When 19yearold Sophia Giorgi said she was thinking of volunteering to help the MakeAWish Foundation(基金会), nobody understood what she was talking about. But Sophia knew just how important MakeAWish could be because this special organization had helped to make a dream come true for one of her best friends. We were interested in finding out more, so we went along to meet Sophia and listen to what she had to say.
Sophia told us that MakeAWish is a worldwide organization that started in the United States in 1980. “It's a charity(慈善机构) that helps children who have got very serious illnesses. MakeAWish helps children feel happy even though they are sick, by making their wishes and dreams come true,” Sophia explained.
We asked Sophia how MakeAWish had first started. She said it had all begun with a very sick young boy called Chris, who had been dreaming for a long time of becoming a policeman. Sophia said lots of people had wanted to find a way to make Chris's dream come true—so, with everybody's help, Chris, only seven years old at the time, had been a “policeman” for a day. “When people saw how delighted Chris was when his dream came true, they decided to try and help other sick children too, and that was the beginning of MakeAWish,” explained Sophia.
Sophia also told us the Foundation tries to give children and their families a special, happy time. A MakeAWish volunteer visits the families and asks the children what they would wish for if they could have anything in the world. Sophia said the volunteers were important because they were the ones who helped to make the wishes come true. They do this either by providing things that are necessary, or by raising money or helping out in whatever way they can.
【小题1】Sophia found out about MakeAWish because her best friend had ________.
A.benefited from it | B.volunteered to help it |
C.dreamed about it | D.told the author about it |
A.is an international charity |
B.was understood by nobody at first |
C.raises money for very poor families |
D.started by drawing the interest of the public |
A.He has been a policeman since he was seven. |
B.He gave people the idea of starting MakeAWish. |
C.He wanted people to help make his dream come true. |
D.He was the first child MakeAWish helped after it had been set up. |
A.They are important for making wishes come true. |
B.They try to help children get over their illnesses. |
C.They visit sick children to make them feel special. |
D.They provide what is necessary to make MakeAWish popular. |
科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Some people bring out the best in you in a way that you might never have fully realized on your own. My mother was one of those people.
My father died when I was one-year-old. While I was growing up, we led a very hard life, but my mom gave me a lot of love. Each night, she seated me on her lap and spoke the words that would change my life, "Kemmons, you are sure to be a great man and you can do anything in life if you work hard enough to get it. "
At fourteen, I was hit by a car and the doctors said that I would never walk again. Every night my mother spoke to me in her gentle, loving voice, telling me whatever those doctors said, I could walk again if I wanted to. She drove that message so deep into my heart that I finally believed her. A year later, I walked on my own to school!
When the Great Depression broke out, my mother lost her job. Then I left school to support the two of us. At that moment I decided never to be poor again.
Over the years, I experienced a lot of business success. But the real turning point happened on a vacation I took with my wife and five kids in 1951. I was dissatisfied with the second-class hotels available for families and was very angry that they charged an extra $2 for each child. That was too expensive for an ordinary American family. I told my wife that I was going to open a motel (汽车旅馆)for families that would never charge extra money for children. Many people did not believe me at that time.
Not surprisingly, mom was my strongest supporter. As in any business, I experienced a lot of difficulties. But with my mom's words in my heart, I never doubted I would succeed. Fifteen years later, I had the largest hotel system in the world—Holiday Inn. In 1979 my company had 1,759 inns in more than fifty countries with an income of $l billion a year.
You may not have started out life in the best situations. But if you find a task in life worth working for and believe in yourself, nothing can stop you.
【小题1】What Kemmon's mother often told him during his childhood was____.
A.caring | B.moving |
C.encouraging | D.interesting |
A.Doctors. | B.Nurses. |
C.His friend. | D.His mom. |
A.His terrible experience in the hotel. | B.His wife's suggestion. |
C.His previous business success. | D.His mom's support. |
A.Modest, helpful and hard-working. |
B.Loving, supportive and strong-willed. |
C.Careful, beautiful and helpful. |
D.Strict, sensitive and supportive. |
A.Self-confidence, hard work, higher education and a poor family. |
B.Mom's encouragement, clear goals, self-confidence and hard work. |
C.Clear goals, mom's encouragement, a poor family and higher education. |
D.Mom's encouragement, a poor family, higher education and opportunities. |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a longhandled brush. He stopped by the fence in front of the house where he lived with his aunt Polly. He looked at it, and all joy left him. The fence was long and high. He put the brush into the whitewash and moved it along the top of the fence. He repeated the operation. He felt he could not continue and sat down.
