Several years ago, I had a huge falling out with one of my best friends. So huge, in fact, that now I can’t even remember what happened.

In the past nine years, I’ve seen her twice, and each time we’ve been polite but distant. And that troubles me because we were once that close to each other. I’d like nothing more than to go back nine years, and continue our friendship. But how? How do you reconnect with friends you’ve lost throughout the years?

Linking to your past

The desire to reconnect with lost friend isn’t unusual. Why? Because friends link us to the past. “Friends from years ago are custodians(监护人) of our past,” says Sandy Sheehy, author of Connecting” The Enduring Power of Female Friendship.

Although you can’t share information about your past with friends you’ve met recently, you don’t have a shared history with them. So you wind up only telling them about your past, rather than sharing it with them.

But many people never try to reconnect. Women especially have trouble taking the first step. Shyness or fear that the other person doesn’t want to reconnect often stops many women. And that shouldn’t be. Your friends probably want to be in touch with you as much as you want to be in touch with them.

Searching for friends

Fortunately, finding lost friends isn’t as difficult as it once was, thanks to tools like the Internet. Our experts offer these suggestions for locating contact information:

Search Internet sites designed to locate people like classmates.com and switchboard.com.

Contact your high school or college alumni（校友）office to request current address information.

Surf online yellow pages. Check current phone records from your friend’s hometown.

Network with other friends who might have known your friend.

Get in touch with any of her relatives(亲戚), if you know where they live. If you know where she works, find the company’s web site and search the directory of personnel.

1.What ‘s the subject discussed in the passage?

A. How to make new friends.               B. How to rediscover friendships.

C. How to develop healthy friendships     D. How to keep in touch with friends.

2.The underlined sentence “Friends from years ago are custodians of our past” means _____.

A. many years ago old friends kept something for us

B. in the past old friends took care of us

C. old friends are part of our life history

D. old friends know what wrong things we did in the past

3.What makes us unwilling to reconnect old friends?

A. Lack of money                    B. Shortage of time        

C. Regret and shame                 D. Fear and shyness

4.How can we make contact with the lost friends?

A. By asking other friends of the information on your lost friends.

B. By searching your friends’ telephone number in the net.

C. By asking the local post office about your friends’ new address.

D. By putting an ad in your friends’ local town.

WASHINGTON—US President Barack Obama said Thursday that he had known about NBA star Jeremy Lin’s talent long before the“Linsanity”phenomenon swept the sport.
“I knew about Jeremy before you did because Arne Duncan, my secretary of education, was captain of the Harvard team,”Obama told the famous US sportswriter Bill Simmons in an interview.
“When Arne and I were playing, he said,‘I’m telling you, we’ve got this terrific guard named Jeremy Lin at Harvard.’And then when one of my best friends, whose son is a freshman at Harvard, went for a recruiting(招募) trip he saw Lin in action, so I’ve been on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon(时尚) for a while,”said the president, who is a Harvard Law graduate.
Lin, the New York Knicks’ point guard, though he was cut twice in December 2011, had had a sudden rise in the past month to high points scoring stardom in Madison Square Garden, the world’s biggest basketball stage.
He is the first Chinese-American player in the NBA. He has already developed a devoted following among many Asian-Americans and in China, Taiwan, the Philippines and other countries.
Clicks to the NYKnicks. Com website surged as basketball fans from around the world search for Lin’s news and highlights.
“He seems like a wonderful young man. It elevates(提升) this great sport all round the world,”said Obama, a Chicago Bulls fan.“And what’s been encouraging is to see how fast the sport has bounced back(恢复) recently.”But he sounded a note of caution on how much basketball costs to watch.
“It’s really important for professional athletes and sports owners to just remember you got a whole bunch of folks out here, all across the country, who invest so much in their teams. All they ask is not to be so selfish that you’re not looking out for your fans,”Obama said.
【小题1】President Obama learned about Jeremy long before through      .

