Four years ago my sweet mom went to be with her Lord. She did it her way.
I got the call at work, and I headed home quickly. Mom and Dad lived on a small farm that they had owned since I was seven. I hated going there every weekend. There was nothing for a young girl to do but watch the one station on the old TV set, if the weather allowed reception（接收）.
My mom, on the other hand, loved the peace and quiet of the land and loved to work in the garden among her flowers and vegetables. The place was simple, with no indoor plumbing or heat. We had a big wood stove in the kitchen that did its best to heat the little farmhouse, but it always seemed cold and too quiet to me.
In the evenings, my mom and I would sit for hours singing in the little kitchen. I sang the melody and Mom harmonized. Her favorite song was "Moon River" and we sang it over and over. Mom told me stories about how when I was a little girl, I could sing before I could talk. She loved to tell how my playpen（婴儿圈栏）sat in the kitchen next to the radio and there was one song I particularly loved called "Ivory Tower".
As time passed, I had my own children and went to visit the farm every week or two. The kids loved the farm and the tractor rides with my dad. Me, well, I still hated the silence of the farm. While my mom loved to sit at her kitchen table and look out at her garden and flowers and retell all the old stories, I missed the hustle and bustle（喧闹）of my life at home. But I sat there listening quietly as she reminisced.
Now, I sat back in the silence and the silence was deafening so I finally leaned over to turn on an old radio. Music always comforted me.
My heart skipped a beat. "Moon River" was playing on the radio. I sat there stunned, with a tear running down my cheek, as I listened to every familiar note.
Then the radio announcer of this oldie station came on. "Here's one we haven't heard in a while," and an unfamiliar song began. I began to cry harder as I heard the words sung over the airwaves. “Come down, come down from your Ivory Tower...”.The writer didn’t like staying in the farm for the following reasons EXCEPT that
________.
| A．it was too cold and quiet |
| B．she could only sing one song on the small farm |
| C．there was nothing more that could make her excited |
| D．The place was simple, with no indoor plumbing or heat |
From the first paragraph, we know that the writer’s mother ________.
| A．passed away four years ago |
| B．left the small farm with Lord |
| C．left for Lord to live her own way |
| D．preferred to be with Lord |
The underlined word reminisced in the fifth paragraph probably means ________.
| A．recalled | B．comforted | C．shouted | D．sighed |
Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage _______.
| A．The writer was able to sing before she could speak. |
| B．The writer preferred to live a busy life in the city. |
| C．The writer was still quite familiar with the song "Ivory Tower". |
| D．The writer treasured all her childhood memories in the small farmhouse. |
Which of the following would be the best title for this passage? _______
| A．Cherish life | B．My happy childhood |
| C．Our small farmhouse | D．Mom’s music |
Are you an only-child in your family? Are you feeling alone at home? How are you dealing with it?
Zhang Luwen, 12, feels lucky to have a 4-year-old “brother”. “With him, I never feel lonely at home. He goes with me wherever I go,” said the girl of Sichuan Province. But it is not easy to be a sister. Zhang has to help her parents bath her “brother” every week. This is because he is hairy — he is a dog.
As the number of pet owners in China grows more and more, Chinese students have animal friends at home. Experts say that these small animals give these only-children lessons in love, care, teamwork and generosity.
This month, the first study on the influence of pets on the children came out. It is a survey of 402 Beijing primary school students. It shows that animal friends are good for children.
China had more than 90 million only-children by 2006, according to the government. “In families of three, most children feel lonely. They don’t have many chances to learn how to love and be responsible for others,” said Zhou Xia in the study group. “So having a pet can help with the problem.”
However, some students complain that their parents don’t allow them to have pets. “They are afraid a pet would stop me studying,” said Chen Qi, of Chongqing.
Perhaps he could learn from Qin Yixing, 13, of Beijing. “I don’t play with my dog until I have finished my homework. I made the promise to my mom and I must keep it,” said the girl.According to the passage, experts think _______.
| A．it is good for students to have animal friends at home |
| B．only-children families in China will be fewer and fewer |
| C．small animals at home are bad for students |
| D．parents should buy more pet animals for their children |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．Zhang Luwen’s parents bath every week. |
| B．Zhou Xia thinks a pet animal can solve the problem that children feel lonely. |
| C．Chen Qi of Chongqing has got a pet animal. |
| D．Qin Yixing’s parents don’t want her to have a pet. |
阅读与回答问题（本题共5小题；每小题2分，满分10分）
请认真阅读下面短文，并根据短文内容回答问题。
Do you feel lonely when your best friend isn’t around? Here’s our advice to you ---and to all kids who feel lonely sometimes.
It’s hard when a best friend isn’t around --- maybe because he or she moved to a different school or a different class. You may feel left out at break or lunchtime. You want to have new friends, but how do you make them? Maybe it seems everybody else already has his or her friends. But remember, there’s always room for more friends.
Start by looking around your classroom --- think about which kids you’d like to play with at break. Look for chances to say hi to them, smile, and be friendly. Offer to share something or express your appreciation (欣赏) to them. Invite someone to play with you or say, “Do you want to sit here?” in the lunchroom. When you’re at break, walk over to kids you want to play with, act friendly, and say “Hi, can I play, too?” or just join in.
If you have trouble doing this or if you’re feeling shy, ask your teacher to help you make new friends. Teachers are usually pretty good at matching up friends. The best way to make friends is to be a friend. Be kind, be friendly, share, say nice things, offer to help ---and pretty soon, you’ll have one, or two, or even more new friends.
You might still miss that special best friend. But when you see each other, you can share something you didn’t have before he or she left. You can introduce him or her to your new friends!
