Going back to school is a very exciting event for my two boys. It means getting new school bags and books, and seeing friends again after the summer holiday.
My oldest son, 9-year-old Salem, asked me several times where we would go to buy a backpack, while my other son, 6-year-old Abdullah, asked what school would be like this year.
For the last three years, school was a nightmare for many children and their parents as violence increased and there were more attacks on schools and teachers. As a result, many parents prevented their children from going to school. One of six children in this country did not attend primary school in 2009. Many kids who did attend school were accompanied by a parent for the entire day to make sure nothing happened to their children.
For poor families or those with large families, back to school can be an expensive time. The government gives some help to those living in poor neighborhoods, and school bags, note books and other items(商品) are given for free.
Most of the merchants who sell notebooks and pens now sell their products out on the street instead of in stores. They sit on the ground and lay their items on the ground or they have a small table to sell their goods.
The bags cost between $10 and $20, while clothes and shoes cost between $20 and $30. I found all the things I needed for my sons and even bought something for myself. I spent about $50 on each of them, including school uniforms.
At the end of the day, we returned to our home carrying many shopping bags filled with items that made my children happy and excited to go back to school. I just hope this school year will be a peaceful one. The author’s children are ________ to go to school.
| A．eager | B．afraid | C．unwilling | D．surprised |
The underlined word “nightmare” is the closest in meaning to ________.
| A．fantasy | B．dream world | C．prison | D．terrible situation |
Many children are not going to school mainly because of ________.
| A．the terrible education system | B．security problems and poverty |
| C．parents’ distrust in schools | D．the government’s inability |
As a parent, the author ________.
| A．is unable to afford his kids’ schooling | B．is unwilling to send his kids to school |
| C．hopes his kids have a happy school life | D．complains school education costs too much |
Which of the following statement is NOT true?
| A．Many parents prevented their children from going to school for great study pressure. |
| B．School bags, note books and other items(商品) are given to those living in poor neighborhoods for free. |
| C．The author spent about $100 for her two sons. |
| D．The items the author bought made her children happy and excited to go back to school. |
After too long on the Net, even a phone call can be a shock. My boyfriend’s Liverpudlian accent suddenly becomes too difficult to understand after his clear words on screen; a secretary’s tone seems more rejecting than I’d imagined it would be. Time itself becomes fluid—hours become minutes, and alternately seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a highlight of my week, are now just two ordinary days.
For the last three years, since I stopped working as a producer for Charlie Rose, I have done much of my work as a tele-commuter. I submit（提交） articles and edit them by E-mail and communicate with colleagues on Internet mailing lists. My boyfriend lives in England; so much of our relationship is computer-mediated.
If I desired, I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything. I can order food, and manage my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at home, going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I watched most of the blizzard(暴风雪) of ’96 on TV.
But after a while, life itself begins to feel unreal. I start to feel as though I’ve merged（融合） with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another node（波节） on the Net. Others on line report the same symptoms. We start to strongly dislike the outside forms of socializing. It’s like attending an A. A. meeting in a bar with everyone holding a half-sipped drink. We have become the Net opponents’ worst nightmare.
What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, and clothes and face, has become an avoidance（逃避），a lack of discipline. And once you start replacing real human contact with cyber interaction, coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult.
At times, I turn on the television and just leave it to chatter in the background, something that I’d never done previously. The voices of the programs relax me, but then I’m jarred by the commercials. I find myself sucked in by soap operas, or needing to keep up with the latest news and the weather. “Dateline”, “Frontline” , “Nightline,” CNN, every possible angle of every story over and over and over, even when they are of no possible use to me. Work moves from foreground to background.Compared to the clear words of her boyfriend on screen, his accent becomes______.
| A．unreal | B．unbearable |
| C．misleading | D．not understandable |
The passage implies that the author and her boyfriend live in______.
| A．the same city | B．the same country |
| C．different countries | D．different cities in England |
What does the last paragraph mean?
| A．Having worked on the computer for too long, she became a bit strange. |
| B．Sometimes TV programs give her comfort and even makes her forget her work. |
| C．She watches TV a lot in order to keep up with the latest news and the weather. |
| D．She turns on TV now and then in order to get some valuable information. |
What is the author’s attitude to the computer?
| A．At first she likes it but later becomes tired of it. |
| B．She likes it because it is very convenient. |
| C．She dislikes it because TV is more attractive. |
| D．She likes it because it provides an imaginary world. |
The underlined phrase “coming back out of the cave” probably means______.
| A．going back to the dreaming world |
| B．coming back home from the outside world |
| C．bringing back direct human contact |
| D．getting away from living a strange life |
Why do men die earlier than women? The latest research makes it known that the reason could be that men’s hearts go into rapid decline（下降） when they reach middle age.
