On a small farm in Mexico, there are no schools. A bus is the school! The driver of the bus is the teacher! It is a school bus, but it doesn't take children to school. It just goes round from place to place, and sometimes it comes to this farm. The bus will stay here for three months. The farmers call it a school on wheels (車輪).
Every time the bus comes, the farmers come running to it, shouting and laughing. They warmly welcome the school bus!
When the bus is on the farm, in the morning, the teacher teaches the small children. In the afternoon, the bigger children come to have their lessons because they must work in the morning. At night, the fathers and mothers come to school. They want to learn, too. How the farmers hope that some day they can have a real(真正的) school on their farm!
小題1:.  . The driver of the bus is ________.

A．the teacher

B．the student

C．the farmer

D．the school

小題2:.  The bus school will ________.

A．take children to school	B．stay there for lunch
C．take the fathers and mothers to school	D．go round from place to place

小題3:.  . When the school bus comes, the farmers  are  ________.

A．sad

B．a(chǎn)ngry

C．be happy

D．disappointed(失望)

小題4:.  . Which one of the following is true?

A．A school bus is a real school for farmers' children.

B．The bus school has no teacher at all.

C．The bus school has no students.

D．The children and their parents on the farm all come to the bus school to learn.

This is the age of being busy．Many of us live in busy places and have busy lives．Even the roads are busy as we try to get from here to there．Adults are busy going to jobs and taking care of their families．Kids are busy，too，going to school and doing lots of homework after school and on weekends．
Busy isn’t bad，necessarily．If you’re not busy enough you might be bored．But if you’re too busy．you might break down．For instance，if you have a soccer game that runs late on a school night and you haven’t eaten dinner or done your homework．that’s a not—so—fun kind of busy．We wanted to know what kids thought，so we did a KidsPoll about being busy with 882 girls and boys aged 9 to 1 3．
Almost all of them said they felt stressed because they were too busy．About half said they felt this way once in a while or some of the time．But l 7％said they felt this way most of the time and 24％said they felt like this all the time! Oh dear，that’s no fun．
Only 4％of kids said they wanted less free time and l8％said they already had just the right amount．But，no big surprise，61％of kids wish they had a lot more free time．If they had more time．most would spend it hanging out or playing with friends．
Often，adults plan large parts of a kid’s day，especially during the school year．Kids can’t tell their parents they’ll be skipping school(逃學(xué))today to get more free time!But they can tell their parents they’d like to play a game or read a book during their free time instead of watching TV．
小題1:．The purpose of the first paragraph is to

A．introduce the topic	B．support the main idea
C．raise the topic sentence	D．a(chǎn)ttract the readers’ attention

小題2:．According to the passage，the Kidspoll is done to carry out research on

A．how kids arrange their free time	B．what kids think of being busy
C．how many kids felt stressed	D．what kids do with fheir study

小題3:．According to the KidsPoll，what conclusion can we draw?

A．91％of the kids think being busy is no fun．

B．22％of the kids don’t need more free time．

C．61％of the kids spend free time playing．

D．24％of the kids like the busy way．

小題4:．From the passage，we can infer that the writer agrees kids can

A．spend their free time hanging or playing out

B．get a lot more free time from their parents

C．have a right amount of free time with permission

D．get more free time from school work sometimes

Chinese are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Not caring about the money, parents often send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the United States or Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course activities where they will learn a musical instrument or ballet or other classes which will give them a head start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is , the better it is. So the parents will spend an unreasonable amount of money on education . Even poor couples will buy a computer for their son or daughter.
However, what most parents fail to see is that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap.
Parents can see that their children’s skills vary, skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize though, is that today’s children lack (缺乏) self-respect and self-confidence.
The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents aren’t teaching them the most important skills they need to be confident , happy and clever.
Parents can achieve this by teaching practical skills like cooking, sewing and doing housework.
Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands patience and time. It’s an enjoyable but difficult experiment. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and gradually to finish his job successfully. His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and a lot of self-confidence.
Some old machines , such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your children to play with will make him curious (好奇) and arouse his interest He will spend hours looking at them, trying to fix them; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. These activities aren’t merely teaching a child to read a book , but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.
小題1:.
Parents in China, according to this passage,_________.
A. are too strict with their children        
B. are too rich to educate their children
C have some problems in educating their children correctly
D. are too poor to educate their children
小題2:.
Generally speaking, children’s skills_______.

