Everybody likes a winner, and there are always people ready to cheer for a good winner. But who has ever heard a song for the man who comes in second？ So this is in praise of the almost winner, the nearly champion（冠军）, the next to the biggest, the second best. This is the song of Mister Two.

You hear unflattering（不讨好人的）names for Mister Two. “Alsoran”, they call him, and “runner­up”, names that make you think of a fellow who couldn’t quite make it. Don’t let that fool you. Ask the winner of any race how good a man Mister Two is. He will tell you it’s Mister Two who made him run so fast, Mister Two is always threatening to overtake and pass him.

Ask the salesman who won the contest and what kept him looking for extra order. Ask the directors of the big company why they keep changing their product, seeking the new equipment, the added advantage. What drives them？ What keeps them going？ It’s the salesman with nearly as many orders. It is the company with the product almost as good. It’s Mister Two.

In this country, we’re proud of the quality of our champions. Our big men come very big. Our fast men run very fast. Our wise men are the wisest and our greatest men are the greatest that a country could hope to be blessed with. And why is that？ It is Mister Two that makes the race always open and everybody can run. So this is for you, Mister Two. This is your song. This is for all the days you tried for first, and came in second. It’s for the nights when you wonder if you ought to go on trying, since nobody seems to notice.

We notice, Mister Two. We know the score. Winner or not, you’re a natural champion. There couldn’t be a race without you, Mister Two.

58. People usually call Mister Two unflattering names to　　　　him.

A. praise       B. encourage      C. laugh at      D. respect

59. According to the author, Mister Two is mentioned in connection with the following except　　　　.

A. business   B. sports            C. greatness    D. failure

60. It is implied in this story that　　　　.

A. Mister Two is as important as the winner

B. every leader needs someone to help him

C. the second today must be the first tomorrow

D. second place is always praised

61. The person who wins needs to understand that　　　　.

A. winning is everything

B. being Mister Two is wonderful

C. without Mister Two he would do better

D. without strong competition he wouldn’t have worked so hard

A woman came out of her house and saw three old men sitting in her front yard. She said, "I don’t think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat." 
"Is the man of the house home?” they asked. "No", she replied, "He’s out." "Then we cannot come in", they replied.
In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened. "Go to tell them I am home and invite them in!" The woman went out and invited the men in. "We do not go into a house together," they replied. "Why is that?" she asked. 
One of the old men explained that their names were Wealth(财富), Success and Love. Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home." 
The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed and he suggested inviting Wealth to fill their home with wealth. And his wife wanted to invite Success; but their daughter-in-law suggested they should invite Love so that their home would be filled with love. At last the husband said to his wife. "Go out and invite Love to be our guest."
The woman went out and asked the three old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest." 
Love got up and started walking toward the house. 
The other two also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?" 
The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would have stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!" 
【小题1】The best title for this passage would be __________.

What is intelligence anyway? When I was in the army I    21   an intelligence test that all soldiers took, and, against   22   of 100, scored 160．No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me.

  All my life I've been registering scores like that,    23   I have the complacent(洋洋自得的) feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who    24      the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents(天分) similar to mine?

  For instance, I once had an auto-repair man, who, on these intelligence tests, could not   25   have scored more than 80,by my estimate. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hurried to him—and he always fixed it.

  Well，then，suppose my auto—repair man   26   questions for some intelligence tests．By doing every one of them I'd prove myself a   27   ．In a world where I have to work with my    28    ，I'd do poorly．

  Consider my auto—repair man   29    ．He had a habit of telling  30    ．One time he said. “Doc, a deaf and dumb man   31   some nails．Having entered a store，he put two fingers together on the counter and made  32     movements with the other hand．The clerk brought him a hammer．He   33    his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering．The clerk   34   him some nails．He picked out the right size and left．Well，Doc，the    35   man who came in was blind．He wanted scissors．   36   do you suppose he asked for them?" I lifted my right hand and made scissoring movements with my first two fingers．He burst out laughing and said，“Why, you fool，he used his    37    and asked for them.” Then he said smugly, "I've been    38     that on all my customers today." "Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew     39     I'd catch you." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated, Doc, I knew you couldn't be very     40    ." And I have an uneasy feeling that he had something there．

1.A. failed                 B. wrote               C. received            D. chose

2.A. an average             B. a total             C. an amount         D. a number

3.A. then                   B. but                 C. so that             D. because

4. A. join in              B. make up              C. go over             D. look through

5.A. approximately          B. possibly            C. certainly           D. frequently

6.A. answered               B. practiced                C. designed            D. tried

7.A. teacher           B. doctor              C. winner            D. fool

8.A. brains                 B. efforts             C. hands             D. abilities

9.A. again                  B. as usual            C. too                 D. as well

