SomeChinesenewrichlikeeatingsh-优题课

As we all know, the Dragon Boat Festival is our country’s traditional festival, but do you know there is also a Dragon Boat Festival in South Korea, which also falls on May 5 of the lunar calendar(阴历)? It has been reported that South Korea will apply to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO 联合国教科文组织) to make the celebration of the Dragon Boat Festival its own intangible cultural heritage (非物质的文化遗产). If successful, people from other countries may see the Dragon Festival as a Korean creation.
As the birthplace of the yearly event more than 2,000 years ago, China is not happy with the situation. "It would be a shame if another country successfully made a traditional Chinese festival part of its own cultural heritage ahead of China," said Zhou Heping, deputy(副) culture minister. The Ministry of Culture is even thinking of making its own application to UNESCO, covering all traditional Chinese festivals, including the Dragon Boat event.
It is thought that the festival is held in memory of the great poet Qu Yuan (340-278 BC), who lived in the State of Chu during the Warring States Period. Qu was known to be a patriot (爱国者) and admired by ordinary people.
He is said to have jumped into Miluo River, because he had lost hope in his country's future. When people heard about Qu's death, they sailed up and down the river searching for his body. They also beat the drums to frighten away the fish and threw Zongzi into the water to stop the fish touching Qu. Dragon boat racing is said to come from this search for the poet's body.
Over the years, the Dragon Boat Festival has spread throughout the world. In Japan and Viet Nam, as well as South Korea, the festival has mixed with and become part of the local culture.
The Dragon Boat Festival _______.

A．is also kept by South Korea

B．comes from South Korea

C．was created by South Korea

D．is South Korea’s cultural heritage

What is the reaction of the Ministry of Culture to South Korea’s intending to make the Dragon Boat Festival its own cultural heritage ?

A．Fighting against South Korea

B．Telling South Korea it’s not right to do so

C．Considering to do the similar thing

D．Asking South Korea not to do so.

What is the purpose of the Dragon Boat Festival’s being held?

A．In memory of Qu Yuan

B．In memory of all the patriots of China

C．To frighten away the fish

D．In honor of QuYuan’s birthday

After Qu Yuan’s death, Zongzi was thrown into the water to _______.

A．feed him.

B．protect his body from going bad.

C．prevent the fish biting his body

D．attract his soul

Now, the Dragon Boat Festival has become ______ activity.

A．a nationwide	B．a worldwide
C．an Asian	D．a foreign

“Father, do you see Mother in your dreams?” the young girl asks. “You know sometimes I do.”
“Mother comes to see me a lot, you know. We sit and talk.” The father smiles. “How is your homework coming along?”
“Why do I have to study so hard?”
“It is what your mother would have wanted!”
She regrets speaking her mind. “I’m sorry, Father, I shouldn’t have said that.” She looks up and sees his eyes well up with tears.
“It’s okay, love,” he gets up and pours himself a drink. “I’ll just sit outside for a while. You finish up your work, okay?”
“I’m sorry, Father; Mother did love you very much. She told me all the time.”
“Homework, first, eh? Then we can chat about your mother.”
He heads off outside and sits in his usual chair, looking around the courtyard. The whole area relaxes the mind and somehow soothes the soul.
“All finished, Father. May I get a drink and sit with you? I have some questions.”
She comes with two drinks one for him and one for herself. He looks surprised. She never really liked him having a drink. Although he had cut back a lot from before he brought her here, it still seemed strange.
“Mother told me all about you. That is before she passed away. We would laugh together at your love stories.”
He listens without uttering a single sound.
“Why didn’t you come and take her away with you? She really wanted that. Did you know that?”
Her father looks at his daughter lovingly. “Circumstances were difficult back then. It was just the way things were. When it came time to…” He sighs. “To visit her it was too late.”
The girl smiles. “I hope I will have the same kind of love you and mother had.”
“Without all the heartache,” her father adds.
“She always knew you loved her. She told me every day,” the child mentions cheerfully. “I saw her crying sometimes when she read your letters.”
“Did she make you promise to look after me?” She inquires.
“She asked me to take care of you.”
“You promised her, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“It is nice out here, isn't it? Mother would have been very happy here.”
She talks with some authority. Her father remains silent. A smile comes to his weary brow. He nods his head.
“Mother wanted me to give you something. I think now the time is right.” She runs to her room. Upon returning she hands her father a book. “It’s mother’s diary! She wanted me to give it to you.”
He takes the book and holds it in his trembling hands, “Thank you.”
“Mother said you would understand things better.”
“Wise woman, your mother.”
He places the book on the table as he gets up. The girl gets up and wraps herself around her father.
“I love you.” she looks up at his face.
He picks her up and hugs her. “I love you, too.” His voice trembles.
“It’s okay, Father. We have each other now and mother is in both of us.”
He kisses her head.
“Time you went to bed,” her father softly says.
He puts her down and she scampers off to get washed and ready for bed.
Clearing up everything he checks on his daughter. She is in bed waiting for her good night kiss. He tucks her in and bids her goodnight.
Just as he is to leave she tells him. “Mother told me she adopted me when I was a baby.”
He stands at her bedroom door. Words fail him. Yes, he knew she was adopted.
“I am really lucky for being loved by my parents, even if I am not really theirs.”
“You trying to bring on the water works?” he tells her.
She giggles, “Goodnight, Father. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
His face lights up as he wipes his dampened eyes.
The door closes and the child falls asleep dreaming of her mother.
Sitting outside he picks up the diary and opens it and reads the first line: “I love you, my dearest, if only things could have been different…”
What can we know about the couple’s relationship?