（请将答案写在答题卡上）How do you feel when your best friend isn’t around you according to the passage?
Why do some kids feel lonely at break according to the writer?
What is the best way to make friends according to the writer?
Why do some kids need help from teachers to make friends according to the writer?
Whatshouldyou doif you want to make more friends? (请自拟一句话作答)
London has a new magazine. But it is not printed(印刷) on paper. Everyone who has a television can receive it because it is on TV.
In order to read this magazine you have to have a decoder (解码器). Each page of it is numbered, so you only have to dial the number to choose which subject you want to read about. There are all kinds of information ---everything is included from cooking to the latest sports news.
If you want to read the news, the first thing you have to do is to turn to the back page, which has an easy-to-remember page number, 100 for example. Then you start choosing what you want to read. The news is on page 101 to 109, so you put in the numbers and the news appears written across your screen. Perhaps you want to go out in the afternoon, so you press 181, and a brightly colored weather map appears on the screen. But the weather is terrible, so you decide to go shopping and dial 162 for a list of the week’s best bargains. But should you drive or take the train? To answer that question you only have to press 189 for the traffic report. It is very simple to use. But probably the best thing about the service is that it is being updated all the time. Journalists type new material directly onto the screen and the whole pages of the magazine can be replaced in minutes.
London already has three services. One, sent out by TV, is called ORACLE while the other two, on BBC, are called CEEFAX because they let you see facts. Although CEEFAX and ORACLE have been operating for some time, they have not been well publicized(宣传). BBC engineers do not think that their idea will ever replace books and newspapers because they can be taken with you everywhere. But many people would agree that is a breakthrough(突破) as great as the invention of printing, which could not just change our reading habits but our whole way of life. We can know from the passage that in London .
| A．the magazine is available at any local home |
| B．most of the postmen will lose their jobs some day |
| C．everyone can read this magazine if they have a television |
| D．the readers can get various kinds of information staying at home |
In the sentence “Each page of it is numbered,” the word “it” refers to the .
| A．magazine | B．program | C．decoder | D．subject |
According to the passage, the “decoder” is used to help people .
| A．work out the total(合计) of certain numbers |
| B．read the information sent by TV signals |
| C．go shopping and have other entertainment |
| D．receive some special TV program for entertainment |
The passage is mainly about .
| A．a new magazine printed in London |
| B．an up-to-date way of getting information |
| C．a popular TV program about magazines |
| D．an advanced technology helping people communicate |
Chineseareverygenerousin 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 and Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course activities such as musical instrument learning or balletclasses, or other classes. They think these will give them a good future. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is. So parents will spend much unreasonable money on education. Even poor parents will buy a computer for their son or daughter.
However, most parents don’t understand that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap.
Parents can see that their children are very good in some areas while poor in others. Parents can also see some children are good at these skills and others do well in others.Most parents don’t realize that today’s children lack self-respect and self-confidence.
The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take tests and how to study well, but parents are not teaching them the most important skills that they need are to be confident, happy and clever.
Parents can achieve this by teaching 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 needs 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 finish his job successfully. His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and lots 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(好奇的) and improve 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.We know from this passage parents inChina .
| A．are too strict with their children |
| B．are too rich to educate their children |
| C．are too poor to educate their children |
| D．have some problems in educating their children correctly |
We learn from the passage that .
| A．the cheaper an education is, the better it is |
| B．children today should learn difficult skills |
| C．practical skills are helpful to children’s growth |
| D．school education can’t meet parents’ expectations |
Doing some cooking at home helps children .
| A．benefit (有益于) from it and prepare themselves for the future |
| B．learn how to serve their parents |
| C．learn how to become strong and fat |
| D．make their parents believe that they are clever |
What is the main idea of the last paragraph?
| A．Broken things are useful for children |
| B．Interest is necessary for everything |
| C．Learning to think is very important. |
| D．Using hands helps improve thinking ability |
In some science fiction movies, evil robots refuse to die, no matter how hard people fight back.
Now science fiction has become science fact. For the first time, scientists have made a robot that can take a beating and keep on going. Scientists from Cornell University made the robot, which looks like a spider with four legs.
Until now, even the most advanced (先进的) robot was almost certain to break down when it was damaged (毁坏). That is because its computer inside simply doesn’t know how to make the machine work after its shape has changed.
To deal with this problem, the scientists put eight motors (发动机) and two sensors (传感器) that read how the machine is working. They all give signals to the machine’s software. Using this information, the computer can then figure out the machine’s shape at any moment.
The new technology is a big advance in robot-making, scientists say, and it’s far from scary. It may someday help scientists create better artificial (假的) arms and legs and give new freedom to people who lose them. It might also help scientists understand how people and animals figure out their own sense of place in space.
“It has been difficult to design robots that can work well when the environment changes or when it’s damaged,” says Olaf Sporns of Indiana University in US. “With this work, we are nearer to solving this problem.”Why do robots easily break down when they are damaged?
| A．They cannot repair themselves. |
| B．The computer has changed a lot. |
| C．They have no computers inside. |
| D．The computer cannot work if the robot changes. |
The new technology(技术) allows the robot to .
| A．keep working after being damaged |
| B．tell people where it is |
| C．do house work for humans |
| D．remember a lot of information |
The underlined word “them” in Paragraph 5 refers to .
| A．sensors | B．robots | C．scientists | D．arms and legs |
How do the sensors in the robot work?
| A．They can replace the computer when it’s broken. |
| B．They help the computer learn the robot’s condition. |
| C．They can find out where the damage comes from. |
| D．They can send signals to the person who uses the robot. |