一、完形填空
Songs bring us through our life. Each time I listen to “Reach”, I'm deeply by its lyrics (歌词), “If I could reach higher, just one moment touch the sky...” When we hear this song sung by Gloria Estefan, we can imagine how she made it since she had a car accident in 1990. How could she to return to the stage after her serious back injury (损伤)? The doctor once said that she might never walk again. But Gloria did not and kept on working hard. Just one year after the accident happened, she stood up again and this encouraging song at the Atlanta Olympics.
Whenever I think of Gloria, a comes in my mind. When I entered university, I was shy, with ordinary looks and poor scores in my lessons, just like an ugly duckling. I seemed to be the outstanding (出色的) one in my class. Failures drove me into hopelessness. “Am I to take a back seat to everyone else?” Unwilling to take the defeat (失败) lying down, I worked hard on my lessons and joined in many activities, such as English speech contests and dramas. I just wanted to catch every little chance to myself. My continuous efforts finally paid off. I received some awards. More importantly, I gained courage and confidence to any difficulty in my life.
Life is just like farming. You what you put in the soil. Once you have a dream, keep moving!
() 1. A. connected B. admired C. touched D. changed
() 2. A. easily B. highly C. finally D. hardly
() 3. A. manage B. learn C. fail D. win
() 4. A. give away B. give back C. give out D. give up
() 5. A. wrote B. recorded C. sang D. covered
() 6. A. story B. view C. memory D. question
() 7. A. most B. more C. least D. very
() 8. A. fight B. improve C. enjoy D. support
() 9. A. risk B. face C. lose D. require
()10. A. harvest B. plant C. reduce D. discover

二、阅读理解
During the 1800s, African Americans worked long days in the fields of the American South. They sang songs that they had brought from Africa while working. One person sang a line. Then a group of workers repeated it. The song's words told about the hardships（艰苦）that people suffered. They clapped their hands and stomped their feet to the music.
In the 1860s, the music changed greatly. African American music took new forms. It was also influenced by dance music, which had great rhythm. Banjos（班卓琴）became popular. A blues singer usually sang a line and then played the banjo in reply. By the early 1900s, the guitar had taken the place of the banjo in the blues music.

The blues music has many obvious（明显的）characteristics. One of them is that the musical notes are often "bent". That is, they are changed slightly to give a song more strength.
Lyrics are the words of a song. Blues lyrics describe everyday life. The lyrics are often about the relationships between men and women. They tell about sadness and overwork. They tell about finding and losing love, having money or being poor, being happy or sad and lonely. They almost always use the rhythms of everyday speech. A group of blues lyrics usually has three lines. The second line repeats the first line. The third line has different words.
By the 1940s, large numbers of African Americans moved to Chicago. There, a new kind of Chicago blues began. The new music was excellent dance music. Chicago blues led to the birth of a new music style—rock and roll.
（）1. This passage is mainly about .
A. the blues music
B. the life of African Americans
C. the blues lyrics
D. the rhythms of different music
（）2. Which of the following is the most likely taken from a blues song?
A. You have to help me. I'll die if you don't. You have to help me.
B. You have to help me. You have to help me. I'll die if you don't.
C. I'll die if you don't help me. You have to help me. You have to help me.
D. I'll die if you don't help me. You have to help me. Please help me.
（）3. What fact does the passage lead you to believe?
A. African Americans sang songs after a long day's work to relax in the 1800s.
B. The blues singers in the 1860s usually played the guitar while singing songs.
C. It is not difficult to tell the blues music from others from its musical notes.
D. Rock and roll was the most popular blues music in Chicago in the 1950s.