In meditation(冥想),people sit quietly and focus their attention on their breath.As they breathe in and out,they attend to their feelings.As thoughts go through their minds,they let them go.Breathe.Let go.Breathe.Let go.

According to a recent study at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre,Massachusetts,three months of training in this kind of meditation causes a marked change in how the brain allocates(分配)attention.It appears that the ability to let go thoughts that come into mind frees the brain to attend to more rapidly changing things and events in the outside world.Expert meditators are better than other people at catching such fast-changing stimuli(刺激),like facial expressions.

The study provides evidence for changes in the workings of the brain with mental training.People can learn and improve abilities of all sorts with practice,everything from driving to playing the piano.The study has shown that meditating is good for the brain.It appears to reduce pressure and promote a sense of well-being.

In an experiment,17 volunteers with no meditation experience in the experimental group spent three months meditating 10 to 12 hours a day.A control group also with no meditation experience meditated for 20 minutes a day over the same period.Both groups were then given the tests with two numbers in a group of letters.As both groups looked for the numbers,their brain activity was recorded.

Everyone could catch the first number.But the brain recordings showed that the less experienced meditators tended to grasp the first number and hang onto it,so they missed the second number.Those with more experience gave less attention to the first number,as if letting it go,which led to an increased ability to grasp the second number.This shows that attention can change with practice.

Just ask Daniel Levsion,who meditated for three months as part of the study.“I’m a much better listener,”he said.“I don’t get lost in my own personal reaction to what people are saying.”

1.The underlined word“them”in Paragraph 1 refers to         .

A.feelings          B.minds             C.people                D.thoughts

2.Meditators manage their daily tasks better because they         .

A.are given less pressure

B.allocate their attention better

C.have more stimuli for life

D.practice them more frequently

3.In the experiment,volunteers doing meditation for longer hours         .

A.were more likely to catch both of the numbers

B.were used to memorizing numbers in groups

C.usually ignored the first number observed

D.paid more attention to numbers than to letters

4.The study proves that         .

A.meditation improves one’s health

B.brain activity can be recorded

C.human attention can be trained

D.meditators have a good sense of hearing

阅读下列短文, 从每题所给的选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卷上将该项涂黑。
D
Around the globe, the tourist trade is booming and you are promised to enjoy all the comfort and convenience of modern tourism. The first-class systems of communication by air, sea and land make it possible for us to visit each other’s countries at a moderate cost. What was once the ‘grand tour’, reserved for only the very rich, is now within most people’s grasp. The package tour and chartered flights (包机) are quite popular to us. Modern travelers enjoy a level of comfort which those on grand tours in the old days couldn’t have dreamed of. With all this coming and going, you would expect greater understanding to develop between the nations of the world. Not a bit of it! So what’s the sense of this mass exchange of populations if the nations of the world remain basically ignorant of each other? So there is a great misdirection in tourist business, especially in conducted tour items.
Many tourist organizations are directly responsible for this state of affairs. They purposely set out to “protect” their passengers from too much contact with the local population. Modern tourists lead a protected and separated life. They live at international hotels, where they eats their international food and sips their international drink while gazing at the natives from a distance. Designed tours to places of interest are carefully arranged. The tourists are allowed to see only what the organizers want them to see and no more. A strict schedule makes it impossible for the tourists to wander off on their own; and anyway, language is always a barrier, so they might only be too happy to be protected in this way.
At its very worst, this merely leads to a new and terrible kind of colonization. The sad thing about this situation is that it leads to the persistence of certain old ideas of other nations and countries. We don’t see the people of other nations as they really are, but as we have been brought up to believe what they are, even staying along with that from text books during our schooling.
You can test this for yourself. Take five nationalities, say, French, German, English, American and Italian. Now in your mind, match them with these five adjectives: musical, emotional, cold, pedantic (爱追究的), native. Far from providing us with any insight into the national characteristics of the peoples just mentioned, these adjectives just actually act as barriers, for we can’t do the job with certainty. So, frequently, when you set out on your travels, the only characteristics you notice are those which confirm what you have already obtained as the first conceptions in your mind. And you get home only with the highly unoriginal and inaccurate impression, such as the saying, “Anglo-Saxons are hypocrites (伪君子)” and “Latin peoples shout a lot ”. However, to gain the real understanding, you only have to make a few foreign friends and you will know how ridiculousridiculous ridiculous ridiculous and harmful some old conceptions of other nations are. But how can you make foreign friends when the tourist trade does its best to prevent you?
Being carried to an extreme, stereotypes can be positively dangerous. A very wild and limited outlook may stir up racial hatred and blind us to the basic fact — how reasonless it sounds! – that all people are human. We are all similar to each other, while at the same time all unique.
【小题1】What does “grand tour” bring people now?

A．tourism does little to increase understanding between nations

B．tourism is terrible without the work of the tourist organizations

C．conducted tour is so dull that nobody wants to accept it now

D．tourism really does something wonderful to many countries

B

To master a language one must be able to speak and understand the spoken language as well as to read and write. Lenin and his wife Krupskaya translated a long English book into Russian. But when they went to England in 1902, English people couldn’t understand a word they said and they couldn’t understand what was said to them. These days more and more foreigners are coming to China and more Chinese are going out to foreign countries to work or study. So the spoken language is becoming more and more important.

