The Worst Part

Mom is usually home on Sunday but this week she was going to a big golf game and I was all alone in the house. I was mad at Mom for divorcing Dad.

I kept looking at the telephone until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I picked up the receiver and dialed Dad’s number over in Bakersfield. I even remembered to dial I first because it was long distance. “You promised to phone me this week but you didn’t,” I said, feeling I had to talk to him.

“Take it easy, kid,” he said. “I just didn’t get around to it. I was going to call this evening. The week isn’t over yet.”

I thought about that.

“Something on your mind?” he asked.

“I hoped you would call, so I waited and waited.” Then I was sorry I said it.

“There was heavy snow in the morning,” he said, “I had to chain up on highway 80 and lost time.”

I know putting chains on eight big wheels in the snow is no fun. I felt a little better, as long as we were talking. “How is Bandit?” I asked.

There was a funny silence. For a minute I thought the line was dead. Then I knew something must have happened to my dog.

“Well, kid—”, he began. “My name is Leigh!” I almost yelled. “I’m not just some kid you met on the street!”

“Keep your shirt on, Leigh,” he said. “When I had to stop along with some other truckers to put on chains, I left Bandit out of the cab, I thought he would get back … I have sent out a call to CB radio, but I didn’t get an answer yet.” I was about to say I understood when there came the bad part, the really bad part. I heard a boy’s voice say, “Hey, Bill, Mom wants to know when we’re going out to get the pizza?”

1.From the story we know that _______.

A. Leigh’s dad never had a rest on Sundays          B. Leigh was a deserted boy

C. Leigh’s dad lived in another city                D. Leigh’s mother often went to golf games

2.What happened to Bandit?

A. It was frozen to death.        B. It was let out of the cab and got lost

C. It was killed by a truck.        D. It ran off Highway 80 and into the mountain.

3.The underlined sentence “Keep your shirt on” probably means “_______”.

A. Listen to reason    B. Stop talking      C. Calm down    D. Keep warm

4.In Leigh’s eye, “the worst part” may be that ________.

A. his dad got remarried          B. his parents got divorced

C. his dad didn’t love him         D. his mom didn’t take him to pizza

Bestsellers for last week

A Special Relationship

This novel is about a woman whose entire life is turned upside down in a very foreign place despite the fact that people there speak her language. Sally Good child is a 37-year-old American who, after nearly two decades as a highly independent journalist, finds herself pregnant and in London. She married an English foreign correspondent, Tony Thompson, whom she met while they were both on assignment in Cairo. From the beginning, Sally’s relationship with both Tony and London is an uneasy one: She finds her husband and his city to be far more foreign than imagined. But her adjustment problems soon turn into a nightmare(噩梦). She discovers that everything can be taken down and used against you, especially by a spouse (配偶) who now considers you an unfit mother and wants to prevent you from ever seeing your child again.

Born in 1955, Douglas Kennedy is the bestselling author of romances such as “The Big Picture”. He is also the author of several praised travel books.

White Hot

   Sayre Lynch decided never to return to her hometown Destiny, after she changed her last name and finally escaped from the influence of her controlling father, Huff Hoyle, who owns the iron foundry that the town is built around.

         But when Danny, her younger brother, is found dead with a shotgun in his mouth, Sayre unwillingly goes back for his funeral and is annoyed when her father’s handsome lawyer, Beck Merchant, tries to please her.

         When the young officer investigating(调查) the case notes that some of the evidence points to murder rather than suicide(自杀), Sayre finds herself unable to leave Destiny. She’s annoyed by Beck’s constant presence, and she is not sure if he’s trying to help or throw her off the trail. Nor does she trust her father or her older brother, Chris, who is as prime suspect in Danny’s murder.

         As she tries to figure out how the handsome, charming Beck fits into the picture, she finds herself deeply attracted to him.]

         Sandra Brown is the author of 51 New York Times top-five bestsellers. She began her writing career in 1981 and has since published 65 novels.

1.From the brief introduction of “A Special Relationship” we can imagine _____.

