完形填空（共20小题：每小题1.5分，满分30分）
阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
On receiving my learner driver license a couple of months ago, I started driving lessons straight away. In New Zealand, the __1__ driving age is 15.
However it wasn’t __2__ two days ago that Dad finally allowed me to drive on the motorway. Our __3__ was Urawa, a seaside town about 60 kilometers away from my home in Auckland. That morning I __4_ sure I had enough to drink and went to the toilet (厕所) about three times __5_ we left. I thought I was totally __6 for the journey, but nothing could have prepared me for my family’s _7__. "Relax! Don’t hold the steering wheel (方向盘) so _8_. The car is going zigzag (弯弯曲曲的), called a nervous voice from the __9__. "Speed up. 70km/h isn’t fast enough. You are holding up the traffic," another voice ordered from the seat next to mine.
How _10__ ! My parents were really starting to get on my nerves. To satisfy them I sped up and within a second, an angry voice began to yell again. "Stop! __11__! Are you crazy? ” Everything did not go fine until I pulled off the motorway and drove into the city, 12__ the speed limit was only 50km/h.
My family seemed relieved (放心的) and __13__ telling me what to do. They all looked out of the windows and enjoyed the scenery. 14__, that silence didn’t last very long. My mum suddenly cried out, "Look at those birds above us. __15 they lovely?"
How did she expect me to look up in the __16__? As the driver I had to _17_ . Who knows what would have happened if I had taken my eyes off the 18__? Four hours later we drove home. This time the journey was much __19__ than before as everyone else __20__ fast asleep. So, I just took my time and enjoyed the drive.

阅读理解

　　Tom Dyson tried to find out what his new machine could do. One day he fixed the small box to a flowering plant that was growing in a pot. He didn't say anything at all, but he began to think some cruel thoughts.

　　“I'm going to cut off these flowers. They're getting old and ugly. So I'll cut them off…”

　　The needle on the machine climbed quickly from  zero to 8, then 10, 12, 15. It stopped at 17. The plant was in trouble! Something was worrying it. Was it fear or sadness? The thought of being cut? The flowers bent their heads. They suddenly looked old and tired, and Tom felt sorry for them.

　　“No, no!” he cried.“I won't cut you. You're my friends. I just want you to grow and be lovely. I'll take you outside, into the sunshine. You'll like that, won't you?”

　　The flowers lifted their heads slowly and seemed to smile at him. The needle returned to zero. Tom put away the machine, picked up the plant and walked outside. It was very nice in the garden that morning.

　　All plants enjoy their owner's love and care and kindness. They know the sound of their voice. They also seem to understand people's thoughts. So if you have flowers of your own, think about them with love. They will return your kindness in the only way they can: they will grow strong and beautiful.

1．Choose the right order of the events given in the passage.

[　　]

a．The needle pointed to 17.

b．Tom felt sorry for the flowers.

c．Tom thought of cutting off the flowers.

d．The flowers looked old and tired.

e．Tom fixed the machine to a plant.

f．Tom took the plant outside.

g．The needle returned to zero.

h．Tom cried, “I won't cut you.”

[　　]

A．e; a; g; h; d; b; c; f

B．c; e; d; a; b; h; g; f

C．e; c; a; d; h; b; f; g

D．e; c; a; d; b; h; g; f

2．The only way in which plants can show their love is ________.

[　　]

A．enjoying their owner's love

B．bringing up nicely

C．holding up their heads

D．smiling at their owners

3．According to the passage, which of the following is true?

[　　]

A．Tom wanted to cut off the flowers.

B．Tom said nothing, but the flowers could understand him.

C．The machine didn't work properly.

D．The flowers were getting bad - looking

Mark Twain has been called the inventor of the American novel. And he surely deserves additional praise: the man who popularized the clever literary attack on racism.
I say clever because anti-slavery fiction had been the important part of the literature in the years before the Civil War. H. B. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is only the most famous example. These early stories dealt directly with slavery. With minor exceptions, Twain planted his attacks on slavery and prejudice into tales that were on the surface about something else entirely. He drew his readers into the argument by drawing them into the story.
Again and again, in the postwar years, Twain seemed forced to deal with the challenge of race. Consider the most controversial, at least today, of Twain’s novels, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Only a few books have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry Finn, Twain’s most widely read tale. Once upon a time, people hated the book because it struck them as rude. Twain himself wrote that those who banned the book considered the novel “trash and suitable only for the slums (贫民窟).” More recently the book has been attacked because of the character Jim, the escaped slave, and many occurences of the word nigger. (The term Nigger Jim, for which the novel is often severely criticized, never appears in it.)
But the attacks were and are silly—and miss the point. The novel is strongly anti-slavery. Jim’s search through the slave states for the family from whom he has been forcibly parted is heroic. As J. Chadwick has pointed out, the character of Jim was a first in American fiction—a recognition that the slave had two personalities, “the voice of survival within a white slave culture and the voice of the individual: Jim, the father and the man.”
There is much more. Twain’s mystery novel Pudd’nhead Wilson stood as a challenge to the racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day. Written at a time when the accepted wisdom held Negroes to be inferior (低等的) to whites, especially in intelligence, Twain’s tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth. A slave gave birth to her master’s baby and, for fear that the child should be sold South, switched him for the master’s baby by his wife. The slave’s lightskinned child was taken to be white and grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slave-holding class. The master’s wife’s baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave.
The point was difficult to miss: nurture (养育), not nature, was the key to social status. The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice—manner of speech, for example— were, to Twain, indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that slavery forced on its victims.
Twain’s racial tone was not perfect. One is left uneasy, for example, by the lengthy passage in his autobiography (自传) about how much he loved what were called “nigger shows” in his youth—mostly with white men performing in black-face—and his delight in getting his mother to laugh at them. Yet there is no reason to think Twain saw the shows as representing reality. His frequent attacks on slavery and prejudice suggest his keen awareness that they did not.
Was Twain a racist? Asking the question in the 21st century is as wise as asking the same of Lincoln. If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the “wisdom” of the considered moral judgments of the present, we will find nothing but error. Lincoln, who believed the black man the inferior of the white, fought and won a war to free him. And Twain, raised in a slave state, briefly a soldier, and inventor of Jim, may have done more to anger the nation over racial injustice and awaken its collective conscience than any other novelist in the past century.
【小题1】 How do Twain’s novels on slavery differ from Stowe’s?

