visiting Bergün a special __40__ to take photos. He reminded them to think twice before sharing the pictures online, though, as they could be making their friends depressed.
III. Reading Comprehension Section A
Directions: For each blank in the following passage there are four words or phrases marked A, B, C and D. Fill in each blank with the word or phrase that best fits the context.
A cliché is a phrase that has been used so many times that it comes out of the mouth or the computer without stirring up a wave in the mind of the speaker, the typist, the listener or the reader. The word was part of the technical term of the French printing trade in the 19th century, the name for a plate used in the printing process, and it is still used with that meaning in English and other languages. By the middle of the same century, the word was being used in French, shortly followed by English, as a simile (比喻) for __41__ used expressions.
Clichés can be __42__ according to whether they were originally idioms, similes and proverbs, expressions from trades or __43__ phrases.
Many idioms have been so universally overused that they have been __44__ — phrases like far and wide, by leaps and bounds or safe and sound. Our second category could be similes and proverbs that now fall off the __45__ with little meaning, similes like as cool as a cucumber, which __46__ around 400 years.
A large category is __47__ from the terms of trades and professions, sports and games, and other national concerns. Many are __48__ clichés, as is fitting for the British, as an island nation, with examples like to leave a sinking ship, to know the ropes, to stick to one’s guns.
Our last broad category of cliché might be phrases which were __49__ when they were first coined, but have become ineffective through constant use. When a football manager, asked how he felt about the __50__ of his team, said that he was as sick as a parrot. Since then, it has been so overused that it has lost its __51__. To explore every avenue and to leave no stone unturned are two political clichés of this class. No politician with any sensitivity for language could use either of those phrases __52__, yet you hear them still, all the time.
No doubt we could specify the classes of clichés into further subdivisions until the cows come home. But there is no need to. We all agree that clichés are to be __53__ by careful writers and speakers at all times, don?t we? Well, actually, no, not I. Life, and language, are so full of clichés that silence will hold the position if you __54__ us the use of cliché. So many millions of people have spoken and written clichés so __55__ that it is almost impossible to find ideas and phrases that have not been used many times before.
41. A. occasionally B. frequently 42. A. confirmed 43. A. invented 44. A. highlighted 45. A. nose
46. A. dates back 47. A. detected
B. quoted B. customized B. tailored B. eyes B. catches on B. drawn
C. technically C. inferred C. recognized C. weakened C. lips C. takes shape C. excluded
D. grammatically D. classified D. underlined D. enriched D. forehead D. gives out D. initiated
48. A. remote 49. A. boring 50. A. expense 51. A. origin 52. A. seriously 53. A. adjusted 54. A. deny
55. A. casually Section B
B. temperate B. striking B. punishment B. shine B. fluently B. adapted B. allow B. decently
C. urban C. entertaining C. defeat C. statue C. flexibly C. adopted C. forbid C. reluctantly
D. oceanic D. annoying D. age D. humour D. properly D. avoided D. promise D. ceaselessly
Directions: Read the following three passages. Each passage is followed by several questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that fits best according to the information given in the passage you have just read.
(A) Free to Soar
One windy spring day, I observed young people having fun using the wind to fly their kites. Multicolored creations of varying shapes and sizes filled the skies like beautiful birds racing and dancing. As the strong winds blew against the kites, a string kept them in check.
Instead of blowing away with the wind, they arose against it to achieve great heights. They shook and pulled, but the string and the tail kept them attached, facing upward and against the wind. The kites struggled and kept being dragged behind, facing upward and against the wind. As the kites struggled and trembled against the string, they seemed to say, “Let me go! Let me go! I want to be free!” They soared beautifully even as they fought the restriction of the string. Finally, one of the kites succeeded in breaking loose. “Free at last,” it seemed to say. “Free to fly with the wind.”
Yet freedom from restriction simply put it at the mercy of a cruel breeze. It flew ungracefully to the ground and landed in a messed mass of weeds and string against a dead bush. “Free at last”, free to lie powerless in the dirt, to be blown helplessly along the ground, and to stop lifeless against the first obstruction.
How much like kites we sometimes are. The heaven gives us misfortune and limitations, rules to follow from which we can grow and gain strength. Restriction is a necessary companion to the winds of opposition. Some of us resist the rules so hard that we never soar to reach the heights we might have obtained. We keep part of the order and never rise high enough to get our tails off the ground.
Let us each rise to the great heights, recognizing that some of the restrictions that we may be annoyed at are actually the steadying force that helps us improve and achieve.
56. According to paragraph 2, “Let me go!” is said by _______. A. the kite
57. Which of the following words has the meaning closest to the underlined word “obstruction” in paragraph 3? A. destruction
B. miracle
C. observation
D. obstacle
B. the wind
C. the bird
D. the flyer
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