A．come from their parents

B．have nothing to do with their education

C．may be different

D．have something to do with their marks in the exams

小題3:.
The writer of this passage doesn’t seem to be satisfied with_______.

A．the parents’ idea of educating their children

B．the education system

C．children’s skills

D．children’s hobbies

小題4:.
. Doing some cooking at home helps children_________.

A．learn how to serve their parents

B．learn how to become strong and fat

C．benefit from it and prepare themselves for the future

D．make their parents believe that they are clever

One of the qualities that most people admire in others is the willingness to admit one's mistakes. It is extremely hard sometimes to say a simple thing like "I was wrong about that," and it is even harder to say, "I was wrong, and you were right about that."
I had an experience recently with someone admitting to me that he had made a mistake fifteen years ago. He told me he had been the manager of a certain grocery store in the neighbourhood where I grew up, and he asked me if I remembered the egg boxes. Then he related an incident and I began to remember vaguely the incident he was describing.
I was about eight years old at the time, and I had gone into the store with my mother to do the weekly grocery shopping. On that particular day, I must have found my way to the dairy food department where the incident took place.
There must have been a special sale on eggs that day because there was an impressive display of eggs in dozen and half-dozen boxes. The boxes were stacked three or four feet high. I must have stopped in front of a display to admire the stacks. Just then a woman came by pushing her grocery cart and knocked off the stacks of boxes. For some reason, I decided it was up to me to put the display back together, so I went to work.
The manager heard the noise and came rushing over to see what had happened. When he appeared, I was on my knees inspecting some of the boxes to see if any of the eggs were broken, but to him it looked as if I was the culprit (做錯(cuò)事的人). He severely scolded me and wanted me to pay for any broken eggs. I tried to explain it wasn’t me who had broken them, but it did no good. Even though I quickly forgot all about the incident, obviously the manager did not.
小題1:.
. How old was the author when he wrote this article?

A．About 8.

B．About 18.

C．About 23.

D．About 15.

小題2:.
Who was to blame for knocking off the stacks of boxes?

A．The author.

B．The manager.

C．A woman.

D．The author's mother.

小題3:.
. Which of the following statements is not true?

A．The woman who knocked off the stacks of boxes was seriously criticized by the manager.

B．The author was severely criticized by the manager.

C．A woman carelessly knocked off the stacks of boxes.

D．It was the author who put the display back together.

小題4:.
. The tone of the article expresses the author's         .

A．regret for the mistake he made in the store

B．a(chǎn)dmiration for the manager's willingness to admit mistakes

C．a(chǎn)nger against the woman who knocked off the stacks of boxes

D．a(chǎn)nger to the manager for his wrong accusation

Fear and its companion pain are two of the most useful things that men and animals possess, if they are properly used. If fire did not hurt when it burnt, children would play with it until their hands were burnt away. Similarly, if pain existed but fear didn’t, a child would burn himself or herself again and again, because fear would not warn himself or herself to keep away from the fire that had burnt himself or herself before. A really fearless soldier—and some do exist is not a good soldier because he is soon killed; and a dead soldier is of no use to his army. Fear and pain are therefore two guards without which men and animals might soon die out.
In our first sentence we suggested that fear should be properly used. If, for example, you never go out of your house because of the danger of being knocked down and killed in the street by a car, you are letting fear rule you too much. Even in your house you are not absolutely safe: an aeroplane may crash on your house, or ants may eat away some of the beams in your roof so that the latter falls on you, or you may get cancer!
The important thing is not to let fear rule you, but instead to use fear as your servant and guide. Fear will warn you of dangers; then you have to decide what action to take.
In many cases, you can take quick and successful action to avoid the danger. For example, you see a car coming straight towards you. Fear warns you, you jump out of the way, and all is well.
In some cases, however, you decide that there is nothing that you can do to avoid the danger. For example, you can’t prevent an aeroplane crashing onto your house. In this case, fear has given you its warning; you have examined it and decided on your course of action, so fear of this particular danger is no longer of any use to you, and you have to try to overcome it.
小題1:Children would play with fire until their hands were burnt away if _________.

A．they were given no warning beforehand
B．they had never burnt themselves
C．they had no sense of pain	D．they were fearful of the fire

小題2: A really fearless soldier _____________.

