It is said that his father died ______ overwork.

A. of            B. from         C. for          D. out

Mother was born in 1887.By the time she was 13, seven more children filled the family’s New York City apartment, and she went to work as a department store messenger girl. The job paid three dollars for a 48-hour week. She walked two miles back and forth each day to save the five-cent bus-fare, and at night went to secondary school and later a city university. Eventually she worked her way up to buyer.

She and my father got married when they were nearly 40. A few years after their marriage, my parents fulfilled their dream of owning a home. To Mother, Buckingham Place, he Venice canals and Shangri-La were all wrapped up in that six-room brick house in the Bronx. Then the Depression (经济大萧条) set in. Father’s pub began to lose money; their savings declined to nothing. Daddy had to let the assistants go and began working 20-hour days and one morning in 1936 he didn’t wake up. Mother was left with three children and a mortgage (抵押贷款)。

Mother bore her grief and carried on. It was impossible to get a job in those times, so Mother came up a solution. A sign, “Furnished Rooms”, was tacked onto our door, beginning a parade of people into our lives for the next five years.

One I remember fell two weeks behind in his rent and tried to tiptoe (踮着脚走) out at dawn. Unfortunately for him, Mother, who was always rearranging things, had moved the furniture the night before, and he tripped (绊) over a repositioned lamp. Mother rushed out to find him sprawled on the floor. “If you didn’t have the money, you should have told me,” she said. “God knows, I can understand that.” He left with two dollars pressed into his hand.

All those things happened long ago but they are always fresh in my mind. And Mother is always in my heart.

1. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

  A. The author’s mother was born in a family with seven children.

  B. The author’s mother was a well-educated and hard-working woman.

  C. The author’s mother never realized her dream of traveling to Europe.

  D. The author’s father died when the author was very young.

2. What was the most probable cause of the author’s father’s death?

  A. Old age.      B. Depression.        C. Overwork       D. Mortgage

3. The person who tried to tiptoe out _____.

  A. paid the rent and left the house

  B. was not wiling to pay the rent though he had money

  C. paid the rent and had only two dollars left

  D. got two dollars instead of paying the rent

4. The author’s mother did the following EXCEPT that ____.

  A. she moved the lamp to another pace one night

  B. she put up an advertisement on the door

  C. she started to work at an early age to earn money

  D. she got up early to stop the person from running away