When it comes to friends, I desire those who will share my happiness, who possess wings of their own and who will fly with me. I seek friends whose qualities illuminate （照亮） me and train me up for love. It is for these people that I reserve the glowing hours, too good not to share.
When I was in the eighth grade, I had a friend. We were shy and “too serious” about our studies when it was becoming fashionable with our classmates to learn acceptable social behaviors. We said little at school, but she would come to my house and we would sit down with pencils and paper, and one of us would say: “Let’s start with a train whistle today.” We would sit quietly together and write separate poems or stories that grew out of a train whistle. Then we would read them aloud. At the end of that school year, we, too, were changing into social creatures and the stories and poems stopped.
When I lived for a time in London, I had a friend. He was in despair and I was in despair. But our friendship was based on the idea in each of us that we would be sorry later if we did not explore this great city because we had felt bad at the time. We met every Sunday for five weeks and found many excellent things. We walked until our despairs disappeared and then we parted. We gave London to each other.
For almost four years I have had a remarkable friend whose imagination illuminates mine. We write long letters in which we often discover our strangest selves. Each of us appears, sometimes in a funny way, in the other’s dreams. She and I agree that, at certain times, we seem to be parts of the same mind. In my most interesting moments, I often think: “Yes, I must tell...” We have never met.
It is such comforting companions I wish to keep. One bright hour with their kind is worth more to me than the lifetime services of a psychologist, who will only fill up the healing silence necessary to those darkest moments in which I would rather be my own best friend.
【小題1】In the eighth grade, what the author did before developing proper social behavior was to              .

A．share poems and stories with her friend

B．go to her friend’s house regularly

C．become serious about her study

D．learn from her classmates at school

【小題2】In Paragraph 3, “We gave London to each other” probably means              .

A．our unpleasant feeling about London disappeared

B．we were unwilling to tear ourselves away from London

C．our exploration of London was a memorable gift to both of us

D．we parted with each other in London

【小題3】According to Paragraph 4, the author and her friend              .

A．call each other regularly	B．enjoy writing to each other
C．have similar personalities	D．dream of meeting each other

【小題4】In the darkest moments, the author would prefer to              .

A．seek professional help	B．break the silence
C．stay with her best friend	D．be left alone

【小題5】What is the best title for the passage?

A．Noble Companions	B．Remarkable Imagination
C．Lifelong Friendship	D．Unforgettable Experiences

If you want to teach your children how to say sorry, you must be good at saying it yourself, especially to your own children. But how you say it can be quite tricky.
If you say to your children "I'm sorry I got angry with you, but...", what follows that "but" can make the apology ineffective:"I had a bad day" or "your noise was giving me a headache" leaves the person who has been injured feeling that he should be apologizing for his bad behavior in expecting an apology.
Another means by which peaple appear to apologize without actually doing so is to say "I'm sorry you're upset"; this suggests that you are somehow at fault for allowing yourself to get upset by what the other person has done.
Then there is the general, all-covering apology, which avoids the necessity of identifying a specific act that is particularly hurtful or insulting, and which the person who is apologizing should promise never to do again. Saying "I'm useless as a parent" does not commit a person to any specific improvement.
These pseudo-apologies(假道歉) are used by people who believe saying sorry shows weakness. Parents who wish to teach their children to apologize should see it as a sign of strength, and therefore not take these pseudo-apologies.
But even when presented with examples of real apology, childfen still need help to become aware of the complexities of saying sorry.  A three-year-old might need help in un- derstanding that other children feel pain just as he does, and that hitting a playmate over the head with a heavy toy requires an apology. A six-year-old might need reminding that spoiling other children's expectations can require an apology. A 12-year-old might need to be shown that destroying the biscuit tin without asking permission is acceptable, but that
borrowing a parent's clothes without permission is not.
【小題1】If a mother adds "but" to an apology, ________.

A．the child may find the apology easier to accept

B．the child may feel that he owes her an apology

C． she promises never to do it again

D．she does not realize that the child has been hurt

【小題2】According to the author, saying "I am sorry you are upset" most probably means “_______”

A．You have good reason to get upset

B．I apologize for hurting your feelings

C．I am at fault for making you upset

D．I am aware you are upset, but I am not to blame

【小題3】It is not advisable to use the general, all-covering apology because _______.

A． it is not clear and ineffective

B． it is hurtful and insulting

C． it may make the other person feel faulty

D．it gets one into the habit of making empty promises .

