The Roman Emperor Claudius II was fighting many wars. He wanted a strong army, but many men did not want to be soldiers. Claudius thought the men wanted to stay at home to be with their wives and children instead of leaving to fight wars.
Claudius thought of an awful solution to his problem. He decided to cancel all marriages! No one in all of Rome could get married. Claudius thought that if the men couldn’t get married, the men would ignore the women and want to be soldiers.
Valentine, who was a priest (牧师), believed that people needed to get married. He thought it was wrong for people to live together without being married. So he secretly and illegally married couples anyway. He performed the weddings in secret places, so the Roman soldiers would not find out.
But they did find out. Valentine was arrested and brought before the Emperor. The Emperor thought Valentine was a well-spoken and wise young man, and encouraged him to stop being a Christian (基督徒) and become a loyal Roman. Valentine would not deny his beliefs, and he refused. He was sent to prison and was finally killed. While he was in prison, he sent out letters to his friends and asked to be prayed (祈祷) for by writing Remember your Valentine.
Valentine was killed on the 14th or the 24th of February in the year 269 or 270. We celebrate Valentine’s Day on February 14th in honor of St. Valentine. The Emperor Claudius II wanted men to __________.
| A．live at home and work for the empire |
| B．become loyal Roman citizens |
| C．go to other countries and raise families |
| D．fight wars in other lands |
The underlined word “awful” in the second paragraph probably means __________.
| A．terrible | B．wonderful | C．possible | D．friendly |
Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．Valentine believed in marriage and risked death to marry people. |
| B．Claudius wanted to stay at home with his wife. |
| C．Claudius thought Valentine was a man with a bright future. |
| D．Valentine broke the law. |
Chinese are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Not caring about the money, parents often send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the United States or Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course activities where they will either learn a musical instrument or ballet, or other classes that will give them a head start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is. So parents will spend an unreasonable amount of money on education. Even poor couples will buy a computer for their son or daughter.
However, what most parents fail to see is that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap.
Parents can see that their children’s skills vary, skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize though, is that today’s children lack self-respect and self-confidence.
The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents are not teaching them the most important skills they need to be confident, happy and clever.
Parents can achieve this by teaching practical skills like cooking, sewing and doing other housework.
Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands patience and time. It is an enjoyable but difficult experience. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and gradually finish his job successfully. His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and a lot of self-confidence.
Some old machines, such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your child to play with will make him curious and arouse his interest. He will spend hours looking at them, trying to fix them; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. These activities are not only teaching a child to read a book, but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.Parents in China, according to this passage, _______.
| A．are too strict with their children |
| B．are too rich to educate their children |
| C．have some problems in educating their children correctly |
| D．are too poor to educate their children |
The writer of the passage does not seem to be satisfied with ______.
| A．the parents’ ideas of educating their children |
| B．the education system |
| C．children’s skills |
| D．children’s hobbies |
Doing some cooking at home helps children ______.
| A．learn how to serve their parents |
| B．learn how to become strong and fat |
| C．benefit from it and prepare themselves for the future |
| D．make their parents believe that they are clever |
According to the last paragraph we can conclude that ______.
| A．broken radios and television sets are useful |
| B．one’s curiosity may be useful for his later life |
| C．an engineer must fix many broken radios |
| D．a good student should spend much time repairing radios |
I received a call today asking if I would be willing to bring food to a family in need. The mother was having a major operation and would be lying down for several weeks. Of course, I responded with an immediate ―Yes!
As I planned the meal in my head, I reflected on how many times over the years I had been asked to prepare food. I have done so countless times with a very open heart. But the truly amazing thing is that I have received double over the course of my life. When my mother passed away, our house was filled with fresh dinners for weeks. A woman from the church of our community stopped by each evening with some food. The gift of food was her small way of trying to ease our pain. Later in my life, when I was on bed rest during my pregnancy with twins, women of the church again stepped in to help. They arranged babysitting for my two-year-old daughter, and brought lovely dinners to our house. Even when I was put in the hospital, my husband would bring cooked meals to my hospital room. How we relied on these dinners to feed my tired husband and young daughter. Food is all about comfort. It feeds our bodies, but it can also feed our souls. When you hear people talking about their favourite holidays, it usually includes their feelings connected with sharing food. I know that I will have many more opportunities in my lifetime to prepare food for others. It is truly a gift I want to prepare and deliver to someone in need. We can learn from the passage that the author________.
| A．had to stay in bed for several weeks |
| B．knew the family in need very well |
| C．was glad to be able to lend a hand |
| D．was tired of preparing food |
Which of the following is TRUE about the author?
| A．Her mother died when she was in hospital. |
| B．She didn’t get enough food during her pregnancy. |
| C．She received food as well as comfort in her hard times. |
| D．She thinks offering food is the best way to show love. |
What do we know about the author’s family?
| A．Her family is too poor to buy enough food. |
| B．Her family lives not far from a church. |
| C．Her husband is not good at cooking. |
| D．She has a babysitter taking care of her twins. |
According to the passage, which of the following conclusion can we get?
| A．A good beginning makes a good ending. |
| B．One good turn deserves another. |
| C．Actions speak louder than words. |
| D．Every man has his faults. |
When I met him，I had a lot of anger inside of me. I’ve lived my whole life in Spanish Harlem，but in my neighborhood，there are shoot-ups all the time. I know kids who have been shot or beaten up. I have friends who ended up in prison. I could have ended up that way，too，but Mr. Clark wouldn’t let that happen.
