About ten years ago when I was an undergraduate in college in New York, I was working as a practice student at my University's Museum of Natural History. One day while I was working at the cash register in the gift shop, I saw an elderly couple come in with a little girl in wheelchair.
As I looked closer at this girl, I saw that she was seated on her chair. I then realized she had no arms or legs, just a head, neck and the trunk of the human body. She was wearing a little white dress with the patterns of red roses and yellow dots.
As the couple wheeled her up to me I was looking down at the register. I turned my head toward the girl and gave her a wink(眨眼示意). As I took the money from her grandparents, I looked back at the girl, who was giving me the most beautiful, largest smile I have ever seen
All of a sudden her handicap was gone and all I saw was this beautiful girl, whose smile just melted me and almost instantly gave me a completely new sense of what life is all about. I immediately felt full of hope and confidence. She took me, a poor, unhappy college student, into her world, a world of smiles, love and warmth.               
That was ten years ago, but I still remember it clearly as if it happened just yesterday. I'm a successful business person now and whenever I get down and think about the troubles of the world, I think about that little girl and the remarkable lesson about life that she taught me.
【小题1】What was the writer a decade ago?

The Pecan Thief

When I was six years old, I was visiting my grandfather's farm in Kansas. Grandpa had sent me into the   36  to gather pecans for us to enjoy later.

Pecan picking was really   37  work and my little basket was only half full. I wasn't about to   38  Grandpa down. Just then something caught my   39  . A large brown squirrel was a few feet away.  I watched as he picked up a pecan, hurried to a tree and   40  in a large hole in the trunk. A moment later the squirrel   41  out and climbed down to the ground to pick up another nut. Once again, he took the pecan back to his hiding place.

Not so   42  anymore, I thought. I dashed over to the tree and looked into the hole. It was   43  with pecans! Golden pecans were right there for taking. This was my   44 . Handful by handful, I scooped all of those pecans into my basket. Now it was full! I was so   45  of myself. I couldn't wait to show Grandpa all the pecans.   46 , I ran back and shouted, “Look at all the pecans!” He looked into the basket and said, “Well, well, how did you find so many ? ” I told him how I'd   47  the squirrel and taken the pecans from his hiding place.

Grandpa congratulated me on how smart I'd been in observing the squirrel and his habits. Then he did something that   48  me. He handed the basket back to me and put his arm gently   49  my shoulders.

“That squirrel worked very hard to gather his winter   50  of food, ” he said. “Now that all of his pecans are gone, don't you think that little squirrel will   51  the cold winter? ”

“I didn't think about that,” I said.

“I know, ” Grandpa said. “But a good man should never take   52  of someone else's hard work.”

Suddenly I felt a bit   53 . The image of the starving squirrel wouldn't   54  my mind. There was only one thing I could do. I carried the basket back to the tree and poured all the nuts into the hole.

I didn't eat any pecans that night, but I had something much more filling—the   55  of knowing I had done just the right thing.

1.                A．woods         B．rooms          C．holes D．roads

2.                A．dirty           B．hard           C．light D．easy

3.                A．settle          B．let             C．have D．keep

4.                A．sweater        B．basket          C．hand D．eye

5.                A．joined          B．lived           C．disappeared   D．discovered

6.                A．held           B．jumped         C．stood D．found

7.                A．secret          B．strange         C．anxious   D．patient

8.                A．filled           B．covered        C．rebuilt   D．decorated

9.                A．time           B．choice          C．achievement   D．chance

10.               A．afraid          B．ashamed        C．proud D．careful

11.               A．Otherwise      B．However       C．Therefore D．Besides

12.               A．followed        B．driven         C．protected  D．caught

13.               A．annoyed        B．satisfied        C．delighted  D．surprised

14.               A．off            B．beside         C．around    D．over

15.               A．cost           B．supply         C．support   D．preparation

16.               A．escape         B．spend          C．flee  D．survive

17.               A．place          B．notice          C．charge    D．advantage

18.               A．unconfident     B．guilty          C．embarrassed   D．nervous

19.               A．leave          B．open          C．cross D．occupy

20.               A．inspiration      B．expectation     C．satisfaction D．impression

Recently, I experienced a wonderful lesson that little things still mean a lot. I live on the Big Island of Hawaii. About a month ago, when I started my car and I  1 down at the roadside, a piece of paper caught my eye. I picked it up and  2 it carefully.
The form turned out to be a  3 from the State Motor Vehicle Division, documenting the owners’  4 of their vehicle’s registration fees. Quickly, I put myself in their  5 and figured：no one would throw this out,  6 if it was current.
Although the form had been blown here,  where in the busy, 7 parking lot would I find the owner? So I checked the date and noted the name of the  8 , who must be in our town. I thought that the best and easiest step to  9 was to put the form in an envelope addressed to the couple and  10 it by post. So I did it.
On the weekend, a  11 couple called at my house and brought me a big  12 . They said they had panicked and searched for the receipt(收据)   13 everywhere before giving up. Without it they would 14 $8, 000. It felt great to know I’d helped someone  15 a major trouble by doing something which at first glance seemed minor.

完形填空（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
One day a few years ago we had a guest of the uninvited variety. In fact, it was a bird,   1 a sparrow.
“What’s that?” I asked when I first heard the gentle thumping(重击声). “It sounds like Joe is outside playing basketball,” my wife, Anita, said. She   2  and listened more devotedly. “It’s coming from the  3 .” she said. “Maybe it’s one of the little kids.”
We rushed out the door. Jonathan, our youngest, was  4 to make trouble. “If he’s making holes in the wall again…” I said as I searched there. No children       5  . But there was that  6  again, coming from right up there.
And that’s when I  7  the sparrow. It was flying  8 just inches below the ceiling. It was  9 trying to get out, but couldn’t see that the way out wasn’t up, but down 10  the open door. So the bird continued  11  its wings and hitting its head against the  12 .
“Poor thing,” Anita said. “It must be  13  .”  
“Well, maybe it’s because of us,” I said as I moved toward it. I tried to show the bird how to glide（滑翔） down to get outside, but that only seemed to  14   it more. “Why don’t we just 15 for a few minutes?” Anita suggested. “I’m sure he’ll    16 eventually.” So we went back into the house, where we continued to hear the ongoing  17  .Then suddenly, it was silent. We looked into the garage, and our uninvited guest was gone.
“See?” Anita said. “I told you he’d succeed.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But how many knocks on the head did it 18  him?”
I’ve thought about that little sparrow through the years. Just like that sparrow, we often meet situations we don’t know how to  19 . Born to go upward, we don’t even consider the possibility that something good might happen if we stop flapping（拍打）around and just glide  20 a little bit.    

If we want to deal with the association（交往） between boys and girls properly, here are some “dos and don’ts” for you to follow.
Keep a normal and healthy state of mind. Our schools and classes are made up of boys and girls. It is very natural for the boys and girls to make friends with each other. We should make as many friends as possible. We should keep in touch with the other sex（性别） in public instead of in secret.
Don’t be too nervous or too shy. If you are a shy person, you can also find a way out. First of all, you can make friends with the students who have the same interest and hobby as you. As both of you have much in common, you may have much to talk about. If you keep doing like that, little by little, you will gladly find you are also as free to express yourself as others.
Don’t fall into the ditch of early love. The boys and girls at adolescence（青春期） are rich in feeling. They are easy to regard the friendship as a sign of love and fall in love with each other at an early age. In my opinion, early love is a green apple that can’t be eaten. An apple won’t taste sweet until it is fully ripe. Boys and girls at middle school are too young to carry the heavy duty of love. Do keep out of early love.
【小题1】The main idea of the passage is to ______.