According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the U.K. has about 7.7 million families with dependent children, of which 3.7 million have just one child, compared to 3 million with two and 1.1 million with three children or more. The number of families today with just one dependent child is now 47 percent and will likely rise to more than 50 percent in a decade. As the ONS confirms, “It appears that families are getting smaller.”
One obvious reason for this could be that women are putting off having children until they have established careers when they miss the best time to be a mother. But it could just as well be a matter of choice. Parents must consider the rising cost of living, combined with economic uncertainty and an increasingly difficult job market. And this trend may continue growing as having an only child becomes more normal, which seems to be the mood on the mothers’ online forum Mumsnet, where one member announced that she “just wanted to start a positive thread(t帖子) about how good it is to have an only child”.
She had received 231 replies, overwhelmingly in the same high spirits. Parents of only children insist there are plenty of benefits. Nicola Kelly, a writer and lecturer who grew up as an only child and is now a married mother of one, says her 15-year-old son seems more grown-up in many ways than his classmates.
Not all products of single-child families are as keen to repeat the experience. In a moving recent account journalist Janice Turner wrote about her own keenness to “squeeze out two sons just 22 months apart” as a reaction to her only-child upbringing(抚养).
She was placed on a high position by her doting(溺爱的) parents, whom she punished with an “impolite, willful” rejection of everything they stood for. Desperate for a close friend she was repeatedly hurt by rejection and refers to her childhood as being “misery”.
Writer and doctor Dr. Dorothy Rowe, a member of the British Psychological Society, says that we all interpret events in our own individual way and there are some children who no matter what their circumstances feel slighted, while other children see the advantages of their situation.
However, the one part of life that is unlikely to get any easier for only children is when they grow up and find themselves looking after their own parents as they become older.According to the passage, how many families in the U.K. have an only child?
| A．7.7million | B．3.7 million |
| C．3 million | D．1.1 million |
The passage is written with the purpose of ________.
| A．illustrating the strength and weakness of having an only child |
| B．analyzing the reasons why having an only child becomes popular |
| C．presenting us with different opinions about having an only child |
| D．guiding people to look at the same issue from different perspectives |
What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 4 mean?
| A．Nearly half of families intend to have just one child. |
| B．All people don’t stand for the idea of having an only child. |
| C．Some people fail to recognize the advantage of having an only child. |
| D．People brought up in an only child family resist downsizing the family. |
From what Dr. Dorothy Rowe said, we know that ________.
| A．journalist Janice Turner experienced a miserable childhood |
| B．she has a positive attitude towards Janice Turner’s reaction |
| C．it’s necessary for us to look at the event from our own angle |
| D．some children are unable to make an objective assessment of their conditions |
What can be inferred from the passage?
| A．It’s normal to see the imperfection in character in only children. |
| B．Mumsnet is an online forum which promotes having an only child. |
| C．Economic development plays a determining role in the family size. |
| D．Only children will have difficulty in attending to their parents. |
How do you know if your home is an easy aim for thefts(偷窃)? Around the holidays, many families don’t consider taking prop
er measures to prevent their homes from suffering holiday thefts. With just a few simple steps, you can better make sure of the safety of your home during all of the holiday celebrations. Here are a few tips for making it difficult to tell you are away from home.
● Either have a trusted neighbor pick up your mail and newspapers, or tell your mailperson to hold your mail until you return. Nothing says “Hey, we are not home!” like when your postbox is filled with all kinds of mails and you have many different newspapers in your driveway.
● Set several different lights in your house on random timers (随机定时器)。Don’t leave your outdoor lights on all the time. Instead, put your outside lights on timers to be on during the nights. If an outdoor light remains on for days at a time, it means that nobody is home to turn it off.
● If you have pets that you are not taking with you on vacation, leave them with a friend, rather than having someone come into your house every day to take care of them. When thefts see a neighbor or friend entering your house every day, they will know you are not home.
● Close all your curtains when you leave town. This is effective to deter possible thefts, as no one can see what is in your house. If they don’t know what there is to take, then the risk is even greater for them to break in.
● This article just has suggested a few tips to help you keep your house safe while you are on holiday. Nothing can truly protect your home unless you have it monitored by a professional home security system.. What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．to tell us how to prevent the thefts around the holidays |
| B．to let the outdoor lights on all the time |
| C．to tell us many families suffering from the thefts while they are on holiday |
| D．to tell you to have your neighbor go to your house to take care of your pet. |
.If you are on holiday in other places, the lights in your house should________.
