When I was a child, my mother often told me, “Don’t run around, or bad uncles will grad（抓住） you. And you know what? You will never see Mum and Dad again.”

    “Why, Mama? Why would these uncles grab me?” I would ask. “The city is a dangerous place and we don’t trust any strangers, ”she would reply.

  Well, that might answer the question of why my second brother never picks up calls from an unknown person either on his mobile or his home phone. It seems that he doesn’t care if he misses an important call. because he thinks that all unknown calls are from bad persons.

    So, have we given too much protection to our young kids? Perhaps it is so. But the adults’ thoughts are indeed easy to understand. The kids meet swindlers sometimes as we adults tell them. Also they get some news about cheating（欺骗） in newspapers or on TV every day. That makes the kids believe that they just cannot trust strangers.

    Let’s look at an example from everyday life. Say, if someone carrying a wooden stick（棍子） comes nearer to you, will you try to run away at once even before he or she starts talking to you? Will you guess this person’s intentions（意图） and think that he or she wants to rob（抢劫） you of something? Think of the answer for yourself.

    Of course, the kids should look after themselves, but overprotection can sometimes stop them from making new friends. Sometimes it’s not good for their new friendships.

    Trust is like a mirror. When we offer trust to people, they might just show you trust in return.

1 What do “swindlers” probably do?

  A. They cheat other people.

  B. They often call other people.

  C. They rob people of something.

  D. They teach children to protect themselves.

2 Which of the following is NOT the reason why children don’t trust strangers?

  A. Their parents tell them not to trust strangers.

  B. They get to know some news about cheating in newspapers or on TV every day.

  C. Strangers always have bad intentions.

  D. They sometimes have experiences of being cheated.

3 What does the writer want to tell us?

  A. Children should always follow their parents’ advice.

  B. We should never talk to strangers.

  C. Parents should learn to protect their children.

  D. People should try to trust each other.

I shook hands with my father in the truck, and for a long time he looked straight ahead and didn’t say a word. But I knew he was going to say a little to me. “I can’t tell anything,” he finally said. “I never went to college, and none of your brothers went to college. I can’t say don’t do this and do that, because everything is different and I don’t know what is going to come up. I can’t help much with money either, but I think things will work out. ”

He gave me a new check-book. “If things get pushing, write a small check. But when you write one, send me a letter and let me know how much. There are some things we can always sell.” In four years all the checks I wrote were less than a thousand dollars. My part-time jobs such as reading to the blind student and sitting with the teachers’ kids filled in the financial gaps.

“You know what you want to be, and they’ll tell you what to take,” my father went on. “When you get a job, be sure it’s honest, and work hard.” I knew that soon I would be alone in the big town, and I would be missing the cool winds and a life where your thinking was done for you.

Then my dad reached down beside his seat and brought the old, broken Bible that he had read so often, the one he used when he wanted to look something up in a friendly quarrel with one of the neighbours. I knew he would miss it. I knew, though, that I must take it.

He didn’t say read this every morning. He just said, “This can help you if you will let it.”

Did it help? I got through college without being a burden on the family. I have been able to make money since.

1. What is the writer’s main purpose （目的） in writing this passage?

  A. To tell the readers his life story.

  B. To tell people what kind of person his father was.

  C. To let people know how poor he was.

  D. To tell the readers what present he got from his father.

2. Why did the father not ask his son not to do this and do that?

  A. Because he felt quite confident of him.

  B. Because he was born from a poor family.

  C. Because he was a man of few words.

  D. Because he didn’t want to be much too strict with him.

3. What would someone learn from this passage?

  A. How to live by oneself.            B. How to stand on one’s own feet.

  C. What a good father should do.       D. What the self-important is like.

4. What may be the proper Chinese for the underlined part in the passage?

A.闲暇时光.     B.学费.     C.经济不足.     D.精神空虚.

5. What kind of book did the Bible seem to be to the writer’s father?

  A. It was a book which told you how you should get on well with others.

  B. There were many good examples for you to copy in it.

  C. It was a book that told you how to get a good job and a good future.

  D. It was a good book that could help you when you were in trouble.