We found______ impossible to finish the work on time.

I thought Jim would say something about his school report,but he ______ it.

—What were you doing when the telephone rang?

—I ______ away my books and ______ to bed.

The new machine，if _________ properly，will work at least ten years.

 _____ all the inventions have in common is ______ they have succeeded.

We used to work in the same office and we _________ have coffee together.

Tom ____his homework yesterday, because he was in hospital all day.

On April 11 Lincoln, Mrs Lincoln and two friends were spending night in talk, when Lincoln suddenly began to discuss his dreams. “I had one the other night. About 10 days ago I went to bed very  36 . I had been up   37  for important letters from the White House for a long time. I could not have been   38  in bed when I fell into sleep. I soon began to   39  . There seemed to be a dead silence about me. Then I heard sobs(抽泣)，  40  a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and   41  downstairs. There the silence was broken by some pitiful(令人可怜的) sobbing, but the mourners(送葬者)were   42 .I went from room to room, no living person was in sight; but the same mournful sounds of distress(悲痛) met me as I   43 along. It was light in all the rooms;  44  was well known to me，but   45 were all the people who were sobbing as if their hearts would   46 ? I was puzzled and frightened. What could be the   47  of all this? I kept on walking until I arrived at the East Room, which I   48 . Before me was a dead body. Around it were soldiers who were acting as   49 ; there were some people   50  pitifully. ‘‘Who is dead in the White House?” I asked.

“The president，” was the answer.

“It’s   51 !”I said to myself and was surprised. How did he die?”

“He was killed by an assassinator (暗杀者)!” was the answer.

“  52  came a loud burst of crying from the crowd，which woke me from my dream. I slept   53 that night, and although it was  54  a dream I have been rather angry about it   55 .”

It is difficult for parents of nearly every family to teach their children to be responsible （有责任的）for housework, but with one of the following suggestions, you really can get your children to help at home.

　　If you give your children the impression that they can never do anything quite right, then they will regard themselves as unfit or unable persons. Unless children believe they can succeed, they will never become totally independent.

　　My daughter Carla’s fifth - grade teacher made every child in her class feel special. When students received less than a prefect test score, she would point out what they had mastered and declared firmly they could learn what they had missed.

　　You can use the same technique when you evaluate （评价）your child’s work at home. Don’t always scold and give lots of praise instead. Talk about what he has done right, not about what he hasn’t done. If your child completes a difficult task, promise him a Sunday trip or a ball game with Dad.

　　Learning is a process（过程）of trying and failing and trying and succeeding. If you teach your children not to fear a mistake of failure, they will learn faster and achieve success at last.

1.The whole passage deals with ________.

2.The author thinks that________.

3.The article gives us a good suggestion about how to evaluate（评价）your child’s work at home. That is to ________.

4.The author advises readers to________.

America is growing older. Fifty - eight years ago, only 4 out of every 100 people in the United States were 65 or older. To day, 10 out of every 100 Americans are over 65. The aging of the population will affect（影响）American society in many ways—education, medicine, and business. Quietly, the graying of America has made us a very different society—one in which people have a quite different idea of what kind of behavior（行为） is suitable（合适）at various , ages.

　　A person s age no longer tells you anything about his/her social position, marriage or health. There’s no longer a particular year in which one goes to school or goes to work or gets married or starts a family. The social clock that kept us on time and told us when to go to school, get a job, or stop working isn’t as strong as it used to be. It doesn’t surprise us to hear of a 29 - year - old university president or a 35 - year -old grandmother, or a 70 year - old man who has become a father for the first time. Public ideas are changing.

　　Many people say, “I am much younger than my mother— or my father— was at my age. ”No one says“Act your age” any more. We’ve stopped looking with surprise at older people who act in youthful ways.

1.It can be learnt from the text that the aging of the population in America ________ .

2.The underlined word “one” refers to ________ .

3.“Act your age” means people should ________ .

4.If a 25 - year - old man becomes general manager of a big firm, the writer of the text would most probably consider it ________ .