Londoners are great readers. They buy vast numbers of newspapers and magazines and of books --- especially paperbacks, which are still comparatively cheap in spite of ever-increasing rises in the costs of printing. They still continue to buy “proper” books, too, printed on good paper and bound (裝訂) between hard covers.
There are many streets in London containing shops which specialize in book-selling. Perhaps the best known of these is Charring Cross Road in the very heart of London. Here bookshops of all sorts and sizes are to be found, from the celebrated one which boasts of being “the biggest bookshop in the world” to the tiny, dusty little places which seem to have been left over from Dickens’ time. Some of these shops stock, or will obtain, any kind of book, but many of them specialize in second-hand books, in art books, in foreign books, in books on philosophy, politics or any other of the countless subjects about which books may be written. One shop in this area specializes only in books about ballet!
Although it may be the most convenient place for Londoners to buy books, Charring Cross Road is not the cheapest. For the really cheap second-hand books, the collector must venture off the beaten track, to Farringdon Road, for example, in the East Central district of London. Here there is nothing so impressive as bookshops. The booksellers come along each morning and pour out their sacks of books onto small hand carts. And the collectors, some professionals and some amateurs, have been waiting for them. In places like this they can still, occasionally, pick up for a few pence an old one that may be worth many pounds.
【小題1】”Londoners are great readers” means that ___________.

A．Londoners are great because they read a lot.

B．There are a great number of readers in London.

C．Londoners read a lot.

D．Londoners are readers who read only great books.

【小題2】According to this passage, Charring Cross Road __________.

A．is in the suburbs of London	B．is the busiest street in London
C．contains various kinds of shops	D．is famous for its bookshops

【小題3】In this passage, what does the underlined part “venture off the beaten track” mean?

A．move away from a busy street

B．buy books in a most busy street

C．waste time looking for books

D．take a risk of losing one’s life

【小題4】On Farringdon Road, _______________.

A．you can find fine bookshops for the latest books

B．there are only small bookshops for the second-hand books

C．you can see book sellers selling books on hand-carts

D．the same books as the ones in the bookshops of Charring Cross Road are sold

San Francisco，unofficially regarded as one of the homeless capitals of the US，counts nearly 6,500 homeless people, with 4,300 living on the street．

Among the many problems that the homeless face is little or no access to showers．San Francisco only has about 16 to 20 shower stations to accommodate them．But Doniece Sandoval has made it her task to change that．
“Homelessness is something you can’t really miss，”the 51-year-old woman said．She started Lava Mae，a sort of showers on wheels, a new project that aims to turn old city buses into shower stations for the homeless．
“One day I passed a woman in the street and she was very dirty and basically crying，and I heard her say that she would never be clean．But I was wondering what her opportunities were to actually get clean,” Sandoval said．
Sandoval was inspired to start Lava Mae. The project has already been welcomed with open arms in the city．The Transportation Agency has donated one bus for the cause and is willing to donate three more if the project succeeds．Sandoval hopes the first bus will be able to hit the road in May this year．The Public Commission has also agreed to let the buses plug into fire hydrants(消防龍頭)around the city if Lava Mae  pays for the water．
One of Lava Mae’s biggest supporters is Bevan Dufty, the director of Housing Opportunity, Partnerships & Engagement under the mayor of San Francisco．“For people who are unhoused，access to showers is very difficult．Shower buses are something that could potentially be deployed (部署)in response to an emergency，so it is relevant to all San Franciscans," Dufty said．“Doniece has done an incredible job as a citizen who cares about helping the poor．We are very excited to see Lava Mae become real soon．”  
Each bus will have two shower stations and Sandoval expects that by 2015，they’ll be able to provide 2000 showers a week．
【小題1】What problem does San Francisco face according to the text?
A．The city has the most homeless people in the USA．
B．There are no shower stations for the homeless in the city．
C．It’s hard for homeless people in the city to take showers．
D．Few citizens in the city care about the homeless．
【小題2】What does the underlined word ''them” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A．City problems．

B．Shower stations．

C．Old buses．

D．The homeless．

【小題3】Which of the following best describes Doniece Sandoval?

