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My father was a foreman of a sugar-cane plantation in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. My first job was to drive the oxen that ploughed the cane fields. I would walk behind an ox, guiding him with a broomstick. For $ 1 a day, I worked eight hours straight, with no food breaks.
It was very tedious work, but it prepared me for life and taught me many lasting lessons. Because the plantation owners were always watching us, I had to be on time every day and work as hard as I could. I’ve never been late for any job since. I also learned about being respectful and faithful to the people you work for. More important, I earned my pay; it never entered my mind to say I was sick just because I didn’t want to work.
I was only six years old, but I was doing a man’s job. Our family needed every dollar we could make because my father never earned more than $ 18 a week. Our home was a three-room wood shack with a dirty floor and no toilet. Nothing made me prouder than bringing home money to help my mother, father, two brothers and three sisters. This gave me self-esteem(自尊心), one of the most important things a person can have.
When I was seven, I got work at a golf course near our house. My job was to stand down the fairway and spot the balls as they landed, so the golfers could find them. Losing a ball meant you were fired, so I never missed one. Some nights I would lie in bed and dreamt of making thousands of dollars by playing golf and being able to buy a bicycle.
The more I dreamed, the more I thought. Why not? I made my first golf club out of guava limb(番石榴树枝) and a piece of pipe. Then I hammered an empty tin can into the shape of a ball. And finally I dug two small holes in the ground and hit the ball back and forth. I practiced with the same devotion and intensity. I learned working in the field — except now I was driving golf balls with club, not oxen with a broomstick.
The writer’s first job was _______.

A．to stand down the fairway at a golf course

B．to watch over the sugar-cane plantation

C．to drive the oxen that ploughed the cane fields

D．to spot the balls as they landed so the golfers could find them

The word “tedious” in Paragraph 2 most probably means _______.

A．difficult

B．boring

C．interesting

D．unusual

The writer learned that_______ from his first job.

A．he should work for those who he liked most

B．he should work longer than what he was expected

C．he should never fail to say hello to his owner

D．he should be respectful and faithful to the people he worked for

_______ gave the writer serf-esteem.

A．Having a family of eight people

B．Owning his own golf course

C．Bringing money back home to help the family

D．Helping his father with the work on the plantation

Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A．He wanted to be a successful golfer.

B．He wanted to run a golf course near his house.

C．He was satisfied with the job he got on a plantation.

D．He wanted to make money by guiding oxen with a broomstick.

We spent a day in the country, picking wild flowers. With the car full of flowers we were going home. On our way back my wife noticed a cupboard (柜厨) outside a furniture shop. It was tall and narrow. “Buy it, ” my wife said at once. “We’ll carry it home on the roof rack. I’ve always wanted one like that.”
What could I do? Ten minutes later I was ￡20 poorer; and the cupboard was tied on the roof rack. It was six feet long and eighteen inches square, quite heavy too.
In the gathering darkness I drove slowly. Other drivers seemed unusually polite that evening. The police even stopped traffic to let us through. Carrying furniture was a good idea.
After a time my wife said, “There’s a long line of cars behind. Why don’t they overtake, I wonder?” In fact a police car did overtake. The two officers inside looked at us seriously as they passed. But then, with great kindness, they led us through the rush-hour traffic. The police car stopped at our village church. One of the officers came to me.
“Right, sir, ” he said. “Do you need any more help?”
I was a bit puzzled. “Thanks, officer, ” I said. “You have been very kind. I live just on the road.”
He was staring at our car, first at the flowers, then at the cupboard. “Well, well, ” he said, laughing. “It’s a cupboard you’ve got there! We thought it was something else.”
My wife began to laugh. The truth hit me like a stone between the eyes. I smiled at the officer. “Yes, it’s a cupboard, but thanks again.” I drove home as fast as I could.
1. In fact the husband _______ the cupboard.
A. would like very much to buy B. badly wanted
C. was glad to have bought D. would rather not buy
2. Other drivers thought they were _______.
A. carrying a cupboard to the church
B. sending flowers to the church
C. carrying nothing but a piece of furniture
D. going to attend a funeral(葬礼) at the church
3. The police will be more polite to those who are _______.
A. driving in gathering darkness B. in great sorrow (悲痛)
C. driving with wild glowers in the car D. carrying furniture
4. What did the husband think of this matter?
A. It was very strange. B. He felt ashamed of it.
C. He took great pride in it. D. He was puzzled at it.

