It was my first day at school in London and I was half-excited and half-frightened. On my way to school I wondered what sort of questions the other boys would ask me and rehearsed (practiced) all the answers: “I am nine years old. I was born here but I haven’t lived here since I was two. I was living in Farley. It’s about thirty miles away. I came back to London two months ago.” I also wondered if it was the custom for boys to fight strangers like me, but I was tall for my age. I hoped they would decide not to risk it.

    No one took any notice of me before school. I stood in the center of the playground, expecting someone to say “hello”, but no one spoke to me. When a teacher called my name and told me where my classroom was, one or two boys looked at me but that was all the curiosity my arrival aroused.

    My teacher was called Mr Jones. There were 42 boys in the class, so I didn’t stand out there, either, until the first lesson of the afternoon. Mr Jones was very fond of Charles Dickens and he had decided to read aloud to us from David Copperfield, but first he asked several boys if they knew Dickens’ birthplace, but no one guessed right. A boy called Brian, the biggest in the class, said: “Timbuktu”, and Mr Jones went red in the face. Then he asked me. I said: “Portsmouth”, and everyone stared at me because Mr Jones said I was right. This didn’t make me very popular, of course.

    “He thinks he’s clever,” I heard Brian say.

    After that, we went out to the playground to play football. I was in Brian’s team, and he obviously had Dickens in mind because he told me to go in goal. No one ever wanted to be the goalkeeper.

    “He’s big enough and useless enough,” Brian said when someone asked him why he had chosen me.

    I suppose Mr Jones remembered Dickens, too, because when the game was nearly over, Brian pushed one of the players on the other team, and he gave them a penalty. As the boy kicked the ball hard along the ground to my right, I threw myself down instinctively and saved it. All my team crowded round me. My bare knees were grazed and bleeding. Brian took out a handkerchief and offered it to me.

    “Do you want to join my gang (team)?” he said.

    At the end of the day, I was no longer a stranger.

51．The writer prepared to answer all of the following questions EXCEPT “________”.

    A. How old are you?                                                        B. where are you from?

    C. Do you want to join my gang?                                 D. When did you come back to London?

52．We can learn from the passage that ________.

A. boys were usually unfriendly to new students   

B. the writer was not greeted as he expected

    C. Brian praised the writer for his cleverness

    D. the writer was glad to be a goalkeeper

53．The underlined part “I didn’t stand out” in paragraph 3 means that the writer was not ________.

    A. noticeable                      B. welcome                         C. important                       D. outstanding

54．The writer was offered a handkerchief because ________.

    A. he threw himself down and saved the goal         B. he pushed a player on the other team

    C. he was beginning to be accepted                           D. he was no longer a new comer

“It was all his own idea, ” says Pat Peters, the 38-year-old wife of Palo Alto, California high school . Bob had just drawn up a “motherhood contract” ----- a document (文件) stating that for 70 days this summer he would take over the care and feeding of the couple’s four children, plus all household chores (杂务). Although he didn’t even know how to make coffee when he signed, he was quite confident.(He thought the experience would make a nice book.) After 40 of the 70 days, he was ready to give up. “I was beaten down, completely humbled, ” admits Peters. Three weeks later he spoke to the local press (also part of the bargain), stating, “Not only is motherhood a difficult task, not only is it never-ending, it is an impossible job for any normal human being.” Bob and Pat were high school sweethearts. After they were married in 1960, she worked as a secretary to help put him through university. Since then Bob has been the football and wrestling coach at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High while Pat raised the kids. Then two years ago Pat went back to work as a secretary at Cubberley. “I had been around children so much,” she sighs (叹气), “I couldn’t talk to a grown-up.” She continued to run the household, however----- until Bob signed the contract, whereupon she decided to relax and enjoy it. Although Peters had consulted (咨询) with his school’s home economics teachers and the head of the cafeteria (食堂), his meals were sometimes a disaster.
“I tried to slip the butter I’d forgotten under the eggs after they were frying, ” he says. For the last three weeks, the family ate out a lot—sometimes having Macdonald’s hamburgers for lunch and dinner. As for housekeeping, a home economics teacher had told Bob that a room always looks clean if the bed is made. “I found an easier way-----I shut the doors, ” he says. Soon the kids were wearing the same clothes for a week. “I made them wear their shirts inside out, and when we went to pick up Pat at work they turned them right side out so they would look clean.”
Now that Bob has publicly admitted he was wrong, he is routinely(日常地) sharing the child-raising and household tasks with Pat. The tentative (暂定的) title of his book about the summer is taken from something he shouted at the kids one day.
【小题1】The couple signed the contract because _______.

