I was travelling in Turkey (土耳其) recently and I learned very quickly that the Turks love bargaining (討價還價) over prices. Quite often the money that was discussed was far less important than the outcome (結(jié)果) of the bargaining.

　　I remember one day when I was at a village bus station a representative (代理人) of two competing (競爭) bus companies (公司) came up to me. When I asked one man the cost of a trip he said: “I'll take you on my bus for 600 liras (里拉，貨幣單位). ”Immediately the second man leapt (猛沖) forward and said: “With me, you can go for 500 liras. ”The contest was on…Back and forth they argued, while I just stood and watched in amazement.

　　“Four hundred. ”

　　“Three hundred. ”

　　“Two hundred. ”

　　“One hundred. ”

　　Finally, the first man threw up his hands and said: “ Okay! For free! I'll make you free of charge, friend. No money! ”

　　I watched him write out a ticket…I just couldn't believe it.

“But why for free?”I asked.

　　His face cracked (裂開) into a wide, toothless grin as he said: “Because I win! ”

1．One day at the bus station, two men were bargaining over ________ .

[　　]

2．I felt ________ about their arguing.

[　　]

3．In the passage, the phrase“free of charge”means ________ .

[　　]

4．In the end, the man I first spoke to was glad because ________ .

[　　]

5．From the whole passage, we can see that the Turks like to ________ over prices, and the ________ is more important.

[　　]

The Road That Fell In

　　A young man and his date were driving home from a party one winter night in 1973. They lived in Swansea, a city in Great Britain. The young people talked quietly on their way home.

　　Suddenly, all talk stopped. Something had happened. The road in front of their car had disappeared!

　　The front end of the car tipped (傾斜) forward. The driver hit the brakes. The car slid (滑動) for a few seconds. Then the back wheels caught on a patch (一片土地) of road. The car came to a stop. In front, there was no more road. There was only a deep, black pit (坑) .

　　At first, the two young people sat frozen. Any move might send the car over the edge. Slowly, they made their way to the doors. They jumped onto safe ground and looked down. The front of the car was hanging over a big, wide hole. The hole seemed to have no bottom.

　　The police came and pulled the car back. The young people were safe. What had happened? A few days later, they found out. The road didn't just disappear. It fell into an old coal mine. Many roads in Swansea are built over old coal mines. Heavy weights, like cars, can make the roads fall in.

1．This story is mostly about ________ .

[　　]

2．A picture of the main idea of this story would show ________ .

[　　]

3．The young people in the story lived in ________ .

[　　]

4．The back wheels caught on the road and ________ .

[　　]

5．Many roads in Swansea are built on top of ________ .

[　　]

Around the World by Bicycle

　　In 1884, Thomas Steves decided to ride around the world. He would go by bicycle. No one had done that before. No one has done it the same way since. But first Tom had to learn how to ride a bicycle.

　　Tom learned quickly. In April, he left his home in San Francisco. He covered (行過) 3000 miles of rough (艱難地) roads. He got to Boston in August. By then,　　Tom had run out of money. He met the famous Colonel Pope. Pope was a rich man who made and sold bicycles. He agreed to pay for Tom's trip to Europe, so Tom put his bicycle on a boat.

　　Tom's bike had a giant wheel in front. Sometimes the wheel broke. In Europe, there was always someone to fix it. Tom liked Europe. The roads were good there. There were wonderful things to see. Back home, people read about Tom's trip in the newspapers .

　　In Asia, the ride got harder. Most people did not speak English. Sometimes people stopped him to look at his bicycle. Animals blocked (阻塞) his path, but Tom rode on. Chinese people gave him gifts. Tom was pleased with the gifts, but they were heavy. The gifts slowed him down. He didn't worry about lost time, though. He was in no hurry.

　　In January, 1887, Tom returned to San Francisco. He had been away for almost three years. He wrote about his trip and gave talks. He became well known. He made enough money to live on. Tom's long ride really paid off!

1．This story is mostly about ________ .

[　　]

2．Colonel Pope paid for ________ .

[　　]

3．Tom liked Europe because ________ .

[　　]

4．At home, people found out about Tom's trip ________ .

[　　]

5．Tom rode slowly in Asia because ________ .

[　　]

　　It was Monday, Mrs. Smith's dog was hungry, but there was not any meat in the house.

　　Considering (考慮到……) that there was no better way, Mrs. Smith took a piece of paper, and wrote the following words on it: “Give my dog half a pound of meat. ”Then she gave the paper to her dog and said gently: “Take this to the butcher (賣肉者) and he' s going to give you your lunch today. ”

　　Holding the piece of paper in its mouth, the dog ran to the butcher's shop. It gave the paper to the butcher. The butcher read it carefully, recognized (認(rèn)出) that it was really the lady' s handwriting and presently did as he was asked to. The dog was very happy, and ate the meat up immediately.

