Chinese are very generous when it comes to 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 where they will either learn a musical instrument(乐器) or ballet, or other classes which will give them a head in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is. So parents will spend an unreasonable amount of money on education. Even poor couples will buy a computer for their son or daughter. However, what most parents fail to see is that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap.
Parents can see that their children are very skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize though, is that today's children are short of self-respect and self-confidence.
The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents are not teaching them the most important skills that they need to be confident, happy and clever.
Parents can achieve this by teaching practical 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 requires 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 step by step. 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 and arouse(激发) 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.Most Chinese parents don't realize_______.
| A．how much the best education is worth |
| B．when children should be educated |
| C．what children really need in later life |
| D．why school tests don't satisfy children |
What is the main idea of the last paragraph?
| A．Fixing old machines is very important. |
| B．Interest is necessary for everything. |
| C．Broken things are useful for children. |
| D．Using hands helps improve thinking ability. |
The writer's attitude（看法） to children's education is that
| A．the cheaper an education is, the better it is |
| B．children today should learn different skills |
| C．practical skills are useful to children's growth |
| D．school education can't meet parents' expectation. |
“How are you?”is a nice question. It’s a friendly way that people in the USA greet each other. But “How are you?”is also a very unusually question. It’s a question that often doesn’t need an answer. The person who asks “How are you?” hopes to hear the answer “Fine”, even if the person’s friend isn’t fine. The reason is that “How are you ?”isn’t really a question and “Fine.”isn’t really an answer. They are simply other ways of saying “Hello.”or “Hi.”Sometimes, people also don’t say exactly what they mean. For example, when someone asks “Do you agree?”, the other person might think, “No, I disagree. I think you’re wrong.”But it isn’t very polite to disagree so strongly, so the other person might say “I’m not sure.”It’s a nicer way to say that you don’t agree with someone. People also don’t exactly what they are thinking when they finish talking with other people. For example, many talks over the phone finish when one person say “I’ve to go now.”Often, the person who wants to hang up gives an excuse,“Someone’s at the door.”“Something is burning on the stove.”The excuses might be real, or not. Perhaps the person who wants to hand up simply doesn’t want to talk any more, but it isn’t polite to say that. The excuse is more polite, and it doesn’t hurt the other person. Whether they are greeting each other, talking about an idea, or finishing a talk, people don’t say exactly that they are thinking. It’s an important way that people try to be nice to each other, and it’s part of the game of language.
根据短文内容，判断下列句子正（T）误（F）.“How are you?”is another way of saying “Hello.”or“Hi.”
It is polite to say “No. I disagree. I think you are wrong.”if you don’t agree with others.
When someone says“I have to go now.”on the phone, it means he wants to go on talking.
“Someone is at the door.”may be an excuse for finishing a phone call.
Sometimes people don’t say exactly what they are thinking about just because they try to be nice to each other.
Different people have different hobbies. For example, some people like reading, some people like swimming and some people like collecting something and so on. I have many hobbies, such as reading, skating, and traveling. I used to read books in my free time. I like reading because I could learn much by reading. At that time, reading was part of my life. Every day, I spent most of my free time reading books, newspapers and magazines. At night, I could hardly get to sleep without a novel in my hand.
But later I found I could only learn from books by reading. I couldn’t get knowledge from others. I needed a change . Traveling is my hobby now. I can visit many different places by traveling. I can learn a lot about people, geography and history. It’s very interesting.
I have many good friends. They all have their hobbies. Ann studies very hard. So her hobby is reading all kinds of books. Tony loves working with her hands, and his hobby is gardening. He usually plants flowers and trees in his yard. Judy is a quiet girl. She likes knitting(编织). She always knits sweaters for her dolls. We have different hobbies, but we are all good friends.
根据短文内容选择最佳答案 is not the writer’s hobby according to the passage.
| A．Reading | B．Swimming |
| C．Skating | D．Traveling |
The writer used to before he went to bed.
| A．watch TV | B．listen to music |
| C．play sports | D．read a novel |
The underlined word changerefers to
| A．from reading to traveling | B．from traveling to reading |
| C．from reading to skating | D．from writing to skating |
hobby is gardening.
| A．Ann’s | B．Judy’s |
| C．Tony’s | D．John’s |
What is the best title of this passage?
| A．Different people have different hobbies. |
| B．How to make friends |
| C．Reading is important |
| D．Ways of traveling |
Linda Evans was my best friend—like the sister I never had. We did everything together: piano lessons, movies, swimming, horseback riding.
When I was 13, my family moved away. Linda and I kept in touch through letters , and we saw each other on special time—like my wedding and Linda’s. Soon we were busy with children and moving to new homes, and we wrote less often. One day a card that I sent came back, stamped “Address Unknown.”I had no idea how to find Linda.