The largest study of the effects of ageing on the heart has found that women’s longevity may be linked to the fact that their hearts do not lose their pumping power with age.
“We have found that the power of the male heart falls by 20-25 percent between 18 and 70 years of age,” said the head of the study, David Goldspink of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.
“Within the heart there are millions of cells that enable it to beat. Between the age of 20 and 70, one-third of those cells die and are not replaced in men,” said Goldspink. “This is part of the ageing process.”
What surprises scientists is that the female heart sees very little loss of these cells. A healthy 70-year-old woman’s heart could perform almost as well as a 20-year-old one’s. “This gender（ 性别） difference might just explain why women live longer than men,” said Goldspink. They studied more than 250 healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 80, focusing on healthy persons to remove the confusing influence of disease. “The team has yet to find why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart,” said Goldspink.
The good news is that men can improve the health of their heart with regular exercise. Goldspink stressed that women also need regular exercise to prevent their leg muscles becoming smaller and weaker as they age. The underlined word “longevity” in the second paragraph probably refers to “________”.
| A．health | B．ageing | C．long life | D．effect |
The text mainly talks about ________.
| A．men’s heart cells | B．women’s ageing process |
| C．the gender difference | D．hearts and long life |
According to the text, the UK scientists have known that ________.
| A．women have more cells than men when they are born |
| B．women can replace the cells that enable the heart to beat |
| C．the female heart loses few of the cells with age |
| D．women never lose their pumping power with age |
If you want to live longer, you should ________.
| A．exercise regularly to keep your heart healthy |
| B．find out the reason for ageing |
| C．enable your heart to beat much faster |
| D．prevent your cells from being lost |
We can know from the passage that ________.
| A．the reason why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart has been found out |
| B．scientists are on the way to finding out why the male heart loses more of the cells |
| C．the team has done something to prevent the male from suffering the greater loss |
| D．women over 70 could lose more heart cells than those at the age of 20 |
(NEW YORK) A French tourist highly praised for rescuing a two-year-old girl in Manhattan said he didn’t think twice before diving into the freezing East River.
Tuesday’s Daily News said 29-year-old Julien Duret from France was the man who left the spot quickly after the rescue last Saturday.
He lifted the little girl out of the water after she fell off the bank at the South Street Seaport museum. He handed the girl to her father, David Anderson, who had dived in after him.
“I didn’t think at all,” Duret told the Daily News. “It happened very fast. I reacted very fast.”
Duret, an engineer on vacation, was walking with his girlfriend along the pier(码头) when he saw something falling into the water. He thought it was a doll, but realized it was a child when he approached the river. Immediately, he took off his coat and jumped into the water.
When he reached the girl, she appeared lifeless, he said. Fortunately, when she was out of the water, she opened her eyes.
Anderson said his daughter slipped off the bank when he was adjusting his camera. An ambulance came later for her, said Duret, who was handed dry clothes from onlookers. Duret caught a taxi with his girlfriend shortly after.
The rescue happened on the day before he left for France. Duret said he didn’t realize his story of heroism had greatly moved New York until he was leaving the city the next morning.
“I don’t really think I’m a hero,” said Duret. “Anyone would do the same thing.”Why was Duret in New York?
| A．To meet his girlfriend. | B．To spend his holiday. |
| C．To work as an engineer. | D．To visit the Andersons. |
What did Duret do shortly after the ambulance came?
| A．He was interviewed by a newspaper. |
| B．He went to the hospital in the ambulance. |
| C．He disappeared from the spot quickly. |
| D．He asked his girlfriend for his dry clothes. |
Who dived after Duret into the river to save the little girl?
| A．David Anderson | B．A passer-by | C．His girlfriend | D．A taxi driver |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Duret thought twice before he jumped into the cold water. |
| B．Duret dived into the water before the girl’s father. |
| C．The rescue happened on the day Duret left for France. |
| D．Duret didn’t think he was brave enough to be a hero. |
What is probably the headline of this news report?
| A．A Careless Father | B．A Poor Girl |
| C．Warm-hearted Onlookers | D．Brave Frenchman Found |
Canada 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m.
