After a 15-year ban on the sale of fireworks in Beijing, Kang Guoliang, 51, was able to start his old trade again yesterday．

As a salesman in Xinhui store in Dongcheng District, he is happy about the increasing number of buying fireworks wrapped in red paper — a color standing for happiness and good luck．

“Fireworks are available for the first time in town for more than a decade,” Kang said happily．“People will buy them．”

The store has 300 boxes of fireworks piled up and is open 24 hours at the moment．Residents are buying the fireworks and firecrackers for the upcoming Spring Festival, which falls on February 18．

Citywide, 2,116 registered stores and retailers, 585 in the centre and 1,600 on the outskirts are trading fireworks in the Chinese capital．Sales of fireworks within the Fifth Ring Road started yesterday and will last until March 4, Xinhua reported．Among the stores, 117 stores are permitted to operate 24 hours．About 600,000 boxes of firecrackers worth more than 100 million yuan have been carried to registered stores．

The Chinese capital began a ban in 1993 to reduce fireworks-related deaths and fires during the holiday season．Last September the ban was removed in response to residents’ fondness for fireworks when celebrating Spring Festival．

According to new rules, Beijing residents are allowed to set off fireworks within the Fifth Ring Road all day on Lunar New Year’s Eve and Lunar New Year’s day, from 7 a．m．to midnight every day from February 19 to March 4．

“Spring Festival without fireworks is not Spring Festival,” said Sheng Hefei, who was buying fireworks in the store．“It was fun to light the firecrackers when I was little,” he said．“The sound and view of fireworks make a real holiday．” However, not all residents welcome the return of firecrackers because of injuries, pollution and noise．“My child is scared of the sudden sound of firecrackers, and it is annoying to hear it all night long,” complained Lu Jun, a local resident．

（China Daily02/11/2008）

1.The passage is likely to belong to a（n）__________?

2.What’s the main idea of the passage?

3.We can learn from the passage that ____________．

4.What is the writer’s attitude towards the sales of fireworks in Beijing?

Pete Richards was the loneliest man in town on the day that little Jean Grace opened the door of his shop.

         Pete's grandfather had owned the shop until his death. Then the shop became Pete's. The front window was full of beautiful old things: jewelry of a hundred years ago, gold and silver boxes, carved figures from China and Japan and other nations.

         On this winter afternoon, a child stood there, her face close to the window. With large and serious eyes, she studied each piece in the window. Then, looking pleased, she stepped back from the window and went into the shop. Pete himself stood behind the counter. His eyes were cold as he looked at the small girl. “Please,” she began, “would you let me look at the pretty string of blue beads in the window?” Pete took the string of blue beads from the window. The beads were beautiful against his hand as he held the necklace up for her to see.

         “They are just right,” said the child as though she were alone with the beads. “Will you wrap them up in pretty paper for me, please? I've been looking for a really wonderful Christmas present for my sister.”

         “How much money do you have?” asked Pete.

         She put a handful of pennies on the counter. “This is all I have,” she explained simply. “I've been saving the money for my sister's present.”

         Pete looked at her, his eyes thoughtful. Then he carefully closed his hand over the price mark on the necklace so that she could not see it. How could he tell her the price? The happy look in her big blue eyes struck him like the pain of an old wound.

         “Just a minute,” he said and went to the back of the shop. “What's your name?” he called out. He was very busy about something.

         “Jean Grace,” answered the child.

         When Pete returned to the front of the shop, he held a package in his hand. It was wrapped in pretty Christmas paper.

         “There you are,” he said. “Don't lose it on the way home.”

         She smiled happily at him as she ran out of the door. Through the window he watched her go. He felt more alone than ever.

         Something about Jean Grace and her string of beads had made him feel once more the pain of his old grief. The child's hair was as yellow as the sunlight; her eyes were as blue as the sea. Once upon a time, Pete had loved a girl with hair of that same yellow and with eyes just as blue. And the necklace of blue stones had been meant for her.

         But one rainy night, a car had gone off the road and struck the girl. After she died, Pete felt that he had nothing left in the world except his grief. The blue eyes of Jean Grace brought him out of that world of self-pity and made him remember again all that he had lost. The pain of remembering was so great that Pete wanted to run away from the happy Christmas shoppers who came to look at his beautiful old things during the next ten days.

