1 . One day, Jack’s parents told him that his grandpa would retire(退休) after working for forty years. Jack said in surprise，“I’m only seven, so it means grandpa has been…er... a really long time!”
His parents said，“Yes. That’s why we are going to have a surprise party for him. ”
Jack loved his grandpa and wanted to do something special for him. He remembered the business card his grandpa had given him two years before. He knew that his grandpa would no longer have the position(职位) on that card, so he decided to build a new one for his grandpa.
When the big day came, Jack was ready. But he didn’t want to put his gift together with others’. He carried it around with him the whole evening.
When all the other people left，he took his grandpa’s hand and brought him over to a chair and gave him the gift. His grandpa smiled, “Well，it must be a beautiful gift. May I open it now?” “Sure! ”Jack said excitedly.
As his grandpa opened the gift, tears came into his eyes. Jack gave him the greatest gift he had ever got! They were business cards with his new position FULL-TIME GRANDPA! Jack said, “Now your full-time(全职的) job is my grandpa!”
“Well，how much do I get paid?”his grandpa asked，smiling. “As many hugs(拥抱) as you want!” With these words，Jack gave his grandpa a hug. “Well, I guess that means I’m the richest man in the world! ” said his grandpa.
1. Who was going to retire?| A．Jack’s grandma. | B．Jack’s grandpa. |
| C．Jack’s mother. | D．Jack’s father. |
| A．明信片 | B．纸牌 | C．名片 | D．信用卡 |
| A．To build a new position for him on the card. |
| B．To draw a picture for him. |
| C．To sing a song to him. |
| D．To buy a gift for him. |
| A．Because he would lose his position. |
| B．Because he was not loved. |
| C．Because he was moved by Jack’s gift. |
| D．Because he was unhappy. |
2 . When I was in primary school, I was actually a little shy. One thing that really frightened me was speaking in front of many people, whether strangers or acquaintances (熟人). It was my sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Bamick, who helped me get past that. That year we had to make four oral (口头的) book reports in front of the class. Some of the kids were even glad to do it, but I was scared to death. Mr. Bamick recognized my fear, so be told me to do a report on a book that was about something that really interested me. So I did the first report on baseball.
When it came time for me to present it to the class, Mr. Bamick cut me some slack and let me read the report rather than give it from memory. Some of my classmates laughed at me, but Mr. Bamick defended (为……辩解) me. By the end of the year I had completed all four of the oral book reports. It wasn’t easy or comfortable for me, but I did it.
Years later I realized that Mr. Bamick did me a great favor in sixth grade. One of the chances I got when I won a tennis tournament (锦标赛) was to make comments to the fans who attended the match. Some of those were carried live on television and all of them were before thousands of people. It was still not one of my favorite things to do, but, with Mr. Bamick’s help, I got through it from time to time. Before long, I was asked to bring my favorite childhood teacher to a national event in Dallas. 1 was excited when Mr. Bamick joined me for the event. It meant a lot to me that he was there.
Mr. Bamick believed in me and helped me to believe in myself. It was he who helped me build the person I became.
1. In what aspect (方面) did Mr. Bamick help the writer?| A．Improving her learning skills. |
| B．Encouraging her to read more books. |
| C．Winning her classmates’ recognition. |
| D．Overcoming her fear of public speaking. |
| A．Played a funny joke on the writer. |
| B．Gave the writer a feeling of pride. |
| C．Made the task a little easier for the writer. |
| D．Asked the writer to take part in a competition. |
| A．She was a tennis player. |
| B．She wanted to be a teacher. |
| C．She liked public speaking best. |
| D．She enjoyed commenting on books. |
| A．Strict. | B．Curious. |
| C．Encouraging. | D．Frightening. |
3 . When I turned 10, I made up my mind to take up swimming. There was a pool at the Y.M.C.A. offering exactly the opportunity. Mother continually warned against it and kept fresh in my mind the details of drowning in the river. But the Y.M.C A. pool was safe.
I had a childhood fear of water. This started when I was three years old and father took me to the beach. The huge waves knocked me down and swept over me.
