完型填空（共20小题；每小题1．5分，满分30分）
阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从36—55各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上涂黑。
When I was about five years old, I used to watch a bird in the skies of southern Alberta from the Blackfoot Blood Reserve in northern Montana where I was born．I loved this bird; I would    36 him for hours．He would    37  effortlessly in that gigantic sky, or he would come down and light on the   38 and float there beautifully．Sometimes when I watched him, he would not make a sound and liked to move   39  into the grasses．We called him meksikatsi, which in the Blackfoot language   40  “pink-colored feet”; meksikatsi and I became very good friends．
The bird had a very particular significance to me   41  I desperately wanted to be able to fly too．I felt very much as if I was the kind of person who had been born into a world where    42  was impossible．And most of the things that I    43   about would not be possible for me but would be possible only for other people．
When I was ten years old, something unexpected   44 my life suddenly．I found myself become an  45 child in a family I was not born into; I found myself in a   46 position that many native Americans find themselves in, living in a city that they do not understand at all, not in another culture but   47 two cultures．
A teacher of the English language told me that meksikatsi was not called meksikatsi, even though that is what   48 people have called that bird for thousands of years．Meksikatsi, he said, was really “duck”．I was very  49 with English．I could not understand it．First of all, the bird did not look like “duck”, and when it made a    50  , it did not sound like “duck”, I was even more   51  when I found out that the meaning of the verb “to duck” came from the bird．
As I   52 to understand English better, I understand that it made a great deal of    53   , but I never forgot that meksikatsi made a different kind of meaning．I   54  that languages are not just different words for the same things but totally different    55  , totally different ways of experiencing and looking at the world．

A young man was getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had    1    a beautiful sports car in a dealer’s showroom, and    2   his father could well    3   it, he told him that was all he wanted.
On the morning of his graduation day his father called him into his own study and told him how    4   he was to have such a fine son. He handed his son a beautiful gift box.   5    but slightly disappointed, the young man    6    the box and found a lovely book.     7   , he raised his voice at his father and said, “with all your money you give me a book?” And rushed out of the house,    8    the book in the study.
He did not contact his father for a whole year until one day he saw in the street an old man who looked like his father, he     9    he had to go back home and see his father.
When he arrived at his father’s house, he was told that his father had been in hospital for a week. The moment he was about to     10    the hospital, he saw on the desk the still new book, just as he had left it one year ago. He opened it and began to     11    the pages. Suddenly, a car key     12    from an envelope taped behind the book. It had a tag(标签) with the dealer’s name, the     13    dealer who had the sports car he had    14   . On the tag was the date of his graduation and the     15    PAID IN FULL.

My best friend is Cocoa, and I live in a senior-citizen apartment. Cocoa is a ten-year-old dog and I am a sixty-nine-year-old lady, so you can see we both qualify as   1  citizens.
He is a   2  companion. He does many amusing things that make me   3 , and when that happens, he is so delighted   4  he just keeps it up.
But one afternoon, Cocoa started acting strangely. I was sitting on the floor playing with him,   5  he started pawing and smelling at the right side of my   6 . He had never done anything like this ever before, and I told him, “No.” To Cocoa, one “no” is usually   7 , but not that day. He stopped briefly, and then   8  ran toward me, throwing his entire weight at the right side of my chest. He crashed into me and I cried in   9 , falling down to the floor. Soon after this, I felt a lump (肿块). I went to my doctors, and after X-rays  10  and lab work were done, they told me I had cancer.
When cancer starts, a  11  of calcium (钙) builds. Then the lump or cancer attaches itself to this wall. When Cocoa jumped on me, the force of the impact broke the lump away from the wall. This made it possible for me to  12  the lump.
I had a complete mastectomy (乳房切除术) and the cancer has not   13  to any other part of my body. The doctors told me if the cancer had gone undetected even six more months, it would have been too   14 .
Was Cocoa  15  of just what he was doing? I’ll never really know. What I do know is that Cocoa not only shares his life with me, he has also made sure that I will be around to share my life with him!

Last Christmas while staying with my parents, I 36 across some old love letters that my parents wrote to
each other. these letters were all piled up in a basket, dirty and 37 with dust. 38 to read and sort them, I asked
them if I could take the letters back to my Illinois home. They agreed.
As I carefully opened each letter, all of them 39 with age, I discovered a new page 40 unknown to me in
this private chapter of my parents’ lives.
My father used to   41 in the army. So his letters were full of frontline(前线) 42 of the things about the war.
Each of my mother’s letters was marked with her 1944 dark red lipstick(口红) kiss. I was  43 to these letters
like a magnet(磁铁).
Just six weeks after our Christmas visit, Daddy became very 44 and was hospitalized(住院). This time, he
was fighting a 45 kind of war. As I sat by his bedside, we discussed the  46 . He told me how much receiving
those lipstick-kissed letters had 47 to him when he had been so far from home.
It so happened that the next day would be February 14. From the  48 letters I chose the card my father had
sent mother in 1944 and brought it to my father’s bedside.
At his bedside, I joked with him, saying  49 .“Today is Valentine’s Day, don’t you want to sent Mother a
present?” He became more 50 when I handed him the old 51 . He carefully opened it and took out the card,
and when he 52 it, his eyes were filled with tears.
My father, in a voice tight with 53 read the loving 54 he’d sent to my mother fifty-six years earlier. And
this time, he could read it to her  55 .

My first job was at a local restaurant, where I worked for seven years and learned so many lessons, especially from a fellow   36 .
Helen was in her 30s and had extraordinary（非凡的） self-confidence, something I was really  37 . I looked up to Helen  38  she was doing what she loved—  39 people better. She always made everyone, customers and co-workers（同事）  40 and feel good.
Being a waitress changed my life. One of my  41 customers was Fred Hasbrook. He always ate an omelet, and when I saw him _42 , I tried to have it on his table as soon as he sat down.
Thanks to the new found confidence I  43 __from Helen, I dreamed of having my own  __44 . But when I called my parents to ask for a loan（贷款）, they said, “We just don’t have the money.”
The next day, Fred saw me and asked, “What’s   45  ? You’re not smiling today.” I  46__my dream with him and said, “Fred, I know I can do more if somebody  47 just have faith in(信任）me.”
Before long he handed me checks  48 __$50,000—along with a note that I have to this day. It reads, “The only collateral（抵押品）on this loan is my trust in your  49 as a person. Good people with a dream should have   50  __to make that dream come true.”
I took the checks to Merrill Lynch, where the money was provided for me. I  51 working at the restaurant, making  52 for the restaurant I would open. My plans soured（破灭）, and I lost the  53 .
Later I decided to apply for a job at Merill Lynch. Even though I had no experience, I was__54 and ended up becoming a pretty good agent.   55 ，I paid back Fred the $50,000, plus 14-percent annual interest. Five years later, I was able to open my own firm.