No matter how well you understand a foreign language, misunderstanding still exists between native speakers and you. Here is such an example.

Three young Frenchmen were travelling in Britain. Though they had taken a few English lessons before their holiday, they were often in trouble because of their misunderstanding of English. One day they talked about their misfortunes (不幸) together.

The first Frenchman said, “I once heard someone shout ‘Look out’, I put my head out of a window and a bucket (一桶) of water fell on me.”

The second Frenchman said, “I was once in a ship and heard the captain shouted, ‘All hands on decks (甲板)’ I put my hands on the deck and someone walked on them.”

The third Frenchman said, “I once called early on an English friend and the maid (女佣) who came to the door said, ‘He’s not up yet’ When I went again for him, she said, ‘He’s not down yet’. I said, ‘If he’s not up and he’s not down, where is he?’ She said, ‘He’s still upstairs now. When I told you he was not up I meant he had not got up yet, so he has not come downstairs by now’ ”

1.Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A. Misunderstanding of English

B. Three Young Frenchmen

C. Misfortunes of Three Frenchmen

D. A Few English Lessons

2.When someone is calling “look out” to you,he probably wants you to ______.

A. put your head out of the window B. go away

C. receive a bucket of water D. be careful

3.The sentence “All hands on decks” may mean ______.

A. you should put your hands on the deck

B. everyone should get ready

C. someone walks over one’s hands

D. someone is making fun of a foreigner

A few days ago, my sister Liz and I talked about Dad, and we decided to get him a little something for Father's Day. We talked about the times when we were up and how Mom and Dad used to play the ‘good cop, bad cop’ thing on us. Dad has been a person of few words since we were . He raised us more by than anything else. When he spoke, though we listened, he was always mysterious and difficult to understand. There was always a(n) meaning that I never got, but Liz always to decipher(破解) him. By the time I got to high school, I had wanted a skateboard and I I was too old to ask money from my parents, so I worked at a burger joint (美式汉堡店). One day, I was really angry about annoying burgers. I came home huffing and puffing(气喘吁吁). Dad saw me and asked me what was the . I told him that I was fed up with annoying burgers. He said that we all have to start somewhere, that we may not know it now, but the skills we learn even in a burger joint might come in handy __ __in life, ‘Who knows, you might end up having to run a or even own one when you grow up,’ said Dad. He me down and I kept what he said in mind, even though I really didn’t agree with it.

A couple of years later, when I got to college, I worked in a restaurant. During one of the really days that we had, we were short on kitchen staff. Our customers were getting impatient and the were getting delayed. We were sure any minute something terrible would out. I couldn’t stand the any more, so I rolled up my sleeves, got myself a hair net and helped out in the hot kitchen. We caught up with the orders . The owner saw what I did and called me over around time. He said that he was very . He raised my salary and made me the assistant manager even though I could only go part-time. That was I realized that what my dad said to me all those years before was absolutely true.

I’ve never forgotten what my dad said that day. And whenever I have to do something that requires new skills, no matter how insignificant or it seems, I have a new perspective(看法) that it might really help me later on or even right now and I just don’t know it. Experience is everything and it a lot when you take lessons from it. That’s my life’s philosophy.

1.A. getting B. going C. growing D. coming

2.A. schoolboys B. kids C. adults D. graduates

3.A. instruction B. example C. order D. inspiration

4.A. obvious B. clear C. reasonable D. hidden

5.A. failed B. refused C. tried D. managed

6.A. imagined B. promised C. believed D. suggested

7.A. experience B. matter C. event D. accident

8.A. later B. sooner C. latter D. late

9.A. restaurant B. hospital C. school D. plant

10.A. calmed B. wrote C. 1et D. put

11.A. exciting B. worrying C. busy D. happy

12.A. meetings B. parties C. menus D. orders

13.A. break B. show C. go D. set

14.A. quarrel B. 1aziness C. relaxation D. tension

15.A. eventually B. regularly C. obviously D. thankfully

16.A. breakfast B. 1unch C. opening D. closing

17.A. influenced B. interested C. inspired D. impressed

18.A. when B. why C. whether D. where

19.A. important B. impressive C. interesting D. small

20.A. works B. counts C. shows D. studies

An old man in a faded yellow shirt sat in a windowless room on a raised concrete form. The only source of heat came from somewhere beneath the plastic mattress and the rough blanket the blank-faced police woman had handed him after taking his thumb prints. He heard voices and metallic clang as the cell door swung open.

