Many years ago, I pulled a family out of a burning car somewhere in Wyoming. Last week I received a telephone call from a woman who could not stop crying as she told me that one of my stories had saved her son from committing suicide. In closing she called me a hero.
That got me thinking about what a hero is. Was I a hero because I pulled a family from a burning car? If so, how could I be a hero just because I wrote a story that saved someone’s life?
Today I looked up the word “hero” in the dictionary to see exactly what it meant. It read “a person who does something brave” and also “a person who is good and noble”.
That statement impressed me more than the part about being brave. So I thought about something very important. And I remembered what happened to me years ago.
After my marriage of twenty years ended, I was in such a condition. I was within hours trying to get up enough courage to end the pain and misery. When I returned home, someone had sent me a card in the mail which told me how much they would appreciate me as a friend. That wonderful card probably saved my life. That person, without even knowing it, saved a life and became a hero.
The many stories I kept writing in the following years saved the life of a teenage boy. In turn that makes the person who sent me the card a double hero. I suppose that is why I fight so hard to help the children now living in orphanages (孤儿院). Most children come out of these institutions with a very hard and bitter attitude against the world. The gifts we send them let them know that they have not been forgotten. Hopefully, most of them will never hurt anyone because of the kindness shown to them by those of us who cared. If it works, we will also become "heroes".
小题1:The main idea of the passage is _______________.| A．why the writer should be a hero | B．that everyone is a hero | | C．whether the writer is a hero | D．what a hero exactly is |
小题2:Why did the woman call the writer a hero at the end of the call?| A．Because he asked her son not to kill himself. | | B．Because he saved a family from a burning car. | | C．Because his story saved her son’s life. | | D．Because he was cute and kind to everybody. |
小题3:What does the underlined word “it” in the last sentence of Paragraph 5 refer to?| A．The fact that the sender helped the writer. | | B．The action of sending the card. | | C．The wonderful card the writer received. | | D．The fact that the sender was a friend of the writer. |
小题4:According to the writer, who can be considered as a hero?| A．A person who is brave. | | B．A person who helps someone in trouble. | | C．A person who can hold a door for others. | | D．A person who writes wonderful stories. |
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小题1:D
小题2:C
小题3:A
小题4:B |
试题分析：这篇文章讲述了作者写的故事挽救了一位女士儿子的生命，因此被称为英雄，由此，作者在查找“英雄”到底是什么？最终，作者认为任何人只要帮助他们摆脱了困境，都可以被称作英雄。
小题1:主旨题。作者通过两个事例，引出了英雄的准确意思是什么。故选D
小题2:细节题。根据文章Last week I received a telephone call from a woman who could not stop crying as she told me that one of my stories had saved her son from committing suicide. In closing she called me a hero.可知，作者的故事挽救了她儿子的生命，所以她称作者“英雄”。故选C
小题3:推断题。根据文章That wonderful card probably saved my life. That person, without even knowing it, saved a life and became a hero.可知，那个美好的卡片挽救作者的生命，那个人，甚至不知道这个事情，它挽救了一个生病，变成了一个英雄。it指代的是这个寄送卡片的人帮助了作者的这件事情。故选A
小题4:主旨题。根据文章可知，作者认为，不管任何人，只要帮助他人从困境中摆脱出来，他就是一名英雄。故选B
点评：总体来说文章的题目设置不难，围绕着对英雄一词的阐述来展开讲述。解答此类文章需要将自己设身处地的融入情节中，对于第一遍做不出的题目不要急于作答，将后续题目答完后再仔细作答。 |
核心考点
试题【Many years ago, I pulled a family out of a burning car somewhere in Wyoming. Las】；主要考察你对
题材分类等知识点的理解。
[详细]举一反三
Flowers only bloom(开花) when they are planted in the right soil. That is also true for me.
I first moved to Foxboro, Massachusetts, as a single mother with my baby daughter, Darcy. I was drawn to its New England beauty, friendly people and rich history. It happened that there were a lot of forsythia(连翘) bushes around the house in which I lived just like my childhood home. I joined St. Mark’s Episcopal Church where I taught the Sunday school. At church, I met my second husband, Dean. For more than 25 years, I bloomed in Foxboro, and I had another two children.
Then, when Darcy was a few years out of college, she moved to Alameda, California, to be near friends. I missed her badly. A year later my beloved husband Dean had deadly cancer. He only made it eight months. My heart was broken. Later I moved to Alameda with my children. It was a beautiful Victorian island, and I was grateful to spend more time with Darcy. I even attended a church and made a few friends there. Still, I couldn’t help but miss Foxboro. It had everything and everyone I loved.