　　At midday (正午), the dog came to the shop again. It gave the butcher a piece of paper again. After reading it, he gave it half a pound of meat once more.

The next day, the dog came again exactly at midday. And as usual , it brought a piece of paper in the mouth. This time, the butcher did not take a look at the paper, and gave the dog its meat, for he had regarded the dog as one of his customers (顧客) .

　　But, the dog came again at four o'clock. And the same thing happened once again. To the butcher's more surprise, it came for the third time at six o'clock, and brought with it a third piece of paper. The butcher felt a bit puzzled. He said to himself, “This is a small dog. Why does Mrs. Smith give it so much meat to eat today?”

　　Looking at the piece of paper, he found that there were not any words on it!

1．Mrs. Smith treated her little dog quite ________ .

[　　]

2．It seemed that the dog knew well that the paper its master gave it ________ .

[　　]

3．The butcher did not give any meat to the dog ________ .

[　　]

A．when he found the words on the paper were not very clear

B．because he happened to have sold out all the meat in his shop

C．before he felt sure that the words were really written by Mrs. Smith

D．until he was paid enough by Mrs. Smith

3．From its experience, the dog found that ________ .

[　　]

A．only the paper with Mrs. Smith's words on it could bring it meat

B．the butcher would give the meat to it whenever he saw it

C．a(chǎn) piece of paper could bring him half a pound of meat

D．Mrs. Smith would pay for the meat it got from the butcher

5．At the end of the story, you'll find that ________ .

[　　]

A．the butcher found himself cheated by the smart animal

B．the dog was clever enough to write on the paper

C．the dog dared not go to the butcher's any more

D．the butcher was told not to give any meat to the dog

All About Twins

　　Some twins look just like each other. Are twins alike in other ways, too? Stories about twins may help you to decide.

　　One woman said she felt a strong pain in her chest (胸部) . Later, she heard some terrible news. An airplane had crashed (墜毀). Her twin sister died in the crash. The crash happened just at the moment the woman felt the pain.

　　A twin named Robert felt a strong pain when his brother broke an ankle. A woman named Nancy felt labor (陣痛) pains when her twin sister gave birth to a baby. Her sister lived in another city.

　　Twin brothers went to live with different families. This happened when they were babies. The twins didn't meet for 39 years. Finally, they got together. They found out how much they were alike. Each twin had the same kind of job. Each twin had married a woman named Linda. Each twin had a dog with the same name.

1．This story is mainly about ________ .

[　　]

2．Another title for this story could be ________ .

[　　]

3．An airplane crashed and a woman felt a pain ________ .

[　　]

4．Twin brothers went to live with different families ________ .

[　　]

5．What did the twin brothers find out?

[　　]

　　Find out what this ad is all about. Look for the main idea while you read the details.

1．The Music Store is ________ .

[　　]

2．Which records and tapes in the store are on sale?

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3．Records and tapes that cost $ 6.98 are on sale for ________ .

[　　]

4．The last day of the sale is ________ .

[　　]

5．You can't buy records ________ .

[　　]

Birds Save Lives

　　Bad weather can come up suddenly at sea. Winds and waves can smash (粉碎) boats. People may end up in the water. When that happens, there is no time to waste. Pigeons (鴿子) may be sent to the rescue (援救) .

　　The pigeons are a special group of birds. The Navy is training (訓(xùn)練) these birds to look for the color orange in the water. That is because life jackets are orange.

　　The pigeons ride in a helicopter (直升飛機(jī)) with the Navy crew (全體飛行員). The birds can see a very long distance－about 2000 feet. They usually spot (認(rèn)出) the orange life jackets before the crew does. That means the crew can act more quickly to save people.

　　Anything orange in the water gets the attention of the pigeons. The birds also find orange surfboards (沖浪板) that have been lost.

1．The main idea of this story is ________ .

[　　]

2．Another title that tells the main idea is ________ .

[　　]

3．A picture of the main idea of this story would show ________ .

[　　]

4．The pigeons look for the color ________ .

[　　]

5．The pigeons also find lost ________ .

[　　]

　　One summer day a raindrop (雨滴) fell from a cloud. Many other raindrops fell at the same time, but our story is about just one raindrop.

