Anita’s New Start

       Even though it was a beautiful spring day, Anita felt sad as she walked along the beach after school. Her family had moved to the USA three weeks earlier for her father’s new job. Anita missed her old home in Mexico. She wanted to eat her grandmother’s bread and play with her cousin.

       Anita thought about her new life in Texas. She thought she would never learn this new language—everyone spoke so fast. How could she make new friends if she couldn’t even talk to people? “I’m too shy to make new friends anyway,” she thought, feeling disheartened. Anita decided to try something her mother had taught her. Her mother had said, “Anita, whenever you’re sad, take a few deep breaths and think about something that makes you happy.” Then Anita took a deep breath.

       Suddenly a seagull(海鸥) called overhead. She remembered that she had saved some biscuits from lunch. She quickly threw a biscuit into the air. As the gull caught the biscuit in its mouth, she laughed. Just then, another gull landed near her and stood frozen. Anita noticed its wing was injured. She wanted to help, but didn’t know what to do.

       At that moment Anita saw a man and a group of children in the distance. She recognized the man as Mr. Turner, a teacher at her school. He was pointing to something and all the children in the science club were listening to him. Anita decided that this was no time to be shy. She began walking toward the group. Anita took a deep breath. “Hello,” she said quietly. When Mr. Turner looked up, she pointed toward the gull and begged, “Come, please!” “Hello, Anita. What’s wrong?” Anita pointed again toward the bird. Mr. Turner gestured to the group. “Come on, everyone, Let’s see what Anita has found.” As the group followed Anita, she noticed a girl from her class. Anita smiled at the girl and spoke carefully, “What is your name?”

1．What was one problem that Anita faced in the story?

       A．She didn’t like her new friends.

       B．She didn’t speak English very well.

       C．She didn’t have free time after school.

       D．She didn’t get attention from her teacher.

2．In the story, what led Anita to making up her mind to speak to others?

       A．The seagull.         B．Mr. Turner.          C．Her mother.         D．Her classmate.

3．Which of the following shows the order in which the events happened in the story?

       a．Anita thought about her mother’s words.

       b．Anita walked up to Mr. Turner for help.

       c．Anita saw a seagull with a hurt wing.

       d．Anita missed her old home.

       A．a—d—c—b         B．a—b—d—c         C．d—c—b—a         D．d—a—c—b

4．How did Anita change by the end of the story?

       A．She worried more about her new life.

       B．She became eager to know the girl’s name.

       C．She overcame her shyness to help a hurt bird.

       D．She decided to join the science club in the school.

He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and I saw he looked ill. He was shivering, his face was white, and he walked slowly as though it ached to move.

"What's the matter, Schatz?"

"I've got a headache."

"You better go back to bed."

"No. I'm all right."

"You go to bed. I'll see you when I'm dressed."

But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking a very sick and miserable boy of nine years. When I put my hand on his forehead I knew he had a fever.

"You go up to bed," I said, "You're sick."

"I'm all right," he said.

When the doctor came he took the boy's temperature.

"What's is it?" I asked him.

"One hundred and two."

Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different colored capsules（胶囊） with instructions for giving them. One was to bring down the fever, another a purgative(泻药), the third to overcome an acid condition. The germs of influenza（流感）can only exist in an acid condition, he explained. He seemed to know all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the fever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light epidemic(传染病；传染性的) of flu and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia（肺炎）.

Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.

"Do you want me to read to you?"

"All right. If you want to, " said the boy. His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached（超然的；冷漠的）from what was going on.

I read aloud from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates（海盗）;but I could see he was not following what I was reading.

"How do you feel, Schatz?" I asked him.

"Just the same, so far," he said.

I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed, looking very strangely.

"Why don't you try to sleep? I'll wake you up for the medicine."

"I'd rather stay awake."

After a while he said to me, "You don't have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you."

"It doesn't bother me."

"No, I mean you don't have to stay if it's going to bother you."

I thought perhaps he was a little lightheaded and after giving him the prescribed capsules at eleven o'clock I went out with my gun and the young hunting dog….I killed two quail(鹌鹑), and missed five, and started back pleased to have found a covey of quail close to the house and happy there were so many left to find on another day.

At the house they said the boy had refused to let anyone come into the room.

"You can't come in," he said. "You mustn't get what I have."

I went up to him and found him in exactly the position I had left him, white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed（发红）by the fever, staring still, as he had stared, at the foot of the bed.

I took his temperature.

"What is it?"

"Something like a hundred," I said. It was one hundred and two and four tenths.

"It was a hundred and two," he said.

"Who said so?"

"The doctor."

"Your temperature is all right," I said. "It's nothing to worry about."

"I don't worry," he said, "but I can't keep from thinking."

"Don't think," I said. "Just take it easy."

"I'm taking it easy," he said and looked straight ahead, He was evidently holding tight onto himself about something.

"Take this with water."

"Do you think it will do any good?"

"Of course it will."

I sat down and opened the Pirate book and began to read, but I could see he was not following, so I stopped.

"About what time do you think I'm going to die?" he asked.

"What?"

"About how long will it be before I die?"

