1 . Sunday evening, October 30, 1938, was peaceful in New York City. Some people were returning home from a trip to the countryside, and others were sitting down to dinner. In those days, televisions were not very common. Most people listened to the radio for news and entertainment.
At eight o’clock that evening, there was a concert of dance music, but Suddenly, the programme was cut off by a news report: a large spaceship had landed in a field and an army of Martians (火星人) was moving towards New York City and then the radio went silent.
People felt worried. Some drove out of the city as quickly as possible, but soon the roads were crowded with cars. Some people put wet towels on their faces because they thought there was a gas attack. In New Jersey, some farmers went out with guns. Although it was dark, they found a large cylinder (圆柱体) standing in a field, and, thinking it was the Martian spaceship, the shot at it many times.
Many people were so frightened that they did not hear the next announcement on the radio: “Ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to a radio play called The War of the Worlds.”
A message was sent to police stations that there was no real Martian attack, and the police Offices soon returned calm to New York City.
Many people were very angry that they had been fooled by the play, and complained to the radio station. But what about the spaceship that the farmers found in the field? The next morning, they found that they had damaged a large water tank (罐)!
1. According to the news report, ___________.| A．a Martian spaceship had landed | B．a spaceship was found at the airport |
| C．there would be a concert that evening | D．there was a gas attack in New York City |
| A．many people wanted to see the Martians |
| B．the Martian army was standing in the way |
| C．people were trying to get home from work |
| D．many people were trying to leave New York City |
| A．Policemen. | B．Firemen. | C．Dancers. | D．Farmers. |
| A．it was fooled by a news reporter. |
| B．It played a joke on the listeners. |
| C．It called the police to catch the Martians. |
| D．It often announced the news about spaceships. |
2 . Braving the elements
On Dec.26, Gelinne, 60, was looking out the back windows of his home at the frozen lake. Then an airplane came into his sight. Gelinne looked up just in time to see that small air plane a few hundred yards away, losing control.
As the plane disappeared behind the trees, Gelinne, a former Navy officer, realized it was going to land in the lake. He flashed on a moment from more than 20 years earlier: Gelinne was at work in a bank. When a fire alarm rang, he escaped from the chaos but has always wondered if he could have stayed inside and helped.
On this day, Gelinne didn’t hesitate. He ran down to the waterfront. The plane had skidded (侧滑) to a stop on the broad, frozen lake, far from shore. It was now sinking. The pilot was standing on the wing. Gelinne knew from his Navy training that even a few minutes in the icy water could kill the pilot.
Gelinne tested the ice with his foot and decided not to take any chances walking on it. So he pulled a boat out from under his back deck.
Then he set off, pushing his boat across the ice. It was tough work. When Gelinne reached the plane, it had broken through the ice and sunk; only its tail was visible. The pilot was standing on a tail wing, submerged up to his chest, surrounded by open water. Gelinne pushed his boat off the ice and into the water, paddling (划) toward the pilot.
Gelinne focused on keeping the pilot calm, joking, “Just hang on to the boat as if you were hugging your wife.” The pilot grabbed the boat’s bow, but Gelinne knew he had to get the pilot out of the water and up onto the shelf of unbroken ice behind him before the man lost too much body heat.
By now a police officer had arrived and radioed for help. A lifeboat appeared, breaking through ice as it arrived. It picked up the pilot and rushed him to safety. Later the boat returned to help Gelinne, now extremely tired, to shore.
“I’m 60 years old,” Gelinne says. “There was no way I could get him to shore.” Still, he was satisfied he’d gone the right way that day.
