One warm May day, two eighteen – year – old students from San Francisco State College decided to cool off with a swim at Bakers’ Beach. The two students were named Robert Kogler and Shirley O’Neill. They headed out to sea for a distance of 50 meters. Robert was in front.

“Suddenly, I heard him scream,” Shirley recalls. “I looked round and saw this great grey thing going up in the air. The water seemed to be alive.”

Robert screamed again. “It’s a shark! Get out of here!”

An eye – witness, Army Sergeant Leo P. Day was on guard at the nearby army post. He saw exactly what happened next. “I could see this boy struggling with the shark in the water,” he said. “The sea was red with blood. He was shouting and signaling someone to go back, go back. Then I saw the girl. She was swimming towards him. She completely ignored his warning.”

Shirley reached Robert, and tried to take his hand.

“When I pulled, all I could see was his arm, handing by a thread,” she said.

So she put her arm about Robert’s back, and started to swim towards the shore. She kept praying “Don't’ let it attack again!” That journey to the shore seemed to last for hours. At last, as they neared the shore, a fisherman threw them a line, and pulled them both the rest of the way.

The young man had lost a lot of blood, and died two and a half hours later. From the teeth marks, experts identified the attacker as a Great White Shark.

For what Sergeant Day called “the greatest exhibition of bravery I have ever seen,” the President of the US gave Shirley a medal for bravery.

1.When Robert was attacked by a shark Shirley          ?         .

       A．was swimming in the sea

       B．was watching him on the shore

       C．was on guard at the nearby army post

       D．was shouting and struggling with a shark, too

2.Choose the right time order of the following events in the story.

       a. Army Sergeant saw the girl swimming to the boy.

       b. Shirley saw a great grey thing.

       c. They headed out to sea.

       d. Robert died.

       e. A fisherman threw them a line.

       f. He saw a boy struggling with a shark.

       A．b, c, e, d, f, a        B．c, a, f, d, e, b C．b, c, f, a, d, e    D．c, b, f, a, e, d

3.We can learn from the passage that ______.         .

A．the two students were brave and considerate

B．the fisherman was adventurous and helpful

C．the experts didn’t do much research on sharks

D．the Sergeant cared too much about his own life

4. Which of the following is true?

   A．The President of the US gave Shirley a medal for bravery.

B．They were swimming in a lake.         

C．There is no eye – witness.

D．Shirley saved Robert’s life.

 

Dorothy Brown was very happy as she sat in the theatre listening to the music. Today her little daughter Lauren was giving her  36  concert. She had been waiting for this  37  for years and years. “Now it is here at last,” she thought. “How beautiful her 38  is.

The song made her  39  to the days when she was Lauren’s  40 . As a young  41 , Dorothy wanted to be a concert singer. She studied 42  in France, Italy and in the United States, “You can become a fine  43 in the future, ” her teachers told her. “But you must be  44 to study hard and work for many years. There will be 45  time for anything but music in your life.” Dorothy was  46 at that time and she was  47  that music was all she wanted or needed to  48 her life. For almost a year Dorothy  49 of nothing else. Then she  50  David, a young engineer travelling in Europe. They soon fell in  51 .

David asked her to be his  52 . Dorothy also wanted to marry David. But she loved  53 , too. She didn’t know what to do. David was against her being a singer. He said, “If you want to be a singer, you must forget about getting married. You can’t 54 do both.” Thus her days were gone and would never return. Now Lauren became a singer instead of her, which was her 55 .

1.

A．sorry

B．successful

C．first

D．wonderful

2.

A．dance

B．moment

C．show

D．party

3.

A．voice

B．face

C．dress

D．life

4.

A．think of

B．bring back

C．go back

D．come back

5.

A．age

B．friend

C．mother

D．teacher

6.

A．musician

B．pop star

C．lady

D．girl

7.

A．French

B．music

C．piano

D．dance

8.