Mr. Clark worked long hours，making sure I did my work. My grades rose. In fact，the scores of our whole class rose. One day，he took our class to see The Phantom of the Opera，and it was the first time some kids had ever been out of Harlem. Before the show，he treated us to dinner at a restaurant and taught us not to talk with our mouths full. We did not want to let him down. Mr. Clark was selected as Disney’s 2000 Teacher of the Year. He said he would draw three names out of a hat；those students would go with him to Los Angeles to get the award. But when the time came to draw names，Mr. Clark said，“You’re all going.”
On graduation day，there were a lot of tears. We didn’t want his class to end. In 2001，he moved to Atlanta，but we always kept in touch. He started giving lectures about education，and wrote a bestselling book based on his classroom rules，The Essential. In 2003，Mr. Clark took some of us on a trip to South Africa to deliver school supplies and visit the orphanages(孤儿院)．It was the most amazing experience of my life. It’s now my dream to one day start a group of women’s clubs，helping people from all backgrounds.Without Mr. Clark，the writer ________.
| A．might have been put into prison |
| B．might not have won the prize |
| C．might have joined a women’s club |
| D．might not have moved to Atlanta |
How many students’ names were finally drawn out of a hat by Mr. Clark?
| A．None. | B．Three. |
| C．Fiftyfive. | D．All. |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．It was in Harlem that we saw The Phantom of the Opera for the first time. |
| B．Mr. Clark taught us not to talk with our mouths full，and we did. |
| C．Mr. Clark was selected as Disney’s 2000 Teacher of the Year in Los Angeles. |
| D．In 2003，Mr. Clark moved to Atlanta，and he always kept in touch with us. |
It is a matter of common observation that although money income keeps going up over the years, we never seem to become richer. Prices are rising continuously. This condition is what we call inflation: the money supply is becoming inflated so that each unit of it becomes less valuable. We have got used to higher and higher rates of inflation in recent years. What could be bought twenty years ago for one pound now costs well over 2 pounds. And at present this rate of inflation seems to be rising rather than falling. If in the real world our money incomes go up at the same rate as prices do. One might think that inflation doesn’t matter. But it does .When money is losing value it also loses one of the qualities of a good money—stability（稳定）of value. It is no longer acceptable as a store of value; and it becomes an unsuitable means of delayed payment. Nobody wants to hold a wasting possession, so people try to get rid of money as quickly as possible. Inflation therefore simply simulates（刺激）our spending and discourages saving.From the passage we can know that inflation is a situation in which________.
| A．everyone’s incomes rise |
| B．money will hold its value |
| C．we can watch our money grow |
| D．money constantly loses its value |
In the writer’s view, if incomes and prices rise at the same rate, ________.
| A．inflation may still be a problem |
| B．we have nothing to worry about |
| C．inflation is no longer a problem |
| D．we will become richer and richer |
Under inflation people are likely to ________.
| A．go to the bank more often than usual |
| B．save more money since their incomes rise |
| C．spend money quickly rather than to save it |
| D．keep money at home instead of going to banks |
We can conclude according to the passage that ________.
| A．the writer is a government official |
| B．the writer is worried about inflation |
| C．the writer encourages people to spend money |
| D．the writer has become richer because of inflation |
Clay Wanner began to gather a group of architects in Las Vegas a few years ago，to ask them what it would take to design a public school that used 50 percent less energy, cost much less to build and obviously improved student learning. “I think half of them fell off their chairs, ” Wanner says.
Wanner manages school facilities (设施) for Clark County, Nevada，a district roughly the size of Massachusetts. By 2018,143,000 additional students will enter the already crowded public education system. Wanner needs 73 new schools to house them. Four architecture teams have nearly finished designing primary school prototypes (样品)；they plan to construct their schools starting in 2009. The district will then assess how well the schools perform, and three winners will copy those designs in 50 to 70 new buildings.
Green schools are appearing all over, but in Clark County，which stands out for its vastness, such aggressive targets are difficult because design requirements like more natural light for students go against the realities of a desert climate. “One of the biggest challenges is getting the right site orientation(朝向),” Mark McGinty, a director at SH Architecture, says. His firm recently completed a high school in Las Vegas. “You have the same building, same set of windows, but if its orientation is incorrect and it faces the sun, it will be really expensive to cool.”
Surprisingly, the man who is responsible for one of the most progressive green-design competitions has doubts about ideas of eco-friendly buildings. “I don’t believe in the new green religion，” Wanner says.“Some of the building technologies that you get are impractical. I’m interested in those that work. ”But he wouldn’t mind if some green features inspire students. He says he hopes to set up green energy systems that allow them to learn about the process of harvesting wind and solar power. “You never know what’s going to start the interest of a child to study math and science，”he says.How did the architects react to Wanner’s design requirements?
| A．They lost balance in excitement. | B．They expressed little interest. |
| C．They showed strong disbelief. | D．They burst into cheers. |
Which order of steps is followed in carrying out the project?
| A．Design—Prototype—Assessment—Construction. |
| B．Design—Assessment—Prototype—Construction. |
| C．Assessment—Design—Prototype—Construction. |
| D．Assessment—Prototype—Design—Construction. |
What makes it difficult to build green schools in Clark County?
| A．The large size. | B．Limited facilities. |
| C．Poor natural resources. | D．The desert climate. |
What does Wanner think of the ideas of green schools?
| A．They are out of date. | B．They are questionable. |
| C．They are advanced. | D．They are practical. |