How the years have rushed by! It has been a long time since I knew Marget Swenson. I was a child when I knew her, and now I myself have children. The mind loses many things as it matures, but I never lost Marget — my first love and first hurt.

I met Marget Swenson when she joined our sixth-grade class.

Marget, just fresh from Sweden, and I, a sixth-generation American. She spoke very little English, but somehow we did manage to understand each other. We took to each other at the first instant.

Marget lived up on the hill. That was the place where there were many large and pretty houses. I suppose it was only in passing that I knew only white people lived there.

We had so much fun together. We sat for hours in my garden or hers, surrounded by grass. Her words were Swedish; mine, English. We laughed at the way each of us slid our tongues over the unfamiliar words, I learned the Swedish words of “hello”, “friend”, and “goodbye”.

However, such fun did not last long, and the disaster began at Marget’s birthday party.

It was a Wednesday. I arrived at the party early. Marget and I whizzed around(忙碌着), putting the finishing touches on the decorations.

Some fifteen minutes later the doorbell rang, and in came Mary, another girl in our class.

But after that nobody came. No one.

When it got to be after five, Mrs Swenson called Marget inside. She was there for a long time, and when she came out, she looked very, very sad. “my mother does not think they are coming,” she said.

“Why not?” Mary blurted(突口而出).

Marget gave a quick glance at me, but she didn’t say anything.

I took Marget’s hand. “It’s me, isn’t it?” I said. Oh! I remember so painfully today how much I wanted her quick and positive “No!” to my question. But I was only aware of Marget trying to slip her hand from mine. I opened my hand and let her go.

It was different between us after her birthday. Marget stopped coming to my house, and when I asked her when she would, she looked as though she would cry.

One day, uninvited, I went to her house, climbed up the hill, and a restless thing grew within me at every step, almost a knowing.

Marget almost jumped when she opened the door. She stared at me in shock. Then, quickly, in a voice I’d never heard before, she said, “My mother says you can’t come to my house any more.”

I opened my mouth, and closed it without speaking. The awful thing had come; the knowing was confirmed. The awful thing had come because Marget was white I was not. I did know it deep within myself.

Since that meeting Marget and I did not speak to each other at all.

On the last day of school, screwing up a courage, I handed my autograph book to Marget. She hesitated, then without looking up, wrote words I don’t remember now; they were quite common words, the kind everyone was writing in everyone else’s book. I waited. Slowly, she passed her book to me and in it I wrote with a slow, firm hand, some of the words she had taught me. I wrote Adjo min van — Goodbye, my friend. I released her, let her go, told her not to worry, told her that I no longer needed her. Adjo.

68. What can be the best title of the passage?

       A. My best friend.         B. My first hurt.            C. Black and white.                     D. Adjo.

69. By saying “…but I never lost Marget…”, the author means “________”.

       A. I got in touch with her later.            B. We are still friends.

       C. I remember her forever                   D. I met her after many years

70. What does the underlined word “a knowing” refer to?

       A. Marget was white while I was not.   B. Marget refused to let me into her house.

       C. Marget’s mother didn’t like me.              D. Marget and I did not speak to each other at all.

71. According to the passage, ________ put an end to their once dear friendship.

       A. some outside force                         B. Marget

       C. Marget’s mother                             D. different personalities

Years ago, when I started looking for my first job, wise advisers urged, “Barbara, be enthusiastic! Enthusiasm will take you further than any amount of experience.” How right they were! Enthusiastic people can turn a boring drive into an adventure, extra work into opportunity and strangers into friends.

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is the paste that helps you hang in there when the going gets tough. It is the inner voice that whispers, “I can do it!” when others shout, “No, you can’t!” It took years and years for the early work of Barbara McClintock, a geneticist (遗传学家) who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in medicine, to be generally accepted. Yet she didn’t let up on her experiments. Work was such a deep pleasure for her that she never thought of stopping.

We are all born with wide – eyed, enthusiastic wonder and it is this childlike wonder that gives enthusiastic people such a youthful air, whatever their age. At 90,cellist Pablo Casals would start his day by playing Bach (巴赫). As the music flowed through his fingers, his bent shoulders would straighten and joy would reappear in his eyes. As author and poet Samuel once wrote, “Years wrinkle(使生皱纹) the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.”

Enthusiastic people also love what they do, regardless of money, title or power. Patricia Mcllrath, retired director of the Missouri Repertory Theater in Kansas City, was once asked where she got her enthusiasm. She replied, “My father, a lawyer, long ago told me, I never made a penny until I stopped working for money.”

If we cannot do what we love as a full-time career, we can do it as a hobby. Elizabeth Layton of Wellsville, Kan, was 68 before she began to draw. This activity ended her depression that had troubled her for at least 30 years, and the quality of her work led one critic to say, “I am persuaded to call Layton a genius.”

We can’t afford to waste tears on “might-have-beens”. We need to turn the tears into sweat as we go after “what-can-be.” We need to live each moment whole-heartedly, with all our senses-finding pleasure in the sweet smell of a backyard garden, the simple picture of a six-year-old, and the beauty of a rainbow.

1. The author mentions cellist Pablo Casals in the third paragraph to show that         .

A. music can arouse people’s enthusiasm

B. enthusiasm can give people inspiration needed to succeed

C. enthusiasm can make people feel young

D. enthusiasm can keep people healthy

2.How many examples are given in the passage to show the importance of enthusiasm?

A. Two.                        B. Three.                  C. Four.                    D. Five.

3.The author holds the view that       .

