The spirit of Christmas isn’t always so cheerful. Here are four unusual and a little scary Christmas traditions from around the world.

1.Guatmala: Burning devils

       In order to make houses free from bad spirits for the New Year, Guatemalans do a full house clean in December. The dirt and dust is gathered from every home and each neighborhood creates a large amount of garbage. A devil statue is built and placed on top of the dirt, and burned. The bad luck is said to burn up with the devil.

2.South Africa: Don’t eat Santa’s cookies

       To keep kids from stealing on Santa’s cookies, parents tell children a story about a boy named Danny who ate all of Santa’s cookies and really angered his grandmother. She killed him and now his ghosts visits houses during Christmas time.

3.Iceland: Fear the Yule Cat

       Children who don’t receive new clothes by Christmas Eve will be eaten by the Yule Cat, a large and angry cat, which is said to hide in the snow. The strange tradition comes from farmers who used the myth to encourage their workers to finish making the autumn wool before Christmas.

4.Ukraine: A spooky tree

       If you find yourself in Ukraine around the holidays, you may be wondering: Is it Christmas or Halloween? Trees here are decorated with artificial(人工的) spider weds and decorative spiders. The unusual tradition comes from a story where a spider wove a web around the tree of a poor family. When morning came, the white strands(线) turned to precious metals and the family became rich. The webs today show good fortune for the next year.

21.To celebrate the New Year, what will people do in Guatemala?

       A. Clean their houses                                           B. Show their respects to the devil statue

       C. Buy a devil statue                                             D. Move to new houses

22.Which country has a tradition that might cause kids’ fear of eating Santa’s cookies?

       A. Guatemala                                                               B. South Africa

       C. Iceland                                                             D. Ukraine

23.What can we infer about Christmas in Iceland?

       A. The Yule Cat usually hides in the grass before Christmas

       B. All the children will receive new clothes on Christmas

       C. New clothes are popular Christmas presents for children in Iceland

       D. The Yule Cat would eat the farmers who don’t finish their work on time

24.Why do Ukrainians like spiders on Christmas?

       A. Spiders are pretty insects

       B. Spiders are believed to bring good fortune

       C. Spiders always help poor families out of pity

       D. Webs of spiders are suitable for decoration

       I live in New York City, and my “neighbors” are people I don’t know. My city, neighbor-hood and block are filled with people who don’t know me, don’t care to know me, and don’t talk to me. I find that it’s pretty hard to love people you don’t even know. And sometimes, we all, myself included, use that as an excuse not to try.

       One day, Brendan, a young man in New York, was coming home to his Brooklyn apartment when a homeless woman called Jackie asked him for money. He said that he had no money. By the end of the week, she asked two more times, and each time he answered “No.” The woman looked sad, so Brendan said, ”I am on my way to a job interview. If I get the job, I will take you out for Chinese food.”

       Brendan got the job and carried out his promise. That was when their friendship began. They built a strong friendship by supporting each other and spending their birthdays, holidays and tough times together, over a period of eight years. When Brendan’s heater broke, Jackie made him a blanket. Two days later when he told her that he had lost his job, she disappeared, returning minutes later, bringing him food to eat. She continued to do throughout the winter. Even with so little, she never hesitated to give back.

       Over these years, Jackie moved from the streets and subway stations, into a halfway house, and is now moving into an apartment. To celebrate it, Brendan wanted to do something special for Jackie. He went with her to Target, and helped her to pick out everything she’d need for her new apartment.

       May Brendan’s story encourage us to find a new way to honor, serve and love the people around us.

25.What can we learn about the author from Paragraph 1?

       A. He often stays indoors

       B. He cares about his neighbors

       C. He is good at making friends

       D. He hardly talks to his neighbors

26.What did Brendan do when Jackie asked him for money?

       A. He was angry with her                                      B. He didn’t give her any

       C. He offered her some food                                       D. He gave her some spare change

27.What does the underlined words “his promise” in Paragraph 3 refer to?

       A. Giving Jackie some money

       B. Helping Jackie find a place to live in

       C. Taking Jackie out for Chinese food

       D. Making a blanket for Jackie

28.What happened after Brendan and Jackie had the meal together?

       A. They became good friends

       B. They became colleagues

       C. They fell in love with each other

       D. They became neighbors

       It’s inevitable for us to meet and contact with strangers. Also talking to strangers matters but how does it work? There are unwritten rules we tend to follow. The rules are very different depending on what country we’re in and what culture we’re in.

       In most parts of the US, the baseline expectation in public is that we maintain a balance between politeness and privacy. This is known as civil inattention(礼貌性疏忽). So, imagine two people are walking towards each other on the street. They’ll glance or wave at each other from a distance. That’s the civility. And then as they get closer, they’ll look away, to give each other some space.

       In other cultures, people go to extraordinary lengths not to interact at all. People from Denmark are unwilling to talk to strangers, and they would rather miss their stop on the bus than say “excuse me” to someone that they need to get around. They move the backpacks on purpose or use their bodies to say that they need to get past, instead of using two words.

