Vickers was very stingy．He hated spending money．Whenever he had to buy something，he always wanted to pay less money，even for the cheapest things．If he wanted to buy a bottle of beer，for example，and the shopkeeper asked for $2，Vickers would say，“Make it $1.9 and I'll buy it．”

Although the shopkeepers didn't like Vickers，sometimes they had to agree with him．They thought，“If I make it $1.9，the man will be happy，and it won’t hurt me very much．” In this way，Vickers saved a few cents（美分）here and a few cents there，and he had saved several hundred dollars by the end of the year．

One day he had a bad toothache and had to go to see the dentist．The dentist looked at the tooth and said，“This tooth will have to come out．”

“How much will I have to pay?” Vickers asked．

“Forty dollars．” the dentist said．

“Forty dollars!” Vickers thought it was much too expensive．“How long will it take you to pull out the tooth?” he said．

“About two minutes．” the dentist said．

Vickers could not believe what he was hearing．“Forty dollars for two minutes’ work!” he shouted，“That's robbery（搶劫）．”

“You are right，” the dentist said with a smile，“Thank you for telling me．Let me spend half an hour on that．will you?”

“OK，but I'll pay only-thirty-five dollars!” he answered．

1．The word “stingy” means ________ in Chinese．

A．吝嗇的             B．刻薄的                C．貧窮的

2．The shopkeepers ________．

A．gave Vickers more than what he wanted

B．didn't like Vickers                                    C．usually made the price high

3．Then dentist thought Vickers was ________．

A．lovely                  B．silly                     C．friendly

4．If Vickers wanted to buy a bottle of beer that was $2，how much would he like to pay?

A．$1.9．                 B．$2．                    C．$2.1．

5．From this story，we know that Vickers ________．

A．usually had a toothache                           B．was very poor

C．didn’t like spending money

A crow(烏鴉) is about twenty inches(英寸) long and black all over. Crows are dirty birds because they live on bad food. Crows eat a lot of waste food. In this way they are more useful to us than any birds. They clean up the dirty things in our streets. Crows are always hungry. They look for food all day, and in the evening you can see them in large numbers flying back to their nests(巢) in the trees. They sleep there at night.
Crows are much noisier than other birds. Very often a large number of crows will get together on one house and talk. Sometimes they talk together, and sometimes they do it by turns(輪流) like human beings(人類(lèi)). It is easy to tell(判斷) from crow’s sound if they are pleased or angry. Perhaps crows talk a lot because they are friendly birds. A pair of crows will live together all their lives, and if one of them dies, the other one becomes very sad and quiet for the rest of its life and some time later it dies too.
【小題1】Crows “l(fā)ive on bad food” means “ _________ ”.