In the fall of 1985, I was a bright-eyed girl heading off to Howard University, aiming at a legal career and dreaming of sitting on a Supreme Court bench somewhere. Twenty-one years later I am still a bright-eyed dreamer and one with quite a different tale to tell.
My grandma, an amazing woman, graduated from college at the age of 65. She was the first in our family to reach that goal. But one year after I started college, she developed cancer. I made the choice to withdraw from college to care for her. It meant that school and my personal dream would have to wait.
Then I got married with another dream: building my family with a combination of adopted and biological children. In 1999, we adopted our first son. To lay eyes on him was fantastic and very emotional. A year later came our second adopted boy. Then followed son No. 3. In 2003, I gave birth to another boy.
You can imagine how fully occupied I became, raising four boys under the age of 8. Our home was a complete zoo---a joyous zoo. Not surprising, I never did make it back to college full-time. But I never gave up on the dream either. I had only one choice: to find a way. That meant taking as few as one class each semester.
The hardest part was feeling guilty about the time I spent away from the boys. They often wanted me to stay home with them. There certainly were times I wanted to quit, but I knew I should set an example for them to follow through the rest of their lives.
In 2007, I graduated from the University of North Carolina. It took me over 21 years to get my college degree！
I am not special, just single-minded. It always struck me that when you’re looking at a big challenge from the outside it looks huge, but when you’re in the middle of it, it just seems normal. Everything you want won’t arrive in your life on one day. It’s a process. Remember: little steps add up to big dreams. When the author went to Howard University, her dream was to be __________.
| A．a writer | B．a teacher |
| C．a judge | D．a doctor |
Why did the author quit school in her second year of college?
| A．She wanted to study by herself. |
| B．She fell in love and got married. |
| C．She suffered from a serious illness. |
| D．She decided to look after her grandma. |
What can we learn about the author from Paragraphs 4 and 5?
| A．She was busy yet happy with her family life. |
| B．She ignored her guilty feeling for her sons. |
| C．She wanted to remain a full-time housewife. |
| D．She was too confused to make a correct choice. |
What does the author mostly want to tell us in the last paragraph?
| A．Failure is the mother of success. |
| B．Little by little, one goes far. |
| C．Every coin has two sides. |
| D．Well begun, half done. |
Which of the following can best describe the author?
| A．Caring and determined. |
| B．Honest and responsible. |
| C．Ambitious and sensitive. |
| D．Innocent and single-minded. |
“It hurts me more than you”, and “This is for your own good”—these are the statements my mother used to make years ago when I had to learn Latin, clean my room, stay home and do homework.
That was before we entered the permissive period in education in which we decided it was all right not to push our children to achieve their best in school. The schools and the educators made it easy for us. They taught that it was all right to be parents who take a let-alone policy. We stopped making our children do homework. We gave them calculators, turned on the television, left the teaching to the teachers and went on vacation.
Now teachers, faced with children who have been developing at their own pace for the past 15 years, are realizing we’ve made a terrible mistake. One such teacher is Sharon Klompus who says of her students “so passive” and wonders what has happened. Nothing is demanded of them, she believes. Television, says Klompus, contributes to children’s passivity. “We’re talking about a generation of kids who’ve never been hurt or hungry. They have learned somebody will always do it for them, instead of saying ‘go and look it up’, you tell them the answer. It takes greater energy to say no to a kid.”
Yes, it does. It takes energy and it takes work. It’s time for parents to end their vacation and come back to work. It’s time to take the car away, to turn the TV off, to tell them it hurts you more than them but it’s for their own good. It’s time to start telling them no again.We learn from the passage that the author’s mother used to lay emphasis on（强调）.
| A．his learning a foreign language |
| B．his ability to control behavior |
| C．his natural development |
| D．his school education |
According to the author, “the permissive period” in Paragraph 2 means a time.
| A．when children are allowed to do what they wish to |
| B．when everything can be taught at school |
| C．when every child can be educated |
| D．when children are permitted to receive education |
What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Parents should leave their kids alone |
| B．Kids should have more activities at school. |
| C．It’s time to be stricter with our kids. |
| D．Parents should set a good example to their kids. |
Social Program: 22nd—26th August 2011
Monday Evening—Study Centre or Sports Park
Study Center: The school will be open from 7.45 pm to 9.35pm.
