When Ben Franklin was only a boy, he always wanted to know about things. He was always asking his father and brothers “What?” and “How?” and “Why?”

They couldn’t always tell him what he wanted to know.

When they couldn’t tell him, Ben tried to find out for himself.

Many times Ben did find out things that no one knew before. The other boys would say, “That Ben Franklin! He’s always finding out something new!”

Ben lived close to the water. He liked to go there to see the boats. He saw how the wind blew them across the water.

One day Ben said to himself, “Why can’t the wind help me float across the water? And I’m going to try.” Ben got his big kite. He took hold of the kite string and ran with it. The wind took the kite up into the air. Then Ben jumped into the water.

The wind blew the kite high into the air. Ben began to float across the water. Soon he was on the other side, and he had not worked at all.

One boy shouted, “Look at Ben floating across the water! His kite takes him to the other side without any work!”

“Yes,” said another. “He’s always finding new ways to do things.”

1.When he was only a child, Ben             .

2. His father and brothers           .

3.How did Ben Franklin float across the water?

4.He found out many things that            .

One night about nine o’clock, Dr. Eyck, a surgeon, had a phone call from Dr. Haydon at the hospital in Clens Falls. The surgeon was asked to go there at once to operate on a very sick boy who shot himself while playing with a gun.

The doctor was soon on his way to Clens Falls. It was 60 miles away. And it was snowing heavily in the city. The surgeon thought he could get there before 12 o’clock.

A few minutes later, the doctor was stopped by a man in an old black coat. Gun in hand, the man ordered the doctor to get out. Then the man drove the car down the road, leaving the doctor in the falling snow.

It was after 2 o’clock in the morning when the doctor arrived at the hospital in Clens Falls. Dr. Haydon told him that the boy had died an hour before.

The two doctors walked by the door of the hospital waiting room. There sat the man in the old black coat with his head in his hands.

“Mr. Cuninghan,” said Dr. Haydon to the man, “This is Dr. Eyck. He is the surgeon who walked all the way from Albany to save your boy.”

1.Dr. Haydon asked Dr. Eyck to come to Clens Falls because _____.

2.The surgeon was late because ________.

3.Choose the right order of the following events given in the story.

a. Dr. Eyck was asked to come to the hospital in Clens Falls.

b. Dr. Eyck arrived at the hospital.

c. The boy shot himself.                    d. The boy died.

e. The man in an old coat reached the hospital.  f. Dr. Eyck was robbed of his car.

4.The boy could have been saved if ______.

A man was on the side of the road hitchhiking（搭便车）on a very dark night in the middle of a terrible rainstorm, with no cars on the road．The storm was so strong that the man could hardly see a few feet ahead of him．Suddenly, he saw a car come towards him and stop．The man, without thinking about it, got in the car and closed the door and only then did he realize that there was nobody behind the steering wheel（方向盘）!

         The car started to move very slowly．The man looked at the road and saw a curve （拐弯处）coming his way．Terrified, he started to pray, begging for his life．He had not come out of shock when, just before the car hit the curve, a hand suddenly appeared through the window and moved the wheel．The man, paralyzed with fear, watched how the hand appeared every time the car was drawing near a curve．Finally, although terrified, the man managed to open the door and jump out of the spooky car．Without looking back, the man ran through the storm all the way to the nearest town．In a state of complete horror, the man walked into a nearby bar and asked for two glasses of Scotch whisky．

         Then, still shaking with fright, he started telling everybody in the bar about the horrible experience he just went through in the spooky car．Everyone in the bar listened in silence and became frightened, with hair standing on end, when they realized the man was telling the truth because he was crying and he was certainly not drunk!

         About half an hour later, two other young men walked into the same bar and one said to the other, “Hey, there’s a stupid man who jumped into the car while we were pushing it!”

1.When the car was first drawing near a curve, the man ________．

    A．felt very curious                    B．was extremely frightened

    C．cried for help                    D．remained as calm as possible

2.According to the passage, what made the man’s experience believable?

    A．His reasonable behavior．                B．His vivid description．

    C．His plain appearance．           D．His honest attitude．

3.We can infer from the passage that ________．

    A．it is unsafe for people to take a free ride

    B．the man was telling a lie to his listeners

    C．the car probably broke down on the way

         D．the two young men were familiar with the man

“What is the most important thing you’ve done in your life?” The question was put to me during a presentation I gave to a group of lawyers.

