The UK has a well­respected higher education system and some of the top universities and research institutions in the world. But to those who are new to it all, sometimes it can be confusing．
October is usually the busiest month in the college calendar. Universities have something called Freshers’ Week for their newcomers. It’s a great opportunity to make new friends, join lots of clubs and settle into university life．
However, having just left the comfort of home and all your friends behind, the prospect（前景）of meeting lots of strangers in big halls can be nerve­wracking（令人頭痛的）. Where do you start? Who should you make friends with? Which clubs should you join?
Luckily, there will be thousands of others in the same boat as you worrying about starting their university social life on the right foot. So just take it all in slowly. Don’t rush into anything that you’ll regret for the next three years.
Here is some top advice from past students on how to survive Freshers’ Week：
●Learn rules. Make sure you know British social etiquette（禮節(jié)）. Have a few wine glasses and snacks handy for your housemates and friends.
●Be kind. Sometimes cups of tea or even slices of toast can give you a head start in making friends.
●Be sociable. The more active you are, the more likely you’ll be to meet new people than if you’re someone who never leaves their room.
●Bring a doorstop. Keep your door open when you’re in and that sends positive messages to your neighbors that you’re friendly.
So with a bit of clever planning and effort, Freshers’ Week can give you a great start to your university life and soon you’ll be passing on your experience to next year’s new recruits．
【小題1】Which of the following statements is FALSE according to the passage？

It’s school time again! You’re probably feeling excited and maybe a little sad that summer is over. Some kids feel nervous or a little scared（害怕） on the first day of school because of all the new things: new teachers, new friends, and even a new school. Luckily, these “new” worries only stick around for a little while. Let’s find out more about going to a new school.
Most teachers kick off the new school year by introducing themselves and talking about all the stuff you’ll be doing that year. Some teachers give students a chance to tell something about themselves to the rest of the class, too. When teachers do the talking on the first day, they often go over classroom rules and school rules so you’ll know what’s allowed and what’s not. Please pay close attention
You might already know a lot of people in your classes on the first day, but it’s a great day to make a new friend, so try to say hello to kids you know and new ones that you don’t. Make the first move and you’ll be glad you did, and so will your new friend!
Seeing friends you haven’t seen for some time can make the first day a good one. You can make the day feel special by wearing clothes that you really like. Maybe you got a great T-shirt on one of your vacations, or a pair of sneakers（運動鞋）. It also can make you feel good to be prepared and have all the things you need, such as pencils, folders, and whatever else you’ll be needing. But make sure that you pack them the night before in case you don’t have time in the morning.
【小題1】The underlined phrase “kick off” in the second paragraph probably means “_____”.

English teenagers are to receive compulsory(必修的)cooking lessons in schools. The idea is to encourage healthy eating to fight the country’s increasing obesity(肥胖)rate. It’s feared that basic cooking and food preparation skills are being lost as parents turn to pre-pre-pared convenience foods.
Cooking was once regarded as an important part of education in England-even if it was mainly aimed at girls. In recent decades cooking has progressively become a minor activity in schools. In  many cases the schools themselves have given up cooking meals in kitchens in the schools .But the rising level of obesity has led to a rethink about the food that children are given and the skills they should be taught.
“What I want is to teach young people how to do basic, simple recipes like a tomato sauce, a bolognaise, a simple curry, a stir-fry-which they can use now at home and then in their later life”, said Ed Balls, the minister responsible for schools.
The new lessons are due to start in September, but some schools without kitchens will be given longer to adapt. There is also likely to be a shortage of teachers with the right skills, since the trend has been to teach food technology rather than practical cooking. Also the compulsory lessons for hands on cooking will only be one hour a week for one term. But the well-known cookery writer, Pru  Leith, believes it will be worth it .
“If we’d done this thirty years ago we might not have the crisis we’ve got now about obesity and lack of knowledge about food and so on. Every child should know how to cook, not just so that they’ll be healthy, but because it’s a life skill which is a real pleasure”.
The renewed interest in cooking is primarily a response to the level of obesity in Britain which is among the highest in Europe, and according to government figures half of all Britains will be obese in 25 years if current trends are not stopped.
【小題1】The passage mainly talks about        .