         A. Sally and Tony’s marriage is pleasant.             B. Sally and Tony may break up.

         C. Sally and Tony often quarrel about their jobs.   D. Sally is hard to get on with.

2.The story of Sally and Tony mainly happens in _____.

         A. America      B. London       C. Cairo          D. Cairo & London

3.It can be learned from the passage that______.

    A. Chris killed Danny.                       B. Lynch is Sayre’s real family name.

    C. Huff Hoyle knows who killed Danny.          D. Sayre fell in love with Beck.

4.In the introduction of White Hot, the underlined phrase suggests_____.

    A. Sayre thinks Beck has something to do with Danny’s death.

    B. Sayre thinks Beck is the right person she wants to marry.

    C. Sayre likes the handsome Beck in the picture.

D. Sayre doesn’t know whether Beck likes her.

Some years ago, a Miami woman walking through an office building noticed two men standing together. Several minutes after her leaving, the men murdered a person working in the building. The police determined that the woman was the only witness and could possibly describe them. However, her memory of the men proved disappointingly unclear. Several days later, psychologist Ronald Fisher was brought in to obtain a more complete account from the woman. His interview produced a breakthrough—the woman reported a clear picture of one of the suspects. The important information enabled the police to arrest the suspect and close the case.

The police asked Fisher for help because of his rich knowledge in cognitive interview, a kind of memory-rebuilding process. Memory researchers have found that people trying to remember a past event often only recall(回忆) part of the relevant information. Human memory is selective and it is often distorted by stress. But a person’s accurate recall of an event or understanding of a question can be improved using specific interviewing techniques. The “cognitive interview” was developed in the late 1990s. It encourages the witness to take an active role in recalling information rather than giving answers only to someone else’s questions. The witness first describes what happened in his or her own words, with no interviewer interruptions. The interviewer then goes further with specific techniques, such as having the witness tell the details of what happened from different perspectives (角度).

The cognitive interview focuses on guiding witnesses through four general recalling techniques: thinking about physical surroundings and personal feelings that existed at the time of past events; reporting everything that comes to mind about those events, no matter how broken it is; retelling events in a variety of time orders, such as from beginning to end, end to beginning, forward or backward; and adopting different perspectives while recalling events.

Experiments with police detectives trained in this demanding interview method find that they obtain nearly 50% more information from witnesses than before training, while error rates remain about the same. It is proved that cognitive interviews are quite important tools in improving the accuracy and completeness of witness testimony (证词). 

1.The purpose of the passage is to ______.

A. give an account of a murder case

B. introduce an idea of cognitive interview

C. prove Fisher was an expert in cognitive interview

D. help a witness to recall information in a cognitive interview

2.What is required to recall in a cognitive interview for a witness?

A. The exact time at which a murder took place.

B. The information about the event in the time order.

C. The important things that come to his or her mind.

D. The surroundings and feelings at the time of the event.

3.The key point in a cognitive interview is that ______.

A. the witness is encouraged to take part in recalling information

B. the interviewer should interrupt the witness from time to time

C. the interview should take place outside the police station

D. the witness should recall details at the scene of the event

Have you ever had the strange feeling that you were being watched? You turned around and, sure enough, someone was looking right at you!

Parapsychologists(灵学家) say that humans have a natural ability to sense when someone is looking at them. To research whether such a “sixth sense” really exists, Robert Baker, a psychologist(心理学家) at the University of Kentucky, performed two experiments.

In the first one, Baker sat behind unknowing people in public places and stared at the backs of their heads for 5 to 15 minutes. The subjects（受试者）were eating, drinking, reading, studying, watching TV, or working at a computer. Baker made sure that the people could not tell that he was sitting behind them during those periods. Later, when he questioned the subjects, almost all of them said they had no sense that someone was staring at them.

For the second experiment, Baker told the subjects that they would be stared at from time to time from behind a two-way mirror in a laboratory setting. The people had to write down when they felt they were being stared at and when they weren’t. Baker found that the subjects were no better at telling when they were stared at and when they weren’t. Baker found that the subjects were no better at telling when they were started at than if they had just guessed.

