I was having a period of bad health. I had one operation after another. I was falling _______ faster than the doctors could put me back together. But I just couldn’t bear the operation, the hospital stay, the long recovery and the physical therapy（康复治疗）. I told my doctor I was going to try _______ else.
I’d discovered that walking gave me a little _______. So I started walking. The first day, my wife _______ off our steep Silver Lake hill to a flat street. She got me out of the car, and I walked about two blocks _______ asking to be taken home. The next day, I walked about four _______.
Slowly, feeling a little _______ every day, I began to walk a mile or more. I even _______ some hills to my route. I became interested in the network of public stairways around Silver Lake I made a _______ of it and walked every public staircase in Silver Lake. That went pretty well, so I ________ onto Echo Park. I was feeling better, so I kept going. The search finally ________ “Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles’ ”a book ________ in the spring of 2010. By then, I had ________. I’d been walking at least an hour a day for three years. My life ________ returned to normal.
In three years of walks, I’ve met dozens of people who’d had ________ experiences of rebirth or recovery. One man told me he’d lost 80 pounds walking the secret stairs and was dating for the first time in a decade. One woman told me she’d ________ knee operation. Another told me she’d been ________ to start ballroom dancing again.
All I’d ________ from the walks was relief from pain. What I got was ________, community and a whole new experience of my city. Out of the car, on my feet and moving at walking pace, I ________ Los Angeles for the first time.
1.A. away B. apart C. asleep D. about
2.A. everything B. nothing C. something D. anything
3.A. courage B. confidence C. relief D. delight
4.A. drove B. took C. set D. gave
5.A. then B. before C. until D. while
6.A. miles B. kilometers C. blocks D. streets
7.A. happier B. calmer C. faster D. stronger
8.A. found B. added C. challenged D. climbed
9.A. review B. search C. goal D. task
10.A. moved B. worked C. carried D. brought
11.A. put into B. knocked into C. broke into D. turned into
12.A. bought B. formed C. published D. created
13.A. picked up B. brought up C. went up D. kept up
14.A. generally B. recently C. gradually D. effectively
15.A. same B. particular C. extra D. similar
16.A. received B. avoided C. suffered D. stood
17.A. able B. worried C. likely D. anxious
18.A. benefited B. attempted C. dreamed D. sought
19.A. home B. neighborhood C. success D. friendship
20.A. caught sight of B. thought highly of C. fell in love with D. settled down in
What If We Don’t Get Along?
Teachers want to get along with you and enjoy seeing you learn. But teachers and students sometimes have personality clashes（人格冲突）. 1. If you show your teacher that you want to make the situation better, he or she will probably do everything possible to make that happen. Take these steps if the problem seems difficult to solve:
1. Talk to an adult you trust, such as a parent, guidance counselor, or both.
2. 2. You may not feel immediately comfortable with your teachers, but that may change as you get to know one another.
3. If you’ve given it time, talk with your parents about what to do next. Lots of times, a meeting can be set up to discuss the problem. 3. Everyone’s goal should be to create trust and kindness.
Your relationship with your teachers is often your first chance to develop a “business relationship”. They are different from your family relationships and friendships, which are built on affection and love. 4. But they don’t necessarily need to be good friends or like each other a lot. They simply need to respect one another, be polite, and stay focused on the jobs at hand.
When you act this way, and remember that you’re not the only kid in the class, you are
helping your teacher. 5. Teachers also like it when students follow directions and when they learn and obey the rules of the classroom. For instance, there may be rules about listening when another student is talking, about taking turns, or about raising your hand when you want to say something or ask a question.
A. Give it time.
B. This can happen between any two people.
C. This may clear the air and make things better.
D. Your teacher is likely to notice this and appreciate it.
E. Therefore, those teachers rarely show respect towards their students.
F. A teacher cannot necessarily answer all the questions his students ask.
G. In a business relationship, both parties get something out of the relationship.
I was wandering around the Albuquerque International Support airport. My flight had been delayed and I heard an announcement: “If anyone near Gate A-4 understands Arabic（阿拉伯语）, please come to the gate immediately.” Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman was crumpled（蜷缩成一团的）on the floor, crying loud. In her traditional Palestinian dress, she reminded me of my grandmother.
“Talk to her,” urged the flight agent. “We told her the flight was going to be late, and she did this.”
I bent over to put my arm around the woman and spoke uncertainly. “Shu-dow-a, shu-bid-uck, habibti? Stanischway, min fadlick, shu-bit-se-wee?” She stopped crying. She thought the flight had been called off. She needed to be in El Paso for a medical treatment the next day. I said, “You’ll get there, just late. Who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”
We called her son. In English, I told him that I would stay with his mother until we got on the plane. She talked with him. Then we called her other sons just for fun. Then we called my dad and they spoke for a while in Arabic and found out that they had several shared friends. After that, I called some Palestinian poets I knew and let them chat with her.
She was, laughing a lot but then, patting my knee and answering questions. She pulled a bag of homemade cookies filled with dates and nuts and topped with sugar from her bag and offered them to the people at the gate. To my amazement, no one declined. It was like a sacrament（圣餐）. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo--- We were all smiling, covered with the same sugar.
