Margaret, married with two small children, has been working for the last seven years as a night cleaner, cleaning offices in a big building.
She trained as a nurse, but had to give it up when her elder child became seriously ill. “I would have liked to go back to it, but the shifts（工作班次） are all wrong for me, as I have to be home to get the children up and off to school.”
So she works as a cleaner instead, from 9 p.m. till 6 a.m. five nights a week for just ￡90, before tax and insurance. “It’s better than it was last year, but I still think that people who work ‘unsocial hours’ should get a bit extra.”
The hours she’s chosen to work meant that she sees plenty of the children, but very little of her husband. However, she doesn’t think that puts any pressure on their relationship.
Her work isn’t physically very hard, but it’s not exactly pleasant, either. “I do get angry with people who leave their offices like a place for raising pigs. If they realized people like me have to do it, perhaps they’d be a bit more careful.”
The fact that she’s working all night doesn’t worry Margaret at all. Unlike some dark buildings at night, the building where she works is fully lit, and the women work in groups of three. “Since I’ve got to be here, I try to enjoy myself——and I usually do, because of the other girls. We all have a good laugh, so the time never drags.”
Another challenge Margaret has to face is the reaction of other people when she tells them what she does for a living. “They think you’re a cleaner because you don’t know how to read and write,” said Margaret. “I used to think what my parents would say if they knew what I’d been doing, but I don’t think that way any more. I don’t dislike the work though I can’t say I’m mad about it.”
1. Margaret quit her job as a nurse because _______.
A. she wanted to earn more money to support her family
B. she had suffered a lot of mental pressure
C. she needed the right time to look after her children
D. she felt tired of taking care of patients
2. Margaret gets angry with people who work in the office because _______.
A. they never clean their offices B. they look down upon cleaners
C. they never do their work carefully D. they always make a mess in their offices
3. When at work, Margaret feels _______.
A. light-hearted because of her fellow workers B. happy because the building is fully lit
C. tired because of the heavy workload D. bored because time passed slowly
4. The underlined part in the last paragraph implies that Margaret’s parents would _______．
A. help care for her children B. regret what they had said
C. show sympathy for her D. feel disappointed in her
科目：高中英語 來源：2012屆安徽省太和一中高三最后一卷英語試卷（帶解析） 題型：閱讀理解
“Tomorrow is another day”---- this line has impressed various people at various times. It's now 70 years after it appeared in the film, but it still seems to hold its power especially during an economic downturn.
The phrase comes from a film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's successful 1936 novel Gone With the Wind. It's set in the American South and tells the story of a strong heroine, Scarlett O' Hara, who struggles to find love during the Civil War and, afterwards, of her strength in surviving the war and its hardships.
Love story
In a moment of despair, Scarlett finally realizes that her love belongs to Rhett Butler. For many audiences, it is the theme of love and struggle that has kept the movie alive. While the burning of Atlanta might seem irrelevant to today's viewers, the timeless theme of love keeps its ability to touch people.
With a promise to her lover still in her mind, Scarlett chooses to stay in the midst of war and take care of Melanie. But her heart is broken when Rhett just walks away, leaving the woman that he once loved with cruel words, "Frankly, dear, I don' t give a damn."
Great epic
The film shows the love-hate relationship of these characters, but also American history, the fall of the Confederacy and the following period of Reconstruction in the South. The background made this film a true classic in the epic genre.
When the film opened after World War II, French viewers loved it, and it reminded them of their fight against the Nazis. In 1940 Shanghai, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, people stood in line for hours to watch this film, and saw the same suffering they were having as well as the hope and possibility of building a new homeland from the ruins.
Each nationality could identify with the story and see it as a victory. In fact, Gone With the Wind never lost its charm and ability to inspire and amaze.
Biggest of all time
The film had five directors, 15-plus screenwriters, and an unexpected $3.9 million budget. The film brought in $ 200 million, which makes it the biggest selling film of all times in North America. It also won 10 Academy awards in 1940.
【小題1】The underlined "it" in the first paragraph refers to _______.
| A．the novel Gone with the Wind | B．"tomorrow is another day" |
| C．the movie Gone with the Wind | D．the Academy Award |
| A．celebrate the anniversary of Margaret Mitchell |
| B．introduce how the film was directed and filmed |
| C．throw light on the charm of the movie "Gone with the Wind" |
| D．inspire people to struggle the economic downturn |
| A．optimistic and lucky | B．childish and realistic |
| C．caring and stubborn | D．strong-minded and persistent |
| A．prove that the background of the movie touched viewers |
| B．describe how popular the movie was at that time |
| C．point out that Shanghai was a center of entertainment |
| D．tell us that Chinese were suffering the War then. |
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科目：高中英語 來源：2012-2013學年山西省大同市實驗中學高一上學期期中考試英語試卷（帶解析） 題型：閱讀理解
I was small for my age. I was shy and sometimes it was hard for me to make friends with the others. However, learning came fairly easy for me. I was the best in most of my classes, but PE class was my nightmare (惡夢) and made me feel that I was not as good as the others.
