Work is a part of living —my grandparents understood that. They lived and worked on a farm that has been in my family for 150 years. They raised chickens for eggs , pigs and cattle for meat . Cows were kept for milk and the cream, from which Grandma made butter and cheese. What little yard they had became a garden.

The Depression, therefore, didn’t make much change in their lives. But it did bring an unending flow of men out of work, drifting from job to job, to the farm. The first to show up at the door of the kitchen was a man in rags. He took off his hat and quietly explained that he hadn’t eaten for a while. Grandpa stood watching him a bit , then said , “There’s a stack of firewood against the fence behind the barn (谷仓). I’ve been needing to get it moved to the other side of the fence . You have just about enough time to finish the job before lunch .”

Grandma said a surprising thing happened. The man got a shine in his eyes and he hurried to the barn at once. She set another place at the table and made an apple pie. During lunch, the stranger didn’t say much, but when he left, his shoulders had straightened. “Nothing ruins a man like losing his self-respect,” Grandpa later told me.

Soon after, another man showed up asking for a meal. This one was dressed in a suit and carried a small old suitcase. Grandpa came out when he heard voices. He looked at the man and then offered a handshake.” There is a stack of firewood along the fence down behind the barn I’ve been meaning to get it moved. It’d sure be a help to me . And we’d be pleased to have you stay for lunch.” The fellow set his suitcase aside and neatly laid his coat on top. Then he set off to work.

Grandma says she doesn’t remember how many strangers they shared a meal with during those Depression days-or how many times that stack of wood got moved.

1．When he was asked to move a stack of firewood, the first man who asked for a meal got a shine in his eyes for he was glad that         .

A. he had found a good job     

B. he would have something to eat

C. he would no longer suffer from the Depression

D. he would get what he wanted without losing his self-respect

2．The writer’s grandfather asked those jobless men to move the stack of firewood because     .

A. he didn’t want them to have a meal free of charge

B. he had been needing to get it moved

C. he wanted to help them in his own way

D. he wanted to show them his kindness and respect

3．The writer’s grandfather was all of the following but         .

A. kind   B. thoughtful C. wealthy     D. sympathetic

4．The best title for the story would be         .

A. The Depression  B. The Pleasure of Helping Others

C. No Pains, No Gains D. Work-A Part of Living

When my grandfather died, my 83-year-old grandmother, once so full of life, slowly began to fade. No longer able to manage a home of her own, she moved in with my mother, where she was visited often by other members of her large, loving family. Although she still had her good days, it was often hard to arouse her interest.

But one chilly December afternoon three years ago, my daughter Meagan, then eight, and I were visiting her, when she noticed that Meagan was carrying her favorite doll.

“I, too, had a special doll when I was a little girl,” she told a wide-eyed Meagan. “I got it one Christmas when I was about your age. I lived in an old farmhouse in Maine, with Mom, Dad and my four sisters, and the very first gift I opened that Christmas was the most beautiful doll you’d ever want to see.”

“She had an elegant, hand-painted face, and her long brown hair was pulled back with a big pink bow. Her eyes were blue, and they opened and closed. I remember she had a body of kidskin, and her arms and legs bent at the joints.”

GG’s voice dropped low, taking on an almost respectful tone. “My doll was dressed in a pretty pink gown, decorated with fine lace. … Getting such a fine doll was like a miracle for a little farm girl like me — my parents must have had to sacrifice so much to afford it. But how happy I was that morning!”

GG’s eyes filled and her voice shook with emotion as she recalled that Christmas of long ago. “I played with my doll all morning long. And then it happened. My mother called us to the dining room for Christmas dinner and I laid my new doll down gently on the hall table. But as I went to join the family at the table, I heard a loud crash.”

“I hardly had to turn around — I knew it was my precious doll. And it was. Her lace skirt had hung down from the table just enough for my baby sister to reach up and pull on it. When I ran in, there lay my beautiful doll on the floor, her face smashed into a dozen pieces. She was gone forever.”

A few years later, GG’s baby sister was also gone, she told Meagan, a victim of pneumonia(肺炎). Now the tears in her eyes spilled over — tears, I knew, not only for a lost doll and a lost sister, but for a lost time.