The most frightening words in the English language are, “Our computer is down.” You hear it more and more when you are on business. The other day I was at the airport waiting for a ticket to Washington and the girl in the ticket office said, “I’m sorry, I can’t sell you a ticket. Our computer is down.”
“If your computer is down, just write me out a ticket.”
“I can’t write you out a ticket. The computer is the only one allowed to do so.”
I looked down on the computer and every passenger was just standing there drinking coffee and staring at the black screen. Then I asked her, “What do all you people do?”
“We give the computer the information about your trip, and then it tells us whether you can fly with us or not.”
“So when it goes down, you go down with it.”
“That’s good, sir.”
“How long will the computer be down?” I wanted to know.
“I have no idea. Sometimes it’s down for 10 minutes, sometimes for two hours. There’s no way we can find out without asking the computer, and since it’s down it won’t answer us.”
After the girl told me they had no backup(备用) computer, I said. “Let’s forget the computer. What about your planes? They’re still flying, aren’t they?”
“I couldn’t tell without asking the computer.”
“Maybe I could just go to the gate and ask the pilot if he’s flying to Washington, ” I suggested.
“I wouldn’t know what gate to send you to. Even if the pilot was going to Washington, he couldn’t take you if you didn’t have a ticket.”
“Is there any other airline flying to Washington within the next few hours?”
“I wouldn’t know, ” she said, pointing at the dark screen. “Only ‘IT’ knows. ‘It’ can’t tell me.”
By this time there were quite a few people standing in lines. The word soon spread to other travelers that the computer was down. Some people went white, some people started to cry and still others kicked their luggage.
The best title for the article is _______.

A．When the Computer Is Down	B．The Most Frightening Words
C．The Computer of the Airport	D．Asking the Computer

What could the girl in the ticket office do for the passengers without asking the computer?

A．She could sell a ticket.

B．She could write out a ticket.

C．She could answer the passengers’ questions.

D．She could do nothing.

Why do you think they had not a backup computer?

A．Because it was easy down

B．Because it was very expensive.

C．Because it was not advanced enough.

D．Because it was not as big as the main computer.

The last paragraph suggests that _______.

A．a modern computer won’t be down.

B．computers can take the place of humans

C．sometimes a computer may bring suffering to people

D．there will be great changes in computers

Mr. Peter Johnson, aged twenty-three, battled for half an hour to escape from his trapped car yesterday when it landed upside down in three feet of water. Mr. Johnson took the only escape route—through the boot(行李箱).
Mr. Johnson’s car had finished up in a ditch(沟渠) at Romney Marsin, Kent after skidding on ice and hitting a bank. “Fortunately, the water began to come in only slowly,” Mr. Johnson said. “I couldn’t force the doors because they were jammed against the walls of the ditch and dared not open the windows because I knew water would come flooding in.”
Mr. Johnson, a sweet salesman of Sitting Home, Kent, first tried to attract the attention of other motorists by sounding the horn and hammering on the roof and boot. Then he began his struggle to escape.
Later he said, “It was really a half penny that saved my life. It was the only coin I had in my pocket and I used it to unscrew the back seat to get into the boot. I hammered desperately with a hammer trying to make someone hear, but no help came.”
It took ten minutes to unscrew the seat, and a further five minutes to clear the sweet samples from the boot. Then Mr. Johnson found a wrench and began to work on the boot lock. Fifteen minutes passed by. “It was the only chance I had. Finally it gave, but as soon as I moved the boot lid, the water and mud poured in. I forced the lid down into the mud and scrambled clear as the car filled up.”
His hands and arms cut and bruised(擦伤), Mr. Johnson got to Beckett Farm nearby, where he was looked after by the farmer’s wife, Mrs. Lucy Bates. Huddled in a blanket, he said, “That thirty minutes seemed like hours.” Only the tips of the car wheels were visible, police said last night. The vehicle had sunk into two feet of mud at the bottom of the ditch.
What is the best title for this newspaper article?

