1 . When the author opens his memoir with a scene of his mother pushing him from a moving vehicle, you know you’re in for a fascinating read. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, who is now a daily show host, is an autobiography about Trevor’s life in Africa.

Trevor, the son of a Xhosa (科萨人) mother and a Swiss-German father, was born a crime as it was illegal for different races to marry and have children in Africa. Growing up biracial in the post-apartheid era (后种族隔离时代), his mother is an influential partner at every step along his journey. She worked diligently to stay out of poverty and keep Noah in good schools. Trevor’s mom stressed independence and free thought as well as all the values of Judaism (犹太教). Even before they knew apartheid would end, she wanted him to live freely. She took him to places that black South Africans considered “white things,” like ice rinks and the suburbs, because even if he never left the ghetto (贫民区), he would know that the ghetto was not the world. It was her mother’s aim to keep him from internalizing his oppression, and to convince him that he was greater than social labels. His mom would take him to the library and museums, and local college campuses. For his mother, being a black woman didn’t mean he couldn’t achieve greatness. She gave him permission to dream beyond his circumstances.

In Trevor’s whole early life, being mixed-race, he often wasn’t allowed to go outside during apartheid because the police could have taken him away; he couldn’t be seen with his parents and his mother had to pretend to be his maid when they were in public. So, Trevor had to have his mother’s friends pose as his mother. Trevor struggled to fit in at school as he didn’t know which group to play with. Later in high school, Trevor had to start a lunch delivery business to move up and be accepted by his fellow classmates. After high school, he started getting into comedy in 2002 and has been on TV ever since. Trevor had a rough, but loving relationship with his mother as he was always getting in trouble. Trevor didn’t see his dad much and could only meet in secret. In the end, Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author’s remarkable mother. Noah writes: “I understood even from an early age that we weren’t just mother and son. We were a team.”

Born a Crime tells a really personal and yet universal story in many respects. It is undoubtedly a life-changing story which is powerful, honest, funny and dark at the same time, still it never turns to despair, self-pity or hopelessness. It’s a story of survival against the odds and the human ability to transcend the limits of their origin. At the end of the book, he explains this miracle that happened to his mother, where she survives a bullet to the head. These stories uncover new feelings towards loved-ones, and may influence you to sincerely reconsider connections to your family and their priorities.

Getting rich     1     (regard) as a symbol of success by many people, who spend a lot of time dreaming up ways of achieving their goals. But Jason Harley, who once was a millionaire, turned his back on his millions and gave all his money away. Although he lives in a small dormitory room with only second-hand furniture, he is satisfied and     2     (appreciate) this change. He used to feel guilty being a rich man when millions of people died of hunger each year. After donating all his money and     3     (drop) out of the old kind of lifestyle, he felt a sense of achievement.

3 . My father was a close friend of Albert Einstein. As a boy and then as an adult, I never lost my wonder at the personality that was Einstein. He was the only person I knew who had come to terms with （安于现状）himself and the world around him. He knew what he wanted and he wanted only this: to understand within his limits as a human being the nature of the universe and the logic and simplicity in its functioning. He knew there were answers beyond his understanding. But this did not frustrate him. He was pleased to go as far as he could.

In the 23 years of our friendship, I never saw him show jealousy, vanity, bitterness, anger, resentment, or personal ambition. He didn't seem to be affected by these emotions. He was beyond any pretension （做作）.

To do his work he needed only a pencil only a pencil and a pad of paper. Matenal things meant nothing to him. I never knew him to carry money because he never had any use for it. He believed in simplicity, so much so that he used only a safety razor （剃刀）and water to shave. When I suggested that he try shaving cream, he said, "The razor and water do the job. "

"But Professor, why don’t you try the cream （膏状物）just once? " I argued. "Il makes shaving smoother and less painful".

He shrugged. Finally, I presented him with a tube of shaving cream. The next morning when he came down to breakfast, he was cheerful with the pleasure of a new, great discovery. "You know, that cream really works," he announced. "It doesn't pull the beard. It feels wonderful. n Thereafter, he used the shaving cream every morning until the tube was empty. Then he returned to using plain water.

Einstein was purely a theorist. He didn't have the slightest interest in the practical application of his ideas and theories. His E=mc2 is probably the most famous equation in history - yet Einstein wouldn't walk down the street to see a reactor（反应堆）create atomic energy.

One puzzle that Einstein could never understand was his own fame. He had developed theories that were profound and capable of exciting relatively few scientists. Yet his name was a household word across the civilized world. "I’ve had good ideas, and so have other men, " he once said. "But it's been my good fortune that my ideas have been accepted". He was bewildered by his fame: people wanted to meet him; strangers stared at him on the street； scientists, statesmen, students, and housewives wrote him letters. He never could understand why he received this attention, why he was singled out as something special.

Many of us listen to music while we work,     1     (think) that it will help us to concentrate on the task at hand. And in fact, recent research     2     (find) that music can have beneficial effects on creativity.     3     it comes to other areas of performance, however, the impact of background music is more complicated.

Rowan Atkinson is the actor     4     plays Mr. Bean. In Britain, Mr. Atkinson is quite famous for many other wonderful characters. His career change from an electrical engineer to a famous comedian was     5     (part) due to some speaking problems he had in his childhood. He compensated for this by talking very deliberately. This may have inspired the     6     (normal) speech patterns of many of his characters.

Traditions and fashions change and adapt with time, so it is     7     (reason) that our ideas of beauty change as well. In 19th-century Europe, women     8     (use) to wear corsets to achieve a body shape that is no longer considered healthy. Men would wear woolen shawls     9     their shoulders.     10     is hard to imagine that they would be seen as attractive in the 21st century.

5 . Mother Teresa was born in Albania. She received her spiritual（精神的）training in Ireland and Darjeeling, India. She taught for 20 years in Saint Mary's High School in India. She loved the country so much that she became a citizen of India in 1984. She began her work in India by teaching the children in the streets how to read. In I946 she decided to serve the poorest of the poor who lived in the streets. In 1950. Mother Teresa also began to care for lepers（麻风病患者）. In 1965, Pope Paul VI allowed Mother Teresa to open centers almost everywhere around the world to help lepers, the elderly, the blind, and people with AIDS. Mother Teresa also opened schools and homes for the poor. Her work was a message of love. It shows that a true belief always appears with action. It also shows that love in action is service. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, but she accepted it on behalf of the “poorest of the poor”. In August 1997, she ended her services and moved on, perhaps to another world. She will always be remembered by all of us for ale of her hard work.

Venus and Serena Williams’ road    1    success has been amazing. The first time Venus played in a big event was in 1996. Since then, she    2     (win) Wimbledon and the US Open twice. Serena has continued to improve and make fantastic progress. Has tennis ever caused problems between the sisters?     3     (unfortunate), no.“We have played each other before and it hasn’t worried us yet!”