A．is of great use to the army	B．is not a real soldier
C．is nothing but a dead soldier	D．easily gets killed in a battle

小題3:People sometimes succeed in timely avoiding the danger because _________.

A．they have gained experience	B．they jump out of the way in time
C．they are calm in the face of danger
D．they are warned of the danger by fear and take quick action

小題4:What's the writer's suggestion when the danger can't be avoided?

A．You have to try to overcome it.	B．Fear can really help you to run away.
C．Fear always helps you stay safe.	D．Fear is of great use to you.

There is a boy called Bill in my gym class who has unbearably yellow teeth that almost make everyone feel unpleasant. Recently another boy told Bill that he should “go Ajax” his teeth. Bill was crushed. If the other boy had been thinking, he would have realized that there is a better way to handle such a situation. He could have dealt with it with tact. He could have showed this hurtful truth in a more careful, sensitive way—that’s “tact”.
If a person isn’t sensitive to another’s feelings, there is no way he or she can be tactful. Yesterday, my 5-year-old brother proudly announced that he had cleaned the screen on our television set. Unfortunately, he used furniture polish, which produced an oily film on the television screen. My mother smiled arid thanked him for his efforts—and then showed how to clean the screen properly. Her sensitivity enables my brother to keep his self-respect. Yet, sensitivity alone does not make tact.
“Tactfulness” also requires “truthfulness”. Doctors, for example must be truthful. If a patient has just been disabled in an accident, a tactful doctor will tell the truth—but express it with sensitivity. The doctor may try to give the patient hope by telling them curing techniques under study or about advanced equipment now available. Doctors must use tact with patients’ relatives as well. Instead of bluntly saying, “Your husband is disabled,” a doctor might say, “I’m sorry, but your husband has lost feeling in his legs and. . .”
Tact should not be confused with trickery. Trickery occurs when a nurse is about to give a patient an injection（注射） and says, “This won’t hurt a bit. ” Instead of trickery, the nurse might guarantee the patient that the discomfort of the injection is a small thing compared to the benefits of it. It would also be thoughtful for the nurse to tell the patients about some of these benefits.
Tact is a wonderful skill to have, and tactful people are usually admired and respected. Without tact our society would become an intolerable place to live in.
小題1:.
The underlined word “crushed” in the first paragraph probably means         .

A．surprised

B．cheated

C．regretful

D．painful

小題2:.
According to the author, his mother’s praise for the brother is         .  

A．sensitive and tactful	B．sensitive but not tactful enough
C．truthful but not tactful enough	D．sensitive but trickish

小題3:.
Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
 

A．

B．

C．

D． （The numbers stand for the paragraphs）

AN upper class British lady once declared: “Anyone seen on a bus after the age of 30 has been a failure in life.”

I guess she meant that if you’re middle aged and don’t have a car then you are a loser. How arrogant (傲慢) and ignorant！
Unfortunately, there are still people who think that way: that somehow public transport is only for the poor. And the rest have a right to their cars. Some wealthy folk in the West look down on buses and boast (吹噓) about how many years it has been since they last traveled by one.
How sad is that? Our roads are packed with cars and the air is full of the pollution they emit (排放). But still, many car users are unwillingly to get on a bus or a bike or a train to take themselves to work.
It’s convenient to drive, they’ll say. Buses are so unreliable, they’ll claim. And trains are expensive ---- at least in the UK.
It’s an attitude which may have to change. It doesn’t make sense to drive a car in a city where there’s a public transport system. Also, these rush hour commuters (往返上班者) usually travel alone.
As a result, transport authorities in the UK are looking at solutions to city center congestion (擁堵).
One is to increase the number of parking spaces at out-of-town railway stations. More motorists (乘汽車的人) can then leave their cars and travel into the city by train.
Light rail or tramways are another environmentally friendly solution. Many cities across Europe have installed light rail or tramway systems.
The subway in London is used by everyone, rich and poor. It’s the quickest way of getting around the city, whatever your bank balance.
And then there are the cycle hire schemes you find in many modern cities. In London and Paris, you can hire a bike by the hour to get you where you need to go.
While commuters in Beijing abandon their bicycles for cars, cycling to work grows in popularity in the West.
Many cyclists are willing to pay more than 10,000 yuan for their bicycles. Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is often pictured cycling to work. David Cameron, the British prime minister, cycled to the House of Commons before he became leader. These days he takes the prime ministerial limousine (豪華轎車).
小題1:. According to the article, some British people, like the upper class woman, think that        .

