【改编】Life became hard when I was 14. My mother and I moved to New York to join my father, who’d moved there to find better-paying work when I was three years old. He had a at a restaurant and only visited us once every couple of years.
Before I moved, I knew that people in the US spoke English. But , I didn’t stop to analyze the situation when I was to leave . Just like I assumed I could easily become a doctor or a lawyer. I assumed that I had the skills to learn in a few weeks.
When I in the US and started 8^th grade at Ditmas Middle School in Brooklyn, everyone was a(n) foreign language I couldn’t understand. I that life had subtitles（字幕）, like in foreign movies.
was such a serious place here. Sometimes I felt like I was in a geek（呆子） class. The teachers were always watching my moves so I couldn’t even throw a paper ball at a classmate’s head. And the thing was having to read newspaper.
But after almost seven months of about everything, I realized that complaining didn’t change things. It just made my life worse. If I was going to in this new concrete jungle, I had to adapt. I began to learn English by reading newspaperson my own after . After about four months, I started enjoying reading the crime and sports stories. After six months of studying, my teachers notice my and moved me into a more modern English class. I could go to the storeand ask for things that I wanted to buy any frustration. For the first time I felt like I was living on earth again because I didn’t hear talk. I could understand people.

A．work B．friend C．job D．cook.

A．luckily B．eventually C．gradually D． honestly

A．attempting B．packing C．managing D．trying

A．English B．German C．French D．Chinese

A．got B．reached C． arrived D．entered

A．talking B．speaking C．telling D．saying

A．wished B．hoped C．expected D．wanted

A．Restaurant B．Home C．Hospital D．School

A．happiest B．strange C．worst D．most

A．complaining B．quarreling C．fighting D．discussing

A．live B．study C．survive D．continue

A．school B．work C．graduation D．meals

A．mistakes B．accent C．embarrassment D．progress

A．for B．without C．with D．in

A．foreign B．similar C．familiar D．native

Christmas 2003 was bittersweet for Mars scientists. Because one gift they (desperate)wanted never arrived: The British-built spacecraft Beagle 2(schedule)to land on the Red Planet, radio home the good news and begin a search for life. Instead, mission(control) heard nothing. They finally declared the Beagle 2 lost after months of silence. Many space scientists thought crash-landed or broke up in the thin Martian atmosphere.
But now Beagle 2’s final resting place has been found. New images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed the spacecraft in its(intend) landing region, an enormous impact basin near the Martian equator.
By now, investigators(gather) enough information to piece togetherprobably went wrong: the probe’s solar panels seem to have only partially spread out, throttling（限制） Beagle 2’s power preventing it from phoning home. Without contact with mission control, the probe could not perform any science .
However, the lander appears (damage) and in good condition, and the remains of a parachute and an atmospheric-entry cover lie hundreds of meters away. Beagle 2 may now be considered a partial success,(deliver) the United Kingdom a very late Christmas gift: the nation’s first soft landing on another planet.

My parents influenced us with the concepts of family, faith and love for one’s motherland when l was young．Even though we struggled to make ends meet, they stressed how fortunate we were to live in a great country with limitless opportunities．
I got my first real job when l was ten．My dad, Benjamin, injured his back working in a cardboard - box factory and was retrained as a hairstylist．He rented space in a little mall and gave his shop the fancy name of Mr．Ben's Coiffure．
The owner of the shopping center gave Dad a discount on his rent for cleaning the parking lot three nights a week, which meant getting up at 3 a.m. to pick up rubbish. Dad used a little machine that looked like a lawn mower．Mom and I emptied rubbish cans and picked up rubbish by hand．It took two to three hours to clean the lot．I'd s1eep in the car on the way home. I did this for two years, but the lessons I learned have lasted a lifetime, I acquired discipline(自制力) and a strong work morality(道德), and learned at an early age the importance of balancing life's competing interests---in my case, school, homework and a job．This really helped during my senior year of high school, when l worked 40 hours a week flipping hamburgers at a fast–food joint while taking a full load of college-prepared courses．The hard work paid off．I attended the U．S．Military Academy and went on to receive graduate degree in law and business from Harvard．Later, I joined a big Los Angeles law firm and was elected to the California state committee．In these jobs and in everything else I’ve done, I have never forgotten those nights in the parking lot．The experience taught me that there is dignity in all work and that if people are working to provide for themselves and their families, that is something we should honor．
According to the text, the author thinks .

