Recently, a scientist did some experiments. He left a group of 4-year-olds in a room with a bell and a candy. If they rang the bell, he would come back and they could eat the candy. If, however, they didn’t ring the bell and waited for him to come back on his own, they could then have two candies.
In the videos of the experiments, he can see the children hiding their eyes, trying to exercise self-control so they can wait and get two candies. The results are different. Some broke down and rang the bell within a minute. Others lasted 15 minutes.
The children who waited longer went on to get higher academic scores. They got into better colleges and had better adult success. The children who rang the bell quickest were more likely to have received worse teacher and parental evaluations (评价) 10 years later and were more likely to have drug problems at age 32.
The experiments are worth noting because people spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve education, and how to become rich. But when the result is not good, they will come back to ask “How do we get people to get the sort of self-control that leads to success?” This is to enter the world of human nature.
So these experiments, along with everyday experience, tell us that self-control is most important. Young people who can sit through sometimes boring classes to get a degree can work hard in order to learn a language well. They can avoid drugs and alcohol. For people without self-control skills, however, school is a series of failed and painful experience. No wonder they drop out and their later life is a group of foolish ideas, such as drug use, stealing and so on.
1.The scientist did some experiments to ________.
A. find good ways of training children to learn
B. show that children’s education is important
C. test children’s self-control and later success
D. test children’s intelligence of ringing the bell
2.What do the underlined words “broke down” probably mean?
A. failed to wait. B. kept waiting.
C. hid the candy. D. ate the candy.
3.How long did the scientist’s experiments last according to the text?
A. Just 15 minutes. B. Within 10 years.
C. Less than 14 years. D. About 28 years.
4.What will the children without self-control do at school according to the text?
A. They will improve their education.
B. They will suffer a lot from boring lessons.
C. They will become very rich and successful.
D. They will work hard to catch up with others.
Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954 to a Mexican American family. As the only girl in a family of seven children, she often felt like she had “seven fathers,” because her six brothers, as well as her father, tried to control her. Feeling shy and unimportant, she retreated (躲避) into books. Despite her love of reading, she did not do well in elementary school because she was too shy to participate.
In high school, with the encouragement of one particular teacher, Cisneros improved her grades and worked for the school literary magazine. Her father encouraged her to go to college because he thought it would be a good way for her to find a husband. Cisneros did attend college, but instead of searching for a husband, she found a teacher who helped her join the famous graduate writing program at the University of Iowa. At the university’s Writers’ Workshop, however, she felt lonely — a Mexican American from a poor neighborhood among students from wealthy families. The feeling of being so different helped Cisneros find her “creative voice”.
“It was not until this moment when I considered myself truly different that my writing acquired a voice. I knew I was a Mexican woman, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with why I felt so much imbalance in my life, but it had everything to do with it! That’s when I decided I would write about something my classmates couldn’t write about.”
Cisneros published her first work, The House on Mango Street, when she was twenty-nine. The book talks about a young Mexican American girl growing up in a Spanish-speaking area in Chicago, much like the neighborhoods in which Cisneros lived as a child. The book won an award in 1985 and has been used in classes from high school to graduate school level. Since then, Cisneros has published several books of poetry, a children’s book and a short-story collection.
1.What can we know about Cisneros in her childhood?
A.Her brothers disliked her.
B.She felt herself a nobody.
C.She was too shy to go to school.
D.She did not meet any good teachers.
2.The graduate program gave Cisneros a chance to ________.
A.run away from her family B.develop her writing style
C.make a lot of friends D.search for a husband
3.According to Cisneros, what was the key factor in her success?
A.Her childhood experience.
B.Her training in the Workshop.
C.Her feeling of being different.
D.Her early years in college.
4.What do we learn about The House on Mango Street?
A.It enjoys great popularity among students.
B.It is a book of poetry written by Cisneros.
C.It wasn’t a success as it was written in Spanish.
D.It won an award when Cisneros was twenty-nine.
