Through my school years I never imagined of falling in love. I wanted to stay __1__ just from watching my friends get mistreated(虐待)by their boyfriends all the time. On my junior year, I was just ___2__ 17 and my best friend decides to set me __3__ with a stranger I have never known. I was really lucky to even make it to the place because my parents were so strict __4__ me at the time. So we meet and not even __5__ to say. I wasn't too excited, I was totally nervous. At the time I knew there was __6___ in him I liked. I couldn't understand that __7__ inside telling me he was the one.

My senior year after school ended. He had to leave to the Marines and I __8__ go to Ohio. We both had decided to __9__ our relationship because we didn't think it work from far distance. It was all over. On my 20 birthday there was__10__ on the mail for me. The letter came from a Marine base with his name on it. It had __11__ him a long time to find me and he did. After that day he promised he__12__ let me go again.

   Today he's my__13___, my best friend, and my hero. Within a million's miles away from me, he has kept his__14___. I love him with all my heart and I'm here  waiting. He has deployed(部署,配置) overseas for 8 months and we only _15__by e-mail and sometimes calls on the weekends. Today and every up coming day I wake up with a smile just waiting for him to come back home safe.

( )1. A.alone             B. single                   C. lonely                  D.pure

( )2. A. attending       B. accepting             C. turning                 D. receiving

( )3. A. up                B. down                   C. off                       D. on

( )4. A. on                B. at                        C. with                     D. to

( )5.A.a talk              B. a word                C. many talks           D. many words

( )6. A. everything     B. anything               C. nothing               D. something

( )7. A. thought         B. feeling                  C. mood                  D. idea

( )8. A. should          B. might                   C. had to                 D. used to 

( )9. A. end               B. start                     C.remember             D. forget

( )10. A.a man          B. a letter                 C. news                  D. word

( )11. A. taken          B. brought                C. spent                   D. paid

( )12. A. seldom       B. always                 C. never                   D. ever 

( )13. A. workmate   B. neighbor              C.boyfriend              D. husband

( )14. A. secret         B. promise       C. way                     D. hobby

( )15. A. talk      B. meet                    C. see                      D. communicate

Joy in the journey

If you have ever been discouraged because of failure, please read on. For often, achieving what you set out to do is not the important thing. Let me explain.

    Two brothers decided to dig a deep hole behind their house. As they were working, a couple of older boys stopped by to      . “What are you doing?” asked one of the visitors. “We plan to dig a hole all the way through the      !” one of the brothers volunteered      .

    The older boys began to      , telling the younger ones that digging a hole all the way through the earth was      . After a long silence, one of the         picked up a jar full of spiders, worms and many other kinds of insects. He       the lid and showed the wonderful       to the scoffing(嘲笑的)visitors. Then he said quietly and      , “Even if we don’t dig all the way through the earth, look at what we have found       the way!”

    Their goal was far too ambitious, but it did cause them to dig. And that is       a goal is for — to cause us to move in the       we have chosen, in other words, to keep us      ! But not every goal will be fully      . Not every job will end      . Not every hope will come to pass. Not every love will last. Not every dream will be      . But when you fall       of your aim, perhaps you can say, “Yes, but look at what I found along the way! Look at the wonderful things       my life because I tried to do something!” It is in the digging       life is lived. And I believe it is the joy in the journey, in the end, that truly      .

1.A. rest             B. work        C. watch          D. laugh

2.A. house           B. earth        C. wall          D. road

3.A. calmly          B. patiently      C. excitedly              D. impatiently

4.A. laugh           B. think        C. stare                   D. smile

5.A. important       B. difficult       C. impossible        D. interesting

6.A. passers-by       B. watchers    C. visitors                D. diggers

7.A. moved           B. removed  C. broke          D. pushed

8.A. contents         B. scenes     C. pictures                D. jars

9.A. properly         B. confidently          C. carefully        D. happily

10.A. in               B. along               C. to                 D. out

11.A. what            B. how                    C. where              D. which

12.A. way             B. direction    C. life                D. sight

13.A. thinking         B. moving        C. digging           D. living

14.A. made            B. prepared            C. kicked                D. achieved