In order to get a discount on rent, .

Which of the following is NOT true of the author?

What does the underlined sentence "The hard work paid off" mean?

We can learn from the text that _

Do you like shopping? Or does the thought of wandering round the shops fill you with terror? For some of us，shopping is an enjoyable way of spending our spare time and our money. For me．it's something I would rather avoid．Thank goodness for the Internet! It's more convenient to buy CDs，electrical items，even food，from the comfort of your sofa．But that’s not the only reason：price is an important factor．We can buy goods and services cheaper online. But sometimes the problem is knowing what to buy．This has led to a type of shopping called “show rooming”．
Show rooming is something I've done．I will go to a shop to see，touch and try out products but then go home and buy them online at a knock—down price．I'm not alone in doing this．Research by a company called Foolproof，found 24％of people show roomed while Christmas shopping in 2013．
Amy Cashman，Head of Technology at TNS UK，says the reasons for this new shopping habit are that“people are lacking time，lacking money and they want security about the products they are buying．”She explains that consumers are not only shopping online at home but they are using the Internet in store or on their smartphones to shop around．
But does this mean technology will kill shops? Certainly shops will change．They will have to offer more competitive prices or encourage people to buy more by giving in—store discounts or free girls．
We mustn’t forget that buying in a shop means you can get expert advice from the sales assistant and you can get good aftercare．It’s good to speak to a real human rather than look at a faceless computer screen but at least by show rooming，you get the best of both worlds!
The two questions in Paragraph l are raised to _______.

What does show rooming mean in the text?

According to Amy Cashman，which is not the reason for show rooming?

What can be inferred from Paragraph 4 ?

The author's attitude towards show rooming is _______

But what is teacher quality? How can one measure it reliably?
An analysis is issued on a sample of data from a Texas school district. Experts argue convincingly that teacher effectiveness should be measured by students’ gains on standardized tests: Mr. Smith is probably a better teacher than Ms. Brown if his students consistently improve their test scores more than hers do.
Though this approach is appealing, there are tricky issues. For example, what if Ms. Brown teaches in a school where students score so high there is little room for improvement?
The authors try to correct for this problem, as well as other sorts of measurement issues, to generate a measurement of teacher effectiveness. The paper is primarily concerned with how this measure is related to other observable characteristics.
The first finding is that there is a large variation in teacher effectiveness: some teachers consistently have a larger impact on their students’ achievement than others.
Second, easily observable characteristics like having a master’s degree or a passing score on the teacher certification exam are not correlated关联 with teacher effectiveness.
Then what does matter? The most important single influence is experience: first-year teachers are much less effective than others. The second year is significantly better, and by the fourth year, most teachers hit their stride.
It is not entirely clear whether this experience effect is learning by doing (the more you teach, the more effective you become) or survival of the fittest (those who are not good at teaching tend to drop out early.)
From my reading of the paper, both effects appear important and there is no simple answer. The data do suggest, however, that teacher effectiveness is pretty clear by the end of the second year, so the information to make an informed decision is available at that time.
The authors also investigate the contentious 有争议的issue of racial matching of students and teachers. Here they find strong evidence that minority teachers tend to be more effective with minority students. Again, it is unclear whether this is because of a role model effect (students respond better to a teacher of their own race) or an empathy effect 移情效应(teachers empathize better with students of their own race) or something else entirely.
The authors also look at teacher mobility. There is some evidence that teachers who quit teaching or switch schools tend to be below average in effectiveness. This is consistent with the survival-of-the-fittest model.
The schoolmaster could decide wisely whether to further employ the teacher by the end of the ______.

The phrase “hit their stride” most probably means “______”.

The author of this passage holds the view that ______.

Why do black teachers tend to be more effective with black students?

Which of the following may serve as the best title?