When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard. I remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than most of the adults in our community.

　　When Dr. Gibbs wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres, and his life’s goal was to make it a forest.

　　The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant care and growth. He never watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them so that each successive tree generation would grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and weed out(淘汰) the weaker trees early on.

He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots, and how trees that weren’t watered had to grow deep roots in search of moisture. I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.

　　So he never watered his trees. He planted an oak and, instead of watering it every morning, he’d beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! I asked him why he did that, and he said it was to get the tree’s attention.

Dr. Gibbs passed away a couple of years after I left home. Every now and again, I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I’d watched him plant some twenty-five years ago. They’re extremely tall, big and robust since they have deep roots now. However, the trees in my garden trembled in a cold wind although I had watered them for several years.

It seems that adversity(逆境) and suffering benefit these trees in ways comfort and ease never could. I stood there deep in thought.

　　Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I stand over them and watch their little bodies, the rising and falling of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy. But I think it’s time to change my prayer(祷词) because now I know my children are going to encounter hardship..

1.According to Dr. Gibbs’ theories, trees will become weaker if they______

    A. are lack of care   B. are watered   C. are weeded out    D. are beaten

2..According to Para.3 and Pare.4, we can infer that Dr. Gibbs’moto（座右铭）may be_____

     A. “seeing is believing”        B.“Put everything in proper use”

     C. ”Practice makes perfect”     D. “No pains, no gains”

3..The underlined word robust in Para.5 most probably means______

      A. strong         B. strange         C. deep        D. old

4. Which of the following may be the author’s best prayer for his two sons now ?

  A. I wish them strong wings, with which they can fly higher and touch the sky.

  B.I wish them nice fortune so that they can meet people like Dr. Gibbs in the future.

  C.I wish them deep roots into the earth since the rains fall and the winds blow often.

  D.I wish them great shades under the tree since the sunlight is always sharp and bitter.

5. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

   A. A Nice Doctor                      B. The Deep Roots  

C. Adversity and Suffering              D. My Childhood Memory

 

 

—I didn’t mean _______ her.

—But talking like that means _______ her.

A. to hurt; hurting   B. hurting; hurting

 C. to hurt; to hurt  D. hurting; to hurt

 

“If you run for more than five minutes at any time, you might need a pair of running shoes,” advises Stephen Pribut, a US sports medicine expert. Running shoes are highly technical footwear. They provide stability（牢固）while bearing up to three times the wearer’s body weight. But it’s not easy to find the right pair. Finding the right running shoes is something of an art, or a science and a feel.

The science part begins with the shape of the arch（弓）of your foot, which anyone can find out at home with this quick experiment: Put your foot in water and place it on a piece of brown paper. If you see a “C” shape on the paper when you remove your foot, you have a rare high arch. If the shape looks more like a rectangle, that means you have flat feet. See something in between? That’s a normal arch.

Conveniently for shoppers, shoe companies nowadays divide their shoes in three categories: neutral(for high arches), stability(for normal or low arches) and motion control(for flat arches). So you will know which type suits you.

At this point, most people would just grab an appealing shoe and try it on. But professionals would do a few quality-control tests. First, you bend the shoe toe to heel to see where it bends. If it’s not at the forefoot---where the foot actually bends, be afraid. Then you grip both ends and twist in opposite directions. If you can twist it like a towel, it means there’s zero support. Finally, you squeeze(挤)the heel in both directions. A stable heel won’t cave in.

Now you need to check the mold(模子)that shapes the inside of the shoe: whether it’s wide or narrow in the mid-foot, how it sits on the heel and how roomy the toe box is.

It’s wise to hold off until the afternoon to make the shoe purchase, to allow for any swelling(肿胀) that your feet do throughout the day. Toes also decide sizing choice. The rule is you need a finger’s width from your longest toe (whether that’s your big one or not) to the end of the shoe.

1.What is the main idea of this passage?

    A．Advantages of wearing running shoes fitting you.

    B．Ways to get to know about the shape of the arch of your foot.

    C．Advice on how to choose the right pair of running shoes.

    D．Best time to buy a pair of running shoes.

2.If the arch of your foot looks like a “C” shape, you have _________.

    A．a normal arch B．a high arch    C．a flat arch    D．a low arch

3.．The underlined phrase “cave in” most probably means ______.

