Have you ever imagined yourself as a travel writer? Send us 500 words on your 2008 summer holiday，explaining what made it special—with as much detail as possible（place names，names of hotels／restaurants．what you especially enjoyed seeing and doing）．The best five entries，as chosen by our editors，will each win one of our five holiday prizes，and will be published in full in the Travel section of the Guardian（《卫报》）and on guardian.co.uk．

There are five categories（类别）and five different prizes which everyone can get．

Category：Activity，Adventure

Prize：a two-week campervan（野营车）holiday to New Zealand with Discover the world and Air New Zealand．Spend two weeks traveling in the country wherever the road takes you-from the beaches and cities of North Island to the beautiful scenery of the South Island．

Category：Family

Prize：A weekend in a tent for four people，staying on a private nature reserve（自然保护区）near Padstow，with Cornish Tent Holidays in connection with Neal's Yard Holidays．

Category：Beach

Prize：A trip for two to Damascus with Black Tomato，The prize includes return flights from London，a private guided tour of the city and four nights on the way．

Category：Camping

Prize：A pair of return flights for two to New York with STA Travel，including taxes．

Category：UK

Prize：A week of river cruising（乘船巡游）for two on a motorboat in Germany with European Boating Holidays．Visit the great lakes or travel in and around Berlin by river，and the trip includes return flights from London．

To enter the competition，send your entry to our website．Don't forget to tell us which of the five categories you are writing about，and include your name，address and telephone number．The deadline for entries is 11：59p．m．on Friday August 22，2008．

1．The purpose of the passage is to _______．

A．invite readers to travel abroad                    B．introduce holiday places to readers

C．ask readers to write articles on travel           D．help readers become writers

2．The underlined word entries in the first paragraph probably refers to “_______” ．

A．articles entered for a competition

B．words that are written by readers

C．editors，favorite readers

D．the best articles that wilt be popular soon

3．If you want to win a trip to New York，you should write something about _______．

A．family                  B．adventure             C．camping                 D．beach

4．_______ will arrange（安排）your trip if you win the prize for Category “Beach” ．

A．Cornish Tent Holidays                              B．Black Tomato

C．STA Travel                                               D．European Boating Holidays

5．You will go to _______ for a holiday if you win the prize for Category “UK”．

A．New Zealand        B．England               C．USA                      D．Germany

Roger Scott worked as a salesman in a department store. Like a lot of other young people, he didn’t like his    1    very much. One day he was    2   in the canteen (食堂)of the store with his girlfriend, Annie Davis. She worked there, too. “I’m going to find another job as soon as I    3  “. He said, “The pay isn’t very good and the work isn’t interesting, either. The worst thing with it is that I have to take orders from people like Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith was the manager of the store. Everybody was    4   afraid of him. He often walked around the store and always got very angry if he saw somebody who was not working. Sometimes there was really no work to do    5   people still tried to look busy.

While Roger was talking, Annie looked up and saw Mr. Smith    6  into the canteen. Roger was sitting near the door and Mr. Smith was just behind him. He could hear what Roger was telling. Annie didn’t know what to do. “I    7  Mr. Smith is even a very good manager.” Roger continued loudly. “   8  a man is a good manager, the people would   9  to work for him. I’m sure everyone here hates it! At least I am.” Annie saw Mr. Smith come closer. There was a very angry    10   on his face.