The answer came to me in an instant. It’s not the one I gave, because the situation was not right. As a lawyer in the entertainment industry, I knew the audience wanted to hear some amusing stories about my work with well-known people, but here’s the true answer:

The most important thing I’ve ever done occurred on October 8,1990. I began the day playing tennis with an old friend I hadn’t seen for a while. Between points we talked about what had been happening in each other’s lives. He and his wife had just had a baby boy, who was keeping them up at night.

     While we were playing, a car came screaming up the road toward the courts. It was my friend’s father, who shouted to my friend that his baby had stopped breathing and was being rushed to the hospital. In a flash my friend was in the car and gone, disappearing in a cloud of dust.

     For a moment I just stood there, paralyzed(呆若木鸡). Then I tried to figure out what I should do. Follow my friend to the hospital? There was nothing I could accomplish there, I convinced myself. My friend’s son was in the care of doctors and nurses, and nothing I could do or say would affect the outcome. Be there for moral support? Well, maybe. But my friend and his wife both had large families, and I knew they’d be surrounded by relatives who would provide more than enough comfort and support, whatever happened. All I could do at the hospital, I decided, was to get in the way. Also, I had planned a full day with my family, who were waiting for me to get home. So I decided to head back to my house and check in my friend later.

     As I started my car, I realized that my friend had left his truck and keys at the courts. I now faced another problem. I couldn’t leave the keys in the truck. So I decided to go to the hospital and give him the keys.

     When I arrived, I was directed to a room where my friend and his wife were waiting. As I had thought, the room was filled with family members silently watching my friend comfort his wife. I went in and stood by the door, trying to decide what to do next. Soon a doctor appeared. He approached my friend and his wife, and in a quiet voice told them that their son had died.

     For a long time the two held each other and cried, unaware of the rest of us standing around in pained silence. After they had calmed themselves, the doctor suggested they spend a few moments with their son.

     My friend and his wife stood up and walked past their families. When they reached the door, my friend saw me standing in the corner. He came over and hugged me and started to cry. My friend’s wife hugged me, too, and said , “Thanks for being here.”

     For the rest of that morning, I sat in the emergency room of that hospital and watched my friend and his wife hold the body of their infant son, and say goodbye.

     It’s the most important thing I have ever done. The experience taught me two lessons.

     First: The most important thing I’ve ever done happened when I was completely helpless. None of the things I had learned in university, in three years of law school or in six years of legal practice were of any use in that situation. Something terrible was happening to people I cared about, and I was powerless to change the outcome. All I could do was standing by and watching it happen. And yet it was critical that I do just that--- just be there when someone needed me.

     Second: The most important thing I’ve done almost didn’t happen because of things I had learned in classroom and professional life. Law school taught me how to take a set of facts, break them down and organized them. These skills are critical for lawyers. When people come to us for help, they’re often stressed out and depend on a lawyer to think logically. But while learning to think, I almost forget how to feel. Today I have no doubt that I should have leapt into my car without hesitation and followed my friend to the hospital.

     From that one experience I learned that the most important thing in life isn’t the money you make, the status you attain or the honors you achieve. The most important thing in life is the kids’ team you coach or the poem you write----or the time when you’re just somebody’s friend.

1. When he was asked about the most important thing he had done in life at a presentation, the author _______.

A. felt it was not an interesting question

B. thought for a while and spoke his mind

C. gave an answer from a lawyer’s point of view

D. didn’t give the real answer

2.When he saw his friend rush to the hospital, the author could not decide whether to follow mainly because he thought _______.

A. he had to stay with his family

B. his friend did not need his help.

C. he would not be of much help

D. the baby would be in the doctor’s care

3.What can we infer from the author’s description of the scene at the hospital?

A. He found out that he was in the way.

B. He would have felt guilty if he had not been there.

C. He regretted that he went too late.

D. His friend would have felt better if he had not been there.

4.Which of the following is conveyed in this story?

A. Family and relatives can not take the place of friends.

B. More people are a great comfort when one is in trouble.

C. It is best to be here when someone needs you.

D. You can certainly help a friend if you want to.

5.The author learned from his own experience that_______.

A. what is taught in school is usually of no use.

B. a lawyer cannot learn much in classrooms

C. a lawyer should know people’s feeling first

D. he needs to be able to feel as well as think logically

6. The underlined sentence in the last paragraph suggests that the author_______.

A. is fond of writing poems

B. is going to coach the kid’s team

C. is determined to make friends with everybody

D. is fully aware of the importance of being helpful to those in need