When I was about 12, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings. Week by week her list grew: I was very thin; I wasn’t a good student; I talked too much; I was too proud and so on. I tried to bear all these things as long as I could. At last, I became very angry. I ran to my father with tears in my eyes.
He listened to me quietly, then he asked, “Are the things she said true or not? Janet, didn’t you ever wonder what you are really like? Well, you now have the girl’s opinion. Go and make a list of everything she said, mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to other things she said.”
I did as he told me. To my great surprise, I discovered that about half of the things were true. Some of them I couldn’t change (like being very thin), but a good number I could and suddenly I wanted to change. For the first time I got a fairly clear picture of myself.
I brought the list back to Daddy. He refused to take it, “That’s just for you,” he said. “You know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. But you have to learn to listen, not just closing your ears in anger and feeling hurt. When something that is said about you is true, you’ll find it will be of help to you. Don’t shut your ears. Listen to other people’s opinions, but hear the truth and do what you think is right.”
Daddy’s advice has returned to me at many important moments. In my life, I’ve never had a better piece of advice. The underlined sentence “Week by week her list grew” means “__________”.
| A．Week by Week, my shortcomings grew more serious |
| B．She had made a list of shortcomings and kept on adding new ones to it so that it was growing longer and longer |
| C．I was having more and more shortcomings as time went on |
| D．Week by week she discovered more shortcomings of mine and point them out |
Why did her father listen to her quietly?
| A．Because he believed that what her daughter’s enemy said was mostly true. |
| B．Because he had been so angry with his daughter’s shortcomings that he wanted to show this by keeping silent for a while. |
| C．Because he didn’t believe in his daughter |
| D．Because he wasn’t quite sure which girl was telling the truth. |
What did the father do after he heard his daughter’s complaint?
| A．He told her not to pay any attention to what her “enemy” said. |
| B．He criticized her and told her to overcome her shortcomings. |
| C．He told her to write down all that her "enemy" had said about her and pay attention only to the things that were true. |
| D．He refused to take the list and have a look at it. |
Which do you think would be the best title for this passage?
| A．Not an Enemy, but a Best Friend |
| B．My Father |
| C．The Best Advice I’ve Ever Had |
| D．My Childhood |
The African elephant, the largest land animal remaining on earth, is of great importance to African ecosystem (生态系统). Unlike other animals, the African elephant is to a great extent the builder of its environment. As a big planteater, it largely shapes the forestandsavanna (稀树草原) surroundings in which it lives, therefore setting the terms of existence for millions of other animals that live in its habitat.
It is the elephant's great desire for food that makes it a disturber of the environment and an important builder of its habitat. In its continuous search for the 300 pounds of plants it must have every day, it kills small trees and underbushes, and pulls branches of big trees. This results in numerous open spaces in both deep tropical forests and in the woodlands that cover part of the African savannas. In these open spaces are numerous plants in various stages of growth that attract a variety of other planteaters.
Take the rain forests for example. In their natural state, the spreading branches overhead shut out sunlight and prevent the growth of plants on the forest floor. By pulling down trees and eating plants, elephants make open spaces, allowing new plants to grow on the forest floor. In such situations, the forests become suitable for large hoofed planteaters to move around and for small planteaters to get their food as well.
What worries scientists now is that the African elephant has become an endangered species. If the elephant disappears, scientists say, many other animals will also disappear from vast areas of forest and savanna, greatly changing and worsening the whole ecosystem.What is the passage mainly about?
| A．Disappearance of African elephants. |
| B．Forests and savannas as habitats for African elephants. |
| C．The effect of African elephants' search for food. |
| D．The eating habit of African elephants. |
What does the underlined phrase “setting the terms” most probably mean?
| A．Fixing the time. | B．Worsening the state. |
| C．Improving the quality. | D．Deciding the conditions. |
What do we know about the open spaces in the passage?
