In my childhood, my mother spent her evening hours doing something for someone else. Sometimes she knitted(编织) hats for babies, and at other times, she cooked chicken soup for sick neighbors. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when one evening my mother announced she had undertaken a new project.
“I am going to telephone seniors,” said my mother. “Every night? But you don’t even know these people.” “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “What’s important is that I listen.” I was sixteen years old and couldn’t understand why my mother was willing to spend her evenings talking to strangers. She had friends and my two older sisters to call if she felt lonely. “They will talk your ear off. Some people didn’t even stop to catch breath,” I said.
My attitude didn’t stop my mother’s enthusiasm for the project. That evening, she settled on the sofa and dialed. For a while, I listened as she asked the woman on the other line about her day and what she had eaten for dinner. When she finished the call, I said, “Why do you care whether she had cookies or rice pudding for dessert?” My mother grasped one of my hands and gave it a slight squeeze. “I’m the only person she talked to today.”
It took me more than thirty years to fully understand the meaning of that statement. Now, as my mother is nearing eighty, I find myself thinking about those nightly calls she used to make. I am often the only person who telephones my mother, and sometimes I’m the only person she speaks to all day. I ask her what she cooked for dinner, but mostly I just listen as she describes a walk she took, or how her dog Lucky stole foods from the refrigerator. I realize that my mother’s calls were life lines that ensured housebound seniors remained connected to the world. Without her, their world would have been empty.
1. What is the mother’s purpose of calling the seniors?| A．To care about their life. | B．To know what they eat for dinner. |
| C．To make them feel less lonely. | D．To teach them how to make desserts. |
| A．They will talk all the time on the phone. |
| B．They will blame others’ wrong doings. |
| C．They will be tired of listening to others. |
| D．They will make you feel really satisfied. |
| A．The author started to telephone seniors as her mother. |
| B．The author realized the value of her mother’s efforts. |
| C．The author’s mother preferred to live alone. |
| D．The author’s mother remained connected to the world. |
| A．Call your parents often | B．Mother’s evenings |
| C．Mother’s new project | D．Nightly calls, lifeline calls |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】As I was busy working on my work plan in my bedroom, I could hear my four children playing upstairs. Suddenly, I heard the children running down the stairs and shouting， "Freddie, Freddie." I heard the word "window" and rushed outside, heart in mouth. My three﹣year old son Freddie was lying on his side on the ground. I cried for my husband Simon to dial 999 and within minutes the air ambulance arrived. They quickly took him in the helicopter (直升机). During the flight, Freddie was looking at me and I remembered thinking was a good sign， but then his eyes began to roll. As the doctors tried to stabilize (稳定) him, I couldn't believe what was happening.
When we arrived at the hospital in Portsmouth, there were some doctors and nurses waiting for us and they immediately set to work on Freddie. I was hopelessly wishing everything would be alright, but Freddie had broken his skull in two places and blood clots were forming in his brain. He needed operation, and only a doctor at another hospital in
Bristol could do it. This meant another helicopter ride, but we couldn't go with Freddie because there was no enough space. Simon and I drove the long 130 miles from our home in north Devon in silence. Neither of us dared say what we were thinking, "What if we get there and he's dead？" "Is he going to be brain-damaged？"
Freddie was just coming out of operation when we arrived. The surgeon said it had gone well. When I finally saw him, I hardly recognize my child-he was covered in tubes (管子) and there were wires coming out of his head.
On the third day, Simon went home to see our three girls and to pick up some clean clothes for us. While he was gone, the pressure in Freddie's brain suddenly increased. He was taken into operation room again and this time I fell apart. Luckily, the operation managed to stabilize Freddie. After almost a week, Freddie was finally woken up. When he opened his eyes, he looked at me. He didn't say anything, but I knew straight away that it was my old Freddie, and that he was going to be alright. Over the next two weeks, his recovery went well. After help with learning to swallow again and encouragement with speaking, he was soon playing with his Gruffalo cards and eating meals by himself.
I still don't know how the accident happened, but we got some idea from our girls. Clearly Freddie and Minnie had been sitting on the window ledge, and Freddie must have opened it to look out and fallen 20 feet onto the ground below.
