The year was 1999. I was 18, living with friends in a town about an hour north of Milwaukee. Desperate for adventure, we often talked about haunted (闹鬼的) locations, and even wandered around the woods near Rienzi Cemetery. So when a friend shared a story about an abandoned house just down the road from Rienzi, how could I possibly resist? The group of us jumped in the car and headed off into the wild unknown, completely unaware of the misfortune that would soon befall us.
The house was isolated, overgrown and barely visible from the road. Most of its windows were broken. It seemed completely neglected except the locked door and a NO ENTRY sign outside. How would anyone notice, or possibly even care, if we went in and looked around?
We stole inside, hoping for anything to prove the legend. Nothing valuable was found until an old letter, addressed to a Mr. J. Witherell, caught my eye. Its paper was stiff and yellowed. Excited by the physical evidence, I slipped the letter into my back pocket. I was about to exit the house when I noticed firetrucks and police cars lining up out on the road. While most of us were exploring the house, one of us managed to knock a fire detector off the ceiling, which triggered an automated alarm at the fire department. I quickly alerted the others, but there would be no escape.
After a moment of panic, we decided to go outside and face the music. To avoid a theft charge, I left the letter where it was before stepping outside.
The result? Not only did we all get fined for entering, we were required to pay for property damage totaling $1,500 each — too much for us to afford.
For so many years, I have been wondering: Why is the deserted house so heavily protected with detectors and other security measures? Why is the property regularly maintained? What's the story behind that mysterious letter?
1.What did the shabby appearance of the house seem to remind the kids?
A.They would have no trouble entering it.
B.Their entry would bring them a surprise.
C.Their entry would disturb the neighbours.
D.Their behavior would be noticed by its owner.
2.Why did the author attempt to take the letter away?
A.It might reveal who had been maintaining the house.
B.It might help uncover the mystery of the abandoned house.
C.It must have been written to disclose a tragedy.
D.It was an evidence of the house being heavily protected.
3.What led the police cars and firetrucks to arrive so quickly?
A.The police officers were checking there.
B.The house owner reported to the police.
C.The police cars were passing by accident.
D.Some boy started the fire alarm system.
4.What can we infer from the last paragraph?
A.The empty house has been under strict protection.
B.The author wonders why they got fined.
C.No maintenance to the house is conducted regularly.
D.There is much mystery about the abandoned house.
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1.Who is iD tech summer camp intended for?
A.The iD tech instructors. B.World-famous universities.
C.Students seeking success in STEM. D.Parents interested in iD.
2.Why is ''iD tech'' flexible for students?
A.Registration can be changed free.
B.It allows students to study online.
C.Instructors create a good environment.
D.It leads to more job opportunities.
3.The record of student success is used to make the ad more _____.
A.technical B.interesting
C.professional D.persuasive
Directions: Translate the following sentences into English, using the words given in the brackets.
1.正是那位作家对他说的一番话鼓励了他投身于写作。（It）
2.这个国家经常陷入战乱，这就是它极度贫困的原因。（account）
3.一个刚从大学毕业的没有实践经验的年轻人是很难找到一个高薪职位的。（difficulty）
4.这位年轻人非常激动，他都不知道如何表达对这些援救人员给予他的无私帮助的感激之情。（So）
Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.
The Voice in the Box
When I was quite young, my family had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished the wooden case fastened to the wall on the lower stair landing. But my first personal experience with this genie-in-the-receiver came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench, I hurt my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be much use crying, because there was no one home to offer sympathy. I walked around the house, and finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly I ran for the footstool and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver and held it to my ear. “Information Please,” I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.
A click or two, and a small, clear voice spoke into my ear, “Information.”
“I hurt my finger…” I cried into the phone. The tears came readily enough, now that I had an audience.
“Isn’t your mother home?” came the question.
“Nobody’s home but me.” I sobbed.
“Are you bleeding?”
“No,” I replied. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.”
“Can you open your icebox?” she asked. I said I could. “Then break off a little piece of ice and hold it on your finger. That will stop the hurt. Be careful when you use the icepick(冰锥),” she said, “And don’t cry. You’ll be all right.”
After that, I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was, and the Orinoco, the romantic river that I was going to explore when I grew up. She helped me with my arithmetic, and she told me that my pet chipmunk----I had caught him in the park just the day before----would eat fruit and nuts.
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Adolescents refer to boys and girls at high-school level-more specifically the second, third and forth years of high schools. In dealing with students at this level, we must bear in mind that to some degree they are at the difficult stage, generally called adolescence.
