China has a growing middle class, a tradition of expecting education and 21 million new babies every year. Selling educatioinal toys should be easy.
While China may be the world’s biggest toy-maker, many of the best are exported. Department stores here do not have enough high quality toys. It is said that the demand for educational toys is low.
A US company, BabyCare, which works basically together with doctors in Beijing hospitals, is trying to change that with a new way to sell toys in China. People who join the company’s "mother club" can get lectures and newsletters on baby and child development at no extra cost if they agree to spend 18 dollars a month on the company’s educational toys and child-care books.
"We want to build a seven year relationship with those people," said Matthew J. Estes, BabyCare’s president. "It starts during pregnancy, when the anxiety and needs are highest." BabyCare works on a one-to-one basis. Doctors, nurses, and teachers paid by BabyCare advise parents, explaining toys that are designed for children at each stage of development to age six.
BabyCare, which plans to have 80 stores in China within six years, opened its first store in China last June in a shopping center in central Beijing and another near Beijing Zoo.
It is a new model for China and develops a market in young children’s education and health that no other companies are in.
64. What do the first two paragraphs mainly tell us?
A. Educational toys and foreign toy markets.
B. Reasons for pushing sales of educational toys in China.
C. Problems with China’s toy market and education.
D. Baby population and various kinds of toys made in China.
65. According to the passage, which of the following is a fact?
A. Club members buying BabyCare products get free child-care advice.
B. Doctors in Beijing help in making BabyCare products.
C. Parents are encouraged to pay $ 18 for club activities.
D. BabyCare trains Chinese doctors at no extra cost.
66. In China BabyCare is developing its business by___________.
A. opening stores in Beijing hospitals
B. establishing children’s education clubs
C. offering 18-month courses on child-care
D. forming close relationships with parents
67. Which of the following would be the most suitable title for the passage?
A. American Company Marketing Model B. Educational Toys in China
C. BabyCare Toys On D. Mother’s Club in China
Read the following time table and then answer the following questions.
Train Timetable.
Lv. (Leave) Boston Ar. (Arrive) Midway Ar. New York
5:10 AM EX. (Except) Sun. 7:00 AM 10:45 AM
7:10 AM Daily 9:00 AM 12:45 PM
9:10 AM Ex, Sat. & Sun. 11:00 AM 2:45 PM
10:00 Am Ex. Hol. (Holiday) 11:45 AM 2:45 PM
1:15 PM Daily 3:15 PM 5:45 PM
3:40 PM Ex. Hol. 5:40 PM 8:15 PM
5:20 PM Daily 7:20 PM 9:55 PM.What is the shortest time between Boston and New York by train?
| A．5 hours 35 minutes | B．5 hours 5 minutes |
| C．4 hours 30 minutes. | D．4 hours 25 minutes. |
.How many trains have to spend over five hours on the way from Boston to New York?
| A．5. | B．3. | C．7. | D．2. |
.On Christmas Day, how many trains at least can you take from Boston to New York?
| A．2. | B．4. | C．5. | D．3. |
To learn English well you must learn about yourself. You must discover what your own special needs are in English. You should pick out what makes English different from your own language and concentrate on(集中精力) those parts. And above all, you should pick out your own personal weaknesses in English, pick out your own special problems, find out what mistakes you most often make and make a list of them.
It will be best if, in your preparation, you can practise doing all sorts of work that you will be asked to do in examination. You should then make a careful note of any mistakes that you make more than once. Count up how many times you make for each mistake, and the mistake you make most often should be at the top of your list, the next most common in the second place, and so on.
For example, if your native language is Japanese, you may find the problem of articles comes at the top of your list. If you speak German, you may find using some of the conjunctions is your biggest problem. If your mother tongue is French, you find you are always having trouble with some of prepositions. And if Italian is your language, you may constantly forget to use a suitable pronoun when you should.
But these are only examples of mistakes typical of certain languages. They may or may not be your particular personal mistakes. As I say, these personal ones are the most important of all to discover..The most important thing to learn English well is to______.
| A．find out the difference between your own language and English |
| B．discover your own special needs in the language |
| C．learn about yourself as much as possible |
| D．pick out your own personal weaknesses in English |
.The writer’s advice to the readers is to______.
| A．spend as much time on English as possible |
| B．take examinations of various sorts |
| C．keep a notebook with the important languages points in it |
| D．find out their own problems in doing selected exercises |
.The first item on the list should be the mistake you make_______.
| A．most often | B．many times | C．more than more | D．very often |
.To make a list of personal mistakes______.
| A．is a must for any English learner | B．is a time-consuming job |
| C．needs careful work | D．can help your study of prepositions |
Thanksgiving is an important festival in North America. We interviewed several students from the US and Canada. Here is what they have told us about their Thanksgiving experiences.
Josie from New York, USA
“In America, Thanksgiving is celebrated every year at the end of November. It is to remember the first group of people from Europe to live in America. When they first arrived, they found the environment strange. But they learned to survive after some native American friends showed them how to grow and find food. Thanksgiving is meant to be a traditional celebration.”
Todd from California, USA
“Thanksgiving is the first day of Christmas shopping. That means we have four weeks to buy Christmas presents for our families and friends. For me and my friends, the most important part of the festival is the big football game on TV. The match is watched by millions of people all over America. Thanksgiving is seen as an exciting day for football!”
