Today I received a sweet letter from Brianna, one of my “cookies”. It was wonderful to hear ___________her. You see __________ I taught kindergarten, I called all ___________ sweet children “cookies”. Brianna said that every day she would walk into kindergarten and see a smile__________ my face. I named them “cookies” because I always feel that children can bring great happiness and __________ (excite) to my life. I still feel that all children are the ____________ (great) joy I could ever have.
So far I _____________ (adopt) and taught children for over 35 years. All my children were ________ are now a great joy of my life. __________(hope), I feel much fortunate to be able to use my life’s talent to teach children and have fun___________(do) it every day. I am able to spread my wings and help my “cookies” to spread their wings.
A Frenchman went to a small Italian town stayed with his wife at the best hotel there. One night, he went out for a walk alone. It was late and the small street was dark and quiet. Suddenly he (feel) someone behind him. He turned his head and saw an Italian young man who quickly walked past him. The man was nearly of sight when the Frenchman suddenly found that his watch was (go). He thought that must be the Italian who had taken his watch. He decided (follow) him and get back the watch.
Soon the Frenchman caught up with the Italian. of them understood the other's language. The Frenchman frightened the Italian with his fist (拳头) while (point) at the Italian's watch. In the end the Italian gave up his watch to the Frenchman.
When he returned to the hotel, the Frenchman told his wife had happened. He was
(great) surprised when his wife pointed to the watch on the table. Now he realized that by mistake he had robbed the watch and it was the Italian's.
A young man, while traveling through a desert, came across a spring of clear water. ____water was sweet. He filled his leather container so that he could bring some back to an elder____had been his teacher. After a four-day journey, the young man____ ( present ) the water to the old man. His teacher took a deep drink, smiled__ ( warm ), and thanked his student very much for the sweet water. The young man went home___a happy heart.
After the student left, the teacher let___student taste the water. He spit it out, ____ (say) it was awful. Apparently, it was no longer fresh because of the old leather container. He asked his teacher, "Sir, the water was awful. Why did you pretend to like___?" The teacher replied," You tasted the water. I tasted the gift. The water was simply the container for an act of kindness and love. Nothing could be____ (sweet). "We understand this lesson best____we receive gifts of love from children. Whether it is a cheap pipe or a diamond necklace, the proper response is appreciation. We love the idea within the gift rather than the thing.
For years, researchers have looked into a possible relationship between heat and violence. There are conflicting results over whether there is an actual connection between rising anger and rising temperature, but the murder rate constantly increases during the months of July and August, according to the FBI's annual crime report.
Many police chiefs say they put more policemen on the streets when the heat rises. “Calls for service always increase from May, June, July to August,” said New Bedford's Captain Richard Spiriet. “The longer period of time you have the heat, the worse it is. It's just the opposite in the winter time.”
Craig Anderson, a professor and specialist in social psychology at Iowa State University, argues the evidence is clear. “As the temperature goes up, people become more uncomfortable. They become easier to get angry,” he said. “That increases the possibility that a small conflict will be interpreted as more major.” Anderson conducted a couple of studies looking at crime rates over the course of several years within the same area to see when most violent crimes occurred. He found that violent crimes were more likely to occur on hot days and hot months—even hot years had higher violent rates than cold years, according to his research.
Other researches show it is not so much the physical climate, but rather the social climate, that causes increased violence. “During the summer months, people stay up later. They talk with their neighbours. They party with their friends,” said Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Centre on Violence and Conflict at Northeastern University. “It is more likely to be large numbers of people interacting, and they are more likely to argue.”
Perhaps the realization that there is a link will help spur people in an argument step back and say “Let's cool off.”—both literally(字面上地) and figuratively(比喻地).
Title |
Heat and violence |
Theme |
Violence possibly has a ________ with heat. |
Facts |
☆July and August witness the________ increase of murder rate. ☆More policemen are called in with the heat ________. ☆People get angry more ________ as the temperature goes up. |
________ of the research |
☆Fewer violent crimes occur on ________ days. ☆The ________ climate causes increased violence. ☆People usually go to________ later during the summer months. ☆It is more likely to be ________ when people chat with each other. |
Conclusion |
________the link will help people in an argument cool off. |
It is not easy to find true friends. Even if you’ve connected with someone, how do you really know he is a true friend? And often you will find that someone who you thought you could trust may have let you down. There are ways you can know if a friendship is true and how you can hold onto that friend.
