Many people do not like to stay at home on holidays. They want to go out to see something different or do something exciting. So people from the country go to the city and people from the city go to the country for holidays. During the holidays, trains, buses and planes are all very busy. It’s very hard to buy train tickets or air tickets. Many people take cars or buses for travelling.
Last May Day my family went to the country by car for our holiday. There was too much traffic on the road, so we had to move very slowly. It took us about an hour to get out of the town. After some time, we came to a farm. It was clean and beautiful. The animals were very lovely, we thought it was a nice place for a picnic, so we stopped and took the food, fruit and drinks out of the car. We sat down under a big green tree and began to eat. Suddenly, a strong wind blew and soon it started to rain. We had to run back to our car and had our picnic in the car. Then we drove back home. What a bad trip it was!
【小题1】Many people don’t like to stay at home on holidays because_______________.

A．they have much money

B．the weather is pretty poor

C．they want to see something new

D．they want to see different people

【小题2】Last May Day, the trip of my family was _______________

A．interesting	B．relaxing
C．unpleasant	D．exciting

【小题3】What’s the meaning of the underlined word “blew”?

A．蓝色	B．刮风
C．吹起	D．卷起

 When the students were playing games on the playground, Jim suddenly stopped _____and began to cry, so we stopped _______ what was wrong with him.

A. to play; seeing      B. playing; to see    C. playing; seeing      D. to play; to see

 

A taboo(忌讳，禁忌) is a social action that is not allowed. Every culture in the world has its own taboos. The breaking of a taboo sometimes makes people feel uncomfortable. I learned this through my own experience.

Last weekend, Wang Lin and I showed two foreigners around our city. Mr Singh was from India and Mr. White from USA. When I held out my left hand to shake hands with him, Mr. Singh seemed to be unhappy. Mr. White, however, was quite casual. He said hello to me with a big smile and a wave of his hand.

In the evening, we stopped at a restaurant for dinner. I noticed that Mr. Singh didn’t touch the beef and Mr. White seemed not to like chickens’ claws. During the meal, Wang Lin said sorry to Mr. Singh and continued to explain that we didn’t know it was a taboo in India to shake one’s left hand. Mr. Singh explained that since oxen are sacred(神圣的) in India, people don’t eat beef there. Mr. White joined in and said that it was not usual in the states for people to eat chickens’ claws. He went on to say that Americans don’ t usually get into each other’ s personal space. Marriage, job and age are their taboos. Isn’ t it a good lesson to remember?

Main idea	The taboos in every country are ____1._____. People sometimes feel     ____2.____  if one breaks a taboo.
Facts	In India	Indians don’ t eat ____ 3.___because they think oxen are sacred. It’ s   4.    to shake one’ s left hand.
In the USA	Although it’ s not a taboo, Americans  5.  eat chickens’ claws
Americans don’ t usually get into each other’ s personal space. For example, they usually don’t ask someone else’s  6.  , job or   7.    .
Conclusion	If you pay    8.  to taboos, you can get on  9.  with the people with different   10.   .

 

 

I was cleaning out an old box when an old card caught my eye: Queen City Casket Company（公司）. “What is it?” I wondered. I turned it over. There, in faded ink, was a hand-written address. Immediately my mind traveled many years back.

I was nine years old, walking down the cold and wet streets of Springfield, with a bag of magazines on my shoulder. That day, I came to the company finally, the owner, Mr. Rader, had always taken me there to ask his workers if they wanted any magazines.

Shaking off the rain like a wet dog, I went into Mr. Rader’s office. After a quick look he took me over to the fireplace. Noticing the hole in the top of my shoe, he said, “Come with me!” pulling me into his car. We stopped in front of a shoe shop. Inside, a salesman fitted me with the finest pair of shoes I had ever seen. I felt about 10 feet tall when I got up in them. “We’d like a pair of new socks, too.” Mr. Rader said.

Back in his office, Mr. Rader took out a car, wrote something on it and handed it to me. With tearful eyes, I read, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” He said kindly, “Jimmy, I want you to know I love you.” I said good-bye, and for the first time I sensed a piece of hope that things would be better. With people like Mr. Rader in the world, there was hope, kindness and love, and that would always make a difference.

1.The writer went to Queen City Casket Company to         .

A．borrow some money                     B．ask Mr. Rader for help

C．sell magazines                          D．find a job there

2.From the passage we can see the writer was           to Mr. Rader.

A．helpful           B．thankful           C．polite            D．kind

3.Mr. Rader helped the writer so much mainly because          .

A．he wanted to set a good example to his workers.

B．he wanted to show kindness to the boy.

C．the writer needed his help.

D．he wanted others to return his help.

4.What does the underlined sentence “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” mean?

A．If you want somebody’s help, you have to help him first.

B．You should do the things that others want you to do.

C．Before you do anything, think about what others do to you.

D．If you want others to do kind things to you, you’d better be kind to them.

 

After my husband died, my world crashed around me. My six children were 10, nine, eight, six, three and 18 months, and I was overwhelmed(压垮) with the responsibilities(责任) of earning a living, caring for the children and simply keeping my head above water.
I was lucky to find a wonderful housekeeper to care for the children during the week, but from Friday nights to Monday mornings, the children and I were alone, and frankly(坦诚地) I was uneasy. Every unusual noise or any late-night phone call filled me with fear. I felt really lonely.
One Friday evening I came home from work to find a big beautiful German shepherd(牧羊犬) on our doorstep. It was obvious he wanted to make the house his home. The children took an instant（紧迫的） liking to "German" and begged me to let him in. I agreed to let him sleep in the basement(地下室) until the next day. That night I slept peacefully for the first time in many weeks. The following morning we made phone calls and checked lost-and-found ads for German’s owner, but with no results. Saturday night he was still with us.
On Sunday I had planned to take the children on a picnic. Since I thought it best to leave German behind in case his owner came by, we drove off without him. When we stopped to get gas at a local station, we were amazed to see German racing to the gas station after us. He stayed again Sunday night.
Monday morning I let him out for a run while the children got ready for school. He didn’t come back. We thought we’d never see him again. On Friday evening, German was back again. We took him in, and again he stayed until Monday morning, when our housekeeper arrived. It went like this for almost 10 months. We looked forward to his coming each Monday morning he left home.
Each week, between German's visits, I grew a little braver, but every weekend I enjoyed his company. Then one Monday morning we patted his head and let him out for what turned out to be the last time. He never came back.
【小题1】How long did the German shepherd stay with the family every week?

A．One day.	B．Two days.
C．Three days.	D．Four days.

【小题2】What does the underlined part in the first paragraph mean?

A．trying to keep calm in public

B．trying to get attention from other men

C．showing her high spirit in the face of trouble

D．managing to continue to live

【小题3】When the author’s husband died, ______.

A．she couldn’t raise the six children on her own

B．she couldn’t relax on the weekends

C．The housekeeper only came on weekends

D．she was too busy to feel lonely

【小题4】Which of the following is Wrong according to the article?

A．German was fond of living with the family.

B．The writer felt safe and protected with German around.

C．The dog stayed until the writer was strong enough to go on alone.

D．The writer was too busy that weekend to go find the dog’s owner.

【小题5】Which is the best title for the passage?

A．A homeless dog	B．A friend’s strength
C．How to keep a dog	D．Keep up when in trouble