Miss Forsythe was our PE teacher. She was young and energetic. Everyone liked her. She said that we all had to come to her classes. No one could hide from Miss Forsythe! One day she told me that she wanted me to play a game with another girl in a PE show. I was rather worried that I wouldn’t do a good job when she explained her idea, but she was excited. With her encouragement, I had no choice but to agree. It was a "boy meets girl" game. I played the boy and my classmate, Margaret Ann, played the girl. We were dressed in evening clothes and danced around the floor. According to Miss Forsythe, I had to pick up Margaret Ann when we finished the dance. Since I was not strong enough to pick the tallest girl up, it was she who picked me up. I suddenly felt ten feet tall! It was a huge success and everybody applauded (鼓掌) for our excellent performance. What a wonderful ending! Afterwards, I smiled confidently (自信地).
Miss Forsythe’s understanding and willingness to create a place for me in her show (which certainly did not need me) gave me some much needed confidence. She was and always will be my favorite teacher.
【小題1】What do we know about Miss Forsythe?
| A．She was good at dancing. |
| B．She was young and energetic. |
| C．She liked to play games with the students after class. |
| D．She taught students how to dance. |
| A．She was excited. | B．She thought it would be fun. |
| C．She was glad. | D．She was nervous. |
| A．Miss Forsythe had planned the game that way on purpose (故意地) |
| B．Miss Forsythe helped the author pick up the tallest girl |
| C．the author was afraid when she felt ten feet tall |
| D．the author didn't like his teacher. |
| A．Our PE Teacher—Miss Forsythe | B．My School Life |
| C．A Forgettable Experience | D．A Game with My Classmate |
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科目：高中英語 來源：2012-2013學年安徽省淮北一中高一上學期期中考試英語試卷（帶解析） 題型：閱讀理解
I was small for my age. I was shy and sometimes it was hard for me to make friends with the others. However, learning came fairly easy for me. I was the best in most of my classes, but PE class was my nightmare (惡夢) and made me feel that I was not as good as the others.
Miss Forsythe was our PE teacher. She was young and energetic. Everyone liked her. She said that we all had to come to her classes. No one could hide from Miss Forsythe!
One day she told me that she wanted me to play a game with another girl in a PE show. I was rather worried that I wouldn’t do a good job when she explained her idea, but she was excited. With her encouragement, I had no choice but to agree. It was a "boy meets girl" game. I played the boy and my classmate, Margaret Ann, played the girl. We were dressed in evening clothes and danced around the floor. According to Miss Forsythe, I had to pick up Margaret Ann when we finished the dance. Since I was not strong enough to pick the tallest girl up, it was she who picked me up. I suddenly felt ten feet tall!
It was a huge success and everybody applauded (鼓掌) for our excellent performance. What a wonderful ending! Afterwards, I smiled confidently (自信地).
Miss Forsythe’s understanding and willingness to create a place for me in her show (which certainly did not need me) gave me some much needed confidence. She was and always will be my favorite teacher.
【小題1】What do we know about Miss Forsythe?
| A．She was good at dancing. |
| B．She was a strict teacher. |
| C．She liked to play games with the students after class. |
| D．She taught students how to dance. |
| A．She was excited. | B．She thought it would be fun. |
| C．She was disappointed. | D．She was nervous. |
| A．Our PE Teacher—Miss Forsythe | B．My School Life |
| C．A Forgettable Experience | D．A Game with My Classmate |
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科目：高中英語 來源：2012-2013學年浙江省寧波市效實中學高二下學期期中考試英語試卷（帶解析） 題型：閱讀理解
When I was fourteen, I earned money in the summer by cutting lawns（草坪）, and within a few weeks I had built up a body of customers. I got to know people by the flowers they planted that I had to remember not to cut down, by the things they lost in the grass or struck in the ground on purpose. I reached the point with most of them when I knew in advance what complaint was about to be spoken, which request was most important. And I learned something about the measure of my neighbors by their preferred method of payment: by the job, by the month—or not at all.
Mr. Ballou fell into the last category, and he always had a reason why. On one day, he had no change for a fifty, on another he was flat out of checks, on another, he was simply out when I knocked on his door. Still, except for the money apart, he was a nice enough guy, always waving or tipping his hat when he’d seen me from a distance. I figured him for a thin retirement check, maybe a work-related injury that kept him from doing his own yard work. Sure, I kept track of the total, but I didn’t worry about the amount too much. Grass was grass, and the little that Mr. Ballou’s property comprised didn’t take long to trim (修剪).
Then, one late afternoon in mid-July, the hottest time of the year, I was walking by his house and he opened the door, mentioned me to come inside. The hall was cool, shaded, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the dim light.
“I owe you,” Mr Ballou said, “but…”
I thought I’d save him the trouble of thinking of a new excuse. “No problem. Don’t worry about it.”
“The bank made a mistake in my account,” he continued, ignoring my words. “It will be cleared up in a day or two. But in the meantime I thought perhaps you could choose one or two volumes for a down payment.
He gestured toward the walls and I saw that books were stacked (堆放) everywhere. It was like a library, except with no order to the arrangement.
