satisfy,   supply,    lead,     would rather ,     struggle,     whatever,     confuse,      work,     rid,                   sunburn,       prefer to,       certain

     There was an old goat that grew a lot of cabbages. He gathered in all his cabbages with the
help of two rabbits. Then he gave each of them ten cabbages to express his thanks. But the goat
got   1 when he found that one of them was very happy while the other was not that happy. So the
goat asked him, "You are not     2 with this?"
     "No, no. Thank you very much for the cabbages. But if I have a choice I would   3 choose
something else," said the rabbit.
     "Ok, you can choose   4 you like from what I have."
    "I wonder if you can teach me to grow cabbages," the rabbit said. "I often can't get enough food
to eat. If I want to    5 a good life, I must grow something of my own. So, I    6 learn to work the
land from you than just accept your cabbages."
     "  7 the land is not that easy. In spring, you must   8   the land of grass; in summer, your skin will
be    9 working in the field and in autumn, you must   10 against bad weather to get in your crops.
Did you really decide to do so?" the goat asked.
     "Yes. I've made up my mind."
     "Ok!"
     With the help of the goat, one year later, the rabbit got a lot of cabbages of his own.

     When Siva Kalyan was born, his backbone was deformed(畸形的)resulting in a lifelong
difficulty in walking. But that hasn't stopped the nine-year-old from becoming a prodigy(天才).
     Until he was three-and-a-half years old, Siva could not even crawl. Wanting the best treatment
for their son, Siva's parents moved with him from India to Australia and later to the USA.
In the USA, his parents enrolled(使入學(xué))him in the second grade based on his age. But his teachers
soon realized they had a genius. Siva was then tested for the eighth grade, but it was soon found
out that he was actually qualified for college courses. As one advanced course was not enough,
the brilliant boy is now taking two courses from Stanford University. Due to the treatment he received,
Siva's physical condition has improved as well.
     But none of this "just happened". It was his parents' understanding and correct guidance, and
the loving care of his grandparents that contributed to the growth of the genius. Siva's highly educated
and hardworking family has brought him up on the basis of certain principles.
The family believes that once a strong foundation is built for the child in English and mathematics, the
child is equipped to master any other subject, law, history, or engineering. It is equally important to
recognize the strengths of a child rather than forcing the child to do things that he may not want to do.
     Siva's parents helped. Siva focus his energies on his strength, which is mathematics. At the same
time they took care to see that he had friends to play with and enjoyed a few recreational activities.
The only activity that's restricted for Siva is viewing television. Siva watches TV only for 30 minutes
a day and video games are a bonus for special occasions.
     Thanks to his mother who is a singer, Siva has also learned music and even won the first and
second prize at two competitions. In sports, he likes to swim. He began to learn swimming to
strengthen his muscles, and by the age of eight he was able to swim a kilometer in both the backstroke
and the freestyle.

1. Why did Siva's parents move to the USA?

A. They wanted to give their son the best education.
B. They wanted their son to receive the best treatment.
C. They weren't used to life in India or Australia.
D. They wanted their son to go to Stanford University.

2. The underlined word "this" in the fourth paragraph refers to the fact that              .

A. Siva's parents enrolled him in the second grade
B. Siva's physical condition improved
C. Siva was tested for the eighth grade
D. Siva became a genius despite his disability

3. The family believes that              .

A. English and mathematics are easier to learn than other subjects
B. it is important to recognize the strengths of a child
C. a child must learn English rather than law or history
D. forcing a child to do things is also quite important

4. What can we learn about Siva?

A. He is really good at mathematics.
B. He has no friends to play with.
C. He is not allowed to play video games.
D. He learned swimming from his mother.

5. The text is mainly about              . 

A. the growth of a disabled child prodigy    
B. certain principles to bring up a child
C. the special ways to train a genius        
D. the influence of parents on their child

     My friend Vernon Davies kept birds. One day he phoned and told me he was going away for
a week. He asked me to feed   1   birds for him and said that he would leave the key   2  his
front door in my mailbox. 
       3   (fortunate), I forgot all about the birds until the night before Vernon was going to return.
What was worse,    4   was already dark when I arrived at his house. I soon found that the key
Vernon gave me could not unlock either the front door    5   the back door. I was getting desperate.
I kept thinking of    6   Vernon would say when he came back.
     I was just going to give up    7   I noticed that one bedroom window was slightly open. I found
a barrel and pushed in under the window. As the barrel was very heavy, I made a lot of noise. But
in the end, I managed to climb    8   and open the window.
     I actually had one leg inside the bedroom when I suddenly realized that someone    9   (shine)
a torch up at me. I looked down and saw a policeman and an old lady, one of Vernon's neighbours.
"What are you doing up there?" said the policeman.    10   (feel) like a complete fool, I replied, "I
was just going to feed Mr Davies' birds."

     Outside our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a seemingly ancient woman waited beside
the door with her hand outstretched. Every day I put my hand in hers as our eyes met. She never
failed to return my smile, my grasp, and my greeting.
    On the last day of our visit, I found myself alone on a busy corner across the street from our
hotel. Bicycles and motorbikes rushed in front of me. As I hesitated on the sidewalk, I felt a hand
on my elbow and looked down to see the smile of my small beggar friend looking up at me. She
nodded her head toward the street, indicating that she would take me across. Together, we moved
slowly into the chaos.
    Then we moved on toward the sidewalk, where she pulled my face down to hers, kissed me on
both cheeks, and then left, still smiling and waving back to me.
Traveling in poorer nations, I have witnessed a variety of ways to deal with beggars. The most
common response of tourists faced with the poverty-stricken is to ignore them and focus their eyes
elsewhere. I have seen people push away an outstretched hand in angry annoyance. A few may drop
a few coins into the hand in a hurry, hoping that other ragged pursuers won't immediately appear on
the scene.
For many reasons, giving money is not the best response to an outstretched hand. Many world
travelers have discovered that the greatest gift they can give is their time and respect. Everyone needs
recognition, to be seen as worthy of being known, to feel appreciated and loved. And I believe that
everyone is worthy and worth knowing.

