I was at the funeral of my dearest friend - my mother. She finally had lost her long battle with cancer. The hurt was so intense; I found it hard to breathe at times. Always supportive, Mother clapped loudest at my school plays, held the box of tissues while listening to my first heartbreak, comforted me at my father’s death, and prayed for me my entire life.
When mother’s illness was diagnosed, my sister had a new baby and my brother had recently married his childhood sweetheart, so it fell on me, the 27-year-old middle child, to take care of her. I counted it an honor. My place had been with our mother, preparing her meals, taking her to the doctor, reading the Bible together. Now she was in heaven. My work was finished, but I was alone.
Deep in sorrow, suddenly, I heard a door open and slam shut at the back of the church. Quick footsteps hurried along the carpeted floor. A young man looked around briefly and then sat next to me. He folded his hands and placed them on his lap. His eyes started to be filled with tears.
“I’m late,” he explained, though no explanation was necessary.
After several eulogies(悼词), he leaned over and commented, “Why do they keep calling Mary by the name of Margaret?”
“Because that was her name, Margaret. Never Mary.” I whispered, wondering who the stranger was anyway.
“Isn’t this the Lutheran church?”
“No, the Lutheran church is across the street.”
“Oh ...”
“I believe you’re at the wrong funeral, Sir.”
The solemnness(庄重)of the occasion mixed with the realization of the man’s mistake bubbled up inside me and came out as laughter. Sharp looks from other mourner(哀悼者)only made the situation seem more stupid. I peeked at the confused, misguided man seated beside me. He was laughing too, as he glanced around, deciding it was too late for an uneventful exit. I imagined Mother laughing.
At the final “Amen,” we rushed out a door and into the parking lot. “I do believe we’ll be the talk of the town. By the way, my name is Rick,” he smiled.
That afternoon began a lifelong journey for me with this man who attended the wrong funeral, but was in the right place. A year after our meeting, we were married at a country church. This time we both arrived at the same church, right on time.
In my time of sorrow, God gave me laughter. In place of loneliness, God gave me love. This past June, we celebrated our twenty-second wedding anniversary. Whenever anyone asks us how we met, Rick tells them, “Her mother and my Aunt introduced us, and it’s truly a match made in heaven.”
1. Only the author could take care of her mom mainly because __________.| A．her mom loved her much more than other children |
| B．she was the eldest daughter in the family |
| C．a lovely baby came into her brother’s family |
| D．she was the only child without a new family’s burden |
| A．Rick was late for the funeral because he didn’t know the name of deceased. |
| B．The author felt reluctant to undertake the work of tending her mother. |
| C．Rick remained at the funeral even though he knew he had made a mistake. |
| D．The author and Rick resembled in personality because neither could control emotions. |
| A．Margaret should be the name of Rick’s aunt. |
| B．The author was supposed to be at the Lutheran church. |
| C．The author and Rick met 22 years ago for the first time. |
| D．The mourners at the funeral considered the author’s joy improper. |
| A．Two Funerals at a Time | B．Hope Remains at the Funeral |
| C．A heavenly Encounter | D．Manners Matter at the Funeral |
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【推荐1】He was already asleep. His bag stood ready by the backdoor. His pencil box was filled with freshly sharpened (削尖的) pencils. A big day lay ahead. My eyes filled with tears (泪水) as I thought about his new journey in the morning. My baby was off to high school.
I thought back to his first day of kindergarten (幼儿园). How he ran in excitement to the bus as my heart broke, how his smiling face in the window caused my tears to flow. I thought about how hard it was to let go of his hand and let him fly on his own for the first time. But this time, I found it was even harder.
Kindergarten is paper and glue sticks. High school is computer projects and technology you don't understand. Kindergarten is Mother's Day gifts made with handprints.High school is a funny card and a “Love you, Ma.” Kindergarten is emails to the teacher about his difficulty with math. High school is depending on him to ask for help in class. Kindergarten is afternoons at the park. High school is keys to the car.Kindergarten is exciting talk about his day. High school is just “My day was fine, Ma.”
