It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in almost a month. The crops were dying. Cows had stopped giving milk. The streams were long gone back into the earth. If we didn't see some rain soon we would lose everything.
I was in the kitchen making lunch for my husband and his brothers when I saw my six-year old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He was obviously walking with a great effort... trying to be as still as possible. Minutes after he disappeared into the woods, he came running out again, toward the house.
Moments later, however, he was once again walking in that slow purposeful long step toward the woods. This activity went on for over an hour: walking cautiously to the woods, then running back to the house. Finally, my curiosity got the best of me. I crept out of the house and followed him on his journey.
He was cupping both hands in front of him as he walked; being very careful not to spill the water he held in them. Branches and thorns slapped his little face but he did not try to avoid them. He had a much greater purpose. As I leaned in to spy on him, I saw the most amazing site.
Several large deer appeared threatening in front of him. But Billy walked right up to them. I almost screamed for him to get away. And I saw a baby deer lying on the ground, obviously suffering from heavy loss of water and heat exhaustion, lift its head with great effort to lap up the water cupped in my beautiful boy's hand.
I stood on the edge of the woods watching the most beautiful heart I have ever known working so hard to save a life. As the tears that rolled down my face began to hit the ground, they were suddenly joined by other drops... and more drops... and more. I looked up at the sky. It was as if God, Himself, was weeping with pride.Why did the author follow her son?
| A．Because there might be danger. |
| B．Because her son was doing a good deed. |
| C．Because she was curious. |
| D．Because she intended to help. |
Which of the following statements is Not True according to the passage?
| A．Rain was in great need. |
| B．Billy carried water with his small hands. |
| C．Billy walked into the woods and then returned over and over again. |
| D．There were few trees in the woods. |
Which is the correct order of the development of the story?
① The author was moved to tears.
② Billy fed the water to the baby deer.
③ Billy walked towards the large deer.
④ It began to rain.
⑤ The author followed Billy into the woods.
| A．⑤③②①④ | B．③②⑤①④ |
| C．④①③②⑤ | D．⑤②①③④ |
Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
| A．Importance of water | B．The water of life |
| C．How to save animals | D．Animals in danger |
No one likes to make mistakes. But a new study says organizations learn more from their failures than from their successes, and keep that knowledge longer.
One of the researchers was Vinit Desai, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. He worked with Peter Madsen from the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University in Utah.
They did not find much long-term "organizational learning" from success. It is possible, they say. But Professor Desai says they found that knowledge gained from failure lasts for years. He says organizations should treat failures as a learning opportunity and not try to ignore them.
The study looked at companies and organizations that launch satellites--and other space vehicles. Professor Desai compared two shuttle flights.
In two thousand two, a piece of insulating(隔热的) material broke off during launch and damaged a rocket on the Atlantis. Still, the flight was considered a success.
Then, in early two thousand three, a piece of insulation struck the Columbia during launch. This time, the shuttle broke apart on re-entry and the seven crew members died. NASA officials suspended all flights and an investigation led to suggested changes.
Professor Desai says the search for solutions after a failure can make leaders more open-minded. He points to airlines as an example of an industry that has learned from failures in the past.
He advises organizations to look for useful information in small failures and failures they avoided. He also urges leaders to encourage the open sharing of information. The study appeared in the Academy of Management Journal.
The mistakes we learn from do not have to be our own. We recently asked people on our Facebook page to tell us a time they had done something really silly.
Fabricio Cmino wrote: Not long ago I wanted to watch TV, but it wouldn't turn on, so I did everything I could to start it. Thirty minutes later my mum showed up and, passing by, said to me "Did you try plugging it'? I’m just dusting, Mum!”So she wouldn't notice how dumb I am sometimes!
