【推荐1】The morning had been a disaster. My tooth was aching, and I’d been in an argument with a friend. Her words still hurt：“The trouble with you is that you won’t put yourself in my place. Can’t you see things from my point of view?”I shook my head stubbornly—and felt the ache in my tooth. I’d thought I could hold out till my dentist came back from holiday, but the pain was really unbearable. I started calling the dentists in the phone book, but no one could see me immediately. Finally, at about lunchtime, I got lucky.

“If you come by right now,” the receptionist said, “the dentist will fit you in.”

I took my purse and keys and rushed to my car. But suddenly I began to doubt about the dentist. What kind of dentist would be so eager to treat someone at such short notice? Why wasn’t he as busy as the others?

In the dentist’s office, I sat down and looked around. I saw nothing but the bare walls and I became even more worried. The assistant noticed my nervousness and placed her warm hand over my ice-cold one.

When I told her my fears, she laughed and said, “Don’t worry. The dentist is very good.”

“How long do I have to wait for him?” I asked impatiently.

“Come on, he is coming. Just lie down and relax, and enjoy the artwork.” The assistant said.

“The artwork? ” I was puzzled.

The chair went back, suddenly I smiled. There was a beautiful picture, right where I could enjoy it: on the ceiling. How considerate the dentist was！At that moment, I began to understand what my friend meant by her words.

What a relief！

1. Which of the following best describes the author’s feeling that morning?

A．Cheerful.

B．Nervous.

C．Satisfied.

D．Upset.

2. What made the author begin to doubt about the dentist?

A．The dentist’s being as busy as the other dentists.

B．The dentist’s agreeing to treat her at very short notice.

C．The surroundings of the dentist’s office.

D．The laughing assistant of the dentist.

3. Why did the author suddenly smile?

A．Because the dentist came at last.

B．Because the chair went back.

C．Because she saw a picture on the ceiling.

D．Because the assistant kept comforting her.

【推荐3】In the August sun, it’s unbearably hot in my car. I’m in Vancouver, approaching the Knight Street Bridge as I try to get home after work. It’s 5:15 pm. Traffic is already slowing down and then it comes to a full stop. I’m stuck even before getting on the bridge.

This has become my normal work commute (上下班往返) routine. Ahead of me is a heavily jammed on-ramp (匝道). I stare at the endless rows of vehicles, depressed.

At first I think this is not how it looks. The traffic will soon start moving. Seconds pass. Minutes pass. Looking at the rows of cars and trucks glittering in the sun, I start counting — 299, 300, 301 — and I give up.

Suddenly I remember I’m one of the 300 helpless drivers. But I stay focused. When the cars do move, I move carefully, making sure not to bump into other vehicles. Finally, I make it onto the bridge. The traffic is still crawling at a snail’s pace. Tired and hungry, I become very anxious.

Just then, I hear a weak sound in the distance. The sound gradually becomes louder, until I can identify it as an emergency vehicle approaching from behind. What do we do? The bridge is packed. There’s no room for us to move.

But I’m wrong. Every single car quickly, yet carefully, moves to the side. Without thinking, I follow suit. The lane remains open for a few seconds during which the ambulance flashes through.

Afterward, every car moves back. We close up the emergency lane, ready to continue our patient wait. Back in my spot, I forget my tiredness and hunger. My anxiety is gone. I start reflecting upon what 300 fellow drivers and I just did.

How did we do that? Despite our exhaustion, we collectively decided to help the stranger who needed the time more desperately than we did. We drew on our sympathy (同情心) and intelligence, requiring no directives.

Although I may seem alone stuck on the bridge, I’m connected to all the other drivers. Together we could make the impossible possible.

1. What did the author think of his commute routine?

A．It was surprising.

B．It was annoying.

C．It was boring.

D．It was confusing.

2. When was the author’s anxiety gone?

A．When he was stuck in the traffic.	B．After the ambulance flashed through.
C．After they decided to help the stranger.	D．When he heard the sound of the ambulance.

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．The author got on the bridge at 5:15 pm.

B．Moving carefully, the author still bumped into other cars.

C．Every driver made room for the ambulance automatically.

D．The author followed the ambulance through the bridge.

4. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．The drivers didn’t make a difference.	B．The author was stuck alone on the bridge.
C．The author talked with the other drivers.	D．People’s kindness made the miracle happen.

【推荐2】阅读下面短文并根据短文内容完成下列各题。

The Christmas of my 16th, when decorating the Christmas tree with Mum, I accidentally dropped and broke an old glass ball. It had been on our tree for as long as I could remember.

Regretfully, I knelt to pick up the pieces and was surprised to find a small piece of paper among them. Unfolding the tiny note, I recognized my father’s penciled writing. Lifting my eyes, I saw my mothers smile.

“Your Daddy wrote that and put it in that blue ball during our first Christmas together, just before you were born,” she said.

I wouldn’t have believed it, if there hadn’t been the note in my hands. Daddy always regarded getting the tree decorated as an important task. And yet this bit of yellowed paper proved that long ago my Daddy had done something romantic at Christmas.

Carefully putting the note aside, I cleaned up the pieces, wishing I could reassemble them. “You needn’t fit the parts of the old glass ball together again. Pick out another one and put the note back inside.” Mum said.

Now, as I celebrate the holidays without Mum, who died of cancer years ago, I feel really sad. Each year as I decorate Christmas tree. I recall the moment I shared with her that winter afternoon and blink away my tears.

As I carefully handle those old glass balls. I love knowing that one of them holds a secret between Daddy and Mum — a secret that was obvious to all who knew them.

The note inside one of those old glass balls on Christmas tree holds the heart of my parents’ marriage in three warm words: “I love you.”

1. What happened when the author was decorating the Christmas tree? (no more than 10 words)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
2. When was the paper put in the glass ball? (no more than 10 words)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
3. What can we know about the author’s father from the yellowed paper? (no more than 7 words)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
4. What does the underlined word “reassemble” mean in English? (no more than 10 words)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Do you often express your love to your parents? And how? (no more than 20 words)
____________________________________________________________________________________________

【推荐3】I’ve never been the kind of person to say, “it’s the thought that counts” when it comes to gifts. That was until a couple of weeks ago, when my kids gave me a present that blew me away.

For years now, I’ve been wanting to sell our home, the place where my husband and I raised our kids. But to me, this house is much more than just a building. In the front room, there’s a wall that has hundreds of pencil lines, marking the progress of my children’s growth. Every growth stage is marked in grey, with each child’s name and the date they were measured. Most people I know have been featured on a wall like this, or at least had a wall like it in their home.

Of all the objects and all the memories, it’s this one thing in a home that’s the hardest to leave behind. Friends I know have returned home after work only to discover their wall of heights has been freshly painted over. A new paint job wouldn’t normally be greeted by tears, but erasing that evidence of motherhood hurts more than it should. Our kids grow in so many ways, but the wall is physical evidence of their progress, right there for everyone to see.

Over the years, I’ve talked about how much I would hate leaving that wall behind when I moved, even though the last marks were made 10 years ago when my kids stopped growing. So one day, while I was at work, my children decided to do something about it.

They hired Jacquie Manning, a professional photographer whose work is about capturing (捕捉) the beautiful things in life, from clear lakes and skies to diamonds and ballgowns. She came to our house while I was at work, and over several hours, took photos of the hundreds of drawings and lines, little grey fingerprints (手印), and old marks. Somehow, she managed to photograph all those years of memories perfectly. Afterwards, she put all the photos together into one image, transforming them into a beautiful history of my family.

Three weeks later, my children’s wonderful gift made its way to me – a life-size photo of the pencil lines and fingerprints that represents entire lifetimes of love and growth.

1. The author used her friends’ example in Paragraph 3 to ________.

A．persuade her family to leave the wall as it was

B．stress the meaning of keeping good memories

C．explain why her house badly needed a new paint job

D．share her memory of motherhood with readers

2. According to the article, it was Jacquie Manning who ________.

A．helped the author paint her new house

B．came up with the idea of the photo gift

C．shot pictures to record the author’s growth stage

D．made a copy of the growth marks on the wall

3. We can infer from the article that the author ________.

A．was strongly against selling their home

B．was not happy with the gift from her family

C．kept marks for family members every year

D．put great love and care in raising her children

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．A Gift Made with Love	B．Advice on Picking up Gifts for Parents
C．Paintings Count	D．Effective Ways to Communicate with Children

【推荐2】At thirteen, I was diagnosed (诊断) with a kind of attention disorder. It made school difficult for me. When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks, I could not.

