I was nineteen years old the first time I saw my own true character.

My trip to and from work each day included a ten-minute walk through the heart of downtown, where the   36  often gathered. Like most busy citizens, I learned to   37  those nameless faces. When it came to homeless beggars, my   38  life experience had led me to one   39  that they are on the street because they choose to be, probably due to alcohol or drugs.

It was an extremely cold day. When I passed the groups of beggars as usual, I heard a shaky voice target me.

“Spare some change?” he asked.

I didn’t even   40  looking up at his nameless face. I briefly   41  him walking into a liquor store and buying whiskey with the money we spared him. Like most teenagers, it took me only moments to   42  him.

“I have no money on me,” I said quickly

Looking back now, I feel as if God had set out that day to teach me a lesson. And God   43 . Just a few feet past him, I managed to find the only ice patch on the sidewalk. I   44  and landed heavily on my right knee. The   45  was almost killing me as I tried to get up. Then I heard a shaky voice only inches above me.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I knew immediately this was the man I had just rushed past. Even in pain, I   46  took a quick moment to sniff for the smell of alcohol on his breath. There was none. He wasn’t   47 . I saw the   48  in his eyes.

I   49  to get to my feet. He held my arm as I walked difficultly to the nearby bus stop.

“My name is Mike,” he said. “That’s quite a fall you took, and you really need to get it checked by a doctor,” he said with deep   50 .

“This bus goes past the hospital,” I said.

Mike paused, and a look of sudden   51  crossed his face. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cup. He took out all the change and held it out toward me.

“I think there’s just enough here for you to take the bus,” he said,

I was highly embarrassed as I remember my   52 . I reached for my purse and took out my change. At least ten dollars. I offered Mike all my change.

“Thank you and take care of yourself,” I said. Both of us knew that few minutes earlier I couldn’t have   53  what happened to him.

Mike held his cup tightly,   54  it as if it were the first gift he had ever received.

A half cup of change seemed too small a gift for the man who gave a   55  to every nameless face I’ve ever seen.

1.                A．doctors         B．beggars         C．citizens   D．sellers

 

2.                A．pity            B．observe        C．forgive   D．ignore

 

3.                A．limited         B．painful         C．meaningful    D．rich

 

4.                A．fact            B．rule            C．assumption    D．suggestion

 

5.                A．mind           B．bother         C．avoid D．bear

 

6.                A．imagined       B．followed        C．noticed   D．heard

 

7.                A．judge          B．stop           C．tease D．blame

 

8.                A．signed         B．succeeded      C．responded    D．approached

 

9.                A．skipped        B．dashed         C．slipped   D．hesitated

 

10.               A．regret         B．scare          C．cold  D．pain

 

11.               A．still            B．ever           C．yet   D．also

 

12.               A．honest         B．reliable         C．drunk D．shabby

 

13.               A．greed          B．surprise        C．sorrow    D．sympathy

 

14.               A．failed          B．struggled       C．hurried   D．chose

 

15.               A．relief          B．satisfaction      C．understanding  D．concern

 

16.               A．confusion       B．realization      C．excitement D．sadness

 

17.               A．lie            B．injury          C．promise   D．experience

 

18.               A．known         B．predicted       C．cared D．accepted

 

19.               A．treasuring      B．protecting      C．making    D．showing

 

20.               A．lesson         B．name          C．chance    D．fortune

 

 

Wednesday, October 29,2008.

The United States federal government had two young men in the state of Tennessee arrested on October 22 on unknown charges.

In court documents published on Monday, it came to light that the men had discussed attacking an African – American school and killing 14 of them.

Another crime was about planning to murder Presidential candidate Barack Obama. According to their affidavits (口供), the suspects’ “final act of violence” would be like this: when they attacked Obama they would wear white suits and top hats and drive “their vehicle as fast as they could toward Obama shooting at him from the windows.”

The two suspects are Paul Schlesselman, 18, of West Helena, Arkansas and Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tennessee. According to the court papers, they met last month over the Internet through a friend. Schlesselman and Cowart are believed to share “very strong views” about White Power.

