Since the first Earth Day in 1970, Americans have gotten a lot “greener” toward the environment . “We didn’t know at that time that there even was an environment, let alone that there was a problem with it,” says Bruce Anderson, president of Earth Day USA.

But what began as nothing important in public affairs has grown into a social movement .Business people, political leaders, university professors, and especially millions of grass-roots Americans are taking part in the movement. “The understanding has increased many ,many times,” says Gaylord Nelson, the former governor from Wisconsin, who thought up the first Earth Day.

According to US government reports , emissions (排放)from cars and trucks have dropped from 10.3 million tons a year to 5.5 million tons .The number of cities producing CO beyond the standard has been reduced from 40 to 9.Although serious problems still remain and need to be dealt with , the world is a safer and healthier place .A kind of “Green thinking ” has become part of practices .

Great improvement has been achieved .In 1988 there were only 600 recycling programs ; today in 1995 there are about 6,600 . Advanced lights ,motors , and building designs have helped save a lot of energy and therefore prevented pollution .

Twenty –five years ago , there were hardly any education programs for environment .Today , it’s hard to find a public school , university , or law school that does not have such a kind of program .“Until we do that , nothing else will change! ” say Bruce Anderson .

1.According to Anderson , before 1970, Americans had little idea about ___

A. the social movement

B. recycling techniques

C. environmental problems

D. the importance of Earth Day

2.Where does the support for environmental protection mainly come from?

A. The grass –roots level

B. The business circle

C. Government officials

D. University professors

3.What have Americans achieved in environmental protection ?

A. They have cut car emissions to the lowest

B. They have settled their environmental problems

C. They have lowered their CO levels in forty cities.

D. They have reduced pollution through effective measures .

4. What is especially important for environmental protection according to the last paragraph ?

A. Education B. Planning

C. Green living D. CO reduction

Recently, the TV show “Where are we going, Dad?” produced by Hunan SatelliteTelevision is a big hit across nation. Many famous stars brought their children to a strange village alone, and they had to spend 72 hours with their children there. The program fully showed us a modern version of the “how to be a good father”. As the young parents today are too busy to take care of their children, this new form of “Lost on the way” played by nanny Daddy and cute kids triggered（触发）a lot of people’s emotional resonance（共鸣）. Both the kids and their parents will find that their hearts are being drawn closer. But this kind of feeling has just proved that there is a big spiritual barrier between the modern parents and children.

The TV shows like “Children are hard to support!”, “Where are we going, Dad?”, “hot mom” and “cute kids” are becoming more and more popular. All of these show the new parents’ confusion in children’s education and the appeal for the balance between career and family.

In the real life, on the one hand the young parents feel helpless because they are too busy to accompany their children under the pressures of work and life; on the other hand they continue to do so. The data collected by HNTV shows that nearly two-thirds of their audience are female, among whom 36% are aged from 25 to 34.We can imagine such a scene that one evening a young mother is watching the show with her young children, while her husband is still at work or trapped in socializing, or maybe is just playing computer games in the bedroom. The story of a child without the company of father is still going on. In fact, it is sometimes the same to mothers. In a modern family, it is often the old who take the responsibility of raising a child. Theparticipation of mother in the children’s education is also very low.

It is just this kind of confusion where the parents have gone in the modern family education, and where the parents will guide their children to go that “Where are we going, Dad?” shows us. If a child wants to grow up healthily and safely into a modern citizen with independent personality and free spirit, it is very important for him or her to follow the parents who serve as their first teacher. Maybe this is the real reason why such kind of TV programs could get hot. The truth is that children will go where their parents go; and society will go where the children go.

1.To raise a child in modern society, parents should ________.

A. break down the barrier between children and teachers

B. play computer games with their children

C. balance well between family and career

D. keep their children at home to avoid socializing

2.Which of the following can be inferred in the passage?

A. 36% of the audience of the program are female aged from 25-34.

B. Parents shouldn’t entirely leave the education of children to the old.

C. In a modern family it is often mothers who are responsible for raising a child.

D. The program shows us the confusion where the parents and children will go to play.

3.What does the underlined word “participation” probably mean?