A．actress

B．student

C．singer

D．dancer

9.

A．prepared

B．learning

C．driven

D．waiting

10.

A．some

B．any

C．no

D．enough

11.

A．eight

B．eighteen

C．eighty

D．eighty-eight

12.

A．lucky

B．sure

C．afraid

D．fond

13.

A．fill

B．live

C．lead

D．take

14.

A．heard

B．knew

C．talked

D．thought

15.

A．saw off

B．learned from

C．heard of

D．met with

16.

A．love

B．feeling

C．music

D．touch

17.

A．assistant

B．teacher

C．wife

D．student

18.

A．him

B．engineering

C．herself

D．music

19.

A．certainly

B．possibly

C．only

D．mainly

20.

A．thought

B．hope

C．purpose

D．will

 

I had looked forward to this day for a long time．Finally I, Kirsty Sturart, would stand on the top of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe．Although I climbed often in my native Scotland, this was my first trip to the Alps．My companions—Jean Pierre Barton, Maurice Gautier, and Mary Sargent—and I left our camp early and planned to reach the top by late morning．

As we neared the top, large clouds gathered and it began to snow．We found shelter and decided to wait for the snow to stop．After three hours, however, we decided to go back and try again the next day．We started down the mountain in the thick snow．Jean-Pierre forgot his sunglasses and went back to look for them．As he was returning to us, he started to fall．

His fall started an avalanche（雪崩） and it was falling towards us! I was swept away by the heavy snow. Jean-Pierre hurried down to me．“Are you OK?” he asked．

“I think I broke my leg,” I answered．

“I’d better radio for help!” he said．“Where are the others?” We couldn’t see Maurice or Mary anywhere．

Jean-Pierre called the emergency radio number, and the police said they would send help right away．It seemed like hours, but only minutes later we heard the welcome sound of a helicopter． The helicopter couldn’t land on the mountainside, so they lowered two men, two dogs, and a stretcher（担架）．One man ran to me, but I told him to search for the others．The dogs were trained for avalanche rescue and soon began to dig crazily in the snow．

Bernardo, the lead dog, found Mary’s scarf and led the rescuers to her．Maurice was nearby．The men gave us hot drinks and warm blankets and then prepared to lift us into the helicopter．Two men inside the helicopter pulled us up with the ropes．I went first on the stretcher．

Once we were safely inside, the helicopter flew to the hospital in Chamonix．Our poor rescuers and their dogs had to climb all the way back down the mountain．Later we would find these brave men and thank them for saving our lives．

1.What prevented the climbers from reaching the top?

    A．The terrible weather．

    B．The loss of the sunglasses．

    C．The injury of the team members．

    D．The unexpected height of the mountain．

2.How did the writer break his leg?

    A．The road was covered with snow．

    B．His companion knocked into him．

    C．The heavy clouds blocked his view．

    D．The avalanche caused a fall for him．

3.How did the writer feel while waiting for help?

    A．Anxious．        B．Crazy．          C．Sorry．          D．Annoyed．

4.What do we learn from the passage?

    A．Mary was the leader of the team．

    B．The team was upset about their failure．

    C．It was several hours before the rescue team arrived ．

    D．The writer was excited thinking of climbing Mount Blanc．

 

 

I realized that I was getting cold, and felt it was probably time to go back to the apartment, so I put my collar up against the wind and began to walk back up the cold street. I managed to get some food from a vendor（小贩）, and walked on.

About twenty-five minutes later I knew that something was wrong. It was getting very, very cold, there were no streetlights, and the hill I was hoping to see on my right was nowhere in sight.  There was almost no light except for mysterious red crosses shining from the tops of churches, and I was beginning to get worried.  To cut a long story short, I had walked the wrong way from a crossroads, and had wandered miles in the wrong direction. My head was aching from the cold, and I couldn’t think straight. Turing around, I started back, and a long time later was outside the house I had set off from. It was at about that time I realized that I had a gate key but no house key.  How happy I was when I found that the front door was open—my only piece of good luck that day.  My apartment was of course locked, my head felt like it was about to explode, and my hands and feet were freezing.