Kindergarten is the beginning.High school is the beginning of the end. You know that your time with him at home will become less and less. The moments where your family will always feel complete at the end of the day are coming to an end. I've raised him to leave us. I've raised him to be independent (独立的), and I'm watching him pull away, one day at a time.
As I watched him board the bus to high school, my eyes filled with tears again and my heart ached more deeply than it did on his first day of kindergarten. The bus pulled away, and my eyes met his. He gave a quick wave (挥手) and mouthed, “Love you.” And then he made a silly face, and he wanted his mom to go back into the house now and set her mind at rest. I waved back and laughed. High school, here we come.
1. How did the author find sending her son to high school?| A．It was more difficult than sending him to kindergarten. |
| B．It would allow her more free time to enjoy life. |
| C．It was much easier than she had expected. |
| D．It would steal his love for her. |
| A．To tell interesting stories of her son. |
| B．To describe her feelings about her son. |
| C．To compare kindergarten and high school. |
| D．To show it's important for kids to be independent. |
| A．Her son is going to college. |
| B．Her son will leave her someday. |
| C．Her son has completed middle school. |
| D．Her son must spend more time at school. |
| A．To stop the author from worrying about him. |
| B．To make himself less nervous about high school. |
| C．To keep the tears in his eyes secret from the author. |
| D．To show his excitement about going to high school. |
【推荐2】Two of the saddest words in the English language are “if only”. I live my life with the goal of never having to say those words, because they convey regret, lost opportunities, mistakes, and disappointment.
My father is famous in our family for saying, “Take the extra minute to do it right.” I always try to live by the “extra minute” rule. When my children were young and likely to cause accidents, I always thought about what I could do to avoid an “if only” moment, whether it was something minor like moving a cup full of hot coffee away from the edge of a counter, or something that required a little more work such as taping padding (衬垫) onto the sharp corners of a glass coffee table.
I don’t only avoid those “if only” moments when it comes to safety. It’s equally important to avoid “if only” in our personal relationships. We all know people who lost a loved one and regretted that they had foregone an opportunity to say “I love you” or “I forgive you.” When my father announced he was going to the eye doctor across from my office on Good Friday, I told him that it was a holiday for my company and I wouldn’t be here. But then I thought about the fact that he’s 84 years old and I realized that I shouldn’t give up an opportunity to see him. I called him and told him I had decided to go to work on my day off after all.
I know there will still be occasions when I have to say “if only” about something, but my life is definitely better because of my policy of doing everything possible to avoid that eventuality. And even though it takes an extra minute to do something right, or it occasionally takes an hour or two in my busy schedule to make a personal connection, I know that I’m doing the right thing. I’m buying myself peace of mind and that’s the best kind of insurance for my emotional well-being.
1. Which of the following is an example of the “extra minute” rule?| A．Start the car the moment everyone is seated. |
| B．Leave the room for a minute with the iron working. |
| C．Wait for an extra minute so that the steak tastes better. |
| D．Move an object out of the way before it trips someone. |
| A．keep her appointment with the eye doctor |
| B．meet her father who was already an old man |
| C．join in the holiday celebration of the company |
| D．finish her work before the deadline approached |
| A．avoided | B．lacked |
| C．abandoned | D．abused |
【推荐3】My father told me a family story about his mother, my grandmother.
In 1949, my father had just returned home from the war. On every American highway you could see soldiers in uniform hitchhiking (搭便车) home to their families, as was the custom at that time in America.
Sadly, the excitement of this reunion with his family soon disappeared. My grandmother became very ill and had to be in hospital. The doctors told my father that she needed a blood transfusion immediately or she wouldn’t live through the night. The problem was that Grandmother’s blood types was AB-, a very rare type even today, but even harder to get then because there were no blood banks or air flights to ship blood. All the family members had their blood tested, but not one member was a match. So the doctors gave the family no hope; my grandmother was dying.
