Yesterday evening I was watching the evening news on TV. The news was about a prize for scientific
discoveries. The 1 said something that caught my 2 . "All great discoveries," he said, "are made by people
between the ages of 25 and 30." Being a little over 30 myself, I wanted to 3 with him. Nobody wants to
think that he has passed the age of making any 4 . The next day I went to the public library, spending
several hours, and 5 to find the ages of famous people and their discoveries. The announcer was right!
First, I looked at some of the 6 discoveries. One of the earliest, the famous one that 7 that bodies
of different weights 8 at the same speed, was made by Galileo when he was 26. Madam Curie started
her research that led to a Nobel Prize when she was 28. Einstein was 26 when he 9 his world-changing
Theory of Relativity. Well, 10 of that. Yet I wondered if those "best years" were true in other 11 .
Then how about this in 12 ? Surely it needs the wisdom of 13 to make a good leader. Perhaps it
does, but look when these people 14 their careers. Winston Churchill was elected to the House of
Commons at the age of 26. Abraham Lincoln 15 the life of a country lawyer and was elected to the
government at what age? Twenty-six!
But why don"t best years come after 30? After 30, I 16 , most people don"t want to take risks or try
new ways. Then I thought of people 17 Shakespeare and Picasso. The 18 was writing wonderful 19
at the late age of 50, 20 the latter was still trying new ways of painting when he was 90!
Perhaps there is still hope for me. |
( )1. A. announcer
( )2. A. mind
( )3. A. disagree
( )4. A. chance
( )5. A. happened
( )6. A. last
( )7. A. found
( )8. A. disappear
( )9. A. invented
( )10. A. plenty
( )11. A. fields
( )12. A. election
( )13. A. age
( )14. A. finished
( )15. A. led
( )16. A. guess
( )17. A. as
( )18. A. first
( )19. A. painting
( )20. A. when | B. conductor
B. care
B. talk
B. discovery
B. wanted
B. scientific
B. proved
B. move
B. improved
B. enough
B. science
B. politics
B. brain
B. won
B. devoted
B. know
B. to be
B. writer
B. idioms
B. while | C. speaker
C. attention
C. meet
C. research
C. succeeded
C. oldest
C. doubted
C. drop
C. published
C. much
C. courses
C. leaders
C. living
C. started
C. began
C. believe
C. like
C. poet
C. fiction
C. who | D. hostess
D. surprise
D. advise
D. fortune
D. managed
D. modern
D. showed
D. fall
D. made
D. all
D. ages
D. society
D. leadership
D. defeated
D. gave up
D. agree
D. about
D. former
D. works
D. after | | 完形填空。 | Last night, I was waiting for a taxi. After 5 minutes, I was 1 . The driver seemed to be angry. I asked him what the 2 was. He said he had just come from the airport without a 3 , which was basically $70 in lost
fare.
Over the course of that ride, the anger slowly 4 . He mentioned he had read an article saying the 5
people are the ones that give, so he hoped he"d have more 6 to give in his life. I was starting to 7 being
with him! We continued talking about why 8 is so beneficial both to the giver and the receiver and different ways to 9 it.
As we arrived at my destination, I 10 my fare. But I pulled out an extra $20 and said, "Since we"ve been talking about giving this whole time, I wanted to share that 11 with you. I"ve already paid my fare, but here"s an extra little bit. You can 12 it, since you"re already down $70 from the airport. But if you want to
experience the 13 of the gift, then tell the next passenger in this taxi that their ride is a gift from another
and they can 14 their gratitude in whatever way."
The man turned toward me, tears in his eyes, and said, "Sir, I have a better 15 . You give that $20 to a
16 person around here and I"ll treat the next passenger with a 17 ride myself."
Wow. This man was 18 10 minutes ago. I got out and walked around trying to find someone who
needed help 19 heading to my destination.
