三、完形填空。（共20小题；每小题1.5分，满分30分）
阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从36-55各题所给的四个选项A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项。
My friend Jessie and I have known each other since we were very young. After we both got married we seldom had time to get together    36    I always promised myself that I would meet her whenever I was free.
Friendships get more    37    as we get older. When we reached our forties, we    38    to do something to keep our    39    strong, healthy and growing. We picked out one Saturday a month and    40    to do something together that day. Sometimes we had a long lunch out, and other times we went to see a movie or went shopping. We also promised to have a(n)    41    every few days.
In some adventures we drove to our favorite places and    42    a night there. Other times we just    43  , stopping wherever we wanted. One of our adventures    44    us to a very small town in south Georgia. The people there were    45    a special festival. We were    46    to buy the handmade gifts and eating the   47    food. There was also a parade. Everyone in the parade    48    and waved to us! It was so great! We    49      had a great time that day!
Fun is always on the menu, whether it’s a weekend trip or a couple of hours    50    lunch. We are so happy and have a great    51    on each other’s lives. We share our sorrow and    52    and we ask for and receive advice. We always laugh, too!
Don’t keep promising yourself that “someday” you’ll    53    your friends. Do it now. Pick up your phone and make a    54    for THIS weekend. You’ll be a happier,    55    person for it! You need it and your friends need it, too.
36. A. as                   B. unless                         C. though                        D. since
37. A. precious              B. difficult                          C. boring                  D. interesting
38. A. refused           B. decided                           C. remembered             D. regretted
39. A. friendship           B. connection                   C. marriage                  D. life
40. A. forgot                 B. promised                         C. learned                     D. pretended
41. A. racing                 B. adventure                        C. hiking                  D. appointment
42. A. offered           B. took                                C. cost                         D. spent
43. A. looked            B. left                                 C. drove                       D. ran
44. A. gave                   B. took                                C. pushed                     D. forced
45. A. obtaining            B. enjoying                          C. preparing                 D. representing
46. A. unwilling            B. eager                              C. delighted                  D. neat
47. A. delicious             B. terrible                            C. awful                       D. valuable
48. A. wiped                 B. appealed                          C. smiled                  D. announced
49. A. hardly                B. nearly                         C. really                       D. probably
50. A. over                   B. on                                  C. at                               D. with
51. A. regret                 B. influence                         C. discussion             D. impression
52. A. weakness            B. benefits                           C. problems                  D. happiness
53. A. meet                   B. advise                         C. support                    D. grasp
54. A. design            B. plan                                C. speech                  D. record
55. A. busier                 B. prettier                            C. healthier                   D. cleaner

    I am beginning to wonder whether my grandmother isn’t right when she complains, as she frequently does, that children nowadays aren’t as well-behaved as they used to be. Whenever she gets the opportunity, she recounts in detail how she used to be told to respect the elders and betters. She was taught to speak only when she was spoken to, and when she went out on her own, she was reminded to say 'please' and 'thank you'. Children in her day, she continues, were expected to be seen and not heard, but these days you are lucky if you ever hear parents telling their children to mind their p’s and q’s.

       If you give her the chance, she then takes out of her drawer the old photograph album which she keeps there, and which she never tires of displaying. Of course when you look at pictures of her parents, you feel sure that, with a father as stern-looking as that, you too would have been "seen and not heard". He had a lot of neatly cut hair, long side-whiskers and a big moustache. In the photographs, he is always clutching (抓住) his coat with one hand, while in the other he holds a thin walking stick. Beside him sits his wife, with their children around her: Granny and her elder brothers. It always occurs to me that perhaps those long, stiff, black clothes were so clumsy to a little girl, that she hadn’t enough breath left to be talkative, let alone mischievous (淘气的). It must have been a dull and lonely life too, for she stayed mainly at home during her childhood, while her brothers were sent away to school from an early age. Despite their long black shorts and their serious expressions in the photographs, I always suspect that their lives were considerably more enjoyable than hers. One can imagine them telling each other to shut up or mind their own business, as soon as their parents were out of sight.

       Going to see Granny on Sundays used to be a terrible experience. We would always be warned in advance to be on our best behavior, since my mother made a great effort to show how well brought up we were, in spite of our old, comfortable clothes, our incomprehensible (to Granny) slang, and our noisy games in the garden. We had to change into what Granny described as our "Sundays best" for lunch, when we would sit uncomfortably, kicking each other under the table. We were continually being ordered to sit up straight, to take our elbows off the table, to wait till everybody had been served, not to wolf down our food, nor to talk with our mouths full. At length we would be told to ask to be excused from the table and ordered to find quiet occupations for the rest of the day. We were always very bad-tempered by the evening, and would complain angrily all the way home.

