Section B

Directions: For each blank in the following passage there are 4 words or phrases marked A, B, C and D. Fill in each blank with a word or phrase that best fits the context.

About 200 students were having a final exam in a huge lecture hall. Obviously the teacher wasn’t very well liked, who kept shouting out how much time was left. During the exam he was so  36   going around the room making sure that nobody cheated . He asked the students to pile the completed tests on the huge desk. This made for quite a mess (混乱).

    Anyway, everyone needed a fairly good  37  . Many students did poorly when rushed. One of the students thought that he must get a good grade, so he went on when the professor said “  38  down and hand in your exam sheets”.

Five minutes turned into ten, ten into twenty, twenty into forty…almost an hour   39    the test was over, our friend finally put down his pencil, gather up his work, and headed to the front to present his final. The whole time, the professor sat there, strangely waiting for the student to complete.

“What do you think you are doing?” It was clear that the professor had  40  only to give the student a  41   time.

“Turning in my exam,” replied the student confidently.

“I’m afraid I have some bad  42   for you,”the professor gloated(幸灾乐祸),“Your exam is an hour late. You’ve FAILED it. And I’ll see you next term when you  43   my course.”

The student smiled slyly(狡诈地) and asked the professor,“Do you know who I am?” “No,”cried out the professor   44  .

The student   45  the professor right in the eyes and said slowly, “I didn’t think so,” so he lifted up one of the   46   half way, put his test neatly into the center of the pile, let the pile fall  47  his test in the middle, turned around, and walked out of the huge lecture hall.

36．A．kind                       B．busy                       C．strict                      D．serious

37．A．teacher                   B．friend                     C．grade                      D．paper

38．A．pencils                   B．papers                    C．hands                     D．books

39．A．if                           B．though                    C．before                    D．after

40．A．promised                B．managed                 C．waited                    D．worked

41．A．easy                       B．hard                       C．long                       D．good

42．A．information            B．result                      C．advice                    D．news

43．A．accept                    B．repeat                     C．learn                      D．begin

44．A．cruelly                   B．warmly                   C．angrily                   D．firmly

45．A．searched                 B．hit                          C．blamed                   D．looked

46．A．hands                     B．eyes                       C．desks                      D．piles

47．A．changing                B．burying                  C．improving               D．sticking

D
Having too much confidence is not good. And now, a new study has proved this by finding that overconfident teenage students can stunt crucial（决定性的）reading skills.
The study shows a clear connection between overconfident students and low reading comprehension.
“While some self-confidence is helpful, overconfident 15-year-olds are often below-average (平均水平) readers in all 34 countries we studied, ” says Ming Ming Chiu, the lead author of the study.
“In contrast, under-confident 15-year-olds are more likely to be above-average readers in all 34 countries, ”the expert added.
The difference lies in a student’s ability to exactly assess (估计) and evaluate his or her own reading level, according to Chiu. Those who can accurately assess their strengths and weaknesses are usually in a better position to identify realistic goals and achieve them.
“If an overconfident student chooses a book that is too hard—such as The Lord of the Rings rather than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone—he or she might stop reading after a few pages and let it sit on a bookshelf,”says Chiu.
“In contrast, a more self-aware student is more likely to finish an easier book and continue reading more books, ”the expert added.
67．The underlined word “stunt” in Paragraph 1 can be replaced by          .
A. improve                   B. help                         C. prevent                    D. find
68．Which of the following is true?
A. Under-confident 15-year-olds are less likely to be above-average readers.
B. Overconfident 15-year-olds are often below-average readers.  
C. Under-confident 15-year-olds are more likely to be below average readers.
D. Overconfident 15-year-olds are often above-average readers.
69．People who can exactly assess their strengths and weaknesses can          .
A. choose a better book                                     B. gain more money
C. have realistic goals and achieve them              D. have a great improvement in their marks
70．A more self-aware student is more likely to          .
A. stop reading after a few pages                       B. put the book on a bookshelf
C. finish an easier book                                     D. write books

   Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had looked into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of the book,” thought Alice, “without pictures and conversations?”

So she was considering in her own mind whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain(雏菊花环) would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a white rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; but when the rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit- hole under the bush.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? “I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think. I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. ‘Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?’ And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask.”

Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, when suddenly, thump! thump! Down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

1.What kind of books do you think will interest Alice most?

2.Which of the following is true?

3.Which is the right order of the story?

a. Alice jumped into a large hole.

b. A white rabbit ran close by her.

c. Alice sat by her sister, doing nothing.

d. She fell upon some sticks and dry leaves.

4. From the passage, we can see Alice is a(n)________girl.

5. The following paragraph “In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.” can be put between_________.

There are several ways you can find out about the countries and places you wish to visit. You can talk to friends who have travelled to the places. Or you can go and see a colour film. Or you can read travel books.

It would seem that there are three kinds of travel books. The first are those that give a personal, subjective(主观的) account of travels which the author has actually made himself. if they are informative and have a good index(索引), then they can be useful to you when you are planning your travels. The second kind are those books whose purpose is to give a purely objective(客观的) description of things to be done and seen. If a well-read, cultured person has written such a book, then it is even more useful. It can be sorted as a selected guide book. The third kind are those books which are called “a guide” to some place or other. If they are good, they will, in addition to their factual information, give an analysis or an explanation. Like the first kind they can be inspiring and interesting. But their basic purpose is to help the reader who wishes to plan in the most practical way.