　　The raindrop fell to the ground on the side of a hill. The water in the raindrop ran down the hill into a little river. The little river carried the raindrop to a big river. Then the raindrop travelled far to the east into the sea. There the water of the raindrop mixed itself with the salt water of the sea.

　　Now the water of the raindrop was on the surface (表面)of the sea. As the sun　　made it very warm, it changed into steam (蒸氣).

　　The steam left the sea and went up into the air, and it did not carry any salt with it. It had left the salt in the sea.

　　The steam from the raindrop moved with the warm air towards the north. On the way the warm air met some cold air. The cold air pushed (推) the warm air high above the ground. The warm air became cool when it went up, and the steam in it changed into very small drops of water again. There were millions and millions of these small drops in the cloud. The small drops came together into bigger and bigger drops. Our raindrop was one of them. Now the drop became so big that it was too heavy to stay in the .cloud, and it fell to the ground. In this way the water of our raindrop, started travelling to the sea again.

1．This story is about ________ .

[　　]

2．When the raindrop travelled into ________ , the water in it became ________ .

[　　]

3．The water of the raindrop went up into the air from the sea ________ salt ________ it changed into steam.

[　　]

4．The steam changed ________ into very small drops of water ________ it met some cold air.

[　　]

5．The small water drops in the cloud fell down because ________ .

[　　]

A．there were millions and millions of them in the cloud

B．the sea wanted to take them back

C．they wanted to start travelling on the ground again

D．they became so heavy that the cloud couldn't hold them up any longer

　　The world is not only hungry, but it is also thirsty for water.This may seem strange to you, since nearly 70 percent (百分比) of the earth's surface is covered with water. But about 97 percent of this huge amount is sea water, or salt water. Man can only drink and use the other 3 percent－the fresh water from rivers, lakes, underground, and other sources(資源) . And we cannot even use all of that, because some of it is in the form of icebergs and glaciers (冰川). Even worse, some of it has been polluted.

　　However, as things stand today, this small amount of fresh water is still enough for us. But our need for water is increasing (增加) rapidly－almost day by day. Only if we take steps to deal with this problem now can we avoid (避免) a severe (嚴(yán)重的) worldwide water shortage later on.

　　We all have to learn how to stop wasting our valuable water. One of the first steps is to develop ways of reusing it.

　　Today in most large cities, water is used only once and then sent out into a sewer system (下水道). From there it returns to the sea or runs into underground storage tanks. But it is possible to pipe used water to a purifying (凈化) plant. There it can be treated with chemicals so that it can be used again, just as if it were fresh from a spring.

　　But even if every large city purified and reused its water, we still would not have enough. All we'd have to do to make use of the vast reserves (貯備) of sea water in the world is to remove the salt.

　　If we take these steps we'll be in no danger of drying up.

1．The world is thirsty for water because we can only use ________ percent of the water covering the surface of the earth.

[　　]

2．Which of the following statements is Not true?

[　　]

A．As things remain unchanging, this small amount of fresh water is still enough for us.

B．Our need for water is becoming larger and larger.

C．There will be no water shortage in the future.

D．We should take steps to deal with the water shortage problem.

3．To reuse water, we should ________ .

[　　]

A．treat it with chemicals

B．use it only once

C．send it out into a sewer system

D．make it flow into underground tanks

4．In order to have enough water, we should also make use of ________ .

[　　]

5．In the passage, the writer tells us ________ .

[　　]

A．to make enough water

B．to pay more attention to the water shortage problem

C．to pipe used water to a purifying plant

D．to reuse the water

　　Paper was first made in the year 105. It was made by a Chinese named Cai Lun.

　　For over 500 years paper was made only in China. People in Japan learned of paper around the year 600. As years went by, people in other places began to make paper.

　　The lead (鉛) pencil is not made of lead. It is made of graphite (石墨) . People found graphite in 1564. They thought it was a kind of lead. Today we still call pencils “l(fā)ead pencils”. The first pencils were made by putting strings (線) around sticks of graphite.

　　The first wooden pencils were made by Kasper Faber in Germany in 1761.

Erasers (橡皮) like those we use today were first made in France by a man named Magellan in 1752. It was Hyman L. Lipman who first put eraser on the ends of pencils. And that is how the pencils came to be.

1．How many years earlier was paper made in China than in Japan?

[　　]

2．Germans made paper ________ .

[　　]

3．At first pencils were made of ________ .

[　　]

4．Kasper Faber was ________ .

[　　]

5．Which of the following statements is NOT true?

[　　]

A．Paper was first made in China.

B．Graphite isn't a kind of lead.

C．The first wooden pencils were made in Germany.

D．Hyman L. Lipman made the first erasers.