The taxi had to        because the traffic light turned red.

Eddie’s father used to say he’d spent so many years by the ocean, breathing seawater. Now, away from that ocean, in the hospital bed, his body began to look like a beached fish. His condition went from fair to stable and from stable to serious. Friends went from saying, “He’ll be home in a day,” to “He’ll be home in a week.” In his father’s absence, Eddie helped out at the pier (码头), working evenings after his taxi job.

When Eddie was a teenager, if he ever complained or seemed bored with the pier, his father would shout, “What? This isn’t good enough for you?” And later, when he’d suggested Eddie take a job there after high school, Eddie almost laughed, and his father again said, “What? This isn’t good enough for you?” And before Eddie went to war, when he’d talked of marrying Marguerite and becoming an engineer, his father said, “What? This isn’t good enough for you?”

And now, regardless of all that, here he was, at the pier, doing his father’s labor.

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. It is not until much later, as the heart weakens, that children understand: their stories, and all their achievements, sit on top of the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

Finally, one night, at his mother’s urging, Eddie visited the hospital. He entered the room slowly. His father, who for years had refused to speak to Eddie, now lacked the strength to even try.

“Don’t sweat it, kid,” the other workers told him. “Your old man will pull through. He’s the toughest man we’ve ever seen.”

When the news came that his father had died, Eddie felt the emptiest kind of anger, the kind that circles in its cage.

         In the weeks that followed, Eddie’s mother lived in a confused state. She spoke to her husband as if he were still there. She yelled at him to turn down the radio. She cooked enough food for two. One night, when Eddie offered to help with the dishes, she said, “Your father will put them away.” Eddie put a hand on her shoulder. “Ma,” he said, softly, “Dad’s gone.”“Gone where?”

1.In Paragraph four, the writer wants to say that __________.

A. Children wouldn’t have achieved so much without their parents’ support  

B. Children often feel regretful because they leave their parents

C. Children like moving away from their parents

D. Children can never understand how much their parents have devoted to them

2.The underlined sentence “Don’t sweat it” (Para. 6) probably means __________.

A. Don’t touch it                                              B. Don’t worry about it

C. Don’t let him down                                   D. Don’t give it up

3.Which of the following shows the right order of the story?

   a. Eddie’s father died.

   b. Eddie married Marguerite.

   c. Eddie worked as a taxi driver.

   d. Eddie was bored with his father’s job.

A. dbca                        B. dcab                        C. bcda                        D. bacd

4.From the last paragraph, we learn that __________.

A. Eddie’s mother liked to listen to the radio

B. Eddie and his wife lived in his mother’s apartment

C. Eddie’s mother missed her husband so much that she was at a loss

D. Eddie often helped his mother wash the dishes

Everyone will have to ______ a test before they are admitted to the university.

A. come through    B. look through    C. pull through             D. go through

When we are unfamiliar with something, we may feel nervous and fearful. The help of others is a good    36    to help us pull through.

I write for a big newspaper, and I wanted to    37    a story about parachute jumping（跳伞）. To make it a realistic as well as exciting    38   , I decided that I had to make a jump myself    39   . Unluckily, I’m not good at any    40   , let alone（更不用说）parachute jumping.

My friend Mr. Smith was willing to give me a    41   . He took me to a ground school. The first day’s    42    included several hours of instruction but not my first drop from a(n)   43 . For this, I had to wait until the following    44   .

The next morning, I was taken to the airfield.    45   , a heavy parachute was put on my back. Then I was    46    to make my way to a small plane which had just stopped slowly on the runway. Once on board, the plane was soon    47   . I began to feel nervous. As we reached one thousand meters, Harry, my teacher, hooked（钩）a    48    from my parachute to a steel ring inside the plane. The line was to pull my parachute    49   after I jumped.

“Get    50   , Henry,” Harry said. I moved carefully to the door. I wanted to    51   , “NO, no, no!” But no word came.

“Jump!” Harry called    52   . “Jump!”

Away from the plane, and down, down I fell, arms stretched. It worked All at once I was very happy. Then I felt a quick    53   . My big parachute had opened! It was the best    54    I ever had. I looked down. There were rivers, trees, fields and houses. I heard the soft sound of the air. This was    55   .

1. A. way              B. chance                            C. idea                         D. value

2. A. tell                B. write                        C. read                         D. copy

3. A. film              B. poem                       C. story                        D. program

4. A. secretly         B. instead                            C. finally                      D. first

5. A. sport             B. driving                     C. lesson                      D. drawing

6. A. try                B. hand                        C. gift                          D. suggestion

7. A. jumping        B. journey                    C. training                    D. entertainment

8. A. tree               B. tower                       C. building                   D. airplane

9. A. week             B. month                      C. evening                    D. morning

10.A. Besides         B. Once                        C. There                       D. However

11.A. asked            B. invited                            C. forced                      D. taught

12.A. slowing        B. climbing                  C. landing                    D. filling

13.A. belt                     B. steel                         C. line                          D. seat

14.A. light             B. broken                            C. fixed                        D. open

15.A. ready           B. up                           C. on                           D. away

16.A. cry               B. rest                          C. laugh                       D. lie

17.A. softly           B. loudly                      C. nervously                 D. excitedly

18.A. comfort        B. wind                        C. pull                         D. push

19.A. failure          B. experience                C. competition                     D. danger

20.A. tiring           B. shocking                  C. true                         D. fun

 Mr. Brown’s condition looks very serious and it is doubtful if he will ________.

A. pull back                 B. pull up                              C. pull through           D. pull out