I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty two. I can slightly remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is .It would be wonderful to see again , but a calamity (灾难)can do strange things to people .It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn’t been blind . I believe in life now.I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply , otherwise. I don’t mean that would prefer to go without my eyes . I simply mean that Atlantic the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left .

Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was totally confused and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me--a potential to live, you might call it--which I didn't see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.

The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that somewhere in the sweeping, intricate（错综复杂的） pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.

It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the simplest things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was making fun of me and I was hurt. "I can't use this." I said. "Take it with you," he urged me, "and roll it around." The words stuck in my head. "Roll it around! "By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. At Philadelphia's Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.

All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good trying for something that I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.

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

A. the author lost his sight because of a car crash.

B. the author wouldn't love life if the disaster didn't happen.

C. the disaster made the author appreciate what he had.

D. the disaster strengthened the author's desire to see.

2.What's the most difficult thing for the author?

A. How to adjust himself to reality.

B. Building up assurance that he can find his place in life.

C. Learning to manage his life alone.

D. How to invent a successful variation of baseball.

3.According to the context, “a chair rocker on the front porch” in paragraph 3 means that the author __________

A. would sit in a rocking chair and enjoy his life.

B. would be unable to move and stay in a rocking chair.

C. would lose his will to struggle against difficulties.

D. would sit in a chair and stay at home.

4.According to the passage, the baseball and encouragement offered by the man _____

A. hurt the author's feeling.

B. gave the author a deep impression.

C. directly led to the invention of ground ball.

D. inspired the author.

5.What is the best title for the passage?

A. A Miserable Life

B. Struggle Against Difficulties

C. A Disaster Makes a Strong Person

D. An Unforgettable Experience

I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty two. I can slightly remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity(灾难) can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn't been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I don't mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.
Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was totally confused and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me--a potential to live, you might call it--which I didn't see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.
The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have collapsed (崩溃) and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance（确信） that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that somewhere in the sweeping, intricate（错综复杂的） pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.
It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the simplest things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was making fun of me and I was hurt. "I can't use this." I said. "Take it with you," he urged me, "and roll it around." The words stuck in my head. "Roll it around! "By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. At Philadelphia's Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.
All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.
【小题1】We can learn from the beginning of the passage that _______

I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty two. I can slightly remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity(灾难) can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn't been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I don't mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.

Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was totally confused and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me--a potential to live, you might call it--which I didn't see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.

The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have collapsed (崩溃) and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance（确信） that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that somewhere in the sweeping, intricate（错综复杂的） pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.

It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the simplest things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was making fun of me and I was hurt. "I can't use this." I said. "Take it with you," he urged me, "and roll it around." The words stuck in my head. "Roll it around! "By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. At Philadelphia's Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.

All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.

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

2.What's the most difficult thing for the author?

3.According to the context, "a chair rocker on the front porch" in paragraph 3 means that the author __________

4.According to the passage, the baseball and encouragement offered by the man _____

5.What is the best title for the passage?

I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty two. I can slightly remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity(灾难) can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn't been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I don't mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.
Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was totally confused and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me--a potential to live, you might call it--which I didn't see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.
The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have collapsed (崩溃) and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance（确信） that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that somewhere in the sweeping, intricate（错综复杂的） pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.
It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the simplest things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was making fun of me and I was hurt. "I can't use this." I said. "Take it with you," he urged me, "and roll it around." The words stuck in my head. "Roll it around! "By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. At Philadelphia's Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.
All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.

1. 1.

   We can learn from the beginning of the passage that _______

   1. A.
      the author lost his sight because of a car crash.
   2. B.
      the author wouldn't love life if the disaster didn't happen.
   3. C.
      the disaster made the author appreciate what he had.
   4. D.
      the disaster strengthened the author's desire to see.
2. 2.

   What's the most difficult thing for the author?

   1. A.
      How to adjust himself to reality.
   2. B.
      Building up assurance that he can find his place in life.
   3. C.
      Learning to manage his life alone.
   4. D.
      How to invent a successful variation of baseball.
3. 3.

   According to the context, "a chair rocker on the front porch" in paragraph 3 means that the author __________

   1. A.
      would sit in a rocking chair and enjoy his life.
   2. B.
      would be unable to move and stay in a rocking chair.
   3. C.
      would lose his will to struggle against difficulties.
   4. D.
      would sit in a chair and stay at home.
4. 4.

   According to the passage, the baseball and encouragement offered by the man _____

   1. A.
      hurt the author's feeling.
   2. B.
      gave the author a deep impression.
   3. C.
      directly led to the invention of ground ball.
   4. D.
      inspired the author.
5. 5.

   What is the best title for the passage?

   1. A.
      A Miserable Life
   2. B.
      Struggle Against Difficulties
   3. C.
      A Disaster Makes a Strong Person
   4. D.
      An Unforgetable Experience

In Denmark, parents are allowed to set up a new school if they are dissatisfied with the school in the area where they are living.  Although these schools have to follow the national courses, they are allowed a lot of choices in deciding what to teach.  Some of these new schools are called “small schools” because usually the number of pupils in them is only sixty, but a school has to have at least twenty-seven pupils. 

Cooleenbridge School in Ireland, is a small school similar to the ones in Denmark, it was set up by parents who came from Holland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, England and other parts of Ireland.  They came because they wanted to live in the countryside and to grow their own food.  In June 1986, they decided to start a school.  They managed to get an old, disused primary-school building and started with twenty-four children aged from four to twelve. 

The teachers say, “The important thing in school is doing, not sitting. ”And so the courses includes yoga, cooking, knitting, kite-making, music, fishing, drama and environmental river studies, as well as reading, writing, maths and science. 

41. What are the rules for setting up a new school in Denmark?

A. Parents are allowed to set up their own school. 

B. The school has to follow the national courses. 

C. The school has to have at least 27 pupils. 

D. All of the above. 

42. The writer tells about the Cooleenbridge School in Ireland because ____ . 

A. it was set up by parents who are not people of Denmark

B. it was taken as an example of this kind of “small school”

C. there were only twenty-four children

D. the pupils there were aged from 4 to 12

43. What makes this kind of school special?

A. It is set up by parents not by government. 

B. It is free to decide what to teach. 

C. The number of pupils in it is only sixty. 

D. It has to have at least 27 pupils. 

44. “The important thing in school is doing not sitting. ” What the teachers say actually means ____. 

A. What we should do is teaching in the classroom, not sitting in the office. 

B. Children should do more homework at home, not just sit in class to listen to the teachers. 

C. Children should learn by themselves not rely on teachers. 

D. Children should learn through practice not just from books. 

45.  The courses include ____. 

A. yoga, cooking, knitting, kite-making, music, fishing, drama and environmental river studies, except reading, writing, maths and science

B. either yoga, cooking, knitting, kite-making, music, fishing, drama and environmental river studies, or reading, writing, maths and science

C. not only reading, writing, maths and science, but also yoga, cooking knitting, kitemaking, music, fishing, drama and environmental river studies

D. mainly yoga, cooking, knitting, kite-making, music, fishing, drama and environmental river studies, and supplemental（补充的）reading writing, maths and science