“I hate Tuesdays,” said Finn. “Tuesdays are the worst days now.”
“Wait and see,” said his mother. “You haven’t even met Miss Bea.”
Finn was starting piano lessons at 3:30 every Tuesday, right after school. That’s when his hands wanted to build his new Star-Blaster, a toy like Lego (乐高). Finn’s mother rang the doorbell. “Maybe she went shopping,” said Finn hopefully. But when the door opened, and there was Miss Bea, at home, with a warm smile.
“Hello there, Finn,” she said. “Come in.”
Miss Bea’s piano was black and shiny. Finn sat on the bench (长凳). His feet sure couldn’t run now. They couldn’t even touch the floor. He held on his Star-Blaster box. “That looks like a special box,” said Miss Bea. “Is it something new?”
“It’s going to be a Star-Blaster,” said Finn, “but I have to wait till I get home.” He tried not to look impolite when he said it.
“Ah, so you are a builder,” said Miss Bea. “That’s very good. I bet you can find out how this piano works. Why don’t you start by pressing (按) some keys?”
Finn pressed some white keys and then black keys. Then he pressed a white and black one at the same time. It didn’t really make a song, but Miss Bea said she liked it.
Then Miss Bea had a question. “If you were going to build a piano, how many pieces would you need?” Finn guessed all the way up to nine hundred fifty-seven, but it was “More-more-more.”
He tried sixty-eight zillion. “Not exactly,” laughed Miss Bea. “But it’s still a big number: ten thousand pieces.” “Whoa,” said Finn. “My Star-Blaster only has sixty-two. But it’s still going to be hard to put it together.” “But it will be worth (值得) it,” said Miss Bea, “Piano lessons are like that, too. You work and work to build a song. Your songs can be fast or slow, high or low, soft or loud.”
“I want to build a fast loud one,” said Finn. “You will,” said Miss Bea, “when your fingers learn to run and jump. But for now, our time is up.”
On the way home, Finn asked his mother how many songs there were to learn.
“There must be thousands,” she said, “especially (尤其) you practice.”
“Then I’d better start soon,” said Finn. He looked at all his fingers. “How many days,” he asked, “until Tuesday?”
1. How did Finn feel when he met Miss Bea at first?| A．Excited. | B．Afraid. | C．Worried. | D．Unwilling. |
| A．make him interested in playing the piano | B．ask him to work hard at the piano lesson |
| C．tell him it’s important to learn about the piano | D．let him know it’s difficult to build a piano |
| A．Finn still didn’t like Tuesdays. | B．Finn was going to be a great pianist. |
| C．Finn started to like the piano lesson. | D．Finn would build a piano by himself. |
| A．Tuesdays | B．A Boring Piano Lesson |
| C．Star Blasters | D．A Humorous Piano Teacher |
相似题推荐
When an eagle reaches near 40, its short sharp beak(鸟嘴，喙) becomes bent(弯曲的). Its long and once flexible(灵活的) talons(爪) can no longer catch animals or birds for food. And its old and heavy wings with thick feathers on its body make it difficult to fly. Then, the eagle has only two choices: to die or to go through a painful time of change which needs five months.
When the eagle feels weak and is about to die, it goes to a place far away on the top of a mountain and sits on a nest. For a new life, the eagle knocks its beak against a rock until it pulls its beak out. After pulling it out, the eagle waits for a new beak to grow. And then it pulls out its old feathers. It takes the eagle five months to complete its change and get a new life. We can call it its rebirth. So it can live for 30 more years.
Like the eagle, we human beings sometimes need to make some change to get out of our difficulty. In terrible condition, we have to change our ways of life. The changing may be very painful. But sometimes we have to throw off our old habits, memories and traditions. We can’t go on with all our past burdens(重负).
Judge the following sentences true(T) or false(F) according to the passage.
1. When an eagle reaches near 40, its short sharp beak is still straight.
2. For a new life, the eagle knocks its talons against a rock.
3. If the eagle doesn’t change itself, it won’t have a new life.
4. It takes the eagle five years to get its rebirth.
5. The writer’s idea is that we can’t go on with all our past burdens.
【推荐2】①“Long distance never separates close friends.” It’s easier to make new friends rather than saying goodbye to old ones.
②When I was still studying in China, my school held a singing competition. I entered it because I really loved singing. I sang with a girl named Jenny. She’s one of my best friends.
③Unluckily, I was nervous and I forgot the lyrics for a moment while we sang. I was standing on stage, looking pale on the face. We lost the competition. I felt terribly sorry, but Jenny tried to comfort me by saying “There will be another chance.”
