British English and American English
     Many students want to know the differences between American English and British English. Written English
is more or less the same in both Britain and America, though there are some spelling differences. For example,
the words colour, centre and travelled are spelt color, center, and traveled in American English.
     The differences in the spoken language are greater. For example, Americans say dance /dns/, and in southern
England they say /da:ns/. In America, they pronounce not./nt/, in southern England they say /not/. However,
most of the time, people from the two countries do not have any difficulty in understanding each other.
     How did these differences come from? There is no quick answer to this question. When people from England
travelled to other countries they took the English language with them. At first, the language stayed the same as
the language used in Britain, but slowly the language began to change from one part of the world.
     Sometimes, the English spoken in America or Canada or Australia changed, but sometimes the language
spoken in these places stayed the same while the language in England changed. For example, 300 years ago, the
English talked about "autumn". But Americans still talk about "fall" just as people do in some parts of western
England. In the same way Americans use the expression "I guess" (meaning "I think") just as the British did 300
years ago.
     A great many words and expressions have come into the language from American English, for example
movie, gas, store, mail, right away (at once), way of life and so on.
     American English has changed over the centuries, too. There are several reasons for this. One of the reasons
is that people travelled to America from all the European countries and from other parts of the world, too. They
started to use English, but they also brought in some words from old French. One of the States in the USA is
called "Florida". In Spanish this is "the land of flowers". There are a great many American Indian words, for
example, "to howl" means "to cry". And "cookbook" is a German word.

根据文章内容判断下列句子的对(T)与错(F)。
(     )1. There are some differences between British and American English. So people from the two countries
            can hardly understand each other when talking to each other.
(     )2. As time goes by, the English language stays the same.
(     )3. Americans usually use "fall" instead of "autumn" when they talk about the seasons.
(     )4. "Florida" means"the land of flowers" in American English.
(     )5. People who travel to the USA add more words to American English.
根据文章内容，回答下列问题。
6. Which of the following words belongs to British English: movie, gas, mail or petrol?
    _______________________________________________________________________________
7. Please give the American way of spelling of the following words: colourful, metre and traveller. 
     _______________________________________________________________________________

     At the end of the 16th century, English was only spoken by people in England. They were native English
speakers. However, 1______ English language has changed quite a lot over the last four centuries. Old English
sounded more 2______ less like German for it was 3______ on German, but modern English sounds more like
French than German 4______ 1ater on England was once ruled by the French.
     Two men had great 5______ (影响) on the English changes. One was Samuel Johnson, who wrote his
dictionary and the other was Noah Webster, 6______ wrote The American Dictionary of the English Language
7______ gave American English its own 8______ (身份).
     Today, the largest number of people 9______ (speak) English may be in China. A lot of Chinese people
speak English 10______ a foreign language.

     Several days before July 28, 1976 many strange things happened in Tangshan. They were signs for an
(1)e______. A smelly gas came out from the cracks of wells and animals became too (2)n______ to eat.
But people who lived there didn't think (3)m______ of that. At 3:42 a.m. that day, the earth began to shake.
In fifteen seconds, a large city lay in (4)r______, and the number of people injured or killed (5)r______
more than 400,000. Water, food and (6)e______ were cut off and the railway tracks were (7)u______ pieces
of steel. Later that afternoon, another big earthquake hit the city. More people were killed or (8)i______ and
more buildings fell down. But all hope was not lost. Very soon the army sent a lot of soldiers to help, and
teams were (9)o______ to dig out the trapped and bury the dead. By and by things improved and the city
began to (10)b______ again.

     Rescue teams headed for a southern Turkish city destroyed by a strong earthquake that killed more than
100 people.
     Civil defense officers said a 50-strong emergency group with police dogs was sent to Adana to look for
survivors in the fallen buildings.
     Turkey's Red Cross Muslin aid organization sent 400 tents, 2,000 blankets and two moveable kitchens
to Adana, where officials used television to attract people to spend the night outdoors for fear of aftershocks.
     A British embassy spokesman in Ankara help London had offered help to the Turkish Government after
Saturday's quake, which measured 6.3 0n the Richter scale. Electricity was cut off and telephone contact
was irregular.
     Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz said hospitals were struggling to treat 800 people injured. "The top need is
providing electricity for urgent treatment in the hospitals," he said.
      Yilmaz was going later in the day to visit Adana, a region of several million people at the center of the
quake, an officer told reporters. He said the latest reported death number was 104.
     Television showed pictures of sad people digging through the ruined buildings with their bare hands. A
mother ran through the streets holding a child with head wound.
     State hospital officials made urgent requests for blood donors. The quake was also felt in Cyprus, Syria
and Israel, although the deaths and damage were reported only in Turkey. Thousands of people tried to run
away from Adana. At least 16 aftershocks rocked the area after the first quake struck around 5 p.m.