A. be lit in an irregular way B. be kept on all the night
C. be replaced by random timersD be turned on only once one day.To make your home is well protected, what does the writer advise you to do?
| A．Have all the curtains closed | B．Stop your mail service at once |
| C．Turn to your close neighbors or friends | D．Equip your home with security system |
. Most of the tips mentioned in the text seem to ______.
| A．be very popular with families | B．have no effect on preventing thefts |
| C．give a false impression on thefts. | D．be a little hard to be brought into effect. |
.The underlined word “deter ”probably means “___________ ”.
| A．discover | B．discourage | C．surprise | D．attract |
It is common to consider learning as something that takes place in school, but much of human learning occurs outside the classroom, even from birth and people continue to learn throughout their lives.
Even before they enter school, young children learn to walk, to talk, and to use their hands to use toys, food, and other objects. They use all of their senses to learn about the sights,sounds,tastes, and smells in their environments. They learn how to communicate with their parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and other people important to their world. When they enter school, children learn basic academic subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics, They also continue to learn a great deal outside the classroom. They learn which behaviors are likely to be rewarded and which are likely to be punished. They learn social skills for communicating with other children. After they finish school, people must learn to deal with the many major changes that affect their lives, such as getting married, raising children, and finding and keeping a job.
Because learning continues throughout our lives and affects almost everything we do, the study of learning is important in many different fields. Teachers need to understand the best ways to educate children. Psychologists, social workers, criminologists, and other human-service workers need to understand how certain experiences change people’s behaviors. Employers, politicians, and advertisers make use of the principles of learning to affect the behavior of workers, voters, and consumers.
Learning is closely related to memory, which is the storage of information in the brain. Psychologists who study memory are interested in how the brain stores knowledge, where this storage takes place and how the brain later outputs knowledge when we need it. In contrast, psychologists who study learning are more interested in behavior and how behavior changes as a result of a person’s experiences.
The author thinks “Learning” in the passage most refers to.
| A．life-long learning | B．family learning |
| C．learning after graduation | D．behavior learning |
The underlined “siblings” in the second paragraph probably means
| A．teachers | B．classmates | C．doctors | D．brothers or sisters |
Which period of children’s life do they begin to learn how to behave well according to the passage? .
| A．After they go into society | B．Before they enter school |
| C．When they are at school | D．Before they are born |
In this century the traditional American family is constantly faced with the threat of breakdown. Some sociologists suggest that one little-noticed cause may be the introduction of the TV dinner.
Before the appearance of television sets, the American dinner was a big event for the family. In many homes, dinner time may be the only time when everyone got together. A typical dinner was usually in three stages. In the preparation stage, the children and Father frequently helped with setting while Mother put the last touches on the roast. In the eating stage, family members shared the day’s experiences and more than food was eaten. In this stage families got to know one another and made joint decisions around the dinner table, and thus the family unit was strengthened. In the cleaning-up stage, children or Father again gave their hands, so that their importance to the home community was clear. Unfortunately, all of these have been removed by a product-the television set.
By the beginning of the 1980s, the typical American family dinner was just twenty minutes long. The speed-up of the once-leisurely experiences is clearly connected to the pace of modern life and maybe a model of the modern life is the TV dinners-meals designed to be eaten from the beginning to the end of a half-hour program. The once family affair has now become nothing more than the use of a fork and knife.
The underlined word in the second paragraph can be replaced by
| A．big | B．important | C．combined | D．separate |
In the past, Americans tended to .
| A．spend more time eating their food at dinner table | B．eat more food than they have today |
| C．spend more time talking about their day’s experiences at dinner table | |
| D．talk so much that they forgot to eat |
The shortening of the dinner time in America is related to .
| A．The TV programs | B．the pace of modern life |
| C．the wide use of electrical equipment | D．the popularity of fast food |
. The best title for this passage might be
| A．Talk at Dinner Table | B．TV Dinner | C．Pace of Modern Life | D．Problems Caused by TV |
John Blanchard was studying the crowd making their way through the station. He was looking for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn’t, the girl with the rose.
When reading a book in a Florida library a year before, John became interested not in the contents of the book, but in the notes penciled in the margin(（空白处）. The handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and beautiful mind. He discovered the former owner’s name in the front of the book: Miss Hollis Maynell.
