Some people bring out the best in you in a way that you might never have fully realized on your own.
My mom was one of those people.
     My father died when I was nine months old, making my mom a single mother at the age of eighteen.
While I was growing up, we lived a very hard life. We had little money, but my mom gave me a lot of love.
Each night, she sat me on her lap and spoke the words that would change my life, "Kemmons, you are
certain to be a great man and you can do anything in life if you work hard enough to get it."
     At fourteen, I was hit by a car and the doctors said I would never walk again. Every day, my mother
spoke to me in her gentle, loving voice, telling me that no matter what those doctors said, I could walk again
if I wanted to badly enough. She drove that message so deep into my heart that I finally believed her. A year
later, I returned to school - walking on my own!
     When the Great Depression (大蕭條) hit, my mom lost her job. Then I left school to support the both
of us. At that moment, I was determined never to be poor again.
     Over the years, I experienced various levels of business success. But the real turning point occurred on
a vacation I took with my wife and five kids in 1951. I was dissatisfied with the second-class hotels available
for families and was angry that they charged an extra $2 for each child. That was too expensive for the
average American family. I told my wife that I was going to open a motel (汽車旅館) for families that would
never charge extra for children. There were plenty of doubters at that time.
     Not surprisingly, mom was one of my strongest supporters. She worked behind the desk and even
designed the room style. As in any business, we experienced a lot of challenges. But with my mother's
words deeply rooted in my soul, I never doubted we would succeed. Fifteen years later, we had the largest
hotel system in the world-Holiday Inn. In 1979 my company had 1,759 inns in more than fifty countries
with an income of $ 1 billion a year.
     You may not have started out life in the best situation. But if you can find a task in life worth working for
and believe in yourself, nothing can stop you.

1. What Kemmons' mom often told him during his childhood was ______.

A. caring
B. moving
C. encouraging
D. interesting

2. According to the author, who played the most important role in making him walk back to school again?

A. Doctors.
B. Nurses.
C. Friends.
D. Mom.

3. What caused Kemmons to start a motel by himself?

A. His terrible experience in the hotel.
B. His previous business success of various levels.
C. His mom's support.
D. His wife's suggestion.

4. Which of the following best describes Kemmons' mother?

A. Modest, helpful, and hard-working.
B. Loving, supportive and strong-willed.
C. Careful, helpful and beautiful.
D. Strict, sensitive and supportive.

5. Which of the following led to Kemmons' success according to the passage?

A. Self-confidence, hard work, higher education and a poor family.
B. Mom's encouragement, clear goals, self-confidence and hard work.
C. Clear goals, mom's encouragement, a poor family and higher education.
D. Mom's encouragement, a poor family, higher education and opportunities.

     When Andrea Peterson landed her first teaching job, she faced the daunting task of creating a music
program with almost no money for equipment or supplies in a climate where standards-based learning
was the focus and music just provided a break for students and teachers.
     For her drive and creativity in overcoming those challenges, she's been name national teacher of the
year.
     Principal Waynes Kettler said he's worked with many outstanding teachers in his 22 years as an educator,
but Peterson is "just that one step above anybody I've ever worked with before."
     Kettler and others at Monte Cristo Elementary School talk about the ways she has introduced the learning
from other classrooms into her music program and her creativity in working around things such as the
lack of money for new music.
     When students were reading S.E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders in their regular classroom, Peterson
helped them write a 30-minute play with scenes from the book. Then they chose three Broadway tunes that
focused on race, equality and social justice, the themes of the book. Peterson composed two other sons
herself after classroom discussions about the play and the book.
     The honor means a lot to residents of Granie Falls. It's inspiring to know that people from small towns
can even win national honors.
     As national teacher of the year, Peterson will spend the next year outside classroom, as a national and
international spokeswoman for education.
     Not surprisingly, she is a big believer in the value of arts education. She said it's essential for schools
to offer classes such as art or music and physical education because for some kids one of those subjects
is the only thing that motivates them to come back to school day after day.