A．Brave and independent．	B．Caring and responsible．
C．Honest and determined．	D．Friendly and humorous．

【小題4】What can we learn from Dufty’s words?

A．All San Franciscans are excited to use Lava Mae．

B．Emergencies in San Francisco will be prevented by Lava Mae．

C．Dufty thinks highly of Doniece's way of helping the poor．

D．The mayor of San Francisco will support Doniece financially．

【小題5】What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．A newly invented way of shower

B．Showers on Wheels for the Homeless

C．The health problem of the homeless

D．Lave Mae-a new name for old city buses

“Find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Do you agree with this old saying? Joanne Gordon does. She is the author of Be Happy at work and other books about careers(職業(yè)). Gordon believes that about 30% of employees in North America do not like their jobs, and she thinks that is terrible. She wants to help people who do not feel satisfied with their jobs find work that is good for them. Joanne says, “There are no happy jobs, only happy workers.” She believes that happy workers share three main characteristics（特點(diǎn)）.
First, happy workers enjoy the daily activities of their jobs, and they look forward to the workday. Take Tony Hawk, for example. At age 14, he became a professional skateboarder. Now he is a businessman working on projects related to skateboarding—films and video games, but he still skates every day. He once said, “My youngest son’s pre-school was recently asked what their dads do for work. My son said, ‘I’ve never seen my dad do work.’” Tony agrees that his job doesn’t look like work. He has found a way to spend each day doing a job he enjoys.
Second, happy workers like the people they work with. Sally Ayote says, “I work with the coolest people in the world.” She and her group cook for almost 1,200 people in Antarctica. Most of these people are scientists who are doing research. Sally loves to sit and talk with them. She says, “There is no television here, no radio, so I get to know the scientists and what they’re studying.” Sally thinks she has a great job, and the best part about it is the people.
Third, happy workers know that their work helps others. Caroline Baron’s work helps people who have had to leave their home countries because of war or other dangers. She is a filmmaker who started an organization called FilmAid, which shows movies in refugee(難民) camps around the world. Caroline believes that movies can be very helpful in these camps. For one thing, entertaining movies let refugees forget their troubles for a little while. Movies can also teach important subjects like health and safety. For example, in one camp, thousands of refugees saw a movie about how to get clean water. Caroline knows that is helping other people, and this makes her feel proud and happy about her work.
Tony Hawk, Sally Ayote, and Caroline Baron all get great satisfaction from their work. Tony Hawk says, “Find the thing you love. If you are doing what you love, there is much more happiness there than being rich or famous.” Joanne Gordon would agree. She encourages people to find something they enjoy doing, find people they like to work with, and find ways to help others. Then they can be proud of what they do, and they will probably be happy at work.
【小題1】Who is the book, Be Happy at Work, written for?

A．Joanne Gordon herself.

B．Tony Hawk, Sally Ayote, and Caroline Baron.

C．People who do not feel satisfied（滿意的）with their jobs.

D．The workers who agree with the author’s ideas.

【小題2】Why did Tony Hawk’s son say, “I’ve never seen my dad do work.”?

A．Because Tony Hawk’s job doesn’t look like work.

B．Because Tony Hawk always finds something enjoyable in his job.

C．Because Tony helps people forget their troubles while skating.

D．Because the best part about his job is to spend each day skating.

【小題3】Tony Hawk, Sally Ayote, and Caroline Baron are good examples that show us __________.

A．how to be a successful businessman

B．how to help people in difficulties

C．how to get along with the coolest people

D．how to become a happy worker

【小題4】Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A．Some people believe that only a few kinds of jobs can really make people feel happy.

B．The writer of the passage tells us that many different kinds of work can be enjoyable.

C．The author of Be Happy at Work thinks that happiness at work is really important.

D．Joanne Gordon believes that people will probably be happy at work when they are proud of what they do.

