A vuvuzela is a horn，about a meter long，usually made of a colourful cheap plastic.________ When it's blown by thousands of supporters at the same time，it's loud，very loud. It sounds a bit like an air horn and you can hear it a lot during the 2010 World Cup.

 The vuvuzela was originally made from a kudu horn and was traditionally used to summon people to gatherings. But the horn you see at soccer matches in South Africa today originated from a tin horn that became popular with South African soccer fans around 15 years ago. A sports company began to mass－produce a plastic version in the South Africa colours，and this is what you see (and hear)at every soccer match. Now it's become an official symbol of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and more popular around the world.

 The vuvuzela will be ubiquitous during the 2010 World Cup. There was a call for FIFA to ban the vuvizela during the Confederations Cup that took place in South Africa in June 2009，European journalists got into a tizzy(紧张)about the noise. The Guardian reported: “It sounds like extremely terrible.” But FIFA stood its ground，as Mr. Blatter，FIFA's president says “Vuvuzelas，drums and singing are part of Africa football culture. It is part of their celebration，it is part of their culture，so let them blow the vuvuzelas.”

Adam Carnegie，a graphic artist from Cape Town，founded the Kelp Environmental Learning Project. The project employs local men and women to collect kelp，dry it and then hand paint colourful designs on it. The mission is simple. “We want to create jobs，make a noise，make people laugh，remind people to be in the moment.”

Like most trumpets，getting any noise from a vuvuzela requires significant pursing of the lips and the ability to blow with force. Your cheeks will be zinging afterward. You can personalize your vuvuzela blowing, with a lot of practice，but generally it produces one big sound.

6. Which of the following sentences can be used to fill in the blank in the first paragraph?

A. It was chosen by FIFA as the unique musical instrument.

B. It has been used at soccer matches for thousands of years.

C. It is the choice of noise－maker for South African football fans.

D. It is a traditional instrument South African soccer fans use to celebrate victory.

7. The vuvuzela ________.

A. is usually made of metal

B. has a length of two and a half feet

C. was first used in a local sports game

D. is one of the official symbols of the 2010 World Cup

8. The underlined word “ubiquitous” in the 3rd paragraph probably means “________”．

A. banned               B. heard everywhere

C. extremely expensive     D. strictly limited

9. Why did FIFA stand its ground on the issue of the vuvuzela? 

A. Because the vuvuzela is typical of African football culture. 

B. Because it is the host country's right to make their choice. 

C. Because the vuvuzela will make the 2010 World Cup special. 

D. Because more member countries support the use of the vuvuzela.

10. What can we learn from the passage?

A. It requires effort to get noise from vuvuzela.

B. Vuvuzela will be banned after the 2010 World Cup because it is too noisy. 

C. The Kelp Environmental Learning Project employs many people to sell vuvuzela. 

D. Vuvuzela is too noisy for both the players and the audience.

The Mandarin Chinese word for “cha” is pronounced “t'e” in certain Chinese dialects(方言). Also the Malay word for the leaf is“the”. This word “the” was used to describe both the drink and the leaf. The Japanese character for tea is written exactly the same as the Chinese, though pronounced with a slight difference; so these may be the origins of our word tea in the western world.

Tea may have been discovered in 2737 BC by Shen Nong, a Chinese Emperor of the San Huang Period（3,000 - 2,700 BC）. He was a scholar, the father of agriculture and the inventor of Chinese herbal medicine. One summer day, while visiting a distant place, he and the court stopped to rest and his servants began to boil water for the court to drink. Dried leaves from the nearby bush fell into the boiling water, and made it a brown liquid. The Emperor was interested in the new liquid, drank some, and found it very refreshing. The tree was a wild tea tree, and so, tea was created.

