Native Tongue

At first Kate thought the Romanian girl could not speak and understand English.Nadia would not reply to anything Kate said.Kate was in charge of showing Nadia around on her first day at Buckminster Grade School.Kate could not figure out why the school had put Nadia in a class where she could not understand what people were saying.

“Why did they do this?”Kate wondered aloud.“I mean,you can't learn if you can't understand the teacher.”

Nadia's voice was a whisper.“I understand English.I will learn.”Nadia's English was perfect.

Kate was perplexed.She couldn't understand why Nadia did not like to speak.Then she realized that moving to a new country probably wasn't the easiest thing to do.There were hundreds of unfamiliar and unusual things to learn—all at the same time.

“There're a lot of new things to learn,huh?” said Kate.

Nadia nodded rapidly.In a quiet voice she replied，“Many things people say,I do

not understand.I have been speaking English and Romanian all my life,but I do not know what some children are saying.For example,yesterday a boy asked if I could help him find the USB port on a thin black box he was carrying.Isn't a port a place for ships?It made no sense to me.”

“Don't worry,”said Kate.“You'll figure everything out in time.You see,that thin black box was a computer.A USB port is a place where you can connect other machines to a computer.”

Nadia and Kate were quiet after that.They took notes while the teacher gave a maths lesson.To ?Kate's? surprise,Nadia put up her hand and offered to answer questions at the blackboard.

Nadia handled every question the teacher gave her.Some of the questions were really difficult,and no one understood what was going on except Nadia and the teacher.When the teacher said that Nadia answered everything correctly,the whole class clapped their hands.

Nadia was smiling when she sat back down next to Kate.“Some things,”she said in a normal voice,“are the same all over the world.”

At the beginning of Nadia's first day at school,she was_____________.

A.disappointed         B.helpful         C.lively         D.shy

2.The underlined word“_________perplexed”probably means___________.

A.puzzled              B.angry           C.shocked        D.serious

3.We can infer from the passage that______________.

A.Nadia did not like Kate

B.Nadia had lived by the sea before

C.Nadia had never seen a computer before

D.Nadia spoke in a soft voice out of politeness          

4.Which of the following statements is true?        

A.Nadia was better at maths than other students.        

B.Nadia found some of the maths questions difficult.        

C.Nadia was encouraged to answer questions in class.        

D.Nadia understood the maths teacher better than other teachers.

5.What is the message of the story?

A.Talking about something familiar gives you confidence in communication.

B.Answering questions in class makes you better understood by classmates.

C.Language plays an important role in communication between cultures.

D.Mathematics helps to improve communication between cultures.

A punctual person is in the habit of doing a thing at the proper time and is never late in keeping an appointment.

The unpunctual man, on the other hand, never does what he has to do at the proper time. He is always in a hurry and in the end loses both time and his good name. A lost thing may be found again, but lost time can never be regained. Time is more valuable than material things. In fact, time is life itself. The unpunctual man is forever wasting and mismanaging his most valuable asset(财产)as well as others’. The unpunctual person is always complaining that he finds no time to answer letters, or return calls or keep appointments promptly. But the man who really has a great deal to do is very careful of his time and seldom complains of want of it. He knows that he cannot get through his huge amount of work unless he faithfully keeps every piece of work when it has to be attended to.

Failure to be punctual in keeping one’s appointments is a sign of disrespect towards others. If a person is invited to dinner and arrives later than the appointed time, he keeps all the other guests waiting for him. Usually this will be regarded as a great disrespect to the host and all other guests present.

Unpunctuality, moreover, is very harmful when it comes to do one’s duty, whether public or private. Imagine how it would be if those who are put in charge of important tasks failed to be at their proper places at the appointed time. A man who is known to be habitually unpunctual is never trusted by his friends or fellow men.

According to the passage, the main reason that a person is always unpunctual is that____.

A. he has more work to do than other people

B. he is always in a hurry when he works

C. he doesn’t care much about time

D. he always mismanages and wastes his time

What does the underlined word mean?

A. in time     B. be late    C. on time    D. at times

According to the third paragraph, when you are invited to dinner, you should arrive

There ____.

A. after other guests have arrived     B. at the appointed time

C. before all other guests           D. after the host has got things ready

Which of the following statements best describes the harm of unpunctuality?

A. If you are an unpunctual person, you cannot be in charge of any important task.

B. Unpunctuality may bring about heavy losses for both public and private affairs

C. If your friends know that you are unpunctual, they may not see you again.

 D. Unpunctuality may make you miss a lot of appointments and lose friends.

     Collections were the inspiration(灵感) for a project at Thomas Tallis School, which formed part of the Imagine Children's Literature Festival last autumn. Each child (aged 12-13) beautified a box and wrote a story on the subject of collections to throw inside it. The boxes were spread within the Royal Festival Hall's Ballroom. Some were left empty to encourage visitors to write their own stories.

    The subject chosen by Lauren was an imaginative one. "It's a sort of Cinderella (灰姑娘) story," she told me, inspired by a collection of letters from her cousin, In the story these become love letters, burned by a cruel stepmother. Lauren's best friend Charlotte is the stepmother. "I'm in Charlotte's story too," says Lauren, "and I get run over." Charlotte's tale was inspired by the girls' coin collection. "We've collected foreign coins for years – since our families went on holiday to Tenerife." she explains. "That was before the Euro, so we put pesetas in." Lauren continues: "I find a coin in the road, go to get it and get run over. I'm in hospital and then I die." Charlotte adds: "Or she might not die. I haven't decided yet."