I tried turning the handle.  No luck.  I tried another key from England.  I wanted to avoid waking the family downstairs, so despite the fear of an early death from cold, I couldn’t break the door down.  What would my hosts think? I pulled an ATM card from my pocket and forced it alongside the inside of the lock. I didn’t think it would work, but after fifteen minutes of trying, I heard a click.  Another couple of minutes later the door was open.  Relieved, I took off my clothes in the dark and got into bed.

1.The purpose of the passage is mainly to            .

A. tell us how difficult it is living abroad

B. show us how terrible the weather was

C. tell us an unusual experience abroad

D. show us how afraid the author was

2. What made the author find he had walked the wrong way?

A. He didn’t see the house.

B. A vendor reminded him.

C. The street name reminded him.

D. He didn’t see the hill.

3.What can we learn from the passage?

A. The front door was closed.

B. The house had many locks.

C. The author woke the hosts.

D. The author came from England.

4.From the passage we can infer that the author was            .

A. careful                             B. careless                          C. excited                         D. annoying

 

“A good book for children should simply be a good book in its own right,”says Mollie Hunter. Born and brought up near Edinburgh, Mollie has devoted her talents to writing primarily for young people. She firmly believes that there is and should always be a wider audience for any good book whatever its main market is. In Mollie’s opinion it is necessary to make full use of language and she enjoys telling a story, which is what every writer should be doing, “If you aren’t telling a story, you’re a very dead writer indeed.”she says. With the chief function of a writer being to entertain, Mollie is indeed an entertainer. “I have this great love of not only the meaning of language but of the music of language,”she says. “This love goes back to early childhood. I’ve told stories all my life. I had a school teacher who used to ask us what we would like to be when we grew up and, because my family always had dogs, and I was very good at handling them. I said I wanted to work with dogs, and the teacher always said‘Nonsense, Mollie; dear, you’ll be a writer.’So finally I thought that this woman must have something, since she was a good teacher and I decided when I was nine that I would be a writer.”

   This childhood intention is described in her novel, A Sound of Chariots, which although written in the third person is clearly autobiographical (自传体的)and gives a picture both of Mollie’s ambition and her struggle towards its achievement. Thoughts of her childhood inevitably(不可避免的)brought thoughts of the time when her home was still a village with buttercup meadows and strawberry fields-sadly now covered with modern houses. “I was once taken back to see it and I felt that somebody had lain dirty hands all over my childhood. I’ll never go back,”she said.“Never.”“When I set one of my books in Scotland,”she said,“I can recall my romantic feelings as a child playing in those fields, or watching the village blacksmith at work. And that’s important, because children now know so much so early that romance can’t exist for them, as it did for us.”

1. What does Mollie Hunter feel about the nature of a good book?

A. It should not aim at a narrow audience.

B. It should be attractive to young readers.

C. It should be based on original ideas.

D. It should not include too much conversation.

2. In Mollie Hunter’s opinion, which of the following is one sign of poor writer?

A. Being poor in life experience

B. Being short of writing skill.

C. The weakness of description

D. The absence of a story.

3.What do we learn about Mollie Hunter as a young child？

A. She didn’t expect to become a writer.

B. She didn’t enjoy writing stories.

C. She didn’t have any particular ambition.

D. She didn’t respect her teacher’s view.

4.In comparison with children of earlier years, Mollie feels that children now are _____.

A. more intelligent

B. better informed

C. less eager to learn

D. less interested in reality

5. What’s the writer’s purpose in this text?

A. To share her enjoyment of Mollie Hunter’s book.

B. To introduce Mollie Hunter’s work to a wider audience.

C. To provide information for Mollie Hunter’s existing readers.

D. To describe Mollie Hunter’s most successful books.