         When the last shopper had gone, late on Christmas Eve, the door opened and a young woman came in. Pete could not understand it, but he felt that he had seen her before. Her hair was sunlight yellow and her eyes were sea-blue. Without speaking, she put on the counter a package wrapped in pretty Christmas paper. When Pete opened the package, the string of blue beads lay again before him.

         “Did this come from your shop?” she asked.

         Pete looked at her with eyes no longer cold. “Yes, it did,” he said.

         “Are the stones real?”

         “Yes. They aren't the best turquoise(绿松石), but they are real.”

         “Can you remember to whom you sold them?”

         “She was a small girl. Her name was Jean. She wanted them for her sister's Christmas present.”

         “How much were they?”

         “I can't tell you that,” he said. “The seller never tells anyone else what a buyer pays.”

         “But Jean has never had more than a few pennies. How could she pay for them?”

         “She paid the biggest price one can ever pay,” he said.

         For a moment there was no sound in the little shop. Then somewhere in the city, church bells began to ring. It was midnight and the beginning of another Christmas Day.

         “But why did you do it?” the girl asked.

         Pete put the package into her hands.

         “There is no one else to whom I can give a Christmas present,” he said. “It is already Christmas morning. Will you let me take you to your home? I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas at your door.”

         And so, to the sound of many bells, Pete Richards and a girl whose name he had not yet learned walked out into the hope and happiness of a new Christmas Day.

1.When Pete saw Jean Grace, he was ______.

A. very enthusiastic, hoping for some business to be done

B. cold but he still served the young customer

C. cold, unwilling to serve the young customer

D. very warm to the young customer though he did not want to sell anything to her

2.Pete did not say the price of the necklace because ______.

A. the seller never tells anyone else what a buyer pays

B. he priced the necklace too high

C. he knew it would disappoint the girl

D. he didn't want to sell the necklace

3.The eyes of Jean Grace brought Pete out of his world of self-pity and he ______.

A. tried to forget the memory of his sweetheart

B. began to look at the world optimistically

C. remembered his lost love

D. no longer felt the pain in him

4.A young woman came into the shop because ______.

A. she was afraid that there might be some mistake

B. she thought that the stones she had bought were not real

C. she was not sure if she could get more stones like those

D. she did not like what she had once bought

5.By saying “She paid the biggest price one can ever pay,” Pete meant that Jean Grace     .

A. gave the most money for the necklace

B. gave all she had with her for the necklace

C. appreciated the value of the necklace

D. wanted to have the best thing in the shop

6. At the end of the story we see that Pete _____.

A. found another girl that he could trust

B. met someone who truly loved him

C. found a place to go at last

D. regained his ability to love

After a 15-year ban on the sale of fireworks in Beijing, Kang Guoliang, 51, was able to start his old trade again yesterday．
As a salesman in Xinhui store in Dongcheng District, he is happy about the increasing number of buying fireworks wrapped in red paper — a color standing for happiness and good luck．
“Fireworks are available for the first time in town for more than a decade,” Kang said happily．“People will buy them．”
The store has 300 boxes of fireworks piled up and is open 24 hours at the moment．Residents are buying the fireworks and firecrackers for the upcoming Spring Festival, which falls on February 18．
Citywide, 2,116 registered stores and retailers, 585 in the centre and 1,600 on the outskirts are trading fireworks in the Chinese capital．Sales of fireworks within the Fifth Ring Road started yesterday and will last until March 4, Xinhua reported．Among the stores, 117 stores are permitted to operate 24 hours．About 600,000 boxes of firecrackers worth more than 100 million yuan have been carried to registered stores．
The Chinese capital began a ban in 1993 to reduce fireworks-related deaths and fires during the holiday season．Last September the ban was removed in response to residents’ fondness for fireworks when celebrating Spring Festival．
According to new rules, Beijing residents are allowed to set off fireworks within the Fifth Ring Road all day on Lunar New Year’s Eve and Lunar New Year’s day, from 7 a．m．to midnight every day from February 19 to March 4．
“Spring Festival without fireworks is not Spring Festival,” said Sheng Hefei, who was buying fireworks in the store．“It was fun to light the firecrackers when I was little,” he said．“The sound and view of fireworks make a real holiday．” However, not all residents welcome the return of firecrackers because of injuries, pollution and noise．“My child is scared of the sudden sound of firecrackers, and it is annoying to hear it all night long,” complained Lu Jun, a local resident．
（China Daily02/11/2008）
【小题1】The passage is likely to belong to a（n）__________?