A．buses are inconvenient	B．bus services are unnecessary
C．having a car is a sign of success	D．only the upper class should have cars

小題2:Which of the following measures is taken by transport authorities in the UK to solve city center congestion?

A．The development of cycle hire schemes.

B．Increasing the number of parking spaces in the city center.

C．Installing light rail or tramway systems in out-of-town areas.

D．Banning commuters from traveling alone during rush hour.

小題3:The author mentions the example of Boris Johnson in the last paragraph to        .

A．express his respect for the mayor of London

B．point to the growing popularity of cycling to work in the West

C．criticize Beijing commuters for abandoning their bicycles for cars

D．show that cars are still the most common means of transportation for famous people in Britain

小題4:Which of the following might the writer agree with?
A. The British prime minister should give up his limousine.
B. Beijing commuters should learn from British commuters.
C. British solutions to public transport problems are inadequate.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates said that he planned to give away almost all of his vast fortune, largely to the cause of global health, during the course of his lifetime. With an estimated (估計(jì)) worth of more than $40 billion, according to Forbes, the project will be no small feat (功績) for Gates. Having already provided the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with $24 billion to address global health issues, Gates said that eventually his entire fortune will be put towards the cause except “a few percent left for the kids”.
So what has made the richest man in the world to channel his resources so heavily into one interest? Gates believes that “the equality of opportunity” in which Americans take such pride needs to extend to other nations around the world. Improving the health of the population, he says, has proven to be an essential (實(shí)質(zhì)的) method in helping poor countries to be financially successful. “National borders allow inequalities,” said Gates: “We all need to take a more global view, rather than just saying my country is doing well. We have to step up these health issues, knowing how few resources are going into them.”
Gates said that both his parents set an example for him as a child. His father, William H. Gates, was the head of the local Planned Parenthood, and his mother, Mary, volunteered for the United Way. As he gathered his fortune, Gates knew he would eventually want to give back as well, but he didn’t expect to devote himself whole-heartedly to one project until he was about 60.
However, Gates, 47, began to question his ability to wait that long. “It seemed there was a real time urgency (緊迫),” Gates said. “I started to think, how many lives could I save before then?”
小題1:.. Bill Gates will give away his vast fortune to ___.

A．improve the health of population in America alone

B．improve the health of population all over the world

C．a(chǎn)void leaving his children too much money

D．spare the American government the burden of health care

小題2:.. Bill Gates believes that one important way of developing poor countries is ___.

A．to set up more foundations for them	B．to aid them with natural resources
C．to put more effort into the health issues in them	D．to help them take a more global view

小題3:. It can be learned from the text that Bill Gates thinks ___.

A．Americans should care about people in other countries

B．Americans should treat fellow citizens well

C．Americans should devote themselves to certain projects

D． Americans can be world-famous by giving away vast fortune

小題4:.. Bill Gates gave away his vast fortune earlier than he had expected because of ___.

A．his weakening health condition	B．his parents’ suggestions
C．his great success in business	D．his concern for suffering people

小題5:. The underlined word “channel” probably has a similar meaning as it is used in sentence “___”.

A．Try to channel your abilities into something useful
B．We ought to channel this street so that water can flow away easily
C．Ships must follow the channel into the port	D．Which channel will you be broadcasting tonight

