Where to enjoy a picture-perfect white Christmas?

Quebec City, Canada

When the narrow streets of Quebec City are covered in snow, it feels like you’ve wandered into a beautiful Victorian Christmas card which has come to life. Enjoy the friendliness of this charming Canadian city with joyous outdoor concerts, holiday markets and Quebec Adabra — an evening festival of music, lights, animation (动画) and architectural projections held city-wide.

London, England

The capital is bursting with holiday cheer. Bright Christmas lights brighten up Oxford Street, Covent Garden and Carnaby Street. Skating people can go for a seasonal spin in Somerset House, Hyde park, Canary Wharf and the Tower of London. Love holiday music? St. Martin-Fields hosts an inspiring line-up of Christmas concerts while London’s most famous Christmas tree entertains visitors in Trafalgar Square.

Prague, Czech Republic

Prague’s beautiful architecture provides a dramatic setting for its Christmas activities. At the foot of the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, the Old Town Christmas market sells Christmas gifts and treats to the thousands of shoppers who visit it each December. Carol (圣诞颂歌) singers perform seasonal favourites while a well-decorated Christmas tree adds to the joyous atmosphere.

Rovaniemi, Finland

For a storybook Christmas, Rovaniemi in Finland is hard to beat. Lapland’s capital becomes a winter wonderland. The area is lit by the impressive northern lights，and they can be witnessed around the city from mid-August to early April. This magical place is also the official home of Santa Claus himself and visitors of all ages can meet everything about Christmas at Santa Claus Village right at the Arctic Circle.

1.Why does the author mention the Victorian Christmas card?

A. To indicate Quebec City is beautiful.

B. To show it always snows at Christmas.

C. To tell us Christmas is a lively holiday.

D. To suggest that we buy Christmas cards.

2.Where can you skate in London at Christmas?

A. In Oxford Street.

B. In Covent Garden.

C. In Canary Wharf.

D. In Trafalgar Square.

3.What makes a Christmas in Prague more attractive?

A. The unique gifts offered to tourists.

B. The great architecture of Prague.

C. The Old Town Christmas market.

D. A well-decorated Christmas tree.

4.What is special about Rovaniemi?

A. Its scenery attracts visitors of all ages.

B. It is a winter wonderland full of magic.

C. Its Christmas celebrations last long.

D. It is where Santa Claus comes from.

My students entered the art room with their usual eagerness to see what they would be learning in today’s class. Little did they know they were going to be students for a new teaching method that is spreading the nation.

I often use videos as previews and supplements (补充) to our art lessons providing students with a variety of artists showing their skills in real-life situations outside the classroom. Finding a new painting technique called glue batik(胶水蜡染), I thought of something new I hadn’t tried before! How awesome would it be to learn a new technique together with artists? The lesson was planned, presented to the students without any introduction or set objectives. I also asked the students to watch and pause the video as often as they needed to.

They watched as the artist explained and showed her skills, taking notes on her steps and results. After the video, they shared what they felt the artist’s objectives were, her end result using art vocabulary as well as the steps they would need to know to present their own examples. Then they began creating their works using the glue batik technique.

Surfing the Internet a couple of weeks later, I found that the teaching method I used sounded very familiar to a new movement in education called flipped teaching, which was developed by Jonathan Bergmann. He asked his students to watch video lectures at home and do exercises (homework) in class under supervision (监督). He found that grades went up and he also found time for other types of activities, which Bergmann states are more important than the videos.

Back to my art class, the students were learning to get ideas, make predictions, and explain reasoning to their classmates. Together they compared, asked questions and made discoveries as they presented the technique.

1.Which of the following is one of the benefits of flipped teaching?

A. Teachers needn’t check students’ homework

B. Students can control their own learning pace.

C. Students can choose whatever they want to learn.

D. Teachers can develop their own teaching methods.

2.Who plays a central role in the flipped teaching?

A. The artist. B. The parent.

C. The teacher. D. The student.

3.What is the best title for the text?

A. The flipped teaching I used in art class

B. Jonathan Bergmann’s flipped teaching

C. A teaching method spreading the nation

D. A new painting technique called glue batik

Two 5-year-old girls, best friends, held hands in Tolson’s office at Van Ness Elementary School in Washington, D.C., one saying she didn’t feel well. Tolson, the school nurse, asked, “How long has your stomach been hurting?” “It just started,” she said.

The other one said her head hurt last night, too. Tolson knew she had a history of fevers, so she checked her temperature and asked her what she ate, whether she went to the bathroom, and whether her head still hurt. It could be that these two little girls that went to Tolson’s office were fine. Or maybe they had mental problems. And that is what school nurses have to judge every day.

