Fire can help people in many ways. But it can also be very harmful. Fire can heat water, warm your houses, give light, and cook food. But fire can burn things too. It can burn trees, houses, animals, or people. Sometimes big fires can burn forests.

Nobody knows for sure how people began to use fire. But there are many interesting, old stories about the first time a man or woman started a fire. One story from Australia tells about a man a very, very long time ago. He went up to the sun by a rope and brought fire down.

Today people know how to make a fire with matches. Children sometimes like to play with them. But matches can be very dangerous. One match can burn a piece of paper, and then it might burn a house. A small fire can become a big fire very fast.

Fires kill many people every year. So you must he careful with matches. You should also learn to put out fires. Fires need oxygen. Without oxygen they die. There is oxygen in the air. Cover a fire with water, sand, or in an emergency, with your coat or something else.This keeps the air away from a fire and kills it.

Be careful with fire, and it will help you. Be careless with fire, and it will burn you.

8. According to the passage which of the following is true?

A. Where there is oxygen there is fire.

B. It is an Australian who started a fire.

C. We are not sure how people started to use fire.

D. Nobody knows how to make a fire.

9. The reason why children mustn’t play with matches is that ________.

A. they don’t know how to make a fire with matches  B. it is not interesting

C. matches can be dangerous                     D. matches burn paper

10. If you are going to put out a fire, you________.

A. must be careful with matches       B. have to know fires kill many people every year

C. have to cover it with water only       D. should keep air away from it

11. We must be careful with fire, or it ________.

A. can die              B. warms our houses  C. might burn us             D. will help us

12. What is the main idea of the passage?

A. Fire can help people in many ways. B. Fire can be both helpful and harmful.

C. Fire can burn things and people.      D. We must be careful with matches.

This is a story from 28 years ago. My dad was a used car salesman. Every Thursday night, he would head off to Shreveport, LA for an auction. Most of the time, I drove a car over there for him so he could sell it at the auction.

One day, I was riding with my dad when he noticed a hitch-hiker with a backpack. Without hesitation, he pulled the car over and offered him a ride. Dad asked him his name, and proceeded to talk to him about all sorts of things. Dad asked him where he was going. The hitch-hiker told him he was heading for the west. I can’t recall why but he told Dad a lot of things that had occurred to him and that persuaded him to make that decision. He talked about the tragic events that occurred to him several years before. He was low in spirits, but I could see that the hitch-hiker’s attitude was changing as someone was really listening to him.

We drove 45 minutes before the hitch-hiker got off. We pulled over and Dad told him to keep his head up and things would start looking up for him soon. He reached into his pocket and handed the hitch-hiker a twenty-dollar bill. The guy smiled. He nearly lit up right there on the cold, dark highway.

We drove on and my dad did not say a single thing. I was still completely amazed by what I had just witnessed. I was always told by everyone never to pick up a hitch-hiker and yet my dad did it every single time he saw one. While reflecting upon that story I came to understand that just one single kind act could change someone’s life, and I am sure that my father’s deed made that poor man’s day.

The underlined words “that decision” in Para. 2 refer to ___________.

A. catching the car                 B. heading for the west

C. talking about his experiences       D. driving 45 minutes

What made the hitch-hiker become less upset?

A. The writer’s father offering him a free ride

B. The writer’s father really listening to him

C. The writer’s father agreeing to driving him to his destination

D. The writer’s father talking to him about all sorts of things

When his father helped the hitch-hiker, the writer ___________.

A. was deeply moved               B. strongly disagreed

C. admired his father               D. couldn’t understand

Which of the following words cannot be used to describe the father?

A. willing to help     B. easy-going    C. far-sighted   D. full of sympathy

The author wrote the text mainly to _________.

A. show his respect for his father

B. tell a story about his kind father

C. prove his father is the best teacher

D. advise people to learn from their fathers

One of the big challenges that students face in applying to universities abroad is writing the application essay．

  The essay topics all have something in common. They attempt to get at what type of person you are, what motivates you，and what you feel passion for. In a single 500-word piece of writing，

admissions officers(招生负责人)attempt to gather all about you. So your task is of your personality on the essay and make yourself special. 

You can try and guess what the admissions officers like. But that won’t work．The essay will sound empty and become another dull piece of writing，which admissions officers get thousands of each year．

  It is true that admissions officers aren’t exactly looking for anything. The answer is just as open-ended as the question itself. If they ask for someone who has inspired you, it could be anyone. It could be a grandmother, a teacher, or even a character from a movie. A lot of people will say their dad. But since you really feel it, you’ll have a lot to write about.

  There are some important things to remember．These admissions officers want good writers. You don't have to be Ernest Hemingway, but you have to be able to form an interesting story．That means revision(校对)and editing，cutting out stupid grammar mistakes，reading it over several times，leaving it for a few days and looking at it again. Whatever you do, make sure the essay is as good as possible.

  Also，you should use exciting language and really make the reader feel the same passion as you do. It also means finding something unique about your point of view, something that other people might not think of．For example，if you want to write about your dad, you can focus on a specific anecdote(趣闻)about him .Admissions officers love personal stories that ring true．

The purpose of the passage is to give advice on how to_________.

A. choose an essay topic                                     B. read the officers’ minds

C. be a good writer                                           D write an effective application

The underlined part of paragraph 2 suggests that you__________.

A. stick enough stamps before posting your application essay

B. write something unique in an essay to impress the readers   

C. take the task of showing off yourself seriously  

D. pay attention to your personal essay

When admissions officers ask who has inspired you，they mean to________.