Silent for the rest of the visit, Meagan was no sooner in the car going home than she exclaimed, “Mom, I have a great idea! Let’s get GG a new doll for Christmas. Then she won’t cry when she thinks about it.”

My heart filled with pride as I listened to my sympathetic little daughter. But where would we find a doll to match GG’s fond memories?

Where there’s a will, as they say, there’s a way. When I told my best friends, Liz and Chris, about my problem, Liz put me in touch with a local doll-make. From a doll supply house I ordered a long brown hair and a kidskin body to copy the outfit GG had so lovingly described. Liz volunteered to put the doll together, and Chris helped me make the doll’s outfit. Meagan wrote the story of the lost doll by giving examples.

Finally our creation was finished. To our eyes it was perfect. But there was no way it could be exactly like the doll GG had loved so much and lost. Would she think it looked anything like it?

On Christmas Eve, Meagan and I carried our happily packed gift to GG, where she sat surrounded by children, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. “It’s for you,” Meagan said, “but first you have to read the story that goes with it.”

GG no sooner got through the first page than her voice cracked and she was unable to go on, but Meagan took over where she left off. Then it was time to open her present.

I’ll never forget the look on GG’s face as she lifted the doll and held it to her chest. Once again her tears fell, but this time they were tears of joy. Holding the doll in her frail arms, she repeated over and over again, “She’s exactly like my old doll, exactly like her.” 

And perhaps she wasn’t saying that just to be kind. Perhaps however impossible it seemed, we had managed to produce a close copy of the doll she remembered. But as I watched my eight-year-old daughter and her great-grandmother examining the doll together, I thought of a likelier explanation. What GG really recognized, perhaps, was the love that inspired the gift. And love, wherever it comes from, always looks the same.

1.GG moved in with her daughter because____.

A．she wanted to live with a large family

B．she was not able to live on her own due to her weakness

C．her husband passed away

D．she thought it was the children’s obligation to take care of her

2.Why did GG become very emotional on a December afternoon?

A．Because she saw her great granddaughter’s doll.

B．Because she recalled her dead parents.

C．Because she was surrounded by her offspring.

D．Because she felt lonely during the Christmas season.

3.What can we infer from Paragraph 5? 

A．GG’s doll was important and was a symbol of many things.

B．GG showed great respect for his husband’s love.

C．GG missed the great old days she spent with her family.

D．GG was grateful for her long life.

4.What happened to GG’s baby sister?

A．She envied her sister all her life.

B．She felt guilty for breaking GG’s doll and decided to go.

C．She left home at a young age.

D．She died of some disease at a young age.

5.Why did Meagan’s mum feel proud of her daughter?

A．Because she was clever.                  B．Because she was loving.

C．Because she was sensitive.                D．Because she was imaginative.

6.The main idea of the passage is that ____.

A．treating the elderly well is moral

B．it is impossible to copy the exact doll for the elderly

C．love, the permanent rhythm of life, will always remain in the elderly’s heart

D．physical comfort from children rather than psychological care is important

 

One day when Isaac Newton was reading a book under an apple tree on the farm, an apple fell down and hit him on the head. For most people that would be the end of the story, but not for Newton. Why did the apple fall out of the tree? Does everything fall? What makes things fall? Can anything stop things from falling? Are the sun, moon, and stars falling? Why don’t they ever hit the ground?

So many questions. Newton spent many years answering these questions by thinking and doing experiments. He made up the law of gravity. According to this law everything pulls everything else to itself by a force called gravity. How strong that force is depends on how heavy the things are and how close together.

Newton’s law of gravity not only explained how things fall on earth, but now planets move around the sun and how moons move around planets. A friend of his, Edmund Halley, decided to try Newton’s theory on comets. People had been studying comets for hundreds of years without figuring them out, so he decided to study their reports and compare them to Newton’s theory.

Up till then people had thought that comets just came and went, and that nobody could know when or why. But Newton’s law of gravity gave rules that Halley could use to study the records of comets. He found some reports of a big bright comet that he was sure was the same one, coming back every 75 years. He predicted when it would come back next.

If anybody still didn’t believe Newton, then the appearance of Halley’s Comet just when Halley had predicted it using Newton’s ideas was enough to convince them. Halley’s Comet has come a few times since then, always right on schedule. You’ll be able to see it on its next trip near the sun and earth when you’re old enough to be a grandparent.

