When I was 15, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my short-comings(缺点). Week by week her list grew. I was skinny(瘦的), I talked too loud, I was too proud, and so on. I put up with(忍受)her as long as I could. At last, I ran to my father in tears and anger. He listened to my outburst quietly. They he asked, “Are the things she says the true or not?”True? I wanted to know how to strike back. What did truth have to do with it?
“Mary, didn’t you ever wonder what you are really like? Well, you now have that girl’s opinion. ”Go and make a list of every thing she said and mark the points that are true. You needn’t pay attention to the other things she said.
I did as he told me and discovered to my surprise that about half the things are true. Some of them I couldn’t change(like being skinny), but a good number I could and suddenly wanted to change. For the time in my life I began to get a quiet clear picture of myself.
I brought the list back to Daddy, but he wouldn’t take it.“That’s just for you,”he said.“You know better than any else the truth about yourself, once you hear it. But you’ve got to learn to listen, not close your ears in anger or hurt. When someone says something about you, you’ll know if it’s true or not. If it is ,you’ll find it will echo(共鸣)inside you.”
“I still don’t think it very nice of her to talk about me in front of everybody.”
“Mary, there is one way you could stop others talking about you ever again, and criticizing(批评) you—just say nothing and do nothing. But then, if you do that, you’d find you were nothing. You wouldn’t like that now, would you?”“No, I admitted(承认)”One day the writer ran to her father in tears and anger because__________.
| A．she found she talked too much. | B．she found she was too proud. |
| C．her classmates were not friendly to her. | D．a girl pointed out many of her shortcomings. |
The writer’s father asked her ____________.
| A．to pay attention to all that her“enemy”said about her. |
| B．not to pay attention to what her“enemy”said about her. |
| C．to pay attention only to the points that were true about her. |
| D．to pay attention only to the points that were not true about her. |
The writer found that___________.
| A．about half the things her“enemy”said were true. |
| B．most of the things her“enemy”said were true. |
| C．few of the things her“enemy”said were true. |
| D．none of the things her“enemy”said were true. |
The writer’s father thinks__________.
| A．if one says nothing and does nothing, people will praise him. |
| B．one should not do anything because others will talk about him. |
| C．it is not good to talk about others. |
| D．everyone is talked about by others. |
I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent.
I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today.
So here’s what I wanted to tell you: Get a life－a real life, not a desire of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house.
Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure but it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. And realize that life is the best thing and that you have no business taking it for granted.
It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my choice, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all.
I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and totally. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned.
By telling them this: Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a deadly illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.. The best title of this passage probably is ____________.
| A．Live a real life | B．Love your friends |
| C．Don’t waste time | D．Be a good mother and wife |
How did the author form her view of life?
| A．Through social experience. | B．By learning from her friends |
| C．Through an unfortunate experience. | D．From her children and husband. |
. By the underlined sentence “It is so easy to exist instead of to live” in the fifth paragraph, the author really means that people tend to ____________.
| A．make a living rather than live a real life |
| B．work rather than enjoy life |
| C．waste a lot in life |
| D．forget the most important lessons in life |
. It can be inferred from the passage that ___________.
| A．the author is a success |
| B．the author didn’t try her best to work well |
| C．the author spent all her time caring for her children |
D．the author likes traveling very muc h |
On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln went to Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to speak at the National Soldiers Cemetery. The Civil War was still going on. There was much criticism of President Lincoln at the time. He was not at all popular. He had been invited to speak at Gettysburg only out of politeness. The principal speaker was to be Edward Everett, a famous statesman and speaker of the day. Everett was a handsome man and very popular everywhere.
It is said that Lincoln prepared his speech on the train while going to Gettysburg. Late that nig
ht, alone in his hotel room and tired out, he again worked briefly on the speech. The next day Everett spoke first. He spoke for an hour and 57 minutes. His speech was a perfect example of the rich oratory of the day. Then Lincoln rose. The crowd of 15,000 people at first paid little attention to him. He spoke for only nine minutes. At the end there was little applause. Lincoln turned to a friend and said , "I have failed again." On the train back to Washington, he said sadly, "That speech was a flat failure, and the people are disappointed."