In the Harry Potter films, Hermione Granger is better than her male friends and is considered the brightest pupil in her grade. Isn’t it often the same in schools of our real world? A great many boys fall behind their female classmates.
“It’s surprising but true that most of the top students have been girls since primary school. Girls are class leaders, club presidents and the top ones in exams,” said Wang Feixuan, 15, who studies at a Chengdu school. By any measure, Wang herself is a high-achiever. She is a top student, a team leader in her school’s sports club and a winner in national English and IT competitions.
But why do so many girls outperform their male peers（同輩）?
In Sun Yunxiao’s latest book Save Our Boys, he points out that the education system is “more suited to girls, who are good at memorizing and like to sit quietly and read.” Yet he also says that girls have to do so much more when they compete with males for honors, top universities and later good jobs. They can feel great pressure（壓力）nearly every day.
This seems to be the same in most countries in the world. Young women in the United States are also reported to feel the same pressure to be perfect.
“Let’s look at what we ask of our teenage girls,” says an American professor Stephen Hinshaw in an interview.
He thinks that it’s no longer enough that a girl does well in school and is a caring friend. On the TV, on the Internet, and everywhere, girls see images of impossible perfection（完美）.
Today’s young women must be good learners, good athletes, and fill their after-school lives with other activities. But they’re also asked to have the styles and looks of popular stars. “Be pretty, sweet and nice. Be athletic, competitive and get straight. Be impossibly perfect.” Stephen Hinshaw sums up.
【小題1】The passage suggests that________.

A．our society asks far too much of teenage girls

B．teenage girls shouldn’t be so perfect at school

C．boys are always lazy ones rather than girls

D．American girls have less pressure than Chinese girls

【小題2】According to the passage, it is true that   .

A．boys are less smart than girls throughout school life

B．boys usually don’t have so much pressure as girls do

C．girls are all fond of the Chinese education system

D．girls are better at school because boys don’t work hard

【小題3】The underlined word outperform means_________.

A．mistake

B．misunderstand

C．ignore

D．defeat

【小題4】What’s the best title for the passage_________?

A．Impossibly Perfect Is Possible.	B．Why Are Girls So Perfect?
C．Perfect? Pressure Every Day!	D．Perfect: Boys or Girls?

You may not pay much attention to your daily elevator ride. Many of us use a lift several times during the day without really thinking about it. But Lee Gray, PhD, of the University of North Carolina, US, has made it his business to examine this unnoticed form of public transport. He is known as the “Elevator Guy”.
“The lift becomes this interesting social space where behaviors are sort of odd (奇怪的),” Gray told the BBC. “They (elevators) are socially very interesting but often very awkward places.”
We walk in and usually turn around to face the door. If someone else comes in, we may have to move. And here, according to Gray, liftusers unthinkingly go through a set pattern of movements. He told the BBC what he had observed.
He explained that when you are the only one inside a lift, you can do whatever you want – it’s your own little box.
If there are two of you, you go into different corners, standing diagonally (對(duì)角線地) across from each other to create distance.
When a third person enters, you will unconsciously form a triangle. And when there is a fourth person it becomes a square, with someone in every corner. A fifth person is probably going to have to stand in the middle.
Newcomers to the lift will need to size up the situation when the doors slide open and then act decisively. Once in, for most people the rule is simple – look down, or look at your phone.
Why are we so awkward in lifts?
“You don’t have enough space,” Professor Babette Renneberg, a clinical psychologist at the Free University of Berlin, told the BBC. “Usually when we meet other people we have about an arm’s length of distance between us. And that’s not possible in most elevators.”
In such a small, enclosed space it becomes very important to act in a way that cannot be understood as threatening or odd. “The easiest way to do this is to avoid eye contact,” she said.
【小題1】The main purpose of the article is to _____.

A．remind us to enjoy ourselves in the elevator

B．a(chǎn)nalyze what makes people feel awkward in an elevator

C．share an interesting but awkward elevator ride

D．tell us some unwritten rules of elevator behaviors

【小題2】Which of the following describes how people usually stand when there are at least two people in an elevator?

【小題3】The underlined phrase “size up” in Paragraph 7 is closest in meaning to _____.

A．ignore

B．judge

C．put up with

D．make use of

【小題4】According to the article, people feel awkward in lifts because of _____.

