It’s not often a tomato that is described as so sweet “whenever people see it they just want to hug”-but this was no ordinary piece of fruit.
The heart-shaped tomato was grown by the retired worker, Rod Matless, who said he was surprised when he noticed it in his field. Mr. Matless, 69, who had a heart attack a few years ago, was so taken aback by the fruit that he decided to sell it and donate the money to the British Heart Foundation. The 64 g tomato was bought for$16 on eBay by woman from Wales - who said she planned to give it to someone special.
Mr. Matless, of Wymondham, near Norwich, said：“I spent a couple of days thinking about what to do with it and I wasn’t really sure, but this seems like a good use. I hope it will do someone somewhere a bit of good.” He added：“It’s very sweet - whenever people see it they just want to hug it.” But with the tomato’s freshness a key factor, Mr. Matless was up against the clock to send it to its new owner before it went bad. He said：“I didn’t want to send someone something horrible. I probably could have raised a bit more money with more time but I was worried about it.”
“It will certainly make a nice present for a loved one. I hope that they like it and I’m glad I got to help. It’s all been very good fun and I’ve really enjoyed growing this very special tomato.”We can learn from the text that the tomato grown by Rod Matless ______.
| A．is very big | B．is very tough |
| C．is very special | D．is good for health |
The underlined part “taken aback by” in Paragraph 2 means ______.
| A．satisfied with | B．nervous about |
| C．surprised by | D．frightened by |
According to the text, the main problem for Rod Matless was ______.
| A．how to advertise the tomato |
| B．how to keep the tomato fresh |
| C．how to get a good price for the tomato |
| D．how to find a good owner for the tomato |
Looking for cool gifts that inspire others? Here’s a collection of unusual gifts you can personalize （刻名字）and remember. Nothing speaks of wonderful gift suggestions more than having the receiver’s name or a little message written on the gift. A personalized item means so much. Take a look at these bestsellers. Remember to check out the sections For Her and For Him.
Personatized Bouquet Coffee Mug
Say it with flowers’ This pretty white rung features three colorful flowers that form a bunch, with plenty of room for your own special lines of personalization above and below the flowes. Both useful and strong, this ceramic (陶瓷的)15 ounce coffee mug is suitable for a variety or special occasions including hirthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s Day, or as a bridesmaid gift. Top line provides room for up to 15 characters while bottom line holds up to 10 characters.
Price: $ 17.84
8 oz. Leather Flask
He’ll be in high spirits as he carries his liquid libations-alcoholic or nonalcoholic-in this luxurious leather and silver flask, which holds 8 ounces of his favourite drink. Pocket-sized for purtabilly, it includes a special funnel so he can fill up with case. Personalized with two lines of up to 15 characters per line.
Price: $ 28.04
Personalized Esquire Swiss Army Knife
The Swiss Cross logo designates this stainless steel, multipurpose knife as a gift marked with the legendary Swiss creative design From the makes of the swiss Anny Knife, eacj Esquire features a small knife blade, nail file and scissors. Personalized with one line of up to 8 characters.
Price: $ 33.99.
Personalized Round Clock Key Chain
Classic horseshoe key chain has a handsome silver watch atrached. Makes a unique gift when engraved（雕刻）. Adding a personal touch. Persoralized with a three initial characters. See Rules of Engraving for correct format of first letters of the name. Packing free.
Price: $ 21.24.Who will be interested in the passage most?
| A．Someone who works in the office. |
| B．Someone whose friend will have a birthday |
| C．Someone who serves the patients |
| D．Someone who drives to his office |
If you want to send you mother a special gift, which of the following is most suitable?
| A．Personalized Bouquet coffee Mug |
| B．8 oz. Leather Flask |
| C．Personalized Esquire Swiss Anny Knife |
| D．Personalized Round Clock Key Chain |
If you want a gift which is packed free of charge, _____ is most suitable.
| A．Personalized Bouquet coffee Mug |
| B．8 oz. Leather Flask |
| C．Personalized Esquire Swiss Anny Knife |
| D．Personalized Round Clock Key Chain |
If you want to have a personalized item with more characters, you should choose ______.
| A．Personalized Bouquet coffee Mug |
| B．8 oz. Leather Flask |
| C．Personalized Esquire Swiss Anny Knife |
| D．Personalized Round Clock Key Chain |
Candy corn is one of the simple pleasures of Halloween. Around since the 1880s, these white, yellow and orange striped candies are made with sugar, corn syrup（糖浆）and other ingredients.
