You’ve just come home, after living abroad for a few years. Since you’ve been away, has this country changed for the better—or for the worse?

If you’ve just arrived back in the UK after a fortnight’s holiday, small changes have probably surprised you—anything from a local greengrocer suddenly being replaced by a mobile-phone shop to someone in your street moving house.

So how have things changed to people coming back to Britain after seven, ten or even 15 years living abroad? What changes in society can they see that the rest of us have hardly noticed—or now take for granted? To find out, we asked some people who recently returned.

Debi: When we left, Cheltenham, my home town, was a town of white, middle-class families—all very conservative (保守的). The town is now home to many eastern Europeans and lots of Australians, who come here mainly to work in hotels and tourism. There are even several shops only for foreigners.

Having been an immigrant (移民) myself, I admire people who go overseas to find a job. Maybe if I lived in an inner city where unemployment was high, I’d think differently, but I believe foreign settlers have improved this country because they’re more open-minded and often work harder than the natives.

Christine: As we flew home over Britain, both of us remarked how green everything looked. But the differences between the place we’d left behind and the one we returned to were brought sharply into focus as soon as we landed.

To see policemen with guns in the airport for the first time was frightening—in Cyprus, they’re very relaxed—and I got pulled over by customs officers just for taking a woolen sweater with some metal-made buttons out of my case in the arrivals hall. Everyone seemed to be on guard. Even the airport car-hire firm wanted a credit card rather than cash because they said their vehicles had been used by bank robbers.

But anyway, this is still a green, beautiful country. I just wish more people would appreciate what they’ve got. 

1.After a short overseas holiday, people tend to _______.

A. notice small changes

B. expect small changes

C. welcome small changes

D. exaggerate small changes

2.How does Debi look at the foreign settlers?

A. Cautiously.

B. Positively.

C. Sceptically.

D. Critically.

3.When arriving at the airport in Britain, Christine was shocked by _______.

A. the relaxed policemen

B. the messy arrivals hall

C. the tight security

D. the bank robbers

4.Which might be the best title for the passage?

A. Life in Britain.

B. Back in Britain.

C. Britain in Future.

D. Britain in Memory.

Ban the Band(乐队)？

Every year,our school has a dance for all the students.It’s a little funny seeing friends in clean shoes and trousers or colorful    36   ,instead of the usual school uniform.

Most of us think the dance is great   37  —even the teachers enjoy being there.  38  ,two weeks ago someone said that there would be no    39    band this year—only CDs.

“I don’t    40    it!”Amy cried out during the lunch break.

“Someone said the school couldn’t    41    a band,and they think it’s too noisy anyway,”added Daniel.

“Well,I don’t think it’s    42    enough without a band!”declared Angela,“and I’m going to see what can be done.”

Angela was as good as her    43   .In the afternoon she went to see the school headmaster who agreed to give the   44   some more thought.And he suggested that one   45   for having a band was to increase the price of each ticket from $5 to $10.Angela had to   46    out whether the students would like to do that.

“I need all of you to help me,”she  47  to our group before school the next day.“Mr.Berry gave me a list of all the names,and suggested we ask each one their   48    about the band and the extra cost.”

   49    the day we asked around as Angela suggested,and wrote down people’s feelings about the band and the cost.We were amazed how much    50    there was for the band and everyone agreed to pay the extra $5.

“I’m surprised,”smiled Mr. Berry,when we gave him the    51   .“I really thought that only a few people     52    their band and that the cost would be too high.OK,Angela,your next    53    is to find a good band and line them up for the dance.”

Angela was all smiles and    54    the news to Amy and Daniel.“You’re    55   ,”smiled Daniel to Angela as he thought how close they came to having a less than perfect dance.

A.shapes                    B.dresses                      C.flowers                            D.pictures

A.fun                        B.work                         C.effort                        D.progress

A.Besides                   B.Otherwise                  C.However                   D.Therefore

A.new                       B.live                           C.foreign                      D.marching

A.mean               B.need                         C.accept                       D.believe

A.lead                       B.serve                         C.afford                       D.form

A.good               B.clear                         C.useful                       D.easy

A.look                B.behavior                    C.mind                         D.word

A.schedule                 B.situation                    C.view                         D.action

A.possibility             B.concern                     C.decision                    D.chance

A.call                      B.find                          C.carry                         D.point

A.admitted               B.replied                      C.apologized                 D.announced

A.knowledge            B.instruction                 C.opinion                     D.information

A.On                       B.For                           C.By                            D.During

A.trust                     B.money                      C.support                            D.care

A.results                  B.notices                      C.questions                   D.examples

A.welcomed             B.wanted                      C.defended                   D.invited

A.task                      B.business                    C.exercise                     D.duty

A.showed                 B.wrote                        C.broke                        D.read

A.amusing                B.interesting                 C.exciting                     D.amazing

You’ve just come home, after living abroad for a few years. Since you’ve been away, has this country changed for the better—or for the worse?
If you’ve just arrived back in the UK after a fortnight’s holiday, small changes have probably surprised you—anything from a local greengrocer suddenly being replaced by a mobile-phone shop to someone in your street moving house.
So how have things changed to people coming back to Britain after seven, ten or even 15 years living abroad? What changes in society can they see that the rest of us have hardly noticed—or now take for granted? To find out, we asked some people who recently returned.
Debi: When we left, Cheltenham, my home town, was a town of white, middle-class families—all very conservative (保守的). The town is now home to many eastern Europeans and lots of Australians, who come here mainly to work in hotels and tourism. There are even several shops only for foreigners.
Having been an immigrant (移民) myself, I admire people who go overseas to find a job. Maybe if I lived in an inner city where unemployment was high, I’d think differently, but I believe foreign settlers have improved this country because they’re more open-minded and often work harder than the natives.
Christine: As we flew home over Britain, both of us remarked how green everything looked. But the differences between the place we’d left behind and the one we returned to were brought sharply into focus as soon as we landed.
To see policemen with guns in the airport for the first time was frightening—in Cyprus, they’re very relaxed—and I got pulled over by customs officers just for taking a woolen sweater with some metal-made buttons out of my case in the arrivals hall. Everyone seemed to be on guard. Even the airport car-hire firm wanted a credit card rather than cash because they said their vehicles had been used by bank robbers.
But anyway, this is still a green, beautiful country. I just wish more people would appreciate what they’ve got. 
【小题1】After a short overseas holiday, people tend to _______.

