I grew up in Jamaica Plain, an urban community located on the outskirts of Boston, Massachusetts. In the 1940's it was a wholesome, specific little community. It was my home and I loved it there; back then I thought I would never leave. My best friend Rose and I used to collectively dream about raising a family of our own someday. We had it all planned out to live next door to one another.
Our dream remained alive through grade school, high school, and even beyond. Rose was my maid of honor when I got married in 1953 to the love of my life, Dick. Even then she joked that she was just one perfect guy short of being married, thus bringing us closer to our dream. Meanwhile, Dick aspired to be an officer in the Marines(海軍)and I fully supported his ambitions. I realized that he might be stationed far away from Jamaica Plain, but I told him I would relocate and adjust. The idea of experiencing new places together seemed somewhat romantic to me.
So, in 1955, Dick was stationed in Alaska and we relocated. Rose was sad to see me leave, but wished me the best of luck. Rose and I remained in touch for a few years by regular phone call but after a while we lost track of one another. Back in the 1950's it was a lot more difficult to stay in touch with someone over a long distance, especially if you were relocating every few years. There were no email addresses or transferable phone number and directory lookup services were available at best.
I thought of her several times over the years. Once in the mid 1960's ,when I was visiting the Greater Boston area, I tried to determine her whereabouts but my search turned up empty-handed. Jamaica Plain had changed drastically in the 10 years I was gone. A pretty obvious shift in income demographics was affecting my old neighborhood. My family had moved out of the area, as did many of the people I used to know. Rose was nowhere to be found.
52 years passed and we never spoke. I've since raised a family of five, all of whom now have families of their own, and Dick passed away a few years ago. Basically, a lifetime has passed. Now here I am at the doorstep to my 80th birthday and I receive a random phone call on an idle Wednesday afternoon. "Hello?" I said. "Hi Natalie, it's Rose," the voice on the other end replied. "It's been so long. I don't know if you remember me, but we used to be best friends in Jamaica Plain when we were kid" she said.
We haven't seen each other yet, but we have spent countless hours on the phone catching up on 52 years of our lives. The interesting thing is that even after 52 years of separation our personalities and interests are still extremely similar. We both share a passion for several hobbies that we each picked up independently several years after we lost touch with one another. It almost feels like we are picking up right where we left off, which is really strange considering the circumstances.
Her husband passed away a few years ago as well, but she mailed me several photographs of her family that were taken over the years. It's so crazy, just looking at the photos and listening to her describe her family reminds me of my own; a reasonably large, healthy family. Part of me feels like we led fairly similar lives.
I don't think the numerous similarities between our two lives are a coincidence either. I think it shows that we didn't just call each other best friend we truly were best friend and even now we can be best friends again. Real friends have two things in common: a compatible personality and a strong-willed character. The compatible personality is what initiates the connection between two people and a strong-willed character at both ends is what maintains the connection. If those two ingredients are present in a friendship, the friendship is for real, and can thus sustain the tests of time and prolonged absence without faltering.
1.What was the dream of the writer and Rose when young except that_____?
A、They could have a family of their own
B、They could marry a promising husband
C、They planned to become neighbors
D、They could go to the same school
2.Why did they become apart when going older?
A、Because the writer got married ,so Rose was sad
B、They held a different opinion on their life
C、The writer’s husband had to move from one place to another
D、Their community had to be rebuilt
3.Which was not the reason for their loss in touch?
A、At that time ,there were no advanced communication methods
B、The job of the writer’s husband was changeable
C、There were no such services for them to keep the same number when moving
D、They hadn’t written to each for a long time
4.The writer failed to find Rose in the mid of 1960’s, because ____?
A、Rose left her homeland.
B、Rose wouldn’t like to see her
C、the surroundings there had changed a lot.
D、they lost in touch for a long time
5.What can we infer from the text?
A、 Rose had been making every effort to look for the writer
B、Compared with the writer, Rose lived an unhappy life.
C、Both of the husbands died before their wives.
D. It is a coincidence that there were a lot of similarities between them
6.We can learn from the passage that ____________.
A、 a friend in need is a friend indeed
B、life without a friend is a life without sun
C、friendship is a love without wings
D、the world is but a little place after all.
科目:高中英語 來源:2013-2014學年浙江省金華十校高三4月高考模擬英語試卷(解析版) 題型:單項填空
Although dishonesty seems so common in recent years, people still believe that honesty will not go out of .
