Richie Kraus thinks all kids should receive birthday presents. And he's willing to give up his own presents to make that happen.
When Richie was six, he helped collect holiday gifts for children whose families couldn't afford presents. He started thinking about how much he liked getting presents on his birthday. He asked his mom, "If we get kids presents during the holidays, who gets them presents on their birthdays?"
Richie wanted to raise money for those birthday presents. So his mom helped him create the 2U Fund. The name 2U came from the well-known song "Happy Birthday to You."
Richie explains how the fund works: "On our birthdays, we ask our friends to make a donation instead of giving us presents." Richie attaches a special sticker to his party invitations. The sticker tells about the 2U Fund and invites guests to participate, Richie and his mom then give the money to a local charity that has agreed to partner with them. The people at the charity make sure the donations go toward birthday presents for kids in need.
Richie has had three 2U parties. "It just feels really, really good to help other kids," he says.
Richie has encouraged others to try giving up some of their birthday presents to help others. His younger brother, Max, had a 2U party. Some of Richie's friends did, too. He also spoke about the idea at a summer camp and at a school assembly (集会). "There were close to 200 students and teachers in the assembly," Richie' s teacher, Janel McCormick, says. "They all wanted to help support 2U."
Since Richie and his family started the 2U Fund, dozens of kids have helped raise more than $7,000. That money has bought dolls, books, and many other birthday toys for kids in need.
Before Richie created the 2U Fund, he .
| A．had very few friends |
| B．had done some charity work |
| C．had seldom received birthday presents |
| D．had already donated some birthday presents |
To help kids in need, Richie' s 2U parties mainly .
| A．hold birthday parties for them |
| B．invite them to attend the parties |
| C．prepare birthday presents for them |
| D．raise money for their birthday presents |
What can we learn from the last two paragraphs?
| A．All of Richie' s schoolmates plan to hold 2U parties. |
| B．Richie is praised for his kindness. |
| C．Richie' s acts of kindness have spread. |
| D．Richie has made more friends. |
Everyone gets sick of hearing. “Put on your seat belt!”But it’s good advice. People who wear seat belts are 45 percent less likely to be killed while riding in the front seat of a car.
The US government wants more seat belt laws. It says children aged 4 to 15 are often killed in car accidents. In 2005, there were 1,627 children aged 4 to 15 killed in car accidents. More than 1,000 of those children were not wearing seat belts. If they had been wearing seat belts, 500 of those children could be alive today.
These children are too old to be in car seats, but they often sit in the back seat. Seat belt laws in many states, including Wisconsin, only require people in the front seat to wear seat belts. Children who aren’t wearing seat belts can be thrown from the car. The risk of dying in an accident is three times greater if the person is thrown from the car.
New laws could require children aged 4 to 8 to be in booster seats in the car. Booster seats help seat belts fit children properly. Right now, only 5 percent of children aged 4 to 8 are seated in booster seats.
While parents have the choice of whether wearing seat belts or not, children are too young to make that choice. Even if you decide not to wear a seat belt, make sure you children are in seat belts and car seats. It’s the law and it will save their lives.The underlined sentence “Everyone gets sick of hearing”in the first paragraph means“________”.
| A．there is something wrong with everyone’s ears |
| B．all people fall ill when they hear something |
| C．many people don’t pay attention to wearing seat belts |
| D．none of the people knows it is a piece of good advice |
More than two-third of 1,627 children were killed because ___________.
| A．they weren’t using seat belts |
| B．they were too careful when they walked on the road |
| C．they were not old enough to sit in the car |
| D．they wore seat belts |
You must get your children to put on seat belts in order to ________.
| A．keep them comfortable in the car seat | B．keep them safe |
| C．keep them awake in the car all the time | D．prevent all kinds of traffic accidents |
What would be the best title of this passage?
| A．Children Should Put on Seat Belts. |
| B．Too Many Traffic Accidents Happened Recently. |
| C．Traffic Laws Are Very Important. |
| D．Parents Are Important to Children. |
When I was 15, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my short-comings(缺点). Week by week her list grew. I was skinny(瘦的), I talked too loud, I was too proud, and so on. I put up with(忍受)her as long as I could. At last, I ran to my father in tears and anger. He listened to my outburst quietly. They he asked, “Are the things she says the true or not?”True? I wanted to know how to strike back. What did truth have to do with it?
