Susan was completely weighed down by the__________of examinations.

A.strength                    B.power                       C.value                        D.stress

One afternoon in January in 1998, Susan Sharp, 43, and her 8-year-old son David, were walking across an icy square, when Susan’s cane(手杖) slipped on the ice. Her face   36  first into the mud. David   37  her mother’s side, “Are you all right, Mom”  38 , Susan pulled herself up, “I’m okay, Honey,” she said.
Susan was falling more   39  since she had trouble walking. Every inch of ice was a   40  danger for her. “I wish I could do something,” the boy thought. David, too, was having   41  of his own. The boy had a speech problem, so at school he talked   42 .
　　One day, David’s teacher announced a   43  homework. "Each of you is going to come up with an   44 ," she said. This was for "INVENT AMERICA", a national competition to encourage creativity in children.
　　An idea   45  David one evening. If only his mother’s cane didn’t slip on the ice. “What if I   46  your cane to a nail coming out of the bottom” he asked his mother.
　　“  47  the sharp end would scratch(劃破) floors,” Susan said.
　　“No, Mom, I   48  make it like a ball-point pen. You take your hand off the button and the   49  returns back up.” Hours later the cane was finished. David and his father   50  as Susan used it to walk 50 feet about the   51 . Happily Susan cried out, “It   52  !”
　　In July 1999, David was  53  national winner for the "INVENT AMERICA". David began to make public appearance. Thus he was forced to communicate  54 .Today, David is nearly free of his speech problem, and his   55  is becoming well accepted.

單詞拼寫（每題1分，共10分）

1.The nurse was busy c__________ the frightened child down.

2.She has an excellent c__________ of Russian, so she can talk with Russians freely.

3.It’s said that Chang’an Street is the longest and s__________ street in the world.

4.His mother finally p___________ him to give up smoking and he no longer smokes now.

5.My car was completely d_________ in an accident, and I have to buy a new one.

6.J_______ from the look on his face, the news must have been terrible.

7.Children from the countryside should have e______ education opportunities as those born in the city.

8.There are two o_______ language in Canada: English and French.

9.Sorry, I didn’t r________ you. You have changed a lot.

10.Susan was u______. Her pet cat, Kitty, was lost last night.

A lazy Susan is an addition to a table that is designed to assist in moving food from one person to another while dining. This is achieved through the use of a turntable (轉(zhuǎn)盤), which usually moves the food in a circle when it is pushed by those at the table. In this way, the food never has to be picked up and passed around the table. Instead, it remains in place on the lazy Susan.

     A lazy Susan may also be a part of a kitchen cabinet (櫥柜). In this sense, the lazy Susan is a type of shelving unit within the cabinet that is able to turn around its axis(軸心) . One may turn the lazy Susan in order to find certain goods in storage. From the outside, a lazy Susan appears to be two cabinets that are located at a right angle (直角) to each another. When one of these cabinets is pushed, however, both doors move and the lazy Susan is revealed inside.

     It is believed that Thomas Jefferson invented the lazy Susan in the 18th century, though it was called “dumbwaiter” at that time. It is said that Jefferson invented the lazy Susan because his daughter complained she was always served last at table and, as a result, never found herself full when leaving the table. Others believe that Thomas Edison was the inventor, as he is believed to have invented the turntable for his phonograph (留聲機). The turntable may have developed into the lazy Susan later.

Regardless of who invented it, it wasn’t until 1917 that the term “l(fā)azy Susan” was used in an advertisement for the invention. In Britain, however, the term “dumbwaiter” is still used rather than “l(fā)azy Susan”. The reason for the naming of it is still a mystery. One theory is that it was named after either Jefferson’s or Edison’s daughter, both of whom were named Susan.

1.What is a “l(fā)azy Susan”?

A. A waitress           B. A convenient tool        C. A table      D. A cabinet

2.According to those who believed Thomas Jefferson invented the lazy Susan, _______.

    A. his daughter was very lazy               B. the lazy Susan didn’t exist until the 18th century

    C. Thomas Edison was his friend         D. Thomas Edison didn’t invent the phonograph

3.We can learn from the last paragraph that ___________.

    A. the lazy Susan can work by itself

    B. the lazy Susan was named after Thomas Edison’s daughter

    C. how the lazy Susan got its name remains unknown

    D. the lazy Susan was invented in Britain

4. The writer wrote the passage mainly to _________.

    A. discuss how the lazy Susan was named     B. teach us how to make a lazy Susan

    C. introduce Thomas Edison’s inventions D. tell us what a lazy Susan is and its origin

In 1995, Susan Boyle went to Glasgow to audition（試鏡）for My Kind of People, a televised talent show popular in the UK. She was immediately rejected. She was nervous during the audition, and felt she didn’t perform well, but her brother said that she was rejected because of her plain looks. Susan was not discouraged and continued to sing at church and at the karaoke nights in a local pub.

Susan suffered a personal loss in 1997, when her father passed away. After his death, Susan put her big dreams on hold to care for her sick mother, Bridget Boyle. The mother and daughter often talked of Susan’s possible fame. Bridget Boyle encouraged her daughter to take part in singing competitions. “She was the one who said I should enter Britain’s Got Talent. We used to watch it together,” Susan later told reporters. “She thought I would win.”

In 1999, Susan used all of her savings to pay for a professional demo（樣本唱片）tape, which she sent to record companies. In 2002, Susan began taking singing lessons from voice coach Fred O’Neil.

In 2007, her mother passed away at the age of 91. A neighbor reported that when Bridget Boyle died, her daughter “wouldn’t come out for three or four days or answer the door or phone”. She lived alone with her cat, Pebbles. For over a year, she refused to sing. But in August of 2008, O’Neil urged her to try out for Britain’s Got Talent. Convinced that the performance would be an honor to her mother, Susan auditioned in Glasgow, Scotland. She sang I Dreamed A Dream, a hit song from the musical Les Miserables（《悲慘世界》）, in the first round of the show, which was aired on April 11, 2009.

The 47-year-old Scottish woman's plain looks provided a sharp contrast（對比）to her powerfully beautiful voice. The performance astonished the audience and the judges. Online videos of her performance totaled over 40 million views within a week. Although she failed to win the final of Britain’s Got Talent, Susan Boyle became globally popular. Her first album I Dreamed A Dream has sold over five million copies.

Bridget Boyle’s attitude towards her daughter’s musical talent can be described as ___.

   A. critical    B. doubtful     C. indifferent     D. confident

From Paragraph 4, we can learn that Susan _____.

A. was slightly discouraged by her voice coac B. entered Britain’s Got Talent to prove her ability

C. decided to give up her singing career    D. was deeply affected by her mother’s death

Which of the following is TRUE about Susan Boyle?

A. Her international fame grew rapidly in 2008. B. Her audition for My Kind of People failed.

C. She has never stopped singing since 1995.  D. She was the winner of Britain’s Got Talent. 

We can infer from the passage that ______.

A. Susan Boyle was convinced by her brother that her plain looks were disadvantageous to her success

B. It was at the age of forty that Susan Boyle established a student-teacher relationship with O’Neil.

C. Susan Boyle was so struck by her father’s death that she shut herself out from the neighborhood.

D. The online views of Les Miserables numbered over 40 million within a week in 2009.

In writing this passage, the author mainly intends to ______.

A. tell us how Susan’s dream come true       B. let us know more about Susan’s personal life

C. show how Susan was influenced by her family D. explain how to enter and win a talent show