Going back to school is a very exciting event for my two boys. It means getting new school bags and books, and seeing friends again after the summer holiday.
My oldest son, 9-year-old Salem, asked me several times where we would go to buy a backpack, while my other son, 6-year-old Abdullah, asked what school would be like this year.
For the last three years, school was a nightmare for many children and their parents as violence increased and there were more attacks on schools and teachers. As a result, many parents prevented their children from going to school. One of six children in this country did not attend primary school in 2009. Many kids who did attend school were accompanied by a parent for the entire day to make sure nothing happened to their children.
For poor families or those with large families, back to school can be an expensive time. The government gives some help to those living in poor neighborhoods, and school bags, note books and other items(商品) are given for free.
Most of the merchants who sell notebooks and pens now sell their products out on the street instead of in stores. They sit on the ground and lay their items on the ground or they have a small table to sell their goods.
The bags cost between $10 and $20, while clothes and shoes cost between $20 and $30. I found all the things I needed for my sons and even bought something for myself. I spent about $50 on each of them, including school uniforms.
At the end of the day, we returned to our home carrying many shopping bags filled with items that made my children happy and excited to go back to school. I just hope this school year will be a peaceful one. The author’s children are ________ to go to school.
| A．eager | B．afraid | C．unwilling | D．surprised |
The underlined word “nightmare” is the closest in meaning to ________.
| A．fantasy | B．dream world | C．prison | D．terrible situation |
Many children are not going to school mainly because of ________.
| A．the terrible education system | B．security problems and poverty |
| C．parents’ distrust in schools | D．the government’s inability |
As a parent, the author ________.
| A．is unable to afford his kids’ schooling | B．is unwilling to send his kids to school |
| C．hopes his kids have a happy school life | D．complains school education costs too much |
Which of the following statement is NOT true?
| A．Many parents prevented their children from going to school for great study pressure. |
| B．School bags, note books and other items(商品) are given to those living in poor neighborhoods for free. |
| C．The author spent about $100 for her two sons. |
| D．The items the author bought made her children happy and excited to go back to school. |
Love, success, happiness, family and freedom——how important are these values to you? Here is one interview which explores the fundamental questions in life.
Question: Could you introduce yourself first?
Answer: My name is Misbah, 27 years old. I was born in a war-torn area. Right now I’m a web designer.
Q: What are your great memories?
A: My parents used to take us to hunt birds, climb trees, and play in the fields. For me it was like a holiday because we were going to have fun all day long. Those are my great memories.
Q: Does your childhood mean a lot to you?
A: Yes. As life was very hard, I used to work to help bring money in for the family. I spent my childhood working, with responsibilities beyond my age. However, it taught me to deal with problems all alone. I learnt to be independent.
Q: What changes would you like to make in your life?
A: If I could change something in my life, I’d change it so that my childhood could have taken place in another area. I would have loved to live with my family in freedom. Who cares whether we have much money, or whether we have a beautiful house? It doesn’t matter as long as I can live with my family and we are safe.
Q: How do you get along with your parents?
A: My parents supported me until I came of age. I want to give back what I’ve got. That’s our way. But I am working in another city. My only contact with my parents now is through the phone, but I hate using it. It filters(过滤)out your emotion and leaves your voice only. My deepest feelings should be passed through sight, hearing and touch.In Misbah’s childhood, .
| A．he was free from worry |
| B．he liked living in the countryside |
| C．he was fond of getting close to nature |
| D．he often spent holidays with his family |
What did Misbah desire most in his childhood?
| A．A colorful life. | B．A beautiful house. |
| C．Peace and freedom. | D．Money for his family. |
How would Misbah prefer to communicate with his parents?
| A．By chatting on the Internet. | B．By calling them sometimes. |
| C．By paying weekly visits. | D．By writing them letters. |
If there were only one question left, what would it most probably be?
| A．What was your childhood dream? |
| B．What is your biggest achievement? |
| C．What is your parents’ view of you? |
| D．What was your hardest experience in the war? |
LIPITOR
ABOUT LIPITOR
Lipitor is a prescription medicine. Along with diet and exercise, it lowers “bad” cholesterol (胆固醇) in your blood. It can also raise “good” cholesterol.
