The young boy saw me, or rather, he saw the car and quickly ran up to me, eager to sell his bunches of bananas and bags of peanuts. Though he appeared to be about twelve, he seemed to have already known the bitterness of life. “Bananas 300 naira. Peanuts 200 naira.” He said in a low voice. I bargained him down to 200 totals for the fruit and nuts. When he agreed, I handed him a 500 naira bill. He didn’t have change, so I told him not to worry. He said thanks and smiled a row of perfect teeth.

When, two weeks later, I saw the boy again, I was more aware of my position in a society where it’s not that uncommon to see a little boy who should be in school standing on the corner selling fruit in the burning sun. My parents had raised me to be aware of the advantage we had been afforded and the responsibility it brought to us.

I pulled over and rolled down my window. He had a bunch of bananas and a bag of peanuts ready. I waved them away. “What’s up?” I asked him.

“I…I don’t have money to buy books for school.” I reached into my pocket and handed him two fresh 500 naira bills. “Will this help?” I asked. He looked around nervously before taking the money. One thousand naira was a lot of money to someone whose family probably made about 5,000 naira or less each year. “Thank you, sir.” he said. “Thank you very much!”

When driving home, I wondered if my little friend actually used the money for schoolbooks. What if he’s a cheat? And then I wondered why I did it. Did I do it to make myself feel better? Was I using him? Later, I realized that I didn’t know his name or the least bit about him, nor did I think to ask.

Over the next six months, I was busy working in a news agency in northern Nigeria. Sometime after I returned, I went out for a drive. When I was about to pull over, the boy suddenly appeared by my window with a big smile ready on his face.

“Oh, gosh! Long time.”

“Are you in school now?” I asked.

He nodded.

“That’s good,” I said. A silence fell as we looked at each other, and then I realized what he wanted. “Here,” I held out a 500 naira bill. “Take this.” He shook his head and stepped back as if hurt. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “It’s a gift.”

He shook his head again and brought his hand from behind his back. His face shone with sweat. He dropped a bunch of bananas and a bag of peanuts in the front seat before he said, “I’ve been waiting to give these to you.”

1.What was the author’s first impression of the boy?

A. He seemed to be poor and greedy.

B. He seemed to have suffered a lot.

C. He seemed younger than his age.

D. He seemed good at bargaining.

2.The second time the author met the boy, the boy ______.

A. told him his purpose of selling fruit and nuts

B. wanted to express his thanks

C. asked him for money for his schoolbooks

D. tried to take advantage of him

3.Why did the author give his money to the boy?

A. Because he had enough money to do that.

B. Because he had learnt to help others since childhood.

C. Because he held a higher position in the society.

D. Because he had been asked by the news agency to do so.

4.Which of the following best describes the boy?

A. Brave and polite.           B. Kind and smart.

C. Honest and thankful.        D. Shy and nervous.

第二节：完形填空（共20小题；每小题1.5分，满分30分）

阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从31~50各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。

For long, a question disturbed a little boy. He couldn’t understand why his next-desk-pal(同桌)could rank lst whenever he wanted to , while he himself 31 to .

At home, he asked his Mom, “Mom, am I more 32 than others? I feel I study as hard as him, but why do I 33 lag behind?” Staring at him ,she went 34 ,not knowing how to explain.

She felt an impulse (冲动)to say , “you are too 35 .You are not really as hard-working as others…”but she stopped 36 she knew her son was suffering from the pains of 37 grades and rankings . She thought it 38 to add any additional burden to his son and was trying to find out a(n) 39 answer.

Time went by quickly, the son finished primary school. 40 studying harder and harder, he was still unable to 41 his pal. To show her pride of him, Mom decided to take him to the sea. During the trip, she 42 to give out an answer.

Now, the son no longer 43 his rankings, because, with the lst ranking, he was 44 by Harvard University .