A. know about your family members               B. understand you better

C. find out what your father does                             D. discover your personal affairs

According to the writer, it is wise to produce an essay with__________.

A.500 beautiful words   B. many funny things   C. truthful specific stories   D. indirect answers

Last July, my 12-year-old car died on California’s Santa Ana Freeway. It was an hour before sunset, and I was 25 miles from home. I couldn’t reach anyone to pick me up, so I decided to take a bus. Not knowing the routes, I figured I’d just head east.

A bus pulled up, and I asked the driver how far she was going. “Four more lights,” she said. There was another bus I could take from there. This clearly was going to be a long night.

She dropped me off at the end of her route and told me which bus to look for. After waiting 30 minutes, I began to think about a very expensive taxi ride home. Then a bus pulled up. There was no lighted number above its windshield(挡风玻璃). It was out of service. But the door opened, and I was surprised to find that it was the same driver.

“I just can’t leave you here,” she said. “This isn’t the nicest place. I’ll give you a ride home.”

“You’ll drive me home in the bus?” I asked, perplexed(困惑).

“No, I’ll take you in my car,” she said.

“It’s a long way,” I protested.

“Come on, ” she said. “I have nothing else to do.”

As we drove www..comfrom the station in her car, she began telling me a story. A few days earlier, her brother had run out of gas. A good Samaritan picked him up, took him to a service station and then back to his car. “I’m just passing the favor along, ” she said.

When I offered her money as a thank-you, she wouldn’t hear of it. “That wouldn’t make it a favor, ” she said. “Just do something nice for somebody. Pass it along.”

1. Why did the writer say that he would have a long night?

A. He wondered how long he had to wait for the next bus.

B. No driver would give him a ride.

C. He didn’t know the routes.

D. He perhaps would have to take a taxi.

2. Judging from its context, the place where the writer waited for the second bus was _______.

A. very quiet and peaceful     B. dark without street lights

C. neither clean nor beautiful   D. a little unsafe

3. Why did the writer change his mind after waiting for 30 minutes at the end of the route?

A. No bus would come at the time.

B. A taxi ride would be more comfortable.

C. He became impatient and a bit worried.

D. He knew the driver would never return.

4. The bus driver drove the writer home later because ________.

A. she happened to go in the same direction

B. she wanted to do something good for other people

C. her brother told her to do so

D. she wanted to earn more money

5. The bus driver hoped that the writer ________.

A. would do as she did             B. would keep her in memory

C. would give the money to others    D. would do her a favor

  Where do most writers get their ideas? For Yoshiko Uchida, it all began with Brownie, a five-month-old puppy. So excited was Yoshiko by Brownie’s arrival that she started keeping a journal, writing about all the wonderful things Brownie did and the progress he made.

Soon she was writing about other memorable events in her life, too, like the day her family got their first refrigerator. She also began writing stories, thanks to one of her teachers. Yoshiko wrote stories about animal characters such as Jimmy Chipmunk and Willie the Squirrel. She kept on writing, sharing the kitchen table with her mother, who wrote poems on scraps of paper and the backs of envelopes.

Yoshiko grew up in the 1930s in Berkeley, California. Her parents, both of whom had been born in Japan, provided a loving and happy home for Yoshiko and her sister. They also provided a stream of visitors to their home who later found their way into Yoshiko’s stories. One visitor who later appeared in several of Yoshiko’s stories was the bad-tempered Mr. Toga, who lived above the church that her family attended. Mr. Toga would scold anyone who displeased him. The children all feared him and loved to tell stories about how mean he was and how his false teeth rattled (咯咯响) when he talked.

Yoshiko also included in her stories some of the places she visited and the experiences she had. One of her favorite places was a farm her parents took her to one summer. The owners of the farm, showed Yoshiko and her sister how to pump water from the well and how to gather eggs in the henhouse. They fed the mules that later pulled a wagon loaded with hay while Yoshiko and the others rode in the back, staring up at the stars shining in the night sky. Yoshiko, who lived in the city, had never seen such a sight. As Yoshiko gazed up at the stars, she was filled with hope and excitement about her life. The images of that hayride stayed with her long after the summer visit ended, and she used them in several of her stories.

The experiences Yoshiko had and the parade of people who marched through her young life became a part of the world she created in over twenty books for young people, such as The Best Bad Thing and A Jar of Dreams. Because of such books, we can all share just a little bit of the world and the times in which this great writer grew up.

The author tells about Mr. Toga’s false teeth in Paragraph 3 in order to ____________.

A. show health care was not good enough in Berkeley during the 1930s

B. provide an interesting detail in Yoshiko’s life and stories

C. show Yoshiko’s young life was difficult and frightening

D. tell about a beloved relative who helped Yoshiko learn how to write

In Paragraph 4 “the stars” probably refer to ____________.

A. family relationships                 B. terrors in the night

C. limitless possibilities                  D. sacrifices to benefit others

What does the underlined part in the last paragraph mean?

A. Yoshiko loved to write about parades.

B. Yoshiko met many interesting people.

C. Yoshiko liked to go for long walks with others.

D. Yoshiko preferred to talk to her pets instead of to people.

What is the main idea of this story?

A. People who live in the city should spend as much time as they can in the country.

B. Writers like Yoshiko Uchida must communicate with as many writers as possible.

C. Those who move to the United States often miss their homelands for many years.

D. Writers like Yoshiko Uchida look to the richness of their lives for material.