…That’s my second piece of advice, very simple: Don’t make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes; take responsibility where you fall short as well.

Now, the truth is, no matter how hard you work, you’re not going to ace (取得好成绩) every class. You’re not going to succeed the first time you try something. There are going to be times when you screw up (弄糟). There will be times where you hurt people you love. There will be times when you make a mistake and you stray (偏离) from the values that you hold most deeply.

And when that happens, it’s the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for somebody else to blame. Your professor was too hard; the coaches were playing favorites; your friend just didn’t understand.

No, but this is an easy habit to get into. You see it every day in Washington — every day -—folks calling each other names, making all sorts of accusations on television. Everybody is always pointing a finger at somebody else. You notice that?

Now, this community could have easily gone down that road. This community could have made excuses — well, our kids have fewer advantages, our schools have fewer resources — how can we compete? You could have spent years pointing fingers— blaming parents, blaming teachers, blaming the principal , blaming the superintendent.

But that’s — Class of 2010, I want you to pay attention on this because that’s not what happened. Instead, this community was honest with itself about where you were falling short. You decided to do better, push your kids harder, open their minds wider, expose them to all kinds of ideas and people and experiences.

So, graduates, I hope you’ll continue those efforts. Don’t make excuses. And I hope that wherever you go, you won’t narrow the broad intellectual and social exposure you’ve had here at Kalamazoo Central — instead, seek to expand it. Don’t just hang out with people who look like you or share your political views. Broaden your circle to include people with different backgrounds and life experiences, because that’s how you’ll end up learning what it’s like to walk in somebody else’s shoes. That’s how you’ll come to understand the challenges other people face.

And this is not just an academic exercise. It’s a way to broaden your ambit (范围) of concern and learn to see yourselves in each other.

adapted from US President Barack Obama’s graduation ceremony speech at the Kalamazoo Central High School.

1. The underlined words “fall short” in Paragraph 1 probably mean         .

A. make a decision                       B. begin to experience something

C. have someone else to blame            D. fail to reach a standard

2. The underlined word “this” in Paragraph 4 refers to         .

A. misunderstanding your friends         B. straying from the values you hold

C. making accusations on television      D. blaming someone else for your mistake

3. We can infer from Paragraphs 5 and 6 that the community         .

A. has got used to making excuses            B. has lived up to its responsibility

C. is satisfied with itself                  D. provides fewer resources than it used to

4. In the last two paragraphs, Obama calls on the graduates to         .

A. welcome different ideas, people and experiences

B. participate in as many social activities as they can

C. make friends with people who share their polit­ical views

D. be honest and concerned about the community

 

In the old days of publishing, getting your manuscript into the hands of an editor often meant mailing the unsolicited finished product to the offices of literary agents or editors, where it would receive a cursory look from an editorial assistant — or none at all.

A modern version of the slush pile is the online “writing community,” a Web site where aspiring novelists can post their ideas, writing samples or manuscripts and open them to comments and reviews from strangers. On Tuesday Penguin Group USA, the publisher of Tom Clancy, Kathryn Stockett and Nora Roberts, will unveil its own venture, Book Country, a Web site for writers of genre fiction. In its initial phase Book Country will allow writers to post their own work — whether it’s an opening chapter or a full manuscript — and receive critiques from other users, who can comment on points like character development, pacing and dialogue. Later this summer the site will generate revenue by allowing users to self-publish their books for a fee by ordering printed copies. (The books will bear the stamp of Book Country, not Penguin, and the site is considered a separate operation from Penguin.) The site will also explain the business of finding an agent, marketing and promoting a book, using social media and handling digital and subsidiary rights.

Penguin hopes the site will attract agents, editors and publishers scouting for new talent, and allow writers to produce work with more polish and direction than they could otherwise. The project has been spearheaded by Molly Barton, the director of business development for Penguin and the president of Book Country. “One of the things I remember really clearly from my early editorial experiences was this feeling of guilt,” Ms. Barton said in an interview. “I would read submissions and not be able to help the writer because we couldn’t find a place for them on the list that I was acquiring for. And I kept feeling that there was something we could do on the Internet to really help writers each other.”

1. How did an author send unsolicited finished products to editors in the old days of publishing? _______________________________________________

2. The online “writing community” is where aspiring novelists post their ideas and ___________________________________________________________________________

3.The site uses social media and digital and subsidiary rights to _______________________.[来

4.What’s the real purpose of Penguin creating the web site? _______________________________________________

 

A “blogger” is a person who writes on an Internet website called a “blog”. The word “blog” is a short way of saying “web log”, or “personal website”. Anyone can start a blog, and they can write about anything they like.

There are millions of blogs on the Internet today. They provide news, information and ideas to the people who read them. They contain links to other websites. And they provide a place for people to write their ideas and react to the ideas of others.

A research company called Perseus has studied more than 3,000 web logs. It says that blogs are most popular with teenage girls. They use them to let their friends know what is happening in their lives. The study also says that more than 100,000 bloggers stopped taking part in the activity after a year.

However, some people develop serious blogs to present political and other ideas. For example, the Republican and Democratic parties in the southern state of Kentucky recently started their own blogs. And American companies are beginning to use blogs to advertise their products.

