Two farmers were on their way home one evening after a hard day's work. Both were tired. They
happened to look up at the sky and saw a black cloud overhead.
     "Ah!" said one farmer, "tomorrow we shall have rain and the rice will grow well." The second
answered, "Nonsense (胡說), the rain will only kill the crops (莊稼)."
      So they began to quarrel (爭吵). Just then a third farmer came along and asked them why they were
quarreling. Both farmers explained about the black cloud.
      "What cloud?" asked the third farmer. They all looked at the sky. The cloud was no longer there.

1. The two farmers were _____.

[     ]

A. going home
B. going to the field
C. going to work
D. going to see their friend

2. The two farmers _____ on that day.

[     ]

A. had a holiday
B. didn't work
C. worked hard
D. wanted to quarrel with each other

3. When there are black block clouds in the sky, _____.

[     ]

A. it will rain soon
B. it will be fine
C. it will get hot
D. the sun is shining brightly

4. The two farmers fought in words because _____.

[     ]

A. they were hungry
B. it rained
C. one said the rain would do good to the crops and the other didn't think so
D. they both hoped for rain

5. The third farmer came with and said to the other two. He _____.

[     ]

A. wanted to make friends with them
B. joined them in the quarrel
C. wanted to know why they were quarreling
D. had nothings to do

6. How many farmers said that the rain would be helpful?

[     ]

A. None
B. One
C. Two
D. Three

　Once Effendi had a joke with the Prime Minister (宰相). He said that the Minister would die the next day.
The next day, the Minister fell to the ground from the horse and really died. When the king learned this, he
got angry and sent his men to catch Effendi at once. 　　
    When Effendi was brought to him, the king shouted angrily, "Effendi, since (既然) you knew when my
Minister would die, you must know the date of your own death (死). Say it out, or you'll die today." 　　
    Effendi looked at the king for a while. Then he answered, "But how can I know? I'll die two days earlier
than you." The king was afraid that if he killed Effendi, he himself would die after that. He thought he must
keep Effendi alive (活著) as long as possible, so he let Effendi go.

1. This story tells us ______.

[     ]

A. how Effendi fooled (愚弄) the king 　　
B. when the king would die 　　
C. why the Minister died 　　
D. Effendi knew the dates of everyone's death

2. The Prime Minister died because ______.

[     ]

A. Effendi killed him 　　
B. Effendi said he would die 　　
C. He was badly ill 　 　
D. He fell off the horse

3. Why did the king ask Effendi to tell him the date of Effendi's own death?

[     ]

A. Because the king wanted to know when he himself would die. 　　
B. Because the wanted to find an excuse to kill Effendi. 　　
C. Because he himself had known the date of Effendi's death. 　　
D. Because he wanted to know when Effendi would die.

4. The king let Effendi go because ______.

[     ]

A. he hoped to live a long life 　　
B. he was afraid of Effendi 　　
C. he didn't believe (相信) Effendi's words 　　
D. He knew he would die two days later

5. Which of the following is not true?

[     ]

A. Effendi played a joke on the Minister 　　
B. The king was afraid of death. 　　
C. Effendi didn't know when the king would die.
D. If the king killed Effendi, he himself would die two days later.

                                                       The Artist and the Beggar (1) 
    An artist was coming home by train one day. He hadn't much money but was very kind. He gave his last
few coins(2) to a beggar, but he saw another one, and forgot that he didn't have any money in his pockets.
He asked the man if he liked to have lunch with him, and the beggar, of course, agreed. So they went into a
small restaurant and had a good meal.
    In the end, the artist could not pay the bill (3), and the beggar had to do so. The artist felt very sorry for it,
so he said to the beggar, "Come home with me in a taxi, my friend. And I'll give you the money for our lunch."
"Oh, no!" the beggar answered quickly. "I had to pay for your lunch, but I'm not going to pay for your taxi
home!"
Notes: (1)beggar n. 乞丐 (2)coin n. 硬幣 (3)bill n. 帳單

1. What kind of man was the artist? 　　
                                                                                                                                  
2. What did he do to the first beggar? 　　
                                                                                                                                  
3. What did the artist forget when he invited another beggar to have lunch with him? 　　
                                                                                                                                  
4. Who paid for the meal? 　　
                                                                                                                                  
5. What did the artist want to do at last? 　
　                                                                                                                               
6. Why didn't the beggar go home with the artist?
                                                                                                                                  

                                                               A Trip to the Forest
    One day Bob took two of his friends into the mountains. They put up their tents and then rode off to a
forest to see how the trees were growing.
    In the afternoon when they were about ten kilometres from their camp (營地), it started to snow. More
and more snow fell. Soon Bob could hardly see his hands before his face. He could not find the road. Bob
knew there were two roads. One road went to the camp, and the other went to his house. But all was white
snow. Everything was the same. How could he take his friends back to the camp?
    Bob had an idea. The horses! Let the horses take them back! But what would happen if the horses took
the road to his house? That would be a trip of thirty-five kilometres in such cold weather!
    It was getting late. They rode on and on. At last the horses stopped. Where were they?
    None of them could tell. John looked around. What was that under the tree? It was one of their tents!

