Wishing to encourage her young son to make more progress on the piano, a mother took her boy to
a Paderewski concert. After they were seated, the mother spotted a friend in the audience and walked
down the aisle to greet her. Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little
boy rose and eventually found his way through a door marked "NO ADMITTANCE." When the house
lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that
the child was missing.
    Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on stage. To her
horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out Twinkle, Twinkle
Little Star.
     At that moment, the great pianist made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in
the boy's ear, "Don't quit. Keep playing." Then leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand
and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child and he
added a melody. Together, the old master and the young beginner transformed a frightening situation into
a wonderfully creative experience. The audience was amazed and, as it finished, they cheered.
    That's the way it is in life. What we can accomplish on our own is hardly noteworthy. We try our best,
but the results aren't exactly graceful flowing music. But when we put our trust in the hands of a Greater
Power, our life's work can be truly beautiful. Next time you set out to accomplish great feats, listen
carefully. You can hear the voice of the Master, whispering in your ear, "Don't quit, and keep playing."

1. The reason why the boy went to the piano was that ________.

A. he was encouraged to explore
B. his mother forced him to have a look
C. he was invited by the pianist
D. he was exploring the concert hall

2. What the famous pianist did at the beginning of the concert showed ________.

A. what a great pianist he was
B. what a skilled pianist he was 
C. what an upright man he was    
D. what a strong man he was

3. What did the author really want to tell us in the last paragraph?

A. Not being interrupted by others is important.
B. Life needs one's own effort combined with guidance and cooperation.
C. It is necessary for us to keep doing everything.
D. It is important for us to get help from a famous person.

     A mouse looked through a hole in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package; what
food might it contain? He was astonished to discover that it was a mouse trap!
    Running to the farmyard,the mouse shouted,warning everyone,"There is a mouse trap in the house,
there is a mouse trap in the house."The chicken,with her head high,glared at the mouse and said,"Shut up.
Little Ugly.This is a great concern to you,but it has nothing to do with me:I can't be troubled by it."
    The mouse turned to the pig and told him."There is a mouse trap in the house.""I am so sorry,Mr Mouse,"said the pig sympathetically,"but there is nothing I can do about it but pray;you are always in my prayers."
    The mouse turned to the cow,who said,"A mouse trap,am I in great danger,huh?"
    Now the mouse had to face the farmer's mouse trap alone.
    That very night a sound was heard through the house,like that of a mouse trap catching its prey.The
farmer'wife rushed to see what was caught.In the darkness,she did not see it was a big poisonous snake
whose tail the trap had caught.The snake bit the farmer's wife.The farmer rushed her to the hospital.She
returned home with a fever.It is said that drinking fresh chicken soup will help treat fever,so the farmer
took his sharp knife to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.His wife's sickness continued,so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.To feed them,the farmer killed the pig.The farmer's
wife did not get well,in fact,she died,and so many people came for her funeral.The farmer had the cow
killed to provide for all of them to eat.
    So next time when someone is facing a problem,don't say that it has nothing to do with you.

1.We could see from the passage that the mouse was           . 

A. good at cheating others    
B. dishonest
C. kind and warm-hearted
D. foolish

2.Which of the following is NOT TRUE according to the passage?  

A. The others help the farmer kill the cow.    
B. The mouse trap was very practical.
C. The pig is more friendly than the other animals.
D. The farmer's family had no friends at all.

3.What can we learn from the story?  

A. Traps can always cause chain reactions.
B. It is better to be safe than to be sorry.
C. Sometimes when the least of us is threatened,we all might be at risk.
D. To keep the balance of nature is the duty of us all.

