第二部分：阅读理解（本题有两小节，第一节共20小题，每小题2分；第二节共5小题，每小题2分；满分50分）

第一节：阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出最佳选项。

The Pillow

         At the age of sixteen, I joined a volunteer group with my dad. I went on my first volunteer project in West Virginia. On the night we arrived, we discovered that “our family” was living in a trailer (拖车) that was in poor condition. A crew had been working on it for two weeks, but every time they finished one problem, another surfaced.

         We decided the only reasonable solution was to build a new house—something unusual but necessary under these circumstances. The family was overjoyed with their new house that was twenty by thirty feet with three bedrooms, a bath and a kitchen.

         On Tuesday of that week, while we ate lunch together, I asked the family’s three boys, Josh, Eric and Ryan, “What do you want for your new room?” Expecting toys and other gadgets that children usually ask for, we were astonished when Josh responded, “I just want a bed.”

         The boys had never slept in a bed! They were accustomed to plastic mats. That night we had a meeting and decided that beds would be the perfect gift. On Thursday night, a few adults in our group drove to the nearest city and bought beds and new bedding.

         When we saw the delivery truck coming, we told the family about the surprise. We could hardly contain ourselves. It was like watching excited children on Christmas morning.

         That afternoon, as we fitted the frames of the beds together, Eric ran into the house to watch us. Too dirty to enter his room, he observed with wide-eyed enthusiasm from the doorway.

         As my father slipped a pillowcase onto one of the pillows, Eric asked, “What is that?”

         “A pillow,” he replied.

         “What do you do with it?” Eric continued to ask.

“When you go to sleep, you put your head on it,” I answered softly. Tears came to my eyes as my father handed Eric the pillow.

         “Oh…that’s soft,” he said, hugging it tightly.

         Now, when my sister or I start to ask for something that seems urgent, my dad gently asks, “Do you have a pillow?”

We know exactly what he means.

1. The writer’s first volunteer project was ______.

         A. working on a poor trailer   B. helping a poor family

         C. donating beds and bedding          D. dealing with a housing problem

2. On hearing Josh’s answer, the writer was shocked because ______. 

   A. the family lived in a trailer           B. he expected to get some toys

   C. he didn’t know what a bed was           D. the boys had no bed to sleep in

3. From the passage, we can learn that Eric had never seen ______ before.

         A. a trailer       B. a truck         C. a pillow       D. a house

4. By saying “Do you have a pillow?”, the writer’s father means that ______.  

         A. what they want to get may be unnecessary       B. they should not waste money on small things

         C. they should do more volunteer work for the poor     D. what he will buy is not what they want but a pillow

第二部分：阅读理解（本题有两小节，第一节共20小题，每小题2分；第二节共5小题，每小题2分；满分50分）

第一节：阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出最佳选项。

The Pillow

       At the age of sixteen, I joined a volunteer group with my dad. I went on my first volunteer project in West Virginia. On the night we arrived, we discovered that “our family” was living in a trailer (拖车) that was in poor condition. A crew had been working on it for two weeks, but every time they finished one problem, another surfaced.

       We decided the only reasonable solution was to build a new house—something unusual but necessary under these circumstances. The family was overjoyed with their new house that was twenty by thirty feet with three bedrooms, a bath and a kitchen.

       On Tuesday of that week, while we ate lunch together, I asked the family’s three boys, Josh, Eric and Ryan, “What do you want for your new room?” Expecting toys and other gadgets that children usually ask for, we were astonished when Josh responded, “I just want a bed.”

       The boys had never slept in a bed! They were accustomed to plastic mats. That night we had a meeting and decided that beds would be the perfect gift. On Thursday night, a few adults in our group drove to the nearest city and bought beds and new bedding.

       When we saw the delivery truck coming, we told the family about the surprise. We could hardly contain ourselves. It was like watching excited children on Christmas morning.

       That afternoon, as we fitted the frames of the beds together, Eric ran into the house to watch us. Too dirty to enter his room, he observed with wide-eyed enthusiasm from the doorway.

       As my father slipped a pillowcase onto one of the pillows, Eric asked, “What is that?”

       “A pillow,” he replied.

       “What do you do with it?” Eric continued to ask.

“When you go to sleep, you put your head on it,” I answered softly. Tears came to my eyes as my father handed Eric the pillow.

       “Oh…that’s soft,” he said, hugging it tightly.

       Now, when my sister or I start to ask for something that seems urgent, my dad gently asks, “Do you have a pillow?”

We know exactly what he means.

1. The writer’s first volunteer project was ______.

       A. working on a poor trailer        B. helping a poor family

       C. donating beds and bedding       D. dealing with a housing problem

2. On hearing Josh’s answer, the writer was shocked because ______. 

   A. the family lived in a trailer       B. he expected to get some toys

   C. he didn’t know what a bed was        D. the boys had no bed to sleep in

3. From the passage, we can learn that Eric had never seen ______ before.

       A. a trailer     B. a truck      C. a pillow     D. a house

4. By saying “Do you have a pillow?”, the writer’s father means that ______.  

       A. what they want to get may be unnecessary      B. they should not waste money on small things

       C. they should do more volunteer work for the poor   D. what he will buy is not what they want but a pillow

More than half of rich Americans have not shown their full wealth to their children, a new survey showed last Tuesday.

