On a small farm in Mexico, there are no schools. A bus is the school! The driver of the bus is the teacher! It is a school bus, but it doesn’t take children to school. It just goes round from place to place, and sometimes it comes to this farm. The bus will stay here for three months. The farmers call it a school on wheels (车轮).
Every time the bus comes, the farmers come running to it, shouting and laughing. They warmly welcome the school bus!
When the bus is on the farm, in the morning, the teacher teaches the small children. In the afternoon, the bigger children come to have their lessons because they must work in the morning. At night, the fathers and mothers come to school. They want to learn, too. How the farmers hope that some day they can have a real school on their farm! The driver of the bus is ________.
| A．the teacher | B．the student | C．the farmer | D．the school |
The bus school will ________.
| A．take children to school | B．stay there for lunch |
| C．go round from place to place | D．take the fathers and mothers to school |
When the school bus comes, the farmers________.
| A．stop working | B．warmly welcome it | C．be happy | D．Both B and C |
Which one of the following is true?
| A．A school bus is a real school for farmers’ children. |
| B．The bus school has no teacher at all. |
| C．The bus school has no students. |
| D．The children and their parents on the farm all come to the bus school to learn. |
Grandpa’s hobby was making birdhouses. He always said, “A man has to keep busy to stay out of trouble.” Leigh wasn’t sure how much trouble Grandpa could get into anyway, since he was such a nice man, but Leigh tried to listen to his advice. Besides, she liked to help on his birdhouses.
Grandpa’s shop was full of well-oiled and carefully-kept tools. Whenever he used something, he put it back in exactly the right place. He had rules about how he treated his tools, because he hated buying something new if the old one still worked. He also made sure to clean up each time he worked on something.
It wasn’t too fun cleaning up, but it was nice to watch him cut boards to exact lengths. It was nice to see the drill put in holes for screws(螺丝) to go in cleanly. It was like being a doctor, but with wood. The best part of building was seeing all the pieces come together in the final form.
The last steps always included lacquer or paint, to help protect Grandpa’s hard work from the weather. His birdhouses lasted for years. If he didn’t coat them properly, the sun and rain would turn the wood gray and weak in a short period of time. No, he always made sure to do things right. Even if he put rocks or other cute decorations on them, it was done right and made to last.
Grandpa was a hard worker, but he was also smart and generous. He let Leigh keep the birdhouses sometimes, but only if he got to help hang it up or set the post for it. It had to be done just right, after all.
The birdhouses were a great way to learn about woodworking, hard work, taking care of what you have, and about birds. The best thing about building birdhouses was that Leigh spent some time with Grandpa.What’s the best title for the text?
| A．Long-lasting Birdhouses |
| B．Birdhouses Making |
| C．Birdhouses, Home for Birds |
| D．Grandpa’s Birdhouses |
What did Leigh value most?
| A．Listening to Grandpa’s advice. |
| B．Helping Grandpa on his birdhouses. |
| C．Spending some time with Grandpa. |
| D．Learning about woodworking and birds. |
We can learn from the text that Grandpa ________.
| A．was a very good carpenter |
| B．lived a very hard life |
| C．didn’t care about cleaning up |
| D．kept thousands of birds |
Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high-tech devices, while driving, walking, shopping, even sitting in toilets. When connected electronically, they are away from physical reality.
People have been influenced to become technology addicted. One survey reported that “addicted” was the word most commonly used by people to describe their relationship to iPad and similar devices. One study found that people had a harder time resisting the allure of social media than they did for sleep, cigarettes and alcohol.
The main goal of technology companies is to get people to spend more money and time on their products, not to actually improve our quality of life. They have successfully created a cultural disease. Consumers willingly give up their freedom, money and time to catch up on the latest information , to keep pace with their peers or to appear modern.
I see people trapped in a pathological(病态的) relationship with time-sucking technology, where they serve technology more than technology serves them. I call this technology servitude（奴役）. I am referring to a loss of personal freedom and independence because of uncontrolled consumption of many kinds of devices that eat up time and money.
What is a healthy use of technology devices? That is the vital question. Who is really in charge of my life? That is what people need to ask themselves if we are to have any chance of breaking up false beliefs about their use of technology. When we can live happily without using so much technology for a day or a week, then we can regain control and personal freedom, become the master of technology and discover what there is to enjoy in life free of technology. Mae West is famous for proclaiming the wisdom that “too much of a good thing is wonderful.” But it’s time to discover that it does not work for technology.
Richard Fernandez, an executive coach at Google acknowledged that “we can be swept away by our technologies.” To break the grand digital connection people must consider how life long ago could be fantastic without today’s overused technology.The underlined word “allure” in Paragraph 2 probably means________.
| A．advantage | B．attraction |
| C．adaption | D．attempt |
From the passage, technology companies aim to_______.
| A．attract people to buy their products |
| B．provide the latest information |
| C．improve people’s quality of life |
| D．deal with cultural diseases |
It can be inferred from this passage that people ________.
| A．consider too much technology wonderful |
| B．have realized the harm of high-tech devices |
| C．can regain freedom without high-tech devices |
| D．may enjoy life better without overused technology |
What’s the author’s attitude towards the overusing of high-tech devices?
