Dear Peter,
I’m very glad to receive your e-mail asking for information about the host family we have arranged﹀you to stay with．
Locating in a beautiful and quiet neighborhood, the house was big enough to enable you to have a room of your own．Apart from the convenient public transportation, our private car will make your visits difficult．Because all the family members can speak fluently English and have outgoing personalities, I’m sure you will have no trouble to communicating with them．Above all, they hosted the American student last year, through that they gained lots of experience．In addition, the hostess cooking will guarantee you a wonderful chance of tasting delicious Chinese food．
Hope you enjoy your stay here.
Yours,
Li Hua
Africa is a very diverse land with many different tribes. One tradition that many of these groups share is painting or marking their bodies and faces in color. They do this for many reasons. Some marks are used to identify people as part of a group. ____1.___ Let’s look at some different examples of body painting.
____2.___ Among the Masai of East Africa, when men are old enough to marry and make decisions for their people, they participate in a special ceremony in which they paint their heads and faces red. This ceremony takes place every seven to fourteen years, so there is not an exact age for participating in it. The Samburu, also from East Africa, like to paint their faces and hair red because they think it looks attractive.
____3.____ To show that he has killed a lion, a man will paint his body with a natural white material, making special marks to represent this accomplishment. The Masai men also use this white to show that they are no longer boys and are considered adults.
One quite unusual example of face painting is done by the Wodaabe people of West Africa. Once a year, they have a beauty contest for men. ___4.___ Then they add white and black circles and lines. Black paint is used near the eyes and on the lips to draw attention to the whiteness of their eyes and teeth, which the Wodaabe consider most beautiful.____ 5.__.
As you travel, enjoy the beautiful and bright colors of Africa.
A. Red is the common color in body painting because it often represents health and long life.
B. Other marks are used for ceremonies such as weddings and during times of war.
C. The ceremony expresses hope for rain.
D. The Masai men also have a unique way of showing that they are brave.
E. The women then decide which man they like best.
F. The men pretend to fight each other.
G. The men paint their faces yellow and red.
“A very disruptive(调皮捣蛋的) six-year-old child kicked my legs and clawed at my hand,” said one teacher. “ I broke up a fight and was kicked between my legs,” said another. Many people have heard stories like this. But the situation is more worrying still and it involves parents.
Every child, regardless of the circumstances into which they are born, has the right to achieve their potential, regardless of their parents’ wealth and class. And we recognize that, as a nation, it is a long way to achieve this goal. But with rights come responsibilities and what worries people is that we are in danger of ignoring the latter.
Far too many children are behaving badly at school, even to the point of being violent to staff. This is terrible enough, but it is hard to be surprised since many children are just mirroring the behaviour of their parents.
My members tell me that parents also come into school often and threaten staff and some staff have been attacked by a pupil’s parents. One father encouraged his child to start a fight on the playground before school started. A primary teacher reported that a parent shouted at him. We need to have a serious and sensible debate about the roles and responsibilities of parents and the support that they can reasonably expect of schools and teachers.
Children will not learn how to behave as social beings if they are stuck in front of the TV for hours every day. They need their parents to show an interest in them and to spend time with them, helping them to play with their peers(同龄人) and to learn the rules of social behavior.
Children are now arriving at school socially undeveloped, increasingly unable to dress themselves, unable to use the toilet properly, unable to hold a knife and fork and unused to eating at a table, Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, writes in today’s Observer. Instead of taking responsibility themselves, too many parents expect teachers to control their children’s behaviour and wellbeing, she adds. Bousted says one mother blamed staff when she discovered that her 16-year-old son was smoking.
We are in danger of becoming a nation of families living separate lives under one roof. The bedroom, once a place to sleep, has become the living space for the young. Spending hours in front of computer screens, on social networking sites or being immersed(沉迷于) in computer games, children and young people spend little time with their parents. Parents are unable to monitor just what their children are watching.