1. John and his two friends went to the forest to ______.

A. build their camp
B. find their way home
C. enjoy the mountains in the snow
D. watch the trees in the forest

2. They could not find their way back because ______.

A. there was only one road to their camp
B. they couldn't decide which of the two roads led to their tents
C. there were no roads in the mountains at all
D. everything was covered by the white snow

3. It is clear that they wanted the horses to take them to ______.

A. John's house
B. the camp
C. the forest
D. the mountains

4. The horses stopped because ______.

A. it was getting late
B. they were tired after running for a long way
C. they knew that they had got to the camp
D. they had seen John's house

5. The story happened ______.

A. on a cold winter day
B. on a dark snowy evening
C. in a cold camp far from villages
D. at night when nothing could be seen

    I was 9 years old when I found out my father was ill. It was 1994, but I can remember my mother's
words as if it were yesterday:"Kerrel, I don't want you to take food from your father, because he has
AIDS. Be very careful when you are around him."
    AIDS wasn't something we talked about in my country when I was growing up. From then on, I knew
that this would be a family secret (秘密). My parents were not together anymore, and my dad lived alone.
For a while, he could take care of himself. But when I was 12, his condition worsened. My father's other
children lived far away, so it fell to me to look after him.
    We couldn't afford all the necessary medication (治療) for him, and because Dad was unable to work,
I had no money for school supplies and often couldn't even buy food for dinner. I would sit in class feeling
completely lost, the teacher's words muffled as I tried to figure out how I was going to manage.
    I did not share my burden (反應) with anyone, I had seen how people reacted to AIDS. Kids laughed at
classmates who had parents with the disease. And even adults (成人) could be cruel (殘酷). When my
father was moved to the hospital, the nurses would leave his food on the bedside table even though he was
too weak to feed himself.
    I had known that he was going to die, but after so many years of keeping his condition a secret, I was
completely unprepared when he reached his final days. Sad and hopeless, I called a woman at the nonprofit
National AIDS Support. That day, she kept me on the phone for hours. I was so lucky to find someone
who cared. She saved my life.
    I was 15 when my father died. He took his secret away with him. He had never spoken about AIDS to
anyone, even me. He didn't want to call attention to AIDS. I do.

1. What does Kerrel tell us about her father?

A. He had stayed in the hospital since he fell ill.
B. He depended on the nurses in his final days.
C. He worked hard to pay for his medication.
D. He told no one about his disease.

2. What can we learn from the underlined sentence?

A. Kerrel couldn't understand her teacher.
B. Kerrel had special difficulty in hearing.
C. Kerrel was too troubled to focus on the lesson.
D. Kerrel was too tired to hear her teacher's words.

3. Why did Kerrel keep her father's disease a secret?

A. She was afraid of being looked down upon.
B. She thought it was shameful to have AIDS.
C. She found no one willing to listen to her.
D. She wanted to obey her mother.

4. Why did Kerrel write the passage?

A. To tell people about the sufferings of her father.
B. To show how little people knew about AIDS.
C. To draw people's attention to AIDS.
D. To remember her father.

    When Ben Franklin was only a child, he always wanted to know about things. He was asking his father
and brothers "what" and "why".
    They couldn't always tell him what he wanted to know. When they couldn't tell him, Ben tried to find
out for himself.
    Many years Ben did find out things that no one knew before. The other boys would say, "That Ben
Franklin! He is always finding out something new."
    Ben lived close to the water. He liked to go there to see the boats. He saw how the wind blew them
across the water.
    One day Ben said to himself, "Why can't the wind help me float across the water? And I am going to try."
Ben got his big kite. He took hold of the kite string and ran with it. The wind took the kite up into the air.
Then Ben jumped into the water. The wind blew the kite high into the air. Ben began to float across the
water. Soon he was on the other side, and he had not worked at all.
    One boy shouted, "Look at Ben floating across the water! His kite takes him to the other side without
work!"
    "Yes," said another, "he is always finding new ways to do things."