     After my brother died in an accident, my mother was in deep sadness. I was only a four-year-old girl
at the time, but I still understood the sudden shift in my mom's attitude towards safety. Suddenly everything around us was potentially dangerous. Overnight, the world had gone from a playground to a dangerous
zone. I grew up with a lot of limits and rules. I couldn't walk home from school by myself, even though
everyone I knew already did. I couldn't go to summer camp because what if something happened to me?
     As I got older, the list of things of fear got longer. My whole life was divided into "things you should
avoid", and "things you needed to do in order to have a good, long life." I became a natural worrier. I
worry about things like getting cancer, losing my wallet, car accidents, earthquakes, and losing my
job-disasters big and small, real and imagined.
     The funny part is that you'd never know it by looking at my life. In fact, I've developed a rule for
myself: If it scares me, then I have to do it at least once. I've done lots of things that my mom would have worried about: I've ridden a motorcycle; I've traveled -a lot. I've performed stand-up comedy, and I'm
planning my second wedding.
     There's something else I don't usually talk about, but it's a cornerstone in my belief: When I was 14,
my mother died suddenly in a car accident. At my mom's funeral I remember making a choice. I could
either live out the rest of my life trying to be "safe" or I could be brave enough to live out a fulfilling,
exciting and, yes, sometimes dangerous life.
     I worry that I may have betrayed (背叛) my mother by writing her in this light, but she has been a
driving force in my life and, in the end I think she would have been proud of me. Courage isn't a natural
character of human beings. I believe that using courage is like developing a muscle. The more often I do
things that scare me or that make me uncomfortable, the more I realize that I can do a lot more than I
originally thought I could do.
     Even though I inherited (繼承) my mother's cautious nature. I've also come to believe that fear can be
a good thing, if we face it. Believing that has made my world a less scary place.

1. In the writer's childhood, the limits and rules were used to ______.

A. improve her behavior
B. develop her independence
C. be in memory of her dead brother
D. protect her from possible danger

2. How does the writer deal with the things that frighten her?

A. She just ignores them.
B. She faces up to them.
C. She turns to her mother for help.
D. She does them with her friends.

3. From the passage, we can learn that ______.

A. the writer failed in her first marriage
B. nothing can make the writer afraid now
C. frightening things made the writer lose her self-confidence
D. the writer's mother felt annoyed with her

4. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A. Mothers influence their children much.
B. Fear is in fact not a bad thing.
C. Facing fear bravely produces courage.
D. The world is not as scary as people expect.

     Two years ago my grandmother was going to turn 75. My family discussed what was the best way to
celebrate. Should we throw her a party ? Should we take her on a trip ? We remembered that she had
touched so many people's lives, and there were so many people for her to consider. Then someone got
the idea that we should include everyone in the celebration by turning it into a tribute (獻禮) to my
grandmother.
     We secretly sent out letters to the people in Grandmother's address book and asked them to send a
letter with a memory that they had shared with her. People sent us letters with poems, stories and pictures. The deep feeling that was shared through the response (回應(yīng)) surprised us. We compiled (編輯) these
letters into a memory book and amazed her with it on the morning of her birthday.
     The unusual thing about my grandmother's friends was not the number that she had, but the connection
they shared. In many ways this book of friendship was the greatest achievement of my grandmother's life.
     I believe that developing true friendships is one of the most important things that anyone can do in
one's lifetime. It is not a matter of the number of friends one has, but the quality of the bonds. If one has
had at least one true friendship before dying, then one can say one has lived a successful life. I have made many friends and I believe I have begun to develop the same types of friendships my grandmother kept
up over her lifetime. I only hope that I will be as successful as she has been.

1. How did the author's family celebrate Grandmother's birthday ?

A. They took her on a trip across the country.
B. They gave her a memory book of friendship.
C. They invited all her friends to her birthday party.
D. They asked all her friends to send her cards.

2. When receiving her birthday gift, the author's grandmother probably felt _____.

A. disappointed and lonely
B. sorry and sad
C. surprised and pleased
D. nervous and excited

3. According to the passage, the author probably agrees that _____. 

A. the more friends you have, the better
B. friends are more important than family
C. understanding leads to greater success
D. true friendship is very important to us

