“Soon, you’re going to have to move out!” cried my neighbor upon seeing the largest tomato plant known to mankind, or at least known in my neighborhood.

One tiny 9-inch plant, bought for $1.25 in the spring, has already taken over much of my rose bed, covering much of other plants, and is well on its way to the front door.

Roses require a good deal of care, and if it weren’t for the pleasure they give, it wouldn’t be worth the work. As it is, I have a garden full of sweet-smelling roses for most of the year. Bushes must be pruned(剪枝) in early spring, leaving ugly woody branches until the new growth appears a few weeks later. It was the space available in the garden that led me into planting just one little tomato plant. A big mistake.

Soil conditions made just perfect for roses turn out be even more perfect for tomatoes. The daily watering coupled with full sun and regular fertilizing have turned the little plant into a tall bush. The cage I placed around it as the plant grew has long since disappeared under the thick leaves.

Now the task I face in harvesting the fruit is twofold; First, I have to find the red ones among the leaves, which means I almost have to stand on my head, and once found I have to reach down and under, pick the tomatoes and withdraw(缩回) my full fist without dropping the prize so dearly won. I found two full-blown white roses completely hidden as I picked tomatoes in June. But they were weak and the leaves already yellow for lack of light.

Here I am faced with a painful small decision: To tear up a wonderful and productive tomato plant that offers up between ten and twenty ripe sweet tomatoes each day or say goodbye to several expensive and treasured roses. Like Scarlett in Gone With the Wind, I’ll think about that tomorrow.

1. What ate the requirements for the healthy growth of rose?

A．A lot of care and the right soil.

B．Frequent pruning and fertilizing.

C．Tomato plants grown alongside.

D．Cages placed around the roots.

2. The writer planted the tomato because ________.

A．it cost only $1.25

B．the soil was just right for it

C．there was room for it in the garden

D．the roses’ branches needed to be covered

3. This year the writer’s roses were _______.

A．removed from the rose bed

B．picked along with the tomatoes

C．mostly damaged by too much sunlight

D．largely hidden under the tomato plant

4. By saying “the prize so dearly won” in paragraph 5, the writer wants to _______.

A．show the difficulty in picking the tomatoes

B．show the hardship of growing the roses

C．express her liking for the roses

D．express her care for the tomatoes

“Soon, you’re going to have to move out!” cried my neighbor upon seeing the largest tomato plant known to mankind, or at least known in my neighborhood.
One tiny 9-inch plant, bought for $1.25 in the spring, has already taken over much of my rose bed, covering much of other plants, and is well on its way to the front door.

Roses require a good deal of care, and if it weren’t for the pleasure they give, it wouldn’t be worth the work. As it is, I have a garden full of sweet-smelling roses for most of the year. Bushes must be pruned(剪枝) in early spring, leaving ugly woody branches until the new growth appears a few weeks later. It was the space available in the garden that led me into planting just one little tomato plant. A big mistake.
Soil conditions made just perfect for roses turn out to be even more perfect for tomatoes. The daily watering coupled with full sun and regular fertilizing (施肥) have turned the little plant into a tall bush. The cage I placed around it as the plant grew has long disappeared under the thick leaves.
Now the task I face in harvesting the fruit is twofold; First, I have to find the red ones among the leaves, which means I almost have to stand on my head, and once found I have to reach down and under, pick the tomatoes and withdraw(缩回) my full fist without dropping the prize so dearly won. I found two full-blown white roses completely hidden as I picked tomatoes in June. But they were weak and the leaves already yellow for lack of light.
Here I am faced with a painful small decision: To tear up a wonderful and productive tomato plant that offers up between ten and twenty ripe sweet tomatoes each day or say goodbye to several expensive and treasured roses. Like Scarlett in Gone With the Wind, I’ll think about that tomorrow.
【小题1】What are the requirements for the healthy growth of rose?

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III. 阅读 (共两节，满分40分)

第一节：阅读理解（共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分）

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C 和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