1. When he was only a boy, Ben            .

A. liked to fly a kite by himself
B. always asked long questions
C. always liked to play with water
D. always liked to find out how things worked

2. Ben Franklin floated across the water by             taking him across it.

A. another boy
B. the water
C. the flying kite
D. a boat

3. He found out many things that            .

A. children didn't know
B. his father and brothers knew
C. people didn't know
D. most people knew

4. The underlined sentence "he had not worked at all" in the passage means            .

A. he worked hard to cross the water
B. he didn't go to work that day
C. he didn't cross the water at all
D. he crossed the water in an easy way

    Jean is bright a young woman who comes from a rich and famous family. She goes to a good university
and has everything that money can buy. Well, almost everything. The problem is that the people in Jean's
family are so busy that they can hardly find time to be with her. In fact, Jean is quite lonely.
    So Jean spends a lot of her time on QQ. She likes being anonymous (不知姓名的,名字不公開的), talking
to people who do not know about her famous family and her rich life. She uses the name Linda on QQ and
has made a lot of friends who she contacts quite often.
    Last year Jean made a very special friend on QQ. His name was David and he lived in San Francisco.
David was full of stories and jokes. He and Jean had a common interest in rock music and modern dance.
So it always took them hours to talk happily on QQ and sometimes they even forgot the time. Of course,
they wanted to know more about each other. David sent a picture of himself: He was a tall, good-looking
young man with big, happy smile. As time went by, they became good friends and often sent cards and
small things to each other.
    When Jean's father told her that he was going on business trip to San Francisco, she asked him to let her
go with him, so that she could give David a surprise for his birthday. She would take him the latest DVD of
their favorite rock singer. But when Jean knocked on David's door in San Francisco, she found that the
special friend she had written to was a twelve-year-old boy named Jim.

1. Jean spends a lot of her time on QQ because she is _____.

A．rich
B．famous
C．young
D．lonely

2. Jean thought "David" was special because _____.

A．"David" made her quite happy on QQ
B．"David" was from San Francisco
C．"David" sent her a picture of himself
D．"David" was tall, good-looking

3. When Jean and "David" met and introduced themselves to each other, who felt surprised?

A．"David".
B．Both "David" and Jean.
C．Jean.
D．Neither "David" nor Jean.

4. Which of the following is true?

A．Jean has got everything in her life.
B．Both "David" and Jean enjoy rock music.
C．"David" didn't tell Jean his real address.
D．Jean's family members often get together.

5. What's the main idea of this passage?

A．Don't believe those you get to know on QQ so easily.
B．People don't use their real names on QQ so often.
C．Don't go to meet those you get to know on QQ.
D．People should tell their real names to others on QQ.

                                     The Time Capsule (箱子) of Colorado Springs
     In 1901, the citizens of Colorado Springs in the USA decided to collect every day items (物品) and to
seal (密封) them in a steel box. The box was marked "To be opened after midnight, December 31st, AD
2000", and was stored in the Colorado College library.
     One hundred years later, on the appointed (約定的) day, 300 people gathered to watch the opening of
the box. Many in the crowd were the descendants (后代) of people who had placed things inside the box.
     When the box was opened after midnight, the contents (所容納的東西) were in very good condition.
There were newspapers, photographs, diaries, name cards, family trees, books and dozens of letters,
including one written by Theodore Roosevelt, who became the president of the USA later that year. One
of Roosevelt's friends lived in Colorado Springs at that time.
     Many of the letters were addressed to their descendants. They describe (描述) the hopes that the people
of 1901 had for the people of the next century. At that time, Colorado Springs had just a few thousand
residents (居民). Now nearly half a million people live there.
     Colorado College Library has scanned (掃描) the materials and put them on a website. Cecil Muller,
whose grandfather had placed a collection of post-cards in the box, said that the time capsule was a great
treasure. "This is a wonderful educational resource. We can learn so much about our history," he said. "I
never knew my grandfather, but not now I feel very close to him."
     In April 2001, a committee filled the time capsule with items from modern Colorado Springs and resealed
it for another hundred years.

1. A "time capsule" is            .

A．a collection of clocks and watches.
B．a machine for traveling through time.
C．a collection of items for people to look at in the future.
D．a collection of unwanted items.

2. The time capsule was opened on            .

A．December 31st, 2000.
B．December 31st, 2001.
C．January lst, 2000.
D．January lst, 2001

3. According to the passage, the crowd who watched the opening of the time capsule included            .

A．some people whose ancestors had put items in the box.
B．some people who had put items in the box.
C．the President of the USA.
D．Cecil Muller's grandfather.

4. Many of the letters in the time capsule talked about            .

A．the history of the town
B．the people who lived in the town.
C．the politics of the USA.
D．people's hopes for the future.

5. Cecil Muller says that the time capsule             .

A．brings back his memories of his grandfather.
B．is worth a lot of money.
C．helps him to get to know his grandfather.
D．helps him to remember his younger days.