It was an autumn morning shortly after my husband and I moved into our first house. Children were upstairs unpacking , and I was looking out of the window at my father moving around mysteriously on the front lawn. My parents lived nearby ,and Dad had visited us several times already. “What are you doing out there?” I called to him .He looked up, smiling. “I’m making you a surprise.” Knowing my father, I thought it could be just about anything. A self-employed jobber, he was always building things out of odds and ends. When we were kids, he always created something surprising for us.

   Today, however, Dad would say no more, and caught ups in the busyness of our new life, I eventually forgot about his surprise. Until one gloomy day the following March when I glanced out of the window. Any yet… I saw a dot of blue across the yard. I headed outside for a closer look. They were crocuses (番红花), throughout the front lawn. Lavender, blue, yellow and my favorite pink ---- little faces moved up and down in the cold wind.

    Dad! I smiled, remembering the things he had secretly planted last autumn. He knew how the darkness and dullness of winter always got me down. What could have been more perfectly timely to my needs?

    My father’s crocuses bloomed each spring for the next four or five seasons, bringing the same assurance every time they arrived: hard times was almost over. Hold on, keep going, light is coming soon.

    Then a spring came with only half the usual blooms. The next spring there were none. I missed the crocuses. I would ask Dad to come over and plant new bulbs. But I never did.

    He died suddenly one October day. My family was in deep sorrow, leaning on our faith. I missed him terribly.

    Four years passed, and on a dismal spring afternoon I was driving back when I found myself feeling depressed. “You’ve got the winter depression again and you get them every year.” I told myself.

    It was Dad’s birthday, and I found myself thinking about him. This was not unusual --- my family often talked about him, remembering how he lived his faith. Once I saw him give his coat to a homeless man.

    Suddenly I slowed as I turned into our driveway. I stopped and stared at the lawn. And there on the muddy grass and small gray piles of melting snow, bravely waving in the wind, was one pink crocus.

    How could a flower bloom from a bulb more than 18 years old, one that had not blossomed in over a decade? But there was the crocus. Tears filled my eyes as I realized its significance.

Hold on, keep going, light is coming soon. The pink crocus bloomed for only a day. But it built my faith for a lifetime.

1.According to the first three paragraphs, we learn that _________.

A. the writer was unpacking when her father was making the surprise

B. the writer knew what the surprise was because she knew her father

C. it was not the first time that the writer’s father had made a surprise

D. it kept bothering the writer not knowing what the surprise was

2.Which of the following would most probably be the worst time of the year as seen by the writer?

A. Spring.  B. Summer.        C. Autumn.        D. Winter.

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

A. The writer’s father planted the crocus to lift her low spirit.

B. The crocuses bloomed each spring before the writer’s father died.

C. The writer often thought about her father since her father died.

D. The writer’s father died some years after he planted the crocus.

4.The writer’s father should be best described as_________.

A. a full-time gardener with skillful hands

B. a part-time jobber who loved flowers

C. a kind-hearted man who lived with faith

D. an ordinary man with doubts in his life

5.Crocus was viewed as the symbol of _________ by the writer.

A. faith      B. family    C. love       D. friendship

“It was all his own idea, ” says Pat Peters, the 38-year-old wife of Palo Alto, California high school . Bob had just drawn up a “motherhood contract” ----- a document (文件) stating that for 70 days this summer he would take over the care and feeding of the couple’s four children, plus all household chores (杂务). Although he didn’t even know how to make coffee when he signed, he was quite confident.(He thought the experience would make a nice book.) After 40 of the 70 days, he was ready to give up. “I was beaten down, completely humbled, ” admits Peters. Three weeks later he spoke to the local press (also part of the bargain), stating, “Not only is motherhood a difficult task, not only is it never-ending, it is an impossible job for any normal human being.” Bob and Pat were high school sweethearts. After they were married in 1960, she worked as a secretary to help put him through university. Since then Bob has been the football and wrestling coach at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High while Pat raised the kids. Then two years ago Pat went back to work as a secretary at Cubberley. “I had been around children so much,” she sighs (叹气), “I couldn’t talk to a grown-up.” She continued to run the household, however----- until Bob signed the contract, whereupon she decided to relax and enjoy it. Although Peters had consulted (咨询) with his school’s home economics teachers and the head of the cafeteria (食堂), his meals were sometimes a disaster.