Whatever kind of travel book you choose you must make sure that it does not describe everything as “wonderful”, “excellent” or “magical”. You must also note its date of publication because travel is a very practical affair and many things change quickly in the twenty-first century. Finally, you should make sure that the contents are well presented and easy to find.

This passage is about _______.

A. how to travel                          B. how to buy travel books

C. how to read a travel book         D. travel books

The following travel books may be of use when you plan your travels except _______.

A. the book written by some people who have had the same travel experience themselves

B. the book which tells you what is worth doing and seeing based on the facts

C. the book in which a lot of big adjectives are used to draw your attention

D. the book which offers you a lot of useful information like a tour guide

The date of the publication must be noticed because _______.

A. the world is changing and so are the places you are going to visit

B. the price of the book is always changing

C. the author of the book may be different

D. the contents of the book are always the same

When I was fourteen, I earned money in the summer by cutting lawns（草坪）, and within a few weeks I had built up a body of customers. I got to know people by the flowers they planted that I had to remember not to cut down, by the things they lost in the grass or struck in the ground on purpose. I reached the point with most of them when I knew in advance what complaint was about to be spoken, which request was most important. And I learned something about the measure of my neighbors by their preferred method of payment: by the job, by the month—or not at all.

Mr. Ballou fell into the last category, and he always had a reason why. On one day, he had no change for a fifty, on another he was flat out of checks, on another, he was simply out when I knocked on his door. Still, except for the money apart, he was a nice enough guy, always waving or tipping his hat when he’d seen me from a distance. I figured him for a thin retirement check, maybe a work-related injury that kept him from doing his own yard work. Sure, I kept track of the total, but I didn’t worry about the amount too much. Grass was grass, and the little that Mr. Ballou’s property comprised didn’t take long to trim (修剪).

Then, one late afternoon in mid-July, the hottest time of the year, I was walking by his house and he opened the door, mentioned me to come inside. The hall was cool, shaded, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the dim light. 

“I owe you,” Mr Ballou said, “but…”

I thought I’d save him the trouble of thinking of a new excuse. “No problem. Don’t worry about it.”

“The bank made a mistake in my account,” he continued, ignoring my words. “It will be cleared up in a day or two. But in the meantime I thought perhaps you could choose one or two volumes for a down payment.

He gestured toward the walls and I saw that books were stacked (堆放) everywhere. It was like a library, except with no order to the arrangement.

“Take your time,” Mr. Ballou encouraged. “Read, borrow, keep, or find something you like. What do you read?”

“I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I generally read what was in front of me, what I could get from the paperback stack at the drugstore, what I found at the library, magazines, the back of cereal boxes, comics. The idea of consciously seeking out a special title was new to me, but, I realized, not without appeal--- so I started to look through the piles of books.

“You actually read all of these?”

“This isn’t much,” Mr. Ballou said. “This is nothing, just what I’ve kept, the ones worth looking at a second time.”

“Pick for me, then.”

He raised his eyebrows, cocked his head, and regarded me as though measuring me for a suit. After a moment, he nodded, searched through a stack, and handed me a dark red hardbound book, fairly thick.

“The Last of the Just,” I read. “By Andre Schwarz-Bart. What’s it about?”

“You tell me,” he said. “Next week.”

I started after supper, sitting outdoors on an uncomfortable kitchen chair. Within a few pages, the yard, the summer, disappeared, and I was plunged into the aching tragedy of the Holocaust, the extraordinary clash of good, represented by one decent man, and evil. Translated from French, the language was elegant, simple, impossible to resist. When the evening light finally failed I moved inside, read all through the night.

To this day, thirty years later, I vividly remember the experience. It was my first voluntary encounter with world literature, and I was amazed by the concentrated power a novel could contain. I lacked the vocabulary, however, to translate my feelings into words, so the next week. When Mr. Ballou asked, “Well?” I only replied, “It was good?”

“Keep it, then,” he said. “Shall I suggest another?”

I nodded, and was presented with the paperback edition of Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa (a very important book on the study of the social and cultural development of peoples—anthropology (人类学) ).

To make two long stories short, Mr. Ballou never paid me a cent for cutting his grass that year or the next, but for fifteen years I taught anthropology at Dartmouth College. Summer reading was not the innocent entertainment I had assumed it to be, not a light-hearted, instantly forgettable escape in a hammock (吊床) (though I have since enjoyed many of those, too). A book, if it arrives before you at the right moment, in the proper season, at an internal in the daily business of things, will change the course of all that follows.

1.Before his encounter with Mr. Ballou, the author used to read _____________.

A．anything and everything                  B．only what was given to him

C．only serious novels                      D．nothing in the summer

2.The author found the first book Mr. Ballou gave him _____________.

A．light-hearted and enjoyable               B．dull but well written

C．impossible to put down                   D．difficult to understand

3.From what he said to the author we can guess that Mr. Ballou _______________.

A．read all books twice                     B．did not do much reading

C．read more books than he kept             D．preferred to read hardbound books

4.The following year the author _______________.

A．started studying anthropology at college

B．continued to cut Mr. Ballou’s lawn

C．spent most of his time lazing away in a hammock

D．had forgotten what he had read the summer before

5.The author’s main point is that _____________.

A．summer jobs are really good for young people

B．you should insist on being paid before you do a job

C．a good book can change the direction of your life

D．books are human beings’ best friends