Last year we visited Stratford, the place where Shakespeare was born on the 23rd of April, 1564.

Stratford is a very interesting town, right in the center of England. The countryside around Stratford is pleasant, with its beautiful woods, green fields and quiet rivers.

The first place we visited was the house in the center of Stratford where Shakespeare was born. We saw the small desk that Shakespeare sat at when he went to school. One of the things we liked best was the garden behind the house, because we could see there many of the flowers, trees and plants that Shakespeare wrote about in his plays.

After we had visited Shakespeare’s birthplace, we went to see the church where he was buried.

We had lunch in a very old hotel that was probably there in Shakespeare’s time. Every room of the hotel had the name of one of Shakespeare’s plays on the door―the “Hamlet” room, the “Romeo and Juliet” room, and so on.

After lunch we walked across the fields to the old cottage, about a mile out of Stratford, where Shakespeare spent most of his married life. The cottage is just as it was in Shakespeare’s day. We saw the chairs where Shakespeare perhaps sat and thought about ideas for new plays, and we saw the plates from which he probably ate his dinner.

When we got back to our hotel that evening, we were tired, but we had enjoyed a wonderful day.

56. Stratford is ______.

A. a church    B. in the middle of England    C. a very large city     D. a small village

57. Shakespeare was born and buried ______.

A. in the room where he wrote his plays

B. in the house in the center of Stratford

C. in the cottage about a mile out of Stratford

D. in two different places

58. Most of Shakespeare’s married life was spent ______.

A. in a cottage                       B. in an old hotel

C. writing new plays and growing flowers

D. meeting friends and thinking about ideas for new plays

C
As kids, my friends and I spent a lot of time out in the woods. “The woods” was our part-time address, destination, purpose, and excuse. If I went to a friend’s house and found him not at home, his mother might say, “Oh, he’s out in the woods,” with a tone of airy acceptance. It’s similar to the tone people sometimes use nowadays to tell me that someone I’m looking for is on the golf course or at the gym, or even “away from his desk.” For us ten-year-olds, “being out in the woods” was just an excuse to do whatever we feel like for a while.
We sometimes told ourselves that what we were doing in the woods was exploring (探险). Exploring was a more popular idea back then than it is today. History seemed to be mostly about explorers. Our explorations, though, seemed to have less system than the historic kind: something usually came up along the way. Say we stayed in the woods, throwing rocks, shooting frogs, picking blackberries, digging in what we were briefly persuaded was an Italian burial mound.
Often we got “lost” and had to climb a tree to find out where we were. If you read a story in which someone does that successfully, be skeptical: the topmost branches are usually too skinny to hold weight, and we could never climb high enough to see anything except other trees. There were four or five trees that we visited regularly — tall beeches, easy to climb and comfortable to sit in.
It was in a tree, too, that our days of fooling around in the woods came to an end. By then some of us has reached seventh grade and had begun the rough ride of adolescence (青春期). In March, the month when we usually took to the woods again after winter, two friends and I set out to go exploring. We climbed a tree, and all of a sudden it occurred to all three of us at the same time that we really were rather big to be up in a tree. Soon there would be the spring dances on Friday evenings in the high school cafeteria.
48. The author and his fiends were often out in the woods to ______.
A. spend their free time               B. play golf and other sports
C. keep away from their parents        D. escape from doing their schoolwork
49. What can we infer from paragraph 2?
A. The activities in the woods were well planned.
B. Human history is not the result of exploration.
C. The author explored in the woods aimlessly.
D. Exploration should be a systematic activity.
50. The underlined word “skeptical” in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______.
A. calm                 B. doubtful            C. serious              D. optimistic
51. From the last paragraph, we can learn that ________.
A. they usually didn’t go to the woods in winter
B. the author and his friends are of the same age
C. all high school students would go dancing on Friday evenings
D. they stopped going to the woods because they were adults now
52. How does the author feel about his childhood?
A. Happy but short.                                   B. Lonely but memorable.
C. Boring and meaningless.                 D. Long and unforgettable.

C

As kids, my friends and I spent a lot of time out in the woods. “The woods” was our part-time address, destination, purpose, and excuse. If I went to a friend’s house and found him not at home, his mother might say, “Oh, he’s out in the woods,” with a tone of airy acceptance. It’s similar to the tone people sometimes use nowadays to tell me that someone I’m looking for is on the golf course or at the gym, or even “away from his desk.” For us ten-year-olds, “being out in the woods” was just an excuse to do whatever we feel like for a while.