A．the lack of space

B．someone’s strange behaviors

C．their unfamiliarity with one another

D．their eye contact with one another

The desire for a better life is sometimes so big that it makes people leave their countries and their families and work in other countries. They know that they will have to face difficult moments, that they won't be able to communicate with the persons around them, and that they have to work in illegal conditions to get the money they need for their families, but they all take these chances and they hope they will succeed.
On the other hand, there are people who immigrate (移民) just for the sake of the people they love. They leave their families to make other families with the people they love. Women go to meet their men who have chosen other countries to start a new life, even if they miss their families and friends. Maybe they don't have a place to work but they are able to wait to see what destiny (命運(yùn)) has for them.
There are also the cases of the people who are forced to leave their countries because of a war which threatens their lives. They'd rather start from the very beginning again than risk putting their lives in danger.
When well-developed countries see that their homeland is being "invaded" by lots of immigrants, they set new laws that make immigration harder. As a result of this, many illegal immigrants cross the borders and are eager to work, although they are paid only half the amount of money native workers receive for the same kind of job.
The opinions of the local people are varied and they range from total refusal to complete acceptance. Immigrants in countries which have large communities of them are fighting for the recognition of their social rights and for equal treatment. Many immigrants have managed to be fully accepted by the communities where they live and have managed to change the opinions of the local people about them.
【小題1】Which of the following reasons for immigration is NOT mentioned in the passage?

A．Escaping from a war.

B．Being reunited with the beloved people.

C．Seeking a better life

D．Studying a foreign language

【小題2】What's the usual response to immigrants in well-developed countries?

A．To accept them.

B．To refuse them.

C．To put limitations on immigration.

D．To encourage them.

【小題3】Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

A．Some immigrants are still fighting for their rights now.

B．Immigrants are never accepted no matter how hard they try.

C．Native people usually earn more money than illegal immigrants.

D．The local people have different attitudes toward immigrants.

【小題4】The passage implies that _____.

A．many people go to other countries with great determination

B．illegal immigrants cause great damage to developed countries

C．stricter laws should be set to prevent immigration

D．culture shock causes great anxiety in some immigrants

Would you like to be a king or queen? To have people waiting on you hand and foot? Many Americans experience this royal treatment every day. How? By being customers. The American idea of customer service is to make each customer the center of attention. Need proof? Just listen to the commercials. Most of them sound like the McDonald’s ad: “We do it all for you.” Actually, not all stores in America roll out the red carpet for their customers. But wherever you go, good customer service means making customers feel special.
People going shopping in America can expect to be treated with respect from the very beginning. Most places don’t have a “furniture street” or a “computer road” which allow you to compare prices easily. Instead, people often “l(fā)et their fingers do the walking” through the store hot lines. From the first “hello”, customers receive a satisfying response to their questions. This initial contact can help them decide where to shop.
When customers get to the store, they are treated as honored guests. Customers don’t usually find store clerks sitting around watching TV or playing cards. Instead, the clerks greet them warmly and offer to help them find what they want. In most stores, the clear signs that label each department make shopping a breeze. Customers usually don’t have to ask how much items cost, since prices are clearly marked. And unless they’re at a flea market or a yard sale, they don’t bother trying to bargain.
When customers are ready to check out, they find the nearest and shortest checkout lane. But as Murphy’s Law would have it, whichever lane they get in, all the other lanes will move faster. Good stores open new checkout lanes when the lanes get too long. Some even offer express lanes for customers with 10 items or less. After they pay for their purchases, customers receive a smile and a warm “thank you” from the clerk. Many stores even allow customers to take their shopping carts out to the parking lot. That way, they don’t have to carry heavy bags out to the car.
【小題1】By quoting (引用) the McDonald’s ad: “We do it all for you”, the author intends to_______.

A．suggest that customers believe what commercials say deeply

B．show readers the American idea on good customer service

C．express all the stores pay much attention to the customers

D．persuade readers to choose the stores with ads correctly

【小題2】In the USA, what may you do at first if you want to do some shopping?

A．To visit a professional street with lots of similar stores.

B．To compare prices in many shops in the same street.

C．To make phone calls and get better shopping choices.

