One night, as Diaz stepped off the train and onto a nearly empty platform, a teenage boy approached
and pulled out a knife.
     "He wanted my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go '" Diaz says.
     As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're
going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."
     The robber looked at him puzzled, saying, "Why are you doing this?"
     Diaz replied, "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then you must really need the
money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me….."
     Diaz says he and the teen went into a diner and sat in a booth.
     "The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi," Diaz says.
     The kid said, "You know everybody here. Do you own this place?"
     "No, I just eat here a lot," Dias said. "But you're even nice to the dishwasher," he said.
     Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?"
     "Yea, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way," the teen said.
     When the bill arrived, Diaz said, "You're going to have to pay for this bill because you have my
money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you."
     The teen returned it immediately. "I gave him $20…I figure maybe it'll help him." Diaz says he asked
for something in return--- the teen's knife--- "and he gave it to me."
     Afterwards, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, "You're the type of kid that if
someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch."
     "I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple
as it gets in this complicated world."

1. What did Diaz do to the teen?

A. He gave the teen a new wallet
B. He treated the teen to dinner
C. He gave his coat to the teen
D. He taught the teen a lesson

2. From the passage we can infer that the boy _______.

A. expressed his gratitude for Diaz's kindness
B. gave up the idea of robbing in the end
C. wasn't taught how to be nice to everybody
D. gave the knife to Diaz in return for his forgiveness

3. For what Diaz did, his mother showed an attitude of _______.

A. complaint          
B. concern          
C. criticism            
D. praise

4. By telling the story of Diaz, the author intends to tell us ______.

A. to keep calm in danger
B. not to go out alone at night
C. to treat others kindly
D. not to harm others on purpose

     Robby was 11 when his mother dropped him off for his first piano lesson. I prefer students to begin
at an earlier age. Robby said that it had always been his mother's dream to hear him play the piano, so
I took him on as a student.
     Robby tried and tried while I listened and encouraged him and gave him more instructions. But he
just did not have any inborn ability.
     I only saw his mother from a distance. She always waved and smiled but never came in.  Then one
day Robby stopped coming to our lessons. I thought about calling him but I guessed he had decided to
try something else.
     I was also glad that he stopped coming for the sake of my career. However, several weeks before
the recital (演奏會) of my students, Robby came,telling me that he never stopped practicing and begged
me to allow him to take part in it. I agreed, but I made him perform last in the program, so I could save
his poor performance through my "curtain closer".
     I was surprised when he announced that he had chosen one piece of Mozart's. However, never had
I heard a piece of Mozart's played so well by someone at his age.
     I ran up and put my arms around Robby in joy. "I've never heard you play like that, Robby! How
could you do it?"
     "Well, Miss Hondorf. Do you remember I told you my mom was sick? Actually she died this
morning. She was born deaf, so tonight was the first time she could hear me play. I wanted to make it
special. I knew I could."

1. Why might Robby have stopped coming to piano lessons suddenly?

A. He lost heart and believed that he would never make it.
B. His mother might have been seriously ill.
C. He thought that his teacher disliked him.
D. His mother died and he didn't need to play any longer.

2. We can know from the passage that _________.

A. the writer thought students shouldn't begin playing the piano too early
B. the writer thought that Robby had given up his piano lessons
C. only by practicing at home did Robby learn to play well
D. no one else could play the piece of Mozart's as well as Robby

3. From the underlined sentence, we can infer that _________.

A. the writer looked down upon Robby and disliked him
B. the writer thought Robby was a bad advertisement for her teaching
C. with Robby in the recital, the other children couldn't play well
D. the writer couldn't teach so many students at a time

4. The writer made Robby perform last because _________.

A. the one who performs last always performs very well
B. Robby asked the writer to do so
C. she wanted to do something to save a poor performance
D. Robby thought his mother would come at last

     We have met the enemy and he is ours. We bought him at a pet shop. When monkey-pox, a disease
usually found in the African rain forest suddenly turns up in children in the American Midwest, it's hard
not to wonder of the disease that comes from foreign animals is homing in on human beings. "Most of the
infections (感染) we think of as human infections started in other animals," says Stephen Morse, director
of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at Columbia University.
     It's not just that we're going to where the animals are; we're also bringing them closer to us. Popular
foreign pets have brought a whole new disease to this country. A strange illness killed Isaksen's pets and
she now thinks that keeping foreign pets is a bad idea, "I don't think it's fair to have them as pets when
we have such a limited knowledge of them." says Isaksen.
     "Laws allowing these animals to be brought in from deep forest areas without stricter control need
changing." says Peter Schantz. Monkey-pox may be the wake-up call. Researchers believe infected
animals may infect their owners. We know very little about these new diseases. A new bug (病毒) may
be kind at first. But it may develop into something harmful. Monkey-pox doesn't look a major infectious
disease. But it is not impossible to pass the disease from person to person.

