For the past two years, 8－year－old Harli Jordean from Stoke Newington, London, has been selling marbles(弹珠)．His successful marble company, Marble King, sells all things marble-related—from affordable tubs of the glass playthings to significantly expensive items like Duke of York solitaire（独粒宝石）tables—sourced, purchased and processed by the mini－CEO himself.
“I like having my own company. I like being the boss,” Harli told The Mirror.
With profits now in the thousands, “the world's youngest CEO” has had to get his mother and older brothers to help him meet the growing demand.
Harli launched Marble King after swapping（交换）marbles at school led to schoolchildren depleting(削减) his marble collection. Yes, he literally（确切地）“lost his marbles.” Harli and his mother, Tina, turned to the Internet to find replacements.
Harli saw an empty space online: the marbles he wanted were hard to find. Within months, Harli had his own marble－selling website and orders started pouring in.
Tina says her son's obsession(迷恋) with marbles started when he was just 6.
“His obsession became so big we started calling him the Marble King, so when he wanted to set up a website it was the natural name for it，” she told The Sun.
“I never thought it would become so popular—we are struggling to cope with the number of orders at times.”
The 8－year－old boy has his sights set on expanding his business and launching his own brand of marbles.
“Sometimes his ideas are so grand we have to scale them back a bit. But his dream is still to own Britain's biggest marble shop and open stores around the world.” Tina told The Daily Mail.
“At the minute he is annoying me by asking about creating his won Marble King marbles, so that could well be the next step for him.”Why did Harli's marble company become popular as soon as he launched it?
| A．Because it was run by “the world's youngest CEO”． |
| B．Because it filled the gaps of marble business. |
| C．Because Harli was fascinated with marble collection. |
| D．Because his mother and brothers helped him a lot. |
How many mass media are mentioned in the passage?
| A．One. | B．Two. | C．Three. | D．Four. |
Which of the following is closest in meaning to the underlined expression “scale back”？
| A．make smaller | B．carry out | C．turn down | D．frighten away |
What message do the last two paragraphs carry?
| A．Conflicts often occur between Harli Jordean and his family. |
| B．Harli's mother and brothers are worried about Marble King's future. |
| C．Marble King marbles will be more popular with marble fans around the world. |
| D．The “Marble King” has great ambitions for his Marble King Company. |
It is Saturday afternoon. You and your friends are planning to go to the movies and then spend the night together. Just as you start to get ready, your dad reminds you it is your aunt's birthday and the whole family is going out to dinner to celebrate. How can this possibly end without a huge argument?
One of the greatest sources of tension(紧张情绪)between teenagers and their families is the struggle to balance personal desires with family expectations. As you are getting older, you are becoming more independent and more interested in being with your friends.
However, at the same time，your family is trying to figure out how to deal with these changes. While you once spent most of your free time with your family, you are now often absent from home. Parents may get their feelings hurt. Or they might feel that they are losing control of their family during this period. You might feel angry that so many family demands are placed on you.
There are a few things you can try to make it a little easier to ease(缓解)the tension.
* Make your plans in advance．Ask your parents if there is anything else planned at that time.
* When something with your friends interferes(干扰；冲突)with a family event, try to figure out if there is any way you can do both.
* Suggest something you would really like to do with your family. Sometimes parents feel better just knowing their teenager wants to spend time with them.
Some of the time you won’t be happy with the outcome(结果). You might either have to disappoint your parents or have to miss out being with your friends. However, if you show consideration(体谅)for the feelings of both your family and your friends, you can solve the problem in a tender way.The purpose of the first paragraph is to _________.
| A．show a disagreement of views |
| B．serve as a description of teenager trouble |
| C．serve as an introduction to the discussion |
| D．show the popularity of teenager problem |
The tension between teenagers and their families is caused by the fact that____________.
| A．teenagers don’t like to take family demands |
| B．parents want to keep their family under control |
C．parents feel unhappy t hat their children make so many friends |
| D．both parents and teenagers don’t pay attention to each other’s feeling much |
Which of the following is NOT the advice given in the passage?
| A．Don’t feel angry if your parents ask you to do something． |
| B．Try to think of ways to balance family event with friend event． |
| C．Tell your parents before you decide to spend time with your friends． |
| D．Advise your parents to do something that you are interested in with you． |
What’s the purpose of the passage?
| A．To inform us of parent and teenager tension． |
| B．To tell us about a common teenager problem． |
| C．To persuade parents to show consideration for teenagers． |
| D．To advise teenagers how to deal with their tension with their family． |
Compared to the other parts of the body, our ears don’t ask for much. They don't need to be brushed once a day like your teeth. But they need some special care, especially if you like listening to music with earphones.
