The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.She said, “Hi, girl! My name is Rose. I’m 87 years old. Can I give you a hug?”
I laughed and enthusiastically responded, “Of course you may!” and she gave me a giant squeeze.
“Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?” I asked. She jokingly replied, “I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, have a couple of children, and then retire and travel!”
“No seriously,” I said. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.
“I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!” she told me.
Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon（偶像）and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she revealed in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.
At the end of the semester(学期) we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I’ll never forget what she taught us.
“We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing. There are only two secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day. You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die!” she said.
“There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up. If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn 20 years old.. If I am 87 years old, and stay in bed for a year, and never do anything, I will turn 88. Anybody can grow older. But every minute counts for young men,” she added.
“The idea is to grow up by always finding the opportunity in change. Have no regrets. The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets.”
She concluded her speech by courageously singing “The Song of Rose”. She challenged each of us to study the lyrics （歌词） and live them out in our daily lives.
At the year’s end, Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago. One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.
1.Rose made herself known to the author in a ______ manner.
A.serious B.cold C.humorous D.crazy
2.From the information provided in the passage, we know ______.
A.Rose enjoyed her campus life very much
B.Rose did realize her dream of meeting a rich husband and getting married
through college education
C.Rose finished the college degree within a year
D.Rose grew so old that she stopped playing
3.Rose delivered（发表） the speech ______.
A.at the graduation
B.which she prepared carefully
C.ended with “The Song of Rose”
D.to challenge all the other speakers
4.According to her speech, ______.
A.whenever you have a dream, you succeed
B.all people don’t grow up while growing older
C.Rose usually regretted having done something
D.a nineteen-year-old is as old as a 87-year-old if he doesn’t do anything
Scores on a national test released(发布)on November 1 show that students in the U.S.A. have improved in math over the last two years, but mostly stayed the same in reading. This year, 422,000 fourth graders and 343,000 eighth graders took the exams between January and March. Students were asked to read grade-appropriate(年级适合的) materials and answer questions for the reading test. For the math test, students answered questions about geometry, algebra, number properties, measurement and other topics.
The U.S Department of Education released the scores in a report called The Nation’s Report Card (NAEP). This year, students earned the highest scores ever recorded on the math exam, which has been given since 1990.Fourth graders scored an average of 241.That is a one-point increase from 2009and a 28-point increase from 1990. Eighth graders made similar progress. Then average score this year was 284,up one point from 2009 and 21 points from 1990.
In reading, fourth graders scored an average of 221 points, the same average score since 2007.That score is four points above those from 1992, when the first reading test was given. Eighth graders scored an average of 265 points, up one point from 2009 and five points from 1992.
Education experts say reading is a harder subject to improve in the classroom than math. While math is largely learned in classrooms, reading results depend on how much kids read outside of school and how much they read in other subjects, such as history and science.
On the NAEP, math scores were the highest among students who have limited use of calculators(计算器) during math lessons, compared with students who have unlimited use or no use. Reading scores were the highest among students who said they read for fun on their own time almost every day.According to the test, students in the U.S.A _______________________.
| A．do better in math than in reading |
| B．work harder at reading than at math |
| C．prefer to learn math in their spare time |
| D．are more interested in reading than before |
In 1990, the fourth graders’ average score on the math exam was about____________
| A．238 | B．240 | C．213 | D．220 |
We can learn from the third paragraph that ______________.
| A．eighth graders all took part in the test in 2007 |
| B．reading scores have not improved much since 2007 |
| C．eighth graders got higher scores than fifth graders |
| D．fourth graders’ scores are becoming lower and lower |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．The first reading test was given in 1990. |
| B．Eighth graders’ average math score was 285 in 2009 |
| C．Eighth graders got the same average as fourth graders in the reading this year |
| D．Reading is hard to improve in the classroom because that requires students to read a lot outside of school. |
They say love can cover a lot of crimes; yet never have I seen it more beautifully showed than in the life of a dog named Jessie. Jessie came into our lives at the age of six months. By that time he had already experienced the hard knocks of life. He was found abandoned on the side of the road, where we adopted him and took him home.
