I was in my parked car, holding a book and reading. Once in a while I looked up, watching the people passing by. When I raised my    35   again, I saw an old lady with a large bag walking slowly towards my car. The bag seemed not only to make her steps    36  , but also make her out of breath. She looked tired and I thought she must be more than 70 years old.
She stopped and put a hand out to rest    37   it, gently (轻柔地，徐缓地) closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Was there a way I could do something? I tried to keep my body still while my mind    38   for answers. However, because of my careless head movement, she noticed me, and she    39  moved her hand away from the car. I picked up a bottle of water at once, gently opened the door and offered the bottle to her. She    40   me, and then shook her head and walked away.
I was so    41   with myself. I should have been more careful not to move. Instead of    42   a hand, I had interrupted (打扰，中断) the old lady’s    43   moment of rest. I was feeling blue. Just at that moment, I saw the lady coming back again. I opened the door and patted (轻拍) the    44   next to me. She sat down, opened her bag and offered me a banana. I took it and offered her the bottle of water again. She took it.
I ate, she drank and we smiled. She    45   for a couple of minutes. Those minutes brought such quietness to me. Then she took my head in both her hands, made a small kissing    46   in the air, opened the car door and walked away.
I was trying to help someone in distress (困苦，苦恼). In turn, I became distressed and she took away my distress and replaced it with quietness.

Weddings are quite different——from nation to nation, from area to area, and from the past to the present. However, all people consider weddings to be important and happy events.
People in the Western world go to church for their weddings, while some tribes（部落） in Africa hold their weddings in the open around a campfire, with much dancing.
In China, weddings are different from those abroad. People in the countryside used to carry the bride in a sedan chair from her parents’ house to her new home. Now sedan chairs are seldom seen. Instead, the bridegroom may take the bride to their own new house by bicycle or by tractor（拖拉机）. In the city the bride usually prefers a car, brightly decorated(装饰) with flowers and a Chinese character(汉字) meaning double happiness. However, a wedding dinner is necessary in both the countryside and the city. Relatives(亲戚) and friends who are invited to the dinner usually drink to the happiness of the bride and bridegroom.
【小题1】What do people all over the world think of weddings?

---What do you think of these two books?
---_________ of them are interesting. And I’ve read them several times.

Feeling lonely can make you sick. Doctors have long known that loneliness can cause many health problems and even death. What they didn’t know is   16  this feeling causes illness. A study in the online magazine Genome Biology  17  that loneliness actually influences the important part of our bodies—our genes.
In a small population of patients, researchers   18  more than 20,000 genes to compare how the genes of lonely and non-lonely individuals (个体) express themselves in molecular processes (分子过程) and in personal health. They found that gene expression is   19  in chronically (长期地) lonely people. “We now have a new way for understanding the relationship   20   social experience and physical health,” explains the study’s lead author, Steve Cole of University of California, Los Angeles.
“This study—the first to link (联系)   21  with gene changes—is special and exciting,” says Emma Adam, a professor of human development at Northwestern University. “It   22  in the black box.”
According to John Cacioppo, an author of the study from the University of Chicago, the
work suggests that loneliness is a warning   23 , much like physical pain. “This feeling is so bad because   24  of us wants to be forgotten; that’ s also what human means,” he says. “It makes us   25  for other people and want to be with friends when we’re lonely.”

A punctual person is in the habit of doing a thing at the correct time and is never late for anything.
An unpunctual man never does what he has to do at the right time. He is always in a hurry and in the end loses both time and his good name. A lost thing may be found again, but lost time can never be got back. Time is more useful than material things. In fact, time is life itself. An unpunctual man is always wasting his most important things as well as others'. An unpunctual person is always saying unhappily that he finds no time to answer letters or return calls. But the man who really has much to do is very careful of his time. He knows that he can not finish all his work unless he carefully does every piece of work.
Being unpunctual is the sign of disrespect (不尊重_) towards others. If a person is invited to
dinner and arrives later than the time when he should be there, he keeps all the other guests (客人)
waiting for him. Usually this will be thought as a great disrespect to the host and all the other guests.
Not like a punctual person, an unpunctual one can't do his duty wonderfully, whether it is public or personal. Imagine how it would be if those who should do important tasks failed to be on time. A man who is known to be often unpunctual is never believed by his friends or fellow men.
【小题1】The Chinese meaning of the word "punctual" in this passage is probably “      ”.