15.A. hopelessly        B. pleasantly            C. surprisingly      D. successfully

16.A. come true        B. realized              C. made              D. treasured

17.A. short             B. lost          C. out                D. behind

18.A. breaking into     B. turning to            C. coming into       D. holding to

19.A. when            B. where         C. which                D. that

20.A. matters          B. happens      C. appears           D. exists

 

Pete Richards was the loneliest man in town on the day that little Jean Grace opened the door of his shop.

         Pete's grandfather had owned the shop until his death. Then the shop became Pete's. The front window was full of beautiful old things: jewelry of a hundred years ago, gold and silver boxes, carved figures from China and Japan and other nations.

         On this winter afternoon, a child stood there, her face close to the window. With large and serious eyes, she studied each piece in the window. Then, looking pleased, she stepped back from the window and went into the shop. Pete himself stood behind the counter. His eyes were cold as he looked at the small girl. “Please,” she began, “would you let me look at the pretty string of blue beads in the window?” Pete took the string of blue beads from the window. The beads were beautiful against his hand as he held the necklace up for her to see.

         “They are just right,” said the child as though she were alone with the beads. “Will you wrap them up in pretty paper for me, please? I've been looking for a really wonderful Christmas present for my sister.”

         “How much money do you have?” asked Pete.

         She put a handful of pennies on the counter. “This is all I have,” she explained simply. “I've been saving the money for my sister's present.”

         Pete looked at her, his eyes thoughtful. Then he carefully closed his hand over the price mark on the necklace so that she could not see it. How could he tell her the price? The happy look in her big blue eyes struck him like the pain of an old wound.

         “Just a minute,” he said and went to the back of the shop. “What's your name?” he called out. He was very busy about something.

         “Jean Grace,” answered the child.

         When Pete returned to the front of the shop, he held a package in his hand. It was wrapped in pretty Christmas paper.

         “There you are,” he said. “Don't lose it on the way home.”

         She smiled happily at him as she ran out of the door. Through the window he watched her go. He felt more alone than ever.

         Something about Jean Grace and her string of beads had made him feel once more the pain of his old grief. The child's hair was as yellow as the sunlight; her eyes were as blue as the sea. Once upon a time, Pete had loved a girl with hair of that same yellow and with eyes just as blue. And the necklace of blue stones had been meant for her.

         But one rainy night, a car had gone off the road and struck the girl. After she died, Pete felt that he had nothing left in the world except his grief. The blue eyes of Jean Grace brought him out of that world of self-pity and made him remember again all that he had lost. The pain of remembering was so great that Pete wanted to run away from the happy Christmas shoppers who came to look at his beautiful old things during the next ten days.

         When the last shopper had gone, late on Christmas Eve, the door opened and a young woman came in. Pete could not understand it, but he felt that he had seen her before. Her hair was sunlight yellow and her eyes were sea-blue. Without speaking, she put on the counter a package wrapped in pretty Christmas paper. When Pete opened the package, the string of blue beads lay again before him.

         “Did this come from your shop?” she asked.

         Pete looked at her with eyes no longer cold. “Yes, it did,” he said.

         “Are the stones real?”

         “Yes. They aren't the best turquoise(绿松石), but they are real.”

         “Can you remember to whom you sold them?”

         “She was a small girl. Her name was Jean. She wanted them for her sister's Christmas present.”

         “How much were they?”

         “I can't tell you that,” he said. “The seller never tells anyone else what a buyer pays.”

         “But Jean has never had more than a few pennies. How could she pay for them?”

         “She paid the biggest price one can ever pay,” he said.

         For a moment there was no sound in the little shop. Then somewhere in the city, church bells began to ring. It was midnight and the beginning of another Christmas Day.

         “But why did you do it?” the girl asked.

