I recently turned fifty, which is young for a tree, midlife for an elephant, and ancient for a sportsman. Fifty is a nice number for the states in the US or for a national speed limit but it is not a number that I was prepared to have hung on me. Fifty is supposed to be my father’s age, but now I am stuck with this number and everything it means.
A few days ago, a friend tried to cheer me up by saying, “Fifty is what forty used to be.” He had made an inspirational (有灵感的) point. Am I over the hill ? People keep telling me that the hill has been moved, and I keep telling them that the high-jump bar has dropped from the six feet I once easily cleared to the four feet that is impossible for me now.
“You are not getting older, you are getting better.” Says Dr. Joyce Brothers. This, however, is the kind of doctor who inspires a second opinion.
And so as I approach the day when I cannot even jump over the tennis net, I am moved to share some thoughts on aging with you, I am moved to show how aging feels to me physically and mentally. Getting older, of course, is obviously a better change than the one that brings you eulogies(悼词). In fact, a poet name Robert Browning considered it the best change of all:
Grow old along with me !
The best is yet to me.
Whether or not Browning was right, most of my first fifty years have been golden ones, so I will settle for what is ahead being as good as what has gone by. I find myself moving toward what is ahead with a curious blend(混合) of both fighting and accepting my aging, hoping that the philosopher(哲学家) was right when he said , “old is always fifteen years from now.”
1.The author seems to tell us in Paragraph 1 that ______.
A．time alone will tell B．time goes by quickly
C．time will show what is right D．time makes one forget the past.
2.When the author turned fifty, people around him ________ .
A．tried to comfort him B．got inspiration with him
C．were friendlier with him D．found him more talkative
3.The author considers his fifty years of life _________.
A．peaceful B．ordinary C．satisfactory D．regretful
4.We can infer from the passage that ________ .
A．the old should lead a simple life
B．the old should face the fact of aging
C．the old should take more exercise
D．the old should fill themselves with curiosity
5.Which of the following statements is WRONG?_______.
A．It’s hard for the author to jump over the six-feet high-jump bar now.
B．The author is optimistic about his future.
C．the author used to think 50 was far away from him.
D．Most elephants live less than 50 years.
When former American President Bill Clinton traveled to South Korea to visit President Kim Young Sam, he repeatedly referred to the Korean president’s wife as Mrs. Kim. By mistake, President Clinton’s advisers thought that Koreans have the same naming customs as the Japanese. Clinton had not been told that, in Korea, wives keep their family names. President Kim Young Sam’s wife was named Sohm Myong Suk. Therefore, she should be addressed (称谓) as Mrs. Sohm.
President Clinton arrived in Korea directly after leaving Japan and had not changed his culture gears. His failure to follow Korean customs gave the impression that Korea was not as important to him as Japan.
In addition to Koreans some Asian husbands and wives do not share the same family names. This practice often puzzles English-speaking teachers when talking with a pupil’s parents. They become puzzled about the student’s correct last name. Placing the family name first is common among a number of Asian cultures.
Mexican naming customs are different as well. When a woman marries, she keeps her family name and adds her husband’s name after the word “de”, which means “of”. This affects how they fill in forms in the United States. When requested to fill in a middle name, they generally write the father’s family name. But Mexicans are addressed by the family name of the mother. This often causes puzzlement.
Here are a few ways to deal with such difficult situations: don’t always think that a married woman uses her husband’s last name. Remember that in many Asian cultures, the order of first and last names is reversed (颠倒). Ask which name a person would prefer to use. If the name is difficult to pronounce, admit it, and ask the person to help you say it correctly.
1.The story of Bill Clinton is used to _____ .
A．improve US Korean relations
B．introduce the topic of the text
C．describe his visit to Korea
D．tell us how to address a person
2.The word “gears” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ______.
A．action plans B．naming customs C．travel maps D．thinking patterns
3.When a woman marries in Korea, she _____.
A．continues to use her family name
B．uses her husband’s given name
C．shares her husband’s family name
D．adds her husband’s given name to hers
4.To address a married woman properly, you’d better ______ .