【小題4】We learn from the last paragraph that in teaching children to say sorry_______

A．the complexities involved should be ignored

B．parents need to set them a good example

C．their ages should be taken into account

D．parents should be patient and tolerant

【小題5】It can be inferred from the passage that apologizing properly is________.

A．a(chǎn) sign of social,progress

B．not as simple as it seems

C．not necessary among family members.

D．a(chǎn) social issue calling for immediate attention

Sarah came running in saying, "Look what l found. " Over the top of the paper I was reading I saw a long object that made me jump. It was a piece of snakeskin that had been shed （脫皮)  by one of our garden snakes.
'Isn't it beautiful?" said my wide-eyed 7~year-old daughter. I stared at the organic wrapper and thought to myself that it really was not that beautiful, but I did not want to disappoint Sarah.  Everything children see for the first time is elementary to their sense of beauty and creativity. They see only merit (憂點(diǎn)) and excellence in the world.
"Why does it do this?" Sarah asked. I like to teach my children that there is something else going on besides what they see in front of them. "Snakes shed their skin because they need to renew themselves," I explained.
"Why do they need to renew themselves?" Sarah asked. "We often need to shed our skins, those coatings that we cover ourselves with," I said to my now absorbed daughter. "We outgrow some things and find other stuff unnecessary. This snake no longer needs this skin.  It is probably too old, and the snake probably doesn't think it looks as smart in the skin as it once did.  Like buying a new suit. "
Of course, I'm sure this explanation won't suit naturalists. But Sarah got the point. As we talked, I knew that she began to understand that renewal is part of progress; that we need to take a good look at ourselves, and rooms and schoolwork and creativity, and she began to see what we need to keep and what need to cast off.  I was careful to point out that this is a natural process, not one to be forced.
"Snakes don't peel off their skin when they feel like it," I explained.  "lt happens as part of their growth. "
"I see, Dad. " said Sarah.  She then jumped off my lap, grabbed the snakeskin, and ran off.
I hoped she would remember this. Often, in order to find our real selves underneath the layers of community and culture we are cloaked (掩飾) in year after year, we need to start examining these layers. We need to gently peel some away, as we recognize them to be worthless, unnecessary, or flawed (有缺陷的);  or at best,  remember the things we discard（丟掉）to teach us how we can improve.
【小題1】When Sarah asked the author whether the snakeskin was beautiful,___________

A．he was shocked and jumped

B．he tried to understand her point of view

C．he thought that telling the truth was a merit

D．he decided to teach her something about the garden

【小題2】How did Sarah feel about the author's explanation?

A．Confused.

B．Boreci

C．Satisfied.

D．Excited.

【小題3】Which of the following would the author agree with?

A．By reflecting on ourselves, we can better ourselves.

B．It is necessary to force others to remove some things.

C．The community and culture force us to change.

D．It is natural to keep some old clothes.

【小題4】From the text, we can conclude that the author___________.

A．does not like nature much

B．takes the chilcl's feelings lightly

C．is both a logical and thoughtful person

D．loves to see his daughter excited about animals

【小題5】Which of the following could be the best title for the article?

A．The things we should cast off	B．A shed snakeskin in Sarah's eyes
C．A natural part of our growth	D．Renewal for snakes and us

If you have ever gone through a toll booth(收費(fèi)所), you know that your relationship to the person in the booth is not the most intimate you'll ever have. It is one of life's frequent affairs: You hand over some money; you might get change; you drive off.
　　Late one morning in 1984, headed for lunch in San Francisco, I drove toward a booth. I heard loud music. It sounded like a party. I looked around. No other cars with their windows open. No sound trucks. I looked at the toll booth. Inside it, the man was dancing.
　　"What are you doing?" I asked.
　　"I'm having a party," he said.
　　"What about the rest of the people?" I looked at the other toll booths.
　　He said, "What do those look like to you?" He pointed down the row of toll booths.
　　"They look like……toll booths. What do they look like to you?"
　　He said, "Vertical coffins. At 8:30 every morning, live people get in. Then they die for eight hours. At 4:30, like Lazarus from the dead, they reemerge and go home. For eight hours, brain is on hold, dead on the job. Going through the motions."
　　I was amazed. This guy had developed a philosophy, a mythology about his job. Sixteen people dead on the job, and the seventeenth, in precisely the same situation, figures out a way to live. I could not help asking the next question: "Why is it different for you? You're having a good time."
He looked at me. "I knew you were going to ask that. I don't understand why anybody would think my job is boring. I have a corner office, glass on all sides. I can see the Golden Gate, San Francisco, and the Berkeley hills. Half the Western world vacations here……and I just stroll in every day and practice dancing."
【小題1】According to the first paragraph, in most cases, how do you describe the relationship between drivers and toll booth?