1. The woman beggars helped the author go across the busy street because __________.

A. the author gave her material assistance  
B. the author treated her kindly and friendly
C. the author would help her as a reward  
D. the author was a foreigner

2. From the story, what position of the beggars in the author's mind might be?

A. equal    
B. superior      
C. lower    
D. valuable

3. In common cases, people will do the following things to the beggars EXCEPT for ________.

A. pretending to see nothing            
B. handing out some money
C. refusing them angrily               
D. greeting them normally

4. According to the author, the most important things beggars really need are _________.

A. mercy and pity
B. money and food  
C. smile and greeting  
D. attention and respect

5. The purpose of the passage is to _________.

A. show how poor the beggars are in Vietnam
B. offer some advice on dealing with begging
C. express what we should offer the beggars
D. describe an experience with a beggar

     He's an old cobbler (修鞋匠) with a shop in the Marais, a historic area in Paris. When I took him my
shoes, he at first told me: "I haven't time. Take them to the other fellow on the main street ; he'll fix them
for you right away."
     But I'd had my eye on his shop for a long time. Just looking at his bench loaded with tools and pieces
of leather, I knew he was a skilled craftsman (手藝人). "No," I replied, "the other fellow can't do it well."
     "The other fellow" was one of those shopkeepers who fix shoes and make keys"while-U-wait"-without
knowing much about mending shoes or making keys. They work carelessly, and when they have finished
sewing back a sandal strap (鞋帶) you might as well just throw away the pair.
     My man saw I wouldn't give in, and he smiled. He wiped his hands on his blue apron ( 圍裙), looked
at my shoes, had me write my name on one shoe with a piece of chalk and said,"Come back in a week."
     I was about to leave when he took a pair of soft leather boots off a shelf.
     "See what I can do?"  he said with pride. "Only three of us in Paris can do this kind of work."
     When I got back out into the street, the world seemed brand-new to me. He was something out of an
ancient legend, this old craftsman with his way of speaking familiarly, his very strange, dusty felt hat, his
funny accent from who-knows-where and, above all, his pride in his craft.
     These are times when nothing is important but the bottom line, when you can do things any old way
as long as it"pays", when, in short, people look on work as a path to ever-increasing consumption (消費(fèi))
rather than a way to realize their own abilities. In such a period it is a rare comfort to find a cobbler who
gets his greatest satisfaction from pride in a job well done.

1. Which of the following is true about the old cobbler ?

A. He was equipped with the best repairing tools.
B. He was the only cobbler in the Marais.
C. He was proud of his skills.
D. He was a native Parisian.

2. The sentence "He was something out of an ancient legend." ( paragraph 7 ) implies that _____.

A. nowadays you can hardly find anyone like him
B. it was difficult to communicate with this man
C. the man was very strange
D. the man was too old

3. According to the author, many people work just to _____.

A. realize their abilities
B. gain happiness
C. make money
D. gain respect

4. This story wants to tell us that _____ .

A. craftsmen make a lot of money
B. whatever you do, do it well
C. craftsmen need self-respect
D. people are born equal

     As I grew older, Dad was to build all sorts of things for me as I explored a variety of interests:
magic tricks, a toy circus, neighborhood shows and science projects.
     From as early as I can remember to the time I left home for college, I continued to come to him
with a design or an idea, and he would figure out how to build it. 
     In fifth grade, a schoolmate and I wrote a puppet(木偶) show that we wanted to perform for
our class. I made the puppet heads myself, and I made the costumes and curtains with Mon-who
was as expert designing and sewing with cloth as my father was designing and working with wood
and metal. With Dad I made the puppet stage, in our own invented style between kid and adult
with me saying something like, " It has to be this high, and it needs to come apart and fold up so it
can fit in the backseat of the car, and it needs to set up fast, and it needs to have different colored
lights on top with switches you can reach to control them and a curtain you can pull from under it,
even if you still have a puppet on your hand." Dad figured out how to make it all work, making plans
as we went along. Then with the tools in his shop he built it, and I helped.
     Dad also spent a lot of time out in the garage or in the driveway working on the family car. I don't
remember that he ever took it to a professional auto-repair shop. Maybe to save money, but also
because he could usually figure out what needed fixing, just by taking it apart and looking. Though
not trained as an auto mechanic, he could look under the engine cover and take parts and pieces out,
spread them on a tarp (油布) to catch the oil and figure out what was supposed to happen to the
machine and then figure out what wasn't happening and then replace the worn-out part or whatever
and then put everything back together again.

1. If you are the writer, you are supposed to write about ________ahead of the first paragraph.

A. father's achievement in mechanics     
B. father's love and skills in mechanics
C. father's experience at repairing cars    
D. father's inventions in mechanics

2. Who helped the writer to make the puppet?

A. The writer himself.    
B. His classmate.  
C. His teacher.    
D. His parents.

3. Before the writer went to college, he always turned to his father for _____________.

A. designing a machine                   
B. building his design or idea
C. making a puppet show                  
D. building a show stage

4. According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?

A.T he writer's car is always breaking down. 
B. Father works in a car repairing shop.
C. Repairing in a shop can save much money. 
D. Father was good at mending his car.

5. The purpose of the writer's writing the passage is ______________.

A. to tell how his father made a puppet for him
B. in memory of his parents
C. to describe to the readers his memories about his father
D. to argue that parents should help children to explore the world and make inventions