Little Bit

"Meow, meow, meow," is what I heard as I walked. I went to the noise and found there was a

  36   black and white cat under a piece of wood. I picked him up and   37   he must be freezing to death. I   38   home with the cat held in my jacket.

My new best friend, who soon became known as Little Bit, received his name because he was almost     39      when I held him in my hands. He stood about five inches tail. Little Bit' s small size had a great advantage -- he   40   perfectly in the pocket of my jacket, which made  41   him everywhere very easy. Any time I was home, he wouldn' t leave my   42   . He was always eager to play with me. When I fell asleep at night, he would always roll up around my head to keep me   43  .

Unfortunately, I grew up. My teenage life   44   my relationship with Little Bit. I lived at such a fast pace (节奏) that I stopped making time for him. My free time was spent with my   45      instead. I would come in the house on my phone and not   46   him at all. His meows became an annoyance to me, but it wasn' t his fault that he   47   his best friend back.

Time had caused a   48   to Little Bit. His body began shutting down and by the time I realized   49   was wrong with him, he had already lost his balance. He lay there and looked at me, and   50   this day I still remember the  51   look in his bright green eyes. I took him to the vet (兽医), but there was nothing he could do. The last time I   52   him he wasn' t the same tiny cat I had found ten years before. Little Bit filled my arms and he was put to sleep that day.

Little Bit' s  53   made me realize how much he meant to me. He was always there for me when I   54   him. I regret our last years together and I feel sorry for not always being there for him. I will always   55   the special memories we made.

1.A. lovely             B. tiny                 C. pretty          D. friendly

2.A. agreed             B. remembered       C. realized    D. proved

3.A. left           B. stayed           C. drove        D. hurried

4.A. weightless         B. useless          C. breathless   D. hopeless

5.A. grew           B. fitted           C. played       D. existed

6.A. showing        B. keeping          C. taking       D. putting

7.A. pocket             B. heart            C. mind         D. side

8.A. quiet          B. asleep           C. safe         D. warm

9.A. weakened       B. built            C. deepened     D. sharpened

10.A. friends       B. computer         C. parents      D. relatives

11.A. find          B. feed             C. notice       D. hear

12.A. pulled        B. won              C. wanted       D. permitted

13.A. fear           B. loss            C. accident     D. concern

14.A. everything    B. nothing          C. anything     D. something

15.A. before        B. until            C. during       D. for

16.A. shameful      B. serious          C. long         D. sorrowful

17.A. helped        B. met              C. held         D. doubted

18.A. illness       B. death            C. sadness      D. story

19.A. needed        B. caught           C. protected    D. picked

20.A. treasure      B. admire           C. remind       D. explore

第二部分: 阅读理解（共20小题, 每小题2分，满分40分）
第一节请认真阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
A    
12-year-old John Thomas Robertson is a born train fan. “I’ve liked trains probably from the day I was born,” he told Good Morning America. “When I was very little,” he said, “my grandpa got me a train model. I would just watch it go round for hours and hours.”
When Robertson finally had the opportunity to ride on a train, he felt great. His journey was so mind-blowing that he couldn’t keep it to himself: he decided to take all his classmates to go on a ride with him. When he found that some of his classmates couldn’t pay the fares, he spent money he had saved by collecting cans (罐子) and bottles and raised more than ＄1,000 for them.
That train was such a happy one that he made it yearly action. “It never gets boring for some reason; it’s just very fun,” he said. “It really lets people get away from their busy life and have fun.”
Every October, Robertson takes a new group of disabled children to ride the train — but now, he has a problem. Several disabled children were refused because the train was not accessible (可用的) to disabled people. “He was angry to think that children of his own age couldn’t ride a train,” his mother said.
But he wouldn’t say no: he recently sent a letter to the train office for help. To his surprise, the leader, Ty Pennington, took the letter seriously. He said that he and his workers would work on making a train accessible to disabled people.
41. The first time John Thomas Robertson took a train, he_______
A. felt extremely happy.           B. was frightened by it.
C. watched it for hours.            D. acted as a driver.
42. John Thomas Robertson is a born train fan, because he _______.
A. was taken on a train the day he was born.
B. his grandpa once worked on the train.
C. took a group of disabled children on board a train.
D. was greatly attracted to trains since early childhood.
43. The underlined word “mind-blowing” can be replaced by “_______”.
A. exciting       B. frightening       C. surprising    D. disappointing
44. The disabled children were refused to get on the train because _______.
A. they couldn’t afford the train tickets
B. Robertson had not saved enough money for tickets
C. the train didn’t have special services for them
D. the workers there would not allow them to do so
45. According to the passage, we can see that Robertson is a(n) _______ child.
A. honest and crazy     B. kind and helpful
C. clever but boring     D. lazy but kind

