George Gershwin was born in New York City in 1898. His parents were Russian Jews who had immigrated to the United States. George and his two brothers and sister had a close, happy family life. George liked playing games on the streets of New York. He liked exploring the city. He did not like school or studying.
While exploring the city, George heard jazz and blues music in and out of public drinking places. However, he did not become seriously interested in music until he heard another boy playing the violin in a concert at his school. George began to take piano lessons. His teacher was a fine classical musician. He immediately recognized George's unusual ability. The teacher wrote about him to a friend: "I have a student who will make his mark in music, if anybody will. The boy is a genius, without doubt. "
George studied classical piano. But his strongest interest continued to be jazz and popular music. At the age of fifteen, he left school and went to work in the music business. At that time, the New York City street where most music publishers had their offices was called "Tin Pan Alley." The piano players played the songs all day long to interested singers and other performers. George Gershwin was one of the youngest piano players in Tin Pan Alley. Soon, he was considered one of the finest there. He was already writing his own songs. He succeeded in getting one published when he was only eighteen years old.
George Gershwin was now a real composer. The rest of his life was an unbroken record of success. He wrote song after song. His ideas were so endless that he was not even troubled when he once lost some music he had been writing. "There is plenty more where that came from," he said.
George Gershwin had his first big hit in 1919, when he was twenty-one years old. It was a song called "Swanee." A popular entertainer, Al Jolson, sang the song. "Swanee" was made into one of the first musical recordings. George Gershwin was suddenly famous.
1.When did George Gershwin take music as an interest?
A. When he was exploring the city.
B. When he played games on the streets.
C. When he heard a boy playing piano.
D. When he heard the violin at a school concert.
2.We know from the passage that______.
A. George Gershwin was born in Russia.
B. George Gershwin’s parents had 5 children.
C. His teacher believed in his musical gift.
D. Classical piano was his favorite music.
3.What made George Gershwin become famous in his twenties?
A. He played the piano in Tin Pan Alley
B. He wrote a song named "Swanee."
C. He sang the song "Swanee."with Al Jolson
D. He lost some music he was writing.
4.What was George Gershwin’s reaction when some music he was writing got lost?
A. He became rather angry.
B. He went to his teacher for help.
C. He stopped composing music.
D. He remained calm and confident.
Decision-making under Stress
A new review based on a research shows that acute stress affects the way the brain considers the advantages and disadvantages, causing it to focus on pleasure and ignore the possible negative (负面的) consequences of a decision.
The research suggests that stress may change the way people make choices in predictable ways.
“Stress affects how people learn,” says Professor Mara Mather. “People learn better about positive than negative outcomes under stress.”
For example, two recent studies looked at how people learned to connect images(影像) with either rewards or punishments. In one experiment, some of the participants were first stressed by having to give a speech and do difficult math problems in front of an audience; in the other, some were stressed by having to keep their hands in ice water. In both cases, the stressed participants remembered the rewarded material more accurately and the punished material less accurately than those who hadn’t gone through the stress.
This phenomenon is likely not surprising to anyone who has tried to resist eating cookies or smoking a cigarette while under stress –at those moments, only the pleasure associated with such activities comes to mind. But the findings further suggest that stress may bring about a double effect. Not only are rewarding experiences remembered better, but negative consequences are also easily recalled.
The research also found that stress appears to affect decision-making differently in men and women. While both men and women tend to focus on rewards and less on consequences under stress, their responses to risk turn out to be different.
Men who had been stressed by the cold-water task tended to take more risks in the experiment while women responded in the opposite way. In stressful situations in which risk-taking can pay off big, men may tend to do better, when caution weighs more, however, women will win.
This tendency to slow down and become more cautious when decisions are risky might also help explain why women are less likely to become addicted than men: they may more often avoid making the risky choices that eventually harden into addiction.
1.We can learn from the passage that people under pressure tend to ______.
A. keep rewards better in their memory
B. recall consequences more effortlessly
C. make risky decisions more frequently
D. learn a subject more effectively
2.According to the research, stress affects people most probably in their ______.
A. ways of making choices B. preference for pleasure
C. tolerance of punishments D. responses to suggestions
3.The research has proved that in a stressful situation, ______.
A. women find it easier to fall into certain habits
B. men have a greater tendency to slow down
C. women focus more on outcomes
D. men are more likely to take risks
A 15-year-old boy was injured in a car accident when the car he was traveling in was hit by a truck at a street corner. The boy was taken to a nearby hospital. The doctors said it appeared that the boy had nothing more serious than a broken left leg, but there was a possibility that the boy might have some inside injuries. The boy was conscious(清醒的) when he was sent to the hospital. Luckily, his mother, who was driving, was uninjured. She said that the truck appeared so suddenly that she thought she was going to die. She turned her car sharply to the left, and the truck hit it on the passenger side.