He knew that his friends would arrive soon with all kinds of interesting plans for the day. They would walk past him and laugh. They would make jokes about his having to work on a beautiful summer Saturday. The thought burned him like fire.
He put his hand into his pockets and took out all that he owned. Perhaps he could find some way to pay someone to do the whitewashing for him. But there was nothing of value in his pockets—nothing that could buy even half an hour of freedom. So he put the bits of toys back into his pockets and gave up the idea.
At this dark and hopeless moment, a wonderful idea came to him. It filled his mind with a great, bright light. Calmly he picked up the brush and started again to whitewash.
While Tom was working, Ben Rogers appeared. Ben was eating an apple as he walked along the street. As he walked along it, he was making noises like the sound of a riverboat. First he shouted loudly, like a boat captain. Then he said “Ding---Dong---Dong”, “Ding---Dong---Dong” again and again, like the bell of a riverboat. And he made other strange noises. When he came close to Tom, he stopped.
Tom went on whitewashing. He did not look at Ben. Ben stared a moment and then said: “Hello! I'm going swimming, but you can't go, can you?”
No answer. Tom moved his brush carefully along the fence and looked at the result with the eye of an artist. Ben came nearer. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he kept on working.
Ben said, “Hello, old fellow, you've got to work, hey?”
Tom turned suddenly and said, “Why, it's you, Ben! I wasn't noticing.”
“Say --- I'm going swimming. Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd rather work --- wouldn't you? Of course you would.”
Tom looked at the boy a bit, and said “What do you call work?”
“Why, isn't that work?”
Tom went back to his whitewashing, and answered carelessly.
“Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer.”
“Oh come, now, you don't mean to say that you like it?”
The brush continued to move.
“Like it? Well, I don't see why I shouldn't like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”
Ben stopped eating his apple. Tom moved his brush back and forth, stepped back to look at the result, added a touch here and there, and stepped back again. Ben watched every move and got more and more interested. Soon he said,“Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”
Tom thought for a moment, and was about to agree, but he changed his mind.
“No---no---it won't do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly wants this fence to be perfect. It has got to be done very carefully. I don't think there is one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it well enough.”
“No---is that so? Oh come, now —let me just try. Only just a little.”
“Ben, I'd like to, but if it isn't done right, I'm afraid Aunt Polly … ”
“Oh, I'll be careful. Now let me try. Say —I'll give you the core of my apple.”
“Well, here --- No, Ben, now don't. I'm afraid …”
“I'll give you all of it.”
Tom gave up the brush with unwillingness on his face, but joy in his heart. And while Ben worked at the fence in the hot sun, Tom sat under a tree, eating the apple, and planning how to get more help. There were enough boys. Each one came to laugh, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was tired, Tom sold the next chance to Billy for a kite; and when Billy was tired, Johnny bought it for a dead rat —and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, Tom had won many treasures.
And he had not worked. He had had a nice idle time all the time, with plenty of company, and the fence had been whitewashed three times. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, Tom would have owned everything belonging to his friends.
He had discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man or a boy want a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to get.
【小题1】How many characters are mentioned in this story?
A.4. | B.5. |
C.6. | D.7 |
A.Because he was tired and wanted to play with his toys. |
B.Because he wanted to throw his toys away. |
C.Because he wanted to give his toys to his friends. |
D.Because he wanted to know if he could buy help with his toys. |
A.Tom wanted to do the whitewashing by himself |
B.Tom planned to make Ben give up his apple first |
C.Tom was unwilling to let Ben do the whitewashing |
D.Tom was afraid Ben would do the whitewashing better |
A.Tom was interested in whitewashing the fence |
B.Tom had a lot of friends who are ready to help others |
C.Tom was unwilling to whitewash the fence, but he managed to let other boys do it for him |
D.Tom was good at whitewashing the fence, so he looked at the result of his work with the eye of an artist |
A.His warm heart and kindness to friends. |
B.Tom's threat. |
C.His curiosity about Tom's brushing job. |
D.Aunt Polly's idea. |
A.The Happy Whitewasher |
B.Tom And His Fellows |
C.Whitewashing A Fence |
D.Make The Things Difficult To Get |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
A city child’s summer is spent in the street in front of his home, and all through the long summer vacations I sat on the edge of the street and watched enviously the other boys on the block play baseball. I was never asked to take part even when one team had a member missing—not out of special cruelty, but because they took it for granted I would be no good at it. They were right, of course.