“Take your time,” Mr. Ballou encouraged. “Read, borrow, keep, or find something you like. What do you read?”
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I generally read what was in front of me, what I could get from the paperback stack at the drugstore, what I found at the library, magazines, the back of cereal boxes, comics. The idea of consciously seeking out a special title was new to me, but, I realized, not without appeal--- so I started to look through the piles of books.
“You actually read all of these?”
“This isn’t much,” Mr. Ballou said. “This is nothing, just what I’ve kept, the ones worth looking at a second time.”
“Pick for me, then.”
He raised his eyebrows, cocked his head, and regarded me as though measuring me for a suit. After a moment, he nodded, searched through a stack, and handed me a dark red hardbound book, fairly thick.
“The Last of the Just,” I read. “By Andre Schwarz-Bart. What’s it about?”
“You tell me,” he said. “Next week.”
I started after supper, sitting outdoors on an uncomfortable kitchen chair. Within a few pages, the yard, the summer, disappeared, and I was plunged into the aching tragedy of the Holocaust, the extraordinary clash of good, represented by one decent man, and evil. Translated from French, the language was elegant, simple, impossible to resist. When the evening light finally failed I moved inside, read all through the night.
To this day, thirty years later, I vividly remember the experience. It was my first voluntary encounter with world literature, and I was amazed by the concentrated power a novel could contain. I lacked the vocabulary, however, to translate my feelings into words, so the next week. When Mr. Ballou asked, “Well?” I only replied, “It was good?”
“Keep it, then,” he said. “Shall I suggest another?”
I nodded, and was presented with the paperback edition of Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa (a very important book on the study of the social and cultural development of peoples—anthropology (人類學) ).
To make two long stories short, Mr. Ballou never paid me a cent for cutting his grass that year or the next, but for fifteen years I taught anthropology at Dartmouth College. Summer reading was not the innocent entertainment I had assumed it to be, not a light-hearted, instantly forgettable escape in a hammock (吊床) (though I have since enjoyed many of those, too). A book, if it arrives before you at the right moment, in the proper season, at an internal in the daily business of things, will change the course of all that follows.
【小題1】Before his encounter with Mr. Ballou, the author used to read _____________.
| A．anything and everything | B．only what was given to him |
| C．only serious novels | D．nothing in the summer |
| A．light-hearted and enjoyable | B．dull but well written |
| C．impossible to put down | D．difficult to understand |
| A．read all books twice | B．did not do much reading |
| C．read more books than he kept | D．preferred to read hardbound books |
| A．started studying anthropology at college |
| B．continued to cut Mr. Ballou’s lawn |
| C．spent most of his time lazing away in a hammock |
| D．had forgotten what he had read the summer before |
| A．summer jobs are really good for young people |
| B．you should insist on being paid before you do a job |
| C．a good book can change the direction of your life |
| D．books are human beings’ best friends |
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科目：高中英語 來源：西南師大附中2010年高三年級月考英語試題 題型：閱讀理解
Fading beauty
She is widely seen as proof that good looks can last for ever. But, at nearly 500 years of age, time is catching up with the Mona Lisa.
The health of the famous picture, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1505, is getting worse by the year, according to the Louvre Museum (盧浮宮博物館) where it is housed.
“The thin, wooden panel on which the Mona Lisa is painted in oil has changed shape since experts checked it two years ago,” the museum said. Visitors have noticed changes but repairing the world’s most famous painting is not easy. Experts are not sure about the materials the Italian artist used and their current chemical state (化學狀態).
Nearly 6 million people go to see the Mona Lisa every year, many attracted by the mystery of her smile. “It is very interesting that when you’re not looking at her, she seems to be smiling, and then you look at her and she stops,” said Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University. “It’s because direct vision (視覺) is excellent at picking up detail, but less suited to looking at shadows. Da Vinci painted the smile in shadows.”
However, the actual history of the Mona Lisa is just as mysterious as the smile. Da Vinci himself loved it so much that he always carried it with him, until it was eventually sold to France’s King Francis I in 1519.
In 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre by a former employee, who took it out of the museum hidden under his coat. He said he planned to return it to Italy. The painting was sent back to France two years later.
During World War II, French hid the painting in small towns to keep it out of the hands of German forces.
Like many old ladies, the Mona Lisa has some interesting stories to tell.
【小題1】What does the writer mean by “time is catching up with the Mona Lisa”?
| A．The painted woman is not so beautiful any more. |
| B．Ageing is something that affects us all. |
| C．The painting needs repairing. |
| D．At such an old age, she is no longer popular. |
| A．The wooden panel is thin and old and has also changed shape. |
| B．The health of the painting is suffering |
| C．Experts can’t agree on how the painting might respond to treatment. |
| D．No one knows exactly what materials were used to create the painting. |
| A．The materials the Italian artist used. | B．The way Da Vinci painted the smile. |
| C．The way she smiles. | D．It plays a trick upon the human eye. |
| A．④→③→①→②→⑤ | B．④→①→③→②→⑤ |
| C．①→④→③→②→⑤ | D．①→③→④→②→⑤ |
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