If you have to attend a party or other social events where a lot of people will be present, do you feel confident that you will make a good impression on others? Or do you feel shy? In any case, you should increase your confidence at social events.

Whenever you are meeting new people at any social event, you should wear proper clothes. Before you attend the event, try to find out how other  people will be dressing. If everyone else is wearing business clothes, you should, too. If the event is informal, you should wear informal clothes so that you fit in.

If you are going to meet people from a certain business or profession, try looking through a few professional magazines or checking on the Internet ahead of time to get some conversation ideas which are related to their fields of interest. This can prevent you getting tongue-tied at the event.

When you are at the event, don’t worry about whether or not other people you are talking with like you. Instead, try your best to find reasons to like them.

When you are making conversation with people, be sure to keep good eye contact, and make your facial expression soft. Nod to show you’re listening. Let your face and body relax so that you can make natural gestures.

After the event is over, take a bit of time to think of your social performance and the conversation you had with people. Tell yourself exactly what you did very well at the event. For example, perhaps you made a big effort to really listen to the people you were talking with,or you may have asked several people some good questions that really got them talking. By doing so, your conversation confidence will gradually improve.

1. What should you find out before attending a social event?

   A. how other people will be dressing.          B. a few professional magazines

   C. some conversation ideas                  D. reasons to like other people

2. What should you avoid in a social event according to the 4^th paragraph?

A. Attending a party with your good friends        

B. Ignoring eye contact with others

C. Wearing informal clothes and shoes   

D. Caring much about what others think of you

3. After coming back from a social party, we need to form the habit of _____.

A. Looking for the positive things in our performance

B. Calling the host to show that we are thankful

C. Communicating with the people we met once again    

D. Thinking about how to improve our social ability

4. What is the passage mainly about?  

A. How to take part in social events.                   

B. How to believe in ourselves in daily life. 

C. How to be more confident at social events.                

D. How to get along with others at social events.

Try this: For an entire day, forget about the clock. Eat when you’re hungry and sleep when you’re tired. What do you think will happen?

You may be surprised to find that your day is much like most other days. You’ll probably get hungry when you normally eat and tired when you normally sleep. Even though you don’t know what time it is, your body does.

These patterns of daily life are called circadian rhythms（生理节奏）, and they are more than just habits. Inside our bodies are several clocklike systems that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle. Throughout the day and night, our inner clocks direct changes in temperature, body chemicals, hunger, sleepiness and more.

Everyone’s rhythms are different, which is why you might like to stay up late while your sister always wants to go to bed early. But on the whole, everyone is programmed to fell tired at night and energetic during the day.

Learning about our body clocks may help scientists understand why problems arise when we act out of step with our circadian rhythms. For example, traveling across time zones can make people wake up in the middle of the night. Regularly staying up late can make kids do worse in tests.

“There is a growing sense that when we eat and when we sleep are important parts of how healthy we are,” says Steven Shea, director of the Sleep Disorders Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

One way to learn about how our body clocks tick is to mess them up and see what happens. That’s what neurologist（神经病学家）Frank Scheer and his workmates did in a recent study.

Staying up night after night, their studies suggest, could make kids extra hungry and more likely to gain weight. And regularly sleeping too little, Scheer says, may be one cause of the recent increase in childhood obesity. 

5. What will happen if you forget about the clock according to the passage?

A. You will feel upset.              

B. You will behave normally.

C. Your body will not know what time it is.                  

D. You will probably get hungry more easily.

6. Mike feels energetic at 12 midnight while Tom feels sleepy. What advice would be

given by the writer?

A. Both should see a doctor..                B. Tom should see a doctor. 

C. Both should take it easy.                  D. Mike should have a watch.

7. How do Frank Scheer and his workmates study body clocks?

A. By seeing what happens when they are messed up. 

B. By asking questions and collecting answers.

C. By studying people traveling across time zones.     

D. By programming people with man-made clocks.

8. What will the writer most probably talk about next?

A. Other examples of what people will do when their body clocks go wrong.             

B. Medicines that can keep people from putting on weight.

C. Why it is important to have a normal body clock.         

D. What circadian rhythms are.

    Each year, we are exposed to ten thousand ads on average. They try to sell us their products by using beautiful art, videos, images or slogans that are catchy. The most famous companies have highly popular logos that can be recognized by almost everybody. For those of you who have seen the movie Finding Forrester, there is that scene where Jamal walks up to some guy with a BMW and asks him what the car logo means. The man did not know the answer and since that day, whenever I see a famous company logo I try to find the meaning of it.

    Many think the horse on the Ferrari logo represents the horsepower of the cars they manufacture. The story behind it is far more interesting. During World War I, a pilot, Count Francesco Baracca, painted the horse on his airplane to bring him luck. He had it on his plane because it was the logo of his squadron（空军中队）. Baracca’s mother then convinced Enzo Ferrari to put the logo on his racing cars in the early 1930’s to bring good luck to the drivers. The logo then stayed the same ever since. The yellow on the background represents the birthplace of Enzo Ferrari.

