One hot night last July, when our new baby wouldn’t or couldn’t sleep, I tried everything I could think of ---a warm bottle, songs gentle rocking. Nothing would settle him. Guessing that I had a long night ahead of me, I brought a portable TV into his room, figuring that watching the late movie was as good a way as any to kill of the hours till dawn. To my surprise, as soon as the TV lit up, the baby quieted right down, his little eyes focused brightly on the tube. Not to waste an opportunity for sleep, I then tiptoed out of the room, leaving him to watch the actors celebrate John Bellushi's forty-fifth birthday.
My wife and I heard none of the baby that night, and the next morning when I went into his room, I found him still watching TV himself.
I found in my baby's behavior a symbol of the new generation. My wife and I had given him some books to examine, but he merely spit upon them. When we read to him, he did not feel comfortable. And so it is in the schools. We find that our students don't read and they look down upon reading and scold those of us who teach it. All they want to do is watch TV. After this experience with the baby, however, I have reached a conclusion: “Let them watch it!” If television is that much more attractive to children than books, why should we fight about it? Let them watch it all they want!
Why did the author bring a TV set into his son's room?
| A．To make his son keep quiet. |
| B．To spend the night by watching TV programs. |
| C．In order not to let his son feel lonely. |
| D．To make his son go to sleep as soon as possible. |
The baby's reaction to the TV program was _______ .
| A．unexpected | B．encouraging |
| C．exciting | D．nervous |
From this passage we know that the author is .
| A．a doctor | B．a reporter |
| C．an editor | D．a teacher |
1970 was World Conservation Year. The United Nations wanted everyone to know that the world is in danger. They hoped that governments would act quickly in order to conserve nature. Here is one example of the problem. At one time there were 1,300 different plants, trees and flowers in Holland but now only 866 remain. The others have been destroyed by modern man and his technology. We are changing the earth, the air and water, and everything that grows and lives. We can’t live without these things. If we continue like this, we shall destroy ourselves.
What will happen in the future? Perhaps it is more important to ask “what must we do now?” the people who will believe in the world of tomorrow are the young of today. A lot of them know that conversation is necessary. Many are helping to save our world. They plant trees, build bridges across rivers in forests, and so on. In a small town in the United States a large group of girls cleaned the banks of 11kilometers of their river. Young people may hear about conservation through a record called “no one’s going to change our world.” It was made by the Beatles, Cliff Richard, and other singers. The money from it help to conserve wild animals.There are fewer plants, trees and flowers in Holland now because________
| A．There has been a lot of conservation in Holland |
| B．Holland does not need so many plants, trees and flowers |
| C．many plants, trees and flowers do not grow there any more |
| D．some plants, trees and flowers are dangerous |
We shall destroy ourselves if we don
’t change_______
| A．The United Nations |
| B．modern technology |
| C．our rivers and forests |
| D．the government of Holland |
“No one’s going to change our world” was________
| A．an important book published in 1970 |
| B．an idea that nobody would accept |
| C．a record calling all people to conserve nature |
| D．a rule worked out by the United Nations |
What is the most important thing for us to do to save our world?
| A．we should plant more trees and flowers |
| B．we should clean the banks of our rivers |
| C．we should know what will happen in the future |
| D．we should know what we must do and begin to do now |
My husband is a born shopper(天生的购物者). He loves to look at things and to touch them. He likes to compare prices between the same items(产品) in different shops. He would never think of buying anything without looking around in several different shops. On the other hand, I’m not a shopper. I think shopping is boring and unpleasant. If I like something and I have enough money to take it, I buy it at once. I never look around for a good price or a better deal. Of course my husband and I never go shopping together. Doing shopping together would be too painful for both of us. When it comes to shopping, we go our different ways.
Sometimes I ask my son Jimmy to buy some food in the shop not far from our home. But he is always absent-minded. This was his story.
One day I said to him, “I hope you won’t forget what I have told you to buy.” “No,” said Jimmy, “I won’t forget. You want three oranges, six eggs and a pound of meat.”
He went running down the street to the shop. As he ran, he said to himself over and over again. “ Three oranges, six eggs and a pound of meat.”
In the beginning he remembered everything but he stopped several times. Once he saw two men fighting outside a clothes shop until a policeman stopped them. One of them was badly hurt. Then he stopped to give ten cents to a beggar. Then he met some of his friends and he played with them for a while. When he reached the shop, he had forgotten everything except six eggs.
