To this day, I remember my mum’s letters. It all ______ in December 1941. Every night she wrote to my brother Johnny, who had been ______ that summer. We had not heard from him since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
Mum claimed that there was a direct ______ from the brain to the written word that was just as strong as the light God has granted us. She trusted that this light would ______ Johnny. I don’t know if she said that to ______ her mind or all of ours. But I do know that it helped us ______ together, and one day a letter from Jonny really did arrive. Johnny was alive on an island.
I had always been amused by the fact that mum ______ her letters, “Cecilia Capuzzi”, and I ______ her about why she didn’t just write “Mum”. I hadn’t been aware that she ______ thought of herself as Cecilia Capuzzi. Not as Mum. I began seeing her in a new light, this small _____ yet strong woman. We often sat recalling the days when our family was filled with laughter of four boys. They had all moved away from home to work, enrolled in the ______, or got married. All except me. Around next spring mum had got two more sons to ______. Little by little, the rumour about mum’s letters ______. One day a small woman knocked at our door. She opened her bag and ______ a pile of airmail letters, begging mum to read them from her son who was a soldier in Europe. Mum read the letters one by one. The woman’s eyes ______ with tears. A few days later the woman returned with a friend, then another one and yet another one—they all needed letters. Mum had become the _______ in our town.
“All people in this world are here with one particular ______,” Mum said. “______, mine is to write letters.” She tried to explain why it ______ her so much. “A letter_______ people like nothing else. It can make them cry, it can make them laugh and it makes the world seem very small. My dear, a letter is life itself!”
1.A. gathered B. disappeared C. started D. happened
2.A. called B. drafted C. arrested D. trained
3.A. link B. signal C. route D. result
4.A. warm B. guide C. tell D. find
5.A. focus B. calm C. broaden D. strengthen
6.A. swing B. struggle C. stick D. settle
7.A. began B. answered C. signed D. sealed
8.A. teased B. persuaded C. reminded D. informed
9.A. never B. seldom C. ever D. always
10.A. liberal B. delicate C. reliable D. uneducated
11.A. university B. service C. course D. army
12.A. cater to B. relate to C. write to D. subscribe to
13.A. circulated B. arose C. faded D. ceased
14.A. set out B. pulled out C. put out D. turned out
15.A. sprang up B. welled up C. looked up D. turned up
16.A. writer B. editor C. assistant D. correspondent
17.A. order B. ambition C. letter D. purpose
18.A. Apparently B. Gradually C. Initially D. Eventually
19.A. pushed B. challenged C. absorbed D. relaxed
20.A. unites B. draws C. cheers D. associates
Do you like writing a few paragraphs every day about your experiences, hopes, memories or feelings? If you don’t, it’s time to make a change now. Write just a few paragraphs every day about your experiences, hopes, memories and feelings, and you will immediately begin to experience benefits to your personal growth and potential.
You will gradually become better at expressing yourself. 1. However, when you become lazy with words, you find it is more difficult to describe feelings, share experiences and make yourself understood.
2. As you write about memories, it is like opening an old photo album. Your pen begins to explore feelings and details you have forgotten and dreams you have left behind. You suddenly remember people you would like to contact again. Writing is an activity that avoids distraction(使人分心的事) long enough for you to explore those wonderful moments of the past. Sometimes they are frightening. 3.
Writing about daily experiences and feelings provides a recorded history that will influence how you make future decisions. 4. They learned from what had happened before. Your history is important. Don’t let it be forgotten.
Writing reminds you of your dreams and keeps you moving toward them. It is a means of keeping track of your purpose and the goals that will lead you to achieve them. 5. It shows when you have been distracted and may need to give all your attention again to your writing.
Writing a little every day could provide the material that someday becomes a published book. When I wrote about my depression and my four-year-old granddaughter who got lost in the mountains, I never dreamed it would be in a book.
A. You will remember things long forgotten.
B. Writing keeps you energetic and full of imagination all the time.
C. Sometimes they are wonderful and almost always they are helpful.
D. Sooner or later, you are surely to become a great professional writer.
E. Reviewing what you have written is a perfect way to see your progress.
F. There’s a reason that the greatest leaders in history were students of history.
G. When you write daily, you can always be amazed at how quickly your writing skills improve.
Like a tired marriage, the relationship between libraries and publishers has long been dull. E- books, however, are causing heartache. Libraries know they need digital wares, but many publishers are too cautious about piracy(盗版) and lost sales to co-operate. Among the big six, only Random House and Harper Collins license e-books with most libraries.
Publishers are wise to be nervous. Owners of e-readers(电子阅读器) are exactly the customers they need: book-lovers with money. If these people switch to borrowing e-books instead of buying them, what then? Electronic borrowing is awfully convenient. Unlike printed books, which must be checked out and returned to a physical library miles from where you live， book files can be downloaded at home. The files disappear from the device when they are due.
