Several years ago, I had a huge falling out with one of my best friends. So huge, in fact, that now I can’t even remember what happened.
In the past nine years, I’ve seen her twice, and each time we’ve been polite but distant. And that troubles me because we were once inseparable. I’d like nothing more than to go back nine years, and continue our friendship. But how? How do you reconnect with friends you’ve lost throughout the years?
Linking to your past
The desire to reconnect with lost friends isn’t unusual. Why? Because friends link us to the past. “Friends from years ago are custodians (监护人) of our past,” says Sandy Sheehy.
Although you can share information about your past with friends you’ve met recently, you don’t have a shared history with them. So you wind up only telling them about your past, rather than sharing it with them.
But many people never try to reconnect. Women especially have trouble taking the first step. Shyness or fear that the other person doesn’t want to reconnect often stops many women. And that shouldn’t be. Your friends probably want to be in touch with you as much as you want to be in touch with them.
Searching for friends
Fortunately, finding lost friends isn’t as difficult as it once was, thanks to tools like the Internet. Our experts offer these suggestions for locating contact information:
Search Internet sites designed to locate people like classmates.com and switchboard.com.
Contact your high school or college alumni (校友) office to request current address information.
Surf online yellow pages. Check current phone records from your friend’s hometown.
Network with other friends who might have known your friend.
Get in touch with any of her relatives, if you know where they live. If you know where she works, find the company’s website and search the directory of personnel.

1.
What is the subject discussed in the passage?
1. A.
  How to make new friends.
2. B.
  How to rebuild friendship.
3. C.
  How to develop healthy friendship.
4. D.
  How to keep in touch with friends.
2.
The underlined sentence “friends from years ago are custodians of our past” in Paragraph 3 means _____.
1. A.
  years ago old friends kept something for us
2. B.
  in the past old friends took care of us
3. C.
  old friends are part of our life history
4. D.
  old friends know what wrongs we did
3.
What makes us unwilling to reconnect old friends?
1. A.
  Lack of money.
2. B.
  Busy time.
3. C.
  Regret and shame.
4. D.
  Fear and shyness.
4.
How can we make contact with the lost friends?
1. A.
  By asking other friends of the information on your lost friends.
2. B.
  By searching your friends’ telephone number on the Net.
3. C.
  By asking the local post office about your friends’ new address.
4. D.
  By putting an advertisement in your friends’ local town.

A funny thing happened on the way to the communications revolutions: we stopped talking to one another.
I was walking in the park with a friend recently，and his cell phone rang, interrupting our conversation. There we were, walking and talking on a beautiful sunny day and…I became invisible, absent from the conversation.
The telephone used to connect you to the absent. Now it makes people sitting next to you feel absent. Why is it that the more connected we get, the more disconnected I feel? Every advance in communications technology is a tragedy to the closeness of human interaction. With email and instant messaging over the Internet, we can now communicate without seeing or talking to one another, With voice mail, you can conduct entire conversations without ever reaching anyone. If my mom has a question, I just leave the answer on her machine.
As almost every contact we can imagine between human beings gets automated, the alienation index goes up. You can't even call a person to get the phone number of another person my more. Directory assistance is almost always fully automated.
I am not against modern technology. I own a cell phone, an ATM card a voice mail system, and an email account. Giving them up isn't wise…they're a great help to use. It's some of their possible consequences that make me feel uneasy.
More and more .I find myself hiding behind e-mail to do a job meant for conversation. Or being relieved that voice mail picked up because I didn't really have time to talk, The industry devoted to helping me keep in touch is making me lonelier…or at least facilitating my antisocial instincts.
So I've put myself on technology restriction: no instant messaging. with people who live near me，no cell phoning in the presence of friends, no letting the voice mail pick up when I'm at home.

1.
Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?
1. A.
  The Advance of Communications Technology
2. B.
  The Consequences of Modern Technology
3. C.
  The Story of Communications Revolution
4. D.
  The Automation of Modern Communications
2.
The sentence “Now it makes people sitting next to you feel absent，”means that .
1. A.
  the people sitting beside you have to go away to receive a phone call
2. B.
  you can hardly get in touch with the people sitting beside you
3. C.
  modem technology makes it hard for people to have a face-to-face talk
4. D.
  people can now go to work without going to the office
3.
The writer feels that the use of modern communications is .
1. A.
  encouraging
2. B.
  disappointing
3. C.
  satisfying
4. D.
  embarrassing
4.
The passage implies that .
1. A.
  modern technology is bridging the people.
2. B.
  modern technology is separating the people
3. C.
  modern technology is developing too fast
4. D.
  modern technology is interrupting our communications

It was Thanksgiving morning and in the crowded kitchen of my small home I was busy preparing the traditional Thanksgiving turkey when the doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw two small children in rags(破旧衣服) huddling together inside the storm door on the top step.
"Any old papers, lady? " asked one of them.
I was busy. I wanted to say "no" until I looked down at their feet. They were wearing thin little sandals(凉鞋), wet with heavy snow.
“Come in and I'll make you a cup of hot cocoa.”
They walked over and sat down at the table. Their wet sandals left marks upon the floor. I served them cocoa and bread with jam to fight against the cold outside. Then I went back to the kitchen and started again on my household budget.
The silence in the front room struck me. I looked in. The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked in a flat voice, "Lady, are you rich? "
"Am I rich? no!"
I looked at my shabby slipcovers(旧家具套). The girl put her cup back in its saucer (茶托;浅碟)carefully and said, "Your cups match your saucers." Her voice was hungry with a need that no amount of food could supply. They left after that, holding their bundles of papers against the wind. They hadn't said "Thank you." They didn't need to. They had reminded me that I had so much for which to be grateful.
Plain blue china(瓷的) cups and saucers were only worth five pence. But they matched.
I tasted the potatoes and stirred the meat soup. Potatoes and brown meat soup, a roof over our heads, my man with a good steady job--these matched, too.
I moved the chairs back from the fire and cleaned the living room. The muddy prints of small sandals were still wet upon my floor. Let them be for a while, I thought, just in case I should begin to forget how rich I am.

1.
Why did the writer let the children in?
1. A.
  She showed great pity on them.
2. B.
  She wanted to sell old papers.
3. C.
  She knew them and wanted to make them a cup of cocoa.
4. D.
  She wanted to invite them to her Thanksgiving party.
2.
The girl thought the writer was rich perhaps because_________
1. A.
  she saw that the lady's room was comfortable
2. B.
  she saw the cups matched the saucers
3. C.
  the writer's slipcovers were very new
4. D.
  the woman had expensive clothes
3.
What was the weather probably like when the story happened?
1. A.
  cloudy
2. B.
  sunny
3. C.
  windy
4. D.
  snowy
4.
From the passage, we can infer that whether you are rich depends on_______
1. A.
  how much money you have had
2. B.
  how you feel about your life
3. C.
  how you have helped others
4. D.
  what job you are doing