When people hear that I’m the youngest person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean, they all have the same question: How did a 22-year old woman row a 19-foot boat for 70 days through high winds and crashing waves? Well, the biggest  difficulty for me wasn’t physical. By the time I decided to do the ocean row, I had already biked 3,300 miles cross-country, run across the Mojave Desert, and swum the 325-mile length of the Allegheny River. No, the tough part would be mental: How would I handle the loneliness, the boredom of the vast sea?

I set off on January 3, 2010. I set my sights on getting past the quarter-way mark, which would take about 20 days.

Day 20, January 22, was gray and cloudy. I could have done something to celebrate, such as treating myself to a chocolate bar. But I didn’t.

I was suffering from terrible loneliness. I hadn’t seen landing over two weeks. Every day was beginning to feel the same. Eating, rowing, sleeping, watch the sky, watch the ocean.

Then, around sunset, I saw something move on the horizon. They were dolphins! They circled my boat. Suddenly I felt so grateful. They had come to help me celebrate, just when I needed them. I rowed at full strength for the next 20 minutes with the dolphins around. By the time we went our separate ways, I was no longer lonely. Better yet, I knew I would be okay.

I did make it, all 2,817 miles. I hit the coast of Guyana, South America, on March 14, after 70 days and five hours at sea. My ocean row raised $70,000 for the Blue Planet Run Foundation, which funds drinking water programs around the world. I know some athletes spend the entire journey imagining the end, and that helps them get through. But for me, the secret is to focus on the moment, where you experience the personal growth—those moments of awareness of being connected to the sun, the weather, and the waves. And, on the best day of my life, those dolphins, which freed myself from terrible loneliness.

1.

Which is the step taken as part of preparation for the tough row?

2.

What does the underlined part mean?

3.

What can be implied from the last two paragraphs?

4.

Which can be the best title of the passage?

下面短文中有10处语言错误。请在有错误的地方增加、删除或修改某个单词。

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧)，并在其下面写上该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线(＼)划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写上修改后的词。

注意：1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；

2．只允许修改l0处，多者(从第ll处起)不计分。

Last weekend we went mountain-climbing. Even the heavy rain in the morning could not prevent us go. Setting off very early, we went along an extreme narrow road, all in high spirits. On every side of the road was green fields and some farm houses. We could hear the sound of the rain and our footsteps mixing with our laughter. At noon we reached the top of the mountain. That surprised us most there was the beauty of the scenes. After having short rest and sharing with the food we had brought, we started going down. It had rained even harder. We were wet to the skin, and we still sang and laughed happily.           

Ed Viesturs grew up in Rockford, Illinois, where the tallest thing on the horizon was the water tower. But on Thursday, Viesturs became the only American to climb to the top of the world's 14 highest mountains.

His last hike was up Mount Annapurna, in Asia's snowcapped Himalayas. At 26,545 feet, its peak is the 10th highest in the world. It is the mountain that inspired him to start climbing.

"It tends to be the trickiest, the most dangerous," said Viesturs. "There's no simple way to climb it. There are threatening avalanches (雪崩) and ice falls that protect the mountain."

In high school, Viesturs read French climber Maurice Herzog's tale of climbing the icy Annapurna. Herzog's story was of frostbite (冻伤) and difficulty and near-death experiences. Viesturs was hooked right away.

Viesturs got his start on Washington's Mount Rainier in 1977, guiding hikes in the summer. Fifteen years ago, he set out to walk up to the world's highest peaks. Finally, he's done.

The pioneering climber talks about mountains as if they were living creatures that should be treated with respect. "You have to use all of your senses, all of your abilities to see if the mountain will let you climb it," said Viesturs. "If we have the patience and the respect, and if we're here at the right time, under the right circumstances, they allow us to go up, and allow us to come down."

What's next for a man who can't stop climbing? "I'm going to hug my wife and kids and kind of kick back and enjoy the summer," says Viesturs. But for a man who's climbed the world's 14 tallest mountains, he will probably soon set off on yet another adventure.

What record has Ed Viesturs set?

A. He has succeeded in climbing to the world’s 14th highest mountain.

B. He has been to the top of the world’s 14 highest mountains.

C. He has become the first to climb to the height of 26,545feet.

D. He has become the first man to climb to the top of 14 highest mountains in the world.

The underlined word “hooked” in Paragraph 4 can be replaced by “______”.

A. frightened               B. discouraged             C. interested           D. upset

The author used Viestures’ words in Paragraph 6 to support a view that ______.

A. mountain climbing is a dangerous sport

B. mountains should be regarded as living creatures

C. mountain climbing needs more skills than physical energy

D. those who like mountain climbing won’t stop climbing

What’s the next probably plan of Viestures?

A. Stopping climbing and staying with his family.

B. Climbing to the top of the world’s 14 tallest mountains again.

C. Climbing another one of the highest mountains.

D. Writing down the experiences about his adventure.

1. 多数人统治，人头都算数；少数人统治，人头就落地。

   Under m      rule, heads are counted; under minority(少数) rule, heads are cracked.

2. 愚者的心长在嘴里，智者的嘴藏在心里。

   The heart of a fool is in his mouth but the mouth of a wise man is in his h     .

3. 快活的人通常都是傻瓜。

   A m      man is usually a fool.

4. 趁热打铁。

   S      the iron while it is hot.

5. 麻烦不找你，别去找麻烦。

   Never trouble trouble until t      troubles you.

6. 不要以从别人那里借来的观点为生。

Don’ l      on the borrowed opinions of other men .

7. 幸运和不幸是邻居。

   F      and misfortune are next-door neighbors.

8. 世界是一出戏，要是事先知道情节，就不值得看了。

The world is a play that would not be worth seeing if we knew the p    .

9.患难见真情。

   A friend in n     is a friend indeed.

10. 工欲善其事，必先利其器。

   A craftsman who wishes to do his work well must first s      his tools.

I’m an operating engineer, running crane(起重机) in New York City. I was in the countryside, playing golf when we got the call that a plane had   36  the World Trade Centre. We checked out of the hotel immediately and started   37  our way downtown. When I got home, I called the rescue center and they told me to come   38  and get on the   39  list.
The next morning I went down to the   40  at about 5 A. M., and four hours later I   41  the call to come down to West Street. I called my wife and told her not to   42  me, and that I would stay in   43  with her. I took the subway. It stopped at West Fourth Street, so I had to   44  the rest of the way.
And somewhere in there I became   45  when I went into something I   46 . I once worked there in 1966 for the   47  of the World Trade Centre. On halfway on September 12, I was frightened to see the World Trade Centre was a huge pile, maybe ten   48  tall. And it was burning. I started to ask   49  in which my crane might be   50  a whistle blew suddenly warning us of some danger. I saw people running away and I really didn’t know what to do. So I did the same, too. It was as if they had   51  the bulls go in Spain and we were running through the street. People falling down, people   52  them up as they came by, and carrying them, just to get them out of the way, because something was extremely   53 . I didn’t even look back. We stopped running when we got to the Battery Tunnel, and I caught my   54  and said, “Oh, my God, I’m going to die.”
Then I 55  a little bit, thinking about what we should do next. As we started again we knocked into a fire chief officer and we asked, “What can we do to help you?”