Dear Jerry,
I’m glad to know that you had an interest in Chinese food. Here I’d like to tell you something about them. Chinese food is famous with its wide variety(种类). The food in one area can be easy told from that in another. For example, Shanghai food, a little bit sweet, differ from Sichuan food that is rather hot. However, every kind of the Chinese food is worth trying because each has a delicious taste and good for health. Since the restaurant in China usually serves special dish of different areas, you can enjoy kinds of Chinese foods whenever you are. I’m looking forward to meet you here so that I can tell you more about Chinese food at table.
Li Hua

I recently turned fifty, which is young for a tree, midlife for an elephant, and ancient for a sportsman. Fifty is a nice number for the states in the US or for a national speed limit but it is not a number that I was prepared to have hung on me. Fifty is supposed to be my father’s age, but now I am stuck with this number and everything it means.

A few days ago, a friend tried to cheer me up by saying, “Fifty is what forty used to be.” He had made an inspirational (有灵感的) point. Am I over the hill ? People keep telling me that the hill has been moved, and I keep telling them that the high-jump bar has dropped from the six feet I once easily cleared to the four feet that is impossible for me now.

“You are not getting older, you are getting better.” Says Dr. Joyce Brothers. This, however, is the kind of doctor who inspires a second opinion.

And so as I approach the day when I cannot even jump over the tennis net, I am moved to share some thoughts on aging with you, I am moved to show how aging feels to me physically and mentally. Getting older, of course, is obviously a better change than the one that brings you eulogies(悼词). In fact, a poet name Robert Browning considered it the best change of all:

Grow old along with me !

The best is yet to me.

Whether or not Browning was right, most of my first fifty years have been golden ones, so I will settle for what is ahead being as good as what has gone by. I find myself moving toward what is ahead with a curious blend(混合) of both fighting and accepting my aging, hoping that the philosopher(哲学家) was right when he said , “old is always fifteen years from now.”

1.The author seems to tell us in Paragraph 1 that ______.

A．time alone will tell                       B．time goes by quickly

C．time will show what is right                D．time makes one forget the past.

2.When the author turned fifty, people around him ________ .

A．tried to comfort him                     B．got inspiration with him

C．were friendlier with him                  D．found him more talkative

3.The author considers his fifty years of life _________.

A．peaceful          B．ordinary          C．satisfactory        D．regretful

4.We can infer from the passage that ________ .

A．the old should lead a simple life

B．the old should face the fact of aging

C．the old should take more exercise

D．the old should fill themselves with curiosity

5.Which of the following statements is WRONG?_______.

A．It’s hard for the author to jump over the six-feet high-jump bar now.

B．The author is optimistic about his future.

C．the author used to think 50 was far away from him.

D．Most elephants live less than 50 years.

根据下列句子及所给汉语注释，在句子右边的横线上写出空缺处各单词的正确形式。（每空限写一词）。
【小题1】She is due to arrive on Thursday．______, (同时) what do we do?
【小题2】The rich lady lives in a _______(金碧辉煌的) house．       
【小题3】we benefit a lot from our teacher’s _____(严格) in our study． 
【小题4】They were busy ______ （装）a truck with coal．        
【小题5】Nothing _____ ( 使满意) him and he is always complaining ．
【小题6】High technology helps us enter into a life of ______（便利）．
【小题7】There are twenty books______.(总共)                    
【小题8】I changed into my sports shoes so that I could walk more_____（舒服）
【小题9】.How do you adapt to a ______(易变的) environment?            
【小题10】Looking back, she always______ （祝贺）herself on this decision.    

单句改错（共10小题；每小题1分，满分10分）
【小题1】Because I haven’t been outdoors for so long, I’ve grown so crazy about everything do with nature. 
【小题2】It based more on German than the English we speak nowadays. 
【小题3】Our legs were too heavy and cold that they felt like blocks of ice.
【小题4】We were both surprising to learn that half of the river is in China.
【小题5】Although my sister didn’t know the best way of getting to places, she insisted that she organized the trip properly.
【小题6】The dark rainy evening held me entire in their power.
【小题7】It’ s no pleasure look through these any longer because nature is one thing that really must be experienced.  
【小题8】Here is my neighbor his house was destroyed in the earthquake.
【小题9】The film, that we saw yesterday is interesting.
【小题10】Do you want a friend to who you could tell everything?

Feeling exhausted and hopeless, I began walking to my car. Every step seemed tiring, and every step was another to survive. As I looked up into the sky I thought about how my grandmother had left me, and my anger began to return. I was annoyed by the loss, and my belief in God was beginning to fade. I couldn’t understand why these things happened. So as I stood in a public parking lot a million questions formed in my mind. Why did this happen to me? Aren’t we supposed to get signs from the people that pass on? Why did I not feel her presence anymore? Is there a heaven?

         Suddenly, a woman driving right by my side rolled down her window and distracted my unanswered thoughts. “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,” she said loudly. Thinking she was going to ask for my parking spot, I simply pointed to my car. The thought of having to say where my car was seemed like too much to bear. “No, excuse me,” she said again.

         At this point, I felt I had no choice but to see what this annoying lady wanted. As I got closer, I was startled—was this my grandmother’s nurse, Adu, who lived with her during her final months? I soon realized that she wasn’t, although the resemblance was unusual. Then, I realized that this Adu was searching for something in her bag. Surprisingly, I was overcome by a sense of relief that led me to be patient the entire time the lady was searching. Others would be nervous by a stranger reaching in their bag, but I wasn’t. She finally reached to the very bottom of her bag and handed me a three-page booklet. “It looks like you need this,” she said calmly with a warm smile on her face.

         I looked down at the mysterious and obviously used booklet and on the front cover in big bold letters read “What Hope for Dead Loved Ones?”

         It took me only a few seconds to comprehend the exchange with this woman, but by the time I looked up, she was gone.

         I walked slowly into my car holding the tiny little book that was given to me with fear that it would fly away in the wind. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but I knew that if my grandmother had anything to do with that I didn’t want to let it go.

         I felt a sense of relaxation as I opened the first page. It explained how people pass on, but their spirit remains with us. This was the first time since my grandma had passed that I felt her with me, just like I had wanted. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but I did know that I finally felt happiness from the surprising change in events.

         I couldn’t, and still can’t, believe what had happened to me on that day. I don’t remember the specific details that you usually hear about like what the person was wearing, the time of day, or even the weather, but it doesn’t matter. It was a random day in November when my life turned back around and I began to feel hope again. It was real. It was a miracle. And, I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.

1.The author refused to say anything to the woman but just pointed to her own car at first mainly because ______.

A. the author did not know the woman

B. the woman interrupted the author’s thoughts

C. the author thought she wanted to use the vacant parking space

D. the author was too weak to say anything

2.What can we learn about the author’s grandmother?

A. She often made the author angry.  B. She left nothing to the author.

C. She was kind to the author.         D. She lost faith in God.

3.What can be inferred from the passage?

A. The author and the woman became good friends later.

B. The woman turned out to be the author’s grandmother’s nurse.

C. The author knows the specific details about this experience.

D. The author was very grateful to the unknown woman.

4.What would be the best title for the passage?

A. Miracle at the Parking Lot       B. What Hope for Dead Loved Ones?

C. True Love for My Grandmother   D. Adu, My Grandmother’s Nurse