④After about a week, our school’s art festival began. I decided to enter it. The first person I thought of to join me was Jenny, although I wasn’t sure if she would want to. But while I was asking other people to join me, she said she would join as well. We decided to sing the song See You Again at the festival because I would leave for UK after I finished the performance. We prepared for it for a long time.
⑤Finally, the day of the festival arrived. As I walked into class, people started clapping for me. Someone had written “Sally, Come On!” on the blackboard. My classmates wrote cards for me. After I completed my performance, everyone cheered for me.
⑥It was a really unforgettable and touching afternoon. I want to thank Jenny, who didn’t give up on me when I felt down. I want to thank my friends for helping me, and I really want to thank all of my classmates who were with me in my two middle school years as well.
1. The underlined word “lyrics” in Paragraph 3 means “________”.| A．concerts | B．beats | C．words of a song | D．musical instruments |
①studied in China
②completed my performance in the art festival
③decided to enter our school's art festival
④prepared for See You Again
⑤forgot the lyrics
| A．①③④②⑤ | B．⑤①④③② | C．①⑤③④② | D．⑤①②④③ |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
| A．talk about the writer’s friends | B．tell us about the writer’s life in China |
| C．describe a singing competition | D．show thanks to the writer’s friends and classmates |
【推荐3】Whenever the sun dropped and the blue sky came up, my father and I used to climb the mountain near my house. Walking together, my father and I used to have a lot of conversations through which I learned lessons from his experiences. He always told me, "You should have goals like climbing the mountain." Without the mountain-climbing that we both enjoyed, We couldn't have enough time to spend together because my father was very busy. I really got a lot from mountain-climbing. It gave me time to talk with my father and to be in deep thought as well as develop my patience.
Once we climbed a very high mountain. It was so challenging for me because I was only ten years old. During the first few hours of climbing, I enjoyed the flowers and trees, and the birds' singing, but as time passed, I got a pain in both of my legs. I wanted to quit climbing. In fact, I hated it at that mountain, but my father said to me, "You can always see a beautiful sky at the top of the mountain, but you can't see it before you reach the top. Only there at the top can you see all of the nice things, just like in life."
At that time, I was too young to understand his words. But later after that, I got new hope and confidence. I found myself standing at the top of the sky, which was as clear as crystal(水晶).
1. The passage tells us that mountain-climbing was ________ for Father and Son.| A．hard | B．enjoyable | C．painful | D．comfortable |
| A．carry on | B．put off | C．give up | D．pick up |
| A．You will get all you need at the top of the mountain. |
| B．The sky is always as clear as crystal. |
| C．You can find life is full of nice things. |
| D．Never give up half-way. |
| A．the writer was very successful in his life |
| B．the writer reached the top of the mountain |
| C．though the writer was young, he could understand his father |
| D．the writer used to stop half-way when he climbed the mountain |
| A．Reaching the Top of the Mountain | B．Standing at the Top of the Mountain |
| C．Conversations between Father and Son | D．How to Get to the Top of the Mountain |
Around the world, girls do better than boys at school. After looking at the test results of 1.5 million 15-year-olds in 74 areas around the world, these are the findings of a recent study.
Gender equality (性别平等) in those areas made no difference to the results. Other factors (因素), such as the income (收入) of the area also had little influence (影响) on the findings. In only three areas Colombia, Costa Rica and the Indian state Himachal Pradesh—boys do better.
So why do girls do much better? In the UK, girls do better than boys in GCSEs. GCSEs are exams taken at the age of 15 or 16. According to education expert Jan Toone, this is because of the way girls and boys grow up at home. “Parents encourage boys to be more active from an early age, while they don’t encourage the baby girls to be active... So girls got the skill of sitting still for longer time. That is useful to study for exams, like GCSEs.”
He goes on to say that boys often stay together in larger groups than girls. Because of this they are more easily to be influenced by friends and got gang minds. He says that GCSEs need a lot of one-person work and boys don’t think it’s ‘cool’.
So what is the answer? Should girls and boys go to school separately (分离地)? Or do we need to change exams to better influence boys’ skills? These are the questions to many countries.
