When I was sixteen years old，I made my first visit to the United States.It wasn’t the first time I had been abroad.Like most English children，I learned French at school.And I had often been to France，so I was used to speaking a foreign language to people who didn’t understand English.But when I went to America，I was really looking forward to having a nice easy holiday without any language problems.
How wrong I was！The misunderstanding began at the airport.I was looking for a public telephone to give my American friend Danny a call and tell her that I had arrived.A friendly old man saw me looking lost and asked if he could help me.
“Yes，” I said，“I want to give my friend a ring.”
“Well，that’s nice，” he said，“Are you getting married？But aren’t you a bit young？”
“Who is talking about marriage？” I replied.“I only want to give my friend a ring to tell her I’ve arrived.Can you tell me where there is a phone box？”
“Oh！” he said，“There is a phone downstairs.”
When at last we met，Danny explained the misunderstanding to me.
“Don’t worry，” she said to me，“I had so many difficulties at first.There are lots of words which the Americans use differently in meaning from British.You’ll soon get used to all the funny things they say.Most of the time，British and American people understand each other！”
1.Where was the writer from?
A.He was from America.
B.He was from France.
C.He was from England.
D.He was from China.
2.The writer thought in America.
A.he wouldn’t have any language difficulties
B.he would not understand the Americans
C.the Americans might not understand him
D.he would have difficulties at the airport
3.From the passage，we can see that “give somebody a ring” .
A.means the same in America as in England
B.means “call somebody” to the old man
C.means “be going to get married with somebody”
D.has two different meanings in America and in England
4.In the last paragraph the underlined word “they” refers to .
A.the old man and the boy
B.the Americans
C.the British
D.the French
Do you know how children in other countries spend their schooldays and what kind of games they always play?
Children in Brazil
School | The school year runs from February to December. Children attend (上学) school for about four hours in the morning or the afternoon. About a quarter of children in Brazil do not attend school at all. |
Play | Football is the most popular sport. Brazil’s beautiful beaches also make swimming and volleyball popular. |
Family | Brazilian families are often large. Nearly a third of the population is under eighteen! |
Children in France
School | The school day begins from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, with a two-hour lunch break. Schools close on Wednesday and Sunday, and are closed for a half day on Saturday. |
Play | Football, bicycling and tennis are favorite sports in France. In some areas, pelote, a traditional ball game, is also very popular. |
Family | Most French mothers work. The majority of preschool (幼儿园) children attend day care centres known as crèches. France has laws about naming children and all names have to be chosen from an official list. |
Children in Japan
School | Schools in Japan are very competitive (竞争的). Even pre-schoolers may attend “cramming (填鸭式教学的) schools” to prepare for exams. There is a summer break about six weeks, but the children have homework during this time. |
Play | Comic books have been popular in Japan since the 1700s. Comics now account for about 40% of all published materials in Japan. Kite flying is enjoyed by people of every age. |
Family | Homes in Japan are small on average. The typical family of four lives in five small rooms. Most fathers in Japan work long hours. As a result, some children only see their fathers on weekends or holidays. |
1.What kind of sport is very popular in France?
① Kite flying. ② Bicycling. ③ Football. ④ Pelote.
A.②③④ B.①②③
C.①④ D.①②③④
2.What is a crèche in France?
A.Places with beautiful beaches.
B.The name of the place where French mothers work.
C.A day care centre for preschool children.
D.Cramming schools to improve children’s exam results.
3.In Japan, many children ________.
A.like to read comic books B.write their names on an official list
C.only see their fathers on weekdays D.do not attend school
假如你是红星中学高三学生李华。请根据以下四幅图的先后顺序，给校刊“英语角”写一篇英文稿件，以“A New-year Gift for Our Motherland”为题，介绍你和同学参加2020年元旦快闪活动全过程。
注意：词数不少于60。
提示词：快闪flash mob
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
假如你是红星中学高三学生李华，你的美国朋友Jim下学期将作为交换生来你校学习，他想学习传统中国画。请你给Jim回信提供相关信息，内容包括：
1. 你校开设中国画选修课程;
2. 上课时间和地点;
3. 工具和材料。
注意：1．词数不少于50；
2．开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
提示词： 选修课 optional course
Dear Jim,
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
Life Lessons
Life is not easy when you are pursuing something worthwhile and ready to learn from the best experiences. 1. Here are some life lessons which people will learn the hard way in majority of cases.