The guilt (内疚) I feel is awful-for weeks I was full of "if onlys", and we put window locks everywhere. Six months later, although the accident seems a lifetime ago, it has changed me. I feel differently about life now. I've left my job to put my children first. I want to spend every minute with them.
1. Why did the author's son have to be moved to another hospital in Bristol？| A．Because no doctors were on duty in the first hospital that day. |
| B．Because the author wanted his son to stay in a hospital nearer her home. |
| C．Because no doctors in the first hospital knew the injuries to the author's son. |
| D．Because no doctors in the first hospital could do operation on the author's son. |
| A．was seriously injured |
| B．was filled with small pipes |
| C．was too pale to be recognized |
| D．was covered by a piece of cloth |
| A．the author's son finally opened his eyes. |
| B．the situation of the author's son suddenly worsened |
| C．the author's son was finally out of danger |
| D．the author's son did not need any more operation |
| A．Life is full of "if onlys". |
| B．Being a single mother is not easy. |
| C．Children are more important than work. |
| D．Accidents can happen to every kid. |
【推荐2】My old professor’s death sentence came in the summer of 1994. Doctors guessed he had two years left. Morrie knew it was less. But he had made a big decision, one he began to construct the day he came out of the doctor’s office with a sword hanging over his head. He would make death his final project. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be researched. Morrie would walk that final bridge between life and death, and record the trip.
The last class of my old professor’s life had only one student. I was the student. The class met on Tuesdays. The subject was “The Meaning of life”. It was taught from experience. No grades were given, but there were oral exams each week. You were expected to respond to questions, and you were expected to raise questions of your own. You were also required to perform physical tasks now and then, such as lifting the professor’s head to a comfortable spot on the pillow or placing his glasses on the bridge of his nose. Kissing him goodbye earned you extra credits. No books were required, yet many topics were covered, including love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and finally, death.
I look back sometimes at the person I was before I rediscovered my old professor. I want to talk to that person. I want to tell him to be more open, to pay attention when your loved ones are speaking, as if it were the last time you might hear them. None of us can undo what we’ve done, or relive a life already recorded. But if Morrie taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said goodbye.
1. What can be learned about Morrie from Paragraph 1?| A．He was sentenced to death by the court. |
| B．He decided to face death positively. |
| C．He left the doctor’s office with a sword. |
| D．He decided to travel and record the trip. |
| A．Many students attended it. |
| B．Kissing the teacher was required. |
| C．Different aspects of life were involved. |
| D．Grades were given after each oral exam. |
| A．The person “I” used to be. | B．A loved person. |
| C．The professor. | D．A student. |
| A．To introduce an unforgettable class. |
| B．To encourage people to accept death. |
| C．To stress a teacher’s great influence. |
| D．To educate readers to treat teachers sincerely. |
Although Gina couldn’t laugh and talk, we all knew that she just needed love and care. Our parents wanted to take Gina to a special place in Florida. There she could swim with dolphins. Gina was afraid of swimming with them because she had never been around dolphins before. We had also never traveled that far as a family. When we got to Florida, we saw where the dolphins lived. It was a place where kids with special needs like Gina could come and spend time. I thought it was going to be a vacation, but it wasn’t. Gina had to work hard every day for a week.
The trip was amazing. Gina laughed and clapped when she saw the dolphin. The dolphin splashed（溅起水花） when it saw Gina. They swam together all day. Gina was able to move her body more than she normally did at home. Mom and Dad were proud of Gina. I was , too.
1. We know from the text that Gina_________.
| A．experienced five operations in a month |
| B．got along well with other children |
| C．stayed in the hospital before three |
| D．was born with a heart disease |
| A．treat Gina for her illness. |
| B．have a family trip |
| C．see the dolphins |
| D．learn to swim |
| A．Excited | B．Frightened | C．Angry | D．Proud |
| A．Learning to walk is hard work |
| B．dolphins can treat many illnesses |
| C．families should travel together often |
| D．help sometimes comes in unusual forms |
【推荐1】Once upon a time, there was a small village in the center of a big forest. All the villagers were used to their robotic farm work and none of them had the imagination or the will (意愿) to try something new, except for one girl named Jo. Very few could read or write, and Jo was one of them.
