A businessman was once deep in debt（债务）and could see no way out. He sat on a park bench, head in hands, wondering if anything could save his company.
Suddenly an old man appeared in front of him. “I can see that something is troubling you,” he said. After listening to the businessman’s trouble, the old man said, “I believe I can help you.”
He asked the man his name, wrote out a check（支票）and pushed it into his hand, saying, “Take this money. Meet me here exactly one year from today, and you can pay me back at that time.” Then he turned and disappeared.
The businessman saw his hand a check for $500,000, signed by John D. Rockefeller. One of the richest man in the world.
“It can solve my problem at once!” the businessman realized. But instead, he decided to put the check in his safe. Just knowing it was there that might give him the strength（力量）to work out a way to save his business, he thought.
With renewed optimism（乐观精神）, he did better in his business. Within a few months, he was out of debt and making money once again.
Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the check. At the agreed-upon（约定的）time, the old man appeared. But just as the businessman was about to hand back the check and share his successful story, a nurse came running up and caught the old man.
“I’m so glad I caught him!” she cried. “I hope he hasn’t been troubling you. He’s always escaping from the hospital and telling people he’s John D. Rockefeller.”
And then she led the old man away by the arm. The businessman just stood there,________. Suddenly, he realized that it wasn’t the money, real or imagined, that had turned his life around. It was his newfound self-confidence（自信心）that gave him the strength to achieve anything he went after.
1.By saying “it can solve my problem at once”, the businessman wanted to show____________.
A. he didn’t need the check B. he didn’t need to work any more
C. he must put the check in a safe place D. he could pay off the debts with the check
2.__________ is the correct order in which these events happened.
a.The businessman did better in his business and was out of debt soon.
b.A nurse told the businessman the old man always ran away from the hospital.
c.An old man gave the businessman a check for $500,000.
d.The businessman went back to the park to meet the old man.
A. d-c-b-a B. c-a-b-d C. c-a-d-b D. d-a-c-b
3.Which word can be put in the blank____________ in the last paragraph?
A. sad B. pleased C. worried D. shocked
4.The best title（标题）of the passage is ____________.
A. A rich old man B. A terrible experience
C. A newfound self-confidence D. An unlucky businessman
“Chicken” idioms（习语）
The word “chicken” is used in so many English idioms. Do you know the following?
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
The expression“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch”means “Don’t expect that all your eggs, which have been laid, will hatch. “Hatch” is a verb, meaning the baby chicken breaks open the shell of the egg and comes out successfully. So the expression mainly means “Don’t depend on things working out just as you want them to.” this saying appears in the story The Milkmaid and Her Pail in Aesop’s Fables.
A chicken-and-egg situation
In history, philosophers（哲学家）and scientists have met this dilemma（困境）: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Aristotle thought that both the bird and the egg must have always been there. However, more recently, scientists such as Stephen Hawking have argued that the egg came before the chicken. In common speech, the term “a chicken-and-egg situation” means a situation where it is impossible to say which of two things appeared first and which caused the other one.
Don’t be such a chicken
There seems to be an idea in English, somehow, that a chicken is a scared bird. Maybe that’s not fair as most birds will probably fly away from you if you go towards them. But “Don’t be such a chicken” means “Don’t be so scared and get a bit more courage.” So if your friend fear to do something, you can say to him or her, “Don’t be such a chicken. Just have a try!”
1.The underlined word “hatch” means “_______” in Chinese.
A. 孵化 B. 长大 C. 破碎 D. 出售
2.While discussing the idiom “A chicken-and-egg situation”, the writer mentions Aristotle and Stephen Harking to show that_________.
A. Aristotle’s opinion was wrong
B. Stephen Hawking’s opinion is wrong
C. it’s impossible to find the right answer to this question
D. philosophers and scientists usually have the same answer to a question
3.We may use the idiom “Don’t be such a chicken” in the situation when someone_______.
A. is not brave enough B. enjoys counting his chickens
C. has difficulty making a choice D. hopes things will work out just as he wants
4.The writer probably appears in the __________ part of a magazine.
A. food B. culture C. travel D. sport
Here are two pieces of news from a newspaper.
