My teenage son Karl became withdrawn after his father died. As a single
parent, I tried to do my best to talk to him. But the more I tried, the more he
pulled away. When his report card arrived during his junior year, it said that he
had been absent 95 times from classes and had six falling grades for the year. In
this way he would never graduate. I sent him to the school adviser, and I even
begged him. Nothing worked.
　　One night I felt so powerless that I got down on my knees and asked God for
help. "Please God, I can't do anything more for my son. I'm at the end of my
rope. I'm giving the whole thing up to you."
　　I was at work when I got a phone call. A man introduced himself as the
headmaster. "I want to talk to you about Karl's absences." Before he could say
another word, I choked up（哽咽）and all my disappointment and sadness over
Karl came pouring out into the ears of this stranger. "I love my son, but I just
don't know what to do. I've tried everything to get Karl to go back to school and
nothing has worked. It's out of my hands. " For a moment there was silence on
the other and of the line. The headmaster seriously said, "Thank you for your
time",and hung up.
　　Karl's next report card showed a marked improvement in his grades.
Finally, he was even on the list of the best students at school. In his fourth year, I
attended a parent-teacher meeting with Karl. I noticed that his teachers were
surprised at the way he had turned himself around. On our way home, he said,
"Mum, remember that call from the headmaster last year?" I nodded. "That was
me. I thought I’d play a joke but when I heard what you said, it really hit me how
much I was hurting you. That’s when I knew I had to make you proud."

1. Which of the following has the similar meaning as the underlined word "withdrawn" in the  first paragraph?

A. preferred to stay alone at home    
B. refused to go to school
C. refused to talk to others          
D. began to dislike his mother

2. There was silence on the other end of the line because _____.

A. the caller was too moved to say anything to the mother
B. the caller waited for the mother to finish speaking
C. the caller didn't want the mother to continue her talk
D. the caller was unable to help the mother

3. Who was it that telephoned Karl's mother that day?

A. The headmaster.          
B. The school adviser.
C. Karl himself.              
D. The passage doesn’t tell us.

4. From the passage we can learn that _____________.

A. children in single parent families always have mental problems
B. mother's love plays an important role in teenagers' life
C. parents should give their children as much help as possible
D. school education still works well without support from parents

　　Not many years ago, a wealthy and rather strange old man named Johnson
lived 1.a_____ in a village in the south of England. He had 2.m_____ a lot of
money in trading with foreign countries. When he was seventy-five, he gave
￡12,000 to the village 3.s_____ to buy land and equipment for a children’s
playground。
　　As a result of his kindness, many people came to visit him. 4.A_____ them
was a newspaperman. During their talk, Johnson remarked that he was
seventy-five and expected to live to be a 5.h_____.
　　The newspaperman asked him how he managed to be healthy at
seventy-five. Johnson had a sense of 6.h_____. He liked whisky and drank some
each day. "I have an injection (注射) in my neck 7.e_____ evening."he told the
newspaperman, thinking of his evening glass of whisky.The newspaperman did
not understand what Johnson 8.m_____. In his newspaper he 9.r_____ that
Johnson was seventy-five and had a daily injection in his neck. Within a week
Johnson received thousands of letters from all over Britain, asking him for the
10.s_____ of his daily injection.

　　Happiness is for everyone. You don’t need to care about those people who
have becautiful houses with large gardens and swimming pools or those who
have nice cars and a lot of money and so on. Why? Because those who have big
houses may often feel 1.l_____ and those who have cars may want to walk on the
2.c_____ roads at their free time．In fact, happiness is always 3.a_____ you if
you put your heart into it．When you are in 4.t_____ at school, your friends will
help you; when you study hard at your lessons, your parents are always 5.t_____
good care of your life and your health; when you get 6.s_____,your friends will
say congratulations to you; when you do something wrong, people around you
will help you to 7.c_____ it．And when you do something good to others, you
will feel happy,too. All these are your happiness. If you 8.n_____ a bit of them,
you can see that happiness is always around you. Happiness is not the same as
money. It is a feeling of your heart．When you are poor, you can also be very
happy, because you have something else that can't be 9.b_____ with money.
When you meet with 10.d_____, you can say loudly you are very happy, because
you have more chances to challenge(挑戰(zhàn))yourself. So you can’t always say you
are poor and you have bad luck
　　As the saying goes, life is like a revolving(旋轉(zhuǎn)的)door. When it does, it
also opens. If you take every 11.c_____ you get, you can be a happy and
12.l_____person．

