Balzac(巴爾扎克) was a great French writer. But he was very poor before he became famous. He lived in a dirty, wet room and was often worried about food. All his friends were very poor and they could not help him.

  One night it was very cold. The wind blew and it was snowing heavily. Balzac went to bed early but couldn’t fall asleep. He didn’t get any food before he went to bed. He thought and thought, but he couldn’t have a good idea. At midnight he saw a man climb in through the broken window. The man began to steal something on his bookshelf. Balzac got up quietly and said, “Don’t waste time, my friend! I couldn’t find any money in the daytime. How can you find some in the dark?”

1.Balzac was a ________.

A. worker          B. writer            C. doctor           D. cleaner

2.Balzac lived in a dirty, wet room because ________.

A. he was very poor             B. he wanted to live there

C. it was cold                  D. he was a famous man

3.Why didn’t he ask his friends for some food? Because __________.

A. he had no friends

B. his friends didn’t want to help him

C. all his friends were very poor

D. his friends didn’t like him

4.How was the weather that night? It was ___________

A. rainy          B. cloudy       C. sunny            D. snowy

5.Could the thief find any money? __________

A. Yes, he could.                       B. No, he couldn’t.

C. Maybe.                            D. I don’t know.

I wonder whether there is any girl or boy who does not like to see a rainbow in the sky. It is so beautiful.

There is a story, saying that whenever you see a rainbow you should run at once to the place where it touches the ground, and there you would find a pot of gold. Of course it is not true. You could not find the pot of gold or its end. No matter how far you run, it always seems far away.

A rainbow is not a thing which we can feel with our hands as we can feel a flower. It is only the effect of light shining on raindrops. The raindrops catch the sunlight and break it up into all the wonderful colours which we see. It is called a rainbow perhaps because it is made up of raindrops and looks like a bow（弓).

That is why we can never see a rainbow in a clear sky. We see a rainbow only when there is rain in the air and the sun is shining brightly through the clouds.

Every rainbow has many colours in the same order. The first or the top colour is always red, and the next comes orange, then yellow, and last of all, blue. A rainbow is indeed one of the wonders of nature.

1.Children like rainbows because          .

A．they are beautiful

B．they are like bows

C．they can find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow

D．they are good to crops

2.We cannot feel          with our hands.

A．a(chǎn) pot of gold       B．a(chǎn) flower           C．a(chǎn) rainbow         D．a(chǎn) raindrop

3.We can see a rainbow          .

A．when it is raining heavily

B．when it is snowing

C．when it is cloudy

D．when it is becomes fine shortly after raining

4.Which of the following statements is NOT true?

A．A rainbow is like bow.

B．A rainbow is the effect of light shining on raindrops.

C．Every rainbow has different colours in different orders.

D．A rainbow is one of the wonders of nature.

5.The first colour of a rainbow is always           .

A．yellow            B．red              C．green            D．blue