Fat and shy, Ben Saunders was the last kid in his class picked for any sports team. “Football, tennis, cricket--- anything with a round ball, I was useless,” he says now with a laugh. But back then he was the one always made fun of in school gym classes in Devonshire, England.
It was a mountain bike he received for his 15th birthday that changed him. At first he went biking alone in a nearby forest. Then he began to ride the bike along with a runner friend. Gradually, Saunders set up his mind on building up his body, increasing his speed and strength. At the age of 18, he ran his first marathon.
The following year he met John Ridgway and was hired as an instructor at Ridgway’s school of adventure in Scotland, where he learnt about Ridgway’s cold-water exploits. Greatly interested, Saunders read all he could about North Pole explorers and adventures, then decided that this would be his future.
In 2001, after becoming a skillful skier, Saunders started his first long-distance expedition(探险) towards the North Pole. It took unbelievable energy. He suffered frostbite（冻疮）, ran into a polar bear and pushed his body to the limit, pulling his supply-loaded sled（雪橇） up and over rocky ice.
Saunders has since become the youngest person to ski alone to the North Pole, and he’s skied more of the North Pole by himself than any other British man. His old playmates would not believe the change.
Next October, Saunders, 27, heads south from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back, a 2900-kilometer journey that has never been completed on skis.
小题1:What change happened to Saunders after he was 15 years old?
A．He became good at most sports.
B．He made friends with a runner.
C．He joined a sports team.
D．He began to build up his body.小题2:The underlined word “exploits” (paragraph 3) is closest in meaning to ______.
A．journeys
B．adventures
C．researches
D．operations小题3:Which of the following is the correct order of the events that happened to Saunders?
a. He ran his first marathon. b. He skied alone in the North Pole.
c. He rode his bike in a forest. d. He planned an adventure to the South Pole.
A．a c d b
B．c d a b
C．c a b d
D．a c b d小题4: What does the story mainly tell us abut Saunders?
A．He is a success in sports.
B．He is the best British skier.
C．He is Ridgway’s best student. `
D．He is a good instructor at school.
