【推荐1】A little boy always thought of himself as the most unfortunate child in the world because polio (小儿麻痹症) made his leg lame and his teeth uneven. He seldom played with his classmates; when the teacher asked him to answer questions, he always lowered his head without a word.

One spring, the boy’s father asked for some seeds from the neighbor. He wanted to plant them in front of the house. He told his children to plant a seed each. The father said to them, “Whose seed grows best, I will buy him or her a gift.” The boy also wanted to get his father’s gift, but seeing his brothers and sisters watering the trees joyfully, anyhow, he hit upon an idea: he hoped the tree he planted would die soon. So watering it once or twice, he never attended to it.

A few days later, when the little boy went to see his tree again, he was surprised to find it not only didn’t become weak, but also grew some fresh leaves, and compared with the trees of his brothers and sisters, his tree appeared greener and more vital. His father kept his promise, bought the little boy his favorite gift and said to him, “From the tree you planted, you would become an outstanding botanist (植物学家) when you grew up.”

Since then, the little boy gradually became optimistic. One day, the little boy lay on the bed but couldn’t sleep. Looking at the bright moonlight outside the window, he suddenly recalled what the biology teacher once said, plants generally grow at night. Why not go to see the tree? When he came to the courtyard on tiptoe, he found his father was splashing something under his tree with a large spoon. All of a sudden, he understood: his father had been secretly fertilizing his small tree! He returned to his room, tears running down his face. Even if it is just a spoon of clear water, it can make the tree of life thrive.

1. It can be learned from paragraphs 1-2 that the little boy ______ .

A．was ambitious in spite of his disability

B．was disabled and therefore less confident

C．showed no interest in plants and quit watering the tree

D．felt lonely and unlucky due to the prejudice against him

2. Why did father help the little boy in the competition?

A．He intended to offer him a gift.

B．He believed that he is gifted in botany.

C．He attempted to give him more encouragement.

D．He wanted to help him adapt to his disability.

3. Which of the following might be the best title for the text?

A．The Best Nutrition of Life

B．A Precious Gift from Father

C．An Unforgettable Competition in Life

D．The Most Powerful Support for the Disabled

【推荐2】The old man fished alone in a small rowboat and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s patents had told him that the old man was now bad luck, and ordered the boy to join another boat, which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his boat empty and he always went down to help him carry in the fishing lines or take down the old, patched sail.
“Santiago,” the boy said to him as they dragged up the boat to the sand. “I could go with you again. I’ve made some money.” the old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him. “No,” the old man said. “You’re with a lucky boat. Stay with them. You must obey your father.” “We can be lucky again too. Remember when we didn’t catch a fish for 10 days, then caught a big one each day for a month?” said the boy. “Can I offer you a beer on the balcony and then we’ll take the stuff home,” said the boy. “Why not?” the old man said.
“Santiago,” the boy said as they sat on the balcony, “If I cannot fish with you, I would like to serve in some way.” “You bought me a beer,” the old man said, lifting the bottle to his mouth. “Do you remember the first time I took you out to fish?” the old man asked. “I was five. I remember the tail of a huge fish slapping against the boat, the noise of you clubbing him and the sweet blood smell. I remember everything from when we first went together,” the boy said. The old man looked at him with his sun-burned, loving eyes.
“May I get some sardines for tomorrow? Let me get four fresh ones,” said the boy. “One,” the old man said. His hope and his confidence had never gone. But now they were freshening like a sea breeze. “Two,” the boy said. “Thank you,” the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained modesty. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride. “Tomorrow is going to be a good day with this wind,” he said. “I will row far out before it is light. There will going to be a good day with this wind,” he said. “I will row far out before it is light. There will be a big fish?” asked the boy. “I think so. And I know many tricks.”
1. Why was the boy forced to stop working for the old man?

A．It was too dangerous to continue fishing.

B．It was time for the boy to return to school.

C．The old man was thought to be a poor teacher.

D．The boy couldn’t earn enough money with the old man.

2. In paragraph 2, the boy probably mentioned their past fishing experiences in order to
__________.

A．convince the old man that he should not retire

B．explain why he had to stop working for the old man

C．persuade the old man to let him return as his assistant

D．warn the old man about the danger of fishing in the deep sea

3. Which of the following did the boy NOT do for the old man?

A．Buy him a beer.	B．Repair the sail.
C．Drag up the boat.	D．Take in the fishing equipment.

4. What can we lean about the old man from the last paragraph?

A．He remained optimistic about catching fish.

B．He was the most skillful fisherman in the village.

C．He would stay out longer than any other fisherman.

D．He would usually go out further than any other boat.

【推荐1】Evelyn Glennie is a unique musician. She is a percussionist (打击乐手) who plays with classical orchestras. When she performs, she hits the gongs, snare drums, vibraphones, timbales, cymbals, conga drums, bells, and bass drums that are in front of her. Although classical musicians usually wear formal clothes in concert, Glennie performs in bare feet. What really sets her apart, though, is that she is a musician who can not hear. Glennie has been almost totally deaf since she was 12 years old. Despite being deaf, she has become the first solo star to play her type of percussion instruments in classical music.

Glennie was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. At the age of eight, she started taking piano lessons. She found that she preferred the drums, so she began to concentrate on other percussion instruments. Her doctors were never able to find out why she started to lose her hearing. By the time Glennie was 12, most of her hearing was gone. Glennie stayed in her school and learned to read lips. She also continued her music lessons. She learned how to play percussion instruments by using her sense of touch. She learned to feel the difference between high and low notes. She became very sensitive to the vibrations created by different sounds. Glennie took off her shoes to make it easier for her to feel the vibrations made by her instruments.

