The Great Barn Adventure
One morning when I was 11, I explored the town's abandoned round grain barn(谷仓). I found a chained sliding door that was wide enough for me to pass through.
Inside, there was a heavy smell of dead mice in the dark. After my eyes adjusted, I noticed a shaft (升降机井) that rose all the way to the top of the barn. On one side was a oneman elevator with a long rope and roller.
I stepped onto the platform and gave the rope a drag and the elevator began sliding up the shaft, but stopped halfway. After a brief panic attack, I noticed holes in the wall at regular intervals, forming a ladder. For reasons known only to an 11yearold, I decided it would be better to go up than down. So, with shaking hands, I began climbing the wall.
After what seemed like forever, I reached the top of the shaft. I stood up, dusted myself off and found…absolutely nothing of interest. It was just an empty room with a ladder leading up to the roof. I climbed all the way up here for this? Then I noticed a fire extinguisher(灭火器)，which I'd always wanted to shoot off. So this was the chance of a lifetime. I tried it, and, much to my surprise, the thing worked! It shot out a thick cloud of powder that instantly filled the room. I couldn't breathe. I was going to choke to death, and they'd probably never even find my body.
Luckily, I remembered the ladder to the roof. I climbed up, popped the straw roof and saw a bright blue sky.
I suddenly realized the dust and powder pouring out of the top could draw attention. So when the dust had settled, I climbed down and slipped out of the chained door. I'm not sure if I was more excited about being alive or about not being caught, but I ran all the way back home.
1.When the author got inside the barn, he ________.
A．noticed a man on the elevator
B．opened the chained sliding door
C．saw many dead mice in the dark
D．found a shaft leading to the top
2.Which of the following is the right order of the author's adventure?
a. The elevator stopped halfway.
b. He entered the round grain barn.
c. He climbed to the top of the shaft.
d. He found a fire extinguisher and shot it off.
A．b－a－c－d B．a－c－b－d
C．c－a－d－b D．b－c－a－d
3.After getting out of the chained door, the author might feel ________.
A．inspired B．relieved
C．surprised D．disappointed
I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head.Now I am thirtytwo.I can ____ remember the brightness of sunshine and what red color is.It would be wonderful to see again, ____ a disaster can do strange things to people.
It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to ____ life as I do if I hadn't been blind. I believe in life now.I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, ____. I don't mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me ____ the more what I had left.
The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself.That was ____. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have ____ and become a chair rocker for the rest of my life.When I say ____ in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of selfconfidence that helps me down a(n) ____ staircase alone.That is part of it.But I mean something ____ than that: an assurance that there is a special place where I can make myself fit.
It took me years to discover and ____ this assurance.It had to start with the most elementary things.Once a man gave me an indoor baseball, I thought he was laughing at me and I was ____.“I can't use this，” “I said. Take it with you；” he ____ me.“and roll it around.” The words ____ in my head. “Roll it around！” By rolling the ball I could ____ where it went.This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought ____： playing baseball.At Philadelphia's Overbrook School for the Blind I ____ a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.
All my life I have set ahead of me a series of ____ and then tried to reach them, one at a time.I had to learn my ____. It was no good trying for something I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made ____.
1.A.entirely B．nearly
C．vaguely D．simply
2.A.and B．but
C．so D．for
3.A.assess B．fear
C．enrich D．love
4.A.otherwise B．therefore
C．however D．besides
5.A.understand B．appreciate
C．possess D．accept
6.A.enough B．specific
C．tough D．basic
7.A.survived B．escaped
C．collapsed D．sacrificed
8.A.hope B．power
C．courage D．belief
9.A.unfamiliar B．unbelievable
C．unexpected D．uncomfortable
10.A.harder B．bigger
C．warmer D．heavier
11.A.weaken B．strengthen
C．sharpen D．brighten
12.A.upset B．flattered
C．ashamed D．hurt
13.A.urged B．promised
C．convinced D．advised
14.A.flashed B．appeared
C．stuck D．crowded
15.A.notice B．hear
C．smell D．touch
16.A.impossible B．important
C．imaginary D．impressive
17.A.produced B．imitated
C．invented D．spotted
18.A.goals B．efforts
C．directions D．barriers
19.A.challenges B．strengths
C．situations D．limitations
20.A.history B．change
C．progress D．sense
I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a goods yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I can dimly remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity(大灾难) can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn't been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I don't mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.
Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. In spite of the fact the adjustment is never easy, I had my parents and teachers to help. The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that there is a special place where I can make myself fit.
It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was laughing at me and I was hurt. “I can't use this.” I said. “Take it with you，” he urged me, “and roll it around.” The words stuck in my head. “Roll it around！” By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball.
All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something that I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.
1.We can learn from the beginning of the passage that ________.
A．the author lost his sight because of a car crash
B．the author wouldn't love life if the calamity didn't happen
C．the calamity made the author appreciate what he had
D．the calamity strengthened the author's desire to see
2.What's the most difficult thing for the author?
A．How to adjust himself to reality
B．Building up assurance that he can find his place in life
C．Learning to manage his life alone
D．To find a special work that suits the author
3.For the author, the baseball and encouragement offered by the man ________.
A．hurt the author's feeling
B．made the author puzzled
C．directly led to the change of the author's career
D．inspired the author
4.According to the passage, the author ________.
A．set goals for himself but only invited failure most of the time
B．thought that nothing was impossible for him
C．was discouraged from trying something out of reach for fear of failure
D．suggested not trying something beyond one's ability at the beginning
In her new book, “The Smartest Kids in the World”， Amanda Ripley, an investigative journalist, tells the story of Tom, a highschool student from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who decides to spend his senior year in Wroclaw, Poland. Poland is a surprising educational success story: in the past decade, the country raised students' test scores from significantly below average to well above it. Polish kids have now outscored American kids in math and science, even though Poland spends, on average, less than half as much per student as the United States does. One of the most striking differences between the high school Tom attended in Gettysburg and the one he ends up at in Wroclaw is that the latter has no football team or teams of any kind.
That American high schools spend more time and money on sports than on math is an old complaint. In December, when the latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results are announced, it's safe to predict that American highschool students will once again show their limited skills in math and reading, outscored not just by students in Poland but also by students in places like China, Finland, Singapore, and Japan. Meanwhile, they will have played some very exciting football games, which will have been breathlessly written up in their hometown papers.
Why does this situation continue? Well, for one thing, kids like it. And for another, according to Ripley, parents seem to like the arrangement, too. She describes a tour she took of a school in Washington D．C., which costs thirty thousand dollars a year. The tour leader a mother with three children in the school was asked about the school's flaws (瑕疵). When she said that the math program was weak, none of the parents taking the tour reacted. When she said that the football program was weak, the parents suddenly became concerned. “Really？” one of them asked worriedly, “What do you mean？”
One of the ironies of the situation is that sports show what is possible. American kids' performance on the field shows just how well they can do when expectations are high. It's too bad that their_test_scores_show_the_same_thing._
1.Tom decides to spend his senior year in Poland because ________.
A．he intends to improve his scores
B．Polish kids are better at learning
C．sports are not supported at schools in Gettysburg
D．he wants to be the smartest kid in the world
2.According to Paragraph 2, we know that ________.
A．PISA plays a very important role in America
B．little time is spent on sports in Japanese schools
C．American students do better in both math and sports
D．too much importance is placed on sports in America
3.The underlined sentence in the last paragraph means ________.
A．low expectations result in American students' poor PISA performance
B．high expectations push up American students' academic performance
C．American students' academic performance worries their parents a lot
D．lacking practice contributes to American students' average performance
4.The purpose of this article is to ________.
A．compare Polish schools with those in America
B．call on American schools to learn from the Polish model
C．draw public attention to a weakness in American school tradition
D．explain what is wrong with American schools and provide solutions
Seven species of carp(鲤鱼) native to Asia have been introduced into United States waters in recent decades, but it's four in particular－bighead, black, grass and silver－that worry ecologists, biologists, fishers and policymakers alike. Introduced in the southeast to help control weeds and parasites in aquaculture (水产养殖) operations, these fish soon spread up the Mississippi River system where they have been crowding out native fish populations not used to competing with such aggressive invaders. The carps' presence in such numbers is also harming water quality and killing off sensitive species.
