三、阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
阅读下面短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A．B．C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项的标号涂黑。
A
I remember a day when I was a little kid. I was making a sandwich in the kitchen when I noticed the date on one of the wine bottles.
"Dad, dad!" I cried. "This wine is too old to drink."
"Son, hold on," he said.
"No, you can't drink this tonight! This bottle of wine was made 10 years ago."
"Wait, let me tell you..."
"Would you like me to throw it away for you?" I asked.
"Son, wait a second," he said. "Son, some wines get better over time. The longer you wait to drink it, the better it will be. Although this may seem strange, it is true."
When I was young, I didn't have any understanding of what this meant, but now, this would have been very helpful to remember as I went through my teenage years.
In our society, we forget this simple role: The longer you wait for certain things, the better they will be. But we want the best job as quickly as possible; we want to graduate from college in as few years as possible; we even speed through our homework just to chat with friends. When we do this, we lose something of great importance.
We all want to get to the next step so quickly that perhaps we don't get ready enough to get there. This has a negative effect on our society. When trying to go to the right college, we will do anything to get in and when we rush through our class－work, we may not study enough for the test, and end up failing. We need to be ready for whatever comes, ready for the unexpected. Wine gets better over time, so do the things in our paths of life.
56．Why did the author tell his father not to drink the bottle of wine?
A．Because it smelt terrible.
B．Because it was mixed with something else.
C．Because his father drank too much that night.
D．Because it had been kept for years.
57．What the author's father said______.
A．made the author puzzled when he was a little child
B．was too simple a rule to be meaningful to the author
C．threw the author into deep thought then
D．was an excuse to drink the wine
58．In the author's opinion, if we do things too quickly we will______.
A．do it better                                                                 B．save much time
C．graduate from college more quickly          D．miss something useful to us in life
59．Which of the following best reflects the main idea of the passage?
A．Well begun is half done.                       B．More haste, less speed.
C．Failure is the mother of success.       D．Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.

I found out one time that doing a favor for someone could get you into a lot of trouble. I was in the eighth grade at the time, and we were having a final test. During the test, the girl sitting next to me whispered something, but I didn’t understand. So I leaned over her way and found out that she was trying to ask me if I had an extra pen. She showed me that hers was out of ink and would not write. I happened to have an extra one, so I took it out of my pocket and put it on her desk..
Later, after the test papers had been turned in, the teacher asked me to stay in the room when all the other students were dismissed（解散）. As soon as we were alone she began to talk to me about what it meant to grow up; she talked about how important it was to stand on your own two feet and be responsible (负责任) for your own acts. For a long time, she talked about honesty and emphasized（强调） the fact that when people do something dishonest, they are really cheating（欺骗） themselves. She made me promise that I would think seriously（认真地） about all the things she had said, and then she told me I could leave. I walked out of the room wondering why she had chosen to talk to me about all those things.
Later on, I found out that she thought I had cheated on the test. When she saw me lean over to talk to the girl next to me, it looked as if I was copying answers from the girl’s test paper. I tried to explain about the pen, but all she could say was it seemed very very strange to her that I hadn’t talked of anything about the pen the day she talked to me right after the test. Even if I tried to explain that I was just doing the girl a favor by letting her use my pen, I am sure she continued（继续） to believe that I had cheated on the test.
【小题1】The story took place（发生） exactly ____ .

Some time ago , I discovered that one of my chairs had a broken leg ．I didn’t think there would be any difficulty in getting it mended , as there were a whole lot of antique  shops near my home ．So I left home one morning carrying the chair with me ．I went into the first shop expecting a friendly reception ．I was quite wrong ．The man wouldn’t even look at my chair ．
The second shop , though slightly more polite , was just the same , and the third, and the fourth—so I decided that my approach must be wrong ．
I went into the fifth shop with a plan in my mind ．I placed the chair on the floor and said to the shopkeeper , “ Would you like to buy a chair ?” He looked it over carefully and said, “Yes , not a bad chair ．How much do you want for it , sir ?” “Twenty pounds ,” I said ．“OK ,” he said , “I’ll give you twenty pounds ．” “It’s got a slightly broken leg ,”I said ．“Yes I saw that , it’s nothing ．”
Everything was going according to plan and I was getting excited ．“What will you do with it ?” I asked ．“Oh , it will be easy to sell once the repair is done ．” “I’ll buy it ,” I said ．“ What do you mean ? You’ve just sold it to me ,” he said ． “Yes , I know but I’ve changed my mind ．I’m sorry , I’ll give you twenty-seven pounds for it ．” “You must be crazy ,” he said．Then suddenly the penny dropped ．“ I know what you want ．You want me to repair your chair．” “ You’re right ,” I said ．“ And what would you have done if I had walked in and said , ‘ Would you mend this chair for me’ ?” “I wouldn’t have agreed to do it ,” he said ．“We don’t do repairs , not enough money in it and too much trouble ．But I’ll mend this for you , shall we say for a five?” He was a very nice man and was greatly amused （感到有趣） by the whole thing ．
【小题1】We can learn from the text that in the first shop the writer       ．

