The story I am going to tell you happened about three years ago when I started to learn how to drive. At first, I was very frightened, and I thought I could never learn how to drive a car. Driving a car frightened me because in my home country women never drive, but in the United States every woman has to know how to drive. My husband paid an instructor to teach me how to drive. After that, my husband practiced with me for a long time. My husband always told me that I had to learn. It was important to me and my family.
However, I couldn’t get my license right away. I failed my driving test two times. After practicing for a long time, I decided to go for my third driving test. I had failed my first test because I was very nervous. Everybody encouraged me to continue practicing. Three weeks later, I decided to try it again, but I failed again. After that, I was very embarrassed（困窘的）, and I said I couldn’t get it, so I stopped practicing for a while.
Not knowing how to drive was bad because I couldn’t do anything. I had two kids, my husband works, and I have to take care of everything. Driving was so necessary that I decided to try it again. And finally, that time, I passed the test. Now I have my license. I know how to drive, and it has changed my life in some important ways. Now I’m driving to the college, learning English and hoping I will get a good job in the future.
【小題1】Why did the author think that she could never learn how to drive a car?

One day while shopping in a small town in southern California, it was my misfortune to be approached by a clerk．He seemed most unfriendly and not at all concerned about my intended purchase．I bought nothing, and marched angrily out of the store．
On the outside was a dark-skinned young man in his early twenties．His expressive brown eyes met and held mine, and in the next instant a beautiful, bright smile covered his face．I gave in immediately．The power of that broad smile dissolved all bitterness within me, and I felt the muscles in my own face happily responding．
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” I remarked, in passing．Then I turned back． “I really owe you a debt of thanks,” I said softly．
His smile deepened, but he made no attempt to answer．A Mexican woman and two men were standing nearby．The woman stepped forward and volunteered, “Sir, but he doesn't speak English．Do you want me to tell him something?” In that moment I felt transformed．The young man's smile had made a big person of me．My friendliness and good will toward all mankind stand ten feet tall．
“Yes,” my reply was enthusiastic and sincere, “tell him I said, ‘Thank you’!”
“Thank you?” The woman seemed slightly puzzled．
I gave her arm a friendly pat as I turned to leave． “Just tell him that,” I insisted. “He'll understand．I am sure!”.
Oh, what a smile can do! Although I have never seen that young man again, I shall never forget the lesson he taught me that morning．From that day on, I became smile-conscious, and I practice the art diligently anywhere and everywhere, with everybody．
【小題1】Why did the author leave the store angrily?

There was a blacksmith(鐵匠) who wasn't satisfied with his work. Once he complained, “I am not well and my work is too warm. I want to be a ____【小題1】____ on the mountain. There it must be _____【小題2】____, for the wind blows and the trees give a shade..” A wise man who had ___【小題3】____ over all things replied, “Go you, be a stone.” And he was a stone, high up on the ____【小題4】____ side. It happened that a stone-cutter ____【小題5】____ that way for a stone and when he saw the one that had been the  ____【小題6】____, he knew that it was what he ____【小題7】_____ and he began to cut it. The stone ____【小題8】____ out, “This hurts! I no longer want to be a stone. A stone-cutter I want to be. That ____【小題9】____ be pleasant.” The wise man, humoring him, said, “Be a cutter.” ____【小題10】____ he became a stone-cutter and as he went seeking a suitable stone, he ____【小題11】____ tired and his feet were sore（酸痛）. He ____【小題12】____,” I no longer want to cut stone. I would be the sun; that would be pleasant.” The wise man ___【小題13】___, “Be the sun.” And he was the sun. But the sun was warmer than the blacksmith, than a stone, than a stone-cutter, and he complained, “I do not ____【小題14】___ this. I would be the moon. It ___【小題15】____ cool.” The wise man spoke yet again, “Be the moon.” And he was the moon. This is warmer than being the sun,” ____【小題16】___ he, “for the light from the sun ____【小題17】____on me ever. I do not want to be the moon. I would be a ___【小題18】____ again. That, indeed, is the ___【小題19】____ life.” But the wise man replied, “I am ____【小題20】___of your changing. You wanted to be the moon; the moon you are and you will remain.”