71.The passage starts with a story _____________.

A.because it was such a funny one

B.because Newton liked to eat apples

C.to show how much Newton liked reading

D/to show what started Newton’s discovering gravity

72.According to the author, Newton was especially different from others in that ____________.

A.he liked reading under apple trees

B.he liked to find out how things worked

C.he was very quiet and patient

D.he was so much interested in science

73.Newton’s law of gravity can tell us that _____________.

A.gravity has no relationship with the weight of things.\

B.how things fall on earth

C.it is not of help to the study of comets

D.it can explain everything in the world

74.The underlined word “ convince” in the last paragraph probably means “______________”

A. make… believe                B. make… doubt

C. make… understand             D. make… interested

75. Which of the following is TRUE about Edmund Halley?

A. He discovered a big bright comet.

B. He helped Newton to create his theory.

C. He predicted when the same comet would come back.

D. He studied the same comet for 75 years.

 

Animals are being killed by hunters in America in a cruel way, says an animal protection organization. There are about 1,000 hunting farms across America whose owners offer hunters an opportunity to kill animals that are kept in fenced areas.

Russian boar, zebra, deer, antelope and many other species are raised just to be killed. Farm owners charge hunters thousands of dollars for animals that they kill, many of which are close to extinction (灭绝).

The Humane Society of the United States says this type of hunting should be stopped because it is not fair to the animals. Many owners raise their animals. Others buy from animal dealers or from zoos and circuses that no longer want them. This means that the animals are not afraid of humans and they are easy to be shot by hunters.

Owners of small ranches (牧场) keep their animals in fenced areas so that the hunters can get close to the animals before shooting at them. On large farms hunters are taken to areas where the animals are fed sometime of the day. This also makes it easy to kill the animals.

The hunters want to keep the heads and chests of the animals they kill to hang as trophies (战利品) on their walls. This means that the animals are usually  shot in parts of the body. That means they will suffer a slow and painful death.

The hunting is allowed across most of America but some parts of the country have stopped or restricted it. The Humane Society of the United States hopes that it won’t be too long before the rest parts of the country also give up this cruel sport.

1.What can be the best title for the passage?

A．Fenced Animals Are in Danger

B．Animals Are Easy to Kill

C．Hunters Pay to Kill Fenced Animals

D．Animal Hunting Should Be Banned

2.One of the main reasons why these animals are easy to be shot is that _______.

A．they don’t run very fast

B．they are not afraid of humans

C．they don’t know how to escape

D．the hunters are good at shooting

3.What can we learn from the passage?

A．Many animals can run away when hunters want to shoot them.

B．It is very cruel to kill the animals in the way mentioned in the passage.

C．The Humane Society of the United States considers this kind of hunting as a good sport.

D．The animals are usually hung on the walls after being shot.

4.It can be inferred from the passage that _______.

A．no measures have been taken to prevent this kind of hunting

B．the animals usually get really hungry before dying

C．in most parts of America this kind of hunting has been stopped

D．people who do this kind of hunting are probably very rich

 

Robert is nine years old and Joanna is seven. They live at Mount Ebenezer. Their father has a big property. In Australia they call a farm a property.

    Robert and Joanna like school very much. At school they can talk to their friends but Robert and Joanna cannot see their friends. They live 100, perhaps 300, miles away and like Robert and Joanna, they all go to school by radio.

    Mount Ebenezer is in the center of Australia. Not many people live in “The Center”. There are no schools with desks and blackboards and no teachers in “The Center”. School is a room at home with a two-way radio. The teacher also has a two-way radio. Every morning she calls each student on the radio. When all students answer, lessons begin… Think of your teacher 300 miles away!

The children in “The Center” do not go to a school because ______.

  A. they live too far away from one another       B. they do not like school

  C. they are not old enough to go to school        D. their families are too poor

In order to send their children to school, parents in “The Center” of Australia must have ______.

  A. a property                               B. a car

  C. a school room at home                     D. a special radio

Teachers in “The Center” of Australia teach ______.

  A. not in a classroom but at the homes of the students

  B. by speaking only and not showing anything in writing

  C. without using any textbooks or pictures

  D. without knowing whether the students are attending

A “property” in Australia is a ______.

  A. house          B. school              C. farm               D. radio