What is ［is］?

[    ] 

The first Starbucks coffee shop opened in 1971 in downtown Seattle, Washington, in the United States. It was a small coffee shop that roasted its own coffee beans. The coffee shop’s business did well, and by 1981 there were three more Starbucks stores in Seattle.

    Things really began to change for the company in 1981. That year, Howard Schultz met the three men who ran(经营) Starbucks. Schultz worked in New York for a company that made kitchen equipment. He noticed that Starbucks ordered a large number of special coffee makers, and he was curious about the company. Schultz went to Seattle to see what Starbucks did, and he liked what he saw. He wanted to become part of the company. In 1982, the original(原先的) Starbucks owners hired Schultz as the company’s head of marketing.

    In 1983, Schultz travelled to Italy. The unique atmosphere of the coffee bars there caught his eye. To Schultz it seemed that Italians spent their daily lives in three places: home, work and coffee bars. His experience in Italy gave Schultz a new idea for Starbucks back in Seattle.

    Schultz created an atmosphere for Starbucks coffee shops that was comfortable, and customers everywhere seemed to like it. Between 1987 and 1992, Starbucks opened 150 new stores—and that was only the beginning. In fact, by the year 2000, three new Starbucks stores opened somewhere around the world every day!

Today, Starbucks has thousands of stores, including stores in twenty-six countries. One thing that helps make Starbucks succeed in cities outside the United States is the way Starbucks works with local stores and restaurants. By working together with a store already in the city, Starbucks gets an understanding of customers in the city. This understanding helps Starbucks open stores in the right locations for their customers.

11．What is the main idea of this passage?

　　A．How Starbucks has grown     

B．What Starbucks makes．

　　C．Starbucks’customers．       

D．How Starbucks makes its coffee．

12．Which is true about Starbucks’first ten years of business?

　　A．It grew very quickly．       

B．It was run by Howard Schultz．

　　C．It made special coffee makers．  

D．It was a small company．

13．Who is Howard Schultz?

　　A．A coffee seller in New York．

　　B．An Italian coffee maker

　　C．The man who changed the company．

　　D．One of the original owners of the company．

14. How many new Starbucks stores probably opened in the year 2000 around the world?

　A.Three.   B.About1095.   C.Two thousand.  D. Thirty-six.

15．What helps Starbucks succeed in places outside the United States?

　　A．Opening restaurants in just a few locations each year．

　　B．Only selling locally produced coffee beans．

　　C．working with other major coffee-making companies．

　　D．Learning about local customers．

阅读并选择最佳选项。（共5小题；每小题1分，计5分）
请阅读下面的短文，并从下列各题所给的A、B、C、D三个选项中，选择最佳选项。
U.S. billionaire Bill Gates went to watch a game of his friend, U.S. teen player Ariel Hsing, at the ExCel Centre while the girl was playing against Chinese Li Xiaoxia.
Gates wore an orange jacket and dark blue baseball cap. He sat in the front row of the spectators’ stand (观众看台) and applauded (鼓掌) for every point Hsing scored.
“I’m wishing her the best of luck, but the opposite player is really great,” Gates said.
Hsing was in her third match at London 2012. She had already beaten Mexico’s Yadira Silva and Luxembourg’s Ni Xia Lian.
Hsing is known in the U.S. as a close friend with billionaires Warren Buffett and Gates. She is close enough to call them “Uncle Warren” and “Uncle Bill”.
Buffett met Hsing when she was only 9. Two years later, he invited her to play against his friends. She has returned several times after that. Earlier this year after winning a position on the U.S. team, she took a few points off Buffett and Gates.
When asked whether he has won a point off Hsing, Gates said, “She beat me when she was nine. She has been nice to me.”
【小题1】Bill Gates went to the ExCel Centre to watch a game between Ariel Hsing and 　　　.

阅读下列短文，完成短文后面的表格内容。（各小题不超过5个词）　　

George Stephenson was born in 1781 in a poor family. He had to start work when he was only eight. When George was fourteen, he became his father’s helper. He spent a lot of time learning about engines. On holidays, he often took engines into pieces and studied each piece carefully. Soon he became a very good worker though he could not read or write.　　

He began to learn the English letters when he was seventeen years old. Every day after he did twelve hours of hard work, he walked a long way to have lessons from a young teacher.　　

On his eighteenth birthday, he wrote his own name for the first time in his life. George invented many things in his life. The train was the greatest one among them. Today when we watch or take trains from one place to another, we will think of this great man ------George Stephenson.