1. Why did Gelinne run outside without hesitation?| A．He had rescucing experience. | B．He wanted to offer help in time. |
| C．He needed more time to prepare. | D．He was amazed at what had happened. |
| A．He made a call to the police. | B．He got the pilot out of the water. |
| C．He asked the pilot to grasp the bow. | D．He picked up the pilot onto the shore. |
| A．generous | B．brave | C．curious | D．strict |
| A．Think twice before action. |
| B．One good turn deserves another. |
| C．It’s never too late to make things right. |
| D．One should always be ready to seize chances. |
3 . It was rush hour on the morning of June1. Heather Santellano, 36, was driving her car on Houston Harte Frontage Road with her nine-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son in the back. Suddenly, a red pickup truck cut them off. Santellano turned the wheel hard to the right, sending the car running off the road and down an embankment (路堤) that ended in a drop-off after about 50 feet. If the car didn’t stop, it would go up into the air and slide onto the road some 20 feet below. Then came a bit of luck. As the car raced towards the edge, its undercarriage got stuck on the embankment, stopping it cold. The occupants, however, were far from safe. The car had come to rest on top of a retaining wall, literally teetering on the edge of disaster. One sudden move by anyone inside could send it over.
Jacob Rodriguez, a veteran, watched the scene unfold from the company where he works. Then, he and four other men ran to the car. They leaped onto the trunk to balance the weight as the terrified kids in the back seat watched.
Meanwhile, Julio Vasquez and his nephew, Marco Vasquez, were driving to their jobs at nearby Premier Automotive. Julio jumped out of the car to help while Marco went to the shop, grabbed a heavy-duty strap and returned to the dangling car. He tied the car to and F-350 truck that had been driven over by one of the other rescuers. With the car secured the group carefully opened the back doors and helped the children out.
But their departure shifted the car’s weight, causing it to lean forward. The men, still on the trunk, implored Santellano to jump into the back seat to re-balance the weight. She did and then inched out from the back door. Finally, the men carefully got off the trunk Everyone was safe. “Another foot,” Rodriguez told the media, “and this would be different story.”
1. What happened to Santellano’ scar after a red pickup truck cut it off?| A．It ran into the truck and was holed. |
| B．It rushed to the roadside and was broken. |
| C．It went into the air and fell sharply onto the road. |
| D．It slipped off the road and down an embankment. |
| A．Because everyone got off the car. |
| B．Because Santellano jumped into the back seat. |
| C．Because the helpers ran to the car and leaped onto the trunk. |
| D．Because the weight of the car was unbalanced when the children left. |
| A．Generous and outgoing. | B．Friendly and humble. |
| C．Helpful and professional. | D．Ambitious and optimistic. |
4 . One day, Lisa Holman told her family she would be out that night visiting her friend, only about half an hour’s drive from her house. So it was not alarming as the night grew on and she did not arrive home. As 11 pm passed, her family began to worry. They called her but did not get any answer. They then reached out to Lisa’s best friend, who said Lisa had left to drive home at 9 that night.
The family thought about calling the police that evening but the police typically don’t define a person missing unless there is no contact for 24 hours. The next morning there was still no sign of Lisa. All the family could do was sit home and wait. Lisa’s son decided to drive along Lisa’s route and carefully look for her. He found Lisa’s car had crashed into a tree. What’s worse, there was no sign of Lisa at all.
The family called the police. The police began their search. But due to the heavy rain, the search team was called back. The family was very disappointed but still hopeful and continued the search. 700 feet from Lisa’s car, they finally found Lisa under a rock.
After a few days in hospital, Lisa recovered. She explained that she passed out after her car slid off the road in the rain. After she came to herself, Lisa managed to climb out of the car. While walking to find help, Lisa was exhausted and unable to figure out the direction. So she couldn’t walk on and climbed under a rock as it started raining again. Scared as she was, she turned to her faith in hopes of living to see her son again.
1. When should Lisa arrive home after visiting her friend?| A．About 9 pm. | B．About9:30pm. | C．About 11pm. | D．The next morning. |
| A．Lisa stayed with her best friend. |
| B．The rocks had blocked all the roads up. |
| C．The police usually refused to come at night. |
| D．They had been out of touch with Lisa for less than a day. |
| A．She was lost. | B．She was injured. |
| C．She was locked in her car. | D．She was caught by heavy rain. |
5 . Alexis, 17, sat quietly in the passenger seat of her dad’s car. She let her eyes lazily scan the landscape for wildlife. Then a deer came into view about 200 yards in front of them. “Dad, there’s a deer there!” Alexis said. It was a male deer with sharp antlers (角) on each side of its head.
