He was an old manwho fished alone in a small boat on the sea and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish, the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone with another boat which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his boat empty. The sail looked like the flag of failure forever.

      The old man was thin with deep wrinkles (皱纹) in the back of his neck. His face was terribly brown because of the strong sunlight on the sea every day and his hands had the deep scars (伤疤) from dealing with heavy fish on the lines. But none of these scars were fresh. Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful.

      “Santiago,” the boy said to him as they climbed the bank from the sea. “I could go with you again. We've made some money.”

        The old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him.

      “No,” the old man said. “You're with a lucky boat. Stay with them.”

      “But remember how you went eighty-seven days without fish and then we caught big ones every day for three weeks.”

      “I remember,” the old man said.

     “It was papa who made me leave. I am a boy and I must follow him.”

     “I know,” the old man said. “It is quite normal.”

       "He hasn't mush faith(信心)"                       

     “No,” the old man said. “But we have. Haven't we?”

     “Yes,” the boy said. “Can I offer you a beer on the Terrace?”

    “Why not?” the old man said “Between fishermen.”

      One day a farmer went out for a walk with his little son. The farmer wore a pair of wrong shoes. One had thick sole(厚鞋底) but the other didn't. He began to walk and then his feet hurt. When he was just out of the house, he turned to his son and said, “Why is one of my legs longer than the other today?”

      The son looked at his father's legs carefully as he was walking and then laughed, “Oh, no, Daddy. Your legs are all right. You're wearing the wrong shoes.” The farmer was very happy to hear that and said to himself, “What a clever son!” Then he asked his son to go back and got the other pair of shoes for him. The farmer had only two pairs of shoes.

      When the son ran back to the house, he found that the other pair was also a wrong pair. He had to return to his father with nothing in his hands and said, “It's no use changing them, Daddy! The shoes at home are not a pair, either!”

The Cheater

      Donald was not very good at math. He could not understand the teacher's explanations. “Never mind,”Donald told himself. “I'll cheat in the math exam, then I won't be in trouble.”

      The day of the exam came, and Donald sat next to Brian Smith, who always was at the top of the class in math. Donald carefully copied Brian's answers on to his own exam paper.

      The teacher collected the papers and graded (打分) them. Then she said, “Well, I've decided to give a prize to the student who got the highest grade. It's difficult for me to decide who to give the prize to, because two students, Donald and Brian, got the same grade.

“Let them share it,” one of the other students said. “I've thought about that,” the teacher said, “but I've decided to give the prize to Brian.” Donald stood up and said, “That's not fair. I got the same grade as Brian.”

“That's true,” the teacher said. “However, Brian's answer to Question 18 was ‘I don't know'. Yours was ‘Neither do I'.”

Choose the best answer to each question according to the passage.

    One morning it was shining brightly when I woke up. I looked at the alarm dock. It said 3:45! It had stopped! What time was it? I spent two minutes putting on my clothes and ran down to the kitchen. The kitchen clock Said 8: 30--I was late! My parents were away. The school bus went at 8:00. I had missed it, I rang my friend Tony on his mobile phone.

    "Tell the teacher I'll be in as soon as I can!" I said "Come on your rollerblades," Tony said. "It will be faster than the bus." I got an apple to eat on the way. That was my breakfast! Then I put on my rollerblades and set off for school. It took half an hour to get to the school. I took all the shortcuts I knew, I went across the park-even through some backyards! When I got to school. I was very hot and my legs ached. I had missed math, our first lesson of the morning. But I made it just in time for history, our second lesson. I was very happy because history is my favourite subject.