My wife and I used to feel that it was impossible to be a true friend to someone whose name we didn’t know. How wrong we were! Years of Sunday-morning bus trips through the city with the same group of “nameless” people have changed our thinking. Before the bus takes off, we all join in a conversation: where’s the silent woman who sits up front and never responds to our cheery greetings? Here she comes. Her worn clothing suggests she doesn’t have much money to spare, but she always takes an extra cup of coffee for the driver.
We get smiles from a Mexican couple as they get on the bus hand in hand. When they get off, they’re still holding hands. The woman was pregnant late last year, and one day her change of shape confirmed that she’d delivered the child. We even felt a little pride at the thought of our extended family.
For many months, our only sadness lay in our inability to establish the same friendship with the silent woman at the front of the bus. Then, one evening, we went to a fish restaurant. We were shown to a table alongside someone sitting alone. It was the woman from the bus.
We greeted her with friendly familiarity we’d shown all year, but this time her face softened, then a shy smile. When she spoke, the words escaped awkwardly from her lips. All at once we realized why she hadn’t spoken to us before. Talking was hard for her.
Over dinner; we learned the stay of a single mother with a disabled son who was receiving special care away from home. She missed him desperately, she explained.
“I love him… and he loves me, even though he doesn’t express it very well,” she murmured. “Lots of us have that problem, don’t we? We don’t say what we want to say, what we should be saying. And that’s not good enough.”The candles flared on our tables. Our fish had never tasted better. But the atmosphere grew pleasant, and when we parted as friends—we shared names.
【小题1】Which of the following might be the best title of this passage?

A.Friends of the Road
B.The Silent Woman on the Bus
C.Going to Work by Bus
D.Different Kinds of Friendship
【小题2】All the following statements can describe the woman except ______.
A.poorB.warm -heartedC.silentD.cold
【小题3】The underlined word “establish” in the third paragraph probably has the same      meaning as              
A.keepB.discoverC.set upD.accept
【小题4】Why did the woman usually keep silence while taking the bus?
A.She was worried about her disabled son.
B.She was sad to see the happy Mexican couple us a single mother.
C.She had difficulty in expressing herself.
D.She was only interested in the bus driver.
【小题5】The woman had the same problem with her son in the way that ______.
A.they both disabled people
B.they both had some difficulty in expressing
C.they both liked bus travel
D.they both brought interest to the passengers

Renata Di Pietro was studying to be an opera singer. But at 23, while on a music scholarship at the University of Iowa in 1976, her sight began to fail. Soon, it became increasingly difficult to read scores and pick up hand signals from conductors, and the gifted singer was forced to drop out.

After moving to Cleveland, Georgia in 2005, Di Pietro relied on guide dogs to get around. Over the years, she became depressed when she’d lose one of the dogs, who had become her best friend, to old age or death. “It’s very painful, because you love each one,” she says.

In 2009, Di Pietro was intrigued by information from a friend that miniature horses typically live for at least 30 years and make calm and strong guides. She started with a male horse, but he was too hard to control. Angel came next, a mini white female horse Di Pietro has mostly trained herself. “Horses have the ability to avoid the things in the way,” she says. “If I am about to run into something, she slides her body in front of me.”

Di Pietro, now 59, has taught her guide horse to make some sounds with her hoof (马蹄)when she comes to stairs. “Angel can find a chair and locate the nearest door for me,” Di Pietro says. Currently, she’s training Angel to pull her wheelchair and to fetch.

Despite her disability, Di Pietro still sings, performing with her husband, musician Carl Hummer, at special events. Angel is always by her side. “I fight a battle every day to take courage to engage the world,” Di Pietro says. “Angel is my warhorse. We fight that battle together.”

1.Why did Di Pietro have to give up her studying in the university?

A.She disliked her major in music.

B.She failed to get high scores.

C.She couldn’t understand hand signals from conductors.

D.She found it difficult to see things clearly.

2.What does the underlined word “intrigued” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A.Puzzled.        B. Interested.        C. Satisfied.         D. Frightened.

3.Angel can do a lot of things for Di Pietro now EXCEPT_________.

A.supporting her in case of her falling

B. helping her find a chair to sit on

C. keeping her company every day

D. fighting with her against others

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

A.Caring and strong-minded.               B. Honest and responsible.

C. Kind and helpful.                      D. Ambitious and sensitive.

 

请阅读下列应用文及相关信息,并按照要求匹配信息。请在答题卡上将对应题号的相应选项字母涂黑。

A. Busy parents? Bored children? Do you want something educational to entertain your children while you do something else? This is the most popular book for the under-fives. Wonderful stories and beautiful pictures. They are promised to be quiet when they open the book. What’s more, it is cheap.

 

B. Written by Bill Poole, CEO, president, and founder of Life Lead International, it is a good choice for your children. With an animated fable, the Journey to Newland storybook provides readers with a cast of memorable characters, a captivating story, and a common language to deal with difficult and often emotionally sensitive issues in negotiating change within their organizations.

C. Sorts out some misunderstandings and common confusions of the English language with practical savvy and occasional sass. The Word Book from Writers.com answers simple questions succinctly (is it discreet? or discrete? sensual or sensuous?). Other answers go a step further—with entertaining forays into the quirks and fascinations of English.

D. IELTS consists of four parts: listening, reading, writing and speaking. Listening is very important. Are you confident? Have you made well preparation? IELTS Listening is helpful for your preparation for IELTS, which is supposed to enable you to obtain an overall score.

 

E. As the world's most popular automotive magazine, Car and Driver informs and entertains people who like cars. It offers the highest quality vehicle tests in the business by applying a discerning eye to every car, pickup truck, van, and sport-utility vehicle that is marketed for consumers. The magazine also covers the latest developments in technology, which affect automobiles and driving.

F. Susan Weinschenk’s excellent ideas on making a perfect speech are so effective that once you own the book, you will become a good speaker. How to organize, how to present, how to conquer your audience become so easy. Speakers will become confident with the guidance of the book.

请阅读以下的人员资料,依据不同人员的需求,进行匹配。

1. Susan comes from China. As a middle school student, she wrote quite a lot of short stories, some of which were published in the newspaper. But sometimes she is confused when she comes across some words and phrases. She wants to find something to help her to sort out the misunderstandings and common confusions of the English language.

2.Arthur has been working in China for about two years. Now he needs a car, for he has to send his daughter to school before he goes to work. Before that he has to collect all kinds of information about cars so as to make a good choice.

3. Ron’s wife is in hospital. He has to take care of the four-year-old John and do all the housework. But John follows him all the time. Ron feels tired and he wants to find something suitable for John, which should be educational and cheap.

4. Li Ming tends to enter the training for IELTS for immigration purpose next term. But he is afraid that his listening is not good enough. He needs more special training on his listening to make well preparations for the IELTS.

5. Alice is now studying in China, and she is especially interested in making a speech. She is invited to make a speech to introduce IELTS for her new classmates next week. She needs a book to help her improve her speech.    

 

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