When you have a post-office box, the postman doesn’t bring letters to you, but you go to the post-office and get your letters and parcels from your box. The box is locked, only you have the key, so the letters and parcels are safe.

One day the headmaster of a school wrote to the post-office and asked for a post-office box for his school. He soon got an answer. It said, “We will give you a post-office box in one month.”

Three months later, the headmaster wrote to the post-office and said, “Why haven't we got a post-office box yet?”

This was the answer from the post-office:

“Dear sir,

We gave you a post-office box two months and wrote to you then to tell you. Here is the key to your box. You will find our letter to you in it.”

When you have a post-office box, _____.

A. it is easier for you to write letters                  B. you will have more letters than parcels

C. you get your letters in front of your house             D. you got to the post-office to get your letters

The word “key” in this passage means _____.

A. 邮件                     B. 密码                             C. 编号                             D. 钥匙

The headmaster _____.

A. wrote many letters to the post-office              B. didn’t like the postman

C. didn’t know how a post-office box worked     D. forgot to pay for the post-office box

When the post-office said that you could get a post-office, he meant _____.

A. you may go to the post-office to get your mails

B. you must wait to get the post-office box

C. you must write again to get the key               

D. you must pay for the box before you got it

Which of the following might not be true?

A. If you want to get a post-office box, you must let the post-office know.

B. When you get a post-office box, you have to do the work of a postman.

C. You go to the post-office to get the key to your box.

D. After you get a post-office box, the post man will not send mails to your house.

 He used _______ on the right in China, but he soon got used ______ on the left in England.

A．to drive, to drive                        B．to drive, driving

C．to driving, to drive                       D．to drive, to driving

 

In Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, the hero Crusoe is shipwrecked and washed up on a rocky shore. He soon realizes that he is alone and lacks basic   1                        

(necessary) like clothing, food, and weapons.  2           (determine) to survive, Crusoe salvages (打捞) what he can from the wreck and builds a shelter.

Relying on his wits and   3           he can find on the island, Crusoe grows crops and capture wild goats   4           meat. Although there are illness, storms, loneliness and other hardships, Crusoe does not give   5           . Years pass in this way. Then on a trip to the other side of the island, Crusoe sees footprints — the first sign of human life in more than five years! Almost immediately, he realizes that the   6           (visit) to his island must be cannibals (食人族)!

Crusoe strengthens his fort and lives in fear of capture. At one point, he is able to overcome his fear and rescues   7          young captive from the cannibals. He names the man Friday. Eventually, Crusoe and Friday are rescued.

Today, people still read Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, 8         first edition

    9    (publish) in 1719.   10      enjoy its high adventure and its insights into the problems of loneliness and isolation.

　"Mark Twain" was the name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) when he wrote books. His father was a lawyer, but a poor one, who lived at Florida, Missouri. The family was so poor that Samuel did not receive much teaching. He had to learn all that he could from the people whom he met. His father died when he was very young, and then there was even less money than before.

　　Many of the men in this part of America worked in the ships on the great River Mississippi, and he did this himself at one time (1857).

　　Where did he find the name "Mark Twain"? It came from the great river itself. It was part of one of the cries used by men who worked in the ships. When a man called "By the mark twain!" he meant that the river was "two marks deep" there, that is to say, six feet deep ( "Twain" is an old form of the work "Two".) Samuel Clemens often heard these words when he was young, and he used them as a penname all his life.

　　During his work on the Mississippi he met travelers of all kinds, and this helped him a great deal when he started to write. But the number of travelers became smaller when war started in America in 1861. Many of the great ships on the river stopped work. Samuel left then and went to Nevada with his brother, who was at that time Governor of Nevada. There, near the town of Carson, Samuel became a gold miner, but he never made much money at the time. He soon saw that life in the gold mines was not for him. He also tried writing for the newspapers in Nevada, and this seemed more hopeful. He found that he could write.