1. What do we know from Paragraphs 1&2?| A．If girls do better than boys. |
| B．The test results are from three areas. |
| C．Boys do better in Colombia. |
| D．There’s no gender equality in India. |
| A．Because boys grow up with encouragement. |
| B．Because girls are more active. |
| C．Because girls do better from an early age. |
| D．Because girls can sit still longer. |
| A．group | B．one-person | C．teacher | D．girl |
| A．To get good results in GCSEs, kids need to be active. |
| B．GCSEs need much cool work with the group. |
| C．Students at the age of 15 or l6 take part in GCSEs. |
| D．GCSEs doesn’t encourage baby girls to be active. |
| A．Countries need to change exams. |
| B．The answer to the findings isn’t sure. |
| C．Schools should influence boys’ skills. |
| D．Boys and girls can’t study together. |
【推荐2】History is not just cold facts (事实) for students at Lincoln Middle School in the USA. The school opened a WWII (二战) museum on May 19. All the students showed videos, e-books, and songs to share (分享) a different idea of history.
Emma made an e-book about women workers in WWII. Emma said people didn’t talk about those women more.
“The women really worked hard while men were away from their homes to the war (战争),” she told the newspaper Park Ridge Herald.
Rachel made a computer game. Players could play their roles (扮演角色), like a soldier or a Jewish person. When the players were playing games, they were just like doing different things in the war.
Like Emma and Rachel’s work, most students’ exhibits (展品) were not about the war, but about ordinary (普通的) people in the war.
“We want kids to know well about the events (事件) through ordinary people’s stories,” said the head teacher, Tony Murray.
1. Lincoln Middle School is in .| A．India | B．England | C．America | D．Thailand |
| A．men | B．women | C．kids | D．players |
| A．made a computer game | B．told a story |
| C．sang a song | D．made an e-book |
| A．to make students remember Chinese history |
| B．to help students know more about World War II |
| C．to ask students to read more books |
| D．to let students be more interested in computer games |
【推荐3】Microsoft founder Bill Gates has talked about how to be a good parent, saying that 13 is a right age for a child's first cell phone. The 57-year-old father of three said on the Today show that his children Jennifer and Rory were not allowed(被允许) phones until their thirteenth birthday and his youngest daughter Phoebe is still waiting for one.
“We've made a rule in our family that it's 13 when you get a phone. "He also said as a result(结果) his child often returned home from school complaining(抱怨), " All the other kids have it. I'm the only one without it, it's so embarrassing(尴尬).’’
Asked if he keeps passwords( 密码) to his son and daughters' e-mail and Face book accounts(账号), Mr. Gates said that he doesn’t for Jennifer, 16, who he says is “old enough’’.
Besides their wealth Mr. and Mrs. Gates, who live in Lake Medina, have said they want to raise their three children as usually as possible. It is said that their kids have to do housework after school and aren’t given much pocket money.
And in 2010 Mr. Gates said that he wanted to give most of his 61 billion dollars away rather than(而不是) hand it down, ‘’That wouldn't be good either for my kids or society, "he said.
Mr. Gates left(离开) Microsoft in 2008 to put his heart into charity.（慈善）During the Today Interview（采访）with host Matt Lauer, he said that helping others made him feel as happy as Creating（创造）software.
‘’What you really feel is what you've achieved. If a piece of software gets out there and lots of people love it ---it lets them get their work down in better ways---that's exciting, "he explained.（解释）
1. How old is Phoebe?| A．Maybe 11 years old | B．Maybe 13 years old. |
| C．Maybe 15 years old. | D．Maybe 17 years old. |
| A．They feel it interesting | B．They don't think it exciting. |
| C．They feel it embarrassing. | D．They think it funny. |
| A．Jennifer doesn't like him to do so | B．Jennifer is already sixteen years old |
| C．he thinks children should be free | D．parents can't know kids' passwords |
| A．Bill's children like his idea about a child’s first cell phone. |
| B．Bill’s Gates is still working for Microsoft |
| C．Bill’s children have to do housework after school |
| D．BiII 's children are given much pocket money. |
Ten minutes later, Mary opened the car door. Her mother said, “Don’t forget to go home with Cindy today.” Mary felt a little disappointed (失望的). She really hoped to have a party today, but her mother had to work late tonight. She promised Mary that they could have a party next week.
“I won’t forget,” replied Mary. When she arrived at school, she got out of the car and said goodbye to her mother. It seemed that her mother didn’t care. Mary walked into the school. She hoped her friends would remember that she turned eight today.
“Hi, Mary. Happy birthday,” said Julie.
Mary smiled and asked, “Julie, can you come to my party next week?”
Julie said, “I am sorry Mary, but I can’t.”
During the day, things didn’t go much better. All of her friends said they could not go to her party next week. At the end of the school day, Mary felt very sad.
Evening came and Cindy’s mother drove Mary home. When Mary opened the door, the house was dark. Her mother didn’t even get home yet! She felt very sad.
“Surprise!”
