The story goes that some time ago, a man punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became infuriated(愤怒的) when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree. Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy."

The man was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found out the box was empty. He yelled at her, stating, "Don't you know, when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside? The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and cried, "Oh, Daddy, it's not empty at all. I blew kisses into the box. They're all for you, Daddy."

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness.

Only a short time later, an accident took the life of the child. It is also told that her father kept that gold box by his bed for many years and, whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

In a very real sense, each one of us, as humans beings, have been given a gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children, family members, friends, and God. There is simply no other possession, anyone could hold, more precious than this.

1.The 3-year-old girl was punished by her father for ________.

A. wasting gold                         B. wasting wrapping paper

C. putting the box under the Christmas tree    

D. bringing the gift to her father

2.What’s inside the box according to the little girl?

A. nothing    B. air    C. kisses   D. gold wrapping paper

3.Choose the best title for the passage.

A. The kisses in the box.      B. A girl and his father 

C. A love story                D. The box under the Christmas tree.

When Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it was a revolution in communication．Over the last two decades a new means of spoken communication has emerged: the mobile phone．

The modern mobile phone is a more complex version of the two-way radio．Traditional two-way radio was a very limited means of communication．As soon as the users moved out of range of each other's broadcast area, the signal was lost．In the 1940s, researchers began experimenting with the idea of using a number of radio masts （天线杆）located around to pick up signals from two-way radios．A caller would always be within range of one of the masts; when he or she moved too far away from one mast, the next mast would pick up the signal．（Scientists referred to each mast's reception area as being a separate "cell"; this is why in．many countries mobile phones are called "cell phones"．）

The first real mobile telephone call was made in 1973 by Dr Martin Cooper．As soon as his invention was completed,, he tested it by calling another scientist to announce his success．Within a decade, mobile phones became available to the public．They have changed the way we do a lot of things．One powerful feature is the Short Message Service （SMS） or text message．It's the perfect communication method for the busy modern lifestyle．Going to be late? Send a text message! The text message has changed the way we write in English．The language construction became less strict．Traditional rules of grammar and spelling are much less important when you're sitting on the bus, hurriedly typing "Will B 15mm late-C U @ the bar．（I will be 15 minutes late to see you at the

bar．） Sorry!"．

Over the last few years mobiles have become more and more advanced．We have seen the instruction of cameras, global positioning system and Internet access．

Alexander Graham Bell would be surprised if he could see how far the science of telephone has progressed in less than 150 years．If he were around today, he might say: "That’s gr8（great）! But I'm busy rite now（I am very busy right now）．Will call U2nite（I will call you tonight．）．"

The writing style of the passage is a （an）___．

       A．narrative     B．description           C．essay D．review

The article is intended to__      _．

       A．warn people of the possible risks in using mobile phones

       B．inform readers of the history and benefits of mobile phones

       C．convince people of the uses of mobile phones

       D．predict the applications of mobile phones

What do you think of the writer according to the last paragraph．

       A．Humorous.      B．Ironic.      C．Kind.       D．Worried.

O. Henry was a pen name used by an American writer of short stories. His real name was William Sydney Porter. He was born in North Carolina in 1862. As a young boy he lived an exciting life. He did not go to school for very long, but he managed to teach himself everything he needed to know. When he was about 20 years old, O. Henry went to Texas, where he tried different jobs. He first worked on a newspaper, and then had a job in a bank, when some money went missing from the bank. O. Henry was believed to have stolen it. Because of that, he was sent to prison. During the three years in prison, he learned to write short stories. After he got out of prison, he went to New York and continued writing. He wrote mostly about New York and the life of the poor there. People liked his stories, because simple as the tales were, they would finish with a sudden change at the end, to the reader’s surprise.

1. In which order did O. Henry do the following things?

a. Lived in New York.   b. Worked in a bank.       c. Travelled to Texas.

d. Was put in prison.    e. Had a newspaper Job.     f. Learned to write stories.

2.People enjoyed reading O. Henry’s stories because       

3.O. Henry went to prison because       .

4.What do we know about O. Henry before he began writing?

5.Where did O. Henry get most material for his short stories?