A．most intimate

B．very tense

C．pretty ordinary

D．extremely hostile

【小題2】Why did the author go to San Francisco?
A. To attend a party
B. B. To have a meal
C. To dance with the worker in the toll booth
D. To hand in the repair fee of his car
【小題3】The underlined name “Lazarus” mentioned in the eighth paragraph probably refers to a person___________.
A. who was very active in his life
B. B. who was dead and revived from death
C. who was going to San Francisco
D. who liked dancing at work
【小題4】According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?

A．The author passed by the toll booth every day.

B．The worker enjoyed his work very much.

C．Only western people like to spend their holidays in the Berkeley hills.

D．The dancing worker was getting badly along with his colleagues.

【小題5】After hearing what the worker said, the author would probably_________.

A．go to the worker’s senior to complain about his bad attitude towards job.

B．go climbing the Golden Gate and the Berkeley hills to have a vacation.

C．learn to take a positive attitude to job and appreciate valuable things in life.

D．go back home instead of wasting time traveling to San Francisco.

Successful people in international business understand the cultures of other countries and learn to change their practices in different cultures. They understand the importance of avoiding business decisions based on misconceptions—mistaken ideas.
One cause of misconceptions is ethnocentrism, the belief that one’s own culture’s way of doing things is better than the way of other cultures. It’s ethnocentrism that leads to failure in international business. To avoid ethnocentrism, it’s necessary to study the different elements（組成部分）of culture: language, values and attitudes, and customs and manners.
Language
A. knowledge of the local language can help international business people in four ways. First, people can communicate directly. Second, people are usually more open in their communication with someone who speaks their language. Third, an understanding of the language allows people to infer meanings that are not said directly. Finally, knowing the language helps people to understand the culture better.
Values are people’s basic beliefs about the difference between right and wrong, good and bad . An attitude is a way of thinking or acting. Values and attitudes influence international business. For example, many people in the United States believe that chocolate from Switzerland is better than chocolate from other countries, and they buy a lot of it.
Customs and manners
Customs are common social practices. Manners are ways of acting that the society believes are polite. For example, in the United States,  it is the custom to have salad before the main course at dinner, not after. It’s not acceptable to talk with food in mouth at table. Failure to understand the customs and manners of other countries will bring difficulty selling their products. Orange juice as a breakfast drink of an American company in France doesn’t sell well because the French don’t usually drink juice with breakfast.
【小題1】A. knowledge of the local language allows international business people _________.
A. to be more open with their customers
B. to have a better idea of their own culture
C. to express their thoughts indirectly
D. to communicate without outside help
【小題2】The act of many people buying chocolate of Switzerland shows the role of ________.

A．a(chǎn)ttitudes

B．values

C．manners

D．customs

【小題3】What would be the best title for the text?

A．Misconceptions in Business

B．Basic Beliefs in Business

C．International Business Culture

D．Successful International Business

【小題4】The author’s purpose of writing this article is to tell people ___________

A．how to take a right attitude in business

B．how to avoid misunderstandings in business

C．how to use a local language in business

D．how to act politely and properly in business

You wake up in the morning，the day is beautiful and the plans for the day are what you have been looking forward to for a long time. Then the telephone rings，you say hello, and the drama starts．The person on the other end has a depressing tone in his voice as he starts to tell you how terrible his morning is and that there is nothing to look forward to．You are still in a wonderful mood? Impossible!
Communicating with negative people can wash out your happiness．It may not change what you think，but communicating long enough with them will make you feel depressed for a moment or a long time．
Life brings ups and downs，but some people are stuck in the wrong idea that life has no happiness to offer．They only feel glad when they make others feel bad．No wonder they can hardly win others’ pity or respect．
When you communicate with positive people，your spirit stays happy and therefore more positive things are attracted．When the dagger(匕首) of a negative person is put in you，you feel the heavy feeling that all in all，brings you down．
Sometimes we have no choice but to communicate with negative people．This could be a co-worker，or a relative．In this case，say what needs to be said as little as possible. Sometimes it feels good to let out your anger back to the negative person，but all this does is to lower you to that same negative level and they won’t feel ashamed of themselves about that．
Negativity often affects happiness without even being realized．The negative words of another at the start of the day can cling to(附著) you throughout the rest of your day，which makes you feel bad and steals your happiness．Life is too short to feel negative．Stay positive and avoid negativity as much as possible．
【小題1】The purpose of the first paragraph is to ___________.

