“What’s the matter, mum?” As soon as I enter the door, I find that my mother is   26  . It’s unusual, she usually    27  the door and welcomes me with a smile!

“She’s dying,” mum says sadly. I   28  what she says. The tulip (郁金香), mother’s   29 is dying.

A month ago, we moved   30  our new house and mum bought a very beautiful tulip. Mum liked it very much.   31  she was free, she would sit   32  her armchair beside the tulip and enjoys its beautiful colour   33  inviting smell.

She treated it like a baby and looked after it   34 . She put the tulip by window and moved it from one place to   35 to give the tulip enough sunshine. The first thing she did when she   36  every morning was   37 the tulip, Mum also fertilized (施肥) it many times.

She hoped that with great care, the tulip would become more and more beautiful and   38  . But the tulip was dying   39  too much sunshine, water and fertilizer.

It’s true that mother loved the tulip. But this kind of love can be ___40___.Love can sometimes kill what you love.

1.A. happy      B. unhappy          C. pleased          D. pleasure

2.A. closes     B. opens            C. keeps            D. takes

3.A. know       B. love             C. think            D. find

4.A. favourite  B. hate             C. unlike           D. like

5.A. into       B. around           C. across           D. with

6.A. Though     B. Because          C. After            D. Whenever

7.A. at         B. in               C. on               D. under

8.A. but            B. and              C. for              D. or

9.A. happily        B. brightly         C. carefully        D. usually

10.A. other     B. place            C. two places       D. another

11.A. got up        B. made the bed     C. played piano     D. washed her face

12.A. to take       B. to cut           C. to water         D. to pull

13.A. dry           B. strong           C. wet              D. old

14.A. because       B. for              C. since            D. because of

15.A. helpful    B.useful           C. harmful           D.hopeful

Now, there is a new-type school in New York, which has no everyday lessons, no class teachers and even no school buildings. It is called “City-as-School”. The name just means the city itself is the place where students learn their lessons. They are from the age of 15 to 18. The students choose areas of work which interest them. Then they help to do that work. One girl spends her week in a government office helping the public with problems like housing. Then she goes to help in a theatre for a day and she spends a week for first-year courses at college.
Well, students have to pass Maths and science exams before they enter the “school”. These subjects are not easy to provide in“City-as-School”. Teachers watch the progress of the students. The success rate (比率) is high. 80% of the students go to college after the “City-as-School”.
The students like the duty of their work. They have the sense of purpose. They know a lot about different kinds of work in the city. One of the students, Lizette Martinez, writes “ I want to say that I do not know where I would be right now if I had never become part of City-as-School. Leaving my regular high school and going to City-as-School was the best decision I have ever made. The way the school works to get you to go out there and learn different fields instead of sitting in a classroom is wonderful. For all those who are in between school and dropping out, go to CAS and it will change your life forever.”
City-as-School High School is the nation’s leading (引导) external (外部地) learning or experiential (来自经验的) learning model for high school students.
【小题1】What can we learn about“City-as-School”?

Here are two stories from different parts of the world. They seem strange but, believe it or not, they re all true!

John Lee was an Englishman who refused to be hanged! In 1884 the police said Lee had killed an old woman who he used to work with. There was nothing to show that Lee had killed the woman. Lee told the police he hadn't done it, but no one believed him and he was going to be hanged. On the day of the hanging, however, the door in the floor, through which Lee's body would fall, did not open. They tried three times but each time the door stayed closed, even though it had worked well the day before. In the end they sent Lee back to prison, where he lived for the next twenty-two years. At all times, John Lee said he hadn't killed the woman, and he believed it was the "hand of God" that had saved him from death by hanging.

The police in Venezuela (委内瑞拉) in South America followed a man home one night. He was the thief they wanted to catch. However, half of his house was standing in Venezuela and the other half was standing in Colombia (哥伦比亚). Venezuela's neighbor. When the police entered the house, the man ran upstairs to his bedroom, which was in Colombia, and called his lawyer (律师). The Venezuelan police were not allowed to enter Colombia so they could not enter the bedroom. They asked the police in Colombia to help. The Colombian police refused to help because the man's crime (罪行 )was not a crime in Colombia. In the end, the Venezuelan police gave up and went back to the police station.

1.The underlined（下划线) word "hanged" in this passage probably means _.

A. shut in a room » 

B. questioned by the police

C. killed by putting a rope around the neck

D. kept in a place

2. What do we¹ know about the door in the floor?

A. It had opened the day before the hanging.

B. It had been broken a long time.

C. After three times, it opened.

D. John Lee's dead body fell through it.

3.From the story we know that the thief's bedroom was____.

A. in Venezuela B. in Colombia

C. in neither Venezuela nor Colombia I), in both Venezuela and Colombia

4.Why didn't the Venezuelan police go into the man's bedroom?

A. They didn't know where it was.

B. The Venezuelan police were not allowed to enter Colombia.

C. The police in Colombia told them that (hey would help.

D. The police in Colombia told them not to go inside.

5. The police in Colombia didn't help the police in Venezuela to catch the thief because

A. they didn't know where he was

B. the police in Venezuela didn’t ask for help

C. the man's lawyer told them not to help

D. the man's crime was not a crime in Colombia