第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。
A
The key to happiness is how quickly you can get back your focus on what’s important.
-----Anonymous
Sixteen years ago I learned this lesson in the back of a New York City taxi cab. Here's what happened. I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station. We were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car’s back end by just inches!
The driver of the other car, who almost caused a big accident, started yelling bad words at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was friendly. So, I said, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!" And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call "The Law of the Garbage Truck."
Many people are like garbage (rubbish) trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You'll be happy you did.
I started thinking, how often do I let Garbage Trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets? It was that day I said, "I'm not going to do anymore."
Good leaders know they have to be ready for their next meeting. Good parents know that they have to welcome their children home from school with hugs and kisses. Leaders and parents know that they have to be fully present, and at their best for the people they care about. The bottom line is that successful people do not let Garbage Trucks take over their day. What about you? What would happen in your life, starting today, if you let more garbage trucks pass you by? Here's my bet. You'll be happier. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So, Love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't.
56. What happened one day when the author was taking a taxi?
A. The taxi almost hit another car.
B. The taxi driver was injured.
C. The author scolded the driver of the other car.
D. The author learned a lesson from the driver of the garbage truck.
57. How did the taxi driver respond to the behaviour of the driver of the black car?
A. He yelled back at the driver. B. He sent the driver to the hospital.
C. He was friendly towards the driver. D. He dumped some garbage in front of his car.
58. What can we infer from Paragraph 4?
A. The author used to have a lot of garbage trucks.
B. The author used to complain a lot.
C. The author used to have a lot of money.
D. The author used to be a good manager.
59. According to the passage, what should you do if people “dump garbage” on you?
A. Ignore them and go on with our own work.
B. Try our best to persuade them not to do that again.
C. Tell them to dump the garbage in the right place.
D. Take over their work and carry the garbage to somewhere else.
How Children Succeed, by Paul Tough
Journalist Tough spent five years reporting his previous (先前的) book, Whatever It Takes, a description of education activist Geoffrey Canada and the families influenced by his organization, the Harlem Children’s Zone. In this 2012 follow-up, Tough sets out to answer the difficult questions raised by Whatever It Takes: Why do some kids — particularly poor ones — succeed while others fail? And how can parents and educators help guide more children towards success?
The Death and Life of the Great American School System, by Diane Ravitch
Ravitch, a professor in New York University, takes a hard look at how public education has changed over the past twenty years, offering a reasoned explanation of popular policies, such as the emphasis (强调) on testing, and a solution (解决方法) to how to improve America’s schools.
Saving the School, by Michael Brick
When Anabel Garza became headteacher of Reagan High in Austin, Tex, she was faced with a large number of seemingly very difficult problems: A high dropout rate (辍学率) and low test scores. But as Brick writes Saving the School, a first-hand account of a year in the life of Reagan High, Garza, along with other teachers, was determined to turn things around for her school and her students.
The Flat World and Education, by Linda Darling -Hammond
While scores on the tests required by “No Child Left Behind” have steadily (平稳地) risen, America’s students are always falling behind on international testing measures. Why? According to Stanford education professor Darling-Hammond, it’s because U.S. schools, “designed at the turn of the last century,” are in need of a complete change. In this book, she describes the latest education models used by schools all over the world, which she argues could offer a long-term road map to changing the American public school system.Which book answers questions from another book?
| A．Saving the School. |
| B．How Children Succeed. |
| C．The Flat World and Education. |
| D．The Death and Life of the Great American School System. |
Who writes about a particular high school?
| A．Diane Ravitch. | B．Michael Brick. |
| C．Paul Tough. | D．Linda Darling-Hammond. |
Both Diane and Linda are offering measures to _____.
| A．cut down the dropout rate |
| B．help students get high scores |
| C．improve schools in America |
| D．guide more children to success |
Imagination and fantasy(幻想) can play an important role in achieving the things we fear. Tom, a four-year-old boy with a cancer in his back bone, knew this very well. Fred Epstein, in his book If I Make It to Five, tells a story he heard from one of friends about Tom. He came through several operations and a lot of pain by mastering his imagination.
