【正文】 One of the clerks, Charlie, was always wearing his glasses but he didn’t one day. I asked him about it and he said they’d been out of order and that he couldn’t afford a new pair. His family needed money. It was clear that he was having a difficult time. We wanted to help him, so we turned to our own eye doctor for help with a plan. We had his secretary contact him, asking him to e in for an eye exam for free. We told the doctor to let him order whatever glasses he wanted and that we would pay for them. Although Charlie questioned what was going on, the doctor just told him that someone had offered the money for his new glasses. When we went in to pay the bill, the doctor told us he was touched by our idea so that he waived the exam fee and only charged us for half the price of the glasses! It was so wonderful to see Charlie in his new glasses and he enjoyed telling all the regular customers how the gift came about. I’m sure that upon hearing h is story, ideas of kindness may have e in the minds of many people. 21. Why didn’t the clerk Charlie wear glasses one day? A. It was very warm and fine. B. His glasses were missing. C. His old glasses were broken. D. He fot to wear his glasses. 22. From the passage, we can infer that ______. A. Charlie was a young man with skills B. Charlie knew who paid the money for the new glasses C. Charlie pletely accepted the money for the new glasses D. Charlie couldn’ t support his family with enough money 23. The underlined word “waived” in the third paragraph can be replaced by ______. A. took up B. gave up C. cut down D. put off 24. Which of the following could be the best title for the passage? A. Customers’ Gift to an Employee B. A Friendly Clerk — Charlie C. The Wonderful Feeling of Helping others D. An Expensive Pair of Glasses B The worst days of any summer are the rainy ones. We spend all year looking forward to nice weather and long, hot days. In winter, with its cloudy days and bitter cold, we dream of those days at the beach, lying on the sand and enjoying the bright and burning sun. And then, summer es, and it rains. As a child, I would wake up to rainy summer days and e close to crying. It wasn’t fair. We suffered through months of school and experienced bad weather f or those short ten weeks of freedom. On those rainy summer days, I had nothing fun to do and could only sit inside, staring out at the rain like a bird in a cage. I was an only child, so there was no one else to play with. My father worked from home, so I was not truly alone, but he could not actively play with me since he was at work. It was those days that I would watch whatever was on television or read any books that I could find lying around. I’d pray each night that the rain would not be there the nex t day. As an adult, though, my opinion of summer rain has changed. When you have to work every day, summer is not as exciting. Everything seems uninteresting. Such a mindset makes you cheer for anything new or different. I spend the winter dreaming of summer and the summer dreaming of winter. When summer es, I hate how hot it is. And then I look forward to the rain, because the rain brings with it a cold front, which makes me fortable. Rainy days are still the worst days of the summer, but summer rain today means positively beautiful — and quite cooler — weather tomorrow. 25. When the author was a child, he ______. A. liked staying indoors B. hated rainy days C. dreamed on summer days D. preferred cooler weather 26. We can learn from the passage that the author ______. A. could enjoy the brilliant sun in winter B. preferred reading to playing outside C. had no brothers or sisters D. was often left alone at home 27. As an adult, the author views summer rain differently because ______. A. rain makes the weather cooler B. his summer holiday is very short C. he knows it won’t last long D. he can better deal with his spare time C Great white sharks! Just hearing that name makes many people’s hair stand on end. In reality, these big fish have more to fear from us than we do from them. For many years, people killed countless great white sharks in the waters around the United States. But thanks to conservation (保護(hù) ) efforts, great whites are making a eback in the . Two recent studies show that the population of these sharks is rising along the east and west coast. Why is the growing population of a killer fish something to celebrate? “When you fish too many of them, you start to lose balance in the environment,” says shark researcher Tobey Curtis. As the biggest killer, sharks help keep the populations of fish, seals, and other creatures they eat from growing too large.