Over three years ago, the French director Jean—Pierre Jeunet and actress Audery Tautou won people's hearts with their popular comedy "Amelie". The fairytale-like film tells the story of a single waitress who helps lonely people find love.

Now, the pair are back with another film. "A Very Long Engagement" is a film about World War I. It received 12 nominations（提名）from France's Cesar Awards last week, including best film, best director and best actress.

Mathilde （Audrey Tautou） is a young woman who becomes disabled after suffering from a disease as a chilD．She lives on a farm with her aunt Benedicte （Chantal Neuwith） and uncle Sylvain （Dominique Pinon）. She receives a regular income from the wealth left to her by parents. She has a fierce and loyal love for Manech （Gaspard Ulliel）, her childhood boyfriend and fiance‘（未婚夫）. He is the son of a lighthouse keeper. When he goes off to the battle fields of World War I, she is lonely, but confident he will return. Early on in the film, five French soldiers are sentenced to death because of intentionally hurting them??selves to escape duty. They are pushed into the German's line of fire. They are made to protect themselves without guns. One of them is Manech. Mathilde firmly believes that Manech is alive. She is determined to find him. She hires a private detective to find out what really happened to those French soldiers. Through letters, photographs, interviews with people who remain alive after the war, and wartime papers, Mathilde discovers how cruel the war is. She also sees the heroism of ordinary men, trying to stay alive on the battle field.

It's funny, sweet and sometimes sad to watch. Jeunet gives a realistic portrait of warfare. Tautou remains the emotional center of the film. She shines as Mathilde, a woman who suffers one failure after another, but refuses to give up her seek for her lover. It's a film for all romantic people who are in search of true love.

How many actors and actresses are mentioned in the passage?

       A．2      B．5       C．4       5．6

The underlined phrase “the pair” refers to ___________.

       A．Pierre Jeunet; Audery Tautou B．Pierre Jeunet; Dominique Pinon

       C．Audery Tautou; Chantal Neuwith   D．Audery Tautou; Gaspard Ulliel

What do we learn about Mathilde from the passage?

       A．She becomes disabled after a car accident.

       B．She was a strong-willed woman.

       C．She lives on a farm with her parents.

       D．She has a fierce and loyal love for Gaspard Ulliel.

According to the passage, why are the soldiers made to protect themselves without guns?

       A．Because they are very strong and needn’t call for guns.

       B．Because they don’t know how to use guns.

       C．Because their guns have been lost.

       D．Because they are punished for trying to escape duty.

The Queen’s English is now sounding less upper-class, a scientific study of the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts has found. Researchers have studied each of her messages to the Commonwealth countries since 1952 to find out the change in her pronunciation from the noble Upper Received to the Standard Received.

Jonathan Harrington, a professor at Germany’s University of Munich, wanted to discover whether accent changes recorded over the past half century would take place within one person. “As far as I know, there just is nobody else for whom there is this sort of broadcast records,” he said.

He said the noble way of pronouncing vowels (元音) had gradually lost ground as the noble upper-class accent over the past years. “Her accent sounds slightly less noble than it did 50 years ago. But these are very, very small and slow changes that we don’t notice from year to year.”

“We may be able to relate it to changes in the social classes,” he told The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. “In 1952 she would have been heard saying ‘thet men in the bleck het’. Now it would be ‘that man in the black hat’. Similarly, she would have spoken of ‘the citay’ and ‘dutay’, rather than ‘citee’ and ‘dutee’, and ‘hame’ rather than ‘home’. In the 1950s she would have been ‘lorst’, but by the 1970s ‘lost’.”

The Queen’s broadcast is a personal message to the Commonwealth countries. Each  Christmas, the 10-minute broadcast is put on TV at 3 pm in Britain as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch (傳統(tǒng)火雞午餐).

The results were published (發(fā)表) in the Journal of Phonetics.

1.What is the text mainly about?

A．The relationship between accents and social classes.

B．The Queen’s Christmas speeches on TV.

C．The changes in a person’s accent.

D．The recent development of the English language.

2.The Queen’s broadcasts were chosen for the study mainly because ______.

A．she has been Queen for many years

B．she has a less upper-class accent now

C．her speeches are familiar to many people

D．her speeches have been recorded for 50 years

3.Which of the following is an example of a less noble accent in English?

