B
“It was all his own idea, ” says Pat Peters, the 38-year-old wife of Palo Alto, California high school football coach Bob Peters, 39. Bob had just drawn up a “motherhood contract” --a document stating that for 70 days this summer he would take over the care and feeding of the couple’s four children, plus all household chores. Although he didn’t even know how to make coffee when he signed, he was quite confident.(He thought the experience would make a nice book.)
After 40 of the 70 days, he was ready to give up. “I was beaten down, completely humbled（挫败的）,”  admits Peters. Three weeks later he spoke to the local press, stating, “Not only is motherhood a difficult task, not only is it never-ending, it is an impossible job for any normal human being.”
Bob and Pat were high school sweethearts. After they were married in 1960, she worked as a secretary to help put him through university. Since then Bob has been the football and wrestling coach at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High while Pat raised the kids. Then two years ago Pat went back to work as a secretary at Cubberley. “I had been around children so much,” she sighs, “I couldn’t talk to a grown-up.” She continued to run the household, however----until Bob signed the contract, therefore, she decided to relax and enjoy it. 
Although Peters had consulted(咨询) with his school’s home economics teachers and the head of the cafeteria, his meals were sometimes a disaster. “I tried to slip the butter I’d forgotten under the eggs after they were frying, ” he says. For the last three weeks, the family ate out a lot—sometimes having Macdonald’s hamburgers for lunch and dinner.
As for housekeeping, a home economics teacher had told Bob that a room always looks clean if the bed is made. “I found an easier way-I shut the doors, ” he says. Soon the kids were wearing the same clothes for a week. “I made them wear their shirts inside out, and when we went to pick up Pat at work they turned them right side out so they would look clean.”
Now that Bob has publicly admitted he was wrong, he is routinely sharing the child-raising and household tasks with Pat. The tentative（暂时的） title of his book about the summer is taken from something he shouted at the kids one day.
45. The couple signed the contract because _______.
A. Pat complained a lot about her doing the housework all by herself
B. Bob loved taking care of children and wanted his wife to have a good rest
C. they agreed that husband and wife should share household tasks
D. Bob thought it easy to take care of the family and wanted the experience for a book
46. It was agreed that if Bob failed to keep to the contract, he would have to _______.
A. pay a certain amount of money
B.  admit publicly he was wrong about motherhood 
C. say sorry to his wife         D. do all the housework for years
47. What can we learn about Pat Peters?
A. She was hard-working and selfless.   B. She was pretty and kind-hearted.
C. She was tired of the child-raising and household tasks.
D. She did not love Bob any longer.
48. Which of the following can best end the news story?
A. “Wait till your mother gets home!”    B. “My experience of being a mother.”
C. “I’m proud of you all, my dear!”     D. “Motherhood: an impossible job for anyone.”

A well-known speaker started his speech by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, “What is this piece of   1  and is it worth anything?”

Hands started going up. “It is a $20 bill, encashable(可兑现的) in international and national   2  .”replied one of the   3  who raised their hands.

The speaker continued, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you, but first, let me do this.” He continued to crumple the 20 dollar bill using both his hands. He then               4  it and asked, “Who still wants it?” Still the hands were up in the air.

“Well,” he said, “what if I do this?” He dropped it on the  5  and started to step on it. He picked up the crumpled and   6  bill and said, “Now, who still wants it?”  

7  went back into the air. “I think this bill is still   8  its value”, said a young man in an unsure  9 . “We can still use the bill to   10  goods worth 20 dollars,” said the other people.

“My friends, you have all learned a very   11  lesson in this exercise that we are just through with. You’ve   12  that I can crumple the $20 bill during the process as the effects can be seen clearly.   13 , no matter what I did to the piece of paper, you were   14  in your mind that my actions did not actually decrease its   15 . It was still worth $20.”

“Many times in our lives, we feel like as if we are   16 , crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are   17 ; but no matter what happened or what will happen, please   18 , you will never lose your value.” Values that you keep in your heart will always   19  you from a difficult situation.

Dirty or clean, crumpled or not, you are still priceless to those who love you. The worth of our lives comes, not in what we do or who we know, but by ...WHO WE ARE.” “You are   20 — don’t ever forget it.”

