John and Booby joined a wholesale company together just after graduation from college the same year. Both worked very hard. After several years, however, the boss promoted（提升）Bobby to the position of manager but John remained an ordinary employee（雇员）. John could not take it any more, so he sent his resignation(辞职信) and complained that the boss did not value（重视）hard working workers but only promoted those who said good words of him.
The boss knew that John worked very hard for the years. He thought for a moment and said, “Thank you for telling me, but I have a request. I hope you will do one more thing for our company before you leave. Perhaps you will change your mind and take back your resignation.”
John agreed. The boss asked him to go and find out anyone selling watermelons in the market. John went and returned soon. He said he had found out a man selling watermelons. The boss asked how much per kg, John shook his head and went back to the market to ask and returned to tell the boss $1.2 per kg.
The boss told John to wait a second, and he called Bobby to go and find anyone selling watermelons in the market. Bobby went, returned and said only one person sold watermelons. $1.2 for a kg, $10 for 10kg and his watermelons added up to 340. On the table 58 melons, every melon weighs about 2 kg, bought from the south two days ago and they were fresh, red and good quality.
John was surprised and realized the difference between himself and Bobby. He decided not to go away but to learn from Bobby.
The story tells us that a more successful person is more concerned and thinks more. Chances are there in the daily details. For the same thing, a person sees one year ahead, while another sees only tomorrow. The difference between a year and a day is 365 times, how could you win?
【小题1】John wanted to stop his job in his company because_________.

Money is all surrounding us．Every day, we see it, use it, and it is on the tip of our tongue．Did you ever stop to take into consideration where the money that you carry around every day comes from?
Making new money is a very unique job and no easy task．It has up to 65 steps When the money in circulation（流通） gets dirty and worn out, it is replaced with new money The old money is taken from banks and brought to places where it is destroyed Usually, the old money is burned．The burned money is replaced by new paper money
If old money is being replaced, then new money is printed in a place called a mint（造币厂）．Large sheets 01 paper are printed with many pictures of some currency （流通货币）．These large sheets are cut into individual bills．The individual bills are then put together in big stacks and then sent to banks．
Sometimes the mint will make a new bill with a new picture （portraits of statesman and places of interest are favoured） or a new colour. It is not easy for the government to make a new bill. It takes a long time, and there are many steps to go through before a new bill can be sent to banks, first, people m the government decide that a new kind of bill is needed Then, they ask and artist to design the new bill．A different artist cuts the new picture into a soft piece of metal called a die．The dies are made and put onto large printing machines．Then, very special paper is used, which no one but the mint can have．Along with this special paper, the mint also prints currency using special colours．After the dies print the new currency onto the paper, the bills are cut, stacked, and sent off to the banks．
【小题1】From the passage we know that

Do you remember last summer, when angry travelers were urging the government to do something about airline customer service? Airlines  36  to improve, and they adopted (采用) new standards just before Christmas.  37  as another summer nears, plenty of  38  travelers don’t see much improvement in customer  39  overall.
This month, the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) office will publish its first critical  40  on whether airlines are  41  their promises. One survey suggests problems: the number of  42  to the DOT about the top 10 airlines in the first   43  rose 89% from a year ago .
Hit last summer by passenger complaints and the threat (威慑) of consumer-protection laws by the    44 _, 14 airlines  45  to adopt a set of basic customer-service standards called Customers First . The “12 promises” to passengers were introduced  46  a major effort to improve service. Since then, airlines have been redesigning websites , retraining employees and upgrading technology
Recently, DOT inspector general Kenneth Mead, at McCain’s request, sent 20 examiners to airports to     47  whether each airline is doing what it promised. Mead warns travelers shouldn’t  48  too much. Most of the promises are  49  better communication with customers , not problems with flights .
“Passengers should show more understanding to airlines about their  50  to better air service.” Spokeswoman Shelly Sassoon says. “And when  51  are made, it takes a long time for them to be noticed,” she says.
Now, the efforts may be working. During the first quarter, Delta had the second-lowest rate of complaints among the  52  10 carriers.  53 , its rate, along with other carriers’, is up from last year. McCain and other lawmakers say there may be a  54  to pass new consumer-protection  55 .

I was painfully shy as a child. In high school I would avoid participating in class discussions. I was too afraid to talk to anyone but my closest friends~ I would think about being less shy, wanting the courage not only to ask a girl out, but to speak up in class and say what I was thinking. Yet, it never happened. Fears showed themselves in such self-conscious questions as, " What will other people think?  What if she says no?" I felt a dark presence in my mind holding me back.
This shyness continued into college. One day, the question occurred to me: Is life shy?
The thought surprised me ! Think of the leaves bursting out in the spring time, the bird singing at dawn, the sheer number of different forms of life, all expressing the wideness and scope of divine life. There's nothing shy about it. Life is everywhere and attention-grabbing (引人注意的). So, if my creator isn't shy about all the life that needs expressing, I don't need to be either.
I realized that if I wanted to overcome fear and shyness, I would have to put this law of life into practice~ Shyness, fear, and loneliness were hindering me from living my life as life: God wanted me to live it. Therefore, I decided to live how life saw me.
One example: I wrote a note to a girl, asking her out on a date. Even as I was writing it, the fears of disaffirmation and unworthiness came to me. This time however, instead of shrinking back and hiding from the fear, I put the note in the campus mail in spite of myself. I thought: whether she says yes or no, it's still right for me not to be shy. I can live with the confidence sent from the source of my life. The girl saw me in class the next day and told me that she would love to go out with me. I should not have been so surprised!
Bit by bit, I was proving that the limited view of myself no longer had control over me.  After college, I worked as a newspaper reporter, earned an advanced degree in theater, became a productive writer (a lifelong dream), met a special woman whom I married, and even got a job teaching at a university.
【小题1】The writer was shy as a child because of______.

Scientists in Mexico have just begun a new study of one of the world’s biggest pyramids: the Pyramid of the Sun, north of Mexico City. They’re putting lots of small, high-tech machines under the pyramid to try to unlock some of its secrets. For thousands of years, people have tried to uncover the secrets of the pyramids.
The people who built the pyramids made lots of secret doors and rooms to stop robbers from finding the treasures inside. However, there always have been some smart thieves in history. Now, almost all of Egypt’s pyramids have been robbed, including the Great Pyramid of Khufu, which is the largest pyramid in the world. It is the only one of the ancient wonders of the world that is still standing.
In AD 820, an Arab king named Abdullah AL Manum got a group of workers to dig their way into the Great Pyramid and have a look. Inside the pyramid, they found three rooms --- the Queen’s Chamber, the Grand Gallery and the King’s Chamber. But to their surprise, the men didn’t find the treasures they wanted. The Queen’s and King’s Chambers were both empty! Where were the King’s mummy and his treasures? Had someone already taken them away? The huge stone doors at the pyramid’s entrance were still closed when AL Manum’s men went inside. How had the thieves got in and out?
Since then, many people have gone inside the Great Pyramid to have a look or to try to take things. But still, no other chambers or walkways have been found.
In 2002, an American team made the most recent visit to the Great Pyramid. Scientists sent a robot into the pyramid, but they only found a mysterious locked stone door.
【小题1】The first two paragraphs were written to show that ________.