D．To receive other customers’ answers to the questions.

【小題3】Which of the followings shows American stores offer convenience to customers in this passage?

A．The store clerks don’t usually sit around watching TV or playing cards.

B．Some stores offer price bargain to the customers like a yard sale.

C．The clerks give customers a smile and a warm “thank you” after paying.

D．Some stores open new checkout lanes when the lanes are crowded.

【小題4】Which of the following can be the best title of this passage?

A．Customer Service in America	B．Excellent Stores in America
C．Shopping Rules in America	D．Being King or Queen in America

Celebrity(名人) has become one of the most important representatives of popular culture. Fans used to be crazy about a specific film, but now the public tends to base its consumption(消費(fèi)) on the interest of celebrity attached to any given product. Besides, fashion magazines have almost abandoned the practice of putting models on the cover because they don’t sell nearly as well as famous faces. As a result, celebrities have realized their unbelievably powerful market potential, moving from advertising for others’ products to developing their own.
Celebrity clothing lines aren’t a completely new phenomenon, but in the past they were typically aimed at the ordinary consumers, and limited to a few TV actresses. Today they’re started by first-class stars whose products enjoy equal fame with some world top brands. The most successful start-ups have been those by celebrities with specific personal style. As celebrities become more and more experienced at the market, they expand their production scale rapidly, covering almost all the products of daily life.
However, for every success story, there’s a related warning tale of a celebrity who overvalued his consumer appeal. No matter how famous the product’s origin is, if it fails to impress consumers with its own qualities, it begins to resemble an exercise in self-promotional marketing. And once the initial(最初的) attention dies down, consumer interest might fade, loyalty(忠誠) returning to tried-and-true labels.
Today, celebrities face even more severe embarrassment. The pop-cultural circle might be bigger than ever, but its rate of turnover has speeded up as well. Each misstep threatens to reduce a celebrity’s shelf life, and the same newspaper or magazine that once brought him fame has no problem picking him to pieces when the opportunity appears. Still, the ego’s(自我的) potential for expansion is limitless. Having already achieved great wealth and public recognition, many celebrities see fashion as the next frontier to be conquered. As the saying goes, success and failure always go hand in hand. Their success as designers might last only a short time, but fashion—like celebrity—has always been temporary.
【小題1】Fashion magazines today        .

A．seldom put models on the cover

B．no longer put models on the cover

C．need not worry about celebrities’ market potential

D．judge the market potential of every celebrity correctly

【小題2】A change in the consumer market can be found today that        .

A．price rather than brand name is more concerned

B．producers prefer models to celebrities for advertisements

C．producers prefer TV actresses to film stars for advertisements

D．quality rather than the outside of products is more concerned

【小題3】The underlined sentence in Paragraph 4 indicates that any wrong step will possibly       .

A．decrease the popularity of a celebrity and the sales of his products

B．damage the image of a celebrity in the eyes of the general public

C．cut short the artistic career of a celebrity in show business

D．influence the price of a celebrity’s products

【小題4】The passage is mainly about        .

