I have a painfully vivid memory of my first homecoming from college, in December 1983. After three whole months away, I was back home with my brand new opinions, attitudes and tastes. How could they watch such terrible television programs? I, the English Literature major with Shakespeare and Milton and James Joyce, could hardly bear to sleep under the roof of a house whose few bookshelves held thrillers and bound editions of the Reader’s Digest. I’m sure my family was glad to see the back of me when, at the end of the holiday, I packed up my books and headed back up to university in the north of England.
But the next year must have been even more painful to my parents: I didn’t show up at all. Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with young people spending a little time away from their families and with their friends.  It’s part of growing up, something you need to do if you are to become properly independent. However, if you’re not going to be home for the festival, you should at least have the decency to telephone and say you’re not coming.
In English we have an expression, “wet behind the ears.” A person who is wet behind the ears is so immature, that they don’t know how to dry the back of their head after a bath. Just before the following year’s holiday I fell ill, quite seriously so. I’m sure my own behavior contributed to my getting sick: staying out too late, not eating properly—perhaps you know someone like the person I was then. I lay in bed with a fever, feeling very sorry for myself.
I’m sure you can guess who came to my rescue. My long-suffering parents got in their car and sped up the motorway to rescue their son from the consequences of his own irresponsibility.
I hope I’m a better son now; if not, it’s getting a little late in the day if I want to change. I’ve worked in China for nearly 10 years and so I don’t get to see them as often as I like, but my parents are online all the time so we talk many times each week. And this Spring Festival I will be flying back to England for a visit. 
I’m really looking forward to it.
【小題1】What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A．The author liked reading thrillers and the Reading Digest.

B．The author couldn’t fall asleep in a house with few books.

C．The author thought his parents were happy to see him back.

D．The author didn’t seem to share the same tastes with his parents.

【小題2】What can we learn from the second paragraph?

A．The next year the author’s parents were very happy to see him.

B．The author went to see his parents during the second year in college.

C．If you aren’t going to spent an important day with your family, inform them in advance.

D．To leave away from family is not a proper way if you want to gain some independency.

【小題3】If you are a person who is wet behind the ears, you are       .

A．old and experienced	B．young and inexperienced
C．young and experienced	D．mature and experienced

【小題4】We can infer from the last two paragraphs that       .

A．the author thinks he has become a good son

B．the author will be with his family the next Spring Festival

C．the author will not change himself to a better one because it is too late

D．the author keeps in touch with his parents through the Internet regularly

【小題5】What would be the best title for the text?

A．Pleasant memories about Christmas

B．Horrible things happened in the past

C．Interesting memories about Christmas

D．Share with you some of my Ghosts of Christmas Past

The right to pursue happiness is issued to us all with our birth, but no one seems quite sure what it is.
A holy man in India may think that happiness is in himself. It is in needing nothing from outside himself. If wanting nothing, he lacks nothing. We westerners, however, are taught that the more we have from outside ourselves, the happier we will be, and then we are made to want. We are even told it is our duty to want. Advertising, one of our major industries, exists not to satisfy these desires but to create them---and to create them faster than any man’s money in his pocket can satisfy them. Here, obviously someone is trying to buy the dream of happiness and spending millions upon millions every year in the attempt. Clearly the happiness-market is not running out of customers.
I doubt the holy man’s idea of happiness, and I doubt the dreams of the happiness-market, too. Whatever happiness may be, I believe, it is neither in having nothing nor in having more, but in changing --- in changing the world and mankind into pure states.
To change is to make efforts to deal with difficulties. As Yeats, a great Irish poet once put it, happiness we get for a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties.
It is easy to understand. We even demand difficulty for the fun in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. And a game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are man-made difficulties. When the player ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the roles. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to cast away all the rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules.
The same is true to happiness. The buyers and sellers at the happiness-market seem to have lost their sense of the pleasure of difficulty. Heaven knows what they are  playing, but it seems a dull game. And the Indian holy man seems dull to us, I suppose, because he seems to be refusing to play anything at all.
The western weakness may be in the dreams that happiness can be bought while eastern weakness may be in the idea that there is such a thing as perfect happiness in man himself. Both of them forget a basic fact: no difficulty, no happiness.
【小題1】Who shares the same idea of happiness with the author?