In my first literature class, Mrs Smith asked us to read a story and then write about it, all within 45 minutes. I raised my hand right away and said, “Mrs Smith, you see, the doctor said I have attention problems. I might not be able to do it.”

She glanced at me through her glasses, “You are not different from your classmates, young man.”

I tried, but I didn’t finish the reading when the bell rang. I had to take it home.

In the quietness of my bedroom, the story suddenly all became clear to me. It was about a blind person, Louis Braille. He lived in a time when the blind couldn’t get much education. But Louis didn’t give up. Instead, he invented a reading system of raised dots (点), which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind.

Wasn’t I the “blind” in my class, being made to learn like the “sighted” students? My thoughts spilt out (涌出) and my pen started to dance. I completed the task within 40 minutes. Indeed, I was not different from others; I just needed a quieter place. If Louis could find his way to solve his problems, why should I ever give up?

I didn’t expect anything when I handed in my paper to Mrs Smith, so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day—with an “A” on it. At the bottom of the paper were these words: “See what you can do when you keep trying!”

1. Why didn’t the author finish the reading in class?

A．He didn’t have self-confidence.	B．He was not fond of literature.
C．He had an attention disorder.	D．He needed a quieter place.

2. What can we learn about Louis Braille from the passage?

A．He got a good education at school.

B．He made an invention which helps the blind.

C．He gave up trying.

D．He managed to cure his blindness.

3. What was Mrs Smith’s attitude to the author at the end of the story?

A．Angry.

B．Impatient.

C．Sympathetic.

D．Encouraging.

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．Keep Trying to Solve All Problems	B．How to Overcome an Attention Disorder
C．A Great Teacher	D．From the “Blind” to the “Sighted”

【推荐3】We sat at home, waiting for the COVID-19 cases to decrease and for the weather to improve. We all dreamed of what we would do when we could finally go outside.

I rode my old bike faithfully for almost 20 years before getting the replacement, which got stolen forcing me back to Old Faithful. The weak-minded might have abandoned biking completely at that point, but not me. Biking means freedom.

Every spring I get Old Faithful ready. She is getting old, with more replacement parts than originals. But with all bike stores being low on new models, she is all I have. On my bike, as long as I’m alive and eating, I’ve got fuel and can pedal to the ends of Earth if I want. No obstacle is impassable. Jammed roads mean nothing. I can still weave between cars in traffic. This memory of freedom means even more to me with the experience of lockdown.

Society gritted its teeth (咬紧牙关) in the knowledge that we just had to tough it out for a year to get to the other side. Then Delta hit. Then Omicron. A year turned into two, and that’s when the walls really started closing in. That’s when we really needed hope. So, I count the days until I can return to my bike. On my bike, I achieve another state of mind. I would push myself to reach the top each time. I wanted to feel that little thrill of making it to the summit, knowing that doing so told me once again that I could go anywhere and that nothing could hold me back. I was free.

Every few years I add a new ache or pain. I am starting to get old. I can’t cycle as fast as I used to. But every time I encounter a hill, I don’t give up. I’m waiting for that first warm day when I’ll escape the pandemic walls. I want to put on my helmet and for one brief, beautiful moment, be free again.

1. What caused the author to ride Old Faithful?

A．He had his bike stolen unluckily.	B．He wanted to replace the old one.
C．He hoped to go through his isolation.	D．He wished to avoid its becoming dusty.

2. What does Paragraph 3 want to say?

A．The limitation of driving vehicles.	B．The advantages of riding his bike.
C．The hardship to find bike originals.	D．The special experience of lockdown.

3. What does the underlined sentence “Society gritted ...” in Paragraph 4 mean?

A．Keep something for a rainy day.	B．Be a playboy without ambition.
C．A good medicine tastes bitter.	D．Holding on makes life hopeful.

4. What’s the main idea of the passage?

A．Tough situations make me stronger and smarter.

B．The pandemic lockdown can not lock my dreams away

C．What I want to do when the pandemic lockdown ends.

D．How I relieved my pressure during the pandemic lockdown.