"The last letter I hand wrote was to my grandmother, and she died a year ago, "says 24-year-old Fulham of London. "But now I don't even write Christmas cards-I just send ecards.

      Most young Britons share Fulham's writing habits. It seems that one of mankind's oldest communication methods is on the way out. But most British women don't want to see the end.The one reason is Sat they would much rather receive a handwritten letter from their beloved than text and messages. British graphologist White assesses job applicants' handwriting for  recruiters. White says it can "give a good indication of a person's personality structure and their  abilities".

      Fulham laughs at the idea that her writing was assessed before she was hired for her job. "My writing is so terrible I obviously wasn't tested," she says. But graphologists say bad handwriting is usually not a sign of laziness-often it reveals intelligence and enthusiasm. Well-known novelist July Cooper supports a government-backed effort to encourage the letter writing to improve adult literacy. After her first date with her future husband 45 years ago, he sent her a love letter. "I was totally bowled over that this tough guy could also express his feelings so en-chantingly, "  she says.

      "I actually feel embarrassed by my scribble," says Fulham. "Writing letters to my grand-mother was a bit of a chore, but in a way much more satisfying than sending e-mails. '

      After her grandmother passed away, Fulham was given back dozens of letters she had sent.She was" astonished'at how much her writing changed over the years.

1. From the passage we can see that

     A. more and more young British don't like letters

     B. more and more young British don't like handwriting

     C. more and more young British women want to receive love letters

     D. more and more young British pay attention to handwriting

2. What does the underlined word "enchantingly" in the third paragraph mean?

     A. Roughly          B. Politely          C. Attractively         D. Neatly

 3. Many companies use handwriting as a criterion because they think handwriting

     A. can reflect one's quality

     B. connects to one's feeling and love

     C. is usually a sign of laziness

     D. is the oldest communication method

 4. July Cooper thought

     A. government should encourage people to write romantic letters

     B. her future husband's handwriting was more like scribble

     C. handwriting means a lot to the recreations

     D. her husband's letter contributed to their marriage

5. When Fulham reread her letters to her grandmother she

     A. felt a bit embarrassed by her scribble

     B. found her handwriting improved over the years

     C. thought it was much more satisfying than sending e-mails

     D. thought writing letters to her grandmother was a bit of a chore

The $11 billion self-help industry is built on the idea that you should turn negative thoughts like "I never do anything right" into positive ones like "I can succeed." But was positive thinking advocate Norman Vincent Peale right? Is there power in positive thinking?

Researchers in Canada just published a study in the journal Psychological Science that says trying to get people to think more positively can actually have the opposite effect: it can simply highlight how unhappy they are.

The study's authors, Joanne Wood and John Lee of the University of Waterloo and Elaine Perunovic of the University of New Brunswick, begin by citing older research showing that when people get feedback which they believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better. If you tell your dim friend that he has the potential of an Einstein, you're just underlining his faults. In one 1990s experiment, a team including psychologist Joel Cooper of Princeton asked participants to write essays opposing funding for the disabled. When the essayists were later praised for their sympathy, they felt even worse about what they had written.

In this experiment, Wood, Lee and Perunovic measured 68 students' self-esteem. The participants were then asked to write down their thoughts and feelings for four minutes. Every 15 seconds, one group of students heard a bell. When it rang, they were supposed to tell themselves, "I am lovable."

Those with low self-esteem didn't feel better after the forced self-affirmation. In fact, their moods turned significantly darker than those of members of the control group, who weren't urged to think positive thoughts.

The paper provides support for newer forms of psychotherapy (心理治疗) that urge people to accept their negative thoughts and feelings rather than fight them. In the fighting, we not only often fail but can make things worse. Meditation (静思) techniques, in contrast, can teach people to put their shortcomings into a larger, more realistic perspective. Call it the power of negative thinking.

What do we learn from the first paragraph about the self-help industry?

A. It is a highly profitable industry.

B. It is based on the concept of positive thinking.

C. It was established by Norman Vincent Peale.

D. It has yielded positive results.

What is the finding of the Canadian researchers?

A. Encouraging positive thinking many do more harm than good.

B. There can be no simple therapy for psychological problems.

C. Unhappy people cannot think positively.

D. The power of positive thinking is limited.

What does the author mean by "… you're just underlining his faults" (Line 4, Para. 3)?

