What do you like most when you can get one of such things: freedom, true friends, love, honesty and so on? Here are some choices of students:
Chen Cheng, 14, Jiangsu: I think I need a true friend. I had some friends before. However, it seemed that they didn't treat me well. I told them my secrets but they didn't share theirs with me. What's worse, they told my secrets to others, which made me very unhappy. I hope to find a true lifelong（终身的）friend who can share happiness and sadness with me and keep my secrets.
Gan Xiaoning 14, Heilongjiang: Freedom is what I want most. I am a bird in two cages. In school, I have to follow the school's rules and listen to teachers. At home, my parents don't allow me to do what I like, either. I have to do everything that they tell me to do: study, study and study some more. So, freedom is the only thing I really want!
Yuan Siyu, 15, Guangxi: I am a boy from a poor family. My father works very hard but only makes a little money every month to support the family. I want to go to a key university （重点大学）so that I can find a good job in the future. Then, I can earn enough money to get my family out of poverty(贫困) and offer my parents a happy life.
Qu Yi, 15, Hebei: I want a complete family. My parents got divorced(离婚) three years ago. Since then, I have had no chance to be together with both of them any more. Now, I am living with my mom and get her love, but I also want my dad's love. I am envious(羡慕) of my classmates who live with their parents. So, I would have a complete family if I could.
【小题1】 What is not mentioned in the passage?

When I was nine years old, I used to go to the post office with my mother, to send greeting cards to my aunt in Singapore. To me, these trips were really        memories. And receiving mail through a mailbox outside our gate was just as exciting.

My small hands could       get the mail without using a key! I could never        to see how much I was getting. Oh, a letter! From Singapore! I would run back home and show it to my       . When there was a letter for me, I wouldn’t run—I would open it right there.

After my family moved back to Singapore, I         going to the post office. Years later, my company sent me to Shanghai, and the post office found me again. Two years ago I celebrated my       with five friends on top of the mountain in Longsheng, China. At sunrise we        up to enjoy a beautiful view from the mountain top. Later in the afternoon, as we were going        the mountain and returning from the sunrise viewing place, a small      caught our attention. It only sold noodles, coffee and had a China        sign.

We asked the owner if she could really send mail. She happily said yes. It seemed hard to believe        we were at the highest point of the mountain. I picked one postcard out and asked my friends to write         a birthday note. We bought a stamp, wrote some notes and gave the shop owner the postcard. Three weeks later, I arrived home and       my mailbox. Hello, postcard! I broke into a big smile.

That birthday postcard attracted me again to the post office. I had       the post office all these years. Today I       send postcards to friends. And every time I am at the post office buying stamps, I cannot help but smile—how one postcard will make its way across the world and brighten up someone’s day.

1.A. bad                B. poor               C. good             D. short

2.A. easily                B. simply        C. hardly                D. specially

3.A. weigh           B. wait              C. get                    D. plan

4.A. friend            B. aunt            C. mother            D. owner

5.A. enjoyed         B. stopped          C. hated                D. considered

6.A. wedding        B. return          C. success                D. birthday

7.A. broke           B. woke                     C. grew                D. stood

8.A. around          B. over             C. up                           D. down

9.A. bank            B. hospital             C. shop               D. river

10.A.Traffic     B.Life            C.Police         D. Post

11.A.because    B.though          C.while         D. when

12.A.him       B.me             C.her           D. them

13.A.bought     B.repaired         C.painted       D. opened

14.A.missed     B.influenced       C.studied       D. visited

15.A.just       B.seldom          C.still          D. never

That warm day was the only day of the week without rain. I opened the door, took a seat and began to enjoy the wonderful sunshine. Suddenly, I noticed that the house near mine had been sold. An elderly lady was in front of the door, with some beautiful flowers beside her. I walked to her. She looked to be in her early eighties and had the prettiest white hair.

“ Hi! My name is Karmen,” I said smiling brightly at the old lady. She smiled back and said,” Hello, Karmen. I’m Kitty.” Her voice was very strong for someone at her age. Later, I learned that she was alone and had no family or relatives to help her. From that day on, I often visited her and helped her with her housework and sometimes she gave me some delicious food. A year passed, and I considered her to be one of my best friends.

One day, I walked over for my morning visit and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. I knocked again, and she didn’t still turn up. So I let myself in, using the key she had given me. I checked her living room and then her kitchen. I finally went into her bedroom, and she was lying peacefully on her bed. Beside her there were two notes. One was her will(遗嘱)， which said all that she had would be given to me. The other was a thank-you note. I went to her bedside and cried sadly.

Though several years has gone by, I still miss her deeply. Whenever I look at the beautiful flowers in front of her house, I remembered the wonderful friendship we had.

1.The writer came out of the house to________.

A．look at an old lady                       B．enjoy some flowers

C．enjoy the sunshine                      D．clean the house nearby

2.Through visiting the old lady, the writer learned that the old lady_______.

A．disliked all her relatives                  B．had no one to look after her

C．didn’t want to live with her family          D．was looking for someone to look after her

3.What can we learn from the passage?

A．The old lady was not kind.

B．The writer didn’t have any good friends.

C．The old lady didn’t know how to make food.

D．The writer got along very well with the old lady

4.What does “ turn up ” mean in Paragraph 3?

A．appear           B．leave             C．try               D．change

5.In order to thank the writer, the old lady decided to_______.

A．give the writer her favourite flowers

B．let the writer know she was her best friend

C．give the writer a key to her house

D．leave all that she had to the writer

One summer vacation in my college, my roommate Ted asked to me to work on his father’s farm in Argentina. The idea was exciting. Then I had second thoughts. I had never been far from New England, and I had been homesick my first few weeks at college. What about the language? The more I thought about it, the more the idea worried me.
Finally, I turned down the invitation. Then I realized I had turned down something I wanted to do because I was scared and felt depressed(沮丧). That experience taught me a valuable lesson and I developed a rule for myself: do what makes you anxious(焦虑); don’t do what makes you depressed.
In my senior year, I wanted to be a writer. But my professor wanted me to teach. I hesitated. The idea of writing was much scarier than spending a summer in Argentina. Back and forth I went, making my decision, unmaking it. Suddenly I realized that every time I gave up the idea of writing, that downhearted feeling went through me.
Giving up writing really depressed me. Then I learned another lesson. To avoid the depression meant having to bear much worry and concern.
When I first began writing articles, I often interviewed big names. Before each interview I would get butterflies in the stomach. One of them was the great composer Duke Ellington. On the stage and on television, he seemed very confident. Then I learned Ellington still got stage fright（害怕）. If Ellington still had anxiety attacks, how could I avoid them? I went on doing those frightening interviews. Little by little, I was even looking forward to the interviews. Where were those butterflies?
In truth, they were still there, but fewer of them. I had learned from a process psychologists（心理学家） call “extinction”. If you put an individual in an anxious situation often, finally there isn’t anything to be worried about, which brings me to a conclusion: you’ll never get rid of anxiety by avoiding the things that caused it.
The point is that the new, the different, is definitely scary. But each time you try something, you learn, and as the learning piles up, the world opens to you.
【小题1】We can infer from the passage that the author________. 

Every school has a notice board. Let’s see what is on the notice board of an America school.