“Keep your eyes on the ball.” That is good advice when you are on the playing field, and good advice for everyday life. “Keep your mind on what’s important,” is the way I’d put it. But people are funny. They think too much about the details.

I had a secretary once. She was very hard working. I ran a school and people used to call up to enroll for courses. Berry used to get angry at the phone. “If they keep on ringing, I’ll never get my typing done!” she’d shout.

People just don’t see the big picture. One evening, after leaving work, I was sitting next to a man on the train. I was feeling tired. My eyes fell on the paper he had spread out in front of him. You know how you feel to read over someone’s shoulder?

I read the page and leaned back. I guessed I was waiting for him to turn it. After a while, I realized—he wasn’t turning the page. He just kept on reading.

Now if you knew the page he was reading, you’d know that there weren’t many words on the page to read anyway. The layout was mostly pictures. So I turned to the man and said,” You know, you really read very slowly.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Well,” I told him, “I read the page in about a minute, and you have taken about ten. And you are still reading. You know,” I went on “If you learned to read faster, you could get more reading done.” He remained silent for a minute or two. “If I read too fast, my paper wouldn’t last me to my station.”

68. The writer wasn’t satisfied with his secretary because ___.

       A. she didn’t put first thing first        B. she was too busy

       C. she was easy to get angry           D. she couldn’t finish her work on time

69. The train rider read newspaper ___.

       A. to take in information   B. to enjoy pictures  C. to save time     D. to kill time

70 The writer thinks that people seem to need a sense of ___.

       A. what to read first   B. how to read fast   C. what is important   D. what is funny

71. The passage is mainly about the writer’s opinion on people’s ___.

       A. judgment             B. work              C. life               D. habits

As a kid，I was always chubby (圆胖的)．In college I started blowing up . It got out of control when I went to law school.

I’d made a decision a thousand times：I’m going to lose weight now. But what motivated me to get serious about it was turning 30. I weighed 414 pounds. I was always tired. Some of my family members have suffered from heart disease，and I was scared. I also wanted to look better. So after my birthday，I walked into the office of a weight­loss doctor.

She was very understanding. Her focus was on balanced meals and she wanted me to exercise.

Walking was all I could do at first. I started by walking a few blocks and gradually increased the distance，until one weekend，I found myself saying，“Wow，this seems pretty easy.” So I started to run.

I was losing nine or ten pounds a month，and I had more energy. I started to think about the New York City Marathon. For years，I watched the runners and thought，“This looks like fun，but I could never do that.” But now I realized that maybe I could. I joined the New York Road Runners. I ran a 10km，then a half­marathon. I still wasn’t confident I could run a full 26 miles. But I told myself I was going to do it，no matter what.

By my 33rd birthday，I was down to 180 pounds. I started formally training for the marathon. And on the morning of November 1，I stood on the Verrazano Bridge in Staten Island with more than 40,000 other runners，waiting for the event to start.

It was unbelievable to have the audience cheering me on，handing me cups of water. And I crossed the finish line. My friends sprayed (向……喷射) me with beer，as if I’d won the Super Bowl. And at that moment，I knew：If I set my mind to something，nothing is impossible.

56．The underlined phrase “blowing up” in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to________.

A．going weaker                                   B．becoming fatter

C．becoming healthier                             D．growing high

57．The author who was at the age of 33 had lost ______pounds in weight during the past three years.

A．180                   B．414                    C．594                   D．234

58．What do we know from the passage?

A．The author formally trained for the marathon for three years.

B．The marathon the author ran started on the Verrazano Bridge.

C．The author started by running when losing weight.

D．The author has won the Super Bowl.

59．Which of the following proverbs can best summarize the passage?

A．Where there is a will，there is a way.

B．Pride comes before a fall.

C．A good beginning is half done.

D．Practice makes perfect.