In seventh grade, Brittany Blythe dreamed of being a cheerleader. Her school's coaches were less
than enthusiastic. "They said, 'I don't know how you'll be able to do it,' she recalls. "'You won't be able
to do it. '"
     But Brittany, now a junior at Strath Haven High School near Philadelphia, persisted(堅持). And when
the junior team cheerleaders won a tournament last year, she was right there, dancing and cheering with
the rest of the team.
     Not bad for someone whose legs were cut off below the knee when she was two years old.
Brittany, 18, was born without shinbones(脛骨)-"just blood and muscle tissue", as she puts it. When she
tried to walk, her legs twisted.
     After the operation, she adapted quickly. "From day one, I basically jumped up and wanted to do
everything," she says. Prosthetic legs(假腿) allowed her to move around upright, but too slowly to keep
up with her friends. Brittany's solution: take the legs off and walk on her knees-sometimes she still does
when safety and comfort permit.
     She's rarely daunted. Other children laughed at her through the years, especially in junior high school,
but she says the challenge only made her stronger. Now she's trying to convince her coaches to let her
remove the prostheses and be a flyer, the cheerleader who's thrown in the air and caught by her
teammates.
     Brittany doesn't think her problems are more difficult than the next person's. "My disability was the
first thing I had to get through, and that's going to prepare me for the future," she says. "It's all just a test:
If someone throws you a curve ball(給你出難題), what are you going to do?"

1. What was the school's coaches' attitude towards Brittany's idea of being a cheerleader?

A. Supportive    
B. Doubtful  
C. Opposed    
D. Curious

2. What did Brittany do to keep up with her friends?

A. She used a pair of walking sticks.
B. She practiced hard every day.
C. She walked on her knees.
D. She asked her friends for help

3. The underlined word "daunted" in Paragraph 6 probably means _________.

A. discouraged  
B. angry  
C. confident  
D. fortunate

4. We can learn from the last paragraph that Brittany __________.

A. is not well prepared for the future
B. takes a positive attitude towards life
C. likes the challenge of learning new things
D. thinks that her problems are more difficult than other's.

     For almost two months Dominic York, a 23-year-old hairdresser, wandered about hospitals
all night, wearing a white coat and pretending he was a doctor. Yesterday he proudly claimed in
court that despite his complete lack of medical experience or qualifications, he had saved several
people's lives. He had even been allowed to assist a surgeon during an emergency operation on a
patient who was about to die on something she had swallowed.
    "I watched one of those TV dramas about a hospital and suddenly I felt like playing one of the
roles myself. So I put on a white jacket and a stethoscope(聽診器)and walked around one of the
biggest hospital in London. At first I just watched. Once you learn how doctors talk to patients,
nurses and others doctors, it's easy to take people in," he said.
    One of the patients he treated was Laura Kennan. She had been knocked down by a car and
fainted. When she came to in hospital, York was standing over her.
    "He looked very professional. He told me his name was Doctor Simon. Then he gave me some
sort of injection," she said. And then he suddenly cleared off when a nurse asked who he was. She
didn't think there was anything wrong. "I would never have realized he was a fake if a policewoman
hadn't showed me his photograph a week later. When the policewoman told me who he really was,
I could hardly believe my cars."
     Judge Raymond Adams told York that he was. " shocked and horrified" that he got away with his
deceiving for so long, and then sentenced him to eighteen months in a special prison for criminal with
mental disorders.
     "I can only hope that this will not lead to further problems. After all, you will have considerable
opportunity to study the behaviour of the psychiatrists(精神科醫(yī)生)who will look after you while
you are there. If you try to persuade people that you yourself are a psychiatrist after you are set free,
I shall make sure that you are given a much longer sentence." Judge Adams warned York.

1. York was proud of the fact that ___________.

A. a surgeon let him watch an operation.
B. he could perform some duties of a doctor.
C. he had cheated doctors for so long
D. people thought he could become a real doctor

2. York learned how to behave like a doctor by __________.

A. watching other doctors work      
B. talking to doctors and nurses
C. getting some training and experience    
D. observing doctors while he was a patient

3. Why was Laura Kennan in hospital?

A. She had swallowed something and almost died.
B. She had to have and emergency operation.
C. She had been injured in a road accident.
D. She had lost consciousness while driving.

4. The judge's remark implied that York would be more severely punished if he __     _.

A. pretended to be a psychiatrist      
B. tried to get away from prison
C. was proud of what he had done    
D. studied the behaviour of the psychiatrist

