Margaret, married with two small children, has been working for the last seven years as a night cleaner, cleaning offices in a big building.

She trained as a nurse, but had to give it up when her elder child became seriously ill. “I would have liked to go back to it, but the shifts(工作班次) are all wrong for me, as I have to be home to get the children up and off to school.”

So she works as a cleaner instead, from 9 a.m. till 6 a.m. five nights a week for just £90, before tax and insurance. “It’s  better than it was  last year, but I still think that people who work ‘unsocial hours’ should get a bit extra.”

The hours she’ s chosen to work meant that she sees plenty of the children, but very little of her husband. However, she doesn’t think that puts any pressure on their relationship.

Her work isn’t physically very hard, but it’s not exactly pleasant, either. “I do get angry with people who leave their offices like a place for raising pigs. If they realized people like me have to do it, perhaps they’d be a bit more careful.”

The fact that she’s working all night doesn’t worry Margaret at all. Unlike some dark buildings at night, the building where she works is fully lit, and the women work in groups of three. “Since I’ve got to be here, I try to enjoy myself——and I usually do, because of the other girls. We all have a good laugh, so the time never drags.”

Another challenge Margaret has to face is the reaction of other people when she tells them what she does for a living. “They think you’re a cleaner because you don’t know how to read and write,” said Margaret. “I used to think what my parents would say if they knew what I’d been doing, but I don’t think that way any more. I don’t dislike the work though I can’t say I’m mad about it.”

Margaret quit her job as a nurse because _______

A. she wanted to earn more money to support her family

B. she had suffered a lot of mental pressure

C. she needed the right time to look after her children

D. she felt tired of taking care of patients

Margaret gets angry with people who work in the office because Margaret _______.

A. they never clean their offices

B. they look down upon cleaners

C. they never do their work carefully

D. they always make a mess in their offices

When at work, Margaret feels _______.

A. light-hearted because of her fellow workers

B. happy because the building is fully lit

C. tired because of the heavy workload

D. bored because time passed slowly

The underlined part in the last paragraph implies that Margaret’s parents would _______.

A. help care for her children

B. regret what they had said

C. show sympathy for her

D. feel disappointed in her

As a solo artist, Brightman has sold 26 million albums and two million DVDs in 34 countries. Her musical styles put opera, pop and jazz together. She is popular in the States but not here(Britain) – the image of her and her second husband, Andrew Lloyd Webber (he much older, she his muse) seems for ever frozen.

The 47-year-old singer talks about the new album Symphony that came out of a “very dark time”, including her decision to give up trying to have children. “People have suggested I could adopt,” Brightman says. “But work is central to my life now. And so I am going to put it to one side. After a while not having children becomes the norm and perhaps that might sound alarming, to parents especially, but I have never known anything different. I’m not hurt by not having children. My life and career are incredibly rich.”

Talking about growing up in a large family in Berkhamsted (father a property developer who later committed suicide), she says: “I was gifted as a child, and very musical. I seemed to be good at anything to do with the arts. At 5 I understood the music I was dancing to and had an eye for costume.” She first appeared in a West End musical at 11 and hated boarding school.

Brightman led the saucy dance troupe(辣妹三人舞) Hot Gossip and had her first hit with I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper in 1978. At 18 she married a music manager called Andrew Graham Stewart. “I was probably in love but I can’t remember. Girls change such a lot between 18 and 22. It didn’t really work out.” In 1981 she was spotted by Lloyd Webber. She became his leading lady in Song and Dance, Requiem and Phantom of the Opera. They married in 1984.

Brightman says she felt hostility(敌意) “from the beginning. I haven’t tried to understand it. I’ve done very well everywhere else, especially the US, where I now live, I just accept it for what it is. The more you are away from Britain, the more you appreciate it. But I don’t miss it, although I miss my family. Our profession can be uncomfortable but I enjoy what I do. I get on with it.”

The first paragraph tells us that _____.

