I recently turned fifty,which is young for a tree,midlife for an elephant,and ancient for a sportsman.Fifty is a nice number for the states in the US or for a national speed limit,but it is not a number that I was prepared to have hung on me.Fifty is supposed to be my father’s age,but now I am stuck with this number and everything it means.

A few days ago,a friend tried to cheer me up by saying,“Fifty is what forty used to be.”He had made an inspirational point.Am I over the hill?People keep telling me that the hill has been moved,and I keep telling them that the high-jump bar has dropped from the six feet I once easily cleared to the four feet that is impossible for me now.

“You’re not getting older,you’re getting better,”says Dr.Joyce Brothers.This,however,is the kind of doctor who inspires a second opinion.

And so,as I approach the day when I cannot even jump over the tennis net,I am moved to share some thoughts on aging with you.I am moved to show how aging feels to me physically and mentally.Getting older,of course,is obviously a better change than the one that brings you eulogies(悼词).In fact,a poet named Robert Browning considered it the best change of all:

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be.

Whether or not Browning was right,most of my first fifty years have been golden ones,so I will settle for what is ahead being as good as what has gone by.I find myself moving toward what is ahead with a curious blend(混合)of both fighting and accepting my aging,hoping that the philosopher(哲学家)was right when he said.“Old is always fifteen years from now.”

The author seems to tell us in Paragraph 1 that         .

A.time alone will tell

B.time goes by quickly

C.time will show what is right

D.time makes one forget the past

When the author turned fifty,people around him         .

A.tried to comfort him

B.got inspirations from him

C.were friendlier with him

D.found him more talkative

The author considers his fifty years of life         .

A.peaceful                    B.ordinary                    C.satisfactory                D.regretful

We can infer from the passage that         .

A.the old should lead a simple life

B.the old should face the fact of aging

C.the old should take more exercise

D.the old should fill themselves with curiosity

根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中的两项为多途选项。
What is a big dream ? 【小题1】     Or , is a big dream something that provides only entertainment? Children dream big dreams, but there are three barriers to realizing dreams. They often kill them before they ever have a chance to grow.
The Self
Immediately following the birth of a big dream, a negative self-talk takes over and gives all the reasons why it cannot happen. This inside voice is the ego(自我). It’s there for protecting and should be listened to. 【小题2】    Most people are influenced by the inside voice. That’s why only a handful of people make their dream come true.
【小题3】      
Family and friends are a lot like the ego. They want to protect those they love, so they will often list all the reasons why the big dreams won’t come true. Sometimes, family and friends destroy dreams of those they love most, out of their own fear of being left behind.
The World
If one gets past the first two barriers, one has to face the world. 【小题4】     In the past, big dreamers were locked up and sometimes even killed when they were shown to the world. Fortunately, in most of the world today, big dreamers just get laughed at.
The way to realize a big dream is with confidence and action. When children have confidence and then take action, they will be ready to accept any failure. The truth is that every great dreamer whose dreams have never seen the light of success knows failure well.【小题5】    

Andrew Ritchie, inventor of the Brompton folding bicycle, once said that the perfect portable bike would be “like a magic carpet…You could fold it up and put it into your pocket or handbag”. Then he paused: “But you’ll always be limited by the size of the wheels. And so far no one has invented a folding wheel.”
It was a rare — indeed unique — occasion when I was able to put Ritchie right. A 19th-century inventor, William Henry James Grout, did in fact design a folding wheel. His bike, predictably named the Grout Portable, had a frame that split into two and a larger wheel that could be separated into four pieces. All the bits fitted into Grout’s Wonderful Bag, a leather case.
Grout’s aim: to solve the problems of carrying a bike on a train. Now doesn’t that sound familiar? Grout intended to find a way of making a bike small enough for train travel: his bike was a huge beast. And importantly, the design of early bicycles gave him an advantage: in Grout’s day, tyres were solid, which made the business of splitting a wheel into four separate parts relatively simple. You couldn’t do the same with a wheel fitted with a one-piece inflated （充气的） tyre.
So, in a 21st-century context, is the idea of the folding wheel dead? It is not. A British design engineer, Duncan Fitzsimons, has developed a wheel that can be squashed into something like a slender ellipse （椭圆）. Throughout, the tyre remains inflated.
Will the young Fitzsimons’s folding wheel make it into production? I haven’t the foggiest idea. But his inventiveness shows two things. First, people have been saying for more than a century that bike design has reached its limit, except for gradual advances. It’s as silly a concept now as it was 100 years ago: there’s plenty still to go for. Second, it is in the field of folding bikes that we are seeing the most interesting inventions. You can buy a folding bike for less than £1,000 that can be knocked down so small that it can be carried on a plane — minus wheels, of course — as hand baggage.
Folding wheels would make all manner of things possible. Have we yet got the magic carpet of Andrew Ritchie’s imagination? No. But it’s progress.
【小题1】We can infer from Paragraph 1 that the Brompton folding bike        .

