“Do you like my dress?” She asked a lady. “My Mum made it just for me,” she said with tears in her eyes.

   “Well, I think it’s very pretty, so tell me, little girl, why are you crying?”

   The little girl answered in a low voice, “After Mum made me this dress, she went away. My Dad says that she’s up in heaven with grandfather.”

   Finally the woman realized why she was crying. She felt very sorry for the little girl and held the child in her arms.

   Just before the lady wanted to go, the girl stopping crying, walked back from the woman, and showed her a spot (點(diǎn)) on her dress, and said, “Right here is where my Mum kissed my dress, and here,” pointing to another spot, “and here is another kiss, and here, and here. Mum said that she had put all those kisses on my dress so that I would forget my sadness.”

   The lady realized that she wasn’t just looking at a dress, no, she was looking at mother. The mother knew that she was going away. So she gave all her love to her lovely daughter and put it into the dress.

   The lady no longer saw a little girl wearing a simple dress. She saw a child in her mother’s love.

根據(jù)短文內(nèi)容，選擇最佳答案。

1.The little girl was crying because her mother           .

   A. died                     

B. went out with her grandfather       

C. was ill

2.The girl told the woman the spots on her dress were           .

   A. the strange designs      

B. her sadness                     

C. her mother’s kisses

3.The little girl showed the lady           .

   A. how beautiful her dress was

   B. how happy she was

   C. how great the mother’s love was

4.According to the passage, it’s clear that the woman was           .

   A. the girl’s relation     

B. a careless woman                

C. kind to the girl

5.From the story, we learn that           .

   A. a mother should take her child with her

   B. mother’s love is the greatest in the world

   C. a girl should wear a dress made by her mother

Obama has made history by becoming the first African-American in American history.
Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. His parents didn’t live together when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama grew up with his mother in Hawaii, and for a few years in Indonesia. Later, he moved to New York, where he graduated from Columbia University in 1983. Obama met his wife, Robinson, in June, 1989 and married her on October 3^rd, 1992. The couple’s first daughter was born in 1998, followed by a second daughter in 2001.
Obama took office in January 20, 2009. However, just when he became the president, he had to face many serious challenges ---- two foreign wars, the climate change and what he had described as “the worst financial crisis (經(jīng)濟(jì)危機(jī)) in a century”. But Obama said that he himself had been ready to face these challenges.
Obama’s success is a true milestone. It speaks to the fact that in America you really do get a chance to do anything, if you have the talent and abilities and you work hard enough.
【小題1】   How old was Obama when he became the American president?