Erica McElrath calls herself “ The Happy Lady”. And by now, you may have caught her singing and dancing with her mp3 player on any of several city street corners. “ I don’t want money,” said McElrah, 40, of St. Louis. “ I come out here to make people smile.”
McElrah lost her full-time job in January. Since then, she has spent her days doing what she loves-dancing in the street. Her message to people in hard times: do something that you enjoy, no matter what your circumstances. “ Life isn’t that bad,” she said. “ If you’re working 40 hours a week, you shouldn’t be complaining.”
McElrah graduated from parkway Central High School and has spent the past 21 years working as a nursing assistant, She began singing and dancing publicly on her days off a few years ago to help her through the pain of her second divorce.
Her favorite spot is the northwest corner of Chouteau Avenue and South Grand Boulevard near St. Louis University. McElrah’s mp3 player is loaded with hundreds of classic rock hits and 80’s pop songs, including those by Joe Cocker, Tina Turner, Neil Diamond and Toto. But her favorite artist, by far, is Stevie Nicks.
Videos of McElrah have appeared on YouTube, a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. “People think I’m crazy, but I don’t care,” She said. “ I can dance a little. I just go with the music.” Even a rude gesture from a passing motorist doesn’t bother her either. “ I just smile and wave,” she said.
McElrah’s show of bravery recently earned her a job opportunity with Liberty Tax Service, which temporarily offered her a job as a dancer Statute of Liberty to promote a new place near Grand Center starting in January.
“ Just be happy and do what you love,” she said. “The money will come.”At first McElrah began singing and dancing in public in order to _____.
| A．make a living |
| B．entertain the public |
| C．rise to fame |
| D．encourage herself |
Erica McElrah’s actions are _______.
| A．popular with others |
| B．stopped by her family |
| C．supported by passers-by |
| D．laughed at sometimes |
Erica McElrah was offered a job because of _____.
| A．her beautiful voice |
| B．her positive behavior |
| C．her lively dancing |
| D．her competitive spirit |
Which of the following about Erica McElrah is TRUE？
| A．She doesn’t care others’ comments on her. |
| B．Her favorite artist is Joe Cocker. |
| C．She once worked as a doctor. |
| D．She has been divorced once. |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Ways To Be Happy |
| B．Learn To Do What You Love |
| C．Happy Lady’s Singing and Dancing Life |
| D．What Made The Happy Lady Famous? |
Interview With God
I dreamed I had an interview with God.“So you would like to interview me?”God asked.“If you have the time,”I said.“My time is eternity.”God smiled,“what questions do you have in mind for me?”“What surprises you most about humankind?”God answered,“That they get bored with childhood,they rush to grow up,and then long to be children again.That they lose their health to make money... and then lose their money to restore their health.That by thinking anxiously about the future,they forget the present,such that they live in neither the present nor the future.That they live as if they will never die,and die as though they had never lived.”God’s hand took mine and we were silent for a while.And then I asked,“As a parent,what are some of life’s lessons you want your children to learn?To learn they cannot make anyone love them.All they can do is to let themselves be loved.To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others.To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in those they love,and it can take many years to heal them.To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most,but is one who needs the least.To learn that there are people who love them dearly,but simply have not yet learned how to express or show their feelings.To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently.To learn that it is not enough that they forgive one another,but they must also forgive themselves.”“Thank you for your time,”I said humbly.“Is there anything else you would like your children to know?”God smiled and said;“Just know that I am here always.”.In answering how many questions did God give “me” his opinion?
| A．One. | B．Two. | C．Three. | D．Four. |
To God’s eye,a rich man is one who _________.
| A．lives a simple life | B．is content with little |
| C．doesn’t want to be rich | D．gives others a lot |
Which of the following is best supported by the text?
| A．God does exist in the world. |
| B．He who loves others is sure to be loved by others. |
| C．When one makes a mistake,he should try to find an excuse to forgive himself. |
| D．It is easier to lost a friend than to make a friend. |
Doctors say anger can be an extremely damaging emotion,unless you learn how to deal with it.They warn that anger can lead to heart disease,stomach problems,headaches,emotional probems and possibly cancer.
Anger is a normal emotion that we all feel from time to time.Some people express anger openly in a calm reasonable way.Other burst with anger,and scream and yell(咆哮).But other people keep their anger inside.They can not or will not express it.This is called repressing anger.
For years many doctors thought that repressing anger was more dangerous to a person's health than expressing it.They said that when a person is angry,the brain releases the same hor-mones(荷尔蒙).They speed the heart rate,raise blood pressure,or sugar into the blood,etc.In general the person feels excited and ready to act.
Some doctors say that both repressing and expressing anger can be dangerous.They believe that those who express anger violently may be more likely to develop heart disease,and they believe that those who keep their anger inside may face a greater danger of high blood pressure.
Doctors say the solution(解决办法) is learning how to deal with anger.They say the first step is to admit that you are angry and to recognize the real cause of the anger,then decide if the cause is serious enough to get angry about.If it is,they say,“Do not express your anger while angry.Wait until your anger has cooled down and you are able to express yourself calmly and reasonably.”
Doctors say that a good way to deal with anger is to find humor in the situation that has made you angry.They said that laughter is much healthier than anger.“Damaging emotion” means that _________.
| A．the emotion is harmless |
| B．the emotion is harmful |
| C．the feeling is very strong |
| D．the feeling is hard |
Expressing anger violently _________ repressing it according to some scientists.
| A．is just the same as |
| B．is more harmful than |
| C．is no better than |
| D．is much better than |
According to the author,you'd better _________.
| A．never be angry |
| B．cool it down before you express it |
| C．laugh and laugh when you get angry |
| D．admit you are wrong when you are angry |
It was four o'clock when we left Micatlan,and we traveled quickly until it became almost completely dark.It was our intention to return to our general quarters in Atlacomulco that night.We had a long journey ahead of us,especially because it had been decided there was no way we would try to cross the ravines again at night,since they were considered far too dangerous.Futhermore,an eclipse of the moon was expected,and,in fact,while we were crossing an open field,the moon appeared on the horizon,half in shadow,a rare and beautiful sight.
