Every April I am troubled by the same concern -- that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sky and forest appearing gray. My spirits ebb, as they did during an April snowfall when I first came to Maine 15 years ago. "Just wait," a neighbor advised. "You’ll wake up one morning and spring will just be here."
And look, on May 3 that year I awoke to a green so amazing as to be almost electric, as if spring were simply a matter of flipping a switch. Hills, sky and forest revealed their purples, blues and green. Leaves had unfolded and daffodils were fighting their way heavenward.
Then there was the old apple tree. It sits on an undeveloped lot in my neighborhood. It belongs to no one and therefore to everyone. The tree’s dark twisted branches stretch out in unpruned（未经修剪的） abandon. Each spring it blossoms so freely that the air becomes filled with the scent of apple.
Until last year, I thought I was the only one aware of this tree. And then one day, in a bit of spring madness, I set out with pruner to remove a few disorderly branches. No sooner had I arrived under the tree than neighbors opened their windows and stepped onto their porches(门廊). These were people I barely knew and seldom spoke to, but it was as if I had come uninvited into their personal gardens.
My mobile-home neighbor was the first to speak. "You’re not cutting it down, are you?" she asked anxiously. Another neighbor frowned as I cut off a branch. "Don’t kill it, now," he warned. Soon half the neighborhood had joined me under the apple tree. It struck me that I had lived there for five years and only now was learning these people’s names, what they did for a living and how they passed the winter. It was as if the old apple tree was gathering us under its branches for the purpose of both acquaintanceship and shared wonder. I couldn’t help recalling Robert Frost’s words:
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds To darken nature and be summer woods One thaw led to another. Just the other day I saw one of my neighbors at the local store. He remarked how this recent winter had been especially long and complained of not having seen or spoken at length to anyone in our neighborhood. And then, he looked at me and said, "We need to prune that apple tree again."
1.By saying that “my spirits ebb” (Para. 1), the author means that _____.
A.he feels relieved B.he feels blue
C.he is surprised D.he is tired
2.The apple tree mentioned in the passage is most likely to _____.
A.be regarded as a delight in the neighborhood
B.have been abandoned by its original owner
C.have been neglected by everyone in the community
D.be appealing only to the author
3.According to Para. 4, why did the neighbors open their windows and step onto their porches?
A.They were surprised that someone unknown was pruning the tree.
B.They wanted to prevent the author from pruning the tree
C.They were concerned about the safety of the tree
D.They wanted to get to know the author
4.It can be inferred that the author’s neighbor mentioned in the last paragraph most cared about _____.
A.when spring would arrive B.how to pass the long winter
C.the neighborhood gathering D.the pruning of the apple tree
Saddleworth Moor in the north of England is a bare place. It seemed almost wired to me, then, that anyone should _____ the building of seven wind turbines( 风力发电机) to produce clean, renewable energy. Surely this was the perfect place to situate them--- basically dull, unattractive to tourists and ----- _____ ---windy. Yet Saddleworth is becoming another battleground in an increasingly confusing _____ over wind farming and the future of the planet.
Typical of this confusion is hearing Professor David Bellamy _____ the fight against wind farms. I had always thought of Professor Bellamy as an environmentalist had made the _____ assumption that he would be a natural supporter of wind power. However, on reflection, Bellamy would be better described as a conservationist, whose main aim is to preserve natural habitats of plants and animals from destruction, rather than a(n) _____ on climate change. He has fought against other renewable energies that _____ wildlife and wildness, and has described the wind turbines as weapons of mass destruction killing birds and bats.
Bellamy, along with other opponents, has argued the wind farms are in fact _____, and are only commercially successfully because they are so heavily funded. This argument has been put forward by several newspaper commentators recently , who have then gone to _____ nuclear power. This doesn’t take into account years of _____ from Greens who claim that nuclear power is both expensive and dangerous. And yet nuclear energy has recently been _____ by a leading green scientist , Professor James Lovelock, who was one of the first to draw attention to the problem of climate change. He argues that renewable energy such as wind simply cannot provide sufficient electricity for our energy needs.
And so it goes on. There are so many _____ claims, each apparently fronted by some outstanding scientists and backed up by a lot of statics. So who’s actually right? What’s the right solution? What _____ me is that we will take so long in deciding that it will be too late. The damage will have been done. Yet what I also _____ is how convenient these conflicting arguments are. We can avoid making any changes to our personal lifestyles by just doing nothing. Global warming isn’t down to me going to Barcelona by air for the weekend or having a dishwasher or driving everywhere; no, it’s because those people in Saddleworth won’t let us build our _____!