Schools cannot right the wrongs of society and teachers cannot become substitute parents. Both parties need to work together. Parents must be helped and given confidence to take back control. They are responsible for setting boundaries for their children's behaviour and sticking to those boundaries. They are responsible for setting a good example to their children and for devoting that most precious of resources — time — so that children come to school ready and willing to learn.
1.In the opinion of the writer, what problem do people ignore?
A. The violence in the school
B. The study pressure of students.
C. The responsibilities of the students
D. The right to achieve students’ potential.
2.The underlined part in Paragraph 7 means _____.
A. parents care little about children’s life at home
B. parents and children live in their separate rooms
C. children don’t live with their parents in the same house
D. children live a different life from that of parents at home
3.The author’s attitude to the behaviour of parents may be ______.
A. dissatisfied B. indifferent
C. understanding D. tolerant
4.From the last paragraph, we can infer that ______.
A. teachers have no responsibility for playing the role of parents
B. schools can’t correct the wrongs that society does to teachers
C. students are responsible for making themselves known in society
D. parents should spend time with children to make them ready to learn
This year’s World Food Prize will honor two leaders of hunger-fighting groups based in the United States. The winners are David Beckmann of Bread for the World and Jo Luck of Heifer International. They will share the prize of 250,000 dollars. The World Food Prize usually goes to researchers or top policy officials. This is the first time it will recognize the work of nongovernmental groups.
Heifer International provides donated animals and training to farmers in 50 countries. Jo Luck remains president until next year. Under her leadership, the group’s budget grew from less than 10,000,000 dollars to more than 130,000,000 dollars. Jo Luck, “People pass on their gifts of not just animals but also gifts of training and leadership. We have seen cases where we have been gone 5 and 10 years and we go back and they have developed roads and built schools, and they have other communities receiving the animals and the training. You just give them those resources and that training and opportunity, and you cannot hold them back.” She told the story of a woman from a poor village in Zimbabwe. A family member helped send her to school in the United States with earnings from a donated milk goat. She received a doctoral degree. Jo Luck, “That is what a goat did. That is one example. The animal is only the catalyst（催化剂）. That is the beginning of many other things that follow.”
David Beckmann became president of Bread for the World in 1991. He is an economist and a Christian clergyman（牧师）. Bread for the World organizes people from religious and non-religious groups to write, call and visit members of Congress（国会）. The purpose is to support measures to improve the lives of the poor. David Beckmann points to big increase in American development assistance. He said, “I think that would not have happened without the support of hundreds of thousands of people and churches that are part of Bread for the World and that keep the pressure on their members of Congress.” The prize committee also credited his efforts with helping to increase aid to needy families in the United States.
1.The World Food Prize honors ________.
A. people who fight against hunger
B. researchers or top policy officials
C. people from nongovernmental groups
D. people who have advanced human development
2.Why does Jo Luck receive the prize?
A. Under her leadership, people develop roads and build schools.
B. She has served Heifer International for almost 20 years.
C. Under her leadership, Heifer International helps farmers in 50 countries.
D. She makes the group’s budget grow to more than 130 million.
3.What has David Beckmann done to deserve the prize?
A. He has trained farmers in 50 countries.
B. He has made a great contribution to science.
C. He has led Bread for the World for more than 20 years.
D. He has aimed to support measures to improve the lives of the poor.
“Now I just don’t believe that.” Surely all of us, at some point, have watched a movie and thought: It’s simply badly researched, or, the makers must think we’re fools.
If movies were completely scientifically accurate, they’d probably be as interesting as a Physics 101 lecture. In real life, there are no explosions in space, gas usually doesn’t explode from a lit cigarette, and Bruce Willis / Jackie Chan / Will Smith would most likely be in a coma(昏迷) after getting kicked in the head.
Recently, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph ran a humorous piece on unconvincing tech moments from some top movies. Let’s see what they are all about.
Telegraph writer Tom Chivers’ first example is from the end-of-the-world movie Independence Day, in which a character comes up with a virus capable of destroying Windows, the computer system the alien(外星人的) spacecraft uses. “It’s a good thing they didn’t have Norton antivirus,” jokes Chivers.