     The Golden Gate Bridge joins the beautiful city of San Francisco with suburbs(郊區(qū)) to the north. Each day,
about one hundred thousand cars cross the bridge, taking people to and from the city. More than half of them
cross the bridge during the morning and evening rush hours, as a result, the trip is not pleasant.
     Now, however, there is at least one group of happy commuters(經(jīng)常往返者). These are the people who travel
under the bridge instead of on it. They go to work by boat and enjoy it so much that most of them say they will
never go by car again.
     The boat they take is the large, quiet, comfortable "Golden Gate". Commuters can enjoy the sun on the boat.
In the morning they can have breakfast in the coffee shop, and in the evening they can have a drink in the bar
while they are looking at San Francisco's famous scene and the nearby hills.
     The trip only takes thirty minutes and is not expensive. But best of all, being on a boat seems to make people
feel more friendly towards each other. Two commuters who met on the "Golden Gate" have already got married.
     Because the boat had been so successful, there are plans to use other, still larger boats. There is also a plan
for a high-speed boat that will make the trip in only fifteen minutes. Not everyone is happy about that. "A lot of
people don't want to get the trip faster," said one commuter, "They feel that an hour is just enough to rest."

1. Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge by car is not pleasant because ________.

A. it takes people 30 minutes
B. the Golden Gate Bridge is very long
C. the bridge is crowded with bikes, cars, buses and trucks all the time
D. most of the car owners can not enjoy the beauty of San Francisco

2. In the future, ________.

A. larger boats will be used to carry commutes
B. a big coffee shop will be built
C. more and more people will get married on the boat
D. people will all go to work by boat

3. Many people don't like the new idea for a high-speed boat because ________.

A. they don't want to go to work earlier
B. they like to stay on the boat
C. there will be more people on the boat
D. they won't have enough time to rest

     Some teenagers think that newspapers are boring and only for adults. But that's not true. There are
many interesting stories in the paper. You just need to make clear what you are looking at. "I spend
about half an hour reading newspapers every day," said 15-year-old Gao Ming from Beijing. "I'm
interested in things happening at school." School news is just one kind of news story in newspapers.
There's also world news: from international problems to pop stars.
     Read the newspaper carefully, we'll find different types of articles on the pages:
     News stories - these stories are about events. Reporters try to show all points of a story to help
readers understand what happened. Reporters try to speak to as many people as possible. They also
use pictures and numbers to show the readers that the stories are true. The newspaper Teenagers has
lots of news stories on the news page and front page. When we read them, we learn more about the
facts, not the writers' ideas.
     Opinion writing - opinion writing is usually about something happening right now. But it isn't just facts.
Here writers add their own opinions to the news. Writers pick only the facts that help back up their
ideas. They make readers believe that they are telling the truth. This is usually the kind of story that gets
people thinking. Go to "Speak Out" on Page Two for an example of opinion writing in Teenagers.
     Advertisement - Don't get happy too early when you read them. Those sweet words and lovely
pictures are just ways to get us interested in their products! People have to pay to put advertisements in
newspapers!
1. The underlined sentence means that the readers "_______".
A. should understand interesting news stories      
B. ought to know which kind of things to read
C. need to look at the school news first      
D. must know the contents of all the news
2. This passage mainly discusses how _______.
A. reporters write different kinds of news  
B. teenagers get interested in newspapers
C. readers can read newspapers in better ways
D. readers can't read different news in newspapers

                                             Come And Join Us!
      We warmly welcome you to the Shine Sports Centre!
      All the young people in this city can become members of the Shine Sports Centre and each member
should pay $10 every year. To be a member of us and get your membership card(會員卡),you need to
come to us between 2 pm and 6 pm, Monday to Thursday. I have to tell you that we don't accept new
members on Friday. Now, there are three things that you must remember to bring with you when you
come for a membership card. They are your ID card, a recent passport-sized photo of yourself and the
money. We can't give you the card unless you bring all three.
      Once you have got your membership card, you need to bring with you whenever you come to book
or use any Shine Sports Centre facilities(設(shè)備).Booking over the phone is not allowed, so you have to
come here with your card when you want to book. There is one more thing I have to tell you. Our opening hours is from 9 am to 10 pm on weekdays and from 10 am to 6 pm on weekends. We hope that every
member can have a great time in the Shine Sports Centre.

