When it comes to friends, I desire those who will share my happiness, who has wings of their own and who will fly with me.
When I was in the eighth grade, I had a friend. We were shy and “too serious” about our studies when it was becoming fashionable with our classmates to learn acceptable social behaviors. We said little at school, but she would come to my house and we would sit down with pencils and paper, and one of us would say, “Let’s start with a train whistle（鸣笛）today.” We would sit quietly together and write separate poems or stories that grew out of a train whistle. Then we would read them aloud. At the end of that school year, we, too, were changing into social persons and the stories and poems stopped.
When I lived for a time in London, I had a friend. He was in despair（失望）and I was in despair, too. But our friendship was based on the idea in each of us that we would be sorry later if we did not travel over this great city because we had felt bad at the time. We met every Sunday for five weeks and found many excellent things. We walked until our despairs disappeared and then we parted. We gave London to each other.
For almost four years I have had a great friend whose imagination brightens mine. We write long letters in which we often discover our strangest selves. Each of us appears, sometimes in a funny way, in the other’s dreams. She and I agree that, at certain times, we seem to be parts of the same mind.
It is such comforting companions（陪伴）I wish to keep. One bright hour with their kind is worth more to me than the lifetime services of a psychologist, who will only fill up the healing silence necessary to those darkest moments in which I would rather be with my own best friend.
【小题1】We can infer from Paragraph 2 that the writer ______ finally.

In learning English，one should first pay attention to listening and speaking．It is the groundwork of reading and writing．You’d better  31  your best to speak while you do much listening．Don’t be  32  of making mistakes．But be careful not to let them stop you from improving your  33 ．While you are doing this，a good  34  is to write-keep a diary，write notes or letters．Then if you can，ask some others to go through  35  you have written and tell you where it is wrong．Many mistakes in your speaking will be  36  found when you write．Through correcting mistakes，you can do better in learning English．
If you are slow in speaking，don’t  37  about it．One of the helpful ways is reading，either aloud or to yourself．The important thing is to choose  38  interesting to read． It mustn’t be too difficult for you．When you are reading  39  this way，don’t stop to  40  the new words if you can guess their meanings when they have nothing to do with the sentences．You can do that some other time．

Arthur sat at the desk in his room, pencil in hand. He had to write a story for his English class by Friday. “I don’t know what to write about,” he complained to his dog Toby, who was asleep at his feet. Arthur was talkative when speaking to his friends, yet he had trouble finding words when he had to write.

By bedtime Arthur had drawn a picture of Toby smiling. He had drawn a tree with its branches blowing in the strong wind. He had also written a note asking his friend Lee to go to the movies on Saturday. But he had not written a single word of his story.

On Wednesday, Mrs. Solomon, Arthur’s English teacher, asked the class to turn in the first draft of their stories. His heart sinking, Arthur turned in the only work he had—the page with his name, the drawings and the note.

Arthur wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Solomon asked him to stay after class the next day. But he was surprised by what she said to him. “This is an attractive story, Arthur. The dog, the movie, the tree in the wind—I can’t wait to find out how they all fit together.”

“That isn’t my story, Mrs. Solomon,” Arthur admitted. “I haven’t been able to think of one yet.”

“Oh, I think you have the seed(种子of a story there,” Mrs. Solomon replied, “Look at your note and the pictures and see if a story comes to you.”

That night Arthur sat at his desk, and this is what he wrote: “One Saturday Mike went downstairs to meet his friend Julio at the cinema. It looked as if it might rain, so Mike carried his umbrella. Suddenly a big storm blew in, bending the trees. The noise of the wind sounded like the barking of Mike’s dog Toby. Toby really hated storms and barked whenever he wanted to be let inside. Then Mike realized that it wasn’t the sound of the wind. It was Toby. The dog was running after him down the busy street, barking. The sound was filled with blame. Mike felt guilty because he had left Toby outside. He turned and headed home with Toby running beside him. Mike let Toby in the door just as the rain started to pour down.”

Arthur had a story in the end. The last thing he did was to write his name proudly at the top of the page.

1.Why did Arthur turn in the page with only his name, the drawings and the note at first?

A.Because he had no time to fit them together.

B.Because he had difficulty in writing a story.

C.Because he wasn’t willing to do his homework.

D.Because he wanted to show his talent for drawing.

2.What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 6 probably mean?

A.Toby is an imaginative and lovely dog.

B.The small tree will grow into a big one.

C.His friend Lee can give him a lot of support.

D.He can develop his story based on the first draft.

3.What kind of teacher do you think Mrs. Solomon is ?

A. She is a strict teacher                     B. She is a wise teacher

C. She is an honest teacher                   D. She is an energetic teacher

4.What can we infer(推断from the story?

A. Arthur is a shy and quiet student

B. Arthur isn’t very satisfied with his story

C. There will be a storm on Saturday

D. Encouragement is important in teaching