One of the worst feelings you have as a professional athlete is the feeling after losing a game to a team that you should have beaten. That happened last night against the lowly Boston Celtics (波士顿凯尔特人队). They had only won 13 games the whole year and were really struggling. We had just come off a very good win against the Orlando Magic on the road and were feeling good about ourselves.

The day did not start out good for us when we learned that T-Mac was going to miss the game with the flu. When you lose your best players (Yao, T-Mac), everyone must play a little harder and do a little bit more on the floor. We put Bonzi Wells into the lineup (he was the only one to have a good game for us), in place of T-Mac.

It was a nasty game. We are usually one of the best three point shooting teams in the NBA and we only made 1 of 22 three point shots! I have never seen that happen. Never! Rarer Alston, Luther Head, and I combined to shoot 5 of 33 from the field. Ouch! You aren’t going to win too many games like that. Even as poorly as we shot the ball, we still had a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter but failed to make the winning plays that you must make to leave the floor victorious.

In the locker-room after the game, everybody felt terrible. When we play a bad game, we feel that we let our teammates down. There is a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach when you leave the gym and you just want to go home and not talk to anyone. It is a terrible feeling, but it is a feeling that makes you want to try harder and do better the next time.

I’ll talk to you guys later,

Shane

P.S. One of my Chinese friends has alerted me that there is some controversy about this blog. I can assure you that I write 100% of my blogs and no one writes them for me. The pictures that I post are my pictures and these are my words. Thanks for reading my stones. I hope you have been enjoying them!

51. What is the passage mainly about?

       A. To blame the team for losing the game.

       B. To tell the readers about the feeling after losing the game.

       C. To explain why they played poorly in the game.

       D. To blame Yao Ming and T-Mac for being absent from the game.

52. What can you learn from the text?

       A. The Boston Celtics is one of the top teams in the NBA.

       B. The Boston Celtics had a big win over the writer’s team.

       C. Every one of them played poorly with no energy.

       D. Bonzi Wells started in the game with T-Mac out.

53. How do you think the writer might describe his performance that night?

       A. Tough.           B. Relaxing.          C. Terrible.           D. Efficient.

54. The text most probably comes from the writer’s        .

       A. blog                 B. telephone message C. note                  D. interview

　 A French billionaire used to have a rough time when he was young. Later he carved out a career for himself in the field of drawing sales. Within ten years, he had become a young media tycoon (大亨）in France. He died of cancer in 1998.

　 A French newspaper published his will after his death, in which he claimed:“I was a poor guy. Before I reach the threshold (门槛) of heaven, I leave my secret of how to become rich to the world. Anyone who can answer the question 'What is the most absent for the poor? ' will have discovered my secret of becoming rich. He will have my congratulations. My deposit of one million francs in the private safe of my bank will be the prize for his wisdom in uncovering the riddle of poverty.”

　 Many people responded to the publicized will. The answers, as one might imagine, were various. The majority of them thought the most absent for the poor was money. Some stated that what the poor most needed was opportunity. Still others thought that the poor needed skills to make money. The rest of the answers claimed that poverty could be attributed to the absence of help, love, attractiveness, name-brand clothes, and even a presidency of a state.

　 On the first anniversary of the billionaire’s passing, his lawyer and representative opened his private safe in the bank; the secret of getting rich was unfolded. The billionaire believed that the most absent of the poor was the ambition of getting rich.

　 It was a nine-year-old girl who hit the nail on the head. Why did she regard “ambition” as the most absent for the poor? The day she was officially awarded the one million francs, she said: “Every time my elder sister brought her boyfriend home, she always warned me not to be ambitious. Not to be ambitious! So, I thought perhaps ambition was something that brought what you wanted.”

61. According to the passage, which of the following is true about the French billionaire?

A. He died of cancer in 1998 and left nothing.

B. Later on, he took up drawing as his career.

C. Within a decade, he had became a young media tycoon in the world.

D. He did not have a happy life when he was young.

62. What will the winner get if he finds out the billionaire’s secret of becoming rich?

A. The billionaire’s francs　　　　　 B. The billionaire’s private safe.

C. The billionaire’s ambition　　　　 D. All of the billionaire’s possessions.

63.What did most people think of the most absent for the poor?

A. Help　　　　 B. Money　　　　 C. Opportunity　　　 D. Ambition

64. From the passage, we can infer that the little girl find the secret__________.

A. with her sister’s help　　　　　　 B. just on purpose

C. quite by accident　　　　　　　　 D. not mentioned

65. The underlined phrase “hit the nail on the head” in the last paragraph refers to ________.

A. she had got the ambition to become rich

B. she offered to tell her story publicly

C. she failed to get the prize of one million francs

D. she guessed right and knew the answer