A. styleB. order C. balanceD. shape
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科目:高中英語 來源:2013-2014學年浙江省高三下第三次綜合練習(三模)英語試卷(解析版) 題型:信息匹配
下面文章中有5處(第61-65題)需要添加小標題。請從以下選項(A、B、C、D、E和F)中選出符合各段意思的小標題。選項中有一項是多余選項。
A. How inner beliefs can help B. How to develop positive habits C. Improve your life D. You can do it E. Action plan F. Why are habits so important |
The single most important factor that contributes to success is what you do every single day. It is as simple as that. Your habits will determine whether you are successful or not. If you have strong and healthy positive habits, it does not matter whether or not you fail today because you are guaranteed to succeed in the long run.
1.________
Because you repeat the same actions and the same behaviors every single day, a single positive action will not change your life, but the same action repeated 1,000 times will have a significant impact on your life. For example, if you go to the gym one time, you won't see a big difference in your life. However, if you go to the gym 1,000 times over a five year period, you will see a big difference in your body. The same principle applies to finance, health, relationships, work, career, and school. Simple positive actions repeated every single day will have a great impact on your life in the long run.
2.________
There's nothing easier than developing positive habits. You simply have to do every single day the action you want to make a habit. If you want to develop the habit of running, run almost every day. If you want to develop the habit of eating healthy, eat healthy every day. If you want to develop the habit of reading, read every day. Habits are created by repetition. The more you do an action, the easier it becomes in the long run.
3. ________
If you want to be successful in changing your habits, you should think about changing your inner beliefs about your habits. For example, your old belief was: "I love cigarette because it makes me feel good and relaxed. I need cigarette to be happy and relaxed." If you keep this belief, you won't be able to keep your resolution to stop smoking for very long. Instead, you should adopt this new belief: "I love yoga because it makes me feel good and relaxed. Cigarette is poisonous and destroys my body. Yoga makes me happy." You should analyze your beliefs and make sure they won't stop you from changing your habits. The same is true when you try to form positive habits. If you want to start eating healthy food, here are some positive beliefs you should start thinking about: "Healthy food is very good for my health. It gives me a lot of energy and I feel very good."
4. ________
It's now time for you to develop positive habits in your life and avoid your negative habits. Write down 3 positive habits that you would like to develop and 3 negative habits that you would like to get rid of. For each positive habit, write down exactly what actions you're going to take every single day in order to develop the new habit. For each negative habit, write down exactly what actions you're not going to take in the next weeks. Here are some positive habits that will lead to success: exercise, healthy food, reading, saving, studying, healthy relationships, hard work, etc... Here are some negative habits to get rid of: gambling, drug and alcohol abuse, overeating, shyness, etc..
5. ________
Everybody can change. All it takes is courage and commitment. Decide right now to improve your life by changing your habits. Take action right now! Don't be afraid. Yes, you will probably make mistakes along the way. But never forget that success is guaranteed for you if you have positive habits in your life. If you refuse to quit, success will be yours
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科目:高中英語 來源:2013-2014學年浙江省高三下第三次綜合練習(三模)英語試卷(解析版) 題型:單項填空
Two men ___ into my flat. One of them threatened me with a knife while the other tied me up.
A. found their wayB. pushed their way
C. wound their wayD. made their way
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科目:高中英語 來源:2013-2014學年浙江省高三下第三次綜合練習(三模)英語試卷(解析版) 題型:單項填空
The family _____ fans of Jay Chow, whose songs all sound familiar to them.
A. were B. was C. are D. is
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科目:高中英語 來源:2013-2014學年浙江省高三普通高等學校招生5月適應性考試英語卷(解析版) 題型:單項填空
---Where on earth did you get the book?
---_________
A. What did you say? B. I beg your pardon?
C. Say it again! D. I didn’t get it on earth.
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科目:高中英語 來源:2013-2014學年浙江省高三普通高等學校招生5月適應性考試英語卷(解析版) 題型:單項填空
____cleaning the yard and making up the beds for the old, we also read newspapers for them and had chats with them.
A. Except for B. Rather than C. Apart from D. Instead of
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科目:高中英語 來源:2013-2014學年浙江省建人高復高三高考仿真模擬英語試卷(解析版) 題型:閱讀理解
Being young is great. Most of the parts of your body still work great, you have a full head of hair, you’re energetic, and you have a world of opportunity in front of you. However, there’s going to come a time when you start to get older. And as you get older, you’ll have new responsibilities, complete independence, and perhaps most importantly, less time to recover from mistakes.
You see, we all make mistakes in life. Maybe you spent more money than you should have on a car, you passed up on a great job opportunity, or you didn’t try as hard as you could have in school. It’s a part of life and we learn from it. But there are certain mistakes that are much better made while you’re still young and have plenty of time to recover.
