When I was
growing up, I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs. He didn’t look like any
doctor I’d ever known. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard. I
remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than most of the adults in our
community.
When Dr. Gibbs
wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres, and his
life’s goal was to make it a forest.
The good doctor had
some interesting theories concerning plant care and growth. He never watered
his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why.
He said that watering plants spoiled them so that each successive tree generation
would grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and
weed out(淘汰) the weaker trees early on.
He talked about how
watering trees made for shallow roots, and how trees that weren’t watered had
to grow deep roots in search of moisture. I took him to mean that deep roots
were to be treasured.
So he never watered
his trees. He planted an oak and, instead of watering it every morning, he’d
beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! I asked him why he did
that, and he said it was to get the tree’s attention.
Dr. Gibbs passed
away a couple of years after I left home. Every now and again, I walked by his
house and looked at the trees that I’d watched him plant some twenty-five years
ago. They’re extremely tall, big and robust since they have deep roots
now. However, the trees in my garden trembled in a cold wind although I had
watered them for several years.
It seems
that adversity(逆境) and
suffering benefit these trees in ways comfort and ease never could. I stood
there deep in thought.
Every night before
I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I stand over them and watch their little
bodies, the rising and falling of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I
pray that their lives will be easy. But I think it’s time to change my prayer(禱詞) because now I know my children are going to encounter hardship..
1.According to Dr. Gibbs’ theories, trees will become weaker if they______
A. are lack of
care B. are watered C. are weeded out
D. are beaten
2..According
to Para.3 and Pare.4, we can infer that Dr. Gibbs’moto(座右銘)may be_____
A. “seeing is believing”
B.“Put everything in
proper use”
C. ”Practice makes
perfect” D. “No pains, no gains”
3..The underlined word robust in Para.5 most probably means______
A.
strong B.
strange C.
deep D. old
4. Which of the following may be the author’s best prayer for his two sons
now ?
A. I wish them strong wings, with
which they can fly higher and touch the sky.
B.I wish them nice fortune so that
they can meet people like Dr. Gibbs in the future.
C.I wish them deep roots into the earth
since the rains fall and the winds blow often.
D.I wish them great shades under the tree since
the sunlight is always sharp and bitter.
5. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?
A. A Nice
Doctor
B. The Deep Roots
C. Adversity and
Suffering
D. My Childhood Memory