Taste is such a subjective matter that we don’t usually conduct preference tests for food. The most you can say about anyone’s preference is that it’s one person’s opinion. But because the two big cola companies—Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola are marketed so aggressively, we’ve wondered how big a role taste preference actually plays in brand loyalty. We set up a taste test that challenged people who identified themselves as either Coca-Cola or Pepsi fans: Find your brand in a blind tasting.

We invited staff volunteers who had a strong liking for either Coca-Cola Classic (传统型) or Pepsi, Diet (低糖的) Coke, or Diet Pepsi. These were people who thought they’d have no trouble telling their brand from the other brand.

We eventually located 19 regular cola drinkers and 27 diet cola drinkers. Then we fed them four unidentified samples of cola one at a time, regular colas for the one group, diet versions for the other. We asked them to tell us whether each sample was Coke or Pepsi; then we analyzed the records statistically to compare the participants’ choices with what mere guess-work could have accomplished.

Getting all four samples right was a tough test, but not too tough, we thought, for people who believed they could recognize their brand. In the end, only 7 out of 19 regular cola drinkers correctly identified their brand of choice in all four trials. The diet-cola drinkers did a little worse----only 7 of 27 identified all four samples correctly.

While both groups did better than chance would predict, nearly half the participants in each group made the wrong choice two or more times. Two people got all four samples wrong. Overall, half the participants did about as well on the last round of tasting as on the first, so tiredness, or taste burnout, was not a factor. Our preference test results suggest that only a few Pepsi participants and Coke fans may really be able to tell their favorite brand by taste and price.

1.According to the passage the preference test was conducted in order to ________.

A. show that a person’s opinion about taste is mere guess-work

B. compare the ability of the participants in choosing their drinks

C. find out the role taste preference plays in a person’s drinking

D. reveal which cola is more to the liking of the drinkers

2. It is implied but not stated in the first paragraph that ________.

A. the competition between the two colas is very strong

B. blind tasting is necessary for identifying fans

C. the purpose of taste tests is to promote the sale of colas

D. the improvement of quality is the chief concern of the two cola companies

3.The word “burnout” (Line3, Para. 5) refers to the state of _________.

A. being seriously burnt in the skin

B. being badly damaged by fire

C. being unable to function because of excessive use

D. being unable to burn for lack of fuel

4.The author’s purpose in writing this passage is to ________.

A. emphasize that taste and price are closely related to each other

B. recommend that blind tasting be introduced in the quality control of colas

C. show that taste preference is highly subjective

D. argue that taste testing is an important marketing strategy

When 19－year－old Sophia Giorgi said she was thinking of volunteering to help the Make－A－Wish Foundation (基金会)，nobody understood what she was talking about.But Sophia knew just how important Make－A－Wish could be because this special organization had helped to make a dream come true for one of her best friends .We were interested in finding out more，so we went along to meet Sophia and listen to what she had to say.

Sophia told us that Make－A －Wish is a worldwide organization that started in the United States in 1980.“It's a charity(慈善机构)that helps children who have got very serious illnesses.Make－A－Wish helps children feel happy even though they are sick, by making their wishes and dreams come true ，” Sophia explained .

We asked Sophia how Make－A－Wish had first started.She said it had all begun with a very sick young boy called Chris ，who had been dreaming for a long time of becoming a policeman .Sophia said lots of people had wanted to find a way to make Chris's dream come true—so, with everybody's help, Chris, only seven years old at the time，had been a “policeman” for a day.” When people saw how delighted Chris was when his dream came true, they decided to try and help other sick children too，and that was the beginning of Make－A－Wish，” explained Sophia.

Sophia also told us the Foundation tries to give children and their families a special, happy time.A Make－A－Wish volunteer visits the families and asks the children what they would wish for if they could have anything in the world.Sophia said the volunteers were important because they were the ones who helped to make the wishes come true. They do this either by providing things that are necessary，or by raising money or helping out in whatever way they can.

1.Sophia found out about Make－A－Wish because her best friend had________.

A．benefited from it? ????????????? ????????????? B．volunteered to help it

C．dreamed about it? ????????????? ????????????? D．told the author about it

2.According to Sophia，Make－A－Wish________.

A．is an international charity

B．was understood by nobody at first

C．raises money for very poor families

D．started by drawing the interest of the public

3.What is said about Chris in Paragraph 3?

A．He has been a policeman since he was seven.

B．He gave people the idea of starting Make－A－Wish

C．He wanted people to help make his dream come true.

D．He was the first child Make－A－Wish helped after it had been set up.

4.Which of the following is true about Make－A－Wish volunteers?

A．They are important for making wishes come true.

B．They try to help children get over their illnesses.

C．They visit sick children to make them feel special.

D．They provide what is necessary to make Make－A－Wish popular.