第二节：完形填空（共20小题；每小题1.5分，满分30分）
阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从36-55各题所给的四个选项中，选出最佳选项。
Growing up, I had a scar on my face — a perfect arrow in the center of my cheek, pointing at my left eye. I 36 it when I was three, long before I knew that scars were a 37 thing, especially for a girl. I only knew that my scar brought me 38 and tenderness and candy. As I got older, I began to take 39in my scar, in part to stop people laughing at me, but mainly as a reaction to the thought that I should feel uncomfortable. It’s true. I was 40 the first couple of times someone pointed at my 41 and asked, “What’s that?” or called me “Scarface.” But the more I heard how 42 my scar was, the more I found myself liking it.
When I turned fifteen, my parents — 43 the advice of a doctor — decided it was time to 44 on what was now a thick, shiny red scar.
“But I don’t mind the scar, really,” I told my father as he 45 that I would have the operation during my summer vacation. And my friends, along with my boyfriend at the time, 46 as I did, that my scar was 47 and almost pretty in its own way. After so many years, it was a 48 of me. But my father said it was a deformity (畸形). I don’t know what 49 more that day: hearing my father call my scar a deformity, 50 realizing that it didn’t 51 to him how I felt about it.
I did have the operation that summer.
In my late twenties, I took a long look at my scar, something I hadn’t done in years. 52, it could be seen in the right light, but no one 53 me about it anymore. As I leaned uneasily toward the mirror, I felt a sudden 54.
There was something powerful about my scar and the proud person I 55 because of it. I have never been quite so strong since they cut it out.
36. A. got              B. remained     C. kept      D. drew
37. A. good       B. bad     C. strange          D. funny
38. A. trouble     B. shame    C. attention    D. reward
39. A. pride      B. place     C. care        D. blame
40. A. uncomfortable            B. proud     C. pleased      D. disappointed
41. A. head      B. cheek      C. mouth       D. nose
42. A. long       B. unfortunate       C. beautiful     D. unbelievable
43. A. in         B. for         C. against        D. on
44. A. operate                 B. talk            C. remove      D. center
45. A. suggested      B. explained   C. told       D. ordered
46. A. felt                B. acted      C. did        D. hoped[来源:学&科&网Z&X&X&K]
47. A. unlucky         B. ugly          C. unique    D. necessary
48. A. part         B. problem    C. memory     D. dream
49. A. interested       B. encouraged C. hurt      D. surprised
50. A. and          B. or         C. so       D. but
51. A. mind        B. occur            C. concern      D. matter
52. A. Still               B. Though    C. Thus      D. Also
53. A. cared         B. asked      C. questioned  D. mentioned
54. A. happiness      B. satisfaction   C. sadness      D. shock
55. A. respected     B. knew      C. met        D. became

After more than a year of bitter political debate, President Obama sat down in the White House East Room on March 23 and signed the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law with a pen，and then another pen，and another. Obama used 22 pens to sign the $938 billion health care bill.

The practice of using different pens to sign important legislation（法规）dates at least as far back as Franklin Roosevelt. The reason is fairly simple. The pen used to sign historic legislation itself becomes a historical artifact. The more pens a President uses, the more thank-you gifts he can offer to those who helped create that piece of history. The White House often give pens to supporters of the newly signed legislation. When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he reportedly used more than 75 pens and gave one of the first ones to Martin Luther King Jr. And in 1996, President Clinton gave the four pens he used to sign the Line-Item Veto bill to those most likely to appreciate the bill's consequence.

    Once they're given away, some pens end up in museums; others are displayed proudly in recipients'(接受者) offices or homes. But they sometimes appear again, like in the 2008 presidential campaign（竞选活动）, when John Macain promised to use the same pen given to him by President Reagan to cut pork from the federal budget.

Not every President goes for the multipen signature, however. President George W. Bush preferred signing bills with only one pen and then offering several unused "gift" pens as souvenirs.

.We can learn from paragraph 1 that the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act        .

A. has been passed easily

B. was put forward one year ago

C. becomes law in the USA

D. is unimportant

How are the pens dealt with after being used by President Obama?

A. Supporters of the newly signed legislation are likely to get some of them.

B. Obama will keep them.

C. They will be just set aside

D. They will be sold to the public at a high price.

What can we learn about John Macain?

A. He was ever President in the USA.

B. He took part in the 2008 presidential campaign.

C. He never used the pen given by Reagan.

D. He was only concerned about his own business.    

What does this passage mainly tell us ?

A. Obama signed the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

B. It is a practice to use multiple pens to sign important legislation in the USA.

C. Pens are necessary in the signature.

D. All the presidents like the multipen signature.