阅读理解

　　For almost three years now, Mary Rodas has been a vice president at a company in New York City. Mary works in a big office, is driven in a car and makes important business decisions.

　　But she still has to do her homework every day. That’ s because Mary is a 16 - year - old high school student.

　　How did a teenager get to be a vice president? It all started when she was a little girl in Union City, New Jersey. One day, she was watching a worker, Donald Spector, put in new tiles (瓷砖). He laid the tiles in the correct pattern everywhere but behind the kitchen door.

　　“Mister,” she said, walking right up to him. “You’re doing it all wrong.”

　　“It’s okay, Mary,” Spector said “Nobody will see the tiles behind the door.”

　　“But it’s wrong,” Mary insisted. “You have to do it right even if nobody sees it.”

　　Spector was impressed she spoke her mind. Mary and Donald became friends that day, and it changed their lives. Donald Spector is an inventor and one of the founders of a company that makes toys. As Mary got a little older, Spector started to show her his ideas for new products. He wanted Mary’ s opinions. And she gave it to him straight.

　　Mary has come up with a lot of good ideas for the company. Take, for example, Balzac. This is a cloth ball with a balloon inside it that can be filled with air or water. In 1989, it became one of the hottest toys in the U.S. It was Mary’ s idea to fill a Balzac partly with water so that it would fly crazily (疯狂地) when you threw it. And it was Mary who thought of putting pennies or rice inside so it would make noise when it bounced (弹起) around. She also told Spector that she didn’t like its color.

　　“I was 13 when Donald showed it to me,” Mary says. “It was fun to play with, but I thought the colors were boring. I told him to use neon (氖)colors, and to put them in crazy patterns.”

　　When Balzac hit the market, the results blew Spector away. It did so well, now stores are selling a whole bunch of Balzac products.

　　Donald Spector knew how much Mary was helping his company. So on Christmas Day in 1989, he gave her a present. He asked her to be the vice president of marketing in his company.

1．Why did Spector ask Mary to be the vice president of his company?

[　　]

A．Because she was a teenager.

B．Because she liked playing with all kinds of toys.

C．Because she had offered him many helpful suggestions.

D．Because she asked for less pay than anyone else.

2．Which question is not answered in the passage?

[　　]

A．How did Mary meet Donald?

B．How much money does Mary earn?

C．What does Mary do at work?

D．What was Balzac?

3．You can infer from the passage that Mary ________.

[　　]

A．is very shy

B．does not go to school

C．is smart

D．doesn’t like any colors

4．Which of the following can be chosen as the best title for the passage?

[　　]

A．You Must Do Everything Right

B．Toys in the United States

C．The Success of Balzac

D．A Young Vice President

阅读下面的短文，然后按照要求写一篇150词左右的英语短文。
I was brought up in the countryside by my grandmother. She was very courageous and inspiring woman and was very beautiful, too. In comparison with her or some of my classmates, I always felt that I was not beautiful or pretty. In fact, when I was studying in middle school, I thought I was not as good as other students and just because of these negative feelings, I was not very confident. One day, I went to the shoe shop to buy a pair of new shoes. When I got there, I noticed a foreign lady talking to a salesgirl. But the salesgirl didn’t understand what the foreigner was saying. They both looked worried. I went up to help them. The lady is an Australian. She wanted to buy a pair of travelling shoes. So I told it to the salesgirl. The lady was very glad when she took them. She spoke high praise for my spoken English and said that I was a pretty girl. Both of them expressed their thanks to me.
As a matter of fact, no one had ever praised me like that before. It was so encouraging. Suddenly I felt confident and happy. It is true that those words turned my life around.
【写作内容】
1．以约30个词概括短文的要点。
2．然后以约120个词写一篇记叙文，描写表扬或称赞给人带来的愉快和鼓舞，并包括以下要点：
a）叙述你或你的朋友被老师或其他人表扬的一次真实或虚构的经历；
b）被表扬后的感觉是怎么样的；
c）这次称赞、表扬带来的影响。
【写作要求】
1. 可以参照阅读材料的篇章结构，组织故事，但不得直接引用原文中的句子。
2. 作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称。
3. 作文题目已在答题卷中给出。
[评分标准]概括准确，语言规范，内容合适，篇章连贯。

