It was early morning. Peter Corbett helped Mark Wellman out of his wheelchair and onto the ground. They stood before El Captain, a huge rock almost 1.2 kilometers high. Mark had long dreamed to climb El Captain when he was a child. At the age of twenty?one, he had fallen while climbing mountain, losing his legs. But he never lost his love for life.?
Mark knew he couldn't finish the climb alone, but his friend Peter would be there to lend a helping hand. They thought it would take seven days to reach the top. Now Peter climbed about 30 meters up and hit a piton(岩钉) into the rock. Fastening(拴紧) one end of a 50?meter rope(绳子) to the piton, he let the other end of the rope fall down. Mark caught the rope and fastened it to his belt. He next reached above his head and fastened a T-bar(丁字铁) to the rope. Mark took a deep breath, pushed the T?bar up almost as far as his arms could reach, and began the first pull?up. High above, Peter let out a cheer, “You're on your way.”?
For the first four days the two men progressed upward(向上) without accident. But on the fifth day, a very strong wind began to blow, making it hard for Mark to hold on to his rope. But Mark kept on pushing up the T-bar and pulling himself up.?
It took them one day more than they had expected. But as the two heads appeared the group of people waiting on the top went wild with joy.?
Mark Wellman showed that if you set your heart and mind on something, no wall is too high, no dream impossible.
【小题1】 With the help of his friend, Mark could climb up El Captain about  meters in height each day.?

I am my mother’s third girl. When I was born, the doctor gently explained to my mother that my left arm was missing, below the elbow(肘). Then he gave her some advice, “Don’t treat her any differently from the other girls.” And she did!
There were five girls in our family and we all had to help out. Once when I was about seven, I came out of the kitchen, “Mum, I can’t peel(削……皮)potatoes. I only have one hand.” “You get back to peel those potatoes, and don’t ever use that as an excuse for anything again!”
Of course I could peel potatoes—with my good hand and my other arm. “Jenny, if you try hard enough,” she said, “you can do anything.”
Once in the second grade, our teacher had each of us race across the monkey bar(攀爬架).When it was my turn, I said no, Some kids laughed. I went home crying.
The next afternoon Mum took me back to the school playground. “Now, pull up with your right arm,” she advised. She praised me when I made progress. I’ll never forget when I was crossing the bar, the kids were standing there with their mouths open.
It was the way with everything. Mum had the courage to face anything. And she taught me I could, too.
【小题1】How many younger sisters do I have?

Carmen Arace Middle School is situated in the pastoral town of Bloomfield, Conn., but four years ago it faced many of the same problems as inner-city schools in nearby Hartford: low scores on standardized tests and dropping enrollment（入学注册）. Then the school’s hard-driving headmaster, Delores Bolton, persuaded her board to shake up the place by buying a laptop computer for each student and teacher to use, in school and at home. What’s more, the board provided wireless Internet access at school. Total cost: $2.5 million.

Now, an hour before classes start, every seat in the library is taken by students who cannot wait for getting online. Fifth-grade teacher Jen Friday talks about different kinds of birds as students view them at a colorful website. After school, students on buses pull laptops from backpacks to get started on homework. Since the computer arrived, enrollment is up 20%. Scores on state tests are up 35%.

Indeed, school systems in rural Maine and New York City also hope to follow Arace Middle School’s example. Governor Angus King had planned using $50 million to buy a laptop for all of Maine’s 17,000 seventh-graders – and for new seventh-graders each fall.

In the same spirit, the New York City board of education voted on April 12 to create a school Internet portal（入口）, which would make money by selling ads and licensing public school students. Profits（盈利）will also provide e-mail service for the city’s 1.1 million public school students. Profits will be used to buy laptops for each of the school system’s 87,000 fourth-graders. Within nine years, all students in grades 4 and higher will have their own computers.

Back in Bloomfield, in the meantime, most of the kinks have been worked out. Some students were using their computers to visit unauthorized（非法的）websites. But teachers have the ability to keep an eye on where students have been on the Web and to stop them. “That is the worst when they disable you,” says eighth-grade honors student Jamie Bassell. The habit is rubbing off on parents. “I taught my mom to use e-mail,” says another eighth-grader, Katherine Hypolite. “And now she’s taking computer classes. I’m so proud of her!”

1.The example of Carmen Arace Middle School in the passage is used to ______.

A. show the problems schools are faced with today

B. prove that a school without high enrollment can do well

C. express the importance of computers in modern education

D. tell that laptops can help improve students’ school performance

2.According to the writer, students in New York City’s public schools will ______.

A. enjoy e-mail service in the near future

B. make money by selling ads on websites

C. all have their own laptops within nine years

D. become more interested in their studies with laptops

3.The underlined word “kinks” in the last paragraph most probably means ______.

A. plans         B. projects       C. problems      D. products

4.From the passage we learn that ______.

A. a school Internet portal is the key to a laptop program

B. the laptop program also has a good influence on parents

C. students slowly accept the fact their online activities controlled

D. the laptop program in public school is mainly for the eighth-graders

I am my mother’s third girl. When I was born, the doctor gently explained to my mother that my left arm was missing, below the elbow(肘). Then he gave her some advice, “Don’t treat her any differently from the other girls.” And she did!

There were five girls in our family and we all had to help out. Once when I was about seven, I came out of the kitchen, “Mum, I can’t peel(削……皮)potatoes. I only have one hand.” “You get back to peel those potatoes, and don’t ever use that as an excuse for anything again!”

Of course I could peel potatoes—with my good hand and my other arm. “Jenny, if you try hard enough,” she said, “you can do anything.”

Once in the second grade, our teacher had each of us race across the monkey bar(攀爬架).When it was my turn, I said no, Some kids laughed. I went home crying.

The next afternoon Mum took me back to the school playground. “Now, pull up with your right arm,” she advised. She praised me when I made progress. I’ll never forget when I was crossing the bar, the kids were standing there with their mouths open.

It was the way with everything. Mum had the courage to face anything. And she taught me I could, too.

1.How many younger sisters do I have?

A．Two.             B．Three.            C．Four.             D．Five

2.What does the doctor’s advice mean?

A．My are could be all right soon.

B．The other girls had the same arms as me.

C．My mum should look after me differently.

D．My mum should treat me the same as others.

3.Who peeled the potatoes at last?

A．Jenny.            B．Jenny’s mum.     C．Jenny’s sister.     D．Nobody.

4.Why did Mum take me back to the school playground the next day?

A．she wanted to tell me I could do anything.

B．she wanted the teacher to let me try again.

C．she would punish the kids who laughed at me.

D．she would like to praise me before the other kids.

5.What’s the best title of the passage?

A．My bad-tempered mother                B．Different mother love

C．A doctor’s advice                      D．My childhood(童年)