任务型阅读
George Dennehy was born with no arms. He never dreamed he would become a musician. But that is what he has become. He was born in Romania. And because of his poor condition, his parents sent him to an orphanage (孤儿院), where George was adopted (领养) by a family in America.
Early on, George’s parents saw musical abilities in him. “When I was 8 years old, my mum took me to have cello (大提琴) lessons,” he said. Though he didn’t really enjoy it, he seldom missed any lessons.
His first teacher helped him be able to play with his feet. Soon he was very good at it. At the beginning of high school, when the cello became “not so cool” to play, George began to play the guitar. “It was a lucky thing to learn the cello first,” he said. This made playing the guitar not so hard.
Playing music hasn’t been an easy road. He was shy at first. “I did face different challenges and didn’t know if I was going to make something of myself,” he said. But these doubts didn’t stop him. Every time he got on stage to play music, he could see how the audience (观众) admired his abilities. This gave him confidence and encouraged him to continue his career.
George said that the secret of his success was being able to overcome (克服). “No matter what situation you’re in, anything is possible. It is so easy to give up sometimes, but we shouldn’t do that. We believe there is more that is meaningful for us,” he said.
Early years | George Dennehy was born1. arms. He was sent to an orphanage. A US family adopted him. |
Learning to play the cello | His musical abilities were2. by his parents and they sent him to learn cello lessons. He seldom missed any lessons, 3. he didn’t really enjoy it. He learnt to play with his4. . |
Learning to play the guitar | George started playing the guitar soon after he entered high school. His experience of learning the cello made learning the guitar 5. . |
The6._ road of playing music | He used to be shy and had to face challenges and had many doubts. Being admired by the audience made him 7. in himself and encouraged him. |
His thoughts of being 8._____ | Being able to overcome is the 9. of his success. Nothing is 10. even if one is in bad situation. |
词汇运用。
1.He went on to learn _____________________(传统的) Chinese music in Beijing.
2.The film _________________(导演) by a new director is full of horror and mysteries.
3.He knew a great deal of information by ________________(控制)the computer.
4.Whose are these bags? They are those __________________(德国人)
5.Yangzhou is a city of great _________________(beautiful).
6.To keep fit, we should change________________ (health) eating habits and take more exercise.
7.You will ___________(require) to do it again if you make many mistakes.
8.The concert will be c_________ live in TV tomorrow．
9.Sadly, the little dog was found ____________(die) nearby the river.
10.You will become interested in art unless you have little ______(intetest)in it.
It was my first day at school in London and I was half-excited and half-frightened. On my way to school I wondered what sort of questions the other boys would ask me and practiced all the answers: “I am nine years old. I was born here but I haven’t lived here since I was two. I was living in Farley. It’s about thirty miles away. I came back to London two months ago.” I also wondered if it was the custom（习惯）for boys to fight strangers like me, but I was tall for my age. I hoped they would decide not to risk（冒险）it.
No one took any notice of me before school. I stood in the center of the playground, expecting someone to say “hello”, but no one spoke to me. When a teacher called my name and told me where my classroom was, one or two boys looked at me but that was all the curiosity my arrival aroused（唤醒）.
My teacher was called Mr. Jones. There were 42 boys in the class, so I didn’t stand out there, either, until the first lesson of the afternoon. Mr. Jones was very fond of Charles Dickens and he had decided to read aloud to us from David Copperfield, but first he asked several boys if they knew Dickens’ birthplace, but no one guessed right. A boy called Brian, the biggest in the class, said: “Timbuktu”, and Mr. Jones went red in the face. Then he asked me. I said: “Portsmouth”, and everyone stared at me because Mr. Jones said I was right. This didn’t make me very popular, of course.
“He thinks he’s clever,” I heard Brian say.
After that, we went out to the playground to play football. I was in Brian’s team, and he obviously had Dickens in mind because he told me to go in goal. No one ever wanted to be the goalkeeper.
“He’s big enough and useless enough,” Brian said when someone asked him why he had chosen me.
I suppose Mr. Jones remembered Dickens, too, because when the game was nearly over, Brian pushed one of the players on the other team, and he gave them a penalty（罚球）. As the boy kicked the ball hard along the ground to my right, I threw myself down instinctively（本能地）and saved it. All my team crowded round me. My bare knees were grazed（擦伤）and bleeding. Brian took out a handkerchief and offered it to me.
“Do you want to join my team?” he said.
At the end of the day, I was no longer a stranger.
1.The writer prepared to answer all of the following questions EXCEPT “_________”.
A. How old are you?
B. Where are you from?
C. Do you want to join my team?
D. When did you come back to London?
2.We can learn from the passage that _________.
A. boys were usually unfriendly to new students
B. the writer was not greeted as he expected
C. Brian praised the writer for his cleverness
D. the writer was glad to be a goalkeeper
3.The underlined part “I didn’t stand out” in paragraph 3 means that the writer was not _______.
A. noticeable（值得注意的） B. welcome
C. important D. popular
4.What can we infer from the fact that the writer was offered a handkerchief?
A. He threw himself down and saved the goal.
B. He pushed a player on the other team.
C. He was beginning to be accepted.
D. He was no longer a new comer.
Everybody makes decisions in daily life. They can be as important as what you will do in the future or as simple as what you will eat for breakfast. Any decision could be the turning point of your life.
I made an important decision when I was in Junior 3.
Before I made that decision I was one of the boys who tried too hard to act as an adult. I didn’t know that only kids want to show themselves as adults.