One spring day, when I was walking by a school, something yellow caught my eyes. Forsythia bushes! They made me homesick and I kept back my tears. “I miss you, Foxboro,” I whispered. Then I went into a shop and looked at some ceramic(陶瓷的) pots lined up on a shelf. A large white one seemed to catch my attention. “That’ll be perfect in my living room,” I thought.
I turned it over to look at the price. Instead I found these words: “New England Pottery, Foxboro, Massachusetts.” A piece of artwork, from my second hometown, was right here. It was able to spread across the country and so were forsythia bushes. I took it as a sign that I can bloom, right where I am.
小题1:From the text we learn that the author ____.| A．gave birth to three children in Foxboro | | B．planted forsythia bushes around her house | | C．got to know her second husband at church | | D．worked as a middle school teacher in Foxboro |
小题2:The author moved to Alameda so that she could ____.| A．have more time together with Darcy | | B．forget the sorrow at her husband’s death | | C．visit her children at Alameda College frequently | | D．enjoy the beautiful scenery on the Victorian island |
小题3:When the author saw forsythia bushes at a school she _____.| A．wanted to buy a ceramic pot to put them in | | B．thought of her life in Foxboro | | C．felt they would look great in her living room | | D．believed they were real art work |
小题4:Why does the author compare herself to flowers?| A．Because she wanted to show she likes flowers. | | B．Because she can live in any place that is right like flowers. | | C．Because she moved across the country just like flowers. | | D．Because girls are like flowers that are blooming. |
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Love and Friendship
They are both so much related to each other. And both are so dissimilar! What are the differences between friendship and love? Is platonic(柏拉图式的) friendship possible between persons of the opposite sex? ___小题1:____
What is friendship? Why do we call a person our friend? When do we call someone a very good friend? If we care for a person, if we are always ready to help that person and if we share most of our thoughts with a person, they are our good friends. We can always count upon our good friends in an emergency. We are always sure that our friends will understand why we acted in a certain way. ___小题2: ___ The friendship is so deep and the relationship is so intimate, that most of the things are automatically understood by our friends.
__小题3:____ In a relationship of deep love, all the sharing that we discussed above is taken for granted. But love transcends(超出) all this. During love, we are attached with a particular person, while in friendship, one may have many friends. A loving relationship makes one so much attached to the other that one gets pained if his/her beloved is hurt! Love also involves a physical element. ____小题4:____ This is a vital difference. Nature gives us love so that the species can go forward. Nature does not give us friendship.
Your heart beats will never increase in anticipation of meeting your friend. ___小题5:_____ You will not feel totally lost, if you don’t meet your friend for a few days. You will not have dreams in your eyes thinking about your friend. But in love, you will do all this and much more. Indeed, there is no comparison between love and friendship.| A．What about love? | | B．My answer is “Yes”. | | C．Let us try and understand. | | D．Friendship does not have that. |
E.We need not explain anything to our very good friends.
F.You will not lie awake at night thinking about your friend.
G.The physical element may include hand in hand while walking. |
I had not seen my parents for a long time. Last Saturday I drove a long way to visit them, 36 neither of them was at home. So I waited patiently at their home 37 their return. Not seeing them made me really 38 .
As I was walking around their bedroom, I 39 little reminders of them. Some Christmas gifts were still 40 in boxes. There were 41 on the wall, which I guess must have a 42 meaning to them. What took my breath away was seeing my dad’s emblems（徽章）from his military service of our country 43 he was young. My father never 44 to us about the Korean Wars. As I looked at those emblems hanging 45 with all the photos that he treasures, I 46 that this was an important part of his life, but I never spent the 47 in talking with him about them. The photos of my mom with her close 48 made me realize her life before she was my mom. I had been so 49 running my business to raise my own family that I 50 the chance to know about their past and experience.
We sometimes don’t realize something is 51 for us until we have lost it, so it’s not too late for us to talk to our parents about their past. I am writing my story to 52 everyone who is fortunate to still have their parents 53 to invest some time to learn about them. I am grateful to have 54 of my parents. So I still have time to talk with them. I hope that readers will 55 from my story and find the time to talk about those things in their life that mean so much to their parents.
