Each time I see a balloon, my mind flies back to a memory of when I was a six-year-old girl. It was a rainy Sunday and my father had recently died. I asked my mom if Dad had gone to heaven. "Yes, honey. Of course." she said.
"Can we write him a letter?"
She paused, the longest pause of my short life, and answered, "Yes."
My heart jumped. "How? Does the mailman go there?" I asked.
"No, but I have an idea." Mom drove to a party store and returned with a red balloon. I asked her what it was for.
"Just wait, honey. You'll see." Mom told me to write my letter. Eagerly, I got my favorite pen, and poured out my six-year-old heart in the form of blue ink. I wrote about my day, what I learned at school, how Mom was doing, and even about what happened in a story I had read. For a few minutes it was as if Dad were still alive. I gave the letter to Mom. She read it over, and a smile crossed her face.
She made a hole in the corner of the letter where she looped the balloon string. We went outside and she gave me the balloon. It was still raining.
"Okay, on the count of three, let go. One, two, three."
The balloon, carrying my letter, darted upward against the rain. We watched until it was swallowed by the mass of clouds.
Later I realized, like the balloon, that Dad had never let his sickness get him down. He was strong. No matter what he suffered, he'd persevere, hang on, and finally transcend this cold world and his sick body. He rose into sky and became something beautiful. I watched until the balloon disappeared into the gray and white and I prayed that his strength was hereditary. I prayed to be a balloon.
1.When the girl asked her mother if they could write to her father, her mother ______.
A. found it easy to lie
B. thought her a creative girl
C. believed it easy to do so
D. felt it hard to answer
2.When the girl was told that she could send a letter to her father, she ______.
A. became excited
B. jumped with joy
C. started writing immediately
D. was worried that it couldn't be delivered
3.In the eyes of the author, what was the rain like?
A. An incurable disease.
B. An unforgettable memory.
C. The failures her father experienced.
D. The hard time her father had.
4.What would be the best title for the passage?
A. An unforgettable experience B. Fly to paradise
C. The strong red balloon D. A great father
Men are spending more and more time in the kitchen encouraged by celebrity (名人) chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, according to a report from Oxford University.
The effect of the celebrity role models, who have given cooking a more manly picture, has combined with a more general drive towards sexual equality and men now spend more than twice the amount of time preparing meals than they did in 1961.
According to the research by Prof. Jonatahn Gershuny, who runs the Centre for Time Research at Oxford, men now spend more than half an hour a day cooking, up from just 12 minutes a day in 1961.
Prof. Gershuny said, “The man in the kitchen is part of a much wider social trend. There has been 40 years of sexual equality, but there is another 40 years probably to come.”
Women, who a generation ago spent nearly two hours a day cooking, now spen
d just one hour and seven minutes—a great fall, but they still spend far more time in the kitchen than men.
Some experts have named these men in aprons as “Gastrosexuals (men using cooking skills to impress friends)”, who have been inspired to pick up a kitchen knife by the success of Ramsay, Oliver as well as other male celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Marco Pierre White and Keith Floyd.
“I was married in 1974. When my father came to visit me a few weeks later, I was wearing an apron when I opened the door. He laughed,” said Prof. Gershuny. “That would never happen now.”
Two-thirds of adults say that they come together to share at least three times a week, even if it is not necessarily around a kitchen or dining room table. Prof. Gershuny pointed out that the family meal was now rarely eaten by all of its members around a table—with many “family meals” in fact taken on the sofa in the sitting room, and shared by family members. “The family meal has changed a lot, and few of us eat—as I did when I was a child—at least two meals a day together as a family. But it has survived in a different format.”
1.What is one reason behind the trend that men spend more time cooking than before?
A. The improvement of cooks’ status.
B. The influence of popular female chefs.
C. The change of female’s view on cooking.
D. The development of sexual equality campaign.
2.What does the author think about the time men and women spend on cooking?
A. Men spend more time cooking than women nowadays.
B. Women spend much less time on cooking than before.
C. It will take 40 years before men spend more time at the stove than women.
D. There is a sharp decline in the time men spend on cooking compared with 1961.
3.How did Prof. Gershuny see the family meal according to the passage?
A. It has become a thing of the past.
B. It is very different from what it used to be.
C. It shouldn’t be advocated in modern times.
D. It is beneficial to the stability of the family.
4.Which is the best title for the passage?
A. The Changes of Family Meals
B. Equality between Men and Women
C. Cooking into a New Trend for Men
D. Cooking—a Thing of the Past for Women
Food picked up just a few seconds after being dropped is less likely to contain bacteria than if it is left for longer periods of time, according to the findings of research carried out at Aston University’s School of Life and Health Sciences. The findings suggest there may be some scientific basis of the "5-second rule" — the belief about it being fine to eat food that has only had contact with the floor for five seconds or less. Although people have long followed the ‘5-second rule’, until now it was unclear whether it actually helped.
