A little boy invited his mother to attend his school’s first teacher-parent meeting. To the little boy’s __1__, she said she would go. This __2__ be the first time that his classmates and teacher __3__ his mother and he felt __4__ of her appearance. Although she was a beautiful woman, there was a severe scar (疤痕) that __5__ nearly the entire right side of her face. The boy never wanted to __6__ why or how she got the scar.

At the meeting, the people were __7__ by the kindness and natural beauty of his mother __ 8__ the scar, but the little boy was still embarrassed (尴尬) and __9 __ himself from everyone. He did, however, get within __10__of a conversation between his mother and his teacher.

The teacher asked __11__, “How did you get the scar on your face?”

The mother replied, “__12__ my son was a baby, he was in a room that caught fire. Everyone was __13__ afraid to go in because the fire was __14__，so I went in. As I was running toward his bed, I saw a long piece of wood coming down and I placed myself over him trying to protect him. I was knocked __15__ but fortunately, a fireman came in and saved both of us.” She __16__ the burned side of her face. “This scar will be __17__, but to this day, I have never __18__ what I did.”

At this point, the little boy came out running toward his mother with tears in his eyes. He held her in his arms and felt a great __19__ of the sacrifice (牺牲) that his mother had made for him. He held her hand __20__ for the rest of the day.

1. A. enjoyment   B. disappointment  C. surprise    D. excitement

2. A. would     B. could             C. should      D. must

3. A. noticed   B. greeted            C. accepted  D. met

4. A. sick      B. ashamed           C. afraid    D. tired

5. A. included    B. passed          C. covered       D. shaded

6. A. talk about   B. think about C. care about    D. hear about

7. A. impressed  B. surprised    C. excited    D. comforted

8. A. in sight of   B. by means of    C. by way of D. in spite of

9. A. hid   B. protected  C. separated   D. escaped

10. A. understanding    B. reminding   C. hearing   D. learning

11. A. carefully  B. seriously    C. nervously   D. anxiously

12. A. As    B. When     C. Since     D. While

13. A. so     B. much C. quite   D. too

14. A. out of control B. under control C. in control  D. over control

15. A. helpless   B. hopeless    C. senseless  D. useless

16. A. pointed    B. showed    C. wiped   D. touched

17. A. ugly       B. lasting     C. serious     D. frightening

18. A. forgot  B. recognized  C. considered    D. regretted

19. A. honor    B. sense     C. happiness   D. pride

20. A. quietly   B. slightly     C. tightly    D. suddenly

We stayed in a quiet hotel,______.

1. A.
   next to it was a thick wood
2. B.
   next to which was a thick wood
3. C.
   next to it there was a thick wood
4. D.
   next to which a thick wood was

Once upon a time a man became a great archer(射手)．He asked the king to declare

him as the greatest archer of the country．The king was about to do so when an old

servant of the king said，“Wait，sir．I know an old man who lives in the forest．He is a

much greater archer．Let this young man go to him and learn from him for at least three

years．”

The man could not believe that there could be a greater archer than him，but he

went and found the old man and he was! For three years he learned from him．Then one

day, when he thought he had learned everything，the thought arose in him：“If I kill this

old man，then 1 will be the greatest archer．”

The old man had gone to cut wood and he was coming back carrying wood On his

shoulder．The young man hid behind a tree，waiting to kill him．He shot an arrow．The

old man took a small piece of wood and threw it．It struck the arrow and the arrow

turned back and wounded the young man very deeply．The old man came，took Out the

arrow and said。“I knew that some day or other you were going to do this．That’s  why

I have not taught you this secret．There is no need to kill me．My Master is still alive，

and I’m nothing before him．You must be with him for at least thirty years．And he is

very old, so go fast! Find the old man!”