I looked around the gate and thought, “This is the world I want to live in, one with no anxiety. This can still happen anywhere”, I thought. Not everything is lost.
1.What can we learn about the author?
A. Her father was a relative of the older woman
B. She took the same flight with the older woman.
C. She was highly skilled in speaking Arabic.
D. Her grandmother saw her off at the airport.
2.Why did the old woman burst into tears at the boarding gate?
A. She thought she couldn’t make it for her treatment.
B. Her flight was called off because of bad weather.
C. She couldn’t make herself Hilly understood.
D. Her flight ticket seemed to have got lost.
3.Which words can best describe the author?
A. Outstanding and generous. B. Clever and brave.
C. Patient and creative. D. Warm-hearted and thoughtful.
We all know that exercise is good for your health. But some kinds of exercise may be better than others.
Running, for example, may help to protect against heart disease and other health problems. Running may also help you live longer. Researchers say it is not important how far you run. It also does not matter how fast or even how often you run. As advertisements for the running shoes Nike say, “Just Do It.”
Recently researchers studied more than 55,000 adults. About one-fourth of the adults reported running regularly. The study found these runners were considerably less likely than non-runners to die of any form of disease, including heart disease. In fact, the runners lived, on average, three years longer than the non-runners.
This study lasted 15 years. During that time, more than 3,400 of the individuals died. About 1.200 of the deaths were linked to heart disease, hear, attack or stroke.
One of the researchers is a man named D.C. Lee, a professor of Iowa State University Compared to non-runners, he said, runners showed a much lower risk of dying from some diseases. “Compared to non-runners, runners showed 30 percent lower risk of death by any causes, including heart attack, stroke and cancer. Also, runners compared to non-runners showed 45 percent lower risk of death by cardiovascular diseases（心血管疾病）, including heart attack and stroke.”
D. C. Lee and the other researchers found that speed, distance and how often one runs made little difference in reducing the risk of death. The runners in the study averaged between 10 and 16 kilometers per hour. Mr Lee said slower runners and those who only ran once or twice a week were helped nearly as much as those who ran faster and further. “And also we looked at the inning over time and we found that persistent runners（over six years）showed the biggest benefits, as well.”
1.What does the author mean by quoting Nike’s ad “Just Do it”?
A. It’s time for you to start running.
B. Nike has always kept its promise.
C. You have to run as fast as possible.
D. Running does you good whatever its form.
2.The researchers got the results of their study mainly by ________.
A. analyzing data B. having interviews
C. doing experiments D. doing field survey
3.What can we learn from Paragraph 5?
A. Heart disease is the biggest killer of mankind.
B. Runners are generally healthier than non-runners.
C. Heart disease has killed more people than cancer.
D. Running greatly reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease.
4.What can we know according to Mr Lee?
A. Slower runners and faster runners benefit equally from running.
B. You can benefit most if your speed is over 10km per hour.
C. You must control your speed properly while running.
D. The further you run, the more benefits you will get.
Buttons are found on all sorts of clothing. They are usually small and round and made of metal or plastic. They fasten, or connect, one piece of clothing to another. They make sure your clothes don’t fall off. When we are speaking or writing in English, buttons can be just as useful.
Men or women often wear button-down clothes to the office. Button-down as an adjective means to be conservative(保守的) or traditional. People who are described as buttoned-down stay close as possible to the normal way of dressing and behaving. They don’t wear crazy clothing or do unusual things. People and events can both be described as buttoned-down.
If someone is buttoned-up, he or she seems very business-like. In personal relationships, a buttoned-up person is cold and standoffish, meaning they physically and emotionally keep away from others. Buttoned-up people are not warm or friendly. And they do not share their inner thoughts and feelings with others.
In the expression “button up”, button is a verb. It means to stop talking. Now, let’s say you find yourself buttonholed in a conversation at a party. The person just keeps talking and talking and talking! Finally, you can’t take it any longer. You tell the person to button it! This is a direct, but unacceptable way of saying “stop talking”. Button you lip is another equally rude but effective to stop a person who talks too much.
Another kind of difficult person is someone who pushes your buttons. To push someone’s buttons means to know exactly how to get that person angry or upset. People who like to push other people’s buttons usually do it for selfish reasons. First they find a person’s weak point. Then they use it to upset him.
1.Which of the following best describes button-down clothes?
A. Comfortable. B. Attractive.
C. Formal. D. Loose.
2.What does the underlined part “button it” in Paragraph 4 mean?
A. Cheer up! B. Calm down!
C. Turn away! D. Shut up!
3.What does a person want to do if he pushes your buttons?
A. Help you out. B. Make you suffer.
C. Show he knows you well. D. Point out your weak points.
假定你是李华，你校将举行主题为“Amazing China”的英语演讲比赛。请你给外教Alex写一封信，邀请他参加。内容包括：
1. 比赛的时间和地点；2. 请他做评委；3. 点评学生表现等。
注意：1. 词数100左右；2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：contestant竞赛者
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