It takes consistent time and effort to be successful in any area. However, People usually get discouraged when it takes more time than they thought it would. At this time, people refer only to people who have already achieved what you want to be, which most people fail to do. Look at any successful person and you’ll notice one thing common in all of them. They took time to learn and mastered their skills like no one else. 2.
Be brave to take the road less travelled. In our whole life, we always want to follow the same path that everyone suggests, do the same things everyone does, take the same career path everyone takes, wear the same clothes everyone wears, and hang out with the same people we work with. 3. But when you get bored of life, you will realize that you are not meant to do what everyone does and that your destiny is different from anyone else’s out there in the world. But the price you pay to realize this is high because it takes a great amount of courage to follow your own path.
You don’t have to live your life in a way society wants you to. 4. Parents sometimes force their children to select a career they don’t want because other children have selected that career. Worst of all, people follow them without even asking. There is no harm in old rituals（惯例） and beliefs but when you pursue them before your interest, sooner or later you’ll realize that you should first do what you think is right.
5. However, if you are smart enough to learn early and wish not to waste your precious time learning them the hard way, learn them now and apply it to your life as soon as possible.
A. You have to break the rules sometimes.
B. After all, life lessons are always learned the hard way.
C. There is no elevator to success; you have to take the stairs.
D. The reason why we follow others is that we are scared to fail.
E. It always takes tests and then fails us to learn anything worthwhile.
F. The general rule goes that the harder you try, the greater results you get.
G. Many old beliefs are being performed these days and are followed blindly.
Time talks. It speaks more plainly than words. Time communicates in many ways.
Consider the different parts of the day, for example. The time of the day when something is done can give a special meaning to the event. It is not customary to telephone someone every early in the morning. If you telephone him early in the day, the time of the call shows that the matter is very important and requires immediate attention. If someone receives a call during sleeping hours, he assumes it is a matter of life or death. The time chosen for the call communicates its importance.
In social life, time plays a very important part. In the United States, guests tend to feel they are not highly regarded if the invitation to a dinner party is extended only three or four days before the party date. But this is not true in all countries. In other areas of the world, it may be considered foolish to make an appointment too far in advance because plans which are made for a date more than a week away tend to be forgotten.
The meaning of time differs in different parts of the world. Thus, misunderstandings often arise between people from cultures that treat time differently. Promptness(准时) is valued highly in American life, for example. If people are not prompt, they may be regarded as impolite or not fully responsible. In the U.S., no one would think of keeping a business partner waiting for an hour; it would be too impolite. A person who is five minutes late is expected to make a short apology.
This way of treating time is quite different from that of several other cultures. This helps to explain the unfortunate experience of a certain agriculturist from the United States, assigned to duty in another country. After a long delay, the agriculturist was finally agreed an appointment with the Minister of Agriculture. Arriving a little before the appointed hour, the agriculturist waited. The hour came and passed. At this point he suggested to the secretary that perhaps the minister did not know he was waiting in the outer office. This gave him the feeling of having done something to solve the problem, but he had not. Twenty minutes passed, then thirty, then forty-five. To an American, that is the beginning of the “insult period”. No matter what is said in apology, there is little that can remove the damage done by an hour’s wait in an outer office. Yet in the country where this story took place, a forty-five-minute waiting period was not unusual.
In the West, particularly in the United States, people tend to think of time as something fixed in nature. As a rule, Americans think of time as a road stretching into the future, along which one progresses. The road has many sections, which are to be kept separate— “one thing at a time”. People who cannot plan events are not highly regarded. Thus, an American may feel angry when he has made an appointment with someone and then finds a lot of other things happening at the same time.
Since time has such different meanings in different cultures, communication is often difficult. We will understand each other a little better if we can keep this fact in mind.
1.According to the passage, an announcement broadcast during class must be very important because ________．
A.it is a customary time to make. B.it makes everyone surprised.
C.it requires immediate attention. D.it speaks more plainly than words.
2.The author mentions an agriculturist’s experience in order to show ________．
A.the value of promptness for Americans.
B.the cultural differences in treating time.
C.the bad manners of the Minister of Agriculture.
D.the importance of time in different parts of the day.
3.The underlined word “insult” in Paragraph5 probably means ________．
A.boring. B.patient.
C.shameful. D.hopeless.
4.We can learn from the passage that people will understand better if ________．
A.they are concerned with the value of time.
B.they know how to communicate with each other.
C.they escape dealing with many things at one appointed time.
D.they keep in mind that different cultures treat time differently.
