二、阅读理解
Do you remember the name of your kindergarten teacher? I do. Her name was Mrs White.
I don't remember much about what we learnt in her class, but my mother once told me that we used to write a lot. And I would bring back what I wrote and she would look at it and see there were so many mistakes. But no red corrections. And always a star. Sometimes even a "Good"! The scrawl(潦草的笔迹) in that worried my mother, so one day when she met Mrs White for one of those Parent-Teacher meetings, she asked her why she never corrected my mistakes, why she never red-pencilled in the right spellings of words or pointed out grammatical errors.
Mrs White said, "The children are just beginning to get excited about using words, about forming sentences. I don't want to dampen that enthusiasm with red ink. Spelling and grammar can wait..." What my mother gave me was the gist of what she could remember. But I grew up learning to use words with loving confidence just like that.
And it occurs to me that if Mrs White had used her red pen more precisely, I probably wouldn't be telling you about this now. I look back now and think she must have been a rather extraordinary teacher—to restrain(限制) her red pen, and to allow the joy, wonder and excitement of expression to flower—however faultily—like that.
I used to misspell "beautiful" a lot. I never could quite remember that the e went before the a. It annoyed my teacher in high school endlessly. Eventually the e's and a's that were wrong placed in "beautiful" settled into their right places. I am glad I didn't wait on them though. "Pretty" is easier to spell but it doesn't hold as much as you mean sometimes.
And thanks to Mrs White I had no concerns about writing what I meant, even if I couldn't quite spell it out. Because life isn't pretty. It's beautiful.
() 1. What worried his mother when the author was in kindergarten?
A. The author's unwillingness to go to school.
B. The teacher's terrible attitude to the author.
C. The teacher's ignorance of the author's mistakes.
D. The author's failure in exams and scrawl in homework.
() 2. What does the underlined word "dampen" in paragraph 3 mean?
A. Reduce.
B. Gain.
C. Awaken.
D. Inspire.
() 3. What can we learn from the fifth paragraph?
A. The author preferred using the word "pretty".
B. The teacher in high school disliked the author.
C. The author finally succeeded in spelling "beautiful" correctly.
D. The author owed all his own spelling problems to Mrs White.
() 4. Which of the following can be used to describe Mrs White?
A. Generous and kind.
B. Enthusiastic and careful.
C. Honest and brave.
D. Far-sighted and tolerant.