As the car moved closer, Alexis saw that the deer’s head was bent toward the ground. Then she heard a scream and saw an arm fly up near the deer’s head. Alexis realized the deer was attacking a woman. Sue, a 44-year-old mother, had been out for her morning run. The deer followed her and edged closer. “I knew I was in trouble,” Sue says. She went to pick up a stick for self-defense, and the deer charged. It lifted her with its antlers and threw her into the air. Sue could feel blood flew down her leg. Within seconds, the deer had pushed her off the road.
When Alexis and her father pulled up, the deer was throwing Sue like a doll. Alexis looked into the woman’s terrified eyes, and before her father had even stopped the car, the teenager jumped quickly out of the car and ran toward the deer. “I was kicking it to get its attention,” she says. Then her father, who had followed his daughter, pushed the deer away from the women.
Alexis helped Sue into the car, and then applied a piece of cloth to Sue’s injured leg. “We’re going to get you to a hospital,” Alexis said. Then she heard her father shout loudly. He had been knocked to the ground. Alexis took hold of a hammer from the car and ran to where her father lay on his back. She beat the deer’s head and neck, but the blows didn’t scare it away. “I was losing faith,” she says. “A couple more strikes, Alexis,” said her father. “You can do it.” Turning the hammer around, Alexis closed her eyes and beat the deer’s neck with all her strength. When she opened her eyes, the deer was running away. Alexis got in the driver’s seat and sped toward the nearest hospital.
After Sue was treated, she tearfully thanked her rescuers. “You expect a teenage girl to get on the phone and call for help,” she says, “not to beat up a deer.”
1. What did Alexis do to save Sue?| A．She pushed the deer away. | B．She hit the deer with her feet. |
| C．She drove the car to hit the deer. | D．She beat the deer with a hammer. |
| A．Strong. | B．Cruel. | C．Energetic. | D．Brave. |
| A．A Woman Was Seriously Injured |
| B．A Dangerous Deer Attacked a Woman |
| C．A Girl Rescued Her Father Successfully |
| D．A Teenager Saved Others from a Deer Attack |
6 . The sound that woke Damian Languell at 8:15 in the morning was so loud he assumed it came from inside his house in Wade, Maine. As he got up to investigate, he heard another sound, this one coming most definitely from outside. Looking out of his bedroom window, he noticed a tree enveloped in smoke about 500 yards away. A car wrapped around the tree’s base, its engine on fire.
Grabbing buckets of water, he and his wife ran to the crash site. Up close, the accident looked worse. The car was split nearly in two, and the tree was where the driver’s seat ought to have been, as if planted there. No one should have survived this crash, and yet there was 20-year-old Quintin Thompson, his terrified face pressed against the driver’s side window, in visible pain.
Languell tried putting out the fire with his buckets of water but failed. When the flames got into the front seats, he knew he had to get the young man out. So Languell opened the car’s back door and climbed in. Using a pocket knife he’d brought with him, he cut through Thompson’s seat belt. Now that Thompson was free, Languell pulled him out, and dragged him to safety before the entire car was in flames.
It is empathy that drove Languell to help, just as he said, “My heart goes out to Thompson. When you are that close to that level of hurt, you feel it so directly.” For his heroic action, Languell was added to the list of real-life heroes changing the world.
1. What do we know about Quintin Thompson?| A．He was successfully rescued. |
| B．He was capable of helping himself out. |
| C．He saved his car from fire. |
| D．He remained calm all the time. |
| A．Wisdom. | B．Sympathy. | C．Honesty. | D．Humor. |
| A．Caring and thankful. | B．Careless and generous. |
| C．Creative and hard-working. | D．Courageous and helpful. |
7 . Alexis, 17, sat quietly in the passenger seat of her dad’s car. She let her eyes lazily scan the landscape for wildlife. Then a deer came into view about 200 yards in front of them. “Dad, there’s a deer there!” Alexis said. It was a male deer with sharp antlers (角) on each side of its head.