    A．bend           B．stretch        C．shake          D．crash

4.．Why is the late afternoon the ideal time to go shopping for shoes?

    A．We are likely to be more patient in the afternoon.

    B．Feet usually become large late in the day.

    C．The toes become longer late in the day.

    D．The arch of our feet will be in best shape in the afternoon.

 

 

It’s good to make mistakes, and here is why．
First of all, mistakes are a clear sign that you are trying new things． It’s always good to try new things because when you are trying new things you are growing． If you never try anything new, how can you improve? How can you expand? The simple answer is “You can’t”． Look around you． With very few exceptions, either everything you see in your physical world or every single detail of every single thing is the result of someone trying something new．
Another good thing about mistakes is this: When you are making mistakes, you are learning． Consider this: Edison failed 10,000 times before he perfected the light bulb． When asked how it felt to fail that many times, he said that he hadn’t failed 10,000 times, but rather had learned 10,000 things that didn’t work．
Finally, when you make a mistake you are much closer to success． Why?
Because when all is said and done, you will have tried some number of things before you succeeded． Every time you make a mistake you eliminate one of those things and are one step closer．
But this all doesn’t mean that you should go ahead without considering the consequences of a mistake． Quite the contrary, when you try something new you have to be willing to set some reasonable limits so that in the event that it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, you will be in a position to try again．
We all have limited resources in the form of time and money so don’t blow them all on one approach to a problem． Realize that it probably won’t be perfect the first time and allocate （分配） these resources appropriately so you can learn, make corrections, and try it again． Only by accepting and using your mistakes in this way can you make significant advances in your business and your career．
There is an old saying that goes, “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough．”
So go forth and make mistakes． And learn． And grow． And prosper（成功）．
【小题1】From the second paragraph, we can conclude that _______．

A．mistakes are unnecessary for development

B．we are afraid of trying new thing

C．it’s common for people to make mistakes

D．mistakes are better than not trying

【小题2】The underlined word “eliminate” means _______．

A．avoid

B．remove

C．accept

D．solve

【小题3】According to the article, one thing you should pay attention to about making mistakes is   ．

A．avoiding making the same mistakes

B．accepting the punishment willingly

C．taking consequences into account

D．trying things out one by one

【小题4】What would the writer probably suggest we say to ourselves when we make a mistake?

A．Never mind, I can always try again．

B．I’d better stay out of trouble．

C．Ok! Now I can learn something．

D．Look at this mess． Anyone would be upset．

.

Valuing water

Human beings use a little less than half the water available worldwide. Yet shortages and droughts(干旱) are causing starvation and poverty in some areas, and industrial and agricultural by-products are polluting water supplies. Since the world’s population is expected to double in the next 51 years, many experts think we are on the edge of a widespread water crisis.

But that doesn’t have to be the result. Water shortages do not have to trouble the world—if we start valuing water more than we have in the past. Just as we began to value petrol more after the 1970s oil crisis, today we must start looking at water from a fresh economic view. We can no longer afford to consider water a nearly free resource of which we can use as much as we like in any way we want.

Instead, for all uses except the demand of the poor, governments should price water to reflect its real value. This means charging a fee for the water itself as well as for the supply costs.

Governments should also protect this source by providing water in more economically and environmentally sound ways. For example, often the cheapest way to provide irrigation(灌溉) water in the dry places is through small-scale projects, such as gathering rainfall in depressions(凹地) and pumping it to nearby cropland.

No matter what steps governments take to provide water more efficiently, they must change their ways to use water. Rather than control hundreds or even thousands of local, regional agencies that watch water use, countries should set up central authorities to manage water policy.

65. What is the real cause of the potential water crisis?

A. Only half of the world’s water can be used.

B. The world population is increasing faster and faster.

C. Half of the world’s resources have been seriously polluted.

D. Human beings have not placed sufficient value on water resources.

66.We can conclude from the passage that the water problem______.

A. is already serious in certain parts of the world

B. has been exaggerated by some experts in the field

C. poses a challenge to the technology of building reservoirs

D. is underestimated by government organizations at different levels

67.According to the author, the water price should______.

A. be reduced to the minimum

B. stimulate domestic demand

C. equal its real value

D. take into account the occurrences of droughts.