Australian Comedy---COSI(5th Round)

Date: April 12-16---7:30 pm

Venue: Beijing Poly Theatre

Price: 800-1,500 yuan

Cosi is a 1996 Australian comedy film directed by Mark Joffe. In the film, Lewis Riley wants to get a job as a director at a mental (精神病的)hospital. He gets the job and finds himself directing a production of the Mozart opera Cosi fan tutte, an opera in Italian. And it is going to be performed by actors and actresses that he must select from among the patients, who only speak English.

Twelfth Night

By TNT Theatre Britain

Date: April 13-15---7:30 pm

Venue: 9 Theatre Beijing

Price: 60-380 yuan

Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601-1602. The play focuses on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a ship accident at sea. Viola(who pretends to be a boy) falls in love with Orsino. But Orsino in turn is in love with Olivia when meeting Viola falls in love with her, thinking she is a man.

Jazz Weekend---Thomas Enhco Piano Recital

Date: May 6---7:30 pm

Venue: Beijing Concert Hall

Price: 80-599 yuan

Thomas Enhco was born in Paris, 1988. He starts playing the violin and piano at an early age, and studies classical music and jazz. At 12, Thomas works with a French jazz violinist Didier Lockwood. He is spotted by Peter Erskine, who offers to help with Thomas Enhco’s first CD. In 2004-2005, Thomas creates and records his first album, Esquisse, which is released in 2006. He receives the Young Talent Prize at the Montauban Jazz Festival in 2006.

1.Where can you enjoy Cosi in April?

A. Beijing Poly Theatre B. TNT Theatre Britain

C. 9 Theatre Beijing D. Beijing Concert Hall

2.Who in fact is a man in Twelfth Night?

A. Olivia B. Viola

C. Orsino D. William Shakespeare

3.Thomas Enhco’s first album finally came out _________.

A. in 2000 B. in 2004

C. in 2005 D. in 2006

Dear students,

Most of us get some exercise walking or riding our bikes to school,but just that is not enough.Why not get into shape by playing the most popular sport in the world—soccer?

Two weeks ago,Mr Goldstein,the physical education teacher,posted a notice about an exciting new soccer club (for Grades 10-12).To join,all you have to do is sign your name and be at school for the fun of it on Saturday mornings.You’ll make new friends and share information about famous teams and players.

Mr Goldstein will teach,so you’ll learn basic skills and new techniques to improve your game.That’s good news because soccer is a game you can love three seasons a year.The only time you can’t play is when there is snow.

However,it is hard to believe that only nineteen people signed up for the new club.Maybe kids don’t want to give up their Saturday mornings.But if you think about how we spend Saturday mornings now,soccer looks good.Doing housework and watching TV are not as much fun as playing soccer with friends.If you didn’t sign up because you’ve never played soccer before,don’t worry.Beginners are welcome and Mr Goldstein will give you more help.

Just act now! The equipment is cheap.All you have to bring is your feet.

The Students’ Union

1.What can we learn about the club?

A. It was probably started two weeks ago.

B. It is available every day except on Saturdays.

C. It was first set up for beginners.

D. It is just open to students of Grade 12.

2.What does the writer think of playing soccer?

A. It is as interesting as watching TV.

B. It makes people famous easily.

C. It is a very dangerous game.

D. It does students a lot of good.

3.The writer writes the passage mainly to .

A. talk about how to be an excellent soccer player

B. introduce Mr Goldstein to the students of Grades 10-12

C. advise the students to take more exercise

D. encourage the students to join a soccer club

One day a professor entered the classroom and told the students about a surprise test. After hearing that, all students were seated and waited for the test to begin. Now, the professor gave the test papers to all students with text facing down on the desk. Once he was done with handing out the test to all students, he asked them to turn the test pages and begin.

Students were confused to see that there was not a question but just a black dot in the center of the page. The professor noticed the students’ facial expressions and told them, “I want you to write about what you see there.”