My father left the hospital in tears to gather up all the family members, so that everyone would get a chance to tell Grandmother good-bye. As my father was driving down the highway, he passed a soldier in uniform hitchhiking home to his family. Deep in sadness, my father had no inclination at that moment to do a good deed. Yet it was almost as if something outside himself pulled him to a stop, and he waited as the stranger climbed into the car.
My father was too upset to even ask the soldier his name, but the soldier noticed my father’s tears right away and asked why. My father told this total stranger everything.
It got very quiet in the car. Then this soldier reached his hand out to my father, in which rested the dog tags from around his neck. The blood type on the tags was AB-. The soldier told my father to turn the car around and get him to the hospital.
My grandmother lived until 1996, and to this day no one in our family knows the soldier’s name. But my father has often wondered, was he a soldier or an angel in uniform?
1. Why did the author’s father leave the hospital?| A．To buy something necessary for Grandmother. |
| B．To ask the family members to have their blood tested. |
| C．To pickup a soldier whose blood type was the same as Grandmother’s. |
| D．To gather the family members to pay their last respects to Grandmother. |
| A．After her serious illness, Grandmother lived 47 years. |
| B．Grandmother’s children refused to help her. |
| C．My father has forgotten the soldier. |
| D．The doctors didn’t try to save Grandmother. |
| A．The author’s father intended to offer his help. |
| B．The author’s father was willing to help the soldier. |
| C．The author’s father was scheduled to do a good deed. |
| D．The author’s father was too sad to help others. |
| A．A Strange Soldier | B．An Unexpected Git |
| C．An Angel in Uniform | D．An Unknown Soldier |
【推荐1】Not all heroes wear capes(斗篷) and Steve Montelongo proved the statement. While he doesn’t consider himself a hero, he has saved the lives of three people during the last two decades.
The 80-year-old man was in the right place at the right time, when he pulled a man out of his sinking car after he had accidentally driven into a river. Montelongo jumped to the man’s help without any hesitation(犹豫) or regard to his own health.
The accident happened while the elderly man was taking his granddaughter home after a dentist’s appointment. They had stopped at a traffic light when the girl saw the car fall into the river. Montelongo got out of his car to check out the scene and instantly noticed that water had begun rushing into the vehicle of the trapped driver. He walked into the river and managed to open the automobile’s back door, which fortunately was unlocked. As the water began to rush into the car faster, the 80-year-old managed to pull the 62-year-old Jack Swarts from the car by his shirt.
He later said in an interview—“I don’t consider myself a hero. I was just a man that got put in the right place at the right time”—words from a genuine modern-day good person.
This, however, wasn’t Montelongo’s only act of heroism. Nearly 20 years ago, he helped two of his neighbors get to safety as their house was caught in a fire. He was 62 years old at the time and had to kick open his neighbor’s front door to pull out 80-year-old Kathirne Mattox and 79-year-old Wayne Maxwell. During the rescue, Montelongo suffered chest pains and had to be hospitalized but made a quick recovery (恢复). He was awarded the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission medal for this bravery and act of heroism.
1. What does the underlined part in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Heroes like special clothes. | B．Everyone wants to be a hero. |
| C．Heroes deserve to be praised. | D．Ordinary people can be heroes. |
| A．By managing to start the car. | B．By pulling him out of the car. |
| C．By clearing the car of water. | D．By giving him first aid treatment. |
| A．He is modest. | B．He is brave. |
| C．He is responsible. | D．He is clever. |
| A．A hero is a man of confidence. |
| B．Care is an important part of courage. |
| C．For what they ought to do, such a person is brave. |
| D．The most terrible enemy is the lack of strong faith. |
【推荐2】For many years, Croatian-American recording artist Nenad Bach toured the world performing with famous musicians like Bono and Pavarotti. Everything came to a stop in 2010, however, when Nenad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease — a progressive disease that affects a person’s movement.
“I love music,” he said. “When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2010, I didn’t know what it was. Five years later, I couldn’t even play the guitar.”
One day, a friend of Nenad’s asked him to play ping-pong with him, and Nenad said yes. The effects were immediate and positive: he woke up the next day filled with a “desire to live”, and his physical and mental issues had improved. Encouraged, he kept playing.
