My little brother works hard and insists on not going to bed he has finished his homework.

A. if B. until C. after D. when

—Excuse me, how long will it take me to get to the post office?

—Well, it depends on .

A. how you will go there B. if you can go there a little earlier

C. where you will go D. when you will go there

—It’s said that Chris achieved high grades in the exam.

—That’s no surprise. He is , you know.

A. a dark horse B. a green hand C. a wet blanket D. an early bird

— Henry, do remember to bring the dictionary I lent you tomorrow morning.

— I’ve almost forgotten, but .

A. no way B. no problem C. not really D. not exactly

When we went out to dinner, I noticed a young man in a wheelchair, who, I thought, had muscular dystrophy( 肌肉萎縮癥). As a disabled person like him, his brain might be great but physically he could not do_______. I had a chat with him and learnt my _______ was right. He told me that normal things like answering the phone or opening the door were difficult for him.

Soon our dinner was _______, and I kept my eyes on him when I was eating. As we were leaving, I noticed him looking through his wallet. We went to him and learned that he couldn't find his card! He said that he remembered putting it into the wallet before leaving home. This man could not even move his hands easily. So I asked for his approval(批準) to help him look for his card, and he _______ me. At the same time, my son, Stewart, went off to see if someone had_______a card. After searching carefully I didn’t find the card. However, I found_______one in his bag. Meanwhile, I found he had a lot of valuables in his bag.

After paying for his dinner with the card I found in his bag, he decided to leave. Worrying about his safety, we offered to send him home,_______ he was carrying so many valuable things with him. However, he _______ that he could go home by himself. So we gave up and hoped that he could get home _______.

There are many disabled people in the world and we can’t _______ the difficulty they have in their everyday life. I was so lucky to be healthy and I hoped we all could try our best to help them.

1.A. many B. much C. few D. little

2.A. guess B. idea C. thought D. feeling

3.A. attended B. served C. prepared D. finished

4.A. treated B. guided C. trusted D. excused

5.A. looked up B. picked up C. put up D. taken up

6.A. this B. that C. other D. another

7.A. but B. or C. because D. so

8.A. doubted B. insisted C. realized D. promised

9.A. luckily B. finally C. safely D. early

10.A. accept B. compare C. suppose D. imagine

My Favorite Sweater

By Bonnie Highsmith Taylor

My favorite sweater grew too small.

I love that sweater best of all.

My grandma made it when I was three.

She made that sweater just for me.

I picked the yarn (紗線), a special blue.

The color of bluebells (風鈴花).

When I was three I was very small.

But now I’m five and much too tall.

I have a new jacket now that’s green.

So I gave my sweater to our cat Queen.

Queen just gave birth to kittens in her room.

My favorite sweater is now their bed.

My Favorite Sweater

By Bonnie Highsmith Taylor

My favorite sweater grew too small.

I love that sweater best of all.

My grandma made it when I was three.

She made that sweater just for me.

I picked the yarn (紗線), a special blue.

The color of bluebells (風鈴花).

When I was three I was very small.

But now I’m five and much too tall.

I have a new jacket now that’s green.

So I gave my sweater to our cat Queen.

Queen just gave birth to kittens in her room.

My favorite sweater is now their bed.

1.Who made the sweater?

A. Miss Taylor. B. The grandma. C. The Kittens. D. The cat Queen.

2.In the poem “small” ryhmes with “tall”. Which of the following rhyme with each other?

A. Blue and bluebells. B. All and three.

C. Green and Queen. D. Room and bed.

3.The underlined word “kittens” in this poem most probably means _________.

A. a kind of food B. baby cats C. a kind of drink D. beds for babies

These cute seabirds have wings, but they cannot fly. They wear a black or blue-grey overcoat, and they have a white belly, a pair of short legs, and two wings that serve as flippers (腳蹼). There are 18 types of them. We must look at their heads and necks to tell one type from another. Some have a pair of long, yellow eyebrows, some have a rock star hairstyle, some have lemon-yellow and orange markings on their cheeks (臉頰), and some just have no special markings at all. When these seabirds walk on land, they look clumsy (笨拙的). Yet, when they dive into the water, they become excellent swimmers! Most of them live in places covered by snow and ice year-round in the Southern Hemisphere, but some are found in warmer areas near the equator (赤道). What are they? These cute seabirds are penguins!

King penguins and emperor penguins are the two largest types of penguins. King penguins can reach a height of 38 inches, and emperor penguins can be 48 inches tall. The smallest penguin is the little blue penguin from Australia and New Zealand—when it stands straight, it is just about 16 inches tall. Big penguins have some advantages over their smaller relatives—big penguins can stay warm easier so they can live in a colder climate; big penguins can dive deeper and stay underwater longer so they can catch food far below the water surface.

1.How can we tell one type of penguin from another?

A. By looking at their legs and wings. B. By looking at their heads and necks.

C. By looking at their flippers and cheeks. D. By looking at their eyebrows and hairstyles.

2.Which of the following sentences about penguins is TRUE?

A. There are sixteen types of penguins. B. Yellow penguins are the smallest penguins.

C. They can only be found in cold places. D. They look clumsy but they are good swimmers.

3.What is the second paragraph mainly about?

