Less than one year after France imposed a nationwide ban on smoking in most public places, it will, from Jan. 1, 2009, extend the ban to bars, restaurants, hotels, nightclubs—and the most cherished of all: cafés.
Ireland and Italy show that countries with long-standing smoking traditions may introduce bans fairly smoothly, as they did in 2004 and 2005. In Germany, where regulations vary locally, Berlin will join France on Jan 1. But fierce critics of the new law in France say it all but destroys the café's basic function: to serve as the socio-economic glue of society.
Cécile Perez, owner of La Fronde, a typical Parisian neighborhood café, said: “In the morning, street cleaners in bright green uniforms sip coffee next to well-dressed businessmen; at lunch hour, working-class types rub shoulders with those of the latest fashion at the bar, while couples of all ages rub noses over salads; during the after-work rush, there is a steady soundtrack of clinking glasses combined with conversation; the constant, no matter what time of day, is the smoke that drifts through the air in curls and clouds, seemingly unnoticed.”
“Our motto in France is: liberty, equality, fraternity,” Olivier Seconda, a regular at the café, said. “The café is the place that represents that. You’re free to smoke, everyone pays the same price for a beer and different kinds of people talk with one another. This new law goes against that.”
Seconda expects the ban to be felt even more strongly in small villages far from Paris, where the café is often the only means of social activity. “People already miss the space that allows people of all walks of life to share something—even if it is sometimes no more than a few words and the smoke floating between them.”
1.Cécile Perez mentions the curls and clouds of smoke drifting through the air to ______.
A．describe a friendly atmosphere
B．show the beauty of his own café
C．support the ban on smoking
D．remind us of something unnoticed
2.Olivier Seconda implies that ______.
A．the café provides people with enough liberty, equality, and fraternity
B．people, regardless of their social classes, enjoy equal rights in a café
C．the new ban on café smoking should be put in effect only in villages
D．people would not find fun in a café without smoking a cigarette
3.The passage is written to _______.
A．show the writer’s personal opinion against a new law
B．provide information for law-makers to pass a new law
C．tell why some people are unhappy about smoking ban in cafés
D．compare attitudes to a law, held by people from different countries
The Queen’s English is now sounding less upper-class, a scientific study of the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts had found. Researchers have studied each of her messages to the Commonwealth countries since 1952 to find out the change in her pronunciation from the noble Upper Received to the Standard Received.
Jonathan Harrington, a professor at Germany’s University of Munich, wanted to discover whether accent changes recorded over the past half century would take place within one person. “As far as I know, there just is nobody else for whom there is this sort of broadcast records,” he said.
He said the noble way of pronouncing vowels (元音) had gradually lost ground as the noble upper-class accent over the past years. “Her accent sounds slightly less noble than it did 50 years ago. But these are very, very small and slow changes that we don’t notice from year to year.”
“We may be able to relate it to changes in the social classes,” he told The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. “In 1952 she would have been heard saying ‘thet men in the bleck het’. Now it would be ‘that man in the black hat’. Similarly, she would have spoken of ‘citay ’ and ‘dutay’ , rather than ‘citee’ and ‘dutee’ and ‘hame’ rather than ‘home’. In the 1950s she would have been ‘lorst’, but by the 1970s ‘lost’.”
The Queen’s broadcast is a personal message to the Commonwealth countries. Each Christmas, the 10-minute broadcast is put on TV at 3 pm in Britain as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch.
The results were published in the Journal of Phonetics.
1.The Queen’s broadcasts were chosen for the study mainly because ______.
A. she has been Queen for many years.
B. she has a less upper-class accent now.
C. her speeches are familiar to many people.
D. her speeches have been recorded for 50 years.
2.Which of the following is an example of a less noble accent in English?
A. “dutay” B. “citee” C. “hame” D. “lorst”
3.We may infer from the text that the Journal of Phonetics is a magazine on _________.
A. speech sounds B. Christmas customs
C. TV broadcasting D. personal messages
4.What is the text mainly about?
A. The Queen’s Christmas speeches on TV.
B. The relationship between accents and social classes.
C. The changes in a person’s accent.
D. The recent development of the English language.
Dear SJ,
Losing a best friend is never easy.
Your problem, is not just that you miss your best friend, it is that you feel empty and lost without her friendship.
It takes time to get over a lost, and during that time, your mind is getting used to a new way of being. This is usually a good thing, even if it feels like a bad thing.
Now that you are on your own, you are being forced to learn to be by yourself and to rely upon your own inner voice for guidance. I am sure that this feels strange for you, but if you can hang on for a bit longer, it may work to your advantage.
Best friends are cool, but it is important to know the difference between missing someone and being too independent upon them.
At your age, girls do tend to stick together and having a good boyfriend may not yet be the better choice. Your friend is leaving you, her best friend, for a boyfriend. Boyfriends are completely different from best friends. The distinction is that boyfriends come and go, while girl friends often stay in your life throughout high school, and even afterwards. It is a completely different sort of bond.