短文填词 (共10小题，每小题0.5分，满分5分)

阅读下面短文，根据以下提示：1）汉语提示，2）首字母提示，3）语境提示，在每个空格内填入一个适当的英语单词，并将该词完整地写在右边相对应的横线上。所填单词要求意义准确，拼写正确。

If I have the honor to be c        to work for the                      1.____

Sixteenth Asian Games, I will first ________ (提高) my                           2.____

English so that I can talk easily ________ foreign visitors.             3.____

Secondly, I will learn m      about the history of the                4.____

Asian Games as _____ as the 2010 Asian Games. Third,                5.____

since I am __ (熟悉) with Guangzhou, I can help visitors find        6.____

their way in the city. ________, I should be able to tell                   7.____

visitors about our history and ________ (文化) and show              8.____

them our greatest achievements. In a ________, I will do             9.____

my best to help make the Games a                .                                   10.____

When you are little, the whole world feels like a big playground. I was living in Conyers, Georgia the summer it all happened. I was a second grader, but my best friend Stephanie was only in the first grade. Both of our parents were at work and most of the time they let us go our own way.

It was a hot afternoon and we decided to have an adventure in Stephanie’s basement. As I opened the basement door, before us lay the biggest room, full of amazing things like guns, dolls, and old clothes. I ran downstairs, and spotted red steel can. It was paint. I looked beyond it and there lay even more paint in bright colors like purple, orange, blue and green.

“Stephanie, I just found us a project for the day. Get some paintbrushes. We are fixing to paint.” She screamed with excitement as I told her of my secret plans and immediately we got to work. We gathered all the brushes we could find and moved all of our materials to my yard. There on the road in front of my house, we painted bit stripes (条纹) of colors across the pavement (人行道). Stripe by stripe, our colors turned into a beautiful rainbow. It was fantastic!

The sun was starting to sink. I saw a car in the distance and jumped up as I recognized the car. It was my mother. I couldn’t wait to show her my masterpiece. The car pulled slowly into the driveway and from the look on my mother’s face, I could tell that I was in deep trouble.

My mother shut the car door and walked towards me. Her eyes glaring, she shouted, “What in the world were you thinking? I understood when you made castles out of leaves, and climbed the neighbors’ trees, but this! Come inside right now!” I stood there glaring hack at her for a minute, angry because she had insulted (侮辱) my art. 

“Now go clean it up!” Mother and I began cleaning the road. Tears ran down my cheeks as I saw my beautiful rainbow turn into black cement.  

Though years have now passed, I still wonder where my rainbow has gone. I wonder if, maybe when I get older, I can find my rainbow and never have to brush it away. I guess we all need sort of rainbow to brighten our lives from time to time and to keep our hopes and dreams colorful.

1. What did the writer want to do when his mother came home?

   A. To introduce Stephanie to her.       

   B. To prevent her from seeing his painting. 

   C. To put the materials back in the yard.      

   D. To show his artwork to her.

2.In his mother’s eyes, the writer_______.

   A. was a born artist                     B. always caused trouble

   C. was a problem solver                  D. worked very hard

3. The underlined word “rainbow” in the last paragraph refers to ______.

   A. the rainbow in the sky               

   B. the stripes on the pavement

   C. something imaginative and fun        

   D. important lessons learned in childhood

4. It can be learned from the passage that parents should ________.

   A. encourage children to paint          

   B. value friendship among children

   C. discover the hidden talent in children                 

    D. protect rather than destroy children’s dreams

此题要求改正所给短文中的错误. 对标有题号的每一行作出判断:如无错误,在该行右边横线上画一个勾(√); 如有错误(每行只有一个错误),则按下列情况改正:

此行多一个词: 把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉, 在该行右边横线上写出该词, 并也用斜线划掉.

此行缺一个词: 在缺词处加一个漏字符号(^), 在该行右边横线上写该加的词.

此行错一个词: 在错的词下划一横线, 在该行右边横线上写出改正后的词.

注意: 原行没有错的不要改.

If I have the honor to be chose to work for the                     76. ___________

29^th Olympic Games, I will at first improve my                  77.___________

English so that I can talk easily about foreign visitor.             78. ___________

Second, I will learn more about history of the                   79. __________

Olympics as good as the 2008 Olympic Games. Third,            80. __________

since I was familiar with Beijing, I can help visitors find                81. __________

their ways in the city. Finally, I should be able to tell                   82. __________

visitors about our history and culture and show                  83. __________

them their great achievements. In short, I will do                 84.___________

my best to help making the Games a success.                    85. ___________