At the end of the year everyone should think what has been ____ and what is left undone.

A. abandoned B. accumulated C. acknowledged D. accomplished

After studying English, maths and geography for two years, 17-year-old Henry is about to face his final A-level (Advanced level) exams. They will start at the end of  26  and continue into June. Everyone has said they are the  27  exams he'll ever have to take .

He's been  28  a place to study geography at Manchester University — if he gets an A and two Bs. If he doesn't get the grades , he will go to his second   29  in London, which has _30_  asked for a B and two Cs.

About five months before, he visited lots of universities and  31  six to apply to. His teachers sent these universities his grades  32  on his mock exams (模拟考试), and a report of his _33_ . He wrote a 500-word  _34  statement saying why he should be  35  to each place. Two universities called him in for an  36 . Three others offered him a place straight away. And two refused him. He  37  chose his two top places.

A few months after his exams, Henry's  38  arrive. He hasn't  39  well. He got three Cs and neither of his two choices  40_ him.

All is not lost,  41  . He gets on the phone and calls every  42  he can think of. _43_ they have any spare places, he  44  them to give him a place. Finally, he is offered a place to study computing in Wales. It wasn't what he planned to study,  _45_  where he had wanted to go. But he doesn't care. He has achieved his goal — he is going to university.

26.   A. February      B. March         C. May       D. April

27.   A. longest         B. shortest    C. easiest         D. hardest

28.   A. ordered        B. offered         C. taken            D. longing for

29.   A. school     B. club         C. department       D. choice

30.   A. only         B. hardly             C. nearly          D. almost

31.   A. chose       B. made       C. attended    D. prepared

32.   A. based       B. depended     C. fixed          D. checked

33.   A. grades    B. school       C. manners   D. character

34.   A. secret   B. important         C. personal  D. immediate

35.   A. applied         B. accepted   C. admitted D. received

36.   A. exam        B. agreement        C. education       D. interview

37.   A. strangely       B. curiously        C. finally         D. regretfully

38.   A. letters    B. answers       C. invitations D. results

39.   A. studied          B. got            C. done     D. taken

40.   A. took          B. might take        C. will take  D. had taken

41.   A. therefore       B. finally     C. after all         D. however

42.   A. teacher          B. friend         C. university D. school

43.   A. While     B. As      C. If              D. Though

44.   A. tells          B. begs           C. requires          D. advises

45.   A. nor           B. but      C. and             D. either

After my brother died in an accident, my mother was in deep sadness. I was only a four-year-old girl at the time, but I still understood the sudden shift in my mom’s attitude towards safety. Suddenly everything around us was potentially dangerous. Overnight, the world had gone from a playground to a dangerous zone. I grew up with a lot of limits and rules. I couldn’t walk home from school by myself, even though everyone I knew already did. I couldn’t go to summer camp because what if something happened to me?
As I got older, the list of things of fear got longer. My whole life was divided into “things you should avoid”, and “things you needed to do in order to have a good, long life.” I became a natural worrier. I worry about things like getting cancer, losing my wallet, car accidents, earthquakes, and losing my job — disasters big and small, real and imagined.
The funny part is that you’d never know it by looking at my life. In fact, I’ve developed a rule for myself: If it scares me, then I have to do it at least once. I’ve done lots of things that my mom would have worried about: I’ve ridden a motorcycle; I’ve traveled —a lot. I’ve performed stand-up comedy, and I’m planning my second wedding.
There’s something else I don’t usually talk about, but it’s a cornerstone in my belief: When I was 14, my mother died suddenly in a car accident. At my mom’s funeral I remember making a choice. I could either live out the rest of my life trying to be “safe” or I could be brave enough to live out a fulfilling, exciting and, yes, sometimes dangerous life.
I worry that I may have betrayed(背叛) my mother by writing her in this light, but she has been a driving force in my life and, in the end I think she would have been proud of me. Courage isn’t a natural character of human beings. I believe that using courage is like developing a muscle. The more often I do things that scare me or that make me uncomfortable, the more I realize that I can do a lot more than I originally thought I could do.
Even though I inherited (继承) my mother’s cautious nature. I’ve also come to believe that fear can be a good thing, if we face it. Believing that has made my world a less scary place.
【小题1】In the writer’s childhood, the limits and rules were used to ______.