Our lives were supposed to be more flexible and family-friendly thanks to the technology at our fingertips. But in this age of BlackBerrys, recession pressures, working at home after hours and on weekends, family time may not be working out the way we thought.
Busy parents who expected more time with the kids are Finding that more work hours at home don't necessarily translate into quality time with them.
A new generation of parents needs to discover the meaning of "quality time," researchers say. “Personally, just given the life I lead, I think there is something to this idea of quality time- spending productive time with children vs. just being around,” says Peter Brandon, a professor at Carleton College. He says engaging or interacting with a child in activities such as reading or playing counts as quality time rather than "passive monitoring," such as washing the dishes while the child is watching TV.
“This time with children pays off,” Brandon says. He notes that good parent-child relationships result in children being happier and more successful, including at school.
As parents struggle to be more available to their kids, new research on work and family schedules to be presented Friday at the meeting in Dallas includes a study that shows parents' availability is on the decline because more parents are in the workforce. Although parents today may be spending more time on child care, they are less available overall.
Working parents who spend less time with their children should try to make sure the time they do spend is communicating with them, vs. doing the dishes or spending more time on themselves, Brandon says “The trade-off is not necessarily taking away time from your kid,” he says "You're taking away time from other things”The first paragraph mainly intends to tell us that .
| A．technology lets parents work at home |
| B．parents are satisfied with their work |
| C．technology makes our lives much easier |
| D．the family time is not always satisfying |
We can learn from the third paragraph that .
| A．some families are not experiencing quality time |
| B．it's enough for parents to stay with their children |
| C．parents enjoy engaging in work-at-home activities |
| D．working hours at home can transform into quality time |
According to Brandon, the quality time means
| A．just, being around with children |
| B．work time is separate from family time |
| C．spending instructive time with children |
| D．letting the children do whatever they want to do |
The underlined sentence “This time with children pays” off means .
| A．the time with children is of little value |
| B．the time with children costs quite a lot |
| C．the time with children leads to good result |
| D．the time with children has a bad effect on them |
What will the author most probably talk about in next part of the passage?
| A．How to spend more time at home |
| B．How to do the dishes in a proper way. |
| C．How to spend more time on working at home. |
| D．How to take away time in a much proper way. |
When I was small and my grandmother died, I couldn't understand why I had no tears. But that night when my dad tried to cheer me up, my laughs turned into crying.
So it came as no surprise to learn that researchers believe crying and laughing are controlled by the same part of the brain. Just as laughing has many health advantages, scientists are discovering that so does crying.
Whatever helps us to reduce pressure is important to our emotional health, and crying seems to work well. One study found that 85 percent of women and 73 percent of men report feeling better after crying.
Besides, tears attract help from other people. Researchers agree that when we cry, people around us become kinder and friendlier and they are more ready to provide support and comfort. Tears also enable us to understand our emotions better; sometimes we don't even know we're very sad until we cry. We learn about our emotions through crying, and then we can deal with them.
Just as crying can be healthy, not crying---holding back tears of anger, pain or suffering---can be bad for physical health. Studies have shown that too much control of emotions can 1ead to high blood pressure, heart problems and some other illness. If you have a health problem, doctors will certainly not ask you to cry. But when you feel like crying, don't fight it. It's a natural, healthy and emotional response.Why didn't the author cry when her grandmother died?
| A．Because her father did not want her to feel too sad. |
| B．Because she did not love her grandmother. |
| C．Because she was too shy to cry at that time. |
| D．The author doesn't give the explanation. |
It can be inferred from the text that _______________________.
| A．there are two ways to keep healthy |
| B．emotional health has a close relationship to physical health |
| C．crying and laughing play the same roles |
| D．crying does more good to health than laughing |
According to the author, which of the following statements is true?
| A．Crying is the best way to get help from others. |
| B．Fighting back tears may cause some health problems. |
| C．We will never know our deep feelings unless we cry. |
| D．We must cry if we want to reduce pressure |
What might be the most suitable title for the text?
| A．Why We Cry | B．How to Keep Healthy |
| C．Power of Tears | D．New Scientific Discovery |
What is the author's attitude to "crying"?
| A．Positive. | B．Negative. | C．Touched. | D．Upset. |
LONDON (Reuters)—New faces given to a Chinese man after a bear tore off part of his face and a FrenchCaribbean man disfigured by a rare tumor show that such transplants can work and are not medical oddities (怪异)，researchers said.
