1 . The Price of a Dream

I grew up poor. We had little money, but plenty of love and attention. I understood that no matter how poor a person was, they could still afford a dream. My dream was athletics.

By the time I was sixteen, I was good at baseball and football. My high school coach was Ollie Jarvis. He not only believed in me, but taught me the difference between having a dream and showing conviction (信念).

One summer a friend recommended me for a summer job. This meant a chance for money in my pocket — cash for dates with girls, certainly, money for a new bike and new clothes, and the start of savings for a house for my mother.

Then I realized I would have to give up summer baseball to handle the work schedule, and that meant I would have to tell Coach Jarvis I wouldn’t be playing. I was afraid of this, but my mother said, “If you make your bed, you have to lie in it.” 

When I told Coach Jarvis, he was as mad as I expected him to be. “Your playing days are limited. You can’t afford to waste them,” he said.

I stood before him with my head hanging, trying to think of the words that would explain to him why I dream of buying my mom a house.

“How much are you going to make at this job, son?” he demanded.

“Three point twenty-five an hour,” I replied.

“Well,” he asked, “is $3. 25 an hour the price of a dream?”

That question exposed the difference between wanting something right now and having a goal. I devoted myself to sports that summer, and within the year I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates to play rookie-league ball, and offered a $20, 000 contract. I signed with the Denver Broncos in 1984 for $1.7 million, and bought my mother my dream house.

1. Why was the writer grateful to Coach Jarvis?

A．Because Coach Jarvis made him set a goal.

B．Because Coach Jarvis supplied him with new clothes.

C．Because Coach Jarvis gave him financial support.

D．Because Coach Jarvis helped him show conviction.

2. What did the writer want to do when he was offered a job?

A．Balance summer baseball and the work schedule.

B．Refuse the job offer for summer baseball.

C．Give up summer baseball for the job.

D．Ask his coach Jarvis for advice.

3. Which of the following can replace the underlined part “If you make your bed, you have to lie in it.” in paragraph 4?

A．You must eat the bitter fruit of your own making.

B．Believe in yourself, but above all be patient.

C．You must rely on yourself first, then others.

D．A good beginning makes a good ending.

4. What did the writer do at the end of the story?

A．He failed to buy his mother a house.

B．He succeeded as a sportsman.

C．He became a successful businessman.

D．He made some money in the summer job.

2 . I come from a family that loves sports. My father coaches Little League baseball. My mother swims nearly every weekend. My brother is on his high-school basketball team, and I am the best hitter on my middle-school volleyball team. All of us have benefited(受益）from sports. One of the most common ways for kids to take part in sports is to join a team. Joining a sports team should be a school requirement.

Playing sports is good for both the body and mind. Everyone knows that exercise helps people stay fit. For example, swimming helps your heart work better and it also helps build muscle strength(肌肉力量）. In addition, school athletes(运动员） often have a healthy diet. I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables and avoid fatty foods because I must stay in great condition.

Being on a team allows students to enjoy a healthier social life. They often make more friends and can be some of the most popular kids in school. Since joining the basketball team, my brother has made friends with a lot of his tea mates and has showed more interest in spending time with them.

Kids who take part in school teams sometimes earn college scholarships(奖学金）. My brother's friend, Justin, played football in high school. His family did not have money to send him to college. However, a college invited him to play on its team. The college is paying for him to go to school. Joining a team turned out to be one of the best decisions he had ever made. Now he studies at a great college and plays on its football team Not every school athlete gets a college scholarship, but joining a school team-makes it possible.

Although some people may not like the idea of forcing students to join a school team, its many benefits such as keeping kids heal thy, new friendships, and possible scholarships cannot be denied(否认）.

1. What does the author mainly tell us in Paragraph 2?

A．Joining a school team has health benefits.

B．Students should spend more time exercising.

C．Swimming is an excellent sport for students.

D．School athletes must try to eat a healthy diet.