At the front desk a tired looking policeman handed the old man back his belongings, his worn-out cap and the Seiko watch that had stopped working the day his beloved Evelyn left. The policeman dramatically held the blue plastic bag at an arm’s length to the old man who took it and made sure its contents were undamaged: the goat meat, palm oil, leaves and spices. He ignored the confused expression on the officer’s face and signed the document declaring he had been returned the possessions they had taken off him the night before.

No one spoke to him as he walked slowly towards the exit.

“Mr. Easy-nwa?” He stopped and prayed to the God who now took care of Evelyn to please take him far away from this unhappy place of expressionless faces, clipped accents and people who did not even attempt to pronounce his name right.

“Ezenwa,” He said and looked at a woman with tangerine lips, her name tag said Jessica Harlow, Social Services. “A bit far from home”,she said as she drove fast and with confidence the way Evelyn used to. He wondered if she meant the 50 miles from Liverpool or the 50,000 miles from Enugu,a city in Nigeria. He did not bother replying as this woman had plenty to say about the weather, bad drivers, her daughter’s school play...

At last she drew up outside the block of flats where he lived.

“Got here in the end”,said she seriously, “Really Mr. Easy-nwa, if you keep getting lost, we will have to consider moving you into a home”.

“No need, I was not lost,”he answered.

He carefully rolled up the sleeves of the oversize bomber jacket he wore and turned on the tap to wash his hands, relieved the pipes were not frozen. In a clean pan he placed the chopped pieces of goat meat. The herbs and spices that had taken him three months to track down, the uziza seeds had taken him into the heart of Granby Market in Liverpool, his uchanwu leaves down a shady back alley in Manchester, and yesterday, among other food items, the finest goat meat from a Sierra Leonean Butcher in Birmingham. That had taken some time, so much he missed the last train and when the police found him shivering outside the locked up station, so cold he couldn’t answer loudly enough the pink-faced big copper who yelled in his face, “What’s your name sir?” spraying his face with spittle (吐沫)as he did so, leaving them with no choice but to search an exhausted, frozen old black man and finding him in possession of mysterious condiments (调味品)including a bag of dried bitter-leaf which could of course be mistaken for anything that resulted in him getting read his rights and charged with ...possession?

He lifted the lid of the bubbling soup, the room was filled with the rich and spicy scent of his culinary (烹饪的)effort. He served two bowls, taking the chipped one and placing the other opposite where Evelyn would have sat. He would tell her about his adventure, it was their anniversary and this was the perfect pepper soup to celebrate.

Ken Onyia, UK (Nigeria) Commonwealth Sport Short Story Prize

1.Why was Mr. Ezenwa taken to the prison for a night?

A. He was too weak to move.

B. He couldn’t find his way back home.

C. He then had nowhere else to go.

D. He was suspected of possessing drugs.

2.When Mr. Ezenwa was to leave the prison,

A. his thumb print was taken immediately

B. the policeman was confused about what he had

C. a social worker was assigned to drive him back home

D. the policeman was so kind as not to damage his belongings

3.What did Mr. Ezenwa do for his wedding anniversary?

A. He collected all sorts of valuables as presents.

B. He cooked native food as a surprise for his wife.

C. He prepared a special Nigerian pepper soup carefully.

D. He travelled a lot, attempting to get his wife back.

4.What words can be used to describe Mr. Ezenwa?

