When you put down your pens at the end of the college entrance exam, 12 hard years of study will have come to an end. Forget your studies for a while. It’s time to enjoy yourselves!
There are many ways to celebrate this special month of graduation. You can have photos taken with your classmates and teachers, or dine out together and exchange gifts.
High school students in western countries such as the United States and Canada usually have party to mark their graduation. It’s to mark the time when kids turn into young men and women. After the party, teenagers either go to college or find a job. It means they will no longer depend on their parents as before.
As the party, boys usually dress in dinner jackets and bow ties, though many different types of formal clothes are worn. Girls traditionally wear formal dresses, or dress to shock or be noticed, in shiny or brightly colored materials.
Common party activities include dining, dancing, the crowing(加冕)of a ball king and queen, and just talking to friends. In some cases, high school students collect funds for their class party through the four years of their high school.
High schools in or near large cities may rent big rooms at expensive hotels or，to be unusual, on a pleasure boat．But often costs are out by simply using the school gym．Students make a lot of effort to decorate the gym to make the event special．The music played at the party will be the most popular kinds，like rock and hip-hop．
Sometimes teachers and parents also go to the party，but others like to go with friends，to whom they are soon going to say goodbye．
【小题1】The writer’s purpose in writing this passage is to         ．

第二节：读写任务（共1小题，满分25分）
阅读下面短文，然后按照要求写一篇150字左右的英语短文。
Life is filled with challenges. As we get older we come to realize that those challenges are the very things that shape us and make us who we are, it is the same with the challenges that come with friendship.
When we are faced with a challenge, we usually have two choices: we can try to beat if off, or we can decide that the thing presenting the challenges isn’t worth the trouble and call it quits. Although there are certainly times when calling it quits is the right thing to do, in most cases all that is needed is commitment and communication.
When we are committed to something, it means that no matter how painful or how uncomfortable something is, we will always choose to face it and work through instead of running away from it. Communication is making a space for discussion and talking about how you feel as opposed to just saying what the other person did wrong. If you can say to a friend, “I got my feelings hurt.” rather than “You hurt my feelings.” You are going to be able to solve the problem much faster.
In dealing with many challenges that friendship will bring to you, try to see them for what they are: small hurdles you need to jump or get through on your way through life. Nothing is so big that it is impossible to get over, and hurt only serves to make us stronger. It’s all part of growing up. It happens to everyone, and some day you will look back on all of this and say, “Hard as it was, it made me who I am today. And that’s a good thing.”
［写作内容］
以约30个词概括短文的要点；
然后以约120个词就“在生活或学习中如何面对挑战”这个主题发表看法，并包括如下要点：
①   在生活或学习上，你曾经遇到过什么比较大的挑战？
②   你是如何面对这个挑战的？你成功了吗？
③   对你面对挑战的经历，你有何感悟？
［写作要求］
1）可以使用实例或其他论述方法支持你的观点，也可以参照阅读材料的内容，
但不得直接引用原文中的句子；2）题目自拟。
［评分标准］      概括准确，语言规范，内容合适，篇章连贯。

第二部分：阅读理解（第一节20小题, 第二节5小题；每小题2分, 满分50分）
第一节：阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题纸上将该选项标号涂黑。
A
Nate suffered a hard blow when he lost his job. His boss had spoken rudely, “Your services are no longer needed.” Nate left the building filled with despair. By the time he reached home, he was in a deep depression. When he entered his house, he blurted out to his wife Sophia, “I lost my job. I am a complete, utter failure.” A tense silence followed. Then a smile crept across Sophia’s face. “What great news!” she responded.
“Now you can write the book you have always wanted to write.”
“But I have no job and no prospect of a job,” YC he objected, completely without hope. “If I struggle to be an author, then what will we live on? Where will the money come from?” Sophia took her husband by the hand and led him to the kitchen. Opening a drawer, she took out a box that was full of cash. “Where on earth did you get this?” Nate gasped. “To whom does it belong?”
“It’s ours!” Sophia replied. “I always knew that one day you would become a great writer if only you were given the chance. From the money you gave me for housekeeping every week, I have saved as much as I could so you would have your chance. Now there is enough to last us a whole year.”
What a surprise! What encouragement! What a wife! The unemployed husband did concentrate on writing that year, and the novel he wrote became a literary masterpiece. The book is The Scarlet Letter. Sophia had an even greater achievement, and she turned Nathaniel Hawthorne from a poor clerk into a world famous master.   
41．Which of the following can be inferred from the first paragraph?
A．Sophia was very disappointed to hear the news  
B．Nate was too sad to speak any more
C．Sophia was thinking of how to encourage Nate  
D．Neither husband nor wife had any idea what to do
42．Sophia saved money because ______.
A．she knew her husband would lose his job one day  
B．she knew their life would be in difficulty
C．she was very careful with money  
D．she was trying to help her husband in every possible way
43．From the passage we can know that Sophia was ______.
A．kind and brave                                    B．careful and encouraging
C．friendly and warm-hearted                    D．honest and determined
44．What would be the best title for the passage?
A．Sophia’s Achievement.                        B．A great writer’s struggle to success.
C．Great encouragement in hard times.      D．Failure is the mother of success.