Dear Michelle:
My Dad hates my Mom. He tells me that she is a liar and that I should not trust her. Of course, they are divorced but they have “joint custody(共同監(jiān)護(hù))”. What a joke! I am 15, my brother is nine, and we have a life of hell, frankly.
We live one week on and one week off. This was the brilliant idea of both of my parents, which was fair to them but ruining my life. I can’t get away from his voice and his putting my mom down. Sometimes I think about running away.
A Hopeless Ant
Dear Hopeless Ant:
First, thank you for trusting me with your problem. If all you said is correct, then there are several
things that you can and should do to help yourself, your brother, and your parents.
● You need a family counselor(顧問(wèn)). Such a person could listen to each family member alone and
then meet together to talk about the situation.
If refused, you need to talk to a counselor in your school. You need to be heard, and you need an
adult who will listen. A school counselor can organize a meeting with your parents.
● Perhaps you need to write to her. Writing things down allows people to go over it more than one
time.
I cannot imagine that she will stand passively by and do nothing at all to help once she reads how
you feel. Your father needs a letter as well. He may not realize the destructive effect that it has on his
children.
● Lastly, have a plan in mind when all else fails that is not self-destructive. Life passes very quickly, and you will grow up and have your own life.
Above all, you need to keep yourself safe. Never doubt that it will get better. Write back and let me know how everything is going.
The Hopeless Ant wrote the letter to _______.
A. complain about the problems
B. ask for advice
C. make his father punished
D. just play a joke
【小題1】.
The Hopeless Ant hated his father because __________.

He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and I saw he looked ill. He was shivering, his face was white, and he walked slowly as though it ached to move.
“What's the matter, Schatz?”
“I've got a headache.”
“You better go back to bed.”
“No. I'm all right.”
“You go to bed. I'll see you when I'm dressed.”
But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking a very sick and miserable boy of nine years. When I put my hand on his forehead I knew he had a fever.
“You go up to bed,” I said, “You're sick.”
“I'm all right,” he said.
When the doctor came he took the boy's temperature.
“What's is it?” I asked him.
“One hundred and two.”
Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different colored capsules with instructions for giving them. One was to bring down the fever, another a purgative(瀉藥), the third to overcome an acid condition. The germs of influenza（流感）can only exist in an acid condition, he explained. He seemed to know all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the fever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light epidemic(傳染�。粋魅拘缘�) of flu and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia（肺炎）.
Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.
“Do you want me to read to you?”
“All right. If you want to, “ said the boy. His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached（超然的；冷漠的）from what was going on.
I read aloud from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates（海盜）;but I could see he was not following what I was reading.
“How do you feel, Schatz?” I asked him.
“Just the same, so far,” he said.
I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed, looking very strangely.
“Why don't you try to sleep? I'll wake you up for the medicine.”
“I'd rather stay awake.”
After a while he said to me, “You don't have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you.”
“It doesn't bother me.”
“No, I mean you don't have to stay if it's going to bother you.”
I thought perhaps he was a little lightheaded and after giving him the prescribed capsules at eleven o'clock I went out with my gun and the young hunting dog….I killed two quail(鵪鶉), and missed five, and started back pleased to have found a covey of quail close to the house and happy there were so many left to find on another day.
At the house they said the boy had refused to let anyone come into the room.
“You can't come in,” he said. “You mustn't get what I have.”
I went up to him and found him in exactly the position I had left him, white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed（發(fā)紅）by the fever, staring still, as he had stared, at the foot of the bed.
I took his temperature.
“What is it?”
“Something like a hundred,” I said. It was one hundred and two and four tenths.
“It was a hundred and two,” he said.
“Who said so?”
“The doctor.”
“Your temperature is all right,” I said. “It's nothing to worry about.”
“I don't worry,” he said, “but I can't keep from thinking.”
“Don't think,” I said. “Just take it easy.”
“I'm taking it easy,” he said and looked straight ahead, He was evidently holding tight onto himself about something.
“Take this with water.”
“Do you think it will do any good?”
“Of course it will.”
I sat down and opened the Pirate book and began to read, but I could see he was not following, so I stopped.
“About what time do you think I'm going to die?” he asked.
“What?”
“About how long will it be before I die?”
“You aren't going to die. What's the matter with you? “
“Oh, yes, I am, I heard him say a hundred and two.”
“People don't die with a fever of one hundred and two. That's a silly way to talk.”
“I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can't live with forty-four degrees. I've got a hundred and two.”
He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o'clock in the morning.
“You poor Schatz,” I said. “Poor old Schatz. It's like miles and kilometers. You aren't going to die. That's different thermometer. On that thermometer thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it's ninety-eight.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” I said, “It's like miles and kilometers. You know, like how many kilometers we make when we do seventy miles in the car?”
“Oh,” he said.
But his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day it was very slack(松馳的) and he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance.
【小題1】The author writes about the doctor’s visit in order to _____.