2. How did the author's brother change after joining the team?

A．He had a busier life.	B．He got more chances.
C．He worked much harder.	D．He became more sociable.

3. What can we infer about Justin?

A．He is a good football player.	B．He will be given a scholarship.
C．He is managing a school team.	D．He comes from a wealthy family.

4. What is the author's attitude to making students join school teams?

A．He doubts it.	B．He is in support of it.
C．He is worried about it.	D．He pays little attention to it.

3 . It's the start of a new year, when your fitness goals are set and you engage in the challenge.     1     Their standards of “too big” are not even achievable in their lifetime, let alone a few months of training, which brings my tips.

Set realistic goals! The process of building muscle is an absolutely slow one that requires strong will to gain. Consistently causing protein synthesis （合成）in specific muscle fibers will allow muscle to develop. However, all individuals are not equal in the process.    2     Gaining muscle will happen quickly to a new gym-goer, but take a long time for someone that has been training for years.

Stick to specific training for the goals you set to achieve.     3    This will require you to restrict the diet, and it will prevent you gaining muscle. Diet reflects the training load. The training reflects your goals. It's like swimming upstream, think strong, fast and flexible. If you are running a marathon, the goals are different and train accordingly!

    4     Fat has taken some time to develop, so it will not be lost overnight. Allow the hormonal triggers （生理诱因）in the body to work more efficiently to regulate volume of food. Taking out additional sugars is one of the most important steps to regulate volumes of food to switch off desire for food.

Once a goal is reached, do not go back to what you did before. When people finish their transformation, the hormone profile is very weak to fat deposition （沉积）。Every training session should be a step toward a lasting transformation, with a diet improving the level of exercise.     5    

A．Don't try to achieve too much at once.

B．Why do so few people see their goals through?

C．Give yourself a realistic timeline when it comes to fat loss.

D．Keeping running slowly leads to very big changes over time.

E．Appreciate that you are taking time for your own development.

F．Place restrictions on your diet and follow good food eating patterns.

G．Also, it depends on how long you have been training to achieve muscle growth.

4 . Once upon a time, when you first attended a youth sporting event, your parents probably weren't expecting you to become a professional athlete.They signed up for a basketball, football or swimming course for you in the hope that you might learn lessons about winning gentlemanly, losing with dignity(尊严)and insisting on it when things get hard. Yes, playing games is good exercise, but it is the life lessons that matter most.

For many of us, instead of looking to improve our minds and spirits, we began judging progress only by the size of our muscles or the numbers on a weighing machine. The thought that athletic competition is about greater life lessons and the building of character has been further undermined(削弱)by headlines about professional athletes.

“And yet there's still strong evidence that sports strongly improve certain personal qualities,” says Angela Lumpkin, Professor of the Department of Health, Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Kansas. And that's true for athletes of any age.Amateur sports(业余体育运动)provide a safe place for competition. They also provide a practice ground for managing stress.

The advantages of taking part in a sport can seep(渗透)into your professional life, too. In basketball, for example, “Getting everyone to play the right role on the court is the key to success,” says Alan Arlt, the founder of the Life Time Fitness basketball program Ultimate Hoops. “That is certainly useful in the business world, where everyone understands their own role in the organization.” “In athletic events, you go through good and bad times often in the period of two hours,” says former NBA head coach Flip Saunders. “Do you have the calm manner to settle yourself down, or do you totally lose it and get thrown out of the game which hurts both you and your team？All of that on­court experience has a real effect on how you deal with real­life situations.”

1. What would parents expect when their children joined in sports?

A．To win as many games as possible.

B．To improve their health.

C．To make more friends.

D．To get through difficulties.

2. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?

A．People play sports to build their character.

B．People still hold the idea that sports can keep us fit.

C．People keep playing sports to improve minds and spirits.

D．People pay more attention to the news of professional athletes.