When I first began to work with international students, I asked someone at a lunch, “What brings you here today?” Looking at me like I was a bit crazy, he answered, “ The bus.” That was my first realization that no matter how good a speaker is, there are phrases that will always tend to cause confusion to non-native speakers. These idiomatic phrases(惯用语) add color and interest to any language and are worth learning if you want to talk fluently with native speakers.
“By no stretch”----The speaker is referring to something that’s very hard to achieve or realize, even with great effort, as in “It was not a good meal, by any stretch of the imagination.” Which means that ______________.
“Half dead”----An expression of extreme tiredness, having nothing to do with actual health. Commonly used at the end of a long and tiring day.
“By the book”----This means that an action should follow the rules exactly. It also describes the nature of someone who won’t deviate(背离) from a set of rules no matter what the situation is.
“More power to you”----This isn’t a wish for you to have better electricity from the power company----it’s a statement, usually slightly ironic(讽刺的), that the speaker thinks that you are unlikely to do a task, but you should try if you think you can complete it. It generally means the speaker has no intention of helping you achieve your goal neither will they discourage you from attempting to reach it. For example, “I don’t think you can meet that deadline, but more power to you.”
“As easy as pie”----A reference that something is as simple or easy as eating a delicious dessert, or that it requires little effort to successfully achieve. In chatting, this phrase does not refer to the process of cooking or eating.
【小题1】The example given by the author in the first paragraph is used to show__________.

Koalas are pictured everywhere in Australia-on cleaning products, on “boxes of chocolate, on sports team shirts. Yet the animals live only in pockets along the east coast.
They once inhabited the entire coastline. The koala population dropped after farmers cut down many of the forests where koalas lived, and hunters killed the animals for their fur.
By the early 1900s, “koalas were basically shot out of south Australia,” says ecologist Bill Ellis, who studies the relationships among living things and their environments.
I recently joined Ellis and his team in a forest on St Bees Is land, 19 miles off the northeastern coast of Australia, with eight other volunteers. The island is a natural laboratory, yielding findings that may help protect koalas elsewhere on the continent.
The volunteers searched the island for koalas in the blue gum trees. When we found a koala, we gathered information about the trees in the area.
Blue gum is a species of the eucalyptus tree in which the funny leaf eaters spend most of their time. Eucalyptus trees are native to Australia, and their leaves are the main food source for koalas. Although koalas can walk on the ground, they are better suited for life in the canopy, the high cover of branches and leaves in a forest.
What has Ellis’s research told him so far? The population of St Bees seems to be healthy. Yet Ellis wonders whether the koalas might be heading for hard times. The island is overrun with wild goats, and Ellis thinks the goats are eating the small blue gum trees.
Without those trees, the koalas will run out of food in the future. Ellis hopes more research will help him understand how to protect the blue gum trees-and the koalas that depend on them. “I think that’s what everyone is trying to do-to make a difference.” Ellis says.
59. It can be inferred from the first paragraph that     .
A. koalas’ pictures can be found everywhere in the world
B. koalas in Australia like to eat chocolate
C. only in the east coast of Australia can you find koalas
D. you can buy the pictures of koalas only in the east coast of Australia
60. Which of the following is TRUE about koalas?
A. They usually hide in a cave.     B. They feed on the leaves of blue gum trees.
C. They prefer to walk on the ground.  D. They don’t adapt to the high cover of branches.
61. What will Ellis most probably start to do next?
A. To keep the population of St Bees healthy.
B. To kill all the goats on the island.
C. To find some new foods for goats.
D. To protect blue gum trees for koalas.
62. The purpose of writing this passage is to      .
A. expect people to concern about the life of koalas
B. record trip to Australia for watching koalas
C. present some basic knowledge of koalas’ life
D. introduce the ecosystem of wildlife in Australia