Childhood was an illusion (错觉）and the illusion was this: everything was bigger. No, I mean everything, not just houses and shops and grown-ups, but colors and flowers and journeys, especially journeys which seemed endless. “Are we there yet, Daddy?”

Funfairs (游乐场） were huge things that spread for miles around you with noise and lights and exciting danger. Rainy days at home when you were ill seemed to last for ever. Being a grown-up yourself was an unthinkable distant possibility. Every sound was louder, every game was grander, every pain unbearable.

     As I’ve grown old, life has become smaller. Tastes have dulled. Surprises have turned into shocks. Days go by unnoticed. How can I regain childhood when it was an illusion?

     I have only one repeatable and wonderful way and even in this way I can regain only part of that larger world. I can play upon the stage like a child and make the crowd laugh and laugh with them, sometimes helplessly like a child, and then, even though I’m a sixty-one-year-old man, I can almost catch the colors and sounds and stillness of those bigger years when I was little.

1.How does the author feel about his childhood?

A. It was endless.                   B. It was unpleasant.

C. He is glad that it is over.         D. He misses it as a grown-up

2.The author thinks that everything was bigger in childhood because ________

A. children could not make proper judgments.

B. children were curious and eager about life

C. things appeared really big in children’s eyes

D. to grow up seemed so long for children

3.The world seems to have become smaller to the author because _______.

A. life is disappointing               B. time goes by too fast

C. he has had too many surprises      D. foods no longer taste delicious

4.The author enjoys playing on the stage so as to _______.

A. act like a child            B. live an unusual life

C. make the crowd laugh     D. regain his childhood

认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文后图标中的空格里填入最恰当的一个单词。
White-collar workers going to great lengths for stress relief    
A soldier of the South Korean special attack corps paints his eyes during a friendly Taekwondo match at a South Korean Army Base in Pochon, north of Seoul.
Stressed out white-collar workers are scaling（攀登） skyscrapers, camping out on rooftops, smashing up restaurants, pretending to be children and even visiting cemeteries in a bid to relieve the pressure of modern life.
As the country’s economy continues to steam ahead, once popular forms of entertainment, such as karaoke, card games and even boxing bars, appear to be losing their appeal.
Consider the members of Shanghai’s Cat Rain club. By day, this group of young women works executive jobs, but by night they climb buildings so they can spend the night on the roof. "It’s a good way to release our pressure. You feel relaxed when you’re sitting on the roof, looking up to the sky and chatting with intimate（亲密的）friends," said Gong Ying, 25.
The stress of work is not just limited to people in Shanghai. A recently-opened restaurant in Beijing encourages customers to smash plates - as long as they are willing to pay to replace them.
Though there has been some debate about the extravagance（奢侈）of such services, some psychologists say the activity reflects the desire of some white-collar workers to vent their angst.
Some workers even appear eager to return to their childhoods. This May, hundreds of people took part in a festival in which adults pretended to be children. It was an adults-only event, and participants could read comics and eat sweets all day.
Scenic places such as parks and rivers can also help people relax and put things in perspective. But a cemetery? Cemetery companies in Shanghai organized visits to local graveyards for stressed-out workers in March. The participants were taken to quiet spots in the cemetery where they could contemplate （考虑 ）life and their futures.
Roof-camper Chen Bin, an IT marketing professional, said she had camped out on a rooftop about 30 times. When she’s not sleeping out under the stars, she also has several other adrenalin-fueled interests, such as downhill racing and paragliding.
"Pressure may bring us distress, but it doesn’t mean we can’t find ways out," Chen says. "Life should be imaginative."

Music comes in many forms; most countries have a style of their own. The US is well known for jazz (爵士乐), which has gained world-wide popularity.

In contrast to classical (古典的) music, which follows formal European traditions, jazz is natural and free-form. It is full of energy, expressing the moods, interests, and feelings of the people. It has a modern sound that makes people very excited. In the 1920s jazz sounded like America. And So it does today.

The origins of this music are as interesting as the music itself. Jazz was produced by American blacks, who were brought to the Southern States as slaves. They were sold to plantation owners (种植园主) and forced to work long hours in the cotton and tobacco fields. This work was hard and life was short. When a Negro died, his friends and relatives formed a group to carry the body to the cemetery.