A. enthusiastic people will never get old

B. enthusiasm can make you succeed and enjoy life

C. enthusiasm is more important than experience

D. enthusiasm can give people more success and fame

I never thought I would have a life-changing experience at Wal-Mart.
Although my thoughts were only on speed, the checkout line I was standing in wasn’t moving as quickly as I wanted, and I glanced toward the cashier. There stood a man in his seventies, wearing glasses and a nice smile. I thought, well, he’s an old guy!
For the next few minutes I watched him. He greeted every customer before scanning the items. Sure, his words were the usual, “How’s it going?” But he did something different—he actually listened to people. Then he would respond to what they had said and engage them in brief conversation.
I thought it was odd (古怪的). I have grown accustomed to people asking me how I was doing simply out of robotic conversational habit. After a while, you don’t give any thought to the question and just say something back. I could say, “I just found out I have six months to live,” and someone would reply, “Have a great day!”
But that wasn’t the end. He gave them the change, walked around the counter, and extended his right hand in an act of friendship. He looked the customers in the eyes. “I sure want to thank you for shopping here today,” he told them. “You have a great day. Bye-bye.”
The looks on the faces of the customers were priceless. There were smiles and some sheepish grins (咧嘴一笑). All had been touched by his simple gesture—and in a place they never expected. They would gather their things and walk out, smiling.
Of course, he did the same to me and I got to know his name, Marty.
56. 【小题1】The checkout line the writer was standing in moved slower than expected because ________.

Down on the beach of Dover, 56-year-old Channel swimmer Jackie Cobell bravely set off for Calais. The time was 6:40 am. 28 hours and 44 minutes later the exhausted, successful mother from Kent crawled (爬行) to the shore and walked proudly into the record books. After five years in training, Mrs Cobell became the slowest person to cross the Channel under her own steam. The previous record for the slowest crossing, set by Henry Sullivan at 26 hours and 50 minutes, has stood for 87 years before Mrs Cobell started at Dover Saturday morning.

   She had struggled through changing tides that swept her first one way, then the other. It turned the 21-mile crossing into a 65-mile one. She declared, “Time and tide wait for no man—and they certainly didn’t wait for me. I was fully expecting it to get dark before I got to Calais but I never imagined I’d also see the dawn again. But I wasn’t going to give up.”

   Her feat(壮举) raised more than $2,000 in charity sponsorship for research into Huntingdon’s disease, a sum that was continuing to grow as news of her achievement spread. That was why she did it. “I don’t really know myself,” she said. “ I just kept thinking of all the people I’d be letting down if I stopped.”

 Mrs Cobell took to the water so well at school. But after bringing up two daughters, she started to gain weight. Five years ago she took up swimming again and decided to prepare for the Channel challenge to lose weight. She became much fitter. Then came the big swim. “I practiced on Windermere lake,” she said. “it’s about half the distance of the Channel so I just doubled it, added some extra time, and worked out I could probably get to Calais in about 16 hours.”

Her husband David, trainer, official observer and friend sailed alongside her on a boat. She said, “I sang to keep myself going. When they told me I was a record breaker I thought they were just having a joke—until I realized it was the record for the slowest crossing. But maybe next time I might be a bit quicker.”

1.According to Paragraph 1, Mrs Cobell_____________.

   A. started to learn swimming five years ago

   B. arrived at Calais on late Sunday morning

   C. wanted to break the record for the slowest crossing

   D. was too exhausted to move after crossing the Channel

2.Why did Mrs Cobell spend so much time crossing the Channel?

   A. Because the tides changed her direction.

   B. Because she was not in good condition.

   C. Because she wasn’t good at swimming.

   D. Because the winds kept her from swimming fast.

3.Mrs Cobell crossed the Channel for the main purpose of____________.

   A. taking a risk

   B. losing more weight

   C. raising money for charity

   D. becoming famous worldwide

4. How did Mrs Cobell feel about the record she set?

   A. Dissatisfied        B. Excited         C. Annoyed         D. Proud

My husband is a born shopper(天生的购物者). He loves to look at things and to touch them. He likes to compare prices between the same items(产品) in different shops. He would never think of buying anything without looking around in several different shops. On the other hand, I’m not a shopper. I think shopping is boring and unpleasant. If I like something and I have enough money to take it, I buy it at once. I never look around for a good price or a better deal. Of course my husband and I never go shopping together. Doing shopping together would be too painful for both of us. When it comes to shopping, we go our different ways.

Sometimes I ask my son Jimmy to buy some food in the shop not far from our home. But he is always absent-minded. This was his story.

One day I said to him, “I hope you won’t forget what I have told you to buy.” “No,” said Jimmy, “I won’t forget. You want three oranges, six eggs and a pound of meat.”

He went running down the street to the shop. As he ran, he said to himself over and over again. “ Three oranges, six eggs and a pound of meat.”

In the beginning he remembered everything but he stopped several times. Once he saw two men fighting outside a clothes shop until a policeman stopped them. One of them was badly hurt. Then he stopped to give ten cents to a beggar. Then he met some of his friends and he played with them for a while. When he reached the shop, he had forgotten everything except six eggs.

As he walked home, his face became sadder and sadder. When he saw me he said, “ I’ m sorry, mum. I have forgotten to buy oranges and the meat, I only remembered to buy six eggs, but I’ve dropped three of them.”

1. The husband loves shopping because _______

A. he has much money

B. he likes the shops

C. he likes to compare the prices between the same items

D. he has nothing to do but shopping

2.The wife doesn’t like shopping because ______

A. she has no money

B. she has no time

C. she doesn’t love her husband

D. she feels it boring to go shopping

3.They never go shopping together because _______

A. their ways of shopping are quite different

B. they hate each other

C. they needn’t buy anything for the family

D. they don’t have time for it

4.Jimmy cannot do the shopping well because ______

A. he is young                  B. he is absent-minded

C. he often loses his money        D. he doesn’t like shopping