The first weeks were a bit hard. Loneliness wasn’t the problem—I was in constant contact with clients by e-mail and phone. But I did feel claustrophobic（患幽闭恐怖症的）. With wheels on my desk chair and the refrigerator just two feet away, I could work for twelve straight hours without ever standing up. There are no physical separation between my living room and work table, so the only way I found to feel like I was going “home” at the end of the day was to forbid my use of the working chair. At nine-thirty at night, when I turned my computer off, I felt a bit like the family dog reaching the high point of its day: “Whoohoo! I get to go for a walk!” Then, around eleven-thirty, I’d found myself turning on the computer again to solve some work issue that was pre-occupying me…

At the same time, I discovered that working this way had definite advantages. Not only did I save an hour from going to work and back home, I also gained a great deal of control over my time. There were fewer interruptions than in an office, I could schedule meetings and phone calls in blocks to increase the productive time around them, and the easy access to my workspace late at night and on weekends could obviously be of mixed effects. This was especially important to me since, in addition to consulting work, I was writing fiction and planning a new business. Working at home allowed me to manage all of these activities at once without losing significant sleep. This turned out to be well worth the claustrophobia, which also faded as I became more used to the new routine. A short walk in the late afternoon could reduce the shut-in feeling and make me get energetic again to work through the evening.

You might think that, with all this added time flexibility, I would even find a few hours to clean my apartment, but, unfortunately, this never happened.

1．The writer felt claustrophobic because _________.

      A．she was lonely                               B．she worked long hours

       C．she couldn’t go for a walk                  D．she worked alone for long

2．Where does the writer work?

      A．In her own home.                           B．In an office.

       C．In a hospital.                                   D．At a newspaper.

3．What does the writer think of working late at night and on weekends?

      A．It was convenient for her.                B．It has advantages and disadvantages.

       C．She didn’t like it at all.                       D．She enjoyed working late.

4．What’s the writer’s general attitude towards her work?

       A．She didn’t like it very much.               B．She enjoyed doing her work.

       C．It allowed her little spare time.              D．It was too hard for her.

Once again, I had run away and really did not know why. I walked out of the gate to go to school and then kept walking, and walking, and walking. I was 11years old. It was almost dark; I was tired, cold, and all alone. I had not eaten all day and was afraid to turn myself over the police. I knew I would receive another beating once I returned to the Children’s Home Society. There was nothing for me to do, except keep on walking.

As darkness fell, I entered the darkened area in a city park sat down on a wooden bench hoping to avoid the police cars. It was cold and I began to tremble uncontrollably. All was quiet except for the passing cars in the distance.

“Well, hello young man.” A voice came from behind me. I jumped, almost falling off the park bench. My heart was beating ninety miles per hour. I gasped and I could hardly catch my breath. I looked up and saw a woman standing behind me in the shadows.

“You look cold and hungry,” she said. She took off her scarf, wrapped it around my shoulders and asked me to follow her. We walked about twenty feet, and then stopped under one of the park streetlights.

She held out her hand and said, “Here, you take this letter.” Seeing nothing in her hand., I stood still.

“Reach out and take the letter from my hand,” she insisted. Slowly I reached out, acting as though I was taking something from her hand. “Now hold the paper tightly and take it to any store owner,” she instructed.

I closed my thumb and finger as though I were grasping the letter and began walking toward Five Points. Several blocks down the road, I came to a store with a woman sitting behind a counter. I opened the door, walked in, and stopped directly in front of her. Very slowly I held out my hand toward her. I watched her face to see if she might think I was crazy or something.

She reached out and as her hand touched mine, I opened my tightly closed fingers and stood there waiting. She pulled back, smiled, and looked down at her hands.

She immediately turned and walked to the back of the store. After a while, the woman returned holding a paper plate.

“Here is something for you to eat.” She smiled and signaled to me to eat. Within two or three minutes, I downed the entire plate of food and several Coca Colas.

Before I left, she held out her hand and asked me to take the letter. Again seeing nothing, I held out my hand and closed my thumb and finger as though I were taking something from her. Tightly grasping nothing more than air, I walked out into the street and headed back to the park. The old woman was still there.

“It is really magic. Can I have the letter so I can be magic too?” I asked her.

She reached out, took my hand, and opened my tightly closed fingers. Whatever was being held between my fingers, she took and placed into her apron pocket. “Would you help someone if they were hungry?” she asked me.

“Yes Ma’am.”

“Would you help someone if they were hurt, cold or scared?”

“Yes Ma’am. I would be their friend.”        

“You are a very lucky little boy. You will never need the magic letter,” she responded.

1.What can we learn about the boy?

