In the kitchen of my mother’s houses there has always been a wooden stand(木架)with a small notepad(记事本)and a hole for a pencil.
I’m looking for paper on which to note down the name of a book I am recommending to my mother. Over forty years since my earliest memories of the kitchen pad and pencil, five houses later, the current paper and pencil look the same as they always did. Surely it can’t be the same pencil? The pad is more modern, but the wooden stand is definitely the original one.
“I’m just amazed you still have the same stand for holding the pad and pencil after all these year.” I say to her, walking bank into the living-room with a sheet of paper and the pencil. “You still use a pencil. Can’t you afford a pen?”
My mother replies a little sharply. “It works perfectly well. I’ve always kept the stand in the kitchen. I never knew when I might want to note down an idea, and I was always in the kitchen in these days.”
Immediately I can picture her, hair wild, blue housecoat covered in flour, a wooden spoon in one hand, the pencil in the other, her mouth moving silently. My mother smiles and says, “One day I was cooking and watching baby Pauline, and I had a brilliant thought, but the stand was empty. One of the children must have taken the paper. So I just picked up the breadboard and wrote it all down on the back. It turned out to be a real breakthrough for solving the mathematical problem I was working on.”
This story—which happened before I was born—reminds me how extraordinary my mother was, and is, as a gifted mathematician. I feel embarrassed that I complain about not having enough child-free time to work. Later, when my mother is in the bathroom, I go into her kitchen and turn over the breadboards. Sure enough, on the back of the smallest one, are some penciled marks I recognize as mathematics. Those symbols have traveled unaffected through fifty years, rooted in the soil of a cheap wooden breadboard, invisible(看不到的)exhibits at every meal.
1.Why has the author’s mother always kept the notepad and pencil in the kitchen?
A.To leave messages.                      B.To list her everyday tasks.
C.To note down maths problems.             D.To write down a flash of inspiration.
2. What is the author’s original opinion about the wooden stand?
A. It has great value for the family.
B. It needs to be replaced by a better one.
C. It brings her back to her lonely childhood.
D .It should be passed on to the next generation.
3. The author feels embarrassed for_______.
A. blaming her mother wrongly.
B. giving her mother a lot of trouble.
C. not making good use of time as her mother did.
D. not making any breakthrough in her field.
4. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?
A .The mother is successful in her career.
B. The family members like traveling.
C. The author had little time to play when young.
D. The marks on the breadboard have disappeared.
5. In the author’s mind ,her mother is_________.
A. strange in behavior.             B. keen on her research.
C. fond of collecting old things.      D. careless about her appearance.

Elizabeth and I are 18 now, and about to graduate.I think about our elementary-school friendship, but some memories have blurred (模糊).What happened that day in the fifth grade when Beth suddenly stopped speaking to me? Does she know that I've been thinking about her for seven years? If only we could go back, and discover what ended our relationship.
I have to speak with Beth.I see her sometimes, and find out school is "fine".It's not the same.It never will be.Someone says that she's Liz now.What happened to Beth?
I can't call her.Should I write? What if she doesn't answer me? How will I know what she's thinking?
Yes, I'll write her a letter.These things are easier to express in writing." Be-," no, " Li-," no, " Elizabeth," I begin.The words flow freely, as seven year old memories are reborn.I ask her all the questions that have been left unanswered in my mind, and pray she will answer.I seal my thoughts in the perfect white envelope, and imagine Beth looking into her mailbox.Will she know why I'm writing? Maybe she once thought of writing the same letter.
As the mailman takes my envelope from me forever, I wonder if I've made the right decision.Do I have the right to force myself into Beth's life again? Am I simply part of the past? I have taken the first step.Beth has control of the situation now.
One day has passed.Are my words lying on the bottom of the post office floor?
Two days are gone.I'm lost in thought and don't even hear the phone ting.
"Hello? It's Elizabeth."
【小题1】What can we learn about Beth?