D
　There was a story many years ago of a school teacher--- Mrs. Thompson. She told the children on the first day that she loved them all the same. But that was a lie. There in the front row was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard. He didn’t play well with the other children and he always needed a bath. She did not like him.
Then Mrs. Thompson got to know that Teddy was actually a very good boy before the death of his mother. Mrs. Thompson was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when, like all her other students, Teddy brought her a Christmas present too. It was his mother’s perfume.
Teddy said, “Mrs. Thompson, today you smell just like my Mom used to.” After the children left ，she cried for at least an hour. On that very day, she stopped teaching reading, writing and math. Instead, she began to teach children.
Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. The boy’s mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he improved. By the end of the sixth grade, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class.
Six years went by before she got a note from Teddy. He wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life. He went to college. Mrs. Thompson got two more letters from him with the last one signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, M. D.
The story doesn’t end there. On his wedding day, Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson’s ear, “Thank you, Mrs. Thompson, for believing in me. You made me feel important and showed me that I could make a difference.”
Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back, “Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn’t know how to teach until I met you.”
68. What did Mrs. Thompson do on the first day of school?
A. She made Teddy feel ashamed.
B. She asked the children to play with Teddy.
C. She changed Teddy’s seat to the front row.
D. She told the class something untrue about herself.
69. What did Mrs. Thompson find out about Teddy?
A. He often told lies.  
B. He was good at math. 
C. He needed motherly care.  
D. He enjoyed playing with others.
70. In what way did Mrs. Thompson change?
A. She taught fewer school subjects.
B. She became stricter with her students.
C. She no longer liked her job as a teacher.
D. She cared more about educating students.
71. Why did Teddy thank Mrs. Thompson at his wedding?
A. She had kept in touch with him.
B. She had given him encouragement.
C. She had sent him Christmas presents.
D. She had taught him how to judge people.

My granddaughter, Shari, owns The Berry (莓果) Factory in Sacramento, California, and her mother, Joan, and I were helping with the Valentine’s Day rush. We’d dipped (浸泡) hundreds of berries, arranged gift baskets and packaged orders to be shipped around the country.
By the end of the day, the two middle-aged women, Joan and I, were exhausted. Shari didn’t seem tired. That was typical Shari. Though she was very busy, I’d seen her give away berries to everybody — parking attendants, mail carriers and hairdressers. “For me?” they would say, bursting into a smile.
As a “thank you”, Shari took us out for dinner. But there was a 45-minute wait at her favorite restaurant. “No big deal. There’s another place just up the road,” she said, driving us there. This time we walked right in.
When the waitress came to take our drink orders, Shari reached into her handbag, pulling something out. “I want you to have these,” she said, handing the waitress a box of chocolate-dipped strawberries. “She will love those berries!” I thought. But the waitress seemed startled. She only let out a “thank you” before grabbing the box and rushing into the kitchen.
A few minutes later, the waitress returned with our iced tea. “I apologize,” she said. “My best friend and I had promised to send each other something every Valentine’s Day. But she passed away last year. I didn’t know how I’d get through this day without her. Then you handed me that box.”“I’m so sorry to hear that,” said Shari. “It’s not much, but I hope you can enjoy them.”“Oh, I will,” the waitress said. “See, every year we always sent each other the same thing; a box of chocolate-dipped strawberries bought from our favourite store, The Berry Factory.”
【小题1】What can be inferred in the first paragraph?