When other nine-year-old kids were playing games, she was working at a petrol station. When other teens were studying or going out, she struggled to find a place to sleep on the street. But she overcame these terrible setbacks to win a highly competitive scholarship （奖学金） and gain entry to Harvard University. And her amazing story has inspired a movie, “ Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story ” , shown in late April.
Liz Murray, a 22-year-old American girl, has been writing a real-life story of willpower and determination. Liz grew up in the shadow of two drug-addicted （吸毒） parents. There was never enough food or warm clothes in the house. Liz was the only member of the family who had a job. Her mother had AIDS and died when Liz was just 15 years old. The effect of that loss became a turning point in her life. Connecting the environment in which she had grown up with how her mother had died, she decided to do something about it.
Liz went back to school. She threw herself into her studies, never telling her teachers that she was homeless. At night, she lived on the streets. “ What drove me to live on had something to do with understanding, by understanding that there was a whole other way of being. I had only experienced a small part of the society,” she wrote in her book Breaking Night.
She admitted that she used envy to drive herself on. She used the benefits that come easily to others, such as a safe living environment, to encourage herself that “ next to nothing could hold me down ” . She finished high school in just two years and won a full scholarship to study at Harvard University . But Liz decided to leave her top university a couple of months earlier this year in order to take care of her father, who has also developed AIDS. “ I love my parents so much. They are drug addicts. But I never forget that they love me all the time. ”
Liz wants moviegoers to come away with the idea that changing your life is “ as simple as making a decision ” .
【小题1】In which order did the following things happen to Liz?
a. Her mother died of AIDS.
b. She worked at a petrol station.
c. She got admitted into Harvard.
d. The movie about her life was put on.
e. She had trouble finding a place to sleep.

B
When it comes to romance（浪漫）, women prefer someone who is humorous while men choose those who catch their eye, according to an international survey.
The survey, done in 16 countries by Canadian romance publisher Harlequin Enterprises, asked men and women on six continents about personality they liked or disliked and how they went about trying to meet Mr. or Ms Right.
The survey showed differences between countries in the way people tried to impress the opposite sex.
Australians and British men frequently admitted drinking too much, while about half of German and Italian men said they had lied about their finances. Spaniards(people in Spain) were the most likely to use sex to catch someone’s attention.
Eighty percent of Brazilian and Mexican men said they had lied about their marriage or romance as did 70 percent of German women, the survey said.
When it came to meeting that special someone, a majority of respondents(被告) preferred to rely on friends for introductions. The Internet was not a popular hunting ground except in Portugal, where about half the surveyed men and women would like to find people online.
There was a gap between the two sexes in Spain and France. Thirty percent of Spanish men, but no Spanish women, looked for love online. In France, 40 percent of men but only 10 percent of women attended parties, bars and clubs to meet someone, but they did have one thing in common: both sexes regarded looks as more important than their counterparts（相对应的人） in other countries.
When it came to that first meeting, a majority of men surveyed said beauty was more important than brains, while women put a sense of humor at the top of their list.
Physical attraction was the most important for men in France, Brazil, Greece, Japan and Britain. And while 40 percent of Portuguese men regarded intelligence over looks in a first meeting, no Australian men did so.
In the United States and Canada, humor was considered the most important personality by men and women, getting 63 and 73 percent of the vote respectively.
55. Appearance is the most important for men in the following countries except in ___________.
A. Britain               B. Japan         C. France           D. Spain
56. According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?
A. Portuguese enjoy looking for love online best.
B. Humor is considered the most important personality by both Americans and Australians.
C. Brazilian and Mexican men like to lie about their finances.
D. Few people preferred to rely on friends for introductions.
57. Which is NOT mentioned as the standard of looking for love in the passage?
A. Humor.      B. Generosity.        C. Beauty.         D. Intelligence.
58. The purpose of the writer is to tell us _________________ when choosing the opposite sex.
A. the differences between men and women in different counties
B. women prefers humor while men prefers beauty
C. not all men prefer beauty to brains
D. love is more important than anything else

