One day, a boy found the cocoon(茧) of a butterfly and brought it home. A few days later, the boy saw a small   31   in the cocoon. He sat and watched for several hours as a butterfly struggled to make   32   body through that little hole. Suddenly it stopped.

    So the boy   33   to help the butterfly, thinking the butterfly might be   34  .He took a pair of scissors and cut the hole   35  .The butterfly came out of the cocoon but it   36  a little different. It had a weak body and small, thin   37  .The butterfly didn’t start to fly. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling(爬行) around with a weak body and thin wings. It was never able to fly.

    The boy acted with   38   but he didn’t understand why it could be like this. When a butterfly crawls out of the cocoon, it must struggle. The hard work of   39   out of the cocoon makes the fluid(液体) from the butterfly’s body into its wings. It helps the butterfly be   40   to fly. If the butterfly never has to squeeze(挤压) itself out of the cocoon, its wings will never get the fluid and it can never fly.

      41   struggles are what we need in our lives. If we lived our lives without any problems, we would never learn or grow. We would not be __42__ we could have been and we would never fly.

    In our lives, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, and sometimes even   43   growth, without it , there’s no way of life. We can’t avoid   44   or problems. So, next time you are   45  a problem or difficulty, remember the butterfly. Struggle a little—then fly!

1.A. hole             B. worm               C. tall               D. snake

2.A. it        B. it’s                 C. itself              D. its

3.A. decided  B. asked               C. showed            D. ordered

4.A. afraid   B. interested             C. surprised          D. grateful

5.A. slimmer  B. bigger              C. shorter             D. smaller

6.A. touched   B. sounded             C. looked             D. smelt

7.A. wings    B. feet          C. eyes               D. head

8.A. success    B. excitement           C. kindness           D. humour

9.A. get        B. getting       C. to get              D. got

10.A. ready      B. quiet         C. glad              D. used

11.A. Somewhere   B. Something    C. Some time    D. Sometimes

12.A. as helpful as  B. as weak as  C. as strong as D. as creative as

13.A. repeats B. recommends   C. requires           D. represents

14.A. happiness        B. difficulties      C. pleasure          D. hope

15.A. served with    B. growing into       C. bringing in    D. faced with

To most of us, school means classes, teachers, schedules, grades and tests. But for the children at Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, school is very different.

Firstly, there are no lessons. All the children, aged between 4 and 19, do whatever they want. There are no teachers, only “staff members”. The idea behind this is that you do not need to make children learn, because children want to learn anyway. “You do not need to say to a three-year-old, ‘Go explore your environment.’ You can’t stop them!”says Daniel Greenberg, a founder of the school. “But if you make children do what you want all day… they will lose all taste of learning.” At Sudbury Valley School, you will find children talking, reading, painting, cooking, working on computers, studying French, playing the piano, climbing trees, or just running around. Two boys spent three years just fishing!

The other way that Sudbury Valley School is different is that the children can decide the rules. Every week, there is a school meeting where both children and staff have one vote (投票)each—even the four-year-olds. They decide the school rules, how to spend the school money, and even which staff they want and do not want anymore.

When the school first opened in 1968, people said it would never work. But today, the school has 200 students, and 80% of its students go on to college. Even the two boys who went fishing all the time have successful careers today. One of them is a musician and the other is a computer scientist.

1.What's special about the school?

A. There is nobody but students there.

B. All the students are of the same age.

C. There are no classes for the students.

D. There are no rules in the school.

2.What do the students do in the school?

A. They learn everything there from the staff members.

B. They grow up there without learning anything.

C. They spend all the time with their parents.

D. They do whatever they are interested in.

3.The school seems to believe that children________.

A. learn best when they are doing what they want

B. are too young to learn anything by themselves

C. can look after themselves without any help

D. can't go to college without any hard work

4.The last paragraph wants to tell us that_          .

A. the writer doesn't like the idea of the school

B. the school is quite successful in its work

C. most of the parents don't believe in the school

D. younger students learn better there than older ones

5.The underlined word career in the last paragraph most probably means_.

A. family   B. money    C. lifestyle    d. job

用所给动词的适当形式填空

1.Listen! Some of the girls ______ (talk) about Harry Potter.

2. — Where is Mr. Green now? I haven’t seen him for a few days.

—He ______ (go) to Hong Kong.

3. You’d better ______ (not eat) too much meat. You are already overweight.

4. “Titanic” is a very nice film. I ______ (see) it twice.

5. There ______ (be) an English Evening next Monday.

6. I spent half an hour ______ (finish) doing my homework.

7. The teacher told Xiao Ming ______ (not be) late for school again.

8. Please write to me as soon as you ______ (reach) Shanghai.

9. Mr. Le is out. But he ______ (be) back in ten minutes.

10. When the headmaster came into the hall, all the students ______ (stand) up.

I went home one Saturday afternoon in the autumn of 1993 to get some work done in the garden. While sweeping leaves on the ground, my five-year-old son Nick came over and asked me to write something on a piece of paper to make a sign for him.                       

“What for?” I asked.

“I’m going to sell some of my stones, " he answered.    

    Nick was fascinated with stones and had collected many stones from all over.  “I’m busy to

do that for you. Go and ask your mum for help." I said.

A short time later, Nick returned with a sign, reading. " Stones. One Dollar Each”. He took the sign, a small chair and 4 of his best stones and walked to the road in front of our garden. There he put the stones in a line and sat down on the chair.

After half an hour, nobody passed by. I walked to him and asked him to go back, but he didn't.

Another half hour later, a small car came down the road. I watched as Nick stood up, holding his sign up. A woman rolled down a window and read the sign. I couldn't hear their talk, but I saw the woman turn to the driver and the man reach for his pocket.

I sat in the yard, as Nick ran to me. Waving the dollar, he shouted. "I told you I could sell one stone for a dollar — if you believe in yourself, you can do anything."

1.Why didn't the writer help his son?

A. Because his wife is better at making a sign.

B. Because he didn't know what to write.

C. Because he was busy sweeping leaves.

D. Because he didn’t want his son to sell the stones.

2.The underlined words "was fascinated with" mean “______”.

A. was far from             B. was afraid of

C. was famous for           D. was interested in

3.Nick was a boy ______.

A. who was kind            B. who had a strong mind

C who was honest           D. who had many hobbies

4.Which is the best title(题目) of the story?

A. My son's first sale.         B. Let's collect stones.

C. How to sell a stone.        D. A hobby that can make you rich.

5.From the passage we know _____.

A. the story happened in spring           

B. the car was driven by a woman

C. Nick spent half an hour selling one stone   

D. the writer might be moved(感动)by his son

Once there was a little girl in a village. She spent summers on her grandfather’s farm. The year she was four, she knew some ducks. The ducks were white with orange feet. They lived in a little wooden house near the road. The little girl liked these ducks very much. Every day they walked down the road to the pond（池塘）. Then the ducks went into the water and the little girl sat on the bank（岸） and saw them swimming in the pond. The little girl talked to the ducks and they quacked（嘎嘎叫）back. Then one day the ducks were gone. No one would say anything about them. The little girl was afraid to ask where they were. One night everyone sat down for dinner. The food looked a little like chicken. The girl didn’t want to eat. Can you guess why?

A. eating chicken   B. sitting by the pond

C. living on a farm   D. ducks and a little girl

1.The ducks were __________.

2.When the little girl ________ , the ducks quacked back.

3.At the end of the story, the ducks were probably _______.

4.The little girl didn’t eat because _____________.