【題目】What did your school smell like? Was it noisy or peaceful? It might not seem important, but a growing body of research suggests that smells and sounds can have an impact on learning, performance and creativity．

Bridget Shield has been conducting studies and advising people on the effects of all sorts of noises, such as traffic and sirens, as well as noise made by the children themselves． "Everything points to a harmful impact of the noise on children’s performance, in numeracy, in literacy, and in spelling,” says Shield．

Shield says the sound of “babble” －the chatter of other children, is particularly distracting in the classroom．。People are very distracted by speech-particularly if it is understandable, but you’re not involved in it．” This phenomenon is also known as the irrelevant speech effect, she says, adding that “it’s a very common finding in open-plan offices as well．’’

In a series of studies published last year, Ravi Mehta found that people were more creative when the background noises were played at a medium level than when volume was low． Loud background noise, however, damaged their creativity． Ravi Mehta suggests there maybe some benefit to playing music or other sounds in an art class or other situations where creativity is the key．

Many teachers all over the world already play music to students in class． Many are inspired by the belief that hearing music can boost IQ in their tasks, the so-called Mozart effect． While the evidence actually suggests it’s a guess to say classical music boosts brainpower, researchers do think pleasant sounds before a task can sometimes lift your mood and help you perform well, says Ravi Mehta," If you like the music or you like the sound-even listening to a Stephen King novel-then you did better． It didn’t matter about the music,“ he says．

However, it’s worth considering that music is not always helpful while you’re trying to work． Trying to perform a task which involves serial recall - for instance, doing mental mathematics-will be distracted by sounds with audio variation, says Ravi Mehta． Songs with lyrics, on the other hand, are more likely to interfere（干擾）with tasks that involve languages-such as reading comprehension．

This isn’t the only sense being related to affecting learning．

【1】The second paragraph implies that _________.

A．general noise also has a harmful effect．

B．students are sensitive to noise．

C．some children need special sounds to do tasks．

D．children aren't affected by their own noise．

【2】The irrelevant speech effect refers to the fact that _________.

A．you don’t understand what others are talking

B．you are interrupted by the chatting of others

C．you are unwilling to chat with other people

D．you find what others are talking irrelevant to you

【3】According to the text, Ravi Mehta believes that __________.

A．music matters when you want to do better．

B．music will help you do mental arithmetic．

C．a(chǎn)ny music can be beneficial as long as you like it．

D．songs with lyrics will improve your reading comprehension．

【4】What might be discussed in the following paragraph?

A．Whether music is helpful all the time．

B．What sound can promote a person’s creativity．

C．When smell can improve students’ behavior．

D．How smell affects children’s performance．

【題目】Children who are taller have an obvious __________ (優(yōu)勢）when playing football.

【題目】If you could take a large snapshot (照片) of everyone in the United States today, it would contain six minion more females than males. In this country, women outlive men by about seven years. Throughout the modern world, cultures are different, diets are different, ways of life and causes of death are different, but one thing is the same--- women outlive men.

It starts before birth. At conception, male fetuses(胎兒) outnumber female by about 110 to 100; at birth, the rate has already fallen to about 105 boys to every 100 girls. By the age of 30, there are only enough men left to match the number of women. Then women start taking a lead. Beyond the age of 80, there are nearly twice as many women as men.

“If you look at the top ten or twelve causes of death,” said Deborah Wingard, a disease expert at the University of California at San Diego, “every single one kills more men.” She listed out one sad fate after another – heart disease, lung cancer and so on. Each kills men at roughly twice the rate of that it does women.

More than a century ago American men surpassed and outlived the women. But in the 20th century, women began living longer, primarily because pregnancy（懷孕) and giving birth to children had become less dangerous. The gap grew steadily. In 1946, for the first time ever in the United States, females outnumbered males.

Parts of the reasons are self-made. Men smoke more, drink more and take more life-threatening/span> chances than women. Men are murdered (usually by other men) three times as often as women are. They commit suicide at a higher rate and have more than twice as many fatal car accidents as women do. Men are likely to be involved in alcohol-related deaths.

But behavior doesn’t explain away the longevity gap.

Today, some scientists studying the gender gap believe that the data point to one conclusion Mother Nature may be partial(偏袒) to women.

Every living thing is assembled according to instructions on its chromosomes (染色體), and humans have 23 pairs of them. But in males, one of these is a weak non-matching pair, expressed by “xy”. The agreement pair in females is “xx”, and its genetic “backup” power is sometimes listed as a clue to woman’s superior restoring force. If the male’s single “x” chromosome isn’t perfect, it is possible for a serious genetic disorder to appear. Some blood diseases, for instance, are diseases caused by a shortcoming in a single gene on the “x” chromosome. They are far more common in males than females.

