I fell in love with England because it was quaint (典雅)—all those little houses, looking terri­bly old-fashioned but nice, like dolls’ houses. I loved the countryside and the pubs, and I loved London. I’ve slightly changed my mind after seventeen years because I think it’s an ugly town now.
Things have changed. For everybody, England meant gentlemen, fair play, and good man­ners. The fair play is going, unfortunately, and so are the gentlemanly attitudes and good man­ners—people shut doors heavily in your face and politeness is disappearing.
I regret that there are so few comfortable meeting places. You’re forced to live indoors. In Paris I go out much more, to restaurants and nightclubs. To meet friends here it usually has to be in a pub, and it can be difficult to go there alone as a woman. The cafes are not terribly nice.
As a woman, I feel unsafe here. I spend a bomb on taxis because I will not take public trans­port after 10 p. m. I used to use it, but now I’m afraid.
The idea of family seems to be more or less non-existent in England. My family is well united and that’s typically French. In Middlesex I had a neighbour who is 82 now. His family only lived two miles away, but I took him to France for Christmas once because he was always alone.
小題1:The writer doesn’t like London because she ______.

A．is not used to the life there now

B．has lived there for seventeen years

C．prefers to live in an old-fashioned house

D．has to be polite to everyone she meets there

小題2:Where do people usually meet their friends in England?

A．In a cafe.

B．In a restaurant.

C．In a nightclub.

D．In a pub.

小題3:The underlined part “it” (in Para. 4) refers to______.

A．a taxi

B．the money

C．a bomb

D．public transport

小題4:The writer took her neighbour to France for Christmas because he ______.

A．felt lonely in England

B．had never been to France

C．was from a typical French family

D．didn't like the British idea of family

People in the United States honor their parents with two special days: Mother’s Day, on the second Sunday in May, and Father’s Day, on the third Sunday in June. These days are set aside to show love and respect for parents. They raise their children and educate them to be responsible citizens. They give love and care. These two days offer a chance to think about the changing roles of mothers and fathers. More mothers now work outside the home. More fathers must help with child-care.
These two special days are celebrated in many different ways. On Mother’s Day people wear carnations. A red one stands for a living mother. A white one shows that the mother is dead. Many people attend religious services(宗教儀式) to honor parents. It is also a day when people whose parents are dead visit their graves. On these days, families get together at home and in restaurants. They often have outdoor BBQs for Father’s Day. These are days of fun and good feelings and memories.
Another tradition is to give cards and gifts. Children make them in school. Many people make their own presents. These are valued more than the ones bought in stores. It is not the value of the gift that is important, but it is “the thought that counts”. Greeting card stores, florists, candy makers, bakeries, telephones companies and other stores do a lot of business during these holidays.
小題1:Which is NOT a reason for children to show love and respect for parents?

A．Parents bring children

B．Parents give love and care to children

C．Parents educate children to be good persons.

D．Parents pass away before children grow up

小題2:What do you know from the passage?

A．Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are both in May.

B．Fewer women worked outside the home in the past

C．Not all the children respect their parents

D．Fathers are not as important as mothers at home

小題3:Which do you think is right about “carnation”?

A．It only has two kinds of color.

B．It is a special kind of clothes people wear on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

C．It’s a kind of flower showing love and best wishes.

D．People can wear carnations only on the second Sunday in May.

小題4:What do you think “florists” do?

A．They sell flowers

B．They made bread or pastry

C．They offer enough room for having family parties.

D．They sell special clothes for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

Death Valley is the lowest, hottest, driest area in North America. This California National Park has less than 5 cm of rainfall a year and temperature up to 53℃ in summer. That’s enough to keep Americans away during the hottest months from June to August. But it is the high temperature and terrible heat that draw their most crazy fans, the foreign tourists. From all over the world, they come to the valley floor in cars, carrying maps and water bottles, and fanning themselves with newspapers to keep cool.
About 1.3 million visitors enter the park each year, from June through August. 90% of them are foreigners. They go there to experience the summer heat that gives Death Valley its name. The average high in July is 53.2 ℃ and the low 30 ℃. For August, the average high is 52.2 ℃ and the low 29.4 ℃.
So what do Americans think of the foreign visitors who arrive for the heat, just when locals from the United States try to avoid it? Park manager Brenda Henson says, “ The foreigners want to experience the heat in Death Valley. We think it’s crazy.”
In fact, Death Valley is a series of salt flats (鹽灘) 225 km long and 6 km to 26 km wide. Birds and animals are largely absent, and only the hardiest plants have some chance of existence in this extreme place.
One tourist from Paris concluded, “ We come to it because we can tell all our friends and family that we’ve been to the hottest place in the world.”
小題1:The real attraction of Death Valley for foreigners is that _____.