     A man and his girlfriend were married. It was a large celebration.
     All of their friends and family came to see the lovely ceremony and to partake(分享,參與)
of the festivities and celebrations. All had a wonderful time.
     The bride was gorgeous in her white wedding gown and the groom was very dashing in his
black tuxedo(禮服). Everyone could tell that the love they had for each other was true.
     A few months later, the wife came to the husband with a proposal, "I read in a magazine, a
while ago, about how we can strengthen our marriage," she offered. "Each of us will write a list
of the things that we find a bit annoying with the other person. Then, we can talk about how we
can fix them together and make our lives happier together."
     The husband agreed. So each of them went to a separate room in the house and thought of
the things that annoyed them about the other. They thought about this question for the rest of the
day and wrote down what they came up with. The next morning, at the breakfast table, they
decided that they would go over their lists.
     "I'll start," offered the wife. She took out her list. It had many items on it, enough to fill three
pages. In fact, as she started reading the list of the little annoyances, she noticed that tears were
starting to appear in her husband's eyes.
     "What's wrong?" she asked. "Nothing," the husband replied, "keep reading your list."
     The wife continued to read until she had read all three pages to her husband. She neatly
placed her list on the table and folded her hands over the top of it.
     "Now, you read your list and then we'll talk about the things on both of our lists," she said
happily.
     Quietly the husband stated, "I don't have anything on my list. I think that you are perfect the
way that you are. I don't want you to change anything for me. You are lovely and wonderful
and I wouldn't want to try and change anything about you." The wife, touched by his honesty
and the depth of his love for her and his acceptance of her, turned her head and wept.
     In life, there are enough times when we are disappointed, depressed and annoyed. We
don't really have to go looking for them. We have a wonderful world that is full of beauty, light
and promise. Why waste time in this world looking for the bad, disappointing or annoying when
we can look around us, and see the wondrous(奇妙的) things before us?

1. From Paragraphs1-3, the author wants mainly to tell us that_____.

A. they were happy and loved each other
B. their friends and family had a good time
C.the wedding ceremony was large
D. the bride was charming in white wedding gown

2. Why did the bride ask her husband to write a list of the annoying things?

A. She has read a magazine about marriage.    
B. Her relatives advise her to do so.
C. her husband does have some shortcomings.  
D. She wants to strengthen the marriage.

3. Which of the following words can best describe the character of the groom?

A. Selfish.
B. Good-hearted.
C. Unselfish.
D. Broken-hearted.

4. According to the passage, we know that_____.

A. it's unwise to waste time to seek unpleasant things
B. the husband did not agree to write down the list
C. the bride ignored the feeling of the husband on purpose
D. they didn't love each other as we could see

     Edmund Halley was an English scientist who lived over 200years ago. He studied the observations of
comets which other scientists had made. The orbit of one particular comet was a very difficult mathematical problem. He could not figure it out. Neither could other scientists who dealt with such problems.
     However, Halley had a friend named Isaac Newton. Who was a brilliant mathematician. Newton
thought he had already which he had done it. He told Halley that the orbit of a comet had the shape of an
ellipse.    
     Now Halley set to work. He figured out the orbits of some of the comets that had been observed by
scientist. He made a surprising discovery. The comets that had appeared in the years 1531, 1607 and
1682 all had the same orbit. Yet their appearances had been 75 to 76 years apart.
     This seemed very strange to Halley. Three different comets followed the same orbit. The more Halley
thought about it, the more he thought that there had not been three different comets, as people thought. He decided that they had simply seen the same comet three times. The comet had gone away and had come
back again. It was an astonishing idea! Halley felt certain enough to make a prediction of what would
happen in the future. He decided that this comet would appear in the year 1758. There were 53 years to
go before Halley's prediction could be tested. In 1758 the comet appeared in the sky. Halley did not see
it, for he had died some years before. Ever since then that comet been called Halley's comet, in his honor.

1. Halley made his discovery _____.

A. by doing experiments             
B. by means of his own careful observation
C. by using the work of other scientists
D. by chance

2. Halley made a surprising but correct prediction in the year _____.

A.1704  
B.1705  
C. 1706    
D.1707

3. This text in general is about _____.

A. Halley and other scientists   
B. the orbit of a comet
C. Newton and Halley  
D. Halley and Halley

4. Which of the following is TRUE?

A. Edmund Halley was an American scientist
B. Halley made his discovery by doing experiments.
C. Isaac Newton was a famous mathematician.
D. The orbit of a comet had the shape of an around.

     Henry Ford was the first person to build cars which were cheap，strong and fast．
He was able to se11 millions of models because be could produce them in large numbers
at a time；that is，he made a great many cars of exactly the same kind．Ford’s father
hoped that his son would be come a farmer，but the young man did not like the idea and
he went to Detroit（底特律）where he worked as a mechanic（機械師）．By the
age of 29，in 1892，he had built his first car．However，the car made in this way，
the famous “Model T” did not appear until 1908-five years after Ford bad started his
great motor car factory．This car showed to be well-known that it remained unchanged
for twenty year．Since Ford’s time，this way of producing cars in large numbers has be
come common in industry and has reduced the price of many goods which would otherwise
be very expensive．

1．Henry Ford was the man to built _____ cars.

A．cheap and strong          
B．cheap and long
C．fast and expensive          
D．strong and slow

2．Ford was able to sell millions of cars，because_____

A．he made many greet cars        
B．his cars are many
C．he made lots of cars of the same kind        
D．both A and B

3．The young man became a mechanic，_______．

A．which was his father’s will  
B．which was against his own will
C．which was against his father’s will  
D．which was the will of both

4．The “Model T” was very famous_____．

A．before 1908          
B．between 1982 and 1908 
C．before 1892          
D．a(chǎn)fter 1908

5．Ford built his own car factory_____

A．in 1903      
B．in 1908      
C．in 1913      
D．in 1897