第十三届“外研社杯”全国中小学生英语技能大赛-我最爱阅读高中组.docx

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1、第十三届“外研社杯”全国中小学生英语技能大赛 我最爱阅读 高中组1. About a month passed when one morning in March, Mrs. Bunting heard noises outside her bedroom window. “Wake up! Wake up!” she whispered to her sleeping husband, the Reverend, “Someones in the house!” He got up, took a poker from the fireplace and crept out into the

2、 hallway. He heard the sound of sneezing downstairs. The Reverend and Mrs. Bunting slowly made their way down the stairs. They heard the sound of paper rustling in the study. They came to the door and peered in. What should have been a dark room was now lit by a candle. In the light, they could see

3、that one of the drawers had been opened, but there was no sign of a burglar in the room. Suddenly, there was a sound. Clink！Clink!2. As soon as Turandot arrived, the guards started beating my father. Liu cried out, “Please do not hurt him. He is only an old man. Only I can tell you what you want to

4、know.” I tried to run to Liu to stop her from speaking but some guards stopped me. Turandot ordered, “Take her and torture her until she tells you his name.”“I will never tell you,” Liu screamed. “I will die before I tell you his name.” I was so stunned by Lius devotion to my father and myself, and

5、even Turandot asked her, “Why do you care so much about him? Why are you so willing to sacrifice yourself for this man?” Liu answered, “Love gives me courage. Your heart is made of ice but it will be warmed by the love he can give.” 3. So I lived all alone, without anyone I could really talk to, unt

6、il I had to make a crash landing in the Sahara Desert six years ago. Something in my planes engine had broken. Since I had neither a mechanic nor passengers in the plane with me, I was preparing to undertake the difficult repair job by myself. For me it was a matter of life or death: I had only enou

7、gh drinking water for eight days. The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand a thousand miles from any inhabited country. I was more isolated than a man shipwrecked on a raft in the middle of the ocean. So you can imagine my surprise when I was awakened at daybreak by a funny little voice sa

8、ying, “Please draw me a sheep”4. “No, not ill,” said Valjean. “I am dying. But to die is nothing. Not to live is terrible.” Valjeans breathing became difficult. He pointed to a nearby table. “Cosette, I want you to have those silver candle-sticks. The person who gave them to me is watching us now. I

9、 hope he is pleased. Now, Cosette, the time has come for me to tell you about your mother. Her name was Fantine. You mustnt forget it. She loved you very much and suffered greatly. Her great sorrow was as much as your great happiness is now. God balances things that way. I will leave you now, but re

10、member to always love each other. Love is the only thing that matters in life.” 5. Johnsy got pneumonia, and it made her very ill. She lay, hardly moving, on her iron-framed bed, looking through the small window at the brick wall of the building next door.One morning, the busy doctor invited Sue int

11、o the hallway. His eyes were sad under his bushy gray eyebrows. “She has one chance in ten,” he said, as he looked at his clinical thermometer. “And that chance depends on her will to live. Sometimes when people give up trying to live, it doesnt matter what medicines I give. Your friend has decided,

12、 for some reason that she is not going to get well.”6. This gentleman was not a wealthy man, but rather a hidalgo. A hidalgo was a landowner who was richer than a peasant, but poorer than a nobleman. His name was Senor Quixano.Senor Quixano lived modestly with his house-keeper and his young niece. H

13、e was a tall, thin man in his fifties. He was a strong and healthy man, who went hunting every morning.However, he started to read adventure stories all the time. His best friends, the local priest and the village barber, were worried. Their friend suddenly began spending night and day in his chair,

14、 reading adventure books through crazed, bloodshot eyes.Soon he started thinking these stories were true. Finally he went completely crazy.7. Without really knowing what he was doing, Fernand sat down on the grass and drank the wine. “So your lovely cousin Mercedes has decided, has she? said Danglar

15、s. “Shes going to marry Edmond Dantes, is she?” “Yes, and I cant stop it!” cried Fernand angrily.“But you can if you want to. My friend,” said Danglars. “Let me show you what to do. Just write a short letter to Monsieur Villefort, the crown prosecutor. In the letter you say that Dantes is an enemy o