The pool was quiet. I was afraid of going in all alone, so I sat on the side of the pool to wait for others. Then came a big boy. He shouted, “Hi, skinny! How’d you like to be ducked?” With that he picked me up and threw me into the deep end. I landed in a sitting position, and swallowed water. But I was not frightened out of my wits（机智）—when my feet hit the bottom, I would make a big jump, coming out of the surface. It seemed a long way down. I gathered all my strength when I landed and made what I thought was a great spring upwards. Then I opened my eyes and saw nothing but water. I tried to shout but no sound came out. I went down, down, endlessly.
When I came to consciousness（意识）, I found myself lying on the bed in the hospital.
I never went back to the pool. I avoided water whenever I could. This misfortune stayed with me as the years rolled by. It deprived（剥夺）me of the joy of boating and swimming. Finally, I decided to get an instructor. Piece by piece, he built a swimmer. Several months later, the instructor was finished, but I was not. Sometimes the terror（恐惧）would return.
This went on until July. I swam across the Lake Went Worth. Only once did the terror return. When I was in the middle of the lake, I put my face under and saw nothing but bottomless water. I laughed and said, “Well, Mr. Terror, what do you think you can do to me?”
I had defeated my fear of water.
1. What caused the author’s original（最初的）fear of water?| A．His lack of swimming skills. |
| B．His mother’s continual warning of drowning. |
| C．His misfortune to the beach with his father. |
| D．A terrible dream of getting drowned. |
| A．he didn’t finish swimming training |
| B．he was not satisfied with the swimming training |
| C．he was not afraid of drowning any more |
| D．he had not got rid of the fear of water yet |
| A．The author’s father was against taking up swimming. |
| B．The author showed little interest in boating and swimming. |
| C．The author was a man of great courage and determination. |
| D．The author defeated his fear of water before July. |
| A．Hello, Childhood Fear | B．Goodbye, Mr. Terror |
| C．A Swimming Adventure | D．My Passion for Swimming |
4 . When I was 19 years old, I was at a dance club. As we were walking to my car one cold night, a man walked up to us. Behind him was a woman carrying a small child. The child had a jacket on but it wasn’t buttoned up(扣上). The man began to tell us he wanted to borrow some money for the night to get his wife and kid into a hotel. He had a job but no place to live in and was waiting for the first paycheck. He said he could get our mailing address and mail the money back.
The guy I was with reached into his pocket to give this man a $20 bill. As the other man was extending(伸出) his hand out to take the money, I put my hand on my new friends’ hand and said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I told him that every day people asked my mother for money on her way to work. She said they made more money than she did, simply begging for money. These people were scamming those with soft hearts. And if they were truly worried about their child suffering from the cold, they would have at least buttoned his jacket or covered him with his blanket.
My new friend looked at me with disappointment and said, “Michelle, I know there are people out there that make use of others. I also know there are people out there that are one paycheck away from being homeless. If I give $ 20 to 10 people and only one of them really needs it and uses it for the right thing, it is worth it.”
I am now 37 years old and have never forgotten what he said to me. I don’t even remember his name. But I do remember that that experience changed the way I look at different situations.
1. Where did this story happen?| A．Near a hotel | B．Outside a dance club |
| C．Behind a mailbox | D．In the dance club |
| A．He had been begging for a long time near the dance club. |
| B．He would spend the cold night at an expensive hotel. |
| C．He was careless and didn’t take good care of his child. |
| D．He might be just lying in order to get some money. |
| A．She wanted to tell him to give some more money to the stranger. |
| B．She believed her mother had already given the stranger some money. |
| C．She wanted to warn(提醒，警告) him not to be cheated by the stranger. |
| D．She asked her friend to pay more attention to the baby instead. |
| A．cheating | B．caring |
| C．loving | D．understanding |
5 . A Massachusetts man has got his wedding ring back thanks to some hikers who decided to try their luck at finding it.