Sports Park: Aerobics, Swimming or Fitness Training (with a Fitness Card).
Tuesday Evening—Cinema
Cinema: To get your free ticket, you must write down which film you would like to watch. See the leaflet on the board for this evening’s UCI Cinema program. For more information about the films, visit the UCI website www.uci.co.uk or see the film section in this week’s Time Out magazine.
Wednesday Evening—Study Centre of Tennis Coaching
Study Center: The school will be open from 7.35 pm to 9.35 pm.
Tennis Coaching: With former Junior Wimbledon tennis player Stuart Silvester.
Thursday Evening—Chinese Party
Chinese Party: Come along and enjoy the hospitality of the Chinese students! You can try delicious Chinese food and learn about Chinese traditions. Please note that you should eat your evening meal at your home-stay, as the food is a taster and not a full meal. Non alcoholic and alcoholic drinks will be served.
Friday afternoon—Historical Walking Tour or Sports Parks
Historical Walking Tour: This afternoon you will have the opportunity to visit parts of Norwich you may have otherwise missed, with a professional guide. In medieval times Norwich was the second most important city in England and this afternoon you can learn some of the interesting history of our fine city.
Sports Park: Badminton, Basketball, Fitness Training (with a Fitness Card), Football, Squash, Swimming or Volleyball.
Please sign early if you wish to play any of the sports listed above.You can do all the following things during the weekday except ___________.
| A．going to the cinema | B．going to the Chinese party |
| C．taking a historical walking tour | D．taking a mountain climbing tour |
The passage may probably be found ___________.
| A．in a school’s bulletin board | B．in a school’s text book |
| C．in a latest newspaper | D．in a fashion magazine |
From the passage we know that ___________.
| A．students have to pay for the film tickets |
| B．some of the students in the school are Chinese |
| C．Norwich is the second largest city in Britain |
| D．the school is closed during the daytime |
From the passage we can infer that __________.
| A．students in the school can have access to computers |
| B．students in the school only have morning classes |
| C．the school often serves Chinese food to students |
| D．every Friday afternoon the students will have a tour |
India is a developing country. It has thousands of years of tradition and culture. Different types of people live in India. In the old days the educational institutions (教育机构) were called "ashramam" and teachers were "gurus". A guru was a respected person in society. Now we are living in the technological world. Big changes are occurring in people’s living. The influence of television, telephone, radio, computer, Internet and mobile phones is very strong in everyday life. But even today, teachers are role models for students. Teaching is still a respectable job. But there are great changes in the education system. One of the most obvious changes is that the influence of Western culture has increased. We are paying too much attention to doing business, just like the Western world. Teachers are likely to be influenced by this too, but it is not good. Teachers are nation builders. The development of any country depends upon its education system. All types of development are possible through education. Another change has happened in the curriculum. The curriculum connects the teacher and the student. While education is about learning, curriculum means the situations in which one learns. When we say that education deals with "what", then curriculum deals with "how" and "when". But at the moment, it is hard to say whether the curriculum is playing such a role.In India, an ashramam was _________.
| A．a teacher who was respected by people |
B．a person who worked for the government |
C．a place where students were taught |
D．a place where tradition and culture developed |
Which of the following is NOT a reason to change people’s lives in India?
| A．TV. | B．Computer. | C．Mobile phones. | D．Tradition. |
In modern society, teaching is considered as a job that __________.
| A．is respected | B．brings good luck |
C．is hopeless | D．connects with the fashion |
What is the author’s attitude towards educational change in India?
| A．He likes it. | B．He is annoyed at it. |
C．He is indifferent (冷漠的)to it. |
D．He is worried about it. |
Kasey Kaczmarek: When I read “Would my dad love me?” by Martha, I related to how Martha felt about her father. I always wondered if my dad cared about me, or if he even loved me. All the kids would be with their dads and they would ask me where my dad was, and I would tell them that he was out of town. For all you kids who have a dad, tell him how much you love him because there are plenty of kids who would love to have a dad.
Armen Abidian: This article describes everything about me and my life. When I was about 3 years old, my mother and father had a big argument and got divorced. Now I’m 13 years old and I haven’t seen my father for 10 years. Just like Martha, I don’t know what he looks like now, whether or not he’s got married to a different woman, or if he has another child.
