Jennifer got off the bus from the university and began walking towards the flat she shared with two
other students. _1_ She picked up a wire basket and walked towards the back of the shop, where the
rice was kept. The shop was divided by three long aisles, with rows of shelves crammed with all sorts
of things. Except for her and Mr. Patel, the owner, there were only two other people there. They were
two teenage boys, and they were standing at the end of one of the aisles.
     She glanced at them as she passed. They were both wearing long, oldfashioned overcoats and they
looked rather ridiculous in them because the coats were too big. _2_ "Watch out, stupid," she heard
one of them whisper to the other. She walked on to the next aisle and found the rice she was looking
for.
     Then she heard something else. _3_ She peered through a gap in the shelf and caught a glimpse of
one of the boys bending down. She saw him pick up a tin of food. But instead of putting it in the
shopping basket, he dropped it into the inside pocket of his long overcoat. Jennifer glanced back down
the aisle. She could see Mr. Patel at the cash till, still checking through his list.
     _4_ The boys still had their backs to her. "Come on, let's get out of here," she heard one of them
say. At the same time, she saw one of them put another tin in his overcoat pocket. They moved away
from her. She could no longer see what they were doing or hear what they were saying.
     When she got to the still, the two boys were in front of her. She watched them pay for the few things
they had in the basket. They had both buttoned their coats and fastened them with their belts. _5_ He
even smiled at them as they were about to leave. Jennifer opened her mouth to say something.
A. It sounded like a tin dropping on the floor.
B. But such things were popular with some teenagers at the time.
C. Then she looked through the gap in the shelf again.
D. On her way she had to buy some food and stopped in one of the shops in the street.
E. They were picking many things to their basket.
F. Mr. Patel was so friendly to his customers.
G. Mr. Patel did not seem suspicious at all.

     Barditch High School decided to an All-School Reunion. Over 450 people came to the event. There
were tours of the old school building and a picnic at Confederate Park. Several former teachers were
on ands to tell stories about the old days. Ms. Mabel Yates, the English teacher for fifty years, was
wheeled to the Park.
     Some eyes rolled and there were a few low groans(嘟囔聲)when Ms.Yates was about to speak.
Many started looking at their watches and coming up with excuses to be anywhere instead of preparing
to listen to a lecture from and old woman who had few kind words for her students and made them work
harder than all the other teachers combined.
     Then Ms. Yates started to speak:
     "I can't tell you how pleased I am to be here. I haven't seen many of you since your graduation, but
I have followed your careers and enjoyed your victories as well as crying for your tragedies. I have a
large collection of newspaper photographs of my students. Although I haven't appeared in person, I
have attended your college graduations, weddings and even the birth your children, in my imagination."
     Ms. Yates paused and started crying a bit. Then she continued:
"It was my belief that if I pushed you as hard as I could, some of you would succeed to please me and
others would succeed to annoy me. Regardless of our motives, I can see that you have all been
successful in you chosen path."
     "There is no greater comfort for an educator than to see the end result of his or her years of work.
You have all been a great source of pleasure and pride for me and I want you to know I love you all
from the bottom of my heart."
     There was a silence over the crowd for a few seconds and then someone started clapping. Tee
clapping turned into cheering, then into a deafening roar(呼喊). Lawyers, truck drivers, bankers and
models were rubbing their eyes or crying openly with no shame all because of the words from a long
forgotten English teacher from their hometown.

1. What activity was organized for the school reunion?

A. Sightseeing in the park.
B. A picnic on the school playground.
C. Telling stories about past events.
D. Graduates' reports in the old building.

2. What can be inferred from Paragraph 2?  

A. Some graduates were too busy to listen to Ms. Yates' speech.
B. Many graduates disliked Ms. Yates' ways of teaching.
C. Some people got tired from the reunion activities.
D. Most people had little interest in the reunion.

3. We can learn from Ms. Yates' speech that she _____________.
A. kept track of her students' progress
B. gave her students advice on their careers
C. attended her students' college graduations
D. went to her students' wedding ceremonies

4. What was Ms.Yates' belief in teaching teenagers?

A. Teachers' knowledge is the key to students' achievements.
B. Pressure on students from teachers should be reduced.
C. Hard-pushed students are more likely to succeed.
D. Students' respect is the best reward for teachers.