A．summer heat keeps Americans away

B．experiencing the heat in it is cool

C．it is a series of salt flats

D．it is a famous place in the world.

小題2:What does the underlined word “ hardiest” in Paragraph 4 mean?

A．Most difficult.

B．Most energetic.

C．Strongest.

D．Best.

小題3:Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A．The hottest time in Death Valley is from June to August.

B．Not all the visitors to Death Valley are foreigners.

C．The lowest temperature in Death Valley is 29.4 ℃.

D．Death Valley is made up of salt flats.

小題4:What would be the best title for the passage?

A．Crazy Fans of Death Valley.

B．Importance of Death Valley.

C．Beauty of California National Park.

D．The Best Tourist Attraction in North America.

Although the United States covers so much land and the land produces far more food than the present population needs，its people are by now almost entirely an urban society. Less than a tenth of the people are engaged in agriculture and forestry(林業(yè)), and most of the rest live in or around towns，small and large．Here the traditional picture is changing: every small town may still be very like other small towns，and the typical small town may represent a widely accepted view of the country，but most Americans do not live in small towns any more. Half the population now lives in some thirty metropolitan areas(1arge cities with their suburbs, of more than a million people each—a larger proportion than in Germany or England，let alone France). The statistics(統(tǒng)計)of urban and rural population should be treated with caution because so many people who live in areas classified as rural travel by car to work in a nearby town each day. As the rush to live out of town continues，rural areas within reach of towns are gradually filled with houses, so that it is hard to say at what moment a piece of country becomes a suburb. But more and more the typical American lives in a metropolitan rather than a small town environment．
小題1:If now America has 250 million people．how many of them are engaged in agriculture and forestry? 

A．About 25 million

B．More than 25 million

C．Less than 25 million

D．Less than 225 million

小題2:Which of the following four countries has the smallest proportion of people living in metropolitan areas?

A．United States

B．Germany

C．France

D．England

小題3:What’s the meaning of the word“metropolitan”in the middle of the passage?

A．Of a large city with its suburbs	B．Of small and large towns
C．Of urban areas	D．Of rural areas

What is your favorite color? Do you like yellow, orange, or red? If you do, you must be an active person who enjoys life. Do you like blue? Then you are probably quiet, shy, and would rather follow than lead.
Colors do influence our moods (情緒). A yellow room makes most people feel more cheerful and more relaxed than a dark green one; and a red dress brings warmth and cheer to the saddest winter day. On the other hand, black is depressing(令人壓抑的). There was a black bridge over the Thames River, near London. The number of people who killed themselves on that bridge used to be larger than on any other bridge in the area -- until it was repainted green.
Light and bright colors make people not only happier but also more active. In the factory, the workers will work better, harder, and have fewer accidents when their machines are painted orange rather than black.
小題1:An active person may like ____   

A．yellow, orange, or red	B．yellow, black, or red
C．orange, blue, or black	D．black, red, or orange

小題2:Most people feel more __ in a yellow room than in a dark green one.

A．tired

B．bored

C．worried

D．relaxed

小題3:More people killed themselves on the black bridge than on any other bridge probably because ____

A．the bridge was very tall

B．the bridge was too crowded

C．people didn't like the bridge

D．the color of the bridge was depressing

小題4:In the factory, when the machines are painted orange, the workers will work __

A．worse

B．harder

C．more slowly

D．more angrily

The customs in different countries are rather different. If I have dinner with a Chinese host, he always puts more food onto my plate as soon as I have emptied it. That often discomforts me greatly. I have to eat the food even if I do not want to, because it is considered bad manners in the west to leave one’s food on the plate. I have also noticed that when a Chinese sits at an American’s dinner party, he often refuses the offer of drink though he’s in fact still hungry or thirsty. This might be good manners in China but it is not in the west at all. In the United States, it is impolite to keep asking someone again and again or insist on his accepting something. Americans have a direct way of speaking. If they want something, they will ask for it. If not, they will say, “No, thanks.” When an American is served with beer by the host, for example, he might say, “No, thanks. I’ll take some orange juice if you have it.” That is what an American will do. So when you go to the United States, you’d better remember the famous saying: “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
小題1:From this passage we can see that the writer is         .

A．a Chinese	B．a Roman
C．an American	D．a European

小題2:When a Chinese host kept putting more food onto his plate, the writer felt       .

A．very happy

B．sad

C．angry

D．uneasy

小題3:In the west, people consider it bad manners         .

A．to refuse an offer

B．to ask for something directly

C．to eat at a dinner party

D．to keep asking someone to accept something

小題4:A guest at an American’s dinner party should show his politeness by         .

