Nick was not the kind of boy I had expected to spend my summer with. I was hoping to     have a   21   the summer before my busy senior year, but my mother asked me to do her a   22  . One of her colleagues needed a full-time   23  . “You planned to volunteer at the local hospital, why not volunteer to   24   Nick instead?” Then she told me that this six-year-old boy was not a   25   child.

Nick was a lovely little boy who suffered from many disorders. Normal day-care centres would not   26   him. As a baby, he had serious ear infections which left him with equilibrium (平衡) problems. He couldn’t   27   or run properly. I was hesitating (犹豫)   28   I was to take the job when my mother   29  , “Don’t you want to be a nurse in the future? I doubt if you even have the   30  .”

Then I told her I was   31   for the job.

The day started at 7:00 a.m. Nick was my wake-up call! With so much energy and very little   32  , he was quite a mix.

In the park, when he saw all the other children play on the jungle gym and swings (秋千)， the boy’s face   33   up — how he wished he belonged to the group of his age! You would think it would be   34   to get a child to go down a slide (滑梯). Believe me, it wasn’t! It took time, a lot of time. But with patience and support, Nick took one step up the slide each day. We worked together to face his   35   and gradually he got closer to taking the slide of his life.

Halfway through the summer, he   36   it to the top of the slide. With my arms   37   him tightly, we flew down the slide! I waited for his reaction. After realizing that he was safe and sound, he gave me a big   38   and asked, “May I go down again, alone?” I had never been happier in my life when I saw this little child climb the ladder and enjoy what other children   39   for granted.  This   40   child taught me that being a nurse means respect, kindness and patience.

1.A. grade      B. course          C. project        D. relaxation

2.A. service    B. favour      C. business        D. trade

3.A. nurse      B. waitress      C. guard        D. guide

4.A. protect    B. defend       C. attend        D. comfort

5.A. normal     B. naughty      C. clever        D. happy

6.A. admit      B. receive     C. accept          D. adopt

7.A. speak      B. play        C. stand          D. walk

8.A. if        B. what         C. why                D. where

9.A. suggested  B. argued     C. challenged         D. commented

10.A. energy     B. courage      C. faith                 D. time

11.A. eager      B. sorry        C. grateful        D. ready

12.A. awareness  B. balance      C. knowledge      D. control

13.A. delighted  B. cheered      C. lit                 D. shut

14.A. difficult  B. simple        C. interesting       D. terrible

15.A. fears      B. worries     C. chances        D. situations

16.A. climbed    B. got        C. managed        D. made

17.A. taking     B. holding    C. bringing        D. greeting

18.A. kiss       B. clap        C. welcome          D. surprise

19.A. play       B. do                     C. take                  D. enjoy

20.A. miserable  B. smart       C. brave           D. special

The Taj Mahal

Shah Jahan finished building Taj Mahal in 1648. He was a rich and powerful emperor, and he built the Taj Mahal as a memorial for his wife.  1.  The word “taj” means crown, “Mahal” was the name of his wife. Twenty thousand people worked for 18 years to complete this beautiful domed(圆顶屋) building. A thousand elephants carried huge stones and jewels from all over India and central Asia to the Taj. Shah Jahan wanted this memorial to be a burial place for himself and his wife.

The Taj Mahal is on the Yamuna River in Agra in northern India.  2.   Its picture is in most travel books and brochures. It is open daily from sunrise to sunset. For about fifteen rupees (or about US$0.33), anyone can enter this peaceful and quiet place.

As you enter, you pass through beautiful, silent gardens. From the gardens, you cross a wide courtyard. Suddenly, you see the dome of the main building through a tall, red sandstone gate. At daybreak, the Taj Mahal’s white walls turn rose. At noon, they blaze（发光）white. At dusk, they become dark grey.  3.  

After you pass through the gate, you step onto a wide stone platform. You look over another garden with pools. Everything is arranged carefully in fours.  4.  The garden is divided into four parts. There are straight rows of colorful flowers and trees in each of the parts. At the four corners of the Taj Mahal, there are pointed tall towers. After the gardens, you go down stone steps towards the main building with the tomb and the graves of Shah Jahan and his wife.

After hundreds of years, the Taj Mahal remains a lovely and peaceful place.  5.  

E. The Taj Mahal is most beautiful by the light of the full moon.

F. To many people around the world, the Taj Mahal is a symbol of India.

G. From the cool, dark gates, the Taj Mahal seems to float between earth and sky.

Their wages ____by a full third in the past two years.