Speaking, of course, can’t go without listening. If you want to pronounce a word correctly, first you must hear it correctly. The sounds of the Chinese and English languages are not exactly the same. If you don’t listen carefully, you’ll find it difficult or even impossible to understand the native speakers.

Well, what about writing? Like speaking, it’s to cachange ideas. People generally use shorter words and shorter sentences in their writing. The important thing is to make your idea clear in you head and then to write it in clear lively language.

Chinese students read far too slowly. If you read fast, you understand better. If you read too slowly, by the time you have reached the end of a page you have forgotten what the beginning is about. When you meet with new words, don’t look them up in the dictionary. Guess the meaning from the context(上下文). You may not guess quite correctly the first time, but as new words come up again and again in different contexts, their meaning will become clearer and clearer. If you look up every word, you’ll never finish a book.

students of a foreign language need a particular knowledge, the knowledge of the life, history and geography of the people whose language they are studying. They should study these subjects in the foreign language, not only in translation. In this way one can kill two birds with one stone: learn a foreign language and get some knowledge of the foreign country at the same time.

45. How many points are there in the passage?

A. Two.              B. Three.             C. Four.             D. Five.

46. In his first point the writer told us ________.

A. how to speak English                B. how to read and write

C. why spoken english is important        D. why English people couldn’t understand Lenin

47. In the fourth paragraph the writer gave some advice on ________.

A. how to read faster             

B. how to guess the meaning of new words from the context

C. how to look up new words in the dictionary 

D. how to grasp the general meaning of a passage

48. “one can kill two birds with one stone” means ________.

A. getting some knowledge of a country while learning its language

B. getting more than what one wants

C. the stone is too big                      

D. the birds are blind enough

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 arrival of World Book and Copyright Day always draws public attention to young people's reading, but mere temporary attention cannot increase the popularity of reading. The lack of reading books is becoming an increasingly severe problem in China. 
According to a survey by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Shanghai residents read most in China, with only eight books read a year on average. About 1.3 billion Chinese people read less than one book every year, if textbooks are not taken into account. 
Nowadays, children's spare time is occupied by attending various tutorial classes, taking exam preparation training, and learning piano, painting, dancing, weiqi, or other techniques. 
"Childhood is a good period for reading literature. Reading can wake up the true nature of children, and good education should fit children's nature," said Zhou Yimin, who is also a teacher. 
Scholars are also worried about another adverse impact of the lack of reading. "If a child had never read a book from beginning to end before the fourth grade, he or she may lack the ability to read an entire book," said Jiang Junjing, an experienced teacher. What is worse, it may result in a lack of the ability to grasp the whole situation. Children who lacked the ability to read an entire book in childhood may end up being unable to grasp the whole picture or manage the whole team when they grow up.
【写作内容】
1.    以约30个词概括短文的要点。
2.    以约120词表达你就 “阅读书籍”发表看法，并要包括下列要点：
（1）你认为阅读书籍重要吗？为什么？
（2）请举例说明你的观点。
【写作要求】
1.    作文中你可以使用自己的亲身经历或虚构的故事，也可以参照阅读材料的内容，但不能直接引用原文中的句子。
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。

If you want to learn anything at school, you need to listen to your teachers. Unfortunately, millions of kids can’t hear what their teachers are saying. And it’s not because these students are goofing off. Often, it’s the room’s fault. Building architecture and building design can create echo(回声)-filled classrooms that make hearing difficult.

Children with hearing impairments（损伤）suffer most from noisy classrooms. They sometimes can’t hear questions that other students ask in class. Compared with kids with healthy hearing, they have a harder time picking up new vocabulary words by hearing them in talking.

Even kids with normal hearing have a harder time in the classroom when there’s too much noise. Younger children in particular have trouble separating important sounds – like a teacher’s voice – from background noise. Kids with learning disabilities and speech impediments（障碍）and kids for whom English is a second language also have a harder time learning in noisy situations.

In recent years, scientists who study sound have been asking schools to reduce background noise, which may include loud air-conditioners and pipes. They’re also targeting outdoor noises, such as highway traffic. Noise reduction is a big deal. Why? Because quieter classrooms might make you smarter by letting you hear your lessons better.

“It’s so obvious that we should have quiet rooms that allow for access to the lesson,” says Dan Ostergren, a hearing scientist. “Sometimes it surprises me that we spend so much time discussing this topic. I just want to go. Why is this hard for anyone to grasp?”

The underlined part “goofing off” in the first paragraph can be replaced by “      ”.

A. lazy                  B. intelligent                 C. sleepy               D. foolish

Who is most affected by noisy classrooms?

A. Children with learning disabilities.          B. Children with hearing impairments.

C. Children with speech impediments.         D. Children with normal hearing.

Why should noise be reduced in classrooms?

A. Quiet classrooms are suitable for kids to have discussions.

B. Quiet classrooms help kids recover from hearing impairments.

C. Kids can become smarter after hearing lessons better.

D. Kids can’t separate sounds of air-conditioners and pipes.

What would be the best title for the passage?

A. Noisy classrooms                                  B. Classroom design

C. The sense of hearing                              D. Disabled kids