A．use her middle name B．use her husband’s first name
C．ask her which name she likes D．change the order of her names
5.What can NOT be inferred from the text? ______ .
A．Wives do not keep their family names in Japan.
B．Different countries have different naming customs in some way.
C．Naming custom will not cause any puzzle among Asian countries.
D．The naming custom in Korea is different from that of Japan.
I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent.
I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows (誓约) mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today.
So here’s what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a desire of the next promotion (提升)， the bigger paycheck, the larger house.
Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure (空闲), it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. And realize that life is the best thing and that you have no business taking it for granted.
It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to exist instead of to live. I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my choice, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all.
I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and totally. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a deadly illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.
1.The best title of this passage probably is ________.
A．Love your friends B．Live a real life
C．Don’t waste time D．Be a good mother and wife
2.How did the author form her view of life?
A．By working and social experience
B．Learning from her friends.
C．Through an unfortunate experience.
D．Because of her children and husband.
3.The underlined sentence “It is so easy to exist instead of to live” in the fifth paragraph probably means ______.
A．it is so easy to keep alive but not to live a real life
B．it is very hard to live a real life
C．it is more difficult to exist than to live a happy life
D．it is so easy to make a living
4.What is the author’s attitude toward work?
A．Do it well to serve others.
B．To earn enough money to make life better.
C．Try your best to get higher position and pay.
D．Don’t let it affect your real life.
5.It can be inferred from the passage that ______.
A．the author is a success in personal life
B．the author didn’t try her best to work well
C．the author spent all her time caring for her children
D．the author likes traveling very much
In the clinic, I asked if Michael could be retested, so the specialist tested him again. To my 16 , it was the same score.
Later that evening, I 17 told Frank what I had learned that day. After talking it over, we agreed that we knew our son much better than an IQ test. We decided that Michael’s score must have been a 18 and we should treat him 19 as usual.
We moved to Indiana in 1962, and Michael studied at Concordia High School in the same year, he got 20 grades in the school, especially in biology and chemistry, which was a great comfort.
Michael 21 Indiana University in 1965 as a pre-medical student. Soon afterwards, his teacher permitted him to take more courses than 22 . In 1968, he was accepted by the School of Medicine, Yale University.
On graduation day in 1972, Frank and I 23 the ceremony (典礼) at Yale. After the ceremony, we told Michael about the 24 IQ score he got when he was six. Since that day, Michael sometimes would look at us and say 25 , “My dear mom and dad never told me that I couldn’t be a doctor, not until after I graduated from medical school!” It is his special way of thanking us for the 26 we had in him.
Interestingly, Michael then asked for another IQ test. We went to the same clinic where he had 27 the test eighteen years before. This time Michael scored 126, an increase of 36 points. A result like that was supposed to be 28 .
Children often do as well as what adults, particularly parents and teachers, 29 of them. That is, tell a child he is “ 30 ” , and he may play the role of a foolish child.
1. A．joy B．surprise C．dislike D．disappointment
2. A．tearfully B．fearfully C．cheerfully D．hopefully
3. A．joke B．mistake C．warning D．wonder
4. A．specially B．strictly C．naturally D．carefully
5. A．poor B．good C．average D．standard
6. A．visited B．entered C．passed D．chose
7. A．allowed B．described C．required D．offered
8. A．missed B．held C．delayed D．attended
9. A．high B．same C．low D．different
10. A．curiously B．eagerly C．calmly D．jokingly
11. A．confidence B．interest C．pride D．delight
12. A．received B．accepted C．organized D．discussed
13. A．imperfect B．impossible C．uncertain D．unsatisfactory
14. A．hear B．learn C．expect D．speak
15. A．wise B．rude C．shy D．stupid
Mary is the love of my life. I still remember that I met her ____ the airport ____ a snowy evening.
A．in; at B．at; on C．on; by D．to; before
We talked about the things and persons ________ we remembered in the school.
A．that B．which C．who D．whom
