A little boy invited his mother to attend his school’s first teacher-parent meeting. To the little boy’s disappointment,she said she would go. This   16   be the first time that his classmates and teacher   17   his mother and he felt ashamed of her   18  . Although she was a beautiful woman, there was a scar(疤痕)that   19  nearly the right side of her face. The boy never wanted to   20  why or how she got the scar.
At the meeting, the people were impressed by the kindness and natural beauty of his mother in spite of the scar, but the little boy was still  21 and hid himself from everyone,  22   a conversation between his mother and the teacher.
The teacher asked   23 ,“How did you get the scar on your face?”
The mother answered,“When my son was a baby, he was in a room that caught fire. Everyone was   24  afraid to go in because the fire was   25   ，so I went in. As I was running toward his bed, I saw a piece of wood coming down and I placed myself over him trying to protect him. I was knocked senseless but   26  , a fireman came in and saved both of us.” She touched（摸着） the   27  side of her face. “This scar will be  28 ,but to this day, I have never regretted what I did.”
At this point, the little boy came out running toward his mother with tears in his eyes. He held her mother in his arms and   29   a great sense of the sacrifice(牺牲)that his mother had made for him. He held her hand tightly for the   30  of the day.

A new school term begins, Is anything new at your school? Sichuan students are getting an extra (额外的)hour to sleep in the morning.
This year, Sichuan schools decided that students should start classes later. This should help them feel less tired, For Junior high schools, the first classes will begin no earlier than 8:30 am.
The changes have made students happy.
Liu Xian, 15, said his class was excited by the news on the first day of school. “It’s so good we can get up later!” said Liu.
Liu studies in Chengdu No.4 Middle School. He used to get up at 6:40 am. Now he can get up at 7:40 am because class doesn’t start until 8:40 am.
Wu Hongli, 15, said the new timetable is good for her health. “I used to drink coffee every night or I would feel to sleepy to finish my homework, ”said Wu. “Now I can finish it without coffee.”She used to get up at 6:30 am. Now she can get up at 7:30 am.
Wu Hongli’s mother was happy, too. She thought more sleep would help her daughter grow taller.
But some parents worried that more sleep would mean less learning. There used to be five classes in the morning. Now there are only four.
Many teachers, though, say the changes will help students learn better.
“Students used to doze(瞌睡)for the first two classes in the morning,”said Wu Zongping, an English teacher at Chendu No.12 Middle School. “But now they look fine and they learn much better than before.”
【小题1】What made the Sichuan middle school students happy?

D

When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor, Dr. Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. He never invited us to play in his yard, but he was a very kind person.

When Dr. Gibbs wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. He owned a large field and wanted to make it a forest.

The good doctor had some interesting ideas about planting trees. He never watered his new trees. Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled (宠坏)them, and that if you watered them, each baby tree would grow weaker and weaker, so you had to make things difficult for them and pick out the weaker trees early on.

He talked about how watering trees made for shallow(浅的) roots, and the trees that weren’t watered had to grow deep roots in search of water under the earth by themselves. Deep roots were very important.

So he never watered his trees. He’d planted an oak and, instead of watering it every morning, he’d beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. I asked him why he did that, and he said it was to get the tree’s attention.

Dr. Gibbs died several years after I left home. Every now and then, I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I watched him plant about twenty-five years ago. They’re very big and strong now.

I planted some trees a few years back and carried water to them for a whole summer. After two years of caring too much, whenever a cold wind blows in, they shake a lot.

Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. Mostly I pray(祈祷) that their lives will be easy. But lately I’ve been thinking that it’s time to change my prayer. I know my children are going to face difficulties. There’s always a cold wind blowing somewhere, so what we need to do is to pray for roots that reach deep into the brave heart, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we could face it strongly and won’t be beaten down.

1. We know from the reading the doctor _________.

2. When Dr. Gibbs said, “...pick out the weaker trees early on.” he means that ______.

3.The passage tells us that the writer _______.

4. The writer wants to change his prayer, hoping that ________.

5.Which can be the best title of the reading?

A little boy invited his mother to attend his school’s first teacher-parent meeting. To the little boy’s disappointment,she said she would go. This   16   be the first time that his classmates and teacher   17   his mother and he felt ashamed of her   18  . Although she was a beautiful woman, there was a scar(疤痕)that   19  nearly the right side of her face. The boy never wanted to   20  why or how she got the scar.

At the meeting, the people were impressed by the kindness and natural beauty of his mother in spite of the scar, but the little boy was still  21 and hid himself from everyone,  22   a conversation between his mother and the teacher.

The teacher asked   23 ,“How did you get the scar on your face?”

The mother answered,“When my son was a baby, he was in a room that caught fire. Everyone was   24  afraid to go in because the fire was   25   ，so I went in. As I was running toward his bed, I saw a piece of wood coming down and I placed myself over him trying to protect him. I was knocked senseless but   26  , a fireman came in and saved both of us.” She touched（摸着） the   27  side of her face. “This scar will be  28 ,but to this day, I have never regretted what I did.”

At this point, the little boy came out running toward his mother with tears in his eyes. He held her mother in his arms and   29   a great sense of the sacrifice(牺牲)that his mother had made for him. He held her hand tightly for the   30  of the day.