    Starbucks started in 1971, in Seattle. The mermaid（美人鱼）represented on the logo is now known by any coffee drinker. It is a mythological sea creature with the look of a female, the only difference being that they have a tail of a fish. The reason why Starbucks incorporated one in their company logo is that it was believed that mermaids used to sing to sailors in order to make them walk away from their ship or to ground their ships. In the 1500s, spices, tea and coffee were popular merchandise to trade. So the mermaid in the logo of Starbucks is the one that “brings” coffee and tea to the stores.

9. The writer became interested in logos of some famous brands after _______.

   A. he watched an attractive movie          B. he saw a scene in a movie

   C. he walked up to some guy with a BMW   D. he noticed some famous logos

10. Many companies use logos because _________.

   A. people enjoy beautiful logos

   B. people are more likely to buy their products

   C. people can recognize the products more easily

   D. people are interested in the meanings of the logos

11. Which of the following is true according to Paragraph3?

   A. Starbucks was once a company trading spices, tea and coffee.

   B. Hearing mermaids sing, sailors would know the right direction.

   C. Starbucks has a history of more than five hundred years.

   D. The logo of Starbucks is believed to make the business years.

12. The underlined word “incorporated” in the third paragraph probably means _____.

A. included        B. abandoned        C. corrected        D. designed

What’s the biggest online shopping day in the world? Not Valentine’s Day. Not Cyber Monday or Black Friday. The winner is China’s Singles’Day, celebrated on November11, or 11.11.

Singles’Day began as a day for unmarried or uncoupled people to celebrate their lives. Single students, looking for an excuse to buy themselves presents, started it on November11,1993, reported The Guardian. It is symbolized by the four mumber ones in the date of November11 and is also called Double Eleven, in reference to the day it was started, said the BBC. It became a major shopping day in 2009. The CEO of an online shopping site --Alibaba-- tried to increase sales at the e-commerce company. The CEO, Daniel Zhang, launched an annual online sale on that day, said Fortune. When it first began, “Sigles’Day was very much an offline comfort to actual single people,”noted the website atlas Obscura.”A small group of students at Nanjing University are said to have chosen 11.11 as a day that singles could do activities like karaoke together.”It quickly became a cultural phenomenon.

Last year, Alibaba sold more than $1 billion worth of products inthe first three minutes of the sales, reported Bloomberg News. Total sales on Singles’Day soared to $9 billion within 24 hours. That’s four times bigger than Cyber Monday in the U.S., which is the Monday after Thanksgiving and traditionally a big shopping day. By comparison, online sales in the U.S. last year on Black Friday were just $1.5 billion, reported TechCrunch.

Today, Singles’Day is very successful. Analysts say that this year, sales on China’s Singles’Day will increase to a new high. In the U.S., Jennifer Wang, a co-founder of a company targeting Chinese-Americans, said, “We expect to have 3 million people coming to click Dealmoon for the Singles’Day launch.” Some observers think Singles’Day could catch on globally.

13. How did the author introduce the topic of the passage?

A. By describing a holiday.                   B. By asking a question

C. By making a list.                         D. By telling a story

14. What’s the second paragraph mainly about?

  A. How Singles’Day came into being.    B. Why Singles’Day became popular.

  C. When Singles’Day was started.       D. Who first celebrated Singles’Day.

15. Why did China’s Singles’Day become a major shopping day?

  A. Because singles celebrated their happy lives on November11.

  B. Because students at Nanjing university took part in activities together.

  C. Because an annual online sale was started on that day by Alibaba.

  D. Because single students chose that day to buy themselves gifts.

16. Which of the following can best replace the underlined word “soared”in 

Paragraph3?

A. Increased sharply.                  B. Decreased quickly.

C. Returned gradually.                 D. Appeared suddenly.

English is the most widely used language in the history of our planet. One in every seven human beings can speak it. More than half of the world’s books and three quarters of international mail are in English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary--perhaps as many as two million words.

However, let’s face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in an eggplant, neither pine nor apple in a pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. Sweetmeats are candy, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But when we explore its paradoxes（自相矛盾的说法), we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, public bathrooms have no baths in them.

And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese--so one moose, two meese?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of human beings. That’s why, when stars are out, they are visible; but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it; but when I wind up this essay, I end it.

17. What does the first paragraph mainly talk about?

   A. English has a long history.             B. English is widely spread.

   C. English makes a great difference        D. English is used to translate books. 

18. Which of the following includes two items that have the similar meaning?

   A. A wise man and a wise guy.            B. Overlook and oversee.

   C. Quite a lot and quite a few.            D. Hot as hell and cold as hell.

19. The underlined words “wind up” in the last paragraph probably mean “__”.

   A. blow          B. roll up          C. get hurt          D. finish

20. What does the last paragraph want to show?

A. Human beings are very clever.

B. English is difficult to learn.

C. There are too many words in English.  

D. The same words have different meanings.