I did very badly at school. My headmaster thought I was   36  and when I was 14 he said, “You’re never going to be   37  but a failure.” After five years of   38  jobs, I fell in love with a very nice middle-class girl. It was the beatific   39  that could have happened to me. I  40  I wanted to do something positive (積極地) with my life because I wanted to prove to  41  that what people said about me was   42 . Especially her mother, who had said to me, “Let’s   43  it, you’ve failed at everything you’ve ever done.” So I tried hard with my   44  and went to college. My first novel   45   while I was at college. After college I taught during the   46  in high schools and attended evening classes at London University, where I got a   47  in history. I became a lecturer at a college and was thinking of   48  that job to write full time   49  I was offered a part-time job at Leeds University. I began to feel proud of myself —   50  was a working-class boy who’d   51  school early, now teaching at the university. My writing career (職業(yè)) took off when I discovered my own style. Now I’m rich and   52 , have been on TV, and met lots of film stars.   53  what does it mean? I   54  wish all the people that have put me down had   55 : “I believe in you. You’ll succeed.”

I was fifteen months old, a happy kid until the day I fell. It was a    31   fall. I landed on a glass rabbit which cut my eye badly enough to make it blind. Trying to save the eye, the doctors stitched(縫合) the eyeball together where it was    32  , leaving a big ugly scar(疤痕) in the middle of my eye. The attempt    33  , but my mother, in all of her wisdom, found another doctor who knew that if the eye were removed    34  , my face would grow up badly distorted(扭曲)，   35   my scarred, sightless, cloudy and gray eye lived on with me. As I grew, this sightless eye in so many ways    36   me.
I walked with my face looking at the    37   so that people would not see the    38   me. Yet my mother would say to me, at every turn, “Hold your head up high and    39   the world. If you hold your head up high, it will be OK, and people will see your    40   soul.” She continued this    41   whenever I was trying to hide.
Mama’s words were of great help for me to face the world    42  . As a teenager, even though I tended to look down to hide my shame, I found that sometimes when I held my head up high and let people know me, they    43   me. In high school, I was    44   both academically and socially. I was    45   elected class president. My mother’s words helped me begin to realize that by letting people look at my face, I let them    46   the intelligence and beauty behind both eyes, even if they couldn’t see it on the    47  .
Now I’m a happy wife and great mother. The message “Hold your head up high,” has been
   48   many times in my   49   home. Each of my children has felt    50   invitation, and the gift my mother gave me has lived on in another generation.

The clock struck eleven at night. The whole house was quiet. Everyone was in bed except me. Under the strong light，I looked sadly before me at a huge pile of that troublesome stuff（東西） they call “books”.

    I was going to have my examination the next day.  “When can I go to bed？” I asked myself. I didn’t answer，in fact, I dared not.

The clock struck twelve. “ Oh，dear！” I cried. “Ten more books to read before I can go to bed！” We pupils are the most wretched creatures in the world. Dad does not agree with me on this. He did not have to work so hard when he was a boy.

    The clock struck one. I was quite desperate（絕望的）now. I forgot all I had learned. I was too tired to go on. I did the only thing I could. I prayed，“Oh，God，please help me pass the exam tomorrow. I do promise to work hard afterwards，Amen.” My eyes were so heavy that I could hardly open them. A few minutes later，with my head on the desk，I fell asleep.

  When the author was going over his lessons，all the others in the house were  ________ .

    A. asleep                                        B. outside

    C. working in bed                           D. quietly laughing at him

The underlined word wretched in Paragraph 3 probably means _______ .

    A. very happy                                B. disappointed

    C. very unhappy                              D. hopeful

Reviewing his lessons didn’t help him because _______  .

A. he was excited                       

B. he was nervous

    C. he was worried

    D. he hadn’t studied hard before the examination

The best title for the passage would be __________ .

    A. The Night Before the Examination          B. Working Far into the Night

    C. A Slow Student                                D. Going Over My Lessons

完形填空(共20小題；每小題1.5分，滿分30分)

閱讀下面短文，掌握其大意，然后從36~55各題所給的四個選項(A、B、C和D)中，選出最佳選項，并在答題卡上將該項涂黑。

Until 1954 it was thought that no man could run one mile in less than four minutes.As years

   36  ，the record came closer and closer to four minutes and Roger Bannister,a young English

   37  , began to believe he might   38  this almost magic barrier.

It was a cold afternoon on May 6th,1954,when Bannister knew he had a    39   chance. Bannister had been     40    hard and was very fit,but the weather conditions were a real   41  

to him.Describing the     42    later,Bannister said,“On the way to the track the wind blew strongly.As I     43    for the start I glanced at the flag.It moved   44  now.This was the moment when I made my decision.

“The gun fired.My legs   45  to meet no resistance,as if I was   46  forward by some unknown force.The noise from the faithful   47  gave me greater strength.I felt the   48  of a lifetime had come.”

“I was driven on by a   49  of fear and pride.My body had long since used up all its energy   50  it went on running just the same.This was the critical moment when my legs were strong enough to carry me over the last few yards as they   51  could have done in previous years.When I leapt at(沖向) the   52  tape,I fell,almost__53_____.”

“I knew I had done it,even before I   54  the time.The announcement came.‘Result of the one mile...Time,three minutes...’ the rest was   55  in the noise of excitement.”

36.A.passed along         B.passed down              C.went by              D.went over

37.A.coach                   B.athlete                       C.captain               D.judge

38.A.defeat                   B.move                        C.beat                   D.break

39.A.real                      B.lucky                        C.serious               D.false

40.A.competing            B.training                     C.fighting              D.attending

41.A.eagerness              B.pleasure                    C.relief                 D.worry

42.A.accident                B.event                        C.issue                  D.topic

43.A.did up                  B.made up                    C.put up                D.lined up

44.A.safely                   B.heavily                      C.thinly                 D.gently

45.A.seemed                 B.used                          C.happened            D.had

46.A.dragged                      B.drawn                       C.pulled                D.pushed

47.A.mass                    B.residents                    C.crowd                D.team

48.A.moment                B.period                       C.while                 D.date

49.A.concentration        B.collection                  C.combination              D.classification

50.A.so                        B.but                           C.or                      D.as

51.A.never                   B.ever                          C.even                  D.still

52.A.starting                 B.lasting                       C.finishing            D.running

53.A.unconcerned         B.unconscious               C.unknown            D.unnoticed

54.A.offered                 B.told                          C.announced          D.heard

55.A.stuck                    B.involved                    C.lost                    D.spread

I fell asleep while working on this paper_______the computer on.

A. as  B. for  C. over  D. with