记叙文
Ptrashyassage 1
Every April I am troubled by the same concern—that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sky and forest forming a single gray color, like the light color an artist paints on a canvas before the masterwork. My spirit ebbs, as it did during an April snowfall when I first came to Maine 15 years ago. "Just wait," a neighbor counled. "You'll wake up one morning and spring will just be here." And look, on May 3 that year, I awoke to a green so startling as to be almost electric, as if spring were simply a matter of moving a switch. Hills, sky and forest revealed their purples, blues and greens. Leaves had unfurled, birds had arrived at the feeder and daffodils were fighting their way towards heaven.
Then there was the old apple tree. It sits on an undeveloped land in my neighborhood. It belongs to no one and therefore to everyone. The tree's dark, twisted branches stretch in unpruned abandon. Each spring it blossoms so freely that the air fills with the fragrance of apple. When I drive by with my windows rolled down, it gives me the feeling of moving in an
other world, like a kid on a water slide.
Until last year, I thought I was the only one aware of this tree. And then one day, in a fit of spring madness, I t out with a pruner and cut off a few unordered branches. No sooner had I arrived under the tree than neighbors opened their windows and stepped onto their porches. The were people I barely knew and ldom spoke to, but it was as if I had come unbidden into their personal gardens.
My mobile-home neighbor was the first to speak. "You're not going to cut it down, are you?" she asked anxiously. Another neighbor frowned as I cut off a branch. "Don't kill it, now," he cautioned.
Soon half the neighborhood had joined me under the apple tree. It struck me that I had lived there for five years and only now was learning the people's names, what they did for a living and how they pasd the winter. It was as if the old apple tree was gathering us under its branches for the dual purpo of acquaintanceship and shared wonder. I couldn't help recalling Robert Frost's words:
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods.
One thaw led to another. Just the other day I saw one of my neighbors at the local store. He said how this recent winter had been especially long and complained not having en or spoken to anyone in our neighborhood. And then, he looked at me and said, "We need to prune that apple tree again."
1. By saying that "my spirit ebbs" (Para. 1), the author means that ______.
detonator A. he was relieved
B.ourlf he was gloomy
C.plutocracy he was surprid
D. he was tired
2. The apple tree mentioned in the passage is most likely to ______.
A. be regarded as a delight in the neighborhood
B. have been abandoned by its original owner
C. have been neglected by everyone in the community
attendance D.fontfamily be attractive only to the author
3. In Para. 3, "neighbors opened their windows and stepped onto their porches" probably becau ______.
A.rainy day they were surprid that someone unknown was pruning the tree
B. 四六级网they wanted to prevented the author from pruning the tree
C. they were concerned about the safety of the tree
D. they wanted to get to know the author
4. Not until last year did the author ______.
brisket A. cea to worry about the tree
B. become aware of the apple tree
C. begin to appreciate the neighborhood
D. make acquaintance with the neighbors
5. The author's neighbor mentioned in the last paragraph most cared about ______.
A. when spring would arrive
B. how to pass the long winter
C. the neighborhood gathering
D. the pruning for the apple tree
Passage 2
新泽西理工大学
It's 1 a. m., and I'm in Hong Kong for the first time, sitting in a bar in the Lan Kwai Fong district. I'm waiting for two girls I met on the Internet to show up and take me to their apartment, so my friend Harry and I can stay there for free for a few nights. Having been on flights for the past 24 hours, I am worn out and nervous when they don't arrive on time.
But my faith is restored when I hear a thick Chine accent asking, "Are you Cody?" Even though Jess and Jin are as much strangers to me as anyone el in the bar, I trust them. It ems as natural as being t up by a mutual friend, and, in a n, that is exactly what is happening.
I first learned last fall from my mom's friend, who was planning on hosting travelers in her home to add a little excitement to life after her oldest son went to college. She recommended I u it for an upcoming trip to Europe.
That's how I became one of the millions of surfers who arch hosts profiles and nd requests—typically as much as a week or as little as a day before arriving in the hosts cit
y—to sleep on tho people's couches or on their floor or in a spare bedroom.
