D

It was Sunday morning. All the summer world was bright and fresh, and full of life. There was cheer on every face and a spring in every step.

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He stopped by the fence in front of the house where he lived with his aunt Polly. He looked at it, and all joy left him. The fence was long and high. He put the brush into the whitewash and moved it along the top of the fence. He repeated the operation. He felt he could not continue and sat down.

He knew that his friends would arrive soon with all kinds of interesting plans for the day. They would walk past him and laugh. They would make jokes about his having to work on a beautiful summer Saturday. The thought burned him like fire.

He put his hand into his pockets and took out all that he owned. Perhaps he could find some way to pay someone to do the whitewashing for him. But there was nothing of value in his pockets—nothing that could buy even half an hour of freedom. So he put the bits of toys back into his pockets and gave up the idea.

At this dark and hopeless moment, a wonderful idea came to him. It filled his mind with a great, bright light. Calmly he picked up the brush and started again to whitewash.

While Tom was working, Ben Rogers appeared. Ben was eating an apple as he walked along the street. As he walked along, he was making noises like the sound of a riverboat. First he shouted loudly, like a boat captain. Then he said “Ding-Dong-Dong”, “Ding-Dong-Dong” again and again, like the bell of a riverboat. And he made other strange noises. When he came close to Tom, he stopped.

Tom went on whitewashing. He did not look at Ben. Ben stared a moment and then said: "Hello! I’m going swimming, but you can’t go, can you?”

No answer. Tom moved his brush carefully along the fence and looked at the result with the eye of an artist. Ben came nearer. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he kept on working.

Ben said, "Hello, old fellow, you’ve got to work, hey?"

Tom turned suddenly and said, "Why, it's you, Ben! I wasn't noticing."

"Say — I'm going swimming. Don't you wish you could? But of course you’d rather work — wouldn't you? Of course you would."

Tom looked at the boy a bit, and said "What do you call work?"

"Why, isn't that work?"

Tom went back to his whitewashing, and answered casually,

"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer."

"Oh come, now, you don't mean to say that you like it?"

The brush continued to move.

"Like it? Well, I don't see why I shouldn’t like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?" Ben stopped eating his apple. Tom moved his brush back and forth, stepped back to look at the result, added a touch here and there, and stepped back again. Ben watched every move and got more and more interested. Soon he said,

"Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little."

Tom thought for a moment, was about to agree; but he changed his mind:

"No — no — it won’t do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly wants this fence to be perfect. It has got to be done very carefully. I don’t think there is one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it well enough."

"No — is that so? Oh come, now —let me just try. Only just a little."

"Ben, I'd like to, but if it isn’t done right, I’m afraid Aunt Polly— "

"Oh, I'll be careful. Now let me try. Say -- I'll give you the core（核心）of my apple."

"Well, here — No, Ben, now don't. I'm afraid —"

"I'll give you all of it."

Tom gave up the brush with unwillingness on his face, but joy in his heart. And while Ben worked at the fence in the hot sun, Tom sat under a tree, eating the apple, and planning how to get more help. There were enough boys. Each one came to laugh, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was tired, Tom sold the next chance to Billy for a kite; and when Billy was tired, Johnny bought in for a dead rat — and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, Tom had won many treasures

And he had not worked. He had had a nice idle time all the time, with plenty of company -- and the fence had been whitewashed three times. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, Tom would have owned everything belonging to his friends.

He had discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man or a boy want a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to get.

68．Tom was about to agree to let Ben whitewash when he changed his mind because ______ .

A. Tom wanted to do the whitewashing by himself

B. Tom was unwilling to let Ben do the whitewashing

C. Tom was afraid Ben would do the whitewashing better

D. Tom didn’t want to let Ben do the whitewashing before he made him give up his apple first

69．The underlined word “casually” is most similar to “______” in meaning.

A. carelessly                 B. delightedly               C. seriously                  D. angrily

70．We can learn from the passage that ______ .

A. Tom was interested in whitewashing the fence.

B. Tom had a lot of friends who are ready to help others.

C. Tom was unwilling to whitewash the fence, but he managed to let other boys do it for him

D. Tom was good at whitewashing the fence, so he looked at the result of his work with the eye of an artist.

A few months before I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special position. My parents were complementary instructors：Mom taught me the words, and Dad taught me to obey them. But the stranger... He was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies(喜剧).

If I wanted to know anything about politics，history or science，he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind.

I now know that my early concepts about relationship were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom blamed...and NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended(融合) right in but is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you were to walk into my parent's room today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures. His name?

We just call him...“TV”.

He has a younger sister now. We call her “Computer”.

51．The stranger can do all the following things EXCEPT that he can ________.

A. tell us some funny stories                  B. reject our proposals(提议)

C. influence the children's character             D. predict the future

52．The underlined word “spellbound” in Paragraph 2 most probably means ________.

A. concentrated     B. puzzled   C. fascinated    D. astonished

53．What can we learn from the last three paragraphs of the passage?

A. The computer is more advanced and has gained greater popularity.

B. Old as he is，we like the stranger best.

C. The TV set is out of fashion and often breaks down.

D. We decide to throw the TV set away immediately.

                          

As a reader, I, as many other book lovers do, often leave with a long sigh after visiting a bookstore. The prices printed on book jackets keep reminding me how thin my wallet is.

The price of books is now so high that I hesitate before buying a book I love. Many people feel the same way. But I remember that only a few years ago, when I was a college student, I bought several books almost every month, using what was left out of the living expenses sent by my parents, and that was not more than 200 yuan.

But now that I am working and the money I earn is only used to support my own expenses, I find I can’t afford many good books.

There is a saying, “Book lovers have no money, but rich people have no feelings for books”. This is exactly the case. Sometimes I wonder about who the books are published for, especially those books with beautiful hard covers.