I would never forget the wonderful evening when something changed. The baseball ended about eight or eight thirty when it grew dark. Then it was the custom of the boys to retire to a little stoop(门廊) that stuck out from the candy store on the corner and that somehow had become theirs. No grownup ever sat there or attempted to. There the boys would sit, mostly talking about the games played during the day and of the game to be played tomorrow. Then long silences would fall and the boys would wander off one by one. It was just after one of those long silences that my life as an outsider changed. I can no longer remember which boy it was that summer evening who broke the silence with a question: but whoever he was, I nod to him gratefully now. “What’s in those books you’re always reading?” he asked casually. “Stories,” I answered. “What kind?” asked somebody else without much interest.
Nor do I know what drove me to behave as I did,for usually I just sat there in silence, glad enough to be allowed to reain among them; but instead of answering his question, I told them for two hours the story I was reading at the moment. The book was Sister Carrie. They listened bug-eyed and breathless. I must have told it well, but I think there was another and deeper reason that made them to keep an audience. Listening to a tale being told in the dark is one of the most ancient of man’s entertainments, but I was offering them as well, without being aware of doing it, a new and exciting experience.
The books they themselves read were the Rover Boys or Tom Swift or G.A.Henty. I had read them too, but at thirteen I had long since left them behind. Since I was much alone I had become an enthusiastic reader and I had gone through the books-for-boys series. In those days there was no reading material between children’s and grownups’books or I could find none. I had gone right fromTome Swift and His Flying Machine to Theodore Dreiser and Sister Carrie. Dreiser had hit my young mind, and they listened to me tell the story with some of the wonder that I had had in reading it.
The next night and many nights thereafter, a kind of unspoken ritual (仪式) took place. As it grew dark, I would take my place in the center of the stoop and begin the evening’s tale. Some nights, in order to taste my victory more completely, I cheated. I would stop at the most exciting part of a story by Jack London or Bret Harte, and without warning tell them that that was as far as I had gone in the book and it would have to be continued the following evening. It was not true, of course; but I had to make certain of my new-found power and position. I enjoyed the long summer evenings until school began in the fall. Other words of mine have been listened to by larger and more fashionable audiences, but for that tough and athletic one that sat close on the stoop outside the candy store, I have an unreasoning love that will last forever.
【小题1】Watching the boys playing baseball, the writer must have felt ________.
A.bitter and lonely | B.special and different |
C.pleased and excited | D.disturbed and annoyed |
A.invited him to join in their game |
B.liked the book that he was reading |
C.broke the long silence of that summer evening |
D.offered him an opportunity that changed his life |
A.the story was from a children’s book |
B.listening to tales was an age-old practice |
C.the boys had few entertainments after dark |
D.the boys didn’t read books by themselves |
A.it was written by Theodore Dreiser |
B.it was specifically targeted at boys |
C.it gave them a deeper feeling of pleasure |
D.it talked about the wonders of the world |
A.play a mean trick on the boys |
B.experience more joy of achievement |
C.add his own imagination to the story |
D.help the boys understand the story better |
A.One can find his position in life in his own way. |
B.Friendship is built upon respect for each other. |
C.Reading is more important than playing games. |
D.Adult habits are developed from childhood. |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Like many new graduates, I left university full of hope for the future but with no real idea of what I wanted to do. My degree, with honors, in English literature had not really prepared me for anything practical. I knew I wanted to make a difference in the world somehow, but I had no idea how to do that. That’s when I learned about the Lighthouse Project.
I started my journey as a Lighthouse Project volunteer by reading as much as I could about the experiences of previous volunteers. I knew it would be a lot of hard work, and that I would be away from my family and friends for a very long time. In short, I did not take my decision to apply for the Lighthouse Project lightly. Neither did my family.
Eventually, however, I won the support of my family, and I sent in all the paperwork needed for the application. After countless interviews and presentations, I managed to stand out among the candidates and survive the test alone. Several months later, I finally received a call asking me to report for the duty. I would be going to a small village near Abuja, Nigeria. Where? What? Nigeria? I had no idea. But I was about to find out.
After completing my training, I was sent to the village that was small and desperately in need of proper accommodation. Though the local villagers were poor, they offered their homes, hearts, and food as if I were their own family. I was asked to lead a small team of local people in building a new schoolhouse. For the next year or so, I taught in that same schoolhouse. But I sometimes think I learned more from my students than they did from me.
Sometime during that period, I realized that all those things that had seemed so strange or unusual to me no longer did, though I did not get anywhere with the local language, and returned to the United States a different man. The Lighthouse Project had changed my life forever.
【小题1】What do we know about the author?