All the lights in Mary’s house came on. Her mother and all of her friends were there! There were many gifts in the living room. Then, she ran into the kitchen. Her mother prepared her favorite meal and a big chocolate cake. “Thank you, Mom!” Mary said, happily.
1. Why didn’t Mary’s mother seare when Mary said goodbye to her?
| A．Because she didn’t care about Mary. |
| B．Because she tried to finish her work first. |
| C．Because she forgot it is Mary’s birthday today. |
| D．Because she didn’t want Mary to know about the party. |
| A．Eight. | B．Nine. | C．Ten. | D．Eleven. |
| A．tonight | B．next day |
| C．next week | D．next month |
| A．sad | B．happy |
| C．surprised | D．relaxed |
| A．She drove Mary home. |
| B．She did the housework. |
| C．She bought Mary a beautiful skirt. |
| D．She prepared Mary’s favorite meal. |
【推荐2】The Most Valuable Player (MVP) award was what I hoped to get. Yes, MVP-the best. Win this award and everyone regards you as the best player on your team.
Back in Grade 6, soccer became my favorite sport. I wasn’t the best player on the team at the beginning of the year. But after a lot of hard practice, by the end of the year, I felt that I was the MVP.
As the soccer season went on, our team made it to the playoffs (季后赛). We finished second in the city. We were a very good team, and I was a big part of that. Kenny was the captain, but I had the most goals on the team. Kenny would always pass the ball to all his players. At the end of the year, there was a sports dinner at school. People got awards for outstanding performances. Everyone felt that I would get the MVP. When the dinner almost finished, the coach stood up and announced the winners for the awards. “The winner for MVP is...Kenny!” he said.
I didn’t understand why. After the event, the coach came up to me and explained. He said, “You were the best player on the team, but you did not pass the ball. You were out there for yourself and not for the team. You have to realize that soccer is about the team, not about one individual player.” That night, I did receive a trophy (奖杯). It was called the Most Improved Player (MIP). However, I was embarrassed by what the coach said.
Now I’m in Grade 9 and the captain of the soccer team. I feel that I have learned that a team sport is not just “you”. It’s about “us”. I am both a better player and a better captain because of this.
1. By the end of the year, the writer felt that he would get the MVP because ________.| A．he was good at passing the ball | B．he always had the most goals |
| C．he got better and better at soccer | D．he was the captain of the team |
| A．excited | B．worried | C．proud | D．shocked |
| A．confident | B．personal | C．wonderful | D．important |
| A．Kenny was the captain and had the most goals. |
| B．The writer won the MVP award when he was in Grade 6. |
| C．The coach thought that the writer wasn’t the best player. |
| D．The writer finally realized the importance of teamwork. |
【推荐3】In many cases, South Korea is a very ordered country. The influence of Confucian principle（儒学）is through every case of day-to-day living. As a result, everyone should be on time, all the time. And to be late in this regard is to mark oneself out as bounder（无赖）.
Though the Japanese people are famous for their high-rolling gamblers, they just don't gamble（赌博）with time. People will sorry and regretted for being late. However, the modern world being what it is, young Japanese people may be more comfortable with the rules of societal standards（社会标准）than older generations. And they might not expect you to beat yourself up too badly if you are late.
When in Greece it is worth remembering that Greeks ‘pass’ the time instead of ‘using’ it. In other words, time is something to be enjoyed rather than be rushed. As such, it is not unusual to arrive 30 minutes later for a dinner party. However, it does not extend（延伸，延展） to business meetings where visitors are expected to be on time.
Ghanaians are very relaxed and accommodating（随和）. People think if everyone is late then no one is late. After all, what can't be done today can get done tomorrow. If you find that kind of attitude difficult to deal with, you have to be annoyed by yourself. So just sit back and enjoy the ride.
1. What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 means?| A．Time gives more comfortable life to the young than to the old. |
| B．Young people would like more relaxing time than the old. |
| C．Social standards are more serious to the young than to the old. |
| D．The old people enjoy more comfortable rules than the young. |
| A．Koreans are always on time because they don't want to be bounders. |
| B．The Japanese young people are always on time like the old generations. |
| C．Greeks think they should use the time carefully even when they have a party. |
| D．Ghanaians will be annoyed if they find people are late for 30 minutes. |
| A．Different Rules On Different Countries. |
| B．Different Ideas About Being On Time. |
| C．Different People In Different Countries. |
| D．Different Ways Of Telling The Time. |
| A．A healthy magazine. | B．A sports newspaper. |
| C．A travel book. | D．A story book. |