5. Which of the following can best describe Ms. Yates?

A. Reliable and devoted.
B. Tough and generous.
C. Proud but patient.
D. Strict but caring

     Eddie McKay, a once-forgotten pilot, is a subject of great interest to a group of history students in
Canada.
     It all started when Graham Broad, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, found McKay's
name in a footnote in a book about university history. McKay was included in a list of university alumni
(校友) who had served during the First World War, but his name was unfamiliar to Broad, a specialist
in military history. Out of curiosity, Broad spent hours at the local archives (檔案館) in a fruitless search
for information on McKay. Tired and discouraged, he finally gave up. On his way out, Broad's glance
happened to fall on an exhibiting case showing some old newspapers. His eye was drawn to an old picture
of a young man in a rugby uniform. As he read the words beside the picture, he experienced a thrilling
realization. "After looking for him all day, there he was, staring up at me out of the exhibiting case," said
Broad. Excited by the find, Broad asked his students to continue his search. They combed old newspapers
and other materials for clues. Gradually, a picture came into view.
     Captain Alfred Edwin McKay joined the British Royal Flying Corps in 1916. He downed ten enemy planes,
outlived his entire squadron (中隊(duì)) as a WWI flyer, spent some time as a flying instructor in England, then
returned to the front, where he was eventually shot down over Belgium and killed in December 1917. But
there's more to his story. "For a brief time in 1916 he was probably the most famous pilot in the world,"
says Broad. "He was credited with downing Oswald Boelcke, the most famous German pilot at the time."
Yet, in a letter home, McKay refused to take credit, saying that Boelcke had actually crashed into another
German plane.
     McKay's war records were destroyed during a World War II air bombing on London-an explanation for
why he was all but forgotten.
     But now, thanks to the efforts of Broad and his students, a marker in McKay's memory was placed on
the university grounds in November 2007. "I found my eyes filling with tears as I read the word 'deceased'
(陣亡) next to his name," said Corey Everrett, a student who found a picture of Mckay in his uniform.
"This was such a simple example of the fact that he had been a student just like us, but instead of finishing
his time at Western, he chose to fight and die for his country."

1. What made Professor Broad continue his search for more information on McKay?

A. A uniform of McKay.
B. A footnote about McKay.
C. A book on McKay.
D. A picture of McKay.

2. What did the students find out about McKay?

A. He trained pilots for some time.
B. He lived longer than other pilots.
C. He died in the Second World War.
D. He was downed by the pilot Boelcke.

3. McKay's flying documents were destroyed in _____.

A. Belgium
B. Germany
C. Canada
D. England

4. We can learn from the last paragraph that McKay _____.

A. preferred fight to his study
B. went to war before graduation
C. left a picture for Corey Everrett
D. set an example for his fellow students

5. What is the text mainly about?

A. The research into war history.
B. The finding of a forgotten hero.
C. The pilots of the two world wars.
D. The importance of military studies.

     I have this old clock that belonged to my mom. My dad gave it to me years ago after mom passed
away.
     I have mixed feelings about having the clock. I love it because it was my mom's, but it also holds
some bad memories.
     You see, it chimes. It counts out the hour and rings once on the half hour. Or at least it used to. Now
you never know what number it will ring.
     When my mother was at home dying from cancer, she asked for the clock to be unplugged. Hearing
the hours count down really angered and frightened her.
     Mom passed away. I decided I wanted to get the clock fixed so I could remember the good hours
we had with her.
     I took it to a local clock shop the other day.
    "I know this has no particular value as a clock, but it was my mom's and I need to get it fixed," I said
to the shop owner.
     I went on to describe the problem.
     "We get a lot of these in," he told me. "Here's what I do. We remove the clock works (機(jī)件) and
replace it with a battery-operated movement (機(jī)芯) that chimes electronically," he told me.
     "You can't fix this?"
     "No, we don't have the time nor the parts."
     I thanked him and went home. I called a few other places and was told the same thing.
     "How incredibly sad," I told the last one disappointedly.
     How incredibly sad that we have become a society that replaces craftsmanship with convenience
and easy fixes. We copy the original instead of creating something new. We duplicate (復(fù)制); we don't
originate (發(fā)明).
     Sadly, the same goes for our attitude to life itself.
     Each of us is an original, one of a kind. But we find it so much easier to copy another style than to
develop our own.
     We are wannabes (崇拜別人的人) rather than hey-world-look-at-mes.
     We fail to see the real value in who we are, so we spend our lives trying to be someone else.

1. Why did the author decide to get the clock fixed?
A. Because it was a really old and valuable clock.
B. Because it was the only thing that her mother had left her.
C. Because it brought her memories of being with her mother.
D. Because it left the author with mixed feelings.

2. What did the clock shop owners tell the author?
A. The parts that the clock needed were electronic.
B. It would cost a lot to repair the clock.
C. They had never repaired a clock like this before.
D. They could only make the clock electronic.

3. The author intends to ________.
A. criticize the irresponsible clock shop owners
B. criticize people who do not value things with a history
C. criticize people who do not have a creative attitude toward life
D. criticize people's ignorance of traditional craftsmanship

     The CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs' story about death.
     When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it were your last,
someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"
     Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered (遇到) to help me make the big choice in life.
     About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that was incurable, and that I would live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me
to go home and get my affairs in order, which is my doctors' code for preparing yourself to die.
     I lived with that diagnosis all day. I was completely in despair. Later that evening, I had another biopsy(活組織檢查) and my wife told me that tumor turned to be curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
     This was the closest I've been to facing death. To tell the truth, no one wants to die. And yet death is
the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. It clears out the old to make room for the new.
Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be
cleared away.
     Your time is so limited that you shouldn't waste it repeating someone else's life. Don't be trapped by
dogma (教條)----which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others'
opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart. It somehow already knows what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

1. The doctor advised the author to go home and get his affairs in order because _____.

A. he had to rest at home
B. his disease was not serious at all 
C. his disease couldn't be cured
D. he had to wait for the result of the test

2. How did the author feel after the diagnosis?

A. Angry      
B. Excited      
C. Optimistic  
D. Hopeless  

3. What does the author think of death?

A. He thinks it is nothing to be scared of.
B. He thinks it is not the end of life.
C. He thinks it is impossible to avoid.
D. He thinks it is the beginning of a new life.

4. In the author's opinion, we should _____.

A. follow others' advice
B. take no notice of diseases 
C. take exercise and keep healthy
D have the courage to follow our  heart