Glennie was very talented. At 16 she was accepted to the Royal Academy of Music in London, England. She was the music school’s first solo percussion student, graduating when she was 19. To build her career, she performed anywhere she could. There was very little solo music written for her instruments, so she asked for percussion music to be written for her. She then performed the new pieces in her solo concerts. Glennie attracted attention by performing in radio and television concerts. One 1988 concert was recorded live and made into a CD. This recording earned Glennie her first Grammy Award for a classical music performance.

Today Glennie performs all around the world. In addition to classical orchestras, she plays with folk musicians and rock stars. She has written music for movies, television shows, and commercials. Every year more new compositions are written for Glennie to perform. She has even taken up a new instrument: the bagpipes. Glennie considers herself a pioneer in music, not because she is deaf but because she has become a solo percussion star in classical music.

1. What can we infer from the passage?

A．Glennie wears formal clothes when she performs.

B．Glennie was talented in music.

C．Glennie entered the Royal Academy of Music when she was only 12 years old.

D．Glennie hates to play with other musicians.

2. What makes Glennie so different from other musicians?

A．She can performs kinds of musicial instruments

B．She liked taking off her shoes when she performed.

C．She is a musician who can’t hear.

D．She is a pioneer in music.

3. In the future, Glennie will most likely________.

A．always perform with other musicians in concert	B．quit playing classical music in concert
C．learn to play other musical instruments	D．focus on studying the piano again

4. Which is the best summary of the passage?

A．Deaf as she is, Evelyn Glennie is an award-winning solo percussionist who performs mainly classical music.

B．When Evelyn Glennie found that there was little music written for solo percussionists, she didn’t give up

C．Although classical musicians usually wear formal clothes in concert, Evelyn Glennie performs barefoot.

D．Evelyn Glennie lost her hearing at a young age, and doctors were never able to find out why.

【推荐3】The haunting paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck, on show in the final leg of a travelling tour that has already attracted thousands of visitors in Hamburg and the Hague, may come as a surprise to many. Few outside the Nordic(北欧的) world would recognize the works of this Finnish artist who died in 1946. More people should. The 120 works have at their core 20 self-portraits, half the number she painted in all. The first, dated 1880, is of a wide-eyed teenager eager to absorb everything. The last is a sighting of the artist's ghost-to-be.

Prematurely gifted, Schjerfbeck was 11 when she entered the Finnish Art Society's drawing school. “The Wounded Warrior in the Snow”, a history painting, was bought by a private collector and won her a state travel grant when she was 17. Schjerfbeck studied in Paris, went on to Pont-Aven, Brittany, where she painted for a year, then to Tuscany, Cornwall and St Petersburg. During her 1887 visit to St Ives, Cornwall, Schjerfbeck painted “The Convalescent”. A child wrapped in a blanket sits supported up in a large wicker(柳条编制的) chair, toying with a sprig(小枝条). The picture won a bronze medal at the 1889 Paris World Fair and was bought by the Finnish Art Society. To a modern eye it seems almost sentimental(感伤的) and is made up for only by the somewhat astonished, sad expression on the child's face, which may have been inspired by Schjerfbeck's early experiences. At four, she fell down a flight of steps and never fully recovered.

In 1890, Schjerfbeck settled in Finland. Teaching exhausted her, she did not like the works of other local painters, and she was further isolated when she took on the care of her mother. “If I allow myself the freedom to live an isolated life”, she wrote, “then it is because it has to be that way.” In 1902, Schjerfbeck and her mother settled in the small, industrial town of Hyvinkaa, 50 kilometres north of Helsinki. Isolation had one desired effect for it was there that Schjerfbeck became a modern painter. She produced still lives and landscapes but above all moody yet sharp portraits of her mother, local school girls, women workers in town.

“I have always searched for the dense depths of the soul, which have not yet been discovered by humans themselves”, she wrote, “where everything is still unconscious -- there one can make the greatest discoveries.” She experimented with different kinds of underpainting, scraped and rubbed, made bright rosy red spots; doing whatever had to be done to capture the subconscious — her own and that of her models. In 1913, Schjerfbeck was rediscovered by an art dealer and journalist, Gosta Stenman. Once again she was a success.

1. Schjerfbeck’s paintings may come as a surprise to many because ________.

A．her paintings are rarely known outside the Nordic world

B．her paintings have never been on show out of the Nordic world

C．her paintings have the power to haunt people whoever have seen them

D．her paintings focus on supernatural elements such as ghosts

2. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．"The Convalescent" is in fact a portrait of Schjerbeck in her childhood.

B．"The Convalescent" is a reflection of Schejerbeck’s sentimental childhood.

C．"The Convalescent" is made as a result of an accident in Schejerbeck’s childhood.

D．"The Convalescent" is featured by the child’s astonished, sorrowful expression.

3. Schejerbeck chose to live an isolated life mainly because of ________.

A．she was exhausted by her teaching job

B．her personality prefers this kind of style

C．she could not appreciate the work of the other local painters

D．her mother’s health condition required her to adopt such a life style.

4. We can infer from the passage that the most outstanding characteristics of Schjerfbeck’s paintings is ________.

A．her vivid characterization of common people

B．her capture of the characters’ soul

C．the sorrowful expression of the characters

D．her unconscious sense of some mysterious elements