escape from school or prohlems there. Finding solutions to the problem should be the first step.
Kids who are homeschooled may benefit from the one-on-one attention. For example, if you don’t understand something in math, the whole class won’t he moving on without you. You might be the whole class! It’s also possible that you might learn more than you would in a regular classroom, because if you really good at something, you can keep learning more at your own pace.
Kids who are homeschooled also may get out in their communities more than other kids. They may get to experience hands-on education at museums, libraries, businesses and other community resources. They also might volunteer or take part in “service learning” where they take on local projects.
No matter where a child goes to school, the key to learning is listening to the teacher and asking for help when you need it. A homeschooled child might feel more comfortable with his teacher (a parent), but the child still needs to pay attention and cooperate. Just like in a traditional school, teachers and students need to work together to achieve goals in the classroom.The passage mainly tells us ____.
| A．every kid should be taught at home |
| B．what homeschooling is and how it works |
| C．the advantages and disadvantages of homeschooling |
| D．homeschooled kids should go out to do volunteer work |
What does the author think of homeschooling?
| A．It shouldn’t be encouraged at all. |
| B．It is not a good way to get educated. |
| C．It can offer kids what suits their needs. |
| D．It is only good for the kids who can’t go to school. |
The similarity of homeschooling and learning at school is that ____.
| A．students all should cooperate with their teachers |
| B．students don’t feel lonely |
| C．students all have many classmates |
| D．studenls all have more opportunities to get out |
Which of the following should NOT belong to the reasons why kids get homeschooled?
| A． They can get more benefits from homeschooling. |
| B．They can’t go to school because of their bad health. |
| C．They can learn something that is not taught in school. |
| D．They escape from school because they hate going to school |
Founded in 1764 by French traders, St. Louis today is the fifteenth largest urban area in the United States. There are many attractive destinations for touists．
★American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog
Dog lovers who visit St. Louis won’t want to miss this 14,000-square-foot museum. Inside are over 500 paintings，prints, watercolors，and a variety of other dog art objects.
The Museum is open year round，Tuesday through Saturday 10 AM to 4 PM, and Sunday 1 PM to 5 PM. Admission is ＄5 for adults，＄2.50 for seniors, and ＄1 for children up to 14.
★Anheuser Busch Brewery
The Anheuser Buxch Brewery tour is not just for beer lovers．The tour includes the historic Brew House．Then the tour continues to the modern Bevo Packaging Plant. The best will be the Budweiser Clydesdale stables. The tours are always free．
★Gateway Arch
Designed by Eero Sarinen and Hannskari Bandel, it took over two years and 900 tons of stainless steel to build. It is the tallest of the country’s National Monuments. The Arch is part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. About one milion people per year come to the top of the Arch, where there is an observation platform providing a great view of the city.
★The St. Louis Zoo
First version of the St. Louis Zoo opened in 1904 at the St. Louis World’s Fair, but in the century since it has grown into one of the chief zoos in the world. The passenger train takes visitors around the Zoo，which contains over 9,000 animals of over 800 species.
The Zoo is open every day but Christmas and New Year，with summer hours of 8 AM to 7 PM，and hours the rest of the year of 9 AM to 5 PM．Admission to the Zoo is free．If a senior high school student plans to visit American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog with his parents and his five-year-old brother，he has to pay ______．
| A．＄8.5 | B．＄12 | C．＄13.5 | D．＄16 |
If you are interested in how to make beer，you can visit ________．
| A．The St. Louis Zoo |
| B．Anheuser Busch Brewery |
| C．Gateway Arch |
| D．American Kennel Club Museum of the Dog |
Which of the following statements about Gateway Arch is TRUE?
| A．People can see the city clearly on the top of the Arch. |
| B．It was designed by two famous Italian architects. |
| C．It took 900 tons of stainless steel and cement to build. |
| D．It is the largest of the country ‘s National Monuments. |
If you plan to visit the St. Louis Zoo, you can go there _____.
| A．on New Year ‘Day |
| B．on ChristmasDay |
| C．at 5:30 p.m. in winter |
| D．at 8:30 a.m. in summer |
London taxis, with their friendly drivers who actually know where they are going, are ranked best in the world, according to an annual taxi poll(调查).
The survey by travel website hotels.com found London taxis, despite being the most expensive, beat rivals across the globe to head the list for the third consecutive years, scoring a total of 59 percent in votes on several categories by travellers.
London taxi drivers were voted both friendliest and most knowledgeable. Drivers in the English capital must pass a rigorous examination called The Knowledge to earn their taxi licence.
New York’s yellow taxis came second in the list, scoring 27 percent which was up 10 percentage points from last year even though Manhattan’s cab drivers tied with Parisian taxi drivers as the rudest.
Travellers said New York had the most available taxis.
Cabbies in Rome were voted the worst drivers in the world with almost one in 10 travellers thinking the Italian capital had the world’s worst taxi drivers when it came to the quality of driving.