| A．Neutral. | B．Doubt. |
| C．Disapproving. | D．Sympathetic. |
| Share with us Would you like to have your writing published in this magazine? Then let us know! We pay for stories, anecdotes and jokes: Anecdotes and Jokes ＄50 What’s made you laugh recently? A funny sign? A colleague’s behaviour? Got a joke? Send it in for Laughter is the Best Medicine! Email: Juliet@sws.com Smart Animals Up to ＄100 Send us a tale about the strange behaviour of unique pets or wildlife in up 300 words. Email: audry@sws.com Power of Love Up to ＄150 Acts of generosity can change lives or just give you that warm feeling full of love. Share your moments in 100—500 words. Email: susan@sws.com My Story ＄350 Do you have an inspiring or life-changing story to tell? Your story must be true, unpublished, original and 800-1,000words. Email: nanjc@sws.com For more information, please visit: http://www.sws.com./share |
How much will the magazine pay for a joke to be published?
| A．＄50 | B．＄100 | C．＄150 | D．＄350 |
If you want to share a story of your pets with the readers, you need to submit it to .
| A．Anecdotes and Jokes | B．Smart Animals |
| C．Power of Love | D．My Story |
A story showing people’s generosity should be emailed to the editor at .
| A．juliet@sws.com | B．susan@sws.com |
| C．audrey@sws.com | D．nanjc@sws.com |
An inspiring story sent to the magazine should .
| A．describe strange behaviour |
| B．contain less than 800 words |
| C．be real and original |
| D．be published before |
Nothing could stop Dad. After he was put on disability for a bad back, he bought a small farm in the country, just enough to grow food for the family. He planted vegetables, fruit trees and even kept bees for honey.
And every week he cleaned Old Man McColgin's chicken house in exchange for manure(肥料). The smell really burned the inside of your nose. When we complained about the terrible smell, Dad said the stronger the manure, the healthier the crops, and he was right.
For example, just one of his cantaloupes filled the entire house with its sweet smell, and the taste was even sweeter.
As the vegetables started coming in, Dad threw himself into cooking. One day, armed with a basket of vegetables, he announced he was going to make stew(炖菜).Dad pulled out a pressure cooker and filled it up with cabbages, eggplants, potatoes, corns, onions and carrots. For about half an hour. The pressure built and the vegetables cooked. Finally, Dad turned off the stove, the pot began to cool and the pressure relief valve sprayed out a cloud of steam. If we thought Dad's pile of chicken manure was bad, this was 10 times worse. When Dad took off the lid, the smell nearly knocked us out.
Dad carried the pot out and we opened doors and windows to air out the house. Just how bad was it? The neighbors came out of their houses to see if we had a gas leak!
Determined, Dad filled our plates with steaming stew and passed them around. It didn’t look that bad, and after the first wave had shut down my ability to smell, it didn’t offend the nose so much, either. I took a taste. It would never win a prize in a cooking competition, but it was surprisingly edible, and we drank up every last drop of soup.Why did Dad clean Old Man MoColgin’s chicken house regularly?
| A．To earn some money for the family. |
| B．To collect manure for his crops. |
| C．To get rid of the terrible smell. |
| D．To set a good example to us. |
What can we infer about Dad’s stew?
| A．It is popular among the neighbors. |
| B．It contains honey and vegetables. |
| C．It looks very wonderful. |
| D．It tastes quite delicious. |
What does the underlined word “offend” in the last paragraph mean?
| A．To attract. |
| B．To upset. |
| C．To air. |
| D．To shut |
What can we learn about Dad form the text?
| A．He is an experienced cook. |
| B．He is a troublesome father. |
| C．He has a positive attitude to life. |
| D．He suffers a lot from his disability. |
A Korean wave is sweeping across China, with many Chinese women worshiping South Korean actors Kin Soo-hyun and Lee Min-ho as demigods(偶像). Chinese netizens（网民）always have different opinions. Over South Korean TV dramas, but there is no doubt that programs from the neighboring country are now enjoying a new round of popularity in China, And a big part of the credit for that goes to You Who Came From The Star, the South Korean TV series which is on the air now.
You Who Came From The Star and The Heirs (继承者们) have been subjects of hot online discussions throughout Asia. Besides, the book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, read by the hero You Who Came From The Star was a hard-to-get item on Amazon for a while.
The two TV programs have several common elements：a tall, handsome, and rich hero who loves the heroine blindly and always protects her, and an equally handsome man madly in love with the same woman. Both programs describe the purity of love, which is expressed through a kiss or a warm hug. Perhaps that’s the secret of their success; perhaps people still like Cinderella-type stories.
The widening wealth gap is a matter of social concern both in South Korea and China, and the challenges that young people face in their hope for a better life might have caused many ordinary girls to dream of marrying rich, caring men. This is precisely what the popular South Korean TV drams describe. In fact, South Korean TV dramas are tailored to meet the market’s demands.
Many netizens even said at an earlier time that South Korean TV dramas had become popular because of their stereotyped (模式化的) themes: traffic accidents, cancer and other incurable diseases. But all that has changed with the success of You Who Came From The Star and The Heirs, which Chinese directors can use as examples, as well as inspiration, to improve their productions.What is the main reason for a new round of popularity in China?
| A．It is because of You Who Came From The Star. |
| B．Most of the Chinese netizens have voted for them. |
| C．The actors in the dramas are all gods. |
| D．The dramas are from the neighboring country North Korea. |
Which is NOT included in the elements for the success of South Korean dramas?
| A．Charming pure love stories. |
| B．A tender kiss and a warm hug. |
| C．Handsome and rich heroes. |
| D．The heroine’s blind love with the rich. |
The underlined sentence in Paragraph 4 means that they are designed to _______.
| A．develop in a large scale |
| B．be measured to a certain size |
| C．meet popular taste purposely |
| D．be shown in a big market |
The main purpose of stereotyped themes in South Korean dramas is to________.
| A．present an idea | B．attract TV viewers |
| C．make them colorful | D．arouse some challenges |
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