C
Life is like the four seasons. Now I am very old, but when I was young, it was the spring of my life. After I was born, I played a lot, and then I started school. I learned many new things. Like a flower, I grew bigger every day. There were happy days and sorrowful days: some days the sun shone, and some days it didn’t.
In my twenties, I had a good job. I was strong and happy. Then I married and had a child. In those days, I didn’t have much time to think. Every day I was busy and worked very hard. And so, I started to get some white hairs. The summer of my life passed quickly.
Then the days got shorter. Leaves fell from the trees. My child was a university student, and then an engineer. My home was much quieter. I started walking more slowly. One day I stopped working. I had more time. I understood this was my autumn, a beautiful time when the trees change color and give us delicious fruits.
But the days kept getting shorter and colder. Winter has come. I am older and weaker. I know I do not have many days left, but I will enjoy them to the end.
【小题1】The writer started walking more slowly in the _______ of his life.

C
“Everything happens for the best.” Whenever I faced disappointment, my mother would say this to me.
After I graduated form college in 1932, I decided to find a job in radio as a sports announcer(广播员). I went to Chicago and knocked at the door of every station. But unluckily, I was refused every time.
At one station, a kind lady told me that big stations wouldn’t hire(雇佣) a person without any experience and suggested that I try my luck at smaller stations. Following her advice, I went back to Dixon, where I had grown up. There were no such jobs in Dixon, and my father said a newly-opened store wanted a local athlete to work for it. I wanted this job, but I was refused again.
“Everything happens for the best,” Mom reminded me. Dad offered me the car to look for a job. I tried WOC Radio in Davenport, Iowa. The program director, Peter MacArthur, told me they had already hired an announcer.
As I left his office, I felt so frustrated. “How can I become a sports announcer if I can’t get a job in a radio station?” I asked aloud.
While I was waiting for the elevator, I heard someone calling. It was MacArthur. “What was that you said about sports? Do you know anything about football?” Then he asked me to have a try. He was pleased with my performance, and he offered me a chance to work there.
On my way home, I thought of my mother’s words: “If you carry on, one day something good will happen. Something wouldn’t have happened if without the failure before.”
【小题1】Why couldn’t the writer find a job at big radio stations?

 (C)
Mr. Ma, a famous mental(心理的)doctor from Beijing once said at an important meeting, “Now many young students can have problems with their minds. Some students become worried because they have to study very hard. Others have trouble getting on well with people around them like their parents and classmates. Parents and teachers should care more about this problem.”
Then Mr. Ma gave some examples. One patient, a middle school students from Xi’an was doing badly in his lessons. He thought his teachers and friends often laughed at him, and he became so nervous and worried that one night he left his home without telling parents. Another student, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from Shanghai, was very afraid of exams. While she was reading the exam paper, she couldn’t think of anything to write.
A recent report from Jiefang Daily says about 18% of the young students in Shanghai have mental problems. They often felt worried and very unhappy. Unluckily many of them won’t go and ask for help. Some think they will look stupid if they go to see a doctor. Others won’t talk about their secrets.
At the end of the meeting, Mr. Ma offered some good ideas to young people:
u     Talk to your parents or teacher often.
u     Take part in group activities.
u     Try to get on well with the people around you.
u     Go to see a doctor if you often feel unhappy.
【小题1】 The students who often become worried or have trouble getting on with others may have _______.

C
There are 5 channels on British television and each channel has several news programs all day long. Some programs are only for 3 minutes but some are one hour long. The people who read the news are called news presenters and because they appear on television every day, they are very famous.
This is a popular news presenter in England called Trevor McDonald, in the news studio. He presents a program called “News at Ten”every Monday to Friday evenings.
Another popular news presenter is Kirsty Young. She has a more modern style of reading the news, as you can see, she sits on the desk not on a chair!
Television news presenters need to have worked as journalists because they have to write most of the news that they read. Sometimes an important new event happens after the program has started, so the presenter has to be able to read something without looking at it first. They must always keep calm even when there are many changes during the program. At the end of “News at Ten”Trevor McDonald says “And finally...”. Then he reads an unusual or interesting item. It’s a famous saying in England now.
【小题1】Who sits on the desk to read the news?

D
Everyone would like to be remembered. A few people even try to do something that no one else in history has ever tried to do. These people sometimes have their names recorded（记录）in the Guinness Book of Records.
Often it takes a group of people to do something unusual. One such team paddled（用桨划）a bathtub（浴缸）145 kilometers for 24 hours. This group had 13 members. They paddled their bathtub on a river near Ashford, Great Britain on May 28 and 29. 1983. A month later, a racing team of hospital bed pushers in Avon, Great Britain, pushed a hospital bed 16 kilometers in just 50 minutes! However, the distance（距离）record for hospital bed pushing is still held by the men of Bruntsfield Bedding Center. This team from Edinburgh pushed a hospital bed 5,203 kilometers in 1979. It took the team 35 days to cover the distance.
Another group of record makers held the highest dinner party in the world. Nine people from Sydney,Australia, climbed Mountain Huascaran on June 28, 1989. The climbers carried a dinner table. chairs, and a meal up the mountain. When they reached the top, they all put on warm suits for dinner.
People all over the world are trying hard to do something unusual to make a record. It should be understood, however, that now not all the records will be kept in the Guinness Book of Records.
【小题1】 According to the passage, what record was made near Ashford in May, 1983?