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.

完形填空（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）

It’s good to make mistakes, and here is why．

First of all, mistakes are a clear  36 that you are trying new things．It’s always   37  to try new things because when you are trying new things you are   38 ．If you never try anything new, how can you   39 ? The simple answer is “You can’t”．With few exceptions, every single detail of development is the   40 of someone trying something new．

When you are making mistakes, you are  41  ．Edison failed 10,000 times before he   42  the light bulb．When asked how it felt to  43  that many times, he said that he hadn’t failed 10,000 times, but rather had learned 10,000 things that didn’t  44 ．

Finally, when you make a mistake you are much   45  to success．Why ?

When all is done, you will have tried some number of things before you succeed．  46  you make a mistake you eliminate (排除) one of those things and are one step closer．

But this all doesn’t mean that you should go ahead   47  considering the consequences of a mistake．Quite the contrary, when you try something new, you   48   be willing to set some reasonable limits, so that in the event that it doesn’t   49  the way you want it to, you will be in a position to try again．

We all have   50  resources in time and money, so don’t blow them all on one   51  to a problem．Realize that it probably won’t be perfect the first time, and allocate (分配)  these resources properly so you can learn,   52   corrections, and try it again．Only by  53    and using your mistakes in this way, can you make significant  54   in your business or career．

As an old saying goes, “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough．”

So go  55  and make mistakes．And learn．And grow．And succeed．

1.                A．word          B．sign            C．mark D．signature

2.                A．interesting      B．funny          C．bad  D．good

3.                A．working        B．failing          C．growing  D．playing

4.                A．improve        B．study           C．insist D．think

5.                A．progress        B．result          C．strength  D．experiment

6.                A．learning        B．correcting       C．doing D．promising

7.                A．broke          B．perfected       C．designed  D．bought

8.                A．succeed        B．invent          C．fail  D．struggle

9.                A．work           B．help           C．go   D．perform

10.               A．further         B．closer          C．familiar    D．interested

11.               A．Only if         B．Even though     C．Every time D．As if

12.               A．with           B．without         C．into  D．through

13.               A．want to         B．lead to         C．tend to    D．have to

14.               A．work out       B．put out         C．run out    D．sort out

15.               A．enough        B．much          C．limited    D．little

16.               A．way           B．approach       C．means D．suggestion

17.               A．make          B．follow          C．take  D．offer

18.               A．trying          B．avoiding        C．accepting  D．receiving

19.               A．use            B．contribution     C．money    D．advances

20.               A．back           B．forth           C．off   D．out

I had been a step-mother for six years, and with my husband，I had watched his young children growing into teenagers. Although they lived mostly with their mother, they spent a lot of time with us. Over the years, we all learned to become more comfortable with each other. However, I continued to feel somewhat like an outsider.

When the children moved to a town five hours away, my husband was understandably destroyed. In order to keep in touch with the kids, we set up an e-mail and chat-line service.

Ironically (具有讽刺意义的是), this technology can make us feel out of touch and more in need of real human contact. If a computer message came addressed to "Dad", I'd feel forgotten. If my name appeared along with his, it would brighten my day. Yet always there was some distance to be crossed, not just over the telephone wires.

Late one evening, as my husband was snoozing (打盹), I was catching up on my e-mail, an "instant message" appeared on the screen. It was Margo, my oldest stepdaughter, also up late in front of her computer. We sent several messages back and forth, exchanging the latest news. When we "chatted" like that, she wouldn't necessarily know if it was me or her dad unless she asked. That night she didn't ask and I didn’t tell her it was me either. After hearing the latest volleyball scores and the details about a coming dance at her school, I said that it was late and I should go to sleep. Her return message read, "Okay, talk to you later! Love you!"

At this, a wave of sadness ran through me and I realized that she must have thought she was writing to her father the whole time. She and I would never have openly exchange such words of love. Feeling guilty (内疚的) for not telling her the truth, yet not wanting to embarrass (使人尴尬) her, I simply replied, "Love you too! Have a good sleep!"

I thought again of their family circle and I felt again the sharp ache of emptiness and "otherness". Then, just as my fingers reached for the keys to return the screen to black, Margo's final message appeared. It read, "Tell Dad good night for me too." With tear-filled eyes, I turned the machine off.

41. Why was the author's husband ever understandably destroyed at first?

A. he couldn't see his children often.           B. he had an unhappy marriage.

C. his children didn't like him any longer.     D. he had got a kind of serious disease.

42. By saying "Yet always there was some distance to be crossed," the writer infers that ______.

A. their children lived in a town five hours away

B. their children had to talk to them on the phone

C. there was a generation gap between them

D. the relationship between them was not so close

43. The author thought that Margo must have mistaken her for her father because ______.

A. her father liked to chat about her activities

B. her father always stopped chatting like that

C. Margo never said goodbye to the author in this way

D. Margo never chatted with the author alone

44. From this passage, we can learn that a step-parent can ______.

A. never know the special relationship between a parent and a child

B. exchange e-mails and messages with step-children

C. be part of the "inner circle" of the family

D. never be liked by his or her step-children

45. How was the experience of the author as a stepmother that night?

A. Heart-warming.  B. Full of sadness.         C. Heart-breaking.         D. Disappointing.