A. You are not taking his mistakes seriously enough.

B. You are pointing out the errors he has committed.

C. You are emphasizing the fact that he is not intelligent.

D. You are trying to make him feel better about his faults.

What do we learn from the experiment of Wood, Lee and Perunovic?

A. It is important for people to continually boost their self-esteem.

B. Self-affirmation can bring a positive change to one's mood.

C. Forcing a person to think positive thoughts may lower their self-esteem.

D. People with low self-esteem seldom write down their true feelings.

Section C.

Directions: Read the following text and choose the most suitable heading from A-F for each paragraph. There is one extra heading that you do not need. （请注意题号，将答案填涂在答题卡相应的位置）

I left university with a good degree in English Literature, but no sense of what I wanted to do. Over the next six years, I was treading(在...上面走) water, just trying to earn an income. I tried journalism, but I didn’t think I was any good, then finance, which I hated. Finally, I got a job as a rights assistant at a famous publisher. I loved working with books, although the job that I did was dull.

    I had enough savings to take a year off work, and I decided to try to satisfy a deep-down wish to write a novel. Attending a Novel Writing MA course gave me the structure I needed to write my first 55,000 words.

    It takes confidence to make a new start — here’s a dark period in-between where you’re neither one thing nor the other. You’re out for dinner and people ask what you do, and you’re too ashamed to say, “Well, I’m writing a novel, but I’m not quite sure if I’m going to get there.” My confidence dived. Believing my novel could not be published, I put it aside.

    Then I met an agent（代理商）who said I should send my novel out to agents. So, I did and, to my surprise, got some wonderful feedback. I felt a little hope that I might actually become a published writer and, after signing with an agent, I finished the second half of the novel.

    The next problem was finding a publisher. After two-and-a-half years of no income, just waiting and wondering, a publisher offered me a book deal — that publisher turned out to be the one I once worked for.

    It feels like an unbelievable stroke of luck — of fate, really. When you set out to do something different, there’s no end in sight, so to find myself in a position where I now have my own name on a contract（合同）of the publisher — to be a published writer — is unbelievably rewarding.

1.The author decided to write a novel ______ .

A. to finish the writing course       B. to realize her own dream

C. to satisfy readers’ wish          D. to earn more money

2.How did the writer feel halfway with the novel?

A. Disturbed.        B. Ashamed.        C. Confident.        D. Uncertain.

3.What does the author mainly want to tell readers in the last paragraph?

A. It pays off to stick to one’s goal.

B. Hard work can lead to success.

C. She feels like being unexpectedly lucky.

D. There is no end in sight when starting to do something.

My elder brother Steve, in the absence of my father who died when I was six, gave me important lessons in values that helped me grow into an adult.

For instance, Steve taught me to face the results of my behavior. Once when I returned in tears from a Saturday baseball game, it was Steve who took the time to ask me what happened. When I explained that my baseball had soared through Mrs. Holt’s basement window, breaking the glass with a crash, Steve encouraged me to confess（承认）to her. After all, I should have been playing in the park down Fifth Street and not in the path between buildings. Although my knees knocked as I explained to Mrs. Holt, I offered to pay for the window from my pocket money if she would return my ball. I also learned from Steve that personal property is a sacred（神圣的） thing. After I found a shiny silver pen in my fifth-grade classroom, I wanted to keep it, but Steve explained that it might be important to someone else in spite of the fact that it had little value. He reminded me of how much I’d hate to lose to someone else the small dog that my father carved from a piece of cheap wood. I returned the pen to my teacher, Mrs. Davids, and still remembered the smell of her perfume as she patted me on my shoulder.

Yet of all the instructions Steve gave me, his respect for life is the most vivid in my mind. When I was twelve, I killed an old brown sparrow in the yard with a BB gun. Excited with my accuracy, I screamed to Steve to come from the house to take a look. I shall never forget the way he stood for a long moment and stared at the bird on the ground. Then in a dead, quiet voice, he asked, “Did it hurt you first, Mark?” I didn’t know what to answer. He continued with his eyes firm, “The only time you should even think of hurting a living thing is if it hurts you first. And then you think a long, long time.” I really felt terrible then, but that moment stands out as the most important lesson my brother taught me.