Lipitor can lower the risk of heart attack in patients with several common risk factors, including family history of early heart disease, high blood pressure, age and smoking .
WHO IS LIPITOR FOR?
Who can take LIPITOR:
·People who cannot lower their cholesterol enough with diet and exercise
·Adults and children over l0
Who should NOT take LIPITOR:
·Women who are pregnant, may be pregnant, or may become pregnant. Lipitor may harm your unborn baby.
·women who are breast-feeding. Lipitor can pass into your breast milk and may harm your baby.
·People with liver (肝脏) problems
POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF LIPITOR
Serious side effects in a small number of people:
·Muscle (肌肉) problems that can lead to kidney (肾脏) problems, including kidney failure
·Liver problems. Your doctor may do blood tests to check your liver before you start Lipitor and while you are taking it.
Call your doctor right away if you have:
·Unexplained muscle pain or weakness, especially if you have a fever or feel very fired
·Swelling of the face, lips, tongue, and/or throat that may cause difficulty in breathing or swallowing
·Stomach pain
Some common side effects of LIPITOR are:
·Muscle pain
·Upset stomach
·Changes in some blood tests
HOW TO TAKE LIPITOR
DO:
·Take Lipitor as prescribed by your doctor.
·Try to eat heart-healthy foods while you take Lipitor.
·Take Lipitor at any time of day, with or without food.
·If you miss a dose (一剂), take it as soon as you remember. But if it has been more than 12 hours since your missed dose, wait. Take the next dose at your regular time.
Don’t:
·Do not change or stop your dose before talking to your doctor.
·Do not start new medicines before talking to your doctor.What is a major function of Lipitor?
| A．To help quit smoking. | B．To control blood pressure. |
| C．To improve unhealthy diet. | D．To lower “bad” cholesterol. |
Taking Lipitor is helpful for _________.
| A．breast-feeding women | B．women who are pregnant |
| C．adults having heart disease | D．teenagers with liver problems |
If it has been over 12 hours since you missed a dose, you should _________. .
| A．change the amount of your next dose |
| B．eat more when taking your next dose |
| C．have a dose as soon as you remember |
| D．take the next dose at your regular time |
Which of the following is a common side effect of taking Lipitor?
| A．Face swelling. | B．Upset stomach. |
| C．Kidney failure. | D．Muscle weakness. |
A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what is on the printed text in the actual situation, so much the better.
A charge (指责) made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises (出现) from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.There are also people who are against fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two -- headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history. I find such people, I must say so strong that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men trying to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl -friend.
No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.The author considers that a fairy story is more effective when it is ___________ .
| A．repeated without any change | B．treated as a joke |
| C．made some changes by the parent | D．set in the present time |
According to the passage, great fear can take place in a child when the story is ________ .
| A．in a realistic setting (背景) | B．heard for the first time |
| C．repeated too often | D．told in a different way |
The advantage claimed (提出) for repeating fairy stories to young children is that it _______.
| A．makes them less fearful |
| B．develops their power of memory |
| C．makes them believe there is nothing to be afraid of |
| D．encourages them not to have strange beliefs |
One of the reasons why some people are against fairy tales is that __________.
| A．they are full of imagination |
| B．they just make up the stories which are far from the truth |
| C．they are not interesting |
| D．they make teachers of history difficult to teach |
Technology has been an encouragement of historical change. It acted as such a force in England beginning in the eighteenth century, and across the entire Western World in the nineteenth. Rapid advances were made in the use of scientific findings in the manufacture (制造) of goods, which has changed ideas about work. One of the first changes was that other forms of energy have taken the place of human power. Along with this came the increased use of machines to manufacture products in less time. People also developed machines that could produce the same parts for a product: each nail was exactly like every other nail, meaning that each nail could be changed for every other nail. This means that goods could be mass production, although mass production required breaking production down into smaller and smaller tasks.
