I am a music store owner. One day, when I was cleaning the instruments in my store, I saw an old man come in. His short steps dragged on the carpet. “Is 77 too old to learn the banjo (班卓琴)?” he asked.

“You can learn to play it well,” I replied, holding back my doubts. My mind told me I was giving false encouragement. I reached the instructor’s schedule and gave the rates, the available time and the additional information that he would need. To my surprise and delight, the old man, Carl, began banjo lessons three days later with my most patient teacher.

With nothing to do at home but practice, Carl made surprising progress. After breakfast he practiced for his required half hour. While waiting for lunch he picked up his banjo again for just a couple of minutes. Since TV was difficult for him to see and hear, he often played the banjo in the evenings. Carl was always early for lessons so it was a surprise that he didn’t arrive one Tuesday.

The next morning I listened to the answering machine with sadness. “Carl’s in hospital,” the voice recorded.

Two months later, I shared the newspaper obituary with the banjo teacher. We both shed tears for a surprisingly clever banjo student.

Several months later, a woman came into the store carrying a plant. “This is for Carl’s banjo teacher,” she said. “I’m his wife, Mary.”

“Why did Carl want to play the banjo?” I asked. Mary took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Carl was at some show when he was 10 years old. He came close to the stage to watch the performers. When they were packing up their instruments, the banjo player said to Carl, ‘You want to see this up close?’ Carl climbed up on the stage and from then on he wanted to play the banjo.” Carl had waited 67 years to realize a dream! Mary gave the plant to Carl’s banjo teacher. “Thank you for the best six months of his life,” she said.

1.How did Carl learn to play the banjo well?

A. By taking short cuts.

B. By working hard.

C. By asking his wife to help him.

D. By finding the best teacher.

2.From Paragraph 2, we can know the author ______.

A. encouraged Carl though he had doubts

B. was giving true encouragement

C. didn’t want to encourage Carl

D. was unwilling to help Carl

3.The underlined word “obituary” in Para.5 means a notice that _______.

A. announces a good piece of news

B. announces somebody is needed

C. announces somebody has died

D. announces a gift for somebody

4.Why did Carl want to learn banjo?

A. He wanted to become a banjo performer.

B. He wanted to make his dream of his young age come true.

C. His wife encouraged him to learn it.

D. He wanted to spend the last best six months of his life.

Thousands of taxi drivers in Shenyang, Liaoning province, reportedly blocked streets with their vehicles on Sunday in protest against unlicensed vehicles using taxi-hiring apps (打车软件) and apps-based car rental companies providing passenger services, including high-end cars. Although the drivers also complained about the withdrawal of the fuel subsidy by the government, their main complaint was the loss of business because of the rising number of Internet-based car services companies.

On Wednesday, news reports came that Beijing transport authorities will take measures to stop the illegal “taxi business” of private cars through the newly rising Internet apps, following the footsteps of Shenyang and Nanjing.

It is not yet clear how the Shenyang city government will handle the issue and whether it will declare the services offered by market leaders such as Didi Dache, a taxi-hiring app provider backed by Tencent Holdings, and Kuaidi Dache illegal. But Shanghai transport regulators have set a rule, by banning Didi Zhuanche, or car services offered by Didi Dache in December.

Such regulations will cause a setback to the car-hiring companies and investors that are waiting to cash in on the potentially booming business. Just last month, Didi Dache got $700 million in funding from global investors, including Singapore state investment company Temasek Holdings, Russian investment company DST Global and Tencent. Besides, the market is uncertain that Kuaidi Dache is about to finalize its latest round of funding after getting $800 million from global investors.

Regulatory uncertainties, however, could cast a shadow on the future of the Internet-based car-hiring services, which have become popular in most of China’s big cities. To be fair, these companies’ business model is anything but bad. For example, Didi Zhuanche works side by side with established car rental companies to provide high-end car service mainly for businesspeople through the Internet and mobile phone apps.

Every link in this business model chain has legal companies and services. Hence, it is hard to define it as illegal and ban it.

1.Why did taxi drivers in Shenyang block the streets with their vehicles?

A. Because they wanted the authority to increase their driving allowances.

B. Because they wanted to be taught how to use the taxi-hiring apps.

C. Because they wanted to make their main complaints known to the authority.

D. Because they wanted to appeal to passengers not to hire the private cars.

2.The author’s attitude to banning internet car-hiring service is______.

A. positive B. negative C. neutral D. unclear

3.Which of the following statements is false according to the passage?

