"Mark Twain" was the name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) when he wrote books. His father was a lawyer, but a poor one, who lived at Florida, Missouri. The family was so poor that Samuel did not receive much teaching. He had to learn all that he could from the people whom he met. His father died when he was very young, and then there was even less money than before.

　　Many of the men in this part of America worked in the ships on the great River Mississippi, and he did this himself at one time (1857).

　　Where did he find the name "Mark Twain"? It came from the great river itself. It was part of one of the cries used by men who worked in the ships. When a man called "By the mark twain!"  he meant that the river was "two marks deep" there, that is to say, six feet deep ( "Twain" is an old form of the work "Two".) Samuel Clemens often heard these words when he was young, and he used them as a penname all his life.

　　During his work on the Mississippi he met travelers of all kinds, and this helped him a great deal when he started to write. But the number of travelers became smaller when war started in America in 1861. Many of the great ships on the river stopped work. Samuel left then and went to Nevada with his brother, who was at that time Governor of Nevada. There, near the town of Carson, Samuel became a gold miner, but he never made much money at the time. He soon saw that life in the gold mines was not for him. He also tried writing for the newspapers in Nevada, and this seemed more hopeful. He found that he could write.

　　He went to Europe in 1867 and visited France and Italy. In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon, and two years later he was spending nearly all his time writing. Among his books is his own story (1908).

　　He is now always known as Mark Twain, and many people do not even know that his family name was Clemens. He traveled in America and in England, and went to Oxford in 1907. He was one of  the great American writers of the time, and could make his readers laugh – a thing which few writers can do. He died in 1910.

"Mark Twain" was _________.

      A. a famous American writer  B. name of a book

      C. a great river in America  D. a large ship

As a child, Samuel did not get much education because _________.

A.his father died too early

B.the family was very poor

  C. he disliked school very much

D. he could learn what he liked from the people he met

What gave him a great deal when he started writing? _______

A. His poor childhood     B. The Mississippi river 

C. All kinds of travelers he met  D. His brother

We can infer from the passage that ________.

A. Samuel loved writing from his early age

B. Samuel did not love writing at the beginning

C. his writings to the newspaper were successful

D. his brother encouraged him to write more

According to the writer of the passage, a good writer could _________.

A. write a lot for his readers

B. make a lot of money for his family

C. cause his readers to laugh

D. travel everywhere he wanted

There was a very special teacher who made a far-reaching difference in my life.  

Fall, 1959, the first day of class at Bethesda Chevy Chase High School was about to begin. “Who”, I asked a senior, “is Mrs. McNamara, my 10^th grade English teacher?” He just  31  and said something about my being in  32 . Soon, I understood what he meant. Mrs. McNamara had a pattern of  33  that she repeated again and again. We would have a literature reading task for  34 . The next day, when we came to class, there would be two or three topics on the blackboard  35  to the homework reading. We were  36  to write an in-class essay about one of the topics. The following day, she would  37  the corrected and graded essays and each person would be called  38  to stand in front of the class and to  39  his/her essay. The class were required to criticize （评论） that essay,  40  the grade of everyone in class would be reduced.  

The first time that I  41  her read-write-criticize method, I had not  42 to do the homework and had written something without knowing what it meant.  43  the extreme embarrassment I suffered, standing before my classmates,  44  myself. No one laughed at me; no one would be  45  enough, or foolish enough, to do that in Mrs. McNamara’s class. The embarrassment came from  46  and along with it came a strong  47  not to let it happen again.  

Mrs. McNamara kept all of our written work in files; it was easy to see the  48  in writing that had occurred. What was not so easy to see was the inner transformation that had taken place, at least for me. What Mrs. McNamara  49  me to do was to see myself as others see me and, having done that, I could improve myself. And I  50 . Thank you, Mrs. McNamara.  

Every culture has a recognized point when a child becomes an adult, when rules must be followed and tests passed.

In China, although teenagers can get their ID cards at 16, many only see themselves as an adult when they are 18. In the US, where everyone drives, the main step to the freedom of adult life is learning to drive. At 16, American teens take their driving test. When they have their license, they drive into the grown-up world.

“Nobody wants to ride the cheese bus to school,” said Eleanor Fulham, 17. She brought the pressure back to memory, especially from kids from wealthier families. “It’s like you’re not cool if you don’t have a car,” she said.

According to recent research, 41% of 16 to 19-year-olds in the US own cars, up from 23% in 1985. Although, most of these cars are bought by parents, some teens get part-time jobs to help pay.

Not all families can afford cars for their children. In cities with subways and limited parking, some teenagers don’t want them. But in rich suburban areas without subways, and where bicycles are more for fun than transportation, it is strange for a teenager not to have a car.

But police say 16-year-olds have almost three times more accidents than 18 and 19-year-olds. This has made many parents pause before letting their kids drive.

Julie Sussman, of Virginia, decided that her son Chad, 15, will wait until he is 17 to apply for his learner’s permit.

Chad said he has accepted his parents’ decision, although it has caused some teasing from his friends. “They say that I am unlucky,” he said, “But I’d rather be alive than driving, and I don’t really trust my friends on the road, either.”

In China, as more families get cars, more 18-year-olds learn to drive. Will this become a big step to becoming an adult?

1.Which may serve as the BEST title of the article?

A．Cars Helping You to Grow-Up               B．Driving into the Grown-Up World

C．Teenagers’ Driving in America            D．Recognized Point of Becoming an Adult

2.16-year-old drivers have more accidents possibly because           .

