Green is an important color in nature. It is the color of grass and the leaves on trees. It is also the color of most growing plants.
Sometimes, the word “green” means young, fresh and growing. For example, a greenhorn is someone who has no experience. In the 15th century, a greenhorn was a young cow or an ox whose horns(角)had not yet developed. A century later, a greenhorn was a soldier who had no experience in war. By the 18th century, a greenhorn had the meaning it has today—a person who is new in a job.
Someone who is good at growing plants is said to have a green thumb(大拇指). The expression comes from the early 20th century. A person with a green thumb can make plants grow quickly and well.
Green is also the color used to describe the powerful feeling , jealousy(嫉妒). The green-eyed monster （怪物）is not a dangerous animal from outer space. It is an expression used about 400 years ago by the British writer William Shakespeare in his play “Othello”. It describes the unpleasant feeling when someone has something he wants. For example, a young man may suffer from the green-eyed monster if you get a pay rise and he does not.
In most places in the world, a green light means to move ahead. In everyday speech, a green light means agree to continue with a project.
1.A greenhorn now refers to ____________.
A. a person who is new in a job
B. a new soldier.
C. a young horse
D. a cow without horns
2.A person with a green thumb is a person _______.
A. who is good at growing plants
B. whose thumbs are of green color
C. whose garden is greener than others’
D. who is younger than his neighbors
3.A man may meet the green-eyed monster if ____.
A. he sees a dangerous animal
B. he reads a sad play
C. his friend gets a prize that he wants
D. he can't get something
4.The main idea of the passage is ________.
A. a greenhorn
B. a green thumb
C. the Green Revolution
D. the word “green” and its story
If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice: there are four skills in learning English. They are reading ,listening, speaking and writing. The most important thing you must remember is that if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills you should first master the skills of reading and listening.
Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the meaning of the sentences, the meaning of the unfamiliar words, etc. There is no need for you to pay much attention to grammar or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them, for example in other passage or books, is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or sentences in it.
As for listening, there are two choices: besides reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes. You can only pay attention to your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening.
For listening you can listen to cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to VOA or BBC programs every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes.
If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve automatically, and you can be sure that with a little effort they will become perfect.
1.According to the author, which should you improve first among the four skills?
A. Reading and listening.
B. Reading and writing.
C. Writing and speaking.
D. Speaking and listening.
2.To improve your reading, when you read you should ________.
A. look up all the new words in the dictionary
B. think about what you are reading actively
C. spend more time studying grammar
D. copy as many words and sentences as possible
3.The author seems to agree with the view that _________.
A. everyone should listen to VOA or BBC programs every day
B. You needn’t practice listening if you keep on reading every day
C. being good at reading is helpful in improving your listening
D. you should take notes of whatever you are hearing
4.The passage is mainly about how to _________.
A. choose suitable listening materials
B. deal with new words in reading
C. improve your English as quickly as possible
D. become fluent in speaking and writing English
A man was looking for things of old times. One day he came to a village and found a blue bowl which looked very old. The bowl was on the ground and a cat was drinking milk from it. A farmer, the owner of the cat, was lying beside the bowl. In order not to draw the farmer’s attention to the value of the bowl. The man said to him in a soft voice,” What a nice cat you have! Won’t you sell it to me?’’
“How much would you give me for it? ” the farmer opened his eyes and asked.
“ Twenty dollars. Would it be enough?”
A few minutes later, the farmer agreed. After he paid the farmer, the man said, “ My cat will certainly feel thirsty. May I take the bowl so that the cat can have milk?” But the farmer said, “ I’m sorry I can’t give it to you. Thanks to the bowl, I have already sold twenty cats.”
1.The man liked __________.
A. keeping old things
B. travelling from village to village
C. meeting farmers
D. buying cats
2.After he bought the cat, the man asked for the bowl, because he thought __________.
A. the bowl should go with the cat
B. the bowl had a beautiful color
C. the farmer didn’t know the value of the bowl
D. the cat couldn’t live without the bowl
3.The farmer kept the bowl so that he could ________.
A. let another cat use it
B. sell more cats
C. sell more bowls
D. use the bowl himself
4.From the story we can see the farmer _________.
A. had only one bowl B. was very poor
C. didn’t like cats D. was clever
假如你是在美国一所高中就读的中国交换生李华，不慎遗失校图书馆的书籍 Adventurers in对此深表歉意。请根据以下要点给校图书馆写一封电子邮件。
1.表示歉意。2.给予解释。3.你的打算。
注意：
1、词数 100 左右； 2、适当增加细节，以使行文连贯； 3、格式已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear Sir/Madam,
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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（∧），并在其下写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的同下划一横线，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。
It seems that if the result is bad, which people work for will be meaningless. Personally speak, the process of fighting for the goal is less important than the result. When we fight for our goals, we will be devoted what we are doing and try to improve us. If we fail in the end, when we look back on the beginning, we will find that we are no longer the childish one. We have grown up. What's the more, in the process of fighting, we got close to success, as the saying goes that failure are the mother of success. So don't treat the result so serious; just enjoy the process.
For you, the “Clear and Bright” day that falls in every April might be no more than just another holiday — the fact that it comes with three days off school matters to most students1. (much) than the fact that it is part of the 24 solar terms (二十四节气).
But this ancient system that Chinese people have used 2.(keep) track of the time of year was added to the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity （人类非物质文化遗产）on Nov. 30.
To be fair, the terms do sound old; they 3. (invent) thousands of years ago to offer weather information for agricultural 4. (activity). But the truth is5. they still have an influence on our lives today, even if we don’t realize it most of the time. For example, people from6. (north) China are in the habit of eating dumplings 7. the day of Winter Solstice (冬至). And on Start of Autumn, some treat 8. (they) to a big feast, especially of meat, something they call “putting on autumn weight”, or tieqiubiao. According to Chinese writer and academic Yu Shicun, the system is a philosophy of time, 9. applies to everything. And this means they are 10. (likely) to die out.
