Fill in the blanks with the words in their proper forms(用其适当形式填空。每空格限填一词，每词限用一次)

1．He said he stayed away because he was ill, but the ________ is that he didn't want to see you.

2．I ________ don't want any more coffee.

3．It's very cold today; the temperature has dropped to ________ point.

4．________, the accident was not serious.

5．This little book is a very good ________ to English grammar.

　　“Well, Bill. I'm not sure whether to send you to heaven or hell. After all, you greatly helped society by putting a computer in almost every home, yet you also created that terrible Windows XP. I'm going to let you decide where you want to go.”

　　Bill replied,“Well, what's the difference between the two?”

　　God said,“I'm willing to let you visit both places, to see if it will help your decision.”

　　“Okay, then,”said Bill,“Let's try hell first.”

　　“This is great,”he told God.“If this is hell, I really want to see heaven.”

　　“Fine,”said God, and off they went.

　　“Hmmm, I think I'd prefer hell,”he told God.

　　“Fine,”replied God,“as you desire（如你所愿）.”

　　Two weeks later, God decided to see how Bill was doing in hell. When he got there, he found Bill shackled（披枷带锁）to a wall being burned by demons（魔鬼）.

　　“How is everything doing?”He asked Bill.

　　“This is terrible. This is nothing like the hell I visited two weeks ago. What happened to that other place, with the beaches and the beautiful women playing in the water?”

　　“Oh,”God said,“what you saw is a screensaver（屏幕保护）I designed by myself. Glad you like it!”

　　In our house, there are lots of comic(滑稽的) books. Some are on the table in the living room. Some are under my bed. Some are under Neal's bed.

　　Neal is my brother. He is seven, two years younger than I am.

　　Every Saturday we do our work first. Then mother lets each of us buy a comic book about animals or children.

　　We can hardly wait to get home to read them! We lie on the floor between our bed. Everything is very quiet then－until we burst out laughing. Mom calls our laughs “explosions”. I guess they sound that way to her.

　　Yesterday I heard Mrs. Easton ask Mom, “Do you really LET your boys read comic books? I must say I am surprised!” Mom said,“Of course I let them!” Then she said, “That is, I let them read comics about animals and children. Not all comic books are bad. Some are very good.”

　　“I wonder why children like comic books?” Mrs. Easton asked.

　　Mom laughed. “I really don't know,” she answered. “But we know they do!”

　　Well, no one asked me. But I could tell Mrs. Easton and mother why we like comics!

　　The ones Neal and I read are funny. The people and the animals in them are smart. They are not goody-goody (虚假的), the way they are in some stories.

　　Comic books are something like space ships. They take Neal and me to the planet Mars or to a rabbit's house. They bring us old friends and new friends. Donald and Mickey and Bugs and Elmer seem like real people to us!

　　We like comic books most of all because we never know what will happen next. In some books, you can always tell what's going to happen.

1．The stories in the comic books often make the two brothers very sad and angry.

2．The two brothers won't get new comic books before they finish doing their work every Saturday.

3．All the grown-ups know clearly why children like reading comic books.

4．The stories in comic books can take children to places they have wanted to and help them meet a lot of friends.

5．The two brothers like comic books best of all because they can always guess what will happen next.