Each spring brings a new blossom of wildflowers in the ditches along the highway I travel daily to work.
There are some particular blue flowers that have always caught my eye. I’ve noticed that they bloom only in the morning hours and the afternoon sun is too warm for them. Every day for about two weeks, I see those beautiful flowers.
This spring, I started a wildflower garden in our yard. I can look out of the kitchen window while doing the dishes and see the flowers. I’ve often thought that those lovely blue flowers from the ditch would look great in that bed alongside other wildflowers. Every day I drove past the flowers thinking, “I’ll stop on my way home and dig them.” “Gee, I don’t want to get my good clothes dirty…” Whatever the reason, I never stopped to dig them. My husband even gave me a folding shovel(铲子)one year in my car to be used for that expressed purpose.
One day on my way home from work, I was shocked to see that the highway department had destroyed the ditches and the pretty blue flowers were gone. I thought to myself, “Way to go, you waited too long. You should have done it when you first saw them blooming this spring.” A week ago we were shocked and saddened to learn that my oldest sister has a terminal brain tumor(肿瘤). She is 20 years older than me and unfortunately, because of age and distance, we haven’t been as close as we all would have liked. I couldn’t help but see the connection between the pretty blue flowers and the relationship between my sister and us. I do believe that God has given us some time left to plant some wonderful memories that will bloom every year for us. 
And yes, if I see the blue flowers again, you can bet I’ll stop and transplant them to my wildflower garden.
【小题1】 Why did those flowers the writer saw only bloom in the morning?
A.Because it was hot in the afternoon.
B.Because someone picked them away.
C.Because someone took them into houses.
D.Because the writer passed them in the morning.
【小题2】 Which of the following statements is right according to the passage?
A.The writer’s sister died of lung tumor.
B.The writer was regretful when she heard her sister’s death.
C.The writer planned to dig the flowers to give them to her husband.
D.The writer’s husband planned to plant some flowers in the garden.
【小题3】 The writer wrote the passage to tell us ________.
A.to enjoy what we have now
B.to value now and not to lose chances
C.to protect the beautiful flowers we see
D.to love those who are your close relatives
America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon. They don’t feel hurt. If the same two people meet again, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand .Friendships between us develop more slowly but may become lifelong feelings, extending(延伸)deeply into both families.
There is another difficult point for us to understand. Although Americans treat friends warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness to them if it requires a great deal of time. But in China, we are usually generous with our time. We, as hosts, will appear at an airport even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take a day off from our work to act as guides to our friends. It is opposite in America. Americans cannot manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily plans. They will probably expect the visitors to get themselves from the airport to the hotels. And they expect the visitors will phone them from there. Once the visitors arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real.
For Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to restaurants, except for business matters. Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. So accept their hospitality(好客)at home and enjoy your visit in America!
【小题1】 The underlined phrase "pick up" in Paragraph 1may mean "_________________".
A.put downB.give upC.pay no attention toD.continue
【小题2】 From the passage, we can know_________________.
A.Americans are always generous with their time.
B.Americans don't feel hurt if their friendships disappear soon.
C.Chinese friendships develop more slowly but will never disappear.
D.Chinese friendships develop faster than American friendships.
【小题3】This passage is most probably written for __________________.
A.American studentsB.Chinese students
C.Chinese visitors to AmericaD.American visitors to China
Researchers have announced the result of two studies on the health effects of the drug aspirin(阿斯匹林). One study shows aspirin can sharply reduce the chance that a healthy, older man will suffer from a heart attack.
The study offered two new results from earlier findings. It said taking one aspirin pill every other day helped only healthy men over the age of fifty. It also said aspirin gave the greatest protection against heart attacks to men with low blood cholesterol(胆固醇) levels.
Earlier in the United States began a major aspirin study in the early 1980s. it included 22,000 healthy men doctors. All were between the ages of forty and eighty-four. More than 11,000 of the doctors took a harmless pill that contained no drug. The men did not know which kind of pill they were taking.
The doctors who took aspirin suffered 44% fewer heart attacks than those taking the harmless pill. 139 men who took aspirin suffered from heart attacks. Ten of them died. 239 men who didn’t take aspirin suffered from heart attacks. Twenty-six of them died.
The researchers said the doctors’ study provides clear proof that taking aspirin can prevent a first heart attack in healthy, older men. They said ,however, the result does not mean every man over the age of fifty should take aspirin. They said aspirin couldn’t help men who do not eat healthy foods, who smoke cigarettes and who are fat. The researchers said men who think they would be helped by taking aspirin should talk with their doctors first.
【小题1】 The passage tells us that the new use of aspirin is___________.
A.to treat heart disease.
B.to reduce pain while one suffers from a heart attack.
C.to help old people to be more healthy.
D.to reduce the chance of a heart attack in old men.
【小题2】Aspirin can help those who___________.
A.work as doctorsB.are under 40 years old
C.are fat and smoke cigarettesD.are older and healthy
【小题3】From the experiment we can conclude that about _________ of people who suffered from heart attacks without aspirin died.
A.7%B.11%
C.19%D.44%

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