Bruno Kanieski da Silva told about a time he looked everywhere for his key. It was in hispocket. He wrote: I always promise I will never do it again, but after-a few weeks,where is mywallet? For sure it will be in a very logical place.What we get from failure differs from that from success in that_______.
| A．what we learn from failure is more powerful |
| B．what we learn from success does no good to us |
| C．the knowledge gained from failure is important for a company |
| D．the knowledge gained from failure lasts longer |
From the passage, we can infer that________.
| A．The insulating material problem in 2002 didn't arouse enough attention |
| B．There were no astronauts on Columbia |
| C．In spite of the problem, Atlantis was considered a success |
| D．Columbia exploded during its launch time |
The writer gives the last two paragraphs to show that________.
| A．many people make mistakes in the world |
| B．mistakes were a very embarrassing thing when found by others |
| C．we can also draw a lesson from others' mistakes |
| D．making mistakes was a necessity |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Only organizations can learn from mistakes |
| B．We can also learn from failures that have been avoided. |
| C．Lessons from the shuttle flights are more important. |
| D．Leaders often lack an open mind and seldom share information. |
Children have their own rules in playing games. They seldom need a referee (裁判) and rarely take trouble to keep scores. They don’t care much about who wins or loses, and it doesn’t seem to worry them if the game is not finished. Yet, they like games that depend a lot on luck, so that their personal abilities cannot be directly compared. They also enjoy games that move in stages, in which each stage, the choosing of leaders, the picking-up of sides, or the determining of which side shall start, is almost a game in itself.
Grown-ups can hardly find children’s game exciting, and they often feel puzzled at why their kids play such simple game again and again. However, it is found that a child plays games for very important reasons. He can be a good player without having to think whether he is a popular person, and he can find himself being a useful partner to someone of whom he is ordinary afraid. He becomes a leader when it comes to his turn. He can be confident, too, in particular games, that it is his place to give orders, to pretend to be dead, to throw a ball actually at someone, or to kiss someone he has caught.
It appears to us that when children play a game they imagine a situation under their control. Everyone knows the rules, and more importantly, everyone plays according to the rules. Those rules may be childish, but they make sure that every child has a chance to win.What is true about children when they play games?
| A．They can stop playing any time they like. |
| B．They can test their personal abilities. |
| C．They want to pick a better team. |
| D．They don’t need rules. |
To become a leader in a game, the child has to _________.
| A．be a useful partner |
| B．wait for his turn |
| C．be confident in himself |
| D．be popular among his playmates |
Why does a child like playing games?
| A．Because he can be someone other than himself. |
| B．Because he can become popular among friends. |
| C．Because he finds he is always lucky in games. |
| D．Because he likes the place where he plays a game. |
Which is the best title for this passage?
| A．Rules in Children’s Games |
| B．Advantages of Playing Games for Children |
| C．Reasons for Children’s Games |
| D．How to Be a Popular Game Player |
I am beginning to wonder whether my grandmother isn’t right when she complains, as she frequently does, that children nowadays aren’t as well-behaved as they used to be. Whenever she gets the opportunity, she recounts in detail how she used to be told to respect the elders and betters. She was taught to speak only when she was spoken to, and when she went out on her own, she was reminded to say 'please' and 'thank you'. Children in her day, she continues, were expected to be seen and not heard, but these days you are lucky if you ever hear parents telling their children to mind their p’s and q’s.
If you give her the chance, she then takes out of her drawer the old photograph album which she keeps there, and which she never tires of displaying. Of course when you look at pictures of her parents, you feel sure that, with a father as stern-looking as that, you too would have been "seen and not heard". He had a lot of neatly cut hair, long side-whiskers and a big moustache. In the photographs, he is always clutching (抓住) his coat with one hand, while in the other he holds a thin walking stick. Beside him sits his wife, with their children around her: Granny and her elder brothers. It always occurs to me that perhaps those long, stiff, black clothes were so clumsy to a little girl, that she hadn’t enough breath left to be talkative, let alone mischievous (淘气的). It must have been a dull and lonely life too, for she stayed mainly at home during her childhood, while her brothers were sent away to school from an early age. Despite their long black shorts and their serious expressions in the photographs, I always suspect that their lives were considerably more enjoyable than hers. One can imagine them telling each other to shut up or mind their own business, as soon as their parents were out of sight.
