Children, especially boys, tend to idealise their fathers when they are young.Every little boy wants to grow up to be just like his father, and every little girl thinks her father is the smartest man on the earth. It’s not very easy to be a good father, but it’s not that difficult either. Children will truly enjoy spending time with their fathers, not just when they are kids, but even when they are adults.
Not all children communicate well with their fathers. Communication is often left to mothers, while fathers dispense advice as and when necessary. Don’t expect all conversations to centre around the dinner table. Go to your children’s bedrooms and talk to them about school, their teachers or their friends. Remember that the conversation cannot be one-sided. When your children open up to you, you also need to open up to them.
If your children come home from school feeling upset, go up to them and ask them what is the matter. And if it is something which seems to you to be a silly reason to be upset, don’t voice your opinion. It may be silly to you, but to your children it is important enough. So don’t wave the topic away by telling them not to bother about such stupid things. Simply discussing their problems with them will help them feel better.
Don’t shy away from having discussions about your teenage children’s love lives. Generally speaking, your children are definitely not going to discuss intimate details with you. Try to let them know that you are relaxed about topics on love. Tell your children how you met your wife. It is perfectly normal for children to go through feelings for the opposite sex as they grow up, and by keeping the topic closed for discussion, you are only shutting them off from discussing their feelings with you. All they will do is turn to their friends.To children their fathers are usually very ______.
| A．important | B．great | C．serious | D．strong |
From the second paragraph we can know that ______.
| A．some children don’t like their fathers at all |
| B．talking with children around the dinner table is bad |
| C．it is better for mothers to communicate with their children |
| D．mothers usually communicate better with their children. |
Suppose your children are worried about something you should _____.
| A．have a talk with them | B．express your option |
| C．keep silent | D．let them alone |
Your children would not like to discuss their love lives with you probably
because they think__________.
| A．you are relaxed about topics on love |
| B．they should ask for help from their friends |
| C．they have already grown up |
| D．it is not normal to experience feelings of love |
For thousands of years, the most important two buildings in any British village have been the church and the pub. Traditionally, the church and the pub are at the heart of any village or town, where the people gather together to socialize and exchange news.
As a result, British pubs are often old and well preserved. Many of them have become historic sites. The most famous example is the pub in the city of Nottingham called “Ye O
lde Trip to Jerusalem”, which dates back to the year 1189 AD and is probably the oldest pub in England.
However, British pubs are not just for kings and queens; they welcome people from all classes and parts of society. On a cold night, the pub’s landlord or landlady can always find a warm place for you by the fire. There is always honest and hearty food and plenty of drink available at an affordable price.
That’s how things used to be. Things are beginning to change. It is said that the credit crunch(信贷紧缩) is causing 39 British pubs a week to go out of busi
ness. People do not have enough spare money to spend on beer. Recently, the UK government banned smoking in all pubs, and that may also have affected the number of customers going to pubs.
This decline is happening despite the fact that in 2005 the UK government started to allow pubs to stay open after 1l pm. Previously, with 1l pm as closing time, customers would have to drink quite quickly, meaning they sometimes got more drunk than they would if allowed to drink slowly. The British habit of drinking a lot very quickly is known as “binge drinking”, and it causes long-term health problems for people and problems with violent crime for communities.
In order to save their businesses, pubs are trying to change with the market. British pubs now offer something for everyone. A lot of pubs used to be “Working Men's Clubs”, meaning that women could not usually enter. Today, however, women can freely enter 99% of pubs without experiencing any problems. Perhaps things are changing for the better after all..The passage mainly tells us something about
| A．the past and present of British pubs | B．the decline of British pubs |
| C．the long history of British pubs | D．the importance of British pubs |
.Which may not be the cause of the decline of British pubs?
| A．The credit crunch. | B．The present closing time. |
| C．The ban of smoking. | D．Having no spare money. |
.. We can infer from the passage that
| A．British people used to like drinking slowly |
| B．closing the pubs early will reduce social problems |
| C．binge drinking means drinking less beer |
| D．British government aims to discourage people from binge drinking |
.We can see from the last paragraph that the author ________
| A．is against the admission of too many women to the pubs |
| B．holds an optimistic attitude towards the British pubs |
| C．thinks that women in the pubs will cause less social problems |
| D．thinks that British pubs should offer everything you need |
Modern inventions have speeded up people’s lives amazingly. Motor-cars cover a hundred miles in little more than an hour, aircraft cross the world inside a day, while computers operate at lightning speed. Indeed, this love of speed seems never-ending. Every year motor-cars are produced which go even faster and each new computer boasts (吹嘘) of saving precious seconds in handling tasks.
