I was in my first year of college, making friends and enjoying life, but then my whole world turned upside down. I had a heart attack. It felt like someone was stabbing (刺) me in the chest with a knife over and over again.
After three months of rest I went back to college, but then things took a turn for the worse. I was staying at my Nana’s house and woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible pain in my chest. I knew I was having a heart attack again.
I couldn’t even shout for help. Luckily my grandpa was going to the toilet and heard me falling out of bed. If it wasn’t for him, I probably wouldn’t be here.
The two holes in my heart were causing the problems and I needed an operation immediately to repair them. Unfortunately, the surgery didn’t go well and they only managed to repair one of the holes.
When I woke up from the operation, I had a really dry mouth and couldn’t wait to have something to eat and drink. The biggest shock of all came when I was told that I needed a heart transplant and was put on the register. The doctors were stunned at how quickly heart failure came on – it usually takes years, but it took my heart less than six months to get to that stage. My whole world came crashing down, but I stayed strong. It was a choice between crying every day and getting on with my life.
As time went on, life became even harder. I hated feeling weak all the time and needing help with everything. It got to the point where I thought I would never get a new heart. I was diagnosed with depression.
Even though I thought that Christmas 2008 would be my last, I really enjoyed it and even had a good New Year. Everyone was crying for me when the clock struck midnight and they told me to keep fighting.
A week later, I got a call from the doctors saying they’d found a suitable donor (捐赠人). My wish came true and thankfully the operation went well. I spent four hours in surgery where they took out my old heart and put a new one in. When I woke up I burst out crying. I had a second chance at life.
1.What happened when the author was having his second heart attack?
A. He felt less pain than he had during the previous one.
B. He narrowly escaped death thanks to his grandfather.
C. He realized what it was and shouted for help in time.
D. He decided to have an operation to repair the two holes in his heart.
2.When the author learned that he needed a heart transplant, he ______.
A. chose to continue to fight for his life
B. couldn’t help crying every day
C. felt so depressed that he tried to kill himself
D. was so anxious that his heart failure developed very quickly
3.At the beginning of 2009, the author ______.
A. was convinced that the past Christmas had been his last
B. received a heart transplant but the operation didn’t go well
C. felt blessed and grateful for his second chance at life
D. felt hopeless all the time and was diagnosed with depression
4.Which one would be the best title for the text?
A. Choices matter
B. Rebuilding my world
C. Waiting for a new heart
D. The most special Christmas
For many people around the world, a subway journey means speeding from one dull station to the next, surrounded by too many uncomfortable, impatient people. But on the Moscow Metro, taking the subway is like walking through a national heritage site. Depending on where you get off, you’ll receive a brief course in architectural movements and face colorful glass windows, marble(大理石) columns, gilded(鎏金的) mosaics and painted scenes from Russian history.
“These extraordinarily beautiful places are unlike any metro station I’ve ever seen, “says Vancouver-based photographer David Burdeny.
When Burdeny, who himself has a master’s degree in architecture, first found out about Moscow’s metro stations, he was struck by the work of art. In all, he has photographed 20 of the most beautiful stations.
Burdeny had originally planned to focus on Russian stations more generally, taking photos of examples in both St. Petersburg and Moscow.
“But when I saw the stations in Moscow, they just completely blew away the St. Petersburg ones,” he says.
Shooting in the subway sounds simple, but it is not without challenges. For one thing, Burdeny had to figure out a way to access them between 00:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., when the stations were closed.
In the end, he settled on Arbatskaya Metro Station, whose vaulted(拱状的) arches he found the most beautiful. But it also represented a challenge he was not sure if he was able to overcome: conveying the hugeness of the spaces. The Arbatskaya platform, for example, stretches 820 feet.
“Some of the arches are quite long,” he says. “When you enter them, they’re just so completely grand.”
1.We can learn from the text that David Burdeny .
A. is a world-famous architect
B. took photos of Moscow subway stations
C. took the subway to and from work
D. is studying Russian history
2.What Burdeny found challenging was .