完形填空（共20小题：每小题1. 5分，满分30分）
阅读下面短文，从短文后所给的四个选项（A、B、C、D）中，选出最佳选项。
It was to be our second Christmas in Germany and we decided to avoid the naked tree problem the year before. We wrote to my father, and he  1 to purchase a tree for us in States. He would ship it to us in several smaller  2 .
Two days before Christmas we were in a   3 .All the boxes had arrived except for one. The tree trunk and stand were still  4 .We decided to wait one more day.
  5 , in Bremerhaven, a young mail clerk  6 a long thin box under a counter. He picked it up and saw the customs tag(标签)which  7 “artificial（人造的）Christmas tree trunk and stand”. He realized that someone in Mannheim would be  8 a tree for Christmas. He felt  9for them, but there wasn’t much he could do. There was no  10 on Christmas.
He put the package on the  11 shelf and headed for the coffee bar. The place was 12 and he ended up sharing a table. Two men were speaking and the clerk  13 that one of his companions at the table was stationed in Mannheim. He had just picked up the  14 he had shipped from the States and was driving back that afternoon. The clerk thought of the 15 and said to the man,“You could really  16 Santa for someone in Mannheim tonight if you’d like to.”He explained about the lost tree trunk and stand. The man agreed.
The following day, my husband was reaching for his coat  17 the doorbell rang. There stood a  18 holding a long thin carton, our tree trunk and stand. He explained about the clerk and the coffee bar meeting. We invited him in,  19 it was Christmas Eve and he left in a hurry.
The next day as we celebrated the Christmas with the beautiful tree, I whispered：“Bless those two strangers who  20 our Christmas with their kindness.”

第二节：完形填空(共20小题；每小题1.5分，满分30分)

阅读下面短文，从短文后所给各题的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项。

It was almost Christmas. We wrote to my father, asking him to  36  an artificial tree for us and   _37  it to us in several smaller boxes. Two days before Christmas we were in a  38  . All of the boxes that my father had sent us arrived except for the one with the tree  39 . We decided to wait one more day.

Meanwhile, in Bremerhaven, a young mail clerk  40  a box under a counter. He  41  that someone would be without a tree for Christmas. Although he was closing up and there was no  42_   on Christmas, he processed the mail and got it to Mannheim.

After putting the  43  on the proper shelf, he headed to the snack bar. The place was  44   and he ended up sharing a table. Two men were speaking and the clerk discovered that one of his  45  at the table was working in Mannheim. He said to the man, "You could  46  play Santa for someone in Mannheim tonight if you'd like to." The man  47  to deliver it and the two walked to the mail room to  48  the package.

At home in Mannheim, we were busily  49  to think up some way to put our tree together, but couldn't  50  a workable solution. We were ready to give up  51  the door bell rang. There stood a stranger holding a long  52  carton, our tree trunk. We invited him in,  53  it was Christmas Eve and he was  54  to get home to his own family.

The next day as we watched our little boy's eyes light up at the  55  of our beautiful tree, I whispered a little prayer: "Bless the stranger who brightened up our Christmas with his kindness."

36. A. sell              B. buy              C. deliver                 D. bring

37. A. send            B. pass                 C. carry                 D. take

38. A. surprise          B. hunger             C. pleasure                     D. panic

39. A. leaf            B. trunk                C. stand                 D. branch

40. A. watched        B. caught               C. spotted                D. broke

41. A. directed         B. whispered           C. realized                 D. confirmed

42. A. delivery         B. customer             C. money                 D. letter

43. A. present         B. tree              C. mail                           D. package

44. A. crowded         B. small             C. noisy                  D. normal

45. A. friends          B. colleagues           C. relatives               D. companions

46. A. really           B. confidently        C. kindly                 D. patiently

47. A. overcame       B. agreed              C. astonished             D. struggled

48. A. fetch              B. transform           C. post                       D. consult

49. A. solving          B. explaining          C. trying                 D. worrying

50. A. come across      B. come back to        C. come upon             D. come up with

51. A. while             B. when              C. as                        D. since

52. A. slim            B. beautiful           C. thick                 D. heavy

53. A. but               B. so                  C. because                D. or

54. A. in surprise       B. it, the, way         C. in a hurt7                    D. in lime

55. A. sight            B. back            C. corner                  D. scene