As he walked home, his face became sadder and sadder. When he saw me he said, “ I’ m sorry, mum. I have forgotten to buy oranges and the meat, I only remembered to buy six eggs, but I’ve dropped three of them.” The husband loves shopping because _______
| A．he has much money |
| B．he likes the shops |
| C．he likes to compare the prices between the same items |
| D．he has nothing to do but shopping |
The wife doesn’t like shopping because ______
| A．she has no money |
| B．she has no time |
| C．she doesn’t love her husband |
| D．she feels it boring to go shopping |
They never go shopping together because _______
| A．their ways of shopping are quite different |
| B．they hate each other |
| C．they needn’t buy anything for the family |
| D．they don’t have time for it |
Jimmy cannot do the shopping well because ______
| A．he is young | B．he is absent-minded |
| C．he often loses his money | D．he doesn’t like shopping |
Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best. For example, to absorb heat from the sun to heat water, you need large, flat, back surfaces. One way to do that is to build those surfaces specially, on the roofs of buildings. But why go to all that trouble when cities are full of black surfaces already, in the form of asphalt(柏油) roads ?
Ten years ago, this thought came into the mind of Arian de Bondt, a Dutch engineer. He finally persuaded his boss to follow it up. The result is that their building is now heated in winter and cooled in summer by a system that relies on the surface of the road outside.
The heat-collector is a system of connected water pipes. Most of them run from one side of the street to the other, just under the asphalt road. Some, however, dive deep into the ground.
When the street surface gets hot in summer, water pumped through the pipes picks up this heat and takes it underground through one of the diving pipes. At a depth of 100 metres lies a natural aquifer(蓄水层) into which several heat exchangers（交换器）have been built. The hot water from the street runs through these exchangers, warming the groundwater, before returning to the surface through another pipe. The aquifer is thus used as a heat store.
In winter, the working system is changed slightly. Water is pumped through the heat exchangers to pick up the heat stored during summer. This water goes into the building and is used to warm the place up. After performing that task, it is pumped under the asphalt and its remaining heat keeps the road free of snow and ice.Which of the following is true according to the first two paragraphs ?
Arian de Bondt got his idea from his boss.
Large, flat, black surfaces need to be built in cities.
The Dutch engineer’s system has been widely used.
Heat can also be collected from asphalt roads.For what purpose are the diving pipes used ?
| A．To absorb heat from the sun. | B．To store heat for future use. |
| C．To turn solar energy into heat energy. | D．To carry heat down below the surface. |
From the last paragraph we can learn that __________.
| A．some pipes have to be re-arranged in winter |
| B．the system can do more than warming up the building |
| C．the exchangers will pick up heat |
| D．less heat may be collected in winter than in summer |
What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows ?
| A．What we shall do if the system goes wrong. |
| B．What we shall do if there are no asphalt roads. |
| C．How the system cools the building in summer. |
| D．How the system collects heat in spring and autumn. |
Rabbits are easy to raise. They are clean and quiet. They don’t need a lot of room. And it costs a small amount of money to feed them, but you can get a big return.
One male and two females will produce as many as fifty more rabbits in a year. That is enough to provide enough meat for a family. Rabbit meat is high in protein and low in fat.
You don’t have to be a farmer to raise rabbits. You can raise them in the city.
Rabbit houses are easy to make with wood and wire. They don’t have to be very big. But each rabbit must have its own little room in the house. This is very important. Each room should be about 75 centimeters wide, 60 centimeters high and one meter deep.
Fencing is used for the sides and floor of the rabbit house. The holes in the wire fencing should be about one centimeter square. Waste from the animals will drop through the holes. This keeps the rabbit house clean and dry.
Rabbits need a lot of fresh air and sunlight. Cover the sides of the rabbit house only to protect it from rain.
Rabbits eat mostly grass and leaves. Hang feeding containers on the outside of the house to let the rabbits eat whenever they want. They simply pull the grass and leaves through the holes in the fence.
Each room should have fresh water. The water containers should be heavy so the rabbit cannot turn them over. Or you can tie the containers to the fence.
One month after mating(交配), female rabbits give birth to about eight babies. In two months, a baby rabbit should weigh about two kilograms. This is big enough to make a meal for a small family.