How would you like to learn more without having to study more？Here’s how：
1．Get to bed and go to sleep.Your performance，attention，and the ability to concentrate are damaged by lack of sleep.Teenagers need nine to ten hours of sleep a night for best performance.
2．Feed your head.The brain runs badly if it doesn’t get enough fuel.That means protein(蛋白質)and complex carbs (復合碳水化合物)－eggs and wheat bread for breakfast，say，rather than sugary cereal(含糖的麥片粥)and orange juice.The biggest mistake teens make is not to have breakfast or to go for sugar，which raises blood sugar levels.
3．Body exercise is brain exercise.Body exercise really improves brain performance，perhaps because it increases blood flow，or perhaps because it reduces stress and anxiety(焦慮).Twenty minutes of activity a day that raises your heart rate will do great good.
4．Learn now what you want to remember for the rest of your life.Teenage brains are much better at remembering things than the brains  of young children or adults.Scientists aren’t sure why.Whatever the reason，the teenage years are the time to learn new languages and master other lifelong skills.
5．Learn the power of risk taking.Adults are always worried about the downside of teenage risk?taking，and it’s true that teenagers are more likely than adults to get themselves in trouble by drinking and driving.But the fact that the parts of the brain that drive people to try new，risky，and exciting things appear to be more developed in teenagers can be a huge advantage.Pick certain challenges－difficult sports，a hard job，mastering a performance art，traveling overseas－and the teenage brain is able to deal with them.They have this power they’re given to go out and do it without fear.
6．Learn what you love.Because emotional(情感的)systems develop fast in teenager brains，teenagers learn things they’re interested in quickly and well.Their brains give them tools like attention on the project.
【小題1】According to the passage，teenagers should have　　　　for breakfast.

I had the meanest mother in the world. While other kids ate candy for breakfast, I had to have cereal, eggs and toast. Others had cokes and candy for lunch, while we had to eat a sandwich. As you can guess, my supper was different than the other kids’. But at least I was not alone in my suffering. My sister and two brothers had the same mean mother as I did.
My mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. She had to know who our friends were and what we were doing. We had to wear clean clothes every day. Other kids always wore their clothes for days. We reached the height of disgrace because she made our clothes herself, just to save money.
The worst is yet to come. We had to be in bed by 9:00 each night and up at 7:45 the next morning. So while my friends slept, my mother actually had the courage to break Child Labor Law. She made us work. I believed she lay awake all night thinking up mean things to do to us. Through the years, our friends’ report cards had beautiful colors on them, black for passing, red for failing. My mother, however, would merely be content with black marks. None of us was allowed the pleasure of being a dropout.
She forced us to grow up into educated and honest adults. Using this as a background, I’m now trying to bring up my three children. I’m filled with pride when my children think I am mean because now I thank God every day for giving me the meanest mother in the world.
【小題1】Which of the following things did the writer hate to do most?

Many language learners think their pronunciation is good enough because their teacher doesn’t correct them too often or because other students can 36 them.
Pronunciation is the area which is 37 the least attention to in language learning. Most teachers 38 just let their students speak. The teachers stop them 39 the students say something completely wrong. Working on each student’s pronunciation in class is just 40. Also, the students who are 41 at pronunciation may be afraid that it will embarrass their classmates if they help 42 their mistakes.
Although you believe your pronunciation is good enough to 43, you may be 44 when you actually go to a foreign country. One of my friends was the best student in his 45 class in Poland. However, when he went to America, he found Americans didn’t understand 46 of what he said.
Your pronunciation may still be quite 47 that of a native speaker. If this is the 48, other people will find it 49 to understand what you’re saying and will not be comfortable with you.
50, don’t think you can communicate in a foreign language 51 you’ve tested your skills on real native speakers. 52 for native or near­native pronunciation so that people you talk to can communicate with you 53. In order to achieve this goal, there’s no 54 that you will need to start thinking about pronunciation and 55 time on it.