Baker concludes that people do not have the ability to sense when they’re being stared at. If people doubt the outcome of his two experiments, said Baker, “I suggest they repeat the experiments and see for themselves.”

1.The purpose of the two experiments is to _______.

A. explain when people can have a sixth sense

B. show how people act while being watched in the lab

C. study whether humans can sense when they are stared at

D. prove why humans have a sixth sense

2.In the first experiment, the subjects _______.

A. were not told that they would be stared at            B. lost their sense when they were stared at

C. were not sure when they would be stared at     D. were uncomfortable when they were stared at

3.The underlined word “outcome” in the last paragraph most probably means ______.

A. value    B. result   C. performance        D. connection

4.What can be learned from the passage?

A. People are born with a sixth sense.

B. The experiments support parapsychologists’ idea.

C. The subjects do not have a sixth sense in the experiments.

D. People have a sixth sense in public places.

There are still many things that Peter Cooke would like to try his hand at — paper-making and feather-work are on his list. For the moment, though, he will stick to the skill that he has been delighted to make perfect over the past ten years: making delicate and unusual objects out of shells.

As he leads me round his apartment showing me his work, he points to a pair of shell-covered ornaments(装饰品) above a fireplace. “I shan’t be at all bothered if people don’t buy them because I have got so used to them, and to me they’re lovely. I never meant to sell my work commercially. Some friends came to see me about five years ago and said, ‘You must have an exhibition — people ought to see these. We’ll talk to a man who owns an art gallery’”. The result was an exhibition in London, at which 70 per cent of the objects were sold. His second exhibition opened at the gallery yesterday. Considering the enormous prices the pieces command —around ￡2,000 for the ornaments — an empty space above the fireplace would seem a small sacrifice for Cooke to make.

There are 86 pieces in the exhibition, with prices starting at￡225 for a shell-flower in a crystal vase. Cooke insists that he has nothing to do with the prices and is cheerily open about their level: he claims there is nobody else in the world who produces work like his, and, as the gallery-owner told him, “Well, you’re going to stop one day and everybody will want your pieces because there won’t be any more.”

“I do wish, though,” says Cooke, “that I’d taken this up a lot earlier, because then I would have been able to produce really wonderful things — at least the potential would have been there. Although the ideas are still there and I’m doing the best I can now, I’m more limited physically than I was when I started.” Still, the work that he has managed to produce is a long way from the common shell constructions that can be found in seaside shops. “I have a miniature(微型的) mind,” he says, and this has resulted in boxes covered in thousands of tiny shells, little shaded pictures made from shells and baskets of astonishingly realistic flowers.?

Cooke’s quest(追求) for beautiful, and especially tiny, shells has taken him further than his Norfolk shore: to France, Thailand, Mexico, South Africa and the Philippines, to name but a few of the beaches where he has lain on his stomach and looked for beauties to bring home. He is insistent that he only collects dead shells and defends himself against people who write him letters accusing him of stripping the world’s beaches. “When I am collecting shells, I hear people’s great fat feet crunching(嘎吱嘎吱地踩) them up far faster than I can collect them; and the ones that are left, the sea breaks up. I would not dream of collecting shells with living creatures in them or diving for them, but once their occupants have left, why should I not collect them?” If one bases this argument on the amount of luggage that can be carried home by one man, the beauty of whose work is often greater than its natural parts, it becomes very convincing indeed.

1.What does the reader learn about Peter Cooke in the first paragraph?

A. He has produced hand-made objects in different materials.?

B. He hopes to work with other materials in the future.?

C. He has written about his love of making shell objects.?

D. He was praised for his shell objects many years ago. 

2.When mentioning the cost of his shell objects, Cooke ____.

         A. cleverly changes the subject.

         B. defends the prices charged for his work.

         C. says he has no idea why the level is so high.

         D. notes that his work will not always be so popular.

3.The “small sacrifice” in Paragraph 2 refers to _________.?