1.                A．friends         B．girlfriend        C．pay  D．job

 

2.                A．sit             B．ran            C．sitting    D．running

 

3.                A．may           B．can            C． need    D．must

 

4.                A．a few          B．a little          C．some     D．lots of

 

5.                A．and            B．or             C．but D．as

 

6.                A．coming         B．came           C．to come D．would come

 

7.                A．don’t think     B．know           C．don’t understand  D．think

 

8.                A．Although       B．Because        C．Even if   D．If

 

9.                A．loved          B．be like          C．like  D．better

 

10.               A．feeling         B．thinking        C．seeing D．look

 

 

New York is one of the last large American cities to have some of its policemen on horseback. The New York police have 170 horses working in certain parts of the city. The horses are expensive to feed, but it is even more expensive to look after them. Because the horses must walk on the streets, they need special horseshoes. In fact , they need more than 8,000 of them each year. Every police horse in New York gets new shoes every month. Keeping these shoes in good repair is the job of six blacksmiths. There are only about thirty-five of these blacksmiths in the whole United States.
The cost of shoing a horse is between twenty dollars and thirty-five dollars, and it takes a good blacksmith two or three hours to do the job.
A blacksmith’s job is not an easy one. He must be able to shape a shoe from a piece of metal and then fit it to the horse’s foot. The blacksmith must bend over all the time when he is fitting the shoe and must hold the weight of the horse’s leg while he works. Clearly, a blacksmith must be very storng. But even more important, he must be able to deal with horses---for before the blacksmith can begin his work, he has to get the horse to lift its leg.
One of the blacksmiths in New York is James Corbin. He came to the country from Ireland in 1948. He not only makes horseshoes for the police but also works for a group of horse owners near the city. Corbin became interested in blacksmithing because his father did it, and,as the puts it, “It’s a good way to make a living.”
【小题1】According to the reading passage, a blacksmith must be likely a______ man.

A．clever

B．rich

C．strong

D．lucky

【小题2】James Corbin became a blacksmith because he__________.

A．was interested in horses	B．was needed by the policemen
C．drew a picture of the horseshoe	D．had a make a living

【小题3】In the reading passage “to shape a shoe” is to__________.

A．fit it on the horse’s foot

B．use it for two or three hours

C．make the from of a horseshoe from a piece of metal

D．draw a picture of the shoe

【小题4】The best title for the passage is “__________”.

A．Policemen on Horseback	B．Blacksmiths and Horseshoeing
C．James Corbin, a Blacksmith	D．Horseshoeing is a Good Way to Make a Living

【小题5】Which of the following is true?

A．Only a few large American cities have some policemen on horseback.

B．New York is the only city in America to have some policemen on horseback.

C．Policemen on horseback enjoy travelling around the United States.

D．Policemen on horseback are less expensive than those in cars.

YUXI, China — Many people of this city in southwester China spent Saturday night in tents, too scared to sleep in their homes after an earthquake which killed 188 people early that morning.

Countless homes were destroyed and lots of people became homeless after the earthquake which is believed to have a magnitude of 7.

The quake was not as serious as the 7.9-magnitude earthquake in 2008 that left more than 70,000 people dead in the Wenchuan area. But villagers who work in Chengdu, about 100 miles away, hurried back home Sunday morning, many on foot, the lucky ones on motorbikes, to check on their homes.

Song Yuanqing, 43, a worker, arrived back after a 22-hour trip and found his house was still there but had already been very unstable(摇摇欲坠). “We would like to do something, but we can’t do anything,” Mr. Song said as he sat with neighbors around an outdoor fire built by the village leader in his backyard.

In all, the government sent about 7,000 soldiers and People’s Armed Police officers to the earthquake-hit area. By Saturday evening, there were so many rescue workers in the area that the government asked volunteers to stop coming.

Li Keqiang, China’s prime minister, flew to the area and slept in a tent on Saturday evening in Lushan County.

The earthquake shook Sichuan Province at 8 a.m., when people were getting up a little later than usual because schools and universities were closed.

“We were just getting up and getting dressed in our dormitory when the building shook, and I looked outside from our window and saw a row of houses had collapsed,” Xu Yan, 22, a student at the Agricultural University in Ya’an, said in a telephone interview. “I had never flew down the stairs faster.”

The Chinese government said early Sunday that the death toll was 174, and about 5,700 people had been injured.

The earthquake was also felt in Chengdu, one of China’s biggest cities and the capital of Sichuan Province. People described water getting out of home aquariums and things like balls falling to the floor.