All this saves time, but at a price. When we lose or gain half a day in speeding across the world in an air
plane, our bodies tell us so. We get the uncomfortable feeling known as jet-lag; our bodies feel that they have been left behind in another time zone. Again, spending too long at computer results in painful wrists and fingers. Mobile phones also have their dangers, according to some scientists; too much use may transmit harmful radiation into our brains, a consequence we do not like to think about.
However, what do we do with the time we have saved? Certainly not rel
ax, or so it seems. We are so accustomed to constant activity that we find it difficult to sit and d
o nothing, or even just one thing at a time. Perhaps the days are long gone when we might listen quietly to a story on the radio, letting imagination take us into another world.
There was a time when some people’s lives were devoted simply to the cultivation of the land or the care of cattle. No multi-tasking there; their lives went on at a much gentler pace, and in a familiar pattern. There is much that we might envy about a way of life like this. Yet before we do so, we must think of the hard
tasks our ancestors faced: they farmed with bare hands, often lived close to hunger, and had to fashion tools from wood and stone. Modern machinery has freed people from that primitive existence. The new products become more and more time-saving because .
| A．the manufacturers boast a lot | B．time is limited |
| C．the prices are increasingly high | D．our love of speed seems never-ending |
What does “the days” in Paragraph 3 refer to?
| A．Simple life in the past. | B．Imaginary life. |
| C．Times of inventions. | D．Time for constant activity. |
. What is the author’s attitude towards the modern technology?
| A．Critical. | B．Optimistic. | C．Objective. | D．Negative. |
. What does the passage mainly discuss?
| A．The present and past times. | B．Modern technology and its influence. |
| C．Imaginations and inventions. | D．Machinery and human beings. |
It was a village in India. The people were poor. However, they were not unhappy. After all, their forefathers had lived in the same way for centuries.
Then one day, some visitors from the city arrived. They told the villagers there were some people elsewhere who liked to eat frog’s legs. However, they did not have enough frogs of their own, and so they wanted to buy frogs from other places.
This seemed like money for nothing. There were millions of frogs in the fields around, and they were no use to the villagers. All they had to do was catch them. Agreement was reached, and the children were sent into the fields to catch frogs. Every week a truck arrived to collect the catch and hand over the money. For the first time, the people were able to dream of a better future. But the dream didn’t last long.
The change was hardly noticed at first, but it seemed as if the crops were not doing so well. More worrying was that the children fell ill more often, and, there seemed to be more insects around lately.
The villagers decided that they couldn’t just wait to see the crops failing and the children getting weak. They would have to use the money earned to buy pesticides (杀虫剂）and medicines. Soon there was no money left.
Then the people realized what was happening. It was the frog. They hadn’t been useless. They had been doing an important job — eating insects. Now with so many frogs killed, the insects were increasing more rapidly. They were damaging the crops and spreading diseases.
Now, the people are still poor. But in the evenings they sit in the village square and listen to sounds of insects and frogs. These sounds of the night now have a much deeper meaning..
. From Paragraph 1 we learn that the villagers.
| A．worked very hard for centuries | B．dreamed of having a better life |
| C．were poor but somewhat content | D．lived a different life from their forefathers |
.
Why did the villagers agree to sell frogs?
| A．The frogs were easy money. | B．They needed money  to buy medicine. |
| C．They wanted to please the visitors. | D．The frogs made too much noise. |
.
. What might be the cause of the children’s sickness?
| A．The crops didn’t do well. | B．There were too many insects. |
| C．The visitors brought in diseases. | D．The pesticides were overused. |
.
