Ed Murrow was a famous radio program producer in the 1940s.In the United States，the rise of television in the 1950s ended the period called the Golden Age of Radio Broadcasting. Most of the popular shows vanished. More and more people started watching television. Ed Murrow and his boys moved to television as a result. He joined with Fred Friendly to create the series See It Now.

This show lasted from 1951 to 1958.Some broadcasts on See It Now concerned important issues（议题）of race，war and government dishonesty. Experts said the program was important in the history of television.

Murrow also started another television show called Person to Person. He spoke with famous people in their homes. One episode（一集）visited Eleanor Roosevelt，wife of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The show also visited actress Marilyn Monroe，actor Marlon Brando and Senator John F. Kennedy.

Ed Murrow also produced a number of special programs for CBS. One such program was called Harvest of Shame. It showed the hard life and poor living conditions of farm workers who moved from place to place. Some people said this program was so powerful that it influenced American lawmakers to take measures to protect these migrant workers.

After John F. Kennedy was elected president，he asked the newsman to lead the United States Information Agency. Murrow served as the agency's director from 1961 to 1964.Then he retired from the job. He died in 1965 at his farm in Pawling，New York. He was fifty-seven years old.

Today, Edward Murrow is remembered for his influence on broadcasting and the quality of his reporting. Former CBS chairman William Paley once said Murrow was a man born for his time and work.

Paley called him a student, a thinker, and at heart, a poet of mankind. As a result, he said Murrow was a great reporter.

【小题1】The underlined word "vanished" in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to"______".

A．changed	B．Improved
C．succeeded	D．disappeared

【小题2】According to Paragraph 3, the television show Person to Person was most probably a _______.

A．talk show	B．soap opera
C．talent show	D．documentary

【小题3】Some people believed that Harvest of Shame _______.

A．was called the best program of CBS

B．was created mainly for lawmakers

C．once influenced American lawmakers

D．encouraged farm workers to move around

【小题4】What does the writer mostly want to tell us in the last paragraph?

A．Ed Murrow greatly influenced the development of TV shows.

B．Ed Murrow still has an effect on TV shows today.

C．Ed Murrow was a man good at many things.

D．Ed Murrow was a great reporter.

   The writer Margaret Mitchell, who wrote under the name Peggy Mitchell is best known for writing Gone with the Wind, first published in 1936.Her book and the movie based on it, tell a story of love and survival during the American Civil War. Visitors to the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta, Georgia, can go where she lived when she started writing the story and learn more about her life.

Our first stop at the Margaret Mitchell House is an exhibit area telling about the writer's life. She was born in Atlanta in 1900.She started writing stories when she was a child. She once worked as a reporter for The Atlanta Journal newspaper. One photograph of Ms. Mitchell shows her talking to a group of young college boys. She was only about one and a half meters tall. The young men towered over her, but she seemed very happy and sure of herself. The tour guide explains, "Now in this picture Peggy is interviewing some boys from Georgia Tech, asking them such questions as 'Would you really marry a woman who works？' And today it'd be ‘Would you marry one who doesn't work？’"

The Margaret Mitchell House is a building that once contained several apartments. Now we enter the first floor apartment where Ms. Mitchell lived with her husband, John Marsh. They made fun of the small apartment by calling it "The Dump".

Around 1926, Margaret Mitchell stopped working as a reporter and was at home healing after an injury. Her husband brought her books to read from the library. She read so many books that he bought her a typewriter and said it was time for her to write her own book. Our guide says Gone with the Wind became a huge success. Margaret Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book. In 1939 the film version was released. It won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

【小题1】The book Gone with the Wind was ________.

A．first published in a newspaper

B．awarded ten Academy Awards

C．written in "The Dump"

D．adapted from a movie

【小题2】Which of the following can replace "towered over" underlined in Paragraph 2?

A．Were very pleased with.

B．Showed great respect for.

C．Were much taller than.

D．Showed little interest in.

【小题3】Why did Ms. Mitchell stop working as a reporter according to the passage?

A．Because she got an award for her book.

B．Because she was injured then.

C．Because her husband didn't like it.

D．Because she wanted to write books.

【小题4】Which is the best title for the passage?

A．Gone with the Wind: A Huge Success

B．Margaret Mitchell: A Great Female Writer

C．An Introduction of the Margaret Mitchell House

D．A Trip to Know Margaret Mitchell

   Blind people can read. They do so by running their fingers along a line of raised points or dots on paper. Of course, they first have to learn the code（代码）. Here are some examples of it. One dot stands for the letter “A”. Two dots side by side mean “C”. Four dots arranged to look like a box（：：） stand for the letter “G”. By placing the dots in special patterns, all the letters of the alphabet can be formed.

This code was made up by a Frenchman called Louis Braille. Though he could see at birth, he became sightless when he was only three. Braille was cutting leather in his father’s shop. His knife slipped and cut his eye. Infection（感染）spread to both eyes, and he became blind.

At 10, he was placed in a home for the blind. But young Braille had great talent. He became a skilled musician and soon got a job as a church organist（风琴弹奏者）in Paris.