Maybe your mum or dad has told you, "Turn that down before you go deaf!" Well, they are quite right. Loud noise might cause hearing loss for a short time or even forever. Think that earphones are a good way to escape from your parents’ eyes? Well. It may not be as good a way as you expect. American doctors have studied a group of 44,000 people who used earphones more than 15 hours per week. The doctors found that 37,000 of them were getting hearing problems.
If you use earphones for too long a time, your ears might feel painful. You could also lose your hearing for the rest of your life.
So don’t wear your earphones too long. Use them less than one hour a day.
Want sharp hearing? Don’t forget to do the following:
Try to stay away from places where there is too much noise, like a disco. If you have to go, wear earplugs.
When swimming, remember to put earplugs into your ears to stop water from getting in.
Never put anything sharp into your ears. If you think you have too much earwax, ask your mum or dad to help you clean it out.
Keep these things in mind! Then you won't be saying "WHAT???" when you are older.Which is the topic paragraph of the article?
| A．Paragraph One. | B．Paragraph Two |
| C．Paragraph Five. | D．The last Paragraph |
Using earphones "may not be as good a way as you expect" because _______.
| A．your parents know what you're doing |
| B．it can cause hearing problems |
| C．it makes your parents angry |
| D．most of you use them improperly |
If you want sharp hearing, you should _____.
| A．have your ears specially trained |
B．often we ar earplugs and clean out the earwax |
| C．take good care of your ears |
| D．choose what you listen to carefully |
"WHAT???" in the last sentence is an expression showing that the speaker____.
| A．has become impatient | B．speaks in a loud voice |
| C．is slow in understanding | D．asks for a lot of repetition |
Do dogs understand us?
Be careful what you say around your dog. It might understand more than you think.
A border collie named Rico recognizes the names of about 200 objects, say researchers in Germany. The dog also
appears to be able to learn new words as easily as a 3-year-old child. Its word-learning skills are as good as those of a parrot or chimpanzee.
In one experiment, the researchers took all 200 items that Rico is supposed to know and divided them into 20 groups of 10 objects. Then the owner told the dog to go and fetch one of the items and bring it back. In four tests, Rico got 37 out of 40 commands right. As the dog couldn't see anyone to get clues, the scientists believe Rico must understand the meanings of certain words.
In another experiment, the scientists took one toy that Rico had never seen before and put it in a room with seven toys whose names the dog already knew. The owner then told Rico to fetch the object, using a word the dog had never heard before.
The correct object was chosen in seven out of ten tests, suggesting that the dog had worked
out the answer by process of elimination(排除法). A month later, Rico remembered half of the new names, which is even more impressive.
Rico is thought to be smarter than the average dog. For one thing, Rico is a border collie, a breed (品种)known for its m
ental abilities. In addition, the 9-year-old dog has been trained to fetch toys by their names since the age of nine months.
It's hard to know if all dogs understand at least some of the words we say. Even if they do, they can't talk back. Still, it wouldn't hurt to sweet-talk your dog every now and then. You might just get a big, wet kiss in return! From paragraph 2 we know that __ .
| A．animals are as clever as human beings |
| B．chimpanzees have very good word-learning skills |
| C．dogs are smarter than parrots and chimpanzees |
| D．dogs have similar learning abilities as 3-year-old children |
Both experiments show that .
| A．Rico is smart enough to get all commands right |
| B．Rico can recognize different things including toys |
| C．Rico has developed the ability of learning mathematics |
| D．Rico won't forget the names of objects once recognizing them |
Which of the following statements is true?
| A．Rico has a better memory partly because of its proper early training. |
| B．The purpose of the experiments is to show the border collie's mental abilities. |
| C．The border collie is world-famous for recognizing objects. |
| D．Rico is born to understand its owner's commands. |
What does the writer want to tell us?
| A．To train your dog. | B．To talk to your dog. |
| C．To be careful with your dog. | D．To be friendly to your dog. |
Parents should stop blaming themselves because there’s not a lot they can do about it. I mean the teenager problem. Whatever you do or however you choose to deal with it, at certain times a wonderful, reasonable and helpful child will turn into a terrible animal.