The first samples(样品) of tea reached England between 1652 and 1654. Tea was referred to as the China drink, tcha, chaw, tay, tee, and tea and was at first regarded more as a medicine than a fashionable drink. The original English pronunciation of the word tea was “tay” and can be traced back to around 1655 when the Dutch introduced both word and beverage（饮料）to England. The pronunciation “tee” also originated in the 1600's but only gained predominance（主导地位）after the late 18th century.

By 1650 the Dutch were actively involved in trade throughout the Western world. During that year Peter Stuyvesant brought the first tea to America to the colonists（殖民地定居者）in the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam （later re-named New York）.

1.The following information is true EXCEPT ________.

A. The Japanese write the character for tea the same way as we Chinese.

B. It was a Chinese Emperor who first found tea very refreshing.

C. The word “the” was used to describe only the leaf.

D. Tea was discovered quite by chance in history.

2.Paragraph 2 mainly tells us ________.

A. that Shen Nong, was a famous inventor of Chinese herbal medicine

B. why the Emperor was brave and dared to run risks

C. whether Shen Nong liked drinking boiled water outside the court

D. the way in which tea was created outdoors 

3.Which of the following information is FALSE according to the text?

① Tea was at first regarded just as a fashionable drink in England.

② Tea had different names during the early days it reached England.

③ The pronunciation “tee”originated in 1600.

④ Peter Stuyvesant introduced both word “tay” and beverage（饮料）to England.

⑤ The pronunciation“tee”became popular after the late 18th century.

A. ①②     B. ②③     C. ④⑤     D. ①④   

4.From Paragraph 3 we know ________.

A. that the leaf tea should be put in hot water for drinking 

B. that tea was called the China drink, tcha, chaw, tay, tee, t'e and tea in England

C. what the early situation of tea was like in the Western world  

D. that tea was first brought to America in the late 16th century

 

(2)读写任务：（共25分）

阅读下面的短文，然后按要求写一篇150词左右的英语短文。

It was the end of my first day as waitress in a busy New York restaurant. My cap had gone away, and my feet hurt. The loaded plates I carried seemed to be heavier and heavier. Tired and discouraged. I didn’t seem able to do anything right. As I wrote out a check for a family with several children who had changed their ice-cream order a dozen times, I was ready to quit. Then the father smiled at me as he handed me my tip. “Well done”, he said, “you’re looking after us really well.” Suddenly my tiredness disappeared. I smiled back, and later, when the manager asked me how I’d like my first day. I said, “Fine!” Those few words of praise had changed everything. Praise is like sunshine to the human spirit; no flower can grow without it. And yet, most of us are only too ready to apply to others the cold wind of criticism; we are unwilling to give our fellows the warm sunshine of praise. Why when one word of praise can bring such benefit?

In fact, to give praise costs the giver nothing but a moment’s thought and a moment’s effort but will reward both the giver and the recipient with a happy day. Let’s learn to give credit (赞扬) to people around us.

[写作内容]

以约30个词概括短文的要点

以120个词就“The Power of Praise”这个主题发表你的看法；并包括如下要点：

1) 在你周围，人们对赞美的看法和做法；

2) 你的观点如何？你怎么做？举例说明赞美的力量。

[写作要求]

可以使用自己的经历或听到的故事，可以参照阅读材料的内容，但不得直接引用原文的句子；

标题已经给出

[评分标准]

概括准确、语言规范、内容合适。篇章连贯

 

Now let us look at how we read. When we read a printed text, our eyes move across a page in short, jerky movement. We recognize words usually when our eyes are still when they fixate. Each time they fixate, we see a group of words. This is known as the recognition span or the visual span. The length of time in which the eyes stop ---the duration of the fixation ----varies considerably from person to person. It also varies within any one person according to his purpose in reading and his familiarity with the text. Furthermore, it can be affected by such factors as lighting and tiredness.