1. Officials used TV to attract people, because they were afraid that _____.

A. the injured would feel sad
B. people would feel lonely
C. the quake would happen again
D. people loved watching TV

2. When did the earthquake happen?

A. On Friday.
B. On Saturday.
C. On Sunday.
D. On Monday.

3. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A. Many houses fell down.
B. More than 200 people died.
C. Hospitals were busy treating injured people.
D. A lot of blood was needed.

4. Which of the following should be the best title for the text?

A. A new trouble in Turkey
B. Help is needed
C. Turkish earthquake kills 104
D. More earthquakes are coming

     How much paper do you use every year? Probably you can't answer that question quickly. In 1990 the
world's use of paper was about one kilogram for each person in a year. Now some countries use as much
as 100 kilograms of paper for each person in a year. The amount of paper a country uses shows how far
advanced the country is, some people say. It is difficult to say whether this is true: different people mean
different things by the word "advanced". But countries like the United States, England and Sweden certainly
use more paper than other countries.
     Paper, like many other things that we use today, was first made in China. In Egypt and the West, paper
was not very commonly used before the year 1400.
     The Chinese first made paper about 2,000 years ago. China still has pieces of paper which were made
as long ago as that. But Chinese paper was not made from the wood of trees. It was made from the hair
like parts of certain plants.
     Paper was not made in southern Europe until about the year 1100. Scandinavia-which now makes a
great deal of the world's paper-did not begin to make it until 1500. It was a German named Schaeffer who
found out that trees could be made into the best paper. After that, the forest countries of Canada, Sweden,
Norway, Finland, and the United States became the most important in paper making. Today in Finland,
which makes the best paper in the world, the paper industry is the biggest in the land.

1. The underlined word"advanced" in the first paragraph probably means ____.

A. big
B. small
C. developed
D. beautiful

2. The man who first made paper from trees was a (an) ____.

A. Chinese
B. Egyptian
C. Canadian
D. German

3. Which country makes the best paper in the world today?

A. Canada.
B. Finland.
C. Sweden.
D. Norway.

4. Which of the following statements is NOT true?

A. Scandinavia began to make paper after the year 1500.
B. Canada, Sweden and Norway have a lot of trees in their country.
C. The earliest paper in the world was made from the wood of trees.
D. Schaeffer was a German.

     As De Witt Wallace lay in bed recovering from injuries that he unfortunately came by in World War I, he
found there was a wealth of interesting information to read. Realizing few people would have the time to get
through all this information, he knew exactly ____. In 1920, this young American presented a sample magazine
containing condensed (浓缩的) articles to publishers across America. All turned him down.
     De Witt was not discouraged. He and his wife Lila Bell Acheson published the first issue of Reader's Digest
in February 1922. Working from home, the Wallaces printed 5,000 copies, which were sold by mail to 1,500
people and priced at 25 cents. From these small beginnings grew the world's most widely read magazine.
     The magazine became popular and, by 1935, sales had topped one million. In 1938, the first international
edition was published in the United Kingdom. During World WarⅡ, editions were published for the first time
in Latin America and Sweden After the war Reader's Dig Test moved into Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark,
Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, South Africa and Switzerland. In 1950, Reader's Digest published its
condensed books (now known as Select Editions in Australia). In 1959, music, the first non-print product line,
was introduced. In 1962, Reader's Digest revolutionized direct mail by introducing easy-to-enter Sweepstakes
and a year later the first Reader's Digest general book was published. In 1986, video was added to the Reader's
Digest product.
     In 1973, the Wallaces gave up active management of Reader's Digest. De Witt died in 1981, aged 91; Lila in,
1984, aged 94. With no heirs to the Wallace empire to take over, Reader's Digest became a public company in
the early 1990s and is now headed by a Chief Executive Office and Chairman of the Board. Reader's Digest is
one of the most successful publishing stories in the history of global magazines.