The study, undertaken by final year Biology students and led by Anthony Hilton, Professor of Microbiology at Aston University, monitored the transfer of the common bacteria from a variety of indoor floor types as carpet, cement floor to toast, pasta, biscuit and a sticky sweet when contact was made from 3 to 30 seconds. The results showed that: time is a significant factor in the transfer of bacteria from a floor surface to a piece of food, and the type of flooring the food has been dropped on has an effect, with bacteria least likely to transfer from carpeted surfaces and most likely to transfer from cement flooring surfaces to moist foods making contact for more than 5 seconds. Professor Hilton said, "Consuming food dropped on the floor still carries an infection risk as it very much depends on which bacteria are present on the floor at the time."
The Aston team also carried out a survey of the number of people who employ the ‘five-second rule’. The survey showed that: 87% of the people surveyed said they would eat food dropped on the floor, or already have done so. 55% of those that would, or have eaten food dropped on the floor are women. 81% of the women who would eat food from the floor would follow the ‘5-second rule’. Professor Hilton added, "Our study showed that a surprisingly large majority of people are happy to consume dropped food, with women the most likely to do so. But they are also more likely to follow the ‘5-second rule, which our research has shown to be much than an old wives’ tale."
1.According to the passage, which of the following is true?
A. A toast dropped on the carpet is easier to be polluted than that dropped on the cement floor.
B. A sticky chocolate dropped on the carpet is easier to be polluted than that dropped on the cement floor.
C. The food dropped on the carpet shares the same potential of being polluted with the food dropped on the cement floor.
D. The food dropped on the cement floor is not as safe as food dropped on the carpet within 30 seconds.
2.What is the passage probably developed?
A. Contrast B. Example
C. Time D. Space
3.How did Professor Hilton feel after analyzing how many people chose to eat dropped food?
A. Puzzled. B. Upset.
C. Satisfied. D. Astonished.
4.What is the main idea of this passage?
A. The food which is dropped on the floor can be eaten safely.
B. A research on the safety of food dropped on the floor is undertaken.
C. The bacteria have no negative effect on the safety of food.
D. People surveyed in the research are willing to accept the idea.
"Some secrets are hidden from health," wrote John Updike in his poem "Fever".
I have experienced the truth of Updike's observation. My excellent health kept me from seeing some things—things that became secrets of sort.
One relates to my son Chris. When I lost my health in March, I discovered something I had missed about him.
Christopher has been a scholar and athlete through high school. He has behaved responsibly, engaged in community service. He has had an impressive peer group of serious students.
While I saw these things, I had missed before what I experienced while in hospital. Early on, Christopher offered the clearest and most forceful words about my need to be positive and to fight acute leukemia(急性白血病). He never left the room after a visit without making me promise that I would be mentally tough and positive.
During the first week, he showed his own mental toughness, researching leukemia and learning what the chances were. He even stopped my doctor outside the room, introduced himself and asked directly what he thought of my chances. He processed the answer without overreaction.
Christopher did admonish(劝告) me against my choice of words the first week at home. I had moved back into my room from weighing myself, discovering a thin figure I did not know. I announced to him and my wife, “dead man walking”. I thought it was a way to lighten the obvious. He saw it as negativity and was strongly against such thinking and talking.
When I resisted taking medicine sometimes, Christopher formed a “good-cop-bad-cop” team with his mother. Betsy gently and patiently encouraged. He directly and forcefully insisted. He always made the logical arguments for why I needed to take some awful pills.
My health had hidden something from me; my ill-health helped me to see it.
1.What did Christopher do when the author was in hospital?
A. He told the author not to say anything wrong.
B. He offered some suggestions to the doctor.
C. He always encouraged the author to be confident.
D. He tried to get help from community service.
2.What does “good-cop-bad-cop” in the text refer to?
A. A trick to force the author to obey.
B. A measure to keep the author happy.
C. A friendly way to make the author see what was good for him.
D. A joint effort to persuade the author both kindly and forcefully.
3.What may be the best title for the text?
A. Lessons from Ill-health B. Unexpected Love
C. Secrets Hidden from Health D. Discovery Made in Hospital
假设你是中学生李华，6月5日是“世界环境日”，你校开展了相关志愿者活动，请给你的美国笔友Mike写一封电子邮件，介绍此次活动，内容请包括：
1．时间、地点；
2．开展的具体活动；
3．你的看法。
注意：1.词数100左右；
2.信的开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
3.参考词汇：世界环境日World Environment Day ;志愿者的 voluntary
Dear Mike,
How is everything going?
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Yours,
Li Hua
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仅限一词；
2.只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
During the summer of 2001, I started reading books by English, mostly stories. I would learn a lot of new words from these books, but I had terribly problems memorizing them. I had to look up to the same word many times, for which was quite troublesome. I realized I do need a way to remember all these new words. It was a great success for myself. I started writing down words from books that I read. I would come back from school and then sit for an hour and two. I wrote down new words and added it to my collection. By the end of last year, my collection has grown to 3000 words.
