In the fall of 1985, I was a bright-eyed girl heading off to Howard University to study law, aiming at a legal career and dreaming of sitting on a Supreme Court bench somewhere. Twenty-one years later I am still a bright-eyed dreamer and one with quite a different tale to tell.

My grandma, an amazing woman, graduated from college at the age of 65. She was the first in our family to reach that goal. But one year after I started college, she developed cancer. I made the choice to withdraw from college to care for her. It meant that school and my personal dream would have to wait.

Then I got married with another dream: building my family with a combination of adopt and biological children. In 1999, we adopted our first son. To lay eyes on him was fantastic and very emotional. A year later came our second adopted boy. Then followed son No.3. In 2003, I gave birth to another boy.

You can imagine how busy I became, raising four boys under the age of 8. Our home was a complete zoo--a joyous zoo. Not surprisingly, I never did make it back to college full-time. But I never gave up on the dream either. I had only one choice: to find a way. That meant taking as few as one class each semester.

The hardest part was feeling guilty about the time I spent away from the boys. They often wanted me to stay home with them. There certainly were times I wanted to quit, but I knew I should set an example for them to follow through the rest of their lives.

In 2007, I graduated from the University of North Carolina. It took me over 21 years to get my college degree!

I am not special, just single-minded. It always struck me that when you're looking at a big challenge from the outside it looks huge, but when you're in the midst of it, it just seems normal. Everything you want won't arrive in your life on one day. It's a process. Remember: little steps add up to big dreams.

1.When the author went to Howard University, her dream was to be______.

A. a writer B. a teacher C. a judge D. a doctor

2.Why did the author quit school in her second year of college?

A. She wanted to study by herself.

B. She fell in love and got married.

C. She suffered from a serious illness.

D. She decided to look after her grandma.

3.What can we learn about the author from Paragraphs 4 and 5?

A. She was busy but happy with her family life.

B. She ignored her guilty feeling for her sons.

C. She wanted to remain a full-time housewife.

D. She was too confused to make a correct choice.

4.Which of the following can best describe the author?

A. Caring and determined. B. Honest and responsible.

C. Brave and sensitive. D. Independent and single-minded.

Now I’d like to talk to you about your final exam. The exam will be held next Thursday, the last day of the exam week. Remember to bring two of three pens in case you run out of ink. And unlike the midterm exam, this test will not include multiple --- choice questions; it will consist entirely of essays(文章). You’ll have to answer three of the five essay questions. The exam will be comprehensive (全面的), which means you’ll be responsible for all of the subject matters we covered in class this term, I would suggest you review your midterm exam as well as textbooks and your class notes. The final exam will count as 50 percent of your grade of the course. The research project (项目) will count as 20 percent and the midterm exam 30 percent. I’ll be in my office almost all day next Tuesday. If you run into any problems, please drop in. Good luck to you and I’ll see you on Tuesday.

1.When will the final exam take place?

A.On Tuesday

B.On a Wednesday

C.On a Thursday

D.On a Friday

2.What will be included in the exam?

A.There will be only multiple-choice questions.

B.The exam will contain both multiple-choice and essay questions.

C.The exam will have an oral and a written section.

D.There will be only essay questions.

3.Why does the teacher call the exam comprehensive?

A.It will be easy to understand.

B.Students will be tested on all the material discussed in class.

C.It will cover topics from a wide variety of subjects.

D.Students must complete all parts of it.

4.The underlined phrase run into probably means .

A.go into

B.meet somebody unexpectedly

C.come up against something with force

D.come across

阅读下列短文,从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中,选出最佳选项。

A glass a day keeps obesity at bay.Alcohol has always been thought to cause weight gain because of its high sugar content, but new research suggests a glass a day could form part of a diet.Looking at past studies they found that, while heavy drinkers do put on weight, those who drink in moderation can actually lose weight.

