When Laura wanted to go into the garden by the back door, it was blocked by servants.
Something had happened.
“What's the matter? What's happened?"
“There's been a horrible accident/ said the cook. "A man killed."
“A man killed! Where? How? When?”
Know those little cottages just below here, Miss?” Know them? Of course, Laura knew them. "Well, there's a young guy living there, name of Scott, a carter His horse shied （受惊）at a traction-engine, and he was thrown out on the back ofhis head. Killed.^
“Dead!" Laura stared at the cook.
“Dead when they picked him up," said the cook. 'Just now they were taking the body home. He'$ left a wife and five little ones.
come here;' Laura caught her sister's sleeve and dragged her through the kitchen into the garden. There she paused. "Jose!" she said, horrified, ''however are we going to stop everything?'
"Stop everything, Laura!” cried Jose in astonishment. “What do you mean?”
"Stop the garden party, of course.Why did Jose pretend?”
But Jose was still more amazed. "Stop the garden party? My dear Laura, don't be so absurd. Of course we can’t do anything of the kind. Nobody expects us to. Don't be so extravagant”
“But we can’t possibly have a garden party with a man dead just outside the front gate.”
That really was extravagant. Those little cottages, those miserable houses, had no right to be in that rich neighbourhood in the first place. When Laura and Jose were little they were even forbidden to set foot there because of the rude language and of what they might see. It was dirty and disgusting.
“And just think of what the band would sound like to that poor woman," said Laura.
"Oh, Laura!” Jose began to be seriously annoyed, lf you are going to stop a band playing every time some one has an accident, you'll lead a very difficult life, I'm every bit as sorry about it as you. But you won't bring a drunken workman back to life by being sentimental（多愁善感的）.”
"Drunk! Who said he was drunk?” Laura turned angrily on Jose, “I'm going straight up to tell mother
Do, dear," said Jose, gently.
"Mother, can 1 come into your mom?" Laura turned the big glass door-knob.
"Of course, child. Why, what’s the matter? What's given you such a colour?” And Mrs. Sheridan turned round from her dressing-table. She was trying on a new hat.
"Mother, a man's been killed,began laura.
“Not in the garden?" interrupted her mother.
“No, no!”
"Oh, what a fright you gave me!" Mrs. Sheridan sighed with relief and took off the big hat and held it on her knees.
"But listen, mother,,, said Laura, Breathless, half-choking, she told the dreadful story. "Of course, we can't have our party, can we?" she begged. "The band and everybody arriving. And the poor family would hear us, mother; they're nearly neighbours!”
“Oh, Laura's astonishment her mother behaved just like Jose; it was harder to bear because she seemed amused. She refused to take Laura seriously.”
“But, my dear child, use your common sense. If some one had died there normally 一 and I can't understand how they keep alive in those little holes 一 we should still be having our party, shouldn't we??”
Laura had to say “yes” to that, but she felt it was all wrong.
"Mother, isn't it terribly heartless of us?” she asked.
"Darling!" Mrs. Sheridan got up and came over to her, carrying the hat. "My child!” said her mother, "the hat is yours. It's made for you. Wow! Look at yourself!And she held up her hand-mirror.
"But, mother, Laura began again. She couldn't look at herself; she turned aside.
This time Mrs. Sheridan lost patience just as Jose had done.
"You arc being very absurd, Laura," she said coldly. "People like that don't expect sacrifices from us. And ifs not very sympathetic to spoil everybody ,s enjoyment as you are doing now,"
"I don't understand,'' murmured Laura. Then, quite by chance, she saw this charming girl in the mirror, in the beautiful hat. Never had she imagined she could look like that. Is mother right? she thought. And now she hoped her mother was right. Am I being extravagant? Perhaps. Just fbr a moment she had another glimpse of that poor woman and those little children, and the body being carried into the house. But it all seemed blurred, unreal, like a picture in the newspaper. I'll remember it again after the party's over, she decided. And somehow that seemed quite the best plan …
1.Laura suggested stopping everything because .
A.something bad had happened in the garden
B.her neighbours were experiencing great grief
C.the servants blocked the back door of the garden
D.she wanted to provide material help for the poor family
2.What does the last paragraph mainly tell us?
A.Laura was trying to submit herself to her family.
B.The news of the carter's death finally hit the headlines.
C.Laura hoped mother was right in choosing that hat fbr her.
D.A poor man's death was little more than an unimportant thing,
3.What will most probably happen following this story?
A.Laura came up with a best plan to solve all this.
B.Laura managed to persuade her mother and sister.
C.The party just continued as planned in the garden,
D.The poor widow came over to scold the band.
4.Which of the following can best describe Laura?
A.Sentimental and persistent. B.Optimistic and easy-going.
C.Considerate and sympathetic. D.Hardworking and open-minded,
5.What does the underlined word “extravagant” probably mean?
A.Too sensible. B.Not practical
C.Too upright. D.Not sympathetic.
6.Which of the following can be the best title of the story?
A.The garden party. B.The quarrel.