Emanuel’s father liked to declare he’d spent ages by the sea, breathing seawater. Now, away from the sea, in the hospital, his body just looked like a beached fish. His condition went from bad to worse. The doctor came from saying, “He’ll be home in a day,” “He’ll be home in a week,” to “He will be home in a month.”
When Emanuel was a teenager, if he ever seemed bored with the pier(码头), his father would shout, “What ? This isn’t good enough for you?” And later, when he suggested Emanuel take a job at the pier after high school, the boy almost laughed, and his father again said, “What? This isn’t good enough for you?” And before Emanuel went to war, when he talked of marrying Maggie and becoming an engineer, his father said, “What? This isn’t good enough for you?”
And now, here he was, Emanuel helped out at the pier, working evenings after his taxi job, doing his father’s labor.
Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. It is not until much later that children understand: their stories and all their accomplishments sit on top of the stories of their mothers and fathers.
One night his father, lying in hospital, was practically too weak to speak. Others comforted him. “Your old man will pull through. He’s the toughest man we’ve ever seen.”
When the news came that his father had died, Emanuel felt heart-broken.
In the following weeks, Emanuel’s mother lived in a confused state. She spoke to her husband as if he were still there .She yelled at him to turn down the radio. She cooked enough food for two .One night, when Emanuel offered to help with the dishes, she said. “Your father will put them away.” Emanuel put a hand on her shoulder. “Ma,” he said softly, “Dad’s gone.”
“Gone where?” murmured Mum.
【小题1】Which of the following shows the right order of the story?
a．Emanuel’s father fell ill.         
b．Emanuel helped out at pier.
c．Emanuel went to the war.
d．Emanuel wished to be an engineer.
e.  Emanuel’s mother lived in a confused state

The young woman seated next to us at the sushi(寿司) bar gave off an alien air; her looks and style, we thought, made it likely that she was not American born.

But then she spoke in perfect American English, with the typical characteristic of many young Californians.

As it turns out, however, she wasn’t from these parts after all; she was born in Iran and spoke only Farsi(波斯语) until her arrival here two years ago. What classes, we wondered, had she attended to learn the language so well?

“I didn’t,” she said. “I used Rosetta Stone.”

Those yellow boxes sold at shopping-mall and airport newspaper stands may be the most recognizable example of PC-based language learning, but it certainly isn’t the only one.

With the growth of broadband connectivity and social networks, companies have introduced a wide range of Internet-based language learning products, both free and fee-based, that allow students to interact in real time with instructors in other countries, gain access to their lesson plans wherever they are in the world, and communicate with pen pals who are also trying to remember if bambino means baby.

Learning a language sometimes seems as difficult as dieting. The solution is to figure out how to stay interested after the curiosity wears off.

To fight against boredom, online language programs have introduced crossword puzzles, interactive(交互的) videos and other games to reward users for making progress.

Online courses are either fee-based, free or a combination. Starter kits(入门套件) of fee-based programs may cost just a few hundred dollars, but the cost to reach higher levels of comprehension and speaking can easily be $1,000.

While that may sound expensive, language company managers say it isn’t; college courses often cost many thousands of dollars to reach the same level.

So, cost aside, how do you choose which program to use? The answer is that one size doesn’t fit all.

55.   Which of the following is the fact about “Rosetta Stone”?

A.      Rosetta Stone is only a special stone with the name Rosetta on

B.      Rosetta Stone is a free PC-based language learning product.

C.      Rosetta Stone is a reference book for English learners to use.

D.     Rosetta Stone is a language-learning software

56.   The case of the young woman in the passage is meant to tell the reader that ______.

A.      the woman is one of many successful language learners

B.      the woman likes Rosetta Stone very much

C.      many people are benefiting from the Internet language learning products

D.     Rosetta Stone is one of the successful PC-based language instructors

57.   We can learn from the passage that ______.

A.      they offer the English learners all kinds of free courses

B.      learners can communicate with teachers at any time

C.      students can compare notes with their e-pals about language study

D.     advanced online courses usually cost more than the college ones of the same level

58.   What information will be most probably provided following the last paragraph?

A.      An introduction of different online language learning products.

B.      An introduction of different language learning methods.

C.      The strengths and weaknesses of Internet language learning products.

D.     A comparison between online and college language learning.