Generally speaking, a true friend is someone who will be there for you no matter what happens. They will stand by you through bad and good times. They will accept you for who you are without trying to change you, and they will be there to help you grow in new ways.
A true friend will keep you secrets for you trust him. They will be honest and be someone you can depend on. They will listen and be someone you can talk things over with, even if they may not have advice to share with you.
However, friendship is a two-way street. To find true friends and keep them, you must in turn be the same as well. Be there for them in their hard times and share the good times with them. Be someone your friends can depend on as well and offer them the same thing they give to you. A friendship will fall apart fast if only one person is giving and putting all the effort. If you are the only one making an effort, be honest and it works.
Actually, there will be barriers in the road but that is the test of true friendship. If it can survive those barriers, it will be stronger and better than ever. Just as St Thomas Aquinas put it, “There is nothing on this earth more prized than friendship.”
Find a True Friend |
|
The writer’s () on friends |
●True friends() come by nowadays. ●Those who you regarded as your friends may make you down. |
Characteristics of true friendship |
●A true friend will() you whatever happens. ●A true friend will keep your secrets and be a good() . |
()______ to hold friendship |
●()______ with your friends when they are in trouble. ●Be someone who your friends can() . ●() is the key to keep a friendship if you are the only one making efforts. |
()_________ |
●True friendship can stand up to various() and grow stronger and better. |
My older brother and I are busy (arrange) a trip to Africa. We will leave London on 15 July, and we’ll be flying to Morocco. We are going to travel on camels the Sahara Desert. After the trip by camel, we’re going to travel down the River Nile. We’ll start at Lake Victoria. A little way down the river from Lake Victoria, the water (actual) gets quite rough. So, we’ll go white-water rafting, is quite dangerous, but very exciting! After white-water rafting, we’re going on a trip to see wild animals in Kenya.
we’ll be walking for almost two weeks, I’ll need to buy a large, strong, light backpack advance to carry my (supply) of food and water. It is so dangerous that our guides will have guns (scare) the animals away if they come too near. I really want to see elephant close up. After that, we’ll be moving on to Tanzania, we’re going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. The African part of our trip will take about four weeks and we will surely have a happy time.
Many of us invest valuable time,energy and money planning our vacations. We do this because we know for sure that going on vacations must be good for us. Research proves this feeling without a doubt. Vacations help us perform better at work, improve our sleep quality and cushion us against depression.
Yet, despite these benefits, many of us return home with a feeling that our last vacation was OK --- but not great. In order to change this, some mistakes should be avoided. A classic one for vacation planners is attempting to maximize value for money by planning trips that have too many components (组成部分).Perhaps you’re planning a trip to Europe, seven cities in 10 days,and you realize it will cost only a little more to add two more destinations to the list. It sounds fine in theory, but hopping from one place to the next hardly gives an opportunity to experience what psychologists call mindfulness(留意) --- time to take in our new surroundings, time to be present and absorb our travel experiences. Another mistake is that we worry too much about strategic issues such as how to find a good flight deal,how to get from A to B,or which destinations to add or subtract from our journey. These issues may seem important, but our psychological state of mind is far more important.
Actually, vacation happiness is based on the following top rules. First, choose your travel companions wisely, because nothing contributes more significantly to a trip than the right companions. Second,don’t spend your vacation time in a place where everything is too expensive so as to keep a positive mood. Third, shop wisely, for meaningful experiences provide more long-term happiness than physical possessions.
Ms. Mary was over eighty, but she still drove her old car like half her age. She loved driving very fast, and boasted of the fact she had never, in her thirty-five years of driving, been punished a driving mistake.
Then one day, she nearly lost her record. A police car followed her, and the policemen in it saw her pass a red light without (stop).
When Ms. Mary came before the judge, he looked at her severely and said that she was too old to drive a car, and that the reason she had not stopped at red light was most probably that her eyes had become weak old age, so that she had simply not seen it.
When the judge had finished he was saying, Ms. Mary opened the big handbag she was carrying and took out her sewing. Without saying a word, she (choose) a needle with a very small eye, and threaded it at the first time.
When she had (success) done this, she took the thread out of the needle again and handed both the needle and thread to the judge, saying, “Now it is your turn. I suppose you can drive a car well, and you have no doubts your eyesight.”
The judge took the needle and tried to thread it. After half a dozen times, he had still not succeeded. The case against Ms. Mary (dismiss解雇), and her record remained unbroken.