For months he told everyone around him about how ping-pong was helping his Parkinson’s, but his praise fell on deaf ears. Finally, he took matters into his own hands and started hosting Ping Pong Parkinson’s events at the Westchester Table Tennis Center in Pleasantville, New York. Once the events attracted enough attention, he started an organization called Ping Pong Parkinson (PPP) in March 2017.
PPP hopes to encourage people living with Parkinson’s to play ping-pong for its benefits. In addition to promoting social connectivity, PPP also says that it increases neuroplasticity (神经可塑性) which creates new neural pathways in the brain. Nenad has seen evidence of this with his own eyes many times in the past years. He said that their “facial expression changes from when they arrive until they leave. In addition, some people start walking again.”
Nenad has made spreading the word about the power of ping-pong his new life’s work! He hopes others will take up the sport and see the same improvements he’s enjoyed since the first time he picked up a paddle (乒乓球拍).
1. What happened to Nenad in 2015?| A．His disease got worse. | B．He learned to perform. |
| C．He began to play the guitar. | D．His acting journey ended. |
| A．Organizing social events. | B．Taking his mind off his work. |
| C．Setting up Ping Pong Parkinson. | D．Playing ping-pong with his friend. |
| A．Uncertain. | B．Favorable. | C．Uninterested. | D．Curious. |
| A．Nenad’s fighting against Parkinson |
| B．The benefits of playing ping-pong |
| C．The severity of Parkinson’s disease |
| D．The sporting experience of Nenad |
【推荐3】It only takes one wrong step near a lake in the winter for disaster to happen. Pepper, the dog and his mom found that out the hard way.
The two of them were taking a morning walk in Chicago along Lake Michigan when Pepper, a 7-year-old dog, got free of its rope, slipped on some rocks, and fell onto the ice sheets of the lake. As Pepper tried to climb back up to his human owner, the ice around him broke, and he began floating (漂浮) away!
Since the water was so cold, Pepper should be saved as soon as possible. As Fire Deputy District Chief Jason Lach said, hypothermia (a serious medical condition caused by very low temperature) can start within several minutes. Thankfully, firefighters were already nearby practicing underwater ice dives.
Just 10 minutes later, 40 rescue (救援) workers arrived, along with fire department vehicles and a helicopter. By the time the officials in the helicopter noticed Pepper, he and his ice float were 500 feet out into the lake. Firefighter Chris Iverson dove into the water and swam out to Pepper. Chris calmed the dog down and tied him to a safety sling (吊索). Meanwhile, firefighter Emerson Branch swam out with a rapid deployment craft, which he and Chris used to bring Pepper safely to shore. The rescue only took about 15 minutes. When the firefighters reached dry land with Pepper, they dried him using a towel and played the pass-the-dog to get him back to his human owner.
Caretakers at Veterinary Emergency Group Hospital made sure Pepper was OK. But Jason hopes his rescue will be a lesson for others. “The dog was good, warmed up to its owner, and went on its happy way,” Jason said. “But stay off the ice. It’s never safe, …Step into a hole, and you’re out of sight.”