Canada is a big country with six time zones. In the west, it is four a.m., and everyone is asleep, but in Halifax on the east coast it is eight o'clock and people are having breakfast. It is a cold Friday morning in November, and the temperature is ten degrees below zero Centigrade.
Argentina 9:00 a.m.
In Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, it is nine a.m. on a warm summer morning, and people are starting work or school. November is a summer month in Argentina because it is in the southern hemisphere（南半球）.
Scotland 12:00 noon
Scotland is part of the United Kingdom. The capital of Scotland is Edinburgh, and the capital of the UK is London. It is twelve noon, or midday, in Edinburgh. Children are having lessons, but they are looking forward to the weekend because there is no school on Saturday and Sunday.
Egypt 2:00 p.m.
Friday is already the weekend in Egypt. Friday is a special day for Muslims, so schools, offices and shops are closed in all Arab countries. So now, at two p.m., most people in Egypt are having lunch with their families.
Japan 9:00 p.m.
Japan is seven hours ahead of Egypt, so it is already Friday evening there. The weekend is beginning. Most people are out with friends or watching television or playing computer games.
New Zealand 12:00 midnight
It is late on Friday night, so most people are asleep. Now Saturday morning is arriving. It is morning in Canada too, but that is Friday morning!In eastern Canada, the time is _____ that in western Canada.
| A．four and a half hours behind | B．four hours ahead of |
| C．three hours ahead of | D．the same as |
While Canadian children in Halifax are having breakfast, Argentinean children are _____.
| A．sleeping | B．going home | C．at school | D．having supper |
It’s midday in the capital of _____ when it's 9:00 a.m. in the capital of Argentina.
| A．Japan | B．Canada | C．New Zealand | D．Scotland |
Two p.m. in Egypt is not a good time to telephone people in New Zealand, because in New Zealand _____.
| A．it’s midnight and most people are asleep |
| B．it’s noon and many people are having lunch |
| C．it’s the morning and many people are working |
| D．it’s the afternoon and most people are playing computer games |
What time is it in New Zealand if it's 11:15 p.m. in Japan?
| A．1:15 p.m. | B．2:15 p.m. | C．1:15 a.m. | D．2:15 a.m. |
Have you ever wondered why there are so many skin colors in the world? Do you know why people living in particular areas usually have a certain color? Biology and history are the two reasons for this.
Skin contains something called melanin, which determines a person’s skin color. The more melanin a person has, the darker his or her skin will be. The amount of and the production of melanin are controlled by genetics, but can be affected by other things, such as sunlight. If a person lives in a place with less sunlight, a person’s body will produce less melanin, making the skin lighter.
Skin color is also affected by another source ---- vitamin D. humans all need vitamin D to build bones. People can get it by eating foods such as fish and milk, or from sunlight, so sunlight absorbed by melanin cannot be used for vitamin D production. Therefore, a dark—skinned person will produce less vitamin D than a light—skinned person when they received the same amount of sunlight.
The connection between vitamin D production and skin color is clear when we look at evolution. The earliest humans lived in Africa, their dark skin produced less vitamin D because of their dark skin. As a result, their skin made less melanin, so they could get enough sunlight to produce vitamin D. their skin gradually got lighter and they lost hair. Now, people living in areas with strong sunlight like Africa, have darker skin, while people living in other areas have lighter skin. The exception to this is the Inuit, who live in a place with little sunlight, but have dark skin because they eat a lot of fish and have enough vitamin D.
Evolution has given us a rainbow of skin colors. Humans have always had melanin to determine our skin color. What has changed through history is the environment where we have lived. This has in turn changed our melanin production, and eventually, skin color.
| Brief 1 |
People living in a particular 2 usually have the same skin color and there are many different skin colors in the world. |
| Reason for skin color |
The reasons for different skin colors mainly 3 in biology and history. |
| Biology reasons |
The amount of melanin, by which a person’s skin color is __4 , varies from people to people. The more melanin a person has, the __5 his or her skin will be. Vitamin D is another source 6 skin color. Vitamin D is necessary for humans to build bones. Sunlight contributes to vitamin D in the skin. |
| Historical reasons |
The earliest people in Africa hioknj006Dad dark skin with hair covering it because the sunlight is very strong. When they moved to places where they could not get enough sunlight to __7___ vitamin D, their skin color became lighter. Generally speaking, people in areas with strong sunlight, have darker skin ____8 people in other areas have lighter skin. |
| 9 |
Melanin 10 an important role in our skin color. With our living environment changing, melanin production is changed, which leads to the changes in our skin color. |
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