My day began on a definitely sour note when I saw my six-year-old wrestling with a limb of my azalea（杜鹃花）bush. By the time I got outside, he’d broken it. “Can I take this to school today?” he asked. With a wave of my hand, I sent him off. I turned my back so he wouldn’t see the tears gathering in my eyes.
The washing machine had leaked on my brand-new linoleum. If only my husband had just taken the time to fix it the night before when I asked him instead of playing checkers with Jonathan.
It was days like this that made me want to quit. I just wanted to drive up to the mountains, hide in a cave, and never come out.
Somehow I spent most of the day washing and drying clothes and thinking how love had disappeared from my life. As I finished hanging up the last of my husband’s shirts, I looked at the clock. 2:30. I was late. Jonathan’s class let out at 2:15 and I hurriedly drove to the school.
I was out of breath by the time I knocked on the teacher’s door and peered through the glass. She rustled through the door and took me aside. “I want to talk to you about Jonathan,” she said.
I prepared myself for the worst. Nothing would have surprised me. “Did you know Jonathan brought flowers to school today?” she asked. I nodded, thinking about my favorite bush and trying to hide the hurt in my eyes. “Let me tell you about yesterday,” the teacher insisted. “See that little girl?” I watched the bright-eyed child laugh and point to a colorful picture taped to the wall. I nodded.
“Well, yesterday she was almost hysterical. Her mother and father are going through a nasty divorce. She told me she didn’t want to live, she wished she could die. I watched that little girl bury her face in her hands and say loud enough for the class to hear, ‘Nobody loves me.’ I did all I could to comfort her, but it only seemed to make matters worse.” “I thought you wanted to talk to me about Jonathan,” I said.
“I do,” she said, touching the sleeve of my blouse. “Today your son walked straight over to that child. I watched him hand her some pretty pink flowers and whisper, ‘I love you.’“
I felt my heart swell with pride for what my son had done. I smiled at the teacher. “Thank you,” I said, reaching for Jonathan’s hand, “you’ve made my day.”
Later that evening, I began pulling weeds from around my azalea bush. As my mind wandered back to the love Jonathan showed the little girl, a biblical verse came to me: “...these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” While my son had put love into practice, I had only felt anger.
I heard the familiar squeak of my husband’s brakes as he pulled into the drive. I snapped a small limb bristling with hot pink azaleas off the bush. I felt the seed of love that God planted in my family beginning to bloom once again in me. My husband’s eyes widened in surprise as I handed him the flowers. “I love you,” I said.
1.Why did the woman cry when seeing her son had broken the azalea bush?
A.Because she could not tolerate the harm to it.
B.Because it made her bad mood even worse.
C.Because her son did not ask her for permission.
D.Because she wanted to hand it to her husband.
2.The writer wanted to hide in the mountain cave probably for the reason of .
A.feeling fed up with her endless daily housework
B.her husband’s failing to fix the machine in time
C.boring daily routine with a feeling of lack of love
D.her hoping to seek happiness in a brand new place
3.We can infer from the passage that the writer expressed love to her husband in that .
A.she was inspired by her son that love was supposed to be felt and practiced
B.she felt guilty that she misunderstood her husband and wanted to apologize
C.she felt it necessary to have a complete family for the happiness of herself
D.she wanted to prove her love and expected the same words from her husband
Fires can cover a home in 60seconds! Are you prepared with a quick and safe method of fire escape? While most of us are within a few steps of a window in most of our homes, the upper floor presents unique challenges. The key to survival is planning ahead for the upper floor escape.
The two- and three-story fire escape ladders are the most common types, and can be purchased locally at hardware stores. While doing an Internet research, I found fire escape ladders for four- and five-and six-story homes. Fortunately, the majority of Livingston County homes can easily get by with the two- and three-story models.
The first task in planning an upper floor escape is taking the time to look out of each window and see where it leads you. Sometimes a straight drop is best for hanging a ladder on. Other windows will drop you to a lower roof, where you can wait for another ladder from outside the home to reach you.
