题目内容
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 (继承) 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.
【小题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 |
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. |
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 |
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. |
【小题1】D
【小题2】B
【小题3】A
【小题4】C
解析
My grandmother seems to be wrong when she says that good manners will never go out of style.
Several days ago, I tried entering a lift with one of my arms fixed in a bandage(绷带) while carrying a computer bag in the other. Not being fast enough, I was passed by two young people who managed to get into the lift before me. The lift door closed only after I entered. Having already pressed their wanted floor button, the young people waited impatiently for me to press the button for where I was going. If they had decided to help, we could have moved much faster. But they had not. So I did my best and pressed the button with my arm. The two young people looked very angry with me. I was losing heart.
The memory of this incident has stayed with me because it followed shortly after my building’s watchman refused to help me carry a heavy box full of books. His answer was that he could not carry the books a few meters because it was not his job. However, I remembered myself helping people for so many years carrying boxes, shopping bags, or pushing wheelchairs upon the request of a stranger in need or when my conscience(良心) called on me. "Oh, this young generation, they have no manners, ”my grandmother would say. The idea of good manners refers to the considering of other people’s feelings. We need more and more people to have good manners. Good manners should be-come part of our lives.
【小题1】The author believes that ________.
A.good manners will never go out of style |
B.her grandmother is right |
C.good manners are disappearing little by little |
D.it never rains, but it pours |
A.Excited. | B.Angry. | C.Sad. | D.Confident. |
A.the box was full of books |
B.the box was too heavy |
C.the author was a stranger |
D.he thought it was not his job |
A.always offers help to people in need |
B.always has difficulty carrying things |
C.has a better memory than anyone else |
D.agreed with her grandmother at first |
A few weeks after my first wife, Georgia, was called to heaven, I was cooking dinner for my son and myself. For a 16 , I had decided on frozen peas. As I was cutting open the bag, it 17 from my hand and crashed to the floor. The peas, like marbles, 18 everywhere. I tried to use a broom, 19 with each swipe they just rolled across the kitchen.
For the next week, every time I was in the 20 , I found a pea---in a corner, or behind a table leg. They kept 21 . Eight months later I pulled out the refrigerator to clean behind it, and 22 12 frozen peas hidden underneath.
At the time I found those few remaining 23 , I was in a new relationship with a wonderful 24 I’d met in a support group. After we married, I was reminded 25 those peas under the refrigerator, and realized that my 26 had been like that bag of frozen peas. It had shattered(破碎. My wife had died; I was in a new city with a busy job, and with a son having trouble 27 his new surroundings and the 28 of his mother. I was a bag of spilled frozen peas; my life had come apart and scattered.
When life gets you 29 , when everything you know comes apart, and when you think you’ll never 30 , remember that it’s just a bag of scattered frozen peas. The peas can be 31 , and life will move on. You’ll find all the peas 32 , including the ones that are hardest to find. And when you’ve got them 33 you’ll start to feel whole again.
The life you know can break apart at any time. But you’ll have to 34 , and how fast you collect your peas depends on you. Will you keep scattering them around with a broom, 35 will you pick them up one by one and put your life back together?
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