题目内容

When Armida Armato’s daughter, Alexia, came home from school one day last year keen to go on a school trip to Ecuador, she wasn’t too sure how to feel. She was happy that her daughter could experience something she never did as a teen but was fearful of letting her travel to such a remote part of the world.

Alexia was 16 at the time, a student at Westwood High School. The school sponsored a humanitarian trip for 26 students and two teachers to spend 18 days living in a mountain village to build a one-room school. Even though Armato trusted her daughter, the other students and the teachers, she was worried about the side effects from the travel vaccines, possible accidents, and medical care.

Now that Alexia was home, Armato said she saw her daughter’s new maturity, greater confidence and independence. “This is the best thing I ever did,” Alexia said. “The experience was so eye-opening and life-changing. You’re with people who are not as lucky as you are. They live in very poor conditions but they’re so happy and outgoing. You say, ‘My God. I’m taking everything for granted back home.’”

She said they built a one-room school from scratch with no mechanical cement mixers. They used their hands, shovels and basic tools. She and another student lived with a local family in a small village about eight hours outside the capital, Quito. Despite the initial strangeness and knowing only basic Spanish, she said they grew very close and felt like a family.

Every year, groups of students at Montreal High School like Alexia pack their bags and fly off with classmates and teachers to developing countries where they volunteer for a variety of projects.

“Armato’s worries are very common among parents,” says Bill Nevin, a teacher at St. George’s High School. He organizes a humanitarian rip to India to the Sheela Bal Bhavan orphanage and says the three biggest fears families have are health, security and contact.

1.When hearing the news that her daughter would go on a school trip to Ecuador, Armato was _______.

A.proud and happy

B.supportive but concerned

C.fearful and nervous

D.excited but puzzled

2.The underlined phrase “from scratch” in Paragraph 4 probably means “______”.

A.having great help

B.using high technology

C.ending up in failure

D.starting from the beginning

3.What would be the best title for the text?

A.Volunteering helps students grow and develop.

B.School trips make parents worried about their children.

C.Ecuador is the most attractive travel destination in the world.

D.Brave Alexia dreams to work in Ecuador one day.

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The Catskill Mountains are a year-round playground for outdoor enthusiasts and nature lovers. You will find a number of relaxing inns ready to meet your needs.

Caleb Street’s Inn

Located in the historic village of Catskill at the base of the mountains, Caleb Street’s Inn was built in 1785. It provides a view of the garden and Catskill Creek or guests can step outside for a walk along the Hudson River. A full breakfast is served every morning. Each of the four Pet-friendly rooms offers a private bath and a view of the river and neighboring buildings. Hiking trails(小路), golf courses and historic sites are only a short drive away.

Winter Clove Inn

Nature lovers can enjoy a pleasant location in the Northern Catskill Wilderness Preserve at Winter Clove Inn. With wood floors, each room has a private bath and air conditioning(空调). With active days of tennis, hiking or cross- country skiing ahead, guests don’t have to go far for a breakfast, lunch or dinner beside the fireplace at inn’s restaurant.

Windham House

A former pub built in 1805, Christman’s Windham House is the oldest inn continually operating in the Catskills. The 300 acres of grounds in the town of Windham include a tennis court, golf course, heated pool and a restaurant. Guests can relax on private balconies (阳台) overlooking a golf course and take their meals at Christman’s Windham House Restaurant. The inn is less than 2 miles from the hiking trails of Windham Mountain.

Washington Irving In

If you’re looking for a mountain inn with a Victorian feel, Washington Irving Inn has much to offer. Furnished with antiques, each of the 15 rooms has a private bath. Free breakfast is served. Hikers are a short walk from Kaaterskill Falls and Hunter Mountain trails.

1. What is special about Caleb Street’s Inn?

A. It has a golf course for guest

B. It provides a beautiful view of Kaaterskill Falls

C. It’s decorated with wood floors

D. It allows guests to take their dog or cat with them

2.All the four inns in the passage ______

A. have private bathrooms

B. has air conditioning in the rooms

C. are convenient for hiking

D. serve free breakfast in the morning

If you have a chance to go to Finland, you will probably be surprised to find how “foolish” the Finnish people are.

Take the taxi drivers for example. Taxis in Finland are mostly high-class Benz with a fare of two US dollars a kilometer. You can go anywhere in one, tell the driver to drop you at any place, say that you have some business to attend to(料理), and then walk off without paying your fare. The driver would not show the least sign of anxiety.

The dining rooms in all big hotels not only serve their guests, but also serve outside diners. Hotel guests have their meals free, so they naturally go to the free dining rooms to have their meals. The most they would do to show their good faith is to wave their registration card(住宿登记卡) to the waiter. With such a loose check, you can easily use any old registration card to take a couple of friends to dine free of charge.

The Finnish workers are paid by the hour. They are very much on their own as soon as they have agreed with the boss on the rate(价钱). From then on, they just say how many hours they have worked and they will be paid accordingly(相应地).

With so many loopholes(漏洞) in everyday life, surely Finland must be a heaven to those who love to take “petty advantages”. But the strange thing is, all the taxi passengers would always come back to pay their fare after they have attended to their business; not a single outsider has ever been found in the free hotel dining rooms. And workers always give an honest account of the exact hours they put in. As the Finns always act on good faith in everything they do, living in such a society has turned everyone into a real “gentleman”.

In a society of such high moral practice, what need is there for people to be on guard against others?