A．they want to show themselves off           B．they are never experienced drivers

C．older people always drive better            D．they never drive carefully on the road

3.Which may NOT be taken into consideration when deciding whether to buy a car?

A．How well off the family is.

B．Whether the kid is old enough.

C．What traffic condition there is around.

D．Whether it’s practically needed.

4.When Chad said “I don’t really trust my friends ...”, he meant that           .

A．he might run into his friends if he drove

B．he didn’t agree with his friends

C．he might not be safe if his friends drove

D．he was afraid that his friends might well lie to him

5.The passage mainly gives information about           .

A．an American culture

B．a cultural difference between America and China

C．a change in the Chinese culture

D．the relationship between driving and a person’s development

I had applied for the nuclear（核）submarine(潜艇) program, and Admiral Rickover was interviewing me for the job. It was the first time I met Admiral Rickover, and we sat in a large room by ourselves for more than two hours, and he let me choose any subjects I wished to discuss. Very carefully, I chose those about which I knew most at the time – recent events, seamanship, music, literature, naval tactics(海军战术), electronics, gunnery(射击学) – and he began to ask me a lot of questions that were more difficult. Every time after my answers, he soon showed that I knew rather little about the subjects I had chosen.

He always looked right into my eyes, and he never smiled. I was saturated with cold sweat.

Finally, he asked me a question and I thought it was my turn to show myself off. He said, “How did you stand in your class at Georgia Tech before entering Annapolis as a first year student?” I had done very well, and I threw my chest with pride and answered, “Sir, I stood thirty-ninth in a class of 820!” I sat back to wait for the congratulations – which never came. Instead, the question: “Did you do your best?” I started to say, “Yes, sir,” but I remembered who this was, and thought of several of my times at the Academy when I could have learned more about our allies(二战时的同盟国), our enemies, weapons strategy(战略) and so on, so I finally said, “No, Sir, I didn’t always do my best.”

He looked at me for a long time, and then turned his chair around to end the interview. He asked one final question, which I have never been able to forget – or to answer. He said, “Why not?” I sat there for a while, shaken, and then slowly left the room.

1.The passage suggests that ___.

A．the atmosphere of the interviews was very serious

B．the author always did his best in doing everything

C．the author and Admiral Rickover were good friends

D．Admiral Rickover knew the author quite well

2.The word “saturated” in the second paragraph may probably mean ___.

A．very satisfied       B．completely wet     C．rather sad         D．too excited

3.When the author said: “Sir, I stood thirty-ninth in a class of 820!’’ He meant __.

A．he did better than most of his classmates at the Academy

B．he had 820 classmates and he was Number thirty-nine

C．he was proud that the class he was in was very large

D．in the class only thirty-nine students stood in front of him

A boy and a girl were a couple of lovers. The girl liked feeling rain, so the boy was always holding the umbrella when it rained and most part of the umbrella was over the girl. Rain showered the boy every time but he said nothing except looked at the gift's face, which was full of silent satisfaction. He felt very happy, so did the girl.

     One day they went out for a walk. They were walking hand in hand passing a building which was under construction. The girl jumped with excitement and said something. The boy seldom talked only feeling excited as she felt looking at her silently. When the girl was talking, a not big or small stone fell down from the building toward the girl's head! At that moment the boy took the girl in his arms so suddenly and so strongly that the girl let out a scream. He meant to protect the gift with his body. But the boy turned over to make his own body downward before they dropped on the ground. As a result, only the girl's hand was smashed by the stone and fractured.

The girl came back to earth and cried with pain, tears weeping up. She thought the saying that “The husband and the wife are birds in the same forest essentially, but when serious tragedy comes, they will fly separately” was really not wrong! With this, she straggled and stood up from. the boy's body keeping from the pains and slowly ran away without glancing at the boy.

At the time, the boy was calling the girl's name in a weak voice, his lips were already white. He took out his mobile phone and dialed the girl's number, but the girl didn't answer. He dialed again she didn't answer again. For several times, he gave up. But his fingers pressed something on the mobile. At that time, beside the boy, the blood spread slowly, his hand hung and the mobile phone lay in the blood, he had no strength to press the “SENT” key yet.

The next day, when the girl heard of the news that the boy was being rescued, she ran to the hospital without considering her anger. When she hurried to the hospital, the doctor had already declared his death; the cause of his death was that his lung had lost too much blood.

It was because, when the boy meant to protect the girl with his body he found that there was a steel stick under them, so he turned over to make it inset(=put into) his own body.

The boy's mother passed the boy's mobile phone on to the gift.

The girl read the message that hadn't been sent: “Honey, I'm sorry, I still couldn't protect you and made you wound... “Upon this, the girl couldn't help crying...

Please treasure the one you love and believe his or her LOVE!

1.The underlined word fractured here probably means ___________.

A. shaken         B. broken        C. abandoned            D. touched

2.The girl didn't want to answer the boy's' call because ____________.

A. she didn't hear it                 B. she was seriously hurt

C. she was angry with him             D. she had her phone broken

3.Which of the following words may best describe the boy’s behavior?

A.gentle and devoted      B.brave and handsome

C.rough and selfish   D.intelligent but silly

4.From this passage we can conclude that          .

A.love is happy and love is pain

B.trust is important between lovers

C.one should express his love in time

D.one should love a person who is brave