“I tried to slip the butter I’d forgotten under the eggs after they were frying, ” he says. For the last three weeks, the family ate out a lot—sometimes having Macdonald’s hamburgers for lunch and dinner. As for housekeeping, a home economics teacher had told Bob that a room always looks clean if the bed is made. “I found an easier way-----I shut the doors, ” he says. Soon the kids were wearing the same clothes for a week. “I made them wear their shirts inside out, and when we went to pick up Pat at work they turned them right side out so they would look clean.”

Now that Bob has publicly admitted he was wrong, he is routinely(日常地) sharing the child-raising and household tasks with Pat. The tentative (暂定的) title of his book about the summer is taken from something he shouted at the kids one day.

1.The couple signed the contract because _______.

A．Pat complained a lot about her doing the housework all by herself

B．Bob loved taking care of children and wanted his wife to have a good rest

C．they agreed that husband and wife should share household tasks

D．Bob thought it easy to take care of the family and wanted the experience for a book

2.It was agreed that if Bob failed to keep to the contract, he would have to _______.

A．pay a certain amount of money

B．do all the housework for years

C．say sorry to his wife

D．admit publicly he was wrong about motherhood

3.Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A．Bob managed to keep the kids’ clothes clean.

B．Bob tried to cook good meals for his children.

C．Bob frequently took the kids out to eat because he was too busy at work.

D．Bob taught the kids to make their beds every day.

4.Which of the following can best end the news story?

A．“My experience of being a mother.”

B．“I’m proud of you all, my dear!”

C．“Wait till your mother gets home!”

D．“Motherhood: an impossible job for anyone.”

“It was a11 his own idea，”says Pat Peters，the 38-year-old wife of Palo Alto，California high school football coach Bob Peters，39．Bob had just drawn up a “motherhood contract”-a document(文件)stating that for 70 days this summer he would take over the care and feeding of the couplets four children，plus all household chores(杂务)．Although he didn’t even know how to make coffee when he signed，he was quite confident．(He thought the experience would make a nice book．)

      After 40 of the 70 days，he was ready to give up．”I was beaten down，completely humbled” admits Peters．Three weeks later he spoke to the local press(also part of the bargain)，stating，”Not only is motherhood a difficult task，not only is it never—ending，it is an impossible job for any normal human being．”

      Bob and Pat were high school sweethearts、After they got married i11 1 960，she worked as a secretary to help put him through university．Since then Bob has been the football and  wrestling coach at Palo Alto’s Cubberley high while Pat raised the kids.

     Then two years ago Pat went back to work as a secretary at Cubberley．”I had been around children so much，”she sighs(叹气)．”I couldn’t talk to a grown—up．”She continued to run the household，however—until Bob signed the contract．Where upon she decided to relax and enjoy it .Although Peters had consulted with his school’s home economics teachers and‘he head of the cafeteria(食堂)，his meals were sometimes a disaster．”I tried to slip the butter. I’d forgotten under the eggs after they were flying，”he says．For the last three weeks, the family ate out a lot——sometimes having Macdonald’s hamburgers for lunch and dinner．

    As for housekeeping．a home economics teacher had told Bob that a room always looks clean if the bed is made．”I found an easier way-I shut the doors，”he says．Soon the kids were wearing the same clothes for a week．”I made them wear their shirts inside out，and when we went to Dick up Pat at work they turned them right side out so they would look clean.”

    Now that Bob has publicly admitted he was wrong，he is routinely(日常地)sharing the child-raising and household tasks with Pat．The tentative(暂定的)title of his book about the summer is taken from something he shouted at the kids one day．．．．

1．File couple signed the contract because       ．

  A．Pat complained a lot about her doing the housework all by herself

  B．Bob loved taking care of children and wanted his wife to have a good rest

  C．They agreed that husband and wife should share household tasks

  D．Bob thought it easy to take care of tile family and wanted the experience for a book

2．It was agreed that if Bob failed to keep to the contract．he would have to      ．

  A．pay a certain amount of money

  B．do all tile housework for years

  C．say sorry to his wife

  D． admit publicly he was wrong about motherhood

3．What call we 1earn about Pat Peters?

  A．She was hard—working and selfless．

  B．She was pretty and kind—hearted．

  C．She was tired of tile child．raising and household tasks．

  D．She did not love Bob any longer．

4．Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

  A．Bob managed to keep the kids’ clothes clean．

  B．Bob tried to cook good meals for his children．

  C．Bob frequently took the kids out to eat because he was too busy at work．

  D．Bob taught the kids to make their beds every day．

5．Which of the following can best end tile story?

  A. “My experience of being a mother．”

  B．”I’ll proud of you all，my dear!”

  C．”Wait till your mother gets home!”

  D．”Motherhood：an impossible job for anyone。”