One day, Mary asked her mother, “Mum, what do people mean by saying they have a skeleton(骨架）in the closet(衣橱)?” Her mother paused thoughtfully and said, “Well, it’s something that you would rather not have anyone else know about. For example, if in the past, someone in Dad’s family had been arrested for stealing a horse, it would be a skeleton in his family’s closet. He really wouldn’t want any neighbor to know about it.”
“Why pick my family?” Mary’s father said with anger. “Your family history isn’t so good, you know. Wasn’t your great-great-grandfather a prisoner who was transported to Australia for his crimes?” “Yes, but people these days say that you are not a real Australian unless your ancestors arrived as prisoners.” “Gosh, sorry I asked. I think I understand now.” Mary cut in before things grew worse.
After dinner, the house was quiet. Mary’s parents were quite angry with each other. Her mother was ironing clothes and every now and then she glared at her husband, who hid behind his newspaper pretending to read. When she finished, she gathered the freshly pressed clothes in her arms and walked to Mary’s closet. Just as she opened the door and reached in to hang a skirt, a bony arm stuck out from the dark depths and a bundle of white bones fell to the floor. Mary’s mother sank into a faint(晕倒), waking only when Mary put a cold, wet cloth on her forehead. She looked up to see the worried faces of her husband and daughter.
“What happened? Where am I?” she asked. “You just destroyed the school’s skeleton, Mum,” explained Mary. “I brought it home to help me with my health project. I meant to tell you, but it seemed that as soon as I mentioned skeletons and closets, it caused a problem between you and Dad.” Mary looked in amazement as her parents began to laugh madly. “They’re crazy,” she thought.
1.According to Mary’s mother, “a skeleton in a closet” means _______.
A. a family honor B. a family wealth
C. a family story D. a family secret
2.What can we learn about some Australians’ ancestors from Paragraph 2?
A.They were brought to Australia as prisoners.
B. They were the earliest people living in Australia.
C. They were involved in some crimes in Australia.
D. They were not regarded as criminals in their days.
3.Mary’s mother fell down into a faint because she was_________.
A. knocked B. terrified C. injured D. surprised
4.Why did Mary bring a skeleton home?
A. She was curious about it. B. She planned to keep it for fun.
C. She needed it for her school task. D. She intended to scare her parents.
5.Mary’s parents laughed madly at the end of the story probably because________.
A. They were mentally ill.
B. They were over happy.
C. They understood what had really happened.
D. They both thought they had won the quarrel.
在英语课上，你喜欢你的老师授课时只用英语，还是英语、汉语兼用？ 某英语杂志社就此话题邀请中小学生发表看法。请你围绕“How do you prefer your English classes to be taught? In English only, or in both English and Chinese?” 这个问题，参考所给要点，选择一种授课形式，写一篇英语短文。
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授课形式一： 只用英语 优点：有助于提高听说能力等…… 缺憾; 不易听懂等…… 结论：…… |
授课形式二：英语、汉语兼用 优点：易于理解等…… 缺憾：英语氛围不浓等…… 结论： …… |
注意：
词数100—120，短文开头已给出，不计入总词数。
参考词汇：atmosphere 氛围
I prefer my English classes to be taught in __________________________________
This afternoon I went to see my grandfather by a bus. It was very crowded and I had to stand. Besides me there was a woman held a little boyin her arms. In front of her, a young man occupies two seats, pretending to be sleeping. I heard the little boy curious asking his mother, “What’s wrong with the uncle?” I had thought if perhaps the woman would blame the man. Beyond her expectations, the woman answered with a smile, “Be quiet. This uncle must very tired because of hard work.” The young man must haveheard the word. His face turned red and offered one seat for the woman at once.
Love and Friendship
They are both so much related to each other. And both are so dissimilar! What are the differences between friendship and love? Is platonic(柏拉图式的) friendship possible between persons of the opposite sex? _1. _
What is friendship? Why do we call a person our friend? When do we call someone a very good friend? If we care for a person, if we are always ready to help that person and if we share most of our thoughts with a person, they are our good friends. We can always count upon our good friends in an emergency. We are always sure that our friends will understand why we acted in a certain way. 2. The friendship is so deep and the relationship is so intimate, that most of the things are automatically understood by our friends.
_3. _ In a relationship of deep love, all the sharing that we discussed above is taken for granted. But love transcends(超出) all this. During love, we are attached with a particular person, while in friendship, one may have many friends. A loving relationship makes one so much attached to the other that one gets pained if his/her beloved is hurt! Love also involves a physical element. __4. __ This is a vital difference. Nature gives us love so that the species can go forward. Nature does not give us friendship.