  A. Brightman is very popular around the world except in America

  B. Brightman’s musical style is a mixture of opera, pop and jazz

  C. the British people don’t like her for her style of music

  D. Brightman is much older than Andrew Lloyd Webber

Brightman decided to give up having children because _____.

  A. she could adopt one    B. her life and career were unbelievably rich without children

  C. she felt it normal not to have children   D. she was too busy

The following statements are true except ______.

  A. Brightman first appeared in a West End musical at 5

  B. Brightman disliked life on the campus

  C. Brightman was very gifted when she was young

  D.The saucy dance troupe made Brightman famous

The underlined word in the fourth paragraph probably means _____.

  A. located     B. admired     C. followed     D. found

What does the author try to say in the last paragraph by quoting Brightman’s words?

  A. Brightman has to accept the fact that she is liked in Britain

  B. Brightman lives in America but she loves her own country

  C. The British coldness towards Brightman led to her hatred to her homeland

  D. Brightman was at a loss why she was not welcome in Britain

When my grandfather died, my 83-year-old grandmother, once so full of life, slowly began to fade. No longer able to manage a home of her own, she moved in with my mother, where she was visited often by other members of her large, loving family. Although she still had her good days, it was often hard to arouse her interest.

But one chilly December afternoon three years ago, my daughter Meagan, then eight, and I were visiting her, when she noticed that Meagan was carrying her favorite doll.

“I, too, had a special doll when I was a little girl,” she told a wide-eyed Meagan. “I got it one Christmas when I was about your age. I lived in an old farmhouse in Maine, with Mom, Dad and my four sisters, and the very first gift I opened that Christmas was the most beautiful doll you’d ever want to see.”

“She had an elegant, hand-painted face, and her long brown hair was pulled back with a big pink bow. Her eyes were blue, and they opened and closed. I remember she had a body of kidskin, and her arms and legs bent at the joints.”

GG’s voice dropped low, taking on an almost respectful tone. “My doll was dressed in a pretty pink gown, decorated with fine lace. … Getting such a fine doll was like a miracle for a little farm girl like me — my parents must have had to sacrifice so much to afford it. But how happy I was that morning!”

GG’s eyes filled and her voice shook with emotion as she recalled that Christmas of long ago. “I played with my doll all morning long. And then it happened. My mother called us to the dining room for Christmas dinner and I laid my new doll down gently on the hall table. But as I went to join the family at the table, I heard a loud crash.”

“I hardly had to turn around — I knew it was my precious doll. And it was. Her lace skirt had hung down from the table just enough for my baby sister to reach up and pull on it. When I ran in, there lay my beautiful doll on the floor, her face smashed into a dozen pieces. She was gone forever.”

A few years later, GG’s baby sister was also gone, she told Meagan, a victim of pneumonia(肺炎). Now the tears in her eyes spilled over — tears, I knew, not only for a lost doll and a lost sister, but for a lost time.

Silent for the rest of the visit, Meagan was no sooner in the car going home than she exclaimed, “Mom, I have a great idea! Let’s get GG a new doll for Christmas. Then she won’t cry when she thinks about it.”

My heart filled with pride as I listened to my sympathetic little daughter. But where would we find a doll to match GG’s fond memories?

Where there’s a will, as they say, there’s a way. When I told my best friends, Liz and Chris, about my problem, Liz put me in touch with a local doll-make. From a doll supply house I ordered a long brown hair and a kidskin body to copy the outfit GG had so lovingly described. Liz volunteered to put the doll together, and Chris helped me make the doll’s outfit. Meagan wrote the story of the lost doll by giving examples.

Finally our creation was finished. To our eyes it was perfect. But there was no way it could be exactly like the doll GG had loved so much and lost. Would she think it looked anything like it?

On Christmas Eve, Meagan and I carried our happily packed gift to GG, where she sat surrounded by children, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. “It’s for you,” Meagan said, “but first you have to read the story that goes with it.”

GG no sooner got through the first page than her voice cracked and she was unable to go on, but Meagan took over where she left off. Then it was time to open her present.