A. The problem referred to in the passage exists in all cities

B. App-based car rental is functional to some degree

C. The government should regulate the app-based car rental market

D. Didi Dache is a China-foreign joint company

4.we can learn from the passage that _____.

A. Shenyang forbade apps-based car rental companies

B. Shanghai is the second city banning Didi Zhuanche

C. some international investment companies have strong faith in the future of apps-based car rental companies

D. it is not difficult to picture the apps-based car rental companies illegal

The malls were filled with people seeking gifts for their loved ones. Some of the malls remained open around the clock, partly to satisfy our needs to buy gifts.

Behind the materialistic aspect of shopping for gifts lies the idea of caring, being attentive to the desires of special people in our lives. However, to use a well-worn play on words: it is our presence, not our presents, that truly counts. Many of us, unfortunately, can be so inattentive, even in the presence of our loved ones, that we might as well not be there at all.

Attention is one of the greatest gifts we can give each other. Companies around the globe spend billions every year on advertising to catch our attention for just a short moment at a time. Whole industries — media, entertainment, education — rely on the precious gift of our attention for their continued existence. A baby lacking attention for a long time is likely to be psychologically unhealthy.

In earlier times, both diet and attention could be left unregulated (没人管的) without major cause for concern. There were natural checks and balances: limited availability of food meant few got fat, for example. Similarly, in bygone times we might have spent a few hours communicating with the village storyteller; today, watching an entire TV series, while speaking to nobody, is common. In traditional societies, with smaller population, everyone would get a fair deal of attention. On many issues we might go to see Grandma or Grandpa; now we have Google and Wikipedia.

“She just wants attention.” people tend to think little of those doing things simply for attention. But the truth is that human beings need attention, and giving attention to each other is, to a large extent, what human civilization is based upon. This perhaps explains the runaway success of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. While we use such sites for “micro Hogging”, “idea voicing” and “status updates” — the reality is that we are often doing no more or less than fulfilling our basic human drive for attention exchange.

I friend you, you friend me, I retweet you, you retweet me. The charming ease with which we can now get and give attention is why many people appear overly attached to their smart phones. It is also a vicious (恶性的) circle. As ever more people are busy exchanging attention online, there is increasingly less attention to be paid in the real world, which forces more people to seek their attention exchange online, or else risk attention-starvation.

The very nature of attention exchange is being rapidly transformed, and there is a danger that some of us will develop unhealthy practices. Just as eating red meat every day is a bad idea, so it is with too much attention exchange. The biological consequences of our technological advancement in food production are highly visible; heart disease, diabetes and obesity. The consequences of our transformed attention exchanges will be psychological and social, and so may take longer to identify, but they will be equally damaging.

Face-to-face attention is becoming rarer, and therefore more valuable. In a sense it is priceless. And it is a gift that can be given all-year-round.

1.People use social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to __________.

A. obtain information

B. give attention to others

C. voice their opinions

D. notice and get noticed

2.What can we infer from Paragraphs 6-7?

A. More people will risk attention-starvation in future.

B. The nature of attention exchange is rarely changed.

C. Technological advancement contributes to all diseases.

D. Transformed attention exchanges do harm to society.

3.The writer’s purpose for writing the passage is to __________.

A. advocate more focus on real life attention

B. analyze the necessity of attention giving

C. give practical tips on attention exchange

D. recommend some social networking sites

阅读下面材料,在空白处填入适当的内容(1个单词)或括号内单词的正确形式,并将答案填写在答题卷相应的位置上。

1. elderly builder was ready to retire.He told his 2. (employ) of his plans 3. (leave)the house building business to live a more comfortable life with his wife.He would miss the pay-check, 4. he wanted to retire.They could manage.

The employer 5. ( be )sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a 6. (person) favor.The builder said yes, but at that time 7. was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He built it 8. (care) and used poor materials. It was an 9. (fortunate ) way to end his career(working life).

When the builder finished his work, the employer came 10. handed the front-door key 11. the builder.“This is your house”.he said.“my gift to you.”

The builder was 12. (shock) ! 13. a shame! If he 14. (know) he was building his own house, he would have done it all differently.Now he had to live in the home he 15. (build)none too well.

16. it is with us. We build our lives carelessly, a day at a time, often 17. (put) less than our best into the building. Then with a shock we find that we have to live in the house 18. we have built.If we had realized, we would have done it differently.

Think of 19. (you )as the builder.Think about your house.Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or set up a wall.Someone once said,” Life is a do-it-yourself project.” Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past. 20. , build wisely.

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