Tom loved to pretend, and he particularly loved to play superheroes. Dr. Epstein explained that it was actually a wonderful way for his young mind to manage the terrifying and painful life he led.
The day before his third trip to the operating room, Tom was terribly afraid. “Maybe I could go as Superman,” he said to his mom. Hearing this, the mother hesitated (犹豫) for a while. She had avoided buying the expensive costume (戏装), but finally she agreed.
The next day Tom appeared as the powerful Superman, showing off through the hospital halls and coolly waving his hand to the people greeting him along the way. And Tom, with the strength of his fantasy, successfully made it through the operation.
The power of imagination need not be reserved for children only. we all have the power to use our fantasies to attempt things we never thought possible, to go through those things that seem impossible, and to achieve what we never believed we could. Just as Dr. Epstein puts it, “If you can dream it, you can do it.”
It doesn’t mean that you should dress as a superhero for your next job interview. But, next time you are tested in a way that seems impossible, imagine what it would take to overcome it. Become the person you need to become to win over your challenge and do it in your mind first. So, let your imagination run wild, and dare to dream.What do we know about Tom?
| A．He was seriously ill | B．He was a dishonest boy. |
| C．He was crazy about magic. | D．He was Dr. Epstein’s patient. |
What can be inferred about Tom’s mother?
| A．She was a rich lady. |
| B．She refused Tom’s request. |
| C．She wanted Tom to be a superhero. |
| D．She wanted to get Tom through the pain. |
When Tom went for the third operation, he ______.
| A．pretended to be painful | B．acted like a superhero |
| C．appeared in poor spirits | D．argued with his mother |
In the last paragraph, you are advised ______.
| A．to go through some difficult tests |
| B．to wake up from your wild dreams |
| C．to become a powerful person in your mind |
| D．to wear expensive clothes for job interviews |
What is the purpose of the passage?
| A．To tell us an interesting story. |
| B．To help us make right decisions. |
| C．To advise us to care about children. |
| D．To encourage us to use our imagination. |
He slept in my arms last night, with his little head on my shoulder. I stayed awake listening to his breathing. He smiled in his sleep, and I wondered what could be funny to a one-year-old baby. I could sense the safety he felt.
However, my home life is completely different from the scene that greets me each morning at work. As a lawyer at Eastlake Juvenile Court (少年法庭), I always see kids that society has labeled the worst of the worst, the “thief”, the “robber”, the list goes on. But they are still children. As I sit across from them, I have a chance to talk to them about their lives, homes, and dreams. I sit through tears, anger, but mostly hurt. I see their parents, most of whom sit in the hallways day after day wanting to take their kids home. I also see parents that come to the court ready to walk away from their children forever. Each day I see hope destroyed.
I have come to realize that these children are our future, even if we don’t want to admit it. They also want to sleep on a mother’s shoulder at night, they also had dreams
and smiled in their sleep when they were babies. But then something terrible happened, which robbed (剥夺) them of that youth, that hope, and that joy. I hope one day we can find how to put back the destroyed childhoods and ruined lives.
Every day when I go home, I hold my children tightly in my arms and say “I love you” over and over again. And as I am filled with hope, I cannot forget those children I leave behind. I live in two worlds, one of promise, one of tragedy(悲剧). No matter what they are accused (指控) of, what crimes (罪行) they have carried out and what society thinks of them, they are children, they are our children and our future.The author mentions her son in Paragraph 1 mainly to tell readers _____.
| A．her son is lovely |
| B．it’s hard to raise a child |
| C．what leads children to break laws |
| D．children should be taken good care of |
The underlined word “labeled” in Paragraph 2 can best be replaced by _____.
| A．praised | B．chosen | C．designed | D．described |
What’s the author’s attitude towards the children who break laws?
| A．Doubtful. | B．Hopeful. | C．Angry. | D．Relaxed. |
What’s the author’s purpose in writing the text?
| A．To accuse those parents who ruin their children’s life. |
| B．To show the difficulty of her work as a lawyer. |
| C．To win support for problem children. |
| D．To show her deep love for her child. |
Check out our tsunami facts and learn some interesting information related to these great walls of water that can cause so much destruction. Find out what causes tsunamis and read about some recent examples of tsunamis that have occurred around the globe.