The underlined word in the 1st paragraph is closest in meaning to“       ”

A．admire    B．advise    C．announce     D．admit

The young archer wanted to kill the old man in the

A．he had nothing more to learn from him

B．he could then become the greatest archer

C．the old man refused to teach him everything

D．the king’s old servant ordered him to do SO

The following pictures show what happened between the young archer and his

   master．Which is the right order of the events?

A．1—2—3—4    B．4—3—2—1

C．4—2—3—1    D．4—2—1—3

What do you think would most probably happen next?

A．The young archer died from the wound soon after．

B．The king declared the young man the greatest archer．

C．The young archer found the old man’s master and killed him．

D．The young archer set off to look for the old man’ S master．

What lesson can you learn from the story?

A．There’s always someone better than you in this world．

B．You must never try to become better than your teacher．

C．The older a man is，the better archer he usually becomes．

D．Always use a piece of wood to protect yourself from an arrow．

Watching some children trying to catch butterflies one hot August afternoon, I was reminded of an incident in my own childhood．When I was a boy of 12 in South Carolina, something happened to me that cured me forever of wanting to put any wild creature in a cage.We lived on the edge of a wood, and every evening at dusk the mockingbirds would come and rest in the trees and sing. There isn’t a musical instrument made by man that can produce a more beautiful sound than the song of the mockingbird.

I decided that I would catch a young bird and keep it in a cage and in that way would have my own private musician.

I finally succeeded in catching one and put it in a cage. At first, in its fright at being captured, the bird fluttered about the cage, but eventually it settled down in its new home. I felt very pleased with myself and looked forward to some beautiful singing from my tiny musician.

I had left the cage out on our back porch, and on the second day of the bird’s captivity my new pet’s mother flew to the cage with food in her mouth. The baby bird ate everything she brought to it. I was pleased to see this. Certainly the mother knew better than I how to feed her baby.

The following morning when I went to see how my captive was doing, I discovered it on the floor of the cage, dead. I was shocked! What had happened! I had taken excellent care of my little bird, or so I thought.

Arthur Wayne, the famous ornithologist, happened to be visiting my father at the time, hearing me crying over the death of my bird, explained what had occurred. “A mother mockingbird, finding her young in a cage, will sometimes bring it poison berries. She thinks it better for her young to die than to live in captivity.”

Never since then have I caught any living creature and put it in a cage. All living creatures have a right to live free.

1.Why did the writer catch a mockingbird when he was a boy of 12?

A．He had just got a new cage.                B．He liked its beautiful feather.

C．He wanted it to sing for him.               D．He wanted a pet for a companion.

2.The mockingbird died because it ______.

A．was frightened to death                  B．ate the poisonous food its mother gave it

C．refused to eat anything                   D．drank the poisonous water by mistake

3.An ornithologist probably means ______.

A．a religious person                       B．a kind person

C．a schoolmaster                         D．an expert in birds

4.What is the most important lesson the writer learned from the incident?

A．Freedom is very valuable to all creatures.

B．All birds put in a cage won’t live long.

C．You should keep the birds from their mother.

D．Be careful about food you give to baby birds.

A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.

“It’s extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components (元件),” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.

They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it’s connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.

While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,” he said.

Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”

(392 words)

1.The difficulty the team of engineers met with while making the robotic fly was that __________.

A．they had no model in their mind

B．they did not have sufficient time

C．they had no ready-made components

D．they could not assemble the components

2.It can be inferred from paragraphs 3 and 4 that the robotic fly __________.

A．consists of a flight device and a control system

B．can just fly in limited areas at the present time

C．can collect information from many sources

D．has been put into wide application

3.Which of the following can be learned from the passage?

A．The robotic flyer is designed to learn about insects.

B．Animals are not allowed in biological experiments.

C．There used to be few ways to study how insects fly.

D．Wood’s design can replace animals in some experiments.

4.Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A．Father of Robotic Fly

B．Inspiration from Engineering Science

C．Robotic Fly Imitates Real Life Insect

D．Harvard Breaks Through in Insect Study