One afternoon, when Jo was on one of her explorations in the forest, she came upon an abandoned cottage (废弃的小屋). Though she’d been warned to stay away from abandoned places, her curiosity got the best of her. She slid in and was amazed to find a room full of books! Jo’s excitement was huge when she realized she had found a hidden treasure.
She ran to tell the villagers everything, thinking that they would share her excitement but instead, she heard roars of laughter! Jo was confused by this reaction (反应) and a little hurt too, but she did not give up on her books.
She came to the cottage every day and got down to reading the books. For her, each page was an adventure with characters who challenged difficulties with their determination and who struggled for good. Knowing the power of stories in impressing on people the values of life, she decided to share the stories with the villagers, though she knew it would be a difficult journey. Making this her mission (使命), Jo started telling stories every day at her cottage.
In the beginning, only a few came to the readings. But word spread rapidly, causing more and more people to come, some of whom even traveled from far away to just listen to her stories. She also conducted workshops in which she taught people how to read and write. She was remembered and lived in her stories even after she was long gone.
1. What do the underlined words “got the best of” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Prevented. | B．Frightened. | C．Cheated. | D．Beat. |
| A．They already knew it. | B．They thought nothing of it. |
| C．It was related to something fun. | D．It was all Jo’s imagination. |
| A．Caring but confusing. | B．Honest and helpful. |
| C．Adventurous but careless. | D．Determined and influential. |
| A．The Discovery of a Hidden Treasure |
| B．Jo’s Journey: from Adventure to Education |
| C．The Power of Stories in Challenging Difficulties |
| D．Jo’s Adventure: Unearthing an Abandoned Cottage |
【推荐2】The strand bookstore is a New York Institution, and Fred Bass was a part of it almost from the moment he was born until the day he died. Every day, dozens of sellers arrive armed with piles of books, and every day thousands of buyers browse through the 18 miles of shelving, squeezing through narrow, dark aisles towered over by high, cramped shelves.
Film studios wanting a line of books for a backdrop rent them from the Strand by the foot; interior designers looking for books with the same color spine will order a job lot; and hosts wishing to impress dinner guests will order the latest tomes(巨著) to replace on their coffee tables. Some even might be read.
“You never know what someone is going to walk in with，” Bass told The Villager magazine in 2010, adding that there was nothing he loved more than the “treasure hunt”. Many books came from critics keen to add to their income by offloading review copies. Others came from large estates, fellow bookshops and even publishers quietly offloading surplus(过剩的) stock. One visitor spoke of Bass as a character who could have come from a book. “I remember sensing in Bass, beyond a slightly gruff look, a man of great passion, a man who knew the innumerable and shifting current of the book trade the way that an old sailor knows the changeable sea，” wrote Tom Vanderbilt in the New York Review of Books.
Bass himself took a kind, almost paternalistic(家长式的) approach to the business. Some employees remained with him for decades. When Greg Farr, a dissatisfied member of staff, published a novel that was critical of the store's management and the unions he still had his job, furthermore, the Strand sold his book.
Fred Bass was born in Manhattan in 1928, the year after his father, Benjamin, a Lithuanian immigrant, founded the Strand bookstore on Fourth Avenue, which was then known as “Book Row”. His mother, Shirley, a Polish immigrant, died from cancer when Fred was six. His father remarried, to Esther, a bookkeeper who was involved in various civil rights causes.
As a child young Fred swept the floors and by 13 he was working behind the counter on Saturdays. He recalled going on buying trips with his father and hauling back bundles of books on the subway, all tied with rope that cut into his hands. The family lived in the Bronx and young Fred studied English at Brooklyn College in the mornings and worked in the shop in the afternoons. His only extended period of time away was two year' service with the US armed forces, but even then he used his leave from the Korean War to work at the shop. In 1957, a year after taking over the business, Bass moved the store from Fourth Avenue to the corner of 12th Street and Broadway, where it stands to this day.
In 1952, Bass, who could eventually afford to purchase an apartment in Trump Tower, married Patricia Miller. They had a son, Stephen, who died in 2001, and a daughter, Nancy, who married Ron Wyden, a senator from Oregon. Since her teens she has worked with her father, developing the store, remodeling the space and adding air conditioning (“I hated it，”said Bass). Since 1986 the Strand has run a “Books by the Foot” department, which creates custom book collections based on readers' literary tastes or preferred colors.