Hong Kong’s first sightseeing restaurant bus went into service, offering tourists and locals a fresh experience of sightseeing and dinning. People now don’t need to plan where to go or worry about where to eat. The sightseeing restaurant bus has two floors with 47 seats. It tours around the city while serving food prepared by the famous Michelin restaurant there. Its service includes day and night tours, with day tour covering over 20 sights from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island or to the New Territories. The two-and-a-half-hour day tour costs each passenger 380 HK dollars（$48.9）。
Night tours are only for booking out the whole bus and guests can choose the route（路线）for themselves.
With no smile and only terrible teeth, two robot-like dinosaurs（恐龙）standing at the desk are always ready to
help customers check in. They are professional workers for Henn-na Hotel in China, Japan, the second robot-staffed hotel. Robots in this hotel can greet guests in English, Chinese and Japanese languages and every room has a doorkeeper robot called “Tapia”, who can talk to customers or can offer such services as turning on or off TV or providing weather news. The hotel opens on Wednesday and the price of the room starts from 170 dollars a night.
1.The robots in Henn-na Hotel can speak _________kinds of languages.
A. two B. three C. four D. five
2.From the passage, we learn the robots in Henn-na Hotel________.
A. have no teeth B. never talk to customers
C. don’t greet people with a smile D. refuse to turn off or on TV for guests
3.Which is NOT true about the sightseeing restaurant bus?
A. The price of the day tour is 380HK dollars.
B. Passengers can enjoy the food and sights at the same time.
C. Michelin restaurants provide food for the tourists on the bus.
D. Passengers can choose the route for day tour by themselves.
课外阅读能丰富学生的课余生活，开拓他们的视野。但是，目前许多中学生并不重课外阅读。请你根据以下提示，写一篇英语短文，对这一状况进行分析并提出建议。
原因 | 1.作业太多； 2.没有时间读书； 3.时间花在电脑上或网络上。 |
好处 | 更好地了解世界； 学会如何思考； 生活更加丰富多彩。 |
建议 | ……(至少一点) |
注意：1.内容需包括以上提示，课适当发挥，但不要逐句翻译；
2.条理清楚，语句连贯；
3.80词左右，短文的开头已给出，不计入总词数。
At present, only a few students do some reading after class. Here are several reasons. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
语篇翻译 阅读下面的短文，将画线部分译成英文或中文。
46.Confucius is the greatest teacher in Chinese history. He was born on September 28,551BC in the Kingdom of Lu, in today’s Shandong Province. When he was young, he and his mother had a hard life. 47.他十五岁时开始学习音乐, and he did well in it. Then he went on learning other subjects. When he was thirty, he became a teacher. He started his own school. 48.He believed everyone should have a chance to get education whether they were rich or poor. He had about 3,000 students and many of them became famous.
49.Chinese see Confucius as the greatest thinker and also the greatest teacher. His most important ideas are kindness and good manners. 50.他说年轻人人应该照顾老年人。 People should stop thinking of themselves and work for others. His ideas are around in people’s everyday life. Today people can still hear them, and they go far into east and south Asia.
1._________________________________________________________________
2._________________________________________________________________
3._________________________________________________________________
4._________________________________________________________________
5._________________________________________________________________
My friend Peter was kind and lovely. But as a student, he was bad at maths, English and science because he didn't have an aptitude (资质) for that kind of study.
One day we were playing football and the bail got stuck in a tree. Peter climbed the tree to get it, and one of the teachers, John Marston who was looking out of the window, noticed that he was a talented climber.
Mr Marston was an expert (专家) in climbing. He had climbed many mountains.
One weekend Mr Marston invited Peter to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Peter really enjoyed the climbing. Mr Marston told Peter he was a very talented climber for his age. Peter left school three years later with no qualifications (毕业证), but he kept climbing regularly until he became very good at it. In his early twenties, he became a professional climber. He said," I'll always remember Mr Marston because he showed me I had an ability which no one else, including me, knew about."
1.Which subject was Peter not good at?
____________________________________________________________________
2.When did Peter and Mr Marston climb Mount Kilimanjaro?
____________________________________________________________________
3.How did Peter feel about the climbing?
____________________________________________________________________
4.What did Mr Marston say about Peter?
____________________________________________________________________
5.Did Peter know he had an ability to climb at first?
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