Like any good mother,when Karen found out that another baby was on the way,she did what she could to help her 3-year-old son,Michael,prepare for a new baby. They find out that the new baby is going to be a girl,and day after day,night after night,Michael sings to his sister in Mummy's stomach.

  Finally,Michael's little sister is born. But she is in serious condition. With alarm in the night,the am?bulance rushes the infant to the neonatal (初生的) in?tensive care unit at St. Mary's Hospital,Knoxville,Tennessee. The days go by. The little girl gets worse. The paediatric (儿禾斗的) specialist tells the parents, "There is very little hope. Be prepared for the worst."

  Karen and her husband contact a local cemetery about a burial plot. They have fixed up a special room in their home for the new baby,but now they plan a funeral. Michael keeps begging his parents to let him see his sister. "I want to sing to her," he says.

  Karen makes up her mind. She will take Michael whether they like it or not. If he doesn't see his sister now,he may never see her alive.

  She dresses him in an oversized suit and marches him into ICU. He looks like a walking laundry basket,but the head nurse recognizes him as a child and shouts,"Get that kid out of here now!No children are allowed. Never disturb patients here. ” The mother ri?ses up strongly and says, " He is not leaving until he sings to his sister!"

  Karen leads Michael to his sister's bedside. He gazes at the tiny infant losing the battle to live. And he begins to sing. In the purehearted voice of a 3-year-old boy,Michael sings, " You are my sunshine,my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey."" Instantly the baby girl responds. The pulse rate be?comes calm and steady.

  The next day,the very next day,the little girl is well enough to go home!Woman's Day magazine calls it "the miracle of a brother's song". The medical staff just call it a miracle. Karen calls it a miracle of God's love !

  Never give up on the people you love.

1. What may the underlined words "the infant" in Par?agraph 2 refer to?

   A. The baby. B. Karen.

   C. Mary. D. Michael.

2. What do we know about the little sister after she was born?

   A. She was driven to St. Mary's shop.

   B. A doctor came to see her in her house.

   C. She was very thin and couldn't speak.

   D. She was in great danger.

3. What do we know about the head nurse?

   A. The head nurse was careful.

   B. The head nurse was rude.

   C. The head nurse was responsible.

   D. The head nurse had no sympathy.

4. What is the main idea of the text?

   A. A boy's singing saved his sister's life.

   B. The little girl is well enough to go home.

   C. Michael's little sister is born with a serious disease.

   D. No children are allowed to enter the intensive care unit.


  Mona Lisa,the mysterious woman in Leonardo da Vinci's 16       th century masterpiece,had just given birth to her second son when she sat for the paint?ing,a French art expert said on Tuesday. The discovery was made by a team of Canadian scientists who used special infrared (红夕卜线的) and threedimen?sional (三维的) technology to study the paint layers on the work,which now sits in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

  Bruno Mottin of the French Museums' Centre for Research and Restora?tion said that on very close examination of the painting it became clear that Mona Lisa's dress was covered in a thin transparent gauze veil (透明面纱) .

  "This type of gauze dress was typical of the kind worn in early 16th cen?tury in Italy by women who were pregnant or who had just given birth. This is something that had never been seen up to now because the painting was always judged to be dark and difficult to examine," he told a news conference.

  "We can now say that this painting by Leonardo da Vinci was painted in memory of the birth of the second son of Mona Lisa,which helps us to date it more precisely to around 1503. " The young woman with the ambiguous half smile has been identified as Lisa Gherardini,wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo. She had five children.

  "People always wrote that Mona Lisa had allowed her hair to hang freely over her shoulders. This greatly surprised historians because letting your hair hang freely during the Renaissance was typical of young girls and women of poor virtue (美德) ”,he said.

  The team had hoped to discover more details about Leonardo's painting tech?niques,which the artist used to create a hazy (朦胧的) effect. But scientist John Taylor said the team had been disappointed by the lack of brush stroke detail on the painting.

5. According to the passage,Mona Lisa was .

   A. a woman of poor virtue

   B. Leonardo's second wife

   C. a woman who was pregnant

   D. the wife of Florentine merchant

6. We can infer from the passage that .

   A. the research has been carried out in France

   B. Mona Lisa was painted in 1503

   C. in Leonardo's time women could only wear short hair

   D. the most difficult part is to identify the paint layers

7. What is probably the best title for the passage?

   A. Mona Lisa,the mysterious woman

   B. Mona Lisa was a new mother

   C. Great discovery in painting

   D. Leonardo's painting technique

8. The information reported in the passage was first got from .

   A. a newspaper

   B. the Internet

   C. a news conference

   D. the museum

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