In most languages, a greeting is usually followed by “small talk”. Small talk means the little things we talk about at the start of a conversation.
In English-speaking countries people often make small talk about the weather: “Nice day, isn’t it?” “Terrible weather, isn’t it?” But there is something special about small talk. It must be about something which both people have the same opinion about. The purpose of small talk is to let both people agree on something. This makes meeting people easier and more comfortable. People usually agree about the weather, so it is a safe topic for small talk. But people often disagree about religion or politics so these are not suitable topics for small talk in English. The topics for small talk also depend on where the conversation is taking place. At football matches, people make small talk about the game they are watching: “Great game, isn’t it?” At bus stops, people may comment about the transport system: “The bus service is terrible, isn’t it?”
Greetings and small talk are an important part of conversation in any language. The way people great each and the things they talk about, however, may be different from one language to another. This shows that there is much more to learn when we learn a language than just the vocabulary and the grammar of the language. We also have to learn the social behavior of the people who speak it.
【小题1】Small talk ___.

Jim, a successful businessman, told the experience of his childhood.

When he was 12, his parents       . He was alone and didn’t get on well with others. People always laughed        him. No one showed kindness (友善) to him. His only friend was a dog named Tige.

One day as he walked down the street, a young lady was walking in front of him. Suddenly one of her bags dropped from her arms. As she stopped       , she dropped other bags. He came to help her.“Thank you, dear! You are a nice little boy!”She said kindly, smiling.

A special feeling came to him. These were        kind words he had ever heard. He watched her        she went far away, and he whistled（吹口哨）to his dog and went directly to the river nearby.

“Thank you, dear! You are a nice little boy!”he repeated the woman’s words. Then in a low        he said to his dog,“You are a nice little dog!”Tige raised        ears as if（似乎）it understood.

“Uh! Even a dog likes it!”he said,“Well, Tige, I won’t say unkind words to you any more.”Tige waved its tail happily.

The boy thought and thought. Finally he looked at himself in the river. He saw        but a dirty boy. He washed his face       . Again he looked. He saw a clean nice boy. He was amazed (震惊). From then on, he had a new life.

After telling this, the businessman stopped for a while, and then he said,“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the place where that kind woman planted in me the first seed (种子) of kindness. All of us should learn about kindness.        a great power it has!” If you show kindness to others, you will be an able man.

1.A.dead                           B. die                             C.died

2.A.at                                      B.to                                    C.of

3.A.picking it up               B to pick it up     C.to pick up it    

4.A.the first                      B.first                            C. the first time

5.A.until                            B.before                            C.when

6.A.sound                     B.noise                    C..voice

7.A.it                                       B.it’s                             C. its

8.A.something                  B.nothing                           C. somebody

9.A.carefully                     B.careful                            C.careless

10.A.What                   B.How                             C.It

If you want to find out a piece of information about anything, the best place to search for it is Wikipedia. This online encyclopedia(百科全书) is written by thousands of people around the world. Anyone can add or change the information if he or she finds it not correct or not well written. In this way, people who know a lot about a certain subject can write about it even if they are not university professors.
What is more, Wikipedia includes articles written in about 235 languages. This fact makes it one of the few websites on the Internet that are truly international. It was started in 2001 by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, as a free online English-language encyclopedia project. By April 2008 over 10 million articles had been put on Wikipedia. A quarter of the articles in English. Wikipedia is also a place where people can find the latest news.
However, Wikipedia has its own problems. There have been many complaints that some of the information on Wikipedia is not accurate and some important subjects are not included. This has led to arguments between the writers of articles. The people running Wikipedia say that the accuracy of the information is improving and that it is one of the top 20 visited websites on the Internet.
So, if you are looking for some information, why not try Wikipedia?
【小题1】Wikipedia is ___________.

To err is human. To blame（责备） the other guy is even more human.
Common sense is not all that common.
Why tell the truth when you can come up with a good excuse?
These three popular misquotes（戏谑的引语）are meant to be jokes, and yet they tell us a lot about human nature. To err, or to make mistakes, is indeed a part of being human, but it seems that most people don’t want to accept the responsibility for the problem. Perhaps it is the natural thing to do. The original quote about human nature went like this: “To err is human, to forgive, divine（神圣的）.” This saying mirrors an ideal: People should be forgiving of others’ mistakes. Instead, we tend to do the opposite – find someone else to pass the blame on to. However, taking responsibility for something that went wrong is a mark of great maturity（成熟）.
Common sense is what we call clear thought. Having common sense means having a good general plan that will make things work well, and it also means staying with the plan. Common sense tells you that you take an umbrella out into a rainstorm, but you leave the umbrella home when you hear a weather forecast for sunshine. Common sense does not seem to be common for large companies, because there are so many things going on that one person cannot be in charge of everything. People say that in a large company, “the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.”
And what is wrong with a society that thinks that making up a good excuse is like creating a work of art? One of the common problems with making excuses is that people, especially young people, get the idea that it’s okay not to be totally honest all the time. There is a corollary（直接推论）to that: if a good excuse is “good” even if it isn’t honest, then where is the place of the truth?
【小题1】Which of the following is NOT based on common sense?