A．The Indian holy man	B．The great Irish poet Yeats
C．Advertisers	D．The buyers and sellers at the happiness-market

【小題2】What does “happiness-market” mean in the second paragraph?

A．It means a place in which people can buy things happily

B．It means a market which lacks happy customers

C．It means a pure state for the world and mankind

D．It means a market where people try to buy happiness with money.

【小題3】According to the passage, which of the following is Right?

A．The Indian holy man is much happier than westerner.

B．The westerners understand happiness better than the Indian holy man.

C．There is no fun without playing by the rules

D．Both the eastern weakness and western weakness are the same.

Can trees talk? Yes, but not in words. Scientists have reason to believe that trees do communicate (交際) with each other. Not long ago, researchers learned some surprising things. First a willow tree attacked in the woods by caterpillars (毛蟲) changed the chemistry of its leaves and made them taste so terrible that they got tired of the leaves and stopped eating them. Then even more astonishing, the tree sent out a special smell---a signal (信號(hào)) causing its neighbors to change the chemistry of their own leaves and make them less tasty.
Communication, of course, doesn’t need to be in words. We can talk to each other by smiling, raising our shoulders and moving our hands. We know that birds and animals use a whole vocabulary of songs, sounds, and movements. Bees dance their signals, flying in certain patterns that tell other bees where to find nectar (花蜜) for honey. So why shouldn’t trees have ways of sending message?
【小題1】 It can be concluded from the passage that caterpillars do not feed on leaves that ______.

A．a(chǎn)re lying on the ground	B．have an unpleasant taste
C．bees don’t like	D．have an unfamiliar shape

【小題2】According to the passage, the willow tree was able to communicate with other trees by ______.
　    

A．waving its branches	B．giving off a special smell
C．dropping its leaves	D．changing the colour of its trunk

【小題3】According to this passage, bees communicate by ______.

A．making special movement	B．touching one another
C．smelling one another	D．making unusual sound

Bears and humans often meet in National Parks. Although campers and hikers are warned not to feed the bears, many people ignore these warnings and feed the beasts anyway. When bears are used to people’s food, problems soon arise.
Bears like to eat a large variety of things, both meat and vegetable. Without human assistance, bears live nicely on roots, twigs, leaves of trees, insects and small animals. With people around, the bears’ tastes quickly expand to include sandwiches, hot dogs, hamburgers, and anything else they can temp humans into giving up.
Bears often develop clever strategies for getting people to let go their food supplies. More often than not, an unsuspecting hiker has taken off his or her pack for a rest only to have a bear charge out of the woods, grab the pack and quickly disappear into the underbrush with it. Hanging the pack on a tree branch won’t help. Bears have been known to climb up, jump off, and catch the pack on the way down. One mother bear stretched up with her baby on her shoulders to reach a pack stored on a pole. Many bears threaten people into giving up their supplies. Although a bear is unlikely to attack a person and would probably run away if screamed at, few people are willing to do so. Most people drop the pack and run the other way. This, of course, delights the bear. In some places, the Park Service installed some metal barrels with lids to help campers keep their supplies safe from bears. Although the bears were unable to open these containers, the effort was less than successful. Most campers, unable to tell the metal drums from rubbish cans, never used them for the intended purpose.
【小題1】Feeding bears on people’s food         .

A．brings the people a lot of fun	B．can cause problems
C．often causes injuries and deaths	D．helps bears survive

【小題2】If people had never fed bears, the bears        .

A．might be satisfied with what they had originally

B．would have starved long before

C．wouldn’t have enough food supply

D．would have hunted for other kind of food

【小題3】Which of the following is TRUE?

A．If fed on sandwiches and hot dogs, the bears would no longer eat roots, twigs and insects .