What can we infer from the last
sentence of the text?
| A．Happiness comes from peaceful life in the country. |
| B．Health is more important than money. |
| C．The harmony between man and nature is important. |
| D．Good old days will never be forgotten. |
The need to feed a growing population is putting much pressure on the world’s supply of water. With 97% of the world’s water too salty to be drunk or used in agriculture, the worldwide supply of water needs careful management, especially in agriculture. Although the idea of a water shortage seems strange to someone fortunate enough to live in a high rainfall country, many of the world’s agricultur
al industries experience constant water shortages.
Although dams can be built to store water for agricultural use in dry areas and dry seasons, the costs of water redistribution (重新分配) are very high. Not only is there the cost of the engineering itself, but there is also an environmental cost to be considered. Where valleys are flooded to create dams, houses are lost and wildlife homes destroyed. Besides, water may flow easily through pipes to fields, but it cannot be transported from one side of the world to the other. Each country must therefore rely on the management of its own water to supply its farming requirements.
This is particularly troubling for countries with agricultural industries in areas dependent on irrigation. In Texas, farmers’ overuse of irrigation water has resulted in a 25% reduction of the water stores. In the Central Valley area of southwestern USA, a huge water engineering project provided water for farming in dry valleys, but much of the water use has been poorly managed.
Saudi Arabia’s attempts to grow wheat in desert areas have seen the pumping of huge quantities of irrigation water from underground reserves. Because there is no rainfall in these areas, such reserves can only decrease, and it is believed that fifty years of pumping will see them run dry..
. From t
he first two paragraphs we learn that __________.
| A．much of the world’s water is available for use |
| B．people in high rainfall countries feel lucky |
| C．water can be easily carried through pipes across the world |
| D．the costs of water redistribution should be considered |
.
. Which of the following is true?
| A．The underground water in Saudi Arabia might run out in 50 years. |
| B．Most industries in the world suffer from water shortages. |
C．The  water stores in Texas have been reduced by 75%. |
| D．Good management of water use resulted from the project in the Central Valley. |
.
The text is mainly about __________.
| A．water supply and increasing population |
| B．water redistribution and wildlife protection |
| C．water use management and agriculture |
| D．water shortages and environmental protection |
.
. What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows?
| A．Approaches to handling the pressure on water supply. |
| B．Ways to reduce the costs of building dams. |
| C．Measures to deal with worldwide water shortages. |
| D．Steps to improving water use management. |
Goldie’s Secret
She turned up at the doorstep of my house in Co
rnwall. No way could I have sent her away. No way, not me anyway. Maybe someone had kicked her out of their car the night before. “We’re moving house.” “No space for her any more with the baby coming.” “We never really wanted her, but what could we have done? She was a present.” People find all sorts of excuses for abandoning an animal. And she was one of the most beautiful dogs I had ever seen.
I called her Goldie. If I had known what was going to happen I would have given her a mo
re creative name. She was so unsettled during those first few days. She hardly ate anything and had such an air of sadness about her. There was nothing I could do to make her happy, it seemed. Heaven knows what had happened to her at her previous owner’s. But eventually at the end of the first week she calmed down. Always by my side, whether we were out on one of our long walks or sitting by the fire.
That’s why it was such a shock when she pulled away from me one day when we were out for a walk. We were a long way from home, when she started barking and getting very restless. Eventually I couldn’t hold her any longer and she raced off down the road towards a farmhouse in the distance as fast as she could.
By the time I reached the farm I was very tired and upset with Goldie. But when I saw her licking (舔) the four puppies (幼犬) I started to feel sympathy towards them. “We didn’t know what had happened to her,” said the woman at the door. “I took her for a walk one day, soon after the puppies were born, and she just disappeared.” “She must have tried to come back to them and got lost,” added a boy from behind her.
I must admit I do miss Goldie, but I’ve got Nugget now, and she looks just like her mother. And I’ve learnt a good lesson: not to judge people..
How did the author feel about Goldie when Goldie came to the house?
| A．Shocked. | B．Annoyed. | C．Sympathetic. | D．Upset. |
.
. In her first few days at the author’s house, Goldie .
| A．sat by the fire | B．was angry |
| C．ate a little | D．felt worried |
.
Goldie rushed off to a farmhouse one day because she .
| A．found her way to her old home | B．heard familiar barkings |
| C．wanted to leave the author | D．saw her puppies |
.
The passage is organized in order of .
| A．effectiveness | B．time | C．importance | D．complexity |