One afternoon last week, I saw three tearful children from my son's school being comforted by teachers. That morning, my 11-year-old had stomach pains, retching（干呕）into a bowl. Talking to other mothers later, I heard about other children with stomachache or difficult sleeping the night before.
What caused so much pain? Sports day. Sports day might be necessary at a highly-competitive independent school, but not at a village primary school. For the children who can fly like the wind, sports day cause no problem. For those who are overweight or just not good at sport, it is nightmare（噩梦）. Even for those who enjoy running but fall halfway down the track in front of the entire school and their parents, it can prove a disease.
Why do we put our children through this annual suffering? Some may say competition is character building; or it's taking part, not winning, that's important; or that's a tradition of school life. I just felt great pity for those children in tears or in pain.
Team games at the end of sports day produced some close races, wild enthusiasm, lots of shouting - and were fun to watch. More importantly, the children who were not so fast or quick at passing the ball were hidden a little from everyone's eyes. Some of them also had the thrill of being on the winning side.
I wish that sports day could be abandoned and replaced with some other less competitive event. Perhaps an afternoon of team games, with a few races for those who want them, would be less stressful for the children and a lot more fun to watch.
| 1． |
What can we learn about the author's son from Paragraph 1?
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| 2． |
Sports day is still an annul event in this school probably because
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| 3． |
What does the author think about team games?
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| 4． |
What is the author's attitude towards sports day?
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Everybody in this world is different from one another. But do you know that understanding differences can help you better manage your money?
As we grow up, we gradually develop a set of our own values or beliefs. These are influenced by society, our family, the education we receive and so on. Once this value system is set up, it’s not easy to change later in life.
Financial experts say that everyone also has their own belief of how to manage their finances. This is part of our value system and it has a great impact on the way we look after our money.
According to our different values, experts put us in three categories. They are the ant, the cricket and the snail.
◆ The ant— works first
Just like ants who work heart and soul in summer in order to store food for winter, these people don’t care about enjoying the moment. They work very hard and save money they earn so that they can enjoy life when they get old and retire. The ant loves to save but they could make more out of their money if they were willing to invest in some funds and stocks with low risk.
◆ The cricket— fun first
The cricket wants to enjoy everything now and doesn’t think too much about the future. They even borrow money when they really want something. Many young people now belong to this group. These people have little savings. When they get old, they might have problems. They should learn to save and buy insurance.
◆ The snail— lives under pressure
The snail refers to people who make life difficult for themselves. They take big long-term loans from the bank in order to buy things such as luxury houses. They are happy to take big loans even though they are not sure they can afford it. This can cause problems in the future. They should plan more carefully.Our beliefs and values are affected by the following except ______.
| A．society | B．the family |
| C．the education | D．money |
People with the character of the snail would like to _______.
| A．enjoy life at the moment without thinking much about the future |
| B．put work before everything else. |
| C．live a luxury life at all costs |
| D．take the risk of investing a large sum of money |
Which of the following has the character that the author prefers?
| A．the ants | B．the cricket |
| C．the snail | D．none of the above |
This passage mainly talks about _______.
| A．spending nature of people |
| B．the reaction between man and insects |
| C．the insects in nature |
| D．the problems with dealing with money |
Jasmine Meyers had the last laugh when the ocean swallowed her SUV Monday morning and brought it up an hour later, damaged, on the beach. Meyers was staying in Campbell River’s Eagles Nest Motel（汽车旅馆）during the wild storm that attacked the east coast of Vancouver Island early this week.
“We woke up to my mom screaming ‘Your car! Your car! Your car’s about to go in the water,’”she said Wednesday.
She’d parked her car in the hotel’s parking lot that she described as a sort of a sea wall.
The storm that swept throughout coastal areas hit extra hard in the Campbell River area.
At about 8:30 am the bank below the parking lot gave way. Huge waves caught hold of the Toyota and took it into the water.
Her mother took pictures while the terrible waves pulled the car out to sea. Then Meyers and her family members could only watch helplessly as the car was struck and pushed around in front of the hotel.
“It floated around out there for about an hour.”
Then the ocean spit the car back up on the beach. Meyers said it sat there until Wednesday, when a tow truck finally recovered the destroyed car.
