I told my friend Graham that I often cycle two miles from my house to the town centre but unfortunately there is a big hill on the route. He replied, “You mean fortunately.” He explained that I should be glad of the extra exercise that the hill provided.

My attitude to the hill has now changed. I used to grumble as I approached it but now I tell myself the following. This hill will exercise my heart and lungs. It will help me to lose weight and get fit. It will mean that I live longer. This hill is my friend. Finally I comfort myself with the thought of all those silly people who pay money to go to a gym and sit on stationery exercise bicycles when I can get the same value for free. I have a smile of satisfaction as I reach the top of the hill.

Problems are there to be faced and overcome. We cannot achieve anything with an easy life. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind person to gain a university degree. Her activism and writing proved inspirational. She wrote, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can vision be cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.”

One of the key factors of success in life is our attitude towards adversity (逆境). From time to time we all face hardships, problems, accidents, afflictions and difficulties. Some are of our making but many confront us through no fault of our own. While we cannot choose the adversity we can choose our attitude towards it.

Douglas Bader was 21 when in 1931 he had both legs cut off following a flying accident. He was determined to fly again and went on to become one of the leading flying aces in the Battle of Britain with 22 aerial victories over the Germans. He was an inspiration to others during the war. He said, “Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t do this or that. That’s nonsense. Make up your mind, and you’ll never use crutches (拐杖) or a stick, and then have a go at evening. Go to school, and join in all the games you can. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible.”

The biographies of great people are full of examples of how they took steps to overcome the difficulties they faced. The common thread is that they did not become depressed. They chose their attitude. They chose to be positive. They took on the challenge. They won.

Nevertheless, there is still the problem of how you change your attitude towards adversity.

1.The underlined word “grumble” in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to ________.

A．tremble           B．complain          C．speed up          D．slow down

2.Which of the following is true according to the author of the passage?

A．Climbing hills on bicycles is the best way to take exercise.

B．People are wise to pay to go to the gym.

C．Those who want to achieve success can’t expect to live an easy life.

D．People’s attitude towards adversity is the only factor that determines whether they will succeed.

3.By quoting what Douglas Bader said, the author intends to tell us “________”.

A．Failure is the mother of success.

B．A fall into the pit, a gain in your wit.

C．If you venture nothing, you will have nothing.

D．Nothing is difficult to the man who will try.

4.Following this passage, the author will further talk about ________.

A．how his friend helped him to change his attitude towards the adversity he faced

B．what steps to take to change your attitude towards the adversity you face

C．what great people have in common

D．why it is important to keep optimistic in face of adversity

5.Which of the following can best function as the title of the passage?

A．Face adversity with a smile

B．Different attitudes towards adversity

C．Nothing is impossible

D．Life is full of adversity

请阅读以下短文，然后以约30词概括短文内容的要点。
Is Failure a Bad Thing?
Failure is what often happens in our life．Students may fail in exams, scientists may fail in their research work, and athletes may fail in competitions．
Although failure happens to everyone, attitudes towards failure are various．Some people don’t think their failure is a very important thing at all．So they pay no attention to it．As a result, they will have the same failure a period later．Some people think themselves are fools and lose their hearts in everything after they get a failure．Consequently, they spend their time and energy on useless things and they may really be fools as they have thought．
Other people are quite different from the two kinds of people mentioned above．Instead of being distressed and lost, they draw a lesson from every failure and become more experienced．After hard work, they will be successful in the end．It is said that failure is the mother of success．Success will be gained after times of failures so long as we are good at drawing a lesson from our failures．
In my opinion, failure is not a bad thing, the really bad thing is taking a failure as failure or even lose our heart after failure．

