On the eve of our daughters' weddings, I gave both of them what I considered to be excellent marital advice: never leave your husband unsupervised with pruning shears . _ I recently let my guard down. Thirty-some years of marriage can do that to a woman. Give a man pruning shears and electric trimmers and he will give new meaning to "armed and dangerous." One day earlier this year, my husband said that the crab apple tree was dead. "Why do you think it is dead?" I asked. "Look at it. There's not a leaf on it." "There's not a leaf on anything. It's March," I said. "It looked sick last fall and with this bitter winter we had, I'm convinced it's dead." The truth is he's never liked the crab apple. Sure, it has beautiful blooms in the spring, but then it gets a disease, the leaves curl, and it drops those little apples that sit on the driveway. Each passing week he pronounced the tree dead. Eventually I began to believe him. Though he agreed it would be a regrettable loss, there was a twinkle in his eye. He armed himself a couple of weeks ago and began trimming. A branch here, a branch there, a small limb, then a large limb. I watched and then decided to check the wood on some of the branches closer to the trunk. I broke one off and saw green. The crab apple was not dead. It just hadn't had time to leaf out. The tree was now falling to one side, but it was not dead. I would have told him so, but he had moved on to a maple. Once the man starts, he can't stop. One trim leads to another. "Please, stop!" I called. He smiled and nodded, but he couldn't hear because he had started the hedge trimmers and was getting ready to fix a line of hedges. Zip , zip, zip. "What do you think?" he shouted. "It's supposed to be a privacy hedge; now all that will be private are our ankles." He started the trimmers again. "Stop!" I called, "Come back!" "Why?" he shouted. "You're in the neighbor's yard." By saying "if only I had taken my own advice." the author means that _ . A) she should have kept a closer watch on her husband B) she feels regretful about her marriage after many years C) she didn't follow her own advice about pruning shears D) she shouldn't have given that marital advice to her daughters
C
Andy loved the first grade. He loved his teacher,Mrs.Parks. He loved playing games on the playground. He loved learning about dinosaurs and the solar system . Every morning Andy's mother dropped him off in front of his school on South Street. One foggy morning,the traffic was so bad on South Street that she decided to drop him off behind the school. Andy walked for about ten minutes and got to the gate. He held the icy handle,but it didn't move!Using both hands,he tried his hardest and finally the gate opened. After Andy closed the gate behind him,he looked in the direction of the teaching building. But all he could see was fog. He got to the spot where the slide had always been,but it was not there."The slide is gone!" he cried. He walked a little more to look for the swings,but they were not where they had always been."The swings are gone!" he cried again. Andy kept walking. He was so anxious to see the school that he fell and landed on the ground. He still couldn't see the school. A terrible thought appeared in his head."The school is gone!" he cried sadly. No more games with Jennie,Angel and Dillon,he thought. No more reading about dinosaurs. No more watching videos on the solar system... Suddenly the boy saw something up ahead."It's Jennie!"he shouted. Then he saw the outline of a school building. His school was still there!He was full of excitement! "Hi,Jennie!" he stood up and caught up with the girl."I couldn't see the school. I thought it was gone." Jennie just laughed."You're so silly." "What happened to the slide and the swings?" Andy asked. "We will have new playground equipment today," Jennie answered."The old equipment was taken away last night. Don't you remember Mrs. Parks telling us about it yesterday?" "I guess I forgot," Andy said,smiling."Anyway,I'm glad the school is here." According to the passage,when Andy began his class that day he would _ . A) still feel confused B) have a nice day C) miss his mother D) behave badly
B
(Q).
You probably know that frogs hop ( ). But did you know that there's a small frog in the Pacific Northwest that bellyflops ? It's called a tailed frog. Dr.Rick Essner, who has been studying tailed frogs for the past few years, says, " I've looked at thousands of jumps and have never seen them land on their feet like other frogs." Most of the time, tailed frogs land on their stomachs and then bring their back legs in to prepare for another jump. Essner forst noticed these frogs because of the way they swim. Other frogs kick both of their back legs at the same time. But when a tailed frog swims, it pushes first with one leg and then the other. To try to find out why tailed frogs bellyflop, Essner and other scientists collected and filmed different kinds of frogs. They found that all of the frogs start their jumps the same way: they hold out their legs. The change comes in the landing. Tailed frogs can't move their back legs as quickly as other frogs do. Maybe they don't need to. Tailed frogs live around water and quickly jump into the water to escape danger. Early frogs developed around watery areas and could jump quickly into the water to escape danger. Scientists think those frogs blended in with (...) the green plants on the side of the rocky rivers, just like today's tailed frogs. "Iwould guess that other animals would have problems _ them, " explains Essner. When other animals find those early frogs, the frogs could jump into the river. They didn't need to continue hopping. Tailed frogs and other kinds of frogs went their own ways about 200 million years ago. Tailed frogs stayed by rivers. Other kinds of frogs moved to places where new hopping skills allowed them to survive. Why do tailed frogs bellyflop? A) They have never left the water to live . B) They have trouble in holding out their legs C) Their back legs can't catch up while jumping.. D) Their front legs develop better than the back ones.
(A).
C