Over the years, I missed Linda very much. I wanted to share happiness of my children and then grandchildren. And I needed to share my sadness when my mother died. There was an empty place in my heart that only a friend like Linda could fill.
One day I was reading a newspaper when I noticed a photo of a young woman who looked very much like Linda and whose last name was Wagman—Linda’s married name, “There must be thousands of Wagmans,”I thought, but I still wrote to her.
She called as soon as she got my letter. “Mrs Tobin!”she said excitedly, “Linda Evans Wagman is my mother.”
Minutes later I heard a voice that I knew very much, even after 40 years laughed and cried and caught up on each other’s lives. Now the empty place in my heart is filled. And there’s one thing that Linda and I know for sure: We won’t lose each other again!
根据短文内容选择最佳答案The writer went to piano lessons with Linda Evans .
| A．at the age of 13 |
| B．before she got married |
| C．after they moved to new homes |
| D．before the writer’s family moved away |
They didn’t often write to each other because they
| A．got married |
| B．had little time to do so |
| C．didn’t like writing letters |
| D．could see each other on special time |
There was an empty place in the writer’s heart because she
| A．was in trouble |
| B．didn’t know Linda’s address |
| C．received the card that she sent |
| D．didn’t have a friend like Linda to share her happiness or sadness |
The writer was happy when she
| A．read the newspaper |
| B．heard Linda’s voice on the phone |
| C．met a young woman who looked a lot like Linda |
| D．wrote to the woman whose last name was Wagman |
They haven’t kept in touch?
| A．for about 40 years |
| B．for about 27 years |
| C．since they got married |
| D．since the writer’s family moved away |
Gina was a 3rd grader. She was very clever, but she had no friends at school until Rita joined her class. New to the city and too shy to make any friends, Rita did not mind being Gina's friend. At least she had someone to play with.
One day the teacher scolded (训斥) Rita for not concentrating when she was doing some math problems. The whole class laughed at her and Rita cried hard. The teacher had patiently explained how to do them, but Rita was just not able to understand.
Gina told her mother about Rita's bad day. "Why don't you try to help her?" asked her mother. " She likes you very much."
" Mommy, I don't have time to waste." said Gina.
" But Rita is your friend and if you don't help her, who will?" said her mother. But Gina didn't think so.
" Then Gina's mother decided to act tough(强硬地)." If you don't help her, I will not let you watch cartoons for a week."
Extremely unhappy, Gina taught Rita. Rita understood, for Gina knew how to explain things simply. Rita was excited and told everyone what a good friend Gina was.
One day, Gina made a mistake, and the principal (校长) asked Gina to pick up the waste paper in every classroom after school.
After school, Gina began to clean the classrooms and she felt very sad. Rita found out about it and went to help her do it.
From that day, Gina and Rita became the best of friends.
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What’s the best way to remember our happiest moments, like a birthday or festival? I bet you would answer , “Take lots of photos!” Well, here is a great surprise. People who always take photos may actually be harming(伤害) their memory, because they’re not concentrating on the event itself. That’s according to new research by Fairfield University, Connecticut, in the US. They call this the “photo-taking impairment(损害) affect”.
“People so often take out their cameras almost mindlessly to catch a moment, to the point that they are missing what is happening right in front of them,” Henkel and her team decided to perform an experiment. They wanted to find out whether taking photos in a museum weakened(减弱) a visitor’s memory of what they had seen. So they simply told a group to look around the museum, and either take photos of the items on display, or try to remember what they had seen. In addition(另外), the amount(数量) of detail(细节) they remembered was worse than those who didn’t take photos. “These results show how the mind’s eye and the camera’s eye are not the same,” said Henkel.
But don’t put your camera down just yet. Other studies have found that looking back at old photos helps us remember an event, compared to just taking a photo and forgetting about it. So next time you’re thinking of taking a photo, just think: is it better to look at the beauty around you with your own eyes, or behind the eye of the camera?
| A．fail to focus on the event itself |
| B．can’t record the details |
| C．remember what we have seen |
| D．are likely to have a poor memory |
| A．People who didn’t take photos did better in the experiment. |
| B．They asked a group to try to remember what they had seen. |
| C．The experiment aimed to learn what people were interested in at the museum. |
| D．People who took photos in the museum could remember less details. |
| A．never use our cameras |
| B．remember an event by heart |
| C．always remember an event with the help of a camera |
| D．see everything only with our own eyes |
| A．The mind’s eye and the camera’s eye are not the same. |
| B．People remember happiest moments by taking photos. |
| C．Looking back at old photos helps us remember an event. |
| D．People don’t like taking photos. |
| A．The entrance of a museum. |
| B．A guidebook on how to take good pictures. |
| C．An instruction of how to use a camera. |
| D．A scientific report. |