I’m definitely not telling you that you should purposely go out and make these mistakes (because they’re a pain to recover from). But these are all mistakes that are much better made when you’re younger so that you can learn from them and not have them ruin your entire life.
Starting the wrong career
Wouldn’t you hate to be 45 years old and discover that you absolutely hate what you do for a living? It’s a reality that a lot of people face and it can be difficult to fix. You see, when you’re 23 and find out you don’t like the career path you’ve chosen, you can easily explore new career options.
We no longer live in an age when people are expected to stay with one company until they retire. You can bounce around a little bit and find out what you want to do. When you get older, just switching careers whenever you want isn’t as simple.
You have to consider your family, retirement, the difficulties you might run into with starting from the bottom in a new industry, and plenty of other issues that someone in their early 20’s just doesn’t have to deal with.
Dating the wrong person
The divorce rate in the U.S is extremely high. Other parts of the world aren’t doing too much better either. While everyone gets divorced for their own reasons, I think we can all agree that it’s better to find out that the person you’re with is wrong for you sooner rather than later.
Hopefully you find out whether or not the person you’re with is right for you before you tie the knot, because around 50% of first marriages end in divorce.
Messing up your credit
Ruining your credit is never a good idea. Even if you ruin it while you’re young, it could affect you in the future. The upside of having bad credit while you’re young instead of older is that you have time to build it back up.
It can take 7-10 years to rebuild your credit if you have a history of late payments, loan defaults, foreclosures, or bankruptcy. During those 7-10 years, you’ll have a hard time financing anything unless you have a cosigner or put down a substantial down payment.
Most people tend to make most of the bigger purchases in life when they get older such as a house or their dream car. If you have bad credit, you can kiss all of that goodbye.
Making bad investments
If you’re investing money for your retirement, making bad decisions can mean you’ll be working your entire life. Whether you choose to pay someone to do the investing for you or handle it all yourself, it’s a lot better to take risks when you’re younger.
If you invest in stock or even real estate while you’re young and the market takes a hit, you’re not ruined. Investing is a long-term venture, so the younger you start, the more fluctuation you can withstand and still come out with a positive return.
Blowing your money
What would you do if you went broke at 60 years old? You would be working your behind off when you really should be relaxing and getting ready to retire soon.
But if you’re 25 and broke, you still have plenty of time to earn more money. Also, nobody will judge you because it’s not unusual for people in their 20’s to not have money these days. You might have blown your money on a nice car or have an obsession with all the newest gadgets.
When you get older, you’ll be able to look back and realize how dumb you were for spending $20,000 on a brand new car when you were only 20 years old. But when you’re older and waste your money, you’ll REALLY have nothing to show for it.
1.The following are all the advantages of being young EXCEPT ___________.
A. you have more time to recover from mistakes
B. most of the parts of your body still work great
C. you have many responsibilities and complete independence
D. you have a world of opportunity in front of you
2.You can bounce around a little bit and find out what you want to do. “Bounce” in this sentence is most similar in meaning to __________.
A. My father would burst into the kitchen bouncing a football.
B. The wind was bouncing the branches of the big oak trees.
C. I was an army brat, I always bounced a lot when I was young
D. The ex-boxer's job is to bounce people who want to enter this private club.
3. What does the author really mean by saying “it’s a lot better to take risks when you’re younger”?
A. You should purposely go out and make these mistakes so that you can learn from them and not have them ruin your entire life.
B. There are certain mistakes that are much better made while you’re still young and have plenty of time to recover.
C. When you get older, you’ll have rich experiences to share with your friends and families however dumb you were
D. The younger you start, the fewer risks you can withstand and still come out with a positive return.
4.We can infer from the passage that ___________.
A. about 50% of first marriages end in divorce in the U.S, much higher than other parts of the world
B. never tie the knot before you make sure he or she will not divorce you
C. it usually takes 7-10 years to rebuild one’s credit if it is broken for any reason
D. it’s unusual for people in their 20’s to have money these days
5.The author wrote this article mainly to tell the young ____________.
A. if you are to take risks, the earlier, the better
B. it’s better for the young to take any risk than the older
C. that they should make big purchases such as a house when they get older
D. if you don’t take risks when young, your youth will be dumb
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科目:高中英語 來源:2013-2014學年浙江省寧波市高三第二次模擬考試英語試卷(解析版) 題型:單項填空
______ the extreme levels of air pollution, city authorities have started to take measures to quickly reduce pollution levels and protect city dwellers.
A. In spite of B. As well as C. In response to D. By means of
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