____________, they have been drilling for sixteen hours and they still have a long way to go.
People will do anything to see a free show---even if it is a bad one. When the news
______________ would be presented at our local cinema by the P. and U. Bird…
because balloons can be a great danger to aircraft. He said that someone ______________ the station and the pilot was ordered to ______________ the strange object.
Experiments have proved that children can be instructed in swimming ___________________.
Whether they will ever become future Olympic champions, _________________.
He looked pale and his clothes were in a frightful state. “What has happened?” she asked. “How did your clothes __________________?”
This is a moving spectacle, for crowds of people stand on the shore _________________ until they can be seen no more.
Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.
A. alert B. classify C. commit D. delicately E. gentle F. impose
G. labels H. moderation I. relieve J. signals K. simply
Let's say you've decided you want to eat more healthfully. However, you don't have time to carefully plan menus for meals or read food ____ at the supermarket. Since you really____ yourself to a healthier lifestyle, a little help would come in handy, wouldn't it? This is where a "choice architect" can help____some of the burden of doing it all yourself. Choice architects are people who organize the contexts in which customers make decisions. For example, the person who decides the layout of your local supermarket-including which shelf the peanut butter goes on, and how the oranges are piled up—is a choice architect.
Governments don't have to____healthier lifestyles through laws for example, smoking bans. Rather, if given an environment created by a choice architect-one that encourages us to choose what is best-we will do the right things. In other words, there will be designs that gently push customers toward making healthier choices, without removing freedom of choice. This idea combines freedom to choose with____hints from choice architects, who aim to help people live longer, healthier, and happier lives.
The British and Swedish governments have introduced a so-called "traffic light system" to ____foods as healthy or unhealthy. This means that customers can see at a glance how much fat, sugar, and salt each product contains____by looking at the lights on the package. A green light ____that the amounts of the three nutrients are healthy; yellow indicates that the customer should be____; and red means that the food is high in at least one of the three nutrients and should be eaten in ____. The customer is given important health information, but is still free to decide what to choose.
The giant vending machine (自动售货机) is a new village shop
Villagers have long been used to facing a drive when they run out of basic supplies. However, help is now nearer at hand in form of the country’s first automatic push-button shop. Now residents in the Derbyshire Village of Clifton can buy groceries around the clock after the huge vending was installed outside a pub in the village this week.
Peter Fox, who is______electrical engineer, spent two and a half years working on the project. The machine ______ (equip) with securing cameras and alarms and looks like a mini shop with a brick front, a grey roof and a display window.
Mr. Fox said he hoped his invention, _____ is set to be installed in other villages in the area over the coming months, will mark a return to convenience shopping for rural communities.
He said:“ I had this idea a few years ago but I couldn’t find a manufacture who could deliver what I wanted, so I did it by _____. The result is what amounts to huge outdoor vending machine. Yet I think the term “automatic shop” is far ______ (appropriate)
In recent years, the commercial pressure from supermarket chains______ force village shops across the country to close. In 2010, it was estimated that about 400 village shops closed, ______ (urge) the local government to give financial support to struggling shops or set-up new communities stores.
Hundreds of communities have since stepped in and opened up their won volunteer-run shops, but Mr. Fox hopes his new invention will offer a solution______these villages without a local shop.
My Stay in New York
After graduation from university, I had been unable to secure a permanent job in my small town. So I decided to leave home for New York, ______I might have a better chance to find a good job. ______ (earn) some money to pay the daily expenses, I started work in a local café as a waiter. I believe that______ ______ ______ I was offered a good position, I would resign at once.
Over time, the high cost of living became a little burden on my already ______ (exhaust) shoulder. On the other hand, my search for a respectable job had not met with much success. As I had studied literature at university, I found it quite difficult to secure a suitable job in big companies. Mother had just said that ______ I want to have a better career advancement, I had to find work in the city. Perhaps ______my mother had told me was deeply rooted in my mind. I just did as she had expected.
Soon I had lived in the city for over six months but I still did not like it. Apparently, I had difficulty______ (adapt) myself to life in the city, let alone finding a job to my delight. After nine months of frustration, I eventually decided to go back to my small town. Not until I returned ______I realize that a quiet town life was the best for me.
阅读下面的短文并用英语回答1~5问题,(请注意问题后的字数要求)。
[1] Nowadays the cost of a new car has fallen in real terms so that it is cheaper than ever to own one, and better road conditions have also attracted more drivers. The result is overcrowding on the road system, which is one of the problems the local governments are faced with.