1. What's the best title of the passage? (Please answer within 10 words.)
    _______________________________________________________________________________________
2. Which sentence in the passage is closest in meaning to the following one? Everyone refused to publish his
    magazine. 
    _______________________________________________________________________________________
3. Please fill in the blank in the first paragraph with proper words or phrases to complete the sentence. (Please
    answer within 10 words.) 
    _______________________________________________________________________________________
4. What do you think of the Reader's Digest? (Please answer within 30 words.) 
    _______________________________________________________________________________________
5. Translate the underlined sentence in the second paragraph into Chinese. 
    _______________________________________________________________________________________

     A story from the Bible (圣经) tells of old Babylon, where the men decided to build a tower that would
touch the sky. But God was unhappy, and he made them speak different languages. They couldn't understand
each other, so their dream never came true.
     Yet the dream remains alive: if all men speak the same language, they can do anything. L. L. Zamenhof
from Poland was among the men who pursue this dream. He developed Esperanto (世界语) between 1877
and 1885.
     As the most successful man-made world language, it is spoken by over two million people around the
world.
     Last month, the World Esperanto Congress (大会), dealing with language rights, ended in Sweden.
     Most Esperanto speakers are in Central and Eastern Europe and in East Asia, particularly Chinese mainland. 
     Esperanto has two advantages (优点). First, it's easy. Each letter has exactly one sound and there are just
16 basic grammar rules. The second advantage is that it belongs to no one country.
     But Esperanto has only reached a small number of people compared with natural languages widely used
around the world-such as English or Chinese. While these languages are deeply connected with their nations
and cultures, Esperanto doesn't have this background.
     Will Esperanto really become a global language? It remains a question.

1. The writer tells us a story at the beginning to ____.

A. explain why men have been making the effort to create a language shared by all
B. explain why men now speak different languages
C. show the relationship between man and God
D. prove language is very important

2. What does the underlined word "pursue" in the second paragraph mean?

A. Realize.
B. Work for.
C. Be against.
D. Follow. 

3. What is the basic difference between Esperanto and English?

A. More people speak English than Esperanto.
B. Esperanto words are easier to spell.
C. Esperanto has fewer grammar rules.
D. Esperanto is not supported by any country or culture.

4. What does the story mainly talk about?

A. Advantages and disadvantages of Esperanto.
B. Men's dream of sharing the same language.
C. Comparison of Esperanto and other languages like English and Chinese.
D. The most successful planned language-Esperanto.

     Read the following text and choose the most suitable heading from A-F for each paragraph. There is
one extra heading which you do not need.
     A. Goods for auction (拍卖) sales
     B. Definition of bidding
     C. Ways to sell more goods by auction
     D. Auction sales in history
     E. Brief introduction to auctions
     F. Making a larger profit as an auctioneer

1. _____
     Auctions are public sales of goods, conducted by an officially approved auctioneer. He asks the crowd
assembled in the auction- room to make offers, or "bids", for the various items on sale. He encourages buyers
to bid higher figures, and finally names the highest bidder as the buyer of the goods. This is called "knocking
down" the goods, for the bidding ends when the auctioneer strikes a small hammer on a table at which he
stands.
2. _____
     The ancient Roman probably invented sales by auction, and the English word comes from the Latin auction,
meaning "increasing". The Romans usually sold in this way the goods taken in war. In England in the eighteenth
century, goods were often sold "by the candle": a short candle was lit by the auctioneer, and bids could be made
while it stayed alight.
3. _____
     Practically all goods whose qualities vary are sold by auction. Among these are coffee, skins, wool, tea, furs,
silk and wines. Auction sales are also usual for land and property, furniture, pictures, rare books, old china and
similar works of art.
4. _____
     An auction is usually advertised beforehand with full particulars of the articles to be sold and where and when
they can be viewed by potential buyers. If the advertisement cannot give full details, catalogues are printed, and
each group of goods to be sold together, called a "lot", is usually given a number. The auctioneer need not begin
with Lot 1 and continue in the order of numbers; he may wait until he notices the fact that certain buyers are in
the room and then produce the lots they are likely to be interested in.
5. _____
     The auctioneer's services are paid for in the form of a percentage of the price the goods are sold for. The
auctioneer therefore has a direct interest in pushing up the bidding as high as possible. He will not waste time
by starting the bidding too low. He will also play on the opponents among his buyers and succeed in getting a
high price by encouraging two business competitors to bid against each other.

