【推荐1】When people ask me how I started writing, I find myself describing an urgent need that I felt to work with language. Having said that, I did not know for a long time what I was looking for. It was not until I followed this feeling to its source that I discovered I had a passion for writing. With some encouragement from my colleagues, I had one of my poems published. This bit of success, however, was the point where my problem began.

Back in 1978, I had to travel between three different campuses in the morning, teaching freshman composition. Afternoons I spent taking my daughter to her ballet and horse-riding lessons. T composed my lectures on the way, and that was all the thinking time I had. When I returned home, there was not enough of me left for writing after a full working day.

As a way out, decided to get up two hours before my usual time. My alarm was set for 5:00 A.M. The first day I shut it off because I had placed it within arm’s reach. The second day I set two clocks, one on my night table, and one out in the hallway. I had to jump out of bed and run to silence it before my family was awoken. This was when my morning writing began.

Since that first morning in 1978, I have been following the habit to this day, not making or accepting many excuses for not writing. I wrote my poems in this manner for nearly ten years before my first book was published. When I decided to write a novel, I divided my two hours: the first for poetry, the second for fiction. Well or badly, I wrote at least two pages a day. This is how my novel, The Line of the Sun, was finished. If I had waited to have the time, I would still be waiting to write my novel.

What I got out of getting up in the dark to work is the feeling that I am in control. For many people, the initial sense of urgency to create easily dies away because it requires making the tough decision: taking the time to create, stealing it from yourself if it's the only way.

1. What motivated the author to start her writing career?

A．Her strong wish to share.	B．Her urgent need to make a living
C．Her keen interest in writing.	D．Her passionate desire for fame.

2. What problem did the author face when she decided to begin her writing?

A．She had trouble in deciding on her writing style.

B．She was too exhausted to write after a busy day

C．She had to take time to discipline her daughter.

D．She was unsure about her writing skills.

3. Why did the author place an alarm clock in the hallway?

A．To force herself out of bed.	B．To wake up her family.
C．In case the clock in her room broke down.	D．In case she failed to hear the ringing.

4. What can we learn from the author's success in her writing career?

A．It is never too late to change your job.	B．Imaginative ideas die away if not taken in time.
C．Daily life provides ideas for creative writing	D．A tight schedule is no excuse for lack of action.

【推荐3】I became a magician by accident. When I was nine years old, I learned how to make a coin disappear. I’d read The Lord of the Rings and gone into the adult section of the library to be buried in fantasy literature but young enough to still hold out hope that you might find a book of real, actual magic in the library. The book I found taught basic techniques, and I tried to practice.

At first the magic wasn’t any good. It was just a trick—a bad trick. I spent hours each day running through the secret moves in front of the mirror. I dropped the coin over and over, a thousand times in a day, and after two weeks my mom got a carpet and placed it under the mirror to muffle (消音) the sound of the coin falling again and again.

One day I made the coin disappear on the playground. We had been playing football and were standing in the field behind the school. A dozen people were watching. I showed the coin to everyone. Then it disappeared. The kids screamed. Everyone went crazy.

A few years later, I staged an underwater escape in the river that flowed through the middle of the campus of the University of Iowa, where I went to school. I stood on a boat in the middle of the river wearing nothing but biking shorts. The sky was dead and gray, and the water was cold at the surface, and colder in the depths below.

Technically, I succeeded. I jumped into the water, sank to the bottom, and escaped from the locks and the chains before swimming to the surface. But it didn’t feel like a success.

1. What do we know about the author?

A．He became a magician in one day.

B．He found wonderful techniques in the library.

C．In order to become a magician he never stopped practising.

D．He looked through every section of the library to search for a useful book.

2. Why did the author’s mother bring a carpet home?

A．To encourage him to clean the house.

B．To make the sounds less noisy than before.

C．To have guests clean their shoes on entering the house.

D．To decrease the number of cleaning the house.

3. How did the author make the kids scream?

A．By playing football with them.	B．By making the showing coin disappear.
C．By practising his techniques more frequently.	D．By providing hands-on practice.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．The Magic Trick that Changed My Life	B．A Nineteen-year-old Magician
C．What Can Give You a Magic Life?	D．A Brief Introduction to a Magician’s Life