A．putting more food onto his plate as soon as he emptied it

B．refusing the offer of food or drink though he is still hungry or thirsty.

C．asking for things directly if he wants them

D．not eating all the food offered

I would like to talk to you about one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. I was born and raised there and now I visit it from time to time. My family moved to the city, so I only go back to see friends or to camp and fish.
I grew up in a small town called Antonito Co. It is surrounded by mountains. So camping is a big source of happiness in the valley. There are so many beautiful places to hike.
The town itself is very small. It is said that if you blink when you’re going through it, you’ll miss it. This has some truth in it considering the size of the town. We have one grocery store, a tiny post office, and a tiny bank. There are also a few gas stations, bars, some excellent restaurants, a small hospital and of course several schools. However, for clothing and shoes, you have to drive thirty miles to Alamosa to shop there.
Everyone in the town is nice and we all know each other. The crime rate is zero unless you count some weekend fights that break out because some people drink too much. The classes in school are small, so you get a lot of attention from the teacher.
You’re probably wondering why I don’t live there. Well, I can’t get a job there. A lot of the businesses are family-owned. And they never fire their employees. So the employees work there usually until they retire. Most people have to go to other places to get a job .
小題1:What is this passage mainly about?

A．An introduction to the writer’s hometown.

B．A travel guide of the writer’s hometown .

C．The history of the writer’s hometown .

D．The scenery of the writer’s hometown .

小題2:By the underlined part in paragraph 3, the writer wants to show that the town is           .

A．beautiful

B．small

C．exciting

D．faraway

小題3:What can you find in the writer’s hometown ?
a bank     b. a post office     c. some gas stations and bars     d. a clothing store
e. a shoe shop    f. some restaurants and a hospital

A．abce

B．bdef

C．abcf

D．cdef

小題4:What do we know about the classes given at the schools in the writer’s hometown ?

A．The classes are usually very short .

B．Students usually don’t get much attention .

C．One teacher has to teach many classes

D．Each class has just a small number of students .

小題5:We can learn from the last paragraph that in the writer’s hometown             .

A．not many job opportunities are provided

B．employees don’t make much money

C．most people live a very hard life

D．only the old still live there

The price of coffee beans hits a 12 – year high today. I thought there might
be some kind of coffee – market story, like we saw with cocoa earlier this summer.
But the main driver of coffee prices right now is simpler: Colombia has had
a few years of weak coffee harvests because of too much rain, which has reduced
the global supply. And coffee drinkers keep buying coffee, even as prices rise, in
other words, demand is unchanged.
The higher price of beans – up about 40 percent since March – means higher prices for the coffee you buy by the pound. But it probably won’t affect the coffee you buy by the cup.
Smuckers, which sells Folgers and Millstone coffees, recently said it was raising its prices because of the higher cost of beans. Starbucks, however, said it would absorb the higher cost of beans without raising prices.
“You see it much more in the grocery store because the raw materials are a big factor of cost,” Jose Sette of the International Coffee Organization told me. “In a coffee shop, your big expenses are rent and labor.”
While real – world supply and demand is the big driver of the price of beans, there may be some speculative action in coffee business in the future.
But futures (期貨) of the high – grade Arabica beans are traded in the US, where regulations prevent speculators (投機商) from controlling the market, hoping such things won’t happen just as in London summer market. That suggests that prices should fall when supply improves – which may happen next year.
Some experts say that farmers in third world countries won’t actually benefit from higher prices in this case. When the price difference is due to supply and demand, the profit of the seller usually doesn’t go up.
小題1:Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A．Why coffee is getting more expensive?

B．How farmer benefits from the high price?

C．Whether the US will control the coffee market?

D．What has caused the reduction of coffee?

小題2:From the second paragraph we can infer that _______________________.

A．Colombia is the coffee trading center of the world

B．Colombia coffee output contains a final share of the world

C．People need more and more coffee

D．Coffee sales will be getting less and less

小題3:In this summer’s coffee bean market, ____________________________.

A．the US made more rules about coffee prices

B．speculators once held the coffee bean market in London

C．coffee bean trading was seriously disorganized

D．coffee bean prices were very low in the US

小題4:Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?

A．The price difference determines the profit of the seller.

B．Smuckers is a famous coffee manufacturer.

C．Real – world supply and demand decides the prices.

D．Coffee prices will become much higher next year.

