Billy’s favorite color is orange. But he can’t see what orange looks like. Billy is blind.
A month after he was born, his mother noticed that his eyes weren’t quite as big as a normal baby’s.”Billy would never be able to see.” the doctor told his mother. After that Billy’s mother began talking to him, describing things she saw outside the window. She described everything to him.
Billy does not only depend on his mother’s descriptions to learn about the world around him. He sees with his ears and his hands, too. He has perfect hearing. When people make phone calls, he can tell the numbers they dial(拨).
Billy loves computer science. He began teaching himself computer programming when he was just seven years old. His dream school would be Stanford University. He gets top grades in his classes, making that a real possibility.
“You can’t let excuses get in the way of your dreams, and if you do that you can’t move forward and reach your goals, “said Billy.From the passage, we know that_____________.
| A．Billy can’t hear. | B．Billy can’t see. |
| C．Billy can’t walk. | D．Billy can’t talk. |
How did Billy’s mother help him?
| A．By teaching him how to draw. |
| B．By asking teacher for advice. |
| C．By describing everything to him. |
| D．By sending him to his dream school. |
When did Billy begin teaching himself computer programming?
| A．When he was7 years old. |
| B．When he was in Seven Grade |
| C．When he was high school |
| D．When he was at university |
Nowadays, there’s a lot of debate about single sex education since it has begun to regain its popularity recently. According to long term studies of children from around the world, students achieve more and learn better in single sex schools.
An Australian study of 270,000 students found that both boys and girls performed much higher on standardized(标准化) tests when they attended separate schools. During an experiment in Virginia in 1995, 100 eighth graders were separated just for math and science courses. Almost immediately, the girls began to achieve more, become more confident and take part more often in class activities.
In 2001, a British study concluded that nearly every girl regardless of (不论) her ability or socio-economic status performed better in single sex classrooms than co-ed ones. The study of 2,954 high schools and 979 primary schools showed that while boys at the lowest levels in study improved the most in single sex schools, single sex education was particularly beneficial (有益的) to girls. Every one of the top 50 private elementary schools and top 20 private high schools in Britain are single sex schools.
Girls became more confident in themselves as students and earned higher scores on their College Board and Advanced Placement examinations. A quarter of the female members of the US Congress and one-third of all female members of Fortune 100 boards graduated from all-women’s colleges.
While the statistics are not as dramatic for boys, however, boys tend to soften their competitive edge and become more cooperative in a single sex setting. They can just be boys and not worry about what the girls might think.
Single sex education has a pleasant way of encouraging children to be fearless, to be curious, to be enthusiastic --- in short, to just be themselves. Children are subjected (屈从于) to pressures from every quarter to become adults before they are ready to do so. They grow up too quickly. Why not let them be children for a few more years? Single sex education with its gentler, more controlled social atmosphere is just the right answer for many children.With the experiment in Virginia in 1995, the writer wants to show that.
| A．single sex education has become popular in recent years |
| B．the effect of single sex education on girls is immediate |
| C．students at separate schools are better prepared for standardized tests |
| D．both boy and girl students achieve more and learn better in single sex schools |
According to the article, which of the following statements about single sex education is TRUE?
| A．Girls’ performances in single sex classrooms are determined by their ability and socioeconomic status. |
| B．In all-boys schools boys with the worst academic performances improved the most. |
| C．Single sex education was particularly helpful for boys. |
| D．There are more single sex schools than co-ed schools in Britain. |
In the article, the underlined phrase “soften their competitive edge” probably means .
| A．act in a kindly manner | B．become less competitive |
| C．lose interest in something | D．take advantage of something |
What is the main point of the article?
| A．Ways to reduce pressure and help children grow. |
| B．The reason why girls perform better than boys at school. |
| C．The advantage of single sex education. |
| D．The development of single sex education in different countries. |
I have this old clock that belonged to my mom. My dad gave it to me years ago after mom passed away.
I have mixed feelings about having the clock. I love it because it was my mom’s, but it also holds some bad memories.
You see, it chimes. It counts out the hour and rings once on the half hour. Or at least it used to. Now you never know what number it will ring.
When my mother was at home dying from cancer, she asked for the clock to be unplugged. Hearing the hours count down really angered and frightened her.
Mom passed away. I decided I wanted to get the clock fixed so I could remember the good hours we had with her.
I took it to a local clock shop the other day.
“I know this has no particular value as a clock, but it was my mom’s and I need to get it fixed,” I said to the shop owner.
I went on to describe the problem.
“We get a lot of these in,” he told me. “Here’s what I do. We remove the clock works (机件) and replace it with a battery-operated movement (机芯) that chimes electronically,” he told me.
“You can’t fix this?”
“No, we don’t have the time nor the parts.”
I thanked him and went home. I called a few other places and was told the same thing.
“How incredibly sad,” I told the last one disappointedly.
How incredibly sad that we have become a society that replaces craftsmanship with convenience and easy fixes. We copy the original instead of creating something new. We duplicate (复制); we don’t originate (发明).