One of the biggest challenges facing students and their families is what career they should enter and what is the best path for them to take.
I was talking to someone the other day who told me he first studied accounting because that was what everyone was studying several years ago. It was and some say still is a reliable career. However, then he told me that he was now studying financial investment because again--- that’s what everyone was studying now and it was needed if he wanted to get ahead in the company.
And I asked him what he was actually interested in and then— well the conversation kind of died. So I asked why he had bothered studying accounting in the first place and he explained that it was his parents’ idea. Finally I asked what his passion was and he wasn’t too sure because he never thought about it.
And so it is— lifelong learning— or the continual need to make ourselves marketable in a world that appears to be more competitive as time goes by. Is there a secret to help us so we can live a life of quality?
Regardless or not at this stage in world history with increasing connection between people,
ideas and markets — the ability to match the needs and desires of the day with your own skills and products is a tremendous and vigorous challenge.
Many have gone into English or foreign language study because it was encouraged at the time when China was entering the WTO. Or maybe they were interested in international affairs or working abroad. Upon graduation they then faced the reality that there was a limit to how many jobs they could apply for.
Perhaps some then studied further doing courses for work such as a tour guide or translator/ interpreter. Many may have decided that going into teaching was more rewarding or stable. Others would have gone into media or advertising or conference management and acquired new skills along the way.
This constant quest to remain ahead of the game makes many upset and exhausted. Some futurists who examine technology have even predicted that people should expect to change careers six or seven times during their lifetime!
So if you are concerned by the nature of change, why not start spending more time looking at the most modern leading economies, institutions and their publications. A whole lot of changes are starting to happen yet there is no reason why this cannot be enjoyable, exciting and also rewarding. Our attitude, approach and willingness to continually learn and update our skills must remain strong.
My tip is to track the work that our government is setting about to achieve. In particular, look at the people who have been chosen as the key support team and try to read behind the light surface news and look at their career development and examine the recent reports that they are now recommending the government move towards. Key industry development, new ways of dealing with information and new demands are creating opportunities for the students and workers of tomorrow — if we stay prepared.
【小題1】Who is this article intended for?

Everyone knows about straight-A students. We see them frequently in TV situation comedies and in movies like Revenge (報復) of the Nerds. They get high grades, all right, but only by becoming dull laborers, their noses always stuck in a book. They are not good at social communication and look clumsy while doing sports.
How, then, do we account for Domenica Roman or Paul Melendres? Roman is on the tennis team at Fairmont Senior High School. She also sings in the choral group, serves on the student council and is a member of the mathematics society. For two years she has maintained A’s in every subject. Melendres, a freshman at the University of New Mexico, was student-body president at Valley High School in Albuquerque. He played soccer and basketball well, exhibited at the science fair, and meanwhile worked as a reporter on a local television station. Being a speech giver at the graduation ceremony, he achieved straight A’s in his regular classes, plus bonus points for A’s in two college-level courses.
How do super-achievers like Roman and Melendres do it? Brains aren’t the only answer. “Top grades don’t always go to the brightest students,” declares Herbert Walberg, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has conducted major studies on super-achieving students. “Knowing how to make full use of your innate (天生的) abilities counts for more. Much more.”
In fact, Walberg says, students with high IQ sometimes don’t do as well as classmates with lower IQ. For them, learning comes too easily and they never find out how to get down. Hard work isn’t the whole story, either. “It’s not how long you sit there with the books open,” said one of the many-A students we interviewed. “It’s what you do while you’re sitting.” Indeed, some of these students actually put in fewer hours of homework time than their lower-scoring classmates.
The kids at the top of the class get there by mastering a few basic techniques that others can readily learn.
【小題1】The underlined word “nerds” in paragraph 1 can probably be ________.

