根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项...

If I were writing a history of my family, some of the darkest moments recorded would be those surrounding Christmas trees. One would certainly think otherwise; selecting and putting up our trees have always been filled with risk. For example, one afternoon dangerously close to Christmas Eve my mother bought what she thought to be a bargain, a glorious tree that was so full and tall that we could hardly get it into the house. Once we did, my father immediately realized that we would have to hire a carpenter to build a stand for it. Another December, perhaps the very next one, we bought a tree earlier than we ever had before. We were happy with its shape and delighted that its size was manageable. We easily placed it in a stand, decorated it from top to bottom, and then self-satisfiedly sat back by the fire in its soft light. Two or three days passed and the truth could not be hidden; we had bought a tree cut so long ago that its needles were coming off. There was nothing to do but undecorate it, take it down, and begin tree shopping again. Our most recent Christmas tree offered still another difficult task. When we brought it home, once again it seemed larger than it was in the great outdoors. To complicate matters, we had bought a new stand, one whose nuts （螺帽） and bolts （闩子） worked more mysteriously than those of our old stands. I persuaded two young neighbors to stop playing basketball and to help us get the tree into the house and set it correctly in the stand. Unfortunately, no one noticed the mud on our helpers' shoes, so only after removing several reddish brown spots from the carpet were we able to discuss the question of where the lights and ornaments （装饰）were stored. Perhaps those who cut their own trees have tales more painful than these. I don't care to hear them, as my family's experiences are enough to cause me to make the following suggestion:" Let's forget the tree next Christmas. Let's simply hang some flowers on the front door and over the mirror in the hall. "

1.The darkest moments in the writer's family were with the fact that _____.

2.We can learn from the passage that the writer would like to _____.

3.When the writer said " my mother bought what she thought to be a bargain", he means ____.

4.Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?

In a room at Texas Children Cancer Center in Houston, eight-year-old Simran Jatar lay in bed with a drip (点滴) above her to fight her bone cancer. Over her bald (秃的) head, she wore a pink hat that matched her clothes. But the third grader’s cheery dressing didn’t mask her pain and weary eyes.

Then a visitor showed up. “Do you want to write a song?” asked Anita Kruse, 49, rolling a cart equipped with an electronic keyboard, a microphone and speakers. Simran stared. “Have you ever written a poem?” Anita Kruse continued. “Well, yes,” Simran said.

Within minutes, Simran was reading her poem into the microphone. “Some bird soaring through the sky,” she said softly. “Imagination in its head…” Anita Kruse added piano music, a few warbling (鸣, 唱) birds, and finally the girl’s voice. Thirty minutes later, she presented Simran with a CD of her first recorded song.

That was the beginning of Anita Kruse’s project, Purple Songs Can Fly, one that has helped more than 125 young patients write and record songs. As a composer and pianist who had performed at the hospital, Kruse said that the idea of how she could help “came in one flash”.

The effect on the kids has been great. One teenage girl, curling (蜷缩) in pain in her wheelchair, stood unaided to dance to a hip-hop song she had written. A 12-year-old boy with Hodgkin’s disease who rarely spoke surprised his doctors with a song he called I Can Make It.

“My time with the kids is heartbreaking because of the severity of their illnesses,” says Anita Kruse. “But they also make you happy, when the children are smiling, excited to share their CD with their families.”

Simran is now an active sixth grader and cancer-free. From time to time, she and her mother listen to her song, Always Remembering, and they always remember the “really sweet and nice and loving” lady who gave them a shining moment in the dark hour.

1.Simran Jatar lay in bed in hospital because ______.

2.What do we know about Anita Kruse’s project?

3.What does the case of a 12-year-old boy suggest?

4.What is probably the best title for the passage?

FreeRice.com is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP). It aims to provide education to everyone for free and help end world hunger. Join us and have fun with our vocabulary game. For each vocabulary word you get right, we donate free rice through UNWFP to those hungry people.

How do you play the vocabulary game?

Click on the answer that is closest in meaning to the word. If you get it right, you get a harder word. If wrong, you get an easier word. For each word you get right, we donate 20 grains of rice to UNWFP.