The students were still confused but got started with the test. At the end of the class, the professor took all answer sheets and started reading each answer from each sheet in front of all students. All of them described about the black dot and tried to explain its position. After the professor finished reading, the whole class was silent.

Now, the professor began to explain, “Don’t worry. I am not going to give you grades for this but I just want you to think about something. Here everyone focused on the black dot and wrote about it but no one wrote about the white paper. The same is with our lives. The white paper embodies our whole life and the black spot problems in our life.

Our life is a gift given to us by God, with love and care, and we always have reasons to celebrate---our friends around us, the job that provides us our livelihood, the miracles we see everyday. Still we just focus on day to day problems like health issues, lack of money, problems in relationships, etc. But we never see that these problems are very small compared to everything we have in our lives.”

1.From the text we learn that _________.

A. the professor gave the students an unexpected test

B. the professor graded the students’ test papers

C. none of the students focused on the black dot

D. the students were unwilling to take the test

2.The underlined word “embodies” in Paragraph 4 probably can be replaced by ________.

A. presents B. represents

C. empties D. enriches

3.What is the main idea of the text?

A. Be happy to take tests

B. Life is filled with problems

C. There are many black dots in our life

D. Take eyes off problems and enjoy life

People often ask which is the most difficult language to learn, and it is not easy to answer because there are too many factors to take into consideration. Firstly, in a first language the differences are unimportant as people learn their mother tongue naturally, so the question of how hard a language is to learn only makes more sense when learning a second language.

A native speaker of Spanish, for example, will find Portuguese much easier to learn than a native speaker of Chinese, for example, because Portuguese is very similar to Spanish, while Chinese is very different, so first language can affect learning a second language. The greater the differences between the second language and our first, the harder it will be for most people to learn. Many people answer that Chinese is the hardest language to learn, possibly influenced by the thought of learning the Chinese writing system, and the pronunciation of Chinese does appear to be very difficult for many foreign learners. However, for Japanese speakers, who already use Chinese characters in their own language, learning writing will be less difficult than for speakers of languages using the Roman alphabet.

Some people seem to learn languages easily, while others find it very difficult. Teachers and the circumstances in which the language is learned also play an important role, as well as each learner's motivation for learning. If people learn a language because they need to use it professionally, they often learn it faster than people studying a language that has no direct use in their day to day life.

Obviously , British diplomats and other embassy staff have found that the second hardest language is Japanese, which will probably come as no surprise to many, but the language that they have found to be the most problematic is Hungarian, which uses a similar alphabet to English but has 35 cases (forms of a nouns according to whether it is subject, object, genitive, etc). This does not mean that Hungarian is the hardest language to learn for everyone, but it causes British diplomatic personnel, who are generally used to learning languages, the most difficulty. However, Tabassaran, a Caucasian language has 48 cases, so it might cause more difficulty if British diplomats had to learn it.

Different cultures and individuals from those cultures will find different languages more difficult. Therefore, it is impossible to say that there is one language that is the most difficult language in the world.

1.What can we infer from the first paragraph?

A. The question of how hard a language is to learn is only applicable to first language acquisition

B. The question of how hard a language is to learn is only applicable to second language acquisition

C. The question of how hard a language is to learn is applicable to both first and second language acquisition.

D. There are too many languages in the world so it’s difficult to say which one is the most difficult to learn.

2.Which language will a native Portuguese speaker probably find easier to learn?

A. Chinese , because Portuguese use Chinese characters in their own language .

B. Japanese , because it is similar to their own language.

C. Spanish , because it also uses Roman alphabet .

D. Any one but Chinese, because its pronunciation is very difficult.

3.What does the underlined word mean in Paragraph3?

A. A particular situation or environment.

B. The degree of education that somebody has obtained

C. Teachers’ encouragement.

D. Professional training.

4.The author is most likely to agree____________

A. Not Hungarian’s writing system but its grammatical complexity causes problems for native British speakers.

B. Tabassaran is the hardest language to learn in the world for native European speakers.

C. Many British diplomats learn Tabassaran.

D. Learning a different writing system is easy.

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