The train shakes back and forth, its wheels making a loud noise against the tracks．Outside the window the freezing cold of winter rules．The carriage is filled with cold, tired passengers．

Suddenly a little boy　 31　 his way through the grown―up legs and sits down by the window．He is all alone among the unfriendly grown-ups．What a brave child, I think．His father　 32　 to stay by the door behind us. The train begins to crawl into a tunnel. Then something very strange happens suddenly. The　 33　little boy slides down from his seat and leans his hand on my knee. For a moment, I think that he wants to　 34　 me and return to his father, so I help him to stand up. But instead he leans forward and holds his head up towards me. He wants to say something to me, I think．I lower my head to receive the message. Wrong again! What I do receive is a　 35　 kiss on the cheek.

The boy calmly returns to his seat, leans back and continues looking out of the window．I am　36　. What just happened? A child kissing unknown grown―ups on the train. How can anybody want to kiss such a man that has so much beard? Soon enough, all of my neighbors are certainly　 37　 . Nervous and a little surprised, we cast a look in the direction of the father. When he sees our questioning　38　as he gets ready for his stop, he offers a clue.

 “He’s so happy to be alive,” the father says. “He has been very sick..”

Father and son disappear into the crowd moving toward the exit. The doors close and the train goes on. On my cheek I can still　 39　 the child’s kiss―a kiss that has triggered(触发)some soul―search inside me. How many go around kissing each other from the joy of being alive? How many even give much thought to the privilege of living?

The little kisser taught us a sweet but serious lesson: Be careful you don’t let yourself　 40　 before your heart stops!

第四部分：阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）

　阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

The Man of Many Secrets — Harry Houdini — was one of the greatest American entertainers in the theater this century. He was a man famous for his escapes — from prison cells, from wooden boxes floating in rivers, from locked tanks full of water. He appeared in theaters all over Europe and America. Crowds came to see the great Houdini and his “magic” tricks.

Of course, his secret was not magic, or supernatural powers. It was simply strength. He had the ability to move his toes as well as he moved his fingers. He could move his body into almost any position he wanted.

Houdini started working in the entertainment world when he was 17, in 1891. He and his brother Theo performed card tricks in club in New York. They called themselves the Houdini Brothers. When Harry married in 1894, he and his wife Bess worked together as magician and assistant. But for a long time they were not very successful. Then Harry performed his first prison escape, in Chicago in 1898. Harry persuaded a detective to let him try to escape from the prison, and he invited the local newspapermen to watch.

It was the publicity(宣传) that came from this that started Harry Houdini’s success. Harry had fingers trained to escape from handcuffs(手铐) and toes trained to escape ankle chains. But his biggest secret was how he unlocked the prison doors. Every time he went into the prison cell, Bess gave him a kiss for good luck — and a small skeleton key, which is a key that fits many locks, passed quickly from her mouth to his.

Harry used these prison escapes to build his fame. He arranged to escape from the local prison of every town he visited. In the afternoon, the people of the town would read about it in their local newspapers, and in the evening every seat in the local theater would be full. What was the result? World-wild fame, and a name remembered today.

1. According to the passage, Houdini’s success in prison escapes depends on _______.

A. his special tricks and supernatural powers

B. his wisdom and magic tricks

C. his magic tricks and unhuman powers

D. his unusual ability and a skeleton key

2. In the fourth paragraph, the underlined word “this” refers to _______.

A. the year 1898                                B. his first prison escape

C. the publicity                                  D. Harry Houdini’s success

3. It can be inferred from the passage that Houdini became famous _______.

A. in 1894                                                B. before he married

C. when he was about 24                            D. at the age of 17

4. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A. A Man of Many Secrets                      B. A Skeleton Key 

C. World-wild Fame                                 D. Great Escape 

Mark Twain was a great writer. He was from the USA. He was born in 1835. He was also a famous speaker. He was famous for his sense of humour. Many people liked to listen to him talk because he liked to tell some interesting stories to make people laugh all the time.