Notre-Dame de Paris, a cathedral church in Paris, is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. For the French, it represents something immortal, ever-present and unchanging, like a mountain. Built over almost two centuries, the Notre-Dame is, as President Emmanuel Macron said, “where the French lived all their great moments”. Soldiers prayed here before leaving for the Crusades; Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned here; it survived the French Revolution, two World Wars and the Nazi occupation. It is where men bend their knees to profess love and thousands of tourists take photos every day.
A fire, whose cause was not identified yet, engulfed (吞没), on April 15th, the cathedral's upper structure. More than 400 firefighters took part in the 15-hour battle to control the blaze (火苗) that triggered sorrow over the globe. The extent of the damage is still unknown, but the fire destroyed much of the gothic cathedral’s wood-timbered roof and spire (塔尖). The cathedral will certainly be restored (the French government promises), but the sight of flames bringing down the spire moved the world in a manner far exceeding its religious significance.
French Culture Minister Franck Riester on Thursday said the government would draw all the consequences from the huge flames that destroyed the centuries-old Notre Dame Cathedral, adding measures to protect the national heritage were on the table. “Staff from the fire department, the culture ministry and the city town hall rushed to the Cathedral, when the fire started, to protect the main artworks that were inside. The artworks, which include relics such as the Christ's crown of thorns and French king Saint-Louis's 13th century tunic, were first moved to the city town hall and will now be transferred to the nearby Louvre Museum .” the minister told Le Parisian newspaper in an interview without giving details on the possible measures.
1.What can we learn about the Notre-Dame de Paris?
A.It is the most well-known cathedral. B.Most of the French think little of it.
C.It was built by Napoleon Bonaparte. D.It’s still in existence after two World Wars.
2.What is true about the Cathedral in the accident?
A.Only the spire was brought down by the flames.
B.It was completely burnt in the fire.
C.The gilded crown of thorns in it was gone forever.
D.The cause of the accident to the Cathedral was still unknown.
3.According to Franck Riester, what has already done by the government?
A.Rebuild the cathedral.
B.Rescue the artworks inside the cathedral.
C.Transfer the relics to the nearby Louvre Museum.
D.Release the cause of the fire to the public.
假设你是北京市某中学的学生李华，请根据以下提示，针对北京市遭沙尘暴袭击的情况，向某英语报社写一封信，呼吁大家植树造林，保护环境。
1. 过去家乡树木成林：如今人们毁林种地建房；
2. 气候变化，土地沙漠化；
3. 植树造林，人人有责。
注意：1. 词数100左右：开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
2. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3. 开头语已为你写好。
Dear Editor,
I’m a student at a middle school of Beijing.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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。
One day, Dad and I was taking a walk by the lake while a boy rode by at a very high speed. Suddenly, we heard the loud scream. We turned around and saw the boy struggling in the lake, crying out help, Daddy and I ran towards him quickly and had pulled him out of the water. However, the boy rode away immediate without saying “Thank you”. I felt disappointing at his behavior. To my surprises, the boy came back with hot drinks and dry towels several minutes late. Seeing this, I knew I had misunderstood him and felt ashamed of me.
阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（1个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。
There were many great philosophers in ancient China. Confucius stressed the significance of 1. (kind), duty and order in society, 2. ideas influenced Chinese society for over 2, 000 years.
Mencius was a student of Confucius’s ideas. His teachings were similar to 3. of Confucius. He 4. (bring) up by his mother and had an important position in the government of 5. state. He believed man is good, that people would be good if government was kind, and 6. people were more important than rulers. Mencius wrote a book 7. (call) The Book of Mencius in his last years.
Mozi was also an 8. (influence) thinker, whose beliefs were similar to Confucius’s 9. some ways. Born into a poor family, he became famous for his unusual clothes and behaviour. Because he considered that government was most important, he spent many years 10. (try) to find a state where people would follow his teaching. He believed all men were equal.
