I had worried myself sick over Simon's mother coming to see me. I was a new teacher, and I gave an honest account of the students' work. In Simon's case,the grades were awfully low. He couldn't read his own handwriting. But he was a bright student. He discussed adult subjects with nearly adult comprehension. His work in no way reflected his abilities.

So when Simon's mother entered the room, my palms (手掌心) were sweating. I was completely unprepared for her kisses on both my cheeks. “I came to thank you,” she said, surprising me beyond speech. Because of me, Simon had become a different person. He talked of how he loved me, he had begun to make friends, and for the first time in his twelve years, he had recently spent an afternoon at a friend's house. She wanted to tell me how grateful she was for the self-respect I had developed in her son. She kissed me again and left.

I sat, stunned, for about half an hour,wondering what had just happened. How did I make such a life changing difference to that boy without even knowing it?What I finally came to remember was one day, several months before,when some students were giving reports in the front of the class, Jeanne spoke quietly,and to encourage her to raise her voice, I had said, “Speak up. Simon's the expert on this. He is the only one you have to convince, and he can't hear you in the back of the room.” That was it. From that day on, Simon had sat up straighter, paid more attention, smiled more,and became happy. And it was all because he happened to be the last kid in the last row. The boy who most needed praise was the one who took the last seat that day.

It taught me the most valuable lesson over the years of my teaching career, and I'm thankful that it came early and positively. A small kindness can indeed make a difference.

1.We can infer that when Simon’s mother entered the room, the writer felt _______.

A. nervous B. satisfied C. happy D. surprised

2.Why did Simon’s mother come to visit the writer?

A. Because she worried about her son’s poor work.

B. Because Simon asked her to do so.

C. Because she wanted to show her gratitude to the writer.

D. Because she wanted to know her son’s performance in the school.

3.The following words can be used to describe Simon before he met the writer EXCEPT _____.

A. unconfident B. lonely C. clever D. outgoing

4.The purpose of the passage is to ________.

A. share a valuable lesson with readers

B. tell teachers how to be kind to students

C. advise the readers to be kind to others

D. tell the story of Simon

About 30 years ago, I left Cuba for the United States with my son. After getting settled finally in Brunswick, New Jersey, I enrolled(注册) my son in kindergarten. Several weeks later, my son’s teacher asked me to meet him at his office.

In the teacher’s office, an exchange of greetings was followed by his questions: “Is your son mentally retarded(弱智的)? Does he suffer from any kind of mental disability?”

Was he talking about my wonderful Scola? No, no, it can’t be. What a helpless, lonely moment! I told him that Scola was a quiet, sweet little boy, instead. I asked him why he was asking me all these questions.

My son could not follow the teacher’s directions, he told me, and thus, Scola was disrupting the class. Didn’t he know my son did not speak English yet?

He was angry: “Why hasn’t your son been taught to speak English? Don’t you speak English at home?”

No, I didn’t speak English at home, I replied. I was sure my son would learn English in a couple of months, and I didn’t want him to forget his native language. Well, wrong answer! What kind of person would not speak English to her son at home and at all times? “Are you one of those people who come to this country to save dollars and send them back to their country, never wanting to be a part of this society?”

Needless to say, I tried to tell him I was not one of “those people.” Then he told me the meeting was over, and I left.

As I had expected, my son learned to speak English fluently before the school year was over. He went on to graduate from college and got a job, earning close to six figures. He travels widely and leads a well-adjusted, contented life. And he has benefited from being bilingual(双语的).

Speaking more than one language allows people to communicate with others; it teaches people about other cultures and other places — something very basic and obviously lacking in the “educator” I met in New Jersey.

1.The teacher asked the author to his office ______.

A. to discuss Scola’s in-class performance

B. to get Scola enrolled in kindergarten

C. to find a language partner for Scola

D. to work out a study plan for Scola

2.What does the underlined word “disrupting” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

A. Breaking B. Following

C. Attending D. Disturbing

3.The author’s attitude towards being bilingual may best be described as ______.

A. critical B. casual C. positive D. passive

4.This text is likely to be selected from a book of _______.

A. medicine B. education C. geography D. History

A

Thanks to a young waiter, I only recently discovered that a friend of 20 years was once a yo-yo virtuoso(溜溜球大师).

“Oh, stop it!” Jackie said when I started laughing during our dinner. “I was, too. And I knew how to ‘Walk the Dog.’ ”

“Wow, really?” said our waiter, Jumario Simmons, flashing a big smile at us.

“Don’t encourage her,” I said.

“What else could you do?” he asked.

“I did ‘Round the World,’” Jackie said, now ignoring me completely. “That cradle(婴儿时期的) thing, too.”

I’d asked Jumario what he did when he wasn’t waiting on tables. The 24-year-old waiter was so smart that I knew there had to be more to his story. It turns out that he won a regional yo-yo competition last year. He also gives free lessons to kids. “It gives them something to do,” Jumario said. “Keeps them off the streets.”

One of the great things about eating out is the table talk with strangers, which reminds us that everyone has a life and a name. But the other day I heard that some restaurants are ending this talk between diners and servers. I listened to the reporter describe how their improvements are allowing customers to text orders from their tables to speed up service.