A．They understood each other very well.

B．They quarreled a lot and are separated.

C．They used to have misunderstandings.

D．They were quite sure of each other’s love.

What can we learn from the story?

A．The girl was adopted because the couple couldn’t give birth.

B．Father looks after the girl just because the girl is alone.

C．The girl feels unfortunate that she was adopted.

D．Father was not very close to the girl before she moved in with him.

Why didn’t father bring mother home when she was ill?

A．Because he was too busy with his work.

B．Because he didn’t know he was wanted.

C．Because he was too poor to afford the medical fees.

D．Because he didn’t know she was in hospital.

What does the sentence “You trying to bring on the water works?” mean?

A．You want another cup of water?

B．Are you kidding me?

C．Are you trying to make me cry?

D．Are you thinking about the water factory?

Which word best describes father’s feeling at the end of the story?

A．Regretful	B．Satisfied
C．Confused	D．Doubtful

LONDON, Feb. 18，2014（Xinhua News agency）—Britain will send experts to East China's Shanghai to learn from the city's experience in maths teaching in an attempt to raise the teaching standards.
British Education Minister Elizabeth Truss is to lead a delegation of experts on a fact-finding mission to Shanghai's schools next week to see how children there have become the best in the world at maths, to get a first-hand look at maths classes and teaching methods there, and particularly to investigate why the performance of almost all children in Shanghai is high, regardless of gender or income.
Britain was last year placed 50th out of 148 countries and regions in the World Economic Forum's competitiveness ranking in quality of maths and science education. Two years ago, Shanghai topped the 2012 international PISA tables for maths, while England was ranked in 26th place. The top five were all in Southeast Asia, with 15-year-olds in Shanghai judged to be three years ahead of their peers in maths.
The education department said: "England's performance in maths has lagged behind while other countries have improved and overtaken us, including Poland and Germany." Actually, it is the latest step in the government's drive to raise standards in maths, looking at what has made schools in the far East the most successful in the world in teaching the subject.
"Shanghai is the top-performing part of the world for maths—their children are streets ahead. Shanghai and Singapore have teaching practices and a positive mind that make the difference. They have a belief that diligence makes up for lack of ability," Truss said. "Our new curriculum has borrowed from theirs because we know it works—early learning of key arithmetic, and a focus on times tables and long division（长除法）, for instance."
She was determined to change the situation as performance in maths is weakening the country's skills base and threatening the productivity and growth. The government is emphasizing maths because of the importance of good grades in the subject to young people competing for good jobs in a global labor market and to the economy more generally.
An education and skills survey released by the Confederation of British Industry last year showed that 30 percent of employers reported dissatisfaction with the standard of school and college leavers' numeracy. More than two-thirds of employers said they wanted both maths and science promoted more in schools.
Why does the British government send a delegation of experts to Shanghai?

A．To see how children from rich families have become the best at maths.

B．To investigate why the performance of almost all children in China is high.

C．To get a first-hand look at science classes and teaching methods there.

D．To raise the teaching standards in maths in Britain.

Which of the following statements is true according to the two international competition results?

