A primary school has banned Valentine’s Day cards because of concerns that young pupils spend too much time talking about boyfriends and girlfriends.
Ashcombe Primary School in WestonsuperMare，Somerset，has told parents that cards declaring love can be “confusing” for children under the age of 11，who are still emotionally and socially developing.
In his February newsletter(简讯)，Peter Turner，head teacher，warned that any cards found in school would be confiscated.
He wrote，“We do not wish to see any Valentine’s Day cards in school this year.Some children and parents encourage a lot of talks about boyfriends and girlfriends.”
“We believe that such ideas should wait until children are mature enough emotionally and socially to understand the commitment involved in having or being a boyfriend or girlfriend.”
Mr.Turner said any families wanting to support the Valentine’s Day concept should send cards in the post or deliver them to home addresses by hand.
His views were supported by Ruth Rice,46，who has twins Harriet and Olivia,9，at the school.
She said，“Children at that age shouldn’t really be thinking about Valentine’s Day，and they should be concentrating on their schoolwork.”
“They are at an age when they are easily influenced and most parents including myself are with Mr.Turner.”
She added，“The cards caused too much competition.If someone gets a card and another doesn’t then he or she will be disappointed.”
However，Rajeev Takyar,40，who sells newspapers and has two children Jai,11，and Aryan,5，at the school，said he was “genuinely outraged”．
He said，“There are schools that have banned conkers(康克戏) and snowballs，and now Valentine’s Day cards.”
“I think banning the cards stops children from having social skills.How are they going to learn about relationships otherwise？It’s ridiculous.”
Alec Suttenwood，founder of the AntiPolitical Correctness Group，said of the ban，“It’s totally ridiculous.Young children just send the cards to each other as friends and to their parents.It’s just a bit of harmless fun.There is no difference between this and Mother’s or Father’s Day.”Valentine’s Day cards may cause confusion among young children because ________.
| A．they are too young to understand what love is |
| B．teachers haven’t taught them how to make friends |
| C．children shouldn’t learn about social relationships |
| D．students talk too much about boyfriends and girlfriends |
The underlined word “confiscated” in Paragraph 3 can probably be replaced by “________”．
| A．collected | B．destroyed | C．taken away | D．burnt away |
Ruth Rice was in favor of Mr.Turner’s view in that ________.
| A．children like to compare Valentine’s Day cards |
| B．children should focus their mind on their lessons |
| C．sending holiday cards wastes both time and money |
| D．making friends has a negative influence on children |
Which statement is TRUE according to the text?
| A．Most of English parents want children to have fun. |
| B．Children should learn how to develop social skills. |
| C．English schools don’t allow students to play games. |
| D．Some parents think it unreasonable to ban the cards. |
What is the best title of the text?
| A．School Bans Valentine’s Day Cards |
| B．Shall We Send Valentine’s Day Cards? |
| C．Different Opinions on Valentine’s Day Cards |
| D．Parents’ Concern About Valentine’s Day Cards |
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children (MGHfC) have invented a new term that describes dangers associated with cigarette smoke: third-hand smoke. Study results published in January, 2009 discuss how third-hand smoke is especially dangerous for children.
Have you ever walked into a room that had the smell of cigarette smoke, regardless of the fact that a fan was moving the air and no one was smoking at the time? This is what researchers are calling third-hand smoke — and it represents the poisonous deposits (存积物) that are left behind long after a cigarette is put out.
Cigarette smoke contains gases and small particles that are deposited on every surface it comes in contact with, for example, the smoker’s hair and clothing, or the environment the cigarette was smoked in. It’s dangerous for young children who may crawl on polluted surfaces. Third-hand smoke is a serious health risk for our kids, especially those who live in the homes of smokers.
Jonathan Winickoff, lead author of the study, explains, “When you come into contact with your baby, even if you’re not smoking at the time, he or she comes in contact with those poisons. And if you breast-feed, the poisons will transfer to your baby in your breast milk.” Winickoff adds however, that nursing a baby if you’re a smoker is still a better choice than bottle-feeding.
Researchers involved in the study also surveyed more than 1,500 families in an effort to learn about adult attitudes regarding the danger third-hand smoke represents to their children and how that might affect smoking in the home.
Approximately 95 percent of nonsmokers and 84 percent of smokers believe that secondhand smoke is dangerous for children.