As the car moved closer, Alexis saw that the deer’s head was bent toward the ground. Then she heard a scream and saw an arm fly up near the deer’s head. Alexis realized the deer was attacking a woman. Sue, a 44-year-old mother, had been out for her morning run. The deer followed her and edged closer. “I knew I was in trouble,” Sue says. She went to pick up a stick for self-defense, and the deer charged. It lifted her with its antlers and threw her into the air. Sue could feel blood flew down her leg.
Within seconds, the deer had pushed her off the road. When Alexis and her father pulled up, the deer was throwing Sue like a doll. Alexis looked into the woman’s terrified eyes, and before her father had even stopped the car, the teenager jumped quickly out of the car and ran toward the deer.
“I was kicking it to get its attention,” she says. Then her father, who had followed his daughter, pushed the deer away from the women.
Alexis helped Sue into the car, and then applied a piece of cloth to Sue’s injured leg. “We’re going to get you to a hospital,” Alexis said. Then she heard her father shout loudly. He had been knocked to the ground. Alexis took hold of a hammer from the car and ran to where her father lay on his back. She beat the deer’s head and neck, but the blows didn’t scare it away. “I was losing faith,” she says. “A couple more strikes, Alexis,” said her father. “You can do it.” Turning the hammer around, Alexis closed her eyes and beat the deer’s neck with all her strength. When she opened her eyes, the deer was running away. Alexis got in the driver’s seat and sped toward the nearest hospital.
After Sue was treated, she tearfully thanked her rescuers. “You expect a teenage girl to get on the phone and call for help,” she says, “not to beat up a deer.”
1. What was Sue doing when she was attacked by the deer?| A．She was driving home. | B．She was taking exercise. |
| C．She was resting on the road. | D．She was feeding wild animals. |
| A．She pushed the deer away. | B．She beat the deer with a hammer. |
| C．She drove the car to hit the deer. | D．She hit the deer with her feet. |
| A．A Woman Was Seriously Injured |
| B．A Girl Saved Her Father Successfully |
| C．A Dangerous Deer Attacked a Woman |
| D．A Teenager Rescued Others from a Deer Attack |
8 . As 17-year-old Norwood drove through St. Petersburg, Florida, last February, the laughter and chatter from the four teenage girls inside her car quickly gave way to screams. As they approached a crossroad, another car T-boned them, sending their black car sailing into the yard of a nearby house, coming to a stop only when it crashed into a tree.
As smoke rose from the other car, a bystander shouted, “It’s about to blow up! Get out!” .The impact had caved in Norwood’s driver’s side door, jamming it shut. Shaken, but still OK, she crawled out through the window. Along with two of her friends, who’d also managed to free themselves, she ran for her life.
But halfway down the street, she realized that her best friend, Simmons, wasn’t with them. Norwood ran back to the seriously damaged car and found Simmons lying in the back seat. “She wasn’t moving,” Norwood told the reporter. She threw open the back door and pulled her friend out, avoiding the broken glass as best she could. She dragged Simmons a few feet to safety and laid her on the ground. “I checked her pulse.” Nothing. “I put my head against her chest.” No sign of life. “That’s when I started CPR.”
If the accident had happened a few weeks earlier, she might not have known what to do. But Norwood, who wants to pursue a career in medicine, had earned her CPR certificate just the day before. Kneeling on the lawn and looking down at her dying friend, Norwood knew she had precious little time to practice what she’d learned.
She started pressing Simmons’s chest with her crossed fingers and breathing into her friend’s mouth in hopes of filling her lungs with the kiss of life. No response. And then, after the 30th press, Simmons began coughing and gasping for air. The CPR had worked!
Soon, an ambulance arrived and rushed Simmons to the hospital, where she received stitches(缝合) for a wound in her forehead. And then she heard how her best friend had saved her life. “I wasn’t shocked,” said Simmons. “She will always help any way she can.”