As goods and services improved, people were persuaded to spend their money on changing from old to new, and found the change worth the expense. When an airline equipped itself with jets, for example, its costs (and therefore air fare) would go up, but the new planes meant such an improvement that the higher cost was justified. A new car (or wireless, washing machine, electric kettle) made life so much more comfortable than the old one that the high cost of replacement was fully repaid. Manufacturers still cry their goods as persuasively as ever, but are the improvements really worth paying for? In many fields, things have now reached such a high standard of performance that further progress is very limited and very, very expensive. Airlines, for example, go to enormous expense in buying the latest prestige jets, in which vast research costs have been spent on relatively small improvements. If we abandon these vast costs we might lose the chance of cutting minutes away from flying times; but wouldn’t it be better to see airfares drop dramatically, as capital costs become relatively insignificant? Again, in the context of a 70 m. p. h. Limit, with lines of cars traveling so close as to control each other’s speeds, improvements in performance are actually irrelevant; improvements in handling are unnecessary, as most production cars grip（抓牢） the road perfectly, and comfort has now reached a very high level. Small improvements here are unlikely to be worth the thousands that anybody replacing an ordinary family car every two years may have spent on them. Let us instead have cars — or wireless, electric kettles, washing machines, television sets — which are made to last, and not to be replaced. Significant progress is obviously a good thing, but the insignificant progression from model-change to model-change is not.

1. The author is obviously challenging the social norm (社会规范) that ________________.

A. it is important to improve goods and services

B. development of technology makes our life more comfortable

C. it is reasonable that prices are going up all the time

D. slightly improved new products are worth buying

2. According to this passage, airfares may rise because ______________.

A. the airplane has been improved

B. people tend to travel by new airplanes

C. the change is found to be reasonable

D. the service on the airplane is better than before

3. According to the author, passengers would be happier if they ____________.

A. could fly in the latest model of good planes

B. could get tickets at much lower prices

C. see the airlines make vital changes in their services

D. could spend less time flying in the air

4. When manufactures have improved the performance of their products to a certain level, then it would be _______________.

A. justified for them to cut the price

B. unnecessary for them to make any new changes

C. difficult and costly to further better them

D. insignificant for them to cut down the research costs

5. In the case of cars, the author advises that we _____________.

A. cancel the speed limit                       B. further improve their performance

C. change models every two years          D. improve their durability (耐久性)

I believe in leaving work at five o’clock. In a nation with such a strict work ethic(道德规范) , this is considered strange. Working only 40 hours a week? I just don’t know many people who punch out (打卡下班) at five o’clock anymore.

My father tried to teach me the importance of hard work, long hours and devotion to a career. But then there are the things he taught me unintentionally, like when he arrived home from work for the last time and crawled up the stairs.

My father, a self-employed sales trainer, was that sick, that tired. His body was wracked with liver cancer, and he suffered the effects of a diabetic ulcer（糖尿病）. Despite all this, he insisted on traveling a long way to give a lecture. He probably earned a lot of money that day, but he paid the price. He returned to the hospital soon afterwards and was dead within three months, aged just 58.

It’s been 10 years since I saw my father come home that night and since then, I’ve thought a lot about work. I’ve decided something: I will never crawl up the stairs exhausted. As much as I love my job as a newspaper reporter, I will never work myself into the ground, physically or emotionally. Not taking my work home didn’t come easily to me at first. After all, I am my father’s daughter. In college, I was the girl who sat on the library steps each morning, waiting for the doors to open. I even dreamt about schoolwork.

My dad once told me he was unable to just gaze at a sunset; he had to be doing something as he looked at it—writing, reading, playing chess. You could say he was a success: He was a published author, an accomplished musician, fluent in many languages. That’s an impressive list, but the thing is I want to gaze at sunsets. I don’t want to meet a deadline during them or be writing a column at the same time, or glance at them over the top of a book.

This raises the question: If I leave work at five o’ clock to watch the sunset, what are the consequences? Do I risk not reaching the top of my profession? Maybe, because honestly, knocking off after eight hours probably won’t earn me the best promotion. But hey, leaving work at five o’ clock means I eat dinner with my family. I get to hop on my bike and cycle through the streets of my hometown when there is no traffic.

And I get to take in a lot of sunsets. That’s got to be worth something.

1.Which of the following about the author’s father is true?

A. He set a good example to his daughter.

B. He tried to force his values on his daughter.

C. He gained much pleasure from his work.

D. He achieved great success at the expense of his health.

2.What does the author mean by saying “Not taking my work home did not come easily at first” in Paragraph 4?

A. There was so much work to do.    

B. All her colleagues took work home.

C. She was educated to be a workaholic.

D. She wanted a promotion in her work.

3.What’s the author’s attitude toward promotion?

A. She doesn’t care about it at all.

B. She is eager to get promoted

C. She thinks it’s for the ambitious people

D. Getting promoted at all costs is not worthwhile

4. This text is developed________.

A. by giving examples                         B. by making comparisons

C. by describing process                       D. by order of time

5. What does the writer intend to tell us?

A. To praise his father’s diligence

B. To ask us to take time off work to enjoy life

C. To complain about the strict work ethic

D. To stress the importance of hard work