Rabbits are also valuable for their fur. It takes time, skill and money to prepare the fur and skin for use. If you have only a few rabbits, it probably would be best to let a tanner(制革工) prepare the fur for you. Skill is also needed to remove the fur from the rabbit.
But rabbits do not have to be dead to be valuable. Many people enjoy keeping rabbits as friendly pets. And rabbit waste makes an excellent fertilizer(肥料). It can be mixed directly into the soil to improve the growth of vegetables, trees, and flowering plants.The text is written mainly_______.
| A．to explain why rabbits are clean and quiet | B．to let people know more about rabbits |
| C．to tell readers how to raise rabbits | D．to introduce a small friendly animal pet |
What is important if you raise rabbits?
| A．Holes are needed for waste to drop through. |
| B．Each rabbit must be given a separate room. |
| C．Each room must have clean water every day. |
| D．Feeding containers are hung on the fence. |
Why should the holes in the wire fence be about one centimeter square?
| A．Because the holes let in sunlight. |
| B．Because rabbits like these holes. |
| C．Because rabbits get food from them. |
| D．Because waste of rabbits drops through the holes. |
What does the underlined sentence in the last paragraph mean?
| A．You don’t have to kill rabbits to make more money. |
| B．Rabbits cannot be sold to make money when they are alive. |
| C．Rabbits are more valuable when they are alive. |
| D．Rabbits have to be killed to be more valuable. |
On the whole, it’s not something we parents shout about, but one in four of us does it. Hiring private tutors for our children is now widespread.
“It’s expensive, but worth it,” says Ashan Sabri, whose daughter Zarreen, is having tuition in biology and chemistry in preparation for A-levels this summer. “My husband and I tried to tutor her at home, but we found all our knowledge was out of date and we were only confusing Zarreen. We also tried a group revision course but all the children were sitting in a room for different kinds of exams. On the whole, we think one-to-one tuition works best.”
The real reason is: does tutoring do any good?
“It’s not the magic bullet,” says Professor Judith Ireson, author of a 2005 Institute of Education report on the subject. “It’s still up to the child to do the learning. If he or she isn’t interested, sending them to a private tutor won’t do any good. However, we did find that students who had private tuition in mathematics during the two years before GCSE achieved on average just under half a grade higher than students who did not have a tutor.”
In which case, surely it’s time to break open the champagne? Not necessarily, says Elaine Tyrrell, head of The Rowans School, Wimbledon, a preparation school which regularly gets children into the best private schools.
“While we recommend private tutoring for a few children whose first language isn’t English, we don’t encourage it for the others. With the level of education they get here, children really ought to be able to pass the entrance exams without any extra teaching. And our worry is that they might just get used to getting help from last-minute tutoring, but, once they actually get to that school, they won’t be able to cope.”
But Mylene Curtis, owner of Fleet Tutors, one of the biggest tutoring agencies in the country, holds a different view.
“In some respects, the hurdles children have to leap in order to get into these schools are set at a higher level than the reality,” says Curtis. “We often find that, once a child has got into a school, the standard of work isn’t as high as was feared. The trick is to do well enough in the exam to win a place.”What does Ashan Sabri think of the group revision course?
| A．It’s expensive but worthwhile because it works the best. |
| B．It confuses students because the knowledge taught in it is out of date. |
| C．It isn’t effective because it doesn’t focus on specific exams. |
| D．It is effective because it doesn’t focus on specific exams. |
What do the underlined words “magic bullet” in Paragraph 4 mean?
| A．Something that cannot help to solve problems at all. |
| B．Something that solves a difficult problem in an easy way. |
| C．Something that seems useful but has no use at all. |
| D．Something that encourages interest in study. |
According to Elaine Tyrrell, private tutoring is _______.
| A．effective in language learning but not for exams |
| B．effective for foreign students but not for local students |
| C．unnecessary in most cases and may harm the further study of students |
| D．unnecessary in secondary school but helpful to further study |
What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?
| A．Fleet Tutors and the Rowans School are competitors. |
| B．Entrance exams to schools are too difficult for most students. |
| C．Further study isn’t as difficult as was first thought. |
| D．Private tuition is worth the financial investment. |
What attitude does the author hold towards home tutoring?
| A．Critical | B．Objective | C．Supportive | D．Uninterested |
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