A．British students performed better in 2013 than in 2012.

B．British students did better than the students from Poland in 2013.

C．The students from Singapore did better than the students from Germany.

D．The students from Germany did better than the students from Poland.

What has made schools in Shanghai the most successful in teaching maths in the eye of Truss?

A．Curriculum and teaching methods.

B．Teaching practices and a positive mind.

C．Early learning of key arithmetic and times tables.

D．A focus on times tables and long division.

How will students’ poor performance in maths affect the country?

A．By threatening the country's competitiveness of economy.

B．By weakening the country's political system.

C．By losing international competitions in education.

D．By failing to find jobs in a global labor market.

What can we infer from the news?

A．The students in Britain don’t work hard at Maths.

B．The students in shanghai are the smartest in the world.

C．The education of science in Britain is no better than that of maths.

D．Most British citizens are dissatisfied with teachers’ work.

My six-year-old came home from school this week with two envelopes. One was for a donation to help people in the Philippines. The other was to help hungry families have a Thanksgiving meal.
“I’ll put a check in each of these. Then you can add your own money from your piggy bank, okay?” I said, thinking he’d be so excited to put his own stamp on things.
“That’s okay, mom. You put money in. I don’t want to waste mine,” he sweetly sang as he colored. “I want to fill my bank all the way up.”
Ack! I guess I know what our dinnertime discussion will be about tonight, I thought.
I had figured that through watching his parents donate items, helping us take toys from time to time to needy kids and putting money in the basket at church, he would just understand why it was important to help people in need — and even want to do it himself.
But of course he doesn’t really understand yet. “There’s a big disconnect between the people ‘over there’ and my piggy bank,” said parenting educator Vicki Hoefle.
“There’s nothing wrong with the child. There’s just no connection.”
As for having that conversation immediately, or forcing my son to put money into the envelopes: “Try not to do it now,” Hoefle said. Teaching a child about donating their own money or toys or time to people in need “should be a gentle introduction into what we hope will be a way of life for our kids.”
She suggested these things to help children understand the importance of giving:
* Just talk about it. Then explore the issue from a perspective he can understand.
* Use the course of a year to introduce kids to opportunities. That way, they won’t be shocked when you ask them to stuff their own money into an envelope （like this writer just did）.
* Pick a family charity for the year and have a conversation about how you all can help throughout the year.
* Think of this not as something you must teach, but as something to expose them to.
At her house, Hoefle said, “When you got something new, you gave something up.” Each birthday, her children would pick what toys they had outgrown and give them away. “There was a comfort in it. It just became a natural part of the kids’ lives.”
So I will fill those envelopes alone this time. But I’ll make sure he understands why they should be filled—gradually.
When the writer asked her son to give money to help the poor, he __________.

A．declined to donate

B．sang a sweet song

C．put all his money in a bank

D．seemed very surprised

Hoefle’s attitude towards children’s unwillingness to donate money can be best described as “___________”.

A．critical	B．tolerant
C．positive	D．worried

Which of the following is Hoefle’s approach to educating kids about charity?

A．Giving courses about charity.

B．Setting a rule for children to give.

C．Inviting a lot of poor people home.

D．Giving children enough real life chances.

What can we learn about the writer from the passage?

A．She often makes donations for people in need.

B．She taught her son a lesson over dinner that evening.

C．She is at a loss as for what she should do next.

D．She invited a parenting educator home for advice.

What is the best title of the passage?

A．Kids, please help those in need.

B．Why are kids unwilling to donate?

C．Kindness is lost in the young generation.

D．How can we help kids learn generosity?