A spokesman for the research team at Navarro University in Spain says, “Light to moderate alcohol intake, especially of wine, may be more likely to protect against, rather than promote, weight gain”.The International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research reviewed the findings and agreed with most of the conclusions, particularly that current data do not clearly indicate if moderate drinking increases weight.

Boston University’s Dr.Harvey Finkel found that the biologic mechanisms (生物学机制) relating alcohol to changes in body weight are not properly understood. His team pointed out the strong protective effects of moderate drinking on the risk of getting conditions like diabetes(糖尿病),which relate to increasing obesity.Some studies suggest that even very obese people may be at lower risk of diabetes if they are moderate drinkers.

The group says alcohol provides calories that are quickly absorbed into the body and are not stored in fat, and that this process could explain the differences in its effects from those of other foods.They agree that future research should be directed towards assessing the roles of different types of alcoholic drinks, taking into consideration drinking patterns and including the past tendency of participants to gain weight.

For now there is little evidence that consuming small to moderate amounts of alcohol on a regular basis increases one’s risk of becoming obese.What’s more, a study three years ago suggested that reveratrol, a compound present in grapes and red wine, destroys fat cells.

1.The passage is mainly for those ______.

A. who produce wine

B. who are eager to lose weight

C. who go on a diet

D. who have a drinking habit

2.The underlined phrase “in moderation” in the first paragraph means ______.

A. properly B. carefully

C. excitedly D. frequently

3.Why has alcohol been thought to cause weight gain?

A. Because its calories are stored in fat.

B. Because it is rich in sugar.

C. Because it changes drinking patterns.

D. Because it increases the risk of diabetes.

4.What can we learn from the passage?

A. The specific roles of different types of alcoholic drinks are very clear.

B. Resveratrol is proved to increase the risk of becoming fat.

C. The research found moderate drinking has a strong protective effect.

D. Current data clearly show that moderate drinking increases weight.

5.What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows?

A. How to do some easy experiments.

B. How to prove the finding mentioned above.

C. How to make wine in a healthy way.

D. How to reduce the calories contained in wine.

根据短文内容,从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为

多余选项。

Winter begins in the north on December 22nd.People and animals have been doing what they always do to prepare for the colder months, Sqzeirrels, for example, have been busy gathering nuts from trees. 1.They examined differences between red squirrels and gray squirrels in the American state of Indiana. The scientists wanted to know how these differences could affect the growth of black walnut(黑胡桃)trees2. The black walnut tree is also a central part of some hardwood forests.

Rob Swihart of Purdue University did the study with Jake Goheen, a former Purdue student nowat the University of New Mexico. The two researchers estimate that several times as many walnuts grow when gathered by gray squirrels as compared to red squirrels.Gray squirrels and red squirrels do not store nuts and seeds in the same way. Gray squirrels bury nuts one at a time in a number of places.3. So some nuts remain in the ground. Conditions are right for them to develop and grow the following spring.Red squirrels, however, store large groups of nuts above ground.

4.But Professor Swihart says their numbers began to decrease as more forests were cut for agriculture. Red squirrels began to spread through the state during the past century. The researchers say red squirrels are native to forests that stay green all year, unlike walnut trees. They say the cleaning of forest land for agriculture has helped red squirrels invade(涌入)Indiana.5.

A. Gray squirrels are native to Indiana.

B. But they seldom remember where they buried every nut.

C. Red squirrels bury nuts in a different way.

D. The black walnut is the nut of choice for both kinds of squirrels.

E. Jake Goheen calls them a sign of an environmental problem more than a cause.

F. Scientists are worried that they will drive away the gray squirrels.

G. Well, scientists have been busy gathering information about what the squirrels

do with the food they collect.

Our plan was to drive into Cambridge, catch the 7:34 train to Liverpool Street Station, then to separate and meet again for lunch. We should have arrived at Liverpool at 9:19, but due to a typical London fog, the train had to move along so slowly that it was not until 10:30 that it got there. In spite of our late arrival, Joan, my wife’s sister, decided that she would go to see the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London while we went shopping. It was only after her sister had disappeared into the fog that my wife realized that we hadn’t decided where we should meet for lunch. Since I had our three tickets for the concert in my pocket, this was indeed a problem. There seemed to be nothing we could do except taking a taxi to the Tower of London, and try to find her there. Needless to say, we didn’t find her.