“Travelling by taxi is one of the first experiences that many travellers have upon arrival in a new city. In fact, the research found that cabs are by far the most popular method of travelling from the airport to their hotel,” a spokesman for hotels.com said in a statement.
The global poll scored city based taxis for their levels of cleanliness, value, quality of driving, knowledge of the area, friendliness, safety and availability.
Rounding out the top five were Tokyo with a total score of 26 percent, Berlin with 17 percent, and Bangkok famed for its tuk-tuks scoring 14 percent.
Madrid’s taxis were ranked sixth in the poll, followed by Copenhagen and Dublin with 11 percent and Frankfurt and Paris with 10 percent.
Taxis in Sydney fell short of the top 10, scoring badly in the areas of value for money, availability and knowledge of the area.
The survey for hotels.com, part of the Expedia group, was conducted among over 1,900 travellers between May 11-28 this year.What does the underlined word “rigorous” in the third paragraph mean _______?
| A．official | B．lawful | C．strict | D．important |
The writer introduced the result of the survey by _____.
| A．listing the ranks of the taxi service of the European cities |
| B．listing the ranks of the taxi service of the cities concerned |
| C．different kinds of reading forms and famous travel websites |
| D．interviewing the taxi drivers and travellers of the cities |
Rome’s taxi drivers are lack of _______.
| A．driving skills | B．good manners |
| C．the sense of cleanliness | D．the sense of safety |
What does the writer want to tell us?
| A．The global taxi drivers should be trained strictly. |
| B．The global taxi drivers should be given an exam. |
| C．The global taxi drivers have different driving skills. |
| D．The global big cities’taxis service is scored by a travel website. |
Franz Kafka wrote that “a book must be the ax (斧子) for the frozen sea inside us. ”I once shared this sentence with a class of seventh graders, and it didn’t seem to require any explanation.
We’d just finished John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men. When we read the end together out loud in class, my toughest boy, a star basketball player, wept a little, and so did I. “Are you crying?” one girl asked, as she got out of her chair to take a closer look. “I am,” I told her, “and the funny thing is I’ve read it many times.”
But they understood. When George shoots Lennie, the tragedy is that we realize it was always going to happen. In my 14 years of teaching in a New York City public middle school, I’ve taught kids with imprisoned parents, abusive parents, irresponsible parents; kids who are parents themselves; kids who are homeless; kids who grew up in violent neighborhoods. They understand, more than I ever will, the novel’s terrible logic—the giving way of dreams to fate (命运).
For the last seven years, I have worked as a reading enrichment teacher, reading classic works of literature with small groups of students from grades six to eight. I originally proposed this idea to my headmaster after learning that a former excellent student of mine had transferred out of a selective high school—one that often attracts the literary-minded children of Manhattan’s upper classes—into a less competitive setting. The daughter of immigrants, with a father in prison, she perhaps felt uncomfortable with her new classmates. I thought additional “cultural capital” could help students like her develop better in high school, where they would unavoidably meet, perhaps for the first time, students who came from homes lined with bookshelves, whose parents had earned Ph. Ds.
Along with Of Mice and Men, my groups read: Sounder, The Red Pony, Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. The students didn’t always read from the expected point of view. About The Red Pony, one student said, “it’s about being a man, it’s about manliness.”I had never before seen the parallels between Scarface and Macbeth, nor had I heard Lady Macbeth’s soliloquies (独白) read as raps (说唱), but both made sense; The interpretations were playful, but serious. Once introduced to Steinbeck’s writing, one boy went on to read The Grapes of Wrath and told me repeatedly how amazing it was that “all these people hate each other, and they’re all white.” His historical view was broadening, his sense of his own country deepening. Year after year, former students visited and told me how prepared they had felt in their first year in college as a result of the classes.
Year after year, however, we are increasing the number of practice tests. We are trying to teach students to read increasingly complex texts, not for emotional punch (碰撞) but for text complexity. Yet, we cannot enrich (充实) the minds of our students by testing them on texts that ignore their hearts. We are teaching them that words do not amaze but confuse. We may succeed in raising test scores, but we will fail to teach them that reading can be transformative and that it belongs to them.The underlined words in Paragraph 1 probably mean that a book helps to __________.
| A．realize our dreams | B．give support to our life |
| C．smooth away difficulties | D．awake our emotions |
Why were the students able to understand the novel Of Mice and Men?
| A．Because they spent much time reading it. |
| B．Because they had read the novel before. |
| C．Because they came from a public school. |
| D．Because they had similar life experiences. |
The girl left the selective high school possibly because__________.
| A．she was a literary-minded girl | B．her parents were immigrants |
| C．she couldn’t fit in with her class | D．her father was then in prison |
To the author’s surprise, the students read the novels__________.
| A．creatively | B．passively | C．repeatedly | D．carelessly |
The author writes the passage mainly to__________.
| A．introduce classic works of literature |
| B．advocate(倡导) teaching literature to touch the heart |
| C．argue for equality among high school students |
| D．defend the current testing system |
粤公网安备 44130202000953号