B．It’s likely that bears would hurt people if the people didn’t give up their food.

C．Most people would frighten away the bears that would temp their food.

D．Seeing a pack, the bear would quickly snatch it and run away with it.

【小題4】Bear-proof containers didn’t work because         .

A．bears were clever enough to get the food in them

B．they were left open in the open air

C．people were not sure of their use

D．they were once used as rubbish cans

Linda Evans was my best friend—like the sister I never had. We did everything together: piano lessons, movies, swimming, horse back riding.
When I was 13, my family moved away. Linda and I kept in touch through letters, and we saw each other on special time—like my wedding and Linda’s. Soon we were busy with children and moving to new homes, and we wrote less often. One day a card that I sent came back, stamped “Address Unknown. ” I had no idea how to find Linda.
Over the years, I missed Linda very much. I wanted to share happiness of my children and then grandchildren. And I needed to share my sadness when my brother and then mother died. There was an empty place in my heart that only a friend like Linda could fill.
One day I was reading a newspaper when I noticed a photo of a young woman who looked very much like Linda and whose last name was Wagman — Linda’s married name. “There must be thousands of Wagmans,” I thought, but I still wrote to her.
She called as soon as she got my letter. “Mrs Tobin!” she said excitedly, “Linda Evans Wagman is my mother. ”
Minutes later I heard a voice that I knew very much, even after 40 years, laughed and cried and caught up on each other’s lives. Now the empty place in my heart is filled. And there’s one thing that Linda and I know for sure: We won’t lose each other again!
【小題1】The writer went to piano lessons with Linda Evans        .

A．a(chǎn)t the age of 13	B．before she got married
C．a(chǎn)fter they moved to new homes	D．before the writer’s family moved away

【小題2】They didn’t often write to each other because they        .

A．got married	B．had little time to do so
C．didn’t like writing letters	D．could see each other on special time

【小題3】There was an empty place in the writer’s heart because she        .

A．was in trouble

B．didn’t know Linda’s address

C．received the card that she sent

D．didn’t have a friend like Linda to share her happiness or sadness

【小題4】The writer was happy when she        .

A．read the newspaper

B．heard Linda’s voice on the phone

C．met a young woman who looked a lot like Linda

D．wrote to the woman whose last name was Wagman

【小題5】They haven’t kept in touch        .

A．for about 40 years	B．for about 27 years
C．since they got married	D．since the writer’s family moved away

A woman came out of her house and saw three old men sitting in her front yard. She said, "I don’t think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat." 
"Is the man of the house home?” they asked. "No", she replied, "He’s out." "Then we cannot come in", they replied.
In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened. "Go to tell them I am home and invite them in!" The woman went out and invited the men in. "We do not go into a house together," they replied. "Why is that?" she asked. 
One of the old men explained that their names were Wealth(財(cái)富), Success and Love. Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home." 
The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed and he suggested inviting Wealth to fill their home with wealth. And his wife wanted to invite Success; but their daughter-in-law suggested they should invite Love so that their home would be filled with love. At last the husband said to his wife. "Go out and invite Love to be our guest."
The woman went out and asked the three old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest." 
Love got up and started walking toward the house. 
The other two also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?" 
The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would have stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!" 
【小題1】The best title for this passage would be __________.

A．A Woman and Three Men	B．Wealth, Success and Love
C．A Strange Thing Happened to a Woman	D．A Husband and his Wife

【小題2】The woman asked the three men to come in and have something to eat because _________.

A．she was a warm-hearted woman	B．they were her neighbors
C．they asked her to do	D．they were her friends

【小題3】Who does the underlined word “the man” in the second paragraph refer to?

A．The woman’s son.	B．The woman’s father.
C．The woman’s son-in-law（女婿）	D．The woman’s husband.

【小題4】It can be inferred（推斷）from the passage that __________.

A．The three old men are brothers and they can’t be separated.

B．The husband will refuse them in.

C．The wife will be scolded by the husband.

D．If a person has love, he will own everything.

