My money is ____, so I have to call my parents saying that I am missing them.

A．run out           B．using up           C．running out        D．running out of

Long long ago, there was a small village. This village had a  36  tradition. At the beginning of every year, any boy who had reached the age of 18 was given land and money to build a home. The boy had to   37 his home before winter. If his home failed to endure the cold weather in winter, the villagers could not  38  him in any way.

One   39 , Paul and Marc reached their 18. They   40  their land and money and decided to search nearby villages for ideas on building their homes. In each village, they found the nicest   41  and talked to the owners. Each owner gladly offered   42 .

After Marc saw several homes, he   43 the best ideas and went back to his own land. Paul, 44  , continued collecting more ideas. Soon he had so many great ideas that he began to 45  some of them. But he always believed he could find even better ideas in the next village.

Marc began building his home. He had several false starts,  46  his home gradually rose from his land. By fall, Marc had finished his home. It wasn't perfect, but it was strong and he could  47 it later. Paul enjoyed all the beautiful homes and   48  with home owners. The first snow came and Paul, realizing he was running out of time,  49  back to his land. He built the best home he could in the time he had, but it was   50  . The first winter storm destroyed his home and he froze to   51 . The villagers mourned for him.

Marc  52 the winter. Each year, Marc searched for other good ideas he could use to make his own home look better. He became a leader in the village,  53 a family, and lived a happy, content life.

We all build and improve our own mental homes. It’s   54  and fun for us to search for ideas from other mental home owners, but we only improve our own mental home if we actually  55   the best ideas.

1.                A．hopeful        B．strange         C．literary   D．cultural

2.                A．find           B．make           C．buy D．complete

3.                A．encourage      B．help           C．scold D．persuade

4.                A．winter         B．summer        C．spring `   D．autumn

5.                A．received        B．exchanged      C．recognized    D．advised

6.                A．girls           B．jobs            C．presents  D．houses

7.                A．rooms          B．drinks          C．advice    D．attention

8.                A．gathered       B．expected       C．created   D．understood

9.                A．similarly        B．finally          C．furthermore   D．however

10.               A．believe         B．forget          C．replace   D．doubt

11.               A．because        B．although        C．so    D．but

12.               A．repair          B．rebuild         C．improve   D．sell

13.               A．achievements    B．conversations    C．struggles  D．arguments

14.               A．rushed         B．drove          C．flew  D．moved

15.               A．funny          B．weak          C．small D．amazing

16.               A．death          B．blindness       C．sadness   D．illness

17.               A．experienced    B．loved          C．spent D．survived

18.               A．brought        B．earned         C．raised D．contacted

19.               A．easy           B．slow           C．dangerous D．special

20.               A．realize         B．bring          C．apply D．collect

The right to pursue happiness is issued to us all with our birth, but no one seems quite sure what it is.

A holy man in India may think that happiness is in himself. It is in needing nothing from outside himself. If wanting nothing, he lacks nothing. We westerners, however, are taught that the more we have from outside ourselves, the happier we will be, and then we are made to want. We are even told it is our duty to want. Advertising, one of our major industries, exists not to satisfy these desires but to create them---and to create them faster than any man’s money in his pocket can satisfy them. Here, obviously someone is trying to buy the dream of happiness and spending millions upon millions every year in the attempt. Clearly the happiness-market is not running out of customers.

I doubt the holy man’s idea of happiness, and I doubt the dreams of the happiness-market, too. Whatever happiness may be, I believe, it is neither in having nothing nor in having more, but in changing --- in changing the world and mankind into pure states.

To change is to make efforts to deal with difficulties. As Yeats, a great Irish poet once put it, happiness we get for a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties.

It is easy to understand. We even demand difficulty for the fun in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. And a game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are man-made difficulties. When the player ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the roles. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to cast away all the rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules.

The same is true to happiness. The buyers and sellers at the happiness-market seem to have lost their sense of the pleasure of difficulty. Heaven knows what they are  playing, but it seems a dull game. And the Indian holy man seems dull to us, I suppose, because he seems to be refusing to play anything at all.

The western weakness may be in the dreams that happiness can be bought while eastern weakness may be in the idea that there is such a thing as perfect happiness in man himself. Both of them forget a basic fact: no difficulty, no happiness.

1.Who shares the same idea of happiness with the author?

A. The Indian holy man                B. The great Irish poet Yeats

C. Advertisers                      D. The buyers and sellers at the happiness-market

2.What does “happiness-market” mean in the second paragraph?

A. It means a place in which people can buy things happily

B. It means a market which lacks happy customers

C. It means a pure state for the world and mankind

D. It means a market where people try to buy happiness with money.

3.According to the passage, which of the following is Right?

A. The Indian holy man is much happier than westerner.

B. The westerners understand happiness better than the Indian holy man.

C. There is no fun without playing by the rules

D. Both the eastern weakness and western weakness are the same.

Soon it would be the holidays, but before that, there were year exams. All the 36 _____ had been working hard for some time, reviewing their lessons for the exams. If they didn’t 37 _____, they would have to retake them in September. There were usually a few who 38 _____, but Jane didn’t want to be one of them. She had worked hard all year, 39 _____ just before the exams she was working so hard that her sister Barbara was 40 _____ about her. She went to bed too 41 _____. The night before the first exam, Barbara 42 ____ that she have an early night and take a 43 ____ pill. She promised to wake 44 _____ up in the morning.

As she was falling asleep, Jane was afraid that she might oversleep. Her 45 _____ kept jumping from subject to subject. At last, with the help of 46 ____, she went to sleep. In no time at all, she was sitting in the examination hall, looking at the examination 47 _____, but she couldn’t answer any of the questions. 48 _____ around her was writing pages and pages. 49 _____ she thought hard, she couldn’t find anything to write 50 _____. She kept looking at her 51 _____. Time was running out. There was only an hour to go. She started one question, wrote two sentences, 52 _____ and tried another one. With only half an hour left she wrote another two sentences. By this time she was so worried that she started 53 ____. Her whole body shook. It shook so much that she 54 ____ up. She was still in bed and it had all been a 55 _____ dream. A minute later, Barbara called her name.

— Have we got any gas in the car?

 — It ______. I’m afaid we can’t go much farther

A. has ran out                    B. is running out

C .has been used up               D. has used up