Escape ladders usually come in a box that will easily slide under a bed or in a closet. When needed, you just slide it out, and place it near the window. Open the window as you have determined by now that a door escape from the room is not practical due to heat, smoke and fire conditions,. Make sure the hanger(挂钩) will fit in with the window, for which it is intended. It usually has a J-shaped hook, which hangs over the window edge.
Once you decide a room to store the escape ladder in, make sure the family members know where it is. If the stairs leading down are blocked due to the fire, head into the room with the escape ladder and close the door behind you. Fix it out of the window and begin climbing down. Have a stronger person go down first, who can then assist others.
Do as much planning and preparation well in advance of ever needing to use these fire safety skills and you and your family will remain safe.
1.What does the author intend to tell in the passage?
A.How to escape fire above the ground floor.
B.How to correctly use the fire escape ladders.
C.How to survive when caught in an accident.
D.How to purchase the proper fire escape ladders.
2.To keep you safe from a fire, you should ___________.
A.avoid living in high-rise apartments
B.buy the proper escape ladders
C.make adequate preparations in advance
D.have a good knowledge of first aid
3.What should you do after you get the escape ladder?
A.You can hang it outside your window.
B.You must keep it in a box in a safe place.
C.You should inform your family where it is
D.You must fix the hanger inside your home.
4.What conclusion can we draw from the passage?
A.Danger is the next neighbor to security.
B.God helps those who help themselves.
C.A match will set fire to a large building.
D.Early mistakes are the seeds of future trouble.
假设你是李华，暑假你随学校组织的访问团去美国中学参观访问，并与纽约州长岛市Newcomers High School 的学生Tina成了好朋友。期间，Tina带你参观了她的学校并介绍了校史，还请你品尝了美食。回国后，你打算给Tina写一封信，主要内容如下：
(1)表达你的感激之情；
(2)赞叹该校美丽的环境和课堂的生动活跃；
(3)邀请对方来中国；
(4)表达祝愿。
注意：
(1)可适当加入细节，以使行文连贯;
(2)词数：100左右(开头已给出，不计入总词数) 。
Dear Tina,
How are you? I am now back in China.__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文,请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误,每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧),并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(＼)划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线,并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：(1)每处错误及其修改均仅限一词;
(2)只允许修改10处,多者(从第11处起)不计分。
Yesterday, Tom and I were walking down the street when we saw the old man fall off his bike. I suggested we carried the old man to hospital, and Tom did not agree. He had learned first aid, so I said that the old man mustn't be moving. We should leave him what he was and check him first. Seeing that the old man wasn't breathing, Tom asks me to call the First-aid Center and he used the mouth-to-mouth way make the old man breathe. Soon the old man began to move on a little and the doctors also arrived. They said what we had done were right.
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Today and every day we are the targets of salespeople, marketers, advertisers, fundraisers and politicians trying to persuade us to buy something, do something or think a certain way. Over the years, they've learned a lot about which features to build into a communication to increase its success. But, by concentrating on the message itself, they've missed a crucial component of the process. Research done in the last 15 years shows that the best persuasion is achieved through good pre-suasion: the practice of arranging for people to agree with a message before they know what's in it.
Pre-suasion works by focusing people's preliminary (开始的) attention on a selected concept—let's say softness—which encourages them to overvalue related opportunities that immediately follow. In one study, visitors to an online sofa store were sent to a site that illustrated either soft clouds or small coins in the background of its landing page. Those who saw the soft clouds were more likely to prefer soft, comfortable sofas for purchase, whereas those who saw the small amounts of money preferred inexpensive models.
A following study showed the pre-suasive mechanism. Subjects became three times more likely to help a researcher who "accidentally" dropped some items if, immediately before, they'd been exposed to images of figures standing together in a friendly pose. If this tripling of helpfulness doesn't seem remarkable enough, consider that the subjects were 18 months old—hardly able to reason or review or reflect.
