Many have had the same thought as Shannon St. Onge when looking at the approach of snow on a weather forecast—that they have time to finish their jobs. As the director of finance at the First Nations University of Canada, she had to drive 25 kilometers from her home to the city of Regina to attend an important meeting.
As she was leaving, the winter snow began to fall. Taking a dirt road for better traction (牵引) on her tires, she quickly became lost, with no ability to see the edge of the road from a rolled-down window. After a while she stopped and called 911.
“The operator took my information and told me to wait out the storm as my tank was full and I was warm. I waited almost 14 hours and nobody has called me yet to check in,” she wrote in a Face-book post.
“Would the gas tank last until morning? What if I was hit by another vehicle? What if I didn’t make it home at all?” St. Onge wondered.
Determined to ensure the safest end, she went out in the storm and discovered her location on a road sign, and then found a neighborhood Facebook group for the area she was passing through—warning others of her plight through a Google Maps pin.
That was when 80-year-old Andre Bouvier Sr., a retired rescuer, got a call about St. Onge’s situation. He went out to find her, on foot, since he couldn’t manage to start his tractor.
On the way he found three other stranded (被困) vehicles. He walked the quarter mile there and back, and led the helpless cars one by one to his home. Bouvier let the survivors sleep at his house, where they ate and laughed, and departed the next morning after he had cleaned the driveway.
1. Why did St. Onge take a dirt road?| A．She was familiar with it. | B．She could refuel on the road. |
| C．She took the dirt road to save time. | D．She thought dirt road could increase traction. |
| A．Wait out the storm. | B．Find a warm place. |
| C．Ask Bouvier for help. | D．Write her condition in a Facebook post. |
| A．Wrong turn. | B．Poor sense of direction. |
| C．Difficult situation. | D．Bad weather. |
| A．Patient and gifted. | B．Brave and selfless. |
| C．Proud and determined. | D．Adventurous and ambitious. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】One day, I was sitting in a local coffee shop, and staring at this man in a wheelchair. He could move his head and parts of his fingers but nothing else. He had a servant who cut up his food and placed it on a special mechanically powered fork that he would use to eat.
He saw me staring at him and invited me to join him at his table. His name was Stephen. For several hours we sat at that table and we got to know each other on a deeply personal level. I had never known a man who was more radiant (容光焕发), more energizing to talk and get to know than Stephen.
Stephen used to be a very successful businessman in Denver. He was in the natural gas business. Thirteen years before, when he was forty, he was waiting for news of a natural gas discovery to occur any moment.
He said, “I had so much nervous energy. I saw the storm clouds gathering, and I decided to clean out the gutters (檐沟）rather than sitting around waiting for this gas well to come in.”
He climbed up the ladder to clear the piles of pine needles on the roof. As he backed up, he accidentally fell off the roof. He landed on his back. He was paralyzed (瘫痪) for the rest of his life, except for his head and his hand.
I asked him, “How do you do it all? How do you suddenly stop hiking, fishing, and running marathons?”
He said, “There are three things you have to do when something like this happens. The first thing you have to do is adjust. The second thing you do is adjust. And the third thing you do is adjust.”
He said, “By adjusting to your abilities, Bill, you have to change your self-expectations. If you can’t be a physical athlete any longer, then perhaps you can be a spiritual athlete.” He was.
1. The author noticed Stephen at the coffee shop because________.| A．he cut up his food | B．he ate in a special way |
| C．he was staring at the author | D．he looked very energetic |
| A．He accepted himself as he was. | B．He turned to the author for help. |
| C．He gave up exercising regularly. | D．He made new friends everywhere. |
| A．humorous and sensitive | B．sympathetic and caring |
| C．faithful and easygoing | D．optimistic and open-minded |
【推荐2】British teen Kitty Tait wakes up at 5 am every day to bake bread, but it’s not just any old bread. The young girl who runs the Orange Bakery in her home town, with her dad Alex, adds a little humor to her bakes.
“If something is fun to eat, it makes it even tastier!” the teen baking star, who overcame depression after discovering the art of bread making, said. It was watching her dad make a simple loaf of white bread that changed her life forever. “Something that was so unpromising — a bit like how my brain felt at the time — had turned into something so magical,” she recalls.
Soon, Kitty was baking loaves for her neighbors. And before she knew it, there was a subscription service followed by a pop-up in her neighbor’s garage where she sold almost 100 loaves of bread and doughnuts (甜甜圈) in half an hour. “At that moment, I realized that this was what I wanted to do with my life,” she says.
A few months later, after raising enough money through crowdfunding,the teen rented a small retail space in town and her dad quit his job to become her business partner. They’ve been running the Orange Bakery ever since, selling everything from Marmite and cheese swirls to Danish pastries.