I’ve seen friends deal with it in all kinds of different ways. One strict mother insisted that her son, right from a child, should stand up whenever anyone entered the room, open doors and shake hands like a gentleman. I saw him last week when I called round. Sprawling himself (懒散地躺) on the sofa in full length, he made no attempt to turn off the loud TV he was watching as I walked in, and his greeting was no more than a quick glance at me. His mother was ashamed. “I don't know what to do with him these days,” she said. “He’s forgotten all the manners we taught him.”
He hasn’t forgotten them. He’s just decided that he’s not going to use them. She confessed (坦白) that she would like to come up behind him and throw him down from the sofa onto the floor.
Another good friend of mine let her two daughters climb all over the furniture, reach across the table, stare at me and say, “I don’t like your dress; it’s ugly.” One of the daughters has recently been driven out of school. The other has left home.
“Where did we go wrong?” her parents are now very sad. Probably nowhere much. At least, no more than the rest of that unfortunate race, parents.This text is most probably written by ______.
| A．a specialist（专家） in teenager studies | B．a headmaster of a middle school |
| C．a parent with teenage children | D．a doctor for mental health problems |
The underlined word “it” in the second paragraph refers to ______.
| A．the change from good to bad that’s seen in a child |
| B．the way that parents often blame themselves |
| C．the opinion that a child has of his parents |
| D．the advice that parents want their children to follow |
From the second example we can infer that the parents of the two daughters __.
| A．pay no attention to them | B．are too busy to look after them |
| C．have come to hate them | D．feel helpless to do much about them |
What is the author’s opinion about the sudden change in teenage children?
| A．Parents have no choice but to try to accept it. |
| B．Parents should pay still some attention to the change. |
| C．Parents should work more closely with school teachers. |
| D．Parents are at fault for the change in their children. |
Here are a few tips we’ve put together to help you learn English well.
Speak, speak, speak
Practise speaking as often as you can—even speaking to yourself is good practice.
Try recording yourself whenever you can. Compare your pronunciation with the master version, see how you can do better and have another go. If you do this several times, you will find that each version is better than the last.
Why not learn with someone else?
It helps if you can learn with someone else. If you can persuade a friend or a family member to study with you, it will make you keep working.
Don’t get stuck by a word you don’t know.
Practise improvising（即兴的）ways of getting your meaning across when speaking spontaneously（本能地）, even if you don’t know the exact words or phrases. Think of things you might want to say whenever you have spare time. Use facial expressions, hand movements, anything to get your meaning across.
Language learning is also about intuition（直觉）.
Guesswork is an important way to learn a new language. When listening to recorded material, you aren’t expected to understand everything first round. If you play the same piece several times, you will most probably understand something new each time.
Build up your vocabulary.
A wide vocabulary is the key to successful language learning but don’t try to learn too much at once. It’s best to study frequently, for short periods of time. Take at most six or seven items of vocabulary and learn them. Put them into sentences to fix them in your mind, then come back to them later.
And above all, have fun!Why should one have himself recorded when practicing speaking?
| A．To improve his speaking. | B．To record his own progress. |
| C．To encourage others to start. | D．To compare himself with others. |
In the writer’s opinion, which of the following is the most important in leaning English?
| A．Speaking. | B．Pleasure. | C．Intuition. | D．Vocabulary. |
It is implied in the passage that _______ is helpful when you are learning English.
| A．body language | B．a good material |
| C．a good friend | D．a proper dictionary |
According to the passage, one should ______ when you are learning English.
| A．always work with other people | B．be able to guess everything new |
| C．often review what he has learnt | D．take little notice of grammar |
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