Emma Ramirez: When Martha talked about how “most girls have dads who take them to their practices, buy them things and play with them”, I thought I was one of those girls. I never stopped to think about how there are girls who have always dreamed of having those things but don’t have a father. After reading what Martha wrote, I told myself I would always appreciate the days I spend with my dad because I am very lucky to have a dad who does so much for me.
Stephanie Felix: This article reminded me of how much I missed my dad when I was younger. I really relate to this article because I used to always wonder about my dad, but not any more. Life without my father has made me more independent and responsible. By reading this article I remember all of this and I was able to understand what the writer was talking about.The above four passages are most probably_______.
| A．comments on a book about a girl who has no father |
| B．comments on Martha’s opinion about parents’ love |
| C．four people’s thoughts after reading Martha’s article |
| D．letters to Martha to comfort her |
What does the passage suggest?
| A．Martha’s father didn’t love her |
| B．Martha didn’t grow up with her dad |
| C．Martha was brought up by her grandparents |
| D．Martha’s parents got divorced when she was 13 |
What does Kasey Kaczmarek suggest kids do?
| A．Not ask other kids where their dads are |
| B．Be kind to those kids who don’t have a dad |
| C．Tell their fathers how much they love them |
| D．Spend as much time with their fathers as possible |
After reading what Martha wrote, Emma Ramirez_______.
| A．decided to spend more time with her father |
| B．told herself to appreciate all that she had |
| C．realized how badly she behaved in the past |
| D．found how lucky she was to have a dad |
Everyone knows about straight-A students. We see them frequently in TV situation comedies and in movies like Revenge(报复)of the Nerds. They get high grades, all right, but only by becoming dull laborers, their noses always stuck in a book. They are not good at social communication and look clumsy(笨拙的) while doing sports.
How, then, do we account for Domenica Roman or Paul Melendres?
Roman is on the tennis team at Fairmont Senior High School. She also sings in the choral group, serves on the student council and is a member of the mathematics society. For two years she has maintained A’s in every subject. Melendres, a freshman at the University of New Mexico, was student-body president at Valley High School in Albuquerque. He played soccer and basketball well, exhibited at the science fair, and meanwhile worked as a reporter on a local television station. Being a speech giver at the graduation ceremony, he achieved straight A’s in his regular classes, plus bonus points for A’s in two college-level courses.
How do super-achievers like Roman and Melendres do it? Brains aren’t the only answer. “Top grades don’t always go to the brightest students,” declares Herbert Walberg, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has conducted major studies on super-achieving students. “Knowing how to make the most of your innate(天生的)abilities counts for more. Much more.”
In fact, Walberg says, students with high IQ sometimes don’t do as well as classmates with lower IQ. For them, learning comes too easily and they never find out how to get down.
Hard work isn’t the whole story, either. “It’s not how long you sit there with the books open,” said one of the many-A students we interviewed. “It’s what you do while you’re sitting.” Indeed, some of these students actually put in fewer hours of homework time than their lower-scoring classmates.
The kids at the top of the class get there by mastering a few basic techniques that others can readily learn.The underlined word “nerds” can probably be________ .
| A．dull bookworms lacking sports and social skills |
| B．successful top students popular with their peers |
| C．students with certain learning difficulties |
| D．born leaders crazy about social activities |
What can we conclude from the first paragraph?
| A．Most TV programs and films are about straight-A students. |
| B．People have unfavorable impression on straight-A students. |
| C．Everyone knows about straight-A students from TV or films. |
| D．Straight-A students are well admired by people in the society. |
Some students become super-achievers mainly because_________ .
| A．they are born cleverer than others |
| B．they work longer hours at study |
| C．they make full use of their abilities |
| D．they know the shortcut to success |
What will be talked about after the last paragraph?
| A．The interviews with more students. |
| B．The role IQ plays in learning well. |
| C．The techniques to be better learners. |
| D．The achievements top students make. |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．IQ is more important than hard work in study. |
| B．The brightest students can never get low grades. |
| C．Top students certainly achieve all-around developments. |
| D．Students with average IQ can become super-achievers. |