       In Egypt, it’s rude to ignore a stranger, and there’s a remarkable culture of hospitality. Strangers might ask each other for a sip of water. Or, if you ask someone for directions, they’re very likely to invite you home for coffee. We see these unwritten rules most clearly when they’re broken, or when you’re in a new place and you’re trying to figure out what the right thing to do is.

       When you talk to strangers, you’re making beautiful interruptions into the expected narrative of your daily life and theirs. You’re making unexpected connections. If you don’t talk to strangers, you’re missing out on all of that. We spend a lot of time teaching our children about strangers. What would happen if we spent more time teaching ourselves? We could make a space for change.

29.Which of the following can be regarded as civil inattention in most parts of the US?

       A. Avoiding talking to strangers

       B. Glancing at each other anytime

       C. Greeting someone in the distance

       D. Inviting strangers home for coffee

30.How does a Dane get past on the bus?

       A. By saying ”excuse me ” politely

       B. By tapping others on the shoulders

       C. By forcing his way through people

       D. By making a gesture

31.Why does the author advise making a space for change?

       A. To let us create private space between strangers and us

       B. To let us show hospitality to strangers

       C. To let us make improvement on how to treat strangers

       D. To let us maintain a balance between politeness and privacy

32.What does the passage mainly talk about?

       A. How to contact with strangers

       B. Different rules of treating strangers

       C. The meaning of civil inattention

       D. Making unexpected connections

       There has been a technological revolution where kindles, e-books, and various online reading apps have taken over the world. Is reading a print book out of date? Well, not exactly.

       There are so many wonderful factors involved with reading a print copy of the book. I remember the excitement of going to the bookstore with my mom when I was in elementary school. The feel of sitting down in the book store and selecting the books I wanted to read was just so much fun! I think that reading paperback books has its own charm and excitement that cannot be replaced by an electronic book. Holding the physical copy of the book in my hands, and turning over each page makes the reading experience so much more real and memorable.

       Admittedly, e-books seem to be more convenient than print books, Purchasing an e-book can take place in seconds and these books are often priced less expensively than print copy books. With e-books, there likely isn’t going to be a storage problem, unless the device has a limit on how many books can be purchased. Then again, in order to read e-books one must have a particular device-tablet, iPad, kindle or laptop to read it on. Thus, an additional payment has to be made in order to read e-books, whereas reading print copies does not involve any extra device.

       Print books never actually stopped leading the charge, considering that e-book sales have never made up more than a third of all book sales. And although they rose to that number extremely quickly--Amazon, only introduced the kindle in 2007-the majority of all books sold has always been print. The reality is that there is absolutely no reason print and e-books can’t coexist in the book market, but print books may carry the day.

33.What advantage do e-books have according to the passage?

       A. The reading experience is more real

       B. There is no storage problem at all

       C. Purchasing them takes less time

       D. They are very priceless

34.What can we infer about the book market?

       A. E-book sales make up more than 1/3 of all book sales

       B. E-book sales have never surpassed print book sales

       C. Amazon occupies most of the market

       D. Print books and e-books can’t coexist

35.What’s the author’s attitude towards the future of print books?

       A. Worried                                                            B. Optimistic

       C. Indifferent                                                         D. Doubtful

       Restaurants have been around in some form for most of human civilization. As far back as ancient Greece and Rome, there was a trend that inns and taverns(客栈) generally served food to people who had a reason to be away from home.   36   Although taverns and coffee houses were popular places to gather and share beverages in the 17th century, the idea of eating out for fun didn’t take off in Western society until the late 18th century.

       Although McDonald’s was the first restaurant to use the assembly-line system, some people think of White Castle as the first fast-food chain.   37   At the time, most people considered the burgers sold at fairs, circuses, lunch counters and carts to be low-quality. Many people thought hamburger came from slaughterhouse(屠宰场) scraps and spoiled meat.

         38   They built their restaurants so that customers could see the food being prepared. They painted the buildings white and even chose a name that suggested cleanliness. White Castle was most popular in the American East and Midwest, but its success helped give hamburger meat a better reputation nationwide.

       The McDonald brothers opened their redesigned restaurant in 1948, and several fast-food chains that exist today opened soon after.   39   And Wendy’s opened in 1969. McDonald’s is now the world’s largest fast-food chain.

       According to the National Restaurant Association. American sales of fast food totaled $163.5 billion in 2005.   40   Total sales for McDonald’s grew 5.6 percent in 2005, and the company now has 30,000 franchised stores in more than 120 countries.

       A. The industry is growing globally as well

       B. This trend continued until relatively recently

       C. White Castle was founded in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas

       D. Burger King and Taco Bell got their start in the 1950s

       E. It’s hard to imagine fast food without drive-through windows

       F. It allows restaurants to receive and store a large amount of food

       G. White Castle’s founders decided to change the public’s perception of hamburgers