Because he had talent and was quick, he became a teacher at a school for the blind. While there, he heard that a captain had sent messages to his soldiers that they could read at night without light. His messages were in the simple form of raised dots and dashes. This was the clue Braille needed. At the age of 15, he worked out his own six-dot code. Each group of dots is called a cell. The cells are three dots high and two dots wide. For the rest of his life, Braille taught his young flock to read both written and musical works using his code.

For the last 17 years of his life, Braille was ill with tuberculosis. He died at the age of 43.

【小题1】What is the text mainly about?

A．Different reading methods.	B．Blind people around the world.
C．How blind people communicate.	D．Louis Braille and his six-dot code.

【小题2】Louis Braille developed an alphabet for blind people after he __________.

A．worked as an organist	B．became blind as a young child
C．became a skilled musician in a church	D．was inspired by a captain’s messages

【小题3】The underlined word “flock” in Paragraph 4 probably refers to “____________”.

A．soldiers	B．blind students
C．famous teachers	D．skilled musicians

【小题4】The text is developed ______________.

A．in time order	B．in space order
C．by listing examples	D．by making comparisons

   Canada’s Alice Munro, called the “master of the contemporary short story”, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. After that, the Nobel committee（委员会）said on Twitter that it hadn’t been able to contact Munro and left a phone message to tell her the good news. But The Canadian Press contacted her, and she was quoted as saying the award was "quite wonderful"and she was "terribly surprised".

Douglas Gibson, Munro's publisher read a statement on the author's behalf. "I am amazed and very grateful. I am particularly glad that winning this award will please so many Canadians. I'm happy that this will bring more attention to Canadian writing," she said, according to Gibson.

"Munro is acclaimed for her finely tuned storytelling，which is characterized by clarity and psychological realism（现实主义），"the Nobel committee said.

The author has won many honors over the years，including the 2009 Man Booker International Prize. "Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much depth，wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels，"the Man Booker judging committee said at the time.

Munro，who lives in Huron County in southwestern Ontario，was born near there in Wingham. She started writing stories in her teen years and studied journalism and English at the University of Western Ontario. She started publishing in various magazines in the 1950s. In 1968，she published Dance of the Happy Shades，a collection of short stories. In 1971 she published a collection of stories entitled Lives of Girls and Women，which critics have described as a coming-of-age work.

Munro gained world fame for writing about everyday people. "Here is a world prize being won by someone who writes about housewives in Vancouver, booksellers in Victoria, bean farmers in Huron County and accountants and teachers and librarians — ordinary Canadian people, and she turns them into magic," Gibson said.

【小题1】How did Alice Munro feel about her winning the Nobel Prize?
A．Satisfied and proud.
B．Puzzled but grateful.
C．Surprised but happy.
D．Concerned but lucky.【小题2】The underlined word "acclaimed" in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to"_________".
A．understood     B. admired
B．advertised D. criticized【小题3】Which of the following shows the correct order of what happened in Munro's life？
a. She published Lives of Girls and Women.
b. She won the Man Booker International Prize.
c. She studied at the University of Western Ontario.
d. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
e. She published Dance of the Happy Shades.
A．c-a-b-d-e B. c-e-a-b-d
B．a-c-b-e-d D. a-b-c-d-e【小题4】What do we know about Munro's writing？
A．It concerns the life of poor people.
B．It contains depth and wisdom.
C．It usually tells magic stories.
D．It tends to avoid realistic problems.

Heroes of Our Time

A good heart

Dikembe Mutombo grew up in Africa among great poverty and disease. He came to Georgetown University on a scholarship to study medicine-but coach John Thompson got a look at Dikem be and had a different idea. Dikembe became a star in the NBA, and a citizen（公民）of the United States. But he never forgot the land of his birth, or the duty to share his fortune with others. He built a new hospital in his old hometown in the Congo.

Success and kindness

After her daughter was born, Julie Aigner-Clark searched for ways to share her love of music and art with her child. So she borrowed some equipment, and began filming children's videos in her own house. The Baby Einstein Company was born, and in just five years her business grew to more than $ 20 million in sales. And she is using her success to help others—producing child safety videos with John Walsh of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Julie says of her new program, "I believe it's the most important thing that I have ever done. I believe that children have the right to live in a world that is safe. "

Bravery and courage

A few weeks ago, Wesley Autrey was waiting at a Harlem subway station with his two little girls when he saw a man fall into the path of a train. With seconds to act, Wesley jumped onto the tracks, pulled the man into the space between the rails, and held him as the train passed right above their heads. He insists he's not a hero. He says, "We have got to show each other some love. "

【小题1】What was Mutombo praised for?
A. Being a star in the NBA.

A．Being a student of medicine.

B．His work in the church.

C．His willingness to help the needy.

【小题2】What did the Baby Einstein Company do at its beginning？

A．It produced safety equipment for children.

B．It made videos to protect children.

C．It sold children's music and artworks.

D．It looked for missing and exploited children.

【小题3】Why was Wesley Autrey praised as a hero？

A．He helped a man get across the rails.

B．He stopped a man from destroying the rails.

C．He protected two little girls from getting hurt.

D．He saved a man's life without consideration.