Some people are lucky enough to be born with a good sense of direction and even if they have only visited a place once, they will be able to find it again years later.
　　I am one of those unlucky people who have poor sense of direction and I may have visited a place time after time but I still get lost on my way there. When I was young I was so shy that I never dared ask complete strangers the way and so I used to wander round in circles and hope that by some chance I would get to the place I was heading for.
　　I am no longer too shy to ask people for direction, but I often receive replies that puzzle me. Often people do not like to admit（承認(rèn)）that they didn’t know their hometown and will insist on telling you the way, even if they do not know it; others, who are anxious to prove that they know their hometown very well, will give you a long list of directions which you can not possibly hope to remember, and still others do not seem to be able to tell between their left and their right and you find in the end that you are going in the opposite（相反的）direction to that in which you should be going.
　　If anyone ever asks me the way to somewhere, I always tell them I am a stranger to the town in order to avoid giving them wrong direction but even this can have embarrassing results.
　　Once I was on my way to work when I was stopped by a man who asked me if I would direct him the way to the Sunlight Building. I gave my usual reply, but I had not walked on a few steps when I realized that he had asked for directions to my office building. However, at this point, I decide it was too late to turn back and search for him out of the crowd behind me as I was going to meet with someone at the office and I did not want to keep him waiting.
　　Imagine my embarrassment when my secretary showed in the very man who had asked for directions of my office and his astonishment when he recognized me as the person he had asked.
【小題1】What is the writer going to do when someone asks him for direction?
　  

A．He will direct the right way to the person willingly.

B．He will reply to it by the means of being a stranger to the town.

C．He will give the very person long list of direction.

D．He is going to show the man an opposite direction.

【小題2】Why did the writer consider himself to be an unlucky dog?

A．Because of his poor sense of direction.

B．Because he always forget the way to home.

C．Because he did not have any friend.

D． Because he used to be shy and dared not ask others the way.

【小題3】How did the visitor feel when he was showed into the very room?

A．He felt strange.	B．He felt embarrassed.
C．He felt very sad.	D．He felt astonished.

【小題4】Who showed the right way to the interviewee according to the passage?

A．Someone we don’t know.

B．The writer did it for himself.

C．The secretary did so.

D．A warm-hearted old lady did itI.

Engineering students are supposed to be examples of practicality and rationality (理性), but when it comes to my college education I am an idealist and a fool. In high school I wanted to be an electrical engineer and, of course, any reasonable student with my aims would have chosen a college with a large engineering department, many famous professors and lots of good labs and research equipment. But that’s not what I did.
I chose to study engineering at a small liberal-arts (文科) university that doesn’t even offer a major in electrical engineering. Obviously, this was not a practical choice; I came here for more noble reasons. I wanted a broad education that would provide me with flexibility and a value system to guide me in my job. I wanted to open my eyes and expand my vision by communicating with people who weren’t studying science or engineering. My parents, teachers and other adults praised me for such a wise choice. They told me I was wise and grown-up beyond my 18 years, and I believed them.
　I headed off to the college and sure I was going to have an advantage over those students who went to big engineering "factories" where they didn’t care if you had values or were flexible. I was going to be a complete engineer: technical expert and excellent humanist all in one.
　Now I’m not so sure. Somewhere along the way my noble ideas crashed into reality, as all noble ideas finally do. After three years of struggling to balance math, physics and engineering courses with liberal-arts courses, I have learned there are reasons why few engineering students try to reconcile engineering with liberal-arts courses in college.
　The reality that has blocked my path to become the typical successful student is that engineering and the liberal arts simply don’t mix as easily as I supposed in high school. Individually they shape a person in very different ways. The struggle to reconcile the two fields of study is difficult.
【小題1】Why did the author choose to study engineering at a small liberal-arts university?

A．He intended to become an engineer and humanist.

B．He intended to be a reasonable student with noble ideals.

C．He wanted to be an example of practicality and rationality.

D．He wanted to communicate with liberal-arts students.