E-lending is not simple, however. There are lots of different and often incompatible(不兼容的) e-book formats, devices and licenses. Most libraries use a company called OverDrive, which secures rights from publishers and provides e-books and audio files in every format. Yet publishers and libraries are worried by Over Drive’s global market dominance(优势), as the company can control fees and conditions. Publishers were annoyed when OverDrive cooperated with Amazon, the world’s biggest online bookseller, last year. Owners of Amazon’s Kindle e-reader who want to borrow e-books from libraries are now redirected to Amazon’s website, where they must use their Amazon account to secure a loan.
According to Pew, an opinion researcher, library users are a perfect market for Amazon. Late last year Amazon introduced its Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, which lets its best customers borrow free one of thousands of popular books each month.
Library supporters argue that book borrowers are also book buyers and that libraries are vital spaces for readers to discover new works. Many were cheered by a recent Pew survey»which found that more than half of Americans with library cards say they prefer to buy their e-books.
So publishers keep adjusting their lending arrangements in search of the right balance.
Random House raised its licensing price’s earlier this year, and Harper Collins limits libraries to lending its titles 26 times.
1.It can be inferred from Paragraph 1 that ________.
A.several big publishers have sold e-books to libraries
B.most publishers are hesitant to cooperate with libraries
C.libraries are eager to keep strong relationship with publishers
D.libraries and publishers face the same problem of e-books’ piracy
2.Why are publishers worried that people will switch to electronic borrowing?
A.E-books must be checked out and returned to libraries regularly.
B.There is no time limit for the book files downloaded on the device.
C.There are lots of different and incompatible e-book formats available.
D.Book sales may drop sharply because of convenient electronic borrowing.
3.We can learn from the text that ________.
A.Amazon is adopting measures to win more customers
B.e-books can be lent at libraries as many times as you like
C.Over Drive distributes e-books and audio files to publishers
D.over half of Americans are borrowing e-boo from libraries
4.What is the best title for the text?
A.The Hopeful Future of Publishing Business
B.The Uncertain Economics of Lending E-books
C.The Dull Relationship between Libraries and Publishers
D.The Close Cooperation between OverDrive and Amazon
A recent study questions whether placing attention on economic growth is the best way to improve child nutrition in low-and middle-income countries. Subu is a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in Massachusetts. He says there is a common belief on the best way to improve child health in developing countries. He puts it this way: “Let’s just go after economic growth and then everything else will just follow.” But he says that is not always true.
Take India for example. A common measure of a country’s economic health is GDP (gross domestic product). India’s GDP has been growing by more than five percent a year. That is a higher growth rate than most Western countries. Yet more than two-fifths of India’s children are underweight. And Subu says, the percentage of underweight children has changed little since the early 1990s. He and other researchers asked a question, “Was economic growth failing to benefit children in countries other than India?” They looked at health surveys carried out since 1990 in 36 low-and middle-income countries, mostly South of Africa’s Sahara Desert. The researchers compared the effect of GDP growth and signs of child malnutrition-like physical weakness, slow growth and being underweight. But the researchers found only a small relationship.
The group reported their findings in the Journal Lancet Global Health. Subu says money should be spent on clear water, waste-treatment system and other programs. “Without these directing measures, what we are seeing is that economic growth by itself is not making much difference,” said Subu.
But that is not how Lawrence Haddad sees the case. He is head of the Institute of Development Studies in Britain. Lawrence Haddad says malnutrition has dropped sharply over the past 20 years in countries like Vietnam, Ghana or Brazil. He says economic growth was responsible for half of those declines. “The other half is because of improvements in water, health systems and nutrition programs,” said Haddad.
1.Why does the author take India for example?
A.To stress the importance of GDP.
B.To arouse reader’s interest in the topic.
C.To prove economic growth can’t improve child nutrition.
D.To show India has a higher growth rate than most Western countries.
2.What does the underlined word “malnutrition” in paragraph 2 mean?
A.Lacking nutrition. B.Getting nutrition.
C.Providing nutrition. D.Wasting nutrition.
3.Which statement is true according to the passage?
A.Two-fifths of India’s children are underweight.
B.Economic growth only fails to benefit children in India.
C.Lawrence Haddad looked at health surveys carried out since 1990.
D.Subu believed economic growth itself could hardly make a difference.
4.What is Lawrence Haddad’s attitude toward Subu’s findings?
A.Supportive. B.Disapproving.
C.Unconcerned. D.Doubtful.
