题目内容
When I knew Mary made every effort ______ the homeless, I could not but ______ her.
A. to help; admire B. to help; to admire C. helping; admire D. help; admiring
A
解析:
略
优等生题库系列答案When I was fourteen, I earned money in the summer by cutting lawns（草坪）, and within a few weeks I had built up a body of customers. I got to know people by the flowers they planted that I had to remember not to cut down, by the things they lost in the grass or struck in the ground on purpose. I reached the point with most of them when I knew in advance what complaint was about to be spoken, which particular request was most important. And I learned something about the measure of my neighbors by their preferred method of payment: by the job, by the month--- or not at all.
Mr. Ballou fell into the last category, and he always had a reason why. On one day, he had no change for a fifty, on another he was flat out of checks, on another, he was simply out when I knocked on his door. Still, except for the money apart, he was a nice enough guy, always waving or tipping his hat when he’d see me from a distance. I figured him for a thin retirement check, maybe a work-relayed injury that kept him from doing his own yard work. Sure, I kept track of the total, but I didn’t worry about the amount too much. Grass was grass, and the little that Mr. Ballou’s property comprised didn’t take long to trim (修剪).
Then, one late afternoon in mid-July, the hottest time of the year, I was walking by his house and he opened the door, mentioned me to come inside. The hall was cool, shaded, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the dim light.
“ I owe you,” Mr Ballou, “ but…”
I thought I’d save him the trouble of thinking of a new excuse. “ No problem. Don’t worry about it.”
“ The bank made a mistake in my account,” he continued, ignoring my words. “ It will be cleared up in a day or two . But in the meantime I thought perhaps you could choose one or two volumes for a down payment.
He gestured toward the walls and I saw that books were stacked (堆放) everywhere. It was like a library, except with no order to the arrangement.
“ Take your time,” Mr. Ballou encouraged. “Read, borrow, keep. Find something you like. What do you read?”
“ I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I generally read what was in front of me, what I could get from the paperback stack at the drugstore, what I found at the library, magazines, the back of cereal boxes, comics. The idea of consciously seeking out a special title was new to me, but, I realized, not without appeal--- so I started to look through the piles of books.
“ You actually read all of these?”
“ This isn’t much,” Mr. Ballou said. “ This is nothing, just what I’ve kept, the ones worth looking at a second time.”
“ Pick for me, then.”
He raised his eyebrows, cocked his head, and regarded me as though measuring me for a suit. After a moment, he nodded, searched through a stack, and handed me a dark red hardbound book, fairly thick.
“ The Last of the Just,” I read. “ By Andre Schwarz-Bart. What’s it about?” “ You tell me,” he said. “ Next week.”
I started after supper, sitting outdoors on an uncomfortable kitchen chair. Within a few pages, the yard, the summer, disappeared, and I was plunged into the aching tragedy of the Holocaust, the extraordinary clash of good, represented by one decent man, and evil. Translated from French, the language was elegant, simple, impossible to resist. When the evening light finally failed I moved inside, read all through the night,
To this day, thirty years later, I vividly remember the experience. It was my first voluntary encounter with world literature, and I was stunned (震惊) by the concentrated power a novel could contain. I lacked the vocabulary, however, to translate my feelings into words, so the next week. When Mr. Ballou asked, “ Well?” I only replied, “ It was good?”
“ Keep it, then,” he said. “ Shall I suggest another?”
I nodded, and was presented with the paperback edition of Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa ( a very important book on the study of the social and cultural development of peoples--- anthropology (人类学) ).
To make two long stories short, Mr. Ballou never paid me a cent for cutting his grass that year or the next, but for fifteen years I taught anthropology at Dartmouth College. Summer reading was not the innocent entertainment I had assumed it to be, not a light-hearted, instantly forgettable escape in a hammock (吊床) ( though I have since enjoyed many of those, too). A book, if it arrives before you at the right moment, in the proper season, at an internal in the daily business of things, will change the course of all that follows.
