Have you ever complained why life is so tiring? Does the sky sometimes seem dark to you? Are your studies sometimes not successful? Well, friends, cheer up and smile all the time. If you see the world with your warm heart, you’ll find that the whole world smiles to you.
While in school, sometimes you are tired of your lessons, but have you ever noticed the happy smile on your teacher’s face when you did a good job?
One day it is fine. Just before you go out, it suddenly starts to rain. Maybe you would feel very sad and start to complain about the weather. But friends, why don’t you sit down and listen to the free concerts that the nature offers you? And with the timely(及时地) rain, crops in the fields will grow better and better and farmers will have a good harvest.
Although everyone wants to succeed in what he tries to do, sometimes failure can’t be avoided. I think failure is not terrible, and the terrible thing is that we are afraid of it and give up hope. When we face failure, we must be confident(信心) in ourselves, draw a useful lesson from it and try our best to finish what we have decided to do. As a popular saying goes, “Failure is the mother of success”.
Attitude(态度) decides everything. With an optimistic(乐观) attitude life is easy and pleasant. Let’s smile to whatever we meet and the whole world will smile to us.
【小题1】 People sometimes complain _________.

Section B （18分）
Directions: For each blank in the following passage there are 4 words or phrases marked A, B, C and D. Fill in each blank with a word or phrase that best fits the context.
It was one of the happiest times of my life. I was 29 and had just received my bachelor’s degree, graduating with   36   despite working two jobs and being a wife and mother. My parents and five-year-old son were among the   37   when I walked onto the stage at Ashland University to get my diploma. I was so excited and proud to be starting a teaching career and contributing more to my family’s happiness.
But when I got home that evening, there was a note from my husband,   38  , “I have come to get my clothes and won’t be back.” We’d been having trouble,   39   that note still came as a shock. He had emptied our bank account. We were horribly in debt. I had quit my previous jobs in the hope of finding a teaching position.   40 , I was eight months pregnant.
The reality was so merciless that I was embarrassed,   41  , and angry and felt I had failed. But I had my son, and I was about to   42   a new life into the world. So   43  my deep sadness, I had to go on. The next morning, I woke up, put my feet on the floor, took a deep breath, prepared breakfast, and basically did everything I always did. I used my routine to keep myself moving.
And in the seven years since, I’ve continued moving forward. I got a job as a kindergarten teacher, earned a master’s degree in education, and watched my babies grow to 12 and   44  . I certainly have never   45   to put them through this, but in retrospect (回首往事), I’m glad   it happened to me when it did. It helped me grow   46 , confident, and strong — things I’m now hopefully instilling in (灌输) my children. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball, hands you a lemon, or knocks you for a loop (gives you a shock). But knowing how to   47   failure can be the first step to success. This is my latest belief and strategy on how to win in the end.  
36. A. worries B. anxieties     C. troubles      D. honors
37. A. professors    B. students      C. audience     D. neighbours
38. A. saying  B. meaning     C. expressing  D. writing
39. A. but       B. and     C. thus    D. so
40. A. Therefore     B. Yet     C. Besides      D. Even
41. A. excited B. disturbed    C. interested   D. scared
42. A. take      B. bring  C. give    D. get
43. A. regardless of       B. except for   C. in spite of   D. instead of
44. A. seven    B. eight   C. nine    D. ten
45. A. stopped B. chosen       C. turned D. waited
46. A. indifferent   B. careful       C. helpful       D. independent
47. A. put up with  B. keep up with      C. deal with    D. do with

In the age of reality television, success isn’t the only way to the public eye. Failure can also create fame, just like William Hung, 21, a native of Hong Kong.

Hung recently has made an agreement with US-based entertainment firms Koch Records and Fuse Music Network. They will publish a full-length record, titled “The True Idol” on April 6.

The idol is a civil engineering student at the University of California at Berkeley. He did a version of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” on the television show “American Idol 3”, on January 27. The Fox TV singing contest searches for pop stars among ordinary people. In the case of Hung, however, his act was so bad that the judges cut him off in mid-act.

Hung’s response? “I already gave my best, so I have no regrets at all.” That’s good, because any common person would have found plenty to regret: The off-key singing. The blue Hawaiian shirt worn with pants pulled up too high. The terrible dancing. The hips jerking (摇摆) to a beat that did not belong to the song, maybe not even to this planet. It was, by all accounts, bad.But, it was this very bad act that sold well.Marc Juris, president of Fuse, explained it this way: “Every one of us is happily guilty of singing our favorite song at the top of our lungs with complete freedom, completely off-key and completely unworried. That’s what William did and immediately won the hearts of America.”

Whatever it is, for the moment it’s big. Three websites devoted to Hung have gone up on the Internet in the past few weeks. Versions of his performance have been remixed with hip hop and techno-music and have made it to the top 10 request list at a Chicago radio station.So, what does Hung think of this?

“There were all these people saying things about me. A lot were saying I was very courageous and that I was great on the show, but some didn’t have much respect for me and some were kind of mean.”