The findings give hope to some people with severe facial disfigurement and suggest the transplants could prove longlasting without major problems.Despite the tissue rejection in the first year after their transplants，neither men had psychological problems accepting their new faces and have been able to rejoin society，they reported.
Only three people have received face transplants.The world’s first was carried out on French woman Isabelle Dinoire in November 2005 after she was disfigured in an attack by her dog.In 2007，her doctors reported that she had recovered slowly and steadily，overcoming two periods of rejection.
In 2006，Chinese doctors performed a face transplant on a 30yearold hit by a bear.While there were some complications with tissue rejection following the operation，two years later the man was doing well，his doctors said.“This case suggests that facial transplantation might be an option for restoring a severely disfigured face，and could enable patients to bring themselves back into society，” Shuzhong Guo and colleagues at Xijing Hospital in China wrote.
A French team described their work on a 29yearold man who suffered from Von Recklinghausen disease，an illness that changes the shape of his face.“The man，who was not named，was given a new nose，mouth and chin in a 2007 operation.He began to work 13 months after the transplant has more function in his face and has not rejected the new tissue，” his doctors said.
“Our case confirms that face transplantation is practical and effective for the correction of specific disfigurement，” Dr.Laurent Lantieri and colleagues at the HenriMondor hospital outside Paris wrote.What’s the main idea of this passage?
| A．Face transplants can work. |
| B．Face transplants help regain confidence. |
| C．Three people have received face transplants. |
| D．Disfigured people need face transplants. |
What happened to the Chinese patient mentioned in the passage?
| A．He got a strange illness when he was young. |
| B．He received several operations in hospital. |
| C．He was the first person to receive a face transplant. |
| D．He was once attacked by an animal. |
From the passage we can learn that ________.
| A．doctors have different opinions on facial disfigurement |
| B．patients could regain selfconfidence after face transplants |
| C．the new face of every patient has more functions than expected |
| D．it is easy for disabled people to be accepted by society |
The underlined word “restoring” in Paragraph 4 means “________”．
| A．removing | B．recovering |
| C．repairing | D．rejecting |
What problem resulted from the facial operations?
| A．The patients wouldn’t accept the facial change. |
| B．It was hard for the patients to get along with others. |
| C．It took some time for the patients to recover from the operation. |
| D．The patients usually suffered from tissue rejection. |
Although April did not bring us the rains we all hoped for, and although the Central Valley doesn’t generally experience the sound and lightning that can go with those rains, it’s still important for parents to be able to answer the youthful questions about thunder and lightning.
The reason these two wonders of nature are so difficult for many adults to explain to children is that they are not very well understood by adults themselves. For example, did you know that the lightning we see flashing down to the earth from a cloud is actually flashing up to a cloud from the earth? Our eyes trick us into thinking we see a downward motion when it’s actually the other way around. But then, if we believed only what we think and we see, we’d still insist that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night.
Most lightning flashes take place inside a cloud, and only a relative few can be seen jumping between two clouds or between earth and a cloud. But, with about 2,000 thunderstorms taking place above the earth every minute of the day and night, there’s enough activity to produce about 100 lightning strikes on earth every second.
Parents can use thunder and lightning to help their children learn more about the world around them. When children understand that the light of the lightning flashing reaches their eyes almost at the same moment, but the sound of the thunder takes about 5 seconds to travel just one mile, they can begin to time the interval (间隔) between the flash and the crash to learn how lose they were to the actual spark (闪光).According to the author, in the area of the Central Valley____.
| A．rains usually come without thunder and lightning. |
| B．it is usually dry in April |
| C．children pay no attention to the two natural wonders. |
| D．parents are not interested in thunder and lightning. |
We believe that lightning is a downward motion because_______.
| A．we were taught so by our parents from our childhood. |
| B．we are taken in by our sense of vision. |
| C．it is a common natural sight. |
| D．it is a truth proved by science. |
What is TRUE about lightning according to the passage?
| A．Only a small number of lightning flashes occur on earth. |
| B．Lightning flashes usually jump from one cloud to another. |
| C．Lightning travels 5 times faster than thunder. |
| D．There are far more lightning strikes occurring on earth than we can imagine. |
The underlined word “activity” is most closely related to the word (s) _____.