It turns out that being voted “Most likely to succeed” in high school might actually be a good predictor of one’s financial and educational success in the future.
According to a University of Illinois professor who studies the sociology of education, high school sophomores who were rated by their teachers as having good social skills and work habits, and who participated in extracurricular activities in high school, made more money and completed higher levels of education 10 years later than their classmates who had similar standardized test scores but were less socially adroit(熟練的)and participated in fewer extracurricular activities.
Christy Lleras, a professor of human and community development, says that “soft skills” such as sociability, punctuality, conscientiousness(負(fù)責(zé)任) and an ability to get along well with others, along with participation in extracurricular activities, are better predictors of earnings and higher educational achievement later in life than having good grades and high standardized test scores.
“That’s not tosay that academic achiecement in high school doesn’t matter—it does,”Lleras said. “But if we only look at standardized test scores, we’re only considering part of the equation for success as an adult in a global marketplace. Academic achievement is part of the story, but it’s not the whole story. You’ve got to have the social skills and work habits to back those achievements up.”
With the generational shift from a manufacturing-hased economy to a service-and-information-based one, employers value workers who can not only boast about their GPAs and SAT scores, but are also able to get along well with the public and co-workers, Lleras.
“I think we’ve known this intuitively for a long time that employers are looking for something beyond cognitive (認(rèn)知的)skills” Lleras said. “Leadership now is not an individual thing , it’s how well you get along in a team and get people organized.”
小題1: Which of the following is NOT considered as a “soft skill”?
A.Being able to make others at ease in a group.
B Being able to get to an appointment on time.
CAlways ticking to one’s own opinion.
D Being willing to take responsibility.
小題2:. Now employers would prfe to hire someone who ________？
A earned high scores in standardized test in high school
B can work independently
C has high cognitive skills
D can cooperat well with other teammates
小題3:.Christy Lleras would agree that a high school student should____.
A spend more time in extracurricular activities
B omit classes to take part in extracurricular activities
C pay more attention to standardized test scores
D keep a good balance between learning and relaxation

There were red faces at one of Britain’s biggest banks recently. They had accepted a telephone order to buy ￡100,000 worth of shares from a 15-year-old schoolboy (they thought he was 21). The shares fell in value and the schoolboy was unable to pay up. The bank lost ￡20,000 on the deal which it cannot get back, because, for one thing, the young boy does not have the money, for another, being under 18, he is not legally liable for his debts. If the shares had risen in value by the same amount that they fell, he would have pocketed ￡20,000 profit. It certainly is better than delivering the morning newspaper. In another case, a boy of 14 found, in his grandmother’s house, a suitcase full of foreign banknotes. But they were now not used in their country of origin or anywhere else. This young boy headed straight to the nearest bank with his pockets filled with notes. The cashiers did not realize the country in question had reduced the value of its currency by 90%. They exchanged the notes at their face value at the current exchange rate. In three days, before he was found out, he took ￡200,000 from nine different banks. Amazingly, he had already spent more than half of this before the police caught up with him. Because he is also under 18 the banks have kissed goodbye to a lot of money, and several cashiers have lost their jobs.
Should we admire these youngsters for being enterprising and showing initiative or condemn them for their dishonesty? Maybe they had managed for years with tiny amounts of pocket money that they got from tight-fisted parents. Maybe they had done Saturday jobs for peanuts. It is hardly surprising, given the expensive things that young people want to buy, such as fashionable running shoes and computer games, if they sometimes think up more imaginative ways of making money than delivering newspapers. These youngsters saw the chance to make a lot of money and took it.
Another recent story which should give us food for thought is the case of the man who paid his six-year-old daughter￡300 a week pocket money. He then charged her for the food she ate a few coins for her piggy bank（存錢灌）“She will soon learn the value of money, ” he said. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Everything has to be paid for and the sooner she learns that the better.” At the other extreme there are fond parents who provide free bed and board for their grown-up children, While even the most hard-hearted parents might hesitate to throw their children out on the streets, we all know of people in their twenties who still shamelessly live off their parents. Surely there comes a time when everyone has to leave the parental nest, look after themselves and pay their own way in life. But when is it?
小題1:.
Recently one of Britain’s biggest banks _____.

A．bought a lot of shares for a customer and brought him a great loss

B．lost money as its young customer had no money to pay his debts

C．lost much money because the shares they bought fell in value

D．received a telephone order to buy shares for a 21-year-old boy

小題2:.
. The author’s attitude to the example of the two boys who cheated the banks is _____.

A．objective

B．subjective

C．questioning

D．negative

小題3:.
The man paid his daughter ￡300 a week pocket money and then required her to pay for her living expenses because _____.

A．he wanted her to know making money was not easy

B．he wanted to save money for her future education

C．he thought it useful for family members to bear life hardships together

D．he wanted her to learn the value of money

小題4:.
It can be concluded from the passage that the author believes that _____.

A．children should leave the parental nest as soon as possible

B．grown-up children should live on their own

C．children should be taught not to cheat others

D．parents should give more pocket money to their children