Eddie’s father used to say he’d spent so many years by the ocean, breathing seawater. Now, away from that ocean, in the hospital bed, his body began to look like a beached fish. His condition went from fair to stable and from stable to serious. Friends went from saying, “He’ll be home in a day,” to “He’ll be home in a week.” In his father’s absence, Eddie helped out at the pier (码头), working evenings after his taxi job.

When Eddie was a teenager, if he ever complained or seemed bored with the pier, his father would shout, “What? This isn’t good enough for you?” And later, when he’d suggested Eddie take a job there after high school, Eddie almost laughed, and his father again said, “What? This isn’t good enough for you?” And before Eddie went to war, when he’d talked of marrying Marguerite and becoming an engineer, his father said, “What? This isn’t good enough for you?”

And now, regardless of all that, here he was, at the pier, doing his father’s labor.

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. It is not until much later, as the heart weakens, that children understand: their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit on top of the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

Finally, one night, at his mother’s urging, Eddie visited the hospital. He entered the room slowly. His father, who for years had refused to speak to Eddie, now lacked the strength to even try.

“Don’t sweat it, kid,” the other workers told him. “Your old man will pull through. He’s the toughest man we’ve ever seen.”

When the news came that his father had died, Eddie felt the emptiest kind of anger, the kind that circles in its cage.

       In the weeks that followed, Eddie’s mother lived in a confused state. She spoke to her husband as if he were still there. She yelled at him to turn down the radio. She cooked enough food for two. One night, when Eddie offered to help with the dishes, she said, “Your father will put them away.” Eddie put a hand on her shoulder. “Ma,” he said, softly, “Dad’s gone.”

       “Gone where?”

67．In Paragraph four, the writer indicates that __________.

A. Children like moving away from their parents

B. Children often feel regretful because they leave their parents

C. Children wouldn’t have achieved so much without their parents’ support

D. Children can never understand how much their parents have devoted to them

68． The underlined sentence “Don’t sweat it” (Para. 6) probably means __________.

A. Don’t touch it                                  B. Don’t give it up

C. Don’t let him down                         D. Don’t worry about it

69．Which of the following shows the right order of the story?

a. Eddie’s father died.

b. Eddie married Marguerite.

c. Eddie worked as a taxi driver.

d. Eddie was bored with his father’s job.

A. dbca                   B. dcab                 C. bcda                 D. bacd

70．From the last paragraph, we learn that __________.

A. Eddie’s mother liked to listen to the radio

B. Eddie’s mother missed her husband so much that she was at a loss

C. Eddie and his wife lived in his mother’s apartment

D. Eddie often helped his mother wash the dishes

When I lived in Spain, some Spanish friends of mine decided to visit England by car. Before they left, they asked me for advice about how to find accommodation (住所). I suggested that they should stay at ‘bed and breakfast’ houses, because this kind of accommodation gives foreign visitors a good chance to speak English with the family. My friends listened to my advice, but they came back with some funny stories.

“We didn’t stay at ‘B&B’ (bed and breakfast) houses,” they said, “because we found that most families were away on holiday.”

I thought this was strange. Finally I understood what had happened. My friends spoke little English, and they thought “VACANCIES” meant “holidays”, because the Spanish word for “holidays” is “vacaciones”. So they did not go to house where the sign outside said “VACANCIES”, which in English means there are free rooms. Then my friends went to house where the sign said “NO VACANCIES”, because they thought this meant the people who owned the house were not away on holiday. But they found that these houses were all full. As a result, they stayed at hotels!

We laughed about this and about mistakes my friends made in reading other signs. In Spanish, the word “DIVERSION” means fun. In English, it means that workmen are repairing the road, and that you must take a different road. When my friends saw the word “DIVERSION” on a road sign, they thought they were going to have fun. Instead, their car was soon stopped.

English people have problems too when they learn foreign languages. Once in Paris, when someone offered me some more coffee, I said “Thank you” in French. I meant that I would like some more. However , to my surprise the coffee pot was taken away! Later I found out that “Thank you” in French means “No, thank you”.

1.My Spanish friends wanted advice about ______.

A．learning English in England

B．finding places to stay in England

C．driving their car on English roads

D．going to England to have fun

2.I suggested that they stay at ‘B&B’ houses because ______.

A．it would be available for them to practice English

B．it would be much cheaper than staying in hotels

C．it would be convenient for them to have dinner

D．it would be easy to find accommodation there

3.“NO VACANCIES” in English means ______.

A．no free rooms      B．with free rooms     C．not away on holiday  D．no holidays at all

4.If you see a road sign that says “DIVERSION”, you will ______.

A．get held by the traffic policemen

B．have a lot of fun and enjoy yourself

C．find the road is blocked by people

D．have to take another different road

5.When someone offered me more coffee and I said “Thank you” in French, I ______.

A．didn’t really want any more coffee

B．wanted the coffee pot taken away

C．really wanted some more coffee

D．wanted to express my politeness