A. the loss of Cooke’s ornaments?            B. the display of Cooke’s ornaments?

C. the cost of keeping Cooke’s ornaments      D. the space required to store Cooke’s ornaments

4.What does Cooke regret about his work?

A. He is not as famous as he should have been.?B. He makes less money than he should make.

C. He is less imaginative than he used to be.?      D. He is not as skillful as he used to be. ?

5.What does the reader learn about Cooke's shell-collecting activities?

A. Not everyone approves of what he does.

B. Other methods might make his work easier.

C. Other tourists get in the way of his collecting.

D. Not all shells are the right size and shape for his work

 Read the following text and choose the most suitable heading from A-F for each paragraph. There is one extra heading which you do not need.

A. Reasons for the use of Podcasting

B. Definition and origin of Podcast

C. Importance of Podcasting at school

D. Advantage of Podcasts over other audio media

E. Podcasts—a further step from voice recordings

F. Devices needed for Podcasting

1._______

Recently a group of second-graders visited our school library to work on a “holidays around the world” project. The children created pictures showing holiday customs and then created voice recordings explaining what they drew. The incident showed very clearly the effectiveness of student-created voice recordings. Now imagine taking things one step further and creating Podcasts in a classroom setting.

2.________

The term Podcast refers to an audio recording, linked to the Web, that can be downloaded to a personal MP3 player. The word is created from broadcast and from iPod ---the wildly popular MP3 player from Apple.

3.________

Using audio with students isn’t new, of course. Teachers have used audiobooks at listening centers and recorded student voice on tape or CD for many years. Voice and music are the original media for teaching. Podcasts, however, can reach a much wider audience in a time frame outside the school days. Booktalking, an old way of getting kids excited about books, gets a tech assistance with Podcasting. Students can do some booktalking themselves; book review Podcasts seem to be another natural way for students to share what they know, providing an alternative to the book report.

4.________

    There are a number of excellent reasons for using Podcasting. Teachers made audio Podcasts, including visuals or video clips for any content area instruction and review. Some teachers have begun to record themselves teaching important concepts; this creates an account of information online for kids to access when they’re stuck on a homework assignment. Audio and video files can also function as assessment tools. Imagine being a classroom teacher in September who can actually hear how his or her students were reading in June the school year before.

5.________

You don’t need an iPod to make a Podcast. If you have a computer, a microphone, and some free software, you can make a Podcast. While an MP3 player is a popular and useful gadget, your audience doesn’t need MP3 players to listen, either: your students and their families can use the computer to play back what you’ve recorded.

短文改错(共10小题；每小题l分，满分l0分)

假如英语课上老师要求同学们交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的作文。文中共有十处语言错误，要求你在错误的地方增加、删除或修改某个词。

增加：在缺词处加上一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写上该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写上修改后的词。

注意：1.每处错误及修改均仅限一词；

          2.只允许修改十处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。

Dear Sir,

How are you? As a exchange student, I am writing to tell you I would prefer to move into a single room in next term, as I find it inconvenient to share a room with others. My roommate often held parties at night, made much noise. Besides, his friends are always visiting him, that disturbs me a lot. So I hope to draw your attentions to this problem. If you think in my position, I am sure he will agree that the only solution for me is get a room of my own, one not in the same building and as near to the school campus as possible. I would be gratefully if you could do me the favor.

Best wishes.

　　                                                       Yours sincerely,

　                                                   　        Li Ming

学校网站新开设了一个“英语写作”栏目(column)，以便学生发表(post)英语作文，进行交流，提高写作能力。现请你为该栏目写一个英文介绍，内容包括：

·开设目的

·栏目优势：教师在线(online)指导等

·作文要求：内容贴近学生生活

·优秀作文的鼓励办法

·邀请大家参与

注意：

1.词数100左右。

2.开头语已为你写好(不计入总词数)。

Welcome to the column “English Writing”!

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The police always take advantage of dogs’ ____ sense of smell to search for something.

A. sensitive     B. sharp  C. practical     D. tremendous

Jack, it’s ________ bad manners to blow your nose at ______ table.

A. the; a        B. the; / C. /; the D. /; /