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This game may make you smarter. While learning new vocabulary, it can help you:

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After you have done FreeRice for a couple of days, you may notice a phenomenon. Words that you have never consciously used before will begin to pop into your head while you are speaking or writing. You will feel yourself using and knowing more words.

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FreeRice has a database containing thousands of words at different levels of difficulty. There are words proper for people just learning English and words that will challenge the most learned professors. In between are thousands of words for students, business people, doctors, truck drivers… everyone!

FreeRice adjusts to your level of vocabulary. It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, designs a proper starting level for you. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level. There are 60 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above Level 50.

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1.According to the passage, the purpose of the vocabulary game is to ______.

2.Playing the vocabulary game enables you to ______.

3.People of different vocabulary levels can play the game because ______.

It was a Sunday and the heavy storm had lasted all night. The morning after the storm, though, was beautiful： blue skies, warm air and a calm, inviting sea touching the shore gently.

My father realized it was a good day for fishing and invited my sister and me to go with him. I was only 14 and fishing had never been my thing, but I decided to go all the same. I’m so glad I did.

On the road to the harbour we could see the terrible destruction on the coast, but the harbour itself was in fairly good shape. After all， it was protected by the arms of a bay that had only one tiny channel to the sea. As we got on board, we noticed two big humps(脊背) in the distance.

On approaching them, we saw it was a mother whale with her baby. We couldn’t believe it ——there aren’t any whales along the coast here. The storm must have driven them across the ocean into the bay, in which the still water was so badly polluted that nothing could survive.

The little baby whale——actually as big as our boat——was obviously stuck and could not move. The mother dived under the water and came up suddenly, making big whirlpools(漩涡) and waves. ”She’s trying to help her baby, but on the wrong side, ”my father said. At this point, my father moved our boat in a semicircle to the other side and, heading the boat towards the baby whale, pushed it gently. With our several gentle pushes the big hump turned over and disappeared under water. Then it swam up right beside its mum. They struggled in their desperate attempts to escape but missed the exit and started heading in the wrong direction. We hurried up to the whales and tried to lead them towards the bay channel. Slowly, they let us lead them, some-times rising from the water right beside us to breathe——and to give us a trusting look with those huge eyes. Once they hit their first part of clean water flowing straight from the sea, the mum gave us a wave with her tail and off they swam into the distance.

In the excitement it had felt like only a few minutes, but we had been with those wonderful animals for almost an hour and a half. That was the simple and lasting beauty of the day, Nearly four decades later, I still look back fondly to that golden day at sea.     

1.The author says “I’m so glad I did ” (in Para. 2)because ______.

2.The harbour survived the storm owing to____________.

3.The mother whale failed to help her baby because__________.

4.what is the theme of the story?

Someone said that encouragement is simply reminding a person of the “shoulders” he’s standing on, the heritage he’s been given. That’s what happened   36   a young man, the son of a(n)   37   baseball player, was chosen by one of the minor league teams. Hard as he tried, his first season was   38   , and by midseason he expected to be removed   39   day. The coaches were    40   by his failure because he possessed all the characteristics of a superb athlete, but he seemed to have become   41   from his potential.

His   42   seemed darkest one day when he had already struck out his first time at bat. Then he stepped up to the batter’s box again and quickly ran up two strikes. The catcher called a   43   and ran for a conference to discuss strategies. While they were busy, the   44  , standing behind him, spoke casually to the boy.

Then play   45  , the next pitch was thrown and the young man knocked it out of the park. That was the turning   46  . From then on, he played the game with a new confidence and power that quickly   47   the attention of the parent team, and he was called   48   to the majors.

On the day he was leaving for the city, one of his coaches asked him what had caused such a turnaround. The young man replied it was the   49   remark the judge had   50   that day when his baseball career had seemed   51  .

“He told me I reminded him of all the times he had stood   52   my dad in the batter’s box,” the boy explained. “He said I was holding the bat just the way Dad had held it.   53   he told me, ‘I can see his genes in you; you have your father’s   54   .’ After that, whenever I swung the bat, I just   55   I was using Dad’s arms instead of my own.”