　　 One day Mark Twain was going to a small town because of his writing. Before he was going to leave, one of his friends said to him that there were always a lot of mosquitoes（蚊子） in the town and told him that he’d better not go there. Mark Twain waved (摇动) his hand and said, “It doesn’t matter. The mosquitoes are no relatives of mine. I don’t think they will come to visit me.”

After he arrived at the town, Mark Twain stayed in a small hotel near the station. He went into his room, but when he was just about to have a rest, quite a few mosquitoes flew about him. The waiters felt very sorry about that. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Mark Twain. There are too many mosquitoes in our town.” One of them said to him.

　　Mark Twain, however, made a joke, saying to the waiter, “The mosquitoes are very clever. They know my room number. They didn’t come into the wrong room.” What he said made all the people present laugh heartily.

　　But that night Mark Twain slept well. Do you know why? That was because all the waiters in the hotel were driving the mosquitoes away for him during the whole night.

1.That day Mark Twain went to the town _____.

2.The waiters felt sorry because _____.

3.All the people present laughed heartily because _____.

4.From the story we know _____.

单词拼写 共10题，每题1分，共10分

1. I'm terribly sorry. I didn't do it on (故意)________.

2. She came up to me and started talking in such a（熟悉）________ way that I thought I must have met her before.

3.Whether you will succeed or not in doing the work depends on your (态度) ____ to it.

4. Don't be shy. If you have some questions, you must be (勇敢)_______ enough to speak it out in public.

5.Many students attended the lecture, (包括)_______our monitor.　

6. Air pollution is one of the biggest problems that we can’t (忽略)_______. We should pay more attention to it.

7. We have different ideas about the issue. That is to say we（不同意）______ with each other.

8. He found it difficult to remember the English word and failed in the English exam because of his poor English（词汇）_______.

9. It is not right to （判断）______ a person by the clothes he wears.

10. We all know that my desk-mate is too（顽固）_______ to change his mind.

Fourteen – year – old Richie Hawley had spent five years studying violin at the Community School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles when he took part in a violin contest. Ninety two young people were invited to the contest and Hawley came out first．

　　The contest could have been the perfect setup for fear, worrying about mistakes, and trying to impress the judges. But Hawley says he did pretty well in staying calm. “I couldn’t be thinking about how many mistakes I’d make — it would distract me from playing,” he says. “I didn’t even remember trying to impress people while I played. It’s almost as if they weren’t there. I just wanted to make music.”

Hawley is a winner. But he didn’t become a winner by concentrating on winning. He did it by concentrating on playing well．

　　“The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part,” said the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin. “The important thing in life is not the triumph (胜利) but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

　　A characteristic of high performers is their intense, pleasurable concentration on work, rather than on their competitors or future glory or money, says Dr. Charles Garfield, who has studied 1,500 achievers in business, science, sports, the arts, and professions. “They are interested in winning, but they are most interested in self - development, testing their limits.”

　　One of the most surprising things about top performers is how many losses they’ve had and how much they’ve learned from each. “Not one of the 1,500 I studied defined losing as failing,” Garfield says. “They kept calling their losses ‘setbacks’.”

　　A healthy attitude toward setbacks is essential to winning, experts agree．

　　“The worst thing you can do if you’ve had a setback is to let yourself get stuck in a long depression. You should analyze carefully what went wrong, identify specific things you did right and give yourself credit for them.” Garfield believes that most people don’t give themselves enough praise. He even suggests keeping a diary of all the positive things you’ve done on the way to a goal．

1.Hawley won the contest because ________．

A. he put all his mind to his performance

B. he cared much about the judges’ feelings

C. he tried his best to avoid making mistakes

D. he paid close attention to the people around

2.According to the passage, successful people concentrate on ________．

A. challenging their own limits                              B. learning from others

C. defeating their opponents                                    D. avoiding setbacks

3.The passage tells us that “praise” in times of trouble ________．

A. helps people deal with their disappointment

B. makes people forget their setbacks

C. makes people regret about their past

D. helps people analyze what went wrong