Once this was done, workers no longer started on the product and labored to complete it. Instead, they might work only one thousandth of it, other workers completing their own parts in certain order. There is nothing strange about this manufacturing work by today's standards. Highly skilled workers were unable to compare with the new production techniques, as mass production allowed goods of high standard to be produced in greater number than could ever be done by hand. But the skilled worker wasn't the only loser, the common workers lost too. Similar changes forced farmer away. The increased mechanization (机械化) of agriculture freed masses of workers from ploughing the land and harvesting its crops. They had no choice but to stream toward the rapidly developing industrial centers. Increasingly, standards were set by machines. Workers no longer owned their own tools, their skill was no longer valued, and pride in their work was no longer possible. Workers fed, looked after and repaired the machines that could work faster than humans at greatly reduced cost.In this passage, which of the following is NOT considered as a change caused by the use of scientific findings in the production of goods?
| A．Other forms of energy have taken the place of human power. |
| B．The increased exploitation (剥削)of workers in the 19th century. |
| C．The increased use of machines to make products in less time. |
| D．The use of machines producing parts of the same standard. |
The underlined word “this ”in the second paragraph refers to the change that ______
| A．each nail could be taken the place of by every other nail |
| B．each nail was exactly like every other nail |
| C．producing tasks became smaller and smaller |
| D．goods could be mass produced |
According to the writer, highly skilled workers ______
| A．completely disappeared with the coming of the factory system |
| B．were dismissed(解散) by the boss |
| C．were unable to produce goods of high standard |
| D．were unable to produce fine goods at that same speed as machines |
According to the passage, what did the farmers have to do with the coming of mechanization of agriculture?
A. Many of them had to leave their farmland for industrial centers.
B. They stuck to their farm work.
C. They refused to use machines.
D They did their best to learn how to use the machines.
With the possible exception of equal rights, perhaps the most heated argument across the United States today is the death penalty (死刑). Many argue that it is an effective deterrent (威慑) to murder（谋杀）, while others think there is no enough proof that the death penalty reduces the number of murders. The argument advanced by those who are against the death penalty is that it is cruel and inhuman punishment, that it is a mark of a bad society and finally that it is of questionable effectiveness as a deterrent (威慑物) to crime (罪行) anyway.
In our opinion, the death penalty is a necessary action. Throughout recorded history there have always been those peculiar persons in every society who made terrible crimes such as murder. But some are more dangerous than others. For example, it is one thing to take the life of another in time of blind anger, but quite another to coldly plan and carry out the murder of one or more people in the style of a butcher. Thus, murder, like all other crimes, is a matter of different degree. While it could be argued with some reason that the criminal in the first instance should be merely kept from society, such should not be the fate of the latter type murderer.
The value of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime may be open to discussion. But the majority of people believe that the death penalty protects them. Their belief is proved by the fact that the death penalty prevents murder. For example, from 1954 to 1963, when the death penalty was carried out from time to time in California, the murder rate remained between three and four murders for each 100, 000 population. Since 1964 the death penalty has been done only once, and the murder rate has risen to10.4 murders for each 100, 000 population. The sharp climb in the state's murder rate, which began when killings stopped, does not happen by chance. It certainly shows that the death penalty does stop many murderers. If the law about death penalty is vetoed (否决), some people will be murdered----some whose lives may have been saved if the death penalty were in effect. This is really a life or death matter. The lives of thousands of people must be protected.The main purpose of this passage is to _________.
| A．speak for the majority |
| B．argue against the value of the death penalty |
| C．speak ill of the government |
| D．argue for the value of the death penalty |
Which of the following is among the heated arguments across the USA besides death penalty?
| A．Air pollution. | B．The war against Iraq. |
| C．Equal rights. | D．Election of president. |
The numbers in the last paragraph show that ______.
| A．if they stick to death penalty, the number of murders will be reduced |
| B．death penalty almost stopped from 1954 to 1963 |
| C．the population of California has risen |
| D．death penalty is of little value |
It can be inferred that the writer thinks that ______.
| A．the death penalty is the most important problem in the United States today |
| B．the second type of murderers (in Paragraph 2) should be sentenced to death |
| C．the veto of the law about death penalty is of little importance |
| D．the value of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime is not to be discussed |