1. While taking a taxi in Finland, _____.

A. a passenger can go anywhere without having to pay the driver

B. a passenger pays two US dollars for a taxi ride

C. a passenger can never be refused by the taxi driver wherever he wants to go

D. a passenger needs to provide good faith demonstration (证明) before leaving without paying

2. We know from the passage that big hotels in Finland ________.

A. are mostly poorly managed

B. provide meals for any diners

C. provide free wine and charge for food

D. provide meal for only those who live in the hotels

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

A. The workers in Finland are paid by the hour.

B. The workers are always honest with their working hours.

C. The workers and their bosses will make an agreement in advance about the pay.

D. The bosses in Finland are too busy to check the working hours of their employees.

4.The word “those” in the last but one paragraph probably refers to _____.

A. people who are dishonest

B. people who often have meals in big hotels

C. people who often take taxis

D. people who are worthy of trust

C

In 1932 the warning of the British politician, Stanley Baldwin, that “the bomber will always get through” made a deep impression in Britain, the only state to make serious plans to evacuate civilians from large towns before the war started.

The British Government developed plans for evacuating 1 million children to the United States and Canada and other Commonwealth nations. It established the Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) in May 1940. After the fall of France, many people thought the war was lost and some saw this as one way of ensuring that Britain could survive even if invaded.

The Germans eventually began bombing British cities in September. Some children were evacuated by ship to British Dominions, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. The CORB selections were not done on a first-come, first-served basis. CORB classified and prioritized the children. Charges soon appeared in the press that the well-to-do were being given priority. CORB arranged for the transportation. The Government paid the passages. Quite a number of children had already been evacuated. This tended to be children from rich families with money and overseas contacts. The British public eventually demanded the government pay so that less privileged children were also eligible.

World War II occurred before the beginning of trans-Atlantic air travel. Liners were used to transport the children and this proved to be dangerous because the U-boats quickly emerged as the greatest threat. And this put the evacuee children trying to cross the Atlantic to safety in danger. Two ships carrying child evacuees were torpedoed (破坏)in 1940. One was the Dutch liner Volendam with 320 children on August 30. The crew managed to get the life boats off and saved the children. They were returned to Glasgow. The other was the City of Benares, an ocean liner with 200 British and foreign civilian passengers and 93 British children with a guard of nurses, teachers, and a clergyman. It was torpedoed on September 13. The crew attempted to launch the life boats as Benares began to sink. The rough weather made this difficult, so many of the passengers in the life boats died in the extreme conditions. Only 15 children survived. Churchill, when he learned of the disaster, decided to end the overseas evacuation scheme.

1.The whole passage is mainly about _____.

A. bombing Britain

B. children evacuation

C. German U-boats

D. loss of children

2.What can we learn about the British people according to the passage?

A. They were concerned about their children.

B. They were threatened by Stanley Baldwin.

C. They were frightened by German invasion.

D. They longed to go to commonwealth nations.

3.The underlined word “eligible” in the last sentence of Paragraph 3 probably means _____.

A. qualified B. accessible

C. hopeful D. popular

4.Churchill decided to end the evacuation scheme mainly because _____.

A. so many people needed evacuating

B. the weather in the Atlantic was rough

C. the crew were inexperienced in saving people

D. liners easily became the targets of the German U-boats

The Purpose of Boredom Being bored can encourage people's creativity-partly to escape the horrible,frustrated.And meaningless feeling of boredom-recent studies find.It could even be true at work.

Psychologists at the University of Central Lancashire had participants copy numbers out of the telephone book for 15 minutes,while others went straight into a standard creativity task.

Both groups were asked to come up with as many different uses as they could for a plastic cup.The group that felt more bored came up with more uses.

Dr.Sandi Mann,one of the study's authors said." Boredom at work has always been seen as something to he removed.hut perhaps we should be welcoming it in order to encourage our creativity.What we want LO do next is to see what the practical implications of this finding are.Do people who are bored at work become more creative in other areas of their work-or do they go home and write novels?"

In a later study,Dr.Sandi Mann found that creativity was reduced when people were still bored but didn't have the chance to daydream.

While we tend to think of boredom as something;that certainly leads to trouble-drinking,gambling.and antisocial behavior,this research suggests different possibilities.

More than anything,the feeling of boredom is a 8trong signal that we are stuck in some kind of rut and we need to seek out new goals.In the study above,this research led participants to new ideas.

Usually people will do anything to avoid being bored.as it's such an aversive experience.But creative people,like writers,sometimes talk about seeking out boredom.

Here is the comedy writer Graham Linehan talking about boredom Lo The Cuardian."I have to use all these programs that cut off the Internet,force me to be bored,because being bored is an essential part of writing,and the Internet has made it very hard to be bored.The creative process requires a period of boredom ,of being stuck.That's actually a very uncomfortable period that a lot of people mistake for writer's block,but it's actually just part of a long process."

So,when you start to feel bored ,instead of g7ancing at your smartphone.,try being bored for a bit.Who knows what creative thought might come of it?

1.From the study of Dr.Sandi Mann,we can learn that________.

A. boring tasks make people creative

B. daydreaming may increase creativity

C. plastic cups can be used very creatively

D. copying numbers might be very interesting

2.The underlined word "aversive" in Paragraph 8 probably means________

A. common B. unpleasant

C. unusual D. personal

3.According to Craham Linehan________.

A. glancing at a smartphone is a solution.

B. he is forced to feel bored by the Internet

C. the boredom period is a block for writers

D. being stuck for a period benefits him a lot

4.What is the author's attitude towards boredom?

A. Critical B. Cautious

C. Positive D. Unclear

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