1.                A．paper          B．advice          C．information    D．luck

2.                A．organizations    B．flights          C．markets  D．conferences

3.                A．family          B．teachers        C．speakers  D．audience

4.                A．hid            B．bought         C．carried   D．unfolded

5.                A．square         B．beach          C．ground   D．playground

6.                A．thin           B．dirty           C．new D．clear

7.                A．Hands          B．Books          C．Heads    D．Smoke

8.                A．losing          B．reducing        C．increasing     D．holding

9.                A．sound          B．voice           C．noise D．shout

10.               A．deliver         B．buy            C．sell   D．produce

11.               A．boring         B．difficult         C．valuable   D．painful

12.               A．heard          B．seen           C．forgotten  D．doubted

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

14.               A．sure           B．curious         C．proud D．sad

15.               A．price          B．growth         C．value D．size

16.               A．dropped        B．turned         C．looked    D．talked

17.               A．important       B．confident       C．selfish D．useless

18.               A．accept         B．argue          C．remember D．decide

19.               A．leave          B．search         C．save  D．beat

20.               A．especial        B．normal         C．ordinary   D．special

B

“It was all his own idea, ” says Pat Peters, the 38-year-old wife of Palo Alto, California high school football coach Bob Peters, 39. Bob had just drawn up a “motherhood contract” --a document stating that for 70 days this summer he would take over the care and feeding of the couple’s four children, plus all household chores. Although he didn’t even know how to make coffee when he signed, he was quite confident.(He thought the experience would make a nice book.)

     After 40 of the 70 days, he was ready to give up. “I was beaten down, completely humbled（挫败的）,”  admits Peters. Three weeks later he spoke to the local press, stating, “Not only is motherhood a difficult task, not only is it never-ending, it is an impossible job for any normal human being.”

     Bob and Pat were high school sweethearts. After they were married in 1960, she worked as a secretary to help put him through university. Since then Bob has been the football and wrestling coach at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High while Pat raised the kids. Then two years ago Pat went back to work as a secretary at Cubberley. “I had been around children so much,” she sighs, “I couldn’t talk to a grown-up.” She continued to run the household, however----until Bob signed the contract, therefore, she decided to relax and enjoy it. 

Although Peters had consulted(咨询) with his school’s home economics teachers and the head of the cafeteria, his meals were sometimes a disaster. “I tried to slip the butter I’d forgotten under the eggs after they were frying, ” he says. For the last three weeks, the family ate out a lot—sometimes having Macdonald’s hamburgers for lunch and dinner.

     As for housekeeping, a home economics teacher had told Bob that a room always looks clean if the bed is made. “I found an easier way-I shut the doors, ” he says. Soon the kids were wearing the same clothes for a week. “I made them wear their shirts inside out, and when we went to pick up Pat at work they turned them right side out so they would look clean.”

     Now that Bob has publicly admitted he was wrong, he is routinely sharing the child-raising and household tasks with Pat. The tentative（暂时的） title of his book about the summer is taken from something he shouted at the kids one day.

45. The couple signed the contract because _______.

    A. Pat complained a lot about her doing the housework all by herself

    B. Bob loved taking care of children and wanted his wife to have a good rest

    C. they agreed that husband and wife should share household tasks

    D. Bob thought it easy to take care of the family and wanted the experience for a book

46. It was agreed that if Bob failed to keep to the contract, he would have to _______.

    A. pay a certain amount of money

B.  admit publicly he was wrong about motherhood 

  C. say sorry to his wife         D. do all the housework for years

47. What can we learn about Pat Peters?

    A. She was hard-working and selfless.   B. She was pretty and kind-hearted.

    C. She was tired of the child-raising and household tasks.

    D. She did not love Bob any longer.

48. Which of the following can best end the news story?

 A. “Wait till your mother gets home!”    B. “My experience of being a mother.”

 C. “I’m proud of you all, my dear!”      D. “Motherhood: an impossible job for anyone.”

A recent report has shown that people in the United States have experienced a revolution．This revolution is about the people’s attitude toward the work week and the weekend．Throughout the years, people have traditionally regarded Sunday as the beginning of the week．Now, this is changing.

     Although some calendars today still mark the beginning of the week Sunday, more and more people in the United States are coming to take Monday as the first day of the week．They feel that Saturday and Sunday together make the weekend, because they make up of the two-day period during which people don’t have to work.

