Success story
      Yesterday afternoon Frank Hawkins was telling me about his experiences as a young man.Frank is
now the head of a very large business company.   1   . It was his job to repair bicycles    2   . He saved
money for years and in 1938 he bought a small work-shop of his own.During the war Frank used to
make spare parts for aeroplanes.   3   .By the end of the war,    4   which employed seven hundred and
twenty-enght people. Frank smiled when he remembered    5   . He was still smiling when the door
opened and his wife came in. She wanted him to repair their son's bicycle!

A. At that time he had two helpers
B. But as a boy he used to work in a small shop
C. He wanted to repair their son's bicycle
D. And at that time he used to work fourteen hours a day
E. His hard early years and the long road to success
F. The small work-shop had become a large factory
G. He wanted to succeed.

     This happened in a third-grade classroom. Jim sat  1  his desk and all of a sudden, there was a
puddle(一灘水) between his feet and the front of his trousers was wet. He felt his heart was going to
stop. He knew   2   would happen when his classmates found out. He looked up and there came the
teacher with   3   look in her eyes that said he   4 (discover).
     As the teacher was walking towards   5  , a classmate named Susie was carrying a goldfish bowl full
of water to her desk. Suddenly, Susie tripped (絆倒) and,   6  (strange), dumped the whole bowl of
water in Jim's lap. He pretended to be angry, but all the while he was saying deep in his heart, "Thank
you!"
     Jim became the object of sympathy instead of ridicule (嘲笑). The teacher brought him gym shorts to
put on. All the others crawled(爬) on their hands and knees,   7  (clean) up around his desk. But  8  
life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his had been transferred (轉(zhuǎn)移) to Susie. She tried
to help,   9  they told her to leave the room   10  school was over, Jim walked over to Susie and
whispered, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
     Susie whispered back, "I wet my trousers once, too!"

     Batteries can power anything from small sensors to large systems. While scientists are finding ways to
make them smaller but even more powerful, problems can arise when these batteries are much larger and
heavier than the devices themselves. University of Missouri(MU) researchers are developing a nuclear
energy source that is smaller, lighter and more efficient.
     "To provide enough power, we need certain methods with high energy density",said Jae Kwon,
assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at MU. "The radioisotope (放射性同位素)
battery can provide power density that is much higher than chemical batteries."
     Kwon and his research team have been working on building a small nuclear battery, presently the size
and thickness of a penny, intended to power various micro / nanoelectromechanical systems (M/NEMS). Although nuclear batteries can cause concerns, Kwon said they are safe.
     "People hear the word 'nuclear' and think of something very dangerous," he said, "However, nuclear
power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pace-makers, space
satellites and underwater systems."
     His new idea is not only in the battery's size, but also in its semiconductor(半導(dǎo)體). Kwon's battery
uses a liquid semiconductor rather than a solid semiconductor.
     "The key part of using a radioactive battery is that when you harvest the energy, part of the radiation
energy can damage the lattice structure of the solid semiconductor," Kwon said, "By using a liquid
semiconductor, we believe we can minimize that problem."
     Together with J. David Robertson, chemistry professor and associate director of the MU Research
Reactor, Kwon is working to build and test the battery. In the future, they hope to increase the battery's
power, shrink its size and try with various other materials. Kwon said that battery could be thinner than
the thickness of human hair.

1. Which of the following is true of Jae Kwon?

A. He teaches chemistry at MU.    
B. He developed a chemical battery.
C. He is working on a nuclear energy source.    
D. He made a breakthrough in computer engineering.

2. Jae Kwon gave examples in Paragraph 4_________.

A. to show chemical batteries are widely applied.  
B. to introduce nuclear batteries can be safely used.
C. to describe a nuclear-powered system.        
D. to introduce various energy sources.

3. Liquid semiconductor is used to _________.

A. get rid of the radioactive waste  
B. test the power of nuclear batteries.
C. decrease the size of nuclear batteries     
D. reduce the damage to lattice structure.

4. According to Jae Kwon, his nuclear battery _______.

A. uses a solid semiconductor                
B. will soon replace the present ones.
C. could be extremely thin                   
D. has passed the final test.

5. The text is most probably a ________.

A. science news report                         
B. book review    
C. newspaper ad                            
D. science fiction story

                                                               A Tight Situation
     Sometimes funny memories are the most special way to remember a beloved lover. It helps take away some of the feeling of loss. Before he passed away, my husband loved to share this story with our friends. Now, it makes a smile to share this story with you.
     Our neighbor's son was getting married at a church, and we were invited. We immediately rushed out
to the store, and I bought a nice pink dress with a jacket. The dress was a little tight, but I had a month
before the June 30 wedding and I would lose a few pounds.
June 29 came and, of course, I had not lost a single pound; in fact, I had gained two. But, I thought a new girdle (收腹健美褲) would solve my problem. So on the way to the wedding, we stopped once again at
the store. I ran in and told the clerk I needed a size large girdle.
     The clerk found the box with the described girdle, marked "L", and asked if I would like to try it on.
"Oh, no, large will fit just right. I won't need to try it on."
      The next morning was hot, so I waited to get dressed until about forty-five minutes before time to go.
I opened the girdle box only to find a new ＄49.95 girdle in a size small. Since it was too late to find
another one and the dress wouldn't fit right without a girdle, a fight broke out between me and the girdle.
Have you ever tried to shake twenty pounds of potatoes into a five-pound bag? Finally, my husband,
laughing like crazy, got hold of each side and shook me down into it, and I was ready to go.
     As we walked into the church, he asked if I could make it. Now, he was getting worried because I
was breathing funny. I told him that it would last one hour, twenty-two minutes and eight-and-one-half
seconds-the minister blessed everything except my girdle!
My knees were blue and my legs lost all the feeling. My husband was asking questions and trying to
comfort me.
     As soon as the minister pronounced them married, I rushed out with my husband. "Please, just get me
out of here!" I said.
     We ran out to our car, and once there he opened the front and back passenger doors against the next
car. Right there, before God, human and the wedding party, I took off that girdle. When the girdle flew
out of my hand and landed under the car next to ours, my husband was laughing so hard and we drove
away.
Over the years, he and I had often wondered what the people of that church thought the next morning
when they found ＄49.95, size small girdle in their parking lot.

1. When she was telling the story, she ______.

A. was sorry for her husband's death
B. was happy to share her funny memories
C. was wondering who had picked up the girdle  
D. still couldn't forget the trouble on that day

2. She still bought the tight pink dress, because she thought ______.

A. she would save some money      
B. she would gain a few pounds
C. she would lose some weight
D. she looked thinner in the dress

3. Which statement is true according to the story?

A. She changed the girdle for a larger size.
B. They tried hard to pour lots of potatoes into a small bag.
C. She put on the dress without the girdle in the end.
D. She managed to put on the girdle with her husband's help.

4. The title "A Tight Situation" really means ______.

A. she was dressed in a tight girdle      
B. she dressed herself in a limited time
C. she got herself embarrassed        
D. the wedding lasted longer than she expected

5. The writer's purpose of writing this story is ______.

A. to tell an interesting experience    
B. to prove her husband's love
C. to describe her tight girdle            
D. to describe her unspeakable feeling