Everyone is at it, even my neighbors. I thought I might be the only person left in the world who hadn’t done an eBay deal. So, I decided to try my hand at online auction (网上拍卖).

Buying for beginners: Sign up on www. ebay. co. uk. Most items（e.g. tables, computers, and books）ready for auction will come with a picture and a short description; others may be marked with “ Buy It Now ” and have a fixed price. You can buy these right away.

If the item is being auctioned, you offer the highest price you are prepared to pay and eBay bids（出价）for you. The bid will be increased little by little until it goes beyond your highest bid, then you are emailed and asked if you would like to bid again. Auctions last up to 10 days and when they finish you get an email telling you whether you have won the item.

How to pay: Sellers decide how they would like to be paid and you need to check this before placing a bid as you might not want to post a check or postal orders. The easiest way is through PayPal, an online payment system that takes the money away from your credit card (信用卡).

Selling made simple: If you plan to sell on eBay, it helps to include a picture of the item. I followed my friends’ advice and put up the items I wanted to sell for a 10-day auction, starting on a Thursday. This way buyers had two weekends to bid.

The big things in life: It’s easy to post a small item, but furniture is a big part of eBay and this has to be collected or sent by delivery men. Check the ways of delivery before you bid.

1.What is the passage mainly about?

2.After bidding for an item, a buyer __________.

3.The easiest way of making payment mentioned in the passage is __________.

How should one invest a sum of money in inflation (通货膨胀)? Left in a bank it will hardly keep its value, however high the interest rate. Only a brave man, or a very rich one, dares to buy and sell on the Stock Market. Today it seems that one of the best ways to protect your savings, and even increase your wealth is to buy beautiful objects from the past. Here I am going to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks, which I personally consider are among the most interesting of antiques.

I sometimes wonder what a being from another planet might report back about our way of life. "The planet Earth is ruled by a mysterious creature that sits or stands in a room and makes a strange ticking sound. It has a face with twelve black marks and two hands. Men can do nothing without its permission, and it fastens its young round people's wrists so that everywhere men go they are still under its control. This creature is the real master of Earth and men are its slaves."

Whether or not we are slaves of time today depends on our culture and personality, but it is believed that many years ago kings kept special slaves to tell the time. Certain men were very clever at measuring the time according to the beating of their own hearts. They were made to stand in a fixed place and every hour or so would shout time. So it seems that the first clocks were human beings.

However, men quickly found more convenient and reliable ways of telling the time. They learned to use the shadows cast by the sun. They marked the hours on candles, used sand in hour- glasses, and invented water-clocks. Indeed, any serious student of antique should spend as much time as possible visiting palaces, stately homes and museums to see some of the finest examples of clocks from the past.

Antique clocks could be very expensive, but one of the joys of collecting clocks is that it is still possible to find quite cheap ones for your own home. After all, if you are going to be ruled by time, why not invest in an antique clock and perhaps make a future profit?

1.According to the passage, collecting antique clocks ________.

2.By quoting (引用) the remark of a being from another planet, the author intends to ________.

3.Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a way to measure the time?

4.The purpose of the passage is ________.

Do you want to live with a strong sense of peacefulness, happiness, goodness, and self- respect? The collection of happiness actions broadly categorized as "honor" help you create this life of good feelings.

Here's an example to show how honorable actions create happiness.

Say a store clerk fails to charge us for an item. If we keep silent, and profit from the clerk's mistake, we would drive home with a sense of sneaky excitement. Later we might tell our family or friends about our good fortune. On the other hand, if we tell the clerk about the uncharged item, the clerk would be grateful and thank us for our honesty. We would leave the store with a quiet sense of honor that we might never share with another soul.

Then, what is it to do with our sense of happiness?

In the first case, where we don't tell the clerk, a couple of things would happen. Deep down inside we would know ourselves as a type of thief. In the process, we would lose some peace of mind and self-respect. We would also demonstrate that we cannot be trusted, since we advertise our dishonor by telling our family and friends. We damage our own reputations by telling others. In contrast, bringing the error to the clerk's attention causes different things to happen. Immediately the clerk knows us to be honorable. Upon leaving the store, we feel honorable and our self-respect is increased. Whenever we take honorable action we gain the deep internal rewards of goodness and a sense of nobility.

There is a beautiful positive cycle that is created by living a life of honorable actions. Honorable thoughts lead to honorable actions. Honorable actions lead us to a happier existence. And it's easy to think and act honorably again when we're happy. While the positive cycle can be difficult to start, once it's started, it's easy to continue. Keeping on doing good deeds brings us peace of mind, which is important for our happiness.

1.According to the passage, the positive action in the example contributes to our ________.

2.The phrase "bringing the error to the clerk's attention" (in Para.5) means ________.

3.How will we feel if we let the clerk know her mistake?

4.Which of the following can be the best title of this passage?

单词拼写

1.Modern people must learn to live in h_______________ with nature.

2.With a good state of mind, she soon a_______________ herself to the new environment.

3.It’s a local c_____________ for girls to marry young.

4.The government is trying to raise public a_______________ about the protection of cultural heritage.

5.Reading widely helps to e_______________ your vocabulary when learning a second language.

6.Even though we’re working around the clock, I’m afraid the _____________ (最后期限) is hard to meet.

7.A lazy man will never a_______________ (完成) anything that’s meaningful.

8.Although we are close friends, I don’t want to show my _______________ (关心) for her before so many people.

9.After entering the country _______________ (非法地)，he settled down in a remote area and found work in a small restaurant.

10.It’s _______________ (令人耳目一新的) to have such a funny and humorous partner.

翻译句子

1.直到我开始努力，我才意识到我过去浪费了多少时间。

__________ __________ I began to work hard __________ __________ __________ how much time I had wasted.

2.我一看到刘翔走上台就感觉非常激动。

I felt very excited, __________ __________ I saw Liu Xiang walk onto the stage.

3.无论我们看上去有多么不同，然而我们本质上都是一样的, 都是平等的。

____________ ____________ we may appear to be at first, we are all the same, all equal.

4.该组织提议政府关注乡村女孩辍学现象。

The organization recommended that country girls’ dropping out of school __________    __________ ____________ to the attention of the government.

5.人们公认他们的孩子必须上一所好大学，这对他们的未来至关重要。

It is generally agreed that their kids must go to a good university, __________ is __________ ___________ _______________ to their future.

6.20世纪70年代中期，人们厌倦了当时的流行音乐，迪斯科和摇滚乐都在走下坡路。

In the mid 1970s, people were __________ __________ the pop music of the day, and disco music and rock music were both __________ __________.

 When we climbed up to the top of the mountain, we were all ___________.

 Little Tom easily ________ himself to the American life as he moved to the USA with his parents when he was only three.

 That was the first time I _______ there and I was impressed by the friendly people very much.

Jane has been so ________ ingetting used to everything that she hasn’t had time for social activities.

 The reason ______ at the meeting for being late was not reasonable.