阅读理解

　　When I was 12, all I wanted was a signet(图章)ring．They were the "in" thing and it seemed every girl except me had one．On my 13th birthday, my Mum gave me a signet ring with my initials(姓名首字母)carved into it．I was in heaven．

　　What made it even more special was that it was about the only thing that wasn't being "replaced"．We'd been burnt out in fires that swept through our area earlier that year and had lost everything-so most of the " new" stuff(东西)we got was really just to replace what we'd lost．But not my ring．My ring was new．

　　Then, only one month later, I lost it．I took it off before bed and it was missing in the morning．I was sad and searched everywhere for it．But it seemed to have disappeared．Eventually, I gave up and stopped looking for it．And two years later, we sold the house and moved away．

　　Years passed, and a couple of moves later, I was visiting my parents' when Mum told me that she had something for me．It wasn't my birthday, nor was it Easter or Christmas or any other gift-giving occasion．Mum noticed my questioning look．" You'll recognize this one, " she said, smiling．

　　Then she handed me a small ring box．I took it from her and opened it to find my beautiful signet ring inside．The family who had bought our house 13 years earlier had recently decided to do some redecorations, which included replacing the carpets．When they pulled the carpet up in my old bedroom, they found the ring．As it had my initials carved into it, they realized who owned the ring．They'd had it professionally cleaned up by a jeweler before sending it to my mother．And it still fits me．

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阅读理解

　　To take the apple as a forbidden fruit is the most unlikely strory the Christians(基督教徒)ever cooked up．For them, the forbidden fruit from Eden is evil(邪恶的)．So when Colu brought the tomato back from South America, a land mistakenly considered to be eden, ever jumped to be the obvious conclusion．Wrongly taken as the apple of Eden, the tomato was shut o the door of Europeans．

　　What made it particularly terrifying was its similarity to the mandrake, a plant that was the to have come from Hell(地狱)．What earned the plant its awful reputation was its roots w looked like a dried-up human body occupied by evil spirits．Tough the tomato and the man were quite different except that both had bright red or yellow fruit, the general population consio them one and the same, to terrible to touch．

　　Cautious Europeans long ignored the tomato, and until the early 1700s most of the We people continued to drag their feet．In the 1880s, the daughter of a well-known plant expert that the most interestinig part of an afternoon tea at her father's house had been the “introduction this wonderful new fruit-or is it a vegetable?”As late as the twentieth century some writers classed tomatoes with mandrakes as an”evil fruit”．

　　But in the end tomatoes carried the day．The hero of the tomato was an American named R Johnson, and when he was publicly going to eat the tomato in 1820, people journeyed for hun of miles to watch him drop dead．”Wha are you afraid of?”he shouted．”I'll show you fools these things are good to eat!” Then he bit into the tomato．Some people fainted．But he sur and, according to a local story, set up a tomato-canning factory．

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