16、f our King, because hes visited the wicked Napoleon on the island of Elba, and even carries a letter from him. You see? Its easy!”“But if I do that, Edmond will die!” “Who knows? Perhaps hell go to prison. But what does it matter? Youll have the lovely Mercedes!” And to himself, Danglars was thinkin

17、g, “This will stop Dantes becoming captain of the Pharaon!” 8. “Theres a young lady to see you,” she informed us. “Miss Mary Morstan.” “Mary Morstan,” Holmes repeated. “I dont recognize the name. Please ask her to come in, Mrs. Hudson.” He turned to me. “Dont go, Doctor. Please stay and listen to th

18、e ladys story.” I was happy to do as he said. When Miss Morstan came into the room, she seemed calm, but it was clear that she didnt want to waste any time. She was a young woman, small, with fair hair. Her clothes showed good taste, but they werent expensive. She had a pleasant face and beautiful b

19、lue eyes. She looked serious and intelligent, but not, I thought, rich. Holmes invited her to sit down and, as she took her seat, for the first time she seemed worried. Mrs. Hudson left us, and our visitor began her story. “Mr. Holmes,” she said, “I find myself in a very strange situation. I dont un

20、derstand it at all.”9. Most people know that the climate of the Earth is always changing. In the past it had changed because of natural causes. Recently, however, the changes are caused by what humans are doing. Scientists say that future changes, as far ahead as 80 years, are also the result of hum

21、an factors. The greenhouse effect is very important when we talk about climate change as it is about the gases which keep the Earth warm. It is the extra pollution which humans have caused that is regarded as the biggest problem. An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988

22、 to look at climatic change and its impact. The newest report predicts global temperature will rise by the end of the century, of between 1.4 and 5.8. Although the issue of the changing climate is very complex and some changes are uncertain, temperature rises are expected to affect countries through

23、out the world and will affect other things like the amount of rain that will fall and the level of the sea.10. Ive been learning English for the last five years and one of the things that has helped me to improve is reading. I love reading and often read during my free time. First, I started reading

24、 easy things in English, like recipes for cooking and short stories that are written especially for language learners. Then I moved onto longer stories and newspaper articles. At first I found reading difficult because of the variety of vocabulary and the grammar, but this soon became easier and I f

25、ound that I could understand more and more of what I was reading. I didnt worry if I didnt know all the words, as I could still understand the main ideas. Reading has helped improve my English in many ways. Im not only a better and quicker reader, but my spelling, writing, punctuation, grammar and v

26、ocabulary are all much better. I think Ive improved faster than some of my friends who have been learning at the same time as me. So, I would say that everyone who wants to learn a language quickly should read. 11. But little by little, the piles of gold coins in his cottage grew higher. The harder

27、he worked, the less he spent on himself. He counted the coins into piles of ten, and wanted to see them grow into a square, and then into a larger square. He was delighted with every new coin, but it made him want another. His gold became a habit, a delight, a reason for living, almost a religion. H

28、e began to think the coins were his friends, who made the cottage less lonely for him. But it was only at night, when he had finished his work, that he spent time with them. He kept them in two bags, under the floorboards near the loom.12. Ive got a letter from Father! cried Mrs. March. It was a let

29、ter to cheer them up, and the special message for the girls came at the end: Give them all my love and a kiss. I think of them every day. I know they will be loving children to you, and that when I come back, I will be prouder than ever of my little women. A tear dropped off the end of Jos nose. Amy

30、 hid her face on her mothers shoulder. “Im selfish,” she cried, “but Ill try to be better.” “We all will!” cried Meg. “I think too much about the way I look, and hate to work, but I wont anymore.” “And Ill try to be a little woman,” said Jo, “and not be rough and wild.” Beth said nothing, but she be

31、gan to work hard at a blue army glove she was making. So the four girls decided that they would all try very hard to be good. They would never be cross, or lazy, or selfish-and they would all help each other.13. The poor, brave captain! His clothes looked very old and worn, but he seemed as bright a

32、s ever, unless he was asked about his elder daughters health. “Shes in great pain,” he replied, “though we do what we can.”Miss Matty told me that, in fact, he and his younger daughter had done everything possible to make the patient comfortable, whatever the cost. “And Miss Jessies a wonderful nurs