| A．They result from the destruction of rain forests. |
| B．They provide food mainly for African elephants. |
| C．They are home to many endangered animals. |
| D．They are attractive to planteating animals of different kinds. |
According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．The African elephant is the largest animal on earth. |
| B．African elephants have 300 pounds of plants every day, including small trees and under bushes. |
| C．The African elephant is in a way the builder of the environment like other land animals. |
| D．If the African elephant disappears, the whole ecosystem won't be affected. |
The passage is developed mainly by ________.
| A．showing the effect and then explaining the causes |
| B．pointing out similarities and differences |
| C．describing the changes in space order |
| D．giving examples |
A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual situation of the time and the child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.
A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.
There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two-headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history. I find such people, I must say so peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl -friend.
No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.The author considers that a fairy story is more effective when it is ____.
| A．repeated without any change | B．treated as a joke |
| C．made some changes by the parent | D．set in the present |
According to the passage, great fear can take place in a child when the story is ____.
| A．in a realistic setting | B．heard for the first time |
| C．repeated too often | D．told in a different way |
The advantage claimed (提出) for repeating fairy stories to young children is that it ____.
| A．makes them less fearful |
| B．develops their power of memory |
| C．makes them believe there is nothing to be afraid of |
| D．encourages them not to have strange beliefs |
The author's mention of sticks and telephones is meant to suggest that ______.
| A．fairy stories are still being made up |
| B．there is some misunderstanding about fairy tales |
| C．people try to modernize old fairy stories |
| D．there is more concern for children's fears nowadays |
One of the reasons why some people are not in favor of fairy tales is that _______.
| A．they are full of imagination |
| B．they just make up the stories which are far from the truth |
| C．they are not interesting |
| D．they make teachers of history difficult to teach |
Like any good mother, when Karen found out that another baby was on the way, she did what she could to help her 3-year-old son, Michael, prepare for a new baby. They find out that the new baby is going to be a girl, and day after day, night after night, Michael sings to his sister in Mommy's stomach.
In time, the labor pains come. But complications arise during delivery. Finally, Michael's little sister is born. But she is in serious condition. With alarm in the night, the ambulance rushes the infant to the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Mary's Hospital, Knoxville, Tennessee. The days go by. The little girl gets worse. The pediatric (儿科的) specialist tells the parents, “There is very little hope. Be prepared for the worst.”
Karen and her husband contact a local cemetery about a burial plot. They have fixed up a special room in their home for the new baby, but now they plan a funeral. Michael keeps begging his parents to let him see his sister, "I want to sing to her," he says. But kids are never allowed in Intensive Care. Karen makes up her mind. She will take Michael whether they like it or not. If he doesn’t see his sister now, he may never see her alive.
She dresses him in an oversized suit and marches him into ICU. He looks like a walking laundry basket, but the head nurse recognizes him as a child and shouts, "Get that kid out of here now. No children are allowed. Never disturb patients here.” The mother rises up strongly and said," He is not leaving until he sings to his sister!"
Karen leads Michael to his sister's bedside. He gazes at the tiny infant losing the battle to live. And he begins to sing. In the pure hearted voice of a 3-year-old, Michael sings:" You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray…" Instantly the baby girl responds. The pulse rate begins to calm down and becomes steady.
“Keep on singing, Michael.”encouraged Karen with tears in her eyes. "You never know, dear, how much I love you, please don't take my sunshine away."
The next day, the very next day, the little girl is well enough to go home! Woman's Day magazine called it "the miracle of a brother's song". The medical staff just called it a miracle. Karen called it a miracle of Gods love!