A．The Story of Mr. Johnson, A Sweet Salesman

B．Car Boot Can Serve As The Best Escape Route

C．Driver Escapes Through Car Boot

D．The Driver Survived A Terrible Car Accident

Which of the following objects is the most important to Mr. Johnson?

A．The hammer.	B．The coin.
C．The screw.	D．The horn.

Which statement is true according to the passage?

A．Mr. Johnson’s car stood on its boot as it fell down.

B．Mr. Johnson could not escape from the door because it was full of sweet jam.

C．Mr. Johnson’s car accident was partly due to the slippery road.

D．Mr. Johnson struggled in the pouring mud as he unscrewed the back seat.

“Finally it gave” (Paragraph 5) means that _______.

A．Luckily the door was torn away in the end

B．At last the wrench went broken

C．The lock came open after all his efforts

D．The chance was lost at the last minute

It may be inferred from the passage that _______.

A．the ditch was along a quiet country road

B．the accident happened on a clear warm day

C．the police helped Mr. Johnson get out of the ditch

D．Mr. Johnson had a tender wife and was well attended

"The world's oceans are slowly getting more acidic,”say scientists. The researchers from California report that the change is taking place in response to higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The lowering of the waters’pH value is not great at the moment but could cause a serious threat to current ocean life if it continues, they warn. Ken Caldeira and Michael Wickett, from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, report their concerns in the journal Nature.
Increasing use of oil fuels means more carbon dioxide is going into the air, and most of it will eventually be absorbed by seawater. Once in the water, it reacts to form carbonic acid. Scientists believe that the oceans have already become slightly more acidic over the last century.
These researchers have tried to predict what will happen in the future by combining what we know about the history of the oceans with computer models of climate change．"This level of acidity will get much more extreme in the future if we continue releasing CO2 into the atmosphere," said Dr Caldeira. "And we predict the amount of future acidity will exceed（超过）anything we have seen over the last several hundred million years, let alone perhaps after rare disastrous events such as asteroid（小行星) impacts．”
However, it is not absolutely clear what that means for ocean life．Most organisms live near the surface, where the greatest pH change would be expected to occur, but deep-ocean life forms may be more sensitive to pH changes．Coral reefs and other organisms whose shells contain calcium carbonate（小行星) may be particularly affected if the water's acidity levels keep going up, the team predict. They could find it much more difficult to build these structures in water with a lower pH.
In recent years some people have suggested storing carbon dioxide from power stations in the deep ocean as a way of dealing with global warming．But Dr Caldeira said that such a strategy should now be re-considered. "Previously, most experts had looked at ocean absorption of carbon dioxide as a good thing-because in releasing CO2 into the atmosphere we warm the planet, and when CO2, is absorbed by the ocean, it reduces the amount of greenhouse warming.”
According to Dr Caldeira,__________ .

A．ocean absorption of carbon dioxide is a good thing

B．more oil fuels will be used in the near future

C．scientists may predict climate changes with computer models

D．the future situation of the amount of acidity is extremely serious

f the water's acidity level keeps rising,_________ .

A．ocean life whose structures contain calcium carbonate may be affected

B．the waters’pH value will become higher and higher

C．organisms living near the surface are more sensitive to pH changes

D．some disastrous events will occur more often than before

Most experts once believed storing carbon dioxide in the ocean would reduce________ .

A．the CO2 absorbed by the ocean	B．the amount of greenhouse warming
C．the acidity of the ocean	D．the gradual release of CO2

The purpose of this passage is to_________ .

A．show people the findings of a research team	B．inform people of how acid the ocean is now
C．introduce Dr Caldeira and his team's research	D．warn people of the higher level of CO2