Success is often measured by the ability to overcome adversity. But, it is often the belief of others that gives us the courage to try.

J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter book series，began writing at the age of 6. In her biography, she remembers with great fondness when her good friend Sean, whom she met in secondary school, became the first person to encourage her and help build the confidence that one day she would be a very good writer.

“He was the first person with whom I really discussed my serious ambition to be a writer. He was also the only person who thought I was bound to be a success at it, which meant much more to me than I ever told him at the time.”

Despite many setbacks, Rowling persevered in her writing, particularly fantasy stories. But it wasn't until 1990 that she first conceived the idea about Harry Potter. As she recalls，it was on a long train journey from London to Manchester that the idea of Harry Potter simply fell into her head.“To my immense frustration (沮喪), I didn't have a functioning pen with me, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could borrow one. I think, now, that this was probably a good thing, because I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black?haired, bespectacled(戴眼鏡的) boy who didn’t know he was a wizard became more and more real to me.”

That same year, her mother passed away after a ten?year battle with multiple sclerosis, which deeply affected her writing. She went on to marry and had a daughter, but separated from her husband shortly afterwards.

During this time, Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression. Unemployed, she completed her first novel in area cafes, where she could get her daughter to fall asleep. After being rejected by 12 publishing houses, the first Harry Potter novel was sold to a small British publishing house.

Now with seven books that have sold nearly 400 million copies in 64 languages, J. K. Rowling is the highest earning novelist in history. And it all began with her commitment to writing that was fostered by the confidence of a friend !

1.Rowling first came up with the idea about Harry Potter________.

A. at the age of 6

B. on a train journey

C. after her mother’s death

D. in her secondary school

2.It can be concluded from Paragraph 5 and 6 that Rowling is________.

A. open?minded B. warm?hearted

C. good?natured D. strong?willed

3.The text mainly tells us________.

A. hardship makes a good novelist

B. the courage to try is a special ability

C. you can have a wonderful idea everywhere

D. encouragement contributes to one’s success

Face adversity（逆境）with a smile

I told my friend Graham that I often cycle the two miles from my house to the town centre but unfortunately there is a big hill on the route. He replied, "You mean ________ .”He explained that I should be glad of the ________exercise that the hill provided.

My ________ to the hill has now changed .I used to ________ as I approached it but now I tell myself the following. This hill will exercise my heart and lungs. It will help me to________ and get fit. It will mean that I live longer. This hill is my friend. ________ ,I have a smile of________as I reach the top of the hill.

Problems are there to be faced and ________ .We cannot achieve anything with a/an ________life. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind person to________an University degree. She wrote, ‘Character cannot be ________in ease and quiet. Only through________of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved."

One of the main________of success in life is our attitude towards adversity. At times we all face hardships, problems, accidents and difficulties. ________ we cannot choose the adversity, we can choose our attitude towards it．

Douglas Bader was 21 when in 1931 he had both legs amputated（截肢）following a flying accident. He was________ to fly again and went on to become one of the leading flying aces（擅長的人）．He was a/an________to others during the war. He said ,“Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't do this or that. That's nonsense. ________ your mind, and you'll never ________ crutches(拐杖)or a stick, then have a go at everything. Go to school, join in all the games you can. Go________you want to. But never, never let them ________ you that things are too difficult or impossible."

1.A. slowly B. fortunately C.carefully D.quickly

2.A. abundant B. proper C.extra D. necessary

3.A. attitude B. access C. entrance D. affection

4.A. climb B. confuse C. comment D.complain

5.A. put on weigh B. gain weight C. lose weight D.take my weight

6.A. Gradually B.Finally C. Rarely D. Approximately

7.A. satisfaction B. devotion C. decoration D. caution

8.A. understood B. clarified C. defeated D. overcome

9.A. tough B. difficult C. easy D. reasonable

10.A. gain B. accept C. accomplish D. admire

11.A. founded B.produced C. constructed D. developed

12.A. happiness B.experiences C. difficulties D.pressures

13.A. emphasis B. conflicts C. factors D. powers

14.A. While B. As C.Because D.If

15.A. devoted B.determined C. commanded D.forced

16.A. appreciation B.qualification C.inspiration D. destination

17.A.Open up B. Make up C. Come to D. Come into

18.A.reject B. deliver C.abandon D. use

19.A. anywhere B. everywhere C.nowhere D. somewhere

20.A. advise B. attempt C. request D. Persuade

閱讀下面材料，在空白處填入適當的內容（不多于3個單詞）或括號內單詞的正確形式

God has blessed me with a lovely brother. He is 4 years younger than me. I still remember that day when he was born. He is 1. premature baby. When he was a little baby, he always used to cry for no reason and hardly slept. He never allowed me and my parents 2. (sleep) well.

