閱讀理解

閱讀下列短文，從每題所給的四個(gè)選項(xiàng)(A，B，C和D)中，選出最佳選項(xiàng)。

　　Ralph Wiley was born in 1926, on March 20. There were eight boys and four sisters, yet he says it wasn't a hard life. His father worked in a sawmill (鋸木廠) in the woods. When Ralph was in the fifth grade, the teacher told him to go outside to get a whip (鞭), because she wanted to whip one of the students.

　　He walked outside, got the whip and stood in the doorway with it. “If you want it bad enough,” he told the teacher, “come and get it, because I'm not coming back in.”

　　That was his last day of school.

　　Ralph never did marry. He lived with his brother, Cliff. And he worked on a farm, with fifty whiteface cows.

　　Then he started collecting bottles and cans for the recycling (回收) center.

　　Then his brother died, and Ralph developed diabetes (糖尿病) and lost both legs.

　　Now he lives here in Bradbury Manor Nursing Home, and he likes it. He rolls around in his wheelchair all over the place. He's a happy person who feels life has been goad to him.

　　Why? After all, so many people would feel disappointed if they had never married… If they hadn't finished school… If they were old and lost both their legs and were living in a nursing home. Why does Ralph Wiley feel life has been good to him?

　　“I just do,” he says, “I get in bed by myself. I go to the bathroom by myself. I made my bed myself yesterday.”

　　We all make our own beds, and we all have to lie in them. Ralph has made his exceptionally comfortable. Which is why he shall surely rest in peace.

1．Ralph's childhood must have been ________.

[　　]

2．Why did Ralph leave school?

[　　]

A．Because he made a serious mistake and was dismissed (開(kāi)除) from school.

B．Because the teacher whipped him and he was afraid to go back to school.

C．Because he's unwilling to see cruel punishment happen in the classroom.

D．Because he's tired of going to school.

3．What kind of people is Ralph?

①pessimistic　　(悲觀的)　�、趏ptimistic (樂(lè)觀的)　�、踭imid (膽小的)　�、躢arefree　�、輎rresponsible　�、辦ind

[　　]

4．What is the best title of the passage?

[　　]

A．Life Is Good.

B．From a Child to an Adult.

C．Life.

D．Ralph Wiley.

When Marilynne Robinson published her first novel, Housekeeping, in 1980, she was unknown in the literary world. But an early review in The New York Times ensured that the book would be noticed. “It’s as if, in writing it, she broke through the ordinary human condition with all its dissatisfactions, and achieved a kind of transfiguration（美化）,” wrote Anatole Broyard, with an enthusiasm and amazement that was shared by many critics and readers. The book became a classic, and Robinson was recognized as one of the outstanding American writers of our time. Yet it would be more than twenty years before she wrote another novel. 

During the period, Robinson devoted herself to writing nonfiction. Her essays and book reviews appeared in Harper’s and The New York Times Book Review, and in 1989 she published Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution, criticizing severely the environmental and public health dangers caused by the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in England—and the political and moral corruption(腐敗). In 1998, Robinson published a collection of her critical and theological writings, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought, which featured reassessments of such figures as Charles Darwin, John Calvin, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Aside from a single short story—“Connie Bronson,” published in The Paris Review in 1986—it wasn’t until 2004 that she returned to fiction with the novel Gilead, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, Home, came out this fall.

Her novels could be described as celebrations of the human—the characters in them are unforgettable creations. Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her sister Lucille, who are cared for by their eccentric（古怪的）Aunt Sylvie after their mother commits suicide. Robinson writes a lot about how each of the three is changed by their new life together. Gilead is an even more close exploration of personality: the book centres on John Ames, a seventy-seven-year-old pastor(牧師) who is writing an account of his life and his family history to leave to his young son after he dies. Home borrows characters from Gilead but centers on Ames’s friend Reverend Robert Boughton and his troubled son Jack. Robinson returned to the same territory as Gilead because, she said, “after I write a novel or a story, I miss the characters—I feel like losing some close friends.”

1.Robinson’s second novel came out ____.

A. in 1980                         B. in 1986                          C. in 1998                          D. in 2004

2.What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?

A. Robinson’s achievements in fiction.

B. Robinson’s achievements in nonfiction.

C. Robinson’s influence on the literary world.

D. Robinson’s contributions to the environment.

3.According to Paragraph 3, who is John Ames?

A. He is Robinson’s close friend.

B. He is a character in Gilead. 

C. He is a figure in The Death of Adam.

D. He is a historian writing family stories.

4.From which section of a newspaper can you read this passage?

A. Career.                        B. Lifestyle.     　   C. Music.                           D. Culture.

 

　 For new countries joining the European Union, and other ones getting used to their dark red passports, becoming “Europeans” is a bit like marrying into a large, eccentric(古怪的)family. Europeans have a lot in common but it is their difference, not their similarities, that attract the attention of sociologists(社會(huì)學(xué)家)and market researchers, and are more interesting.

　 ★ 35% of Germans live alone, but only 9%of Spaniards. Perhaps this explains why Spaniards lead Europe in the habit of going out for a drink.

　 ★The British attend more adult evening classes than anyone else in Europe, and the Belgians least. So it can’t just be the dark evenings. There are no figures on how many Britons go for a drink afterwards. If there were, they might be up at the top with Spain!

　 ★The British think black cats are lucky. Every other European country regards them unlucky.

　 ★The Dutch and Germans are greatest caravanners(活動(dòng)房居住者), but the Germans like bigger beds in their caravans.

　 ★The French are the most athletic Europeans. Next come the Dutch. But the Belgians, just over the border, play fewest sports.

　 ★The Germans spend twice as much on heating as the Spaniards. Well, of course they do, it’s colder.

　 ★Dutch husbands do the household shopping a lot more often than Italians or Spaniards.

　 ★The French are the champion public transport commuters(經(jīng)常往返者)of Europe. If you hate commuting, go and live in the Netherlands, where journeys to work are shorter than anywhere else.

　 ★The amount of direct eye-contact between strangers is three times greater among Spaniards than it is among the British or Swedes. Sharing a lift is torture for both the British and the Swedish.

　 ★No European countries really agree with any other about how to make good coffee. All of them are different.

　 There are exceptions(例外)to all these rules. Deal with them in the spirit of my 8-year-old daughter. “If you don’t understand each other’s language, you just laugh a lot, and eat, and point at things.”

1. We can know from this passage that____.

　 A. sociologists are most interested in the idea of European Union

　 B. most European countries are not willing to join the European Union

　 C. Europeans have more differences than similarities

　 D. trade opportunities exist in the cultural differences in the European Union

2. If you work or live in Belgium, you will____.

　 A. have to change your living places often

　 B. seldom see people playing sports

　 C. not get used to its cold weather

　 D. be invited to go for a drink frequently

3. What does the underlined sentence “Sharing a lift is torture for both the British and the Swedish.” mean?

　 A. The British and the Swedish care about their safety most.

　 B. The British and the Swedish like to appear gentle and smart.

　 C. The British and the Swedish hate to look at each other face to face.

　 D. The British and the Swedish enjoy a richer life than others

4. In the last paragraph, the author wants to express his idea that ____.

　 A. his daughter knows well how to understand foreigners in unfamiliar situations

　 B. Europeans actually share the same culture even if they have different languages

　 C. being a European, you will have no living trouble at all in the European Union

　 D. there are differences between European countries, but don’t take it too seriously