The Japanese word for tsunami means harbor wave.
Tsunamis are sometimes referred to as tidal (受潮汐影响的) waves but this term has fallen out of favor because tsunamis are not related to tides.
Tsunamis are huge waves of water that are usually caused by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.
As a tsunami approaches the shore (海岸), water may move back from the coast. If it is shallow (浅的) enough the water may be pulled back hundreds of meters. If you are in the area, you can know that a tsunami is on the way when you see this phenomenon.
Regions in tsunami danger zones often have warning systems in place to give people as much time as possible to move to a safe place.
When tsunamis hit shallow water (often near the coast) they slow down but increase in height.
An earthquake in the Indian Ocean off Indonesia in December 2004 caused a tsunami that killed over 200,000 people in 14 countries.
In March 2011, the Tohoku earthquake off the eastern coast of Japan caused a tsunami that was a major factor in the death of over 15,000 people.
The tsunami waves created by the Tohoku earthquake reached heights of over 40 meters in some areas, wiping out coastal towns and causing a number of nuclear accidents.How many causes of tsunamis are mentioned in the text?
| A．One. | B．Two. | C．Three. | D．Four. |
In the Tohoku earthquake over 15,000 people died mainly because of ______.
| A．the earthquake itself |
| B．the lack of warning systems |
| C．the tsunami caused by the earthquake |
| D．the nuclear accidents caused by the tsunami |
What do we learn from the text?
| A．The Japanese invented the term “tidal waves”. |
| B．The term “tidal waves” is used more often than tsunami. |
| C．When tsunamis slow down, their waves can reach 40 meters. |
| D．When hitting shallow water, tsunamis will rise higher. |
The text is developed mainly by ______.
| A．listing some facts | B．giving some examples |
| C．providing some numbers | D．making some comparisons |
Years ago, I lived in a building in a large city. The next building was only a few feet away from mine. There was a woman living there, and I had never met her, yet I could see she sat by her window each afternoon, sewing or reading.
After several months had gone by, I began to notice that her window was dirty. Everything was unclear through the dirty window. I would say to myself. “I wonder why that woman doesn’t wash her window. It really looks terrible.”
One bright morning I decided to clean my flat, including washing the window on the inside.
Late in the afternoon when I finished the cleaning, I sat down by the window with a cup of coffee for a rest. What a surprise! Across the way, the woman sitting by her window was clearly visible (看见). Her window was clean!
Then it dawned on me. I had been criticizing (批评) her dirty window, but all the time I was watching hers through my own dirty window.
That was quite an important lesson for me. How often had I looked at and criticized others through the dirty window of my heart, through my own shortcomings?
Since then, whenever I wanted to judge (评判) someone, I asked myself first, “Am I looking at him through my own dirty window?” I try to clean the window of my own world so that I may see the world about me more clearly.The writer couldn’t see everything clearly through the window because _______.
| A．the woman’s window was dirty |
| B．the writer’s window was dirty |
| C．the woman lived nearby |
| D．the writer was near-sighted |
“It dawned on me” probably means “_______”.
| A．I began to understand it | B．it cheered me up |
| C．I knew it grew light | D．it began to get dark |
It’s clear that ________.
| A．the writer had never met the woman before |
| B．the writer often washed the window |
| C．they both worked as cleaners |
| D．they lived in a small town |
From the passage, we can learn _______.
| A．one shouldn’t criticize others very often |
| B．one should often make his windows clean |
| C．one must judge himself before he judges others |
| D．one must look at others through his dirty windows[ |
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