If you were to walk up to Arthur Bonner and say, “Hey, Butterfly Man,” his face would break into a smile. The title suits him. And he loves it.

Arthur Bonner works with the Palos Verdes blue butterfly, once thought to have died out. Today the butterfly is coming back — thanks to him. But years ago if you’d told him this was what he’d be doing someday, he would have laughed, “You’re crazy.” As a boy, he used to be “a little tough guy on the streets”. At age thirteen, he was caught by police stealing. At eighteen, he landed in prison for shooting a man.

“I knew it had hurt my mom,” Bonner said after he got out of prison. “So I told myself I would not put my mom through that pain again.”

One day he met Professor Mattoni, who was working to rebuild the habitat for an endangered butterfly called El Segundo blue.

“I saw the sign ‘Butterfly Habitat’ and asked, ‘How can you have a habitat when the butterflies can just fly away?’” Bonner recalls. “Dr. Mattoni laughed and handed me a magnifying glass (放大镜), ‘Look at the leaves.’ I could see all these caterpillars(蝴蝶的幼虫) on the plant. Dr Mattoni explained, ‘Without the plant, there are no butterflies.’”

Weeks later, Bonner received a call from Dr. Mattoni, who told him there was a butterfly which needed help. That was how he met the Palos Verdes blue. Since then he’s been working for four years to help bring the butterfly back. He grows astragals, the only plant the butterfly eats. He collects butterflies and brings them into a lab to lay eggs. Then he puts new butterflies into the habitat.

The butterfly’s population, once almost zero, is now up to 900. For their work, Bonner and Dr. Mattoni received lots of awards. But for Bonner, he earned something more: he turned his life around.

For six years now Bonner has kept his promise to stay out of prison. While he’s bringing back the Palos Verdes blue, the butterfly has helped bring him back, too.

When he was young, Arthur Bonner _______.

A. broke the law and ended up in prison

B. was fond of shooting and hurt his mom

   C. often laughed at people on the streets

   D. often caught butterflies and took them home

Bonner came to know the Palos Verdes blue after he _______.

A. found the butterfly had died out       

B. won many prizes from his professor

C. met Dr. Mattoni, a professor of biology  

D. collected butterflies and put them into a lab

From the last sentence of the text, we learn that raising butterflies has ________.

A. made Bonner famous              B. changed Bonner’s life

C. brought Bonner wealth             D. enriched Bonner’s knowledge

What does the underlined phrase “put through” mean in the 3rd paragraph?

A. hurt                         B. recall                  C. remember                    D. experience

Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A. A Promise to Mom                B. A Man Saved by Butterflies

C. A Story of Butterflies              D. A Job Offered by Dr. Mattoni

Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.

“I would never have said to my mom, ‘Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?’” says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”

Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.

Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversations on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent—child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue int0 adulthood.

No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”

But family experts warn that the new equality can also result in less respect for parents. “There’s still a lot of strictness and authority on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,” says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”

Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these evolving roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic process that encourages everyone to have a say.

“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the  ‘after’ side,” explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”

41. The underlined word gulf in Para.3 most probably means _________.

A. interest

B. distance

C. difference

D. separation

42. Which of the following shows that the generation gap is disappearing?

A. Parents help their children develop interests in more activities.

B. Parents put more trust in their children’s abilities.

C. Parents and children talk more about sex and drugs.

D. Parents share more interests with their children.

43. The change in today’s parent-child relationship is _________.

A. more confusion among parents

B. new equality between parents and children

C.1ess respect for parents from children

D. more strictness and authority on the part of parents

44. By saying “today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side.” the author means that today’s parents _________.