Since many of you are planning to study at a college or university in this country, you may be curious to know what you usually do in a typical week, how you can get along with your fellow students, and so on. These are the questions I want to discuss with you today.
First, let’s talk about  what your weekly schedule will look like. No matter what your major may be, you can expect to spend between four and six hours a week for each class attending lectures. Lectures are usually in very large rooms because some courses such as introduction to sociology or economics often have as many as two or three hundred students, especially at large universities. In lectures, it’s very important for you to take notes on what the professor says because the information a lecture is often different from the information in your textbooks. Also, you can expect to have exam questions based on the lectures. So it isn’t enough to just read your textbooks; you have to attend lectures as well. In a typical week you will also have a couple of hours of discussion for every class you take. The discussion section is a small group meeting usually with fewer than thirty students where you can ask questions about the lectures, the reading, and the homework. In large universities, graduate students, called teaching assistants, usually direct discussion sections.
If your major is chemistry, or physics, or another science, you’ll also have to spend several hours a week in the lab, or laboratory, doing experiments. This means that science majors spend more time in the classroom than non science majors do. On the other hand, people who major in subjects like literature or history usually have to read and write more than science majors do.
【小題1】The main purpose of this text is       .

You are careful with your money: you collect all kinds of coupons; look for group-buy deals if you eat out; you don't buy clothes unless in a sale. Does all this make you a wise consumer?
Let's do the math first: you walk into a coffee shop and see two deals for a cup of coffee. The first deal offers 33 percent extra coffee. The second takes 33 percent off the  regular price. What's the better deal? Well, they are about the same, you'd think. And you'd be wrong. The deals appear to be equal, but in fact, they are different. Here's the math: Let's say the standard coffee is 10 yuan and let's divide the amount of coffee into three portions(部分). That makes about 3.3 yuan per portion, The first deal gets you 4 portions for 10 yuan (2.5 yuan per portion) and the second gets you 3 portions of coffee for 6.6 yuan (2.2 yuan per portion) and is therefore a better deal.
In a new study published by the Journal of Marketing, participants were asked the same question, and most of them chose the first deal, the Atlantic website reported. Why? Because getting something extra for free feels better than getting the same for less. The applications of this view into consumer psychology(心理) are huge. Instead of offering direct discounts, shops offer larger sizes or free samples.
According to the study, the reason why these marketing tricks work is that consumers don't really know how much anything should cost, so we rely on parts of our brains that  aren't strictly quantitative.
There are some traps we should be aware of when shopping. First of all, we are heavily influenced by the first number. Suppose you are shopping in Hong Kong. You walk into Hermes, and you see a 100,000 yuan bag. "That's crazy." You shake your head and leave. The next shop is Gucci, a handbag here costs 25,000 yuan. The price is still high, but compared to the 100,000 yuan price tag you just committed to your memory, this is a steal. Stores often use the price difference to set consumers' expectation. zxxk
Another trap we often fall to Is that we are not really sure what things are worth. And so we use clues(暗示) to tell us what we ought to pay for them. US economist Dan Ariely has done an experiment to prove this. According to the Atlantic, Ariely pretended he was giving a lecture on poetry. He told one group of students that the tickets cost money and another group that they would be paid to attend. Then he informed both groups that thelecture was free. The first group was anxious to attend, believing they were getting something of value for free. The second group mostly declined, believing they were being forced to volunteer for the same event without reward.
What's a lecture on poetry by an economist worth? The students had no idea. That's  the point. Do we really know what a shirt is worth ? What about a cup of coffee? What's the worth of a life insurance.policy? Who knows? Most of us don't. As a result, our shopping  brain uses only what is knowable:  visual(祝覺的) clues, invited emotions, comparisons, and  a sense of bargain. We are not stupid. We are just easily influenced.
【小題1】The first paragraph of the passage is intended to