That’s the crazy part of the story. The fun part is what happened next.
“I went mad,” said Meyers. “I didn’t cry because I knew that I had insurance, but I went mad and I didn’t know what to do.”
Yeah, insurance: not just insurance, but replacement insurance.
“Replacement insurance only ever lasts for three years,”said Meyers. “Mine ends on Nov.22 I would have been crying if it had been 10 days later.”Who witnessed the disaster first according to the passage?
| A．Jasmine Meyers. |
| B．Jasmine Meyers’ husband |
| C．Jasmine Meyers’ mom |
| D．The hotel manager |
What can we learn about the motel from the passage?
| A．It has a large car park. |
| B．It is not far away from the coast. |
| C．It sells cars and insurance. |
| D．It can stand a storm. |
What can be inferred from the passage?
| A．Jasmine is very brave. |
| B．The car is very expensive |
| C．The mother enjoys taking pictures |
| D．The insurance company will pay for Jasmine’s loss |
Our environment isn’t as green and beautiful as it should be. There are steel monsters blocking out the sun, blowing out dangerous smoke, and letting out poisonous chemicals into rivers, cars producing harmful waste gas, people throwing out waste in a wrong way and all other kinds of sources that ruin the planet. Facing current environmental problems, people need to do their best to save the Earth.
You can see many big garbage dustbins in the streets. They’re not there for a show, but for you to drop your waste. We should realize that what a little we do does count. So next time you get that urge to throw gum or a chocolate package out of the car window, or “ accidentally” drop as you walk down the street, ask yourself how much waste you’ve been contributing to the environment with that bad habit going on for years.
At home, the first thing we can do to protect the environment is avoid letting water run continuously and make sure that taps（水龙头）are not leaky（泄露的），which would help greatly in scrimping. Another is to use energy-saving lights, and turn them off before you leave the rooms. It’s not only energy-saving, but also cuts down electricity costs.
Recycling is a method to make items reusable. Many things you want to throw out can be made into new products through the reproducing process. Use your imagination to come up with ways on things that you can use again.
Pass the message of simple ways to save the environment on to kids. Starting with kids is a good way of teaching the message early in their lives, in the hope that they can carry it forward as they grow older.
With environmental protection awareness in mind, we can do what we can, for the results are to have a big effect on the planet. As long as we do our part, the world is one small step closer to being saved.The underlined word “scrimping” in the third paragraph can be replaced by _____.
| A．saving | B．cleaning |
| C．cooking | D．drinking |
From the fifth paragraph, we can know that ________.
| A．protecting the environment begins with small chores |
| B．protecting the environment should start from childhood. |
| C．wonderful life comes from environmental protection |
| D．protecting the environment benefits the country and the people |
Which of the following isn’t true?
| A．The more people do their part, the greener the environment will be. |
| B．Selling what you don’t want any more is a kind of recycling. |
| C．To protect the environment may help you save some money. |
| D．Your bad habits for the environment are a valuable contribution. |
Which of the following can be the best title for this passage?
| A．The Use of Garbage Dustbin |
| B．How to Save Water and Electricity |
| C．How to Save the Environment |
| D．Our Current Environmental Problems |
A mouse looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package: What food might it contain? He was astonished to discover that it was a mouse trap!
Retreating（撤退） to the farmyard, the mouse declared the warning, “There is a mouse trap in the house, there is a mouse trap in the house.”
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr Mouse, I can tell you this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me, I cannot be bothered by it.”
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mouse trap in the house.” “I am so sorry, Mr Mouse,” sympathized the pig, “but there is nothing I can do about it but pray; be assured that you are in my prayers.”
The mouse turned to the cow, who replied, “A mouse trap, am I in grave danger, huh?”
So the mouse returned to the house, head down and depressed to face the farmer’s mouse trap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, like the sound of a mouse trap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see that it was an evil snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital. She returned home with a fever. Now everyone knew to treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. His wife’s sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer’s wife did not get well, in fact, she died, and so many people came for her funeral. The farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide meat for all of them to eat.