Students at this level are likely to be confused mentally. They usually find it hard to concentrate on what they intend to do and often have romantic dreams. 1. They lack frankness and are usually very easily affected by their own emotions but hate to admit it. They are driven either by greater ambition, probably beyond their capability, or by extreme laziness caused by the fear of not succeeding or achieving objectives. 2. They are willing to work, but they hate to work without obtaining the result they think they should obtain.
Regarding school issues, although they seldom say so, they really want to be consulted and given an opportunity to direct their own affairs, but they need a good amount of guidance. They seldom admit that they need this guidance and they frequently rebel against it. But if it its intelligently offered they accept it with enthusiasm. As to personal beliefs, most of adolescents are trying to form political ideals and they have a tendency to be sometimes extremely idealistic, and at other times conventional, blindly accepting what their fathers and grandfathers believed in. 3. On the one hand they are too modest and on the other hand unreasonably boastful. They tend to be influenced more by a strong character than by great intelligence.
4. Having a better understanding of the characteristics and needs of young people at this age is a task that falls both on educators and other people involved. It may also help the young go through this difficult and critical stage of life in a more constructive manner.
A. The critical abilities are beginning
B. Their view on life usually falls on two extremes.
C. Of all periods of life, this is what may best be called the“plastic age”
D. They are basically timid or self-conscious.
E. Despite that, it is also in this periods that strong ties between teachers and students develop.
F. Fundamentally they want to be kept busy but they refuse to admit it.
Like every dog, every disease now seems to have its day. World Tuberculosis (infections disease in which growths appear on the lungs) Day is on Saturday March 24th.
Tuberculosis was once terribly fashionable. Dying of “consumption” seems to have been a favorite activity of garret-dwelling 19th-century artists, has, however, been neglected of late. Researchers in the field never tire of pointing out that TB kills a lot of people. According to figures released earlier this week by the World Health Organization, 1.6 million people died of the disease in 2005, compared with about 3m for AIDS and 1m for malaria. But it receives only a fraction of the research budget devoted to AIDS. America’s National Institutes of Health, for example, spends 20 times as much on AIDS as on TB. Nevertheless, everyone seems to getting in on the TB-day act this year.
The Global Fund an international organization responsible fur fighting all three diseases but best known for its work on AIDS, has used the occasion to trumpet its tuberculosis projects. The fund claims that its anti-TB activities since it opened for business in 2002 have saved the lives of over 1m people. The World Health Organization has issued a report that contains some good news. Although the number of TB cases is still rising, the rate of illness seems to have stabilized; the caseload, in other words, is growing only because the population itself is going up.
Even drug companies are involved. In the run-up to the day itself, Eli Lilly announced a $ 50m boost to its MDRTB Global Partnership. MDR stands for multi-drug resistance, and it is one of the reasons why TB is back in the limelight. Careless treatment has caused drug-resistant strains to evolve all over the world. The course of drugs needed to clear the disease completely takes six mouths, anti persuading people to stay that course once their symptoms have gone is hard. Unfortunately, those infected with MDR have to be treated with less effective, more poisonous and more costly drugs. Naturally, these provoke still more. non-compliance and thus still more evolution.
The other reason TB is back is its relationship to AIDS. The (global Fund’s joint responsibility for the diseases is no coincidence. AIDS does not kill directly. Rather, HIV, the virus that causes it, weakens the body’s immune system and exposes the sufferer to secondary infections. Of these, TB is one of the most serious. It kills 200 000 AIDS patients a year. However, some anti-TB drugs interfere with the effect of some anti-HIV drugs. Conversely, in about 20% of cases where a patient has both diseases, anti-HIV drugs make the tuberculosis worse. The upshot is that 125 years after human beings worked out what caused TB, it is still a serious threat.
1.The first sentence “Like every dog, every disease now seems to have its day.” means _______.
A.every dog enjoys good luck or success sooner or later
B.human beings can deal with problems caused by disease
C.Tuberculosis becomes a serious infection disease
D.people attach importance to Tuberculosis recently
2.By referring to AIDS in Paragraph 2, the author intends to show _______.
A.the US government is reluctant to spend millions of dollars on Tuberculosis
B.the death rate of AIDS is higher than that of Tuberculosis
C.the officials didn’t pay much attention to the research of Tuberculosis in the past
D.compared with AIDS, Tuberculosis can be cured effectively
3.Which of the following is best defines the word “upshot” (Para 5)?
A.Outcome. B.Uphold.
C.Achievement. D.Project.
4.Which of the following proverbs is closest in meaning to the message the passage tries to convey?
A.Forgive and forget.
B.Forgotten, but not gone.
C.When the wound is healed, the pain is forgotten.
D.Every dog is brave at his own door.
