阅读理解。
In the kitchen of my mother's houses there has always been a wooden stand (木架) with a small notepad
(记事本) and a hole for a pencil.
I'm looking for paper on which to note down the name of a book I am recommending to my mother. Over
forty years since my earliest memories of the kitchen pad and pencil, five houses later, the current paper and
pencil look the same as they always did. Surely it can't be the same pencil? The pad is more modern, but the
wooden stand is definitely the original one.
"I'm just amazed you still have the same stand for holding the pad and pencil after all these year." I say to
her, walking bank into the living-room with a sheet of paper and the pencil. "You still use a pencil. Can't you
afford a pen?"
My mother replies a little sharply. "It works perfectly well. I've always kept the stand in the kitchen. I never
knew when I might want to note down an idea, and I was always in the kitchen in these days."
Immediately I can picture her, hair wild, blue housecoat covered in flour, a wooden spoon in one hand, the
pencil in the other, her mouth moving silently. My mother smiles and says, "One day I was cooking and
watching baby Pauline, and I had a brilliant thought, but the stand was empty. One of the children must have
taken the paper. So I just picked up the breadboard and wrote it all down on the back. It turned out to be a real
breakthrough for solving the mathematical problem I was working on."
This story-which happened before I was born-reminds me how extraordinary my mother was, and is, as a
gifted mathematician. I feel embarrassed that I complain about not having enough child-free time to work. Later,
when my mother is in the bathroom, I go into her kitchen and turn over the breadboards. Sure enough, on the
back of the smallest one, are some penciled marks I recognize as mathematics. Those symbols have traveled
unaffected through fifty years, rooted in the soil of a cheap wooden breadboard, invisible (看不到的) exhibits
at every meal.
1. Why has the author's mother always kept the notepad and pencil in the kitchen? [ ]
A. To leave messages.
B. To list her everyday tasks.
C. To note down maths problems.
D. To write down a flash of inspiration.
2. What is the author's original opinion about the wooden stand? [ ]
A. It has great value for the family.
B. It needs to be replaced by a better one.
C. It brings her back to her lonely childhood.
D. It should be passed on to the next generation.
3. The author feels embarrassed for _____.[ ]
A. blaming her mother wrongly
B. giving her mother a lot of trouble
C. not making good use of time as her mother did
D. not making any breakthrough in her field
4. What can be inferred from the last paragraph? [ ]
A.The mother is successful in her career.
B. The family members like traveling.
C. The author had little time to play when young.
D. The marks on the breadboard have disappeared.
5. In the author's mind,her mother is _____. [ ]
A. strange in behavior
B. keen on her research
C. fond of collecting old things
D. careless about her appearance