I suggest that you take advantage of this period in your life to expand your horizons. Enjoy the freedom of having no best friend for a while, and hang with the group. By the time your former best friend breaks up with her boyfriend, you will be in a completely different place, a far better place.
And, by the way, next time you feel empty and lost, try to write about it in a diary. In several months, you will look back and read it with curiosity about yourself. “Who was I then, and what could I have been thinking?”
1.Judging from the letter, SJ’s problem was that she didn’t know _______ .
A．whether to give up her best friend
B．what to do without her best friend
C．whom to choose between two friends
D．how to stop missing her former friend
2.The underlined part “a new way of being” (in Paragraph 3) refers to the situation in which SJ has to _______.
A．find a new friendship B．live without her boyfriend
C．learn to give up D．learn to be independent
3.The writer believes by the time SJ’s former friend loses her boyfriend, SJ will _______.
A．take revenge on her former friend
B．comfort her former friend
C．feel more independent and confident
D．continue friendship with her former friend
4.What does the last paragraph seem to suggest?
A．Unhappy experiences are easy to forget.
B．Keeping a diary helps correct oneself.
C．SJ will get over her problem soon.
D．One shouldn’t forget the past experiences.
While watching the Olympics the other night, I came across an unbelievable sight. It was not a gold medal, or a world record broken, but a show of courage.
The event was swimming and started with only three men on the blocks. For one reason or another, two of them false started, so they were disqualified. That left only one to complete. It would have been difficult enough, not having anyone to race against, even though the time on the clock is important.
I watched the man dive off the block and knew right away that something was wrong. I’m not an expert swimmer, but I can tell a good dive from a poor one, and this was not exactly medal quality. When he resurfaced, it was evident that the man was not out for gold—his arms were waving in an attempt at freestyle. The crowd started to laugh. Clearly this man was not a medal competitor.
I listened to the crowd begin to laugh at this poor man who was clearly having a hard time. Finally he made his turn to start back. It was pitiful. He made a few desperate strokes and you could tell he was worn out.
But in those few awful strokes, the crowd had changed.
No longer were they laughing, but beginning to cheer. Some even began to stand and shout “Come on, you can do it!” and he did.
A clear minute past the average swimmer, this young man finally finished his race. The crowd went wild. You would have thought that he had won the gold, and should have. Even though he recorded one of the slowest times in Olympic history, this man gave more heart than any of the other competitors.
Just a short year ago, he had never even swum, let alone race. His country had been invited to Sydney.
In a competition where athletes remove their silver medals feeling they have somehow been cheated out of gold, or when they act so proudly in front of their competitors, it is nice to watch an underdog.
1.The crowd changed their attitudes because _______.
A. they felt sorry for the young man
B. they wanted to show their sympathy
C. they were moved by the young man
D. they meant to please the young man
2.From the passage we can learn that the young man _______.
A. made his turn to start back pitifully
B. was skillful in freestyle in the game
C. swam faster than the average swimmer
D. was not capable enough to win the medal
3.According to the passage, “it is nice to watch an underdog” probably means _______.
A. it’s amusing to watch a man with awful swimming skills
B. it’s amazing to watch an ordinary man challenging himself
C. it’s cheerful for athletes to act proudly before their competitors
D. it’s brave enough for some athletes to remove the silver medals
4.What’s the best title for the passage?
A. Go for it! B. Try again！
C. Compete for Gold! D. Break a Record!
书面表达
假如你是李华，Sara是你的英文笔友，她在微博上发帖求助。你就她的帖子中所提出的问题，简要分析其原因，并给出一些建议。
Hi，recently I’ve been bothered a lot for I always fail to carry on the goals I set. Various obstacles (障碍物) are always getting in my way. Could you give me some suggestions on how to start realizing my goals? |
写作要点： 1. 就这个问题告诉Sara你的观点；
2. 简要分析其原因；
3. 给Sara提出解决问题的具体建议。
注意： 1. 信的开头、结尾已为你写好，但不计入总词数；
2. 词数120左右。
Hi, Sara,
As a student of your age, I understand your situation. __________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
短文改错
下文中共有10处语言错误，在错误的地方增加、删除或修改某个单词。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），在其下面写上该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写上修改后的词。
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11处起）不记分。
On a Friday night, a poor young artist was playing with his violin at a street corner with a large piece of paper on the ground. Before long, he was surrounding with people, who were all attracted by the word on that paper. It said, “Last night, a gentleman put an important thing into my hat with mistake. Please come to claim them soon.” Seeing this, people wondered why it could be. Some time later, a man came and take back his lottery which won a prize of ＄500,000. When asked why he didn’t keep it for himself, artist said, “While I don’t have much money, I live happy. However, if I lose honest, I won’t be happy forever.”
