Driving to a friend’s house on a recent evening, I was attracted by the sight of the full moon rising just above my friend’s rooftop. I stopped to watch it for a few moments, thinking about what a pity it is that most city people --- myself included --- usually miss sights like this because we spend most of our lives indoors.
My friend had also seen it. He grew up living in a forest in Europe, and the moon meant a lot to him then. It had touched much of his life.
I know the feeling. Last December I took my seven-year-old daughter to the mountainous jungle of northern India with some friends. We stayed in a forest rest house with no electricity or running hot water. Our group had campfires outside every night, and indoors when it was too cold outside. The moon grew to its fullest during our trip. Between me and the high mountains lay three or four valleys. Not a light shone in them and not a sound could be heard. It was one of the quietest places I have ever known, a bottomless well of silence. And above me was the full moon, which struck me deeply.
Today our lives are filled with glass, metal, plastic and fiber-glass. We have television, cell phones, electricity, heaters and ovens and air-conditioners, cars, computers.
Struggling through traffic that evening at the end of a tiring day, most of it spent indoors, I thought, “Before long, I would like to live in a small cottage. There I will grow vegetables and read books and walk in the mountains. And perhaps write, but not in anger. I may become an old man there, and wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled and measure out my life in coffee spoons. But I will be able to walk outside on a cold silent night and touched the moon.”
1.The best title for the passage would be _________.
A. Break away from Modern life
B. Touched by the Moon
C. A Bottomless well of Silence
D. The Pleasures of Modern Life
2.The writer felt sorry for himself because __________.
A. there was too much pollution.
B. there were too many accidents on the road.
C. he failed to see the fullest moon.
D. he didn’t adapt to modern inventions
3.Modern things are mentioned mainly to ___________.
A. show that the writer likes city life very much.
B. explain that people have less chances to enjoy nature.
C. tell us that people greatly benefit from modern life.
D. show that we can also enjoy nature at home through them.
4.The author wrote the passage to __________.
A. show the love for the moonlight.
B. want to communicate longing for modern life.
C. advise modern people to learn to live.
D. express the feeling of returning to nature.
假设你是红星中学高二（1）班的学生李华。下面四幅图描述了上周五你在放学路上，撞倒一位骑车老人并实施救助的过程。请根据图片的先后顺序，写一篇英文周记。
注意： 1．文章的开头已为你写好；2．词数不少于60。
Last Friday _____________________________________________________________
假如你是北京阳光中学的李涛，今年暑假你打算到纽约自助游，你在沙发网上找到了一位愿意免费为你提供住宿的美国人Peter，请根据下表提供的信息，给Peter 写一封信，介绍你的情况以及你的需求。
注意：1. 词数不少于50；
2. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3. 开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
个人信息 | ●姓名：李涛 ●性别：男 ●年龄：17岁 ●能力：可以用英语进行交流 ●爱好：旅游和摄影 |
请求 | ●请求到机场接你 ●在Peter家免费住3天 |
Dear Peter,
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Yours,
Li Tao
For the rest of March, a disease will sweep across the US. It will keep kids home from school. _1.__ Employees will suddenly lose their ability to concentrate.
The disease, known as “March Madness”, refers to the yearly 65-team US men’s college basketball tournament(锦标赛). _2.__ Teams compete against each other in a single-elimination(单局淘汰) tournament that eventually crowns a national champion.
_3.__ The fun comes partly from guessing the winners for every game. Friends compete against friends. Husbands against wives. Colleagues against bosses.
Big-name schools are usually favored to advance into the tournament. But each year there are dark horses from little-known universities. This adds to the madness. Watching a team from a school with 3,000 students beat a team from a school with 30,000, for many Americans, is an exciting experience. Two years ago, the little-known George Mason University was one of the final teams. __4.__
College basketball players are not paid, so the game is more about making a name for their university and themselves. _5._ About $4 billion will be spent gambling on the event. According to Media Life magazine, the event will bring in $500 million in advertising income this year, topping the post-season income of every US professional league, including that of the NBA.
A. Nearly 20 million Americans will find themselves prisoners of basketball festival Madness.
B. The players will go all out for the games.
C. But that doesn’t mean money isn’t involved.
D. College students will ignore piles of homework.
E. People are willing to spend more money on watching it.
F. It begins on March 15 and lasts through the beginning of April.
G. Many people had never even heard of the university before the tournament.
Are you an optimist? Do you look at your glass and see it as half full? Do you believe that every cloud has a silver lining and that things generally turn out for the best? Do you believe that if something is meant to be, it will be? If you reply “yes” to all of these questions, then you are an optimist. You probably are enthusiastic, cheerful and outgoing. You may be successful at work and in love.
