The father as well as his three children ____ skating on the frozen river every Sunday afternoon in winter.

A.is going           B.go                C.goes               D.aregoing

         It was a bitter, cold evening in northern Virginia many years ago. The old man was waiting for a ride across the   36  . The wait seemed   37  .

         At last he heard the slight, steady rhythm of approaching hooves (马蹄) coming along the frozen path. Anxiously, he   38   as several horsemen came around the bend (转角处). He let the first one   39  . Then another, and another. Finally, as the   40   rider neared the spot where the old man sat like a snow statue, the old man   41   the rider’s eye and said, “Sir, would you mind giving an old man a ride to the other side? There doesn’t appear to be a passage way by  42  .”

         The rider replied, “Sure.” Seeing the old man was unable to  43   his half-frozen body from the ground, the horseman got down and helped the old man onto the horse. The horseman took the old man not just across the river, but to his destination.

         As they neared the tiny but cozy (舒适的) cottage, the horseman’s   44   caused him to ask, “Sir, I notice that you let several other riders go by without making a(n)   45   to get a ride. Then I came up and you   46   asked me for a ride. I’m curious why, on such a bitter winter night, you would wait and ask the last rider.   47   I had refused and left you there?”

         The old man replied, “I’ve been   48   here for some time. I think I know people pretty good.” He continued, “I looked into the eyes of the other riders and immediately saw there was no   49   for my situation. But when I looked into your eyes,   50   was evident. I knew,   51  , that your gentle spirit would   52   the opportunity to give me help in my time of   53  .”

         Those heartwarming comments   54   the horseman deeply.

         “I’m most grateful for what you have said,” he told the old man. “May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I   55   to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.”

         With that, Thomas Jefferson turned his horse around and made his way back to the White House.

A. town                   B. river              C. country                           D. island

A. meaningless       B. useless        C. careless                          D. endless

A. watched   B. asked      C. waved                       D. approached

A. come over           B. get off               C. pass by                            D. take off

A. coming                 B. leaving         C. next                                 D. last

A. missed                  B. caught         C. avoided                           D. saw

A. bus                        B. car                C. foot                                  D. horse

A. feel             B. push                   C. lift                                     D. stand

A. honesty                B. courage       C. enthusiasm          D. curiosity

A. choice                 B. stop          C. effort                               D. scene

A. immediately  B. hurriedly         C. friendly                            D. strangely

A. What about      B. What if              C. How come            D. If only

A. in                         B. out                C. around                            D. beyond

A. concern    B. doubt                C. chance                            D. reason

A. meaning   B. kindness  C. seriousness          D. help

A. then and there                                    B. for a moment  

                      C. all of a sudden                    D. sooner or later

A. offer                    B. create               C. find                                   D. welcome

A. need                   B. danger              C. fortune                            D. happiness

A. influenced         B. excited              C. touched                          D. hit

A. happen               B. try                      C. disagree                         D. fail

In 1886 explorer Robert Peary traveled to Greenland for the U.S. Navy. Before his journey, no one knew Greenland’s size or shape. On Peary’s first trips, he explored Greenland, mapping parts of it.
When Peary returned to the United States, he went to a businessman to sell some furs. There he met Matthew Henson, an African American mechanic, builder and navigator. When Peary went to Nicaragua on a Navy mission(任务),Henson went with him. When that job was over, the two headed to the Arctic.
Henson and Peary set sail for Greenland. When they landed, Henson built a house for their base camp. Peary and his men set out to explore the land by dog sledge(雪橇). Henson was injured and had to stay at the base. While there, he made friends with the Inuit, the native people.
In 1895 Henson, Peary and Hugh Lee went out on another dog sledge journey. This time, they found Greenland’s northernmost point. They now knew that the North Pole lay under the frozen Arctic Ocean. Peary had hoped to cross the ice. but the group ran out of food and returned to base camp. In the years that followed, Peary and Henson tried several times to reach the North Pole, but each time they failed. On one trip, Peary’s feet froze, and he lost his toes（脚趾）.
Peary and Henson planned last trip when Peary was 53 years old. They started across the sea ice from Ellesmere Island, which is located（位于） north of Canada. The temperature dropped as low as—51 degrees Celsius. The explores’ cheeks froze , and they suffered snow blindness from the sun’s glare. They experienced high winds and storms, and they also faced a hidden danger. Under the frozen ocean were powerful currents（潮流）. The ice moved and broke apart leaving open water, called leads. Twice Peary fell into leads. But eventually he and Henson became the first persons to reach the North Pole.
【小题1】 What did Peary and Henson find in 1895?