Going to see Granny on Sundays used to be a terrible experience. We would always be warned in advance to be on our best behavior, since my mother made a great effort to show how well brought up we were, in spite of our old, comfortable clothes, our incomprehensible (to Granny) slang, and our noisy games in the garden. We had to change into what Granny described as our "Sundays best" for lunch, when we would sit uncomfortably, kicking each other under the table. We were continually being ordered to sit up straight, to take our elbows off the table, to wait till everybody had been served, not to wolf down our food, nor to talk with our mouths full. At length we would be told to ask to be excused from the table and ordered to find quiet occupations for the rest of the day. We were always very bad-tempered by the evening, and would complain angrily all the way home.
Yet though we hated the Sunday visit, we never questioned the rules of good manners themselves. I remember being greatly shocked as a child to hear one of my friends telling her father to shut up. I knew I could never have spoken like that to my father and it would never have occurred to me to do so.
However, my childhood was much freer than Granny’s. I went to school with my brother and I played football with him and his friends. We all spoke a common language, and we got up to the same mischief. I would have died if I had had to stay indoors, wear a tight dress, and sew.
But I do sometimes look wistfully (惆怅地) at an old sampler which hangs in the hall, which was embroidered (刺绣) by an even more distant relative—my great-great-aunt, of whom, regrettably, no photograph remains. It was done as an example of her progress in learning. The alphabet is carefully sewn in large colored childish letters from A to Z, and below it a small verse reads:
Mary Saunders is my name,
And with my needle I worked the same,
That by it you may plainly see
What care my parents have for me.
It must have taken that little five-year-old months and months of laborious sewing, but, in a circle in a bottom corner of the sampler, there is a line: "Be Ever Happy".The writer’s grandmother will complain that ______.
| A．children used to be mischievous |
| B．children behave worse than they did in the past |
| C．children are often reminded of what to do |
| D．children are very badly behaved |
Visiting Granny on Sundays was a terrible experience because ______.
| A．the writer was not so well raised as she was required to pretend |
| B．Granny continually warned the writer to be on her best behavior |
| C．Granny was always describing the writer’s "Sunday best" |
| D．the writer was always blamed for not behaving well |
From Paragraph 4, we can infer that the writer ______.
| A．seldom spoke to her father in the way her friend did |
| B．was never questioned about the rules of good manners |
| C．never doubted the value of the strict rules at that time |
| D．was worried that her friend’s father would be shocked |
The writer looked wistfully at the sampler, because______.
| A．it was embroidered by a relative. |
| B．she wished she could sew herself. |
| C．it called to mind the values of good old days. |
| D．she had no photographs of Mary Saunders. |
By sewing "Be Ever Happy" in the sampler, Mary Saunders ______.
| A．suggested she was unhappy then |
| B．indicated happiness was hard to gain |
| C．expected we would find happiness in sewing |
| D．hoped happiness would be everlasting |
Students from Florida International University in. Miami walked on water Thursday for a class assignment. To do it, they wore aquatic (水上的)shoes they designed and created.
Alex Quinones was the first to make it to the other side of a 175-foot lake on campus in record time - just over a minute. Quinones, who wore oversized boat-like shoes, also won last year and will receive $ 500. Students had to wear the aquatic shoes and make it across the lake in order to earn an '6A" on the assignment for Architecture Professor Jaime Canaves, Materials and Methods Construction Class. "It's traditional in a school of architecture to do boats out of cardboard for a boat race. I thought our students were a little bit more special than that, " Canaves said. "We decided to do the walk on water event to take it to the next level. "
A total of 79 students competed in the race this year in 41 teams. Only 10 teams failed to cross the lake. Others who fell got back up and made it to the end. The race is open to all students and anyone in the community. The youngest person to ever participate was a 9-year-old girl who competed in place of her mother, while the oldest was a 67-year-old female.