Both my parents came from towns in Mexico. Then I was born in E1 Paso，Texas and when I was four, my family moved to a housing project in East Los Angeles.

Even though we struggled to make ends meet, my parents stressed to me and my four brothers and sisters how fortunate we were to live in a great country with limitless opportunities. They influenced us with the concepts of family, faith and nationalism.

I got my first real job when I was ten. My dad injured his back working in a cardboard??box factory and was retrained as a hairstylist. He rented space in a little shopping mall and gave his shop the fancy name of Mr.Ben’s Coiffure.

The owner of the shopping center gave Dad a discount on his rent for cleaning the parking lot three nights a week，which meant getting up at 3 a．m..To pick up rubbish, Dad used a little machine that looked like a lawn mower. Mom and I emptied garbage cans and picked up litter by hand. It took two to three hours to clean the lot. I’d sleep in the car on the way home.

I did this for two years，but the lessons I learned have lasted a lifetime. I acquired discipline and a strong work ethic(道德), and learned at an early age the importance of balancing life’s competing interests－in my case，school，homework and a job. This really helped during my senior year of a high school, when I worked 40 hours a week flipping burgers at a fast??food joint while taking a full load of college preparation courses.

The hard work paid off. I attended the U．S.Military Academy and went on to receive graduate degrees in law and business from Harvard. Later, I joined a big Los Angeles law firm and was elected to the California State Assembly(州议会)．In these jobs and in everything else I’ve done, I have never forgotten those nights in the parking lot. The experience taught me that there is dignity in all work and that if people are working to provide for themselves and their families that is something we should honor.

Before my father got injured，we________.

A. didn’t like living in the USA                    B. lived a poor but happy life

C. were lucky to move to the USA                  D. had many ways to make money

When he recovered，to make a living my father________.

A. ran a small shopping mall                   B. did a part??time job

C. worked as a barber                         D. became a street cleaner

Working in the parking lot for two years had taught me________.

A. how to obey school discipline              B. how to do two things well at a time

C. that discipline and work were of equal value 

D. that I must do as many things as possible at a time

The author tells us in the last paragraph that we should be proud of those who________.

A. have done all kinds of jobs                       B. are cleaning the parking lot

C. have achieved a lot in their lives                D. are bearing their responsibilities

Throughout the history of the arts, the nature of creativity has remained constant to artists. No matter what objects they select, artists are to bring forth new forces and forms that cause change—to find poetry where no one has ever seen or experienced it before.

Landscape(风景) is another unchanging element of art. It can be found from ancient times through the 17th-century Dutch painters to the 19th-century romanticists and impressionists. In the 1970s Alfred Leslie, one of the new American realists, continued this practice. Leslie sought out the same place where Thomas Cole, a romanticist, had produced paintings of the same scene a century and a half before. Unlike Cole who insists on a feeling of loneliness and the idea of finding peace in nature, Leslie paints what he actually sees. In his paintings, there is no particular change in emotion, and he includes ordinary things like the highway in the background. He also takes advantage of the latest developments of color photography(摄影术) to help both the eye and the memory when he improves his painting back in his workroom.

Besides, all art begs the age-old question: What is real? Each generation of artists has shown their understanding of reality in one form or another. The impressionists saw reality in brief emotional effects, the realists in everyday subjects and in forest scenes, and the Cro-Magnon cave people in their naturalistic drawings of the animals in the ancient forests. To sum up, understanding reality is a necessary struggle for artists of all periods.

Over thousands of years the function of the arts has remained relatively constant. Past or present, Eastern or Western, the arts are a basic part of our immediate experience. Many and different are the faces of art, and together they express the basic need and hope of human beings.

Leslie's paintings are extraordinary because_______ .

A. they are close in style to works in ancient times

B. they look like works by 19th-century painters

C. they draw attention to common things in life

D. they depend heavily on color photography

What is the author's opinion of artistic reality?

A. It will not be found in future works of art.

B. It does not have a long-lasting standard.

C. It is expressed in a fixed artistic form.

D. It is lacking in modern works of art.

What does the author suggest about the arts in the last paragraph?

A. They express people's curiosity about the past.

B. They make people interested in everyday experience.

C. They are considered important for variety in form.

D. They are regarded as a mirror of the human situation.