   Have you ever complained why life is so tiring? Does the sky sometimes seem dark to you? Are your studies sometimes not successful? Well, friends, cheer up and smile all the time. If you see the world with your warm heart, you’ll find that the whole world smiles to you.
While in school, sometimes you are tired of your lessons, but have you ever noticed the happy smile on your teacher’s face when you did a good job?
One day it is fine. Just before you go out, it suddenly starts to rain. Maybe you would feel very sad and start to complain about the weather. But friends, why don’t you sit down and listen to the free concerts that the nature offers you? And with the timely(及时地) rain, crops in the fields will grow better and better and farmers will have a good harvest.
Although everyone wants to succeed in what he tries to do, sometimes failure can’t be avoided. I think failure is not terrible, and the terrible thing is that we are afraid of it and give up hope. When we face failure, we must be confident(信心) in ourselves, draw a useful lesson from it and try our best to finish what we have decided to do. As a popular saying goes, “Failure is the mother of success”.
Attitude(态度) decides everything. With an optimistic(乐观) attitude life is easy and pleasant. Let’s smile to whatever we meet and the whole world will smile to us.
【小题1】 People sometimes complain _________.

I remember a day when I was a little kid. I was making a sandwich in the kitchen when I noticed the date on one of the wine bottles.
“ Dad, dad!” I cried. “This wine is too old to drink.”
“ Son, hold on,” he said.
“ No, you can’t drink this tonight! This bottle of wine was made 10 years ago.”
“ Wait, let me tell you…”
“ Would you like me to throw it away from you?” I asked.
“ Son, wait a second,” he said. “Son, some wines get better over time. The longer you wait to drink it, the better it will be. Although this may seem strange, it is true.”
When I was young, I didn’t have any understanding of what this meant, but now, this would have been very helpful to remember as I went through my teenage years.
In our society, we forget this simple rule: The longer you want for certain things, the better they will be. But we want the best job as quickly as possible; we want to graduate from college in as few years as possible; we even speed through our homework just to chat with friends. When we do this, we lose something of great importance.
We all want to get to the next step so quickly that perhaps we don’t get ready enough to get there. This has a negative effect on our society. When trying to go to the right college, we will do anything to get in and when we rush through our class-work, we may not study enough for the test, and end up failing. We need to be ready for whatever comes, ready for the unexpected. Wine gets better over time, so do the things in our paths of life.
【小题1】Why did the author tell his father not to drink the bottle of wine?

I remember a day when I was a little kid. I was making a sandwich in the kitchen when I noticed the date on one of the wine bottles.

“ Dad, dad!” I cried. “This wine is too old to drink.”

“ Son, hold on,” he said.

“ No, you can’t drink this tonight! This bottle of wine was made 10 years ago.”

“ Wait, let me tell you…”

“ Would you like me to throw it away from you?” I asked.

“ Son, wait a second,” he said. “Son, some wines get better over time. The longer you wait to drink it, the better it will be. Although this may seem strange, it is true.”

   When I was young, I didn’t have any understanding of what this meant, but now, this would have been very helpful to remember as I went through my teenage years.

   In our society, we forget this simple rule: The longer you want for certain things, the better they will be. But we want the best job as quickly as possible; we want to graduate from college in as few years as possible; we even speed through our homework just to chat with friends. When we do this, we lose something of great importance.

   We all want to get to the next step so quickly that perhaps we don’t get ready enough to get there. This has a negative effect on our society. When trying to go to the right college, we will do anything to get in and when we rush through our class-work, we may not study enough for the test, and end up failing. We need to be ready for whatever comes, ready for the unexpected. Wine gets better over time, so do the things in our paths of life.

1.Why did the author tell his father not to drink the bottle of wine?

A. Because it smelt terrible.      

B. Because it was mixed with something else.

C. Because his father drank too much that night.

D. Because it had been kept for years.

2.What the author’s father said __________.

A. made the author puzzled when he was a little child.

B. was too simple a rule to be meaningful to the author.

C. threw the author into deep thought then.

D. was an excuse to drink the wine.

3. In the author’s opinion, if we do things too quickly, we will __________.

A. do it better                          B. save much time

C. graduate from college more quickly    D. miss something useful to us in life

4. Which of the following best reflects the main idea of the passage?

   A. Well begun is half done.           B. More haste（匆忙）, less speed.

   C. Failure is the mother of success.  D.Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.