At the same time, some long-standing blogs have ended. Last week, blogging leader Dave Winer closed his free blog service “weblogs.com”. He said the site became too costly to continue. He started the blog four years ago, and thousands of people had written on it. They are now upset because they did not know that the site was closed

One blog that is still going strong is called Rebecca’s Pocket. Rebecca Blood created the website in 1999. She wrote about the history of blogs on the site. That article led to a book called The Weblog Handbook. It has been translated into four languages so far.

Miss Blood says Rebecca’s Pocket get about thirty thousand visitors a month. She writes about anything and everything — politics, culture and movies. She recently provided medical advice. And she wrote about how to prevent being stolen from online bank accounts.

1.The text is mainly written to _______.

A. introduce an Internet website called “blog”  B. introduce a short way of saying “web log”

C. tell readers about blogs                   D. tell readers how to write blogs

2. From the text we can learn that blogs cover almost everything except _______.

A. different ideas       B. medical advice   C. advertisements       D. account passwords

3.Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the text?

A. Politicians don’t use blogs at all.        B. A lot of bloggers no longer write or read blogs.

C. Those who like to use blogs are mostly teenage girls.

D. Dave Winer closed his “weblogs.com” because of the money shortage.

4.The reason why Rebecca’s Pocket is still going strong is that _______.

A. it was created by a woman             B. it is about the history of blogs

C. it provides useful information and advice

D. it has editions in at least four different languages

 

 

第II卷 (共45分)

第四部分  书面表达

第一节  阅读表达(共5小题;每小题3分,满分15分)

阅读下面短文并回答问题,然后将答案写到答题卡相应的位置上(请注意问题后的字数要求)。

[1]One out of many important things for the whole family to do is to have dinner together. Researchers began reporting the benefits of family dinner about a decade ago, focusing mainly on how it affects children. Studies show that those families who eat dinner at least 3 or 4 times a week together, benefit in many ways.

[2]Eating together helps families achieve open communication and build stronger and healthier relationships. Children have better grades at school and are better adjusted as teens and adults, and the entire family enjoys healthier nutrition. For many families, eating dinner together proves to be a good and effective way to reduce the risk of youth rates of addiction, and helps to raise healthier children. It is also a great time to share the events of the day, discuss news and ideas and just be together and enjoy each other's company.

[3]During dinner time parents have better opportunity to show that they are the prior to their children. Sitting at the same table and sharing meals is where and when parents can find out more about their children's school performance, daily activities and attitudes toward life. When parents have all this information they can better direct their kids toward positive things in life. They also have better chance to reduce the possibility that children will get involved with alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs.

[4]However, family researchers say that the benefits of family dinner by no means can be considered as automatic. Parents can sit down to dinner with their kids every day and achieve nothing. ____________________ if there is too much arguing going on, if there is no meaningful conversation or, what is even worse, if there is just plain silence during gathering.

76. What is the main idea of the text? (no more than 8 words)

________________________________________________________________

77. Which sentence in the text is closest in meaning to the following one?

By having dinner together family members can have free exchange of information and develop closer ties among them.

_________________________________________________________________

78. Fill in the blank in Paragraph 4 with proper words. (no more than 8 words)

_________________________________________________________________

79. What information can parents probably get about their children at family dinner? (no more than 12 words)

_________________________________________________________________[来源:ZXXK]

80. Translate the underlined sentence in Paragraph 3 into Chinese.

_________________________________________________________________

 

 

Every day we experience one of the wonders of the world around us without even realizing it. It is not the amazing complexity of television, nor the impressive technology of transport. The universal wonder we share and experience is our ability to make noise without mouths, and so transmit ideas and thoughts to each other’s minds. This ability comes so naturally that we tend to forget what a miracle (奇迹) it is.

Obviously, the ability to talk is something that marks humans off from animal. Of course, some animals have powers just as amazing, Birds can fly thousands miles by \observing positions of the stars in the sky in relation to the time of day and year. In Nature’s talent show, humans are a species of animal that have developed their own special act. If we reduce it to basic terms, it’s an ability for communicating information to others, by varying sounds we make as we breathe out.

Not that we don’t have other powers of communication. Our facial expressions convey our emotions, such as anger, or joy, or disappointment. The way we hold our heads can indicate to others whether we are happy or sad. This is so-called “body language”. Bristling (直立的) fur is an unmistakable warning of attack among many animals. Similarly, the bowed head or drooping tail shows a readiness to take second place in any animal gathering.

Such a means of communication is a basic mechanism that animals, including human beings, instinctively acquire and display. Is the ability to speak just another sort of instinct? If so, how did human beings acquire this amazing skills ? Biologist can readily indicate that particular area of our brain where speech mechanisms function, but this doesn’t tell us how that part of our bodies originated in our biological history.

1.According to the passage, the wonder we take for granted is         .

A. our ability to use language

B. the miracle of technology

C. the amazing power of nature

D. our ability to make noises with mouth

2.What feature of “body language” mentioned in the passage is common to both human an animals?

A. Lifting heads when sad.

B. Keeping long faces when angry.

C. Bristling hair when ready to attack.

D. Bowing heads when willing to obey.

3.What can be inferred from Paragraph 3?

A. Body language is unique to humans.

B. Animals express emotions just as humans do.

C. Humans have other powers of communication.

D. Humans are no different from animals to some degree.

4.This passage is mainly about           .

A. the development of body language.

B. the special role humans play in nature

C. the power to convey information to others

D. the difference between humans and animals in language use

 

违法和不良信息举报电话:027-86699610 举报邮箱:58377363@163.com

精英家教网