B. Because the telephone number is very strange.
C. Because you look it up in the telephone book.
D. Because you use your short-term memory to remember it. 2. Which is easier to forget?
A. Your best friend‘s name. B. Something that you understand. C. The new information that you have practised a lot. D. Something that you didn‘t learn well in the beginning. 3. How long does a person‘s short-term memory last?
A. About half a second. B. About half a minute. C. About half an hour. D. About half a day. 4. What‘s helpful for you to remember better? A. Learn something well in the end. B. Look something up often.
C. Use your short-term memory to learn things.
D. Move information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. 5. The writer mainly wants to tell us some ideas on how to _______.
A. keep something in mind long B. learn a foreign language well C. make a telephone call D. remember a person‘s name (4)
When Charles Stratton was five, he stopped growing. His mother took him to see the famous showman, P.T. Barnum. Mr. Barnum thought a small person would be the perfect addition to his show. He hired Charles‘ parents along with him, and they traveled the world together. He gave the two-foot tall Charles a new name, General Tom Thumb. He taught Tom how to sing, dance, act, and tell jokes. When he felt Tom was ready to perform on stage, he made up ads. To stir up great interest, he said that Tom was eleven years old and had come from England. During the show, Tom fought battles pretendedly with tall people. He also danced upon a wooden plate held by a person who was eight feet tall. Tom‘s act was very popular and brought in a lot of money. By the time Tom was an adult, he had grown very rich. He had become a billionaire at the age of twenty-five.
Fortunately for Tom, Mr. Barnum added more little people to his show, and Tom became lucky in love as well. One of the little people was Lavinia Warren, a school teacher. Tom was able to win her love, and they married. The ceremony and reception were the talk of the town. They were attended by many rich and famous people and by about two thousand guests. Crowds filled the streets of New York to have a look at their honeymoon, just before the couple would be going to live in Tom‘s house in Connecticut.
Their wedding, which took place during the Civil War, provided a welcome escape from the sad problems of war. Not willing to let this bit of sunshine fade, communities throughout the country sponsored ―Tom Thumb‖ weddings, small boys and girls, all dressed up, went through marriage ceremony for fun.
1. ―talk of the town‖ means ________. A. it was in the newspaper B. people spread rumors about it
C. it was the most popular thing happening
D. it was discussed in a city meeting
2. What does the author think about Tom Thumb‘s wedding? A. People gave it too much of their attention. B. It helped people cheer up in a dark time. C. It was funny and ridiculous D. Tom and Lavinia were stupid.
3. Which of the following is the best clue to the fact that Tom was smart? A. He became a billionaire at twenty-five.
B. He learned how to sing, dance, and act at a very young age. C. He met with President Lincoln during his honeymoon. D. He married a school teacher.
4. Tome would dance on a wooden plate held by a person who was eight feet tall because ______. A. the wooden plate would make it sound as if Tom were tap dancing B. it made Tome feel taller
C. the eight-foot-tall man was the only tall person Tom trusted D. the difference between them would make Tom look even smaller 5. What is the main idea of the last paragraph?
A. Weddings always make people feel full of sunshine. B. People are always disappointed during war time. C. Entertainment can serve an important purpose.
D. People should be married when they are small children. (5)
Pat Brown went to her bank to ask for an ATM (自动取款机) card. It looks like a credit card. A few weeks later, the bank posted her a card and a four-number personal identification number (PIN). Her PIN is 1234.
As Pat was getting ready for bed one night, she remembered that she had only $2 in her bag. The next day she had to give $10 for a lunch for a co-worker. She didn‘t want to get up early to go to the bank. So she had to go to the bank that night. She used her ATM card to take out $50 from her checking account (账户).
These are the steps she followed to withdraw (提取) money. First, she put her card in the lower slot (狭孔) on the right side of the machine. She made sure her card was facing the right way. Second, the computer screen said, “Please enter your PIN.” Pat pressed the number 1, 2, 3 and 4. Next, the screen said, “Please select type of transaction (交易) you want by pressing other keys.” Pat pressed the button key for taking out money.