It was an honor meeting that driver and 20 the lesson of how everyone is capable of giving. | ( )1. A. gotten off
( )2. A. question
( )3. A. friend
( )4. A. died out
( )5. A. happiest
( )6. A. kindness
( )7. A. mind
( )8. A. collecting
( )9. A. practise
( )10. A. printed
( )11. A. adventure
( )12. A. refuse
( )13. A. direction
( )14. A. share
( )15. A. gift
( )16. A. homeless
( )17. A. long
( )18. A. bored
( )19. A. after
( )20. A. learning | B. put down
B. time
B. stranger
B. appeared
B. poorest
B. chances
B. stop
B. giving
B. explain
B. recorded
B. information
B. raise
B. power
B. earn
B. idea
B. native
B. comfortable
B. tired
B. before
B. preparing | C. called up
C. problem
C. driver
C. died down
C. richest
C. suggestions
C. allow
C. receiving
C. watch
C. paid
C. language
C. keep
C. weight
C. forget
C. opinion
C. nice
C. free
C. rude
C. when
C. finishing | D. picked up
D. cost
D. customer
D. died off
D. strongest
D. money
D. enjoy
D. existing
D. consider
D. examined
D. feeling
D. spend
D. size
D. miss
D. ride
D. brave
D. safe
D. angry
D. as
D. providing | | 完形填空。 | I used to find notes left in the collection basket of the church; beautiful notes about my homilies(布道)
and about the writer"s thoughts on the daily readings. The 1 fascinated(吸引) me. But it was a long time 2 I met the author of the notes.
One Sunday morning, I was told someone was 3 for me in the office, a young woman who said she 4 all the notes. When I saw her I was 5 , since I had no idea that it was she who wrote the notes.
She was sitting in a chair in the office. Her head was 6 and when she raised it to look at me, she could
barely 7 without pain. Her face was disfigured(畸形), so smiling was very 8 for her.
We 9 for a while that Sunday morning and agreed to meet for lunch later that week.
As it 10 we went to lunch several times, and we shared things about our 11 . We spoke of authors we both had 12 , and it was easy to tell that 13 were a great love of hers.
She suffered from a disfigurement that cannot be made to look 14 . I know that her condition 15
her deeply. Yet there was a beauty in her that had 16 to do with looks. She was one to be listened to,
whose words came from a wounded but 17 heart. She possessed a fine-tuned sense of beauty. Her
only 18 in life was the loss of a friend.
The truth of her life was a desire to see 19 the surface for a glimpse of what it is that matters. She
found beauty and 20 and they befriended her, and showed her what is real. | ( )1. A.collection
( )2. A. since
( )3. A. preparing
( )4. A. cast
( )5. A. shocked
( )6. A.high
( )7. A. stand
( )8. A. sweet
( )9. A. chatted
( )10. A. turned out
( )11. A. ideals
( )12. A. known
( )13. A. travel
( )14. A. friendly
( )15. A. hurt
( )16. A. something
( )17. A. cheerful
( )18. A. fear
( )19. A. on
( )20. A. success | B. ideas
B. after
B. praying
B. left
B. dissatisfied
B. bowed
B. smile
B. bitter
B. discussed
B. turned to
B. beliefs
B. recognized
B. prayer
B. pleasant
B. impressed
B. nothing
B. interesting
B. sorrow
B. in
B. hope | C. notes
C. when
C. waiting
C. dropped
C. frightened
C. leaned
C. speak
C. ugly
C. ate
C. came out
C. hobbies
C. read
C. writings
C. attractive
C. frustrated
C. link
C. loving
C. defeat
C. within
C. grace | D. basket
D. before
D. looking
D. collected
D. disappointed
D. shaken
D. cry
D. difficult
D. greeted
D. came to
D. lives
D. heard
D. books
D. unusual
D. affected
D. connection
D. excited
D. regret
D. beyond
D. happiness | | 阅读理解。 | Last month, students from one hundred and three universities in eighty-eight countries took part in an
international computer programming contest, which took place in Harbin, China. Three-person teams
from each school had five hours to solve eleven real world problems.
The students first listed the problems in order of difficulty. Then they figured out the requirements of
each. They designed ways to test their solutions. And they wrote the needed software systems. Even the
winning team from Shanghai Jiaotong University in China was not able to solve all the problems within the
given limit. Stanford"s team solved five problems and finished in fourteenth place. Stanford was one of
twenty-one American universities that took part in the contest this year.