【小题1】.The author thought that Mr. Ballou was ______________.
| A．rich but mean | B．poor but polite |
| C．honest but forgettable | D．strong but lazy |
| A．anything and everything | B．only what was given to him |
| C．only serious novels | D．nothing in the summer |
| A．light-heated and enjoyable | B．dull but well written |
| C．impossible to put down | D．difficult to understand |
| A．read all books twice | B．did not do much reading |
| C．read more books than he kept | D．preferred to read hardbound books |
| A．started studying anthropology at college | B．continued to cut Mr. Ballou’s lawn |
| C．spent most of his time lazing away in a hammock | |
| D．had forgotten what he had read the summer before |
| A．summer jobs are really good for young people |
| B．you should insist on being paid before you do a job |
| C．a good book can change the direction of your life |
| D．a book is like a garden carried in the pocket. |
I have recently completed my college degree. The last project was called “Smile”. The class was asked to go out to smile at three people and document their reactions（反应）. I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say hello anyway. So, I thought this would be a piece of cake.
My husband, the youngest son and I went out to McDonald. We were standing in line when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away. As I turned around I smelled a horrible body odour（气味） and saw two poor homeless men standing behind me. As I looked at the short blue-eyed gentleman closest to me, he was “smiling”. The second man fumbled（摸索）with his hands as he stood behind his friend.
The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted. He said, “Coffee is all, Miss,” because that was all they could afford.
Then I really felt it — I embraced（拥抱）the little man with the blue eyes. That is when I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were set on me, judging my every action. I smiled and asked two more breakfast meals on and gave them to the men.
The blue-eyed gentleman looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, “Thank you.”
I turned in my project. My teacher said, “Can I share this?” I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class. She began to read and that is when I knew that we as human beings share this need to heal people and to be healed.
In my own way I had touched the people at McDonald’s and every soul that heard the story in the classroom. But, I graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn.
【小题1】 The underlined part “a piece of cake” in Paragraph 1 means _______.
| A．easy | B．embarrassing | C．moving | D．comfortable |
| A．Because they were very polite to the two men. |
| B．Because they were moved by the two men. |
| C．Because the two men smelt terrible. |
| D．Because the two men seemed unfriendly. |
| A．Because they didn’t have enough money. |
| B．Because they didn’t feel hungry. |
| C．Because they knew others would help them. |
| D．Because they were looked down upon. |
| A．Hard to believe. | B．Interesting to read. |
| C．Very puzzling. | D．Very satisfying. |
did the author think she learn from the story?| A．A friend in need is a friend indeed |
| B．Helping others can bring pleasure to many people. |
| C．Nothing is difficult to a willing heart. |
| D．Don’t judge people according to their appearance. |
My teenage son Karl became withdrawn after his father died. As a single parent, I tried to do my best to talk to him, but the more I tried, the more he pulled away. When his report card （成绩报告单）arrived during his junior year, it said that he had been absent 95 times from classes and had six failing grades for the year. At this rate he would never graduate. I sent him to the school adviser, and I even begged him. Nothing worked.
One night I felt so powerless that I got down on my knees and pleaded for help. “Please God, I can’t do anything more for my son. I’m at the end of my rope. I'm giving the whole thing up to you.” Just then, I got a phone call. A man introduced himself as the headmaster, “I want to talk to you about Karl’s absences.” Before he could say another word, all my disappointment and sadness over Karl came pouring out into the ears of this stranger. “I love my son but I just don’t know what to do. I’ve tried everything to get Karl to go back to school and nothing has worked. It’s out of my hands.” For a moment there was silence on the other end of the line. The headmaster seriously said, “Thank you for your time” and hung up.
Karl’s next report card showed a great improvement in his grades. Finally, he even made the honor roll（光荣榜）. In his fourth year, I attended a parent-teacher meeting with Karl. I noticed that his teachers were astonished at the way he had turned himself around. On our way home，he said, “Mum，remember that call from the headmaster last year?” I nodded. “That was me. I thought I’d play a joke but when I heard what you said, it really hit me how much I was hurting you. That’s when I knew I had to make you proud.”
【小题1】By saying “Karl became withdrawn” the author means that the boy changed entirely and ________.
| A．he preferred to stay at school |
| B．he stayed at home all day |
| C．he refused to talk to his mother |
| D．he began to like his life |
| A．the speaker was too moved to say anything to his mother |
| B．the speaker waited for the mother to finish speaking |
| C．the speaker didn't want the mother to recognize his voice |
| D．the speaker didn’t want to interrupt the mother |
| A．Children in single-parent families often have mental problems. |
| B．Mother’s love plays an important role in teenagers’ life. |
| C．Being understood by parents is not necessary to teenagers. |
| D．School education is a failure. |
| A．Karl changed a lot after his father died. |
| B．What Karl did at school showed that he didn’t love his mother. |
| C．Karl’s mother tried many ways to help him. |
| D．Karl’s teachers were surprised at his change. |