Ian from Saskatoon, Canada
In Canada, Thanksgiving is held on the 2nd Monday in October. On the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day, many people go to church. Thanks is given for all the good things that happened to them during the year. I always give thanks for the nice big turkey I’m going to have at the family dinner! Like all festivals, Thanksgiving is about food!
Katie from Maritimes, Canada
On Thanksgiving Day, we have dinner with all our cousins, aunts and uncles. It is always very busy. Sometimes we have two Thanksgiving dinners because we go to both our grandparents’ houses. The dinner is usually attended by more than twenty people at each house! My mother and my aunts do all the cooking but the washing-up is done by me and my cousins. And that’s not an easy job! But I don’t mind because Thanksgiving is meant to be a time to give thanks.People in the USA and Canada ____________.
| A．all have the same opinion of Thanksgiving |
| B．have different opinions of Thanksgiving |
| C．feel that Thanksgiving is about food |
| D．have no interest in Thanksgiving |
Which of the people interviewed feels that Thanksgiving is all about football?
| A．Ian | B．Josie | C．Todd | D．Katie |
Where does the person who thinks that Thanksgiving is a traditional celebration come from?
| A．New York | B．California | C．Saskatoon | D．Maritimes |
For what reasons do people give thanks at Thanksgiving?
| A．All the good things that have happened |
| B．Presents, a big turkey |
| C．Grandparents, food |
| D．Football, traditions |
When Albert Einstein was young, he was a quiet child who spent much of his time alone. He was slow to talk and had difficulty in learning to read.
When Albert was five years old, his father gave him a compass. Albert was filled with wonder when he discovered that the compass needle always pointed in the same direction ---- the north. He asked his father and his uncle what caused the needle to move. Their answers were difficult for Albert to understand. Yet he spent a lot of time thinking about them. He said later that he felt something must be hidden behind things.
Albert didn’t like school. The German schools of that time were not pleasant. Students couldn’t ask questions. Albert said he felt as if he were in prison..
One day Albert told his uncle Jacob how much he hated school, especially mathematics. His uncle told him to solve mathematical problems by pretending to be a policeman. “You are looking for someone,” he said, “but you don’t know who he is. Call him X. Find him by using your mathematical tools.”
Albert learned to love mathematics. He was studying the complex mathematics of calculus while all his friends were still studying simple mathematics. Instead of playing with his friends he thought about things such as “What would happen if people could travel at the speed of his light?”
Albert wanted to teach mathematics and physics. He graduated with honors, but it was a pity that he could not get a teaching job.According to Paragraph 2, we can learn that Albert Einstein ________.
| A．was interested in the compass |
| B．wanted to be a great scientist |
| C．was not clever enough |
| D．didn’t like thinking by himself |
Why did Albert Einstein hate school?
| A．He couldn’t play with his friends there |
| B．Students were not allowed to ask questions. |
| C．The schools were like prisons at that time |
| D．He had to learn mathematics that he didn’t like. |
What does the underlined word ‘complex’ probably mean?
| A．Useful | B．Difficult | C．Boring | D．Interesting |
We can learn from the passage that ________.
| A．Einstein became a mathematics teacher after graduation |
| B．Einstein gradually loved mathematics with his uncle’s help. |
| C．Einstein’s uncle was a policeman. |
| D．Einstein liked playing with other children. |
John H. Johnson was born in a black family in Arkansas City in 1918. His father died in an accident when John was six. He was reaching the high school age, but his hometown offered no high school for blacks.
Fortunately he had a strong-willed caring mother. John remembered that his mother told him many times, “Son, you can be anything you really want to be if you just believe.” She told him not to depend on others, including his mother. “You have to earn success,” she said. “All the people who work hard don’t succeed, but the only people who do succeed are those who work hard.”
These words came from a woman with less than a third grade education. She also knew that believing and hard work don’t mean everything. So she worked hard as a cook for two years to save enough to take her son, who was then 15, to Chicago. Chicago in 1933 was not the promised land that black southerners were looking for. John’s mother and stepfather could not find work. But here John could go to school, and here he learned the power of words---as an editor of the newspaper and yearbook at Du Sable High School. His wish was to publish a magazine for blacks.
While others discouraged him, John’s mother offered him more words to live by: “Nothing beats a failure but a try. ” She also let him pawn(典当)her furniture to get the $500 he needed to start the Negro magazine for blacks.
It is natural that difficulties and failures followed John closely until he became very successful. He always keeps his mother’s words in mind.: “Son, failure is not in your vocabulary!”
Now John H. Johnson is one of the 400 richest people in America---worth $150 million.John’s mother decided to move to Chicago because_______.
| A．his father died when John was very young. |
| B．life was too hard for them to stay on in their hometown |
| C．John needed more education badly |
| D．there were no school for Negroes in their hometown |
John’s mother________.
| A．didn’t believe in or depend on others |
| B．thought one could be whatever one wanted to be |
| C．believed one would succeed without working hard |
| D．thought no one could succeed without working hard. |
The sentence “Nothing beats a failure but a try” means _______.
| A．if you try, you would succeed |
| B．a failure is difficult to beat, even if you try |
| C．a try is always followed by a failure |
| D．no failure can be beaten unless you try |