The previous chairman had left the company in a terrible ____.

A.mess B. place C. case D. power

On the day of a big event, many people came to Big Bend Mountain to watch. John Henry and the salesman stood side by side. Even early in the day, the sun was burning hot.

The competition began. John Henry kissed his hammer and started working. At first, the steam-powered drill worked two times faster than he did. Then, he started working with a hammer in each hand. He worked faster and faster. In the mountain, the heat and dust were so thick that most men would have had trouble breathing. The crowd shouted as clouds of dust came from inside the mountain.

The salesman was afraid when he heard what sounded like the mountain breaking. However, it was only the sound of John Henry at work. Polly Ann and her son cheered when the machine was pulled from the tunnel of the mountain. It had broken down. Polly Ann urged John Henry to come out. But he kept working, faster and faster. He dug deep into the darkness, hitting the steel so hard that his body began to fail him. He became weak, and his heart burst.

John Henry fell to the ground. There was a terrible silence. Polly Ann did not move because she knew what had happened. John Henry’s blood spilled over the ground. But he still held one of the hammers. “I beat them,” he said. His wife cried out, “Don’t go, John Henry.”“Bring me a cool drink of water,”he said. Then he took his last breath.

His friends carried his body from the mountain. They buried him near the house where he was born. Crowds went there after they heard about John Henry’s death.

Soon, the steam drill and other machines replaced the steel-drivers. Many laborers left their families to look for work. They took the only jobs they could find. As they worked, some sang about John Henry.

1.What does the big event mentioned in Paragraph 1 refer to?

2.The underlined word “tunnel ”in Paragraph 3 probably means “          ”.

3. What happened to John Henry when he fell to the ground?

4.What do we know about John Henry?

5.What can we infer from the passage?

----“What a terrible rain we are having!”

----“Yes. We are asked to pay more attention to the information about the rain ______ flood.”

A. as well as              B. so long as  C. because of               D. in case of

Ibrahim became disabled after contracting polio (小儿麻痹症) when he was three years old. At first his parents, like many other parents of disabled children in Niger, did not want to send him to school. They were worried he would be laughed at by his classmates.  

Despite his disability, and his parents’ doubts, Ibrahim was determined to go to school. “When I was eight,” Ibrahim says, “other kids of my age were going to school while I stayed at home. I did not like that. So, I pestered (缠着) my parents until they finally let me go to school.”

Ibrahim’s parents sent him to a private school nearby. Although the journey to and from school was a short one, it still wasn’t easy for Ibrahim. He had to use his hands to help him move along, protecting them with plastic slippers. But at least he was getting an education.

However, after only a year in school, Ibrahim’s education was interrupted when his parents separated. His mother did not have the means to continue paying for his tuition.

In 2007, Ibrahim received some money to be fitted with a leg brace (支架), corrective shoes and his first pair of crutches (拐杖). Now that he was more mobile than before, the most important thing for him was to find a way to go back to school. 

“I wanted to start school again last October,” Ibrahim says. “After my mother told me she could not afford it, I went to visit some of my relatives for support. And I collected 5,000 francs CFA (US $8) to pay my tuition for half a year. I will find the rest of the money somehow.”

Ibrahim attends a school in which he is the only disabled student. According to his teacher, he is among the top five students in a class of 55.

1.Why did Ibrahim’s parents prefer Ibrahim to stay at home? 

2.How did Ibrahim go to school before his parents separated? 

3. Ibrahim’s education was interrupted because of his _____.

4.The best title for the passage might be _____.

My mother-in-law, Dorothy, is showing me the red notebook that’s almost as precious to her as my husband’s baby pictures. Inside the notebook is a list of the books she has read since 2007. For some people waking up in the middle of the night is a terrible thing. But for my mother-in-law, that time is a gift. At 87, she is getting the education she never had by working her way through great literature. She has now read close to 100 books, including every single novel by Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Henry James and Thomas Mann.

My mother-in-law discusses her passion with the enthusiasm of a young girl, although she can also be a very tough critic, writing “VG’ for “ very good” in the margins next to her favorites. So far, only a handful of books have received the top prize.

Born in Ridgefield, Conn, Dorothy was the youngest daughter of an Italian gardener. She taught herself English by reading The New York Times. Eager to come to Manhattan, she became a nurse, married a dentist and spent the next several decades keeping the house and raising a family. In her later years, she put her nursing skills to good use by taking care of my father-in-law, who had lung cancer. There were many trips to the emergency room in the middle of the night and then a long hospital stay. She stayed awake to watch over him for 15 hours a day. Always a light sleeper, she developed sleeplessness as a result of the stress.

It worsened after he died. Deeply sad and lonely for the first time in her life, she began waking up around 2am. Julian and Sylvia, the elderly couple next door suggest she read literature. And so Julian, a great lover of literature, became her “professor”, providing books from his large library. Suddenly the terrifying hole turned onto a world of amazing characters.

1.Why is Dorothy considered a tough critic?

   A. Because no books are inspiring enough in her eyes.                        

B. Because only a few books are thought highly of by her.

   C. Because she only reads books by famous writers.                         

D. Because she finds fault with every book she reads.

2. It can be inferred from the passage that _____.

   A. the books Dorothy has read were bought by her husband.                   

B. the couple next door are college professors.

   C. the author loves literature too.                                         

D. Dorothy was a great wife.

3.The underlined part “the terrifying hole” in the last paragraph refers to _____.

   A. the frightening death                                                   

B. Dorothy’s lack of education

   C. waking up in the middle of the night                                    

D. a hole in a book that Dorothy read

4. What helped Dorothy get over the sadness and loneliness of losing her husband?

   A. Living with her son.                                                 

B. Reading literature.

   C. Seeing her son’s baby pictures.                                         

 D. Talking with neighbors.