Mary was a little girl and she lived with her parents in Africa. Her parents had gotten tired of the neighbors always complaining to them about their daughter, who was naughty and disrespectful to others. To change the situation, the father told Mary a story of a thief who would come and take away the parents of a bad child to take care of a better child and leave the bad child alone.

    However Mary went on with her ways. One day she made fun of an old blind man on her way to school. On hearing this, her parents thought of a new plan.

    The next day Mary came back from school. To her surprise, nobody was at home. It was getting dark but neither of her parents showed up. The little girl started to wonder where they were. Suddenly she remembered the story. Mary began to cry, for she thought she would never see them again. While she was crying, the door opened and her parents came in. She ran to them and asked, “Where have you been? I thought the thief had taken you away.”

    “He did but he let us go and told us to come back home because he knows you are going to be a good girl. He told us that if you are still a bad girl, he will come back for us,” they told her.

    “I am a good girl now and I promise never to be bad again because I don't want him to take you away from me.” Mary's words made her parents very happy. From that day on, Mary has never misbehaved again.

任务一：判断下列句子正误。

任务二：回答问题。

A

    When I was a little kid, a father was like the light in the fridge. Every house had one, but no one really knew what either of them did when the door was shut.

    My dad left the house every morning and always seemed glad to see every one again at night. He opened the jar of pickles when no one else at home could. He was the only one in the house who wasn't afraid to go into the basement by himself. 

    Whenever it rained, he got into the car and brought it around to the door. When anyone was sick, he went out to get the prescription(处方) filled. He set mousetraps. He cut back the roses so the thorns(刺) wouldn't hurt you when you came to the front door. He oiled my roller skates, and they went faster. When I got my bike, he ran alongside me for at least a thousand miles until I got the hang of it. He signed all my report and cards. He took a lot of pictures, but was never in them. He tightened up Mother's sagging(松垂的) clothesline every week or so.

I was afraid of everyone else's father, but not my own. 

    Whenever I played house(玩过家家), the mother doll had a lot to do. I never knew what to do with the daddy doll, so I had him say, "I'm going off to work now," and threw him under the bed.

    When I was nine years old, my father didn't get up one morning and go to work, he went to the hospital and died the next day. 

    There were a lot of people in the house who brought all kinds of good food and cakes. We had never had so much company before. 

    He never did anything; I didn't know his leaving would hurt so much.

    One day, Thomas Edison came home from school and gave a letter to his mother. He {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (tell) her, "My teacher gave this letter to me and asked me to give it to my mother only." His {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (mother) eyes were full of tears as she read {#blank#}3{#/blank#} letter out loud to her child, "Your son is a genius (天才). This school is too small {#blank#}4{#/blank#} him and doesn't have enough good teachers to train him. Please teach him {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (you)."

    Many years after Edison's mother had died, Edison became one of the {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (great) inventors of the century. One day, he was going through the old closet (壁柜) and he found a folded letter which {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (give) to him by his teacher for his mother. He opened it. The message {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (write) on the letter was, "Your son is mentally (精神上) ill. We cannot let him attend our school any more, he has to leave the school."

    {#blank#}9{#/blank#} surprised and excited Edison was after reading it! And then he wrote in his diary, "Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally ill child, but his mother turned him into the genius of the century {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(success)."

    It was the best plan ever. First, we would make sure she was out of the house. Then we would get all the work done. By the time she got back, it would be wonderful. So we got to work. How to get her out of the house? Well, we came up with a good idea. We told her that we needed some school things. She went out to get them.

    The first part of the plan was done. Next, we called aunts, uncles and Mum's friends to come to our house quickly and made sure there were no signs that they were there. We put all their shoes away. Then we cleaned the house and hung(悬挂)the balloons. The house really looked nice. Then we waited.

    When we heard her car driving up the porch(门廊), we became quiet. The moment the door opened, we shouted, "Surprise!" The look on her face was worth ten thousand dollars. Smiling and crying at the same time, she hugged all who were there. Lastly, she came to us. She said, "My best present of all is my two lovely daughters." And she hugged us happily.

    Old George bought the black gloves for just ＄35 ten years ago. They were made of leather skin, soft and warm and very strong. Until then, he had worn cheaper manmade material. Those gloves never lasted longer than three years. He first decided to buy the expensive gloves, because they would make him feel nice in front of others.

    George never let a drop of water or rain touch his expensive gloves, so they looked new. Losing this favorite thing was almost like losing a child to him. Bad luck! Geogorge lost his expensive gloves on New Year's Day.

    Back home, George was at a loss. In deep winter, he could not do without a pair of gloves. If he bought cheap ones again, he would have to replace(更换) them vey soon. If he bought a new leather pair, it would cost ＄50 now. He was upset that people no longer returned things they found on the road.

    After the holiday, poor George decided to buy another leather pair. Before boarding the subway, he went into Value Mart again to see if his gloves had been returned to the Lost and Found Office(失物招领处).

    "What color are they?" the woman in the office asked again.

    "Black," he gave the same answer. She looked onto her drawer and drew out a pair of men's leather gloves. "Are they?"