When I was four years old, I wanted nothing more in life than to play the piano. My best friend Betty had a piano. But Betty hardly played it at all. She would rather play hide-and-seek. It didn’t seem fair.
One day my mother came to pick me up from Betty’s house. “Watch this!” I told her. Then I ran to play a song I had learned that morning. I was so proud of what I’d learned. “That’s nice, Jenny,” she said. “But we can’t afford a piano.”
When I turned six, my mother bought me a recorder(直笛). The problem was that I didn’t love the recorder. When I played the recorder, I didn’t feel anything special inside. I asked my mother if we could have a piano. “We still can’t afford one,” she said. “One day, I promise.”
In the sixth grade, my mother traded in the recorder for a real clarinet(黑管). I like the clarinet more, but it still wasn’t a piano. It wasn’t the music that was inside of me.
One day, when I was in the seventh grade, my mother cut an ad out of the newspaper. We drove to a stranger’s home in Providence, Rhode Island. The woman had a beautiful, dark wood piano from Russia. It was called an upright piano because it was tall. It was so shiny that it looked like it was wet. “We’ll take it,” my mother said. “It has a nice sound.”
After that, I played the piano every single day.When I left for school in the morning, I would leave the sheet music open on the piano. When I got home, I would walk straight to the piano and sit down and start playing the sheet music. I even played if I stayed home sick. I had finally found the music inside of me.
Do you struggle with music? Have you been given an instrument to play, but you just can’t play it? Maybe you think you’re just no good or that you don’t have any musical talent. Don’t get discouraged. It’s not true! We all have music inside of us, even if it’s just what we listen to. Now it’s up to you to find the right way to set that music free.
1.What did Jenny get when she was six?
A.A clarinet.
B.A recorder.
C.A violin.
D.A guitar.
2.How did Jenny get her piano?
A.Betty gave it to her.
B.She traded in the clarinet for it.
C.She got it from her uncle.
D.Her mother bought it from a stranger.
3.Which of the following is TRUE?
A.Betty was more interested in playing the piano.
B.An old woman sent Jenny a clarinet from Russia.
C.Jenny enjoyed playing music with the right instrument.
D.Jenny’s mother borrowed a recorder in her seventh grade.
4.What is the passage mainly about?
A.How Jenny found the music inside of her.
B.What benefits Jenny got from making music.
C.How Jenny learned to play musical instruments.
D.What trouble Jenny had taking up music as a hobby.
科目:初中英語 來源:2016屆浙江金華四中、五中九年級5月聯(lián)考英語試卷(解析版) 題型:閱讀理解
I used to watch her from my kitchen window. She seemed so small as she muscled(使勁擠出) her way through the crowd of boys on the playground. The school was across the street from our home and I would often watch the kids as they played during break. I remember the first day I saw her playing basketball. I watched in wonder as she ran circles around the other kids. She managed to shoot jump shots just over their heads and into the net. The boys always tried to stop her but no one could. I began to notice her at other times, basketball in hand, playing alone.
One day I asked her why she practiced so much. Without a moment of hesitation she said, “I want to go to college. The only way I can go is to get a scholarship(獎學(xué)金). I am going to play college basketball. I want to be the best. My Daddy told me if the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count.” Well, I had to give it to her—she was determined. I watched her through those junior high years and into high school. Every week, she led her school team to victory.
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The next year, as she and her team went to the Northern California Championship game, she was offered a scholarship and on the college team. She was going to get the college education that she had dreamed of.
1.The author was probably the girl’s .
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B.Her coach stopped her training because of her height.
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B. They should not give up their dreams.
C. They didn’t know what a father should do for his child.
D. They just did not understand the power of a dream.
4.Which proverb best matches the story?
A.Practice makes perfect.
B.Rome was not built in a day.
C.Where there is a will, there is a way.
D.Pride comes before a fall.
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完形填空
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