1. The underlined word "daunting" in Paragraph 1 most probably means ___.

A. discouraging
B. interesting
C. creative
D. unbearable

2. When Peterson began her teaching career, _____.

A. music was focus of learning in most schools.
B. the environment was favorable to music teaching.
C. the school lacked teaching facilities for music.
D. financial support for music programs was unavailable.

3. What is the most important reason that Peterson won the award?

A. She concerned herself with current social problems.
B. She motivated students to learn music with her creativity.
C. She has taught music at the elementary school for 22 years.
D. She made great efforts to arouse students' interest in literature.

4. Which of the following is an example of Peterson's way of teaching music?

A. She wrote plays on themes of race, equality and social justice.
B. She made use of the contents of other classes in her teaching.
C. She organized classroom discussions of Broadway tunes.
D. She helped students compose songs by themselves.

5. In Peterson's opinion, ____.

A. art, music and PE classes are all important.
B. more subjects should be offered to students.
C. students should be motivated to attend art classes.
D. arts education is more important than other subjects.

6. It can be inferred from the text that ____.

A. Peterson's honor was a surprise for the local people.
B. Peterson's art classes attracted students back to school.
C. Peterson aroused the local residents' passion for music.
D. Peterson will change her profession next year.

     A year ago, I paid no attention to English idioms, though my teacher emphasized (強調(diào)) the importance again and again. But soon, the importance of English idioms was shown in an amusing experience.
     One day, I happened to meet an Englishman on the road, and soon we began to talk. As I was talking about how I was studying English, the foreigner seemed to be astonished. Gently shaking his head,
shrugging his shoulders, he said, "You don't say!" "You don't say!" I was puzzled. I thought, perhaps this is not an appropriate topic (適當(dāng)?shù)脑掝}). "Well, I'd better change the topic." So I said to him. "Well, shall we talk about the Great Wall? By the way, have you ever been there?" "Certainly, everyone back home
will laugh at me if I leave China without seeing it. It was magnificent." He was deep in thought when I
began to talk like a tourist guide. "The Great Wall is one of the wonders in the world. We are very proud
of it." Soon I was interrupted again by his words:"You don't say!" I couldn't help asking, "Why do you ask me not to talk about it?" "Well, I didn't request you to do so, " he answered, greatly surprised. I said, "
Didn't you say' you don't say?" Hearing this, the Englishman laughed to tears. He began to explain, 'You
don't say' actually means 'really!' It is an expression of surprise. Perhaps you don't pay attention to English
idioms." Only then did I know I had made a fool of myself. Since then I have been more careful with
idiomatic expressions. Remember: what the English teachers said is always right to us students.

1. A year ago, I paid no attention to English idioms because _______.

A. English idioms were not important  
B. I was not careful with English idioms
C. my teacher didn't emphasize the importance of them  
D. I had no interest in them

2. At first, on hearing "You don't say," I thought the foreigner meant _______.

A. he was not interested in the topic  
B. he was only interested in the Great Wall
C. I had talked too much            
D. I had to stop talking

3. The underlined word in the first paragraph probably means _______.

A. interesting
B. important
C. terrible
D. unlucky

4. Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A. The Englishman left China without seeing the Great Wall.
B. The Englishman wanted to see the Great Wall after I talked about it.
C. The Englishman wanted me to act as his guide.
D. The Englishman visited the Great Wall and thought it worth visiting.

5. After the Englishman explained the idiom, _______.

A. I thought the Englishman had made me a fool  
B. the Englishman became a real fool.
C. I felt very silly          
D. I became more carefully in everything

     Once there lived a rich man  1   wanted to do something for the people of his town.   2  first he
wanted to find out whether they deserved his help.
     In the centre of the main road into the town, he placed    3    very large stone. Then he    4   (hide)
himself behind a tree and waited. Soon an old man came along with his cow.
     "Who put this stone in the centre of the road?" said the old man,but he did not try to remove the
stone. Instead, with some difficulty he passed around the stone and continued    5    his way. Another
man came along and did the same thing; then another came, and another. All of them complained
about the stone but not tried to remove   6   . Late in the afternoon a young man came along. He
saw the stone,    7  (say) to himself: "The night   8   (be) very dark. Some neighbors will come along
later in the dark and will fall against the stone."
     Then he began to move the stone. He pushed and pulled with all his   9   (strong) to move it,only
  10   (find) a bag of money under the stone. Imagine how surprised he was!