　　He went to Europe in 1867 and visited France and Italy. In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon, and two years later he was spending nearly all his time writing. Among his books is his own story (1908).

　　He is now always known as Mark Twain, and many people do not even know that his family name was Clemens. He traveled in America and in England, and went to Oxford in 1907. He was one of the great American writers of the time, and could make his readers laugh – a thing which few writers can do. He died in 1910.

"Mark Twain" was _________.

 A. a famous American writer    B. name of a book      

 C. a great river in America      D. a large ship

As a child, Samuel did not get much education because _________.

 A. his father died too early          B. the family was very poor 

C. he disliked school very much

D. he could learn what he liked from the people he met

What gave him a great deal when he started writing? _______

 A. His poor childhood               B. The Mississippi river   

 C. All kinds of travelers he met        D. His brother

We can infer from the passage that ________.

 A. Samuel loved writing from his early age  

 B. Samuel did not love writing at the beginning

 C. his writings to the newspaper were successful            

 D. his brother encouraged him to write more

According to the writer of the passage, a good writer could _________.

A.write a lot for his readers            B. make a lot of money for his family

C. cause his readers to laugh           D. travel everywhere he wanted

A person may have an idea about himself that will prevent him from doing good work..

He may have the idea that he is not capable of it. It is easy to get such an idea even though there is no justification for it. A child may think he is stupid because he does not understand how to take the most of his mental faculties, or he may accept another person s mistaken estimate of his ability. Older people may be handicapped by the mistaken belief that they are incapable of learning anything new because of their age.

A person who believes that he is incapable will not make a real effort, because he feels that it would be useless. He won’t go at a job with the confidence necessary for success, and he won’t work hardest, even though he may think he is doing so. He is therefore likely to fail, and the failure will strengthen his belief in his incompetence.

Alfred Adler, a famous psychiatrist（精神病医生）, had an experience which illustrates this. When he was a small boy he got off to a poor start in arithmetic. His teacher got the idea that he had no ability in arithmetic, and told his parents what she thought in order that they would not expect too much of him. In this way, they too developed the idea, "Isn’t it too bad that Alfred can’t do arithmetic?" He accepted their mistaken estimate of his ability, felt that it was useless to try, and was very poor at arithmetic, just as they expected.

One day he became very angry at the teacher and other students because they laughed when he said he saw how to do a problem which none of the other students had been able to solve.

Adler succeeded in solving a problem. This gave him confidence. He rejected the idea that he couldn’t do arithmetic and was determined to show them that he could. His anger and his new found confidence stimulated him to be at arithmetic problems with a new spirit. He now worked with interest, determination, and purpose, and he soon became extraordinarily good at arithmetic. He not only proved that he could do arithmetic, but he learned early in life from his own experience that , if a person goes at a job with determination and purpose, he may astonish himself as well as others by his ability.

This experience made him realize that many people have more ability than they think they have. And that lack of success is as often the result of lack of knowledge of how to apply one’s ability, lack of confidence, and lack of determination as it is the result of lack of ability.

The underlined word “justification” most probably means ________.

       A. reason                             B. rightness                  C. need                 D. demand

What is the main idea of this passage?

       A. The basic principles in doing math problems.

       B. Our idea about ourselves may have a negative influence on our work.

       C. Our ideas do not always have and influence on us.

       D. All actions are caused by impulse.

What does Alfred Adler’s story tell us?

       A. Many people have more ability than they think they have.

       B. Anybody can become a mathematician, if he has determination.

       C. Arithmetic is actually very easy.

       D. Most teachers are wrong when they evaluator their students.

Why did he become angry one day?

       A. Because the teacher and other students laughed at him.

       B. Because they challenged him to do a difficult arithmetic problem.

       C. Because he couldn’t solve the arithmetic problem.

       D. Because he was very poor at arithmetic.

What idea did Alfred’s teacher have?

       A. He was slow in arithmetic.      

B. He should work harder.

       C. He should be transferred to a special school.

       D. He should not tell his parents that he was slow.