The reporter got my attention with this sentence: “Five minutes after typing ‘I’m at table 3’, a meal arrives at the table.” But there wasn’t a “please” with this order, which should have been a request, by the way. If you’ve ever waited on tables, you know that the last thing you need is yet another way for a customer to be unpleasant.

Most servers are constantly mediating(调解) between customers’ requests for substitutions and overworked cooks’ accusations of treason. Except at high-end restaurants, servers also have to hover like mothers of preschoolers so that we might consider them worthy of a large enough tip to lift their pay to minimum wage.

Texting a server from a table a few feet away is equal to moving our fingers and shouting, “Hey, you!” It was rude in 1957, and it’s rude now. You won’t ever find me texting a waiter or waitress.

1.What do we know from the text?

A. The waiter knows Jackie well.

B. The waiter is good at playing yo-yo. .

C. Jackie plays yo-yo in her spare time.

D. The author has a great interest in playing yo-yo.

2.Some restaurants allow diners to text a server from a table to .

A. improve their service

B. reduce the cost of service

C. show respect for diners

D. stop talks between diners and servers

3.What’s the last but one paragraph mainly about?

A. The pay of servers

B. The work of servers.

C. The customers’ request.

D. The work of mothers of preschoolers.

4.From the passage, the author’s attitude towards texting a server from a table is _________.

A. indifferent B. negative

C. curious D. positive

5.The passage mainly focuses on .

A. how to wait on tables

B. the friendship between old friends

C. where to eat out

D. the relationship between customers and waiters

A glass a day keeps obesity at bay.Alcohol has always been thought to cause weight gain because of its high sugar content,but new research suggests a glass a day could form part of a diet.Looking at past studies they found that,while heavy drinkers do put on weight;those who drink in moderation can actually lose weight.

A spokesman for the research team at Navarro University in Spain says,“Light to moderate alcohol intake,especially of wine,may be more likely to protect against,rather than promote,weight gain”.The International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research reviewed the findings and agreed with most of the conclusions,particularly that current data do not clearly indicate if moderate drinking increases weight.

Boston University’s Dr.Harvey Finkel found that the biologic mechanisms(生物学机制)relating alcohol to changes in body weight are not properly understood.His team pointed out the strong protective effects of moderate drinking on the risk of getting conditions like diabetes(糖尿病),which relate to increasing obesity.Some studies suggest that even very obese people may be at lower risk of diabetes if they are moderate drinkers.

The group says alcohol provides calories that are quickly absorbed into the body and are not stored in fat,and that this process could explain the differences in its effects from those of other foods.They agree that future research should be directed towards assessing the roles of different types of alcoholic drinks,taking into consideration drinking patterns and including the past tendency of participants to gain weight.

For now there is little evidence that consuming small to moderate amounts of alcohol on a regular basis increases one’s risk of becoming obese.What’s more,a study three years ago suggested that resveratrol,a compound present in grapes and red wine,destroys fat cells.

1.The passage is mainly for those__________.

A.who produce wine

B.who have a drinking habit

C. who go on a diet

D.who are eager to lose weight

2.The underlined phrase“in moderation”in the first paragraph means_________.

A.excitedly B.carefully C.properly D.frequently

3.What can we learn from the passage?

A.Current data clearly show that moderate drinking increases weight.

B.Resveratrol is proved to increase the risk of becoming fat.

C.The specific roles of different types of alcoholic drinks are very clear.

D.The research found moderate drinking has a strong protective effect.

4.What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows?

A.How to do some easy experiments.

B.How to reduce the calories contained in wine.

C.How to make wine in a healthy way.

D.How to prove the finding mentioned above.

The food we eat seems to have a great effect on our health. Although science has made big steps in making food more fit to eat, it has, at the same time, made many foods unfit to eat. Some research has shown that perhaps eighty percent of human illness is related to food and forty percent of cancer is related to food as well. That food is related to illness is not a new discovery. In 1945, some researchers realized that things commonly used to keep colors in meats and other food additives (添加剂) caused cancer.

Yet, these additives remain in our food, and it is difficult to know which things on the wrappings(包装)of foods are helpful or harmful. The additives which we eat are not all so direct. Farmers often give penicillin (青霉素) to their animals, and because of this, penicillin has been found in the milk of cows. Sometimes similar things are supplied to animals not for their health, but just to make a profit.

The farmers are simply trying to fatten the animals in order to get a higher price on the market. Although some countries have tried to control such things, the practice continues.

1.According to this passage, we can know _____.

A. perhaps most kinds of cancer are related to what people eat

B. perhaps most of human illness is caused by what we eat

C. cancer was discovered in 1945

D. science has made food unfit to eat

2.Things that are used to keep colors in meats are _____.

A. harmful B. useless C. helpless D. dangerous

3.People use additives _____.

A. to make food more unfit to eat

B. to cause cancer

C. to change the color of the food

D. to take off the diseases of the food

4.Which of the following is NOT true?

A. Some wrappings of food are harmful.

B. Farmers try to make more money on the market by fattening their animals.

C. "The practice continues" means "things are still going on like that".

D. We needn't take care of what we eat.

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