It was now one o’clock, and the concert began at 2:30. “Perhaps she will think of waiting outside the concert hall,” suggested my wife hopefully. By this time the fog was so thick that road traffic had to stop, and the only way to get there was by underground railway. Hand in hand we felt our way along the road to where we thought the nearest station should be. An hour later we were still trying to find it. Just as I was about to lose my temper completely when we met a blind man tapping his way confidently through the fog. With his help we found Tower Hill tube station just fifty yards down the road.

By now it was far too late even to try to get to the concert hall before the performance began at 2:30, so we decided to return to Cambridge. It took seven long hours instead of the usual two to make that journey. Nor were we able to get any food and drink on the train. Tired and hungry we finally reached home at ten, opening the door to the sound of the telephone bell. It was Joan; she had seen the Crown Jewels, had managed to get another ticket for concert, and had had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant near the hotel where she decided to stay for the night. Now she was ringing to discover whether we had had an equally successful day.

1.Why was Joan separated from her sister and her brother-in-law?

A. they could not see each other because of the fog.

B. Joan had not seen Crown Jewels.

C. They planned to do different things until lunch time.

D. The writer didn’t want to go to the concert.

2.What did the writer plan to do in the afternoon?

A. Go to the concert. B. See the Crown Jewels.

C. Return to Cambridge. D. Go shopping.

3.The reason why they didn’t all meet for lunch was that _______.

A. They lost their way in the fog

B. they forgot to make necessary arrangement

C. they waited at different places and didn’t meet each other

D. the couple couldn’t find the underground station

4.It’s quite clear that for Joan the trip to London had been ________.

A. spilt by the fog B. quite tiring

C. rather disappointing D. very enjoyable

Chocolate is good for your heart, skin and brain. Usually, people think that chocolate is bad for their health. They describe chocolate as “something to die for” or say “death by chocolate”. Now they should bite their tongues! Evidence is showing that some kinds of chocolate are actually good for you in the following ways:

A happier heart

Scientists at Harvard University recently examined 136 studies on cocoa— the main ingredient in chocolate— and found that it does seem to strengthen the heart. Studies have shown heart benefits from increased blood flow. These benefits are the result of cocoa’s chemicals, which seem to prevent both cell damage and inflammation(炎症)。

Better blood pressure

If yours is high, chocolate may help. Jeffrey Blumberg from Tufts University recently found that people with high blood pressure who ate 3.5 ounces of dark chocolate per day for two weeks saw their blood pressure drop quickly.

Muscle magic

Chocolate milk may help you recover after a hard workout(锻炼). In a small study at Indiana University, people who drank chocolate milk between workouts did better on a tiredness test than those who had some sports drinks.

Better for your skin

German researchers gave 24 women a half-cup of special cocoa every day. After three months, the women’s skin was moister and smoother. The research shows that chocolate helps protect and increase blood flow to the skin, improving its appearance.

Brain gains.

It sounds almost too good to be true, but research suggests that chocolate may improve your memory, attention span, reaction time, and problem-solving skills by increasing blood flow to the brain.

1.What’s the meaning of “bite their tongues” in the first paragraph?

A. Stop talking. B. Speak up.

C. Think of it. D. Listen to it.

2.What’s the meaning of the underlined sentence in the fourth paragraph?

A. Sports drinks are better than chocolate milk.

B. sports drinks can make people easy to be tired.

C. Drinking milk can keep you energetic at work.

D. we should drink chocolate milk between times when we work hard.

3.What’s the best title for this passage?

A. Chocolate, a Healthy Food

B. More Chocolate, Less Health

C. Chocolate and Blood Pressure

D. Advice on Eating Chocolate

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