1. You can use the facilities in the Shine Sports Centre at_______.        

A. 9 am on Sunday                
B. 5 pm on Wednesday  
C. 7 am on Thursday              
D. 9 am on Saturday

2. You and your classmate have to spend ______.on the membership card for two years.

A. $10          
B. $20              
C. $30              
D. $40

3. What does the underlined word "book" mean in Chinese in this passage?  

A. 書            
B. 賬冊            
C. 預(yù)定            
D. 記錄

4. Which of the following is TRUE?

A. All people have the chance to be members of the Centre.
B. You can get the membership card at 6 o'clock in the morning.
C. You can't book the facilities over the telephone.
D. You don't need to bring the membership card when you need to use the facilities.

5. Who is the advertisement written for?

A. Young people.  
B. Old people.        
C. Couples.      
D. Little kids.

       Honesty comes in many forms. First there's self-honesty. Is what people see the real article or do
you appear through smoke and mirrors? I find that if I try to be something I'm not, I feel unsure of myself
and take out a part from my PBA (personal bank account). I love how singer Judy Garland put (表述) it, "Always be a first-class version (版本) of yourself, instead of a second-class version of somebody else."
       Then there's honesty in our actions. Are you honest at school, with your parents, and with your boss? If you've ever been dishonest, I think we all have, try being honest, and notice how whole it makes you
feel. Remember, you can't go wrong and feel right. This story by Jeff is a good example of that:
       In my second year of study, there were three kids in my math class who didn't do well. I was really good at it. I would charge them three dollars for each test that I helped them pass. I'd write on a little piece of paper all the right answers, and hand them off.
       At first I felt like I was making money, kind of a nice job. I wasn't thinking about how it could hurt all of us. After a while I realized I shouldn't do that anymore, because I wasn't really helping them. They weren't learning anything, and it would only get harder down the road. Cheating certainly wasn't helping me.
       It takes courage to be honest when people all around you are getting away with cheating on tests,
lying to their parents, and stealing at work. But, remember, every act of honesty is a deposit (儲蓄) into
your PBA and will build strength.

1. The underlined part 'appear through smoke and mirrors' in the first paragraph means______.

A. to be honest              
B. to be unreal    
C. to become clear          
D. to come from an imagined world

2. Which of the following can best explain Judy Garland's words?

A. Be your true self rather than follow others.
B. Don't copy others or you can't be the first class.
C. Make efforts to be the first instead of the second.
D. Don't learn from others unless they're excellent.

3. What does the author expect to show by Jeff's story?

A. Honesty can be of great help.  
B. A bad thing can be turned into a good one.
C. Helping others cheat can do good to them.
D. One should realize the wrong in his bad actions.

4. In the last paragraph the author mainly wants to express _______.

A. one must be brave to be honest    
B. it's difficult to be honest when others are not
C. one should be honest when making a deposit
D. honesty in one's actions can help him in the future

     In the days when most work was done by h______(1), there was not much time for fun. Even c______(2)
sometimes worked 15 or 16 hours a day. For adults eight hours is now the ordinary(普通) work day. For boys
and girls school l______(3) only about six hours a day, and there is a long summer vacation. A______(4)
everyone has a lot of time to spend as he pleases. Much spare time is now s______(5) on hobbies. A hobby
is doing something just for fun of it.
     Doctors tell us that being very much i______(6) in something helps our minds stay well. It is good, therefore,
for a person to have a hobby. Of course, he m______(7) have more than one. When a child goes to a new school,
or when a grown person w______(8) a new job, he often has to answer a long list of questions. His answer
t______(9) a lot about what kind of person he is.
     One of the question is s______(10) to be, "What are your hobbies?"