A.She had a quarrel with the author in the fifth grade.
B.She moved to another school in the fifth grade.
C.She is now called Liz instead of Beth.
D.She hasn't seen the author for seven years.
【小题2】Why does the author decide to write a letter instead of calling?
A.She is sure that Beth will not answer.
B.She's afraid that they'll quarrel on the phone.
C.She doesn't know Beth's telephone number.
D.It is easier to express her feelings in writing.
【小题3】Which of the following the author might NOT mention in her letter?
A.Their elementary-school friendship.
B.Her future plan after graduation.
C.Her expectations for Beth's reply.
D.The questions about the endings of their friendship.
【小题4】What might happen at the end of the story?
A.Beth answers her letter two days later.
B.The letter doesn't reach Beth at all.
C.They make up their friendship.
D.Beth refuses to make peace with her.

The triathlon(铁人三项运动) promises to be one of the most popular Olympic sports.Recently it has drawn huge crowds attracted by athletes swimming 1,500mcycling 40kmthen running 10km without stopping.But what makes an attractive 17?year?old girl give up everything for the doubtful pleasure it offers?

Melanie Sears has not yet learnt those often?repeated phrases about personal satisfactionmental challenge and higher targets that most athletes use when asked similar questions.“You swim for 1,500mthen run out of the water and jump on your bikestill wet.Of coursethen you freeze.When the 40km cycle ride is overyou have to run 10kmwhich is a long way when you’re feeling exhausted.But it’s great funand all worth it in the end” she says.

Melanie entered her first triathlon at 14 and she won the junior section.Full of confidenceshe entered the National Championshipsand although she had the second fastest swim and the fastest runshe came nowhere.“I was following this man and suddenly we came to the sea.We realised then that we had gone wrong.I ended up cycling 20 kilometres too far.I cried all the way through the running.”

But she did not give up and was determined that she never will.“Sometimes I wish I could stopbecause then the pain would be overbut I am afraid that if I let myself stop just onceI would be tempted(诱惑) to do it again.”Such doggedness draws admiration from Steve Trewthe sport’s director of coaching.“I’ve just been testing her fitness” he says, “and she worked so hard on the running machine that it finally threw her off and into a wall.She had given it everythingand she just kept on.”

Melanie was top junior in this year’s European Triathlon Championshipsfinishing 13th.“I was almost as good as the top three in swimming and runningbut much slower in cycling.That’s why I’m working very hard at it.” She is trying to talk her long?suffering parentswho will carry the 1,300 cost of her trip to New Zealand for this year’s world championshipsinto buying a 2,000 bikeso she can try 25km and 100km races later this year.

But there is another price to pay.“I don’t have a social life”she says.“After two hours’ hard swimming on Friday nightI just want to go to sleep.But I phone and write to the other girls in the team.” What does she talk aboutBoysClothes“Nowhat sort of times they are achieving.”

1.How does Melanie differ from other athletesaccording to the writer?

AShe worries less than they do.

BShe expresses herself differently.

CHer family background is not like theirs.

DHer aims are different from theirs.

2.What upset Melanie during the National Championships?

AShe was tricked by another competitor.

BShe felt she had let her team?mates down.

CShe made a mistake during part of the race.

DShe realized she couldn’t cycle as fast as she thought.

3.What is Melanie trying to persuade her parents to do?

ABuy an expensive bike for her.

BGive her half the cost of a bike.

CLet her compete in longer races.

DPay for her to go to New Zealand.

4.What does Melanie say about her relationships with her team?mates?

AShe would like to see them more often.

BShe only discusses the triathlon with them.

CShe thinks they find her way of life strange.

DShe dislikes discussing boys or clothes with them.

 

I'm feeling sad.My 19-year-old∞nleft home about a week ago to  36  the Air Force, and my 23-year-old daughter left two days ago to marry in another state.I'm so  37  of my son as he had to really work hard to get into the Air Force, and my daughter moved to be with her fiance(未婚夫).I'm just simply upset.It  38  feels like someone has ripped my heart from my chest.I’ve tried to talk to their father, friends, and family but it just feels like no one around me   39  what I'm going through.

My children were  40  to me.I put all my energy into   41  both of them and doing all types of activities with them, even sometimes at the  42 of my own best interests.I understand they grow up and need their _43 ,but for some reason I just can't seem to let go.I am go _ 44  that they're establishing their own lives,   45 I get so depressed whenever I have even a simple _46 of them.I've been crying for over a week now.I really don't know what to do to make this  47 go away.I can't even walk by either one's room without bursting into tears.I don't understand why I'm unable to _48 this sense of great loss.I'm  49  that I need to move on with my own life and find  _50 things to devote my attention to, but I _51 being a mom and spending time on my children.I've    52  adopting a child but it's _53  atthe moment for me considering my poor health.