【1】What may the underlined word “outlive” in Paragraph1 mean?

A. Become stronger than. B. Live longer than.

C. Be wiser than. D. Be born more earlier than.

【2】What can we infer from the second paragraph?

A. Female fetuses are more than male.

B. The female are surpassing the male with age increasing.

C. By the age of 30, the female are more than the male.

D. Over 90, men are more than women in the United States.

3】How many exact diseases are mentioned as examples killing twice men than women?

A. Two. B. Three. C. Ten. D. Five.

【4】The best title for this passage is _____

A. Why women live longer than men

B. Women are different from men

C. American men once lived longer than the women

D. Men smoke and drank more than women

【題目】 Unfortunately your ticket does not __________ (保證）you a seat.

【題目】Searching for airfares（飛機(jī)票價） often seems like a game that passengers are bound to lose．

Prices change from day to day, even minute to minute． Looking through multiple websites for the best deal can be a big challenge． Even when you do book, there’s no guarantee that you are going to get the best price．

"You just don’t know when to pull the trigger． It’s not like buying anything else I can think of,” said George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog．com．

Harriet Levy paid $179 for a recent round-trip flight on American Airlines between New York and Fort Lauderdale, Florida． Sitting just one row behind her, Shirley Harrison paid $215． A few rows back, Ellis and Dianne Traub paid $317 each．There were at least 12 fares on the flight, ranging from $169 to $360．

There’s no reason for it, Harrison said．

Fares can change significantly in just a few hours． One Delta flight from New York to Los Angeles jumped from $755 to $1,143 from a Friday to Saturday in late April, then fell to $718 0n Sunday．

The flight was one of a dozen the Associated Press followed over three months for a vacation between July 16 and 22． The number one finding: avoid booking tickets on weekends． It’s the most expensive time to buy．

There’s no way to guarantee the best fare． But before booking, travelers should pay attention to this additional advice:

Book on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday． That’s when airlines most often offer sales．

Buy in advance, but not too early． The best time is four to six weeks before traveling． In general, prices for any given flight are highest eight to ten weeks and two to three weeks in advance．

Make use of social media． Airlines are giving more benefits like exclusive（獨有的 ） sales to travelers who interact with them on Twitter and Facebook． Those specials are often gone within hours．

The so-called discount airlines - JetBlue, Air-Tran, Southwest and Frontier-adjust their fares less frequently than other airlines, so you can feel more confident that the price will stay the same． But their prices aren’t always the lowest．Researching multiple airlines’ fares is the only way to get a good deal．

【1】What can we infer from the first sentence of the text?

A．Passengers are unable to search for airfares．

B．Airlines often play games with passengers．

C．Airfares are set in different situations．

D．It’s difficult for passengers to get the best price．

【2】The underlined phrase "pull the trigger" in Paragraph 3 probably means ________.

A．start searching B．get the highest price

C．make a purchase D．get on board the plane

【3】By using a lot of figures, the author intends to ________.

A．show there is standard price for every single airline

B．discover the rules behind airfares

C．guarantee passengers a low price

D．prove airfares can vary widely

【4】Passengers are advised to book flights ________.

A．in the middle of the week

B．on special websites

C．several months before traveling

D．with airlines which are famous for offering discount prices

【題目】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處語言錯誤，每句中最多有兩處，每處錯誤僅涉及一個單詞的增加、刪除或修改。

增加：把缺詞處加一個漏符號（∧），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后的詞。

注意：1. 每處錯誤及其修改均僅限一詞；

2. 只允許修改10處，多者（從第11處起）不計分。

It is three years now since I graduate from Jixing High School. Last Sunday, the class that I was on held a get-together, which took us a long time prepare. It was indeed not easy to get in touch with everybody and set a properly time for all of us. We all enjoyed a precious day greatly, remember the time we spent together. It reminded us of the interesting stories and the people they were familiar with. It was a pity which some of us were not present as they had gone to abroad for further studies, but they called back or sent greeting card from different places

【題目】A good idea __________ to me，

and I quickly picked up the phone to tell Jack about it.

A. struck

B. appeared

C. happened

D. occurred

【題目】To tell ________truth，the future is still a long way to go；we just arrived at ________crossroads，________new turning point；we will face a new challenge.

A．the；a；a B．a(chǎn)；the；/

C．a(chǎn)；/；the D．the；a；the

【題目】-Look! Dad, my college certificate！ I've got it!

-__________，dear ！ You have finally realized your dream.

A. Congratulation

B. Celebrations

C. Congratulations

D. Greetings

【題目】This condition __________ urgent treatment.

這種情況得緊急處理。