C.rhe rich and the poor. D.The death of a neighbour.
When is a media company not a media company? When it’s on the Internet. YouTube and Facebook convey what their users read and watch, and sell advertising next to it. Edited content, financed by advertising? It sounds a lot like the model that dominated media for much of the 20th century. And yet these firms have long claimed to be mere "platforms”，passively hosting content they say they are neither able nor willing to assess. It's true that they are not like traditional media companies. Much of their content is donated by their users; and algorithms (算) not editors, decide what is most worthy of attention. But they are getting more like them every day.
The anger over “fake news” has led Facebook to employ fact checkers, hire editorial staff to control the algorithms, crack down on the spread of junk and invest in tools to help out journalists.
So what kind of media companies are Facebook, YouTube and the rest? Not good ones. Their enormous power to inform, and the huge potential value of forming connections between people around the world, have in fair measure been wasted by prioritising attention-grabbing content 一 regardless of its quality, truthfulness or seriousness, which has made the online content cheap and its tone rude.
The tech giants are now coming under increasing pressure to clean up their acts. Perhaps more exactly, the advertisers have begun to revolt （反抗）：Google and Facebook now take nine out of every 10 new dollars spent on online advertising, although they have been accused of marking their own homework'", making unconvincing and unverifiable （无可考证的）claims about its effectiveness.
Meanwhile, the companies are avoiding responsibility for setting rules over their services. Excuses that the problem is too technically complex are not convincing: their engineers have proven skillful at cracking down on, say, copyright violation when it suits the firms. Nor does a firm position on free speech hold up: history is filled with examples of how a fair balance can be struck. Those have involved dialogue and democratic considerations that social media companies have thus iar mostly disdained （轻视）.They should do so no longer. The firms have enjoyed the privileges and profits of media for long enough: it's time they picked up the responsibilities too.
1.What does the author think of YouTube and Facebook's claim in Paragraph 1?
A.It is unexpected. B.It is absurd.
C.It is practical. D.It is influential.
2.YouTube and Facebook aren't considered as good media companies mainly because of .
A.their low quality content B.their prejudice against morality
C.their being a time-waster D.their lack of control of speech
3.According to the text, tech giants' advertising business .
A.may not actually satisfy advertisers' needs
B.has invited users^ questioning of privacy issues
C.will be cut down to respond to public discontent
D.may not gain profit as ad spending keeps rising
4.In the last paragraph, the author suggests that new media companies should .
A.improve their overall technology
B.abandon the democratic ideal of free speech
C.take responsibility for regulating copyright issues
D.act as a medium despite their Internet background
It looked to all the world like something that might have graced the cover of a 1950s comic book. On September 28th, on a warm Texas evening, Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, a rocketry firm, introduced his company's newest machine, Starship Mkl. It stands 50 metres tall and is made from shiny plates of stainless steel. Despite its name, it is not in fact an interstellar （恒星之间的） spacecraft. But it is a prototype （雏形）of an interplanetary one. Mr Musk hopes, one day, to use its successors to ferry passengers to the Moon or to Mars — or perhaps even, according to one piece of SpaceX concept art, all the way to Saturn （土星）.
In the 17 years since its founding, SpaceX’s cheap, reusable machines have revolutionised the rocket business. The firm's ukra-low prices have seen it seized a dominant share of the commercial satellite-launching market. Along with Boeing, an American aerospace giant, SpaceX is responsible for ferrying supplies to the International Space Station, It may soon fly astronauts there as well. But all of this commercial success is merely a necessary first step in Mr Musk’ bigger plan, which is to make humanity into a "niultiplanetary species" by establishing colonies in the universe.
That is where the Starship comes in. The prototype on display in Texas is only one half of an enormous rocket stack designed with planetary colonisation in mind. When paired with a Falcon Super Heavy booster （助推火箭），which is also being developed, the result should be able of lifting around 150 tonnes into orbit. That would make it the most powerful rocket ever built, superior to the Saturn V, which sent astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s. And unlike the Saturn V, whose three stages were abandoned to the sea or to space as their fuel was used up, the Starship and its booster will be reusable which should keep costs down.
It is a bold plan. Mr Musk's shorter-term plans are bold too. Besides designing a new spaceship and booster, SpaceX engineers are busy working on a new. more efficient engine to power them. Called Raptor, it is designed to bum super-cold methane rather than the kerosene that fuels the company's current Merlin engines. The Starship will sport six Raptor engines. But each Super Heavy booster will need somewhere between 24 and 37. The result will be a repairman's nightmare.
Mr Musk has said, perhaps optimistically, that a Starship prototype might be ready for a test flight all the way to orbit (although without its booster stage) within six months. That would be of a piece with its crazy development schedule. The traditional rocket-building industry is used to generous government contracts that are about job creation as much as rocket creation. However, SpaceX has adopted a different approach, closer to the rapid-fire development practices of the software industry.
The Starship prototype, for instance, was put together in a matter of months. It was built out in the open, rather than in a carefully controlled factory environment. The firm has two teams competing against each other to produce the best design,
1.What is the passage mainly about?