As time went by, he3. (become) a little older. I used to get angry with 4. since he started snatching(搶) all my toys away from me. 5. , my parents taught me that he is my younger brother and I 6. make him learn to share things.

Now, 7. we still fight over things, we both love each other deeply. We share the same school and have the same 8. , like doing sports, singing and reading.

We do a lot of secret things without informing our parents and if 9. (catch), we will join hands to deal with the situation. Life is fun when we are together. As we are growing old day by day, we are becoming 10. (responsible) for our duties than before. And we know that no matter where we go in life, we both are always there for each other to face the hardships of life.

A small boy sat on the street with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: “ I am blind, please help”. There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words. Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were.

The boy recognized his footsteps and asked :“Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?” The man said: “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.”

What he had written was: “Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.”

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing? Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply told people to help by putting some money in the hat. The second sign told people that they were able to enjoy the day, but the boy could not enjoy it because he was blind.

The first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.

There are at least two lessons we can learn from this simple story.

The first is: Be thankful for what you have. Someone else has less. Help where you can.

The second is：Be creative. Think differently. There is always a better way!

1. What was the boy doing on the street?

A. He was selling his old hat.

B. He was busy counting coins.

C. He was begging for money.

D. He was showing his handwriting.

2. How did the man help the blind boy?

A. He took the boy's sign away.

B. He only gave the boy some money.

C. He changed the words on the sign.

D. He asked others to help the blind boy.

3. The blind boy recognized the kind man by his ______ .

A. words B. smell C. voice D. Footsteps

It’s hard to find Alice Munro in the media. Even after she won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Canadian writer just appeared for a quick interview and then dropped out of sight. On Dec 29, she still didn't seek the spotlight（聚光燈）when she was named one of the five Women of the Year by the Financial Times.

In Munro's eyes, ordinary lives always hide larger dramas. So she records what we casually think of as the everyday actions of normal people. She often focuses on life in her hometown, a small village in Ontario which she is most familiar with. She writes about the ordinary things in the village－fox forming, trees filled in the Ontario wilderness, poor country alcohol and long last illnesses. Above all, she talks about girls and women who have seemingly ordinary lives but struggle against daily misfortune.

She has a special talent for uncovering the extraordinary in the ordinary. These are ordinary people, ordinary stories, but she has the magic. Her precise language, depth of detail and the logic of her storytelling have made her stories inviting.

Runaway, one of Munro’s representative works, is a good example of her writing style. One of the stories centers on the life of an ordinary woman Carla, who lives in a small Canadian town with her husband Clark. The story slowly forms a picture of Carla, trapped in a bad marriage, her unhappiness building into desperation until she decided to flee. The story of Carla is a story of the power and betrayals of love. It is about lost children and lots of chances that we can all find in life, There is pain beneath the surface, like a needle in the heart.

Since she published her first collection of short stories in 1968, Munro has won many awards, with the Nobel Prize being her biggest honor. On Oct 10, 2013, the Nobel Prize committee named Munro the “master of the contemporary short story”.

1.We learn from Paragraph 1 that Alice Munro_____

A．didn't get on well with the media

B．remained modest though very successful

C．didn’t value the title of Women of the Year

D. was surprised at winning the Nobel Prize

2.What makes Alice Munro’s stories fascinating according to the text?

A．Her writing techniques

B．The complicated plots

C．The humorous language

D．Her rich imagination

3.In her representative work Runaway, Carla_____

A．leads a happy life with Clark

B．is a faithful wife to her husband

C．loses all hopes for a better life

D．tries to run away from her husband

4.What is the text mainly about?

A．Alice Munro and her hometown

B．The awards Alice Munro won

C．Alice Munro and her writing style

D．Alice Munro’s literary life

In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social-progress and prosperity. Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.

I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs. In their single-minded pursuit of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.

However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: "I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try." What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistake belief that-one's self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve (緩解) can we discover a new meaning in competition.

1.What does this text mainly talk about?

A. Competition helps to set up self-respect.

B. Competition is harmful to personal quality development.

C. People hold different opinions about competition.

D. Failures are necessary experience in competition.

2.Some people favor competition because they think it __.