     Millie Murray, who is a teen-novel author, thinks that setting the subject of collections was a useful inspiration to their creativity rather than a restriction(限制). "In the beginning I thought, 'Will the children be able to do it?"she says. "But it's been fruitful. Some have their own collection, some have parents who do, and some have written complete stories. It's made them think about something they wouldn't have otherwise, which can only be a good thing."

59. What were the children asked to do in the project?

      A. To meet friends at Thomas Tallis School. B. To write stories on the subject of collections.

      C. To encourage visitors to write their own stories.

      D. To have their friends for characters in the stories.             

60. The underlined word "pesetas" in Paragraph 2 is a kind of _____.

      A. story              B. collection            C. inspiration     D. foreign coin

61. From the stories by Lauren and Charlotte, we know that _____ .

      A. Charlotte hurt herself when getting a coin

      B. both of them developed their imagination

      C. both of them will die in each other's stories

      D. Lauren's cousin posted her some love letters             

62. Millie Murray thinks ________.

      A. collections could inspire writing creativity            

   B. it was good for parents to have collections

      C. inspirations were very useful in writing stories

      D. setting collection subjects restricted inspirations       

    The Americans believe that anybody can become President of the United States. In a recent Hollywood comedy（喜剧）, that is exactly what happens.

Dave Kovic, played by Kevin Kline, is a kind-hearted man who runs a business that finds people jobs. He leads a typical（典型的） American way of life, except for one thing－he looks exactly like the President, Bill Mitchell. In fact, the only thing that makes him different from the nation’s leader is that he is very nice!

       The president has started using look-alikes during some public appearances. Dave is offered a chance to “serve his country” by becoming one. However, things go wrong. The President becomes very ill and Dave ends up acting as the President forever.

       Director Ivan Reitman, who made the popular and successful comedies like Twins, Ghostbusters and Legal Eagles, could have gone for easy laughs by making fun of the American government. Instead, Dave is an attractive comedy about an ordinary man in extraordinary situations. Kevin Kline gives a double performance as Dave and the President, and Sigourney Weaver is at her best as his First Lady. The love story that develops between her role and Dave is a real classic（经典）.

       The film is 100% American. However, if you’ve ever felt that anybody could do a better job running the country than the people in power, then you’ll enjoy Dave!

63．What is the purpose of the text?

       A. To tell the reader about the American government.

       B. To discus the Americans’ ideas about the President.

       C. To make a comparison between Dave and other films.

       D. To introduce a new film to the reader.

64．Who plays the role of the President in the film?

       A. Sigourney Weaver.         B. Kevin Kline. 

       C. Bill Mitchell.           D. Ivan Reitman.

65．The underlined word “one” in the 3rd paragraph refers to _____.

       A. the President          B. the director     C. an actor    D. a look-alike

66．Which of the following is best supported by the text?

       A. The author makes fun of the President.

       B. The author thinks highly of the film.

       C. The author is a fan of Hollywood comedies.

       D. The author wishes to become the American President.

Want to be a happy married couple? Consider having kids．

A new study found that having children boosts happiness．And the more, literally, the merrier．

But unmarried couples shouldn’t expect to find greater happiness through child-raising．The study, published in the Oct．14 online edition of the Journal of Happiness Studies, suggests that having children has little or no effect on boosting happiness among couples who aren’t hitched(和谐)．

The findings contradict previous research that suggested that having more offspring doesn't lead to greater happiness and might even make people less satisfied with their lives．One theory behind the conclusion is that parents don’t receive many rewards in return for the hard work of raising children．

The new study, however, notes that parents say children are one of the most important things in their lives, if not the most important．

The study found that life satisfaction for married people -- women especially -- goes up the more kids they have．Single, separated and co-habiting people, by contrast, report negative experiences．

“One is tempted to advance that children make people rich under the ‘right conditions’ -- a time in life when people feel that they are ready, or at least willing, to enter parenthood,” Dr．Luis Angeles, of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, said in a news release from the journal’s publisher．“This time can come at very different moments for different individuals, but a likely signal of its approach may well be the act of marriage．”

1．The underlined word “offspring” in the fourth paragraph can be replaced by _____．

     A．generation              B．children        

       C．mothers          D．marriage

2．The best title of this passage should be _______．

     A．Children Are the Source of Happiness

     B．Are You Happy Married Couple?

     C．Married with Children Paves Way to Happiness

     D．The Right Conditions of Having Children

3．Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

     A．The more children women have, the happier they are．

     B．The more children the married women have, the more unsatisfied they become．

     C．Raising kids can give any person happiness．

     D．Without marriage, one woman had better not raise kids．

4．In the passage, the underlined part ‘right conditions’ refers to _______．

     A．a time when the couple are ready and willing to become parents

     B．the situation where the family is rich enough to raise a child

     C．the situation where the couple are very happy

     D．a time when the couple thinks raising children can boost happiness