A.His university education focused on the theoretical knowledge. |
B.His dream at university was to become a volunteer. |
C.He took pride in having contributed to the world. |
D.He felt honored to study English literature. |
A.discussed his decision with his family. |
B.asked previous volunteers about voluntary work |
C.attended special training to perform difficult tasks |
D.felt sad about having to leave his family and friends |
A.participated in many discussions |
B.went through challenging survival tests |
C.wrote quite a few paper on voluntary work |
D.faced strong competition from other candidates |
A.asked to lead a farming team |
B.sent to teach in a schoolhouse |
C.received warmly by local villagers |
D.arranged to live in a separate house. |
A.He found some difficulty adapting to the local culture |
B.He had learned to communicate in the local language. |
C.He had overcome all his weaknesses before he left for home. |
D.He was chosen as the most respectable teacher by his students. |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Diana Jacobs thought her family had a workable plan to pay for college for her 21yearold twin sons: a combination of savings, income, scholarships, and a modest amount of borrowing. Then her husband lost his job, and the plan fell apart.
“I have two kids in college, and I want to say ‘come home',but at the same time I want to provide them with a good education,” says Jacobs.
The Jacobs family did work out a solution: They asked and received more aid from the schools, and each son increased his borrowing to the maximum amount through the federal loan (贷款) program. They will each graduate with $20,000 of debt, but at least they will be able to finish school.
With unemployment rising, financial aid administrators expect to hear more families like the Jacobs. More students are applying for aid, and more families expect to need student loans. College administrators are concerned that they will not have enough aid money to go around.
At the same time, tuition(学费)continues to rise. A report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education found that college tuition and fees increased 439% from 1982 to 2007, while average family income rose just 147%. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade.
“If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won't have an affordable system of higher education,” says Patrick M. Callan, president of the center. “The middle class families have been financing it through debt. They will send kids to college whatever it takes, even if that means a huge amount of debt.”
Financial aid administrators have been having a hard time as many companies decide that student loans are not profitable enough and have stopped making them. The good news, however, is that federal loans account for about three quarters of student borrowing, and the government says that money will flow uninterrupted.
【小题1】According to Paragraph 1,why did the plan of Jacobs family fail?
A.The twins wasted too much money. |
B.The father was out of work. |
C.Their saving ran out |
D.The family fell apart. |
A.They asked their kids to come home. |
B.They borrowed $20,000 from the school. |
C.They encouraged their twin sons to do parttime jobs. |
D.They got help from the school and the federal government. |
A.more families will face the same problem as the Jacobses |
B.the government will receive more letters of complaint |
C.college tuition fees will double soon |
D.America's unemployment will fall |
A.They blamed the government for the tuition increase. |
B.Their income remained steady in the last decade. |
C.They will try their best to send kids to college. |
D.Their debts will be paid off within 25 years |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
I still clearly remember that day. I was on the side of the road for almost four hours with my big Jeep. I put signs in the windows that said, “NEED A JACK(千斤顶). ”
Right as I was about to give up, a truck stopped and a man got off. He sized up(对……做出判断)the situation and went back to take a jack. After about two hours, we finished the job with sweats. We were both dirty. His wife produced a large water jug for us to wash our hands in.
I tried to put $20 in the man’s hand, but he wouldn’t take it, so instead I went up and gave it to his wife as quietly as I could. I thanked them up one side and down the other. I asked the little girl, their daughter, where they lived, thinking maybe I’d send them a gift. She said they lived in Mexico. They were in Oregon now so Mommy and Daddy could pick cherries for the next few weeks. After that, they were going to pick peaches, and then go back home.
After I said my goodbyes and started walking back to the Jeep, the girl called out and asked if I’d had lunch. When I told her no, she ran up and handed me a tamale(玉米粽子). I thanked them again and walked back to my car. When I opened the tamale, what did I find inside? My $20 bill! I ran to the truck and the guy rolled down his window. He saw the $20 in my hand, started shaking his head smiling, and with what looked like great concentration said in English: “Today you, tomorrow me. ”Then he rolled up his window and drove away, with his daughter waving to me from the back.
This family, working on a seasonal basis where time is money, took a couple of hours to help a stranger while others passed by quietly.
Since then I’ve helped many people like the Mexican family. I didn’t accept money. But every time I was able to help, I felt as if I was putting something in the bank.
【小题1】 From the passage we know that .