【小題2】According to the author, by communicating with people who study liberal arts, engineering students can ___________.

A．become noble idealists

B．broaden their knowledge

C．find a better job in the future

D．balance engineering and liberal arts

【小題3】 Which word below can replace the underlined word “reconcile”?

A．confuse

B．compare

C．combine

D．compete

【小題4】The underlined sentence in 1st paragraph means ___________.

A．he has failed to achieve his ideal aims

B．he is not a practical and rational student

C．his choice of attending to a small liberal-arts university is reasonable

D．his idea of combining engineering with liberal - arts is noble and wise

【小題5】 The author suggests in this passage that ___________.

A．liberal-arts students are supported to take engineering courses

B．technical experts with a wide vision are expected in the society

C．successful engineering students are more welcomed in the society

D．engineering universities with liberal-arts courses are needed

A young woman carrying a three-year-old child got on a bus. The conductor hurried to give her a warm welcome and then kindly asked the other passengers to make more room for the woman and her child. On seeing this, people began to talk. "You know this conductor used to be very rude. Now suddenly he has changed his bad behavior , "said a middle-aged man.
"Yes, he should be praised and we must write a letter to the company," said a second passenger. "That’s right," another lady said, "I wish a newspaper reporter were here so that more people could learn from this conductor. "
Just then a gentleman who looked like a teacher turned to the conductor and said , "Excuse me, but can I know your name, please? Your excellent service must be praised..."
Before he could open his mouth, the three-year-old child sitting on the young woman’s lap interrupted, "I know his name. I call him Dad."
【小題1】One passenger suggested writing a letter to the com­pany to ______  .

A．make a demand for more buses

B．thank the conductor for his good service

C．criticize the conductor for his rude behavior

D．invite a newspaper reporter to write about the conductor

【小題2】What was the gentleman?               

A．A doctor.	B．A newspaper reporter.
C．Not known from the story .	D．The conductor’s friend from his company.

【小題3】 The word "him" in the last paragraph refers to _______.

A．the gentleman	B．the conductor
C．the middle-aged man	D．the three-year-old child

【小題4】It is clear from the story that the conductor _______.

A．has changed his attitude towards his work

B．has now been kind and polite to all passengers

C．has not changed his rude behavior to passen­gers

D．has now been kind and polite to women with children

When I was about 12, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings(缺點(diǎn)). Sometimes she said I was thin. Sometimes she said I was lazy. Sometimes she said I wasn’t a good student. Sometimes she said I talked too much, and so on. I tried to put up with(忍受) her as long as I could. At last, I became very angry. I ran to my father with tears in my eyes.
He listened to me quietly, and then he asked, “Are the things she said true or not? Mary, didn’t you ever wonder what you’re really like? Go and make a list of everything she said and mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to the other things she said.”
I did as he told me and to my surprise, I discovered that about half the things were true.
I brought the list back to my dad. He refused to take it. “That’s just for you,” he said. “You know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. When something said about you is true, you’ll find it will be helpful to you. Don’t shut your ears. Listen to them all, but hear the truth and do what you think is right.”
Many years have passed. The situation often appears in my mind. In our life we often meet with some trouble and we often go to someone and ask for advice. For some advice you will treasure(珍惜) all your life!
【小題1】What did the writer’s father do after he heard her complaints(抱怨)?

A．He agreed with her “enemy”.

B．he let her continue to put up with her “enemy”.

C．He told her to write down all her “enemy” had said about her.

D．He told her not to pay attention to what her “enemy” had said.

【小題2】The writer felt ______ when she did the things as her father had told her.

A．surprised

B．a(chǎn)ngry

C．disappointed

D．sad

【小題3】Which of the following can we know from the passage?

A．The “enemy” thought the writer was pretty.

B．The “enemy” thought the writer studied hard.

C．The writer and her “enemy” became best friends at last.

D．The writer is grateful to her father.

【小題4】Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A．My Parents

B．A Serious Criticism(批評(píng))

C．What People Say About You Is Always Right

D．The Best Advice I Ever Had