         Pete put the package into her hands.

         “There is no one else to whom I can give a Christmas present,” he said. “It is already Christmas morning. Will you let me take you to your home? I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas at your door.”

         And so, to the sound of many bells, Pete Richards and a girl whose name he had not yet learned walked out into the hope and happiness of a new Christmas Day.

1.When Pete saw Jean Grace, he was ______.

A. very enthusiastic, hoping for some business to be done

B. cold but he still served the young customer

C. cold, unwilling to serve the young customer

D. very warm to the young customer though he did not want to sell anything to her

2.Pete did not say the price of the necklace because ______.

A. the seller never tells anyone else what a buyer pays

B. he priced the necklace too high

C. he knew it would disappoint the girl

D. he didn't want to sell the necklace

3.The eyes of Jean Grace brought Pete out of his world of self-pity and he ______.

A. tried to forget the memory of his sweetheart

B. began to look at the world optimistically

C. remembered his lost love

D. no longer felt the pain in him

4.A young woman came into the shop because ______.

A. she was afraid that there might be some mistake

B. she thought that the stones she had bought were not real

C. she was not sure if she could get more stones like those

D. she did not like what she had once bought

5.By saying “She paid the biggest price one can ever pay,” Pete meant that Jean Grace     .

A. gave the most money for the necklace

B. gave all she had with her for the necklace

C. appreciated the value of the necklace

D. wanted to have the best thing in the shop

6. At the end of the story we see that Pete _____.

A. found another girl that he could trust

B. met someone who truly loved him

C. found a place to go at last

D. regained his ability to love

 

“Linda, if beating yourself up were an Olympic sport, you’d win a gold medal!”

Annabel, my close friend, stunned(使…震惊)me with that frank observation after I told her how I had mishandled a situation with a student in a third-grade class where I was substituting(代替). “I should never have let him go to the boy’s room without a pass! It was my fault he got into trouble with the hall monitor! I’m so stupid!”

My friend burst out laughing, and then made her “Olympic” comment. After a brief period of reflection I had to admit that she was right. I did put myself down an awful lot. Why, just during the previous day I had called myself “a slob” for having some papers spread out on my desk, “ugly” when I left the house without makeup and “an idiot” when I left the house for an emergency substitute job without my emergency lesson plan.

In a more reflective tone, Annabel said, “I once took a workshop at church where the woman in charge had us list all the mean things we say about ourselves.”

“How many did you have on your list?” I asked.

“Fifteen,” she confessed. “But then the teacher said, ‘Now turn to the person next to you and say all the items on your list as if you were speaking to that person!’ ”

My jaw dropped,“What did you do?”

“Nothing. Nobody did. We all just sat there, until I said, ‘I could never say these things to anyone else!’ ”

“And our teacher replied, ‘Well, if you can’t say them to anyone else, then don’t ever say them to yourself!’ ”

My friend had a point. I would never insult a child of God---and I’m God’s child, too!

God, today let me be as kind to myself as I would be to another of Your children.

1.What does Annabel mean by the first sentence of the passage?

A.The writer is a good athlete.

B.The writer scolds herself too much.

C.She is encouraging the writer

D.A gold medal is not a big deal.

2.What does the writer intends to tell us through the second and third paragraphs?

A.She has low self-esteem over some small things.

B.She often makes serious mistakes in daily life.

C.She is a third-grade teacher.

D.She cares too much about her appearance.

3.We can infer that the underlined word “slob” might be _____.

A.something untidy   B.someone dangerous C.something dirty     D.someone lazy

4.What can we learn about Annabel?

A.She used to put herself down a lot.

B.She often goes to church.

C.She was in charge of a workshop.

D.She used to be too shy to talk to others.

5.What does the writer mean by the last sentence of the passage?

A.She is ready to turn to God for help.

B.She will be kind to all children.

C.She won’t insult(侮辱) herself as well as others.

D.She is willing to be a child of God.

 

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