He never could understand why he was ______ as something special.

The man was the Greek philosopher, Socrates, and he was condemned for not believing in the recognized gods and for corrupting young people. The second charge stemmed from his association with numerous young men who came to Athens from all over the civilized world to study under him.

Socrates' method of teaching was to ask questions and, by pretending not to know the answers, to press his students into thinking for themselves. His teachings had unsurpassed influence on all the great Greek and Roman schools of philosophy. Yet, for all his fame and influence, Socrates himself never wrote a word.

Socrates encouraged new ideas and free thinking in the young, and this was frightening to the conservative people. They wanted him silenced. Yet, many were probably surprised that he accepted death so readily.

Socrates had the right to ask for a lesser penalty, and he probably could have won over enough of the people who had previously condemned him. But Socrates, as a firm believer in law, reasoned that it was proper to submit to the death sentence. So, he calmly accepted his fate and drank a cup of poison hemlock in the presence of his grief-stricken friends and students.

In the first paragraph, the word yet is used to introduce______.

A．contrast

B．a sequence

C．emphasize

D．an example.

A.could never

B.never could

C.Couldn’ t never

surprised; but I was considerably annoyed. I said I had (23) heard of such a rule at any respectable theater (24) , and that I considered it a most absurd regulation. The man replied that he was very (25) , but that those were his instructions. People complained that they could not get to and from their (26) comfortably, because other people's legs were always in the (27) ; and it had, therefore, been decided that (28) should leave their legs outside. It seemed to me that the management, in making this order, had gone (29) their legal right; and, under ordinary circum- stances, I should have disputed it. However, I didn't want to (30) a disturbance; and (31) I sat down and meekly prepared to comply with the demand. I had never before (32) that the human leg could be unscrewed. I had always (33) it was more securely fixed. But the man showed me how to undo them, and I found that they came off (34) easily. The discovery did not surprise (35) any more than the original request that I should take them off. Nothing does surprise one in a dream.

21.

A. called

B. helped

C. stopped

D. met

A.perform

B.conquer

C.talent

D.Smash

Ready for Anything

Justin was always prepared. His motto was "Never throw anything out, you never know when it might come in handy." His bedroom was so full of flat bicycle tires, bent tennis rackets, deflated basketballs, and games with missing pieces that you could barely get in the door. His parents pleaded with him to clean oat his room.

"What use is a fish tank with a hole in the bottom？" his father asked. But Justin simply smiled and repeated his motto, "Never throw anything out, you never know when it might come in handy."

When Justin was away from home, he always carried his blue backpack. He liked to think of it as a smaller version of his bedroom--a place to store many objects that he collected. It was so worn and stretched that it hardly resembled a backpack anymore. It was full of the kind of things that seemed unimportant, but when used with a little imagination, might come in handy.

Justin bad earned a reputation for figuring things out and getting people out of otherwise hopeless situations. Many of his classmates and neighbours sought him out when they needed help with a problem. On the first day of school, his friend Kenny, came looking for Justin.

"Do you think you have something in your bag that could help me remember my locker combination？" he asked. "I lost the scrap of paper it was written on. I have science class in two minutes and if I'm late on the first day it'll make me look bad for the rest of the year." Kenny looked genuinely worried.

"Relax," Justin said, taking his backpack off and unzipping the top. "Remember how you borrowed my notebook in homeroom to write the combination down？ Well, I know how we can recover what you wrote."

He took the notebook and a soft lead pencil out of his bag. The page that Kenny had written on had left faint indentations on another page in the notebook. Justin held the pencil on its side and rubbed it lightly over the indentations. Slowly but surely the numbers of the locker combination appeared in white, set off by the gray pencil rubbings.

"That's amazing!" Kenny said. "I owe you one." And be dashed off to open his locker.

During science class, Mr. Tran was lecturing on the structure of the solar system using a model. He made a sudden gesture and the model fell apart. Planets and rings and connector rods went everywhere, rolling and clattering and disappearing under desks. The students scrambled around on the floor for ten minutes and were finally able to recover every piece except one--a connector rod that was lodged in a crack between two lab stations.

"If we had a magnet," said Mr. Tran, "we could easily coax it out that way. But I loaned all of the magnet kits to the elementary school yesterday."

Justin was already searching through his backpack. "I have some materials that will work just as well, I think," he told Mr. Tm. He pulled out a battery, an iron nail, and some electrical wire and tape, while Mr. Tran and the other students looked on in amazement.

"Why do you have all of that stuff？" Louise Baxter asked. Justin just smiled and repeated his motto. "Never throw anything out, you never know when it might come in handy."

By wrapping the wire around the nail and taping each end to a battery terminal, he was able to make a magnet strong enough to lift the rod out of the crack.

"Bravo!" said Mr. Tran.

"No problem," said Justin.

After school, Justin rode the bus to the mall where he worked at a music store. His boss, Gall, was taking inventory of all of the CDs and tapes in the classical music section. As he helped a customer at the register, Justin heard her exclaim, "Oh, no! I forgot my glasses! There's no way I can read this list without them." Justin sighed, picked up his backpack, and walked over to Gall.

"I think I can help you out," he said, unzipping the bag. While Gall watched in surprise, he pulled out a ja

A．He always forgets to clean.

B．He never throws anything away.

C．He has no time to clean.

D．He shares a room with his brother.

He is sure that there was a flying saucer over there. If he hadn't seen it himself, he ____ it.

A) never have believed B) never did believe

C) could never believe D) would never have believed

as described by his student, the great philosopher Plato, as “the best and most just and wisest man”. Yet this same man was condemned to death for his beliefs.

The man was the Greek philosopher, Socrates, and he was condemned for not believing in the recognized gods and for corrupting young people. The second charge stemmed from his association with numerous young men who came to Athens from all over the civilized world to study under him.

Socrates’ method of teaching was to ask questions and, by pretending not to know the answers, to press his students into thinking for themselves. His teaching had unsurpassed influence on all the great Greek and Roman schools of philosophy. Yet, for all his fame and influence, Socrates himself never wrote a word.

(40)Socrates encouraged new ideas and free thinking in the young, and this was frightening to the conservative people. They wanted him silenced. Yet many were probably surprised that he accepted death so readily.

Socrates had the right to ask for a lesser penalty, and he probably could have won over enough of the people who had previously condemned him. But Socrates, as a firm believer in law, reasoned that it was proper to submit to the death sentence. So, he calmly accepted his fate and drank a cup of poison hemlock in the presence of his grief-stricken friends and students.

11. In the first paragraph, the word “yet” is used to introduce______.

A. contrast

B. a sequence

C. emphasis

D. an example

12. Socrates was condemned to death because he ________.

A. believed in law

B. was a philosopher

C. published radical philosophical articles

D. advocated original opinions

13. The word “unsurpassed” in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to_______.

A. untold

B. unequalled

C. unnoticed

D. unexpected

14. By mentioning that Socrates himself never wrote anything, the writer implies that ________.

A. it was surprising that Socrates was so famous

B. Socrates was

C. Socrates used to work of his students in teaching

D. the authorities refused to publish Socrates’ works

15. Socrates accepted the death penalty to show ________.

A. his belief in his students

B. his contempt for conservatives

C. his recognition of the legal system

D. that he was not afraid of death