Sadly, the same goes for our attitude to life itself.
Each of us is an original, one of a kind. But we find it so much easier to copy another style than to develop our own.
We are wannabes (崇拜别人的人) rather than hey-world-look-at-mes.
We fail to see the real value in who we are, so we spend our lives trying to be someone else. Why did the author decide to get the clock fixed?
| A．Because it was a really old and valuable clock. |
| B．Because it was the only thing that her mother had left her. |
| C．Because it brought her memories of being with her mother. |
| D．Because it left the author with mixed feelings. |
What did the clock shop owners tell the author?
| A．The parts that the clock needed were electronic. |
| B．It would cost a lot to repair the clock. |
| C．They had never repaired a clock like this before. |
| D．They could only make the clock electronic. |
The author intends to ________.
| A．criticize the irresponsible clock shop owners |
| B．criticize people who do not value things with a history |
| C．criticize people who do not have a creative attitude toward life |
| D．criticize people’s ignorance of traditional craftsmanship |
Brownie and Spotty were neighbor dogs who met every day to play together. Like pairs of dogs you can find in any neighborhood, these two loved each other and played together so often that they had worn a path through the grass of the field between their houses.
One evening, Brownie’s family noticed that Brownie hadn’t returned home. They went looking for him with no success. Brownie didn’t show up the next day, and, although they made their efforts to find him, by the next week he was still missing, Curiously, Spotty showed up at Brownie’s house alone, barking and jumping. Busy with their own lives, they paid no attention to the nervous little neighbor dog.
Finally, one morning Spotty refused to take “no” for an answer. Ted, Brownie’s owner, was continuously disturbed by the angry, determined little dog. Spotty followed Ted about, barking all the time, then rushing toward a nearby empty lot and back, as if to say, “Follow me! It’s urgent!”
Eventually, Ted followed Spotty across the empty lot as Spotty stopped to race back and barked encouragingly. The little dog led the man to a deserted spot a half mile from the house. There Ted found his beloved Brownie alive, one of his legs crushed in a steel trap (圈套). Frightened, Ted now wished he had taken Spotty’s earlier appeals seriously.
Then Ted noticed something. Spotty had done something else besides leading Brownie’s human owner to his trapped friend. In a circle around the injured dog, Ted found some food remains of every meal. Brownie had been fed that week! Spotty had been visiting Brownie regularly, in the hope of keeping his friend alive. Spotty had actually stayed with Brownie to protect him from hunger and other dangers, and keep his spirits up.
Brownie’s leg was carefully treated and he soon got well again. For many years thereafter the two families watched the faithful friends chasing each other down that well-worn path between their houses.At the very beginning, Ted paid little attention to Spotty because __________.
| A．he was not free at the moment |
| B．he was sure Brownie would be OK |
| C．he didn’t like Spotty at all |
| D．his missing dog made him sad |
After Ted was brought where Brownie was trapped, he ___________.
| A．managed to free his dog at once |
| B．was very thankful to Spotty |
| C．regretted not following Spotty earlier |
| D．was angry with the trap-maker |
The BEST title for this passage might be____________?
| A．Dogs in Love | B．A Friend in Need |
| C．Human and dogs | D．Dogs Are Communicative |
We can infer from the passage that ___________.
| A．humans and animals depend on each other for comfort |
| B．It’s not right to hunt for animals in any neighborhood |
| C．Ted has to take better care of his beloved dog later on |
| D．Brownie would have died without Spotty’s timely help |
About this time every year, I get very nostalgic(怀旧的). Walking through my neighborhood on a fall afternoon reminds me of a time not too long ago when sounds of children filled the air, children playing games on a hill, and throwing leaves around in the street below. I was one of those children, carefree and happy. I live on a street that is only one block long. I have lived on the same street for sixteen years. I love my street. One side has six houses on it, and the other has only two houses, with a small hill in the middle and a huge cottonwood tree on one end. When I think of home, I think of my street. Only I see it as it was before. Unfortunately things change. One day, not long ago, I looked around and saw how different everything has become. Life on my street will never be the same because neighbors are quickly grown old, friends are growing up and leaving, and the city is planning to destroy my precious hill and sell the property to contractors.
It is hard for me to accept that many of my wonderful neighbors are growing old and won’t be around much longer. I have fond memories of the couple across the street, who sat together on their porch swing almost every evening, the widow next door who yelled at my brother and me for being too loud, and the crazy old man in a black suit who drove an old car. In contrast to those people, the people I see today are very old neighbors who have seen better days. The man in the black suit says he wants to die, and another neighbor just sold his house and moved into a nursing home. The lady who used to yell at us is too tired to bother any more, and the couple across the street rarely go out to their front porch these days. It is difficult to watch these precious people as they near the end of their lives because at once I thought they would live forever.
