Twenty years ago I drove a taxi for a living. One night I went to pick up a passenger at 2:30 AM. When I­­­­­­­­­­­­   21  -，I found the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor    22 

I walked to the door and knocked “Just a minute” answered a weak elderly      23

After a long pause the door opened. A small woman in her eighties stood    24    me by her side was a small suitcase. I took the suitcase to the car and then  25to help the woman. She took my arm and we walked   26 toward the car.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. “It’s nothing” I told her. “I just try to   27  my passengers the way I would want my mother treated.” “Oh you’re such a good man.” She said. When we got into the taxi she gave me an address and then asked“Could you drive   28 downtown”

“It’s not the shortest way” I answered quickly.

“Oh I’m   29 ” she said. “I’m on my way to a hospice临终医院. I don’t have any   30  left. The doctor says I don’t have very long.”

I quietly reached over and   31  the meter计价器.

For the next two hours we drove through the city. She   32  me the building where she had once worked the neighborhood where she had lived and the furniture shop that had once been a ballroom where she had gone  33  as a girl.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow down in front of a   34 building and would sit staring into the darkness saying nothing.

At  35  she suddenly said” I’m tired. Let’s go now.”

We drove in silence to the   36 she had given me. “How much do I   37 you” she asked. “Nothing.” I said. “You have to make a living” she answered. “Oh there are other   38 ” I answered. Almost without thinking I   39  and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. Our hug ended with her remark“You gave an old woman a little moment of joy.”

I walked into the  40 morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.

The most frightening words in the English language are, “Our computer is down.” You hear it more and more when you are on business. The other day I was at the airport waiting for a ticket to Washington and the girl in the ticket office said, “I’m sorry, I can’t sell you a ticket. Our computer is down.”

“If your computer is down, just write me out a ticket.”

“I can’t write you out a ticket. The computer is the only one allowed to do so.”

I looked down on the computer and every passenger was just standing there drinking coffee and staring at the black screen. Then I asked her, “What do all you people do?”

“We give the computer the information about your trip, and then it tells us whether you can fly with us or not.”

So when it goes down, you go down with it.”

“That’s good, sir.”

“How long will the computer be down?” I wanted to know.

“I have no idea. Sometimes it’s down for 10 minutes, sometimes for two hours. There’s no way we can find out without asking the computer, and since it’s down it won’t answer us.”

After the girl told me they had no backup(备用) computer, I said. “Let’s forget the computer. What about your planes? They’re still flying, aren’t they?”

“I couldn’t tell without asking the computer.”

“Maybe I could just go to the gate and ask the pilot if he’s flying to Washington, ” I suggested.

“I wouldn’t know what gate to send you to. Even if the pilot was going to Washington, he couldn’t take you if you didn’t have a ticket.”

“Is there any other airline flying to Washington within the next few hours?”

“I wouldn’t know, ” she said, pointing at the dark screen. “Only ‘IT’ knows. ‘It’ can’t tell me.”

By this time there were quite a few people standing in lines. The word soon spread to other travelers that the computer was down. Some people went white, some people started to cry and still others kicked their luggage.

1.The best title for the article is _______.

A．When the Computer Is Down

B．The Most Frightening Words

C．The Computer of the Airport

D．Asking the Computer

2.What could the girl in the ticket office do for the passengers without asking the computer?

A．She could sell a ticket.

B．She could write out a ticket.

C．She could answer the passengers’ questions.

D．She could do nothing.

3.Why do you think they had not a backup computer?

A．Because it was easy down

B．Because it was very expensive.

C．Because it was not advanced enough.

D．Because it was not as big as the main computer.

4.The last paragraph suggests that _______.

A．a modern computer won’t be down.

B．computers can take the place of humans

C．sometimes a computer may bring suffering to people

D．there will be great changes in computers

完型填空（共20小题；每小题1.5分，满分30分）

阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从36—55各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

When Alice started to cycle home from Jenny’s house, she was certainly not afraid of the dark.   36  , it was only a 15 – minute ride home. But halfway there, she began to wish she hadn’t been so   37  .

As she rounded a sharp bend, it suddenly   38  cold – very cold. Alice’s breath became puffs of white cloud and her legs were so cold that it was hard for her to ride.

With her heart beating fast, she struggled so hard to move __39__ that she didn’t hear the car which suddenly appeared beside her. She stopped by the road. The big black car also __40__. Slowly, the passenger-window began to slide down. Alice held her breath. In the soft light inside the car, something __41__. Then, the light brightened and Alice was staring at a sweet, grey-haired old lady. “Hello, dear,” said the old lady. “I need __42__. I’m afraid I’m lost. I need to find the nearest airport. I must be there in the next five minutes.”

“Airport? You __43__ are lost,” Alice said. “You need to go back five kilometers __44__ you reach the T-junction. Turn left and __45__ for about another 10 kilometers to the main highway. From there, just follow the __46__ to the airport. But I’m afraid there’s no __47__ you’ll get there in five minutes!”

“Thank you very much, dear,” replied the old lady. “Don’t worry — I’ll __48__ in time.”