In 1996, after seven decades as tenants(房客), the Bass family bought their building for $8.2 million. Until then they had negotiated the lease with their landlord at the nearby Knickerbock Bar and Grill; now Bass had to deal with himself. “ When I want to negotiate my own lease I have go to the bar myself”， he joked. Even in his late eighties Bass was making buying trips, though no longer by subway.
Time and the Internet have not been kind to booksellers. “Book Row” is now only the Strand, which itself has been redesigned to be more “userfriendly”. Tshirts, postcards, fridge magnets and other gifts now account for about 15 per cent of the Strand's turnover. Satellite stores have been set up and new books have joined the traditional secondhand commodities. “ I make less money，” Bass said，“ but it's a little bit more scientific”.
Perhaps the most unusual part of management at the Strand book store was the book quiz—matching authors and title—that job applicants since the 1970 have been required to take.
1. From the first two paragraphs we learn that the Strand Store ________．| A．is rented to different users by the foot |
| B．sells thousands of books to buyers every day |
| C．enjoys popularity with people from different walks of life |
| D．serves regularly as background for a large number of films |
| A．Secondhand books may come from valuable sources. |
| B．Fellow bookshops may make way for the Strand Store. |
| C．He may find fun from characters in different books. |
| D．He knows the changing current of the book trade well enough. |
| A．His mother devoted herself to various civil rights causes. |
| B．His father remarried when he was 13 years old. |
| C．Bass didn't get married until he bought an apartment. |
| D．His daughter Nancy is a senator from Oregon. |
| A．transport | B．bargain |
| C．howl | D．drag |
| A．He had to spend money adopting more scientific management. |
| B．People spend more time on the Internet than visiting his bookstore. |
| C．His daughter remodeled the space and added such goods as Tshirts. |
| D．He had fewer job applicants who passed the book quiz. |
| A．a news report | B．an advertisement |
| C．a short story | D．a biography |
【推荐3】Two tickets. Only two tickets to the big quarter-finals basketball game. Three pairs of eyes all focused on the tickets in Dad’s outstretched hand. Marcus, the oldest, spoke out the question running through everyone’s mind: “Only two tickets? But, Dad, which of us gets to go with you?”
“Yeah, Daddy, who gets to go?” repeated Caleb, the youngest.
“Dad, can’t you get any more tickets?” I asked. I might be the in-between sister, but I was just as eager as my basketball-crazy brothers who were eager for a night out with Dad. “I’m afraid not,” Dad answered. “I guess I’ll have to figure out a fair way of choosing among the three of you by tomorrow morning. I’ll have to decide who deserves it most. Let me sleep on it”
The next morning, Dad and Mom went to the library. And he said we should all get started on our Saturday chores as soon as we finished breakfast.
“Chores!” Marcus said, “How can we concentrate on chores when the big game is eleven hours away?” Then he and Caleb went downstairs to play basketball.
I looked at the breakfast table in front of me. Well, it seemed that Saturday morning chores started right there. I did dishes first. Then I lifted the lid on the garbage container and placed the full plastic bag inside.
As I began to replace the lid on the garbage container, a white envelope on the inside of the heavy black plastic lid caught my attention, it must have stuck to the lid by accident. But then I noticed that the envelope was actually taped to the inside of the lid, and someone had written the word “Congratulations!” on the front of the envelope.
I opened the envelope and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “To the one who deserves to go.” the paper read, and inside of it was a ticket to the basketball game!
1. What did the three children care about most?| A．Who would get the chance. | B．Which team would win. |
| C．When the game would be held. | D．What they would do for the game. |
| A．He made them play basketball. | B．He asked them some questions. |
| C．He gave them a special test. | D．He watched them doing chores. |
| A．Marcus was younger than Caleb. | B．Only the author took Dad’s words seriously. |
| C．The author liked basketball best. | D．Caleb played basketball better than Marcus. |
| A．Curious and doubtful. | B．Ashamed and regretful. |
| C．Confused and stressful. | D．Surprised and excited. |