Unfortunately, in the past, many reading improvement courses have concentrated too much on how our eyes move across the printed page. As a result of this misleading emphasis on the purely visual aspects of reading, numerous exercises have been devised to train the eyes to see more words at one fixation. For instance, in some exercises, words are flashed on to a screen for, say, a tenth or a twentieth of a second. One of the exercises has required students to fix their eyes on some central point, taking in the words on either side. Such word patterns are often constructed in the shape of rather steep pyramids so the reader takes in more and more words at each successive fixation. All these exercises are very clever, but it’s one thing to improve a person’s ability to see words and quite another thing to improve his ability to read a text efficiently. Reading requires the ability to understand the relationship between words. Consequently, for these reasons, many experts have now begun to question the usefulness of eye training, especially since any approach which trains a person to read isolated words and phrases would seem unlikely to help him in reading a continuous text.

1.The time of the recognition span can be affected by the following facts except ________ .

A. the length of a group of words.

B. lighting and tiredness.

C. one’s familiarity with the text.

D. one’s purpose in reading.

2.The author may believe that reading ______.

A. demands an deeply-participating mind.

B. demands more mind than eyes.

C. requires a reader to take in more words at each fixation.

D. requires a reader to see words more quickly.

3.What does the author mean by saying “but it’s one thing to improve a person’s ability to see words and quite another thing to improve his ability to read a text efficiently.” in the second paragraph?

A. The reading exercises mentioned can’t help to improve an efficient reading.

B. The reading exercises mentioned has done a great job to improve one’s ability to see words.

C. The ability to see words is not needed when an efficient reading is conducted.

D. The reading exercises mentioned can’t help to improve both the ability to see or comprehend words.

4.Which of the following is NOT true?

A. The emphasis on the purely visual aspects is misleading.

B. The eye training will help readers in reading a continuous text.

C. The visual span is a word or a group of words we see each time.

D. Many experts began to question the efficiency of eye training.

5.The tune of the author in writing this article is ________.

　　A. pessimistic  B. optimistic   C. critical  D. neutral

 

Fish have different personalities which change as they experience life’s highs and lows．according to British biologists．

Researchers identified different“personalities” in their fish by observing the boldness or shyness of individuals，according to The Nature．Like people，some fish are very confident in the face of novelty(新奇事物)or conflict；while others are silent and fear．

The scientists selected particularly bold and shy rainbow trout，and tested whether they changed their outlook depending on what life threw at them．They arranged some fish to fight and others to  watch to  see how both the participants  and  observers  responded to victories  and defeats．Winning or losing a fight，or even watching fellow fish overcome the difficulties influenced the future behavior of the creatures studied in the lab．

The researchers made fish compete with much larger or smaller opponents．to ensure that they would win or lose their fights．These bold fish that won their fights tended to be even bolder when later presented with  a novel food  item；losing their fight caused them to be  much more cautious．

Fish also learn by watching others．Bold fish watching a shy fish exploring a mystery object were much more nervous when later given a novelty item for themselves．

Predictably，shy fish that won a fight also gained more confidence，but surprisingly，shy fish that lost their fights also grew bolder when exploring strange new food，Sneddon said，adding that this could be due to what she calls a“desperado effect”(亡命徒效应)．

The new research suggests that animals can gradually adapt their personalities．The results echo the effects that life experience can have on human．

1.What does．the underlined word“creatures’’probably refer to?

A．Fish．            B．Participants．      C．Observers．       D．Researchers．

2.The third paragraph of the text is mainly about—————．

A．a conclusion of the research

B．an explanation of fish characters

C．a statement of the experiment

D．a description of fish fights

3.What can we know from the research?

A．Bold losing fish become—e bolder when presented With a novel food item．

B．Losing their fights causes the bold fish to be much more courageous．

C．Bold fish watching a shy fish exploring a mystery get less nervous．

D．Shy fish losing fights grow more confident in exploring new food．

4.What’s the main idea of the text?’   

A．Fish have stress in the fierce fights．

B．Fish care about winning or losing a fight．

C．Fish have adaptable personalities．

D．Fish can learn a lot by watching others．