It is said that usually, the listed price is more than twice as much as the book’s cost and we can see high profits from selling books. But now there is a contradiction. On one hand, readers who want to buy books aren’t able to, while on the other hand, publishers and sellers suffer from the large stockpiles of unsaleable books being stored in their warehouses. This situation is also a disadvantage to intellectual property right protection because many books of bestsellers are sold at a lower price at some book stands.

The key to resolve the problem is to cut the price to an acceptable level to both sellers and consumers.

I wish sincerely that in the near future common readers like me can buy the books we want without worrying about the high prices too much.

1．The first paragraph of this article tells us that　　   .

A. the prices of some books are too high

B. many readers are too poor to buyお expensive books

C. the writer is one of those who can’tお afford to buy books

D. all the above are correct

2．The writer　　    at college.

A. often bought books when studying

B. was very rich when studying

C. was living a very simple life

D. hesitated to buying anything but books

3． “Book lover have no money, but rich people have no feeling s for books”. means　　   .

A. those who like reading maybe have not enough money to buy books

B. those who don’t want to study otherwise are very rich

C. everything in the world has been changed to its opposite

D. both A and B

4．Fromお the fifth paragraph, we can see　　   .

A. publishers shouldn’t have set the prices of books so high

B. booksellers can hardly earn their living by selling books

C. it’s no good for publishers and sellers if the prices are too high

D. the high prices of books were set by man factors

5．The writer of this article wished　　   .

A. the prices of books could be acceptable

B. the prices of books would be low

C. the prices of books would be lowered down soon

D. he could buy books without worrying about the prices

 

As a reader, I, as many other book lovers do, often leave with a long sigh after visiting a bookstore. The prices printed on book jackets keep reminding me how thin my wallet is.

The price of books is now so high that I hesitate before buying a book I love. Many people feel the same way. But I remember that only a few years ago, when I was a college student, I bought several books almost every month, using what was left out of the living expenses sent by my parents, and that was not more than 200 yuan.

But now that I am working and the money I earn is only used to support my own expenses, I find I can’t afford many good books.

There is a saying, “Book lovers have no money, but rich people have no feelings for books”. This is exactly the case. Sometimes I wonder about who the books are published for, especially those books with beautiful hard covers.

It is said that usually, the listed price is more than twice as much as the book’s cost and we can see high profits from selling books. But now there is a contradiction. On one hand, readers who want to buy books aren’t able to, while on the other hand, publishers and sellers suffer from the large stockpiles of unsaleable books being stored in their warehouses. This situation is also a disadvantage to intellectual property right protection because many books of bestsellers are sold at a lower price at some book stands.

The key to resolve the problem is to cut the price to an acceptable level to both sellers and consumers.

I wish sincerely that in the near future common readers like me can buy the books we want without worrying about the high prices too much.

1．The first paragraph of this article tells us that　　   .

A. the prices of some books are too high

B. many readers are too poor to buyお expensive books

C. the writer is one of those who can’tお afford to buy books

D. all the above are correct

2．The writer　　    at college.

A. often bought books when studying

B. was very rich when studying

C. was living a very simple life

D. hesitated to buying anything but books

3． “Book lover have no money, but rich people have no feeling s for books”. means　　   .

A. those who like reading maybe have not enough money to buy books

B. those who don’t want to study otherwise are very rich

C. everything in the world has been changed to its opposite

D. both A and B

4．Fromお the fifth paragraph, we can see　　   .

A. publishers shouldn’t have set the prices of books so high

B. booksellers can hardly earn their living by selling books

C. it’s no good for publishers and sellers if the prices are too high

D. the high prices of books were set by man factors

5．The writer of this article wished　　   .

A. the prices of books could be acceptable

B. the prices of books would be low

C. the prices of books would be lowered down soon

D. he could buy books without worrying about the prices

 

　　A man named Smith was sitting on his roof during a flood, and the water was up to his feet. Before long a fellow in a canoe passed and shouted, "Can I give you a lift to higher ground?"

　　"No, thanks," said Smith. "I have faith in God and he will save me."

　　Soon the water rose to Smith's waist. At this point a motor boat pulled up and someone called out, "Can I give you a lift to higher ground?"

　　"No, thanks, I have faith in God and he will save me."

　　Later a helicopter flew by, and Smith was now standing on the roof with water up to his neck. "Grab the rope, "shouted the pilot. "I'll pull you up."

　　"No, thanks," said Smith. "I have faith in God and he will save me. "But after hours of struggling with water, poor exhausted Smith drowned and went to his reward. As he arrived at the Pearly Gates, Smith met God and complained about this. "Tell me, God, "he said, "I had such faith in you to save me and you let me drown. What happened?"

　　To which God replied, "What do you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter."

　　56．When the pilot asked Smith to grab the rope, ______.

　　　　A. Smith pulled the pilot up　　　　　 B. Smith did so

　　　　C. Smith didn't do so　　　　　　　　 D. Smith didn't hear him

　　57．At last, poor exhausted Smith drowned and ______.

　　　　A. went to his reward　　　　　　　　B. passed away

　　　　C. went to heaven　　　　　　　　　 D. all of the above

　　58．What do we know about Smith? ______.

　　　　A. He was a lazy man

　　　　B. He was a lucky man who believed in God

　　　　C. He was a poor man

　　　　D. He was a silly man who believed in God　

　　　59．What do you think of this passage? This passage is very ______.

　　　　A. moving　　　　B. humorous　　　C. depressing　　　D. surprising　

　

　　60．The best title of this passage is" ______" .

　　　　A. What Do You Want from Me?　　　 B. How Do You Believe in God?

　　　　C. How God Loved Smith!　　　　　　D. Smith Obeyed God's Order