I love charity(慈善) shops and so do lots of other people in Britain because you find quite a few of them on every high street. The charity shop is a British institution, selling everything from clothes to electric goods, all at very good prices. You can get things you won’t find in the shops anymore. The thing I like best about them is that your money is going to a good cause and not into the pockets of profit-driven companies, and you are not damaging the planet, but finding a new home for unwanted goods.
The first charity shop was opened in 1947 by Oxfam. The famous charity’s appeal to aid postwar Greece had been so successful it had been flooded with donations(捐赠物). They decided to set up a shop to sell some of these donations to raise money for that appeal. Now there are over 7,000 charity shops in the UK. My favourite charity shop in my hometown is the Red Cross shop, where I always find children’s books, all 10 or 20 pence each.
Most of the people working in the charity shops are volunteers, although there is often a manager who gets paid. Over 90% of the goods in the charity shops are donated by the public. Every morning you see bags of unwanted items outside the front of shops, although they don’t encourage this, rather ask people to bring things in when the shop is open.
The shops have very low running costs: all profits go to charity work. Charity shops raise more than ￡110 million a year, funding(资助) medical research, overseas aid, supporting sick and poor children, homeless and disabled people, and much more. What better place to spend your money? You get something special for a very good price and a good moral sense. You provide funds to a good cause and tread lightly on the environment.
1.The author loves the charity shop mainly because of .
A. its convenient location B. its great variety of goods
C. its spirit of goodwill D. its nice shopping environment
2.The first charity shop in the UK was set up to .
A. sell cheap products B. deal with unwanted things
C. raise money for patients D. help a foreign country
3.Which of the following is TRUE about charity shops?
A. The operating costs are very low. B. The staff are usually well paid.
C. 90% of the donations are second-hand. D. They are open twenty-four hours a day.
4.Which of the following may be the best title for the passage?
A. What to Buy at Charity Shops.
B. Charity Shop: Its Origin & Development.
C. Charity Shop: Where You Buy to Donate.
D. The Public’s Concern about Charity Shops.
You may think, salt is just a simple cooking element we shake on our food for a little
extra taste. But salt is much more than that. Without salt our muscles would not move. Our nervous systems would not operate. Our hearts would not beat.
But do not think rubbing salt in a wound will help. Doing that would be painful and not heal the wound. To rub salt in a wound is an idiom that means to purposefully make a bad situation worse.
Early humans got the salt they needed to stay alive from the animals they killed. But advances in agriculture led to a diet low in salt. So, humans needed to find other sources. Those who lived near the ocean or other natural sources for salt were lucky. Those who did not had to trade for salt. In fact, people used salt as a method of payment in many parts of the ancient world. The word “salary” comes from the word “salt”.
Salt also played an important part in population movement and world exploration. Explorers understood that if they could keep food fresh, they could travel longer distances. So they used salt to preserve food and explored the world.
Salt was so important that, according to food historians, it was traded pound-for- pound for gold. Today, people still use the expressions “to be worth one’s salt” or “worth one's weight in salt”. The expressions describe a person of value.
A person might also be called “salt of the earth”. That description means he or she is dependable and trustworthy. However, when you say “I think we should take what he said with a grain of salt” you mean you accept it but maintain a degree of doubt about its truth.
1.What can we learn from the first paragraph?
A. Salt plays an important part in our life.
B. Salt makes food tasty.
C. Salt is considered to be part of our muscles.
D. Salt is sure to damage nervous systems.
2.A beggar's bread was stolen last night, which means .
A. salt of the earth B. rubbing salt in a wound
C. a diet low in salt D. worth his salt
3.If you describe a person as a great help, you mean .
A. he is called salt of the earth B. he is often taken as a grain of salt
C. he often uses salt to preserve meat D. he is worth his weight in salt
4.Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
A. Salt is more than a four-letter word B. Salt is a basic element in cooking
C. Salt is a word with a long history D. Salt is popular with different persons
Chinese writers seldom win a big prize in the world. One of those prizes is the Hans Christian Andersen Prize, the highest honor in the world that can be given to an author and an illustrator of children's books. No Chinese writer had ever won it, until April 4, 2016, when 62-year-old Cao Wenxuan received the prize. Cao received the honor at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy.
Patricia Aldana praised Cao’s “deeply humanistic” books. These novels admit that life can be sad for children.
Instilling children with good virtues for the sake of humankind is something that Cao stresses. He said, “It’s time for us to alter our understanding of reading. Books should bring not only joy to young readers, but also have their ideas about life.”
That feature of his works has touched many adults too. “The common choice of the judges, Cao writes beautifully about the lives of children facing great challenges,” said Aldana.
After his success, Cao praised good translation for bringing attention to his work. Chinese children's literature could get high honor in the world if it were correctly translated in a style that could be easily understood, he said.
Other writers, including Jin Bo, have also blamed poor translation as the reason why Chinese literature fails to get honor in the world. Jin was named for the Hans Christian Andersen Prize in 1992, but at that time, he had to translate, in a hurry, several paragraphs from his book to give to the judges. "On one hand, the jury has little knowledge of Chinese authors. On the other hand, it is we ourselves who didn't introduce our work and promote (促进) ourselves enough," he said in a class in 2013.
1.According to the passage, Cao was awarded, because ________.
A. the children in his books are poor
B. he wrote books for children
C. his books are about human kindness
D. he came to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
2.According to Cao, reading should ________.
A. change the ideas of children on books
B. help kids kill time gladly
C. bring more joy to children
D. make children think actively about life
3.The last paragraph suggests that most Chinese writers ________.
A. poorly translate their books into English
B. failed to get to know the judges
C. didn’t try to introduce their books to foreigners
D. didn’t know how to introduce themselves
随着人们生活水平的提高，越来越多的家庭有了私家车，你班同学就私家车的问题进行了讨论，提出了两种不同的观点和看法，请你根据讨论的结果向报社编辑写封信，客观的介绍这两种看法。
支持者认为：
1. 方便，快捷，舒适的交通工具。
2. 反映出人们生活富裕，国家富强。
3. 带动促进其他行业的发展。
反对者认为：
1. 废气污染严重。
2. 过多的影响交通，导致更多事故。
3. 停车问题日益突出。
要求字数：100左右。（私家车：private cars交通：transportation)
Dear editor,
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours truly,
Li Hua
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。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：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），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。
Now I’d like to tell you something that took place in my school yesterday. In the afternoon we had held a grown-up ceremony for our come 18-year-old birthday. At first we made an promise that as grown-up we should have a sense of duty for our society from now on. Then we expressed our thanks to our parents which had gone through hardships to bring us up and our teachers who had been educating us patient. And our teachers also gave them cards expressing their good wishes. Finally we put on wonderfully performances, singing or dancing. We learned a lot from the activity. I think it is of great important for us. I will never forget that day in my life.
The story happened in ancient times. A king was so clever that he thought of a good way to test 1. his men were reliable.
One day, he had a huge rock 2. (place) on a roadway at night. Then he hid 3. (him) nearby and watched carefully to see if anyone would remove the big rock. Some 4. (wealth) businessmen and high officials came by, but they simply walked around it. Many of them even loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none of them would bother 5. (get) the big stone out of the way.
Then a villager came along carrying a load of vegetables. On 6. (approach) the big rock, he stopped and laid down his burden, trying hard to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing, he 7. (final) succeeded. As the villager picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the rock 8. (be). The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king, saying that the gold was for the person 9. removed the huge rock from the road.
The villager learned a valuable lesson that many others would never understand: Every obstacle presents 10. opportunity to improve one’s condition.