A. taking responsibility B. understanding

C. taking part D. keeping company

4.What attitude towards modern family education does the author express in the second paragraph?

A. Optimistic.

B. Indifferent.

C. Proud.

D. Worried.

5.Which one is the best title of the passage?

A. New problems in Modern Children’s Education

B. Modern Education is Important

C. Confusion Behind “Where are we going, dad?”

D. Nanny Daddy and Cute Kids

1.The red lines on the map r________ railways.

2.The function of the smile is to show happiness and put people at e__________.

3.In g____________, knowledge gained from books has a wider range than that gained from experience.

4.We shall d___________ the Diaoyu Island whatever the cost may be.

5.If we work with a strong will, we can o_____________ any difficulty..

6.Which actress is to s___________ in the movie has not been finally decided yet.

7.U__________, his father died, leaving his family even worse off.

8.He grew more and more popular and became known t___________ the world.

9.Judging from the change of his f__________ expression, we knew that he was very upset.

下面短文中有10处语言错误。请在有错误的地方增加、删除或修改某个单词。

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧）, 并在其下面写上该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写上修改后的词。

注意：1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；

2. 只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。

My next vacation will be wonderfully for me. I will go to Maryland to visit my friends. I have known her for eleven years since I am in high school. Right now, she is studying English at the University of Maryland. When I visit her, she will have to go to her classes, but we will have lots of free time together either. When we go to high school together, she didn’t study very much hard. She wasn’t getting very good grades. And now she is a very good student in American. She know that she should study hard to success. We will have a great time together this summer.

假如你是李华，你们班对中学生是否有必要读英文经典文学进行了讨论。请根据下表内容用英语写一篇文章。

注意：1. 对所给要点逐一陈述，适当发挥，不要简单翻译。

2. 词数120左右。开头已给出，不计入总词数。

Searching for airfares（飞机票价） often seems like a game that passengers are bound to lose．

Prices change from day to day, even minute to minute． Looking through multiple websites for the best deal can be a big challenge． Even when you do book, there’s no guarantee that you are going to get the best price．

"You just don’t know when to pull the trigger． It’s not like buying anything else I can think of,” said George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog．com．

Harriet Levy paid $179 for a recent round-trip flight on American Airlines between New York and Fort Lauderdale, Florida． Sitting just one row behind her, Shirley Harrison paid $215． A few rows back, Ellis and Dianne Traub paid $317 each．There were at least 12 fares on the flight, ranging from $169 to $360．

There’s no reason for it, Harrison said．

Fares can change significantly in just a few hours． One Delta flight from New York to Los Angeles jumped from $755 to $1,143 from a Friday to Saturday in late April, then fell to $718 0n Sunday．

The flight was one of a dozen the Associated Press followed over three months for a vacation between July 16 and 22． The number one finding: avoid booking tickets on weekends． It’s the most expensive time to buy．

There’s no way to guarantee the best fare． But before booking, travelers should pay attention to this additional advice:

Book on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday． That’s when airlines most often offer sales．

Buy in advance, but not too early． The best time is four to six weeks before traveling． In general, prices for any given flight are highest eight to ten weeks and two to three weeks in advance．

Make use of social media． Airlines are giving more benefits like exclusive（独有的 ） sales to travelers who interact with them on Twitter and Facebook． Those specials are often gone within hours．

The so-called discount airlines - JetBlue, Air-Tran, Southwest and Frontier-adjust their fares less frequently than other airlines, so you can feel more confident that the price will stay the same． But their prices aren’t always the lowest．Researching multiple airlines’ fares is the only way to get a good deal．

1.What can we infer from the first sentence of the text?

A．Passengers are unable to search for airfares．

B．Airlines often play games with passengers．

C．Airfares are set in different situations．

D．It’s difficult for passengers to get the best price．

2.The underlined phrase "pull the trigger" in Paragraph 3 probably means ________.

A．start searching B．get the highest price

C．make a purchase D．get on board the plane

3.By using a lot of figures, the author intends to ________.

