阅读理解

“Ordinary” was the worst word my mother could find for anything. Whenever she took me out for shopping, I found she wouldn’t take any notice of the shop assistants when they suggested that some dresses were popular. She would say, “We’re not interested in that. Haven’t you got anything a little unusual?” And then the assistants would bring out all the strange colours no one else would buy. And later she and I would argue because I wanted to be ordinary but my mother wanted to be unusual.

“I can’t stand that hairdo (发型),” she said to me when I was in a boy hairstyle, “It’s so terribly ordinary... Not ugly, not unsuitable. But ordinary ...”

“Couldn’t you please wear something else?” I asked one day when she was dressing for Parents’ Day in tight (紧贴的) trousers and a bright pink sweater.

“What’t wrong with it!”

“It’s just that I wish you’d wear something ordinary.” I said, “People won’t laugh at.”

She looked at me angrily, “Are you ashamed of your mother? If you are, Mary, I feel sorry for you.”

1.What did the shop assistants advise Mary’s mother to buy?

2. When Mary had her hair cut in a boy hairstyle, her mother ____.

3. Why did Mary ask her mother to change her clothes on Parents’ Day?

4. What does her mother mean by “ordinary”?

5. The underlined word “It” most likely means ____.

“Cool” is a word with many meanings．Its old meaning is used to express a temperature(温度) that is a little bit cold．As the world has changed，the word has had many different meanings now．
“Cool” can be used to express feelings of interest in almost anything．
When you see a famous car in the street，maybe you will say，“It’s cool．”You may think，“He’s so cool，”when you see your favorite footballer．
We all maximize（扩大） the meaning of “cool”．You can use it instead of many words such as “new” or “surprising”．Here’s an interesting story we can use to show the way the word is used．A teacher asked her students to write about the waterfall（瀑布）they had visited．On one student’s paper was just the one sentence，“It’s so cool’’．Maybe he thought it was the best way to show what he saw and felt．
But the story also shows a scarcity（缺乏）of words．Without “cool”，some people have no words to show the same meaning．So it is quite important to keep some credibility（可信性）．Can you think of many other words that make your life as colorful as the word “cool”？ I can．And I think they are also very cool．
【小题1】We know that the word “cool’’ has had ________.