第二部分 阅读理解（共两节，满分34分）

第一节 （共12小题，每小题2分，满分24分）

　　阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并将答案写在答题卡上的相应位置。

　　Every year on my birthday, from the time I turned 12, a white gardenia(栀子花) was sent to my house. It did not come with a card or note of any kind, but I loved the beauty and sweet smell of the flower.

And I never stopped imaging who the giver might be. My mother helped me to imagine. She'd ask me if I had done something kind for anyone. Perhaps the neighbor I'd helped carry heavy bags for, or one of my classmates who I helped the lessons with. As a teenager, though, I had more fun thinking that it might be a boy I liked at school.

When I was 17, a boy broke my heart and I cried myself to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, there was a message on my mirror, "If we let sadness go, happiness will surely come to you." I thought about those words for a long time. When I finally went to get the glass cleaner, my mother knew everything was all right again. One month before I finished high school, my father left us forever. I lost interest in all the celebrating activities such as the class play, taking photos with classmates before leaving the high school where I had studied for three years. Although my mother was very sad, she still encouraged me to take part in all those. She wanted her child to have a sense that there was still beauty in the face of bad luck, just like the gardenia-lovely, strong and perfect.

My mother died 10 days after I was married. I was 26. That was the year gardenias stopped coming.

21. From the age of , the writer began to receive a gardenia every year on her birthday.

A. 17 B. 12 C. 26 D. 10

22. What can we infer from the underlined sentence in Paragraph 3?

A. Mother was clever. B. I was still sad.

C. The glass was dirty. D. Mother really understood me.

23. The writer lost interest in activities before leaving high school because .

A. no flowers were sent to her B. a boy broke her heart

C. her father died D. there was no beauty in her life

24. In fact it was who sent the flowers.

A. the writer's father B. the writer's mother

C. a boy classmate D. one of the neighbors

Many people say dolphins are very intelligent. They seem to be able to think, understand, and learn things quickly. But are they smart like humans or more than cats