3. Amateur sports are mentioned in Paragraph 3 in order to        .

A．support Lumpkin's idea

B．introduce the next topic

C．show another piece of evidence

D．show the main idea of the paragraph

4. According to the last paragraph, the sports experience has a real effect on        .

A．how to succeed in the future

B．how to keep calm in certain situations

C．how to deal with real­life situations

D．how to understand the role on the court

5 . Basketball star Lebron James made ＄33 million last year. And that probably doesn’t surprise anyone. We’re used to watching professional athletes(运动员) make and spend millions of dollars.

But there was a time when professional athletes could barely buy a car. For most sports teams in 1950, there were main ways to make money. They sold tickets to games and popcorn in the stadium. For fans, it was a good deal(交易). You could see a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball game for 60 cents. For players, the deal wasn’t so great. There wasn't much money to go around. So salaries(薪水) stayed low. In some professional sports, players couldn’t spend the off-season working out. They had to get second jobs so they could pay the rent.

In the 1960s, television changed everything. In 1950, only 1 in 10 American homes had TVs. By 1960, 9 in 10 homes had TVs. And people loved watching sports. At first, team owners were worried about TV. They thought fans wouldn't pay to come to the stadium anymore. But the TV networks paid millions of dollars for the right to show games. That’s when sports teams started to get rich. Finally, the teams shared their wealth with players. In 1974, several baseball teams wanted a player named Catfish Hunter, who chose to play for the New York Yankees. They paid him ＄1 million just for picking their team. Since then, athletes have only gotten richer. In 2018, the highest-paid player in baseball will make ＄33 million. In basketball, the average salary is about ＄7 million a year.

Are sports stars worth the money? Many fans seem to think so. They will pay crazy prices to cheer for their favorite players.

1. What does the underlined word “barely” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A．finally

B．hardly

C．usually

D．personally

2. What would fans think of paying 60 cents for a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball game in 1950?

A．It was unfair to players.	B．It was a bit expensive.
C．It was cheap at the price.	D．It was less attractive to them.

3. What influence did TV have on sports in the 1960s?

A．Sports became a big business.

B．People were more willing to play sports.

C．More and more fans came to the stadium.

D．Tickets to games became more expensive.

4. What does the text mainly tell us?

A．How sports stars become famous.

B．Why fans are crazy about sports star.

C．Why sports become more and more popular.

D．How professional athletes started getting rich.

6 . 根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项，选项中有两项为多余项。

The wife-carrying World Championship has been celebrated in a small town in central Finland since 1992. In 1992, the people of the town decided to restart some long-forgotten traditions.     1     He was said to only accept men as members of his gang who proved their worth in challenges. At that time, it was also a common practice to steal women from neighboring villages.

    2     A large number of competitors, people, and journalists from Finland to Canada attend the Wife-carrying World Championship every year.

    3     The Wife-carrying World Championship is held on a 253.3 meters long official track. The track has two dry obstacles and a water obstacle, about a meter deep. The wife to be carried may be your own, or your neighbor’s. The minimum weight of the wife to be carried is 49 kg. If she is less than 49kg, the wife will be given a heavy bag to carry. Each time a competitor drops his wife, that couple will be fined 15 seconds.    4    

Alongside with the Wife-carrying World Championship, there is also a team competition. The distance is the same but three men in the team carry the wife in turns. At the exchange point the carrier has to drink official “wife-carrying drink.” Then he may continue the race.

    5    

While the Wife-carrying World Championship is being held, there are bands playing music, a wife carrying dance and other forms of entertainment.”

A．There are a few basic rules.

B．People everywhere hold the event.

C．A special prize is awarded to the team.

D．Do you know how these traditions restarted?

E．This event is becoming increasingly popular.

F．The winner is the couple who complete the course in the shortest time.

G．Back in the late 1800s, there was a robber called Rosvo-Ronkainen in that area.

7 . Along with soccer, basketball is a global sport. As you read this. young people somewhere in the world are happily passing, dribbling(运球) and shooting. It’s enormous fun and a joyful way to spend time with others.