From the beginning, it was obvious that Jessie was traumatized (受精神创伤的). He was afraid of everything: the car, the doors, the stairs, and just about everything else. We couldn’t foresee where Jessie’s fear would take us.
Jessie was with us for about six months, when we became foster parents to a mixed-breed young dog. Jessie did not like her at all. We all lived in a nervous co-existence, until dinnertime. Within moments a food fight erupted between Jessie and this foster child.
It all happened so fast, and I was in the middle. My husband managed to get in between the two dogs, grabbing Jessie by his collar. Jessie screamed all the way down the hall and into the bedroom. I, quickly put the foster dog into her own bedroom and hurried down the hall. The crashing I heard in the bedroom, scared me to death. But nothing prepared me for the scene I witnessed as I opened the bedroom door.
There was my husband, on top of a terrified Jessie, holding back his head. Blood dripped from my husband’s arm. To tell you the truth, as I was sitting beside my husband in the emergency room, I just didn’t know what to do with Jessie. I was so angry at that dog.
Day after day, week after week, however, my husband faithfully trained the dog that others would have put down. As his arm healed over the next months, something rare and beautiful began to take place. Jessie, under my husband’s gentle persuasion, began to understand and obey. And Jessie adored him. I could see, that although the tempest had ruled Jessie’s former life, affirmation and love had calmed the storm.Before being adopted by the writer, Jessie had _______.
| A．suffered a lot |
| B．Lived a happy life |
| C．lived on the road half a year |
| D．often fought against other dogs |
Paragraph 2 shows that the writer was ________.
| A．happy | B．disappointed |
| C．angry | D．worried |
It can be inferred from the text that the writer’s husband’s arm bled because of _________.
| A．his own behavior |
| B．the writer’s fault |
| C．Jessie’s bite |
| D．The new foster dog |
What would be the best title for the text?
| A．A Dog Named Jessie |
| B．Love Calmed the Storm |
| C．Conflicts Between Dogs |
| D．Fights Between Man and Dog |
Teachers and parents usually pay attention to the pictures when they read storybooks to preschool children. But a new study suggests that paying attention to the words and letters on the page may lead to better readers.
The two-year study compared children who were read to this way in class with children who were not. Those whose teachers most often discussed the print showed clearly higher skills in reading, spelling and understanding. These results were found one year and even two years later.
Shayne Piasta, an assistant professor of teaching and learning at Ohio State University, was an author of the study. She says most preschool teachers would find this method manageable and would need only a small change in the way they teach. They already read storybooks in class. The only difference would be increased attention to the printed text.
Ms Piasta says if you get children to pay attention to letters and words, it makes sense that they will do better at word recognition and spelling. But she says research suggests that very few parents and teachers do this in a systematic(系统的) way.
More than 300 children aged four and five were observed in classrooms in Ohio and Virginia. The children came from poor families and were below average in their language skills. This put them at risk of reading problems later. For 30 weeks, the children took part in a program called Project STAR. It tests the short-term and long-term results of reading regularly to preschool children in their classrooms.
There’re different ways that adults can talk to children about print. They can point to a letter and discuss it, and even trace the shape with a finger. They can point out a word, “This is a ‘dog’.” They can discuss how the words tell the story. And they can talk about the organization of the print—for example, showing how words are written left to right in English.According to the text, Shayne Piasta _______.
| A．worked in a middle school |
| B．didn’t attend the research at all |
| C．liked kids to be educated through words |
| D．hoped to increase kids’ interest through pictures |
According to the text, Project STAR ____.
| A．focused on adults’ education |
| B．was to study reading results |
| C．was mainly conducted at home |
| D．tested kids with good reading skills |
What is the last paragraph mainly about?
| A．Why words have meanings. |
| B．Different expressions of words. |
| C．How words are spelled differently. |
| D．Ways of teaching about print. |
The text may appear in ____.
| A．Child Development |
| B．Daily Technology |
| C．International Affairs |
| D．Health Development |
Wugging, or web use giving, describes the act of giving to charity at no cost to the user. By using Everyclick.com, which is being added to a number of university computers across the UK, students can raise money every time they search, but it won’t cost them a penny.