A．“dutay”

B．“citee”

C．“hame”

D．“l(fā)orst”

4.We may infer from the text that the Journal of Phonetics is a magazine on ______.

A．speech sounds	B．Christmas customs
C．TV broadcasting	D．personal messages

 

Only three local students won Chinese Blog Competition. And 15 of the 18 awards went to students from China.
170 students’ task: to get a fully-designed blog up and running, complete with many postings based on a theme of choice—all written in Chinese.
Themes ranged from local opinions－such as the usage of Singlish, education and whether Singapore can be a cultural centre－to food blogs.
The entries were judged on Language proficiency（熟練程度）and the quality of writing, as well as the design and level of exchanging ideas with readers.
Academics(學(xué)者) from the National University of Singapore and the SIM University IT experts, and a journalist from Chinese newspaper Lianhe Zaobao in Singapore made up the judges.
In the end, only three Singaporean students made it to the award list—the rest of the awards were swept up by students from China.
“No surprise, ” said Mr. Chow Yaw Long, 37, teachers in charge from Innova Junior College, which organized the event. “Although the topics were local subjects, the foreign students were generally better in terms of the content of the posts and their grasp of the Chinese language. ”
One of the three local students winning the first prize in the Best Language Award was blogger Christina Gao 19, from the Saint Andrew’s Junior College, who spared no effort in researching for and writing her blog. Each entry took her between five and seven days to produce, complete with pictures and even podcasts
Her advice for bloggers is: Be responsible
“Some bloggers out there only seek to blame the authorities and other bloggers.” Said Miss Gao. “I think they lack responsibilities and there is no value to their posts.”
【小題1】The competition was organized by ___________.

A．the National University of Singapore	B．Chinese newspaper Lianhe Zaobao
C．the Saint Andrew’s Junior College	D．Innova Junior College

【小題2】Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．Not all the themes were about local subjects.

B．Chinese students won most of the awards.

C．The blogs could be written in Chinese or Singlish.

D．The judges were from universities in Singapore and China.

【小題3】What Miss Gao said suggests that    ___________.

A．she likes to blame the authorities	B．she thinks highly of the others’ blogs
C．she has a sense of responsibility	D．she loves to read valuable posts

【小題4】The passage is mainly about   ___________.

A．how Chinese students won the awards in the competition

B．why bloggers should take responsibility for their blogs

C．what the result of the competition was

D．how Miss Gao won the first prize in the competition

I received a call today asking if I would be willing to bring food to a family in need. The mother was having a major operation and would be lying down for several weeks. Of course, I responded with an immediate “Yes！”. As I planned the meal in my head, I reflected on how many times over the years I had been asked to prepare food. I have done so countless times with a very open heart.

But the truly amazing thing is that I have received double over the course of my life. When my mother passed away, our house was filled with fresh dinners for weeks. A woman from the church of our community stopped by each evening with some food. The gift of food was her small way of trying to ease our pain.

Later in my life, when I was on bed rest during my pregnancy with twins, women of the church again stepped in to help. They arranged babysitting for my two­year­old daughter, and brought lovely dinners to our house. Even when I was put in the hospital, my husband would bring cooked meals to my hospital room. How we relied on these dinners to feed my tired husband and young daughter.

Food is all about comfort. It feeds our bodies, but it can also feed our souls. When you hear people talking about their favourite holidays, it usually includes their feelings connected with sharing food. I know that I will have many more opportunities in my lifetime to prepare food for others. It is truly a gift I want to prepare and deliver to someone in need.

1.The author has given lots of food to others because________．

A. she is poor at cooking

B．she is a church member

C．she is friendly to others

D．she has received others' food

2.We can learn from the first paragraph that the author________．

A. had to stay in bed for several weeks

B．knew the family in need very well

C．was glad to be able to lend a hand

D．was tired of preparing food

3.Which of the following is TRUE about the author?

A. Her mother died when she was in hospital.

B. She didn't get enough food during her pregnancy.

C．She received food as well as comfort in her hard times.

D．She thinks offering food is the best way to show love.

4.What do we know about the author's family?

A. Her family is too poor to buy enough food.

B. Her family lives not far from a church.

C. Her husband is not good at cooking.

D．She has a babysitter taking care of her twins.

5.According to the passage, which of the following conclusions can we get?

A. A good beginning makes a good ending.

B．One good turn deserves another.

C．Actions speak louder than words.

D．Every man has his faults.