Some newspapers at first criticized（批评）the speech. But little by little as people read the speech they began to understand better. They began to appreciate its simplicity and its deep meaning. It was a speech which only Abraham Lincoln could have made.
Today, every American school child learns Lincoln's Gettysburg Address by heart. Now everyone thinks of it as one of the greatest speeches ever given in American history..
In 1863, Abraham Lincoln was_________.
| A．very critical |
| B．unpopular |
| C．very popular |
| D．very courteous （礼貌） |
.
. Lincoln was invited to speak at the National Soldiers Cemetery because he was_________.
| A．a famous speaker |
| B．a very handsome man |
| C．President of the country |
| D．a popular statesman |
.
It can be inferred from the text that_________.
| A．Lincoln prepared his speech very carefully before he went to Gettysburg |
| B．Lincoln was very busy at the time and didn't have much time to prepare his speech |
| C．Lincoln's speech was full of rich words |
| D．Lincoln's speech was very long |
.
It was a fact that Lincoln's speech was _________.
| A．an immediate success |
| B．warmly applauded |
| C．a total failure |
| D．not well-received at first |
.
Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has deep meaning. |
| B．Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is simple in style. |
| C．Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is memorized by every American school child. |
| D．Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is the greatest speech ever delivered in the United States. |
Welcome to the Grand Hotel. To make your stay as enjoyable as possible, we hope you will use our facilities（设备）to the full.
Dining-room
Breakfast is served in the dining-room from 8 to 9 a.m. The room staff will bring breakfast to your room at any time after 7 a.m. In this case, please fill out a card and hang it outside your door when you go to bed.
Lunch: 12 to 2:30 p.m..
Dinner: 7:30 to 9 p.m.
Room service
This operates 24 hours. Phone the Reception Desk, and your message will be passed to the room staff.
Telephones
To make a phone call, dial（拨号）0 for the Reception Desk to be connected.
Shop
The hotel shop is open from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Laundry(洗衣房)
We have a laundry in the building, and will wash, iron and return your 
clothes within 24 hours. Ask the room staff to collect them.
Bar(酒吧)
The hotel bar is open from 12 to 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Banking
The Reception staff will cash checks and change money in many foreign currencies (货币)..
The above service notice can be seen ______.
| A．in a hotel dining-room |
| B．in a restaurant |
| C．in a bedroom of a large international hotel |
| D．at the entrance of a small family hotel |
.
.You have arrived and stayed at the hotel. It is 11 p.m. and you want a snack (快餐). What should you do?
| A．Go to the hotel shop. |
| B．Go to the hotel bar. |
| C．Hang a message outside your door. |
| D．Phone the hotel shop assistants. |
.
Which of the following is TRUE?
| A．You can’t have your breakfast in your room. |
| B．You can make a phone call in your bedroom. |
| C．Lunch is served from 12 to 2 p. m. |
| D．You can have dinner at midnight. |
.
Which is NOT mentioned in this service notice?
| A．Washing clothes. | B．Booking tickets. |
| C．Drinking. | D．Changing money. |
ERATH WEEK---A DIARY OF THE PLANET
Enduring Storms
Several more rounds of severe storms, tornadoes and flash flooding struck many parts of the American Midwest and Northeast as bad weather continued across the US for a second month.
Monsoon Storms
A south-west monsoon has caused havoc in parts of Sri Lanka. Government meteorologists said that unexpected monsoonal winds blew directly across the country from the Southern Hemisphere at about 100km/h, p
roducing several rounds of stormy weather. Nearly 250 houses in the capital Colombo were damaged.
Mt. Etna Erupts
Sicily’s Mount Etna volcano erupted shortly after midnight on July 1, shooting “bombs” of lava nearly 1.5 meters in diameter on the eastern side of the mountain. The 30-minute eruption could be seen for several miles, but did not threaten any nearby villages.