A.Starship Mkl VS Satum V
B.Development of space travel
C.A promising company in the rocket business
D.Starship Mk 1, a new kind of rocket in a sense
2.Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
A.Starship Mkl was designed to beat Boeing and dominate the market.
B.SpaceX aims to realize interplanetary travel and set up space colonies.
C.SpaceX is not dependent on the government's contracts to expand its business.
D.Starship Mkl beats Satum V in that it is recyclable, cost-saving and more powerful.
3.What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 4 probably mean?
A.Repairmen hate working with a powerful rocket.
B.The special fuel is in great demand and not always available.
C.Ifs no easy job to equip the rocket with the engines needed.
D.Too many engines may bring about great trouble once going wrong.
Growing Green Thumbs
Callie’s Kids by Calloway Nursery
Denton, 940/591-8865;
Flower Mound, 972/691-2650;
Lewisville, 972/315-3133.
www. mytexasgarden. com
LEARN: Kids ages 5-12 can explore and plant in the Calloway gardens with a parent/ caregiver^ supervision at 9:30 am on the first or third Wednesdays from June to August. A garden expert will share tips and advice for the best gardening practices during the 45-minute session (beginning on June 2). Preregistration online is required.
COST: Free
Denton Children's Community Garden
2200 Bowling Green Ave., Denton, 940/349-2883.
www.dcmga.com
LEARN: Join the weekend work at the community garden, where caregivers, parents and master gardeners help children of all ages plant new vegetables, water the plants, harvest from the gardens and more. The instructors also lead games about nutrition, good and bad insects and more. 10 am-5 pm on Saturdays.
COST: Free
Coppell Community Gardens
255 Parkway Blvd., Coppell.
www.copp11communitygarden.org
LEARN: Kids of all ages (with a parent? caregiver) can volunteer at either the Helping Hands Garden (255 Parkway Blvd.) or Ground Delivery Garden (450 S. Denton Tap Road). Children will have the opportunity to ill (耕)the ground, plant vegetables, harvest from the garden and more. Master gardeners are available on site; all harvested foods are either sold at the community's farmers5 market or donated to the area food bank. Work begins every Saturday at about 9am.
COST: Free
1.If a child wants to plant in the Calloway gardens, he / she ,
A.must be under fourteen years old
B.can visit www.dcmga.com for more information
C.should work there every Wednesday morning,
D.needs to register online before going there
2.What do Denton Children's Community Garden and Coppell Community Gardens have in common?
A.Both hold activities on Saturdays.
B.Both offer students games about farming.
C.Both donate their harvest to a food bank.
D.Both have an age limit for children.
A funny story happened last week in Brazil. After delivering a program there my wife and I were catching the plane back to our home in Portugal. We entered the_______. passed security and reached the boarding zone... and then discovered that flight had been_______.
I_______ the airline and they told us that the only flight back would be today, four days after the _______flight. I felt my stomach tightening, my hands sweating, and my thoughts _______about our cats, all the professional commitments I had already _______ in Portugal, etc.
I decided to take a___________ and as we were speaking with a security officer to get more _______, I decided, instead of _______, to act with__________ and to ask about his____________.
The security officer's name was Raul, he wasn't__________ his country and this ________and his dream was to become a radio sports anchor, moving to another country. He told us those things in a humorous way__________ guiding us back for several minutes to the check-in desk of the airport. We__________ together, and in the end, I wished him well, and to have strength and luck, etc.
When the security officer left us at our airline desk where a lady was ________ — the flight cancellation complaint, our eyes were shining, and our spirits were________Maybe that was the trigger that allowed us to have __________for the lady at the desk and talk nicely to her, while all the other customers were complaining and screaming; and maybe that was also the trigger that allowed us to get a special ________ back home,________the big majority of customers stayed in Brazil.
1.A.station B.airport C.harbor D.border
2.A.changed B.missed C.booked D.cancelled
3.A.called B.announced C.requested D.checked
4.A.original B.final C.return D.delayed
5.A.flowing B.rushing C.jogging D.floating
6.A.delivered B.transferred C.scheduled D.performed
7.A.breath B.turn C.look D.seat
8.A.permission B.knowledge C.confirmation D.information
9.A.questioning B.panicking C.managing D.struggling
10.A.dignity B.confidence C.kindness D.determination
11.A.holiday B.belief C.story D.trouble
12.A.curious about B.happy with C.Sorry for D.tired of
13.A.house B.friends C.job D.families
14.A.if B.since C.though D.while
15.A.laughed B.searched C.played D.left
16.A.taking care of B.making use of C.going in for D.getting rid of
17.A.broken B.displayed C.lifted D.developed
18.A.affection B.enthusiasm C.suspicion D.sympathy
19.A.present B.connection C.surprise D.experience
20.A.unless B.although C.whereas D.until
— Many thanks for your selfless help.
—_________________
A.You don’t say B.Never mind C.Think nothing of it D.You're too polite