I travel a lot in my work, and what I dislike about my job is eating alone. It always makes me feel lonely to see others laughing and talking. So, room service for several nights was a better choice for me.  

After having room service three nights at a hotel in Houston, however, I needed to get out of my room. Although the restaurant opened at 6:30, I arrived at 6:25. The waiter at the front desk made a comment(评论) about my “being there really early”. I explained my dislike of eating alone in restaurants. He then seated me at a lovely table and asked me whether I would mind if he sat down with me for a while.  

I was glad! He sat and talked with me about his career goals and the difficulty of being at work on nights, weekends and holidays. He said he hadn’t enough time to be with his family. After 15 minutes, he saw some customers at the front desk and excused himself. I noticed that before he went to the front desk, he stopped in the kitchen for a moment.  

Then another waiter came out of the kitchen and had a wonderful chat with me. Before I left that night, some other waiters, even the cook, had come out of the kitchen and sat with me!   When I asked for my bill about one hour later, all the people who had sat down with me came over in a big group to my table, and presented me with a red rose. And I cried! What had begun as a lonely night ended as a beautiful experience.

73. 1. The author asked for room service because _______.

  A. a lot of money would be saved in this way

  B. he didn’t like to eat with other people around

  C. he didn’t wanted to be recognized by the waiters

  D. seeing people laughing and talking made him feel bad

74. 2. How did the waiter feel when he saw the author come in at 6:25?  

  A. Dissatisfied.        B. Pleased.        C. Surprised.       D. Angry.

75. 3. From the third paragraph, we can learn that the waiter at the front desk ______.  

  A. knew how to attract more customers to his restaurant  

  B. found it hard to balance his work and his family  

  C. was getting tired of his present job  

  D. had never had such a chance to talk about his worries

76. 4.The author wants to tell us that ______.  

  A. people are actually all lonely in their own way   

  B. restaurants should put the need of customers first  

  C. the kindness of strangers can make you less lonely  

  D. restaurants are full of surprises for lonely people

单词填空 （共15小题；每小题1分，满分15分）

I lost my _______ (平衡) and fell on my face.

You must _________ (道歉) to your sister for being so rude.

 The robber was _________ (观察)entering the bank.

On the _________ (相反)，the job was fascinating. I love it.

What she said _________ (使信服)me that I was mistaken.

He is not _________ (可能) to succeed.

His arms _________ (摇摆) as he walked.

It was _________ (考虑周到) of you not to play the piano while I was having a sleep.

Some of the violent _________ (场面) are very frightening.

Not much _________ (解释) will be needed.

A postman is a man _________ (递送) letters and parcels.

I prefer to live in a house _________ (包围) with trees and flowers.

The criminal escaped over the _________ (国界).

She has _________ (主演) in a variety of films.

I don’t go along with her _________ (宗教上的) beliefs?    

I have a friend named Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch in San Ysidro. He has let me use his house to put on fund-raising events to raise money for youth at risk programs．
The last time I was there he introduced me by saying, "I want to tell you why I let Jack use my house.” It all goes back to a story about a young man who was the son of a horse trainer who would go from stable to stable, race track to race track, farm to farm and ranch to ranch, training horses. As a result, the boy's high school career was continually interrupted. When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up.”
That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal of someday owning a horse ranch．He wrote about his dream in great detail and he even drew a diagram of a 200-acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000-square-foot house that would sit on a 200-acre dream ranch．”
He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F with a note that read, "See me after class.”
【小题1】Why can the writer use Roberts's house to raise money for youth at risk programs?