“Mary, didn’t you ever wonder what you are really like? Well, you now have that girl’s opinion. ”Go and make a list of every thing she said and mark the points that are true. You needn’t pay attention to the other things she said.
I did as he told me and discovered to my surprise that about half the things are true. Some of them I couldn’t change(like being skinny), but a good number I could and suddenly wanted to change. For the time in my life I began to get a quiet clear picture of myself.
I brought the list back to Daddy, but he wouldn’t take it.“That’s just for you,”he said.“You know better than any else the truth about yourself, once you hear it. But you’ve got to learn to listen, not close your ears in anger or hurt. When someone says something about you, you’ll know if it’s true or not. If it is ,you’ll find it will echo(共鸣)inside you.”
“I still don’t think it very nice of her to talk about me in front of everybody.”
“Mary, there is one way you could stop others talking about you ever again, and criticizing(批评) you—just say nothing and do nothing. But then, if you do that, you’d find you were nothing. You wouldn’t like that now, would you?”“No, I admitted(承认)”One day the writer ran to her father in tears and anger because__________.
| A．she found she talked too much. | B．she found she was too proud. |
| C．her classmates were not friendly to her. | D．a girl pointed out many of her shortcomings. |
The writer’s father asked her ____________.
| A．to pay attention to all that her“enemy”said about her. |
| B．not to pay attention to what her“enemy”said about her. |
| C．to pay attention only to the points that were true about her. |
| D．to pay attention only to the points that were not true about her. |
The writer found that___________.
| A．about half the things her“enemy”said were true. |
| B．most of the things her“enemy”said were true. |
| C．few of the things her“enemy”said were true. |
| D．none of the things her“enemy”said were true. |
The writer’s father thinks__________.
| A．if one says nothing and does nothing, people will praise him. |
| B．one should not do anything because others will talk about him. |
| C．it is not good to talk about others. |
| D．everyone is talked about by others. |
I had an experience some years ago, which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I had to hold two funerals on successive days for two elderly women in my community. Both had died “full of years”, as the Bible would say. Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condolence (吊唁) calls on the two families on the same afternoon.
At the first home, the son of the deceased (已故的) woman said to me, “If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow , she would be alive today. It’s my fault that she died.” At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, “If only I hadn’t insisted on my mother’s going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride, the sudden change of climate, was more than she could take. It’s my fault that she’s dead.”
You see that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out badly, they believe that the opposite course — keeping Mother at home, putting off the operation — would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?
There seem to be two elements involved in our willingness to feel guilty. The first is our pressing need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens. That leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds.
The second element is the view that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believing that every disaster is our fault. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood.
A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to its tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely outgrow that childish view that our wishes cause things to happen.The author had to hold the two women’s funerals probably because .
| A．he wanted to comfort the two families | B．he was an official from the community |
| C．he had great pity for the deceased | D．he was priest of the local church |
People feel guilty for the deaths of their loved ones because .
| A．they couldn’t find a better way to express their sorrow |
| B．they believe that they were responsible |
| C．they had neglected the natural course of events |
| D．they didn’t know things often turn out in the opposite direction |
According to the passage, the underlined part in paragraph 4 probably means that .
| A．everything in the world is predetermined |
| B．the world can be interpreted in different ways |
| C．there’s an explanation for everything in the world |
| D．we have to be sensible in order to understand the world |
What’s the main idea of the passage?
| A．Life and death is an unsolved mystery. |
| B．Every story should have a happy ending. |
| C．Never feel guilty all the time because not every disaster is our fault. |
| D．In general, the survivors will feel guilty about the people who passed away. |
What is a good education? The question is far from being answered. Once more, colleges and universities are changing their programs: they drop "fun courses" and restart some of the traditional subjects neglected (忽视) since the 1960s. Many great schools are again requiring the students to take a number of classes in English, history, literature, the social sciences, philosophy, the natural sciences, and art if they want to get a degree. Meanwhile, the experts are trying to describe the good education of our time. Obviously the purely vocational training once favored is not enough. But neither is the gentleman's education of the nineteenth century. Educational programs must meet the demands of a modern world where men and women have to work and to deal with big problems.
