Western civilization has been deeply influenced by Greek Culture. Many words from Greek mythology (神话) contributed to English vocabulary today. Greek mythology tells of the myths of ancient Greece, concerning its gods，heroes and the nature of the world. It attempts to explain the origin of the world and the adventures and lives of the gods, heroes and natural creatures. The following words exactly come from Greek mythology.

Echo; Narcissus

Echo was a fairy (仙女). She got the punishment of saying nothing but repeat others, last sentence said to her because she kept talking and talking before. Echo fell in love with Narcissus, but she was refused. Narcissus told Echo never to fall in love with him. Depressed and heartbroken by the hopeless love, Echo died, leaving “I fall in love with you” echoing in the cave. Nemesis, the god of revenge, determined to punish Narcissus for his coldness by making Narcissus love his own reflection in water. Finding it impossible to get together with his image, Narcissus died with sadness and transformed into a daffodil (水仙花) by the riverside.

Daphne

Daphne, one daughter of a river-god, was shot by Cupid’s lead arrow. Cupid, the god of love, shot a golden arrow at Apollo, the god of the sun, which made Apollo fall in love with Daphne. Crazily chased by Apollo, Daphne had no way to escape. However, Daphne was too shy to accept Apollo, so she begged to have her transformed into a laurel (月桂树). In English, Daphne refers to laurel. There also exists an idiom “as shy as Daphne”.

Atlas

Atlas was one of the Greek gods. Because he offended (冒犯) Zeus, the ruler of Gods and men, Atlas was ordered to carry the sky cm his shoulder. A Belgium geographer used Atlas to name his collection of maps with the pictures of Atlas who was carrying the Earth in it. Later, people refer to Atlas as the collection of maps.

16. Which of the following is NOT the theme of Greek mythology?

A. The origin of the world.

B. The nature of the world.

C. People’s lives of ancient Greece.

D. The adventures and lives of the gods and heroes.

17. Why was Echo punished?

A. Because she offended Zeus.

B. Because she talked too much.

C. Because she fell in love with Narcissus.

D. Because she was too shy to accept Apollo.

18.        is referred to as the collection of maps.

A. Daphne                         B. Echo                              C. Narcissus                      D. Atlas

A classic joke goes like this: A nurse rushes into an exam room and says, “Doctor, doctor, there is an invisible man in the waiting room.” The doctor says, “Tell him I can’t see him.” Pretty simple, right?

Here is how I tell it: “A nurse—her name is Joyce—feels a presence in the waiting room. She looks around but sees nothing. She jumps up from her desk, carefully replaces her chair, and runs down the hallway to the doctor’s office. She knocks on the door. No response. He’s not there. Where can he be? She continues down the hall, admiring a picture of an 18th-century Mississippi boat along the way.” By the time, my audience has left, but I go on. “She bursts into the exam room and says, ‘Doctor, doctor!’ The doctor, I should mention...”

You get the idea. I can’t leave a simple joke alone.

I’m not the only joke-challenged member of the family. My sister’s worse than I am. Her problem: She can’t remember them. “‘A nurse rushes into an exam room and says...’ Uh, let me start all over again. ‘A nurse rushes into a waiting...’ No, it’s not the waiting room. She just came from the waiting room. Let me start all over again. ‘A doctor rushes into...’ No, wait…”

My uncle’s different. “Okay，this is a good one. Ready? No, really, ready? Okay, ‘A nurse...’ Got it? A nurse? Okay, ready? ‘A nurse rushes into an exam room and says: Doctor, there’s an invisible man in the waiting room.’ Now, this is where it gets funny. Ready?’ No one is ever ready, so they leave before he gets to the funny part.

No one in my family has ever finished this joke.

Next time you see my family and someone is telling a joke, do yourself a favour: Make yourself invisible.

19. What’s the passage mainly about?

A. How to tell a classic joke.

B. The author has a happy family.

C. Telling a classic joke is not easy.

D. The author’s family are not good at telling a joke.

20. When the author tells a joke，he tends to       .

A. add too many extra details                                             B. forget it

C. act like the host of a show program                                D. leave it alone

21. The last sentence implies that        when the author’s family tell a joke.

A. you should stop them                                                     B. you can’t see anything

C. you will become invisible                                                D. you would not like to listen

Bullying among school children is nothing new. Yet for young people today, there is a relatively new form of bullying which can occur even when the bullies are nowhere near their victims.

Cyber-bullying (网络欺凌) is one of the bad sides of new technology and involves using devices like mobile phones and computers. Cyber-bullies can strike at any time, no matter where they or their victims are. So it is possible to cyber-bully someone within the safety of their own home. 22 percent of young people in the UK claim to have suffered from cyber-bullying.

Not only are cyber-bullies harder to avoid, they are also harder to catch. It is all so easy to send an anonymous threat by text on a pay-as-you-go phone with an unknown number. It takes no time at all to set up a false Facebook，Twitter, blog or social network account and to post an insulting (侮辱的) message. And, if you know how to hide your IP address，you can upload an insulting video to a website like YouTube and your victim wouldn’t know who to blame.