The “comings and goings” of the younger generation of my street are now mostly “goings” as friends and peers move on. Once upon a time, my life and the lives of my peers revolved around home. The boundary of our world was the gutter at the end of the street. We got pleasure from playing night games or from a breathtaking ride on a tricycle. Things are different now, as my friends become adults and move on. Children who rode tricycles now drive cars. The kids who once played with me now have new interests and values as they go their separate ways. Some have gone away to college like me, a few got married, two went into the army, and one went to prison. Watching all these people grow up and go away makes me long for the good old days.
Perhaps the biggest change on my street is the fact that the city is going to turn my precious hill into several lots for new homes. For sixteen years, the view out of my kitchen window has been a view of that hill. The hill was a fundamental part of my childhood life; it was the hub of social activity for the children of my street. We spent hours there building forts, sledding, and playing tag. The view out of my kitchen window now is very different; it is one of tractors and dump trucks tearing up the hill. When the hill goes, the neighborhood will not be the same. It is a piece of my childhood. It is a visual reminder of being a kid. Without the hill, my street will be just another pea in the pod.
There was a time when my street was my world, and I thought my world would never change. But something happened. People grow up, and people grow old. Places changes, and with the change comes the heartache of knowing I can never go back to the times I loved. In a year or so, I will be gone just like many of my neighbors. I will always look back to my years as a child, but the place I remember will not be the silent street whose peace is interrupted by the sounds of construction. It will be the happy, noisy, somewhat strange, but wonderful street I knew as a child.The writer calls up the memory of the street _____________.
| A．every year when autumn comes |
| B．in the afternoon every day |
| C．every time he walks along his street |
| D．now that he is an old man |
The writer finds it hard to accept the fact that _____________.
| A．many of his good neighbors are growing old |
| B．the lady next door who used to yell at him and his brother is now a widow |
| C．the life of his neighbors has become very boring |
| D．the man in his black suit even wanted to end his own life |
The writer thinks of the past all the more when he sees those who had grown up with him _____________.
| A．continue to consider home to be the center of their lives |
| B．leave the neighborhood they grew up in |
| C．still enjoy playing card games in the evenings |
| D．develop new interests and have new dreams |
The biggest change on the writer's street is _____________.
| A．removing the hill to make way for residential development |
| B．the building of new homes behind his kitchen window |
| C．the fact that there are much fewer people around than in the past |
| D．the change in his childhood friends' attitude towards their neighborhood |
What does the writer mean by saying “my street will be another pea in the pod”?
| A．his street will be very noisy and dirty |
| B．his street will soon be crowded with people |
| C．his street will have some new attractions |
| D．his street will be no different from any other street |
Which could be a good title for the passage?
| A．The Past of My Street will Live Forever |
| B．Unforgettable People and Things of My Street |
| C．Memory Street Isn’t What It Used to Be |
| D．The Big Changes of My Street |
If you look for a book as a present for a child，you will be spoiled for choice even in a year there is no new Harry Potter． J．K Rowling’s wizard is not alone．The past decade has been a harvest for good children’s books, which has set off a large quantity of films and an increased sales of classics such as The Lord of the Rings．
Yet despite that, reading is increasingly unpopular among children．According to statistics in 1997, 23% said they didn’t like reading at all．In 2003, 35% didn’t．And around 6% of the children leave primary school each year unable to read properly．
Maybe the decline is caused by the increasing availability of computes games．Maybe the books boom has affected only the top of the educational pile．Either way, Chancellor Cordon Brown plans to change things for the bottom of the class．In his pre-budget report, he announced the national project of Reading Recovery to help the children struggling most．
Reading Recovery is aimed at six year olds, who receive four months of individual daily half-hour classes with a specially trained teacher．An evaluation this year reported that children on the school made 20 months’ progress in just one year, whereas similarly weak readers without special help made just five months’ progress ,and so ended the year even further below the level expected for their age．
International research tends to find that when British children leave primary school, they read well, but read text often for fun than those elsewhere．Reading for fun matters because children who are keen on reading can report lifelong pleasure and loving books is an excellent indicator of future educational success．According to the OECD, being a regular and enthusiastic reader is of great advantage．Which of the following is true of Paragraph 1?
| A．Many children’s books have been adapted from films． |
| B．Many high-quality children’s books have been published． |
| C．The sales of classics have led to the popularity of films． |
| D．The sales of presents for children have increased． |
Statistics suggested that____________．
| A．the number of top students increased with the use of computers |
| B．a decreasing number of children showed interest in reading |
| C．a minority of primary school children read properly |
| D．a huge percentage of children read regularly |
What do we know about Reading Recovery?
| A．An evaluation of it will be made sometime this year． |
| B．Weak readers on the project were the most hardworking． |
| C．It aims to train special teachers to help children with reading． |
| D．Children on the project showed noticeable progress in reading． |
Reading for fun is important because book-loving children _________．
| A．take greater advantage of the project |
| B．show the potential to enjoy a long life |
| C．are likely to succeed in their education． |
| D．would make excellent future researchers |
The aim of this text would probably be _________．
| A．to overcome primary school pupils reading difficulty． |
| B．to encourage the publication of more children’s books |
| C．to remind children of the importance of reading for fun |
| D．to introduce a way to improve early children reading |