The Verizon Innovative App Challenge gives kids a chance to create apps that can solve problems in their community.
Do you want to make a difference in your community? The Verizon Innovative App Challenge can get you started. The first step is to think of a problem in your community. The next step is to create an app that can solve the problem.
Groups of five to seven students in middle school or high school, led by a teacher, can enter the contest. First, teams compete on a local level. Teams that make it to the next round receive $5,000 for their schools. Finalists present their app ideas to judges in a live webinar (网络研讨会)．
Next, the judges pick national winners. The top eight teams receive an additional $15,000 for their schools, and each team member receives a Samsung tablet. Plus, the winning teams get the chance to bring their app to life.
A group of six girls from Los Fresnos, Texas, won the second annual Verizon Innovative App Challenge. They came up with the Hello Navi app concept, short for “hello navigation”. The app was designed to help visuallyimpaired (视力受损的) students navigate their school by using an internal compass and voiceover technology. Read more about the team in September 19, 2016 issue of TIME For Kids: Edition 3－4.
Do you have an app idea that could help solve a local issue? The deadline to register is November 24, 2016. Find more information and register your team at www. verizonfoundation. org/appchallenge.
Here are some tips from the Verizon Foundation to get you started：
•Get your team together for a brainstorming meeting. Write out all the ideas that come to mind.
• Don't ignore challenges. Think of the problems that exist in your community.
•Ask family, friends, and people in your community to share their thoughts about problems that they want to see solved.
1.The Verizon Innovative App Challenge was launched to ________.
A．call on students to put their ideas into practice
B．inspire students to focus on social problems
C．let students create apps to solve problems
D．encourage students to cooperate with teachers
2.In which order should one follow to enter the Verizon Innovative App Challenge?
①You think of a problem in your community.
②Your team compete against others in your city.
③You invent an app with your partners and teachers.
④Winning teams can compete to become national winners.
A．①②③④ B．①③②④
C．①④②③ D．④①③②
3.What does the 5th paragraph mainly talk about?
A. The winning team and their app of the second Verizon Innovative App Challenge.
B．An app designed to help the disabled to work on the computer.
C．An app concept that navigates blind students to explore nature.
D．Six girls from Los Fresnos, Texas who signed up for the contest.
4.What's the purpose of the passage?
A．To tell readers how to solve a local issue.
B．To invite kids to join in the Verizon Innovative App Challenge.
C．To offer readers information about a talent show.
D．To appeal to adults to make contributions to society.
Looking good can matter a lot when you are a teenager. Of course the budget(财政） matters a lot, too. Luckily, fashion trends (流行趋势) in the UK mean that getting the right image doesn’t have to cost the earth. Here’s a quick guide to which looks are hot this year.
For girls, the 70s are back. Wide-legged jeans, platform shoes and skirts that reach the feet are again in fashion among UK teens, topped off with colored, shining eyeshadow. Girls can have fun mixing and matching bright shades. Colors like pink, orange and light yellow-green are all perfectly fit. Shorts and mini-skirts are still popular in cold weather. By wearing a pair of tights underneath ( 在..底下), girls can stay warm as well as fashionable in the winter.
How about boys? To look lively, fans of skateboards and snowboards can dress in skinny jeans accompanied by a T-shirt topped off with a baseball cap or a woolen hat. Music is often an inspiration for fashion, and hip-hop music fans like to dress in baggy jeans, T-shirts, baseball caps and sneakers. For those who can afford it, designer clothing is a must, especially if the logo is showing.
1.The underlined words “ cost the earth “ in Paragraph 1 probably mean ______.
A. be difficult B. be important
C. be special D. be expensive
2.According to the passage, if a girl wants to look cool, she will wear ________.
A. skinny jeans B. designer clothing
C. a woolen hat D. a full-length skirt
3.What can we infer from the passage?
A. Old clothes look hot this year.
B. Music can affect fashion trends.
C. A T-shirt is really a good choice for fans.
D. Designer clothing is what teens must have.
4. The author of the passage aims to show teenagers how to ________.
A. look fashionable
B. choose brands
C. spend money when young
D.stay warm in the winter
You’ve probably heard about sports coaches, fitness coaches, voice and music teachers, career counselors（咨询） psychiatrists (精神科医师) and other specialists who teach skills and help us cope with daily life.
But there’s a rapidly growing kind of professionals who do a little bit of everything. She or he is called a “ life coach”. People who are at the crossroads in their life, and corporations that want to give certain employees a career boost , are turning to them for help.
The idea that one person’s success story can change other people’s life for the better goes back at least to the 1930s. Dale Carneigie’s famous self-improvement program “ How to Win Friends and Influence People” came along soon thereafter.
But this new style of life coaches includes more than enthusiastic speakers or writers. They use their own experiences in business, sports, military service, or psychotherapy (心理疗法) to help others make critical life decisions. They often give their approaches a slogan, such as “energy coaching” or “fearless living” or “working yourself happy”.
Dave Lakhani in Boise, Idaho, for instance, works with salespeople to develop what he calls a “road map”. He says an ongoing relationship with a coach is like having a personal fitness trainer for one’s career and life outside work.
Lakhani’s Bold Approach coaching firm also donates some of its time to help people who are anything but successful---including battered (殴打) women and struggling single mothers.
But others in the so-called “helping professions” are not thrilled about the life-coaching movement. They say that anyone, trained or untrained, can call himself or herself a life coach, and that slick(华而不实的) promoters who mess with people’s lives can do more harm than good.
1.Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
A. Working Yourself Happy.
B. How to Cope with Daily Life with Life Coaches.
C. Life Coaches Help with Tough Decisions.
D. The Life-Coaching Movement.
2. What is a “life coach”?
A. A career counselor who teaches skills.
B. A psychiatrist who helps us deal with daily life.
C. A fitness coach who teaches us lessons.
D. A specialist who helps us make important life decisions.
3.The last paragraph is mainly about__________.
A. the introductions of life coaches
B. the disagreements of life coaches
C. the effects of life coaches
D. the experiences of life coaches
Suddenly, a man driving a motor car _______ the girl’s bag and took it away, ______ into the darkness.
A. seizing , disappeared B. seized, disappeared
C. seizing, disappearing D. seized, disappearing
Most people think ________ necessary to learn a foreign language nowadays.
A. thatB. this C. it D. them
--- I haven’t met anyone else here who can speak better French than you.
--- Actually, I _______ in France for almost ten years.
A. lived B. live C. had lived D. have lived
