英语写作能力在英语交流和考试中非常重要。今天是9月1日，星期三，你的外教Johnson先生在课堂上讲了如何提高英语写作能力。
请根据以下建议，结合你的看法写一篇日记上交Johnson先生。
1．熟练掌握部分词汇；2．适当背诵一些美文；3．坚持每天练习写作; 4. ……
注意：1．词数150左右;
2. 日记格式与开头已给出，不计入总词数；
3．可适当增加细节。
September 1，Wednesday Fine
Today Mr．Johnson，our English teacher，told us__________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
请认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。
注意：每个空格只填1个单词。请将答案写在答题卡上相应题号的横线上。
How we look and how we appear to others probably worries us more when we are in our teens or early twenties than at any other time in our life. Few of us are content to accept ourselves as we are, and few are brave enough to ignore the trends of fashion.
Most fashion magazines or TV advertisements try to persuade us that we should dress in a certain way or behave in a certain manner. If we do, they tell us, we will be able to meet new people with confidence and deal with every situation confidently and without embarrassment. Changing fashion, of course, does not apply just to dress. A barber today does not cut a boy’s hair in the same way as he used to, and girls do not make up in the same way as their mothers and grandmothers did. The advertisers show us the latest fashionable styles and we are constantly under pressure to follow the fashion in case our friends think we are odd or dull.
What causes fashions to change? Sometimes convenience or practical necessity or just the fancy of an influential person can establish a fashion. Take hats, for example. In cold climates, early buildings were cold inside, so people wore hats indoors as well as outside. In recent times, the late President Kennedy caused a depression in the American hat industry by not wearing hats, more American men followed his example.
There is also a cyclical(周期性的) pattern in fashion. In the 1920s in Europe and America, short skirts became fashionable. After World War Two, they dropped to ankle length. Then they got shorter and shorter until the miniskirt was in fashion. After a few more years, skirts became longer again.
Today, society is much freer and easier than it used to be. It is no longer necessary to dress like everyone else. Within reason, you can dress as you like or do your hair the way you like instead of the way you should because it is the fashion. The popularity of jeans and the “untidy” look seems to be a reaction against the increasingly expensive fashion of the top fashion houses.
At the same time, appearance is still important in certain circumstances and then we must choose our clothes carefully. It would be foolish to go to an interview for a job in a law firm wearing jeans and a sweater, and it would be discourteous(失礼的) to visit some distinguished scholar looking as if we were going to the beach or a night club. However, you need never feel depressed if you don’t look like the latest fashion photo. Look around you and you’ll see that no one else does either!
Fashion Change
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People’s(71) towards fashion |
Ordinary people just (72) the trends of fashion passively. |
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Influences of fashion |
According to magazines and TV advertisements, people are able to (73) __more confidently and with less (74)___ if they fashionably dress themselves or wear a certain(75)____ style. |
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(76) of fashion changing |
Sometimes a fashion comes into (77)___because of convenience or practical necessity or just the fancy of an influential person. |
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Cyclical pattern in fashion |
Some old fashion can come back to(78)_____ after a certain period of time. |
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Today’s fashion |
Society emphasizes more on informality than on trends. You can dress up as you(79)______ . |
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Writer’s attitude |
We do need to (80)____ourselves properly on some occasions but we can never catch up with the latest fashion. |
“A lot of learning comes through play,” says Mardy McGarry, 52, who has been a special education teacher for 28 years. But her students were too often left out. She had seen the wood chips and sand of traditional playgrounds stop wheelchairs dead in their tracks. When she wanted to build a playground for children with special needs，she knew it wouldn’t take long to develop interest in it around the small fishing village. But she never expected that 2,800 people — a third of the town—would all be willing to make a great effort to bring her vision to life.
McGarry started doing some research into play equipment and contacting design companies and she also found a piece of land available. When the city council(市议会) agreed to set aside an area for a playground, she also asked physical and professional therapists(治疗专家) for their investment. And she turned to her friend, Sue, for help. “Neither of us is good at maths, which is why $450,000 didn’t sound like a lot of money,” McGarry says of the initial estimate.
Her Kiwanis Club came through with $7,000，and that’s when the grassroots movement really got started. One woman gave $25,000 and had her company match it. Soon, smaller businesses were joining in. There was a silent effort to collect money. The local Pieper Family Foundation offered to donate half of the remaining $170,000. All McGarry needed was 500 volunteers to work six 12-hour days.