On the issue of whether third-hand smoke threatens the health of children, 65 percent of nonsmokers and 43 percent of smokers felt that third-hand smoke harms kids. When asked about rules regarding smoking in the home, approximately 88 percent of nonsmokers said they don’t allow smoking, while only 27 percent of smokers forbid smoking in the home.
However, both non-smokers and smokers who felt that third-hand smoking was harmful to children’s health were more inclined to (倾向于) restrict smoking in their homes. The study led by Jonathan Winickoff focused on _______.
| A．bad influences long after a cigarette is smoked |
| B．third-hand smoke and secondhand smoke |
| C．the bad effects of smoking on common people |
| D．the terrible smell of cigarette smoke |
How does the text explain what third-hand smoke is?
| A．By telling results of a survey. |
| B．By giving statistics. |
| C．By making comparisons. |
| D．By giving an example. |
The following measures to prevent the effect of third-hand smoke are effective except _______.
| A．keeping kids out of room when you smoke |
| B．cleaning the house to get rid of poisons |
| C．making yourself clean before contacting kids |
| D．trying to forbid smoking in home |
Everyone experiences stress at work, but how we cope with it varies. Feeling that you’ve been unfairly treated can be particularly stressful. Researchers believe that failure to express feelings about unfair treatment at work could have serious consequences on your health, especially men, who bottle up their anger at being unfairly treated at work, are up to 5 times more likely to suffer a heart attack, or even die from one, than those who let their frustration （沮丧） show, a Swedish study has found.
The study by the Stress Research Institute of Stockholm University followed 2,755 employed men who had not suffered any heart attacks. At the end of the study, 47 participants had either suffered an attack, or died from heart disease, and many of those had been found to be covertly coping with unfair treatment at work.
“After adjustment for age, socioeconomic factors, risk behaviors, job strain and biological risk factors at baseline, there was a close-response relationship between covert coping and the risk of incident death,” the study’s authors wrote.
Covert coping was listed as “letting thing pass without saying anything” and “going away” despite feelings of being hard done by colleagues or bosses. Men who often used these coping techniques had a two to five times higher risk of developing heart disease than those who were more confrontational (对抗性的) at work, the study showed.
The researchers said they could not answer the question of what might be a particularly healthy coping strategy at work, but listed open coping behavior when experiencing unfair treatment or facing a conflict as “protesting directly,” “talking to the person right away,” “yelling at the person right away” or “speaking to the person later when things have calmed down.” The study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.The study mainly shows that .
| A．women are less likely to suffer a heart attack than men |
| B．most people die of heart disease caused by stress |
| C．covert coping may result in certain heart trouble |
| D．employers should treat their workers equally |
Which of the following contributes to the accuracy of the study?
| A．The participants were all employed men. |
| B．The participants tend to bottle up their temper. |
| C．The participants should not have risk behaviors. |
| D．The participants had not a history of heart attacks. |
According to the text, if treated unfairly a confrontational person will .
| A．just let it be |
| B．fight back immediately |
| C．go away silently |
| D．work even harder |
The last paragraph is intended to tell readers .
| A．that the study is official |
| B．what the healthiest coping strategy is |
| C．what the helpful ways of handling unfair treatment are |
| D．that confrontation is always beneficial to people’s heart health |
Children, especially at young ages, are very creative. And creativity can be a glorious thing. Look at all the amazing artists and architects that have created glorious pieces of history. Look at all the authors with the award winning books. Now I am not saying everyone is going to end up this way but creativity is an important part of growing up and becoming who you are. This should be encouraged in young children as well as the older children.
Young children grow up playing with make-believe. And so many people try to make their young child see that their invisible friend isn’t real or that talking when someone is not in the room is weird. To adults it is, but for small children it is them being creative. May it be them playing house, or chef, or playing with stuffed animals, it is their creative part coming out. Some kids can have fun playing with rocks and sticks and it’s because of their creativeness that they can do this. The invisible friend part is another part of being imaginative, and is not a bad thing since they will grow out of that phase. So encourage this and play along with them, play house or stuffed animals or whatever they want to play. Help keep their imagination running. You can even make up games, like treasure hunts, dinosaurs, or super heroes; there is just so much you can choose from.
For older children, talk to them. Help them see things through others’ eyes, or help them see things from a different point of view. Helping children see things from other views helps them keep their minds open for new ideas and new things.