Schlesselman listed “being racist” as his occupation on his MySpace page. He further wrote: “I'm white. I'm proud. I get angry. I like guns.”

Cowart also had a MySpace page on which photos of guns were presented under a heading of “My Guns”. On his page he wrote, “Better to die quick fighting on your feet than to live forever begging on your knees.”

Some have questioned the pair's ability to carry out the charged plan, but authorities have been very concerned about Obama as the first black presidential candidate from a major party.

“We honestly don't know if they had the ability or the skill to carry out the kind of plan that they talked about.” said Malcolm Wiley, of the United Satates Secret Service in an interview with The New York Times. “But we take any threat seriously no matter how big or how small it is.”

Cowart and Schlesselman are scheduled to appear before a judge on Thursady.

The passage is mainly about____________.

 A．Americans’ attitudes towards Barack Obarma        B．two young men planning to commit violence

 C．the violence in the United States                   D．the disadvantages of the Internet

From the passage, we can know that the two young men_________.

 A．shot 14 students in an African – American school     B．came from the state of Tennessee

 C．were proud of Barack Obama                     D．have not been sentenced yet

Which of the following shows the right order of the events?

 a．The two suspects were arrested.

 b．The two suspects will be tried in the court.

 c．Cowart set up his MySpace page on the Internet.

 d．Malcolm Wiley was interviewed by The New York Times.

 A．a; b; c; d      B．d; c; b; a        C．c; a; d; b        D．c; a; b; d

What can we infer from the news?

   A．Most of the white people in the United States don’t like Barack Obama.

  B．The two young men planned to shoot President Barack Obama.

  C．The two young men were innocent in fact.

D．The two young men strongly believed that the president should be a white man

What way can you think of ______ the mice in the room?

A．how to kill

B．to kill

C．killing

D．killed

 

My son Jack, a fourth grader, was having a hard time in getting interested in story books recently, so I offered to read the first few chapters to him. In the early pages of ‘Incident at Halk Hill’, a quiet little boy has a special meeting with a female badger (獾).Soon after, another badger is caught in a steel leg trap(陷阱), and the author describes in detail the pain and scare of an animal struggling to its death. We meet the cruel hunter and his ill treatment of a dog; we see the badger being skinned by the boy's father；and we experience the child's confusion when beaten by his father in anger. Pretty heavy going for ten-year-olds, I thought.

Last night , I returned from a weekend away to find that Jack had finished the whole book on his own. “It was really, really good and sad, and violent，” he reported. “There was a lot of killing.”

“Were there any happy parts?" I asked,

"The boy's life was saved by the badger, and that was good. But then that badger got caught in a trap again and at the end it's dying, too. ” Jack said, "It was so sad that I almost cried. ”

I told him that many books have made me cry, beginning with Heidi, when I was just his age, right on up to the novel I finished last week.

“Well，” he admitted then, “I actually did cry. Reading that book just reminded me of all the sadness in the world, and it made me feel sad ,too. ”

So, I think, now he has been through the sad tone of the passage , the discovery that words on a printed page can give rise to such strong emotion ，that a book can move you right out of your own comfortable little self and into someone else's pain. Thus we come to realize that if we are to remain fully engaged in life, open to its mysteries and feel sorry towards its suffering, we indeed need stories to grab（抓住） us by the neck and remind us of the sadness in the world that is not our own.

1.‘Incident at Halk Hill’ is a _______story.

A．sad              B．happy            C．funny             D．boring

2.The underlined sentence “Pretty heavy going for ten-year-olds" means____

A．the book is too long for a ten year old child

B．the book is too difficult for a ten year old child

C．the book is too violent(暴力) for a ten year old child

D．the book is too pretty for a ten year old child

3.According to the passage , stories can be something to help you_____

A．enjoy your spare time                    B．develop your care for animals

C．realize the truth of life                   D．think about your own life

4.By writing the passage, the writer mainly wants to____.

A．tell a story that interested his son

B．show the importance of reading stories

C．share an experience between himself and his son

D．show how to make children interested in books

 

A fire broke out last night, _______ three children and two adults.

A. killed          B. killing              C. kill              D. to kill