Asian carp are strong to jump over barriers such as low dams. They lay hundreds of thousands of eggs at a time and spread into new habitat quickly and easily. Also, flooding has helped the fish expand into previously unattainable water bodies. And fishers using young carp as live bait have also helped the fish's spread, as they have boats going through locks up and down the Mississippi.
The federal government considers the Asian carps to be annoying species and encourages and supports “active control” by natural resources management agencies. Federal and state governments have spent millions in tax dollars to prevent the carp from making their way into the Great Lakes, but an underwater electric fence constructed to keep them out has not worked as well as hoped, and policymakers are reviewing other options now.
In the meantime, state and federal agencies are monitoring the Mississippi and its branches for Asian carp and testing various barrier technologies to prevent their further spread. For instance, the National Park Service is cooperating with the state of Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources to construct new dams that are high enough to prevent Asian carp from jumping over. The Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee has funded DNA monitoring in potentially affected water bodies whereby researchers can determine whether the troublesome fish are present just by the biological footprints they leave behind. Individuals can do their part by not transporting fish, bait or even water from one water body to another, and by emptying and washing boats before moving them between different water bodies.
1.Asian carp have been introduced to the USA in order to ________.
A．improve water quality
B．help sensitive species
C．control the number of native fishes
D．control the ecosystem in aquaculture
2.The measure to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lake but proved not good is ________.
A．testing various barrier technologies
B．construction of an underwater electric fence
C．Emptying and washing boats before using them.
D．monitoring the Mississippi and its branches for Asian carp
3.It is suggested from the passage that ________.
A．aquaculture operations are dangerous to the water bodies
B．scientific technology is useless in preventing Asian carp spreading
C．both the state and the individuals can make efforts to keep out Asian carp
D．Asian carp have successfully invaded the Mississippi and the Great Lakes
A Simple Lesson
“Another bad day at school？” my father asked as I came into the room.
“How could you tell? I didn't shut the door heavily or anything，” I replied. Over the past two months I had either done this or thrown my backpack across the room every time I came home from school. Papa thinks it has something to do with moving to a new house.
“I know this move has been hard on you. Leaving your friends and cousins behind is tough，” Papa said, as he put his arm around my shoulder. “What you must remember is that, with a lot of hard work and some time, you will make new friends.”
“You don't know how hard it is. This year my baseball team would have won the championship. They won't even give me a chance to pitch (投球) here. All I get to play is right field, and that's the worst！”
Papa turned toward me. “Things will get better, I promise you. Let me ask you, do you know why you were named David Lorenzo？”
“Yes, your name is David and grandfather's name is Lorenzo.”
“Very good, and what makes your grandfather so important？”
“He was the first in the family to come to this country and all that，” I answered.
“That is only partly correct. Your grandfather was a very great man. In Mexico, he had been a teacher. When he came to America he could only get lowpaid labor jobs because he didn't speak the language. It took him two years before he spoke English well enough to be allowed to teach here, but he did it. He never complained because he knew change could be difficult. Did he ever tell you that？” my father asked.
I looked down at my feet, ashamed at my behavior. “No. That must have been hard，” I said sheepishly.
“Your grandfather taught me that if you let people see your talent, they will accept you for who you are. I want you to always remember what my father taught me, even if it takes a few years for people to see who you are，” said Papa.
All I could say was, “Okay.” Then I asked, “What should I do now？”
Laughing, Papa said, “How about you pitch a few to me? You need some work.”
1.Why was the author unhappy that day?
A．Because he moved to a new country.
B．Because his baseball team lost the game.
C．Because he wasn't offered a chance to pitch.
D．Because he quarreled with his friends at school.
2.The father successfully changed his son's mood by ________.
A．asking him to train harder
B．playing baseball with him
C．telling his grandfather's story
D．introducing him some new friends
3.The underlined word “sheepishly” probably means ________.
A．shyly B．patiently
C．clumsily D．cautiously
4.What can we infer about the author?
A．He thinks his father lives in the past.
B．He'd rather live with his grandfather.
C．He will continue to dislike school and everything.
D．He will try his best to adapt to the new environment.