The survey, published by the Bank of America, studied the rich with＄3 million or more in possessions. It found that “surprisingly few of those surveyed have well-developed plans to preserve and pass on their possessions to their children”.

The majority of the 457 people surveyed are self-made, first-generation rich. Fifty-two percent of parents have not chosen not to tell their children just how wealthy they are，and 15 percent have given away nothing about the family wealth. One in three parents said they had never thought to do it.

They are worried that their children would become lazy, spend money freely，make bad decisions and even become a target for attractive women who use their looks to get money from rich men.

Only 34 percent strongly agreed that their children would be able to handle any inheritance（遗产）they plan to leave them.

“There is an expectation about the wealthy parents that they have a responsibility to pass down their fortune to the next generation,” said Sallie Krawcheck，president of the Global Wealth and Investment Management of the Bank of America. “Our research, however, uncovered changing views of what one generation owes the next.”

The trend is led by the world’s richest man Bill Gates, who promised in 2008 that he would leave his $58 billion fortune to the charity started by him and his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation（基金会），and not to his children.

“ We want to give it back to society in the way that it will have the most positive effect,” he said.

Of his plans for his children , Gates said: “I will give the kids some money but not a meaningful percentage… they will need to work but they will feel reasonably taken care of.”

1.We can learn from the passage that              .

2.According to the survey, most rich Americans                   ．

3.The underlined word “they” in Paragraph 6 refers to                 ．

4.From the last paragraph，we can see that Bill Gates wants to show              .

Education is not an end, but a means to an end. In other words, we do not educate children only for the purpose of educating them. Our purpose is to fit them for life.

In some modern countries it has for some time been fashionable to think that by free education for all — one can solve all the problems of society and build a perfect nation. But we can already see that free education for all is not enough; we find in such countries a far larger number of people with university degree; they refuse to do what they think “low” work; and, in fact, work with hands is thought to be dirty and shameful in such countries. But we have only to think a moment to understand that the work of a completely uneducated farmer is far more important than that of a professor; we can live without education, but we die if we have no food. If no one cleaned our streets and took the rubbish away from our houses, we should get terrible diseases in our towns…

In fact, when we say that all of us must be educated to fit us for life, it means that we must be educated in such a way that, firstly, each of us can do whatever work suited to his brains and ability and, secondly, that we can realize that all jobs are necessary to society, and that is very bad to be ashamed of one’s work. Only such a type of education can be considered valuable to society.

1.The writer of the passage thinks that _______.

2.The writer wants to prove that _______.

3.The purpose of education is _______.

4.The passage tells us about _______ of the education.

Adults（成年人）usually do not remember most of the things that are taught by their teachers at school. But this story is one such lesson that I will never forget. Every time I drift off course, I think of this story.

       It was a normal Monday morning, and my teacher was teaching us on important things in life and about devoting ourselves to what is important to us. This is how the story went:

       An old man lived in a certain part of London, and he would wake up every morning and go to the subway. He would get onto the train right to Central London, and then sit at the street corner and beg（乞讨）. He would do this every single day of his life. He sat at the same street corner and begged for almost 20 years.

       His house was dirty, and a stench (恶臭) came out of the house and it smelled terrible. The neighbors could not stand the smell any more, so they called for the police officers to clear the place. The officers knocked down the door and cleaned the house. There were small bags of money all over the house that he had collected over the years.

       The police counted the money, and they soon realized that the old man was a millionaire (百万富翁). They waited outside his house expecting to share the good news with him. When the old man arrived home that evening, one of the officers told him that there was no need for him to beg any more as he was a rich man now, a millionaire.

       But the old man said nothing at all; he went into his house and locked the door. The next morning he woke up as usual, went to the subway, sat at the street corner and continued to beg.

       Clearly, this old man had no great plans, dreams or anything significant (有意义的) for his life. We learn nothing from this story other than（除了）staying focused on（专心于）the things we enjoy doing.

The underlined part in the first paragraph may mean ______.

A. I get tired of learning my subjects

B. I fail to listen to lessons attentively

C. I go in the wrong direction of life

D. I wouldn’t like to go to school

The neighbor called the police because ______.

A. the old man kept begging money from them every day

B. there was something dangerous in the old man’s house

C. the old man wouldn’t buy tickets for the train

D. they couldn’t bear the smell from the old man’s house

When the old man knew he was a millionaire, he ______.

A. remained calm        B. became excited  

C. felt worried         D. became nervous

What lesson do we learn from the story?

A. Make great plans for your life.          

B. Keep on doing what you like.

C. Do something that is good to society.     

D. Depend on yourself rather than others.