题目内容
—It was very cold yesterday .
— .
A．So was it B．So it was C．It so was D．Was it so
B
阅读快车系列答案I began working in journalism(新闻工作) when I was eight. It was my mother’s idea. She wanted me to “make something” of myself, and decided I had better start young if I was to have any chance of keeping up with the competition.
With my load of magazines I headed toward Belleville Avenue. The crowds were there. There were two gas stations on the corner of Belleville and Union. For several hours I made myself highly visible, making sure everyone could see me and the heavy black letters on the bag that said THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. When it was supper time, I walked back home.
“How many did you sell, my boy?” my mother asked.
“None.”
“Where did you go?”
“The corner of Belleville and Union Avenues.”
“What did you do?”
“Stood on the corner waiting for somebody to buy a Saturday Evening Post.”
“You just stood there?”
“Didn’t sell a single one.”
“My God, Russell!”
Uncle Allen put in, “Well, I’ve decided to take the Post.” I handed him a copy and he paid me a nickel(五分镍币). It was the first nickel I earned.
Afterwards my mother taught me how to be a salesman. I would have to ring doorbells, address adults with self-confidence, and persuade them by saying that no one, no matter how poor, could afford to be without the Saturday Evening Post in the home.
One day, I told my mother I’d changed my mind. I didn’t want to make a success in the magazine business.
“If you think you can change your mind like this,” she replied, “you’ll become a good-for-nothing.” She insisted that, as soon as school was over, I should start ringing doorbells, selling magazines. Whenever I said no, she would scold me.
My mother and I had fought this battle almost as long as I could remember. My mother, dissatisfied with my father’s plain workman’s life, determined that I would not grow up like him and his people. But never did she expect that, forty years later, such a successful journalist as me would go back to her husband’s people for true life and love.
【小题1】 Why did the boy start his job young?
| A．He wanted to be famous in the future. |
| B．The job was quite easy for him. |
| C．His mother had high hopes for him. |
| D．The competition for the job was fierce. |
| A．excited | B．interested |
| C．ashamed | D．disappointed |
| A．She forced him to continue. |
| B．She punished him. |
| C．She gave him some money. |
| D．She changed her plan. |
| A．The war between the boy’s parents. |
| B．The arguing between the boy and his mother. |
| C．The quarrel between the boy and his customers. |
| D．The fight between the boy and his father. |
| A．The early life of a journalist. |
| B．The early success of a journalist. |
| C．The happy childhood of the writer. |
| D．The important role of the writer in his family. |
In a moment of personal crisis, how much help can you expect from a New York taxi driver? I began studying this question and found the answers interesting.
One morning I got into three different taxis and announced, “Well, it’s my first day back in New York in seven years. I’ve been in prison.” Not a single driver replied, so I tried again. “Yeah, I shot a man in Reno.” I explained, hoping the driver would ask me why, but nobody asked. The only response came from a Ghanaian driver, “Reno? That is in Nevada?”
Taxi drivers were uniformly sympathetic when I said I’d just been fired. “This is America,” a Haitian driver said. “One door is closed. Another is open.” He argued against my plan to burn down my boss’s house. A Pakistani driver even turned down a chance to profit from my loss of hope; he refused to take me to the middle of George Washington Bridge—a $20 trip. “Why you want to go there? Go home and relax. Don’t worry. Take a new job.”
One very hot weekday in July, while wearing a red ski mask and holding a stuffed pillowcase with the word “BANK” on it, I tried calling a taxi five times outside different banks. The driver picked me up every time. My ride with a Haitian driver was typical of the superb assistance I received.
“Let’s go across the park.” I said. “I just robbed the bank there. I got $25,000.”
“$25,000?” He asked.
“Yeah, you think it was wrong to take it?”
“No, man. I work 8 hours and I don’t make almost $70. If I can do that, I do it too.”
As we approached 86th and Lexington, I pointed to the Chemical Bank.
“Hey, there’s another bank,” I said, “Could you wait here a minute while I go inside?”
“No, I can’t wait. Pay me now.” His reluctance may have something to do with money—taxi drivers think the rate for waiting time is too low—but I think he wanted me to learn that even a bank robber can’t expect unconditional support.