“I’m just really excited about people eating good bread, whether it is made by themselves or bought from a bakery,” says Kitty. “My main mission is to make bread inclusive and joyful because I have found so much joy in it.”
Today, the Taits are part of the global baking community, running baking classes at local schools.
1. What can we learn about Kitty before her picking up baking?| A．She worked part-time at a bakery. |
| B．She suffered from a mental illness. |
| C．She turned something magical into reality. |
| D．She learned baking from her mom and neighbors. |
| A．Popular. |
| B．Graceful. |
| C．Updated. |
| D．Ordinary. |
| A．He had ever been a good teacher. |
| B．He bought the Orange Bakery for Kitty. |
| C．He made a contribution to Kitty's cause. |
| D．He had ever done foreign trade in a company. |
| A．Making baking a fun thing. |
| B．Earning as much as possible. |
| C．Running joyful baking classes. |
| D．Thinking up better ways of baking. |
【推荐3】‘Come on slow coach! Hurry up!’ I (Emily) called excitedly. Grace walked over the cart and kneeled down beside me. ‘Are you ready?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ said Grace.
Carefully I untied the string around the package. Then, together we pulled the sacks (麻布袋) off. There wasn’t a dead body inside There was just a roll of cloth. And we both recognized the cloth. It was from Salts Mill.
‘They’re stealing cloth from the mill,’ I said shocked.
‘We have to tell someone.’ said Grace.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but not yet. We’ll come back tonight. We’ll see who they meet.’
‘I don’t want to come back tonight,’ said Grace.
‘Then I’ll come by myself, I said I wasn’t afraid of the dark.
When you worked in a mill, you were afraid of the machines and you were afraid of the overlooker (监工). They were far more terrifying than the darkness. I loved the silence of night-time. And in fact, I loved the darkness because with the darkness came the end of the working day.
So that night, I walked back to the canal alone. It was a clear night and I could see the stars. I hid in some bushes near the cart, and waited. I didn’t have to wait for long. First, the man with red hair came. He stood by the old cart and coughed, a horrible chesty cough that broke the silence of the night. Then along came another man. I recognized him and my heart sank. It was Grace’s father.
‘Poor Grace,’ I thought. ‘I can’t tell anyone about this. Grace’s father will go to prison. The family will lose their house. Grace will lose her job. They’ll have no money and no home. They’ll die.’
I looked into the darkness for an answer. ‘I have to tell someone,’ I thought. And there was only one person I could tell. There was only one person I could trust. That was James, James’ father was an important overlooker. ‘The overlooker won’t believe me. But maybe he’ll believe his son James loves me. He’ll listen to me.’
1. Why didn’t Grace want to come back that night?| A．Because she was a person who was afraid of darkness. |
| B．Because her slowness would have an effect on Emily’s plan. |
| C．Because she hated Emily due to Emily laughing at her slowness. |
| D．Because she had known her father’s participation in stealing cloth. |
| A．She could enjoy the silence that nights brought. |
| B．She could prove that she was braver than Grace. |
| C．She could have free time to relax herself after work. |
| D．She could break away from the overlooker and machines. |
| A．the red-haired man was not in good health |
| B．James’ father was the only person that Emily could believe in |
| C．Emily felt shocked to learn that another man was Graces’ father |
| D．the comments of the sacks contradicted what Emily and Grace had expected |
【推荐1】On Sunday, April 23, 2017, almost 50, 000 athletes took to the streets to compete in the 37th London Marathon. While few were able to get even close to Daniel Wanjiru's 2：05：48 winning time, none were as slow as Tom Harrison, who crawled (爬) to the finish line, six days later, on April 30.
However, the Metropolitan Police Officer, who was dressed in a gorilla (大猩猩) suit, had a good reason for his slowness. He had completed the 26.2 miles on all fours to raise funds to help gorilla conservation efforts in Africa. The 41-year-old who spent 8-10 hours on his hands and knees, covered about 4.5 miles each day before crashing at a friend's house for the night. To prevent his knees from blistering (起水泡), he switched between hands and knees into loping (大步走) along on hands and feet and took breaks every 100 to 200 meters. But the arduous crawl was well worth it.
Harrison, who crossed the finish line at 11：45 am, has raised over £37,000（$47,800）, far, more than his original goal of £1,790 ($2,300), for the Gorilla Organization, whose efforts are mainly spent in Rwanda, Uganda, and Democratic Republic of the Congo. The much-needed funds will help train the communities near gorilla habitats to support themselves and make them rely less on selling wildlife meat for a living. The money will also help pay for ranger services to monitor overhunting of the Great Apes. More importantly, Harrison hopes his six-day crawl will highlight the bad situation of the gorillas, whose numbers are decreasing at alarming rates, and encourage more people to help protect them.
