When you leave school，you can breathe sigh of relief and leave learning behind，right？Wrong！Learning should last a lifetime. You exercise your body to stay strong，and you should exercise your mind to stay sharp.
An English idiom says，“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” But scientists have discovered that isn’t true. Older people can learn，and they should，in order to keep their brain active. Now a new trend has begun in several states in the US that encourages learning. Adults can attend One Day University. They can spend a Saturday or Sunday hearing four 70-minute lectures. Each one is given by a top university professor. One of the orig
inal participants said，“It’s like a health club for the brain.” Also，universities like MIT have made all of their courses and lectures available online for free！Libraries offer learning programs too. With so much available，there is no excuse not to learn!
Learning is a habit. Don’t leave it behind after you leave school. On the website lifehack.org，author Scott Young mentions several things to help you.
Always have a book. It doesn’t matter if you read fast or slow. Just read. If you read just one book a week，you’ll read 52 over the course of a year. Think of the knowledge you’ll gain!
Practice it. As you read，do something with what you’ve learned. Don’t just enjoy the mental exercise. Use the knowledge. If you read about painting，try it!
Make a “to learn” list. Compose a “to learn” list for yourself. Maybe you want to speak better English，play the piano，or cook French food. Whatever interests you，put it on your list and then make the time to do it.
Teach others. Whatever you learn，teach someone else. You’ll not only help other
s but also understand what you’ve learned.What’s the best title for this passage?
| A．Make learning last a lifetime. |
| B．What you should do after leaving school. |
| C．Several tips on learning. |
| D．A new trend in learning. |
What does the underlined part in Paragraph 1 mean?
| A．You don’t need to consider what you have learnt after graduation. |
| B．You can relax as you have escaped from the hard life of studying. |
| C．Leaving learning behind is what you should do after a break. |
| D．You should have a good rest and then go on learning. |
How many ways of learning for adults in the US are mentioned in Paragraph 2?
| A．One. | B．Two. | C．Three. | D．Four. |
Which of the following is NOT a suggestion
made by Scott Young in the passage?
| A．Keep learning as a habit. |
| B．Always have a book. |
| C．List what you want to learn. |
| D．Teach others what you learn. |
It's not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed how many nouns are being used as verbs? We all use them, often without noticing what we're doing.
I was arranging to meet someone for dinner last week, and I said “I’ll pencil it in my diary”, but my friend said “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not a tentative one!
Many of these new verbs are linked to new technology. An obvious example is the word fax. We all got used to sending and receiving faxes, and then soon started talking about faxing something and promising we'd fax it immediately. Then along came email and we were soon all emailing each other madly. How did we live without it? I can hardly imagine life without my daily emails.
Email reminds me, of course, of my computer and its software, which has produced another couple of new verbs. On my computer I can bookmark those pages from the World Wide Web that I think I'll want to look at again, thus saving all the effort of remembering their addresses and calling them up from scratch. I can do the same thing on my PC, but there I don't bookmark; I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb comes from an adjective not a noun.
Now my children bought me a mobile phone, known simply as a mobile and I had to learn yet more new verbs. I can message someone, that is, I can leave a message for them on their phone. Or I can text them, write a few words suggesting when and where to meet, for example. How long will it be before I can mobile them, that is, phone them using my mobile? I haven’t heard that verb yet, but I’m sure I will soon. Perhaps I’ ll start using it myself! “I’ll pencil it in my diary” in the second paragraph probably means “____________”.
| A．it was a firm arrangement |
| B．he prefers a pencil to a pen |
| C．the arrangement should be written as a diary |
| D．it was an uncertain arrangement |
A website address can be easily found if it has been ____________.
| A．favorited | B．messaged | C．emailed | D．texted |
Which of the following has not been used as a verb yet?
| A．message | B．mobile | C．email | D．fax |
The best title for this passage is____________.
| A．How to use verbs |
| B．Development of the English language |
| C．Origins of verbs |
| D．New Verbs from Nouns |
Proudly reading my words, I glanced around the room, only to find my classmates bearing big smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes. Confused, I glanced toward my stone-faced teacher. Having no choice, I slowly raised the report I had slaved over, hoping to hide myself. “What could be causing everyone to act this way?”
Quickly, I flashed back to the day Miss Lancelot gave me the task. This was the first real task I received in my new school. It seemed simple: go on the Internet and find information about a man named George Washington. Since my idea of history came from an ancient teacher in my home country, I had never heard of that name before. As I searched the name of this fellow, it became evident that there were two people bearing the same name who looked completely different! One invented hundreds of uses for peanuts, while the other led some sort of army across America. I stared at the screen, wondering which one my teacher meant. I called my grandfather for a golden piece of advice: flip (掷) a coin. Heads—the commander, and tails—the peanuts guy. Ah! Tails, my report would be about the great man who invented peanut butter, George Washington Carver.
Weeks later, standing before this unfriendly mass, I was totally lost. Oh well, I lowered the paper and sat down at my desk, burning to find out what I had done wrong. As a classmate began his report, it all became clear, “My report is on George Washington, the man who started the American Revolution.” The whole world became quiet! How could I know that she meant that George Washington?