In the town of Longmen, another hard-hit area near Ya’an, a local man, Zhang Yan, said 90 percent of the buildings had collapsed.

“About 100 people died around here,” Ms. Zhang said in a telephone interview. “Rescue teams have not yet arrived. There is no water or electricity.”

In the 2008 quake, many schools of poor quality collapsed and killed thousands of students. This time, many people also expressed their worries about students on their micro-blogs.

Sichuan Province is also one of China’s best-known hometowns for pandas, and at the Bifengxia reserve, about six miles north of Ya’an, workers said that 20 pandas in the park were safe. “We examined the panda area after the quake, and they were not affected,” said Chen Yong, an officer of the reserve.

1.When did the quake take place in Ya’an? On_______________________.

A．Saturday morning                       B．Sunday morning

C．Saturday night                          D．Sunday night

2.Why did many people hurriy home after the earthquake.

A．They wanted to provide rescue to the hit area and give other people a helping hand as volunteers.

B．They wanted to find out the situation of their home.

C．They felt it too dangerous to stay where they had been.

D．There weren’t enough soldiers in the hit-area.

3.What does the underlined sentence mean?

A．Xu Yan didn’t make it through the stairs.

B．Xu Yan get out of the dorm quickly.

C．Xu Yan felt the earthquake shaking the stair.

D．Xu Yan was scared that he wouldn’t be able to catch up with the stair.

4.Which of the following is NOT true.

A．Tens of thousands of students were killed in Ya’an.

B．The earthquake also influenced some other cities.

C．The government took very quick actions.

D．Most buildings has collapsed in Longmen.

5.Where would you most probably read this passage?

A．Reader.

B．A History of China’s Earthquakes

C．How to Survive(求生) in an Earthquake

D．China Weekly

 

I used to live in Kobe in Japan. On my way home on the bus every evening I used to look for an old man who often played his saxophone (萨克斯管) near the river. I couldn’t hear his music because the windows were closed on the bus but I imagined it to be loud and clear. I wanted to be like that man.

One night I went to Himeji, a city not far from Kobe. As I walked with my family along the river I saw a statue. It was a young man who looked just like me. He was wearing a cap and smiling. Around his neck was a leather strap (皮带) and in his hands was a saxophone. He was lifting the saxophone to his lips and he was just about to play. I stayed there for a long time by the statue dreaming of playing a saxophone on TV.

Two weeks later it was my birthday. Imagine my joy when I opened my present from my parents and found that it was a saxophone! I put it to my lips to play, but it wouldn’t make a sound. Then Dad told me to read the instruction book to find out what to do. After about 15 minutes the saxophone was ready to play. I raised it slowly to my lips as my family watched. But still there was no sound. I blew and blew but I couldn’t get the saxophone to play. I was almost crying when suddenly the saxophone made the most beautiful sound—loud and clear like I imagined the music of the man by the river in Kobe. I blew again, I moved my fingers on the saxophone and I made more sounds. I was happy because I was playing very interesting sounds. But I wasn’t playing music yet.

Then came the lessons. Night after night, week after week my teacher made me practice. Slowly I started to improve and at last there came the magic day when I started to play music. Now I’m in the TV studio with my saxophone strapped to my neck and my cap on my head. I’m always thinking of the man by the river in Kobe and the statue smiling at me in Himeiji. I’m a happy man.

1.On the bus, the writer couldn’t ________.

A．find an old man with a saxophone           B．see a river

C．hear the old man’s music                D．imagine the sound

2.The statue along the river made the writer think of ________.

A．having a saxophone

B．the old man near the river

C．having a cap and a saxophone as the boy

D．playing the saxophone on TV

3.The writer could get the saxophone to play ________.

A．as soon as he got it

B．after he read the instruction

C．after he tried many times

D．after his father taught him

4.What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．The magic day.                         B．My birthday present.

C．The old man and the statue.               D．My dream of playing saxophone.