There was a park near my home. But I didn’t go there very often. Many people said there was nothing special. One afternoon I went into the park and found it was really small. I walked quickly because there wasn’t much to see. I walked for some time and found myself standing in front of two paths. 71  I found that the two paths were different from each other.
The left one was wide and clean. There were lots of flowers on both sides of the path. Though the flowers weren’t very beautiful, they made me feel good. I decided to take this path. But wait! I looked at the right one. The path didn’t look nice.  72  Grass grew everywhere. For a long time I couldn’t make up my mind.
  73  It wasn’t nice , but I didn’t want to give up. At last, I came to the end of the path. Ah! There was a small garden there. It was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful garden I had ever seen.  74  
Many people told me that there was nothing much to see in the park. Now I’d like to tell them that if they had followed the right way, they would have felt differently. But when I told them about what I had seen in the park, they just smiled at me without saying a word. I knew they didn’t believe me. They couldn’t even remember that path because it was so small.
  75  Don’t be afraid to choose a different path. You may get a big surprise!

My six-year-old granddaughter stared at me as if she were seeing me for the first time.”Grandma, you are an antique(古董),”she said. "You are old. Antiques are old. You are my antique."
I was not satisfied to let the matter rest there. I took out the Webster's Dictionary and read the definition(定义)to Jenny.I explained, "An antique is not only old, it's an object existing since or belonging to earlier times...a work of art... piece of furniture. Antiques are treasured,"I told Jenny as I put away the dictionary. "They have to be handled carefully because they sometimes are very valuable. In order to qualify as an antique, the object has to be at least 100 years old."
"I'm only 67,"I renunded Jenny.
We looked around the house for other antiques, besides me. There was a desk that was handed down from rone aunt to another and finally to our family. "It's very old,"I told Jenny.“I try to keep it polished and I show it off whenever I can. You do that with antiques."
There was a picture on the wall purchased at a garage sale. It was dated 1867. "Now  that's an antique," I boasted. "Over 100 years old." Of course it was marked up and scratched and not in very good condition. "Sometimes age does that," I told Jenny. "But the marks are good marks. They show living, being around. That's something to display with pride. In fact, sometimes, the more an object shows age, the more valuable it can become." It was important that I believed this for my own self-esteem.
Our tour of antiques continued. There was a vase on the floor. It had been in my house for a long time. I was not certain where it came from but I didn't buy it new. One thing about antiques, I explained to Jenny, was that they usually had a story. They'd been in one home and then another, handed down from one family to another, traveling all over the place. They'd lasted through years and years. They could have been tossed away, or ignored. or destroyed, or lost. But instead, they survived.
For a moment, Jenny looked thoughtful. “l don't have any antiques but you," she said. Then her face brightened. "Could I take you to school for show and tell?"
"Only if I fit into your backpack," I answered. And then Jenny's antique lifted her up and embraced her in a hug that would last through the years.
【小题1】Grandma read the definition of "antique" to Jenny in order to         .

Tanzania Tarangire is a national Park which lies in Tanzania．The park itself covers an area of around 2,850 square kilometers, making it the sixth largest park of its kind in the country．I recently visited Tarangire to see what it was like…．
One of the first sightings upon entering the park which I found was a huge herd（群）of elephants． Our guide told us that Tagrangire was probably the best place in Tanzania to find large herds of elephants, and that their population in the park was around 2,500．We continued to watch the elephants as they stood under trees and scratched themselves against the trees to hit the spot of an itch（痒处）．
To the right of the elephant herd, we noticed a big tree! Our guide informed us that this was a Baobab tree and that they could live for hundreds of years．Compared with this tree, the elephant just looked like dwarfs（侏儒）! We were informed that Tarangire was one of the best National Parks in Africa to see so many Baobab trees．
As we continued our drive through the park, we finally reached a watering hole．Our guide warned us that there were lions all around us．It took us all a while to find them, but there they were! Most of them are resting in the shade under brushes, but there was one that was drinking from the watering hole directly in front of us．We then noticed just to our right, there were a couple of fresh zebra corpses（尸体）— it seemed as if the lions which were resting had killed them! We were unlucky not to have seen the actual kill, as our guide had mentioned that the zebra corpses were fresh and the kill had occurred within the last hour．
Our final big sighting was one that none of us were expecting to see, even our guide! We pulled over to where there was a large gathering of cars, with a sleeping leopard（美洲豹）there! We took photos happily and excitedly and observed its surprising body before returning to our hotel as it was getting late．
So, I hope you enjoyed my description of Tarangire, and that I have inspired you to add this amazing park to your very own Tanzania travel route．
【小题1】Which statement is correct about the park?