It all started after Bill Giguere lost his gold wedding ring. Looking for the lost golden wedding ring was like searching for a needle in a haystack (干草堆). He had lost it during a daytime hike on Mount Hancock. Giguere was not sure about the location of the missing ring. He only remembered that he had briefly pulled off his gloves at the top of the mountain. And he guessed that the ring might fall off at that time. By the time he returned to his car after the hike and noticed that his ring was missing, it was completely dark.
He then decided to take his chances by posting information about his missing ring in a Facebook group for hikers. Luckily, the post was seen by Tom Gately. “As I read the post, my heart went out to him because I had lost my wedding ring before and luckily a man picked it up and returned it to me. So I decided to help him and I was going to be on the mountain to look for it,” Gately said.
Gately didn’t believe there was any chance of finding the ring on a snowy 10-mile trail if he only depended on his eyes and hands. So he decided to improve his chances by bringing along his metal detector (探测器). Within minutes of Gately and his friends reaching the top for the ring, his metal detector started ringing. He then brushed away some snow only to find the missing wedding ring. “Everybody just started laughing,” Brendan, Gately’s friend, said, “You couldn’t believe it.”
After Giguere received a Facebook message about how they had found the ring, he drove 60 miles to Gately’s house so he could pick up his wedding ring. And he thanked the hikers for their efforts again and again.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?| A．Giguere accidentally fell during the hike. |
| B．Giguere realized he lost the ring while hiking. |
| C．It seemed impossible to find the lost wedding ring. |
| D．It was difficult for Giguere to finish a long hike alone. |
| A．Gately felt pity for Giguere. |
| B．Gately shared his story with Giguere. |
| C．Gately wished to be friends with Giguere. |
| D．Gately wanted to repay Giguere for his kindness. |
| A．He made use of a tool with friends. |
| B．He got help from an experienced ring finder. |
| C．He searched the snowy trail several times alone. |
| D．He posted information about the missing ring online. |
| A．Brave and lucky. |
| B．Helpful and wise. |
| C．Honest and thoughtful. |
| D．Humorous and positive. |
6 . Age has never been a problem for 16-year-old Thessalonika Arzu-Embry. After all, she’s already got her master’s degree.
The North Chicago-area teen started homeschooling at the age of 4. She began having an influence on others soon after. When she was 6 years old, she was an inspirational speaker at an organization called Tabitha House Community Service, which is for people who were forced to leave their homes because of earthquake, flood and other natural disasters.
At the age of 11, she graduated from high school and then earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2013. She completed those classes online as she was traveling for church events and leadership meetings.
She doesn’t stop there, though. The teen plans to focus on aviation psychology (航空心理学) for her further study, a decision inspired by her father who is a pilot. She grew up around airplanes and took flights all the time. Her goal is to use it to help pilots deal with problems that could have deadly results once the plane takes off — a topic that has been in the news lately. For her, it’s a mix of two of her interests.
In her free time, Thessalonika enjoys playing tennis, swimming and being active in her youth group at church. She also has three self-published books, which are on her site. Jump the Education Barrier is written to help students finish college, and In the Future aims to help business owners with trends. Her third book The Genius Race is designed to help people to be talents in various areas of life.
1. Which of the following is TRUE about Thessalonika?| A．She majored in science and technology. |
| B．She gained her master’s degree at the age of 11. |
| C．When she was 6 years old, she started homeschooling. |
| D．In 2013 she got her bachelor’s degree through completing courses online. |
| A．Major in aviation psychology. |
| B．Be active in her youth group at church. |
| C．Write another book to help people to be talents. |
| D．Deliver inspiring speeches for church events and leadership meetings. |
| A．It aims to help people to be geniuses. |
| B．It is designed to arouse people’s awareness of psychology. |
| C．It is aimed to give students a hand to complete college. |
| D．The author hope to share her own experience with others. |
| A．The secret to become a talent is to start schooling at an early age. |
| B．Thessalonika led a rather successful and meaningful life. |
| C．Homeschooling is a good way to educate children. |
| D．Three published books help people become masters in their fields. |
7 . The three men sat in the truck, unaware of the hot Nevada sun. Their attention was focused on a fourth man, middle-aged, tall slender, and rather well dressed for the desert-like land of the Carson River Valley. He walked purposefully over the sandy soil, systematically covering the area of a gentle rise. In his outstretched hands was a Y-shaped tree branch.