It’s just one case of a movie that takes a lot of license with its science. Another one Chivers mentions is from Star Wars, where glowing beams of light traveling through space look very impressive. The problem is that in space there are no air particles(颗粒) for the light to reflect off. In reality, they’d not be seen, which wouldn’t look so cool on the big screen.
Chivers’ second piece of Star Wars nonsense is the sound the fighters make in the movies: “ the bellow(咆哮) of an elephant mixed with a car driving on a wet road”. But sound needs a medium to travel through, like air. In space, there wouldn’t actually be any sound at all.
Few people would deny that the mind-bending Matrix films make for great viewing, but for Chivers, the science in the movies is a little silly.
And finally: as Chivers points out, DAN is not replaceable. But this bit of elementary genetics passed the makers of the 2002 Bond film Die another Day by. In the film the villain(坏人) has “gene therapy” to change his appearance and his DNA, which is completely impossible.
1.What does the text mainly deal with?
A. Plots of some famous movies. B. Characters in space movies.
C. Popularity of space movies. D. Mistakes made in some movies.
2.From the first two paragraphs we can know that some movie makers ____.
A. went against general knowledge of science
B. didn’t pay attention to the viewers’ real demand
C. overestimated viewers’ appreciation of movies.
D. didn’t try their best to improve the quality of the movies.
3.What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 3 refer to?
A. The newspapers. B. Unconvincing tech moments
C. Some top movies. D. Heroes in the movies.
4.We can learn from Paragraph 7 that ____.
A. most people like Matrix films
B. the truth of Matrix films remains in doubt
C. few people think Matrix films silly
D. Chivers thinks science is unacceptable
Andy is the most unreasonable, pigheaded life form in the world, and he makes me so angry I could scream! Of course, I love him like a brother. I have to because he is my brother. More than that, he is my twin! That’s right. Andy and Amy(that’s me) have the same curly(卷曲的) hair and dark eyes and equally stubborn character. Yet, though we may look alike, on most issues(事情) we usually take completely opposite positions. If I say day, you can count on Andy to say night.
Just this week, the hot topic in school was all about the PTA’S proposal(提议) to adopt a school dress principle. Every student would be required to wear a uniform. Uniforms! Can you imagine? Oh, they would be uniforms in color. The dress style would be sort of loose and free.
I think a dress principle is a good idea. The reason is simple. School is tough enough without worrying about looking cool every single day. The fact is, the less I have to decide first thing in the morning, the better. I also wouldn’t mind not having to see guys wearing oversized jeans and shirts. And I certainly would welcome not seeing kids showing off designer clothes.
Andy is surprised at my opinion. He says he can’t believe that I would be willing to give up my all-American teenage birthright by dressing like — well, like a typical teenager. Last night, he even dragged out Mom and Dad’s high school photo albums. What a couple of peace-loving hippies(嬉皮士) they were!
The vote for or against uniforms took place later that day. The results of the vote and the headmaster’s decision will be announced next week. I wonder what it will be. I know how I voted, and I’m pretty sure I know how Andy voted.
How would you vote—for or against?
1.The story is about___________.
A. a school policy decision that will affect parents and students
B. a personal experience and is told in the first person
C. a historical event and is told in the third person
D. a conflict of opinions between boys and girls
2.Amy’s position on school uniforms is most likely based on________.
A. logical conclusions drawn form her own observation and personal experience
B. an aggressive reaction to what she has been told by people in authority
C. her preference for designer-labeled clothes
D. not liking anything her brother likes
3.Which of the following is the best statement of Andy’s position?
A. School clothing should reflect parents’ values.
B. Teenagers should never follow the latest fashions in dress.
C. How one dresses should be an expression of one’s individuality.
D. Wearing school uniforms means one less decision every morning.
4.What is the best title for the text?
A. A School Dress Principle.
B. My Stubborn Twin Brother
C. Endless Fights with My Brother
D. For or Against?--- That Is the Question