A. builds up a sense of pride

B. pushes society forward

C. improves social abilities

D. develops people's relationship

3. The underlined phrase "the most vocal” in Paragraph 3 refers to those who

A. are strongly against competition

B. highly value competition

C. try their best to win

D. mostly rely on others for success

4. Which viewpoint does the author agree to?

A. Self-worth relies on winning.

B. Competition leads to unfriendly relationship.

C. Fear of failure should be removed in competition.

D. Winning should be a life-and-death matter.

根據短文內容，從短文后的選項中選出能填入空白處的最佳選項，并在答題卡上將該項涂黑。選項中有兩項為多余選項。

__1._You probably think you will never be a top student. This is not necessarily so, however. Anyone can become a better student if he or she wants to. Here’s how:

Plan your time carefully. When planning your work, you should make a list of things that you have to do. After making this list, you should make a schedule of your time. First your time for eating , sleeping, dressing, etc. Then decide a good, regular time for studying. _2.__ A weekly schedule may not solve all your problems, but it will force you realize what is happening to your time.

Find a good place to study. Look around the house for a good study area. Keep this space, which may be a desk or simply a corner of your room, free of everything but study materials. No games, radios, or television. When you sit down to study, concentrate on the subject.

Make good use of your time in class. _3._Listening carefully in class means less work later. Taking notes will help you remember what the teacher says.

Study regularly. When you get home from school, go over your notes, review the important points that your teacher is going to discuss the next day, read that material. ___4.__If you do these things regularly, the material will become more meaningful, and you’ll remember it longer.

Develop a good attitude towards tests. The purpose of a test is to show what you have learned about a subject. They help you remember your new knowledge. The world won’t end if you don’t pass a test, so don’t be over worried.___ 5._ You will probably discover many others after you have tried these.

A. There are other methods that might help you with your studying.

B. Don’t forget to set aside enough time for entertainment.

C. Take advantage of class time to listen to everything the teacher says.

D. No one can become a top student unless he or she works hard.

E. Maybe you are an average student.

F. Make full use of class time to take notes of what the teacher says in class.

G. This will help you understand the next class.

Sleep is 1._ people have to have. However, it is 2. (occasion) interrupted halfway for some reason. One disturbing night, I woke up, _3. (wonder) what had caused the break of my sleep. Failing to find the reason, I forced _4. to go back to sleep. Turning over and over, I became desperate. I couldn’t help but _5. (get) up, and _6._ (feel) for the students’ writings taken _7._ school. In the deadly silence, the light witnessed my working on 8._ writings, 9._ lasted almost one hour. 10._ the work over, sleep returned to greet me. Was I funny or amazing?

短文改錯(共10小題；每小題1分，滿分10分)

假定英語課上老師要求同桌之間交換修改作文，請你修改你同桌寫的以下作文。文中共有10處錯誤，每句中最多有兩處。

錯誤涉及一個單詞的增加、刪除或修改。

增加：在缺詞處加一個漏詞符號(＾)，并在其下面寫出該加的詞。

刪除：把多余的詞用斜線(＼)劃掉。

修改：在錯的詞下劃一橫線( ____ )，并在該詞下面寫出修改的詞。

注意：1．每處錯誤及修改均僅限一詞；

2．只允許修改10處，多者(從第11處起)不計分

I still remember an interesting story that happen when I was ten. One day, a classmate of my named Craig brought his pet mice along. Later, our maths teacher, Miss Jones, who came into the classroom to give her lesson. She saw the mice and said angry, “Get those mice out of here right now!” Craig’s feeling were hurt, so he let them out of cage. The teacher was very terrified that she jumped up onto her desk and screamed. We all fell back laughed. Four teachers ran into our classroom to see what was go on. They told us that we should put it back in the cage.

Five minutes later, Miss Jones was still screaming.

Here are the comments on CRI (China Radio International) given by people from different countries on the Internet.

1.Which of the following benefits of CRI is NOT mentioned above?

A. CRI helps to keep its listeners up-to-date.

B. CRI helps its listeners to better understand China.

C. CRI helps its listeners to practice and improve foreign languages.

D. CRI helps its listeners broaden their knowledge with its rich contents.

2.The underlined phrase “quench the thirst” refers to _____.

A. satisfy one’s need

B. supply drinks

C. take care of

D. keep in touch with

3.What can be concluded from the four comments?

A. CRI has a great influence on our society and lives.

B. Wonderful though CRI is, there are still many weaknesses.

C. CRI plays an important role in introducing the world to China.

D. CRI has made great efforts to make itself better and gained popularity.