All this can help your children’s minds stay creative. The arts and music, even thoughts are an important part of life and important in our society. If we didn’t have and encourage creative thinking, we wouldn't have had inventors, or philosophers, or as I said before, artists.The underlined word “weird” is the closest in meaning to “_______”.
| A．similar | B．strange | C．common | D．natural |
If a child plays with his invisible friend, it shows that _______.
| A．the child is longing for friendship |
| B．the child has no one to play with in life |
| C．the child has great imagination |
| D．there is something wrong with the child’s mind |
According to the author, if a child talks alone in a room, we should _______.
| A．let him be |
| B．stop him from doing so |
| C．give him some advice |
| D．know that he is suffering from loneliness |
What is mainly talked about in the passage?
| A．How creative artists and architects can be. |
| B．How to help children grow up in a healthy way. |
| C．What kind of activities children like. |
| D．How to protect and encourage children’s creativity. |
Most British telephone cards are just plain green, but card collecting is becoming a popular hobby in Britain and collectors even have their own magazine, International Telephone Cards. One reason for their interests is that cards from around the world come in a wide variety of different and often very attractive design, There are 100,000 different cards in Japan alone, and there you can put your own design onto a bank card simply by using a photograph or a business card.
The first telephone cards, produced in 1976, were Italian. Five years later, the first British card appeared, and now you can buy cards in more than a hundred countries. People usually start collecting cards because they are attractive, small and light, and they do not need much space. It is also a cheap hobby for beginners, although for some people it becomes a serious business. In Paris, for example, there is a market where you can buy only telephone cards, and some French cards cost up to 4,000 pounds. The first Japanese card has a value of about 28,000 pounds. Most people only see cards with prices like these in their collectors’ magazine.The passage is mainly about __________.
| A．the history of phone cards. |
| B．phone card collecting as a hobby |
| C．reasons for phone card collecting |
| D．the great variety of phone cards |
When did people in Britain begin to use phone card?
| A．In 1971. | B．In 1975 | C． In 1976. | D．In 1981. |
The main reason for most people to collect phone cards is that _________.
| A．they find the cards beautiful and easy to keep |
| B．they like to have something from different countries |
| C．they want to make money with cards |
| D．they think the cards are convenient to use |
The writer mentions a market in Paris in order to show that __________.
| A．card collecting is popular among young people |
| B．French and Japanese cards are the most valuable |
| C．People can make money out of card collecting |
| D．Card collectors’ magazines are very useful |
The influence of America is increasing in my country. Spanish people drink Coca Cola, wear blue jeans, watch Hollywood movies, listen to American music, and eat fast food, and they do these things every day.
I think that American movies are a good way to spread American culture because people are often influenced by what they see in the movies. Most of the programs and documentaries (纪录片) we watch on TV are from America, and most of the movies we go to see are made in Hollywood.
In the last few years, the government has tried to protect the Spanish movies. Now, in our cinemas, at least twenty percent of the movies which are shown must be from Spain or from other countries in Europe.
American culture is a part of Spanish life now. It’s certain that many things from America are as much a part of people’s lives as Spanish things. For example, Coca Cola is as familiar to everybody as any typical Spanish product. I’ve known about Coca Cola for my whole life.
However, it’s different with Western fast food. For example, I don’t think McDonald’s is as successful in Spain as it is in other countries. In my opinion, one of the reasons may be the lifestyle of the Spanish people. The Spanish people normally eat at home.
On the other hand, maybe McDonald’s hamburgers will eventually replace the famous Spanish tapas. It’s true that in every city in Spain you can find a McDonald’s, and it is more popular among the Spanish children than among the adults. In any case, it’s obvious that American culture is becoming more and more a part of our lives every day.From the first paragraph we can know that ____.
| A．the influence of America on Spain can be found everywhere |
| B．most Spanish people don’t like to listen to their own music |
| C．fast food spreads from Spain to the United States |
| D．some Spanish actors go to America to improve their acting skills |
Why did the government set some rules for the films shown in Spain?
_________.
| A．To protect foreign culture in Spain. |
| B．To earn more money from Spanish films. |
| C．To limit the number of foreign movies. |
| D．To unite the European Community. |
Why does the author think that McDonald’s is not as successful as it is in other countries? ______
| A．Its fast food contains too much fat. |
| B．He thinks it is unhealthy. |
| C．Spanish people seldom eat out. |
| D．Spanish adults don’t like its fast food. |