Computer programmer David Jones makes 35,000 pounds a year designing new computer games, yet he cannot find a bank prepared to let him have a credit card (信用卡). Instead, he has been told to wait another two years, until he is 18.
The 16-year-old boy works for a small firm in Liverpool, where the problem of most young people of his age is finding a job. David’s firm puts two new games on the home market each month.
But David’s biggest headache is what to do with his money. In spite of his salary, made by inventing new programs within a quite short period of time, the bonus payments and profit-sharing (奖金和分红), he cannot drive a car, get some money from a bank to buy a house, or get credit cards.
He lives with his parents in their house in Liverpool, where his father is a bus driver. His firm has to pay ￡150 a month in taxi fares to get him the five miles to work and back every day because David cannot drive.
David got his job with the firm a year after leaving school with six 0-levels and working for a time in a computer shop. “I got the job because the people who run the firm knew I had already written some programs,” he said.
“I suppose 35,000 pounds sounds a lot but actually that’s not good enough. I hope it will come to more than that this year.” He spends some of his money on records and clothes, and gives his mother 20 pounds a week. But most of his spare time is spent working.
“Unfortunately, computing was not part of our studies at school,” he said. “But I had been studying it in books and magazines for four years in my spare time. I know what I wanted to do and never considered staying on at school. Most people in this business are fairly young, anyway.”
David added, “I would like to earn a million and I suppose early retirement (退休) is a possibility. You never know when the market might disappear.”
36. Why is David different from other young people of his age?
A. He earns a very high salary.
B. He has not a job.
C. He does not go out much.
D. He lives at home with his parents.
37. David’s greatest problem is ____________.
A. making the banks treat him as a grown-up
B. inventing computer games
C. spending his salary
D. learning to drive
38. He was hired by the firm because ____________.
A. he had worked in a computer shop
B. he had written some computer programs
C. he worked very hard
D. he had learned to use computers at school
39. He left school after taking six 0-levels because ____________.
A. he did not enjoy school
B. he wanted to work with computers and staying at school did not help him
C. he was afraid of getting too old to start computing
D. he wanted to earn a lot of money
40. Why does David think he might retire early?
A. One has to be young to write computer programs.   
B. He wants to stop working when he is a millionaire.
C. He thinks computer games might not always sell so well.
D. He thinks his firm might go bad.

The market is a concept. If you are growing tomatoes in your backyard for sale you are producing for the market. You might sell some to your neighbor and some to the local manager of the supermarket. But in either case, you are producing for the market. Your efforts are being directed by the market. If people stop buying tomatoes, you will stop producing them.

If you take care of a sick person to earn money, you are producing for the market. If your father is a steel worker or a truck driver or a doctor or a grocer, he is producing goods or service for the market.

When you spend your income, you are buying things from the market. You may spend money in stores, supermarkets, gas stations and restaurants. Still you are buying from the market. When the local grocer hires you to drive the delivery truck, he is buying your labor in the labor market.

The market may be something abstract (抽象的). But for each person or business that is making and selling something, it is very concrete. If nobody buys your tomatoes, it won’t be long before you get the message. The market is telling you something. It is telling you that you are using energies and resources in doing something the market doesn’t want you to do.

Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?

A. Selling and Buying.               B. Everything you do is producing for the market.

C. What is the market?               D. What the market can do for you.

All of the following acts are producing for the market except________.

A. working in a bank                         B. volunteering at a nursing home

C. driving a taxi                    D. growing beans for sale

You are buying from the market when you________.

A. borrow a book from the library           B. drive to the seaside for a holiday

C. look after your children            D. dine at restaurant

The word “concrete” in the last paragraph may most probably mean________.

A. serious             B. important              C. necessary         D. real

单词拼写（每小题1分，满分10分）

1.When asked whether he would give up, he gave us a d___________ look, which meant he would not change his mind.

2.One third of the people in the building were killed or i_________ (受伤) during the big fire.

3.After the flood, nearly everything was d_______(摧毁)) and the villagers sank into sadness.

4.The film Red Sorghum（红高粱） is b________ on the novel written by Mo Yan, who won the Nobel Prize for literature (文学) this year.

5.Do keep c___________ when facing something emergent (危急情况).