Research shows that students are extremely passionate(热情的)about supporting charity（慈善）--- 88％of full time students have used the Internet to give to charity. This figure is high because this age group is often the least likely to have their own income. 19％ of 22 to 24 year olds have short-term debts of more than￡5，000. With rising personal debt levels in this age group, due to university tuition fees or personal loans and a lack of long-term savings, traditional methods of donating to charity are often not possible.
Beth Truman, a 21year old recent university graduate has used Everyclick.com to donate to her chosen charity, the RSPCA, for two years and has seen the “wugging” movement grow in popularity with students. “When you’re at university you become more socially aware, but it's sometimes hard to give to others when you have little money yourself,” says Beth. “Wugging is great for people in this age group as it allows them to use the technology on a daily basis to give to charity, without costing them a single penny.”
Wugging is perfect for people who want to be more socially aware and supportive but don’t feel they have the means to do so. Students using the web can raise money for causes they care about without costing them anything in terms of time or money, and charities get a valuable source of funding.
Everyclick.com works like any other search engine, allowing users to search for information, news and images but users can decide which of the UK’s 170,000 charities they would like to support through their clicks. Everyclick.com then makes monthly payments to every registered charity. Launched in June 2005, Everyclick.com is now the eighth largest search engine and one of the busiest charity websites in the UK. According to the passage, “wugging” is actually a _______.
| A．website | B．charity-related action |
| C．school organization | D．student movement |
How does Beth Truman think of the “wugging” movement?
| A．It makes Everyclick.com popular in the UK. |
| B．It makes giving to charity easy. |
| C．It results in students being more social awareness. |
| D．it stresses the importance of charity in people’s daily lives. |
From the passage, we can conclude that _______.
| A．most full time students contribute to charity on the Internet every day |
| B．Everyclick.com helps students pay for the college education |
| C．“Wugging” is a win-win idea for both students and charities |
| D．Everyclick.com is the most successful search engine in the UK |
What would be the best title for this passage?
| A．“Wugging”, a New Popular Term（术语）on the Internet |
| B．British People Show Strong Interest in Charity |
| C．More Britain Charities Benefit from the Internet |
| D．Students Raise Money for Charity by “wugging” |
Many of us believe that a person’s mind becomes less active as he grows older. But this is not true, according to Dr Jarvik, professor of psychiatry at the University of California. She has studied the mental functioning of aging persons for several years. For example, one of her studies concerns 136 pairs of twins (双胞胎), who were first examined when they were already 60 years old. As Dr Jarvik continued the study of the twins into their 70s and 80s, their minds did not generally decline (衰弱) as was expected.
However, there was some decline in their psycho-motor speed. This means that it took them longer to finish mental tasks than it used to. But when speed was not a factor, they lost very little intellectual (智力的) ability over the years. In general, Dr Jarvik’s studies have shown that there is no decline in knowledge or reasoning ability. This is true not only with those in their 30s and 40s, but with those in their 60s and 70s as well.
It is true that older people themselves often complain that their memory is not as good as it once was. However, much of what we call “loss of memory” is not that at all. There usually was incomplete learning in the first place. For example, the older person perhaps had trouble hearing, or poor vision, or was trying to learn the new thing at too fast a speed. In the cases where the older person’s mind really seems to get worse, it is not necessarily a sign of decline due to old age. Often it is simply a sign of a sad emotional state. This passage is mainly about _______.
| A．what caused mental decline |
| B．a new discovery about mental decline |
| C．the difference between middle-aged and older persons |
| D．how Dr Jarvik studied mental functioning of the twins |
The word “psychiatry” in paragraph 1 most probably means _______.
| A．the study of diseases of the mind |
| B．the study of physical diseases |
| C．the study of twins’ growth |
| D．the study of human behavior |
More often than not, what we call mental decline is actually a sign of _______.
| A．a worsening state of health | B．old age |
| C．nervous tension | D．a state of unhappiness |
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