You probably know you should say "please" and "thank you" at restaurants. You probably know the rules of a library. You know you should respect and be nice to your classmates. But do you have music manners?
Keep It Down! You have to notice the volume of your music. You should not play your music so loud that everyone around you can hear it. Some people might even get angry. Usually, when you play the music loud on an MP3 player, other people can't hear the words of the song. They just hear a loud sound. No one wants to listen to this. Very loud music can also be bad for your ears. So even if you are alone when listening to your MP3 players, you shouldn't turn it up too high.
Take Them Off! You need to know when to turn your MP3 off and put it away. Libraries, and schools don't allow MP3 players. There are other places, like museums, that don't have rules, but it would be rude to have your MP3 player on. Sometimes, it doesn't make sense to listen on your MP3 player at event. Why would you listen to music at a play, a movie or a sporting event? You would miss what is going on and others would wonder why you even came.
Take One Out! Once in a while it's okay just to take out one earphone and not the other. Imagine you are listening on your MP3 player when someone asks you the way. It would not be rude to take out one earphone, tell him the way, and put back the earphone and continue listening. You can also do this when you order food at a fast-food restaurant or when you answer the telephone
It's Your Choice! There are times when you need to decide what is best. For example, some people can listen to music on their MP3 players when reading books, while others think it is disturbing. In cases like this, you need to do what seems right for you.
小題1:The underlined word "volume" in Paragraph 2 probably means "_________."

A．the type of music

B．the length of a song

C．the amount of a sound

D．the color of an MP3 player

小題2:We should turn down the music when we are alone because loud music_________.

A．may annoy others

B．can hurt our ears

C．is bad for MP3 players

D．will make us tired

小題3:If we listen to our MP3 player at a play, _________.

A．the theatre won't allow it

B．the actors will get angry

C．others won't hear the play well

D．we may miss part of the play

小題4:We can take one earphone out when we _________.

A．show others the way

B．enjoy a movie at the cinema

C．watch a sporting event

D．answer the telephone at museums

小題5:The main idea of this passage is about _________.

A．MP3 manners

B．music lovers

C．music players

D．MP3 earphones

Given Australia’s size and the fact that early settlements were far apart, Australian society is remarkably homogeneous (同種的). Its citizens are fundamentally prosperous and the way of life in the major cities and towns is much the same however many miles divide them. It takes a sharp ear to identify regional accents. However, there is some difference in lifestyle between city dwellers and the country people. Almost 90 per cent of the population lives in the fast-paced cities along the coast and has little more than a passing familiarity with the desert. The major cities preserve pockets of colonial heritage, but the overall impression is modern, with new buildings reflecting the country’s youth. In contrast, the rural communities tend to be slow-moving and conservative. For many years, Australia was said to have “ridden on the sheep’s back”, a reference to wool being the country’s main money earner. However, the wool industry is no longer dominant. Much of Australia’s relatively sound economy is now achieved from natural coal and wheat, and by being the largest diamond producer in the world. Newer industries such as tourism and wine making are also increasingly important. Australians are generally friendly and relaxed, with a self-deprecating sense of humor. On the whole, Australia is a society without hierarchies (等級制度), an attitude generally held to stem from its prisoner beginnings.
Yet, contrary to widespread belief, very few Australians have true prisoner origins. Within only one generation of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, Australia had become a nation of immigrants. Originally coming almost entirely from the British Isles, today one in three Australians comes from elsewhere. Australia’s liberal postwar immigration policies led to an influx of survivors from war-torn Europe, most notably Greeks, Italians, Poles and Germans.
The emphasis has shifted in recent years and today the majority of new immigrants are from Southeast Asia. Today Australia is a ‘blend of nations’ and although some racism exists, it has generally been a successful experiment and the country is justifiably proud to have one of the most harmonious multicultural communities in the world.
小題1:What does the writer mean by saying “It takes a sharp ear to identify regional accents.” in the first paragraph?

A．Australians speak Standard English with no local accents whatsoever.

B．You have to practice a lot to learn to understand the different accents.

C．The Australian regional accents are very difficult to understand indeed.

D．There is not much difference between the accents in different areas of Australia.

小題2:Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．Most Australians have ancestors who were prisoners.

B．The Australian economy is dependent on sheep exports.

C．The majority of people living in Australia come from Europe.

D．The pace of life is different in the city and in the country.

小題3:The underlined pronoun ‘it’ in the final paragraph refers to “_______”.

A．Community

B．racism

C．blend of Nations

D．Southeast Asia

小題4:We can infer from the passage that _____.

A．there are no signs of Australia’s colonial past in its modern cities

B．Australia’s recent immigration policy encourages immigrants from Southeast Asia

C．immigrants from Southeast Asia have brought racial problems

D．“riding on sheep’s back” resulted in slow development in rural communities

小題5:This passage mainly focuses on Australia’s ______.

A．society

B．economy

C．racial problems

D．history