A. when to take photos of Moscow subway stations
B. Whether to work in St. Petersburg or Moscow
C. where to get off to study the Moscow metro system
D. how to photograph the long arches at Arbatskaya Metro Station
3. What does the underlined word “Shooting” mean in Paragraph 6?
A. Firing bullets from a gun
B. Making movies
C. Taking photographs
D. Throwing the ball at the basket.
Do you want to live with a strong sense of peacefulness, happiness, goodness, and self-respect? The collection of happiness actions broadly categorized(把……归类) as “honor” help you create this life of good feelings.
Here’s an example to show how honorable actions create happiness.
Say a store clerk fails to charge us for an item. If we keep silent, and profit from the clerk’s mistake, we would drive home with a sense of sneaky (暗中的) excitement. Later we might tell our family or friends about our good fortune. On the other hand, if we tell the clerk about the uncharged item, the clerk would be grateful and thank us for our honesty. We would leave the store with a quiet sense of honor that we might never share with another soul.
Then, what is it to do with our sense of happiness?
In the first case, where we don’t tell the clerk, a couple of things would happen. Deep down inside we would know ourselves as a type of thief. In the process, we would lose some peace of mind and self-respect. We would also demonstrate that we cannot be trusted, since we advertise our dishonor by telling our family and friends. We damage our own reputations by telling others. In contrast, bringing the error to the clerk’s attention causes different things to happen. Immediately the clerk knows us to be honorable. Upon leaving the store, we feel honorable and our self-respect is increased. Whenever we take honorable actions we gain the deep internal rewards of goodness and a sense of nobility.
There is a beautiful positive cycle that is created by living a life of honorable actions.
Honorable thoughts lead to honorable actions. Honorable actions lead us to a happier existence. And it’s easy to think and act honorably again when we’re happy. While the positive cycle can be difficult to start, once it’s started, it’s easy to continue. Keeping on doing good deeds brings us peace of mind, which is important for our happiness.
1.According to the passage, the positive action in the example contributes to our __________.
A. friendly relationship B. financial rewards
C. advertising ability D. self-respect 21*com
2.The author thinks that keeping silent about the uncharged item is equal to __________.
A. lying B. cheating
C. stealing D. advertising
3.How will we feel if we let the clerk know the mistake?
A. We’ll be very excited.
B. We’ll have a sense of honor.
C. We’ll feel unfortunate.
D. We’ll feel sorry for the clerk.
4.Which of the following can be the best title of this passage?
A. Happiness through Honorable Actions
B. Importance of Peacefulness
C. Ways of Gaining Self-respect
D. How to Live Truthfully
赤峰二中正在举办“The season I Like Best”的英语征文活动，请用英语写一篇短文投稿，内容包括：
1、 你最喜欢的季节； 2、你喜欢该季节的两条理由（如：气候、景色、活动、感受……）。
要求：1、词数120左右；2、行文连贯、语篇完整；3、文中不得透露个人真实信息。
短文改错
When I was a very young children, my father created a regular practice I remember well years late. Every time he arrived home at end of the day ,we'd greet her at the door. He would ask who we was and pretend not to knowing us. Then he and my mother would have had a drink while she prepared dinner and they would talk about his day and hers. While they chat, my father would lift my sister and me up to sit in the top of the fridge. It was both excited and frightening to be up there！My sister and I thought he was so cool for putting us there.
A recent study suggested that taking a bottle of water into the exam hall could help students improve their grades.
According to the study those who brought drinks, 1. (especial) water, with them when sitting their exams performed up to 10 percent better than those who did not.
Comparing their exam results with their normal schoolwork grades, scientists then found that all those who 2. (bring) drinks with them got better grades 3. between 2 and 10 percent.
It is unclear 4. drinking water improves exam results. But scientists say having enough water in our bodies and not feeling thirsty could have a 5. （help）effect on our brains. Drinking water may also cut 6. on anxiety, 7. has a bad effect on exam performances.
Whatever the explanation, it is obvious that students should try hard to keep enough water in their bodies during exams. So next time, 8. you are going to have a big exam, try 9. (bring) a bottle of water with you. Who knows — it 10. help you pass the exam!