1. Norwood ran back to the damaged car just in order to ______.| A．practice CPR | B．help her friend out |
| C．open the back door | D．stop the explosion |
| A．Brave. | B．Creative. | C．Ambitious. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．Pursuit of dream | B．Breath of life |
| C．Recovery from injury | D．Loss of memory |
9 . “Fire! Fire!” What terrible words to hear when one wakes up in a strange house in the middle of the night! It was a large, old, wooden house and my room was on the top floor. I jumped out of bed, opened the door and stepped outside the house. It was full of thick smoke.
I began to run, but as I was still only half-awake, instead of going towards the stairs I went in the opposite direction. The smoke grew thicker and I could see fire all around. The floor became hot under my bare feet. I found an open door and ran into a room to get to the window. But before I could reach it, one of my feet caught in something soft and I fell down. The thing I had fallen over felt like a bundle of clothes, and I picked it up to protect my face from the smoke and heat. Just then the floor gave way under me and I crashed to the floor below with pieces of burning wood all around me.
I saw a doorway in fire, then I put the bundle over my face and ran. My feet burned me terrible, but I got through. As I reached the cold air outside, my bundle of clothes gave a thin cry, I nearly dropped it in my surprise. Then I was in a crowd gathered in the street. A woman in a night-dress and a borrowed man’s coat screamed as she saw me and came running madly. She was the Mayor’s wife, and I had saved her baby.
1. When the fire arose in the middle of the night, the author was ________.| A．at home | B．sleeping | C．sitting in bed | D．both A and B |
| A．because he was very brave. | B．because he liked the baby very much. |
| C．but he just happened to save it. | D．because it was the Mayor’s baby. |
| A．was a stranger there | B．could see nothing |
| C．was not completely awake | D．Both A and C |
| A．save the baby | B．call for help | C．protect his face | D．run quickly |
10 . As 17-year-old Norwood drove through St. Petersburg, Florida, last February, the laughter and chatter from the four teenage girls inside her car quickly gave way to screams. As they approached a crossroad, another car T-boned them, sending their black car sailing into the yard of a nearby house, coming to a stop only when it crashed into a tree.
As smoke rose from the other car, a bystander shouted, “It’s about to blow up! Get out!” The impact had caved in Norwood’s driver’s side door, jamming it shut. Shaken, but still OK, she crawled out through the window. Along with two of her friends, who'd also managed to free themselves, she ran for her life.
But halfway down the street, she realized that her best friend, Simmons, wasn't with them. Norwood ran back to the seriously damaged car and found Simmons lying in the back seat. “She wasn't moving,” Norwood told the reporter. She threw open the back door and pulled her friend out, avoiding the broken glass as best she could. She dragged Simmons a few feet to safety and laid her on the ground. “I checked her pulse.”Nothing. “I put my head against her chest.” No sign of life. “That's when I started CPR.”
If the accident had happened a few weeks earlier, she might not have known what to do. But Norwood, who wants to pursue a career in medicine, had earned her CPR certificate just the day before. Kneeling on the lawn and looking down at her dying friend, Norwood knew she had precious little time to practice what she'd learned.
She started pressing Simmons's chest with her crossed fingers and breathing into her friend's mouth in hopes of filling her lungs with the kiss of life. No response. And then, after the 30th press, Simmons began coughing and gasping for air. The CPR had worked!
Soon, an ambulance arrived and rushed Simmons to the hospital, where she received stitches (缝合) for a wound in her forehead. And then she heard how her best friend had saved her life. “I wasn't shocked,” said Simmons. “She will always help any way she can."
1. On a day of last February, Norwood and her friends ________.| A．witnessed a crash |
| B．drove into a house |
| C．ran into an accident |
| D．got stuck in a traffic jam |
| A．practice CPR | B．help her friend out |
| C．open the back door | D．stop the explosion |
| A．Brave. | B．Creative. | C．Ambitious. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．Pursuit of dream | B．Breath of life |
| C．Recovery from injury | D．Loss of memory |