【小题1】. From the Ghanaian driver’s response, we can infer that ____.
| A．he was indifferent to the killing | B．he was afraid of the author |
| C．he looked down upon the author | D．he thought the author was crazy |
| A．Because he was able to help the author to find a new job. |
| B．Because he wanted to go home and relax. |
| C．Because it was far away from his home. |
| D．Because he thought that the author would commit suicide. |
| A．The driver thought that the rate for waiting time was too low. |
| B．The driver thought it wrong to support a taxi rider unconditionally. |
C．The  driver was frightened and wanted to leave him as soon as possible. |
| D．The driver did not want to help a suspect to escape from a bank robbery. |
| A．They are ready to help you do whatever you want to. |
| B．they often refuse to pick up those who would kill themselves. |
| C．They are sympathetic with those who are out of work. |
| D．They work only for money. |
| A．how to please taxi drivers. |
| B．how to deal with taxi drivers |
| C．the attitudes of taxi drivers towards riders in personal trouble |
| D．the attitudes of taxi drivers towards troublesome taxi riders |
Today, there’s hardly an aspect of our life that isn’t being upended by the tons of information available on the hundreds of millions of sites crowding the Internet, not to mention its ability to keep us in constant touch with each other via electronic mail. “If the automobile and aerospace technology had exploded at the same pace as computer and information technology,” says Microsoft, “a new car would cost about $ 2 and go 600 miles on a small quantity of gas. And you could buy a Boeing 747 for the cost of a pizza.”
Probably the biggest payoff, however, is the billions of dollars the Internet is saving companies in producing goods and serving for the needs of their customers. Nothing like it has been seen since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when power-driven machines began producing more in a day than men could turn out in nearly a year. “We view the growth of the Internet and e-commerce as a global trend,” says Merrill Lynch, “along the lines of printing press, the telephone, the computer, and electricity.”
You would be hard pressed to name something that isn’t available on the Internet. Consider: books, health care, movie tickets, construction materials, baby clothes, stocks, cattle feed, music, electronics, antiques, tools, real estate, toys, autographs of famous people, wine and airline tickets. And even after you’ve moved on to your final resting place, there’s no reason those you love can’t keep in touch. A company called FinalThoughts.com offers a place for you to store “afterlife e-mails” you can send to Heaven with the help of a “guardian angel”.
Kids today are so computer literate that it in fact ensures the United States will remain the unchallenged leader in cyberspace for the foreseeable(能预测的) future. Nearly all children in families with incomes of more than $75,000 a year have home computers, according to a study by the David and Lucile Pa
ckard Foundation. Youngsters from ages 2 to 17 at all income levels have computers, with 52% of those connected to the Internet. Most kids use computers to play games (some for 30 hours or more a week), and many teenage girls think nothing of rushing home from school to have e-mail chats with friends they have just left.
What’s clear is that, whether we like it or not, the Internet is an
ever growing part of our lives and there is no turning back. “The Internet is just 20% invented,” says cyber pioneer Jake Winebaum. “The last 80% is happening now.”
【小题1】What can we learn from the Microsoft’s remark?
| A．Today’s cars and airplanes are extremely overpriced. |
B．Information technology i s developing at an amazing speed. |
| C．Information technology has reached the point where improvement is difficult. |
| D．There’s more competition in information technology industry than in car industry. |
| A．it saves companies huge amounts of money | B．it speeds up profit making |
| C．it brings people incredible convenience | D．it provides easy access to information |
| A．there are some genius ideas on the Internet | B．almost anything is available on the Internet |
| C．people can find good bargains on the Internet | D．some websites provide novel services to increase hits |
| A．There is a link between income and computer ownership. |
| B．Many American children don’t put computers to good use. |
| C．Studies show that boys are more computer literate than girls. |
| D．The U.S. will stay ahead in the information technology in years. |
| A．Some can tell you that he has changed their lives, while others think nothing of him. |
| B．Think nothing of it. It was my pleasure. |
| C．He thinks nothing of staying up all night in the Café bar. |
| D．He thinks nothing of the pain in his back for the moment. |
| A．The Internet is going to get firm hold of our lives some day. |
| B．The Internet is going to influence our lives even more greatly. |
| C．We should have a positive attitude towards the changes the Internet brings. |
| D．Children should be well prepared for the challenges in the information age. |