题目内容
Two years ago, the Funk family of suburban Chicago adopted a Chinese baby girl who had been abandoned on a sidewalk near a Yangzhou textile factory.
Last year and halfway across the United States, the Ramirez family of suburban Miami adopted a girl who had been abandoned a week later on the same spot.
Both families named their daughters Mia. It turns out, a first name and Chinese heritage aren’t the only things the three-year-olds have in common. The girls’ mothers—Holly Funk and Diana Ramirez—met on a website for parents who had gone through international adoptions. After a flurry of e-mails comparing photographs and biographical details, DNA testing proved the families’ suspicions: The girls are probably fraternal (手足般的) twins.
“I was in shock,” said Ramirez, who lives with her husband Carlos in Pembroke Pines, Florida. “Well, now this is for real.”
The Internet and Web groups revolving around international orphanages are increasingly being used to link adopted children with biological kin(亲属). The site that the Funks and Ramirezes used has a membership of 137 people, with 15 sets of twins and seven sets of siblings whose relationships have been confirmed.
At a reunion on Friday at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Mia Diamond Funk Mia Hanying Ramirez shyly surveyed each other, then reached for each other’s hand.
DNA tests established an 85 percent probability that the girls are at least half sisters. Scientists did not have a biological parent to test and reach a greater certainty, but given their ages and physical similarities, experts say it is likely they are fraternal twins.
Douglas and Holly Funk hope to take Mia to Miami in October. Both sets of parents say they are committed to staying in touch and often let the twins talk to each other on the phone.
1.. Both the adopted girls shared a first name ________.
A. because they both came from China
B. because of their physical similarities
C. because their US parents suspected they were twins
D. for no good reason
2. Why did the girls’ mothers meet on the Internet?
A. To compare photographs of the two girls.
B. To communicate with other people who had adopted children abroad.
C. To test their suspicion.
D. To exchange experiences on adopting children.
3.Experts are still not 100 percent sure that the two girls are fraternal twins because ________.
A. DNA tests are still not accurate enough
B. the two girls were born by different parents
C. the DNA of a biological parent is still missing
D. one girl is born a week later than the other
4.What would be the best title for the passage?
A. Adopted Twins Reunited on Internet
B. Adopted Twins Live happily in the US.
C. Suspicion Turned into Reality
D. The Story of Adopted Twins and Their Parents
1.D
2.B
3.C
4.A
【解析】略
In the suburban district of a city lived an old woman quite alone. Her husband died thirty years ago and two years later, her only son went away with lung cancer. So she had no family still living and her only friend was a little white dog who went everywhere with her - with one exception. The dog loved the fireplace in winter, and after the old woman went to bed he would sometimes go and lie in front of the warm coals. Usually though, the dog lay on a rug right next to the bed.
Deeply as the old woman loved her dog, she wouldn't allow the dog on the bed with her. However, if she became frightened or had a nightmare, she would put her hand down to her little white dog and he would lick it to calm her down.
One night she was reading the newspaper just before going to sleep. She trembled and pulled the duvet（羽绒被褥）up around her as she read that a mental patient had wandered out from a nearby hospital. No one knew if the patient was dangerous or not, but he was a suspect in the murders of several women who lived alone.
The woman turned off the lights and tried to sleep, but she was frightened, and turned over continually. Finally, she reached down to where her little white dog slept. Sure enough, a warm, wet tongue began to lick her hand. The woman felt reassured and safe, and left her hand hanging off the side of the bed. As she turned to settle in comfortably she opened her eyes for a moment and looked through the open door into the living room.
There in front of the fireplace, sat her little white dog, gazing at the coals and wagging his tail. And down beside her bed, something was still licking her hand.