第二节完形填空。（共20小题，每小题1.5分，满分30分）
阅读下列短文，掌握其大意，然后从36—55各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C、D）中选出最佳选项。
Christmas was an exciting season for my six-year-old son. For weeks, he’d been memorizing   36  for the “Winter Ceremony” in his kindergarten class. I went to  37  their rehearsal(排演).
As I waited, students were led into the room. Each class,  38  by their teacher, sat cross-legged on the floor. Then, each group, one by one  39  to perform their song. I didn’t expect anything other than fun.
My son’s class rose to sing “Christmas Love”. Those in the front row on the center stage held up large  40 , one by one, to spell out the  41  of the song. When the class sang: “C is for Christmas,” a child would hold up the letter C, then another would hold up “H” for happy, and on and on,  42  each child was holding up a letter, presenting the  43  message, “Christmas Love”.
The performance was going  44 , until suddenly we noticed her, a small, quiet girl in the  45  row holding the letter “M” upside down-totally  46  that her letter “M” appeared as a “W”. The audience began to laugh at this little girl’s  47 . But she had no idea that they were laughing at her, so she stood tall,  48  holding her “W”.  49  many teachers tried to quiet the children, the  50  continued until the last letter was raised, and we all saw it together. A  51  came over the audience and eyes began to  52 . In that instant we understood the  53  why we were there, and even though it was such a busy holiday, there was a(n)  54  for celebrating Christmas. When the  55  letter was held high, the message read loud and clear: “ CHRIST WAS LOVE”. And I believe that this is why Christmas is so important.
36. A. songs                  B. message                   C. texts                        D. performance
37. A. direct                 B. celebrate                  C. design                      D. attend
38. A. led                            B. accompanied             C. looked                            D. pulled
39. A. stood                  B. turned                      C. rose                         D. came
40. A. letters                 B. words                      C. names                    D. boards
41. A. topic                  B. title                         C. idea                         D. theme
42. A. when                  B. after                        C. until                        D. while
43. A. exact                  B. complete                  C. proper                      D. right
44. A. smoothly            B. happily                    C. heatedly                   D. joyfully
45. A. back                   B. middle                            C. left                          D. front
46. A. ignoring                B. unknown                  C. unaware                   D. recognizing
47. A. action                 B. play                         C. mistake                    D. joke
48. A. highly                B. proudly                    C. clearly                            D. bravely
49. A. Unless                B. As                           C. Although                  D. In spite of
50. A. performance        B. laughter                   C. audience                   D. message
51. A. fear                    B. worry                      C. pride                        D. silence
52. A. widen                 B. close                        C. rise                          D. wink
53. A. cause                  B. reason                      C. way                         D. place
54. A. purpose                     B. excuse                      C. reward                            D. song
55. A. seventh               B. middle                            C. last                         D. full

"Just sign here, sir," the deliveryman said as he handed Oscar Reyna a package.
The package consisted of a long, narrow box 21 wrapped in brown paper. 22 the box, Oscar saw an umbrella inside — a very old one with a beautifully carved wooden handle. 23 he had not seen it in more than 20 years, he recognized it 24 .
Oscar was 16 when he first saw the 25 umbrella. He had gone to a concert with his grandparents. As they were leaving, h noticed an umbrella on an empty seat, impressed by its 26 , Oscar felt a strong desire to find its 27 .
Oscar 28 the manager to look in the record of advance ticket sales. Just as he thought, a name matched the seat 29 Oscar had found the umbrella. The name was Mrs. Katie O'Brien.
Oscar talked his grandparents into going by Mrs. O'Brien's 30 on their way home. He rang the bell, the door opened, and an elderly woman appeared. "May I   31  you?" she asked.
"I'd like to return it if it's yours," Oscar said, 32 the umbrella as if presenting a 33 that had long been wished for.
"Why, yes! It's mine," replied Mrs. O'Brien with a 34 smile and shining eyes. "It was given to me by my father years ago. Thank you so much for returning it. May I offer you a reward for your __35_ ?"
"No, ma'am," he said, "My grandmother says that a good deed is its own reward. "
"Well, that's 36 what my father used to say. What is your name, young man?"
Years later Oscar was staring at the finely carved handle of the umbrella as he remembered Mrs. O'Brien. It was in perfect condition, considering how 37 it was. Why had it arrived here today?
As if 38 , a note fell from the paper. It reads: Mrs. O'Brien wanted to 39 this umbrella as a present for a kind, 40. gesture long ago.