Back home in winter vacation, he was invited to 45 the students and parents in high school. In the speech, he mentioned a(n) 46 experience in his childhood:…When my mother and I were lying on the beach, she pointed to the front and said ,“Do you see the seabirds fiying for food over there? When the 47 comes near,  little birds can escape quickly 48 ‘clumsy’ seagulls (笨拙的海鸥)would take more time to complete the 49. However, have you noticed birds that 50 fly across the endless ocean are none other than ‘clumsy’seagulls?”

31.A.refused                        B.decided                    C.failed                        D.afforded

32.A.troublesome                B.stupid                       C.naughty                     D.careless

33.A.always                         B.never                        C.hardly                       D.even

34.A.wrong                         B.worried                     C.crazy                        D.wordless

35.A.young                         B.lazy                  C.clever               D.old

36.A.although             B.before                     C.beacuse              D.unless

37.A.worrying                       B.surprising            C.doubting                   D.unsatisfying

38.A.cruel                B.unnecessary          C.important             D.impossible

39.A.natural            B.harmonious           C.perfect             D.ordinary

40.A.Besides              B.Despite             C.Beyond               D.Without

41.A.get through         B.come across          C.compare with         D.keepup with

42.A.managed            B.hesitated            C.determined        D.remembered

43.A.cares about         B.doubts about         C.wonders about      D.worries about

44.A.invited                        B.accepted                    C.welcomed                  D.dismissed

45.A.visit                              B.contact                  C.address                  D.meet

46.A.private                        B.valuable                    C.interesting                 D.unexpected

47.A.wave                           B.food                         C.wind                         D.time

48.A.and                        B.since                         C.until                         D.while

49.A.game                           B.fun                           C.match                       D.process

50.A.suddenly                 B.immediately                 C.finally                       D.gradually

My earliest bee experience took place at a summer camp. One day our teacher told us to head up the hill nearby. We all began to   31  our destination. The girls took the concrete stairs, but the boys ran   32  up the grassy hill, at the top of which sat a long wooden fence(围栏). Without   33  the boys ahead of me vaulted（跃过） over the fence bravely.

What should I do? Take the stairs and   34  a girl, or jump over the fence and look   35  ? Then I took my chance with the fence. I placed both   36  on the top and jumped, feeling uneasy. I didn’t   37   it. As I tried, my foot   38  on the top of the fence. Down I went! I landed on my backside. I tried to  39   off the accident, but then I felt something moving   40  me. Just then I saw  41  seemed like hundreds of bees flying toward me. I had landed on a beehive（蜂窝）!  I  42  up and rushed as fast as I could. But the bees flew faster. What a/an  43  situation I was in!

My clothes were covered with   44 . I parked myself in the camp and I was at a loss.  45  this, my teacher quickly took off all my clothes but underwear. Bees flew out of my clothes and  46  out of my mouth!

I had gained the  47  of all the campers, but I didn’t feel cool. I had been  48 almost 40 bees stings(蛰) all over my body. I learned a most   49   lesson that day. When we are led by the   50   to show off（炫耀）, we might find ourselves sitting on a beehive.

10.A. inside   B. under          C. up             B. beside

It was 1961 and I was in the fifth grade. My marks in school were miserable and, the thing was, I didn’t know enough to really care. My older bother and I lived with Mom in an ugly multi-family house in Detroit. We watched TV every night. The background noise of our lives was gunfire and horses’  hoofs(马蹄) from “Wagon Train” or “Cheyenne”, and laughter from “I Love Lucy”, or “Mister Ed”. After supper, we’d lie on Mom’s bed and stare for hours at the TV screen.

But one day Mom changed our world forever. She turned off the TV. Our mother had only been able to get through third grade. But, she was much brighter and smarter than we boys know at the time. She had noticed something in the suburban houses where she cleaned books. So she came home one day, switched off the TV, sat us down and explained that her sons were going to make something of themselves. “You boys are going to read two books every week,” she said. “And you’re going to write a report on what you read.”