Basketball is a game for everyone. Unlike golf or tennis. it doesn't require great wealth or a lot of space to play. After all, not many people have a golf course-sized backyard. and tennis equipment is expensive. Basketball, by contrast, just needs a wall with a hoop and a ball.

So after its invention by Canadian-American physical educator James Naismith in 1891, the sport took off within US citizens, who quickly became attracted to the game because it suited their circumstances. Today, 127 years later, basketball remains one of the most popular sports in the US, and the National Basketball Association (NBA)has an increasing appeal for fans around the world.

The success of basketball as global phenomenon is undoubtedly related to the way African-Americans play the game.” The basketball court reflected some of the major cultural shifts in America, such as from forbidding African-Americans to play basketball to allowing them to play in the NBA, "the LIVESTRONG website noted.

From the 1950s onwards, segregation rules, which had prohibited African-Americans from playing basketball in NBA games, were no longer used in the US. In 1950, when Earl Lloyd started to play for the Washington Capitols, things began to change. Since then, most of the greats of the game have been African-Americans, like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.

It's not difficult to see that there's a strong link between political liberation and basketball. Something of this is expressed in a quote from the US author John Edgar Wideman. He makes a connection between basketball and hope:" When it's' played the way it's supposed to be played. basketball happens in the air; flying, floating, raised above the floor, letting the oppressed(受压制的) people of this earth imagine themselves in their dreams.”

1. What advantage does basketball have over golf or tennis, according to the author?

A．It can be played everywhere.

B．It doesn't cost much.

C．It doesn't require too much skill.

D．It interests almost everyone.

2. What can we learn about basketball from Paragraph 3?

A．The sport was created by a PE teacher.

B．The sport was not popular with people at first.

C．Its rules have been changed a lot to suit new circumstances.

D．The NBA. with a history of 127 Years. attracts people worldwide

3. The main purpose of Paragraph 5 is to             .

A．explain the origin and rules of NBA games in the 1950s

B．prove the popularity of basketball among African-Americans

C．stress the success African-Americans in basketball

D．show how racial integration took place in basketball

4. What do John Edgar Wideman's words mean?

A．Basketball is sometimes a useful tool for politicians.

B．American people usually have a basketball dream.

C．Basketball stands for the freedom and hopes of people.

D．Political oppression is a serious problem in the US.

8 . Basketball is a great sport that is not only fun, but also brings children many benefits in different ways.     1    .

Playing basketball has physical benefits. Children are full of energy—they need to move, jump and run constantly. Basketball will allow them to control that energy in a positive way. It’s a full-body sport.     2     Since it’s a fast and dynamic sport, children need to follow the game and the continuous movement of the ball. The ball moves quickly from one side of the court to the other and the kids move at the same pace which helps improve both resistance and speed.

Playing basketball has cognitive (认知的) benefits. Children who practice playing basketball develop skills that help them fight against opponents and move around the court. This sport helps them increase their ability to concentrate.     3     Children will learn to assess surrounding situations and problems that may arise, and then find the best and fastest solution. The fast pace of the game encourages quick decision-making and stimulates their concrete and abstract thinking.

    4     Since it’s a team sport, basketball promotes sociability, coexistence and respect among peers. It’s ideal for shy children because they will have to learn to interact with other players. This is important both to get better at the sport and to have more fun. They will also learn important values like cooperation, teamwork and competitiveness.

    5     In fact, there are many other benefits. The most important thing is that it’s a very fast and fun sport. This tends to make the vast majority of children enjoy it.

A．Playing basketball just has entertaining benefits.

B．Playing basketball has social and emotional advantages.

C．These are not all of the advantages of playing basketball.

D．This means that it strengthens muscles in their whole body.

E．It also makes them more aware of the environment around them.

F．This sport promotes healthy development in children for a number of reasons.

G．However, there are some disadvantages when children keep running on the court.

9 . Sports can help you keep fit and get in touch with nature. However, whether you are on the mountains, in the waves, or on the grassland, you should be aware that your sport of choice might have great influence on the environment.