A．celebrity and personal style

B．celebrity and market potential

C．celebrity and fashion design

D．celebrity and clothing industry

In the 19th century, there used to be a model of how to be a good person. There are all these torrents of passion flowing through you. Your job, as captain of your soul, is to erect dams to keep these passions in check. Your job is to just say no to laziness, lust, greed, drug use and the other sins.
　　These days that model is out of fashion. You usually can’t change your behavior by simply resolving to do something. Knowing what to do is not the same as being able to do it. Your willpower is not like a dam that can block the torrent of self-indulgence. It's more like a muscle, which tires easily. Moreover, you're a social being. If everybody around you is overeating, you’ll probably do so, too.
　　The 19th-century character model was based on an understanding of free will. Today, we know that free will is bounded. People can change their lives, but ordering change is not simple because many things, even within ourselves, are beyond our direct control.
　　Much of our behavior, for example, is guided by unconscious habits. Researchers at Duke University calculated that more than 40 percent of the actions we take are governed by habit, not actual decisions. Researchers have also come to understand the structure of habits—cue, routine, reward.
　　You can change your own personal habits. If you leave running shorts on the floor at night, that'll be a cue to go running in the morning. Don’t try to ignore your afternoon snack craving. Every time you feel the cue for a snack, insert another routine. Take a walk.
　　Their research thus implies a different character model, which is supposed to manipulate the neural networks inside.
　　To be an effective person, under this model, you are supposed to coolly examine your own unconscious habits, and the habits of those under your care. You are supposed to devise strategies to alter the cues and routines. Every relationship becomes slightly manipulative, including your relationship with yourself. You're trying to arouse certain responses by implanting certain cues.
　　This is a bit disturbing, because the important habitual neural networks are not formed by mere routine, nor can they be reversed by clever cues. They are burned in by emotion and strengthened by strong yearnings, like the yearnings for admiration and righteousness.
　　If you think you can change your life in a clever way, the way an advertiser can get you to buy an air freshener, you’re probably wrong. As the Victorians understood, if you want to change your life, don’t just look for a clever cue. Commit to some larger global belief.
【小題1】Which of the following is the first-to-none element in the 19th-century character model?

A．Action.

B．Capacity.

C．Resolution.

D．Enthusiasm.

【小題2】The research at Duke University indicated that ________

A．One’s behavior is tough to change.

B．Habit has an unidentified structure.

C．Habit plays a vital role in one's behavior.

D．Both habit and will power are of significance.

【小題3】According to the new character model, personal behavior could be altered through

A．techniques to break old routines.

B．techniques to provide different physical cues.

C．cues to change all the former unconscious habits.

D．cues to manipulate the habitual neural responses.

Does Fame Drive You Crazy?
Although being famous might sound like a dream come true, today’s star, feeling like zoo animals, face pressures that few of us can imagine. They are at the center of much of the world’s attention. Paparazzi (狗仔隊(duì)) camp outside their homes, cameras ready. Tabloids (小報(bào)) publish thrilling stories about their personal lives. Just imagine not being able to do anything without being photographed or interrupted for a signature.
According to psychologist Christina Villareal, celebrities — famous people — worry constantly about their public appearance. Eventually, they start to lose track of who they really are, seeing themselves the way their fans imagine them, not as the people they were before everyone knew their names. “Over time,” Villareal says, “they feel separated and alone.”
The phenomenon of tracking celebrities has been around for ages. In the 4th century B.C., painters followed Alexander the Great into battle, hoping to picture his victories for his admirers. When Charles Dickens visited America in the 19th century, his sold-out readings attracted thousands of fans, leading him to complain about his lack of privacy. Tabloids of the 1920s and 1930s ran articles about film-stars in much the same way that modern tabloids and websites do.
Being a public figure today, however, is a lot more difficult than it used to be. Superstars cannot move about without worrying about photographers with modern cameras. When they say something silly or do something ridiculous, there is always the Internet to spread the news in minutes and keep their “story” alive forever.
If fame is so troublesome, why aren’t all celebrities running away from it? The answer is there are still ways to deal with it. Some stars stay calm by surrounding themselves with trusted friends and family or by escaping to remote places away from big cities. They focus not on how famous they are but on what they love to do or whatever made them famous in the first place.
Sometimes a few celebrities can get a little justice. Still, even stars who enjoy full justice often complain about how hard their lives are. They are tired of being famous already.
【小題1】It can be learned from the passage that stars today   .

A．a(chǎn)re often misunderstood by the public

B．can no longer have their privacy protected

C．spend too much on their public appearance

D．care little about how they have come into fame

【小題2】What is the main idea of Paragraph 3?

A．Great heroes of the past were generally admired.

B．The problem faced by celebrities has a long history.

C．Well-known actors are usually targets of tabloids.

D．Works of popular writers often have a lot of readers.

【小題3】What makes it much harder to be a celebrity today?

A．Availability of modern media.

B．Inadequate social recognition.

C．Lack of favorable chances.

D．Huge population of fans.

【小題4】What is the author’s attitude toward modern celebrity?

A．Sincere.

B．Skeptical.

C．Disapproving.

D．Sympathetic.