Every year between February and April,when the southwest monsoon (季风)blows ,a fever seizes the Thais (泰国人).It is the kite flying in Thailand __1__a strong feeling of interest that is nothing  2   of feverish.

During the summer, in the moths of March and April ,the skies   3   cities ,towns and villages  throughout the Kingdom are   4      with kites of all descriptions --long-tailed dragons,twisting snakes ,beautiful butter-flies,or familiar cartoon characters wheeling and weaving in the waim air.

One afternoon ,a friend and long-time kite flier invited me to   5     him  at the Pramane Ground ."What's the attraction?"I asked as he flew a huge kite."Well ,you can feel  a bit of a   6    at first ."he replied,""a grown man standing there holding the end of a string and    7    up into the sky .But once you forget yourself ,you get caught up in the   8   of controlling something inthe air where you cannot follow.You're on the ground :the kite's in the air but it's you that are making it al    9    .Come on ,go fly a kite."

I took his advice in the   10   it was meant and ,holding the hand of my young daughter si that others woukd think I was only satisfying a child's   11    ,I bought a rainbow-colored snake .After a few failed runs we got the kite into the air   12    greater ease than I expected.It was only at my daughter 's crying ,"My go,my go "that I realized I'd been holding the string ,completely   13   what I was discovering was a very pleasing pastime.

Like many other    14    of popular culture ,the sport of kite flying in Thailand has been   15   down from generation to generation.Its origins(起源)are    16    probably in ancient China,although it seems likey that Thai kites are as old as the    17   itself.It was a craze    18    by everyone from the king down.

"It's a great tradition (传统),that has the    19    of bringing generations togeter,"says my friend ,"What you see today at the King's Cup is the   20    as the people of the past would have seen more than two hundred years ago."  

1.A.fires             B.fights          C.turns         D.keeps

2.A.long             B.short           C. fond         D.proud

3.A.on              B.over            C.around       D. in

4.A.alive            B.ready           C.open         D.equal

5.A.see              B.care            C.accept       D. join

6.A.hero             B.fool            C.master       D.fireman

7.A.flying           B.missing         C.staring        D. jumping

8.A.match           B.comfort         C.excitement    D.movement

9.A.happen          B.begin           C. attend       D.break

10.A.way            B.while           C.language     D. need

11.A.game           B.sport           C. request       D. best

12.A.for             B.with            C.beyond       D.under

13.A.tired of         B.fit for          C. helped with    D. devoted to

14.A.laws           B.rules           C.forms         D. researches

15.A.put            B.handed          C.sat           D.looked

16.A.rooted          B.left           C.dated          D.hoped

17.A.history         B.Kingdom       C.time          D.earth

18.A.imagined        B.used          C.enjoyed       D.told

19.A.effect           B.right         C. name         D.science

20.A.same           B.kite          C. invention      D. relation

In ancient Japan, if you saved someone’s life, they would make it their duty to spend the rest of their life serving you. Nowadays, if you rescue someone’s story, he or she will feel the same kind of gratitude(感激).

It happens all the time. Someone in a group is telling a story and, just before their big point, BOOM! There’s an interruption. Someone new joins the group, a waiter with a plate of biscuits comes over, or a baby starts crying. Suddenly everyone’s attention turns to the new arrival, the food on the plate, or the “charming” little child. Nobody is aware of the interruption — except the speaker. They forget all about the fact that the speaker hasn’t made his or her point.

Or you’re all sitting around the living room and someone is telling a joke. Suddenly, just before his big punch line(妙语), little Johnny drops a dish or the phone rings. After the crash, everyone talks about little Johnny’s carelessness. After the call, the subject turns to the upcoming marriage or medical operation of the caller. Nobody remembers the great punch line got unfinished — except the joke teller. When it’s you entertaining everyone at a restaurant, have you ever noticed how you can almost set your clock by the waiter coming to take everyone’s order just before your funny punch line?

Most joke and story tellers are too shy to say, after the interruption, “Now, as I was saying…” Instead, they’ll spend the rest of the evening feeling bad they didn’t get to finish. Here’s where you come in. Rescue them with the technique I call “Lend a Helping Tongue.”

Watch the gratitude in the storyteller’s eyes as he stabilizes where his story sunk and he sails off again toward the center of attention. His expression and the appreciation of your consideration by the rest of the group are often reward enough. You are even more fortunate if you can rescue the story of someone who can hire you, promote you, buy from you, or otherwise lift your life. Big winners have excellent memories. When you do them subtle favors like Lend a Helping Tongue, they find a way to pay you back.

Very often, a storyteller cannot make his point because ______.

A. people are more interested in food than his story

B. many guests bring their babies to the party

C. his story is easily forgotten by the listeners

D. he is interrupted by something unexpected

From Paragraph 3, we know that when someone is telling a joke, ______.

