A bag is useful and the word “bag” is useful, too. Here is an interesting phrase（短语）, “to let the cat out of the bag”. In meaning it is the same as “to tell the secret（秘密）”. And there is an old interesting story about it.

　　Long ago, when farmers wanted to sell chickens at the market, they would usually just throw the chickens in cloth (布) bags. But cats were cheaper than chickens at that time, so many farmers would put cats into the cloth bags but not chickens. One day, a woman asked a man for a chicken. The man gave her a cloth bag in which there was a cat.      When the man opened the cloth bag, a big black cat ran out. Not a chicken! The man’s secret was out and everyone knew it.

　　Now when we say someone gives away a secret, we say “he lets the cat out of the bag”. And that is the story where the interesting phrase came from.

1.The underlined word “it” in the passage refers to (指的是)     .

A. the useful bag                 B. the phrase              C. the cat                     D. the chicken

2.The farmers put cats but not chickens in the bags to      when they sold chickens.

A. tell the secret                                                      B. sell the cats

C. get more money                                                  D. keep the cats quiet

3.Which is the best for the blank (空白处) in the passage?

A. The woman was angry to see a cat.                 B. The man put a cat in the bag.

C. The man asked her to see the chicken.         D. The woman wanted to see the chicken.

4.The writer wrote the story to tell us     .

A. the woman was smart                                         B. how farmers sold their cats

C. the phrase is useful                                             D. where the phrase came from

Once there was a little girl in a village. She spent summers on her grandfather’s farm. The year she was four, she knew some ducks. The ducks were white with orange feet. They lived in a little wooden house near the road. The little girl liked these ducks very much. Every day they walked down the road to the pond（池塘）. Then the ducks went into the water and the little girl sat on the bank（岸） and saw them swimming in the pond. The little girl talked to the ducks and they quacked（嘎嘎叫）back. Then one day the ducks were gone. No one would say anything about them. The little girl was afraid to ask where they were. One night everyone sat down for dinner. The food looked a little like chicken. The girl didn’t want to eat. Can you guess why?

A. eating chicken   B. sitting by the pond

C. living on a farm   D. ducks and a little girl

1.The ducks were __________.

2.When the little girl ________ , the ducks quacked back.

3.At the end of the story, the ducks were probably _______.

4.The little girl didn’t eat because _____________.

Monty Robert’s father was a horse trainer. As a child, Monty often went from one farm to  21  with his father. Sometimes they didn’t have enough money to   22  food, but Monty still kept hoping to own a   23  farm.
When he was in school, his teacher asked him to write a paper   24  what he wanted to be and do when he grew up. He wrote a seven-page paper   25  his dream of having a horse farm one day. He   26  drew a picture of a horse farm in the paper.
The next day he handed   27  in to his teacher. Two days later, he got his paper back. On the front page was a large red “F” with some words “See me after class.”   28  the boy did and asked his teacher, “Why did I get an F?” The teacher said, “This dream will not   29   for a young boy like you.   30  a horse farm needs a lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for a lot of things. There is no way you could ever do it.” Then the teacher added, “If you write this paper again with a   31  dream, I will give you a good grade.”
After school he thought about it   32 . At last, he decided to hand in the same paper, making   33  changes at all. He wrote, “You can keep the F and I’ll keep my   34 .”
Many years later, Monty had his own 200 acres horse farm. His dream came true.
So don’t let   35  take away your dreams. Follow your dreams, no matter what they are.

句型转换

Long long ago, there was a swan（天鹅）with golden feathers（金羽毛）.She lived in a lake. A woman lived in a small house  21 the lake with her two daughters. They were very poor. They worked hard all year round,   22 still,they lived a hard life and sometimes they even didn’t have enough  23 to buy food.

The swan was 24 to see that. She said to herself, “I’ll give one of my  25 to them each day, then they can live a happy life with the money selling my feathers.” That evening, she  26 to the poor woman’s house and left a golden feather on the table without saying  27 .From then on, the swam came every day and gave them a feather. The woman was very happy because their life was much  28 

than before.

But day after day, the woman became greedy（贪婪）.She said to her  29 .“The swan may fly away one day. If so, we will be poor again. We should take all  30 feathers when she comes next time.”

“Oh, no, Mom!” cried the daughters, “This will  31 the swan. She helps us a lot !” But the mother wouldn’t listen. When the  32 came as usual, the mother caught her and took all her feathers. But suddenly, the golden feathers  33 chicken feathers. Then, the Golden Swan said, “Poor Woman, I came to  34 you,but you wanted to kill me. Now, I am leaving and will  35 come back. Never be greedy!” With these words, the swan flew away.

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