But you may be misguided because things don't turn out for the best. You may believe that when on door closes another one opens(for example, you may fail to obtain a new job; another chance will come around soon). Wrong. When one door closes, another door slams(砰然关上)in your face. That's bitter reality.
Now a book has been published which confirms what pessimists(悲观者)have suspected all along. it's called The Positive Power of Defensive Pessimism. Its author argues that defensive pessimism can lead to positive results. Defensive pessimism is a strategy used to manage fear, anxiety and worry. Defensive pessimists prepare for the tings by setting low outcomes for themselves. They carefully consider everything that may go wrong and plan for ways to handle these problems. And this gives them a sense of control. Lawrence Sanno, a psychology professor, says, “What's interesting about defensive pessimists is that they tend to be very successful people, so their low opinion of the situation's outcomes is not realistic. They use it to motivate themselves to perform better.”
So far，so good. This is not rocket science. Defensive pessimists prepare carefully and consider what might go wrong, whether at work, on date or even in a sports game. It makes sense to have a back-up plan. There are many sayings in English urging caution. For example, “Don't put all your eggs in one basket.”
And “Don't count your chickens until they hatch.” To have a confident and optimistic approach to life's problems is good. But listen to what Woody Alien, the American comedian says ,”Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem.”
There are pros and cons to being an optimist and a pessimist. Don't feel bad if you see the glass half empty. You are a realist But lighten up and hook up with someone who sees the same glass half full.
1.What's the passage mainly about?
A. A book that has recently been published.
B. How to become successful in life
C. The dangers of being too optimistic.
D. The benefits of defensive pessimism.
2.The underlined sentence “This is not rocket science”(Para.4)means ______.
A. it's not a dangerous thing to do
B. it is quite simple to understand
C. the cost is not so high
D. there is no real proof
3.Which of the following English expressions would a defensive pessimist believe?
A. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
B. The glass is half full not half empty.
C. Whatever will be, will be.
D. Every cloud has a silver lining.
4.The writer would probably describe himself as ______.
A. an optimist B. a defeatist
C. a realist D. a scientist
If asked if space exploration should continue, most Americans would give an immediate response either in favor of continuing or in favor of ending space exploration. A common response would be that space exploration is a waste of money. An average American, uneducated on the subject, might believe that the government is wasting billions of dollars on the research that has no merit. Someone strange to the subject might say that a space shuttle goes up once in a while and that is about all that happens. Research is ongoing and continues when there are no shuttles being launched. This also costs the government money. Does the extreme cost of space exploration make sense?
One argument is that the government is wasting money on the research not being used on Earth. Actually, the money goes to workers and scientists that support National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) missions (任务), and goes to major companies that play important roles in major sectors of the US economy. Boeing is a partner of NASA for aircraft, the same company that makes commercial aircraft for the airline industry.
Another benefit to continuing space exploration is the many spinoff (衍生的) technologies it provides. The artificial heart resulted from experiments on the space shuttle. The handheld Jaws of Life used to save victims from car accidents originated from the system used to separate the space shuttle from its booster rockets. Insulation in homes that keeps them warm and energy efficient is based on the technology used to insulate the space shuttle.
There are direct benefits to the economy provided by NASA missions as well as spinoff technologies. These advances are found in food, building materials, medical procedures and the vehicles we drive. While it can be proven that billions of dollars that could be used elsewhere is being spent on space exploration, the benefits it provides outweigh the terrible aspects. As a matter of fact, the money spent helps to improve the quality of our lives.
1.How is Paragraph 2 mainly developed?
A. By offering analyses.
B. By making comparisons.
C. By giving some examples.
D. By presenting research findings.
2.The function of Jaws of Life is to _____.
A. save people from traffic accidents
B. do experiments on the space shuttle
C. keep houses warm and energy efficient
D. separate the space shuttle from its booster rockets
3.In the author’s opinion, space exploration _____.
A. has changed our life completely
B. costs too much of our time
C. benefits us in many ways
D. has nothing to do with us
4.What would be the best title for the text?
A. Benefits of space exploration
B. Is space exploration worth the cost?
C. How to make space exploration affordable
D. Missions of the NASA space shuttle program