A.the Mexican man couldn’t speak English |
B.the author’s car broke down on the road |
C.the Mexican family came to Oregon for a visit |
D.$20 was a small amount for the Mexican family |
A.Because the man had refused to accept it. |
B.Because the man’s wife needn’t wash her hands. |
C.Because the author thought the Mexican family was poor. |
D.Because the author thought the man’s wife would take it. |
A.it was completely wrong for others to pass by quietly |
B.it was quite easy to help the author mend the Jeep |
C.it was possible that everyone might get into trouble |
D.the author was a polite stranger and needed the help |
A.He hated those who didn’t offer help. |
B.He would send a present to the family soon. |
C.He wondered why they didn’t take the money. |
D.He considered helping others as saving money in the bank. |
A.The Mexican family lived a richer life than the author. |
B.The Mexican family did seasonal work in Oregon each year. |
C.The author was inspired to help others by the Mexican family. |
D.What made the writer moved was the tamale given by the girl. |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
I was now in my twenty third year of residence in this island and was accustomed to the place and to the manner of living. If it had not been the savages(野人)who had come to the place to disturb me, I could have been content to spent the rest of my time there, even to the last moment, till I had laid me down and died, like the old goat in the cave.
I had also arrived to some little recreations and amusements, which made the time pass more pleasantly with me a great deal than it did before.
At first, I had taught my Poll to speak. And he did it so familiarly and talked so clearly and plain that it was very pleasant to me. And he lived with me no less than twenty six years. How long he might live afterwards, I don’t know; though I know they have an idea in Brazil that they live a hundred years. Perhaps poor Poll may be alive there still, calling Poor Robin Crusoe to this day. I wish no other English man had the bad luck to go there and hear him. But if he did, he would certainly believe it was the devil(魔鬼).
My dog was a very pleasant and loving companion to me, for no less than sixteen years of my time, and then died of mere old age.
As for my cats, they multiplied to that degree that I had to shoot several of them at first to keep them from eating up all I had.
Besides these, I had two more parrots which talked pretty well and would all call Robin Crusoe, but none like my first. Nor indeed did I take the pains with any of them that I had done with him.
I had also several sea-fowls, whose names I don’t know, that I caught upon the shore and cut their wings. And the little stakes which I had planted before my castle wall being now grown up to a good thick bush, these fowls all lived among these low trees and bred there, which was very agreeable to me; so that as I said above, I began to be well content with the life I led if not worried about the threat from the savages.
【小题1】What does the passage mainly talk about?
A.Robin Crusoe treated animals kindly. |
B.Robin Crusoe led a hard life on the island. |
C.The animals raised by Robin Crusoe brought him much pleasure. |
D.The savages always spoiled Robin Crusoe’s happy life. |
A.2 | B.3 | C.4 | D.5 |
A.Robin’s dog may be still alive on the island. |
B.Robin Crusoe lived in harmony with savages. |
C.Robin Crusoe met an English man while on the island. |
D.Parrots raised by Robin could talk very well. |
A.A bird living on the coast. |
B.A fish living in the sea. |
C.A creature without a name |
D.An animal feeding on tree leaves. |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
On Nov.18,1995,Itzhak Perlman,the violinist,came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.
If you have ever been to a Perlman concert,you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him.He was stricken with polio(小儿麻痹症)as a child,and so he has braces(支架)on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches(双拐).
He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair.Then he sits down,slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs,tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward.Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin,nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.
But this time,something went wrong.Just as he fmished the first few bars(小节),one of the strings on his violin broke.You could hear it snap(嘣断)---it went off like gunfire across the room.There was no mistaking what that meant.There was no mistaking what he had to do.
We figured that he would have to get up,put on the clasps again,pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage-to either find another violin or else find another string for this one.But he didn’t.Instead.he waited a moment,closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.
The orchestra began,and he played from where he had left off.And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.
When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room.And then people rose and cheered.He smiled,wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quit us,and then he said in a quiet tone.“You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.’’
【小题1】By saying “getting on stage is no small achievement for him”, the author really means .
A.it’s very difficult for Itzhak Perlman to play the violin with three strings |
B.it’s not easy for Itzhak Perlman to get on the stage because he is disabled |
C.it’s not easy for ltzhak Perlman to face such a large audience |
D.it’s really great achievements for ltzhak Perlman to play the violin with three strings |
A.go on playing with the remaining three strings |
B.give up playing |
C.change or repair his violin |
D.get off the stage with shame |
A.gave up playing |
B.didn’t know what to do |
C.went on playing the same piece of music |
D.went on playing a different piece of music |
A.Surprised. | B.Disappointed. | C.Moved. | D.Satistied. |
A.clever | B.strong willed | C.humourous | D.quite skilled |
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