Tom ______ for 5 years, but he has been leading a new life since he was set free.

When Paul was a boy growing up in Utah, he happened to live near a copper smelter(炼铜厂), and the chemicals that poured out had made a wasteland out of what used to be a beautiful forest. One day a young visitor looked at this wasteland and called it an awful area. Paul knocked him down. From then on, something happened inside him.

Years later Paul was back in the area, and he went to the smelter office. He asked if they had any plans or if they would let him try to bring the trees back. The answer from that big industry was “No.”

Paul then went to college to study the science of plants. Unfortunately, his teachers said there weren't any birds or squirrels to spread the seeds. It would be a waste of his life to try to do it. Everyone knew that, he was told. Even if he was knowledgeable as he had expected, he wouldn’t get his idea accepted.

Paul later got married and had some kids. But his dream would not die. And then one night he did what he could with what he had. As Samuel Johnson wrote, “It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote. Attainable good is often ignored by minds busied in wide ranges.” Under the cover of darkness, he went secretly into the wasteland and started planting.

And every week, he made his secret journey into the wasteland and planted trees and grass. For fifteen years he did this against the plain common sense. Slowly rabbits appeared. Later, as there was legal pressure to clean up the environment, the company actually hired Paul to do what he was already doing.

Now the place is fourteen thousand acres of trees and grass and bushes, and Paul has received almost every environmental award Utah has. It took him until his hair turned white, but he managed to keep that impossible vow he made to himself as a child.

1.  When Paul was a boy, _____.

A.  he had decided never to leave his hometown

B.  the economy of Utah depended wholly on the copper smelter

C.  no laws were made to protect the environment against pollution

D.  he determined to stop the copper smelter polluting the area

2.  Why did Paul go to college to study the science of plants?

A.  He wanted to find out the best way to save the area himself.

B.  He was interested in planting trees since he was young.

C.  He wanted to get more knowledgeable people to help him.

D.  He thought his knowledge would make his advice more persuasive.

3.  What does the underlined phrase “the plain common sense” probably refer to?

A.  That it was impossible for trees to grow on the wasteland.

B.  That his normal work and life would be greatly affected.

C.  That no one would like to join him in the efforts.

D.  That he had to keep everything he did secret.

4.  The main idea of the passage is that _____.

A.  action speaks louder than words

B.  perseverance will work wonders

C.  God helps those who help themselves

D.  many hands make light work

A Tchaikovsky concerto（协奏曲）is what made Romel Joseph fall in love with the violin.

He learned how to play in Haiti, where he was born, but a Fulbright scholarship brought him to the United States, and he finally earned a master’s degree, reports CBS News reporter Katie Couric. Music had changed his life. He wanted to do the same for the children of Haiti.

Joseph built a school in Port-au-Prince nearly 20 years ago. He was on the third floor when suddenly “It was like boom boom boom and everything just opened,” Joseph said. “And the next thing I knew I was on the ground.”

Blind since birth, Joseph tried to feel his way out, but was pinned（夹）beneath heavy concrete（混凝土）. He remained trapped for 18 hours. He prays that his new wife, seven months pregnant（怀孕的）, will be found.

He is now being treated at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital for two injured legs and an arm.

Joseph wonders if he’ll ever play the violin again. He can feel sensation（知觉）in his fingertips. He said, “If you were to give me a violin and if I didn’t have to fold the fingers, I would be able to play.”

Joseph’s daughter Victoria spent three terrifying days unsure of her father’s fate. For her, having him home is the sweetest music.

“Can you imagine your dad not being able to play the violin?” Couric asked.

“No, I can’t,” Victoria Joseph said. “But I will love him all the same if he can’t.”

Romel doesn’t know how many of his 300 students died in the quake. As he waits for news about his wife, Romel Joseph is already planning a return to Haiti to rebuild the school and continue teaching there.

“We can save two children, 20, 200, 300, 500 through education and music, and these children will make a difference,” Romel Joseph said.

54．Romel began to like music ________.

A. because he was blind since birth

B. after he had listened to a famous piece of music

C. when he got a scholarship to study in America

D. since he was born in Haiti

55．From what Romel said in Paragraph 6, we can infer that he was ________.

A. upset        B. fearful          C. excited          D. optimistic

56．To Victoria, the best thing is ________.

A. to see her father recover from the injury quickly

B. to listen to her father playing the sweetest music

C. to play the violin as well as her father

D. to be sure that her father could play the violin

57．Why does Romel want to go back to Haiti?

