Trapped on the 37th Floor
     Melinda Skaar wasn't expecting any phone calls. Skaar was working late in her office at the First
Interstate bank of California. By 10:45 that night she was almost ready to go home when the phone rang.
Picking it up, she heard a guard shouting. "There is a fire! Get out of there!"
     Skaar didn't panic. She figured that it was just a small fire. Her office building was huge. There were
62 floors and her desk was on the 37th floor.
     Skaar called out to office mate Stephen Oksas, who also stayed late to work. But when they got to
the hallway, they were met by a cloud of black smoke. Rushing back, Skaar shut the door and filled the
space at the bottom of the door with her jacket to keep the smoke out.
     Then they called 911. Before they could call their families, however, the line went dead. That meant
that they were completely cut off from the outside world. All they could do was wait and hope someone
would come to rescue them.
     Minutes ticked by. Smoke began to float into the office. Soon it became hard for  them to breathe.
     Looking around, Skaar noticed a small workroom. It seemed to have cleaner air. So they crowded
there. That helped for a while, but in time even the workroom was filled with deadly smoke.
     Hopeless, they tried to break the windows, but the glass was not breakable. Everything they threw at
just bounced back.
     Defeated, they struggled back to the workroom. They felt weak and dizzy . Soon Skaar found Oksas
had passed out.
     As Skaar and Oksas lay near death, rescuers were rushing to find them. At last, at about 4 a.m.,
firefighters found them.
     Skaar and Oksas knew they were lucky to be alive. "Sunday is my birthday," Skaar told a reporter.
She would be turning 29. But she knew she had already got the best present possible--the gift of life.

1. What did Skaar and Oksas do when they were stopped by the fire? 

A. They called their families.
B. They waited where they were.
C. They tried to run down the stairs.  
D. They rushed back and shut the door.

2. The first sentence of the passage is to _______.

A. introduce Skaar  
B. get the reader's attention
C. explain the cause of the event  
D. tell the background information

3. The following helped Skaar and Oksas survive the fire except _______. 

A. calling 911 for help
B. breaking the windows to get some fresh air
C. crowding in a small workroom for clean air
D. shutting the door and keeping the smoke out with a jacket

4. What can we conclude from Skaar's action in the fire?

A. She is cleverer than Oksas.
B. She was trained as a firefighter.
C. She remained calm in the face of danger.
D. She had had the experience of being caught in fire.

     I was telling my boy Sonny the story of the hare and the tortoise. At the end I said, "Son, remember:
Slow and steady wins the race. Don't you think there's something to learn from the tortoise?" He opened
his eyes wide. "Do you mean next time when I'm entering the 60-metre race I should wish Billy and Tony
and Sandy would all fall asleep halfway?"
     I was surprised. "But the tortoise didn't wish the hare would fall asleep."
     "He must have wished that," Sonny said, "Otherwise how could he be so stupid as to race with the
hare? He knew very well the hare ran a hundred times faster than he himself did."
     "He didn't have such a wish." I insisted. "He won the race by perseverance(毅力), by pushing on
steadily."
     Sonny thought for a while. "That's a lie," he said. "He won the race because he was lucky. If the hare
hadn't happened to fall asleep, the tortoise would never have won the race. He could be as steady as you
like, or a hundred times steadier, but he'd never have won the race! That's for sure."

1. The writer argued with his son because _______.

A. he liked tortoises while his son liked hares
B. they disagreed about whether the tortoise was stupid
C. he liked the story of the hare and the tortoise while his son didn't
D. he tried to teach his son the moral lesson of the story but the son refused it

2. Sonny believed that the tortoise ________.

A. won the race by his effort
B. took a risk by agreeing to the race
C. was not given a fair chance in the race
D. in fact did not win the race

3. According to the passage, who do you think learned a lesson?

A. The tortoise.
B. The hare.
C. Sonny.
D. Sonny's father.

     It was a hot Sunday afternoon and the two of us were heading for the capital city. Suddenly my son
gave a shout of pain. He had somehow managed to tangle up (圍繞) his small body in his seat belt. I
immediately pulled off the road.
     I could have tried to stop a car, but they were driving by so fast. At that moment, I would have cut
the belt if I had something to cut it with. Then I thought that I could retract (縮回) little further in order
that it might work. But if that failed, my son's little stomach would be squeezed even tighter.
     Just then a man appeared. He wore a white shirt and trousers that I'd seen on Costa Rican cowboys
and his clothes so dirty that I thought he might be a beggar or worse.
     Yet when the stranger reached us, he asked me if I needed help. I pointed to my son and he took a
look. He then bent down beside my son, tracing the path of the smooth seat belt with with his rough fingers. After a long moment, he asked my son to bend sideways and a little bit forward. He then put his hands
on the belt, controlled it in a way that I still don't understand now, and my son was free.
     I thanked him warmly. I also reached into my wallet and gave him a bill, although his calm face
suggested that he didn't care about a reward. He had found a new way to use his roping skills, particularly those he used when freeing animals. And I had experienced the kindness.

1. What happened to the author's son? 

A. He was unable to move in his seat belt.
B. He suddenly suffered from a stomachache.
C. He fell off his seat and hurt his stomach.
D. He saw something interesting on the journey.

2. From the passage, we know the cowboy __________.  

A. taught the author how to free her son      
B. was familiar with the author's son
C. refused to accept the money            
D. was good at roping.

3. What would be the best title for the passage? 

A. cowboy in Costa Rican.
B. A kind and quick roadside help.
C. A hard journey
D. A story of a cowboy

     Have you listened to music on an ipod? Have you enjoyed a computer animated movie, such as Toy
Story or Finding Nemo? Those are just a few of the ways your life was touched by the work and
imagination of Steve Jobs.
     Jobs, a cofounder of Apple Computer, died on Wednesday, October 5, 2011. He was 56 and had
been battling cancer since 2004.
     Jobs and his childhood friend, Steve Wozniak, designed and built the first Apple computer in Jobs's
parents' garage in the 1970s. The Apple II, built the first Apple computer to be widely sold to the public.
Jobs was just 21 years old then.
     He didn't stop there. Jobs's imagination kept active. He went on to invent more devices (設備) that
allowed people to bring their own creativity and preferences to computing: the Macintosh, the ipod, the
iphone, the ipad.
     Jobs also changed the music and the film industries. He started Pixar, an animated film production
company. Toy Story (1995) was the world's first computer-animated feature film. He also persuaded
music companies to start selling music digitally through Apple's Tunes.
     "Steve was among the greatest of American innovators (改革者)-brave enough to think differently,
confident enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it," said President
Barack Obama in a statement posted on the White House blog. " By making computers personal and
putting the Internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution (信息革命) not only accessible,
but fun. The world has lost a visionary (遠見者). And there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success
than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented."
     All around the world, people are talking about the effect that Jobs's creations have had. By creating
products that surprised and delighted people, he changed the way people worked and lived their
everyday lives.

1. The question asked in the first paragraph imply ______ .

A. the effect of Steve Jobs on our lives      
B. the ways of enjoying yourself
C. the likes of Steve Jobs in life      
D. the imaginary life in the future

2. Which word can be used to describe Jobs's products best?

A. Cheap    
B. Heavy    
C. Convenient    
D. Big.

3. We can infer from what Obama said that _______. 

A. Jobs found it fun to change the world.
B. Obama considered Jobs the most talented
C. Jobs started the information revolution
D. most people knew Jobs's death by his products

4. Why did the author write this passage ?  

A. To remember Jobs who changed the world
B. To introduce how Jobs fought against cancer
C. To explain why Jobs stated Apple Computer
D. To prove the popularity of Jobs's products