4. Which of the following words can best describe the author's grandmother ?

A. Kind.
B. Great.
C. Polite
D. Pleasant

     Minh Pham was born in Vietnam. He left there when he was 21 years old. Minh has been in America
for almost two years. There is still much he does not understand about America.?
     Once, Minh was in a supermarket. He saw an old man and an old woman. They wanted a box of
cereal(麥片).The box was on a high shelf. The man and the woman couldn't reach it. Minh saw a
stepladder. He got on the ladder and got the box. He handed it to the elderly couple. They thanked him.?
     "Where are your children?" asked Minh. "Why don't they help you buy food?" "Our children have
their own lives," said the man and the woman. "We like to be independent." Minh doesn't think this is
right. In his country, children help their parents. Minh gave the elderly couple his phone number. He told
them to call him if they needed help. One night they asked Minh to dinner, but they never asked him for
help.?
     One day, Minh was walking with a Vietnamese friend. The two men were going to a movie. Minh
wanted to go to a restaurant first. Minh took his friend's hand. He pulled him towards the restaurant.
People on the street stared at Minh. In Vietnam, friends often hold hands. Minh found that the people in
America are not used to men holding hands.?
     Minh Pham is going through a process (過程) known as resocialization. Socialization (社會化) is the
process in which a person learns to live in a society. Everyone goes through this process. Minh went
through it when he lived in Vietnam. But the Vietnamese way of life is rather different from the American
way of life. When Minh came to America, he had to learn a new way of life. He had to learn how to live
in a new society. Minh has learned a lot about American life in two years. He still has a lot to learn. The
process of resocialization can take many years.?

1. The main idea of the passage is that socialization is the way in which a person ______.?

A. learns to live in a society
B. travels from one country to another?
C. learns to act independently
D. learns about their country?

2. The passage states that Minh didn't understand why the elderly man and woman were not ______.

A. helped by their children
B. shopping for their children?
C. holding hands
D. using a stepladder?

3. According to the passage, socialization happens to ______.

A. only the Vietnamese in America
B. only Americans?
C. only older people
D. everyone?

4. The underlined word "resocialization" means ______.?

A. keeping one's own way of life?
B. keeping up with others?
C. a process of learning how to live in a new society?
D. understanding a new culture?

     An Australian man who has been donating his extremely rare kind of blood for 56 years has saved the
lives of more than two million babies.
     James Harrison has an antibody in his plasma (血漿) that stops babies dying from Rhesus disease, a
form of severe anemia (貧血癥). He has enabled countless mothers to give birth to healthy babies,
including his own daughter, Tracey, who had a healthy son thanks to her father's blood.
     Mr. Harrison has been giving blood every few weeks since he was 18 years old and has now added
up to a total of 984 donations. When he started donating, his blood was regarded so special that his life
was insured for one million Australian dollars.
     He was also nicknamed the "man with the golden arm" or the "man in two million". He said, "I've never
thought about stopping. Never." He made a promise to be a donor aged 14 after taking major chest
surgery in which he needed 13 liters of blood. "I was in hospital for three months," he said. "The blood I
received saved my life so I made a pledge to give blood when I was 18."
     Just after he started donating he was found to have the rare and life-saving antibody in his blood. At
the time, thousands of babies in Australia were dying each year of Rhesus disease. Other newborns
suffered permanent brain damage because of the condition. The disease creates an incompatibility
between the mother's blood and her unborn baby's blood. It stems from one having Rh-positive
blood and the other Rh-negative.
     His blood has since led to the development of a vaccine (疫苗) called Anti-D. After his blood type
was discovered, Mr. Harrison volunteered to have a series of tests to help develop the Anti-D vaccine.
"They insured me for a million dollars so I knew my wife Barbara would be taken care of," he said. "I
wasn't scared. I was glad to help. I had to sign every form going and basically sign my life away."
     Mr. Harrison is Rh-negative and was given injections of Rh-positive blood. It was found his plasma
could treat the condition and since then it has been given to hundreds of thousands of women. It has also
been given to babies after they are born to stop them developing the disease.
     It is estimated he has helped save 2.2 million babies so far. Mr. Harrison is still donating every few
weeks now.

1. How old is James Harrison?

A. 56  
B. 70 
C. 74  
D. 78

2. Why did James decide to donate his blood? Because           .

A. his daughter asked him to help her son
B. he has a golden arm worth a million dollars
C. a vaccine called Anti-D is to be developed
D. someone else's blood saved his life

3. The underlined sentence (in Paragraph 5) suggests that           .

A. babies suffer permanent brain damage before their birth
B. the mother and the baby have different types of blood
C. Rhesus disease contributes to permanent brain damage
D. all the patients have a rare antibody in their blood

4. What can we infer from the sixth paragraph?

A. Some of the tests to develop the vaccine are dangerous.
B. His wife Barbara needed to be taken care of badly then.
C. Mr. Harrison was glad to help develop a new vaccine.
D. His blood type was accidentally discovered after tests.