I used to think that life in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, was filled with never-changing routines. I hated that everyone seemed to know everything about everyone else. Everyone seemed to enjoy talking about other people and their lives. I also didn’t like the fact that people seemed very close-minded. I felt trapped. I felt like I was missing out on opportunities. It seemed to me that city life would be the opposite.

Then I took my first trip to New York City. I couldn’t wait to experience the city. However, when I arrived in the Big Apple, it wasn’t at all what I had imagined. I knew it was home to thousands of people, but I hadn’t had the least expectation to see so many people on the street at one time. All the streets were filled with people. I also felt a little surprised to see that everyone was in a hurry and everything moved at such a fast pace. When I took the subway for the first time, I said hello to the middle-aged woman next to me. She looked at me with dislike and didn’t say a word.

After just one day, I realized how important my small town is to me. Now I appreciate the familiar faces I see every day. I like the feeling of security and belonging my town offers. Jim Thorpe gives me a sense of community and togetherness that the city doesn’t provide. I realize just how much a simple hello does for a stranger — it really can make your day a little better.

My big trip showed me that my small town really has instilled(注入) morals and values in me that I didn’t even know I had. I would never have known what a big place my town holds in my heart if I had not taken that trip to New York City.

21. How did the author feel about life in Jim Thorpe at first?

A. People there cared little about others.  

B. People there liked to accept new things.

C. Living there was a great disadvantage.

D. There were many chances of career development.

22. What surprised the author most in New York City?

A. The gestures of greeting.           B. The modern transportation. 

C. The fast pace of life.                 D. The crowded streets.

23. What made the author change his / her attitudes to his /her hometown?

  A. Travelling to New York City.     B. The familiar faces in Jim Thorpe.

  C. A big place in his / her town.     D. Everybody likes talking about others.

Harper Lee, whose 1961 novel To Kill a Mockingbird on the racial troubles of the American deep south, has died at the age of 89.

Until last year, Lee had been something of a one-book literary legend. To Kill a Mockingbird sold more than 40 million copies around the world and earned her a Pulitzer prize, remaining a towering presence in American literature. Another novel, Go Set a Watchman, was controversially published in July 2015 as a “sequel” to Mockingbird, though it was later confirmed to be Mockingbird’s first draft.

But from the moment Mockingbird was published to almost instant success, the author consistently avoided public attention. Lee had lived for several years in a nursing home near the house in which she had grown up in Monroeville, Alabama—the setting for Maycomb of her famous book. Her neighbor for 40 years, Sue Sellers, said, “She was such a private person. All she wanted was privacy, but she didn’t get much. There was always somebody following her around.” 

James Naughtie, BBC Books Editor, commented on the novels of Harper Lee: “I think she stands, particularly among American readers, as someone who shone a light into a very dark place. She was writing at a time when people were beginning to lift the lid on everything in the South which they’d chosen not to understand. That all changed in the 1960s. So I think her status for writing that book in its extraordinarily direct way will remain.”

24. What does the underlined part in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A. Lee became successful with stories on American south.

B. People owe Lee’s success to luck to some degree.

C. Mockingbird makes Lee a wonder in American literature.

D. Mockingbird was a bestseller by selling 40m copies.

25. What does “Maycomb” in Paragraph 3 probably refer to?

A. A nursing home.                             B. Lee’s hometown.

C. A fictional place.                             D. A main character.     

26. Which best describes Americans’ attitude towards racial troubles before the 1960s?

A. Tolerant.           B. Unconcerned.           C. Sympathetic.            D. Dissatisfied.

27. What can we learn from the text?

A. Lee based all her stories on her life.

B. Lee had to avoid being followed by her fans.

C. Lee wrote Go Set A Watchman before Mockingbird.

D. Lee lived in the house where she grew up for the whole life.

Instagram is a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends and family. Take a picture or video, choose a filter to transform its look and feel, and then post to Instagram—it’s that easy. You can even share to Facebook, Twitter and more．It’s a new way to see the world. So many photos of food are contained on Instagram—now a pop-up diner in London is taking advantage of this new trend by letting people settle the bill for their meals simply by uploading photos of their dishes to social networks．

I always thought people’s taking pictures of their food was kind of silly, but at this new pop-up restaurant in the UK, I’d probably do it too. “The Picture House” is the world’s first pay-by-photo restaurant. You order, click a photo of the food, share on Instagram and eat for free!

The restaurant belongs to frozen food giant(巨人)Birds Eye, who came up with the idea to cash in on people’s addiction with photographing food and sharing the pictures online. They conducted a survey and found out that more than half of the British population regularly took pictures of their meals．So they realized it was a better way to advertise their new dining range．

The pop-up diner was open in Soho，London for three days in May, and is now moving to other major UK cities．They serve two-course meals that customers don’t have to pay for, if they photo and Instagram it.

