第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，共40分）
请阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C、D）中，选出最佳答案，并在答题卡上将该选项的标号涂黑。
A
After my husband died suddenly from a heart attack，my world crashed around me. My six children were all under 10，and I was burdened with the responsibilities of earning a living，and caring for the children. I was fortunate to find a wonderful housekeeper to care for the children during the week，but from Friday nights to Monday mornings，the children and I were alone.
One Friday evening I came home from work to find a big pretty German Shepherd（牧羊犬）on our doorstep. This dog seemed to intend to enter the house. The children liked “German” immediately and begged me to let him in. I agreed to let him sleep in the basement. That night I slept peacefully for the first time in many weeks.
The following morning we made phone calls and checked lost-and-found ads for German’s owner，but with no results.
On Sunday I had planned to take the children on a picnic. Since I thought it best to leave German behind in case his owner came by，we drove off without him. When we stopped to get gas，we were amazed to see German racing to the gas station after us. No way was he going to be left behind.
Monday morning I let him out for a run. He didn’t come back and we were all disappointed. We were convinced that we would never see him again. We were wrong. The next Friday evening，German was back on our doorstep. Again he stayed until Monday morning，when our housekeeper arrived.
This pattern repeated itself every weekend for almost 10 months. We grew more and more fond of German. We took comfort in his strong，warm presence，and we felt safe with him near us. As German became part of the family，he considered it his duty to check every bedroom to be sure each child was cozy in bed.
Each week，between German’s visits，I grew a little stronger，a little braver and more able to handle; every weekend we were no longer alone and enjoyed his company. Then one Monday morning we patted him on the head and let him out for what turned out to be the last time. We never saw German again.
56．The dog first came to the family when _______________.
A．it was needed most
B．the writer became strong enough
C．the writer was away on a business trip
D．the writer was busy on the weekday
57．The family planned to go on a picnic without the German Shepherd because ____.
A．it was too wild to control
B．it was too young to walk so far
C．the owner might come by to pick it up
D．it might spoil the trip
58．The writer was ____________ the German Shepherd.
A．afraid of　　B．grateful to     C．cruel to 　　D．annoyed with
59．Which of the following can’t be used to describe the dog？
A．Loyal 　　　B．Helpful    C．Lovely 　　 D．Wild

It's not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed how many nouns are being used as verbs? We all use them, often without noticing what we're doing.

I was arranging to meet someone for dinner last week, and I said “I’ll pencil it in my diary”, and my friend said “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not a tentative one!

Many of these new verbs are linked to new technology. An obvious example is the word fax, which is a shortening of facsimile originally, an exact copy of a book or document. We all got used to sending and receiving faxes, and then soon started talking about faxing something and promising we'd fax it immediately. So, nouns turn into verbs in two easy stages. Then along came email, and we were soon all emailing each other madly. How did we do without it? I can hardly imagine life without my daily emails.

Email reminds me, of course, of my computer and its software, which has produced another couple of new verbs. On my computer I can bookmark those pages from the World Wide Web that I think I'll want to look at again, thus saving all the effort of remembering their addresses and calling them up from scratch. I can do the same thing on my PC, but there I don't bookmark; I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb is derived from an adjective not a noun. I wasn’t really sure whether people said this, but someone told me recently that they had favorited a site I was looking for and so they could easily give me its address.

In the late 1980s I noticed that lots of my friends had acquired pagers, and kept saying things like “I’ll page you as soon as I know what time we’re meeting”. They couldn't say it to me, though; I refused to have one. So my children bought me a mobile phone, now known simply as a mobile and I had to learn yet more new verbs. I can message someone, that is, I can leave a message （either spoken or written）for them on their phone．Or I can text them, write a few words suggesting when and where to meet, for example. How long will it be before I can mobile them, that is, phone them using my mobile? I haven’t heard that verb yet, but I’m sure I will soon. Perhaps I’ll start using it myself! 　

60. “I’ll pencil it in my diary” in the second paragraph probably means              .

A. it was a firm arrangement　　　　　　　    　

B. it was an uncertain arrangement

C. the arrangement should be written as a diary    

D. he prefers a pencil to a pen

61. A website address can be easily found if it has been            .

A. emailed            B. messaged          C. favorited          D. texted

62. Which of the following has not been used as a verb yet?

A. message            B. page                 C. email               D. mobile

63. The best title for this passage is           ．

A. New Verbs from Old Nouns　　　　

B. The Development of the English language

C. New Technology and New words     

D. Technology and Language

A mouse looked through a hole in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package. What food might it contain? He was astonished to discover that it was a mouse trap!

　　Running to the farmyard, the mouse shouted, warning, “There is a mouse trap in the house; there is a mouse trap in the house.” The chicken with her head high, said, “Shut up, Little Ugly. This is a great concern to you, but it has nothing to do with me; I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mouse trap in the house.” “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse,” said the pig, “but there is nothing I can do about it but pray; you are always  in my prayers.”

　　The mouse turned to the cow, who said, “A mouse trap; am I in great danger, huh?”

So the mouse had to face the farmer’s mouse trap alone.

　　That very night a sound was heard through the house, like the sound of a mouse trap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see that it was a poisonous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital.

She returned home with a fever. It is said that drinking fresh chicken soup will help treat fever, so the farmer took his sharp knife to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. His wife’s sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer killed the pig. 　　The farmer’s wife did not get well, in fact, she died, and so many people came for her funeral. The farmer had the cow killed to provide meat for all of them to eat.

So next time someone is facing a problem, don’t say that has nothing to do with you.

1.We could see from the passage that the mouse was______.

2.Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

3.What can we learn from the story?