It was a bitter, cold evening in northern Virginia. The old man’s beard was   11   by winter’s frost while he waited for a ride across the river. The wait seemed endless. Then he heard the weak sound of hooves(马蹄) advancing along the frozen path.   12   , he watched as several horsemen rounded the bend. He let the first one pass by, then another. As the last rider drew near where the old man sat, the old man   13   the rider’s eye and said, “Sir, would you mind giving an old man a ride to the other side of the river?” Reining(勒住) his horse, the rider replied, “Sure thing.” Seeing the old man unable to   14   his half-frozen body from the ground, the horseman helped the old man onto the horse and took him to his   15  . On the way, the horseman said: “Sir, I notice that you let several other riders pass by. I'm   16   why, on such a bitter winter night, you would wait and ask the last rider.”The old man looked at the rider and replied, “I know people pretty good. When I   17   the eyes of the other riders, I immediately saw there was no   18   for my situation. But when I looked into yours, kindness and compassion(同情) were obvious. I knew that your gentle spirit would give me help in my time of   19   .” Those heart-warming comments   20   the horseman deeply. “I'm most grateful for what you have said,” he told the old man. “May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.”

1. A. marked             B. covered           C. equipped       D. filled

2.. A. Happily           B. Anxiously C. Appreciatively       D. Confidently

3.. A. stared            B. looked            C. caught         D. attracted

4.. A. lift              B. carry             C. rise           D. jump

5.A. home                B. company           C. destination    D. office

6. A. afraid             B. excited           C. delighted      D. curious

7. A. got into           B. ran into          C. looked into    D.broke into

8.. A. concern           B. worry             C. envy           D. doubt

9. A. trouble            B. need              C. danger        D. difficulty

10.A. amazed             B. promoted          C. touched        D. benefited

Franz Kafka wrote that “A book must be the ax(斧子)for the frozen sea inside us.” I once shared this sentence with a class of seventh graders, and it didn’t seem to require any explanation.

We’d just finished John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men. When we read the end together out loud in class, my toughest boy, a star basketball player, wept a little, and so did I. “Are you crying?” one girl asked, as she got out of her chair to take a closer look. “I am,” I told her, “and the funny thing is I’ve read it many times.”

But they understood. When George shoots Lennie, the tragedy is that we realize it was always going to happen. In my 14 years of teaching in a New York City public middle school, I’ve taught kids with imprisoned parents, abusive parents, irresponsible parents; kids who are parents themselves; kids who are homeless; kids who grew up in violent neighborhoods. They understand, more than I ever will, the novel’s terrible logic—the giving way of dreams to fate (命运).

For the last seven years, I have worked as a reading enrichment teacher, reading classic works of literature(文学) with small groups of students from grades six to eight. I originally proposed this idea to my headmaster after learning that a former excellent student of mine had transferred out of a selective high school—one that often attracts the literary-minded (有文学头脑的) children of Manhattan’s upper classes—into a less competitive school. The daughter of immigrants (移民), with a father in prison, she perhaps felt uncomfortable with her new classmates. I thought additional “cultural capital” could help students like her develop better in high school, where they would unavoidably meet, perhaps for the first time, students who came from homes lined with bookshelves, whose parents had earned Ph.D.’s.

Along with Of Mice and Men, my groups read: Sounder, The Red Pony, Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. The students didn’t always read from the expected point of view. About The Red Pony, one student said, “it's about being a man, it’s about manliness (男子气概).” I had never before seen the parallels between Scarface and Macbeth, nor had I heard Lady Macbeth’s soliloquies (独白) read as raps, but both made sense; the interpretations were playful, but serious. Once introduced to Steinbeck’s writing, one boy went on to read The Grapes of Wrath and told me repeatedly how amazing it was that “all these people hate each other, and they’re all white.” His historical view was broadening, his sense of his own country deepening. Year after year, former students visited and told me how prepared they had felt in their first year in college as a result of the classes.

Year after year, however, we are increasing the number of practice tests. We are trying to teach students to read increasingly complex texts, not for emotional punch (碰撞) but for text complexity. Yet, we cannot enrich the minds of our students by testing them on texts that ignore their hearts. We are teaching them that words do not amaze but confuse. We may succeed in raising test scores, but we will fail to teach them that reading can be transformative and that it belongs to them.

1.The underlined words in Paragraph 1 probably mean that a book helps to________.

A．realize our dreams

B．give support to our life

C．smooth away difficulties

D．awake our emotions

2.Why were the students able to understand the novel Of Mice and Men?

A．Because they spent much time reading it.

B．Because they had read the novel before.

C．Because they came from a public school.

D．Because they had similar life experiences.

3.The girl left the selective high school possibly because ________.

A．she was a literary-minded girl

B．her parents were immigrants

C．she couldn’t fit in with her class

D．her father was then in prison

4.To the author’s surprise, the students read the novels ________.

A．creatively         B．passively          C．repeatedly        D．carelessly

5.The author writes the passage mainly to ________.

A．introduce classic works of literature

B．advocate teaching literature to touch the heart

C．argue for equality among high school students

D．defend the current testing system