【小题1】From the first paragraph we can know that _________.
| A．her husband died following her son |
| B．the old woman was through with her relatives |
| C．the dog wasn’t always keeping her company . |
| D．the dog sometimes was tired of her |
| A．Because the dog was too dirty. |
| B．Because she was fearful of dogs. |
| C．Because the author dislikes keeping dogs. |
| D．The author didn’t mention the reason for it. |
| A．she was too old to stand the cold weather |
| B．the room temperature came down with a run |
| C．she was reading a frightening story |
| D．a news story was carried in the paper |
| A．the old woman would call him to her |
| B．the old woman would be frightened to half death |
| C．would be luck to have another dog |
| D．would feel puzzled what was under her bed |
Oprah Winfrey is not just a very successful TV personality(名人) in the US, she is also a woman who has encouraged millions. For those people, her life and her success are a good example. She has struggled with many of the challenges（挑战）that we all face, and she has changed her life. Her message is powerful: I did it, and so can you.
Oprah Winfrey is a black woman whose becoming famous is an encouraging story. She was born on January 29, 1954 in a small village in America. Her patents were very poor. For her family, life seemed to hold no promise.
But there was nothing that could stop Oprah. She was an extremely bright girl at school. She asked her kindergarten teacher to let her go to school sooner and she also skipped (跳级)the second grade of primary school（小学）. Her life from the age of six till about fourteen was very hard. For many women such difficulty would be too heavy to bear（忍受）. But not for Oprah. When she was fourteen, Oprah went to live with her father. Her father showed her how hard work and discipline（自律） could lead to self-improvement. Oprah listened to her father, and a few years later she won a college scholarship that allowed her to go to university.
Two years later, after graduation, she started working for television. For more than ten years she worked for different TV stations across the country. In 1984, she moved to Chicago, where she became the host of a talk show called "AM Chicago". When Oprah started, "AM Chicago" had few listeners. By September of the next year, the show was so successful that it was given a new name: 'The Oprah Winfrey Show".
Oprah Winfrey's story encourages many people to believe that success and happiness in life are within reach for everyone.
【小题1】What does Oprah Winfrey mean by saying “I did it”?
| A．I managed to over come (战胜)the challenges. |
| B．I encouraged many people who want to succeed. |
| C．I created many chances to help people. |
| D．I was respected as a source of strength.(力量源泉) |
| A．life seemed hopeless. | B．her family never promised anything. |
| C．her family could hardly keep any promise. | D．nobody trusted her family |
| A．Oprah was older than most of her schoolmates when she finished primary school. |
| B．Oprah was younger than most of schoolmates when she finished primary school. |
| C．Oprah couldn’t finish primary school because her family was very poor. |
| D．Oprah stopped her study when she was in the second grade of primary school. |
| A．Oprah’s father had a great effect（影响） on her. |
| B．AM Chicago was a local newspaper in Chicago. |
| C．Oprah worked for different TV stations in the US. |
| D．Oprah suffered a lot when she was young. |
| A．Oprah Winfrey’s TV show | B．A popular TV show in America |
| C．Oprah Winfrey | D．How to become a successful host |
When other nine-year-old kids were playing games, she was working at a petrol station. When other teens were studying or going out, she struggled to find a place to sleep on the street. But she overcame these terrible setbacks to win a highly competitive scholarship （奖学金） and gain entry to Harvard University. And her amazing story has inspired a movie, “ Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story ” , shown in late April.
Liz Murray, a 22-year-old American girl, has been writing a real-life story of willpower and determination. Liz grew up in the shadow of two drug-addicted （吸毒） parents. There was never enough food or warm clothes in the house. Liz was the only member of the family who had a job. Her mother had AIDS and died when Liz was just 15 years old. The effect of that loss became a turning point in her life. Connecting the environment in which she had grown up with how her mother had died, she decided to do something about it.
Liz went back to school. She threw herself into her studies, never telling her teachers that she was homeless. At night, she lived on the streets. “ What drove me to live on had something to do with understanding, by understanding that there was a whole other way of being. I had only experienced a small part of the society, ” she wrote in her book Breaking Night.