Long before scientists started studying the process, a few notable communicators had an understanding of it.
In February 2015, the financial investor Warren Buffett had a problem. It was 50 years since he had taken control of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., guiding it to amazing levels of value, along with his brilliant partner Charlie Munger. Many investors were worried that, because Buffett and Munger were getting older, these levels couldn't be maintained in the future, perhaps making it time to sell Berkshire stock.
To respond to these concerns, Buffett wrote a letter to shareholders in which he described various reasons for confidence in Berkshire's continuing profitability. But, before the description of strengths, he declared with characteristic sincerity that what he was about to state was "what I would say to my family today if they asked me about Berkshire's future." The result was a flood of favorable reaction to the letter as well as a per-share increase for the year of nearly five times that of the S&P.
With considerable success, practitioners of social influence have always placed persuasive prods (刺激)—small gifts, emotional draw, last-chance opportunities- inside their appeals. Perhaps because of that success, they've mostly missed an accompanying truth. For maximum impact, it's not only what you do; it's also what you do just before you do what you do.
Passage outline | Supporting details |
A 1. in communication | People often fail to realize the secret to 2. people doesn't lie in the message itself, but in the key moment before it is delivered. |
Meaning of pre-suasion | It's a practice where people are made to 3. to a message before it is conveyed. |
Studies about pre-suasion | ●When it comes to buying sofas, customers' 4. is related to the background he saw before. ●With some 5. to friendly pictures, subjects are more likely to do others a 6.. |
A typical 7. | ●8. Berkshire's success, investors intended to sell the stock, doubting continuing profitability. ●In the letter 9. to the concerns, Buffett got across what he would say to his family to investors, for which he got all credit. |
Conclusion | Practitioners should keep in mind that pre-suasion can enhance the power of 10.. |
Two weeks earlier, my son, Ben, had got in touch, he’d moved to England with his mum when he was three and it had been 13 years since I’d _________ seen him. So imagine my _________ when he emailed me saying he wanted to come to visit me.
I was _________! I arrived early at Byron Bay where we were supposed to _________. The bay was _________ in sunshine, and there was a group of kayakers around 150m off the shore. Getting a little _________. I realized one kayak（皮划艇）was in _________. “Something’s not _________!” I took off my T-shirt and _________ into the water. I saw there were two instructors on board and a man lying across the middle. He was __________ violently. Linking arms with one of the instructors. I helped __________ the young man out of the water. He was unconscious and as I looked at his face, something __________ to me. Those brown eyes were very __________. “What’s his name?” I asked the instructor. “Ben,” he replied, and immediately I __________. That stranger was my son!
The instructors called for an ambulance. __________, after a brief stay in hospital, Ben was well enough to be allowed to __________ and later the family met up for dinner. We chatted about everything and then Ben __________ to me. “I just want to say thank you,” he said, “You __________ my life!”
I still can’t believe what a __________ it was. I’m just so glad I was there __________ to help my son.
1.A. also B. often C. even D. last
2.A. delight B. relief C. anger D. worry
3.A. scared B. shocked C. thrilled D. ashamed
4.A. talk B. stay C. meet D. settle
5.A. bathed B. clean C. deep D. formed
6.A. faster B. closer C. heavier D. wiser
7.A. trouble B. advance C. question D. battle
8.A. real B. right C. fair D. fit
9.A. stared B. sank C. dived D. fell
10.A. arguing B. fighting C. Shouting D. shaking
11.A. lead B. persuade C. carry D. keep
12.A. happened B. occurred C. applied D. appealed
13.A. sharp B. pleasant C. attractive D. familiar
14.A. agreed B. hesitated C. doubted D. knew
15.A. Fortunately B. Frankly C. Sadly D. Suddenly
16.A. return B. relax C. speak D. leave
17.A. joked B. turned C. listened D. pointed
18.A. created B. honored C. saved D. guided
19.A. coincidence B. change C. pity D. pain
20.A. on board B. in time C. for sure D. on purpose
