When friends come to visit us in the evening, they spend their time telling us they are in a hurry and looking at their watches. It isn’t that our friends are all very busy, it is just that we haven’t got a television. People think that we are very strange. “But what do you do in the evening?”，they are always asking. The answer is very simple. Both my wife and I have hobbies. We certainly don’t spend our evenings staring at the walls. My wife enjoys cooking and painting and often attends evening classes in foreign languages. This is particularly useful as we often go abroad for our holidays. I collect stamps and I’m always busy with my collection. Both of us enjoy listening to the music and playing chess together.

   Sometimes there are power cuts and we have no electricity in the house. This does not worry us, we just light candles and carry on with what we were doing before. Our friends, however, are lost---no television!---So they don’t know what to do. On such evenings our house is very full ---they all come to us. They all have a good time. Instead of sitting in silence in front of the television, everybody talks and plays games.

The couple have not got a television, because     .

      A. they are not rich enough         

       B. they are strange people

      C. they enjoy spending evenings in their own ways

      D. they don’t know what to do when there are power cuts

Both of them are interested in     .

       A. learning languages  B. traveling 

       C. staying home alone                D. watching people play games

At night when there is no electricity, the couple       .

       A. have to stare at the walls B. can do nothing but sit in silence

       C. will have many visitors  D. have to go out for candles

The best title for this passage is _____.

       A. Why Do We Need a Television?      B. Candle! But No Electricity!

       C. Different Friends, Different Hobbies.  D. We Go Without Televisions!

Most shops in Britain open at 9:00 am, and close at 5:00 or 5:30 in the evening. Small shops usually close for an hour at lunchtime. On one or two days a week—usually Thursday and/or Friday—some large food shops stay open until about 8:00 pm for late night shopping.

Many shops are closed in the afternoon on one day a week. The day is usually Wednesday or Thursday and it is a different day in different towns.

Nearly all shops are closed on Sundays. Newspaper shops are open in the morning, and sell sweets and cigarettes as well. But not all the things can be sold on Sundays.

Usually it is not difficult for foreign visitors to find where to buy things. Most shops sell the things that you want to buy. One problem is stamps. In Britain you can only buy these at post offices. Many large food shops are self-service. When you go into one of these shops, you take a basket and you put the things you wish to buy into this. You pay for everything just before you leave. If anyone tries to take things from a shop without paying they are almost certain to be caught, because most shops have detectives.

When you are waiting to be served in a shop, it is important not try to be served before people who arrive before you. Many foreign people are surprised at the British way of queuing (排队).

1.Most shops in Britain stay open for about ______ a day.

A. eight hours    B. five hours    C. ten hours    D. six hours

2. According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true?  

A. Some large food shops open for about 11 hours on Thursday or Friday.

B. Many shops are closed in the afternoon once a week on Tuesday.

C. Only a few things can be bought on Sundays.

D. It is not difficult for foreign visitors to buy things in Britain.

3.You can not buy ______ in shops.  

A. cigarette.      B. sweets.     C. stamps.     D. clothes.

4.Which of the following statements is TRUE?  

A. Most shops usually close for an hour at lunchtime.

B. Many large shops are self-service.

C. Most shops have detectives.

 D. People do not have to queue to be served.

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

A. Shops in Britain

B. How to buy things in Britain?

C. The British Way of Queuing

D. How long are the British shops?

 

_______ a post office, I stopped _______ some stamps.　

A．Passed, buying

B．Passing, to buy

C．Having passed, buy

D．Pass, to buy

 

阅读下面的短文，然后按照要求写一篇150词左右的英语短文。

The Nigerian postal service has witnessed a reduction in the number of letters sent, especially by individuals, due to the alternatives of email and text.

“People prefer these over letters, because of the speed, although letters serve many purposes, other than conveying of messages", said Barry Varley Tipton, principal of Cherry Field College.

But some people think that the vanishing(逐渐消失的) art of letter writing has grave (严重的) consequences for students, teachers, the economy, society and the beauty of reading from loved ones, because letters in those days usually had a variety of styles .

A lover of letters writing, Hajiya Aisha refers to the occasions she has seen people enraged, because their connections at a cyber cafe took 56 seconds rather than the usual 36 hours. She says, “Although letters are slow, waiting for something good is not wholly a bad thing. Nothing beats a hand written letter.”