The person who set the course of my life was a school teacher named Marjorie Hurd. When 1 stepped off a ship in New York Harbor in 1949, I was a nine-year-old war refugee, who had lost his mother and was coming to live with the father he did not know. My mother, Eleni Gatzoyiannis, had been imprisoned and shot for sending my sisters and me to freedom.
I was thirteen years old when I entered Chandler Junior High. Shortly after I arrived, I was told to select a hobby to pursue during“club hours.” The idea of hobbies and clubs made no sense to my immigrant ears, but I decided to follow the prettiest girl in my class. She led me into the presence of Miss Hurd, the school newspaper adviser and English teacher.
A tough woman with salt-and pepper hair and determined eyes, Miss Hurd had no patience with lazy bones. She drilled us in grammar, assigned stories for us to read and discuss, and eventually taught us how to put out a newspaper. Her introduction to the literary wealth of Greece gave me a new perspective on my war-torn homeland, making me proud of my origins. Her efforts inspired me to understand the logic and structure of the English language. Owing to her inspiration, during my next twenty-five years, I became a, journalist by profession.
Miss Hurd retired at the age of 62. By then, she had taught for a total of 41 years. Even after her retirement, she continually made a project of unwilling students in whom she spied a spark of potential. The students were mainly from the most troubled homes, yet she alternately bullied and charmed them with her own special brand of tough love, until the spark caught fire.
Miss Hurd was the one who directed my grief and pain into writing. But for Miss Hurd, I wouldn't have become & reporter. She was the one who sent me into journalism and indirectly caused all the good things that came after.
1.What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 most probably mean?
A.Hobbies and clubs did not interest the author.
B.The author turned a deaf ear to joining clubs.
C.Hobbies and clubs were inaccessible to immigrants like the author.
D.The author had no idea what hobbies and clubs were all about.
2.Which of the following caused the author to think of his homeland differently?
A.Stepping on the American soil for the first time.
B.Being exposed to Greek literary works.
C.Her mother's miserable death.
D.Following the prettiest girl in his class.
3.It can be inferred from Paragraph 4 that
A.Miss Hurd employed a unique way to handle these students.
B.Miss Hurd's contribution was recognized across the nation.
C.Students from troubled homes preferred Miss Hurd's teaching style.
D.The students Miss Hurd taught were all finally fired.
4.What is the text mainly about?
A.How the author became a journalist.
B.The importance of inspiration in one's life.
C.The teacher who shaped the author's life.
D.Factors contributing to a successful career.
With the lure (诱惑) of high salaries and strong job prospects, a lot of students enter college thinking they will major in engineering. If you think engineering might be a good choice for you, a summer engineering program is a great way to learn more about the field and expand your experiences. Below are some excellent summer engineering programs.
Johns Hopkins Engineering Innovation
This introductory engineering course for rising juniors and seniors is offered by Johns Hopkins University at several locations across the country. Engineering Innovation teaches critical thinking and applied problem-solving skills for future engineers through lectures, research and projects. If the student achieves an A or B in the program, they will also receive three transferable credits from Johns Hopkins University. The program runs for four or five days a week over four to five weeks, depending on the location. Most locations offer commuter programs only, but the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus in Baltimore also offers a residential option.
Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES)
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers this enrichment program for high school juniors interested in engineering, science and entrepreneurship. Students select five of 14 rigorous (严格的) academic courses to study over the six weeks of the program, during which time they have several opportunities to network with a diverse group of individuals within the fields of science and engineering. Students also share and celebrate their own cultures. MITES is scholarship-based; those students selected for the program need only provide their own transportation to and from the MIT campus.
Summer Engineering Exploration Camp
Hosted by the University of Michigan, this program is a one-week residential camp for rising high school sophomores, juniors and seniors interested in engineering. Participants have the opportunity to explore several different areas of engineering during engineering workplace tours, group projects, and presentations by students, faculty and professional engineers. Campers also enjoy recreational events and experience a university residential atmosphere in the University of Michigan dorms.
Exploring Your Options at the University of Illinois
This residential summer engineering camp for rising high school juniors and seniors is offered by the Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering program, headquartered at the University of Illinois. Campers have the chance to interact with engineering students and faculty, visit engineering facilities and research labs at the university, and work together on hands-on engineering projects. Students also participate in traditional camp recreational and social activities. The camp runs for two one-week sessions during June and July.
1.Which of the following programs lasts longest?
A. Johns Hopkins Engineering Innovation
B. Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science
C. Summer Engineering Exploration Camp
D. Exploring Your Options at the University of Illinois
2.If you choose the program of MIT, you will ________.
A. pay a visit to fabulous research labs
B. have the chance to win a scholarship
C. enjoy recreational activities with faculty
D. experience a university residential atmosphere
3.This passage may be intended for ________.
A. engineering majors B. professional engineers
C. high school students D. scientifically gifted children
