Some people will do just about anything to save money. And I am one of them. Take my family’s last vacation. It was my six-year-old son’s winter break form school, and we were heading home from Fort Lauderdale after a weeklong trip. The flight was overbooked, and Delta, the airline, offered us $400 per person in credits to give up our seats and leave the next day. I had meeting in New York，So I had to get back . But that didn't mean my husband and my son couldn't stay. I took my nine-month-old and took off for home.
The next day my husband and son were offered more credits to take an even later flight. Yes, I encouraged一okay, ordered-them to wait it out at the airport, to "earn" more Delta Dollars. Our total take: $1,600. Not bad, huh?
Now some people may think I'm a bad mother and not such a great wife either. But as a big-time bargain hunter, I know the value of a dollar. And these days, a good deal is something few of us can afford to pass up.
I've made living looking for the best deals and exposing (揭露) the worst tricks . I have been the consumer reporter of NBC's Today show for over a decade. I have written a couple of books including one titled Tricks of the Trade: A Consumer Survival Guide. And I really do what I believe in. I tell you this because there is no shame in getting your money’s worth. I’m also tightfisted when it comes to shoes, clothes for my children, and expensive restaurants. But I wouldn't hesitate to spend on a good haircut. It keeps its longer, and it's the first thing people notice. And I will also spend on a classic piece of furniture. Quality lasts.
【小题1】Why did Delta give the author's family credits?

英语自选模块试卷

第一题：阅读理解（分两节，共5小题，每小题2分，满分10分）

阅读下面的短文，并根据短文后的要求答题。

From good reading we can get pleasure, companionship, experience, and instruction. A good book may absorb our attention so completely that for the time being we forget our surroundings and even our identity.____1___ It increases our contentment when we are cheerful, and lessens our troubles when we are sad. Whatever our main purpose in reading may be, our contact with good books should never fail to give us enjoyment and satisfaction.

___2____ Whether the characters are taken from real life or purely imaginary, they may become our companions and friends. In the pages of books we can walk with the wise and the good of all lands and all times. The people we meet in books may delight us either because they resemble human friends whom we hold dear or because they present unfamiliar types whom we are glad to welcome as new acquaintances. ___3___ By turning the page we can dismiss them without any fear of hurting their feelings. When human friends desert us, good books are always ready to give us friendship, sympathy, and encouragement.

____4____. Few of us can travel far from home or have a wide range of experiences, but all of us can lead varied lives through the pages of books. Whether we wish to escape from the seemingly dull realities of everyday life or whether we long to visit some far-off place, a book will help us when nothing else can. To travel by book we need no bank account to pay our way; no train or airplane to transport us; no passport to enter the land of our hearts’ desire. Through books we may get the excitement of dangerous adventure without danger. We can climb noble mountains, brave the freeze of an Antarctic winter, or cross the extremely hot sands of the desert, all without hardship. In books we may visit the studios of Hollywood; we may mix with the cheerful crowds of the Paris roads; we may join the picturesque peasants in an Alpine village or the kindly natives on a South Sea island. Indeed, through books the whole world is ours for the asking.

第一节：根据短文内容，从A BCDE中选出最适合放入短文空缺处的选项。选项中有一项是多余选项。

E. Our human friends may sometimes bore us, but the friends we make in books never annoy us.

第二节：根据短文所给的信息，用一个完整的句子回答下面的问题。

5.What can be implied from the underlined sentence in the text?

_______________________________________________________________________

Last Sunday a few of us arranged to meet in town, but Jenny didn’t ____.

Last Sunday a few of us arranged to meet in town, but Jenny didn’t ____.

请认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。

       注意：每个空格只填1个单词。请将答案写在答题卡上相应题号的横线上。

How we look and how we appear to others probably worries us more when we are in our teens or early twenties than at any other time in our life. Few of us are content to accept ourselves as we are, and few are brave enough to ignore the trends of fashion.

Most fashion magazines or TV advertisements try to persuade us that we should dress in a certain way or behave in a certain manner. If we do, they tell us, we will be able to meet new people with confidence and deal with every situation confidently and without embarrassment. Changing fashion, of course, does not apply just to dress. A barber today does not cut a boy’s hair in the same way as he used to, and girls do not make up in the same way as their mothers and grandmothers did. The advertisers show us the latest fashionable styles and we are constantly under pressure to follow the fashion in case our friends think we are odd or dull.

What causes fashions to change? Sometimes convenience or practical necessity or just the fancy of an influential person can establish a fashion. Take hats, for example. In cold climates, early buildings were cold inside, so people wore hats indoors as well as outside. In recent times, the late President Kennedy caused a depression in the American hat industry by not wearing hats, more American men followed his example.

There is also a cyclical(周期性的) pattern in fashion. In the 1920s in Europe and America, short skirts became fashionable. After World War Two, they dropped to ankle length. Then they got shorter and shorter until the miniskirt was in fashion. After a few more years, skirts became longer again.

Today, society is much freer and easier than it used to be. It is no longer necessary to dress like everyone else. Within reason, you can dress as you like or do your hair the way you like instead of the way you should because it is the fashion. The popularity of jeans and the “untidy” look seems to be a reaction against the increasingly expensive fashion of the top fashion houses.

At the same time, appearance is still important in certain circumstances and then we must choose our clothes carefully. It would be foolish to go to an interview for a job in a law firm wearing jeans and a sweater, and it would be discourteous(失礼的) to visit some distinguished scholar looking as if we were going to the beach or a night club. However, you need never feel depressed if you don’t look like the latest fashion photo. Look around you and you’ll see that no one else does either!

Fashion Change