The __49__ moved up and the car started off. A little way ahead, it __50__ and with headlights flashing, it drove past Alice. But then, something __51__ happened. The car began changing. First, its color __52__from black to silvery-grey. Then, the wheels began disappearing, but the car continued to move forward, __53__ just above the ground. As the car __54__ into the dark sky, the big red tail-lights grew larger and larger and glowed more and more brightly. With a faint(微弱的) whistling __55__, the car was gone in seconds, leaving Alice shaking her head in disbelief…

36．A．However          B．Besides               C．Therefore      D．Otherwise

37．A．brave          B．excited            C．curious                D．certain

38．A．fell                   B．seemed              C．proved              D．grew

39．A．aside                B．around               C．forward      D．backward

40．A．arrived               B．stopped               C．stayed                D．started

41．A．gathered             B．existed                C．dropped              D．moved

42．A．help           B．gas              C．rest                 D．water

43．A．necessarily             B．normally               C．basically              D．certainly

44．A．if             B．until                C．unless               D．as

45．A．drive                 B．walk                 C．follow                 D．march

46．A．address              B．signs                  C．notices               D．guidance

47．A．doubt          B room               C．time                 D．way

48．A．have it                B．get it        C．make it               D．finish it

49．A．door                 B．window              C．headlight              D．wheel

50．A．passed               B．rushed                C．turned               D．continued

51．A．strange              B．sensitive       C．imaginable            D．terrible

52．A．developed             B．appeared             C．spread              D．faded (become paler)

53．A．rolling                 B．floating        C．drawing               D．flashing

54．A．pointed              B．returned               C．broke                 D．rose

55．A．tune           B．voice             C．sound                D．tone

The passengers on the subway who caught a glimpse of me may have thought I was strange. In particular a gentleman sitting opposite me was always staring at me, looking at the cheese bread on the floor in front of me and then staring back at me. A passenger probably dropped it by mistake and got off at a previous stop, but the gentleman might not think so. “Next stop, St. Patrick Station” — my stop was quickly coming up. I had few minutes to either take the cheese bread, which nobody else was claiming, or left it there.

In those few minutes I felt my pride getting in the way. “What would others on the subway think of me if I took the cheese bread? Would they think that I was poor and hungry? Would they think that I was stealing?” The ignorant thing to do was say “yes” to any of those self-imposed questions. Actually, they were just my own thoughts. Though I would leave the subway, walk a block to my office, get settled at my desk, and sit comfortably in my office for the whole day, I couldn’t get rid of the enormous sense of guilt and regret.

My thoughts once pushed me towards pride and ignorance, but finally I had to admit I was wrong. This missing cheese bread could be a gift for a homeless person who suffered from cold and hunger. So why not overcome a little bit of my pride and pass along so much kindness?

Just as the doors opened at my stop, I grabbed the cheese bread and left the subway. It felt awesome, but I didn’t care if people were looking at me or what they were thinking. Instead of going directly to my office as usual, I walked a few more blocks up to Queen’s park, where I often saw a homeless man sitting outside. I always wanted to give him something, but only today I walked toward him, who wrapped himself in a sleeping bag. I was full of satisfaction, and so did the homeless man, I thought.

1.The gentleman kept staring at the author because _______.

2.The underlined word “self-imposed” in paragraph 2 probably means “_______”.

3.Why did the author grab the cheese bread when he got off?

完形填空（共20小题：每小题1. 5分，满分30分）

阅读下面短文，从短文后所给的四个选项（A、B、C、D）中，选出最佳选项。

It was to be our second Christmas in Germany and we decided to avoid the naked tree problem the year before. We wrote to my father, and he  1 to purchase a tree for us in States. He would ship it to us in several smaller  2 .

Two days before Christmas we were in a   3 .All the boxes had arrived except for one. The tree trunk and stand were still  4 .We decided to wait one more day.

  5 , in Bremerhaven, a young mail clerk  6 a long thin box under a counter. He picked it up and saw the customs tag(标签)which  7 “artificial（人造的）Christmas tree trunk and stand”. He realized that someone in Mannheim would be  8 a tree for Christmas. He felt  9for them, but there wasn’t much he could do. There was no  10 on Christmas.

He put the package on the  11 shelf and headed for the coffee bar. The place was 12 and he ended up sharing a table. Two men were speaking and the clerk  13 that one of his companions at the table was stationed in Mannheim. He had just picked up the  14 he had shipped from the States and was driving back that afternoon. The clerk thought of the 15 and said to the man,“You could really  16 Santa for someone in Mannheim tonight if you’d like to.”He explained about the lost tree trunk and stand. The man agreed.

The following day, my husband was reaching for his coat  17 the doorbell rang. There stood a  18 holding a long thin carton, our tree trunk and stand. He explained about the clerk and the coffee bar meeting. We invited him in,  19 it was Christmas Eve and he left in a hurry.

The next day as we celebrated the Christmas with the beautiful tree, I whispered：“Bless those two strangers who  20 our Christmas with their kindness.”

1.                A．agreed         B．refused         C．stopped  D．failed

2.                A．bags           B．containers       C．boxes    D．parts

3.                A．hope          B．loss            C．mess D．panic

4.                A．broken         B．separated       C．unknown D．missing

5.                A．Meanwhile      B．However        C．Therefore D．Afterward

6.                A．hid            B．forgot          C．covered  D．found

7.                A．read           B．wrote          C．signed    D．meant

8.                A．except         B．by             C．along D．without

9.                A．sure           B．happy          C．painful   D．sorry

10.               A．passage        B．message        C．delivery   D．labor

11.               A．safe           B．high           C．proper    D．secret

12.               A．taken          B．ordered        C．closed D．crowded

13.               A．supposed       B．discovered      C．expected  D．wondered

14.               A．car            B．mail           C．passenger D．gift

15.               A．difficulty        B．family          C．package   D．accident

16.               A．become        B．play           C．pretend   D．assist

17.               A．before         B．while          C．until  D．when

18.               A．postman        B．santa          C．stranger   D．driver

19.               A．but            B．and            C．so    D．as

20.                                A．celebrated  B．decorated

C．confirmed                        D．brightened