Looking back on  my childhood, I am convinced that naturalists are born and not made.  Although we were all brought up in the same way,my br others and sisters soon abandoned their pressed flowers and insects. Unlike them,I had no ear for music and languages. I was not an early reader and I could not do mental arithmetic.

Before World War I we spent our summer holidays in Hungary. I have only the dim memory of the house we lived in, of my room and my toys. Nor do I recall clearly the large family of grandparents,aunts, uncles and cousins who gathered next door. But I do have a clear memory of the dogs, the farm animals, the local birds, and above all, the insects.

I am a naturalist, not a scientist. I have a strong love of the natural world and my enthusiasm had led me into varied investigations. I love discussing my favorite topics and enjoy burning the midnight oil reading about other people's observations and discoveries. Then something happens that brings these observations together in my conscious mind. Suddenly you fancy you see the answer to the riddle, because it all seems to fit together. This has resulted in my publishing 300 papers and books, which some might honor with the title of scientific research.

But curiosity,a keen eye,a good memory and enjoyment of the animal and plant world do not make a scientist: one of the outstanding  and essential qualities required is self?discipline, a quality I lack. A scientist, up to a certain point,can be made. A naturalist is born. If you can combine the two,you get the best of both worlds.

1.The first paragraph tells us the author .      

A.was interested in flowers and insects in his childhood 

B.lost his hearing when he was a child

C.didn’t like his brothers and sisters    

D.was born to a naturalist’s family

2.The author can’t remember his relatives clearly because         .

A.he didn’t live very long with them   

B.the family was extremely large

C.he was too young when he lived with them  

D.he was fully occupied with observing nature

3.It can be inferred from the passage that the author was         .

A.a scientist as well as a naturalist   

B.a naturalist but not a scientist

C.no more than a born naturalist        

D.first of all a scientist

4.The author says that he is a naturalist rather than a scientist probably because he thinks he         .

A.has a great deal of trouble doing mental arithmetic

B.lacks some of the qualities required of a scientist

C.just reads about other people’s observations and discoveries

D.comes up with solutions in a most natural way

While watching the Olympics the other night, I came across an unbelievable sight. It was not a gold medal, or a world record broken, but a show of courage.
The event was swimming and started with only three men on the blocks. For one reason or another, two of them false started, so they were disqualified. That left only one to compete. It would have been difficult enough, not having anyone to race against, even though the time on the clock is important.
I watched the man dive off the block and knew right away that something was wrong. I’m not an expert swimmer, but I can tell a good dive from a poor one, and this was not exactly medal quality. When he resurfaced, it was evident that the man was not out for gold – his arms were waving in an attempt at freestyle. The crowd started to laugh. Clearly this man was not a medal competitor.
I listened to the crowd begin to laugh at this poor man who was clearly having a hard time. Finally he made his turn to start back. It was pitiful. He made a few desperate strokes and you could tell he was worn out.
But in those few awful strokes, the crowd had changed.
No longer were they laughing, but beginning to cheer. Some even began to stand and shout “Come on, you can do it!” and he did.
A clear minute past the average swimmer, this young man finally finished his race. The crowd went wild. You would have thought that he had won the gold, and he should have. Even though he recorded one of the slowest times in Olympic history, this man gave more heart than any of the other competitors.
Just a short year ago, he had never even swum, let alone race. His country had been invited to Sydney.
【小题1】From the passage we can learn that the young man         .

While watching the Olympics the other night, I came across an unbelievable sight. It was not a gold medal, or a world record broken, but a show of courage.

The event was swimming and started with only three men on the blocks. For one reason or another, two of them false started, so they were disqualified. That left only one to complete. It would have been difficult enough, not having anyone to race against, even though the time on the clock is important.

I watched the man dive off the block and knew right away that something was wrong. I'm not an expert swimmer, but I can tell a good dive from a poor one, and this was not exactly medal quality. When he resurfaced, it was evident that the man was not out for gold — his arms were waving in an attempt at freestyle. The crowd started to laugh. Clearly this man was not a medal competitor.

I listened to the crowd begin to laugh at this poor man who was clearly having a hard time. Finally he made his turn to start back. It was pitiful. He made a few desperate strokes and you could tell he was worn out.

But in those few awful strokes, the crowd had changed.

No longer were they laughing, but beginning to cheer. Some even began to stand and shout "Come on, you can do it! " and he did.

A clear minute past the average swimmer, this young man finally finished his race. The crowd went wild. You would have thought that he had won the gold, and he should have. Even though he recorded one of the slowest times in Olympic history, this man gave more heart than any of the other competitors.

Just a short year ago, he had never even swum, let alone race. His country had been invited to Sydney.

In a competition where athletes remove their silver medals feeling they have somehow been cheated out of gold, or when they act so proudly in front of their competitors, it is nice to watch an underdog.

1.From the passage we can learn that the young man         .

A．made his turn to start back pitifully

B．was skillful in freestyle in the game

C．swam faster than the average swimmer

D．was not capable enough to win the medal

2.The crowd changed their attitudes because ________.

A．they felt sorry for the young man

B．they were moved by the young man

C．they wanted to show their sympathy

D．they meant to please the young man

3.According to the passage, "it is nice to watch an underdog" probably means _______.

A．it’s amusing to watch a man with awful swimming skills

B．it’s amazing to watch an ordinary man challenging himself

C．it’s cheerful for athletes to act proudly before their competitors

D．it’s brave enough for some athletes to remove the silver medals

4.What’s the best title for the passage?

A．Compete for Gold!                      B．Try again!

C．Break a Record!                        D．Go for it!