We sometimes told ourselves that what we were doing in the woods was exploring (探险). Exploring was a more popular idea back then than it is today. History seemed to be mostly about explorers. Our explorations, though, seemed to have less system than the historic kind: something usually came up along the way. Say we stayed in the woods, throwing rocks, shooting frogs, picking blackberries, digging in what we were briefly persuaded was an Italian burial mound.

Often we got “lost” and had to climb a tree to find out where we were. If you read a story in which someone does that successfully, be skeptical: the topmost branches are usually too skinny to hold weight, and we could never climb high enough to see anything except other trees. There were four or five trees that we visited regularly — tall beeches, easy to climb and comfortable to sit in.

It was in a tree, too, that our days of fooling around in the woods came to an end. By then some of us has reached seventh grade and had begun the rough ride of adolescence (青春期). In March, the month when we usually took to the woods again after winter, two friends and I set out to go exploring. We climbed a tree, and all of a sudden it occurred to all three of us at the same time that we really were rather big to be up in a tree. Soon there would be the spring dances on Friday evenings in the high school cafeteria.

48. The author and his fiends were often out in the woods to ______.

A. spend their free time               B. play golf and other sports

C. keep away from their parents        D. escape from doing their schoolwork

49. What can we infer from paragraph 2?

A. The activities in the woods were well planned.

B. Human history is not the result of exploration.

C. The author explored in the woods aimlessly.

D. Exploration should be a systematic activity.

50. The underlined word “skeptical” in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______.

A. calm                 B. doubtful            C. serious              D. optimistic

51. From the last paragraph, we can learn that ________.

A. they usually didn’t go to the woods in winter

B. the author and his friends are of the same age

C. all high school students would go dancing on Friday evenings

D. they stopped going to the woods because they were adults now

52. How does the author feel about his childhood?

A. Happy but short.                                   B. Lonely but memorable.

C. Boring and meaningless.                 D. Long and unforgettable.

HANGZHOU, China — Millions of Chinese basketball fans who were upset about the retirement of Yao Ming, are excited to see another even more shining star, Jeremy Lin, rising from the N.B.A and becoming a household name all across China.

“We are amazed by Lin Shuhao’s magic performance and should cheer him on,” one Internet user wrote.

“His sport shirts have sold out, even including the counterfeit(仿制品) ones,” said Zheng Xiaojun, a 24-year-old clerk.

Lin’s amazing success over the last month has caught the imagination of the Chinese. He has been particularly popular here in northern Zhejiang province, from which his grandmother went to Taiwan in the late 1940s.

Cai Qi, a well-known micro blogger, posted a message on micro blog over the weekend stating that Lin’s hometown is Jiaxing, a city near Hangzhou where Lin’s grandmother grew up.

Cai Qi’s nephew Yu Guohua, a 56-year-old factory worker, is Lin’s closest relative still living in northern Zhejiang. He said in a telephone interview that Lin had come to play basketball with the Jiaxing High School team last May and had been surrounded by admirers.

Yu said he did not have a chance to meet Lin in the crowd, but managed to speak with his family. “His father was very supportive of Lin’s playing basketball, but his grandmother was not, for fear he would be injured,” Yu said.

Lin may owe his height, 6 feet 3 inches, to his grandmother’s family, Yu said. Chen Weiji, the father of Lin’s grandmother, was well over 6 feet and all of Chen’s children were tall as well, he said.

The N.B.A. believes that 300 million people in China play basketball. The retirement last year of Yao Ming took its main Asian draw away from the N.B.A. But Lin’s appearance has helped the league remain a hot topic of Chinese online chatter.

67.Why does Lin Shuhao appeal especially to people in northern Zhejiang ?

A. He was born in Zhejiang.

B. His sports shirts are made in Zhejiang.

C. He once visited Zhejiang.

D. His grandmother grew up in Zhejiang.

68. We can learn from the text that ________.

A. Lin once played on Jiaxing High School team

B. All Lin’s relatives moved to Taiwan 60 years ago

C. Lin’s grandmother didn’t expect him to be a player

D. Lin’s father loved playing basketball

69. Lin’s success in N.B.A has ________.

A. attracted more Chinese children to play basketball as a career

B. drawn Chinese people’s attention back to the league

C. helped his hometown develop sports shirts business

D. helped his hometown attract more foreign visitors

70. Which is the best title of the report?

A. The Secret of Lin’s Success

B. Lin, A New Focus in China

C. Lin and His Family

D. Chinese Players in N.B.A