    In fact, the word “weekend’ did not even exist in the English language until about the middle of the nineteenth century．In England, at that time, Saturday afternoons had just been added to Sundays and holidays as a time set aside for workers to have time off from their jobs．From then on, people had one and a half days, Saturday afternoon and Sunday, free from work each week: this reform became common in the United States in the 1920s.

However, there came the great depression in 1930s, and there was not so much work to do throughout the country．The work week was therefore shortened, and the weekend expanded from one and a half days to two full days, Saturday and Sunday.

Some people thought that this trend （趋势） of having fewer work days would continue, They  felt that the increasing use of automation （自动化） in many parts of life would finally lead to further shortening of the work week, which, they said, might one day decrease to four days, or ever fewer．However, so far this has never happened, and the work week seems to have become fixed at 40 hours made up of five 8-hour days．Yet some people are even talking about adding Monday to the weekend．Do you think this will ever happen?

1．What does the author mainly discuss in the passage?

A．Attitudes toward employment.                      B．Attitudes toward pleasure activities.

C．Offering job chances.                                  D．The development of the weekend.

2．According to the passage, what is changing in the way people think about the week?

A．Which days people should work.                  B．How the week is divided into days.

C．Which day begins the week.                        D．How many weeks there are in a month.

3．What does the author imply about the work week in England in the early 1800s?

A．It was six days long.                                       B．It didn’t include Saturday afternoon.

C．It always included at least one holiday.          D．It didn’t allow the workers time off.

4．According to the passage what effect did some people think the increasing use of automation would have?

A．It would make the work day longer.

B．It would allow people to work on the weekend.

C．It would make pleasure activities expensive.

D．It would create much more free time.

从A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen        in almost a month. Every day , my husband would        the process of trying to get water to the fields.        we saw some rain soon, we would lose everything.

  On this day I learned the true lesson of        and witnessed the only        I had ever seen . I was in the kitchen when I saw my son, Billy,        toward the woods. He was walking with effort, trying to be as        as possible . Minutes after he        into the woods, he came running back . I went back to make sandwiches ,        that whatever he had been doing was completed. Moments later,        , he was once again walking slowly toward the woods. This activity went on for an hour .        I couldn’t help following him and saw the most amazing        .

  Several large deer stood in front of him. Billy walked right up to them . I almost        for him to get away . A huge deer was        close .        the deer didn’t even move as Billy knelt down. I saw a tiny deer lying on the ground , obviously suffering from        , lift its head to lap up the water cupped in Billy’s hands. When the water was        , Billy ran back to get more . It then became        to me.

  I stood on the edge of the woods, watching the        boy working so hard to save another life. As my tears began to hit the ground, they were suddenly joined by other drops. It was as if the God himself was        with pride. The rain that day saved our farm just like the actions of one little boy who saved another.

1.A. water                            B. rain                                   C. deer                               D. storm

2.A. take over                      B. try on                                C. go about                        D. seek out

3.A. Before                          B. If                                        C. Until                                D. Unless

4.A. helping                         B. sharing                    C. donating                           D. offering

5.A. miracle                         B. lesson                               C. wildlife                    D. virtue

6.A. running                         B. marching                          C. walking                    D. riding

7.A. still                                 B. silent                                 C. secret                               D. sacred

8.A. skipped                         B. slipped                    C. wandered                        D. disappeared

9.A. thinking                        B. wondering                       C. worrying                          D. calculating

10.A. but                              B. besides                   C. however                          D. therefore

11.A. Actually                      B. Finally                      C. Quietly                    D. Surprisingly

12.A. sign                    B. scenery                            C. sight                                  D. scene

13.A. screamed                   B. rushed                              C. made                                D. burst

14.A. mildly                          B. powerfully                       C. dangerously           D. aggressively

15.A. And                    B. Otherwise                        C. Thus                                  D. But

16.A. thirst                           B. illness                               C. heat                                  D. pain

17.A. lost                              B. missing                    C. gone                                 D. served

18.A. annoying           B. clear                                 C. acceptable                       D. puzzling

19.A. kind                   B. clever                               C. naughty                            D. honest

20.A. raining                        B. appearing                        C. chanting                           D. weeping