English was always my favorite subject. In my freshman year of high school, I could write a killer composition. In my junior year, my   1  allowed me to give spelling tests to the class. I had wonderful   2  of this year. Mrs. Alexander   3  me to sit at her desk and take over the class when she had to leave the room. Only my senior English class was   4 , as we had a teacher right out of college who expected college-level work. Every student received a “C” or “D” grade the first quarter.   5  English was still my subject.
I graduated from high school,  6  early and had children.   7  about my English, I often helped my kids with their English homework. And I   8  long articles and beautiful poetry for a newspaper. Fifteen years later, I went to college, and because I had been an “A” student, I   9  an “A” student. I lived up to my own expectations.
Yesterday, I   10  my high school report cards when I was reading old papers. That bundle (捆) of report cards   11  back the old days. I remembered sitting in my advisor’s office, explaining that I had always been excellent at English and complaining that I did not   12  a “D” from that inexperienced teacher of my senior year. The advisor was   13  but unable to change a grade.
My old   14  cards showed something else too. I wanted to tear them up or   15  them. I was not an “A” student in high school English! Somehow, I had convinced myself of this, when the grades clearly reflected an   16  student with an occasional “A” or “B”, but mostly “C”s.
Had I lived up to those   17  and define (定义) myself according to those letters, I would have never confidently   18  my writing career. Had I believed in my early grades instead of myself, I would have allowed my fear of   19  to defeat my enthusiasm and damage my creativity.   20 , I regarded my younger self as an “A” English student, except for that undeserved “D”.

In 1974, after filling out fifty applications, going through four interviews, and winning one offer, I took what I could get ----- a teaching job at what I considered a distant wild area: western New Jersey. My characteristic optimism was alive only when I reminded myself that I would be doing what I had wanted to do since I was fourteen ------- teaching English.

School started, but I felt more and more as if I were in a foreign country. Was this rural area really New Jersey? My students took a week off when hunting season began. I was told they were also frequently absent in late October to help their fathers make hay on the farms. I was a young woman from New York City, who thought that “Make hay while the sun shines” just meant to have a good time.

But, still, I was teaching English. I worked hard, taking time off only to eat and sleep. And then there was my sixth-grade class ---- seventeen boys and five girls who were only six years younger than me. I had a problem long before I knew it. I was struggling in my work as a young idealistic teacher. I wanted to make literature come alive and to promote a love of the written word. The students wanted to throw spitballs and whisper dirty words in the back of the room.

In college I had been taught that a successful educator should ignore bad behavior. So I did, confident that, as the textbook had said, the bad behavior would disappear as I gave my students positive attention. It sounds reasonable, but the text evidently ignored the fact that humans, particularly teenagers, rarely seems reasonable. By the time my boss, who was also my taskmaster, known to be the strictest, most demanding, most quick to fire inexperienced teachers, came into the classroom to observe me, the students exhibited very little good behavior to praise.

My boss sat in the back of the room. The boys in the class were making animal noises, hitting each other while the girls filed their nails or read magazines. I just pretended it all wasn’t happening, and went on lecturing and tried to ask some inspiring questions. My boss, sitting in the back of the classroom, seemed to be growing bigger and bigger. After twenty minutes he left, silently. Visions of unemployment marched before my eyes.

I felt mildly victorious that I got through the rest of class without crying, but at my next free period I had to face him. I wondered if he would let me finish out the day. I walked to his office, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

He was sitting in his chair, and he looked at me long and hard. I said nothing. All I could think of was that I was not an English teacher; I had been lying to myself, pretending that everything was fine.

When he spoke, he said simply, without accusation, “You had nothing to say to them.”

“You had nothing to say to them”. he repeated.” No wonder they are bored. Why not get to the meat of literature and stop talking about symbolism. Talk with them, not at them. And more important, why do you ignore their bad behavior”? We talked. He named my problems and offered solutions. We role-played. He was the bad student, and I was the forceful, yet, warm, teacher

As the year progressed, we spent many hours discussing literature and ideas about human beings and their motivations. He helped me identify my weaknesses and strengths. In short, he made a teacher of me by teaching me the reality of Emerson’s words: “The secret to education lies in respecting the pupil.”

Fifteen years later I still drive that same winding road to the same school. Thanks to the help I received that difficult first year, the school is my home now.

1. It can be inferred from the story that in 1974 ________________.

A．the writer became an optimistic person

B．the writer was very happy about her new job

C．it was rather difficult to get a job in the USA

D．it was easy to get a teaching job in New Jersey

2.According to the passage, which of the following is most probably the writer’s problem as a new teacher?

A．She had blind trust in what she learnt at college.

B．She didn’t ask experienced teachers for advice.

C．She took too much time off to eat and sleep.

D．She didn’t like teaching English literature.

3.What is the writer’s biggest worry after her taskmaster’s observation of her class?

A．She might lose her teaching job.

B．She might lose her students’ respect.

C．She couldn’t teach the same class any more.

D．She couldn’t ignore her students’ bad behavior any more.

4.Which of the following gives the writer a sense of mild victory?

A．Her talk about symbolism sounded convincing.

B．Her students behaved a little better than usual.

C．She managed to finish the class without crying.

D．She was invited for a talk by her boss after class.

5.The students behaved badly in the writer’s classes because

A．They were eager to embarrass her.

B．She didn’t really understand them.

C．They didn’t regard her as a good teacher.

D．She didn’t have a good command of English.

6.The taskmaster’s attitude towards the writer after his observation of her class can be described as________________.

A．cruel but encouraging                    B．fierce but forgiving

C．sincere and supportive                   D．angry and aggressive