After their 15-year-old dog Bailey died in 2007, Ron and his wife, Ann, looked for months to find the right new pet. “I love dogs,” says Ron, a worker at a health club in Waukesha, Wisconsin. “I can’t imagine not having one.”
Finally, the couple spotted a young dog at the Humane Society in Milwaukee. His name was Oscar. “He was very attractive,” says Ron, 65. Oscar quickly made himself at home, sleeping on his new owners’ bed at night.
A diabetic(糖尿病人) for 25 years, Ron faithfully took his medicine four times a day and generally had no problems. But on March 17, at about 3 a.m., he got out of bed to use the bathroom. Suddenly, he fell down to the floor. “I must have taken the wrong amount of medicine before I went to sleep, because my blood sugar was dangerously low,” he says.
“Normally, Oscar is very quiet and well-behaved,” says Ron. “But when I hit the floor, he let out sounds like a wild animal.”
“Honestly, it sounded like the dog from hell,” says Ann, who was awakened by the sound.” I didn’t know what the sound was. Then I saw my husband lying on the bathroom floor. He was cold.” She ran for the phone and called an ambulance.
Ron spent several hours in the hospital. By 6:30a.m., he was well enough to go home. “You would never suspect Oscar of any heroism.” says his grateful owner. “He’s a wonderful little guy. We are lucky enough to own him.”
Even before Oscar’s heroic action, the couple had given their pet a new nickname(昵称). “We felt the name Oscar wasn’t good enough,” says Ron, “so sometimes we call him Eduardo”—more suitable, they think, for their dog.
【小题1】What was Ann doing when Ron went to the bathroom?

1. He forgot to take his medicine.
2. The floor in the bathroom was too wet.
3. He took the wrong amount of medicine.
4. He is a diabetic and accidentally ate some sugar.

1. Oscar was 15 years old when he was found.
2. The sound of Oscar was usually like a wild animal.
3. Ron got diabetes when he was 40 years old.
4. Ron had to take his medicine three times a day.

1. is a little noisy at home
2. sleeps with his owners at night
3. got his new nickname after the story
4. was found at a health club in Waukesha

Some weird, wild and wonderful stories coloured the news in 2010:

★A Copenhagen bus company has put "love seats" on 103 of its vehicles for people looking for a partner. "Even love at first sight is possible on the bus," said a spokesman for the British owned Arriva company to explain the two seats on each bus that are covered in red cloth and a "love seat" sign.

★Shoppers at an international luxury fair in Verona, Italy, found a cell-phone-equipped golden coffin among the items on display. The phones will help "the dead" contact relatives if they have been buried alive by mistake.

★A man in New York came up with a disarming way to set off his latest bank heist , approaching the clerk’s window with a large bunch of flowers and handing over a hold-up note saying “give me the money!”

★ An Englishman who lost all his legs and arms in an electrical accident successfully swam across the Channel, a challenge he had been preparing for two years. The whole cost is 400 dollars.

★A set of artificial teeth made for Britain's war-time prime minister Winston Churchill known as "the teeth that saved the world" sold for nearly 18,000 pounds (21,500 euros, 24,000 dollars) at auction.

★A British woman caused an Internet hate campaign after she was caught on camera dumping a cat in a rubbish bin. She was fined 250 pounds (400 dollars, 280 euros) after pleading guilty.

★The BBC apologized completely and without any doubts after a radio presenter jokingly announced that Queen Elizabeth II had died.

★Two Australian men needed surgery after shooting each other in the bottoms during a drinking session to see if it would hurt were charged 400 dollars separately.

★ A Kuwaiti MP(议员) proposed state-aid for male citizens to take second wives, in a bid to reduce the large number of unmarried women in the oil-rich state.

1.What is special about the coffin in the second news?

       A. It is golden                      B. It has a cell phone.

       C. It is a luxury                    D. It has many items

2.What is the probable meaning of the underlined word heist in the third news?

       A. robbery      B. proposal   C. begging     D. raising money

3.Who has to spend 400 dollars to do the surgery?

       A. A British woman who dumped a cat in a rubbish bin.

       B. One who bought Winston Churchill’s artificial teeth.

       C. An Australian man who shot in bottom to test the hurt.

       D. An Englishman crossing the Channel without legs and arms.

4.From the last news we can infer that _________.

       A. In Kuwait many men are eager to get married

B. A lot of rich single men lived in Kuwait

C. There are quantities of oil in Kuwait

D. There are many single women in Kuwait

Lisa was running late. Lisa, 25, had a lot to do at work, plus visitors on the way: her parents were coming in for Thanksgiving from her hometown. But as she hurried down the subway stairs, she started to feel uncomfortably warm. By the time she got to the platform, Lisa felt weak and tired—maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to give blood the night before, she thought. She rested herself against a post close to the tracks.
Several yards away, Frank, 43, and his girlfriend, Jennifer, found a spot close to where the front of the train would stop. They were deep in discussion about a house they were thinking of buying.
But when he heard the scream, followed by someone yelling, “Oh, my God, she fell in!” Frank didn’t hesitate(犹豫). He jumped down to the tracks and ran some 40 feet toward the body lying on the rails. “No! Not you! ”his girlfriend shouted after him.
She was right to be alarmed. By the time Frank reached Lisa, he could feel the tracks shaking and see the light coming. The train was about 20 seconds from the station.
It was hard to lift her. She was just out. But he managed to raise her four feet to the platform(站台) so that bystanders could hold her by the legs and drag her away from the edge. That was where Lisa briefly regained consciousness(知觉), felt herself being pulled along the ground, and saw someone else holding her purse.
Lisa thought she’d been robbed. A woman held her hand and a man gave his shirt to help stop the blood pouring from her head. And she tried to talk but she couldn’t, and that was when she realized how much pain she was in.
Police and fire officials soon arrived, and Frank told the story to an officer. Jennifer said her boyfriend was calm on their 40-minute train ride downtown - just as he had been seconds after the rescue(营救), which made her think about her reaction at the time. “I saw the train coming and I was thinking he was going to die,” she explained.
【小题1】What was the most probable cause for Lisa’s weakness?

Agnes Miller was one of the earliest leaders of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the United States. She was born on a farm in Missouri in 1892. Strangely enough she had a very happy life as a child. She was the only daughter and the youngest child of five. Her parents and her brothers always treated her as their favorite.
In 1896 the family moved to Chicago. Three years later they moved back to St. Louis where Agnes spent the rest of her childhood. She enjoyed her years in school and was an excellent student of mathematics. She also was quite skillful as a painter.
It was when Agnes went off to college that she first learned that women were not treated as equals. She didn’t like being treated unequally but she tried not to notice it. After graduating from college she tried to get a job in her major field—physics. She soon found it was almost impossible for a woman.
Agnes spent a full year looking for a job. Finally she gave up in anger. She began writing letters of anger to various newspapers. An editor in New York liked her ideas very much. He specially liked her style. He asked her to do a series of stories on the difficulties that women had in finding a job. And there she began her great fight for equal rights for women.
【小题1】
Where did Agnes spend her childhood?