Of course, you can enjoy candy corn by the handful. But we came up with 5 fun ways to celebrate and enjoy this seasonal treat.
Fill your sugar bowl with candy corn. Use spoonfuls of the colorful candies to sweeten your coffee, tea or other hot drinks. The sugary candies will dissolve（溶解）in the hot liquid.
Make ice cream sandwiches perfect for Halloween by decorating the creamy edges with candy corn. Purchase ready-made ice cream sandwiches and roll the edges in a plateful of the corn. Or make your own by first spooning your favorite flavor of softened ice cream between two sugar cookies or chocolate cookies. Roll the ice cream side in candy corn. Wrap in plastic wrap or foil and freeze at least 6 hours until firm. Let stand about 10 minutes before eating.
Use them as decoration on the chocolate icing atop a cake, cupcakes or brownies (the colors look great against brown).
Make a seasonal party mix by combining 4 cups cereal（麦片）and 1/3 cup melted butter. Toss（拌）to coat. Add 1 cup raisins, 1 cup candy corn and 1 (12-ounce) jar dry-roasted peanuts. Toss to mix. Store in an airtight（密封的）container.
Make attractive candy corn cookies. Make your favorite sugar cookie recipe, roll it out, cut the dough with about a 1 1/2-inch triangular cookie cutter and bake then cool. Then using a fondant（软糖）rolling pin, roll out yellow fondant on paper until it is 1/8-inch thick. Cut the fondant into 1/2-inch-thick strips and set aside. Repeat with white and orange fondants. Place the strips side by side on the paper and roll until the strips become one piece. Cut out a candy corn shape from the fondant sheet with your triangular cutter. Press light corn syrup on the top of your cookies and place fondant sheets on the cookies. Let dry at least 1 hour.For how long have people enjoyed the pleasures from candy corn?
| A．About thirty years. |
| B．Less than one hundred years. |
| C．About one hundred and thirty years. |
| D．Over one hundred and fifty years. |
How can we make ice cream sandwiches perfect for Halloween?
| A．By decorating the creamy edges with candy corn. |
| B．By dissolving candy corn in the ice cream. |
| C．By making sweet cakes on the ice cream. |
| D．By putting corn syrup on the ice cream. |
What is the right order to make a seasonal party mix?
①Add 1 cup raisins, 1 cup candy corn and 1 jar dry-roasted peanuts.
②Toss to mix.
③Toss to coat.
④Store in an airtight container.
⑤Combine 4 cups cereal and cup melted butter.
| A．⑤①②③④ |
| B．①②③④⑤ |
| C．③④⑤①② |
| D．⑤③①②④ |
Where can the article be used?
| A．News column. |
| B．Social activity column. |
| C．Life column. |
| D．Science column. |
Poor parenting is to blame for a major deterioration（变坏） in the behavior of primary school pupils over the past five years,a study suggests.
Classroom disorder is a big problem for teachers, according to researchers ar Cambridge University.In interview with teachers, Professors Maurice Galton and John Macbeath found that many blamed their pupils’ bad behavior on the inability of parents to control children at home.
Many pupils lacked the social skills required to get on in class, said the researchers. “The teachers describe ‘highly permissive’ parents who admitted to indulging(纵容) their children,often for the sake of peace,” the author added.
Examples included a mother who,after great effort,succeeded in getting her five-year-old son to bed at 1 am instead of 3 am,and a boy of seven who broke his Sony PlayStation in a tantrum(发脾气),and then would not behave for a week until his mother bought him a new one.
Professors Galton and Macbeath were also told of parents who would do anything to shut their children up”just to get some peace”.
The researchers,who visited schools they studied five years ago,added,”There appeared to have been a bad influence on school life from a rapidly changing social scene”
“Motivating certain children, it was claimed, had become more difficult because by the time they came to school many of these children had become expert in dealing with adults.”
According to Galton and Macbeath, the top five difficulties to teaching are poor pupil behavior, lack of time for reflection, large class sizes, too many initatives and an overloaded curriculum. “Children arrive at school knowing too much and not enough.”They said.According to many teachers, some students behave badly at school because___.
| A．teachers didn’t give them an interesting lesson |
| B．they lack parental control at home |
| C．their parents have a poor education themselves |
| D．they can’t receive enough attention from teachers. |
Why are some parents highly permissive according to the passage?
| A．To show their strong love to their children. |
| B．To encourage their children to do what they like |
| C．To give their children freedom to choose what they are interested in |
| D．To avoid being disturbed by children. |
Which of the following is the most suitable title for the passage?
| A．Teachers have the duty to control their students |
| B．Parents get the blame for bad behavior of children |
| C．Teachers are responsible for what their students do |
| D．Parents are the models for their children |
Babies as young as 5months can distinguish a happy tune, such as Ode to Joy, from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,from sad tunes.