A. Though lost in the city, he didn’t feel worried or lonely.

B. He had nowhere to go and wandered aimlessly in the street.

C. He avoided the police for the fear that he would be sent to prison.

D. He had to run away because of his bad performance at school.

2.What can we infer from paragraph 3?

A. The boy was out of breath as he did some exercises.

B. The boy felt excited at the appearance of the woman.

C. The boy was scared by the sudden voice of the woman.

D. The boy held his breath, waiting for the woman to come.

3.Why does the store owner offer the boy a good dinner?

A. Because she had great sympathy for him.

B. Because she knew the boy and his parents.

C. Because he was a kind boy who deserved it.

D. Because the woman in the park had paid for it.

4.What does the writer want to tell us through the story?

A. It's better to give than to take.

B. Kindness is a universal language.

C. Don't cry even if life cheats you.

D. Life is full of the getting over of suffering.

5.What’s the best title of the passage?

A. A Kind Woman.     B. A Sleepless Night.    C. A Magic Letter.      D. A Lucky Boy.

Researchers conducting a study of hospital stays for over two hundred and eighty six thousand older folks found something interesting in their data.

The number of hospitalizations for heart disease and stroke went down significantly among a certain group of people at a certain time of year. What folks, and what time of year, you ask? Flu season and the lucky people were the ones who got flu shots(流感疫苗).

It’s generally recommended that people over fifty get their flu shots every year. Influenza(流行性感冒) is no small thing. it’s responsible for around thirty six thousand deaths a year in the U. S. alone. Getting the shots also cuts down on the chances of get­ting pneumonia(肺炎), which is especially dangerous in seniors.

But what wasn’t known was that there seems to be an added benefit to getting a flu shots in terms of warding off heart problems. The data,in fact, are quite strong in suggesting this is the case.

In this study, flu shots cut clown the number of hospitalizations for heart disease by nineteen percent. Stroke went down sixteen percent one season and a whopping twenty-three percent a second season.These are big results.

So what's the connection between getting a flu shot and having a stronger heart? It isn’t yet known.

Researchers speculate that the flu virus itself may do damage to blood vessels(血管), possibly making clots(血块)more likely. Blood clots in the heart can cause heart attacks, and blood clots in the brain can cause strokes.

Whatever the specific details are, there's one more good reason to follow your doctor’ s advice and get that annual flu shot.

1.According to the study, the number of hospitalizations for heart disease and stroke went down significanntly among the ones who _____.

A. got flu shots after they were ill?????????????

B. got flu shots before they were ill

C. got flu shots at the flu season????????????? ???? ?????????????

D. got flu shots whenever convenient

2.The benefits of getting flu shots can be listed except that_____.

A. it can cut down on the chances of getting????????????? pneumonia

B. it can cut down the number of hospitalizations for heart disease

C. it can kill the flu virus

D. if can make blood clots

3.The underlined phrase "warding off" probably means_______.

A. keeping away????????? ? ????????????? B. dealing with??? ???? C. setting off????????????? ? ????????? D.????????????? picking up

4.According to the passage, we'd better ______.

A. work out to fight against influenza??? ??????? B. get flu shot every year

C. follow our doctor's all advice????????????? ???????? ?????? D. protect our blood vessels

I recently turned fifty, which is young for a tree, midlife for an elephant, and ancient for a sportsman. Fifty is a nice number for the states in the US or for a national speed limit but it is not a number that I was prepared to have hung on me. Fifty is supposed to be my father’s age, but now I am stuck with this number and everything it means.
A few days ago, a friend tried to cheer me up by saying, “Fifty is what forty used to be.” He had made an inspirational (有灵感的) point. Am I over the hill ? People keep telling me that the hill has been moved, and I keep telling them that the high-jump bar has dropped from the six feet I once easily cleared to the four feet that is impossible for me now.
“You are not getting older, you are getting better.” Says Dr. Joyce Brothers. This, however, is the kind of doctor who inspires a second opinion.
And so as I approach the day when I cannot even jump over the tennis net, I am moved to share some thoughts on aging with you, I am moved to show how aging feels to me physically and mentally. Getting older, of course, is obviously a better change than the one that brings you eulogies(悼词). In fact, a poet name Robert Browning considered it the best change of all:
Grow old along with me !
The best is yet to me.
Whether or not Browning was right, most of my first fifty years have been golden ones, so I will settle for what is ahead being as good as what has gone by. I find myself moving toward what is ahead with a curious blend(混合) of both fighting and accepting my aging, hoping that the philosopher(哲学家) was right when he said , “old is always fifteen years from now.”
【小题1】The author seems to tell us in Paragraph 1 that ______.