6.My father is a heavy smoker. I ever tried to p_________ him to give up smoking but I failed.

7.After g__________ from college, Wang Kun and Wang Wei finally got the chance to cycle along the Mekong River from where it begins to where it ends.

8.Playing games on the Internet _____________(频繁地) does harm to your health.

9.Compared with Tom, I think Lily is much more _______________( 可信赖的)

10.__________________(祝贺) to you on passing the exam and getting the first prize.

三、阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）

请阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A, B, C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该选项的标号涂黑。

When I get off the bus, I’m usually greeted by the sounds of news on CNN. My father welcomes me, and I help him with the usual things—changing the channel and some other tasks. My father has a disease that makes him unable to walk. Despite his disability, my father has always been my role model.

In my first year at middle school, my grades slipped greatly. My father told me I could improve. I currently maintain a B plus average, and he confidently supports me in all my academic efforts. He is against violence to the best of his ability. Love is his most important tool,and he makes sure we know that violence is never the answer.

He urges me not to fear,but to believe in what I think is right.“No matter what anyone tells me,”he says,“I believe what I choose. If someone is discriminating against you for who you are, they don’t deserve your time.”My friends are the most caring people I’ve met, because I realize that they don’t judge me, and they like me as I am.

I’ve always found it strange that people pity me because of my father’s condition. He’s not inferior(次于) to anyone. His disease doesn’t hold him back. He’s normal person.

When I see disabled people out in public, I consider them equal to any other individual. No one is superior to anyone for any physical reason. I’ve known that from that day on, thanks to my dad.

“Anything else?”I’ll ask.

“No, that’s fine.”

As I walk to my room, I think my dad who teaches me the most important things I’ll ever need to know. My father is in no way inferior to anyone else. If anything, he’s even better.

1.

According to the passage,we learn that the author’s father is_________.

  A.kind but sort of strict                    B.disabled but optimistic

  C.independent but violent                  D.full of love but lacks confidence

2.

It can be learned from Paragraph 3 that the author’s father gives him some advice on

   _________.

  A.how to make friends                    B.how to help the disabled

  C.how to learn from failure                D.how to improve his studies

3.

.When the author sees disabled people in public,he feels_________.

  A.embarrassed            B.sorry        C.natural        D.uncomfortable

4.

What can we learn from the passage?

  A.The author is proud of his father.

  B.The author is likely to be taken in by his friends.

  C.The author encourages his father to do things himself.

  D.The author is looked down upon because of him disabled father.

There was a time when I thought my dad didn’t know a thing about being a good father. I couldn’t   31 him ever saying the words “I love you.” It seems to me his only purpose in life was to say “__32_  ” to anywhere I wanted to go and anything I wanted to do, including getting a   33 .  Some parents bought their kids cars when they got their driver’s licenses. Not my dad ---- he said that I’d have to get a job and buy my own.

So that is what I did. I got a job at a very nice restaurant and   34  every penny I could and   35 I had enough to buy my car, I did! The day I brought that car home, my dad was the first one I wanted to   36  to. “Look, dad, a car of my own. If you ever want a ride, I’ll only   37 you five dollars.” I offered with a smile.

“I see,” was all he said.

One day, there was something wrong with my father’s truck. So he needed a   38 to work. . The sun wasn’t even up when we left the house,   39  it was already getting warm out. It was going to be a(n)   40 day. As I dropped my dad off, I   41  him, dressed in his work clothes, getting his   42  from the trunk of my car. Watching his sun-weathered face, and even from a distance I could tell there were   43  lines than I ever remembered being there before. I realized how hard my dad works for the family. My father is a cement finisher. In that instant, it   44 to me that he actually got down on his hands and knees to sweat over hot concrete to make a living for his family. And he did this day in and day out,   45  hot it got. Never, not once, had I heard him   46  about it. To him we were “worth” it. And never once did he “charge” us for it.

When he closed the trunk, his tools set off to the side, he walked over to my window to   47  me five dollars. I rolled down the window and said “Good-bye, dad. Keep your five dollars. It’s my   48. Don’t work too hard. I love you.” His   49 met mine, then glanced away in the direction of his waiting tools, he   50  his throat and said, “Oh, and… me, too.”