On September 16, 2008, the first day of construction, they came. Two women heard about the project on the way to work and took the day off to help. A couple in their 80s operated their tractors. Ten-year-olds cleared up the mess. “None of them was paid. It was truly an amazing week,” says McGarry. Only three building managers were paid. Volunteers with “building experience” became coordinators(协调人); those who could operate power tools formed a separate group. One team served meals donated from local restaurants and churches, and another organized activities for the children of volunteers.
Today, Possibility Playground is one of the most popular destinations in Ozaukee County. All children, including the ones with special needs, play shoulder to shoulder. “Some playgrounds have special equipment in a different section. Here, you see all the kids in the same playground, all having fun.”
It’s exactly what McGarry imagined. “People used to ask, ‘Why do you want to build a playground just for children with disabilities?” She says, “It’s only when you build a playground for children with disabilities that you build one for all children.”
1. It didn’t occur to Mardy McGarry that __________.
A. her plan would soon draw the interest of people in the small village
B. so many people would volunteer to help her realize her dream
C. she would meet with so many difficulties in raising funds
D. the playground would be the most popular destination in Ozaukee County
2.We can learn from the fourth paragraph that __________.
A. the playground was finished in September 2008
B. everything was well prepared, apart from the volunteers
C. everyone worked unpaid, except for three building managers
D. the playground is so popular that it is overcrowded all the time
3.It can be inferred from the text that __________.
A. Mardy McGarry is a famous architect in the small town
B. Sue was forced to join in the project because of her son
C. people always ignore the real needs of disabled children
D. Mardy McGarry’s vision has been successfully accomplished at last
4.What would be the best title for this text?
A. Mardy McGarry: A Woman with Great Determination.
B. Cooperation: The Greatest Power in Overcoming Any Difficulty.
C. Show Real Concern for Poor Disabled Children.
D. Make it Matter to Build a Playground for Disabled Children.
It’s amazing what a little free beer can accomplish. In 1997 the small Danish island of Samso, located in the Kattegat Strail, won a contest hosted by the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy. Samso, then known for its dairy and pig farms, would become Denmark’s showcase for sustainable power, eventually going carbon-free. How that would happen, however, was far from clear, since the government initially offered no funding, tax breaks or technical expertise(专门知识).
Given that almost all its power came from oil or coal — and the island’s 4,300 residents didn’t know a wind turbine(风力发电机) from a grain silo(谷仓) — Samso seemed an strange choice. Soren Hermansen, though, saw an opportunity. A restless native son who grew up on a family farm, Hermansen was teaching environmental studies at a local school when he heard about Samso’s award. He volunteered to be the first — and only — participant. “I realized this could happen,” he says. “This was realistic.” He may have been the only one who thought so.
Hermansen knew Samso islanders were conservative, but that could be an advantage: once he convinced enough potential first movers to act, the rest would follow. So Hermansen showed up at every community or club meeting to campaign for the renewable-energy project. He pointed to the island’s unexplored potential for wind power and the economic benefits of making Samso energy-independent. He sometimes brought free beer.
It worked. The islanders bought shares in new wind turbines to build 11 large land-based turbines, enough to meet the entire island’s electricity needs. Not satisfied with that, they supported the construction of 10 huge offshore turbines，which provide power that the island’s dependence on cars and ferries needs. Today Samso isn’t just carbon-free — it actually produces 10% more clean electricity than it uses, with the extra power fed back into the national electricity network at a profit.
Hermansen has become a green angel, traveling from country to country telling the story of Samso’s success when he’s not at home running the Energy Academy, a research center for clean power. But he’s the first to say that the real credit belongs to the islanders，and that Samso’s lesson is that environmental change can only come from the ground up.
1.What was Hermansen’t response to the Samso’s winning the contest?
A. He regarded it as a chance.
B. He was not satisfied with the award.
C. He thought it was strange.
D. He thought it was reasonable.
2.From the second paragraph we can learn that __________.
A. many Samso islanders participated in the green project actively
B. most Samso islanders were against the renewable energy project
C. Samso has a long history of making use of renewable energy
D. at first people showed little interest in the renewable energy project
3.Why did Hermansen show up at every community or club meeting?
A. It was his duty to keep the islanders informed of government policies.
B. He wanted to convince the islanders to use clean power instead of oil or coal.
C. He wanted to persuade the islanders to be involved in the wind power project.
D. He wanted to share his beer with other islanders.
4.What can we learn about Hermansen’s personality from the last paragraph?
A. He is practical. B. He is courageous.
C. He is modest. D. He is ambitious.
We hear with our ears, right? Yes, but scientists have known for years that we also hear with our eyes. In a study published in 1976, researchers found that people combined both auditory cues(听力提示) and visual ones，like mouth and face movements, when they heard speech.
