One winter term during college, I took a history class to fulfill a requirement.
The professor was a     1    fellow with red hair. He would walk shyly into the room wearing his hooded (带帽的) winter coat, once not even     2    the hood during the lecture. He was terribly nervous in class and lowered his head     3    looking up through his glasses at his students.
So I     4    a little game for myself. I would try to find something in his lecture to ask him an intelligent question about,     5    me to pay attention rather than letting my eyes close. He was obviously     6     to have a question to answer. In fact, his answers were always interesting.
I continued to do this every day of the course and found myself actually enjoying the subject. The professor seemed to become a bit more     7    and some of the other students even     8    from time to time. My little game had saved me from being bored, as it was   9  to do. And, I learned quite a bit about ancient world history. Except for all of his strange __10  , he was indeed quite an expert in his field.
On the last day of his class, we gathered our     11    and headed out the door. The shy, red-haired professor     12    directly in front of me, with obvious efforts, as I reached the door, and put out his hand. He said, “I want to thank you for making this class so interesting.” As he shook my hand and     13    for the first time, I was so surprised. To me, it had been a pleasant way to     14    the time. I had no idea that all of my question asking had any    15    on him or the others at all.
Each of us, through the things we say and do, can have a great effect not just on our own experiences, but those of others.

Ever wonder how much a cloud weighs? What about a hurricane? A meteorologist(气象学者) has done some estimates and the results might surprise you.

Let's start with a very simple white puffy cloud — a cumulus cloud（积云）. How much does the water in a cumulus cloud weigh? Peggy LeMone, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, did the numbers. "The water in the little cloud weighs about 550 tons," she calculates. "Or if you want to convert it to something that might be a little more meaningful … think of elephants."

The thought of a hundred elephants-worth of water suspended(悬浮的) in the sky begs another question — what keeps it up there?

"First of all, the water isn't in elephant-sized particles（微粒）, it's in tiny tiny tiny particles," explains LeMone. And those particles float on the warmer air that's rising below. But still, the concept of so much water floating in the sky was surprising even to a meteorologist like LeMone. "I had no idea how much a cloud would weigh, actually, when I started the calculations," she says.

So how many elephant units of water are inside a big storm cloud—10 times bigger all the way around than the "puffy" cumulus cloud? Again, LeMone did the numbers: About 200,000 elephants.

Now, ratchet up(略微调高) the calculations for a hurricane about the size of Missouri and the figures get really massive(巨大的). "What we're doing is weighing the water in one cubic meter theoretically pulled from a cloud and then multiplying by(乘上) the number of meters in a whole hurricane," she explains.

The result? Forty million elephants. That means the water in one hurricane weighs more than all the elephants on the planet. Perhaps even more than all the elephants that have ever lived on the planet.

1.The weight of      is NOT mentioned in the passage.

A. a cumulus cloud    B. a tornado

C. a hurricane   D. a storm cloud

2.How did Peggy LeMone feel about the result of her calculations?

A. She found it not convincing.

B. She thought it needed further calculations.

C. She was quite surprised at it.

D. She considered the calculations inaccurate.

3.What can be inferred from the passage?

A. A storm cloud weighs about 200,000 elephants.

B. The water in a hurricane weighs more than that in any other kind of cloud.

C. There are less than forty million elephants living on the earth.

D. The water in the cloud is in very tiny partials.

4.What is the best title for the passage?

A. How Much a Cloud Weighs   B. How Much a Hurricane Weighs

C. Surprising Results           D. Elephants in the Sky

I worked for a short time as a cashier(出纳员) at a restaurant a few months ago. I also helped to clean up the tables when it was very busy. One night, just before  Christmas, I found a large black wallet on the floor near one of the tables. I guessed I should check it to find out who was the owner, but I was very busy at the time. And I imagined that if there was something valuable(有价值的) in the wallet, the   owner would be back. Sure enough, an hour later a man came up to the counter   and asked if anyone had found a wallet. I asked him to describe the lost wallet, and after he described it exactly, I gave him the wallet. He expressed his thanks when I handed it to him. He asked me if I had opened it, and when I told him “no”. At  once he opened it and showed that it had nearly $ 800 in cash(现金). He took out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to me and I was amazed at this. “A reward(酬劳) for your honesty,” he said and then turned and walked away.
Thinking about it later, I began wondering whether I would have been honest if I had known what was in the wallet! I thought that if I had no way to find the   owner and no one returned to get it, I might keep it. But it also came into my    mind that I actually saved someone’s Christmas plans by finding and returning the wallet. The good feeling it gave me was worth more than anything could buy.
【小题1】Which of the following is true?

For most people, graduation is an exciting day – the culmination (顶点) of years of hard work. My graduation day... was not.

I remember that weekend two years ago, Family and friends had traveled far to watch our class walk across the stage. But like everyone else in my graduating class, I had watched the economy go from bad to worse during my senior year. We graduates had degrees, but very limited prospects (前景). I hadn’t secured a job, and I knew that the next day, when my lease (租约) ended, I would no longer have a place to call home.

The weeks ahead weren’t easy. I gathered up everything I couldn’t carry and put it into storage. Then, because I had no opportunities in my small university town, I packed up my car and drove to California to find work. But what I thought would take a week dragged into two, then four, and 100 job applications later, I found myself still jobless. The due date to begin paying back my student loans was creeping even closer.

Have you ever felt utter dread? That feeling became a constant in my life. The most frustrating part was no matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t seem to make any progress.

So what did I do to maintain my sanity? I wrote. Something about putting my words on a page made everything clearer. Something about writing gave me hope.

I channeled my frustration into a children’s book. Beyond the river was the story of an unlikely hero, a little fish who refused to give up.

And then one day, with no writing degree or contacts in the writing world – just hard work and perseverance – I was offered a publishing contract for my first book. After that, things were in place, I was offered a second book deal. Then, a few months later, I got an interview with the Walt Disney Company and was hired shortly after.

The moral of this story is… don’t give up, even if things look bleak now.  Two years ago I was drinking cold soup right out the can. Things change. All we need is the courage to push beyond the river.

1.When it was time to graduate, the author felt _____.

A．Bored            B．Relieved          C．depressed         D．hopeful

2.After the author’s graduation, _____.

A．he went on a short trip with his family to California

B．things turned even worse than he had expected

C．he focused on writing instead of applying for jobs

D．he found his salary was hardly enough to pay back his student loans

3.When did the author’s career life begin to run smoothly according to the article?

A．After he got his first publishing contract.

B．After he began to write his book Beyond the river.

C．After he finished his book Beyond the river.

D．After he got hired by the Walt Disney Company.

4.What is the main message the story intends to convey?

A．Opportunity lies everywhere.

B．Perseverance is essential to success.

C．It’s important to adapt yourself to society.

D．We should devote ourselves to whatever we do.

Seeing the metro crowded, I had no choice but ________ a taxi．

1. A.
   call
2. B.
   to call
3. C.
   to be calling
4. D.
   calling