So the next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you, remember that when the least of us is threatened, we are all at risk.We may infer that the passage is most probably a ______.
| A．fairy tale | B．fable |
| C．science fiction | D．news report |
We could see from the passage that the mouse was ______.
| A．kind and warm-hearted | B．well-informed |
| C．good at cheating others | D．foolish and rude |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．The pig was comparatively less friendly than the others in the farmyard. |
| B．The mouse trap that the mouse discovered was not a practical one. |
| C．The farmer and his wife trapped an evil snake that night. |
| D．The farmer’s family was in fact poor and they had no friends. |
The underlined word “ingredient” (Paragraph 7) refers to ______.
| A．the mouse | B．the pig |
| C．the snake | D．the chicken |
Studies have documented that smiling is a universal and effective way to lift mood. But in the latest research on the power of the smile, researchers led by Marcus Munafo of the University of Bristol in England found that even seeing smiles on the faces of others can have a profound effect on a person's tendency toward violence or aggression — that is, as long as that person recognizes the smile as one of happiness, and not as a sneer (讥笑)．
Munafo and his colleagues conducted a series of experiments involving normal adults and highly aggressive teens referred to a youth program, either by educational authorities or the courts. About 70% of the teens already had a criminal record.
In the first experiment, 40 healthy adults, aged 1830, looked at facial expressions on the computer ranging from happy to angry with increasingly difficult ones to discern in between. Participants were asked how angry they felt and then had to rate the images as displaying either happiness or anger — there was no option for “unclear” or “unable to tell”. From these ratings, the scientists could generate a score of their preference toward happiness or anger.
Previous research found that aggressive people — including violent offenders — tend to consider even a common expression as an unfriendly one. “You looking at me？” can easily turn a simple question into a tragic fight.
Based on their original scores, half of the participants were then told by the computer that some of the unclear faces that they had rated as angry should have been scored as happy. This was intended to guide them toward judging the inbetween faces more positively. The other 20 received feedback that simply proved their first choices, creating a control group.
After this training, both groups were tested again and the group that received the biased (有偏见的) feedback shifted its ratings of unclear faces toward the happy side. Participants were also asked to rate their level of angry feelings again after completing the second round of testing. Those who were trained to consider unclear faces as happier reported feeling less angry afterward.
The researchers next focused on the 46 adolescents from the high risk youth program. These teens completed the same testing, but both the youth and the staff reported on the teens' levels of aggressive behavior before the testing started and for two weeks afterward. The teens trained to interpret unclear facial expressions more positively were significantly less aggressive two weeks later.
“The results of our experiments strongly suggest that the understanding of emotional facial expressions plays a causal role in subjective anger and aggressive behavior，”the authors conclude.
That doesn't mean that smiles alone are the answer to violence among adolescents — previous research in which antisocial youth were trained to better recognize emotions, for example, did not have any effect on their level of aggressive behavior. But this earlier study focused on improving teens' understanding of clear facial signals, not unclear ones. Since unclear signals are more likely to be misunderstood, it may be that violent behavior in some youth exists with their constant misunderstanding of angry expressions where they don't exist, which push them to aggressive responses. The findings suggest that helping young people, particularly those easy to be violent, to learn to give others the benefit of the doubt when they see what they think is a threatening face could help end the vicious (恶性的) cycle of violence.The underlined word “discern” (Paragraph 3) means ________.
| A．display obviously | B．identify clearly |
| C．describe correctly | D．value properly |
According to Munafo's research, the anger and violent behavior in some youths resulted from ____.
| A．their misunderstanding of facial emotions of others |
| B．their lack in knowledge of emotion recognition |
| C．their inborn tendency toward violence or aggression |
| D．their experience of being offended by others on purpose |
The method Munafo and his colleagues used in their research is ________.
| A．field investigation |
| B．case study |
| C．observation and analysis |
| D．experiment and comparison |
What happens to the participants after receiving certain feedbacks?
| A．They can interpret unclear facial expressions. |
| B．They put an end to their aggressive behavior. |
| C．They tend to judge the inbetween faces positively. |
| D．It makes no difference in their level of aggressive behavior. |
Which of the following will Munafo and his group probably agree with?
| A．Just smile as much as possible. |
| B．Misunderstanding is the root of violence. |
| C．Seeing smiles can lower aggression. |
| D．Control our anger to avoid violence and aggression. |