A. It tells us the height of two types of penguins.

B. It tells us the size and advantages of big penguins.

C. It tells us the living areas of the smallest penguins.

D. It tells us the living conditions of two types of penguins.

Do you know the word kiasu? If not, then be kiasu and google it. You’ll get more than a million hits and learn that, usually associated (聯(lián)系) with Singaporeans, it means “to be afraid of losing out”. You’ll come across words such as kiasu parents, kiasu companies and even kiasu apps.

Just 40 years ago, the word first spread among men in the Singapore army. But before long, it had entered everyday Singapore English.

The first formal use of kiasu happened in 1990 in a government document (公文). Since then it has often been seen in Singapore newspapers. It spread to some other countries in southeast Asia, too. In 1992, Malaysia’s New Straits Times wrote of “kiasu parents providing their children with much more materials than necessary”.

Ten years after its first use in print, the word was used worldwide. Since around 2000, kiasu has appeared in British newspapers. The Guardian, in 2001,reported how “this pursuit of material wealth and the strong need to be No.1 has created the Singaporean we hear so much about---the kiasu Singaporean”, and again reported in 2004 that Singaporeans’ value shows how much they feel the need to stay ahead of everyone else and that they have a word for it: kiasu.

The word entered the Urban Dictionary in 2003 and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2007.In the the same year, Singaporean restaurant Kiasu opened in London.

The turning point on kiasu’s road to the mainstream came with its being used in documents and newspapers. Who dared to use kiasu in a government document? Who first used it in a newspaper? It was these people who pushed kiasu into the mainstream.

1.What is the passage mainly about?

A. How to use the word kiasu. B. What the word kiasu means.

C. The history of the word kiasu. D. The importance of the word kiasu.

2.What marked the wide use of the word kiasu around the world?

A. Its appearance in British papers. B. Its use as the name of a restaurant.

C. Its acceptance by a key document. D. Its description in Singapore newspapers.

3.What does the underlined word “pursuit” in Paragraph 4 mean?

A. the act of looking for B. the act of looking out

C. the act of giving up D. the act of giving out

He's an old cobbler (修鞋匠) with a shop in the Marais, a historic area in Paris. When I took him my shoes, he at first told me: “I haven't time. Take them to the other fellow on the main street ; he'll fix them for you right away.”

But I'd had my eye on his shop for a long time. Just looking at his bench loaded with tools and pieces of leather, I knew he was a skilled craftsman (手藝人). “No,” I replied, “the other fellow can't do it well.”

“The other fellow” was one of those shopkeepers who fix shoes and make keys “while-U-wait” -- without knowing much about mending shoes or making keys. They work carelessly, and when they have finished sewing back a sandal strap (鞋帶) you might as well just throw away the pair.

My man saw I wouldn't give in, and he smiled. He wiped his hands on his blue apron ( 圍裙), looked at my shoes, had me write my name on one shoe with a piece of chalk and said, “Come back in a week.” I was about to leave when he took a pair of soft leather boots off a shelf.

“See what I can do?” he said with pride. “Only three of us in Paris can do this kind of work.”

When I got back out into the street, the world seemed brand-new to me. He was something out of an ancient legend, this old craftsman with his way of speaking familiarly, his very strange, dusty felt hat, his funny accent from who-knows-where and, above all, his pride in his craft.

These are times when nothing is important but the bottom line, when you can do things any old, way as long as it “pays”, when, in short, people look on work as a path to ever-increasing consumption (消費) rather than a way to realize their own abilities. In such a period it is a rare comfort to find a cobbler who gets his greatest satisfaction from pride in a job well done.

1.Which of the following is true about the old cobbler?

A. He was equipped with the best repairing tools. B. He was the only cobbler in the Marais.

C. He was proud of his skills. D. He was a native Parisian.

2.The sentence “He was something out of an ancient legend.” ( paragraph 6 ) implies that

A. nowadays you can hardly find anyone like him

B. it was difficult to communicate with this man

C. the man was very strange

D. the man was too old

3.According to the author, many people work just to .

A. realize their abilities B. gain happiness

C. make money D. gain respect

4.This story wants to tell us that .

A. craftsmen make a lot of money B. whatever you do, do it well

C. craftsmen need self-respect D. people are born equal

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What do you think being beauty really means? All answers to that question are correct, because there are no right or wrong replies. Despite(不管) what society tries to make us believe, there is no “ideal” beauty. There are exact standards—hair colour, or eye colour—that make someone beautiful. Think about it: did you consider someone to be really beautiful, but your friend didn’t see it? That’s because what’s attractive to one person isn’t necessarily going to be attractive to another. So how can we believe that there’s a standard for beauty? It makes no sense.

Weight-loss companies and clothing industries seem to have made it their goal to get us believe that we are not enough and that we need all kinds of things to be prettier. It’s not true! Companies sell us this ideas for their products to make money. I’m not saying that buying beauty products is bad, but what would be bad is using them because you feel like you have to look a certain way in order to be “beautiful”.

Remember, the people wear tons of make-up and are photoshopped in order to look perfect. When you see a girl who society considers as a “great body”, you have to remember that people have different body types and everyone’s body is different. We’re all beautiful, whether we’re slim, thickset or anywhere in between. If you want to lose weight, go ahead, but do it in a healthy way and do it for the right reason—not because you want to fit in. Being comfortable with yourself is really important, and being with others who accept you as you are and don’t ask you to change to look a specific(特定的) way is important too.