填空题 .  SECTION A  MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
    In this section there are three passages followed by ten multiple-choice questions. For each multiple choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO.
    PASSAGE ONE
    (1) I used to watch her from my kitchen window, she seemed so small as she muscled her way through the crowd of boys on the playground. The school was across the street from our home and I would often watch the kids as they played during recess. A sea of children, and yet to me, she stood out from them all.
    (2) I remember the first day I saw her playing basketball. I watched in wonder as she ran circles around the other kids. She managed to shoot jump shots just over their heads and into the net. The boys always tried to stop her but no one could. I began to notice her at other times, basketball in hand, playing alone. She would practice dribbling and shooting over and over again, sometimes until dark. One day I asked her why she practiced so much. She looked directly in my eyes and without a moment of hesitation she said, "I want to go to college. The only way I can go is if I get a scholarship. I like basketball. I decided that if I were good enough, I would get a scholarship. I am going to play college basketball. I want to be the best. My Daddy told me if the dream is big enough, the facts don't count."
    (3) Then she smiled and ran towards the court to repeat the routine I had seen over and over again. Well, I had to give it to her—she was determined. I watched her through those junior high years and into high school. Every week, she led her team to victory. One day in her senior year, I saw her sitting in the grass, head cradled in her arms.
    (4) I walked across the street and sat down in the cool grass beside her. Quietly I asked what was wrong. "Oh, nothing," came a soft reply. "I am just too short." The coach told her that at 5'5" she would probably never get to play for a top ranked team—much less offered a scholarship—so she should stop dreaming about college. She was heartbroken and I felt my own throat tighten as I sensed her disappointment.
    (5) I asked her if she had talked to her dad about it yet. She lifted her head from her hands and told me that her father said those coaches were wrong. They just did not understand the power of a dream. He told her that if she really wanted to play for a good college, if she truly wanted a scholarship, that nothing could stop her except one thing—her own attitude. He told her again, "If the dream is big enough, the facts don't count." The next year, as she and her team went to the Northern California Championship game, she was seen by a college recruiter. She was indeed offered a scholarship, a full ride, to a Division I, NCAA women's basketball team. She was going to get the college education that she had dreamed of and worked toward for all those years.
    (6) It's true: If the dream is big enough, the facts don't count.
    PASSAGE TWO
    (1) Observe a child; any one will do. You will see that not a day passes in which he does not find something or other to make him happy, though he may be in tears the next moment. Then look at a man; any one of us will do. You will notice that weeks and months can pass in which every day is greeted with nothing more than resignation, and endured with polite indifference. Indeed, most men are as miserable as sinners, though they are too bored to sin—perhaps their sin is their indifference. But it is true that they so seldom smile that when they do we do not recognise their face, so distorted is it from the fixed mask we take for granted. And even then a man cannot smile like a child, for a child smiles with his eyes, whereas a man smiles with his lips alone. It is not a smile, but a grin; something to do with humour, but little to do with happiness. And then, as anyone can see, there is a point (but who can define that point?) when a man becomes an old man, and then he will smile again.
    (2) It would seem that happiness is something to do with simplicity, and that it is the ability to extract pleasure from the simplest things—such as a peach stone, for instance.
    (3) It is obvious that it is nothing to do with success. For Sir Henry Stewart was certainly successful. It is twenty years ago since he came down to our village from London, and bought a couple of old cottages, which he had knocked into one. He used his house as a weekend refuge. He was a barrister. And the village followed his brilliant career with something almost amounting to paternal pride.
    (4) I remember some ten years ago when he was made a King's Counsel, Amos and I, seeing him get off the London train, went to congratulate him. We grinned with pleasure; he merely looked as miserable as though he'd received a penal sentence. It was the same when he was knighted; he never smiled a bit, he didn't even bother to celebrate with a round of drinks at the "Blue Fox". He took his success as a child does his medicine. And not one of his achievements brought even a ghost of a smile to his tired eyes.
    (5) I asked him one day, soon after he'd retired to potter about his garden, what it was like to achieve all one's ambitious. He looked down at his roses and went on watering them. Then he said, "The only value in achieving one's ambitious is that you then realize that they are not worth achieving." Quickly he moved the conversation on to a more practical level, and within a moment we were back to a safe discussion on the weather. That was two years ago.
    (6) I recall this incident, for yesterday, I was passing his house, and had drawn up my cart just outside his garden wall. I had pulled in from the road for no other reason than to let a bus pass me. As I set there filling my pipe, I suddenly heard a shout of sheer joy come from the other side of the wall.
    (7) I peered over. There stood Sir Henry doing nothing less than a tribal war dance, of sheer unashamed ecstasy. Even when he observed my bewildered face staring over the wall he did not seem put out or embarrassed, but shouted for me to climb over.
    (8) "Come and see, Jan. Look! I have done it at last! I have done it at last!"
    (9) There he was, holding a small box of earth in his hand. I observed three tiny shoots out of it.
    (10) "And there were only three!" he said, his eyes laughing to heaven.
    (11) "Three what?" I asked.
    (12) "Peach stones", he replied. "I've always wanted to make peach stones grow, even since I was a child, when I used to take them home after a party, or as a man after a banquet. And I used to plant them, and then forgot where I planted them. But now at last I have done it, and, what's more, I had only three stones, and there you are, one, two, three shoots," he counted.
    (13) And Sir Henry ran off, calling for his wife to come and see his achievement—his achievement of simplicity.
    PASSAGE THREE
    (1) As unpleasant emotions go, anxiety is the sketchiest. It's a vague, pit-of-the-stomach dread that sneaks up to you—that unease you get when your boss says that she needs to talk to you right away, when the phone rings at 4:00 a.m., or when your dentist looks into your mouth and says "Hmmmm" for the third time.