Some sports are resource-hungry. Golf, as you may know, eats up not only large areas of countryside, but also tons of water. Besides, all sorts of chemicals and huge amounts of energy are used to keep its courses （球场） in good condition. This causes major environmental effects. For example, in the dry regions of Portugal and Spain, golf is often held responsible for serious water shortage in some local areas.

There are many environment-friendly sports. Power walking is one of them that you could take up today. You don’t need any special equipment except a good pair of shoes; and you don’t have to worry about resources and your purse. Simple and free, power walking can also keep you fit. If you walk regularly, it will be good for your heart and bones. Experts say that 20 minutes of power walking daily can make you feel less anxious, sleep well and have better weight control.

Whatever sport you take up, you can make it greener by using environment-friendly equipment and buying products made from recycled materials. But the final goal should be “green gyms”. They are better replacements for traditional health clubs and modern sports centers. Members of green gyms play sports outdoors, in the countryside or other open spaces. There is no special requirement for you to start your membership. And best of all, it’s free.

1. Which of the following is the author most probably in favor of?

A．Cycling around a lake.

B．Motor racing in the desert.

C．Playing basketball in a gym.

D．Swimming in a sports center.

2. What do we know about golf from the passage?

A．It is popular in Portugal and Spain.

B．It causes water shortages around the world.

C．It pollutes the earth with chemicals and wastes.

D．It needs water and electricity to keep its courses green.

3. The author uses power walking as an example mainly because _________.

A．it is an outdoor sport

B．it improves our health

C．it uses fewer resources

D．it is recommended by experts

4. The author writes the passage to _________.

A．show us the function of major sports

B．encourage us to go in for green sports

C．discuss the major influence of popular sports

D．introduce different types of environment-friendly sports

10 . It was the last time Susan Butcher ran the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in 1992. An hour into the race, Susan and her sled dog team sped down a hill and crashed into a fallen tree. Although hurt, Susan continued the difficult race.

The Iditarod Race started in 1925 when a doctor in Nome, Alaska was desperately in need of medicine to stop the spread of a deadly disease. Only a hospital had what he needed, but it was 700 mile-away! In January, it was too dangerous to send a boat and too stormy for his tiny airplane. The only hope was to use several sled dog teams following a trail, called the Iditarod Trail. They passed the medicine from one sled team to another. Wind and snow did not stop the men and their dogs. The medicine was delivered in record time. The race follows the route of the famous medicine run. Over 1,000 miles long, it is considered the toughest race in the world.

Susan Butcher was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In her teens Susan was given a Siberian husky dog and became very interested in huskies as sled dogs. After reading about the Iditarod Race, Susan moved to Alaska. She got several jobs to earn money to buy herself a sled and a team of huskies. After years of hard work and training, Susan achieved her dream of racing on the Iditarod Trail.

In 1978, at the age of 24, Susan entered the race for the first time and became the first woman to finish in the top 20. In 1982 she came in second. In 1984 she was leading her team across a frozen waterway when they fell into the water. Her lead dog managed to pull Susan and the other dogs out of danger. Remarkably, she came in second.

In her fourth race, in 1985, a starving moose (驼鹿) attacked her dogs, killing two and injuring eleven. Susan had to leave the race. In 1986 Susan joined the race again. This time, she won. She won again in 1987. In 1988 she became the first person ever to win three Iditarod races in a row. Unbelievably, Susan won for the fourth time in 1990.

1. According to text, Susan Butcher entered the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race at least times.

A．six

B．seven

C．eight

D．nine

2. In Paragraph 2, the author wants to tell us     .

A．how the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race began

B．how the spread of a deadly disease was stopped

C．how tough the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was

D．how Susan Butcher began to show interest in the race

3. What does the underlined phrase “in a row” probably mean in the last paragraph?

A．continuously

B．eventually

C．remarkably

D．respectively

4. What led to some of Susan Butcher’s failures?

A．Snowstorm.	B．Lack of food.
C．Accidents.	D．Lack of experience.