| A．cloud | B．lightning strikes | C．lightning flashes | D．thunderstorms |
It can be concluded from the passage that _______.
| A．we should not believe what we see or hear. |
| B．things moving downward are more noticeable. |
| C．people sometimes may have wrong ideas about ordinary phenomena. |
| D．adults are not as good as children in observing certain natural phenomena. |
Penguins live together，but each pair has a little piece of ground of their own.When a penguin wants to walk through its neighbor’s ground，it must ask permission.If it does not do that，it will have to fight.Most of the time，penguins live on the water.They eat shell fish and look after their children carefully.
All penguins are good parents—the male penguins are perhaps the best parents in the world. They walk in the sea in the middle of the dark Antarctic water. They choose their wives in the dark.They can only hear them—not see them.Then the female penguins lay their eggs and go away for about two months.The males take care of the eggs.If the eggs get cold，there will be no chicks.There is no food.The snow falls heavily and the wind blows strongly—sometimes at 150 kilometers an hour.The penguins do not move.When the females return from the sea，they will not remember their husbands.It does not matter.Only one thing matters—the eggs.Male penguins never fight—unless a penguin leaves a chick for a minute.They then fight because they all want it.They are strange and wonderful birds.It seems interesting and unusual that the male penguins choose their wives ______.
| A．when the female penguins return from the sea |
| B．just by hearing in the darkness |
| C．each time they see the lovely females |
| D．after they have had their own grounds |
Male penguins fight when ______.
| A．they choose their wives |
| B．they see a chick left alone |
| C．they want to get something to eat |
| D．they walk through their neighbors’ ground |
From the passage we know that ______.
| A．penguins live a hard life |
| B．penguins live in pairs |
| C．penguins will fight if one walks through others’ ground without permission |
| D．each penguin has a little piece of ground of its own |
The penguins choose their wives in the dark. We can infer that ______.
| A．penguins like nights very much |
| B．there is no daytime in that place at all |
| C．the weather is cloudy and rainy all the year around |
| D．the sun can’t shine there for nearly half a year every year |
Which of the following is NOT true?
| A．Female penguins take care of the eggs. |
| B．Female penguins often have their new husbands. |
| C．Male penguins use their ears to choose wives. |
| D．Male penguins don’t move when they take care of eggs，even though the wind often blows strongly. |
阅读下面的短文，并根据短文后的要求答题（请注意问题后的词数要求）
[1]Why play sports? You might say “to get exercise” and you’d be right. To have fun? That’s true, too. But there’s more. In fact, there are at least 5 more reasons. According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, girls who play sports get a lot more than just fit.
[2]Girls who play sports do better in school. You might think that athletics wi1l take up all your study time. But research shows that girls who play sports do better in school than those who don’t. Exercise improves learning, memory, and concentration, which can give active girls an advantage in the classroom.
[3]Girls who play sports learn teamwork and goal-setting skills. Sports teach valuable life skills. When you work with coaches, trainers, and teammates to win games and achieve goals. you’re learning how to be successful. Those skills willat work and in family life.
[4] Sports are good for a girl’s health. In addition to being fit and maintaining (维持) a healthy weight, girls who p1ay sports are also less likely to smoke. And later in life, girls who exercise are less likely to get breast cancer or osteoporosis (骨质疏松).
[5]Playing sports builds self-confidence. Girls who play sports feel better about themselves. Why? It builds confidence when you know you can achieve your goals. Sports are also a feel-good activity because they help girls get in shape, maintain a healthy weight, and make new friends.
[6] Exercise cuts the pressure. Playing sports can reduce stress and help you feel a little happier. How? The brain chemicals released during exercise improve a person’s mood. Friends are another mood-lifter. And being on a team creates tight bonds between friends. It’s good to know your teammates will support you—both on and off the field!What’s the main idea of the text? (no more than 8 words)
List three advantages that exercise can give you when you are in school. (two words for each)
Fill in the blanks in Paragraph 3 with proper words.(no more than 5 words)
Translate the underlined sentence in Paragraph 5 into Chinese.
What can lift your mood while playing sports? (no more than l5 words)