1. We learn from Paragraph 1 that the pet sold at the shop may ________.

A. come from Columbia
B. prevent us from being infected
C. enjoy being with children
D. suffer from monkey-pox

2. Why did Isaksen advise people not to have foreign pets?

A. Because they attack human beings.
B. Because we need to study native animals.
C. Because they can't live out of the rain forest.
D. Because we do not know much about them yet.

3. What does the phrase "the wake-up call" in Paragraph 3 most probably mean?

A. A new disease.
B. A clear warning.
C. A dangerous animal.
D. A morning call.

     Two years ago,Wendy Hasnip,47,experienced a brain injury that left her speechless for two weeks.
When she finally recovered, she found herself talking with what seemed to be a French accent. "I phoned
a friend the other day, and she spent the first ten minutes laughing," Hasnip said at the time, "while I have
nothing against the French."
     Hasnip suffered from foreign accent syndrome(外國口音綜合癥), a rare condition in which people
find themselves speaking their own language like someone from a foreign country. The condition usually
occurs in people who have experienced a head injury or a stroke -a sudden loss of consciousness,
sensation,or movement caused by a blocked or broken blood vessel(血管)in the brain.
     The condition was first identified during the Second World War in a Norwegian woman whose head
was injured during an attack by the German military. The woman recovered but was left with a
German-sounding accent, to the horror of fellow villagers who avoided her after that.
     Researchers have discovered that the combined effect of the damage to several parts of the brain
makes victims lengthen certain syllable,mispronounce sounds,and change the normal pitch(音高)of their
voice. Those changes in speech add up to what sounds like a foreign accent.
     Another researcher,a phonetician(語言學(xué)者),says victims of the syndrome don't acquire a true
foreign accent. Their strangely changed speech only resembles the foreign accent with which it has a few
sounds in common.
     When an English woman named Annie recently developed foreign accent syndrome after a stroke,
she spoke with what seemed to be a Scottish accent. However, Annie's Scottish coworkers said she
didn't sound at all like a Scot.

1. According to the passage,people __________ may have foreign accent syndrome.

A. whose parent has experienced a head injury
B. who have lived in a foreign country for a long time
C. who have lost their consciousness owing to a stroke
D. who have learned foreign language from their coworkers

2. If a person suffers foreign accent syndrome, __________.

A. his coworkers will be afraid of him and avoid contacting with him
B. he has more chance of suffering stroke again
C. he will speak a fluent foreign language like native speakers
D. his speech only has a few sounds in common with the foreign accent

3. Writing this passage,the writer's main purpose is to __________ .

A. introduce foreign accent syndrome and some related information
B. warn people not to be at the risk of experiencing a stroke
C. make it clear that foreign accent syndrome can be cured
D. tell a story of an injured woman during the Second World War

     I woke up one morning last week to read a story about an athlete who had seemed to have
everything.
     US track star Marion Jones owned a trophy (獎杯) case filled with medals. She had worldwide
fame. She held the high honor of being the first female track and field athlete to win five medals at an
Olympics- the 2000 Sydney Games.
     But last Friday, the 31-year-old track star tearfully confessed that she had lied to fans, sports
official and US federal agents about taking steroids.
The five Olympic medals in her trophy case? Gone. Meaningless. The worldwide fame? Exchanged
for infamy. The honor of being the first female track and field athlete to win five medals at an
Olympics? Forgotten, wiped off the record books.
     "It is with a great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your
trust." Jones confessed.
     She'd posed for pictures with fans. She'd attended parties and talked about her accomplishments.
But for years she'd slept - or tried to sleep - knowing that much of what she had done was built on a lie.
     Now, finally, she'd decided to tell the truth.
     "If she had trusted her own natural gifts and allied them to self-sacrifice and hard work, I sincerely
believe that she could have been an honest champion at the Sydney Games." IAAF President Lamine
Diack said over the weekend. "Instead, Mario Jones will be remembered as one of the biggest frauds
in sporting history."
     Sadly, she won't be the last. There are still others lurking(潛伏) behind their trophies. They too
appear to have everything. They're superstars, the envy of every young person who has played a
 sport. But for how long? And at what cost? Every time they look at their trophies and medals they
remember that the awards really belong to someone else.