A young man went to the local expert(专家) on gems and said he wanted to become a gemologist(珠宝家). The expert turned him down because he feared the youth would not have the patience to learn. The young man asked for a chance. Finally, the expert told the youth, "Be here tomorrow."
The next morning the expert put a jade(玉) stone in the youth's hand and told him to hold it. The expert then went about his work, cutting, weighing and setting gems. The boy sat quietly and waited.
The following morning the expert again put the jade stone in the youth's hand and told him to hold it. On the third, fourth and fifth days, the expert asked the young man to do the same thing. On the sixth day, the youth held the jade stone but he could no longer stand(忍受) the silence. "Master, when am I going to learn something?" he asked.
"You will learn." the expert said and went about his business.
Several more days went by and the youth almost lost his patience. But one morning as the master put the stone in the youth's hand, the young man said without looking at his hand, "This is not the same jade stone!"
"You have begun to learn." said the master.
Practice makes perfect. The experience we learned from practice teaches us and develops our abilities. Experience is the best teacher. Even the most successful person had no absolute confidence once. It is experience that gives people confidence. The truth is: if you do the work and gain the experience, you'll have more confidence because you'll actually know what you're doing.
【小题1】The phrase "turned ... down" probably means _______.

An old man lived in a nice house with a large garden. He took care of his  1 all the time, watering and fertilizing(施肥)them.  
One day a young man went by the garden. He looked at the beautiful flowers, imagining how happy he could be  2 he lived in such a beautiful place. Then, suddenly he found the old gardener was  3 . He was very surprised about this and asked, “You can’t see these flowers.  4 are you busy taking care of them every day?”  
The old man smiled and said “I can tell you four reasons. First, I was a gardener when I was young, and I really like this job. Second,  5 I can’t see these flowers, I can touch them.   6 , I can smell the sweetness of them. As to the last one, that’s you.”
“Me? But you don’t know me,” said the young man.
“Yeah, it’s  7 that I don’t know you. But I know that flowers are angels(天使) that everybody  8 . We enjoy the happiness these flowers have brought us.”
The blind man’s work opened our eyes and  9 our hearts, which also made his life  10 . It was just like Beethoven, who became deaf in his later life and wrote many great musical works. Beethoven himself couldn’t  11 his wonderful music, but his music has  12 millions of people to face their difficulties bravely. Isn’t it one kind of happiness?

The earth is our home. We must take care of it. Life today is easier than it was        years ago, but it has brought some new problems. One of the biggest problems is pollution（污染）. We can see it, smell it, drink it and even       it. Man has polluted the        . The more people, the more pollution.Many years ago, the problem was not so serious because there were not so       people. When the land was used up (用光), the river was not clean in a place,man went to       place. Now man is slowly polluting the whole world       pollution is still the most serious, it’s bad for       things in the world.Many countries don’t le t people burn       for air in houses and factories in the city. Pollution by SO2 is now the most dangerous kind of       pollution. It’s caused by heavy traffic. People say it’s       to ride bikes. When you are       , there is no pollution. But even in developed countries, most people don’t go to work by bike. It’s not      bikes are expen sive or people are tired if they ride to work. It’s because the number of cars on the roads becomes larger. So more people       their bikes and go to work by cars,  then things are getting       . We should have special roads only for bikes and make it       difficult and expensive for drivers to take their cars into the city that they will go back to use their bikes. 

1.A. hundred       B. hundreds of      C. hundred of      D. hundreds 

2.A. listen         B. listen to         C. hear of        D. hear 

3.A. moon          B. star               C. earth             D. sun 

4.A. lot            B. little             C. many             D. much  

5.A. others        B. the others       C. the other        D. another  

6.A. Air           B. Food              C. Water            D. Noise  

7.A. life           B. live              C. living            D. lives 

8.A. something bad              B. bad something  

C. something good              D. good something 

9.A. water           B. air             C. noise          D. white 

10.A. least           B. best            C. most             D. worst 

11.A. driving       B. biked           C. riding           D. ridden 

12.A. why             B. because          C. what              D. how 

13.A. put on          B. look at         C. put away        D. look up 

14.A. better and better              B. more and more  

C. worse and worse                     D. bigger and bigger 

15.A. quite            B. such              C. very               D. so