It began with one red paper clip(回形针)and ended with a house. Kyle MacDonald, a 26-year-old Canadian got a house with three bedrooms through 14 trades(交易)that started with a single red paper clip.

Now more and more young people around the world like this kind of trading activities. They set up websites and trade on the Internet. People trade things they do not usually use with other people. A website called Peerflix allows people to trade their old possessions. These traders usually prefer face-to-face trading, in this way they don’t have to worry about who is going to pay for the delivery(递送).

Last year, a young girl in Beijing decided to follow the example of Kyle. She started with a paper clip and hoped to get a house in the end．After several trades she now has a piano which is worth more than 10, 000 yuan. But she may still have a long way to go.

Maybe you can’t understand why people are doing this. As Kyle said, “What’s more important to a man in the desert—one million dollars or a glass of water?” Kyle’s words probably show why these trades are popular among young people.

1.Do young people like the trading activities?

2.Where can people trade things they do not usually use?

3.Why do these traders usually prefer face-to-face trading?

4.What did the Chinese girl hope to get at the end of the trade?

5.Why are the trade activities popular among young people?

 

A lady in an old cotton dress and her husband, dressed in an old suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked into the president of Harvard’s outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such country people had no business at Harvard. She frowned(皱眉). “We want to see the president,” the man said softly. “He’ll be busy all day,” the secretary said coldly. “We’ll wait,” the lady replied.
For hours, the secretary didn’t talk to them, hoping that the couple would finally become tired and go away. They didn’t. And the secretary finally decided to disturb the president. “Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they’ll leave,” she told him. He frowned too. Someone of his importance obviously didn’t have the time to spend with them.
The president walked toward them unwillingly. The lady told him, “We had a son that attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard, and was very happy here. But he was accidentally killed. And my husband and I would like to set up a memorial(纪念碑) to him somewhere on campus. ” The president was so surprised that he shouted sharply, “We can’t put up a statue(塑像) for every person who attended Harvard and died. This place would look like a cemetery (墓地).
“Oh, no” the lady explained, “We don’t want to build a statue. We thought we would give a building to Harvard.” The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at their plain clothes, and said with surprise, “A building! Do you have any idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard.”
For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. He could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly. “Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?” Her husband nodded. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they set up the university with their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.
【小题1】What did the old couple go to Harvard for?

A．They wanted to see their son.

B．They had an important meeting

C．They went to Harvard just to start a university

D．They wanted to meet the president of Harvard.

【小题2】Why didn’t the president come out to meet the couple?

A．He was really busy at that time.

B．The secretary didn’t allow the couple to meet the president.

C．He was important and didn’t have time for unimportant people.

D．He had an important friend to meet and had to spend some time together.

【小题3】From the passage, we can know ______.

A．the old couple were in fact rich people

B．the secretary was afraid of the old couple

C．the old couple’s son was killed in Harvard

D．the president of Harvard was kind and patient to anyone

【小题4】The best title of the passage is “______”.

A．A Statue or A Building	B．How Stanford University Was Built
C．A Visit to Harvard University	D．A Strange Old Couple

It began with a red paper clip and ended with a house. Kyle MacDonald, a 26-year-old Canadian, got a three-bedroom house through 14 trades (交换) that started with a single red paper clip.[来源:学。科。网Z。X。X。K]

Encouraged by Kyle’s successful experience, now more and more young people around the world are starting their own trading activities. They set up websites where people can trade things they don’t usually use with other people. A website called Peerflix allows people to trade their used DVDs. These traders usually prefer face-to-face trading, which means they don’t have to worry about who is going to pay for the delivery (递送).

Last year, a young girl in Beijing decided to follow the example of Kyle. She started with a paper clip and hoped to get a house in the end. After several trades she now has a piano which is more than 10,000 yuan. But she may still have a long way to go.

You may be puzzled about why people are doing this. In fact, everyone in the trade activities gets things that are useful to them. Just as Kyle said, “What’s more important to a man dying of thirst in the desert — one million dollars or a glass of water?” Kyle’s words probably show why these trades are poplar among young people.

4. Where can people trade things they do not usually use according to the passage?

A. On the Internet.     B. In Beijing.          C. In Canada.       D. In the desert.

5. Why are trading activities popular among young people?

A. Because they can make a lot of money by trading with other people.

B. Because the traders can get things that are useful to them.

C. Because young people love trading activities.

D. Because many young people want to get a house.

6. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A. If you begin with a paper clip, you will finally get a house by trading.

B. A young girl in Beijing got a house through trading.

C. A glass of water is more important than one million dollars.

D. Many traders like face-to-face trading because they don’t have to pay for the delivery.

 

Bringing a giraffe into the world is a tall order. A baby giraffe is born 10 feet high and usually lands on its back. Within seconds it rolls over its legs under its body. Then the mother giraffe rudely introduces its children to the reality of life.

In his book, A View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond describes how a new-born giraffe learns its first lesson.

The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Then she puts herself directly over her child. She waits for about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable thing. She throws her long leg and kicks her baby, so that it’s sent sprawling(四脚朝天).

When it doesn’t get up, the process is repeated again and again. The struggle to rise is important. As the baby giraffe grows tired, the mother kicks it again. Finally, it stands for the first time on its shaky legs. Then the mother giraffe kicks it off its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how it got up. In the wild, a baby giraffe must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with its group, where there’s safety.

Another writer named Irving Stone understood this. He spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing stories about such men as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin.

Stone was once asked if he had found something that runs through the lives of all these great people. He said, “I write about people who sometime in their life have a dream of something. They’re beaten over the head, knocked down and for years they get nowhere. But every time they stand up again. And at the end of their lives they’ve realized some small parts of what they set out to do .”

1.What does the underlined part “a tall order” in Paragraph 1 mean?

A．A happy thing.                          B．A difficult task.

C．A big dream.                           D．A beautiful scene.

2.Which of the following statements is True according to the passage?

A．This passage is a description of giraffes’ living habits.

B．Baby giraffes can’t stand up until three months old.

C．Irving Stone spent a lifetime studying and writing stories about great people.

D．The great people can’t stand up after they’re knocked down for years.

3.What would be the best title for the passage?

A．How to keep a baby giraffe.

B．Learning to Get Back Up.

C．Stories about the great people.

D．A mother giraffe and its baby giraffe.