It is very important to be able to control（控制) yourself. Losing control may bring things that you would never want to see. We can learn something from the following story.

　 Once a boy often made trouble. His mother gave him many nails（钉子）. She told him to hammer（锤，钉）one in the garden fence every time he lost his patience and fought with someone. The first day he hammered 27 nails. In the following weeks he learned how to control himself better and the number of nails hammered became smaller and smaller. He learned it was easier to control himself than to hammer nails.

　 The day finally came when he didn’t hammer any nails. He went to tell his mother about it. Then his mother told him to pull off a nail from the fence each time he didn’t lose his patience. After some days he told his mother that all the nails had been pulled off, Thus, she took him to the fence and said to him, “You’ve behaved well, but look at all the holes in the fence. The fence will never be again like it was before. When you fight with someone, you leave wounds（伤口）in him like these. The trouble may be over, but the wounds will always be there.”

　 So, learn to control yourself before you hammer the nail in the fence. Try not to leave any holes in your past.

(　 ) 51. Why did the mother give her son nails?

　 A. To put the garden fence right.　　　　 B. To help him understand something.　　　　

　 C. To put them away.　　　　　　　　　 D. To make him lose patience.

(　 ) 52. When did the boy hammer a nail?

A. When he brought things to his mother.　　 B. When he repaired his fence.

C. When he fought with others.　　　　　　 D. When he leave a hole in the garden.

(　 ) 53. What’s the best title of this passage?

A.A Special Way My Mother taught me　　　 B. How to Hammer Nails

C. How to Pull Off a Nail　　　　　　　　 D. Never Fight with Others

　

Light travels at a speed which is about a million times faster than the speed of sound. You can get some idea of this difference by watching the start of a race. If you stand some distance(距离) away from the starter, you can see smoke from his gun before the sound reaches your ears.

This great speed of light produces some strange facts. Sunlight(太阳光) takes about 8 minutes to reach us. If you look at the light of the moon tonight, remember that the light rays left the moon 1.3 seconds before they reached you. The nearest star is so far away that the light that you can see from it tonight started to travel towards you four years ago at a speed of nearly 2 million km. per minute. In some cases, the light from one of tonight’s stars had started on its journey to you before you were born.

Thus, if we want to be honest, we can’t say, “The stars are shining tonight.” We have to say instead, “The stars look pretty. They were shining four years ago, but their light has only just reached the earth.”

1.Light speed is ______ sound speed.

A. as fast as                          

B. a million times slower than

C. about millions of times faster than     

D. about a million times faster than

2. If you stand 200 meters away from a man who is firing a gun to start a race, you will find out that ______.

A. you can hear the sound before you see the smoke

B. the sound does not travel as fast as light

C. the sound will reach you before the man fires

D. sound travels about a million times faster than light

3.Sunlight obviously(显然的) ______ than the light of the moon.

A. has to travel a greater distance          

B. moves less quickly

C. travels much more quickly            

D. is less powerful

4. The scientific way of saying "The stars are shining tonight" should be ______.

A. the stars have been shining all the time

B. the stars seen tonight will shine four years later

C. the stars were shining long ago but seen tonight

D. the starlight seen today could be seen four years ago

 

When we talk about stars, especially women stars，it seems that they are always young，pretty and own charming body shapes．But recently a Britain's Got Talent（英国达人）star Susan Boyle has changed our views absolutely(完全地)．
Simon Cowell，one of the judges of the talent show spoke of his shock over Ms Boyb's voice. “This lady came up，and I'm thinking, ‘This will take five seconds and I can go to have a cup of tea.’ That changed when she began to sing I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables. She knew we were going to have that reaction and just to see that look of satisfaction on her face midway through —it was one of my favorite moments,” Cowell said.
The performance was posted On line and before long，the 47-year-old Scottish woman has been famous all over the world．
Speaking from her home in Scotland,MsBoyle said that she hadn't thought of changing her appearance．She said that her friend helped her with make-up．“I mean，that's hardly a makeover.” she added．
Ms. Boyle also spoke of the reason she first began to explore her vocal(歌唱的) talents．”I was kind of slow at school, so getting something like singing was a good way of hiding behind that and thus it built my confidence．’’
【小题1】Susan Boyle is __________．

A．a judge

B．a reporter

C．a beautiful lady

D．a Scottish woman

【小题2】Susan Boyle had a look of satisfaction on her face when she was singing because ______.

A．she was confident of her singing

B．she was satisfied with the judges

C．she was pretty and in good shape

D．she sang the song，I Dreamed a Dream from Lea Miserables

【小题3】What does the underlined word “views” mean?

A．见解

B．预告

C．复习

D．景色

【小题4】According to the passage，which is NOT true?

A．It was the vocal talents that built Susan's confidence．

B．Susan Boyle was not good at her lessons when at school．

C．Susan Boyle became famous because of her appearance．

D．Simon Cowell didn't think Susan Boyle a good singer at the time sight．

【小题5】What can we learn from Susan Boyle's success?

A．It's never too old to learn．

B．It's easier to succeed at the age of 47．

C．If you have a dream，try to make it come true!

D．If you are not able to study well，to be a singer instead．