One of the most upsetting things about cyber-bullying is that it can involve more people than traditional forms of bullying. A bully can insult you or tell lies about you and share that information with the entire school at the touch of a button—and for some teenagers that is all too hard to bear. The UK charity Beatbullying suggests that up to 44% of suicides (自杀) among ten-to-fourteen-year-old, for example, may be bullying-related.

The good news is that the world is starting to get wise to cyber-bullying. Schools and websites like http：//www. children-int. org offer lots of advice and victim support and social network sites now advise users to think carefully about their privacy settings so that personal information is only shared with friends. Many also provide a red button to click to report disturbing activities.

22. Which of the following is true about cyber-bullying?

A. Cyber-bullying involves fewer people.

B. Cyber-bullies are hard to avoid and catch.

C. Cyber-bullies can’t strike when one is safe at home.

D. Cyber-bullying causes 44% of the children to commit suicide.

23. What does the underlined word “anonymous” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A. Hard to understand.                                                       B. Frightening.

C. Having no known name.                                                 D. Upsetting.

24. Schools and websites have helped except for       .

A. offering advice and victim support

B. providing a button used to ask for help

C. reminding users of their safe privacy settings

D. advising users to share personal information with friends

25. What’s the best title of the passage?

A. Bullying goes Hi-tech                                               B. Disadvantages of new technology

C. Forms of bullying                                                     D. Cyber-bullying causes children’s suicides

Do you dream of the day you can drive a car? In the United States, teenagers can get their driver’s license when they are only 16 years old, but it feels like forever until that day comes. Trust me, because I’ve been there.

  26   But in my opinion, it’s worth it because it means having a lot more freedom. I’m from the rural (乡下的) state of Iowa that doesn’t have much public transportation, and everything there is really spread out. So until I turned 16, my parents had to drive me pretty much everywhere.

  27   First, in Iowa, everyone can get their learner’s permit at the age of 14，which means you can only drive if your parent is sitting in the seat next to you.

  28   In the state of Iowa, if you live more than a mile (1.6 km) away from school you can get a school permit. You can only drive to school and back home. Luckily, I lived just over a mile away from school, so I was able to drive my mom’s car to school.   29 

Finally, after taking (and passing) a three-month-long driver’s education course and the final test, I was able to get my driver’s license.   30   It did in fact make life quite a bit easier.

A. I could almost taste the freedom already.

B. Still, on the day of my driver’s test, I was nervous.

C. Getting a driver’s license takes a lot of time and energy.

D. The next step was getting my school permit at the age of 15.

E. There were several steps before I got that special plastic card.

F. To many people, getting a driver’s license involves a lot of luck.

G. But if you were caught going outside that route (路线) you would get in big trouble.

Much meaning can be conveyed with our eyes, so it is often said that eyes can speak.

Do you have such kind of   31  ? In a bus you may look at a stranger, but not too long. And if he   32   that he is being stared at, he may feel uncomfortable.

The   33   is the case in daily life. If you are looked at for longer than   34  , you will look at yourself up and down to see if there is   35   wrong with you. If nothing goes wrong, you will feel   36   that others stare at you that way. Eyes do speak, right?

Looking too long at someone may seem to be   37   and aggressive. But things are   38   when it comes to staring at the opposite sex. If a man glances at a woman for more than 10 seconds and   39   to turn away his gaze (凝视), his intentions are obvious，that is, he   40   to attract her attention, to make her understand that he is   41   her.

However, the normal eye contact for two people in conversation is that the speaker will only   42   at the listener from time to time, in order to make sure that the   43   does pay attention to what the former is speaking and that he is   44  .

If a speaker looks at you   45   when speaking, as if he tries to control you, you will feel uneasy. A poor liar (说谎者) usually   46   himself by looking too long at the victim,   47   he believes the false idea that to look straight in the eye is a sign of honest communication. Quite the contrary.

In fact, continuous eye contact often happens between lovers only, who will   48   looking at each other softly for a long time, to show   49   that words cannot express.

Obviously, eye contact could be done according to the   50   between two people and the specific situation.

31. A. impression               B. accident                         C. idea                               D. experience

32. A. realizes                           B. explains                         C. ignores                          D. likes

33. A. difficult                            B. same                             C. opposite                        D. ridiculous

34. A. necessary                B. avoidable                       C. unusual                         D. possible

35. A. nothing                           B. everything                            C. anything                        D. thing

36. A. happy                      B. sad                                C. angry                             D. proud

37. A. typical                      B. rude                               C. acceptable                           D. polite

38. A. terrible                            B. different                         C. available                        D. similar

39. A. demands                  B. stops                             C. decides                         D. refuses

40. A. requires                          B. begs                              C. hopes                                   D. continues

41. A. admiring                   B. disturbing                      C. helping                          D. punishing

42. A. shout                       B. glare                              C. smile                              D. look

43. A. adult                        B. listener                          C. stranger                        D. speaker

44. A. attentive                   B. active                             C. respected                      D. powerful

45. A. aimlessly                  B. curiously                        C. continuously                  D. angrily

46. A. attracts                           B. exposes                         C. cheats                                  D. encourages

47. A. so                                   B. although                        C. since                             D. unless

48. A. remember                B. imagine                          C. avoid                             D. enjoy

49. A. mercy                       B. sorrow                                  C. trust                               D. feelings

50. A. relationship                     B. touch                             C. care                               D. distance