       Yet though we hated the Sunday visit, we never questioned the rules of good manners themselves. I remember being greatly shocked as a child to hear one of my friends telling her father to shut up. I knew I could never have spoken like that to my father and it would never have occurred to me to do so.

       However, my childhood was much freer than Granny’s. I went to school with my brother and I played football with him and his friends. We all spoke a common language, and we got up to the same mischief. I would have died if I had had to stay indoors, wear a tight dress, and sew.

       But I do sometimes look wistfully (惆怅地) at an old sampler which hangs in the hall, which was embroidered (刺绣) by an even more distant relative—my great-great-aunt, of whom, regrettably, no photograph remains. It was done as an example of her progress in learning. The alphabet is carefully sewn in large colored childish letters from A to Z, and below it a small verse reads:

                     Mary Saunders is my name,

                     And with my needle I worked the same,

                     That by it you may plainly see

                     What care my parents have for me.

       It must have taken that little five-year-old months and months of laborious sewing, but, in a circle in a bottom corner of the sampler, there is a line: "Be Ever Happy".

50. The writer’s grandmother will complain that ______.

  A. children used to be mischievous

  B. children behave worse than they did in the past

  C. children are often reminded of what to do

  D. children are very badly behaved

51.Visiting Granny on Sundays was a terrible experience because ______.

  A. the writer was not so well raised as she was required to pretend

  B. Granny continually warned the writer to be on her best behavior

  C. Granny was always describing the writer’s "Sunday best"

  D. the writer was always blamed for not behaving well

52. From Paragraph 4, we can infer that the writer ______.

  A. seldom spoke to her father in the way her friend did

  B. was never questioned about the rules of good manners

  C. never doubted the value of the strict rules at that time

  D. was worried that her friend’s father would be shocked

53. The writer looked wistfully at the sampler, because______.

  A. it was embroidered by a relative.

  B. she wished she could sew herself.

  C. it called to mind the values of good old days.

  D. she had no photographs of Mary Saunders.

54. By sewing "Be Ever Happy" in the sampler, Mary Saunders ______. 

  A. suggested she was unhappy then

  B. indicated happiness was hard to gain

  C. expected we would find happiness in sewing

  D. hoped happiness would be everlasting

完形填空

　　Many people see a person who can't read or spell as disabled, but what does disabled really mean? Well, with Andrew Mertzit of Maryland it meant he would not be 1 to attend his school any more. Andrew's 2 is that whenever he is reading, he sees the letters p, d, q and b as a 3 and stick. Since Andrew's teachers couldn't 4 him much, Suzanne, Andrew's mother decided to take 5 in her own hands. She decided to home school Andrew. In ten months, Suzanne, a trained reading specialist tried many different 6 to help Andrew with his disability. She helped Andrew with making letters out of sand, rice and shaving cream. Now, about nine years later Andrew is 7 having some problems with reading, but certainly a lot better than before.

　　Lately researchers have been finding many different ways to help learning disabled students by 8 things like rice and shaving cream or even to get little computers. Also, nowadays there are schools all over that have programs to help disabled kids, unlike back in 1995 when Andrew had to be 9 schooled by his mother. But to help disabled students it takes about $ 8.12 billion. You probably think that's a lot of money, but if you 10 that in 1996 there were about 2.6 million kids who were disabled, it may not seem all that 11 . Even though a person may have a learning disability at a certain subject, like reading, it does not mean that he or she doesn't have a talent（才能）at something else. For example, 15 years ago when Joey Hollingsworth entered kindergarten, teachers said that Joey was very clever. Once Joey started getting 12 , his grades got lower. Lots of people just thought he was 13 and had discipline（纪律）problems. Many years later he finally was 14 for learning disabilities and found out he really did have a disability.

　　Still many people believe kids like Joey who can't read or write are lazy. It's hard to understand that 15 a person doesn't look disabled, he can have problems with learning, and it's even harder for the 16 . But now they are getting close to understanding how learning disabilities start. Brain researchers have some new equipment. These machines 17 pictures of the brain while in 18 . They're learning a lot already by examining the brains of the people who have been 19 and who have learning disabilities. It is reported that some of these damaged brain cases are 20

like the picture we see all the time on the learning-disabled cases where we don't know the cause.