“I feel silly about this,” one of the men in the truck said. “What he's doing is contrary to all my beliefs.”
“Just you wait” one of the other two told him. “Then you won't feel so silly anymore.”
At length, the man with the branch stopped his walking. The stick he carried by the two ends of the Y no longer pointed toward the sky. Instead, it was pointing to the ground with a definite swinging motion.
“That's it,” one of the men in the truck called. He jumped over the side and ran toward the man with the stick. Within minutes, a stake had been driven into the ground at the point where the forked stick was pointing. Early the next morning，a drilling rig (钻机) lowered its bit into the earth at the same point and mechanical digging began. Less than twenty feet down, the drill stuck something the man who said he felt silly had been seeking for months: water.
It had been an uncommonly dry summer, even for that part of Nevada. One well had gone dry, and livestock were thirsty. Previous attempts at well drilling had failed, government geologists and soil engineers had gone over the area with maps, testing equipment, and sounding device. The best they could accomplish for the farmer was a gloomy series of dry holes. All the farmer had to show for his faith in men of science was a considerable drilling bill and a thirsty herd.
He had felt silly because he had been pushed by desperation into listening to some of his neighbours who suggested he try a water witch: the man with the forked stick.
After the well was completed and plenty water flowed forth, the farmer smiled nervously as he paid the water witch his twenty-five-dollar fee. “It seems so crazy to be doing this,” he said. Perhaps part of the craziness came because the farmer was a university graduate, a teacher of science at a nearby high school. However, even odder was the water witch's request for anonymity. “I don't mind you telling people you had searched for water through the use of a diving rod,” the water witch had said, “but I'll be grateful to you if you don't mention my name in any way that gets into print. I don't think my boss would like it.”
1. The farmer occasionally expressed the feeling that _________.| A．geologists would be able to do a better job. |
| B．he was foolish to hire a witch to find water |
| C．he firmly believed in water witching |
| D．the water witch's fee was too high |
| A．immediately | B．exactly |
| C．eventually | D．inevitably |
| A．brought him innumerable benefits |
| B．helped him to overcome difficulties |
| C．enabled him to maintain his livestock |
| D．made him waste a lot of money |
| A．to hire him for any future well drilling |
| B．not to reveal his name |
| C．to pay more for his service |
| D．not to tell people how he searched for water |
8 . It was one of those terribly hot days in Baltimore. Needless to say, it was too hot to do anything outside. But it was also scorching in our apartment. This was 1962, and I would not live in a place with an air conditioner for another ten years. So my brother and I decided to leave the apartment to find someplace indoors. He suggested we could see a movie. It was a brilliant plan.
Movie theaters were one of the few places you could sit all day and — most important — sit in air conditioning. In those days, you could buy one ticket and sit through two movies. Then, the theater would show the same two movies again. If you wanted to, you could sit through them twice. Most people did not do that, but the manager at our theater. Mr. Bellow did not mind if you did.
That particular day, my brother and I sat through both movies twice, trying to escape the heat. We bought three bags of popcorn and three sodas each. Then, we sat and watched The Music Man followed by The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. We’d already seen the second movie once before. It had been at the theater since January, because Mr. Bellow loved anything with John Wayne in it.
We left the theater around 8, just before the evening shows began. But we returned the next day and saw the same two movies again, twice more. And we did it the next day too. Finally, on the fourth day, the heat wave broke.
Still, to this day I can sing half the songs in The Music Man and recite half of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart’s dialogue from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance! Those memories are some of the few I have of the heat wave of 1962. They’re really memories of the screen, not memories of my life.