School nurses generally get very little training when it comes to mental health. Mazyck said she herself was astounded when she was a school nurse. She saw upset, anxiety, sadness and students who didn’t even know what to do to calm themselves down. She never expected these. So Mazyck went back to school for a graduate degree in counseling (咨询) and now she focuses on getting nurses more training in mental health.

Sharon Stephan, who co-directs the National Center for School Mental Health at the University of Maryland, tells nurses there are two simple questions to ask themselves to see if a child needs help:

Is the student acting or behaving differently than he/she was before?

Is the student somehow far outside the norm (标准) of what you would expect?

The only time everyone pays attention is when there’s a tragedy(悲剧), like a school shooting. However, we actually can catch the students who might harm others and recognize the students who might want to kill themselves.

Mental health is ranked one of the top problems all school nurses deal with, and school nurses need to be better at it.

1.Why does the author mention the two little girls?

A. To show school nurses do a difficult job.

B. To show the importance of school nurses.

C. To show school nurses need much patience.

D. To show the importance of students’ health.

2.What does the underlined word “astounded” in the third paragraph mean?

A. Tired. B. Troubled.

C. Shocked. D. Embarrassed.

3.Why did Mazyck go back to school?

A. To give nurses more training in mental health.

B. To find school students with mental problems.

C. To learn what mental problems students may have.

D. To improve her skills of dealing with mental health.

4.What can we learn from the last but one paragraph?

A. There are too many kids in need of help.

B. Something tragic often happens at school.

C. Students’ mental health is always ignored.

D. It’s hard to find students with mental problems.

One of the most popular comments I have heard about time is that we need to balance our time in order to live a more balanced life. We often feel that if we are focused and devoted, happy and positive, loving and generous, healthy and energetic, then we will be balanced people. And if the pie chart of our daily life has just the right ratios(比率) of work, life, family, health, and service, then our time will be balanced.

The problem with trying hard for balance is that most people’s understanding of this state is so different from what balance actually is! Balance is not about walking around with a bunch of positive qualities; it’s about walking on the tight rope between the poles within us and the circumstances outside of us. Strictly speaking, in order to achieve true balance, we should accept we may have some shortcomings. We should accept and love the most challenging parts of life because they offer gifts for full, real living.

Even though we measure time in a linear(线状的) way, time is and will always be asymmetrical(不均匀的). One moment is not like another, just like each day is different and each tide that rolls in is different from the previous one. This is why it is impossible to balance our time through a pie chart in a time management book. Exploring asymmetrical time allows us to move in line with an unbalanced time and thus regain our relative balance. If we stop measuring ourselves against the standards of linear time, we can accept ourselves more fully. New possibilities arise as we accept the uncertainty.

1.Why does the author think it’s difficult to achieve balance in life?

A. People don’t know the true meaning of balance.

B. People may not have enough good qualities.

C. People cannot create their pie charts of daily life.

D. People fail to realize the qualities they really need.

2.In the author’s opinion, what does a balanced life mean?

A. We should arrange our time wisely.

B. We should try to believe ourselves.

C. We should learn to improve ourselves and our lives.

D. We should accept the bad aspects of ourselves and life.

3.What does the last paragraph mainly want to tell us?

A. Uncertainty can help build up confidence.

B. It is difficult for us to accept ourselves fully.

C. There are always uncertain things occurring in life.

D. New possibilities can help us achieve balance in life.

4.What may be the best title for the text?

A. The true meaning of time

B. Seeking relative balance

C. Struggle for a balanced life

D. Popular comments about time

Experiencing bad dreams every night can be frightening for anybody. Bad dreams can disturb sleep. 1. That’s why one should take steps to stop them as soon as they happen every day.

Studies have shown that when a person is under some sort of physical or mental stress, he’s more likely to get bad dreams and disturbed sleep. 2. For example, if you’re overworked, learn to take things slow.

Besides, an unpleasant experience that a person is unable to get over can make the person suffer from bad dreams. 3. In such a case, receiving treatment and dealing with the unpleasant experience is the only way to stop bad dreams.

Eating fatty and high-protein(高蛋白质的) foods is also known to cause bad dreams in some people. 4. Taking a light dinner of soups and salads is the best, both for health and for stopping disturbed sleep in some cases.

5. For example, your bedroom should be the most comfortable place in the world. So remove all electronic equipment including televisions. In addition, if you have negative thoughts, it can have side effects on the kind of dreams you have. So from now on try to be a happy and positive person.