The restaurant is a part of Birds Eye’s “Food for Life” campaign, a new marketing project that aims at changing the way people look at frozen food. “Taking photos of food enables people to show off and to share their mealtime moments—from the everyday to the special,”said marketing director Margaret Jobling．

The reaction to the Picture House has been great so far And the pay-by-picture concept has proven to be an effective way. Alternative payment methods are actually gaining popularity among a lot of businesses. Last year in a cafe in Germany customers pay by how much time they spend there, not by what they eat．

28. Instagram probably is________．

  A. a program used to share photos              B. a campaign of“Food for Life”

  C. a restaurant free of charge                       D. a new marketing project

29. What can we infer from the passage?

  A. The Picture House was opened in Scotland

  B. Lots of British people like taking photos of their meals.

  C. The Picture House is the world’s first pay-by-photo restaurant.   

  D. The British people’s response to the Picture House is quite cold.

30. “The Picture House” encourages sharing photos of its food to_______．

  A. raise the price of frozen food               B. create a new social media trend

  C. attract more customers                          D. reward the regular customers

31. Which of the following can serve as the best title for the passage?

  A. Food for Life                                B. The Pop-up Diner      

C. No Need to Pay                                       D. Pay by Picture

What is the first thing you notice when you walk into a shop? The products displayed(展示)at the entrance? Or the soft background music?

But have you ever noticed the smell? Unless it is bad, the answer is likely to be no. But while a shop’s scent may not be outstanding compared with sights and sounds, it is certainly there. And it is providing to be an increasing powerful tool in encouraging people to purchase．

A brand store has become famous for its distinctive scent which floats through the fairly dark hall and out to the entrance via scent machines. A smell may be attractive but it may not just be used for freshening air. One sports goods company once reported that when it first introduced scent into its stores, customers’ tension to purchase increased by 80 percent．

When it comes to the best shopping streets in Pairs, scent is just as important to a brand’s success as the quality of its window displays and goods on sales. That is mainly because shopping is a very different experience to what it used to be．

Some years ago, the focus for brand name shopping was on a few people with sales assistants’ disproving attitude and don’t-touch-what-you-can’t-afford displays. Now the rise of electronic commerce(e-commerce)has opened up famous brands to a wider audience．But while e-shops can use sights and sounds，only bricks-and-mortar stores(实体店)can offer a full experience from the minute customers step through the door to the moment they leave. Another brand store seeks to be much more than a shop，but rather a destination. And scent is just one way to achieve this．

Now a famous store uses complex man-made smell to make sure that the soft scent of baby powder floats through the kid department，and coconut (椰子)scent in the swimsuit section．A department store has even opened a new lab，inviting customers on a journey into the store’s windows to smell books, pots and drawers, in search of their perfect scent．

32. According to the passage, what is an increasingly powerful tool in the success of some brand store?

   A. Friendly assistant                         B. Soft background music

C. Unique scents．                                     D. Attractive window display．

33. E-shops are mentioned in the passage to_____．

   A. urge shop assistants to change their attitude      

B. show the advantages of brick-and-mortar stores

   C. push stores to use sights and sounds             

D. introduce the rise of e-commerce

34. Which statement would the writer agree with?

A. Put different scents on the products on display.    

B. Ask every shop assistant to wear light perfume.
C. Give a flower to customers as a gift.            

D. Expose the scent of coffee bean to air inside a coffee shop.

35. The main purpose of the passage is to______．

   A. compare and evaluate                 B. inform and explain   

C. argue and discuss                                   D. examine and assess

     Being Left-handed in a Right-handed World              

   The world is designed for right-handed people, but why does a tenth of the population prefer the left?   36 

   The answer to it remains a bit of a mystery. Since scientists have noticed that left-handedness tends to run in families, it’s assumed that left-handedness has a genetic(基因的) component to it.  37   In fact, identical twins, who share the same genes, can sometimes prefer to use different hands. There are also plenty of theories on what else might determine which hand you write with, but many experts believe that it’s kind of random.

   Historically, the left side and left-handedness have been considered a negative thing by many cultures.   38   In some areas, the left hand became known as the “unclean” hand. In many religions, the right hand of God is the favored hand. For example, Jesus sits at God’s right side. God’s left hand, however, is the hand of judgement. Various activities and experiences become rude or even signs of bad luck when the left hand becomes involved. In some parts of Scotland, it is considered bad luck to meet a left-handed person at the start of a journey.   39  A person giving directions will put their left hand behind them and even physically try to point with their right hand if necessary. In some Asian countries, eating with the left hand is considered impolite.

  40  People come to realize that left-handedness is natural. People even noticed that many famous people are left-handed, including Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Charlie Chaplin. Some researchers find out that lefties are more creative and can deal with abstract thinking better. The left-handedness is more easily adaptable to the right-handed world as well. Being left-handed is no longer a sad story now; instead, it is a wonderful gift or maybe it is something you should take pride in. 

   A. In other words, left-handers are born that way. 

   B. Left-handedness used to be regarded as a disability.

   C. The unfavorable associations of the use of the left hand among cultures are varied.

   D. Why do they prefer to use their left hand rather than their right hand for routine activities?

   E. Why do some parents force their left-handed children to become right-handed when writing?

   F. In Ghana, pointing, gesturing, giving or receiving items with the left hand is considered rude.

   G. Fortunately, nowadays most societies and cultures no longer reject left-handedness like before.