Your heart beats will never increase in anticipation of meeting your friend. _5. __ You will not feel totally lost, if you don’t meet your friend for a few days. You will not have dreams in your eyes thinking about your friend. But in love, you will do all this and much more. Indeed, there is no comparison between love and friendship.
A.What about love?
B.My answer is “Yes”.
C.Let us try and understand.
D.Friendship does not have that.
E.We need not explain anything to our very good friends.
F.You will not lie awake at night thinking about your friend.
G.The physical element may include hand in hand while walking.
For years we have been told that encouraging a child’s self-respect is important to his or her success in life. But child experts are now learning that too much praise can lead to the opposite effect. Praise-aholic kids who expect it at every turn may become teens who seek the same kind of approval from their friends when asked if they want to go in the backseat of the car.
The implication(含义) of saying “You are the prettiest girl in class,” or talking about the goals she scored but not her overall effort, is that you love her only when she looks the best, scores the highest, achieves the most. And this carries over to the classroom.
Social psychologist Carol Dweck, PHD, tested the effects of over-praise on 400 fifth graders while she was at Columbia University. She found that kids praised for “trying hard” did better on tests and were more likely to take on difficult assignments than those praised for being “smart”.
“Praising attributes(品质) or abilities makes a false promise that success will come to you because you have that quality, and it devalues effort, so children are afraid to take on challenges,” says Dweck, now at Stanford University, “They figure they’d better quit while they’re ahead.”
1.The underlined words “Praise-aholic kids” refer to kids who are ______.
A. tired of being praised B. worthy of being praised
C. very proud of being praised D. extremely fond of being praised
2.The author quoted Dr.Dweck’s words in the last paragraph in order to make the article ______.
A. better-known B. better-organized
C. more persuasive D. more interesting
3.We can infer from the passage that _______.
A. praise for efforts should be more encouraged
B. praise for results works better than praise for efforts
C. praising a child’s achievements benefits his or her success in life
D. praising a child’s abilities encourages him or her to take on challenges
Teachers and parents usually call attention to the pictures when they read storybooks to pre-school children. But a new study suggests that calling attention to the words and letters on the page may lead to better readers.
The two-year study compared children who were read in this way in class with children who were not. Those whose teachers most often discussed the print showed clearly higher skills in reading, spelling and understanding. These results were found one year and even two years later.
Shayne Piasta, an assistant professor of teaching and learning at Ohio State University, was an author of the study. She says most pre-school teachers would find this method manageable and would need only a small change in the way they teach. They already read story-books in class. The only difference would be increased attention to the printed text. “If you get children to pay attention to letters and words, it makes sense that they will do better at word recognition and spelling.” But she says research suggests that very few parents and teachers do this in a systematic way.
More than 300 children aged four and five were observed in classrooms. They came from poor families and were below average in their language skills. For thirty weeks, the children took part in a program called Project STAR--- Sit Together and Read. The project is based at Ohio State. It tests the short-term and long-term results of reading regularly to pre-school children in their classrooms.
There are different ways that adults can talk to children about print. They can point to a letter and discuss it, and even trace the shape with a finger. They can point out a word and discuss the meaning of the print or how the words tell the story. And they can talk about the organization of the print--- for instance, showing how words are written left to right in English.
1. What do we know about the ways pre-school children are usually taught?
A. More attention is paid to the pictures ,with words and letters being ignored.
B. Preference is given to the shape of letters and the organization of the print.
C. The focus of the teaching is on bringing them up to be good readers.
D. Equal attention is paid to the texts and the pictures.
2.What does Shayne Piasta suggest pre-school teachers should do in class?
A. Teach children how to draw pictures to get an idea of what they mean.
B. Change the way they teach and pay more attention to words and letters.
C. Adopt different methods according to the students’ difference in reading skills.
D. Read storybooks to children rather than explain the meaning of the pictures.
3. Which of the following is TRUE about the study on language skills of pre-school children?
A. Many teachers want to change their way of teaching pre-school children.
B. Attention on the pictures has made the children uninterested in reading.
C. Project STAR aims to research into the results of reading books to pre-school children in the classroom.
D. Teachers are often prevented from taking different approaches to language teaching.
4.Which section of a magazine does the passage probably come from?
A. Fashion. B. Economy . C. Entertainment. D. Education.