We moaned（不满,发牢骚） and complained about how unfair it was. Besides, we didn’t have any books in the house other than Mom’s Bible. But she explained that we would go where the books were: “I’ll drive you to the library.”

So pretty soon there were these two peevish（坏脾气的）boys sitting in her white 1959 Oldsmobile on their way to Detroit Public Library. I wandered reluctantly（不情愿） among the children’s books. I loved animals, so when I saw some books that seemed to be about animals, I started leafing through them.

The first book I read clear through was Chip the Dam Builder. It was about beavers（河狸）. For the first time in my life I was lost in another world. No television program had ever taken me so far away from my surroundings as did this virtue visit to a cold stream in a forest and these animals building a home.

It didn’t dawn on me at the time, but the experience was quite different from watching TV. There were images forming in my mind instead of before my eyes. And I could return to them again and again with the flip（快速翻动）of a page.

Soon I began to look forward to visiting this quiet sanctuary form my other world. I moved from animals to plants, and then to rocks. Between the covers of all those books were whole worlds, and I was free to go anywhere in them. Along the way a funny thing happened: I started to know things. Teachers started to notice it too. I got to the point where I couldn’t wait to get home to my books.

Now my older brother is an engineer and I am chief of pediatric neurosurgery(儿童神经外科)at John Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore. Sometimes I still can’t believe my life’s journey, from a failing and indifferent student in a Detroit public school to this position, which takes me all over the world to teach and perform critical surgery.

But I know when the journey began the day Mom switched off the TV set and put us in her Oldsmobile for that drive to the library.

1.We can learn from the beginning of the passage that ___________.

2.Which of the following is not true about the author’s family?

3.How did the two boys feel about going to the library at first?

4.The author began to love books for the following reasons EXCEPT that ___________.

Juanito Estrella has been a housekeeping manager on the US-based large passenger ship Carnival Spirit for 18 months and feels he  has found the suitable position in his career(职业).He has always wanted to travel.“ I guess I am a really restless spirit. I Iike  traveling, so when the chance came, I jumped at it,” he says.

    The chance came in the form of a newspaper advertisement for work on cruise ships（游船）. At the time Estrella was the housekeeping manager at a Melbourne hotel. He applied and, after two interviews, a medical check and police clearance, the job was his.

    Estrella is responsible(负责的)for the cleanliness of the ship, making sure that 160 crew work properly. “I enjoy it because there is no other work-you wake up each day in a different place and a different culture. It’s exciting when you go to the next country and you don’t understand the language, ”he says.

    Estrella likes being busy and getting to know people from all over the world. The 1,000 crew come from 94 countries, and Estrella has learnt Spanish and a little Croatian.

    But there is a downside .“You cannot get really drunk...because you have safety responsibilities to yourself and others, ”he says.“ You don’t really think about home. You start to think about home only when you get closer to your vacation and wonder what you’ll be doing.”

    Life on the ship is anything but cruising. Estrella and his fellows work at least 10 hours a day, seven days a week. He warns the job is not for everybody. “You have to love being busy and be prepared to work every day-and to give up drinking too much alcohol. ”In his spare time, if the ship sails into a port, Estrella explores it, otherwise he works out in the crew’s gym, goes on the internet or calls home.

1.What do we know about Estrella?

   A. He is very fond of traveling.

   B. He doesn’t drink wine now.

    C. He cannot speak a foreign language.

    D. He used to be a housekeeping manager in a ship.

3.The underlined word “downside” in paragraph 5 probably means ____________.

   A. disappointment  B. disadvantage  C. failure    D. loss

3.Which of the following is true?

    A. Estrella doesn’t often feel homesick because of his work.

    B. The work on the ship is not suitable for a married person.

    C. Estrella can find no other job except the one on the ship.

    D. The people on the ship are from 94 countries.

4. In the last paragraph the writer thinks that life on the ship is ____________.

    A. not a tiring journey at all           B. just an interesting voyage

    C. far from a voyage for pleasure       D. more than a pleasant travel by sea