All it took was a slice of Xinjiang cake to spark heated debates online over China's policy on ethnic minorities (少數(shù)民族) .

Since Monday, qiegao (cut cake) has been a trending topic on Sina Weibo, China’s main Twitter-like microblogging service.

The cake was a reference to Xinjiang’s famed nut cake, sometimes known by its old Turkic name baklava, a popular pastry across Central Asia and the Middle East. In Xinjiang, they are sold by Uygur vendors on tricycles who are known to charge dubious prices depending on the time and season.

The ethnic flare-up started after the Yueyang police from Hunan province posted a message on their official Weibo account. It reported a dispute in Pingjiang county over an overpriced piece of nut cake between a Xinjiang Uygur vendor and a villager named "Ling".

Villager Ling got into a fight with a Uygur due to a misunderstanding. The verbal dispute eventually escalated into a fight and then a mass fight. As a result, two people were injured and Xinjiang nut cakes worth about 160,000 yuan (US$25,000) were destroyed. The total damage was worth 200,000 yuan which included a broken motorcycle and injuries to people. Local police have detained Ling. The 16 Uygur sellers were dully compensated and sent back to Xinjiang.

"Yueyang police incident" quickly became one of the most popular topics on Weibo. Yueyang police removed the post shortly after. As of Tuesday night, the topic was still amassing more than 66,000 hits. 

The incident is just one of many similar cases of ethnic tensions across China, notably in Xinjiang province, where deeply entrenched social and racial frictions between the dominant ethnic Han Chinese and minority Uygur Muslims occasionally spark violence. Many Uygurs living in major Chinese cities are viewed by locals as thieves, crooks and even terrorists.

1.Which of the following is true?

A. The dispute is between a Xinjiang Uygur vendor and a policeman.

B. Nut cake is a popular pastry across East Asia and the Middle East.

C. The prices of Baklava will change according to the time and season.

D. The demand of the 16 Uygur sellers were refused and they were sent back to Xinjiang.

2.How much did the broken motorcycle cost？

A. 160,000 yuan B. 200,000 yuan C. 40,000yuan D. We don’t know

3.What’s the best title of the passage?

A. World's most expensive baklava

B. Ethnic tensions across China

C. Pay attention to the Uygurs

D. Misunderstanding caused a fight

4.What can we infer from the passage?

A. Yueyang police are afraid of the Xinjiang Uygur vendor

B. It’s not the only ethnic tension across China,

C. Many Uygurs living in major Chinese cities are viewed by locals as thieves, crooks and even terrorists.

D. Villager Ling got into a fight with a Uygur due to a misunderstanding.

Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and have more respectable jobs. Personal advisors give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants. But in the executive (主管的) circle, beauty can become a liability.

While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the executive ladder, it is harmful to a woman.

Handsome male executives were considered having more honesty than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to lead to their success.

Attractive female executives were considered to have less honesty than unattractive ones; their success was connected not with ability but with factors such as luck.

All unattractive women executives were thought to have more honesty and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight successes was connected more to personal relationships and less to ability than that of the attractive overnight successes.

Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is considered to be more feminine (女性的，嬌柔的) and has an advantage in traditionally female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally manly position appears to lack the “manly” qualifies required.

This is true even in politics, “When the only clue is how he or she looks, people treat men and women differently,” says Anne Bowman, who recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates (候選人). She asked 125 undergraduate students to rank two groups of photographs, one of men and one of women, in order of attractiveness. The students were told the photographs were of candidates for political offices. They were asked to rank them again, in the order they would vote for them.

The results showed that attractive males completely defeated unattractive men, but the women who had ranked most attractive unchangeably received the fewest votes.

1.The underlined word in the first paragraph “l(fā)iability” most probably means_________.

A. trust B. trouble C. disadvantage D. benefit

2.Bowman's experiment shows that when it comes to politics, attractiveness________.

A. is more of a disadvantage than an advantage to women

B. turns out to be a disadvantage to men

C. has more effects on men than on women

D. has nothing to do with one’s work

3.It can be inferred from the passage that people's views on beauty are often__________.

A. objective B. supportive C. old-fashioned D. subjective

4.The author writes this passage to_________.

A. give advice to job-seekers who are attractive

B. discuss the disadvantages of being attractive

C. emphasize the impact of appearance on both sexes

D. make women pay more attention to their appearance

The United Nations climate talks in Doha, Qatar, continued into their second week, Wednesday, as delegates from nearly 200 countries struggle to craft a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, the global agreement on climate change that expires at the end of this month.

The negotiations are deadlocked （陷入僵局）over demands by poorer nations for financial help in coping with climate change.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on delegates at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change to speed up their work on an agreement to address a warming planet.

“Let us be under no illusion（幻想）, this is a crisis, a threat to us all, our economies, our security and the well-being of our children and those who will come after," he said. "No one is immune to climate change, rich or poor.”

Delegates from nearly 200 countries --- rich and poor --- are in Doha to extend the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 global climate change agreement that expires （到期）at the end of this month, and to begin to forge a new agreement to replace it.