He located her address and wrote a letter introducing himself. The next day he was shipped overseas to serve in the army. During the next year,they grew to know each other through the mail and their friendship developed. John requested a photograph, but she refused, saying if he really cared, it wouldn’t matter what
she looked like. When the day finally came for him to return home, their first meeting was suggested-7:00 p.m. at the Grand Central Station in New York.
She wrote, “You’ll recognize me by the red rose I wear on my coat.” So now John was in the station to meet the girl with a rose.
As a pretty and slim girl in green came over, John noticed her blue eyes like flowers in spring. He walked directly towards her, entirely forgetting she was not wearing a rose. As John came closer to her, he saw another woman with a red rose stood nearby. Well past 40, this woman had graying hair done under a worn hat. Seeing the girl in green walk quickly away, John felt as if he were split(劈开) in two. He desired to follow that girl, but longed for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned and supported him.
The woman looked gentle and sensible. John went to her, saying, “I’m Captain John Blanchard. You must be Miss Maynell. I am glad to meet you here. May I take you to dinner?”
She replied with a smile, “I don’t know what this is about. But the lady in green who just went by, begged me to wear this rose on my coat. She said if you asked me out to dinner, I’d tell you she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test!”
John was eager to know the former owner of the book because .
| A．he was very interested in the contents of the book |
| B．he was impressed by the notes written by the owner |
| C．the book offered him practical and valuable advice |
| D．there was address of the former owner in the book |
What happened to John after getting in touch with Miss Hollis Maynell?
| A．He began to serve the army abroad. | B．He was seriously wounded in the war |
| C．He went on a business tour in Europe | D．He asked Miss Maynell for a photo |
What do we know about the woman with a rose?
| A．She was Miss Maynell’s close companion |
| B．She was a conductor working in the station |
| C．She knew nothing about John’s appointment |
| D．She was paid to carry out a love test on John |
Which would be the best title of the text?
| A．The Meeting in the Station | B．The Girl with a Rose |
| C．A Soldier and a Girl | D．A Meeting of the Heart |
FU Yuan has been left at home with his grandparents since he was one month old. His mom and dad left to work in Fujian Province. For the past eight years, Fu has only seen his parents three times although they send home 500 yuan every two or three months.
Fu Xiaoyu, 16, has had to live alone since her grandmother passed away three years ago. Her parents do not want to renounce their jobs at a clothing factory in Guangdong Province. Nor can they afford the cost of sending her to a school in the city where they work.
These are just two of the 29 kids that 16-year-olds Huang Ruoqing and Zhang Linna at Beijing No 4 High School talked with this summer in Guixiang Village in Sichuan Province.
What Huang and Zhang learned from their three-day visit shocked them. They wrote down all the kids’ stories in a moving 40-page essay filled with statistical charts.(统计表)
In the poor village with a population of 2,118 people, 582 adults have left to find work, leaving 156 children without parents. Among these so-called left-behind kids, 88 percent of them live with their grandparents, five percent live with uncles or aunts and seven percent have to live on their own.
To Huang and Zhang’s surprise, 80 percent of the children said they love going to school. Even
though, some children have to walk along the hilly roads for two hours to get there.
However, for this village’s students studying is not their first task. Housework, such as helping feed pigs or buffalos(水牛) and taking care of old grandparents, younger sisters or brothers, takes up a considerable amount of their time.
Despite having to work hard at home, over 65 percent of the young interviewees would prefer their parents’ stay away working rather than returning to live with them.
“These kids are understanding and considerate and know how important money is for their families. Their little wishes like having dinner with their parents inspire us never to take what we have had for granted,” Zhang said.
Which of the following statements is NOT TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Fu Xiaoyu’s parents can’t earn enough money to send her to school. |
| B．Huang Ruoqing and Zhang Linna talked with 29 children this summer during their research. |
| C．Some left-behind kids live with uncles, aunts, or grandparents and others live by themselves. |
| D．More than half of the left-behind kids prefer their parents’ staying away working. |
It is implied but not directly stated that
| A．Fu Yuan’s parents send him 500 yuan every 2 or 3 months |
| B．Huang Ruoqing and Zhang Linna wrote an essay according to the left-behind kids’ stories |
| C．Many left-behind kids love studying and going to school in spite of many hardships |
| D．The time that the left-behind kids spend on housework is more than that on study |
What’s the exact meaning of the underlined word “renounce”in the second paragraph?
| A．Keep | B．continue | C．give up | D．get |
Which of the following is the best title of the passage?
| A．Kids Are Left Alone | B．The True Story of Home Alone |
| C．Kids Miss Parents | D．Parents and Kids |