When _______cruel man was hurting the children, there were no adults around who were able to stop______ hurting.

A. the, the      B. the, 不填        C. a,   不填     D. a, a

A few months ago I was at a bus stop in town in the evening. The bus came on time and I took the window seat. The bus route was by the seashore and I was enjoying the breeze (微風(fēng)) while watching the sea waves. After a few minutes the bus made its next stop. A young boy and a girl got on. They were standing on my left when the bus pulled off. I looked at them curiously and realized that all the window seats were occupied (占據(jù)). They could sit but not together. Suddenly a different wave passed through my body and my inner mind gave me the advice to get up. I got up and offered them my seat. The young lady smiled kindly and said thanks. I occupied another seat and we parted our ways. I don’t remember whether I got off the bus before them or not.

       Months passed by. Suddenly one day while I was standing at the same bus stop waiting some time for the bus to arrive I heard a voice.

       “Excuse me, Uncle.” I looked in the direction of the voice. It was a beautiful young lady.

       Puzzled, I said, “I do not recognize you.”

       She said, “Do you remember you gave us your window seat?”

       Puzzled, I said, “Maybe, but what is so great in that?”

       She said, “If you had not given your seat that day, perhaps I would have not sat with my friend. By sitting together it helped us bridge a misunderstanding that had been between us forever. Do you know we are getting married next month?”

       “Good! God bless both of you,” I replied.

       The young lady again said thank you and went on her journey. I realized the importance of giving that day.

Why were the young boy and the girl standing on the bus?

A. Because they wanted to enjoy the sea view.

B. Because they couldn’t sit together.

C. Because there were no empty seats.

D. Because they preferred to stand.

The underlined sentence in the first paragraph probably means that the author had a feeling that ______.

A. he wanted to do something special        

B. the sea wave made him upset

C. a wave from the sea flooded him  

D. he wanted to make a sea wave in his heart

The author’s act of kindness helped the young boy and the girl ______.

A. begin to talk to each other again after a quarrel

B. sit together and become friends very soon

C. clear up a misunderstanding between them

D. know each other and get married

From the story, we can conclude that ______.

A. small things can create great happenings in life

B. it is giving rather than receiving that matters

C. offering one’s seat to others may win respect

D. we sometimes forget what happened in the past

The best title for the passage would be “______”.

A. The empty seat on the bus 

B. The pleasant travel

C. The lovers on the bus            

D. The bus ride

Education from My Father

My memories of my father are slim because he was so sick in the last years of his life. But there are   32   that I am often reminded of and which may have had some bearing on my love of   33  .

When I was small I was somewhat   34   of lightning and thunder. My father explained it. The explanation was in   35   that a child could understand but was basically correct. I gained a better   36   later, but I didn’t have to unlearn anything.

What he said was that there was electricity in the clouds   37   it traveled to the ground like a spark. When it traveled   38   the air it made the air so hot that it   39  . Then there was nothing where the air had been and the air all around rushed in to   40   the space. He clapped his hands together very loud,   41   to be the air rushing in, and said that makes the thunder. When I hear thunder, I can still hear that   42  .

He explained why if it was cloudy in the winter the night was warmer than if it was   43  . It was one of those nights when the sky was full of stars: no moon, no town lights. But there were more stars than you could   44   and they had color too. He said that if there were no clouds, we had no blankets and were   45   to the universe. Our warmth was going to   46   the whole universe. When there were clouds, they were like blankets and we were not exposed to the universe. I   47   feel on the edge of space on a very clear night.

I am sure there were many other lessons that I   48   but no longer remember. What I did 49  , in general, was that there were explanations and that the more I understood them, the more    comfortable the world was to live in. I was not taught that there were   50   but that there was understanding if you looked for it. This may be why I have always been   51   in science.

1.A. others            B. few             C. some          D. all

2.A. science           B. nature          C. weather       D. universe

3.A. sure              B. fond            C. tired         D. afraid

4.A. depth             B. words           C. gestures      D. data

5.A. understanding B. knowledge           C. command       D. confidence

6.A. but               B. and             C. for           D. or

7.A. above             B. to              C. along         D. through

8.A. shone             B. burned          C. expanded      D. broke

9.A. fill              B. make            C. avoid         D. break

10.A. trying           B. proving         C. hoping        D. pretending 

11.A. clap             B. remark          C. voice         D. crash

12.A. cold             B. bright          C. clear         D. foggy

13.A. explore          B. foresee         C. imagine       D. identify

14.A. committed        B. exposed         C. related       D. led

15.A. heat             B. protect         C. extend        D. light

16.A. ever             B. also            C. even          D. still

17.A. selected         B. arranged        C. absorbed      D. delivered

18.A. consider         B. promise         C. explain       D. learn

19.A. memories         B. blankets        C. mysteries     D. thunders

20.A. engaged          B. interested      C. successful    D. skillful

 

