I’ll remember the first carnival（狂欢节）. 1.. My parents came from Jamaica and they helped to start carnival. We had very little money, but we made costumers from old bits of material and feathers, and colourful masks. We decorated old lorries, so that we could ride on them through the streets. It took us six months to get ready.
But on the big day, all our hard work had been worth it. People of all ages, from babies to grandparents, black and white, danced together in the street. 2.. The music was played on anything made of metal: it was very noisy.
There were people watching from the windows of every house. We ate all our favourite Jamaican food, washed down with beer.3.– but carnival helps you forget the weather!
When the carnival got too big, those old streets became too narrow for such big crowds（人群）. Some people said they felt frightened by the large crowds and the noise. We were worried that carnival would be banned（禁止）. Then we found an answer – everything was moved to a wider and safer street. 4..
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A. It was in the 1960s B. The weather was wet C. The policemen danced, too D. But sometimes it’s too crazy E. So carnival should continue for years. |
When students and parents are asked to grade subjects according to their importance, the arts are usually at the bottom of the list. Music is nice, people seem to say, but not important. Too often it is only viewed as entertainment, but certainly not an education priority（优先）. This view is shortsighted. In fact, music education is very important for all students.
Music tells us who we are. Because music is an expression of the beings who create it, it shows their thinking and values, as well as the social environment it came from. Rock music represents a lifestyle just as surely as does a Schubert song. The jazz influence that George Gershwin and other musicians introduced into their music is obviously American because it came from American musical traditions. Music expresses our character and values. It gives us identity（身份，特性）as a society.
Music provides a kind of perception（感知）that cannot be acquired any other way. Science can explain how the sun rises and sets. The arts can express the emotive（情感的）meaning of the same thing. We need every possible way to discover and respond to our world for one simple but powerful reason: No one way can get it all.
The arts are forms of thought as powerful in what they communicate as mathematical and scientific symbols. They are ways we human beings “talk” to each other. They are the language through which we express our fears, our hungers, our discoveries, our hopes. The arts are ways we give form to our ideas and imagination so that they can be shared with others. When we do not give children an important way of expressing themselves such as music, we take away from them the meanings that music expresses.
Science and technology do not tell us what it means to be human. The arts do. Music is an important way we express human suffering, celebration, the value of peace and love.
So music education is far more necessary than people seem to realize.
1.What can we learn from Paragraph 1?
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A．Students regard music as a way of entertainment. |
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B．Students disagree with their parents on education. |
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C．Students take music as an important subject. |
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D．Students prefer the arts to science. |
2.In Paragraph 2, the writer uses jazz as an example to____________.
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A．compare it with rock music |
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B．show music identifies a society |
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C．introduce American musical traditions |
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D．prove music influences people’s lifestyles |
3.According to the passage, the arts and science____________. .
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A．explain the world in different ways |
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B．explain different facts of the world |
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C．express people’s feelings in different ways |
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D．explain what it means to be human differently |
4.What is the main idea of the passage?
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A．Music education is worth more attention. |
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B．Music should be of top education priority. |
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C．Music is really a good communication tool. |
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D．Music education makes students more imaginative. |
To err is human. To blame（责备） the other guy is even more human.
Common sense is not all that common.
Why tell the truth when you can come up with a good excuse?
These three popular misquotes（戏谑的引语）are meant to be jokes, and yet they tell us a lot about human nature. To err, or to make mistakes, is indeed a part of being human, but it seems that most people don’t want to accept the responsibility for the problem. Perhaps it is the natural thing to do. The original quote about human nature went like this: “To err is human, to forgive, divine（神圣的）.” This saying mirrors an ideal: People should be forgiving of others’ mistakes. Instead, we tend to do the opposite – find someone else to pass the blame on to. However, taking responsibility for something that went wrong is a mark of great maturity（成熟）.
Common sense is what we call clear thought. Having common sense means having a good general plan that will make things work well, and it also means staying with the plan. Common sense tells you that you take an umbrella out into a rainstorm, but you leave the umbrella home when you hear a weather forecast for sunshine. Common sense does not seem to be common for large companies, because there are so many things going on that one person cannot be in charge of everything. People say that in a large company, “the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.”
And what is wrong with a society that thinks that making up a good excuse is like creating a work of art? One of the common problems with making excuses is that people, especially young people, get the idea that it’s okay not to be totally honest all the time. There is a corollary（直接推论）to that: if a good excuse is “good” even if it isn’t honest, then where is the place of the truth?
1.Which of the following is NOT based on common sense?
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A．A secretary works to a timetable. |
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B．A company’s next move follows a good plan. |
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C．A girl goes out with an umbrella in stormy weather. |
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D．A man tries to manage everything in a large company. |
2.What can we infer from the last paragraph according to the writer?