The driver of the truck was a 50-year-old man who was unemployed and it was clear that he had been drinking because the police found 18 empty beer cans inside his truck. However, the man denied drinking even if he had failed the police test for drinking, saying, “No, I haven’t drunk anything.” When asked to touch his nose , ears, and mouth with his eyes closed, he was unable to touch any part of his head.
So the police put him into the back seat of a police car. But the man kept crying, “Mabel, where is my Mabel? I can’t find her now. I want my Mabel.” The police asked him if Mabel was his wife. He said, “She’s my dog, my dog! Where’s my baby?” Later in the day, the police found a dog with a ring around her neck, on which was written “Mabel” half a block away from where the accident happened. Perhaps the man was looking for his pet dog after drinking when the accident happened. As a result, the man was taken to the city jail for driving after drinking and it seemed that Mabel would be left alone.
1.Which of the following is true about the accident ?
A. The boy’s mother was injured.
B. The boy was driving the car.
C. A car ran into a truck at a corner.
D. The truck driver drank beer.
2.How did the mother feel when she saw the truck coming ?
A. amazed B. frightened
C. puzzled D. concerned
3.What did the doctors think of the boy ?
A. He was OK because he was conscious.
B. He may be injured inside.
C. His right leg was broken.
D. He was going to die of a broken leg.
4.which of the following is closest in meaning to the underlined word “denied” in the second paragraph?
A. admitted B. determined C. disagreed D. preferred
The rain had continued for a week and the flood had created a big river which were running by Nancy Brown’s farm. As she tried to gather her cows to a higher ground, she slipped and hit her head on a fallen tree trunk. The fall made her unconscious（昏迷） for a moment or two. When she came to, Lizzie, one of her oldest and favorite cows, was licking（舔） her face.
At that time, the water level on the farm was still rising. Nancy gathered all her strength to get up and began walking slowly with Lizzie. The rain had become much heavier, and the water in the field was now waist high. Nancy’s pace got slower and slower because she felt a great pain in her head. Finally, all she could do was to throw her arm around Lizzie’s neck and try to hang on. About 20 minutes later, Lizzie managed to pull herself and Nancy out of the rising water and onto a bit of high land, which seemed like a small island in the middle of a lake of white water.
Even though it was about noon, the sky was so dark and the rain and lightning was so bad that it took rescuers more than two hours to discover Nancy. A man from a helicopter(直升飞机) lowered a rope, but Nancy couldn’t catch it. A moment later, two men landed on the small island from a ladder in the helicopter. They raised her into the helicopter and took her to the school gym, where the Red Cross had set up an emergency shelter.
When the flood disappeared two days later, Nancy immediately went back to the “island.” Lizzie was gone. She was one of 19 cows that Nancy had lost in the flood. “I owe my life to her,” said Nancy with tears.
1.What did Nancy try to do before she fell over?
A. Measure the depth of the river
B. Look for a fallen tree trunk
C. Protect her cows from being drowned
D. Run away from the flooded farm
2.We know from the second paragraph that______.
A. Nancy was very weak after waking up.
B. There was a small island in the farm.
C. Lizzie put Nancy on her back and carried her.
D. Lizzie was killed by the flood.
3.The following are true according to the passage except_____.
A. It took Lizzie and Nancy about 20 minutes to get to safety.
B. It was raining harder when Nancy managed to get up.
C. The bad weather made it difficult for rescuers to find Nancy.
D. Nancy took hold of the rope and climbed into the helicopter.
4.What did the local people do to help those in the flooded area according to the passage?
A. They put up shelter for them in a school.
B. They used helicopters to help carry cows.
C. They helped farmers gather their cows.
D. They set up an organization called Red Cross.
书面表达
假设你是某中学高一年级的一名学生。2015年11月21日下午，你所在班和本年级另一个班进行了一场篮球赛，请你就这场比赛用英语写一篇日记，日记内容包括:
1. 比赛的过程和结果；
2. 在你看来比赛输赢的原因；
3. 你对这次比赛的感想。
注意:1. 词数120左右；
2. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3. 不要在文中透露学校和个人真实信息；
4. 文章开头已给出，不计入总词数。
November 21, 2015 Monday Fine
In order to release pressure from study and get some relaxation, our class played a basketball match with Class 21 Senior 1 this afternoon……
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短文改错
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处，每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（＼）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1．每处错误及其修改均限一词。2．只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。(此题在答题卡上作答)
One afternoon on April, 1912, a new ship set off from England to America on it first trip. It was one of the largest and best ship at that time. It was cold, but the ship was pleasant and people are enjoying themselves. The next day was even cold. People who could see icebergs here or there. It was night. Suddenly, the man on watch shouting “Look out! Iceberg!” But it was too late. A ship hit the iceberg and came to a stop. There was a very big hole in the ship and water began to come. Slowly the ship started to go up.
