Sneaker is a kind of shoe worn by many people all over the world. Some say that the word “sneaker” is another word for tennis shoe,   36   no one really knows where the word came from.   37  say it came from the old English verb “sneak”, which  38   moving silently and quickly. The only thing we are   39  is that when you put on a pair of sneakers, you   40   light-hearted, light-footed and ready to play.

Sneakers of some kind are used by   41   who play tennis, basketball, and other sports. New design has been made   42   for people who run slowly. But perhaps sneakers are   43   used by children in the United States. In fact American children of  44   ages would much rather play in sneakers than anything else, except perhaps  45   at all.

　　New York City once held a poetry contest (诗歌比赛) for children. The subject was only “sneaker”. Thousands of children sent in their  46   and praised the sneakers they love. One prize winner called  47   poem “The Sneaker and the World Peace”. “When everyone is wearing sneakers,” she said, “it will be impossible to   48 .”

American school children can be seen every day   49  sneakers of all colours. They put them on in the morning and take them off  50 . Sneakers are  51  washed. In fact the older and dirtier they are, the  52  loveable they are. When their sneakers wear out (穿破), children hate to throw them off. How do you explain the closeness between  53  ? Perhaps another young   54  in the New York Poetry Contest said it best. “A shoe is just a shoe,” he said. “But a sneaker is a   55 .”

1.                A．however        B．but            C．or   D．and

2.                A．All            B．Some          C．People   D．The others

3.                A．appears        B．remains         C．means    D．wants

4.                A．excited about    B．sure of         C．surprised at   D．pleased with

5.                A．think           B．feel            C．consider  D．suggest

6.                A．men           B．women         C．those D．these

7.                A．lovely          B．specially        C．lively D．cheaply

8.                A．only           B．greatly         C．hardly    D．finally

9.                A．all             B．some           C．little D．old

10.               A．some shoes     B．no shoes        C．no children D．some sneakers

11.               A．photos         B．compositions    C．poems    D．drawings

12.               A．her            B．his            C．its    D．their

13.               A．explain         B．guide          C．hate  D．love

14.               A．dressing        B．wearing        C．putting on D．having

15.               A．the next day     B．at noon         C．at bedtime D．in the evening

16.               A．forever        B．always         C．seldom    D．sometimes

17.               A．much          B．many          C．most  D．more

18.                                A．sneakers and other shoes   B．boys and girls

C．children and sneakers               D．winners and sneakers

19.               A．girl            B．man           C．woman    D．winner

20.               A．sneaker        B．friend          C．poem D．shoe

Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden change in pronunciation started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16th century the British had contact with people from around the world. This means that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Spelling and grammar became fixed and the dialect （方言）of London became the standard. In 1604, the first English dictionary was published.
The numbers of words in Early Modern English and Late Modern English differ. Late Modern English has a lot more words because of two main factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire covered one quarter of the earth’s surface, and the English language took in foreign words from many countries.
From around 1600, the English colonization(殖民地化)of North America resulted in the creation of American English. Some English pronunciation and words froze when they reached America. In some ways, American English is more like the English of Shakespeare than modern British English. Some expressions that the British call “ Americanisms” are in fact original （原先的）British expressions that were preserved (保存) in the colonies but were lost in Britain. Spanish also had an influence on American English, with words like canyon, ranch, stampede and vigilante being examples of Spanish words that entered English. French words and West African words also influenced American English.
Today, American English is the most influential(有影响力的). But there are many other kinds of English around the world, including Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South African English , Indian English and Caribbean English. They have differences.
【小题1】What can we know from Paragraph 1?

Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden change in pronunciation started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16^th century the British had contact(联系) with people from around the world. This means that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Spelling and grammar became fixed and the dialect （方言）of London became the standard. In 1604, the first English dictionary was published.

The numbers of words in Early Modern English and Late Modern English differ. Late Modern English has a lot more words because of two main factors(因素): firstly, the Industrial Revolution created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire covered one quarter of the earth’s surface, and the English language took in foreign words from many countries.

From around 1600, the English colonization(殖民地化)of North America resulted in the creation of American English. Some English pronunciation and words froze when they reached America. In some ways, American English is more like the English of Shakespeare than modern British English. Some expressions that the British call “ Americanisms” are in fact original （原先的）British expressions that were preserved (保存) in the colonies but were lost in Britain. Spanish also had an influence on American English, with words like canyon, ranch, stampede and vigilante being examples of Spanish words that entered English. French words and West African words also influenced American English.

Today, American English is the most influential(有影响力的). But there are many other kinds of English around the world, including Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South African English , Indian English and Caribbean English. They have differences.