1. What happened to Pepper one morning?| A．He lost his owner. | B．He was trapped in a lake. |
| C．He got missing suddenly. | D．He was covered by ice sheets. |
| A．The cold water. | B．Poor medical conditions. |
| C．Rescue equipment shortage. | D．The changeable temperature. |
| A．The rescue lasted about an hour. | B．Pepper got to the shore alone. |
| C．The rescue was highly effective. | D．Pepper reacted calmly all the time. |
| A．No going near the ice. | B．No walking dogs by a hole. |
| C．Taking good care of pets. | D．Warming up well before exercise. |
【推荐1】A young woman carrying a three-year-old child got on a bus．The conductor hurried to give her a warm welcome and then kindly asked the other passengers to make more room for the woman and her child．On seeing this, people were surprised and began to talk．．"You know this conductor used to be very rude．Now suddenly he has changed his bad behavior , "said a middle-aged man．
"Yes, he should be praised and we must write a letter to the company," said a second passenger．"That's right," another lady said, "I wish a newspaper reporter were here so that more people could learn from this conductor．”
Just then a gentleman who looked like a teacher turned to the conductor and said, "Excuse me, but can I know your name, please? Your excellent service must be praised．．．"
Before he could open his mouth, the three-year-old child sitting on the young woman's lap interrupted, "I know his name．I call him Dad．"
1. The passengers were ________ to see the conductor's kindness to the woman and the child．
| A．excited | B．pleased |
| C．interested | D．surprised |
| A．make a demand for more buses | B．praise the conductor for his good service |
| C．criticize the conductor for his rude behavior | D．invite a newspaper reporter to write about the conductor |
| A．the gentleman | B．the conductor |
| C．the middle-aged man | D．the three-year-old child |
| A．has changed his attitude towards his work |
| B．has been kind and polite to all passengers now |
| C．has not changed his rude behavior to passengers |
| D．has been kind and polite to women with children now |
【推荐2】Many years ago, my mother gave my father a red V-neck sweater for his birthday. He looked so handsome in it that I, almost sixteen years old, thought he must be the most wonderful person on the earth and I was proud that he was my father.
I was the eldest child and used to ask to borrow my father’s red sweater. It looked good with my black-and-gray skirt. Mom wore it sometimes, too, especially when she was standing over the floor furnace eating ice-cream in the middle of the winter. As my sisters and brothers grew up, the sweater became one of their favourite things to borrow as well. Eventually, Daddy’s red sweater settled in the hands of my youngest brother, Andy. He took it to college and kept it until he was twenty. As all five of us kids went about business, the red sweater became a memory of our youth and a source of laughter at family gatherings.
When Daddy died, my mother asked if there was anything of his I wanted. I said yes because I could not bear to think of losing that family treasure. I knew that I could not be selfish and keep the sweater all by myself. That year as a gift for my sister, Joey, I put the sweater in a box with a lug on it saying, “ To Joey — From Daddy. ” Inside the box was a card with a message asking her to keep it for a year, and then pass it on the next year to the next in birth order, Ray. Ray passed it on to Jean, and Jean passed it on to Andy.
My father has been gone for ten years now, but his love and memory join us each year. His red sweater has become a living symbol of a hard-working father who taught us the joy of sharing and family.
1. When the writer’s father put on the red V- neck sweater, he looked ________.| A．handsome | B．proud | C．interesting | D．ugly |
| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. | D．Five. |
| A．The gift from grandfather. | B．The red sweater. |
| C．The box with a tag. | D．The ice-cream. |
| A．Hardness. | B．Selfishness. | C．Loneliness | D．Kindness. |
【推荐3】Mr. Black and Mr. White were two very famous artists in the city. Their drawings were also very popular in the city. But they tried to see who could draw the best picture.
One day they asked an old man to be the judge. Mr. Black drew an apple tree. He put his picture in the field. Soon the birds came and tried to eat the apples. The old man saw it and said, “You have certainly won. Mr. White cannot draw so good a picture as yours. But we will go to see his picture.”
They went to Mr. White’s house. There were nothing but red beautiful curtains on the wall. The old man asked, “Where is your picture, Mr. White?” He said, “Lift the curtains, and you will find my picture.” The old man tried to lift the curtains but found that they were drawn there. They were Mr. White’s picture. The old man said, “Birds thought the apples were real. Men thought the curtains were real. So Mr. White won. His picture is the best one.”
1. Mr. Black drew .| A．an apple tree | B．the best picture | C．curtains | D．birds |
| A．it was in the field | B．it was an apple tree |
| C．the birds liked it | D．the birds thought it was real |
| A．an apple tree | B．curtains | C．nothing | D．an old man |
| A．The birds came and ate the apples up. |
| B．The old man said Mr. White’s picture was the best one at last. |
| C．The two pictures were not so good. |
| D．The curtains on the wall were real. |