"You aren't going to die. What's the matter with you? "

"Oh, yes, I am, I heard him say a hundred and two."

"People don't die with a fever of one hundred and two. That's a silly way to talk."

"I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can't live with forty-four degrees. I've got a hundred and two."

He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o'clock in the morning.

"You poor Schatz," I said. "Poor old Schatz. It's like miles and kilometers. You aren't going to die. That's different thermometer（温度计）. On that thermometer thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it's ninety-eight."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely," I said, "It's like miles and kilometers. You know, like how many kilometers we make when we do seventy miles in the car?"

"Oh," he said.

Canadian short story writer Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Eighty-two-year-old Munro is only the 13th woman to win the 112-year-old prize.

    Munro didn’t publish her first collection of short stories until she was 37 years old, but her stories have always been well-received. Lots of her stories share similar themes and characters, but each story has its own twists and turns.

    Even though she’s won Canada’s most famous literary award, the Giller Prize, twice, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature is the cherry on top of Munro’s career. “It brings this incredible recognition, both of her and her career, and of the dedication to the short story,” said one person.

    Along with the well-respected title comes 1.3 million dollars. Munro said everything was “so surprising and wonderful” and that she was “dazed by all the attention and affection that has been coming my way.”

   Munro knew she was in the running——she was named the second-most likely person to win this year’s prize, after Haruki Murakami (村上春树）of Japan——but she never thought that she would win.

    Munro’s win also represents the long way Canadian writers have come. “When I began writing there was a very small community of Canadian writers and little attention was paid by the world. Now Canadian writers are read, admired and respected around the globe,” Munro said on Thursday.

    She is technically not the first Canadian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but many like to think that she is. In 1976 Saul Bellow, who was born in Quebec but moved to Chicago when he was still a child, won the prize. Even though he was born in Canada, he is mostly considered to be an American writer.

    “This is a win for us all. Canadians, by our very nature, are not very nationalistic,” said Geoffrey Taylor. “But things like this suddenly make you want to find a flag.”

    She wasn’t sure if she would keep writing if she won the prize, saying that it would be “nice to go out with a bang. But this may change my mind.”

1.What is the feature of Munro’s stories?

A. They have their own complicated (复杂的)contents. 

B. They have similar story backgrounds.

C. They have specific themes for children.            

D. They have the same characters in each book.

2.For Munro, the Nobel Prize is an award for______.

A. her love for Canadian culture               

B. her devotion to the short story

C. her special form of writing                      

D. her career of editing short stories

3.What is implied in the sixth paragraph?

A. Canadian writers paid little attention to the prize.   

B. Canadian writers are just a small community.

C. Canadian writers have long been ignored.        

D. Canadians have a long way to win the prize.

4.What does the passage mainly tell us?

A. How Alice Munro wins the Nobel Prize        

B. An introduction to the Nobel Prize in Literature

C. Alice Munro wins the Nobel Prize in Literature  

D. A world famous writer, Alice Munro

It was a busy morning，about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80s came to the hospital .I heard him saying to the nurse that he was in a hurry for all appointment（约会）at 9:30.

The nurse had him take a   1      in the waiting area, 2  him it would be at least 40 minutes 3  someone would be able to see him. I saw him  4  his watch and decided，since I was   5   busy—my patient didn’t  6  at the appointed hour, I would examine his wound .While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor’s appointment.

The gentleman said no and told me that he   7   to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his  8  .He told me that she had been   9   for a while and that she had a special disease. I asked if she would be    10   if he was a bit late. He replied that she   11  knew who he was，that she had not been able to  12   him for five years now. I was   13  , and asked him，“And you  14   go every morning，even though she doesn’t know who you are?”

       He smiled and said．“She doesn’t know me but I know who she is” I had to hold back15   as he left.

Now I  16  that in marriages，true love is 17  of all that is. The happiest people don’t   18   have the best of everything；they just  19    the best of everything they have.  20  isn’t about how to live through the storm，but how to dance in the rain.

1．A．breath                   B．test                      C．seat                      D．break

2．A．persuading             B．promising             C．understanding         D．telling

3．A．if                          B．before                  C．since                   D．after

4．A．taking off              B．fixing            C．looking at              D．winding

5．A．very                      B．also                     C．seldom                  D．not

6．A．turn up                   B．show off              C．come on                D．go away

7．A．needed                  B．forgot                  C．agreed                   D．happened

8．A．daughter                B．wife                    C．mother                   D．sister

9．A．late                       B．well                     C．around                  D．there

10．A．lonely                  B．worried                C．doubtful                 D．hungry

11．A．so far                         B．neither                 C．no longer                D．already

12．A．recognize             B．answer                C．believe                   D．expect

13．A．moved                 B．disappointed         C．surprised                D．satisfied

14．A．only                    B．then                     C．thus                       D．still

15．A．curiosity              B．tears                    C．words                  D．judgment

16．A．realize                  B．suggest                C．hope                    D．prove

17．A．agreement            B．expression            C．acceptance           D．exhibition

18．A．necessarily           B．completely           C．naturally               D．frequently

19．A．learn                    B．make                   C．favor                    D．try

20．A．Adventure            B．Beauty                 C．Trust                    D．Life