1. In which year did the author first live in a place with an air conditioner?| A．1952 | B．1962 |
| C．1972 | D．1982 |
| A．He loved children very much. | B．He was a fan of John Wayne. |
| C．He sold air conditioners. | D．He was a movie star. |
| A．The two movies were really wonderful. |
| B．They wanted to avoid the heat outside. |
| C．The manager of the theater was friendly. |
| D．They liked the popcorn and the soda at the theater. |
| A．The author turned out to be a great singer. |
| B．The author enjoyed the heat wave of 1962. |
| C．The author’s life has been changed by the two movies. |
| D．The author considers the experience at the theater unforgettable. |
9 . While Fernando and his wife were waiting in the ticketing line, he heard a man at the counter trying to get a ticket to Las Vegas. He was having trouble. He only had $150 and that wasn’t enough. The ticketing agent(售票员)was pretty unhelpful and told him he needed to go online and look for other ways.
The man kept trying to explain his situation to her but wasn’t getting anywhere. His English was limited, so it was difficult for him to communicate. He was becoming increasingly anxious—and she was becoming increasingly cold.
After he finally turned away from the counter, Fernando went up and asked what was up. He spoke Spanish so Fernando was able to understand his story.
The man had lost his job here in the San Francisco area and had no place to live, and only had $150. He had family who were living in Las Vegas and was trying to get there. He was told he could get a ticket for $150, but told Fernando that he couldn't read, didn't have a computer, and didn't know how to access the internet from the airport—let alone buy a low-cost ticket on the net.
Fernando believed him and wanted to help him. They walked back to the counter and Fernando bought a $330 ticket to Las Vegas for the man.
Fernando didn’t ask for anything and trusted that this guy’s story was true. He followed his heart, because he wanted to help him. And most importantly, he did.
Not only that, a month later when Fernando’s wife was going through the credit card statement, she saw the charge and asked her husband, “Wasn’t that ticket $240? Why is the bill $330?”
Fernando sheepishly replied, “I upgraded (升级) him.”
1. What prevented the man going home?| A．He lost his money. | B．He missed his flight. |
| C．He couldn’t communicate. | D．He couldn’t buy a ticket. |
| A．He lent the man some money. |
| B．He chose to believe the man’s words. |
| C．He helped the man explain to the agent. |
| D．He taught the man to connect the internet. |
| A．Curious. | B．Annoyed. |
| C．Proud. | D．Calm. |
| A．A Flight Ticket | B．A Homeless Man |
| C．An Interesting Trip | D．A Helpful Couple |
10 . James is five years old now. His father is a worker and his mother works in a shop. They live outside the town. His parents go to work in the morning and come back in the evening. The boy has to stay at home alone. There are more than ten children around his house, but some of them are too young and the others have to go to school. So the boy has few friends and he feels sad.
Last month the Hunts moved to the house next to theirs. James went to visit them on the first day. Mr. and Mrs. Hunt were kind to him and they have a four-year-old daughter named Kate. The boy made friends with her at once and her parents were happy. The two children play together when their parents are at work. And James no longer feels lonely.
It was cold yesterday. It snowed hard and the children couldn’t play outside. And they stayed in Kate’s room. At first they looked at the picture—books and then Kate found a coin in a box. They began to play with it. The girl put it into her mouth and she swallowed (吞) it. After half an hour Mrs. Hunt called her husband at once and then took the girl to the hospital.
“The Hunts must be poor, I think.” James said to his parents after supper.
“Oh? Why?”
“Kate swallowed a coin and they tried to get it out!”
1. James doesn’t go to school because ________ .| A．his parents are very poor | B．he is too young |
| C．he doesn’t like to go to school | D．there is no school around his house |
| A．he can play with nobody | B．his parents are very busy |
| C．their house is outside the town | D．there is no house around |
| A．James can go to school with Kate |
| B．James made a few friends now |
| C．Kate can play with James |
| D．Kate’s parents are kind to James |
| A．It was dangerous for James and Kate to stay out |
| B．It was a snowy day |
| C．Something was wrong with Kate |
| D．It was raining hard |
| A．she was poor | B．it wasn’t clean |
| C．it was useful | D．it could hurt her daughter |