She admitted that she used envy to drive herself on. She used the benefits that come easily to others, such as a safe living environment, to encourage herself that “ next to nothing could hold me down ” . She finished high school in just two years and won a full scholarship to study at Harvard University . But Liz decided to leave her top university a couple of months earlier this year in order to take care of her father, who has also developed AIDS. “ I love my parents so much. They are drug addicts. But I never forget that they love me all the time. ”
Liz wants moviegoers to come away with the idea that changing your life is “ as simple as making a decision ” .
【小题1】 In which order did the following things happen to Liz?
a. Her mother died of AIDS.
b. She worked at a petrol station.
c. She got admitted into Harvard.
d. The movie about her life was put on.
e. She had trouble finding a place to sleep.
| A．b, a, e, c, d | B．a, b, c, e, d | C．e, d, b, a, c | D．b, e, a, d, c |
| A．how Liz managed to enter Harvard University |
| B．what a hard time Liz had in her childhood |
| C．why Liz loved her parents so much |
| D．how Liz struggled to change her life |
| A．Envy and encouragement. | B．Willpower and determination. |
| C．Decisions and understanding. | D．Love and respect for her parents. |
| A．she had little experience of social life |
| B．she could hardly understand the society |
| C．she would do something for her own life |
| D．she needed to travel more around the world |
On the whole, it’s not something we parents shout about, but one in four of us does it. Hiring private tutors for our children is now widespread.
“It’s expensive, but worth it,” says Ashan Sabri, whose daughter Zarreen, is having tuition in biology and chemistry in preparation for A-levels this summer. “My husband and I tried to tutor her at home, but we found all our knowledge was out of date and we were only confusing Zarreen. We also tried a group revision course but all the children were sitting in a room for different kinds of exams. On the whole, we think one-to-one tuition works best.”
The real reason is: does tutoring do any good?
“It’s not the magic bullet,” says Professor Judith Ireson, author of a 2005 Institute of Education report on the subject. “It’s still up to the child to do the learning. If he or she isn’t interested, sending them to a private tutor won’t do any good. However, we did find that students who had private tuition in mathematics during the two years before GCSE achieved on average just under half a grade higher than students who did not have a tutor.”
In which case, surely it’s time to break open the champagne? Not necessarily, says Elaine Tyrrell, head of The Rowans School, Wimbledon, a preparation school which regularly gets children into the best private schools.
“While we recommend private tutoring for a few children whose first language isn’t English, we don’t encourage it for the others. With the level of education they get here, children really ought to be able to pass the entrance exams without any extra teaching. And our worry is that they might just get used to getting help from last-minute tutoring, but, once they actually get to that school, they won’t be able to cope.”
But Mylene Curtis, owner of Fleet Tutors, one of the biggest tutoring agencies in the country, holds a different view.
“In some respects, the hurdles children have to leap in order to get into these schools are set at a higher level than the reality,” says Curtis. “We often find that, once a child has got into a school, the standard of work isn’t as high as was feared. The trick is to do well enough in the exam to win a place.”
【小题1】What does Ashan Sabri think of the group revision course?
| A．It’s expensive but worthwhile because it works the best. |
| B．It confuses students because the knowledge taught in it is out of date. |
| C．It isn’t effective because it doesn’t focus on specific exams. |
| D．It is effective because it doesn’t focus on specific exams. |
| A．Something that cannot help to solve problems at all. |
| B．Something that solves a difficult problem in an easy way. |
| C．Something that seems useful but has no use at all. |
| D．Something that encourages interest in study. |
| A．effective in language learning but not for exams |
| B．effective for foreign students but not for local students |
| C．unnecessary in most cases and may harm the further study of students |
| D．unnecessary in secondary school but helpful to further study |
| A．Fleet Tutors and the Rowans School are competitors. |
| B．Entrance exams to schools are too difficult for most students. |
| C．Further study isn’t as difficult as was first thought. |
| D．Private tuition is worth the financial investment. |
| A．Critical | B．Objective | C．Supportive | D．Uninterested |