A. Hopeless and pessimistic.

B. Mysterious and troublesome.

C. Affectionate and persistent.

D. Energetic and sympathetic.

5.What theme does the author want to express through the story?

A. Racial prejudice.

B. Hard life of the elderly.

C. Struggle for freedom.

D. Preservation of tradition.

You can take a selfie with a hand - held digital camera or mobile phone and later share it on the Internet. So selfies have been especially popular over the years. 1. Love them or hate them, selfies show no sign of stopping.

After all, the selfie is the most important way to show off on holiday. Everyone has his own way to take the holiday selfies. How can you take the best holiday selfies? 2.

◆‘Food chew’style

Want to let everyone know how exciting your holiday food choices are? 3. You can also cut off a piece to show off what’s inside. But don’t have food hanging out of your mouth. Remember, food always looks best before being eaten.

◆‘I’ m so adventurous’ style

Rock climbing, hiking, surfing, or skiing? 4. Just let the natural settings make people go “wow”. One commonly used gesture is spreading out an arm to show how thrilled you are. But remember that no one likes a sweaty selfie.

◆‘I am cultured tourist’ style

5. You can also try an optical illusion(视错觉)by making it look like you’re holding up the leaning tower of Pisa, touching the top of the Eiffel Tower, or picking the Sphinx’s nose.

A. Just taking a selfie against a famous cultural site makes you look great.

B. Some people have no idea where to travel.

C. According to a recent survey, haft of the interviewees admitted to taking a selfie while on holiday.

D. These adventurous holiday moments are great for a selfie.

E. Different cultures have different characteristics of food.

F. Hold up some food on your fork or chopsticks.

G. Here are some useful posing tips for you.

CANYOUIMAGINEHOWHARDITWOULDBETOREADSENTENCESLIKETHIS? Every one of us gets so used to punctuation marks that not many of us give them a second thought. Actually, the ancient Greeks wrote this way. The lack of punctuation marks probably didn’t bother good readers, though. As they read, they just put pauses where they fit best. Also at this time, sentences switched directions. A sentence read from left to right. The next one read right to left, and then left to right again, etc. The ancient Romans sometimes punctuated like this: They put something that can separate words in a sentence. The word punctuation actually comes from this idea and the Latin word punctum, which means a dot.

When the 5th century arrived, there were just two punctuation marks: spaces and points. The spaces separated words while the points showed pauses in reading. Then in the 13th century, a printer named Aldus Manutius tried to standardize punctuation. He always used a period for a complete stop at the end of a sentence. He used a slash (/) to indicate a short pause. Over time, that slash was shortened and curled, and it became the modern comma (逗号).

Since that time, other marks have enlarged the punctuation family. The exclamation mark (感叹号) comes from the Latin word io. It means “exclamation of joy.” The question mark originally started out as the Latin word questio, meaning question. Eventually, scholars put it at the end of a sentence to show a question.

Punctuation even keeps changing nowadays. New marks are coming into existence, and old punctuation marks are used in new ways. Take for example the “interrobang”. This 1962 invention combines the question mark and exclamation mark for times when writers want both. For example, “She did what?” or “How much did you pay for that dress?” Obviously, the interrobang is not widely used or recognized yet, but its invention shows that English is not yet finished with its punctuation.

1.From the first paragraph, we can know that _______.

A. good readers had trouble reading without punctuation marks

B. a sentence always read from left to right in ancient Greece

C. ancient Greeks switched the direction of punctuation marks

D. the use of punctuation marks can date back to ancient times

2. The passage is developed _______.

A. by time B. by space

C. by comparison D. by importance

3. We can learn from the passage that _______.

A. ancient Romans didn’t use any punctuation marks

B. exclamation and question marks came from Latin

C. spaces and slashes were already used before the 5th century

D. Aldus Manutius first started to use commas

4. What can be concluded from the last paragraph?

A. The combination of two marks will not work.

B. It takes time for people to accept new punctuation marks.

C. Old punctuation marks need to be standardized.

D. Punctuation marks are still changing today.

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