A. something bad will surely happen just before their punch line

B. the only person really interested in the joke is the joke teller

C. listeners’ attention is often drawn to something else

D. the waiter knows when to take everyone’s order

How can we “Lend a Helping Tongue” to the story tellers, according to the writer?

A. Comfort them to make them happy.            B. Give them a chance to finish.

C. Go on telling the story for them.                    D. Teach them some useful techniques.

What is the text mainly about?

A. People should learn how to take turns in a conversation.

B. Telling jokes will make you the center of attention.

C. We can win someone’s heart by getting him back to his story.

D. It is impolite to cut in on someone’s talk.

 

 “Life is speeding up. Everyone is getting unwell.”

This may sound like something someone would say today. But in fact, an unknown citizen who lived in Rome in AD 52 wrote it.

We all love new inventions. They are exciting, amazing and can even change our lives.

But have all these developments really improve the quality of our lives?

Picture this: You’re rushing to finish your homework on the computer. Your mobile phone rings, a QQ message from your friend appears on the screen, the noise from the television is getting louder and louder. Suddenly the computer goes blank and you lose all your work. Now you have to stay up all night to get it done. How calm and happy do you feel?

Inventions have speeded up our lives so much that they often leave us feeling stressed and tired. Why do you think people who live far away from noisy cities, who have not telephones, no cars, not even any electricity often seem to be happier? Perhaps because they lead simpler lives.

One family in the UK went “back in time” to see what life was like without all the inventions we have today. The grandparents, with their daughter, and grandsons Benjamin, 10, and Tomas, 7, spent nine weeks in a 1940s house. They had no washing machine, microwave, computer or mobile phones.

The grandmother, Lyn, said, “It was hard physically, but not mentally.” She believed life was less materialistic. “The more things you have, the more difficult life becomes,” She said. The boys said they fought less to fight over, such as their computer. Benjamin also noticed that his grandmother had changed from being a “trendy(时髦的), beer-drinking granny, to one who cooked things.”

Here are some simple ways to beat the stress often caused by our inventions!

Don’t be available all the time. Turn off your mobile phone at certain times of the day. Don’t check your e-mail every day.

Don’t reply to somebody as soon as they leave a text message just because you can. It may be fun at first, but it soon gets annoying.

1.The passage is mainly about________.

         A.problem with technology

         B.improvements of our life with technology

         C.the important roles technology plays in our everyday life

         D.major changes which will be likely to happen to technology

2.The writer quoted(引用) what a citizen in ancient Rome said at the beginning of the story in order to___________.

         A.share a truth about life

         B.tell us what life was like long time ago

         C.make us wonder what causes such a thing to happen

         D.point out that you experience some big problems and they may be the same

3.Why did the family choose to spend some time in a 1940’s house? Because________.

         A.they liked to live simple lives

         B.they were curious about how people lived without modern inventions

         C.they were troubled by modern inventions

         D.living in a different time would be a lot of fun for them

4.What do you think the underlined word “available” in the first suggestion offered by the writer mean?

         A.Busy on line.         B.Free        C.Be able to.      D.Be found by others.

 

  根据短文内容,从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项,并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。选项中有两项为多余选项。

Recently some American scientists have given a useful piece of advice to people in industrialized countries. They say people should eat more of the same kind of food eaten by humans living more than 10,000 years ago.    1  

The scientists say that human life has changed greatly. Our bodies have not been able to deal with these changes in lifestyle and this has led to new kinds of sicknesses.    2    They are called “diseases of civilization”. Many cancers and diseases of the blood system arc examples of such diseases.

    The scientists noted that people in both the Old Stone Age and the New Stone Age enjoyed very little alcohol or tobacco, probably none.    3    However, a change in food is one of the main differences between life in ancient times and that today.

Stone Age people hunted wild animals for their meat, which had much less fat than domestic(驯养的)ones. They ate a lot of fresh wild vegetables and fruits. They did not have milk or any other dairy products, and they made very little use of grains.    4    We eat six times more salt than our ancestors and we eat more sugar as well. We eat twice as much fat but only one third as much protein (蛋白质)and much less vitamin C.

   5    But the scientists say that we would be much healthier if we eat much the same way the ancient people did, cutting the amount of fat, salty and sweet food.

    A. Stone Age people lived a simple life without any meat.

    B. But today, we enjoy eating a lot of these.

    C. In that case, they would live a much healthier life.

    D. Ancient people also got lots of physical exercise.

    E. These new sicknesses were not known in ancient times.

    F. People today probably don’t want to live like our ancestors.

    G. Modern people used to suffer from “diseases of civilization”.

 

 

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