56. How many people were there in the writer’s family when the earthquake happened?

A. Four.    B. Five.    C. Six.    D. Seven.

57. Where were the writer and his family when the earthquake began?

A. They all stayed in the hospital except the writer.

B. Some were at home, and the others in the hospital.

C. Most of them were in the hospital but two weren’t.

D. Each of them had his own place except the babies.

58. The writer missed the noise at school because ______.

A. he would have nothing to do without noise

B. he looked forward to the return to usual life

C. he loved everything created by the students

D. he became used to noises in the earthquake

59. The underlined sentence in the passage means ______.

A. life is often made up of happiness and sadness

B. good things are always followed by bad things

C. one can’t be successful in life without difficulty

D. when you are too excited things will go wrong

七、阅读短文，根据短文内容，从短文后的五个选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有一项为多余选项。(共8分，每小题2分)

It was midnight. Mr. Lee was in bed and was trying to go to sleep when he heard the bell ring. He turned on the light and looked at his watch.    60    “Who can it be at this time of night?” He thought. He decided to go and find out.   61    He went to the door quietly. When he opened the door, there was nobody there. “This is very strange. I really heard the bell ring just now.” Then he went back to his bedroom, took off his clothes, got back into bed, turned off the light and tried to go to sleep.

62    Mr. Lee jumped out of bed very quickly and rushed to the door. He opened it, but again he found no one there. He closed the door and tried not to feel angry.    63    He picked it up. There were some words on it: “It is now after midnight, so it is April Fool’s Day. April Fool to you!”

“Oh, it was the English boy next door!” Mr. Lee shouted and almost smiled. He went back to bed and fell asleep at once. The bell did not ring again.