Researchers showed an emotionally-neutral(中立的)face to the babies while sad music played.When the babies looked away from the face, the music stopped Ode to Joy played, the babies stared at the face three to four seconds longer, suggesting they were interested in the change.
By nine months old, babies can do the opposite.
The finding is another example of how babies make sense of the world long before they can talk, said Brigham Young University psychology professor Ross Flom.
“One of the first things babies understand communicatively is emotion,so for them the melody(旋律)is the message,”Flom said. “Our study showed that by nine months, babies are classifying songs as happy or sad the same way that adults do”
So what makes a happy song?
BYU music professor Susan Kenney, who was not involved in the study, noted some of the technical difference between the happy and sad songs the babies heard.
“The happy songs were all in major keys with fairly short phrases or motives that repeated,”Kenney said, “The tempo(节拍)and melodic rhythms were faster than any of the sad ones,and the molodies had a general upward direction.The sad songs were in minor keys and all had a slower beat and long melodic rhythms.For a baby to notice those differences is interesting and attractive.”The phrase “the opposite”in Paragraph 3 refers to “___”.
| A．telling the difference between Ode to Joy and other songs |
| B．picking out a sad tune from happy ones |
| C．looking away from the face three to four sections longer |
| D．showing they’re not interested in the change of tunes |
This musical study shows that___.
| A．all babies are gifted in music |
| B．music represents what babies want to tell us |
| C．babies understand music emotionally even before they can talk |
| D．the behavior of babies should be further studied |
How do babies distinguish different tunes according to Kenny?
| A．By the tempo and rhythms |
| B．By their emotion |
| C．By their common sense |
| D．By their interest |
Which section of a newspaper does this passage probably belong to?
| A．Science |
| B．Culture |
| C．Education |
| D．Entertainment |
Among growing concerns about rising food prices and global warming, many Americans are taking a closer look at what they do and don’t eat.
Research in the US estimates that at least 14 percent of purchased food ends up in the garbage.Some way view this as a call to return to the”clean your plate” atiitude, which was popularized in the mid-twentieth century, but this would be unwise.With a rising overweight population and a growing national health crisis, it’s time for a new approach.Instead,we should view these figures as motivation to reduce waste,cut grocery costs and maintain our health by shopping and eating smarter.
Food waste reportedly makes up about 12 percent of waste material.Aside from the costly operation budgets of the equipment,the environment is paying the real price.As organic material(like vegetables,fruits and grains)decompose in the garbage,they release the greenhouse gas methane(甲烷)into the environment.
In fact,garbage is the largest source of methane emissions(散发)in the US.While composting plant food, which does not produce methane,is one solution,strategies for wasting less food shoule also be explored.
According to a survey in the UK,one major source of food waste is “over shopping”.Buying more food than we need is easy to do when we shop without a list or when “buy one,get one free”offers tempt us to put food that will often go to waste into our shopping baskets.
The solution: shop smarter.Check your refrigerator to see what needs to be used or frozen before it becomes bad.Check your calendar to see if there are meals that you know you will be eating away from home.
Before you go to the store,decide how many days worth of food you need.Then ,take a few minutes to prepare a shopping list.Don’t make things different—no need to decide what will be served each day—just plan enough breakfast,lunch and dinner meals to last until your next grocery run.How does food waste influence the environment?
| A．It makes up about 12 percent of waste materials |
| B．It costs a great deal to operate the equipment |
| C．It contains organic materials |
| D．It release the greenhouse gas |
How many solutions are mentioned to solve the food garbage problem?
| A．One |
| B．Two |
| C．Three |
| D．Four |
What can we know according to Paragraph 5?
| A．We usually buy some unnecessary food. |
| B．We tend to buy a lot of food that we can’t afford. |
| C．We usually buy one thing and are given one more for free. |
| D．We get the free food and soon throw it into the garbage |
The purpose of writing this passage is to ___.
| A．tell us what healthy foods should be bought |
| B．remind us to eat smarter to provide energy for our body |
| C．advise us to check our refrigerator before eating out |
| D．expect us to make efforts to avoid food waste |
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