10.A. lies                  B. jokes               C. news            D. tales

11.A. bought                B. tested              C. found               D. needed

12.A. cutting                   B. hammering       C. scissoring          D. circling

13.A. nodded           B. raised              C. shook           D. turned

14.A. brought               B. packed              C. sent                D. sold

15.A. clever                B. other               C. right               D. next

16.A. What                  B. How                 C. Who              D. Which

17.A. imagination           B. hand                C. voice               D. information

18. A. trying               B. proving             C. practicing               D. examining

19. A. with wisdom          B. at once             C. in reality               D. for sure

20. A. clear                B. silly                    C. slow            D. smart

Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4, 8, 5, 3, 7, 9, 6. Read them loud. Now look away and spend 20 seconds memorizing them in order before saying them out loud again. If you speak English, you have about a 50% chance of remembering those perfectly. If you are Chinese, though, you’re almost certain to get it right every time. Why is that? Because we most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within a two-second period. And unlike English, the Chinese language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds.
That example comes from Stanislas Dahaene’s book The Number Sense. As Dahaene explains: Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be spoken out in less than one-quarter of a second (for instance, 4 is “si” and 7 “qi”). Their English pronunciations are longer. The memory gap between English and Chinese apparently is entirely due to this difference in length.
It turns out that there is also a big difference in how number-naming systems in Western and Asian languages are constructed. In English, we say fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, so one might expect that we would also say oneteen, twoteen, threeteen, and fiveteen. But we don’t. We use a different form: eleven, twelve, thirteen and fifteen. For numbers above 20, we put the “decade” first and the unit number second (twenty-one, twenty-two), while for the teens, we do it the other way around (fourteen, seventeen, eighteen). The number system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China, Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system. Eleven is ten-one. Twelve is ten-two. Twenty-four is two-tens-four and so on.
That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster than American children. Four-year-old Chinese children can count, on average, to 40. American children at that age can count only to 15. By the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian friends in the most fundamental of math skills.
The regularity of their number system also means that Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily. Ask an English-speaking seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and she has to change the words to numbers (37+22). Only then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59. Ask an Asian child to add three-tens-seven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation(等式) is right there, in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: it’s five-tens-nine.
When it comes to math, in other words, Asians have a built-in advantage. For years, students from China, South Korea, and Japan --- outperformed their Western classmates at mathematics, and the typical assumption is that it has something to do with a kind of Asian talent for math. The differences between the number systems in the East and the West suggest something very different --- that being good at math may also be rooted in a group’s culture.
【小题1】What does the passage mainly talk about?

What is intelligence anyway? When I was in the army I_____an intelligence test that all soldiers took, and, against _____of 100, scored 160.

I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not ______ have scored more than 80. ____, when anything went wrong with my car I hurried to him -- and he always _____ it.

 Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man____questions for some intelligence tests. By every one of them I'd prove myself a _____. In a world where I have to work with my ____, I'd do poorly.

Consider my auto-repair man_____.He had a habit of telling ____. One time he said, "Doe. a deaf-and-dumb (????) man______some nails. Having entered a store, he put two fingers together on the counter and made ______ movements with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He ______ his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk ______ him some nails. He picked out the right size and left. Well, Doe. the______man who came in was blind. He wanted scissors. ______ do you suppose he asked for them?" I lifted my right hand and made scissoring movements with my first two fingers. He burst out laughing and said, "Why, you fool, he used his ______ and asked for them. I've been ______ that on all my customers today, but I knew ______ I'd catch you." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you are so goddamned educated, Dr. I knew you couldn't be very______.

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

1.A. failed                   B. wrote                     C. received                         D. chose

2.A. an average                  B. a total                     C. an exam                          D. a number

3.A. always                          B. possibly        C. certainly                          D. frequently

4.A. Then                   B. Thus                        C. Therefore              D. Yet

5.A. fixed                   B. checked                 C. drove                               D. changed

6.A. answered                    B. practised      C. designed                         D. tried

7.A. teacher                        B. doctor                    C. winner                             D. fool

8.A. brains                 B. effort                      C. hands                               D. attention

9.A. again                   B. as usual         C. too                                   D. as well

10.A. lies                    B. jokes                       C. news                                D. tales

11.A. bought                       B. tested                     C. found                               D. needed

12.A. cutting                       B. hammering            C. waving                             D. circling

13.A. nodded                     B. raised                     C. shook                               D. turned

14.A. brought                     B. packed                   C. sent                                  D. sold

15.A. clever                        B. other                      C. right                                 D. next

16.A. What                          B. How                        C. Who                                 D. Which

17.A. imagination               B. hand                       C. voice                                D. information

18.A. trying                         B. proving         C. practising                        D. examining

19.A. for sure                     B. at once                   C. in fact                              D. right now

20.A. clear                 B. silly                         C. slow                                 D. smart