I'm just thankful to have found this website and found there are others who are  54 similar problems.It helps to   55 I'm not crazy or overreacting.Thank you for sharing your problems and showing others like myself this isn’t so abnormal.

1.

A.join

B.visit

C.contact

D.lead

 

2.

A.afraid

B.proud

C.ashamed

D.guilty

 

3.

A.hardly

B.even

C.almost

D.truly

 

4.

A.reminds

B.regrets

C.understands

D.questions

 

5.

A.everything

B.everyone

C.nothing

D.anyone

 

6.

A.persuading

B.raising

C.paying

D.charging

 

7.

A.mercy

B.distance

C.sight

D.cost

 

8.

A.freedom

B.country

C.career

D.house

 

9.

A.anxious

B.embarrassed

C.amazed

D.happy

 

10.

A.if

B.and

C.but

D.unless

 

11.

A.thought

B.look

C.impression

D.idea

 

12.

A.moment

B.decision

C.feeling

D.event

 

13.

A.recognize

B.realize

C.achieve

D.overcome

 

14.

A.afraid

B.aware

C.doubtful

D.confident

 

15.

A.expensive

B.great

C.new

D.simple

 

16.

A.forgot

B.tried

C.stopped

D.enjoyed

 

17.

A.admitted

B.considered

C.suspected

D.remembered

 

18.

A.impossible

B.disappointing

C.worthy

D.surprising

 

19.

A.researching

B.experiencing

C.imitating

D.recording

 

20.

A.hear

B.imagine

C.know

D.say

 

 

In the kitchen of my mother’s houses there has always been a wooden stand(木架)with a small notepad(记事本)and a hole for a pencil.

I’m looking for paper on which to note down the name of a book I am recommending to my mother. Over forty years since my earliest memories of the kitchen pad and pencil, five houses later, the current paper and pencil look the same as they always did. Surely it can’t be the same pencil? The pad is more modern, but the wooden stand is definitely the original one.

“I’m just amazed you still have the same stand for holding the pad and pencil after all these year.” I say to her, walking bank into the living-room with a sheet of paper and the pencil. “You still use a pencil. Can’t you afford a pen?”

My mother replies a little sharply. “It works perfectly well. I’ve always kept the stand in the kitchen. I never knew when I might want to note down an idea, and I was always in the kitchen in these days.”

Immediately I can picture her, hair wild, blue housecoat covered in flour, a wooden spoon in one hand, the pencil in the other, her mouth moving silently. My mother smiles and says, “One day I was cooking and watching baby Pauline, and I had a brilliant thought, but the stand was empty. One of the children must have taken the paper. So I just picked up the breadboard and wrote it all down on the back. It turned out to be a real breakthrough for solving the mathematical problem I was working on.”

This story—which happened before I was born—reminds me how extraordinary my mother was, and is, as a gifted mathematician. I feel embarrassed that I complain about not having enough child-free time to work. Later, when my mother is in the bathroom, I go into her kitchen and turn over the breadboards. Sure enough, on the back of the smallest one, are some penciled marks I recognize as mathematics. Those symbols have traveled unaffected through fifty years, rooted in the soil of a cheap wooden breadboard, invisible(看不到的)exhibits at every meal.

1.Why has the author’s mother always kept the notepad and pencil in the kitchen?

A.To leave messages.                      B.To list her everyday tasks.

C.To note down maths problems.             D.To write down a flash of inspiration.

2. What is the author’s original opinion about the wooden stand?

A. It has great value for the family.

B. It needs to be replaced by a better one.

C. It brings her back to her lonely childhood.

D .It should be passed on to the next generation.

3. The author feels embarrassed for_______.

A. blaming her mother wrongly.

B. giving her mother a lot of trouble.

C. not making good use of time as her mother did.

D. not making any breakthrough in her field.

4. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A .The mother is successful in her career.

B. The family members like traveling.

C. The author had little time to play when young.

D. The marks on the breadboard have disappeared.

5. In the author’s mind ,her mother is_________.

A. strange in behavior.             B. keen on her research.

C. fond of collecting old things.      D. careless about her appearance.

 

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