I didn’t listen to my parents and teachers, and my grades became poor. Then came the high school entrance exam.
At the turning point of my life, my mom wanted to have a conversation with me. I wanted to turn it down but when I looked at her eyes, I felt I couldn’t refuse. Instead of asking me to study hard, to my surprise, Mom just asked what I wanted to do in the future. Without thinking too much, I just said I would like to study hard.
Mom smiled and asked again: “I asked: what do you WANT to do?”
I never seriously thought about the question. So, I kept silent.
“Whether you want to go on studying or enter the society,” she went on, “it is your own decision. Your life ought to be decided by you, not by anyone else, including me. ” After saying that, she had tears in her eyes.
For the first time in my life I was asked to make my own decision. I sat in my chair and thought about myself, my life and what kind of person I wanted to become.
It took me what seemed to be ages to make the biggest decision so far in my life—I wanted to be a man who makes a difference in the world. To achieve that, I needed to study hard.
The path to my future became clear to me. I didn’t act rebelliously(叛逆地) any more. With passion (激情) in my heart, I studied hard.
Now, I’m 17 and I’m in one of the best schools in my city, in one of the best classes at the school and I am one of the best students in the class.
Thanks to that decision, I have become what I am today.
1.When did the writer make the important decision?
A. After he was 17 years old.
B. After he was in one of the best classes.
C. When he was a pupil.
D. When he was studying in Junior 3.
2.What was the writer like before the decision?
A. His grades became poor.
B. He tried too hard not to act as an adult.
C. He was one of the top students in his class.
D. He did what his teachers and his parents asked him to do.
3. Why did the writer make the decision?
A. Because his teacher talked with him patiently.
B. Because he didn’t want to act rebelliously any more.
C. Because his mother asked him to study hard as usual.
D. Because his father asked him to think about his future by himself.
4.Which of the following is TRUE?
A. The writer made the decision that he should work hard.
B. It took the writer several years to make the decision.
C. After hearing his mother’s words, the writer had tears in his eyes.
D. At the turning point of his life, the writer wanted to have a conversation with his mother
Is there intelligent (有智力的) life on other planets? For years, scientists said “no.” or “we don’t know.” But today this is changing. Seth Shostak and Alexandra Barnett are astronomers(天文学家). They believe intelligent life exists (存在) somewhere in the universe. They also think we sill soon contact these beings(人；生物).
Why do Shostak and Barnett think intelligent life exists on other planets? The first reason is time. Scientists believe the universe is about 12 billion years old. “This is long enough for other planets to have intelligent life,” say Shostak and Barnett. The second reason is size—the universe is huge. “Tools like the Hubble Telescope(哈勃望远镜) have shown that there are at least 100 billion galaxies,” says Shostak. “And our galaxy, the Milky Way, has at least 100 billion stars. Some planets going around these stars might be similar to Earth.”
In the past, it was hard to look for signs of intelligent life in the universe. But now, powerful telescopes(高倍望远镜) allow scientists to discover smaller planets—the size of Mars or Earth—in other solar systems. These planets might have intelligent life.
Have beings from space already visited Earth? “Probably not,” says Shostak. “It’s a long way away. However, intelligent beings may contact us in other way, such as radio signals(信号). In fact, they may be trying to communicate with us now, but we don’t have the right tools to receive their messages. However, this is changing. By 2025, we could make contact with other life forms in our universe and we might help each other.”
1.Seth Shostak and Alexandra Barnett are _____.
A. astronomers B. farmers
C. singers D. drivers
2.What is the best title for Paragraph 2?
A. The Age and Size of Earth
B. Our Galaxy: The Milky Way
C. Why Intelligent Life Might Exist
D. Earth: The Only Planet with Intelligent Life
3.Why was it hard to look for signs of intelligent life in the universe in the past?
A. There were not any smaller planets.
B. There were not any powerful telescopes.
C. The astronomers were not interested in them.
D. The Milky Way didn’t exist at that time,
4.Why haven’t beings from space visited us yet according to Shostak?
A. They’re afraid of us.
B. It’s a long way away.
C. They don’t want to see us.
D. They don’t know how to use radio signals.
A man had a little dog, and he was very fond of it. He would pat its head, and take it on his knee, and talk to it. Then he would give it little bits of food from his own plate. A donkey looked in at the window and saw the man and the dog. "Why does he not make a pet of me?" said the donkey. "It is not fair. I work hard, and the dog only wags its tail, and barks, and jumps on its master's knee. It is not fair."
Then the donkey said to himself, "If I do what the dog does, he may make a pet of me." So the donkey ran into the room. It brayed as loudly as it could. It wagged its tail so hard that it knocked over a jar on the table. Then it tried to jump on to its master's knee. The master thought the donkey was mad, and he shouted, "Help! Help!" Men came running in with sticks, and they beat the donkey till it ran out of the house, and they drove it back to the field.
"I only did what the dog does," said the donkey," and yet they make a pet of the dog, and they beat me with sticks. It is not fair."
1.The man liked the dog. He did a lot except __________.
A. patting the dog’s head B. sleeping with the dog
C. talking to the dog D. taking the dog on his knee
2.Which is not the reason why the man treated the dog well?
A. It barked
B. It worked hard.
C. It jumped on the master’s knee
D. It wagged its tail
3.What happened to the donkey at last?
A. The donkey jumped onto the man’s knees.
B. The man liked it as the dog.
C. The donkey was driven back to the field.
D. The men beat it to death.