The official name of the Battle of the Brains is the ACM International Collegiate Contest. The first final competition was held in 1977 at the Association for Computer Machinery Computer Science Conference. Today, a network of universities holds area competitions that send the winners to the world finals, now
organized by IBM.
Contest spokesman Dong Heintzman says the world champions receive prizes and scholarships. They
are also guaranteed an offer of employment or internship (实习) with IBM. He said, "We have had past
world champions that IBM has gone and employed in our Zurich research laboratory and are now
working on some of the leading edge materials in science and physics. We have a world finalist from
China who"s been working on the Watson Supercomputer that in the near future will be playing Jeopardy (一种超级计算机名称) against the best Jeopardy players in the world. So this competition is an
opportunity to be recognized and to be recruited (招聘) by some of the top technology and research
firms around the world." | | 1. From the first paragraph we can figure out there were____ programmers taking part in the contest. | A. 3
B. 88
C. 246
D. a lot of | | 2. From the last paragraph we know that ____. | A. the winners will be offered a job in IBM
B. this contest provides a chance for the universities
C. this competition is held every four years
D. many big companies are short of programmers | | 3. What is the best title of this passage? | A. The Best Top Contest
B. The Battle of the Brains
C. The Difficult Competition
D. Courage and Wisdom Needed | | 完形填空。 | A few weeks after my first wife, Georgia, was called to heaven, I was cooking dinner for my son and
myself. For a 1 , I had decided on frozen peas. As I was cutting open the bag, it 2 from my hand and
crashed to the floor. The peas, like marbles, 3 everywhere. I tried to use a broom, 4 with each swipe
they just rolled across the kitchen．
For the next week, every time I was in the 5 , I found a pea-in a corner, or behind a table leg. They
kept 6 . Eight months later I pulled out the refrigerator to clean behind it, and 7 12 frozen peas hidden underneath．
At the time I found those few remaining 8 , I was in a new relationship with a wonderful 9 I"d met
in a support group. After we married, I was reminded 10 those peas under the refrigerator, and realized that my 11 had been like that bag of frozen peas. It had shattered(破碎). My wife had died; I was in a
new city with a busy job, and with a son having trouble 13 his new surroundings and the 12 of his
mother. I was a bag of spilled frozen peas; my life had come apart and scattered．
When life gets you 14 , when everything you know comes apart, and when you think you"ll never
15 , remember that it"s just a bag of scattered frozen peas. The peas can be 16 , and life will move on. You"ll find all the peas 17 , including the ones that are hardest to find. And when you"ve got them 18
you"ll start to feel whole again．
The life you know can break apart at any time. But you"ll have to 19 , and how fast you collect your
peas depends on you. Will you keep scattering them around with a broom, 20 will you pick them up
one by one and put your life back together? | ( )1. A. drink
( )2. A. moved
( )3. A. rubbed
( )4. A. but
( )5. A. bedroom
( )6. A. getting up
( )7. A. found
( )8. A. presents
( )9. A. man
( )10. A. of
( )11. A. wife
( )12. A. turning to
( )13. A. thank
( )14. A. down
( )15. A. get it
( )16. A. grew
( )17. A. eventually
( )18. A. both
( )19. A. call on
( )20. A. while | B. fruit
B. walked
B. rolled
B. and
B. living room
B. turning up
B. ate
B. cans
B. child
B. for
B. life
B. leading to
B. love
B. near
B. make it
B. bought
B. fortunately
B. all
B. put on
B. because | C. vegetable
C. ran
C. grew
C. although
C. kitchen
C. taking up
C. left
C. vegetables
C. woman
C. with
C. son
C. adjusting to
C. help
C. close
C. take it
C. collected
C. properly
C. either
C. bring on
C. since | D. meat
D. slipped
D. existed
D. so
D. storeroom
D. using up
D. planted
D. peas
D. boy
D. in
D. friend
D. adding to
D. loss
D. wide
D. leave it
D. frozen
D. specially
D. each
D. move on
D. or |
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