Never give up on the people you love.What may the underlined words "the infant" refer to?
| A．The baby | B．Karen | C．Mary | D．Michael |
What do we know about the little sister after she was born?
| A．She was driven to St. Mary's shop. | B．A doctor came to see her in her house. |
| C．She was very thin and couldn't speak. | D．She was in great danger. |
Why did Karen firmly let little Michael see his sister in ICU?
| A．Because he could make his sister alive. |
| B．Because his sister would be sent to a far hospital. |
| C．Because his sister was going to die soon. |
| D．Because his father wanted to take him away. |
What do we know about the head nurse?
| A．The head nurse was careful. | B．The head nurse was rude. |
| C．The head nurse was responsible. | D．The head nurse had no sympathy. |
What is the general idea of the text?
| A．A boy’s singing saved his sister’s life. |
| B．The little girl is well enough to go home. |
| C．Michael's little sister is born with a serious disease. |
| D．No children are allowed to enter the intensive care unit. |
Some people believe that international sport creates goodwill between the nations and that if countries play games together, they will learn to live together. Others say that the opposite is true: international competitions encourage false national pride and lead to misunderstanding and hatred. There is probably some truth in both arguments, but in recent years the Olympic Games have done little to support the view that sport encourages international brotherhood. Not only was there the tragic incident including the murder of athletes, but the Games were also ruined by incidents caused mainly by smaller national contests.
One country received its second-place medals with visible anger after the hockey final. There had been noisy scenes at the end of the hockey match, the losers objecting to the final decisions. They were sure that one of their goals should not have been disallowed and that their opponents’ victory was unfair. Their manager was in great anger when he said, “This wasn’t hockey. Hockey and the International Hockey Federation are finished.” The president of the Federation said later that such behavior could result in the suspension（停赛）of the team for at least three years.
Incidents of this kind will continue as long as sport is played competitively rather than for the love of the game. The suggestion that athletes should compete as individuals, or in non-national teams, might be too much to hope for. But in the present organization of the Olympics there is far too much that encourages aggressive patriotism (爱国主义).According to the author, recently the Olympic Games have ______.
| A．created goodwill between the nations |
| B．brought about only false national pride |
| C．hardly showed any international friendship |
| D．put an end to misunderstanding and hatred |
The underlined word “disallowed”(in Paragraph 2) means “______”.
| A．permitted to pass | B．considered as reasonable |
| C．won by the other side | D．refused to accept |
What did the manager mean by saying, “Hockey and the International Hockey Federation are finished"?
| A．His team would no longer take part in international games. |
| B．Hockey and the Federation are both ruined by the unfair decisions. |
| C．There should be no more Hockey matches organized by the Federation. |
| D．The Federation should break up. |
The author gives the example in paragraph 2 to show ______.
| A．how false national pride led to undesirable incidents in international games |
| B．that sportsmen are often against the final decisions |
| C．that competitiveness in the games discourages international friendship |
| D．that unfair decisions are common in the Olympic Games |
What conclusion can be drawn from the passage?
| A．The organization of the Olympic Games must be improved. |
| B．Athletes should compete as individuals in the OlympicGames. |
| C．A game should be played competitively rather than for the love of the game. |
| D．More and more athletes will compete for their own honor. |
Dad loved children. And he always wanted a 21 family. Eventually, he got what he wanted with twelve children in the family. Without fail, he would show us all to visitors.
Once, Dad 22 presented the first three children in the family, Ann, Mary and Ernestine, to some visitors. Then he picked up a fourth child, and said, “And this is our 23 model, complete with all the improvements. And don’t think that this is all, we are 24 the 1953 model some time next month.”
But what he 25 most was taking us out for a drive. On one occasion a man in a village we were passing through shouted 26 that he had seen eleven people in our car, not 27 Mum and Dad. 28 , Dad called out over his shoulder, “You 29 the second baby up from the front here, Mister.”
Another time, Dad told us this joke, though we were not sure whether he was telling us the 30 . Mum, who was a psychologist, once went to give a lecture and left Dad in charge of the 31 . When Mum returned, she asked him if everything had been OK. He said everything was 32 except that one of the children had been taught a lesson because he had been 33 . When he pointed at the child that had been 34 Mum looked at him calmly and said, “That’s not one of ours, dear. He 35 next door.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
粤公网安备 44130202000953号