A had gone down          B would go down 

C have gone down         D goes down

Chinese White Collars（白领） Go Down on the Farm

The latest craze among China’s white collar workers, reported in the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph, is an online virtual agricultural game called “Happy Farm.” Virtual farmers can visit each other’s farm, trade livestock and can use real cash to buy virtual (虚拟的) items such as special tools, quality seeds, and animals. The free game is played through social networking sites like kaixin001.com, Face book or xiaonei.com.

Urban office workers can escape the pressures and stresses of everyday life and enter a peaceful virtual existence where players can grow vegetables, practice animal farming and receive satisfaction that comes with a hard-won harvest. Because most Chinese white collars have little amusement after work, Happy Farm gives them a virtual world to make their dreams come true.

Global Times, an English language daily based in Beijing, recently reported that there are more than 15 million Chinese urbanites spending more than five hours a day on their virtual “farms.”

According to the English language website of the People’s Daily newspaper, the increased interest in farming among some urban office workers has resulted in some of them becoming real hobby farmers, tending small plots of land in their free time. Mr. Liu, a white collar worker, has rented a piece of farmland for RMB 3000. Mr. Liu and his family like to drive down to their farm on the weekend and do different farming tasks such as watering, weeding, fertilizing and worming. Later on, cabins will be built on agricultural land making it possible for part-time farmers like Mr. Liu to stay on their land for two weeks enabling them to get a little taste of a farmer’s life.

It is a rather interesting social development that some of urban office workers are becoming interested in farming and agriculture, while large numbers of farmers and agricultural workers continue to move to the cities.

1.What is “Happy Farm”? (No more than 7 words)

2.Why do more and more Chinese white collars go down on Happy Farm?

(No more than 14 words)

3.List 4 farming tasks Mr. Liu and his family do on their farms. (No more than 5 words)

4.How long do Chinese urbanites spend on their virtual farms every day? (No more than 4 words)

A new law has recently been announced which forbids people to disturb, annoy, harm, kill or interfere with any bats which choose to live in their houses. Anyone who disturbs a bat on its nest ,or handles one without a license will be fined ￡1,000.

There are some people who like bats. The late Mrs. Ian Fleming was one. She would crawl for miles to see them in caves or hanging from trees. Similarly, there are many people who do not like bats much but are not particularly troubled by them. The chance of a bat resting in their attics（阁楼） or spare bedroom curtains may seem far away from them. But there are others who do not fall into either of these categories and Mr. Auberon Waugh is one. Underneath his house are eight large cellars(地下室) which for some reason bats have chosen to claim for themselves. He finds it extremely disagreeable to have to fight his way through a colony of them every time he wants a bottle of wine. And as a wine-lover he gets a particular pleasure from the ownership of wine. He has certain bottles in his cellar which he thinks are too good to serve to anyone he knows, but he likes to go down and enjoy looking at them occasionally. The bats entirely destroy this pleasure.

Until the recent law, he could keep the bat problem within manageable proportions by sending his children down on a bat hunt every three months armed with tennis rackets. They usually managed to kill one or two and discouraged the rest from settling. But now, Mr. Waugh fears that the bats will take over the house. To solve the problem he inquired what course of action he could take and was told by Dr Robert Stebbings of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, “I am sure that no one will mind if you pick up a bat and take it outside and hang it on a tree or the outside of the house.” The trouble with this, as Mr. Waugh explains, is that he would be fined a ￡1,000 if he had not already applied to the Nature Conservancy Council for a license to handle bats. And there is no certainty that he would automatically be granted（agreed to give）one.

1. Mr. Waugh thinks that bats        .

A. should all be destroyed          B. interfere with his wine 

C. should be kept under control     D. prevent him owning wine

2. Because he is a wine-lover, M. Waugh        .

A. stores only good wines           B. keeps certain good wine

C. refuses to drink good wines      D. only wants to own the best wines

3. Success in removing bats from your home depends on        .

A. applying for a license from the Nature Conservancy Council

B. seeking help from the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology

C. taking the course of action recommended by Dr Stebbings

D. the granting of a Nature Conservancy Council license

4.Some people who dislike bats        .

A. think they are unlikely to be bothered by them

B. run the risk of finding them in their attics

C. think it strange they should roost（栖息） in the curtains

D. do not mind them hanging in trees