"When I was a graduate studying overseas twenty five years ago, my mother wrote to me daily. It was wonderful to receive those letters. They often said nothing more than everyone was thinking of me. I continue this tradition with several friends who are scattered worldwide. Hand written letters show the love that we have for family and friends. Email cannot replace the smile of actually getting the letter. The warm, sincere thank- you note, or the sweetly scented love letter we usually received and sent in those days is irreplaceable" she said.

Will electronic age stamps replace letters? Hopefully not, since it takes with it a culture rich in colour, history, and communication. Letters, like bits of ourselves, deserve to be stored away for future readers, giving them insight into details as small as the price and pattern of stamps, and as great as personal insights exchanged long ago.

【写作内容】

       1. 以约30词概括以上短文的主要内容：

       2. 然后以约120个词以“Will written letters die out ?”为主题写一篇短文，并包括如下要点：

       (1)有些人认为用手机收发短信和用因特网收发邮件更加方便快捷，写信很费时间

       (2)有些人喜欢和朋友或家人写信

       (3)你的观点

【写作要求】

       1. 你可以使用实例或其他论述方法支持你的论点，也可以参照阅读材料的内容，但不得直接引用阅读材料中的句子

2. 作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称

【评分标准】

       概括准确、语言规范、内容合适，篇章连贯。  (请在答题纸上作答)

Which is sillier: denying we ever went to the moon or trying to convince the true nonbelievers?
Once upon a time – July 20, 1969, to be specific – two men got out of their little spaceship and wandered around on the moon for a while. Ten more men walked on the moon over the next three and a half years. The end.
Unfortunately, not quite. A fair number of Americans think that this whole business of moon landings really is a fairy tale. They believe that the landings were a big hoax (骗局) staged in the Mojave Desert, to convince everyone that U.S. technology was the “bestest” in the whole wide world.
Which is the harder thing to do: Send men to the moon or make believe we did? The fact is the physics behind sending people to the moon is simple. You can do it with computers whose entire memory capacities can now fit on chips the size of postage stamps and that cost about as much as, well, a postage stamp. I know you can because we did.
However, last fall NASA considered spending $15,000 on a public-relations campaign to convince the unimpressed that Americans had in fact gone to the moon. That idea was mostly a reaction to a Fox television program, first aired in February 2001, that claimed to expose the hoax. The show’s creator is a publicity hound (猎狗) who has lived up to the name in more ways than one by hounding Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. Mr. X (as I will call him, thereby denying him the joyous sight of his name in print) recently followed Buzz Aldrin around and called him “a thief, liar and coward” until the 72-year-old astronaut finally lost it and hit the 37-year-old Mr. X in the face.
Anyway, NASA’s publicity campaign began to slow down. The nonbelievers took the campaign as NASA’s effort to hide something while the believers said that $15,000 to convince people that the world was round — I mean, that we had gone to the moon — was simply a waste of money. (Actually, the $15,000 was supposed to pay for an article by James E. Oberg, an astronomy writer who, with Aldrin, has contributed to Scientific American.)
If NASA’s not paying Oberg, perhaps it could put the money to good use by hiring two big guys to drag Neil Armstrong out of the house. Armstrong is an extremely private man, but he is also the first man on the moon, so maybe he has a duty to be a bit more outspoken about the experience. Or NASA could just buy Aldrin a commemorate plaque (纪念匾) for his recent touch on the face of Mr. X.
【小题1】We can learn from Paragraphs 2 and 3 that some Americans believe _______.

A．moon landings were invented

B．U.S. technology was the best

C．moon landing ended successfully

D．the Mojave Desert was the launching base

【小题2】According to the writer, which of the following is to blame for the story about the hoax?

A．NASA’s publicity campaign.	B．The Fox television program.
C．Buzz Aldrin.	D．James E. Oberg.

【小题3】According to the writer, Mr. X _______.

A．told a faithful story	B．was not treated properly
C．was a talented creator	D．had a bad reputation

【小题4】The believers think that NASA’s publicity campaign is ________.

A．proof to hide the truth

B．stupid and unnecessary

C．needed to convince the non-believers

D．important to develop space technology

【小题5】The tone of the article is _______.

A．angry

B．conversational

C．humorous

D．matter-of-fact