1. What is the main subject of the passage?

A. The relationship between Mark and Steve.

B. The important lesson Mark learned in school

C. Steve’s important role in mark’s growing process.

D. Mark and Steve’s respect for living things.

2.It can be inferred from the passage that when Mark confessed to Mrs. Holt, __________.

A. he felt surprised           B. he was light-hearted

C. he felt frightened          D. he knelt before her

3.In the story about the pen, which of the following lessons did Steve teach his brother?

A. Respect for personal property.          B. Respect for life.

C. Sympathy for people with problems.     D. The value of honesty.

4.According to the writer, which was the most important lesson Steve taught his young brother?

A. Respect for living things.         B. Responsibility for one’s actions.

C. The value of the honesty.         D. Care for the property of others.

5.Which of the follow is true according to the passage?

A. Mark was still a boy when he wrote this passage.

B. Mark lost the small dog his father carved somewhere.

C. When a living thing hurts you, you should kill it.

D. Even if a living thing hurts you, you should not kill it without hesitation.

B
Scientists have devised a way to determine roughly where a person has lived using a strand (缕) of hair, a technique that could help track the movements of criminal suspects or unidentified murder victims.
The method relies on measuring how chemical variations in drinking water show up in people’s hair.
“You’re what you eat and drink, and that’s recorded in your hair,” said Thure Ceiling, a geologist at the University of Utah.
While U.S. diet is relatively identical, water supplies vary. The differences result from weather patterns. The chemical composition of rainfall changes slightly as rain clouds move.
Most hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water are stable, but traces of both elements are also present as heavier isotopes (同位素). The heaviest rain falls first. As a result, storms that form over the Pacific deliver heavier water to California than to Utah.
Similar patterns exist throughout the U.S. By measuring the proportion of heavier hydrogen and oxygen isotopes along a strand of hair, scientists can construct a geographic timeline. Each inch of hair corresponds to about two months.
Cerling’s team collected tap water samples from 600 cities and constructed a map of the regional differences. They checked the accuracy of the map by testing 200 hair samples collected from 65 barber shops.
They were able to accurately place the hair samples in broad regions roughly corresponding to the movement of rain systems.
“It’s not good for pinpointing (精确定位),” Ceding said. “It’s good for eliminating many possibilities.”
Todd Park, a local detective, said the method has helped him learn more about an unidentified woman whose skeleton was found near Great Salt Lake.
The woman was 5 feet tall. Police recovered 26 bones, a T-shirt and several strands of hair.
When Park heard about the research, he gave the hair samples to the researchers. Chemical testing showed that over the two years before her death, she moved about every two months.
She stayed in the Northwest, although the test could not be more specific than somewhere between eastern Oregon and western Wyoming.
“It’s still a substantial area,” Park said. “But it narrows it way down for me.”
61. According to the passage scientists’ new discovery is that          .
A. One’s hair growth has to do with the amount of water they drink.
B. A person’s hair may reveal where they have lived.
C. Hair analysis accurately identifies criminal suspects.
D. The chemical composition of hair varies from person to person.
62. The underlined sentence “You’re what you eat and drink” (Line 1, Para. 3) means        .
A. Food and drink affect one’s personality development.
B. Food and drink preferences vary with individuals.
C. Food and drink leave traces in one’s body tissues.
D. Food and drink are indispensable to one’s existence.
63. Which of the following is true of the rainfall in America’s West?
A. There is much more rainfall in California than in Utah.
B. The water it delivers becomes lighter when it moves inland.
C. Its chemical composition is less stable than in other areas.
D. It gathers more light isotopes as it moves eastward.
64. Cerling’s team produced__________in their research?
A. a map showing the regional differences of tap water
B. a collection of hair samples from various barber shops
C. a method to measure the amount of water in human hair
D. a chart illustrating the movement of the rain system
65. What is the practical value of Cerling’s research?
A. It helps analyze the quality of water in different regions.
B. It helps the police determine where a crime is committed.
C. It helps the police narrow down possibilities in detective work.
D. It helps identify the drinking habits of the person under investigation.