Obviously, my grade was awful. Heartbroken but fearless, I decided to turn this around. I talked to Miss Lancelot, but she insisted: No re-dos; no new grade. I felt that the punishment was not justified, and I believed I deserved a second chance. Consequently, I threw myself heartily into my work for the rest of the school year. Ten months later, that chance unfolded as I found myself sitting in the headmaster’s office with my grandfather, now having an entirely different conversation. I smiled and flashed back to the embarrassing moment at the beginning of the year as the headmaster informed me of my option to skip the sixth grade. Justice is sweet!What did the author’s classmates think about his report?
| A．Controversial. | B．Ridiculous. |
| C．Boring. | D．Puzzling. |
Why was the author confused about the task?
| A．He was unfamiliar with American history. |
| B．He followed the advice and flipped a coin. |
| C．He forgot his teacher’s instruction. |
| D．He didn’t know why the teacher gave such a task. |
The underlined word “burning” in Para. 3 probably means _______.
| A．annoyed | B．ashamed |
| C．ready | D．eager |
In the end, the author turned things around _______.
| A．by redoing his task |
| B．through his own efforts |
| C．with the help of his grandfather |
| D．under the guidance of his headmaster |
Japanese students work very hard but many are unhappy. They feel heavy pressures(压力) from their parents. Most students are always told by their parents to study harder and better so that they can have a wonderful life in the future. Though this may be a good idea for those very bright students, it can have terrible results for many students who are not gifted(有天赋的) enough. Many of them have tried very hard at school but have failed in the exams and have their parents lose hope. Such students felt that they are hated by everyone else they meet and they don’t want to go to school any longer. They become dropouts.
It is surprising that though most Japanese parents are worried about their children, they do not help them in any way. Many parents feel that they are not able to help their children and that it is the teachers’ work to help their children. To make matters worse, a lot of parents serif their children to those schools opening in the evenings and on weekends — they only help the students to pass the exams and never teach them any real sense of the world.
Many Japanese schools usually have rules about everything from the students’ hair to their clothes and things in their school bags. Child psychologists(心理学家) now think that such strict rules are harmful to the feelings of the students. Almost 40% of the students said that no one had taught them how to get on with others, how to tell right from wrong and how to show love and care for others, even for their parents.“Dropouts” are those who _______.
| A．make troubles in and out of schools |
| B．go about or stay home instead of being at school |
| C．try hard but always fails in the exams |
| D．lose hope and give up some of their subjects |
According to the passage, it’s necessary to teach students _______.
| A．how to study well | B．how to get on with others |
| C．to show love and care for others | D．All above |
Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?
| A．The Trouble in Japanese Schools |
| B．The Problems of Japanese Students |
| C．Education in Japan |
| D．The Pressures on the Students in Japan |
Students in many countries are learning English. Some of these students are small children. Others are teen-agers. Many are adults. Some learn at school, others by themselves. A few learn English by learning the language over the radio, on TV, or in film. One must work hard to learn another language.
Why do all these people want to learn English? It is difficult to answer this question. Many boys and girls learn English at school because it is one of their subjects required for study. They study their own language and maths and English: Some people learn it because it is useful for their work. Many people learn English for their work. Many people learn English for their higher studies, because at college or university some of their books are in English. Other people learn English because they want to read newspapers or magazines in English.People learn English _______.
| A．at school | B．over the radio |
| C．on TV | D．not all in the same way |
Different kinds of people want to learn English _______.
| A．together with other subjects | B．for different reasons |
| C．for their work | D．for higher studies at colleges |
From this passage we know that _______.
| A．we can learn English easily |
| B．English is very difficult to learn |
| C．English is learned by most people in the world |
| D．English is a useful language but one must work hard to learn |
Which of the following is right?
| A．We don’t need to learn any foreign languages. |
| B．We can do well in all our work without English. |
| C．English is the most important subject in schools. |
| D．We should learn English because we need to face the world. |
America is growing older. Fifty years ago, only 4 out of every 100 people in the United States were 65 or older. Today, 10 out of every 100 Americans are over 65. The aging of the population will affect （影响） American society in many ways — education, medicine, and business. Quietly, the graying of America has made us a very different society— one in which people have a quite different idea of what kind of behavior（行为）is suitable （合适）at various ages. A person's age no longer tells you anything about his/her social position, marriage or health. There's no longer a particular year in which one goes to school or goes to work or gets married or starts a family. The social clock that kept us on time and told us when to go to school ,get a job, or stop working isn't as strong as it used to be. It doesn't surprise us to hear of a 29-year-old university president or a 35-year-old grandmother, or a 70-year-old man who has become a father for the firs time. Public ideas are changing. Many people say, 'I am much younger than my mother - or my father - was at my age.' No one says ‘Act your age’ anymore. We've stopped looking with surprise at older people who act in youthful ways. It can be learnt from the text that the aging of the population in America_________ .
| A．has made people feel younger |
| B．has changed people's social position |
| C．has changed people's understanding of age |
| D．has slowed down the country's social development |
The underlined word ‘one’ refers to_________.
| A．a society | B．America | C．a place | D．population |
‘Act your age’ means people should_________.
| A．be active when they are old |
| B．do the right thing at the right age |
| C．show respect for their parents young or old |
| D．take more physical exercise suitable to their age |
If a 25-year-old man becomes general manager of a big firm, the writer of the text would most probably consider it ______.
| A．normal | B．wonderful | C．unbelievable | D．unreasonable |