1.A.take over B.call for C.look into D.object to
2.A.vice versa B.or rather C.above all D.to date
3.A.debate B.concern C.advantage D.control
4.A.leading B.reporting C.watching D.abandoning
5.A.cautious B.basic C.common D.false
6.A.expert B.campaigner C.commentator D.columnist
7.A.exploited B.threatened C.restored D.attracted
8.A.unaided B.unfriendly C.uneconomic D.unbalanced
9.A.produce B.praise C.eliminate D.research
10.A.intentions B.passions C.opinions D.protest
11.A.advocated B.rejected C.proposed D.overlooked
12.A.expected B.successful C.conflicting D.personal
13.A.relieves B.amazes C.disappoints D.worries
14.A.predict B.recognize C.question D.ski
15.A.wind farms B.power plants C.animal habitats D.nuclear engines
Today, home-ownership has reached extremely high levels. Modern generations tend to believe there is something wrong with them 1. they rent. However, is high home-ownership really as people imagine？2. (stare) at data first, we realize that the most successful, stable, attractive country in the Western world is Switzerland. It has tiny unemployment; wealth; high happiness and mental-health scores. Does it have high home-ownership rates? Absolutely not. In Switzerland, about seven in ten of the population are renters. Yet, with Europe’s 3. (low) home-ownership rate, the nation thrives. Now go to the other end of the misery distribution. Spain has approximately the highest home-ownership rate in Europe （at more than 80%）. But one-quarter of its population are unemployed.
A likely reason is that high levels of home-ownership mess up the labour market. In a sensibly functioning economy it is easy for people to move around to drop into the vibrant job slots 4. (throw) up by technological change. With a high degree of owner-occupation, everything slows. Folk get stuck. Renters can go to new jobs. In that way they do the economy a favours. 5. Friedman said, the rate of unemployment depends on the flexibility of the housing market.
Next we come to economic breakdown. Most analysts accept that at heart it was the housing market-obsessive pursuit of homes, the engendered mortgage（房贷） lending and an unavoidable house-price crash--- 6. sank the Western world. Germany, say, with its more efficient rental market, had a far smoother ride through trouble.
As for the monetary system, in the past few decades, in the hope of getting untaxed capital gains way above their true labour earnings, many people threw their spare cash into buying larger houses or building extra bedrooms. TV programmes about how to make easy money, beautiful rising house prices, and most importantly, our faulty tax system encouraged that. When 7. some point market broke down, everyone suffered. Our countries ought, instead, to design tax systems that encourage people to invest in productive real activities and in innovation. Renting leaves money free for better purposes. That also points to the role of sensible budgeting over a person’s lifetime. Why should we think that when we die it is necessary 8. (pay) off an entire house？
Our children do not deserve it. Let them pay for themselves. We 9. rent-and enjoy our lives with the money saved.
Finally, moderation usually pays off. Our scientific understanding of how economies function is horribly limited. This suggests that the golden rule should be to avoid extremes. A50-50mix of home-ownership and renting, not the 70-30split that is now observed in so many Western nations, 10. (make) sense.
There is a tendency to think of each of the arts as 1. separate area of activity. Many artists, however, would prove 2. there has always been a warm relationship between the a warm relationship areas of human activity. For example, in the late nineteenth century the connections between music and painting were especially close. Artists 3. (invite) to design clothes and settings for operas and ballets, 4. sometimes it was the musicians who were inspired by the work of contemporary painters. Of the musical compositions as responses to the visual arts, perhaps the most famous is Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Mussorgsky composed the piece in 1874 after the death, at the age of 39, of the artist Victor Hartman. 5. their friendship had not been a particularly long-lasting one, Mussorgsky was shocked by Hartmann’s unexpected death. The following year the critic, Vladimir Stasov, 6. decided to told an exhibition of Hartmann’s work, suggested that Mussorgsky 7. (try) to relieve his grief by writing something in memory of Hartmann.
The exhibition served as Mussorgsky’s inspiration. The ten pieces that make up Pictures at an Exhibition 8. (intend) as symbols rather than representation of the paintings in the exhibition. Between each is a promenade (舞曲中的行进), as the composer walks from one painting to 9. The music is sometimes witty and playful, sometimes almost alarming and frightening. Thought a range of surprising contrasts, Mussorgsky manages 10. (convey) the spirit of the artist and his work.
最近，你们班来了一位新同学Alice，她来自美国，很不适应集体宿舍的生活，因此感到非常苦恼。作为班长(李娟)，你打算帮助她尽快适应集体生活，因此给她写了一封建议信。要点如下：
1. 宿舍生活是学校生活的重要部分；
2. 遵守校规，如按时作息等；
3. 学会与同学们交流与分享；
4. 和谐的宿舍生活很重要。
词数：100左右。
参考词汇：harmonious和谐的
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短文中共有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:在缺词处加一个漏词符号(∧)，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:在错的词下面划一横线，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二词；
2.只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
Simon’s father bought him the new bike the day before yesterday, which made him very exciting. Then he began to ride it fast on the road. Seeing a man getting closely to him, Simon couldn’t stop it and as a result, he knock into the man. Being very kind, so the man didn’t scold him at all. Instead, he told him how dangerously it was to ride a bike so fast. He asked him to keep the lesson in mind. Simon felt regretful but ashamed. He promised keep the lesson in mind forever. Then, the man bent on and began to repair his bike. After a while, he got them repaired. Simon was greatly moved. He thanked the man and left happily.