A. follow the trend of the change

B. can set a limit to the change

C. fail to take the change seriously

D. have little difficulty adjusting to the change

45. The purpose of the passage is to _________.

A. describe the difficulties today’s parents have met with

B. discuss the development of the parent—child relationship

C. suggest the ways to handle the parent—child relationship

D. compare today’s parent—child relationship with that in the past

I grew up poor — living with six brothers, three sisters and my mother. We had little money, but plenty of love and   36  . I was happy and energetic. I understood that no matter how poor a person was, he could still   37   a dream.
My dream was   38  . By the time I was sixteen, I could throw a ninety-mile-per-hour baseball and   39   anything that moved on the field. I was also   40  : my high school coach was John, who not only   41   me, but also taught me how to believe in myself. He   42   me the difference between having a dream and showing conviction (信念). One particular incident with coach John changed my life forever.
A friend   43   me for a summer job. This meant a chance for money in my pocket — money for a new bike, new clothes and the   44   of savings for a house for my mother. Then I realized I would have to   45   up summer baseball to handle the work schedule, and that meant I would have to tell John I wouldn’t be playing.
When I told John, he was as   46   as I expected him to be. “You have your whole life to work,” he said, “Your   47   days are limited. You can’t afford to waste them.” I stood before him with my head   48  , trying to think of the words that would   49   to him why my dream of buying my mom a house and having money in my pocket was worth facing his   50   in me.
“Well,” he asked, “is $3.5 an hour the   51   of a dream?”
That simple question made   52   to me the difference between   53   something right now and having a goal. I devoted myself in sports that summer and   54   the year I was chosen by the Pittsburgh Pirates to play baseball, and   55   a $ 20,000 contract（合同）. Later, I bought my mother the house of my dream!

Mrs Amatuli was my teacher in the fourth grade. One day at lunch time, Mrs Amatuli asked me if she could  36 my sandwiches. She explained that I could use the money to buy a   37 lunch from the cafeteria（自助餐厅）. I was   38. I never bought my lunch at the cafeteria. It was  39  expensive for my family, and I always carried my lunch and brought the bag back home to   40 again the next day.
You can understand my   41  when I had the opportunity to buy a hot lunch. Kids always  42 about the cafeteria food but I was very  43 of them.
When we  44 lunch that day, Mrs Amatuli took me aside and said she wanted to   45 why she had bought my sandwiches. I really didn’t care why,   46 it gave me a few minutes of her precious  47  so I was very quiet as she explained.
You  48 , she was a Catholic(天主教徒) and she told me that Catholics didn’t eat red meat on Fridays—they ate  49 on Fridays.
Oh, I couldn’t   50 to get home and tell my Mom that from then on I wanted fish on Fridays.  51 my Mom understood why, she gladly fixed fish for me on Fridays. From then on, every Friday I could get in  52 with the rest of the kids for a hot lunch. I didn’t care how many of the kids complained about the cafeteria food—it  53 great to me!
I realize now that Mrs Amatuli   54  have fixed herself a fish sandwich on Fridays. She bought my sandwiches because she saw a little girl who was pleased over the simple
   55 of having a hot lunch.

There was a story many years ago of a school teacher--- Mrs. Thompson. She told the children on the first day that she loved them all the same. But that was a lie. There in the front row was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard. He didn’t play well with the other children and he always needed a bath. She did not like him.

     Then Mrs. Thompson got to know that Teddy was actually a very good boy before the death of his mother. Mrs. Thompson was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when, like all her other students, Teddy brought her a Christmas present too. It was his mother’s perfume(香水)。

     Teddy said, “Mrs. Thompson, today you smell just like my Mom used to.” After the children left she cried for at least an hour. On that very day, she stopped teaching reading, writing and math. Instead, she began to teach children.

     Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. The boy’s mind seemed to come alive. The more she encourage him, the faster he improved. By the end of the sixth grade, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class.

     Six years went by before she got a note from Teddy. He wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole lift. He went to college. Mrs. Thompson got two more letters from him with the last one signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, M. D.(医学博士).

     The story doesn’t end there. On his wedding day, Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson’s ear, “Thank you, Mrs. Thompson, for believing in me. You made me feel important and showed me that I could make a difference.”

  Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back, “Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn’t know how to teach until I met you.”

What did Mrs. Thompson do on the first day of school?

A. She made Teddy feel ashamed.      B. She asked the children to play with Teddy.

C. She changed Teddy’s seat to the front row.

D. She told the class something untrue about herself.

What did Mrs. Thompson find out about Teddy?

A. He often told lies.              B. He was good at math. 

C. He needed motherly care.        D. He enjoyed playing with others.

In what way did Mrs. Thompson change?

   A. She taught fewer school subjects.        B. She became stricter with her students.

   C. She no longer liked her job as a teacher.     D. She cared more about educating students.

Why did Teddy thank Mrs. Thompson at his wedding?

   A. She had kept in touch with him.            B. She had given him encouragement.

   C. She had sent him Christmas presents.      D. She had taught him how to judge people.