136 Crestview Circle
Dover, Connecticut
January 16, 1995
Gander’s Furniture Store
Stamford, Connecticut, 09876
Dear Sir,
I am writing about your January bill, which I am returning with this letter. I am not going to pay this bill. Last month I bought a table and four chairs for $65.50. They were sent to me on December 18. That night one leg of the table broke while my wife was putting our dinner on it. It fell on one of the chair, and that broke, too. Our $ 2.50 steak(牛排) landed on the floor, and the dog ate it.
I spoke to the salesmen who had sold me the table and the chairs. He told me to write you a letter. I wrote you on December 20, saying that I was not going to pay for the furniture. On December 21 some men came and took it back to the store.
Please do something about your records. I do not want to receive another bill for the furniture which I returned.
Yours truly
Alberts Robbins
【小题1】From the letter we can know that Mr. Robbins had actually paid _____ for the table and the four chairs.

A.$ 65.50 B.$ 68.00 C.$ 2.50 D.no money
【小题2】 Why do you think Mr. Robbins write the letter to the furniture store?
A.He had paid for the furniture but was asked to pay again.
B.He didn’t want to receive a second bill for the furniture he had returned.
C.The furniture he bought was badly made and he wanted to return it.
D.He wanted the manager to scold the salesmen for the bad furniture.
【小题3】Try to guess how Mr. Robins felt when he was writing the letter.
A.He was angry.B.He was sad.C.He was anxious.D.He was friendly.

It was Thanksgiving morning and in the crowded kitchen of my small home I was busy preparing the traditional Thanksgiving turkey when the doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw two small children in rags(破旧衣服) huddling together inside the storm door on the top step.

"Any old papers, lady? " asked one of them.

I was busy. I wanted to say "no" until I looked down at their feet. They were wearing thin little sandals(凉鞋), wet with heavy snow.

“Come in and I'll make you a cup of hot cocoa.”

They walked over and sat down at the table. Their wet sandals left marks upon the floor. I served them cocoa and bread with jam to fight against the cold outside. Then I went back to the kitchen and started again on my household budget.

The silence in the front room struck me. I looked in. The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked in a flat voice, "Lady, are you rich? "

"Am I rich? no!"

I looked at my shabby slipcovers(旧家具套). The girl put her cup back in its saucer (茶托;浅碟)carefully and said, "Your cups match your saucers." Her voice was hungry with a need that no amount of food could supply. They left after that, holding their bundles of papers against the wind. They hadn't said "Thank you." They didn't need to. They had reminded me that I had so much for which to be grateful.

Plain blue china(瓷的) cups and saucers were only worth five pence. But they matched.

I tasted the potatoes and stirred the meat soup. Potatoes and brown meat soup, a roof over our heads, my man with a good steady job--these matched, too.

I moved the chairs back from the fire and cleaned the living room. The muddy prints of small sandals were still wet upon my floor. Let them be for a while, I thought, just in case I should begin to forget how rich I am.

1. Why did the writer let the children in?

A. She showed great pity on them.

B. She wanted to sell old papers.

C. She knew them and wanted to make them a cup of cocoa.

D. She wanted to invite them to her Thanksgiving party.

2. The girl thought the writer was rich perhaps because_________

A. she saw that the lady's room was comfortable

B. she saw the cups matched the saucers

C. the writer's slipcovers were very new

D. the woman had expensive clothes

3.What was the weather probably like when the story happened?

A. cloudy     B. sunny      C. windy      D. snowy

4. From the passage, we can infer that whether you are rich depends on_______

A. how much money you have had    B. how you feel about your life

C. how you have helped others       D. what job you are doing

 

You are watching a film in which two men are having a fight. They hit one another hard. At the start they only fight with their fists. But soon they begin hitting one another over the heads with chairs. And so it goes on until one of the men crashes (撞击) through a window and falls thirty feet to the ground below. He is dead!Of course he isn't really dead. With any luck he isn't even hurt. Why? Because the men who fall out of high windows or jump from fast moving trains, who crash cars or even catch fire, are professionals (专业人士). They do this for a living. These men are called stuntmen. That is to say, they perform tricks. There are two sides to their work. They actually do most of the things you see on the screen. For example, they fall from a high building. However, they do not fall on to hard ground but on to empty cardboard boxes covered with a mattress (床垫). Again, when they hit one another with chairs, the chairs are made of soft wood and when they crash through windows, the glass is made of sugar! But although their work depends on trick of this sort, it also requires a high degree of skill and training. Often a stuntman' s success depends on careful timing. For example, when he is "blown up" in a battle scene, he has to jump out of the way of the explosion just at the right moment.

Naturally stuntmen are well paid for their work, but they lead dangerous lives. They often get seriously injured, and sometimes killed. A Norwegian stuntman, for example, skied over the edge of a cliff a thousand feet high. His parachute (降落伞) failed to open, and he was killed. In spite of all the risks, this is no longer a profession for men only. Men no longer dress up as women when actresses have to perform some dangerous action, for nowadays there are stunt girls too!

1.Stuntmen are those who ______.

A.often dress up as women

B.prefer to lead dangerous lives

C.often perform seemingly (表面上) dangerous actions

D.often fight each other for their lives

2.Stuntmen earn their living by ______.

A.playing their dirty tricks

B.selling their special skills

C.jumping out of high windows

D.jumping from fast moving trains

3.When a stuntman falls from a high building, ______.

A.he needs little protection

B.he will be covered with a mattress

C.his life is endangered

D.his safety is generally all right

4.Which of the following is the main factor (因素) of a successful performance?

A.Strength.

B.Exactness.

C.Speed.

D.Power.

5.What can be inferred from the author' s example of the Norwegian stuntman?

A.Sometimes an accident can occur to a stuntman.

B.The percentage of serious accidents is high.

C.Parachutes must be of good quality.

D.The cliff is too high.

 

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