A．make a comparison	B．offer an evidence
C．introduce a topic	D．describe a daily scene

【小題2】How can negative people have effect on us?

A．By influencing our emotion．

B．By telling us the nature of life．

C．By changing our ways of thinking．

D．By comparing their attitudes to life with ours．

【小題3】Some negative people base their happiness on _____________.

A．other people’s pity for them	B．making other people unhappy
C．building up a positive attitude	D．other people’s respect for them

【小題4】According to the passage, to reduce negative people’s influence on us，we are advised to _____.

A．change negative people’s attitudes to life

B．show our dissatisfaction to negative people

C．make negative people feel ashamed of themselves

D．communicate with negative people as little as possible

【小題5】What is the author’s attitude towards negative people?

A．Favorable．

B．Critical.

C．Indifferent.

D．Supportive.

I’m not so sure I like my friends any more. I used to like them — to be honest. We’d have lunch, talk on the phone or exchange e-mails, and they all seemed normal enough. But then came Facebook and I was introduced to a sad fact: many of my friends have dark sides that they had kept from me.
Today my friends show off the more unpleasant aspects of their personalities via Facebook. No longer hidden, they’re thrown in my face like TV commercials — unavoidable and endless advertisements for the worst of their personalities.
Take Fred. If you were to have lunch with him, you’d find him warm, and down-to-earth. Read his Facebook and you realize he’s an unbearable, food-obsessed bore. He’d pause to have a cup of coffee on his way to save a drowning man — and then write about it.
Take Andy. You won’t find a smarter CEO anywhere, but now he’s a CEO without a company to lull. So he plays Mafia Wars on Facebook. He’s doing well — level 731. Thanks to Facebook, I know he’s playing about 18 hours a day. Andy, you’ve run four companies — and this is how you spend your downtime? What happened to golf? What happened to getting another job?
Take Liz. She is positive that the H1N1 vaccine will kill us all and that we should avoid it. And then comes Chris who likes to post at least 20 times a day on every website he can find, so I get to read his thoughts twice, once on Facebook and once on Twitter.
In real life, I don’t see these sides of people. Face to face, my friends show me their best. They’re nice, smart people. But face to Facebook, my friends are like a blind date which goes horribly wrong.
I’m left with a dilemma. Who is my real friend? Is it the Liz I have lunch with or the anti-vaccine lunatic(狂人)on Facebook? Is it the Fred I can grab a sandwich with or the Fred who weeps if he’s at a party and the wine isn’t up to his standards?
【小題1】Who is opposed to the H1N1 vaccine in the text?

A．Fred.

B．Andy.

C．Liz.

D．Chris.

【小題2】What’s Andy probably busy in doing now?

A．He’s running his company.

B．He’s playing golf all day.

C．He’s looking for another job.

D．He’s playing computer games.

【小題3】According to the text, Facebook tends to ______.

A．present another side of people

B．offer some food for free

C．show endless advertisements

D．get you to more parties

【小題4】The text is developed mainly by ______.

A．giving examples	B．following the time order
C．listing figures	D．raising questions

【小題5】The author focuses on the question of ______.

A．what is Facebook	B．what happened to golf
C．who is my real friend	D．who can help me

Forgiving someone who has hurt you or let you down is never an easy thing. Several new studies, however, say that it could have a lot of health benefits. When you think of forgiveness, you probably don’t think of it as being a health or medical problem. Studies from Stanford University, on the other hand, show that something like anger can change your well-being.
When cartoon book characters like the Incredible Hulk get angry, they change colours and often gain special power. In the real world, anger is less obvious and may be more dangerous. That’s why Professor Fred Luskin, founder of the Stanford Forgiveness Project and author of Forgive for Good, says holding on to anger and hatred can harm your physical and mental health. Two new studies seem to show the same idea.
The studies find that people who are able to forgive feel less stress, less back pain, and less depression. They also have fewer headaches, lower blood pressure, and fewer problems on sleeping.
So it doesn’t matter if your anger is caused by the traffic or other things. Learning to let it go is important. Techniques such as deep breath or thought can help. Or just ask yourself if it’s worth hurting yourself by staying angry with someone else.
Forgiveness does not mean that you simply accept what happened and say it’s OK. Instead, it’s a way of making peace with yourself about what happened in the past.
【小題1】The author of the passage tries to make his viewpoint clear ______.