A large crowd on campus joined Canaves as he cheered on the racers. He shouted encouraging words, but also laughed as some unsteadily made their way to the end.
"A part of this is for them to have more understanding of designing and make it work better, " he said. It is also a lesson in life for the students.
"Anything, including walking on water, is possible, if you do the research,test it and go through the design process seriously.Which statement about Alex 'Quinones is ture ?
| A．He finished the race in less than a minute. |
| B．He won the race with the help of 2 boats. |
| C．He failed the race last year. |
| D．He set a new record this year. |
For what purpose did the students take part in the race?
| A．To go across the lake to school. |
| B．To test their balance on the water. |
| C．To pass Professor Canaves’ class. |
| D．To win the prize money of $ 500. |
Which of the following is true about the race?
| A．The students who fell into the water had to quit. |
| B．More than 20 teams failed to cross the lake. |
| C．The students kept silent when the other racers competed. |
| D．The youngest competitor competed instead of her mother. |
According to Canaves, this race can help the students
| A．understand designing better |
| B．achieve almost everything |
| C．work together and unite as one |
| D．walk on the surface of water |
What is the purpose of this passage?
| A．To advertise a student' s program. |
| B．To report an interesting assignment. |
| C．To introduce a creative professor. |
| D．To encourage special events on campus. |
The iPhone, the iPad, each of Apple’s products sounds cool and has become a fad (一时的风尚). Apple has cleverly taken advantage of the power of the letter “i” – and many other brands are following suit. The BBC’s iPlayer – which allows Web users to watch TV programs on the Internet –adopted the title in 2008. A lovely bear – popular in the US and UK – that plays music and video is called “iTeddy”. A slimmed-down version of London’s Independent newspaper was launched last week under the name “i”.
In general, single-letter prefixes (前缀) have been popular since the 1990s, when terms such as e-mail and e-commerce first came into use.
Most “i” products are targeted at young people and considering the major readers of Independent’s “i”, it’s no surprise that they’ve selected this fashionable name.
But it’s hard to see what’s so special about the letter “i”. Why not use “a”, “b”, or “c” instead? According to Tony Thorne, head of the Language Center at King’s College, London, “i” works because its meaning has become ambiguous. When Apple uses “i”, no one knows whether it means Internet, information, individual or interactive, Thorne told BBC Magazines. “Even when Apple created the iPod, it seems it didn’t have one clear definition,” he says.
“However, thanks to Apple, the term is now associated with portability (轻便) .”adds Thorne.
Clearly the letter “i” also agrees with the idea that the Western World is centered on the individual. Each person believes they have their own needs, and we love personalized products for this reason.
Along with “Google” and “blog”, readers of BBC Magazines voted “i” as one of the top 20 words that have come to define the last decade.
But as history shows, people grow tired of fads. From the 1900s to 1990s, products with “2000” in their names became fashionable as the year was associated with all things advanced and modern. However, as we entered the new century, the trend inevitably disappeared.People use iPlayer to __________.
| A．listen to music | B．make a call |
| C．watch TV programs online | D．read newspapers |
We can infer that the Independent’s “i” is aimed at __________.
| A．young readers | B．old readers |
| C．fashionable women | D．engineers |
The underlined word “ambiguous” means “__________”.
| A．popular | B．uncertain |
| C．definite | D．unique |
Nowadays, the “i” term often reminds people of the products which are __________.
| A．portable | B．environmentally friendly |
| C．advanced | D．recyclable |
The writer suggests that __________.
| A．“i” products are often of high quality |
| B．iTeddy is alive bear |
| C．the letter “b” replaces letter “i” to name the products |
| D．the popularity of “i” products may not last long |