A. First, we need to know the bad effects of bad dreams.

B. For example, death of a very close one can result in bad dreams.

C. They may also make a person feel stressed throughout the next day.

D. Bad dreams occurring because of this can be stopped if the diet is changed.

E. Reading something you enjoy can make you feel relaxed and help you sleep

F. Besides these, there are many other things a person can do to have a good night’s sleep.

G. To stop bad dreams, it’s necessary to find out the causes of stress in life and remove them.

Since my early childhood, my parents have always told me to enjoy every part of my life, no matter how ordinary it may seem. Before the summer of 2005, I never thought there was anything _______ about living in Sugar Land, Texas. All I wanted was to _______ Texas.

For most people, spending three weeks in the Tuscan countryside is a(n) _______ vacation. It also _______ my family. During my first week abroad, I admitted I _______ the foreign atmosphere. A new language and culture _______ me. For those seven days, I was totally absorbed in becoming something I could never be—a(n) _______. It was almost as if I wished to _______ my own identity for something new that was not _______ to me at all.

At some point along the drive between Florence and Genoa, it ________ me: I didn’t want to throw away who I was for any ________ wonders. Italy was an attractive and impressive country, ________ I had no emotional connection with it. I ________ Sugar Land. From that moment on, all I ________ was to return home.

I think it’s ________ that I could never fall in love with my home until I left it. Now I ________ the everyday parts of my life in Sugar Land are really the most prized treasures in my heart. Now ________, I find all my time spent living in Sugar Land made me ________. Therefore, now I can ________ say that being a Texan is who I am, and there’s no way I can ________ that.

1.A. special B. certain C. disappointing D. ordinary

2.A. improve B. leave C. control D. ignore

3.A. adventure B. public C. annual D. dream

4.A. expected B. shocked C. attracted D. welcomed

5.A. sensed B. created C. needed D. liked

6.A. upset B. amused C. impressed D. discouraged

7.A. traveler B. farmer C. American D. Italian

8.A. abandon B. waste C. hide D. damage

9.A. rude B. related C. useful D. close

10.A. hit B. warned C. disturbed D. embarrassed

11.A. old B. foreign C. real D. potential

12.A. so B. and C. but D. or

13.A. rely on B. show off C. stand for D. belong to

14.A. desired B. remembered C. admired D. hated

15.A. inspiring B. terrifying C. interesting D. rewarding

16.A. prefer B. guarantee C. imagine D. understand

17.A. looking back B. checking up C. growing up D. fighting back

18.A. exist B. smile C. insist D. succeed

19.A. safely B. smoothly C. confidently D. warmly

20.A. spot B. change C. use D. lack

I’ve recently discovered that I have a second personality(个性) when I speak English, compared to the original me when I speak Chinese.

Speaking English brings out 1. more outgoing, enthusiastic, relaxed and confident side of me. I am also more open 2. physical expressions when speaking English, such as hugging, gesturing and using more exaggerated (夸张的)3. (face) expressions. I have to say I love this new version of me 4. (well).

Similar things happened to my friend when we were traveling in Japan. My friend, a Chinese 5.(speak) fluent Japanese, showed a more modest and gentle attitude when using Japanese. I think it must have something 6. (do) with the fact 7. the Japanese use special words and styles to show respect for an older person or a person at a higher position than themselves.

So learning a new language is really worthwhile. We can not only have direct 8. (communicate) with people from other countries, but also fully understand 9.(we) and explore the different sides of us.

I’ve recently started to learn German. Probably in a few years I 10. (see) a more cautious, accurate and hardworking version of myself.

1.At the crossing of the street you can find the __________(农业的) Bank of China.

2.It was our __________(祖先) who invented the paper-making, the compass and so on.

3.How can I __________(积累) enough cash to get out of debt.

4.He is still involved in __________(自愿的) work promoting local enterprise.

5.I met her because of a lucky __________(巧合).

6.If you spend more time reading your English, you can improve it r__________.

7.In Canada, smoking will be b__________ in all offices later this year.

8.I need some m__________ to make a dress.

9.With the d__________ of science, many new things are invented.

10.Though I haven’t met him for many years，I could r__________ him immediately.

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处错误，每句中最多有两处，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。

My parents run the restaurant in our city. I help out there after school every time when I am free. Yesterday afternoon I went there help out as usual. While I was there, two foreigners from Australia came to have a meal. Learned that they didn’t speak Chinese at all，I went up and greeted them with English. I recommended some typical dish to them and they had a nicely meal. After the meal, they expressed their satisfaction with the food but praised me for my English. It was the first time that I have communicated with foreigners. My parents felt proud of mine.

为了鼓励在家多读，联合国教科文组织确定4月23日为“世界读书日” (World Book Day)。请你写篇英语短文呼吁同学们多读书。内容应包括：

1.简述世界读书日（时间及目的)；

2.读书的益处；

3.呼吁同学们多读书。

注意：1.词数100左右；

2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

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