A band often went with them. On the way to the cemetery the band played slow and sad music. But on the way home the mood changed. Spirits lifted. Everybody was happy. Death had removed one of their members, but the living were glad to be alive. The band played happy music, which made everyone want to dance. It was an early form of jazz.

Music has always been important in their lives. Coming mainly from West Africa, the black men who were brought to America already possessed a rich musical tradition. This music centered on religious ceremonies (宗教的仪式) in which dancing, singing, clapping and stamping (顿足) to the beat of a drum were important forms of musical expression. As these people settled in to their fields, they made up work songs. Singing made the hard work go faster.

Another musical form that helped to develop jazz was the blues. Blues songs always describe something sad — an unhappy love affair, a money problem, bad luck. To this day, the expression “feeling blue” means being sad.

1.Through jazz, people can express______.

2.Which of the following is true according to the text?

3.The underlined sentence “Spirits lilted,” suggested that______.

4.What should be the best tide for this passage?

A. A Light Music.

B. Black men’s Music.

C. The Origin of the Jazz Music.

D. The Popular Music—Jazz in the U.S.A.

5.Why did the band play happy music on the way home from the cemetery?

完形填空（共20小题；每小题1.5分，满分30分）

　　阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从36—55各题所给的四个选项（A，B，C和D）中，选出最佳选项。

　　I went to Beijing this National holiday, and it was an interesting experience of my life.

　　My friends told us that taking the “hard　 36　 ”to Beijing would be really terrible. So we didn’t know what to　 37　. But we were pleasantly surprised when we finally boarded the

　 38　 , which was relatively modern and　 39　 . During the 14 - hour ride we ate peanuts and talked. It was not　 40　 at all.

　　It was morning when we arrived. We stepped out of the railway station, having sat in hard seats and not getting much　 41　 . However, We had energy, First we tried to get teturn tickets to Shanghai, but the tickets seller　 42　 us that tickets would not be on　 43　 for another two days. We were a little worried about getting　 44　 , but we made up our minds to　 45　 for the hotel to put our bags down. After fighting our way　 46　 the“ gypsy”taxi drivers that tried to　 47　 us one hundred yuan for the ride, we found a taxi and it　 48　 cost us thirty yuan to get　 49　 we had planned to go. When we reached the hotel, there was a window for airplane and train tickets.　 50　 the man behind the counter could get tickets that day, which we

　 51　 . The most important lesson about China I ever　 52　 , is to get someone to do your work for you, and it seems to work out much　 53　 . We were not able to get tickets, but the

　 54　 agents（代理）could.

While in Beijing we saw a lot of places of interest, most of which were very　 55　 . It was fun to be with thousands of people in one place, There aren’t any words to describe it.

36．A. chair                       B. bed                         C. seat                         D. bench

37．A. provide                   B. expect                     C. happen                    D. think

38．A. plane                             B. bus                         C. ship                        D. train

39．A. quick                             B. clean                       C. simple                     D. long

40．A. bad                         B. good                       C. easy                        D. hard

41．A. trouble                    B. food                        C. sleep                       D. help

42．A. promised                 B. informed                 C. advised                    D. persuaded

43．A. time                        B. show                       C. duty                        D. sale

44．A. behind                    B. out                          C. through                   D. back

45．A. start                        B. ask                          C. look                        D. pay

46．A. towards                   B. into                         C. across                      D. past

47．A. offer                       B. charge                     C. bargain                    D. share

48．A. even                       B. still                         C. also                         D. only

49．A. what                       B. which                      C. where                      D. how

50．A. Somehow                B. However                 C. Therefore                D. Otherwise

51．A. wouldn't                  B. couldn't                   C. shouldn't                  D. needn't

52．A. learned                    B. taught                     C. offered                    D. heard

53．A. harder                     B. earlier                     C. later                        D. easier

54．A. business                  B. transport                  C. travel                             D. hotel

55．A. interesting                      B. crowded                  C. famous                    D. noisy

文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处，每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。

增加：把缺词处叫个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。

注意：1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；

2. 只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。

    As a child I dreamed of become a movie star, while my best friend Jim wants to be a director. One day he asked me that I wanted to star in a movie he was making. It based on the story of another friend of ours, Kate. She once gets lost in a forest, but managed to find his way home. It was an interesting story, so the movie never got off the ground because of we didn’t even have a camera. In fact, we just wanted to playing games in the forest. However, it is one of the most unforgettable childhood memory I have.