 

閱讀下列材料，從所給的六個(gè)選項(xiàng)（A、B、C、D、E和F）中，選出符合各小題要求的最佳選項(xiàng)，并在答題卡上將該項(xiàng)涂黑。選項(xiàng)中有一項(xiàng)是多余選項(xiàng)。

Sam, Alice, Dick, Tracy和Susan想根據(jù)自己在音樂(lè)方面的興趣（61---65）選擇適合自己的音樂(lè)會(huì)，閱讀下面音樂(lè)會(huì)的介紹（A、B、C、D、E和F），選出適合他們的音樂(lè)會(huì)，并在答題紙上將相應(yīng)的標(biāo)號(hào)涂黑。選項(xiàng)中有一項(xiàng)是多余選項(xiàng)。

1.. Sam and his friends always enjoy their weekend by attending late night activities. However, he

hasn’t joined them for a long time because he has been working for a couple of weeks. This

weekend he wants to have some fun and excitement with his friends, who are interested in western

music.

2... Alice is a college student who studies music, and playing the piano is her favorite. Her

parents approve of her attending concerts and pay for the tickets. As a result, she doesn’t

care much about how much the ticket might cost.

3.. Dick and his girlfriend are both university students. The coming Sunday (August 6) is his

girlfriend’s birthday. As both of them are music fans, Dick would like to take his girlfriend to enjoy some live music and learn something new.

4.. Tracy is interested in a variety of music, like most of the university students, she has a

part-time job. She would like to amuse herself by attending concerts. Since she does not

earn much, she can only afford a ticket that doesn’t cost much.

5..             

. Susan enjoys listening to foreign music in her spare time. She would like to attend

concerts performed by foreign bands or orchestras whenever it’s possible. But according

   to the school rules, she has to return to her dormitory before 11:00 pm.

 

             

 

   A                                       B

Prince of the piano: Clayderman has established a truly international career as a best-selling recording artist and concert performer. He has recorded over 1,000 melodies and created a “New Romantic” style through a repertoire which combines his “trademark” originals with classics and pop standards. In fact, despite his natural shyness and reserve, he is completely in his element on stage; a Richard Clayderman concert is a real “Spectacular”. Place: The Great Hall of the People Time: 8:00---10:00 pm, August 7 Price: 180---1,680 yuan Tel: 7310-5268

Raymond’s Solo Concert: Raymond, the talented singer who shifts freely between musical, folk songs and hip hop, is to give a solo concert this weekend. The event will be part of the Asian tour promoting his new album. His concert has very high ticket prices, but his fans have bought tickets worth one million yuan in just four days. Place: Grand Theatre Time: 8:30---10---30 pm, August 6 Price: 280---2,000 yuan Tel: 7310-4568

 

                       C                                     D

Live Music: Audiences in the city will be able to make a date with one of the most famous German orchestras on the evening of Aug. 10 at Century Theatre. Conducted by Florian Stubenvoll, the orchestra will perform 11 classics including Beethoven’s “Fledermaus Overture”, Mozart’s “Symphony No. 40”, and four pieces by Johann Strauss. Place: Century theatre Time: 8:00---10:30 pm, August 10 Price: 120---680 yuan Tel: 7310-6668

Beijing Rocks: “The Night of Chinese Rock” is set to bring rock fans special performance. Eight Chinese rock bands will perform at the concert, including older generation bands, middle generation and some recent arrivals. The audience can even decide what songs they want to hear, which is sure to bring a storm. Place: Worker’s Stadium Time: 8:00---11:30 pm, August 4,8,9 Price: 90---680 yuan Tel: 7310-5818

 

                 E                                       F

Jazz Night: Enjoy real American jazz from Hebie Brown, the famous trumpet player. He’s coming with his new 7-piece band, Herbie’s Heroes. Herbie is known to play well into the early hours, so don’t expect to get much sleep. This is Herbie’s third visit to China. Get your tickets quickly. Place: The jazz club Time: 10:00pm till late, August 7,9,11 Price: 100---200 yuan Tel: 7310-2938

Scottish Dancing: Want to get your body some exercise while enjoying live music? Take your partner here and get ready to dance till you drop. Scottish dancing is fun and easy to learn. There will be instructors demonstrating the dances. The live band is also excellent. Place: Jack Stein’s Time: 7:30---10:30 pm, August 5---7 Price: 70 yuan including one drink Tel: 7810:1968