I’ll never forget the look on GG’s face as she lifted the doll and held it to her chest. Once again her tears fell, but this time they were tears of joy. Holding the doll in her frail arms, she repeated over and over again, “She’s exactly like my old doll, exactly like her.” 

And perhaps she wasn’t saying that just to be kind. Perhaps however impossible it seemed, we had managed to produce a close copy of the doll she remembered. But as I watched my eight-year-old daughter and her great-grandmother examining the doll together, I thought of a likelier explanation. What GG really recognized, perhaps, was the love that inspired the gift. And love, wherever it comes from, always looks the same.

1.GG moved in with her daughter because____.

A.she wanted to live with a large family

B.she was not able to live on her own due to her weakness

C.her husband passed away

D.she thought it was the children’s obligation to take care of her

2.Why did GG become very emotional on a December afternoon?

A.Because she saw her great granddaughter’s doll.

B.Because she recalled her dead parents.

C.Because she was surrounded by her offspring.

D.Because she felt lonely during the Christmas season.

3.What can we infer from Paragraph 5? 

A.GG’s doll was important and was a symbol of many things.

B.GG showed great respect for his husband’s love.

C.GG missed the great old days she spent with her family.

D.GG was grateful for her long life.

4.What happened to GG’s baby sister?

A.She envied her sister all her life.

B.She felt guilty for breaking GG’s doll and decided to go.

C.She left home at a young age.

D.She died of some disease at a young age.

5.Why did Meagan’s mum feel proud of her daughter?

A.Because she was clever.                  B.Because she was loving.

C.Because she was sensitive.                D.Because she was imaginative.

6.The main idea of the passage is that ____.

A.treating the elderly well is moral

B.it is impossible to copy the exact doll for the elderly

C.love, the permanent rhythm of life, will always remain in the elderly’s heart

D.physical comfort from children rather than psychological care is important

 

OLYMPIA, March 24—Luo Xuejuan, a swimming gold medalist at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, became the first Chinese person to relay the Olympic Flame in Greece on Monday, receiving the flame from the first Olympic torchbearer(火炬手), Greek Alexandros Nikolaidis.

   Despite her previous experience as a torchbearer in the Beijing leg of the Athens 2004 torch relay, Luo felt honored and proud of being chosen as the first Chinese torchbearer, the Xihua News Agency reported Luo as saying in an interview.

   She talked about the great responsibility that she felt, as she believed she was representing every Chinese athlete and even Chinese person by running her leg of the relay.

   Regarding missing the torch lighting ceremony because she had to be in an assigned location to wait for the flame, Luo felt no regret. “Even though I couldn’t see it, I was able to feel the flame light and knew that it was happening at a place nearby,” she said.

   Luo expressed her belief that even if people couldn’t communicate with words, the Olympic Flame enables the transmission of the Olympic spirit and brings smiles wherever it might go. In Luo’s mind, the Olympic spirit represents purity, competition, friendship, enthusiasm, peace and harmony.

1.Why didn’t Luo see the torch lighting ceremony?

A. She was late for the ceremony.

B. She was not allowed to go there.

C. She waited for the flame as the next torchbearer.

D. The ceremony took place at a place far away.

2. Choose the best explanation for the underlined word “leg” in Paragraph Three.

A. One of the long parts that connect the feet to the rest of the body.

B. The part of a pair of trousers.

C. One of the long thin parts on the bottom of a table.

D. One part of a journey or race.

3.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A. Luo Xuejuan was the first Olympic torchbearer in Greece.

B. Luo had never been selected as a torchbearer before.

C. Luo believed that the Olympic flame helped communication among people.

D. Luo felt regretful because she missed the torch lighting ceremony.

4.What’s the best title of the passage?

A. Luo Xuejuan: A Swimming Gold Medalist.

B. The Torch Lighting Ceremony

C. The Torch Relay Had Begun

D. Luo Xuejuan: the First Chinese Torchbearer of Athens Torch Relay

5.This passage is most likely to be seen in a        .

A. novel         

B. newspaper

C. magazine

D. textbook

 

 

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