A．by raising his own examples

B．based on his own experience

C．by mentioning some studies

D．by mentioning some typical patients

【小題2】The example of the cartoon book characters is taken in the passage to______.

A．support the viewpoint that anger and hatred harm physical and mental health

B．introduce a famous expert

C．let the reader know the different colours of cartoon faces

D．show how to control one’s temper

【小題3】The underlined phrase“holding on to”in this passage possibly means“______”.

A．removing

B．keeping up

C．getting rid of

D．learning about

【小題4】The best title for this passage is probably _______.

A．Forgiveness	B．Forgiveness Is Good for Health
C．A Secret to Keeping Health	D．Anger Is Bad for Health

I had an experience some years ago, which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I had to hold two funerals on successive days for two elderly women in my community. Both had died “ full of years”, as the Bible would say. Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condolence(吊唁) calls on the two families on the same afternoon.
At the first home, the son of the deceased(已故的)woman said to me, “ If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It’s my fault that she died.” At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, “ If only I hadn’t insisted on my mother’s going to Florida, she would be alive today.. that long airplane ride, the sudden change of climate, was more than she could take. It’s my fault that she’s dead.”
You see that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out bad, they believe that the opposite course—keeping Mother at home, putting off the operation—would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?
There are seem to be two elements involved in our willingness to feel guilty. The first is our pressing need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens that leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds.
The second element is the view that we are the cause of what happens , especially the bad things that happen. It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believe that every disaster is our fault. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood.
A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to its tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him , and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely outgrow that childish view that our wishes cause things to happen.
【小題1】What is said about the two diseased elderly women?

A．They lived out a natural life

B．They died of exhaustion after the long plane ride

C．They weren’t used to the change in weather.

D．They died due to lack of care by family members.

【小題2】The author had to conduct the two women’s funerals probably because ______.

A．he wanted to comfort the two families

B．he was an official from the community

C．he had great pity for the deceased

D．he was minister of the local church

【小題3】People feel guilty for the deaths of their loved ones because _____.

A．they couldn’t find a better way to express their sorrow

B．they believe that they were responsible

C．they had neglected the natural course of events

D．they didn’t know things often turn in the opposite direction

【小題4】According to the passage, the underlined part in paragraph 4 probably means that_____.

A．everything in the world is predetermined

B．the world can be interpreted in different ways

C．there is an explanation for everything in the world

D．we have to be sensible in order to understand the world

【小題5】What’s the idea of the passage?

A．Life and death is an unsolved mystery.

B．Every story should have a happy ending.

C．Never feel guilty all the time because not every disaster is our fault.

D．In general, the survivors will feel guilty about the people who passed away.

Most Chinese people these days know what it is like to have an “English teacher”, since almost all pupils study English from their third year. Usually that first English teacher will be a young and lovely lady in primary school. But my first English teacher is no other than my father. Looking back, I can see that, when I was only a little girl, he created an English environment by providing me with flashcards，fun English- language toys and even dolls which can sing English songs! My interest in English had certainly been awakened (喚起) when I began to learn English at school. Just imagine, he went a step further and asked me to learn New Concept English by myself! I was puzzled and even angry. I could not understand why a father could be so strict with his little girl. All the same, he never gave up and he gently insisted that I follow through with his idea. At first, I read stories with tears and I actually hated them because they were too difficult for me. In the end, I came to love the funny stories and, to be honest, my father was always there with a helping hand. I am sure that my English would never have got so far without his support. And that’s why my father is not only my first English teacher but also my lifelong teacher. He is one who awoke my interest, and who gave me much confidence .
【小題1】Most pupils in China begin to learn English________.

A．in primary school

B．from parents

C．a(chǎn)t three years old

D．a(chǎn)t home

【小題2】The underline part ”no other than my father” in the passage probably means________.

A．like my father

B．not my father

C．my father himself

D．not only my father

【小題3】From the whole passage we can see that________.

A．the girl preferred playing to learning English

B．the girl hates her father because he was strict

C．the girl is very thankful to her father

D．the father gave up after knowing his daughter could not understand

【小題4】Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A．The girl’s father is her first English teacher.

B．The girl had been interested in English before going to school.

C．The girl’s father was always ready to help her with her English.

D．The girl could have learned English well by herself without her father.

【小題5】What would be the best title for the passage?

A．How I learned English at school

B．My father---my first and lifelong English teacher

C．The relationship between my father and me

D．I’ve made progress in English learning