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A．A good excuse is the same as honesty. |
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B．Inventing a good excuse needs creative ideas. |
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C．Unpleasant truth is better than a good excuse. |
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D．Making a good excuse is sometimes a better idea. |
3.What would be the best title for this passage?
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A．A Mirror of Human Nature |
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B．To Blame or to Forgive |
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C．A Mark of Maturity |
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D．Truth or Excuse |
For Sparky, school was all but impossible. He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He didn’t do much better in sports. Although he played for the school’s golf team, he lost the only important match of the season.
Sparky was a loser. He, his classmates…everyone knew it. Sparky never asked a classmate to go out in high school. He was too afraid of being refused.
However, one thing was important to Sparky – drawing. He was proud of his artwork. Of course, no one else appreciated it. In his senior year of high school, he sent some cartoons to the editors of the Yearbook. Although the cartoons were turned down, Sparky was so confident about his ability that he decided to become an artist.
After completing high school, he wrote a letter to Walt Disney Studios. He was told to send some samples of his artwork, and the subject for a cartoon was suggested. Sparky spent a great deal of time on it. Finally, the reply came from Disney Studios. He had been rejected（拒绝）once again. Another loss for the loser.
So Sparky decided to write his own autobiography（自传）in cartoons. He described his childhood – a little boy loser and underachiever. The cartoon character would soon become famous worldwide. For Sparky, the boy who had little success in school and whose work was rejected again and again was Charles Schulz. He created the Peanuts comic strip（连环漫画）and little cartoon character – Charlie Brown.
1.We can know that Sparky was ________ from the first paragraph.
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A．a top student |
B．an artist |
C．a good player |
D．a failure |
2.Sparky never asked a classmate to go out because he ______.
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A．had never been invited |
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B．didn’t like making friends |
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C．didn’t want to be refused |
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D．was afraid of making mistakes |
3.What’s Sparky’s success according to the passage?
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A．He was good at golf playing. |
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B．He wrote a letter to Walt Disney Studios. |
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C．He drew some cartoons for the Yearbook. |
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D．His Peanuts comic strip became world famous. |
Mrs. Chang, a new teacher at Park School, wants to know her students in Class 5, Grade 3. Here are the introductions of some of the students.
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Names |
Introductions |
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Kelly |
Kelly has to go to cram school from 6:20 p.m. to 8:20 p.m. |
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Susan |
Because Susan lives too far away, she usually comes to school late. |
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Nicole |
Nicole is a good student who does well on tests and helps others solve math questions. |
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Jane |
Jane likes to do housework at home and helps clean the classroom. |
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Tom |
Tom never goes to school on time and seldom finishes homework. |
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Jordan |
He likes sports a lot and usually plays basketball in the park right after school. |
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May |
May is friendly and likes to help people. |
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Mark |
Mark does well on tests, but he is shy and doesn’t like to help his classmates. |
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Carol |
She is Mrs. Chang’s best assistant that will do everything for her! |
1.Who likes sports a lot?
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A．Jordan. |
B．Susan. |
C．Carol. |
D．Jane. |
2.What does Jane like to do?
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A．To go to school late. |
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B．To help clean the classroom. |
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C．To play basketball in the park. |
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D．To help others solve math questions. |
3.Who does well on tests?
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A．Kelly and Tom. |
B．Nicole and Jordan. |
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C．May and Mark. |
D．Nicole and Mark. |
My earliest memory of dad is grabbing（抓住）his hand while we walked together. As I grew older, I remember my father and I listening to basketball games on the radio. I always fell asleep 35 the game was over. When I woke up in the morning, the score sheet with the 36 score on it would be lying next to me. I’ll always remember that.
On cold mornings my father would bring his bread truck by the house. I used to ride on the floor of that bread truck as he delivered（分送）the bread to the stores. The 37 and the warmth from the bread made my mouth water and kept me warm. I’ll always remember that.
My father would be present at all my games. One night before an important game my father told me 38 that he wouldn’t be able to watch the game because he had to deliver the bread and it was a three-hour 39 . The next day as the game drew near I thought about my dad. I happened to look across the field and 40 saw his bread truck pulling into the stadium. He managed to 41 the game. I’ll always remember that.
Years later I had become a 42 . I’ll never forget the voice on the phone early one morning telling me dad had just been killed in a traffic accident. I could hear my heart 43 in my ears. I 44 the phone and went back to my bedroom. After that nothing really 45 to me. I still taught in school but I couldn’t centre attention on my teaching. One day I was on the playground when a little boy walked up to me and grabbed my hand. His hand held mine the same way I used to hold my father’s by the last two fingers. At that moment I found my 46 in life again. You see even though my father was gone, he left something with me. He left me his smile, compassion and touch. My purpose was to use those gifts as he did. From that day on I started. I’ll always remember that!
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