It was an autumn morning shortly after my husband and I moved into our first house. Children were upstairs unpacking , and I was looking out of the window at my father moving around mysteriously on the front lawn. My parents lived nearby ,and Dad had visited us several times already. “What are you doing out there?” I called to him .He looked up, smiling. “I’m making you a surprise.” Knowing my father, I thought it could be just about anything. A self-employed jobber, he was always building things out of odds and ends. When we were kids, he always created something surprising for us.

   Today, however, Dad would say no more, and caught ups in the busyness of our new life, I eventually forgot about his surprise. Until one gloomy day the following March when I glanced out of the window. Any yet… I saw a dot of blue across the yard. I headed outside for a closer look. They were crocuses (番红花), throughout the front lawn. Lavender, blue, yellow and my favorite pink ---- little faces moved up and down in the cold wind.

    Dad! I smiled, remembering the things he had secretly planted last autumn. He knew how the darkness and dullness of winter always got me down. What could have been more perfectly timely to my needs?

    My father’s crocuses bloomed each spring for the next four or five seasons, bringing the same assurance every time they arrived: hard times was almost over. Hold on, keep going, light is coming soon.

    Then a spring came with only half the usual blooms. The next spring there were none. I missed the crocuses. I would ask Dad to come over and plant new bulbs. But I never did.

    He died suddenly one October day. My family was in deep sorrow, leaning on our faith. I missed him terribly.

    Four years passed, and on a dismal spring afternoon I was driving back when I found myself feeling depressed. “You’ve got the winter depression again and you get them every year.” I told myself.

    It was Dad’s birthday, and I found myself thinking about him. This was not unusual --- my family often talked about him, remembering how he lived his faith. Once I saw him give his coat to a homeless man.

    Suddenly I slowed as I turned into our driveway. I stopped and stared at the lawn. And there on the muddy grass and small gray piles of melting snow, bravely waving in the wind, was one pink crocus.

    How could a flower bloom from a bulb more than 18 years old, one that had not blossomed in over a decade? But there was the crocus. Tears filled my eyes as I realized its significance.

Hold on, keep going, light is coming soon. The pink crocus bloomed for only a day. But it built my faith for a lifetime.

1.According to the first three paragraphs, we learn that _________.

A. the writer was unpacking when her father was making the surprise

B. the writer knew what the surprise was because she knew her father

C. it was not the first time that the writer’s father had made a surprise

D. it kept bothering the writer not knowing what the surprise was

2.Which of the following would most probably be the worst time of the year as seen by the writer?

A. Spring.  B. Summer.        C. Autumn.        D. Winter.

3.Which of the following is NOT true, according to the passage?

A. The writer’s father planted the crocus to lift her low spirit.

B. The crocuses bloomed each spring before the writer’s father died.

C. The writer often thought about her father since her father died.

D. The writer’s father died some years after he planted the crocus.

4.The writer’s father should be best described as_________.

A. a full-time gardener with skillful hands

B. a part-time jobber who loved flowers

C. a kind-hearted man who lived with faith

D. an ordinary man with doubts in his life

5.Crocus was viewed as the symbol of _________ by the writer.

A. faith      B. family    C. love       D. friendship

 

Jealousy is a very common problem in daily life. It’s everywhere. For example, if someone does better than you, you will get annoyed because you want to be No. 1. We may become jealous of a best friend’s top marks in an exam, or of the girl in art class who is praised by the teacher all the time. We get annoyed because these good things are happening to someone else but not to us.

It’s bad to feel jealous. We should be pleased with the things we have. But we still wish we had the money of this person and the talent of that person. Instead of sharing their happiness, we just feel jealous and unhappy with ourselves. And, too often, these feelings are expressed by speaking ill of the people we envy.

However, envy is also a kind of compliment to others. We see that other people have styles and talents different from our own. By comparing ourselves with others, we can know what we lack. And we can turn this comparison, the envy of others, into a kind of power.

Therefore, being a bit jealous of others lets us know what we are like and what we want to be like. It can push us to become what we really want to be.

根据短文内容,从A、B、C、D四个选项中选出能回答所提问题或完成所给句子的最佳答案。

1.According to the first paragraph, why do you get annoyed?

A.Because the teacher dislikes others.

B.Because others do something better than you.

C.Because you are an annoying person.

D.Because you want to be No.1 in the exam and you do.

2.The Chinese meaning of the underlined part “speaking ill of” probably is “_____".

A.赞美             B.说…的坏话        C.憎恨             D.说…病了

3.What should be the right attitude towards jealousy?

A.It’s a good thing.

B.It’s just a bad thing.

C.It’s a kind of compliment to others.

D.It makes us know what we are like and what we want to be like.

 

 

第三部分: 阅读理解 (共15小题;每小题2分,满分30分)

阅读下列短文,从每题所给的四个选项A、B、C和D中,选出最佳选项,并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

When I stepped out the plane from Miami into Charlotte, North Carolina, airport for a connecting flight home, I immediately knew something was wrong. Lots of desperate people crowded the terminal. I quickly learned that flights headed to the Northeast were called off because of a storm. The earliest they could get us out of Charlotte was Tuesday. It was Friday. A gate agent stood on the counter and shouted, “Don’t ask us for help! We cannot help you!”

I joined a crowd that ran from terminal to terminal in search of a flight out. Eventually, I found six strangers willing to rent a van with me. We drove through the night to Washington, where I took a train the rest of the way to Providence.

The real problem, of course, is that incidents like this happen every day, to everyone who flies, more and more often. It really gets to me, though, because for eight years I was on the other side, as a flight attendant for Trans-World Airlines (TWA).

I know the days are gone when attendants could be written up if we did not put the lines napkins with the TWA logo in the lower right-hand corner of the first-class diners’ trays. As are the days when there were three dinner options on flights from Boston to Los Angeles in economy class. When, once, stuck on a tarmac(机场停机坪)in Newark for four hours, a planeload of passengers got McDonald’s hamburgers and fries by thoughtfulness of the airline.  

I have experienced the decline of service along with the rest of the flying public. But I believe everything will change little by little, because I remember the days when to fly was to soar (翱翔). The airlines, and their employees, took pride in how their passengers were treated. And I think the days are sure to come back one day in the near future.

1..Many people crowded the terminal because ________.

A. they were ready to board on the planes       

B. something was wrong with the terminal

C. the flights to the Northeast were canceled     

D. the gate agent wouldn’t help the passengers

2. How did the writer get to Providence at last?

A. by air                              B. by van                      

C. by train                              D. by underground

3. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A. Incidents happened to those who fly quite often.

B. The writer used to be a flight attendant for Trans-World Airlines.

C. Even a small mistake might cause complaints from passengers in the past.

D. McDonald’s hamburgers and fries were among regular dinner options. 

4. What can be implied from the passage?

A. The writer lived in Charlotte, North Carolina.

B. The writer thought the service was not as good as it used to be.

C. The writer with other passengers waited to be picked up patiently.

D. Passengers would feel proud of how they were treated on the plane.

 

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