     Nikkli was brought up from a vey early age by her father while her sister was raised by her mother.
Nikki spent a very small amount of time with her mum and sister when she was about 6 years old, but
soon after contact stopped when communication broke down between her parents.
     She never felt she wanted to find her family while she was growing up. But now with a husband and
a son, she decided it was the right time.
     Nikki didn't know where to start, but her husband's mum had used 192. com for finding people
before and recommended it to her. With the help of her son, she started by searching for her sister's
full name on the electoral roll (選民登記冊) without a location, because she had no idea where she
lived, even her date of birth. From that one search, the site returned two results listed in the area they
used to live.
     Nikki decided to call the first number. To her absolute surprise, it was her long lost sister! So after
20 years, it was one phone call that helped her contact her sister! Her sister then passed her number
on to her mother, who called Nikki straight away, and it was like they had never been apart.
     Her mum was so glad to find out Nikki was well that they arranged to meet everyone that Saturday
(3 days after the phone call) where she was reunited with her sister and met her two nephews for the
first time. Nikki also found out she had a half (同父異母的) sister and brother.
     When talking about the reunion, Nikki said, "192.com made finding my long lost family very easy.
I was not on any social networking sites before and surprisingly neither was my sister or mum, so we
would never have found each other that way."
     Nikki will be spending her first Christmas tighter with the other side of her family this year.

1. What did Nikki know about her sister before her searching? 

A. Her address.  
B. Her birthday.  
C. Her name.  
D. Her telephone number.

2. It can be inferred from Paragraph 4 that _________.

A. Nikki's mum has a bad memory now
B. Nikki is about 26 years old now
C. Nikki's sister lives with her mum together
D. Nikki dialed another phone number to contact her mum

3. What can we learn about Nikki from the passage?

A. She knows much about the Internet.
B. Her sister has not got married so far.
C. Her mum got birth to four children in all.
D. She got in touch with her mum on Monday.

4. All of the following made contributions to Nikki's reunion with her family EXCEPT _______.  

A. her father    
B. 192.com      
C. her son      
D. her mother-in-law

5. The text is mainly about _______. 

A. how to find a family member
B. a wonderful Christmas
C. how important the electoral roll is
D. a family reunion thanks to 192.com

     The man from the west stopped and drew back his arm. "You're not Jimmy Wells," he said in a quick
and angry way, "Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to change a man' nose from a Roman to pug." "It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one," said the tall man, "you've been under arrest for
ten minutes. Silky Bob. Chicago thinks you may have dropped over our way and phones us she wants to
have a word with you. Going quietly, are you? That's sensible. Now before we go to the station here's a
note I was asked to hand you. You may read it here at the window. It's from Patrolman Wells.?" The man from the West opened the little piece of paper handed him. His hand was steady when he began to read,
but it trembled a little by the time he finished. The note was rather short. Bob: I was at the right place on
time. When you struck the match to light your cigar I saw it was the face wanted in Chicago. Somehow I
couldn't do it myself, so I went around and got a plain clothes man (便衣) to do the job.

1. The man from the West must have broken the law _____.

A. in Chicago
B. in New York
C. in his hometown
D. somewhere else

2. The man from the West recognized the tall man not to be the one he had been waiting for because the
tall man ____.

A. had a different accent from his
B. had a different nose from his friend's
C. was his another old friend
D. said "Chicago wants to talk with you.?"

3. The two men may have walked _____. 

A. for ten minutes    
B. arm in arm
C. face to face      
D. both A and B

4. We can suppose Jim _____.

A. was afraid of the man from the West
B. got another man to help him when necessary
C. had an appointment with Bob 20 years ago
D. had something else to do and couldn't come himself