Hurricane
Hurricane Blas lost strength as it moved over cooler waters in the Pacific Ocean to the west of Mexico. Blas formed off southwest Mexico during the previous week, but squalls on the outer fringes of the storm lashed western Michoacan State, killing four people when their wood and cardboard home collapsed.
Monkey Repellent
After years of unsuccessful attempts to keep crop-eating monkeys out of Japanese fields, a Tokyo research team believes that it may have finally found a way to prevent the damage caused by the monkeys. Animal raids on crops were successfully prevented by shooting chilli powder into the air, irritating the eyes and noses of monkeys that passed in front of carefully-placed warning sensors. “We’ve tried al kinds of preventive measures, but the monkeys are smart enough t
o outwit the tricks, “said Toshiaki Wada, Director of the Tokyo Forestry Experiment Station in western Tokyo..
. According to the information, which of the following statements is TURE?
A. The eruption of Mt. Etna lasted thirty days.
B. Hurricane Blas was formed off the coast of Italy.
C. The American Midwest had fine weather throughout July 1998.
The eruption of Mt. Etna did not destroy local villages..
. According to the information, the monkeys in the Japanese fields ________.
| A．destroy crops | B．kill unsuspecting humans |
| C．spread eye diseases to humans | D．stop farmers from working |
.
. The information in the “Earth Week” diary _______.
| A．predicts future weather patterns |
| B．gives advice on dealing with monsoons |
| C．shows that weather can be unpredictable |
| D．shows the effects that storms have on animals |
Twenty-fiv
e years ago if you made a trip to the local library and searched for articles on globing warming, you’d probably come up with a few from the leading magazines in the world. As an Internet search on global warming now shows, the subject has become as rooted in people’s mind as Madonna or microwave cooking.
With the possible exception of another world war, a giant planet, or an incurable disease, global warming may be the largest danger to our planet. For decades human factories and cars have sent billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the climate has begun to show some signs of warming. If steps are not taken soon to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide sent into the atmosphere, the result could terribly affect human life. We have already seen growing destruction, such as drought and death in Sudan, flooding in Asia, bush fires in Indonesia, and fierce winter storms in central Europe.
The Republic of Maldives is barely above sea level. Its 250, 000 citizens are scattered across 1,200 islands in the Indian Ocean. A strong typhoon could spell the end for the entire country, as sea levels could continue rising. The entire population would have to be moved away as the country disappears under the sea.
The greenhouse effect is a naturally occurring phenomenon that keeps our planet at a comfortable temperature averaging 60°F. Since the mid-nineteenth century, however, carbon dioxide in the atmosp
here has increased nearly 30% because of the increased use of fossil fuels to run cars, heat homes and power factories. Without controlling, the amount of carbon-dioxide by 2100 may increase by 30%-150% and could lift the average global temperature by up to 2.5° F the next 50 years. .
With the first paragraph, the author intends to.
| A．scold people for not paying enough attention to global warming |
| B．draw people’s attention to global warming |
| C．how to search for the articles on global warming |
| D．point out the serious effect of global warming |
.
Global warming could affect human life in the following ways EXCEPT.
| A．producing more greenhouse gases | B．causing more floods |
| C．making winter storms fiercer | D．starting more bush fires |
.
The Republic of Maldives.
| A．has moved away their citizens |
| B．will be more likely to be destroyed by a strong typhoon than by the rising sea level |
| C．is mostly likely to be destroyed by the rising sea level |
| D．will have to move away most of their population |
.
. Why is the Republic of Maldives especially mentioned in the passage?
| A．Because smaller countries are easier to be affected by global warming. |
| B．Because seaside countries are in danger of disappearing. |
| C．Because it’s necessary to rescue a country before the sea level rises. |
| D．Because the serious result of global warming could end a whole country. |
.
. From the last paragraph, we can in
fer that greenhouse effect.
A．can only affect t he earth in an unfavorable way |
| B．is something easy to control |
| C．is caused by human act |
| D．will be good to us if it remains at a proper level |