What, then, is a good education of this century? Some educators suggest that it should include foreign languages and the study of foreign cultures; a mastery of English, including the ability to write and speak well, because communications have become all-important in the modern world, and also because "a person who doesn't speak and write clearly doesn't reason clearly either"; some knowledge of the social sciences (sociology, psychology) that deal with human relations and human problems; some basic knowledge of modern science, which would enable future voters to be better informed about current problems like nuclear. Finally, many educators insist that all college graduates should be familiar with computers and modern information system since the educated professionals of tomorrow will have to understand their machines. Is that all? "No, of course not." answer the educators. "We have not mentioned the two great building blocks of education: history and literature!" The best title for this passage might be _______.
| A．Education | B．A Mastery of English |
| C．A Good Education | D．Something About Study |
The underlined word "drop" in the first paragraph means _______.
| A．desert | B．dislike | C．decline | D．neglect |
The author thinks that the question about what a good education is _______.
| A．has been answered fairly well |
| B．hasn't been put forward yet |
| C．has been dealt with successfully |
| D．has not been answered satisfactorily |
Some educational experts believe a mastery of English should include the ability _______.
| A．to read fast | B．to write and speak well |
| C．to write clearly and accurately | D．to listen and speak skillfully |
This tour takes you back in history to a moment that “will live in infamy （声名狼藉）. ” Explore the historic artifacts at the Arizona Memorial Visitor Center commemorating（纪念） the attack on Pearl Harbor, then travel around beautiful Oahu on a Circle Island guided bus tour.
The Arizona Memorial Visitor Center is Hawaii’s number one visitor attraction. View the film of the attack on Pearl Harbor and browse the historic artifacts on display. Then ride the Navy launch across Pearl Harbor to visit the Arizona Memorial. Then, board a tour bus for a scenic trip around the island of Oahu. Get your cameras ready for the beautiful view over Windward Oahu at Nu’uanu Pali Lookout. Visit Byodo－In Temple, which is set against a picturesque mountain backdrop.
You’ll also see the famous North Shore surfing beaches of Sunset, Banzai Pipeline, and Waimea Bay and drive through rustic Haleiwa Town. Visit Dole Plantation and discover the history of Hawaii’s pineapple industry before enjoying a no host lunch at the Polynesian Cultural Center (lunch is not included in the listed-price).
Inclusions: Scenic bus tour of Oahu island
Film viewing at Arizona Memorial Visitor Center. Pearl Harbor
Visit of Byodo－In Temple and Dole Plantation
Available:
Mon. —Fri.
Hours of operation:
7 AM to 5 PM
Note:
Strict security measures forbid purses, handbags, fanny packs, backpacks, camera bags, diaper bags, luggage and／or other items. Visitors may bring a camera and cam-recorder. A storage facility, operated by a private vendor, is available for visitors coming to the USS Arizona Memorial, USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park, the Battleship Missouri and the Pacific Aviation Museum. What is the purpose of the passage above?
| A．To introduce the beautiful scene in Oahu. | B．To tell the writer attractions in Hawaii. |
| C．To attract more tourists. | D．To describe a wonderful tour in Oahu. |
Which of the following is the right order of the tour?
| A．The Arizona Memorial, Byodo-In Temple, Nu’uanu Pali Lookout, Polynesian Cultural Center |
| B．Pearl Habor, Dole Plantation, Nu’uanu Pali Lookout, Sunset Beach |
| C．Pearl Habor, North Shore, Byodo-In Temple, Dole Plantation |
| D．The Arizona Memorial, Nu’uanu Pali Lookout, Dole Plantation, Polynesian Cultural Center |
A tourist will see everything below at Pearl Harbor except _______.
| A．the Arizona Memorial | B．some historic artifacts |
| C．a film | D．Windward Oahu |
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