1.What can we know from Paragraph 1?

A．The dialect of London became the standard in the year 1604.

B．Vowels were pronounced longer towards the end of Middle English

C．The first English dictionary was published in the early 17^th century.

D．Many new words entered English because many people moved to Britain.

2.From Paragraph 2, we know that the Industrial Revolution __________.

A．required spelling and grammar to be fixed

B．required a greater number of English words

C．caused many old English words to be useless

D．led to the English colonization of North America.

3.The underlined word “froze” in Paragraph 3 shows that some English words in America___________.

A．became longer

B．greatly changed

C．a little changed

D．stayed as they were

4.What will the paragraph following this passage most probably discuss?

A．The development of Modern English

B．How the English vocabulary became larger

C．Differences among the different kinds of English

D．Differences between Middle English and Modern English

Lucky is the man who has no “skeleton in his closet.” When a man has done something in his life that he is ashamed of, that he wants to hide, he is said to have a “skeleton in his closet.” Some people may have more than one skeleton.
As we have noted many times, it is hard to find out how these expressions begin. Sometimes, we get some hard facts. But more often we have to depend on guesswork. And that is true of this phrase, which came from England.
Before 1832, English law did not permit a doctor to cut open a dead human body for scientific examination, unless it was the corpse(尸体) of an executed(处决) criminal.
But when it became legal, more and more doctors demanded skeletons for a more scientific study of medicine. It was helping in the advance of modern medicine. The demand had become so strong that men began to rob tombs and sell skeletons to doctors at high prices.
We are told that a doctor would usually buy just one skeleton for scientific study. It became very important in his work. But he had to keep it hidden because most people objected to keeping such a thing. As a rule, the doctor keep his skeleton in some dark corner where it could not be seen, or hide it in a closet.
After a time, people began to suspect every doctor of hiding a skeleton in the closet. From this suspicion, the phrase“a skeleton in the closet”took on a broader, more general meaning: to describe anything that a man wanted to keep others from discovering. It could be proof of a criminal act, or something much less serious. Well, that is one theory.
One writer, however, believes that the phrase might have come from something that really happened. It is his guess that a hidden closet in some old English country home may have turned up a real skeleton, clear proof of some old family shame or crime. Well, one man's guess is as good as another. But this sounds like a story by the great French novelist, Balzac.
Balzac tells us of a man who suspected his wife of having a lover. The husband comes home by surprise. But she hears him and quickly hides her lover in the closet of her bedroom. He enters her room and asks her if she is hiding her lover. He says he will not open the door to the closet if she promises him there is no one there; He will believe her. She answers firmly that she is not hiding anyone in the closet.
The husband then begins to build a solid brick wall against the closet. His wife watches, knowing that her lover will never come out alive. But she will not change her story and admit her guilt.
【小题1】Which of the following situations is now suitable for using the phrase “skeleton in the closet”?

“The Lord of the Rings”, one of the best sellers in the new millennium(千年), was made up of three parts—“The Fellow Ship of the Ring”, “Two Towers”, and “The Return of the King”. Millions upon millions of people have read it in over 25 different languages, but fewer know about the author and the history of the composition of the creative masterwork.
John Ronald Refuel Tolkien was born in South Africa in 1892. His parents died when he was a child. Living in England with his aunt, Tolkien and his cousins made up play languages, a hobby that led to Tolkien’s becoming skilled in Welsh, Greek, Gothic, Old Norse and Anglo—Saxon.
After graduating from Oxford, Tolkien served in World War I. In 1917, while recovering from trench fever he began composing the mythology for The Rings. As a professor of Anglo-Saxon in the 1930s at Oxford, Tolkien was part of an informal discussion group called the Inklings, which included several writers. The group was soon 1istening to chapters of Tolkien’s imaginative work “The Hobbit”.
Hobbit was a name Tolkien created for people that could best be described as half-sized members of the English rural(乡村的)class. Hobbits live in hillside holes. One of them，Bilbo Baggins, looks for treasures with a group of dwarves(侏儒). On the way, he meets the twisted, pitiful creature Gollum, from whom he sees a golden ring that makes the holder invisible.
One of Tolkien’s students persuaded her employer, publisher Allen & Unwind, to look at a draft (草稿). The chairman of the firm, Stanley Unwind, thought that the best judge for a Children’s book would be his ten-year-old son. The boy earned a shilling for reporting back that the adventure was exciting, and “The Hobbit” was published in 1937.
It sold so well that Unwind asked for a continuation. Over a dozen years later, in 1954, Tolkien produced “The Lord of the Rings”, a series of books so creative that they hold readers both new and old -- after their publication.
【小题1】What can we learn from the text?