1.The Greatest GiftOne day,I was telling my mother about a new girl in school.Suddenly she asked，“Who are your two best friends，Helen？”“Jill and Jaime.”“Well,what about Karen and Cindy？”“I don’t know who their best friends are.”“No，”she said.“I mean，why aren’t they your best friends？”She seemed upset and hurt.“But they’re my sisters.”“Yes，but they can still be your best friends.Friends may come and go，but your sisters will always be there for you.”At the time，the idea of my sisters being my closest friends seemed strange to me.We used to fight over toys，food，attention and what to watch on television.But my mother never let the three of us forget it：sisters are lifelong friends.Her wish was to give us something that she had never had.When she gave birth to three daughters，the fulfillment(实现)of her dream had only just begun.She had given us each a gift—our sisters—and she wanted to make sure we did not take that gift for granted.She would frequently tell us how lucky we were，constantly take us to places together so we grew closer,and would even punish us equally,giving us yet another bonding(亲密关系)experience.It was somewhere in between Mom’s lectures,the family vacations and the shared memories that we realized that Mom was right.Today I share things with my sisters that I share with no one else.My sister Cindy and I ran the New York City Marathon together,side by side，holding hands when crossing the finishing line.When Karen got married,I was her maid of honor.The three of us trust each other with our greatest secrets.It was twenty-three years ago that my mother first asked me who my two best friends were.Today she doesn’t have to.She already knows.One day,one of Helen’s sisters asked her to be her best friend. 1-2.Mom believed that sisters should be the best friends to each other. 1-3.Helen found it easy to accept the idea of having her sisters as her best friends. 1-4.Helen and her sisters never argued and fought. 1-5.To help her daughters become best friends,Mom sent them to the same school. 1-6.Helen’s sisters were the greatest gift that Mom gave Helen. 1-7.Mom punished the sisters equally to make them understand they were connected by blood tie. 1-8.Helen and Cindy’s friendship was shown by their running the New York Marathon together. 1-9.Helen’s sister Cindy was not married. 1-10.The three sisters seldom share their secrets. 1.Hares and RabbitsOne of the gentlest of all animals is the hare.When you consider how mild this animal is，you might wonder how it can survive in a world full of enemies.But then you’ve also probably noticed its strong hind(后面的)legs.Those legs give it plenty of speed.And you know how rapidly hares and rabbits breed(繁殖).That’s another reason why they manage to survive.Hares and rabbits have long，sharp front teeth.Their hind legs are longer than their front legs so that they run faster uphill than downhill.When they are hunted，they use tricks such as taking huge leaps to break the smell or signal danger to each other by hitting the ground with their hind feet.Hares and rabbits are purely vegetarians(素食者).They can live very well on the inner bark of trees.There are many differences between hares and rabbits.Hares are larger，and their feet and ears are longer.Hares do not dig holes or live in groups，as do rabbits.Hares are born open-eyed and with thick fur，while rabbits are born blind and hairless.North America is the home of many different types of hares.One of the best known is the jack hare，a large hare with very long ears.Jacks are so fast that they can sometimes make a leap of six meters.The March hare，whom we know from Alice in Wonderland，is a common European hare.In March，they are always busy in mating，thus acquiring its name.Unlike hares，rabbits are social animals，living together in holes.A rabbit may mate when it is six months old and its young are born within a month.So if the rabbit has no natural enemies，it can become quite a pest.People are curious about the survival of the hare because________. 1-2.Hares and rabbits use tricks when they________. 1-3.Compared with hares，rabbits________. 1-4.Many people get to know the March hare from the fact that it________. 1-5.Rabbits’natural enemies prevent them from________. 1.Pawn Shops(当铺)①Pawn shops are businesses where people bring their possessions to sell or to get a short-term loan.Pawn shops may be large or small，clean or dirty,but they are all full of stories.The United States has about ten thousand of them.②In the past few years，pawn shops have been doing business with more people than ever before.That is because many lenders(贷方)now do business only with individuals having good credit records or a high-paying job.Often，the individuals most in need of a loan have poor credit records.But they do not need a good job or credit record to get a loan from a pawnbroker(典当商).They only need to have something of value.③When a traditional lender agrees to provide a loan,it may take days or weeks before an individual receives the money.But pawnbrokers will give a loan in just a few minutes based on the resale value of an object and without asking about the person’s job or credit history.④Many pawn shops specialize in jewelry.But most shops accept almost  anything of value，including computers，musical instruments，guns，old coins and so on.The item itself acts as the security,or collateral(抵押物)，for the loan.If the loan is not repaid，the object can be sold.Customers can get the object back at any time by repaying the loan plus the interest and fees they agreed to pay.Or they can pay the interest and leave the item at the pawn shop for a while longer.⑤The National Pawnbrokers Association is a national trade group representing pawnbrokers.The association calls pawn-brokering“one of humankind’s oldest financial institutions.”It says pawnbrokers operated three thousand years ago in ancient China and in early Greek and Roman times.Paragraph ①：________ 1-2.Paragraph ②：________ 1-3.Paragraph ③：________ 1-5.Paragraph ⑤：________ 1-6.People bring their valuable things to pawn shops to________.