    (2) Lingering anxiety can keep you up at night, make you irritable, undermine your ability to concentrate, and either ruin your appetite or cause Olympian eating binges. And the constant state of readiness generated by anxiety—adrenaline pumping, heart racing, palms sweating—may contribute to high blood pressure and heart disease.
    How to prevent anxiety then?
    (3) Meditate. Maybe you're just high-strung. If so, meditation is worth a try. It cultivates a calmness that eases anxious feelings and offers a sense of control. A study at the University of Massachusetts found that volunteers who took an 8-week meditation course were considerably less anxious afterward. People who are high-strung find that they are dramatically calmer with 20 minutes of meditation in the morning and another 20 minutes after dinner.
    (4) If you've never done meditation, try this technique: Sit quietly in a comfortable position and take a few deep, cleansing breaths to relax your muscles. Then choose a calming word or phrase. (Experts suggest either a word or short phrase with religious significance, or the word one.) Silently repeat the word or phrase for 20 minutes. As you find your thoughts straying, gently return your focus to your repeated word and continue to breathe deeply.
    (5) Jog, walk, swim, or cycle. If you can't make time for meditation, be sure to make time for regular exercise. Exercise can have the same calming effect as meditation, particularly if it's something repetitive like running or swimming laps.
    Treatment?
    (6) Odds are that you can learn to handle anxiety better. Here's how.
    (7) Remember to breathe. When you're anxious, you tend to hold your breath or breathe too shallowly. That makes you feel more anxious. Breathing slowly and deeply can have a calming effect. To make sure that you're breathing correctly, place your hand on your diaphragm (横膈膜), just below your rib cage. Feel it rise with each inhalation and fall with each exhalation.
    (8) Analyze and act. The antidote (矫正方法) to anxiety is analysis and action. To rid yourself of that vague sense of dread, you have to figure out exactly what it is that you dread. Then you can map a plan of action to do something about it. Usually the first step in this action plan is to fund out more about the problem.
    (9) Let's say you are anxious about your competence on the job. Ask yourself, "What, in particular, am I afraid that I'll muff?." Maybe you're afraid that you'll get further behind and miss your deadlines. Or maybe you're worried that you're blowing it whenever you present your ideas in meetings. Are your worries founded? Have you had several near misses with deadlines? Are your suggestions routinely vetoed? If not, the anxiety is needless. If there is a real problem, work on a solution: Pace yourself to better meet deadlines, or join a public speaking class.1.  When the author watched the girl playing basketball for the first time, he was ______.(PASSAGE ONE)
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[参考译文] (1)透过厨房的窗口,我总能看到她。她个子瘦小,穿梭在操场上一群男孩子的中间。学校就在我家对面的那条街上,我常看到孩子们在课间休息时间打球。尽管打球的孩子很多,但在我眼里,她特别显眼。
   (2)我记得第一次看她打篮球的时候,我惊讶地看着她在其他孩子中间兜来兜去。她跳起来设法把球投入篮中,球越过孩子们的头顶落入了筐中。男生们总是试着防她,但是没能成功。我开始在其他时候注意到她:她手里拿着球,独自练习。她一次又一次地练习运球和投篮,有时一直练到天黑。有一天,我问她为什么要不断地练习,她注视着我,毫不犹豫地说:“我想上大学,只有拿到奖学金才能上大学。我喜欢篮球,我觉得如果我打得足够好,就能拿到奖学金。我想到大学打篮球。我想成为最棒的那个。我爸爸告诉我,如果梦想足够远大,现实环境的好坏不算什么。”
   (3)接着,她微笑着跑向球场,继续之前不断重复的动作,那些我看了一遍又一遍的动作。嘿,我真服了她——她可真有决心。我看着她读完初中又上了高中。每个星期,她带领的队伍总能获得胜利。在她上高三的一天,我发现她坐在草地上,头埋在臂弯里。
   (4)我穿过街道,坐在了她身旁的草地上,草地很凉。我轻声问她发生什么事了。“没什么,”她柔柔地回答,“我就是太矮了。”教练对她说,凭她5尺5寸的身高几乎永远无法在顶级球队效力,更不用说得奖学金了,所以她应该放弃上大学的梦想。她的心碎了,我也感到喉咙发紧,我能体会她的失落。
   (5)我问她有没有和她爸爸谈过,她从臂弯里抬起头告诉我,她爸爸说那些教练的话是一派胡言,他们根本不懂梦想的力量。她爸爸告诉她,如果她真的想进一所好大学打球,真想拿奖学金,什么也不能阻止她,除了一点——她本人的态度。(而且)她爸爸又再次对她说,“如果梦想足够远大,现实环境的好坏不算什么。”第二年,她和她的球队打进了北加州的冠军赛。她因此被一个大学的招生人员发现了,并真的获得了一笔全额奖学金,进入了NCAA其中一个女子甲组篮球队。至此,她渴望了多年并为之奋斗至今的大学梦,就要成真了。
   (6)是的,如果梦想足够远大,现实环境的好坏不算什么。
根据题干的watched the girl playing basketball for the first time定位到第2段第2、7句。虽然作者没有直截了当点明他第一次看女孩练球时的感受,但从作者使用的in wonder,ask...why...等描述来看,作者当时的感受是“好奇”,故本题选A。B很具迷惑性,因为第2段有女孩跳起来投篮命中的表述,但作者在此时并没有表现出admire,而是直到最后才逐渐对女孩表达赞美之情;C、D纯属凭空想象。