Last Sunday I made a visit to some new neighbors down the block. No specific purpose in mind, just an opportunity to sit at the kitchen table, have some tea and chat. As I did so, it occurred to me how rare the Sunday visit has become.
When I was a kid in the New Jersey of the 1960s, Sunday visits were routine. Most stores were closed, almost nobody worked, and the highways, as a result, were not the desperate steeplechases（障礙賽跑） they have become today. My family normally traveled eight city blocks to the home of my grandmother—the same house my father was raised in, where adults would sit on the front porch and chat while we children played hide-and-seek.
The Sunday visit was something to desire strongly. It was the repetition to church, our reward for an hour of devotion, an opportunity to take advantage of the fact that Dad was not at work, we were not in school, and there were no chores that couldn’t wait until Monday. Sunday was, indeed, different from all the other days of the week, because everyone seemed to be on the same schedule, which means that there was one day when everyone seemed to have time for everybody else.
Sunday as a day of rest is, or was, so deeply rooted in the culture that it’s surprising to consider that, in a short span of time, it has almost entirely lost this association. In my childhood, it was assumed that everyone would either be home or visiting someone else’s home on Sunday.
But now the question is, “What do you plan to DO this Sunday?” The answer can range from going to the mall to participating in a road race to jetting to Montreal for lunch. If one were to respond, “I’m making a Sunday visit to family,” such an answer would feel sepia-toned, an echo from another era.
I suppose I should be grateful to live in Maine, a state of small towns, abundant land and tight relationships. Even though folks work as hard here as they do anywhere else, the state’s powerfully rural cast（特質(zhì)）still harbors at least remnants of the ethic of yesterday’s America, where people had to depend on one another in the face of economic vagaries（反復(fù)無常的情況）and a challenging environment.
【小題1】The writer’s general impression of the Sunday in the past was a day when _______.

A．everyone was paying a visit to some relative far away

B．everyone seemed to be free and could have some leisure

C．Dad was not at work while Mom was busy cleaning the house

D．nearly every adult would go to church and children were not at school

【小題2】In the fourth paragraph, the writer compares the response “I’m making a Sunday visit to family” to an echo from another era because _______.

A．people nowadays prefer staying at home on Sunday

B．such answers are rarely heard in our modern society

C．people in the city dislike being disturbed on Sunday

D．visiting someone on Sunday might take a lot of time

【小題3】From the last paragraph we may infer that _______.

A．people in Maine suffer more from economic depression and the changed environment

B．people in Maine has abandoned their tradition and lived an absolute new life

C．land in Maine is short, thus the relationship between people is tense

D．people in Maine always help each other when they are in need

【小題4】．Which word we may use to describe the writer’s attitude towards the Sunday today?

A．Unsatisfied.

B．Anxious.

C．Treasured.

D．Teased.

Joe came to New York from the Middle West, dreaming about painting. Delia came to New York from the South, dreaming about music. Joe and Delia met in a studio. Before long they were good friends and got married.

They had only a small flat to live in, but they were happy. They loved each other, and they were both interested in art. Everything was fine until one day they found they had spent all their money.

Delia decided to give music lessons. One afternoon she said to her husband:

“Joe, , I’ve found a pupil, a general’s daughter. She is a sweet girl. I’m to give three lessons a week and get $5 a lesson.”

But Joe was not glad.

“But how about me?” he said.” Do you think I’m going to watch you work while I play with my art? No, I want to earn some money too.”

“Joe, , you are silly,” said Delia. “You must keep at your studies. We can live quite happily on $15 a week.”

“Well, perhaps I can sell some of my pictures,” said Joe.

Every day they parted in the morning and met in the evening. A week passed and Delia brought home fifteen dollars, but she looked a little tired.

“Clementina sometimes gets on my nerves. I’m afraid she doesn’t practice enough. But the general is the nicest old man! I wish you could know him, Joe.”

And then Joe took eighteen dollars out of his pocket.

“I’ve sold one of my pictures to a man from Peoria,” he said, “and he has ordered another.”

“I’m so glad,” said Delia. “Thirty-three dollars! We never had so much to spend before. We’ll have a good supper tonight.”

Next week Joe came home and put another eighteen dollars on the table. In half an hour Delia came, her right hand in a bandage.

“What’s the matter with your hand?” said Joe. Delia laughed and said:

“Oh, a funny thing happened! Clemantina gave me a plate of soup and spilled some of it on my hand. She was very sorry for it. And so was the old general. But why are you looking at me like that, Joe?”

“What time this afternoon did you burn your hand, Delia?”

“Five o’clock, I think. The iron-I mean the soup-was ready about five, Why?”

“Delia, come and sit here,” said Joe. He drew her to the couch and sat beside her.

“What do you do every day, Delia? Do you really give music lesson? Tell me the truth.”

She began to cry.

“I couldn’t get any pupils,” she said, “So I got a place in a laundry ironing shirts. This afternoon a girl accidentally set down an iron on my hand and I got a bad burn. But tell me, Joe, how did you guess that I wasn’t giving music lessons?”

“It’s very simple,” said Joe. “I knew all about your bandages because I had to send them upstairs to a girl in the laundry who had an accident with a hot iron. You see, I work in the engine-room of the same laundry where you work.”

“And your pictures? Did you sell any to that man from Peoria?”

“Well, your general with his Clemantina is an invention, and so is my man from Peoria.”

And then they both laughed.

1.To support the family, Delia worked as             .

A．a(chǎn) tutor            B．a(chǎn) music teacher     C．a(chǎn) laundry assistant   D．a(chǎn)n artist

2.It happened that             .

A．a(chǎn) man from Peoria liked Joe’s pictures      B．Delia earned $15 dollars a week easily

C．Clemantina and the general were kind        D．the couple worked at the same laundry

3.Who hurt Delia’s hand?

A．The general        B．Clemantina        C．A girl             D．Herself

4.We can infer from the underlined sentence that             .

A．Clemantina was an invention of the general

B．Clemantina was an invention of the man from Peoria

C．the general, Clemantina and the man from Peoria were the couple’s clients

D．there were no such men as the general, Clemantina and the man from Peoria

5.The couple’s attitude towards each other is             .

A．honest           B．faithful            C．a(chǎn)shamed          D．heartbreaking