| 小题3: | | A．frightened | B．embarrassed | C．upset | D．excited |
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| 小题4: | | A．sought | B．took | C．needed | D．saw |
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| 小题5: | | A．kept | B．folded | C．hidden | D．covered |
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| 小题6: | | A．Santa Claus | B．family trees | C．family photos | D．old clothes |
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| 小题7: | | A．simple | B．real | C．past | D．special |
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| 小题8: | | A．if | B．when | C．though | D．until |
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| 小题9: | | A．talked | B．explained | C．showed | D．referred |
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| 小题10: | | A．finally | B．clearly | C．proudly | D．openly |
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| 小题11: | | A．promised | B．declared | C．admitted | D．realized |
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| 小题12: | | A．courage | B．time | C．chance | D．energy |
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| 小题13: | | A．friends | B．teachers | C．students | D．children |
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| 小题14: | | A．strict | B．eager | C．busy | D．blind |
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| 小题15: | | A．rejected | B．avoided | C．delayed | D．missed |
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| 小题16: | | A．hopeful | B．important | C．careful | D．original |
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| 小题17: | | A．encourage | B．demand | C．require | D．warn |
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小题18:away B. awake C. around D. alone
| 小题19: | | A．one | B．neither | C．either | D．both |
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| 小题20: | | A．make | B．benefit | C．change | D．recover |
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Boys need friends, suffer when they don"t believe they have any, and worry over the ups and downs of relationships. Many adults believe that somehow boys need friends less than girls do, in truth, though, no boy is an island; boys value their friends throughout childhood and adolescence and are happier and healthier when they have solid relationships with peers(同龄人)．
Despite the common belief that girls are better at relationships, most boys consider their friends a very important part of their lives, and boys may actually be better at keeping friendships than girls are. A recent study of 10 to 15yearold boys and girls found that girls" friendships are actually more fragile. Girls tend to say and do hurtful things to each other more frequently than boys, and girls are more hurt by the end of a friendship.
Boys are the living definition of the phrase “peer group”； they love games with rules, competition, and doing things together. Boys seem to enjoy, even need the opportunity to test themselves against others, and many lasting friendships begin in karate(空手道) class or on the basketball court. Competence and skill are widely respected; being picked last for a team or left out altogether is an experience that can haunt(萦绕心头) a boy for years.
As boys mature（成熟）, the friendship becomes even more important, and it frequently widens to include girls. During the teen years, friends can become the most important part of a boy"s life—and a part in which his parents are not included. The confusion of being a teenager leads boys to form close bonds（关系） with friends. There is the sense for many boys that a friend is someone who is “always there for me”， someone he can trust. They may be partners in crime or partners in study, but the friendship of adolescent boys can run surprisingly deep.
小题1:The common belief of adults is that boys________. | A．don"t care about others as much as girls | | B．don"t value friendship as much as girls | | C．have the same friendship as girls | | D．have healthier friendship than girls |
小题2:According to the text, boys" friendship________.| A．is usually built around active play | | B．tends to be in small groups | | C．can bear mutual hurt between friends | | D．doesn"t suffer from failure |
小题3:The author mentions the study in the second paragraph to prove ________.| A．many people believe girls are better at relationships | | B．most boys consider their friends very important | | C．boys may be better at keeping friendships than girls | | D．boys may be more active in a friendship |
小题4:As a boy gets older, he tends to________.| A．widen his circle of friends to include different kinds of people | | B．shift his focus from his friends to himself | | C．leave his parents out of his friendship | | D．be confused about what a friendship is |
小题5:What"s the best title for the text?| A．Friendships between Boys and Girls | | B．Boys and Their Friendship | | C．Childhood and Adolescent Friendship | | D．Tips on Making Friends with Boys |
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Can you become a creative person? Can you learn to come up with great ideas or learn to create new things? The answer is yes.
The first step to becoming creative is to remove the words “I am not creative” from your vocabulary. Seriously, do not say them or do not say them even inside your head.
Now you need to start looking what other people are doing. The more you see what they are doing, the more you can get a feel for how they think, and how they come up with creative ideas.
Find a way or a place where you feel totally relaxed. This is important so you can let your mind come up with ideas. Write them down as you get them. For me a relaxing place is outside in nature where it is quiet and sunny, or when I take a long drive in my car by myself.
The last step is to write down a few ideas every day.
Repeat the process of reading and observing what similar people are doing and how they are being creative, finding a relaxing place to write down your thoughts, and writing down a few ideas every day until you start seeing this kind of results you are happy with. It may take a few weeks to a few months, but this is the training process you need to put your mind through to become creative.
Remember, looking at things from different angle(角度) can also make a big difference to creativity. Question the way that everyone else is doing something using the same method and see if being different and doing it another way will produce something cool.
小题1:The first step to be creative is to _____.| A．have confidence in yourself | | B．look up “creativity” in the dictionary | | C．understand the meaning of being creative | | D．learn many new words by heart |
小题2:The writer develops the fourth paragraph by ______.| A．the order of time | B．the order of space | | C．giving examples | D．explaining reasons |
小题3:It can be inferred that ______.| A．creativity is a gift people are born with | | B．not everyone can be creative | | C．it is a piece of cake to be creative | | D．creativity can be gained through practice |
小题4:The purpose of writing this text is to tell us how to _____.| A．learn to be creative | | B．solve problems easily | | C．come up with good ideas | | D．improve the ability of thinking |
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