While thrilled at the outcome, Harrison, Mr. Gorilla, is not done yet. He intends to continue his fundraising efforts at the annual Ride London cycling festival scheduled for the weekend of July 28-30, 2022.
1. Why did Tom Harrison crawl to the finish line?| A．To get close to Daniel Wanjiru. | B．To advertise for Metropolitan Police. |
| C．To collect money for the Gorilla Organization. | D．To win the title of the slowest Marathon runner. |
| A．Hard. | B．Funny. | C．Distinct. | D．Innovative. |
| A．The general aim of the Gorilla Organization. | B．The significance of Harrison's six-day crawl. |
| C．Harrison's fundraising efforts for gorilla conservation. | D．Harrison's contributions to the Gorilla Organization. |
【推荐2】A librarian in Indonesia’s Java island is lending books to children in exchange for trash they collect in a novel way to clean up the environment and get the kids to read more.
Each weekday Raden Roro Hendarti rides her three-wheeler with books stacked up at the back for children in Muntang village to exchange for plastic cups, bags and other waste that she carries back.
She told Reuters she is helping inculcate reading in the kids as well as make them aware of the environment. As soon as she shows up, little children, many accompanied by their mothers, surround her “Trash Library” and clamour for the books.
They are all carrying trash bags and Raden’s three-wheeler quickly fills up with them as the books fly out. She’s happy the kids are going to spend less time on online games as a result.
“Let us build a culture of literacy from young age to mitigate the harm of the online world,” Raden said. “We should also take care of our waste in order to fight climate change and to save the earth from trash,” Raden said.
She collects about 100 kg (220 lbs) of waste each week, which is then sorted out by her colleagues and sent for recycling or sold. She has a stock of 6,000 books to lend and wants to take the mobile service to neighbouring areas as well.
Kevin Alamsyah, an avid 11-year-old reader, scours for waste lying in the village.
“When there is too much trash, our environment will become dirty and it’s not healthy. That’s why I look for trash to borrow a book,” he says.
Jiah Palupi, the head of the main public library in the area, said Raden’s work complemented their efforts to combat online gaming addiction among the youth and promote reading.
The literacy rate for above-15-year-olds in Indonesia is around 96 percent, but a September report by the World Bank warned that the pandemic will leave more than 80% of 15-year-olds below the minimum reading proficiency level identified by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
1. What does the underlined word “inculcate” mean in the third paragraph?| A．Quit. | B．Refuse. | C．Inspire. | D．Force. |
| A．Enabling the children to read more. |
| B．Making the earth get rid of climate change. |
| C．Drawing the children’s attention to the environment. |
| D．Helping the children spend less time on online games. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Intolerant. | C．Doubtful. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Your trash for our books |
| B．Kids’ love for reading |
| C．The literacy rate in Indonesia |
| D．Pople’s opinions on “Trash Library” |
【推荐3】Recently whenever I turned on my computer or my mobile phone, news about the great effect of Hurricane Harvey on thousands of people caught my eye. I saw many unfortunate events. However, there were also the bright news that confirmed the goodness of mankind. As a journalist, I wrote many human-interest stories during my career. That's why the story about the guys in the bakery caught my eye.
When the staff at a Mexican bakery chain in Houston were trapped inside the building for two days, they didn't sit there feeling sorry for themselves. They used their time wisely after flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey. While they were waiting for the eventual rescue that came on Monday morning, four decided to make as many loaves of bread as possible for their community.
The flood water rose in the street outside. They took advantage of their emergency power supply to bake bread. They used more than 4,200 pounds of flour to create hundreds of loaves and sheets of sweet bread. Although the water kept rising, they continued baking to help more people. By the time the owner managed to get to them, they had made so much bread that they took the loaves to loads of emergency centers across the city for people affected by the floods.
The store manager, Brian Alvarado, told The Independent, “Whenever a disaster occurs, nobody should just feel desperate. Instead, we should take positive action to save ourselves and help others. Our acts of kindness will make a big difference.”
1. What did the bakery store workers do after flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey?| A．They volunteered to make bread for their community. |
| B．They managed to live by selling more bread in the store. |
| C．They felt sorry that they couldn't escape from the store. |
| D．They ate nothing but to wait for their community to rescue them. |
| A．Alvarado organized his workers to bake much bread. |
| B．Hurricane Harvey caused a power failure in Houston. |
| C．The staff in the bakery sent enough flour to emergency centers. |
| D．The author preferred to write stories about people facing disasters. |
| A．A Popular Mexican Bakery Chain in Houston |
| B．Wait for the Eventual Rescue in a Big Disaster |
| C．Bake Bread to Make a Difference in the Hurricane |
| D．Disasters Caused by Hurricane in Houston |