After a few hours of riding,we suddenly realized that we had lost our way,and worse still,had no way of finding it again.Night had fallen and there was not a single hut in sight,only great plains and mountains and the lowing of distant bulls all around us.We continued on ahead,trusting in luck,though it was difficult to say where she had brought us.By good fortune,our advance riders ran into two Indians,a man and a boy,who agreed to guide us their village and no further.
After an interminable and exhausting road,which we traveled at a brisk trot,the barking of several dogs announced an Indian village.In the dying light,we could just make out cane huts,firmly situated between the banana trees,with fenced gardens in front of each one.Our convoy stopped in front of one particular hut,a kind of inn or shop for alcohol,where a naked goblin-like figure,the ideal husband for a witch,was serving cheap brandy to the Indians,most of whom were already drunk.
We dismounted and threw ourselves to the ground,too tired to even think.Someone found us,God knows how,a cup of dreadful hot chocolate.We began to realize that we were completely lost,and so it was agreed to give up our attempt to reach Atlacomulco that night.Instead,we should head for the village of “E1 Puente”,where our guides know a Spanish family,made up of several unmarried brothers,who,without any doubt,would be delighted to offer us a safe refuge for the rest of the night.We remounted and began our journey,a little restored after the pause in our journey and the dreadful hot chocolate.Where did we travel to?
| A．El Puente. | B．The cane huts. | C．Atlacomulco. | D．An Indian Village. |
When we traveled at night_________.
| A．there was a good guide leading us |
| B．there was a full moon in the sky |
| C．we could hardly see anything |
| D．we could see everything around clearly |
When we lost our way we believed that_________.
| A．we should stay where we were for rescue |
| B．we should go on to seek after our fortune |
| C．we should go back where we started |
| D．we should ask the Indians for help |
When we reached the inn-like hut_________.
| A．someone served alcohol and hot chocolate at once |
| B．we had a good sleep |
| C．we had a good drink |
| D．we were too exhausted to ask for anything |
Over a hundred years ago people in London were surprised to see a very unusual boat come sailing up the Thames River.The boat was eighty feet long flat-bottomed,with big wooden eyes on both sides in the front and was colorfully painted at the back.
People came to know that it was a sailing boat from Fuzhou in distant China.The boat had sailed round the Cape of Good Hope(好望角) up the western coast of Africa,and finally to England.It had covered fifteen thousand miles—more than half of the distance round the world.
Although it was unexpected,the Chinese were warmly welcomed.The boat carried goods such as silk and tea as well as a number of gifts from the Emperor of China for the Queen of England.
People had always mistakenly thought of the Chinese as a people not used to sea.However,from centuries of trading and sailing in dangerous seas,the Chinese had learned how to build good boats and sailed them well.The coming of this sailing boat to London proved once again that the Chinese could sail to distant countries in the world.The boat was considered unusual because _________.
| A．it was a small wooden boat |
| B．it carried Chinese silk and tea |
| C．it had traveled fifteen thousand miles |
| D．it looked strange in several ways |
According to this article,which of the following is TRUE?
| A．The distance round the earth measures less than thirty thousand miles. |
| B．The Chinese Emperor gave silk and tea to the English Queen as gifts. |
| C．The Chinese boat came to London by accident. |
| D．The Chinese people were not good at sailing in dangerous seas. |
The boat reached London by sailing _________.
| A．round the southern end of Africa |
| B．up the west coast of England |
| C．through the Arctic Ocean |
| D．round Asia and Europe |
.The writer wants to prove that a long time ago the Chinese _________.
| A．carried silk,tea and other goods to England |
| B．could reach many parts of the world by sea |
| C．could sail along the Thames River |
| D．surprised Londoners with an unusual boat |
For nearly a century before there was such a thing as a space program,a view of space was possible.People could see full views of the Moon,explore Mars(探测火星),and study the outer space beauty.All of this was made possible by a small group of artist-astronomers(天文艺术家) who worked to show people how other worlds in space might look.
Lucien Rudaux,a French artist,was the first to use his artistic ability and his knowledge of astronomy in art.His paintings show a mixture of skilled observations,brilliant imagination and careful attention.As a result,many of his works have come surprisingly close to actual conditions on distant planets.His painting of Mars included moonlike craters(火山口) that were first photographed by the astronauts in 1965.His 1930 painting of a dust storm looks remarkably like a photograph of a storm taken by the astronauts in 1976.
The artist-astronomers,including Rudaux,made people interested in outer space by painting what turned out to be exact portraits of the planets.The passage tells us _________.
| A．the surprising exactness of space artists | B．the popular success of Lucien Rudaux |
| C．the imaginations of great artists | D．the likeness between the Moon and Mars |
According to the passage,artist-astronomers spent their lives _________.
| A．exploring the planets | B．studying paintings |
| C．painting the planets | D．producing spaceships |
The works of Lucien Rudaux are a mixture of _________.
| A．astronomy and mathematics | B．astronomy and painting |
| C．photograph and art | D．fact and imagination |
In 1965,the astronauts photographed _________.
| A．a spaceship | B．a planet | C．craters on the Moon | D．a painting |