Mr. White was holding a party at home to celebrate his sixtieth birthday. To make him happy, one of his women friends __21__ to sing a song for him. Now she was singing. One guest turned to a __22__ by his side and criticized the singer.

“What a __23__ voice!" he said. "Do you know __24__ she is?"

“Yes," was the answer, " She is my wife. "

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” the man said. "Of course her voice isn't bad, __25__ the song is very bad. I wondered who wrote that awful song?”

“I did," was the answer.

1.A. dreamed   B. decided     C. forgot    D. remembered

2.A. woman     B. girl       C. man     D. boy

3.A. terrible    B. beautiful    C. exciting   D. sweet

4.A. what    B. who       C. where     D. which

5.A. and    B. or      C. so      D. but

One night, I wondered what it would be like if I only asked questions. I decided that no matter what anyone said to me the next day, I would reply only with   36 .
I loved to read about scientists and their discoveries, and I knew that scientists always started their research with a question. I hoped that I could become a scientist. Maybe by asking questions, I could train my mind to be   37 .
I survived the morning easily. “Is there any egg?” I answered when my mother asked what I wanted for breakfast. “Is this seat taken?” I asked when my friend Mike asked where he was going to   38  on the bus.
In the classroom, Mr. Black spoke slowly and clearly while I listened carefully. The problem had been part of my homework the night before. I wrote the answer on the board, “Could the answer be 361?”
Mr. Black smiled and nodded. I thought,“How did I   39  to get through that?” I almost laughed because asking questions really was starting to become a   40 .
I thought I had made it safely through the whole day,   41  what I had come to consider my experiment blew up at the dinner table when my dad asked me about my day. “What do I always do?” I replied.
My parents looked at each other. My father   42  again. “Well, I hope you went to school,” he said.
“Uhhh … why would you think otherwise?” I asked. My parents exchanged another   43   
and were becoming annoyed.
“Do you think questions are a good way to train your mind to be active?” I asked.
“It   44  the question,” said my father. “Some questions are asked for   45  information. Those are good mind-training questions. Sometimes, people use questions to get the other person to say something. Sometimes people ask questions to get someone to agree with them. Those questions don’t really achieve anything.”
“I guess my experiment didn’t work,” I said, and I told my father about my   46 .
“I think it worked   47 !” my father said. “You made a discovery, didn’t you? What matters is that you have put your idea into practice.”                              

Prana, our beautiful dog whose name means ‘breath of life’, isn’t with us any more. But she brought such joy and love that we still miss her.
There are so many wonderful stories about the love in this dog, but my favorite is this one.
It was an autumn day in Minnesota, but the weather didn’t know the difference between autumn and winter. Unexpectedly, we were hit with a big snow fall for which no one was prepared.
We have two apple trees in our backyard. Prana loved apples. When she went outside, she’d take hold of an apple, put it far back in her mouth, and sneak into the house to save for eating later. The apples had been on the ground and were often dirty so I wasn’t always happy that Prana had brought them into the house. Feeling my displeasure, she would turn her head so I wouldn’t see her hidden treasure.
On the day that it snowed too early in the season, Prana went outside and I watched her from the window. I noticed that she was madly digging holes and brought the apples to the surface so they could be seen above the snow. I wondered why she was doing this. She seemed to be completely busy with some kind of important task to dig up as many apples as possible during her yard time.
When I called her back into the house, she had her usual one apple in her mouth. About five minutes later, I looked outside. The yard was completely covered with birds. Prana had dug up all those apples for her bird friends to eat. She knew that they wouldn’t have stored enough food to live through such an early winter.
【小题1】The story about the dog happened _______.