A new study that looks at a different set of sensory cues adds to a growing body of evidence that suggests such combination is natural. In a paper, Bryan Gick and Donald Derrick report that people can hear with their skin.
The researchers had volunteers listen to spoken syllables. Meanwhile, they connected the volunteers to a device that would blow a tiny puff (气流) of air onto the skin of their hands or necks. The syllables included “ba” and “pa”, which produce brief puffs from the mouth when spoken, and “da” and “ta,” which do not produce puffs. They found that when listeners heard “da” or “ta” while a puff of air was blown onto their skin, they considered the sounds as “ba” or “pa”.
Dr. Gick said the findings were similar to those from the 1976 study, in which visual cues defeated auditory ones — volunteers listened to one syllable but thought it another because they were watching a video of mouth movements corresponding to the second syllable. In his study，he said，cues from sensory receivers on the skin defeated the ears as well. “Our skin is doing the hearing for us,” he said.
Dr. Gick noted that it would normally be rare that someone actually sensed a puff of air produced by another, although people might occasionally sense their own puffs. “What’s so persuasive about this particular effect,” he added. “is that people are picking up on this information that they don’t know they are using.” That supports the idea that combining different sensory cues is natural.
Dr. Gick said the finding also suggested that other sensory cues might be at work in speech perception(知觉) — that, as he put it, “we are these fantastic perception machines that take in all the information available to us and combine it faultlessly.”
1.“Da” or “ta” were considered as “ba” or “pa” when __________.
A. they were spoken quickly
B. puffs of air were blown onto the listener’s skin
C. they were pronounced using a special device
D. they were made with face movements
2.Which of the following statements is TRUE?
A. Humans combine different sensory cues through experience.
B. Dr. Gick’s new study is more important than the one in 1976.
C. People sometimes can sense their own puffs when speaking
D. Only auditory and visual cues are at work in speech perception.
3.What is the best title of the text?
A. We Can Hear with Our Skin
B. Our Visual Cues Is Doing the Hearing for Us
C. Facial Expressions Are Important
D. We Are Fantastic Machines
One of the most wonderful things about having a positive attitude is that it can touch many people in the course of everyday life.
Recently I stopped by a store to get a newspaper and a bottle of juice. The young woman at the check-out counter said, “That’ll be three dollars in all please.” And as I reached into my wallet，the thought occurred to me that a newspaper and a bottle of juice didn’t quite make it to three dollars.
When I looked up to get a “re-quote”(重说一遍), she had a big smile on her face and said，“I got to get my tip in there somehow!” I laughed when I knew what she meant. She then glanced down at the paper I was buying and said, “I’m sick and tired of all the negative material on the front pages. I want to read some good news for a change.” She then said, “In fact, I think someone should publish a Good News newspaper —a paper with wonderful, inspirational stories about people overcoming difficulties and doing good things for others. I’d buy one every day!” She then thanked me for coming in and said, “Maybe we’ll get lucky tomorrow; maybe we’ll get some good news!” We both laughed，and I thought: she just made my day.
The following day after work I dropped by the same store again to pick up bottled water and a newspaper, but a different young lady was behind the counter. As I checked out I said, “Good afternoon”, and handed her my money. She said nothing，and didn’t smile or make a gesture. She just handed me my change and said in a bored voice, “Next!”
It hit me right between the eyes. Two people, the same age; one had made me feel great, while the other had made me feel that I had inconvenienced her by showing up.
The choices we make and attitudes we show influence lives every day in positive or negative ways…our peers, our friends，and even strangers we’ve never met before and will never meet again. So every morning you should ask yourself：“Who do I want to be today—‘The Grouch’(好抱怨的人) or ‘The Good News Girl?” Your answer will go a long way toward determining the quality of your life and that of those around you.
1. From the first salesgirl’s words we know that __________.
A. she was sick and tired of people with bad manners
B. she didn’t like the bad news in the newspaper
C. she liked reading all kinds of stories
D. she thought it was boring to sell newspapers
2. After the author bought the newspaper the first day，he _________.
A. had a sad day
B. kept thinking about what the girl had said
C. read the newspaper carefully
D. was in a pleasant mood all day
3.The other salesgirl’s attitude towards the author the next day was __________.
A. humorous B. enthusiastic C. cold D. positive
4.The author learned from his experience that __________.
A. a Good News newspaper would be very popular
B. a positive attitude creates warmth and happiness
C. good relationships matter a lot
D. he needed to change the quality of his life