Two issues block the way forward.  Developing countries are demanding that industrialized nations fulfill their pledges(保證)under Kyoto to reduce their climate-changing industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and to put new, larger emission curbs on the table. 

The developing nations, led by China, are also insisting that rich nations provide more aid to poorer countries to help them cope with the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels and more violent storms. 

In Doha Wednesday, Tim Gore, a climate change policy advisor for Oxfam International, a confederation of groups working on social justice issues, applauded efforts by England, Germany and Sweden to increase their climate aid and expects other nations to follow. 

“Those announcements are truly welcome.  And they shine a spotlight on those that have remained silent: the U.S., Canada, Japan, even Australia," Gore said. "But we need to be very clear as well that those types of announcements made in press conferences can be no substitute for clear commitments in the text that poor countries have come here to negotiate.”

1.What’s the main idea of the passage?

A. China plays an important role in The United Nations climate talks in Doha, Qatar.

B. The United Nations climate talks in Doha, Qatar, continued into their second week, Wednesday.

C. Developing countries want rich nations to pay for climate change.

D. Ban Ki-moon called on delegates at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change to speed up their work on an agreement to address a warming planet.

2.What did United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in Paragraph 4 mean?

A. Climate change will do harm to all the countries in the world.

B. There is no hope to deal with the problem.

C. Illusion（幻想）is a crisis, a threat to us all.

D. Ban Ki-moon called on delegates to cope with a warming planet.

3.What does the underlined word in Paragraph Five forge mean?

A. put aside B. deal with C. call off D. work out

4.Which of the following is Not true?

A. Climate change includes rising sea levels and more violent storms.

B. All the industrialized nations will carry out their promises under Kyoto to reduce their climate-changing industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and to put new, larger emission curbs on the table. 

C. Tim Gore thought highly of the efforts by England, Germany and Sweden to increase their climate aid and expects other nations to follow.

D. The U.S., Canada, Japan, even Australia didn’t make announcements to be responsible for the climate changes.

HARVARD, the top university in the United States, is a dream place for many students. Imagine being able to see how unique Harvard students are. Asking them what they learn. And how their classes are conducted.

This month, 300 students from different parts of China had an opportunity to spend a week with Harvard students. They gathered in the High School Attached to Fudan University in Shanghai where the Harvard College Association for US-China Relations Summit for Young Leaders in China (HSYLC 2007) took place. Over 40 Harvard undergraduates took part in it!

Around 2,000 Chinese students applied online for the program, which included various activities. Wang Wenjing, 17, from Shanghai Jingye High School was one of the 300 participants to be selected.

Seminars (研討會)

Every day, the schedule was very busy filled with seminars, lectures, workshops (研習班), games and parties. Wang liked the seminars most.

Seminars are small classes with no more than 10 students. Wang could choose six from 40 different seminars to attend. A Harvard student led each one.

"They explored international issues such as US immigration (移民). We were allowed lively discussion and sometimes the only thing we did in a class was debate," Wang said. "To prepare for the next seminar, we often stayed up late doing research. No one could keep silent and it was fun to share ideas with others."

Celebrities’(名人) lectures

Each day, two or three lectures were given. Wang was excited that the lecturers were famous figures that before she had only seen on TV.

"I finally know why people are crazy about Yi Zhongtian. He is intelligent and eloquent (有口才的). Pu Bajia taught me how to overcome difficulties and plan for the future. All the lectures were inspiring," she said.

At the closing ceremony, Wang and her partner from Nanjing presented their workshop project. It was a survey of how Chinese view Americans, as an article about how Americans view Chinese is popular on the Internet.

"The program taught me what I could not otherwise learn in the classroom. Harvard students also let me know how important to be creative," she said.

針對目前高三學生學習壓力較大的現(xiàn)狀，有人以“Effective Ways to Release the Stress”為題于上周調(diào)查采訪了五個學校的500名高三學生。請你根據(jù)以下調(diào)查結(jié)果的圖表寫一份報告，并再談?wù)勛约夯蛏磉呁瑢W釋放壓力的有效方法。

參考詞匯：心理咨詢室the psychological consulting office

Effective Ways to Release the Stress

Nowadays more and more senior three students are getting stressed in their studies. ……

—Do you understand the film The Hobbit, the most amazing US-made one last year?

—______, but I am confused at many scenes.

A. Not a littleB. Not a bitC. Just a bitD. No problem

I don’t like any humor in this serious speech because I can’t think of any circumstance ______ this would be beneficial or useful.

A. whichB. whetherC. whereD. as

In China people believe in the saying “out of debt, out of pressure”; however in the west, it is just the ______ — when you are in debt, you are trustworthy and financially capable.

A. objectiveB. oppositeC. contraryD. contradictory

—Has Nancy gone back to her home in the UK?

—Yes. She ______ here only for three days with her friend.

A. stayedB. had stayedC. has stayedD. is staying

Since Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in 2012, his fans have been eagerly waiting for his new novels to ______.

A. come out B. turn out C. bring out D. go out