[2] When people travel to other towns, the problem might be relieved by getting them to park outside the town. Buses could be provided to take them into the centre. These Park and Ride projects are increasingly popular in the UK. At Southerton, for example, a council-funded project led to a 15% drop in city centre traffic over five months.
[3] What the council found, though, was that the project proved somewhat unpopular with shop owners in the area outside the centre. Many of their shops relied on passing car drivers for some of their trade. As the number of people driving past dropped, so did their incomes.
[4] Making car driving expensive is another way of ____________. Road taxes tend to mean that people use their cars less. Fining drivers who are in areas where cars have been banned can also tend to encourage them to leave their cars behind.
[5] However, one thing has to be got right for any solution to succeed. If we expect people to give up the habit of driving, we must give them an alternative they can rely on. Constant delays, unannounced changes to the timetable and sudden cancellations all discourage people from using public transport. People will only see it as a real choice if the buses and trains are on time.
1. |
What causes overcrowding on the road system according to Paragraph 1? (no more than 12 words)
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2. |
What should people do when traveling to other towns according to the Park and Ride projects? (no more than 10 words)
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3. |
Why were some shop owners unhappy about the project? (no more than 10 words)
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4. |
Fill in the blank in Paragraph 4. ( no more than 8 words)
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5. |
Why are people unwilling to use public transport according to Paragraph 5? (no more than 8 words)
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请阅读下面短文,并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。
注意: 请将答案写在答题卡上相应题号的横线上。 每个空格只填一个单词。
The expression, “everybody’s doing it,” is very much at the center of the concept of peer pressure. It is a strong influence of a group, especially of children, on members of that group to behave as everybody else does. It can be positive or negative. Most people experience it in some way during their lives.
People are social creatures by nature, and so it is hardly surprising that part of their self-respect comes from the approval of others. This instinct (天性) is why the approval of peers, or the fear of disapproval, is such a powerful force in many people’s lives. It is the same instinct that drives people to dress one way at home and another way at work, or to answer “fine” when a stranger asks “how are you?” even if it is not necessarily true. There is a practical aspect to this: it helps society to function efficiently, and encourages a general level of self-discipline that simplifies day-to-day interaction.
For certain individuals, seeking social acceptance is so important that it becomes like an addiction; in order to satisfy the desire, they may go so far as to abandon their sense of right and wrong. Teens and young adults may feel forced to use drugs, or join gangs that encourage criminal behavior. Mature adults may sometimes feel pressured to cover up illegal activity at the company where they work, or end up in debt because they are unable to hold back the desire to buy a house or car that they can’t afford in an effort to “keep up with the Joneses.”
However, peer pressure is not always negative. A student whose friends are good at academics may be urged to study harder and get good grades. Players on a sports team may feel driven to play harder in order to help the team win. This type of influence can also get a friend off drugs, or to help an adult take up a good habit or drop a bad one. Study groups and class projects are examples of positive peer groups that encourage people to better themselves.
Schools try to teach kids about the dangers of negative peer pressure. They teach kids to stand up and be themselves, and encourage them to politely decline to do things that they believe are wrong. Similarly, it can be helpful to encourage children to greet the beneficial influence of positive peer groups.
Many of us invest valuable time,energy and money planning our vacations. We do this because we know for sure that going on vacations must be good for us. Research proves this feeling without a doubt. Vacations help us perform better at work, improve our sleep quality and cushion us against depression.
Yet, despite these benefits, many of us return home with a feeling that our last vacation was OK - but not great. In order to change this, some mistakes should be avoided. A classic one for vacation planners is attempting to maximize value for money by planning trips that have too many components (组成部分)• Perhaps you're planning a trip to Europe, seven cities in 10 days,and you realize it will cost only a little more to add two more destinations to the list Sounds fine in theory, but hopping from one place to the next hardly gives an opportunity to experience what psychologists call mindfulness - time to take in our new surroundings, time to be present and absorb our travel experiences. Another mistake is that we worry too much about strategic issues such as how to find a good flight deal,how to get from A to B,or which destinations to add or subtract from our journey. These issues may seem important, but our psychological state of mind is far more important.
Actually, vacation happiness is based on the following top rules. First, choose your travel companions wisely, because nothing contributes more significantly to a trip than the right companions. Second,don't spend your vacation time in a place where everything is too expensive so as to maintain a positive mood. Third, shop wisely, for meaningful experiences provide more long-term happiness than physical possessions.