     Narcissus was a beautiful looking boy. He had long, flowing, blond hair, beautiful, bright, blue eyes and
even, white teeth. Many young ladies fell in love with him including the nymph (女神): Echo.
     Nymphs were lively spirits who lived near streams and lakes and protected trees in the forest. Echo had
upset the Queen of the Gods: Hera. As a punishment Hera made Echo unable to speak except to repeat the
last three words of the person she was talking to.
     Poor Echo fell in love with Narcissus but could never tell him how she felt. Narcissus teased her and she
ran away with tears pouring down her face. Aphrodite, the goddess of love saw what happened and decided
to punish Narcissus. As he came to a pool of water Narcissus saw his reflection (影子) and fell in love with
the vision he saw. It was of course his own reflection.
     Poor Narcissus watched his own reflection, but every time he tried to touch the face of the vision he loved
it broke up on the shimmering surface of the water. Narcissus stopped eating, lost his beautiful looks and
desired to get his love. In the end he anguished gradually and died.
     Aphrodite took pity on him and made a flower grow in his place on the bank of the lake. Narcissus flowers
(水仙花) can be found to this day growing wherever you can find water and trees.

1. Echo fell in love with Narcissus because _____.

A. Narcissus was good-looking
B. Echo was a lively spirit
C. Narcissus loved her, too
D. Echo took pity on Narcissus

2. Why did Aphrodite, the goddess of love, punish Narcissus?

A. Aphrodite envied Echo because she loved Narcissus.
B. She thought Narcissus didn't respect and made Echo sad.
C. Narcissus fell in love with the vision, not Echo.
D. Echo was trapped in love and didn't protect trees in the forest any longer.

3. What does the underlined word "anguished" in the fourth paragraph mean?

A. Become increasingly thin and weak.
B. Become very hungry.
C. Become very fat.
D. Become out of mind. 

4. What is the main purpose of writing the passage?

A. To tell people a sad love story.
B. To tell people how Narcissus flowers came.
C. To tell the true meaning of beauty and ugliness.
D. To tell people not to affect others' love.

     The meaning of the word "volunteer" may be a little different in different countries, but it usually means
"one who offers his or her services." There are many different ways in which people can volunteer, such
as taking care of sick people, working in homes for homeless children, and picking up garbage (垃圾) from
beaches and parks. Volunteers may work within their own countries or in other countries. They are often
people with a strong wish to help those who are less fortunate than themselves. Volunteers don‘t expect any
kind of pay.
     At the root of volunteering is the idea that one person may have the ability to offer services that can help
other people. Tracy, a good friend of mine, however, recently came back from India with a new idea of
what being a volunteer means. She worked for two and a half weeks in one of Mother Teresa’s homes in
Calcutta. The following is her story.
     "I first heard about Mother Teresa in my high school, we watched a video (录像) about her work in India
and all over the world. I was so moved by her spirit to help others and her endless love for every human being
that after I graduated from high school, I too wanted to try her kind of work. So with two friends I flew to
Calcutta for a few weeks."
     "I was asked to work in a home for sick people. I helped wash clothes and sheets, and pass out lunch.
I also fed the people who were too weak to feed themselves and tried to cheer the up. I felt it was better to
share with them than to think that I have helped them. To be honest, I don‘t think I was helping very much.
It was then that I realized that I had not really come to help, but to learn about and experience another culture
(文化) that helped improve my own understanding of life and the world."

1. According to the text, a volunteer refers to a person who _____.

A. is willing to help those in need without pay
B. can afford to travel to different places
C. has a strong wish to be successful
D. has made a big fortune in life

2. Tracy started her work as a volunteer _____.

A. after she met Mother Teresa
B. after she finished high school
C. when she was touring Calcutta
D. when she was working in a hospital

3. Why did Tracy choose to be a volunteer?

A. She liked to work with Mother Teresa.
B. She had already had some experience.
C. She was asked by Mother Teresa’s example.
D. She wanted to follow Mother Teresa‘s example.

4. What is Tracy’s "new idea" (Paragraph 2) of being a volunteer?

A. Going abroad to help the sick.
B. Working in Mother Teresa‘s home.
C. Doing simple things to help the poor.
D. Improving oneself through helping others.

5. What is the best title for the passage?

A. How to Be a Volunteer.
B. Voluntary Life in India.
C. A Different Meaning of Volunteer.
D. Inspiration from Mother Teresa.