I would like to tell you a story about my uncle Theo. He is my oldest uncle, a tall, thin, grey-haired man whose thoughts are always on learning and nothing else. He is quiet, gentle and absent-minded and with about as much sense as a child where money is concerned. Well, he applied a post in Camford University. It was a very good post and there were hundreds of candidates（候选人）who applied for it, and about fifteen, including Theo, were asked to be interviewed.
Camford is a very small town; there is only one hotel in it, and it was so full that they had to put many of the candidates two in a room. Theo was one of these, and the man who shared the room with him was a self-confident fellow called Adams, about twenty years younger than Theo, with a loud voice, and a laugh that you could hear all over the hotel. But he was a clever fellow all the same and had a good post in Iscaiot College, Narkover. Well, the Dean, who was the head of the department of the University, and the committee interviewed all the candidates; and as a result of this interview, the number of the candidates was reduced to two, Uncle Theo and Adams. The committee couldn’t decide which of the two to take, so they decided to make their final choice after each of the candidates had given a public lecture in the college lecture-hall. The subject they had to speak on was “The Civilization of the Ancient Summerians”; and the lecture had to be given in three days’ time.
Well, for these three days Uncle Theo never left his room. He worked day and night at that lecture, writing it out and memorizing it, almost without eating or sleeping. Adams didn’t seem to do any preparation at all. You could hear his voice and his laughter where he had a crowd of people around him. He came to his room late at night, asked Uncle Theo how he was getting on with his lecture, and then told him how he had spent the evening playing bridge, or at the music hall. He ate like a horse and slept like a log; and Uncle Theo sat up working at his lecture.
The day of the lecture arrived. They all went into the lecture hall and Theo and Adams took their seats on the platform. And then, Theo discovered, to his horror, that typewritten copy of his speech had disappeared! The Dean said they would call on the candidates on the alphabetical order, Adams first; and the despair in his heart, Theo watched Adams calmly take the stolen speech out of pocket and read it to the professors who were gathered to hear it. And how well he read it! Even Uncle Theo had to admit he couldn’t have read it nearly so eloquently（流利地）himself, and when Adams finished there was a great burst of applause. Adams bowed and smiled, and sat down.
Now, it was Theo’s turn. But what could he do? He had put everything he knew into the lecture. His mind was too much upset to put the same thoughts in another way. With a burning face he could only repeat, word for word, in a low, dull voice, the lecture that Adams had spoken so eloquently. There was hardly any applause when he sat down.
The Dean and the committee went out to decide who the successful candidate was, but everyone was sure what their decision would be. Adams leaned across to Theo and patted him on the back and said, smilingly, “Hard luck, old fellow, but after all, only one of us could win”.
Then the Dean and the committee came back, “Gentlemen”, the Dean said, “the candidate we have chosen is Mr. Hobdell.” Uncle Theo had won! The audience were completely taken by surprise, and the Dean continued, “I think I ought to tell you how we arrived at the decision. We were all filled with admiration at the learning and eloquence of Mr. Adams. I was greatly impressed. But, you will remember, Mr. Adams read his lecture to us. When Mr. Hobdell’s turn came, he repeated that speech, word by word from memory, though, of course, he couldn’t have seen a line of it before. Now a fine memory is absolutely necessary for this post; and what a memory Mr. Hobdell must have! This is why we decided that Mr. Hobdell was exactly the man we wanted! ”
As they walked out of the room, the Dean came up to Uncle Theo, who was so confused but so happy that he hardly knew whether he was standing on his head or heels; and as he shook Theo’s hand he said, “Congratulations, Mr. Hobdell! But, my dear fellow, when you are on our staff, you must be more careful and not leave valuable papers lying about!”
Which of the followings best describes Uncle Theo?

A．Good-mannered	B．Modest
C．Childish	D．Bookish

What do we know about the post at Camford University?

A．The applicants had to sit for an examination.

B．There was much competition for the post.

C．The post requires a lot of teaching experience.

D．The post offered quite high salary.

Adams did not bother to do any preparation because______.

A．he was quite familiar with the subject.

B．he knew the committee members well.

C．he had a well-thought-out plan.

D．he had full confidence in himself.

When Uncle Theo’s turn came, _______.

A．he felt so angry that he couldn’t see a word.

B．he felt so upset that he could not remember anything.

C．he had to put the same thoughts in another way.

D．he had to repeat the speech, word by word from memory.

When the committee went out to make a decision, Adams _______.

A．could not help feeling worried.

B．could hardly wait to show his joy.

C．felt sorry for Theo and tried to cheer him up.

D．felt ashamed and tried to chat with Theo.

Theo became successful because _______.

A．he had a better memory than Adams.

B．he was more experienced than Adams.

C．the committee knew he was exactly the man they wanted.

D．the committee knew Adams had copied Theo’s speech.

A．it is very delicious	B．it is very cheap and healthy
C．it is very popular in society	D．it can show their status

A．too many sharks are killed	B．he dislikes eating sharp fin
C．it is too expensive	D．sharks are dangerous animals

A．Rich and generous．	B．Influential and warmhearted．
C．Energetic and optimistic．	D．Popular and confident．