Then the screen said, “From which account?” The choices it gave were Checking, Savings, and Money market. Pat pressed the key for Checking. Next, the screen said, “Please select amount (数量) of transaction (办理).” Pat pushed the number 5 and then 0 three times, and the screen read, ―50.00.‖ The screen then read, ―Please wait.‖ In less than a minute, it read, ―Please lift the lid and take your money.‖
Pat lifted the lid marked withdraw (提取). She counted her $50 to make sure the ATM hadn’t made a mistake. Then she waited for her withdrawal slip to come out of the slot at the upper right corner of the machine. Pat checked the slip to make sure it was correct. Then her ATM card was
returned through the card slot. She put it in her bag and walked away. If Pat had made a mistake at any point by pressing the wrong button, she could have pressed Cancel (取消, 删去) and started over again.
1. What was Pat‘s first step?
A. Pressing the withdrawal button. B. Inserting (插入) her ATM card. C. Counting her money.
2. What did Pat do at once after choosing the account?
A. Selected whether to withdraw, deposit (存款), or transfer (转帐, 过户) money. B. Lifted the lid and removed her money.
C. Selected the amount of money she wanted to withdraw.
3. When did Pat enter her PIN?
A. Right after inserting her card. B. Right before selecting the account. C. Right before selecting the amount of money. 4. When did Pat select the type of transaction?
A. Right before receiving her withdrawal slip. B. Right after recording her PIN. C. Right after selecting which account she wanted.
5. What did Pat do when the screen said ―Please lift the lid and take your money.‖? A. Took her $50. B. Got out her card. C. Picked up her withdrawal slip. (6)
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. Thy 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 exchange ideas. People generally use shorter words and shorter sentences in their writing. The important thing is to make your idea clear in your 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. 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. 1. How many points are there in the passage?
A. Two B. Three C. Four D. Five
2. 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 3. In his last point the writer advised us ____________. A. to kill two birds with one stone B. to learn two languages at a time
C. to study all the subjects in a foreign language
D. to get some knowledge of the foreign country whose language you are studying 4. In the fourth paragraph the writer gave some advice on ___________. A. how to read faster
B. how to guess the meaning from the context C. how to look up new words in the dictionary D. how to grasp the general meaning of a passage
5. ―To kill two birds with one stone‖ means ___________.
A. to get some particular knowledge B. to get more than what one pays C. the stone is too big D. the birds are blind enough (7)
February 14th, Valentine‘s Day, is a complicated but interesting occasion. First of all, Valentine‘s Day is not a holiday from work. No one gets a day off. In many countries it is observed by sending cards to your friends and candy or flowers to your husband or wife if you‘re married, or to your boy friend or girl friend if you‘re not married. In Japan, some girls even give their fathers chocolates. Why is this holiday for people in love called Valentine‘s Day?
One explanation comes from a Christian man whose name was something like―Valentine‖. He lived at a time when the Roman Emperor refused to allow any Roman soldiers to get married for any reason. Many couples came to Valentine to be married. So he would secretly marry them in a Christian ceremony. He was discovered and put in prison by the Emperor. One tradition says that he wrote notes to his friends by marking on leaves and then throwing them out of the window of his prison. The leaves were shaped like a heart. Valentine was killed on February 14th and Valentine‘s Day recalls his tragic death.
On Valentine‘s Day, American elementary school children make or buy Valentine cards, write the name of a classmate on them, and take them to school and put them in a special Valentine‘s Day box. And then on that day the box is opened, the cards are taken out and given out. 1. Which of the following is true about Valentine‘s Day?
A. It is observed by sending flowers to one‘s husband or wife. B. Children in Japan give their fathers chocolates. C. It is a legal holiday in many countries.
D. People send candy to each other. 2. The man called Valentine was put in prison because ________. A. He secretly got married in a Christian ceremony