Now he says he’s not so sure whether to distance himself from the glamour (魅力) or to accept it. Returning to normal hasn’t been easy.

13.What is the main idea of this passage?

A.Sometimes an idol behaves quite foolishly.  

B.Hung’s performance attracted the public eye.

C.How an unsuccessful person became famous.

D.Success sometimes does not require hard work.

14.What does the underlined word “it” in Paragraph 7 refer to?

A.William Hung.     B.Hung’s bad act.   C.Hung’s website.    D.The public’s opinion.

15.Which of the following shows the correct order of what happened to Hung?

a.The entertainment firms made an agreement with Hung.

b.The judges cut Hung off in mid-act in the singing contest.

c.Hung became popular among Americans.

d.Hung gave a terrible performance though he tried his best.

e.Three websites put Hung’s funny performance on the Internet.

A.d, b, e, c, a       B.a, c, d, b, e        C.a, d, b, c, e          D.d, b, a, e, c

16.Why was Hung able to win the hearts of America?

A.His success was based on his own hard work.

B.He attracted people’s attention in the contest.

C.He was good-looking though he didn’t sing well.

  D.His character was completely different from other idols’.

John H. Johnson was born in a black family in Arkansas city in 1918. His father died in an accident when John was six. He was reaching the high school age, but his hometown offered no high school for blacks.
Fortunately he had a strong-willed (意志坚强的) caring mother. John remembered that his mother told him many times, “Son, you can be anything you want really to be if you just believe.”She told him not to depend on others, including his mother. “You have to earn success, ”she said. “All the people who work hard don’t succeed, but the only people who do succeed are those who work hard.”
These words came from a woman with less than a third grade education. She also knew that believing and hard work don’t mean everything. So she worked hard as a cook for two years to save enough to take her son, who was then 15, to Chicago.
Chicago in 1933 was not the promised land that black southerners were looking for. John’s mother and stepfather could not find work. But here John could go to school, and here he learned the power of words—as an editor of the newspaper and yearbook at Du Sable High School His wish was to publish a magazine for blacks.
While others discouraged him, John’s mother offered him more words to live by.“Nothing beats a failure but a try. ”She also let him pawn(典当)her furniture to get the $ 500 he needed to start the Negro magazine.
It is natural that difficulties and failures followed John closely until he became very successful. He always keeps his mother’s words in mind.“Son, failure is not in your vocabulary!”
Now John H. Johnson is one of the 400 richest people in America—worth $ 150 million.
【小题1】John’s mother decided to move to Chicago because _____.

In the age of reality television, success isn’t the only way to the public eye. Failure can also create fame, just like William Hung, 21, a native of Hong Kong.

Hung recently has made an agreement with US-based entertainment firms Koch Records and Fuse Music Network. They will publish a full-length record, titled “The True Idol” on April 6.

The idol is a civil engineering student at the University of California at Berkeley. He did a version of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” on the television show “American Idol 3”, on January 27. The Fox TV singing contest searches for pop stars among ordinary people. In the case of Hung, however, his act was so bad that the judges cut him off in mid-act.

Hung’s response? “I already gave my best, so I have no regrets at all.” That’s good, because any common person would have found plenty to regret: The off-key singing. The blue Hawaiian shirt worn with pants pulled up too high. The terrible dancing. The hips jerking (摇摆) to a beat that did not belong to the song, maybe not even to this planet. It was, by all accounts, bad.

But, it was this very bad act that sold well.

Marc Juries, president of Fuse, explained it this way: “Every one of us is happily guilty of singing our favorite song at the top of our lungs with complete freedom, completely off-key and completely unworried. That’s what William did and immediately won the hearts of America.”

Whatever it is, for the moment it’s big. Three websites devoted to Hung have gone up on the Internet in the past few weeks. Versions of his performance have been remixed with hip hop and techno-music and have made it to the top 10 request list at a Chicago radio station.

So, what does Hung think of this?

“There were all these people saying things about me. A lot were saying I was very courageous and that I was great on the show, but some didn’t have much respect for me and some were kind of mean.”

Now he says he’s not so sure whether to distance himself from the glamour (魅力) or to accept it. Returning to normal hasn’t been easy.

1.What is the main idea of this passage?

A．Sometimes an idol behaves quite foolishly.

B．Hung’s performance attracted the public eye.

C．How an unsuccessful person became famous.

D．Success sometimes does not require hard work.

2.What does the underlined word “it” in Paragraph 7 refer to?

A．William Hung.      B．Hung’s bad act.    C．Hung’s website.   D．The public’s opinion.

3.Which of the following shows the correct order of what happened to Hung?

a. The entertainment firms made an agreement with Hung.

b. The judges cut Hung off in mid-act in the singing contest.

c. Hung became popular among Americans.

d. Hung gave a terrible performance though he tried his best.

e. Three websites put Hung’s funny performance on the Internet.

A．d, b, e, c, a         B．a, c, d, b, e         C．a, d, b, c, e         D．d, b, a, e, c