33、e. My dear, if you saw her as I have, youd never laugh again at her childish pink ribbons.”I felt ashamed and spoke to Miss Jessie with twice as much respect next time we met. She looked exhausted, but she pushed back the tears in her pretty eyes. “What a good town Cranford is!” she said. “Everyone

34、sends my sister presents.”14. In the first half of the nineteenth century there lived in New York a very successful doctor. His success was for two reasons. He was, without doubt, a good doctor, intelligent and honest, and he also knew how to please his patients. He gave long, careful explanations a

35、bout the illness, and always gave them some medicine to take. Indeed, his patients were fond of saying that they had the best doctor in the country. By the time he was fifty, Doctor Austin Sloper was quite a famous person in New York. His conversation was clever and amusing, and no fashionable party

36、 in the city was complete without him.He was also lucky. In 1820, at the age of twenty-seven, he had married, for love, a very charming girl, who had a fortune of ten thousand dollars a year. For about five years Doctor Sloper was a very happy husband; he continued to work as a doctor and each 15. I

37、 returned to my flat at about three oclock on that May afternoon very unhappy with life. I had been back in Britain for three months and I was already bored. The weather was bad, the people were dull, and the amusements of London seemed as exciting as a glass of cold water. “Richard Hannay,” I told

38、myself, “you have made a mistake, and you had better do something about it.” It made me angry when I thought of the years I had spent in Africa. I had spent those years working very hard and making money. Not a lot of money, but enough for me. I had left Scotland when I was six years old, and I had

39、never been home since. For years I had dreamt of coming home to Britain and spending the rest of my life there, but I was disappointed with the place after the first week. And so here I was, thirty-seven years old, healthy, with enough money to have a good time, and bored to death.16. Mr. Utterson t

40、he lawyer was a quiet, serious man. He was shy with strangers and afraid of showing his feelings. Among friends, however, his eyes shone with kindness and goodness. And, although this goodness never found its way into his conversation, it showed itself in his way of life. He didnt allow himself many

41、 enjoyable things in life. He ate and drank simply and, although he enjoyed the theatre, he had not been to a play for twenty years. However, he was gentler towards other mens weaknesses, and was always ready to help rather than blame them. As a lawyer, he was often the last good person that evil-do

42、ers met on their way to prison, or worse. These people often carried with them memories of his politeness and fairness.17. HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a virus that stops your body from fighting illness. You can have the virus for many years, before becoming ill. The disease that one gets f

43、rom HIV is called AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). But slowly the virus wears down your immunity and you start to become sick from various illnesses such as flu or infections in different parts of your body. When you have become ill in this way, you then have AIDS. There are medicines tha

44、t can slow down HIV developing into AIDS. But there is no cure for the AIDS infection. HIV is passed from person to person through body fluids. HIV can therefore be passed on through having unsafe sex, getting a blood transfusion from an infected person and sharing needles when injecting drugs.18. M

45、ost mammals seem to enjoy play, but dolphins seem to like making their games as challenging as possible. On a beautiful day in 1997, researchers working at a beach, off the southern coast of Brazil, observed a little dog going into the sea and swimming towards the dolphins. To their surprise, the do

46、lphins approached the dog and then started throwing it into the air. The dog seemed to enjoy the “game” and continued playing with the dolphins for more than an hour. From then on, different dogs were seen trying to interact with the dolphins. Dolphins live in a very different world to ourselves, bu

47、t they are very good at our “intelligence tests”. For example, they will jump out of the water when they hear a whistle noise. They do this because they will get a fish as a reward. There is still much to learn about these flexible problem-solvers, but from the evidence so far, it would seem as thou

48、gh dolphins are very intelligent.19. He tried to stop Carmen from leaving. “Let me go or kill me,” she demanded. Then, she took off the gold ring that Don Jose had given her and threw it at him. “Dont ever give me anything ever again,” she snapped.At that moment, Don Jose took out his knife and push

49、ed it into her heart. She fell into his arms, and he wept into her hair. His heart was truly broken. Perhaps another man may have tried to escape but he didnt. He stayed there with her so the police could find him. “My life is over. My life finished when she stopped loving me and now I have killed the most precious thing in the world. My life is worthless so it doesnt matter what