A. To save his students from the earthquake.

B. To change the life of children by teaching music.

C. To find out how seriously his school was damaged.

D. To look for his wife who is pregnant.

58．Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A. Music education: keep your creativity alive

B. A great blind musician and his students

C. Haiti earthquake: a story of a music teacher

D. How did some Haiti earthquake victims survive

Mike has loved flying since he was small. When he was three years old, his dad took him to an air show. Mike loved the sounds of the plane and he   31  of becoming an airplane pilot(飞行员) some day. As Mike grew up, he learned as   32   as he could about flying. He wanted to go to flying school  33  university. He kept on 34   his parents about it all the time. At that time, pilot training was very   35  . Mike’s parents couldn’t afford it.

Later Mike became a salesman. He hoped to get lots of money for flying school. He traveled  36  America for his factory. He liked to travel,    37    by plane. To save money, he usually stayed in cheap hotels.

One morning, Mike   38   to Atlanta. On the plane, after breakfast, he went to   39  . Some time later, he woke up. The two men beside him were talking in a   40  voice. When Mike heard the word “hijack(劫持)”, he nearly  41  out of his seat, but he pretended(假装) he was still   42  . He listened when the two men talked. Mike quickly learned what was                  43  . They planned to hijack the plane to Cuba. This made Mike very   44  . He knew he had to stop them before they began their    45   .

Mike pretended to use the washroom. On the way he met a hostess(空姐) and told her about the coming   46  . A moment later, the passengers were told that there was something wrong with the plane. Soon the plane landed at the    47   airport.

The two men received a   48   when they saw twenty police officers were    49    them at the airport.

Later Mike was given free flying training as a reward.    50   he became a pilot and flew happily ever since. Now his story is well known in the United States.

An Australian man who has been donating his extremely rare kind of blood for 56 years has saved the lives of more than two million babies.

James Harrison has an antibody in his plasma（血浆）that stops babies dying from Rhesus disease, a form of severe anaemia. He has enabled countless mothers to give birth to healthy babies, including his own daughter, Tracey, who had a healthy son thanks to her father's blood.

Mr. Harrison has been giving blood every few weeks since he was 18 years old and has now racked up a total of 984 donations. When he started donating, his blood was deemed so special that his life was insured for one million Australian dollars.

He was also nicknamed the “man with the golden arm” or the “man in two million”. He said, “I've never thought about stopping. Never!” He made a pledge to be a donor aged 14 after undergoing major chest surgery in which he needed 13 liters of blood. “I was in hospital for three months,” he said. “The blood I received saved my life so I made a pledge to give blood when I was 18.”

Just after he started donating he was found to have the rare and life-saving antibody in his blood. At the time, thousands of babies in Australia were dying each year of Rhesus disease. Other newborns suffered permanent brain damage because of the condition. The disease creates an incompatibility between the mother's blood and her unborn baby's blood. It stems from one having Rh-positive blood and the other Rh-negative.

His blood has since led to the development of a vaccine called Anti-D. After his blood type was discovered, Mr. Harrison volunteered to undergo a series of tests to help develop the Anti-D vaccine. “They insured me for a million dollars so I knew my wife Barbara would be taken care of,” he said. “I wasn't scared. I was glad to help. I had to sign every form going and basically sign my life away.”

Mr. Harrison is Rh-negative and was given injections of Rh-positive blood. It was found his plasma could treat the condition and since then it has been given to hundreds of thousands of women. It has also been given to babies after they are born to stop them developing the disease.

It is estimated he has helped save 2.2 million babies so far. Mr. Harrison is still donating every few weeks now.

1.What does the underlined phrase “two million” refer to?

A．mothers          B．babies            C．dollars            D．blood

2.Why did James decide to donate his blood? Because _____.

A．his daughter asked him to help her son

B．he has a golden arm worth a million dollars

C．a vaccine called Anti-D is to be developed

D．someone else’s blood saved his life

3.The sentence “The disease creates an incompatibility between the mother's blood and her unborn baby's blood” (underlined in Paragraph 5) suggests that _____.

A．the mother and the baby have different types of blood

B．babies suffer permanent brain damage before born

C．Rhesus disease contributes to permanent brain damage

D．all the patients have a rare antibody in their blood

4.What can we infer from the sixth paragraph?

A．His wife Barbara needed to be taken care of badly then.

B．Mr. Harrison was not glad to help develop a new vaccine.

C．Some of the tests to develop the vaccine are dangerous.

D．His blood type was accidentally discovered after tests