A．show there is standard price for every single airline

B．discover the rules behind airfares

C．guarantee passengers a low price

D．prove airfares can vary widely

4.Passengers are advised to book flights ________.

A．in the middle of the week

B．on special websites

C．several months before traveling

D．with airlines which are famous for offering discount prices

“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 neglecting 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. Too many are starting school unable to hold a knife and fork, unused to eating at a table, and unable to use the lavatory(卫生间) properly.

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 pressure of students’ learning

C. The right to achieve students’ potential

D. The responsibilities of the students.

2.The underlined part in paragraph 4 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 writer’s attitude to the behaviours of parents may be_______.

A. unconcern B. understanding

C. dissatisfied D. tolerant

What did your school smell like? Was it noisy or peaceful? It might not seem important, but a growing body of research suggests that smells and sounds can have an impact on learning, performance and creativity．

Bridget Shield has been conducting studies and advising people on the effects of all sorts of noises, such as traffic and sirens, as well as noise made by the children themselves． "Everything points to a harmful impact of the noise on children’s performance, in numeracy, in literacy, and in spelling,” says Shield．

Shield says the sound of “babble” －the chatter of other children, is particularly distracting in the classroom．。People are very distracted by speech-particularly if it is understandable, but you’re not involved in it．” This phenomenon is also known as the irrelevant speech effect, she says, adding that “it’s a very common finding in open-plan offices as well．’’

In a series of studies published last year, Ravi Mehta found that people were more creative when the background noises were played at a medium level than when volume was low． Loud background noise, however, damaged their creativity． Ravi Mehta suggests there maybe some benefit to playing music or other sounds in an art class or other situations where creativity is the key．

Many teachers all over the world already play music to students in class． Many are inspired by the belief that hearing music can boost IQ in their tasks, the so-called Mozart effect． While the evidence actually suggests it’s a guess to say classical music boosts brainpower, researchers do think pleasant sounds before a task can sometimes lift your mood and help you perform well, says Ravi Mehta," If you like the music or you like the sound-even listening to a Stephen King novel-then you did better． It didn’t matter about the music,“ he says．

However, it’s worth considering that music is not always helpful while you’re trying to work． Trying to perform a task which involves serial recall - for instance, doing mental mathematics-will be distracted by sounds with audio variation, says Ravi Mehta． Songs with lyrics, on the other hand, are more likely to interfere（干扰）with tasks that involve languages-such as reading comprehension．

This isn’t the only sense being related to affecting learning．

1.The second paragraph implies that _________.

A．general noise also has a harmful effect．

B．students are sensitive to noise．

C．some children need special sounds to do tasks．

D．children aren't affected by their own noise．

2.The irrelevant speech effect refers to the fact that _________.

A．you don’t understand what others are talking

B．you are interrupted by the chatting of others

C．you are unwilling to chat with other people

D．you find what others are talking irrelevant to you

3.According to the text, Ravi Mehta believes that __________.

A．music matters when you want to do better．

B．music will help you do mental arithmetic．

C．any music can be beneficial as long as you like it．

D．songs with lyrics will improve your reading comprehension．

4.What might be discussed in the following paragraph?

A．Whether music is helpful all the time．

B．What sound can promote a person’s creativity．

C．When smell can improve students’ behavior．

D．How smell affects children’s performance．

If you could take a large snapshot (照片) of everyone in the United States today, it would contain six minion more females than males. In this country, women outlive men by about seven years. Throughout the modern world, cultures are different, diets are different, ways of life and causes of death are different, but one thing is the same--- women outlive men.

It starts before birth. At conception, male fetuses(胎儿) outnumber female by about 110 to 100; at birth, the rate has already fallen to about 105 boys to every 100 girls. By the age of 30, there are only enough men left to match the number of women. Then women start taking a lead. Beyond the age of 80, there are nearly twice as many women as men.

“If you look at the top ten or twelve causes of death,” said Deborah Wingard, a disease expert at the University of California at San Diego, “every single one kills more men.” She listed out one sad fate after another – heart disease, lung cancer and so on. Each kills men at roughly twice the rate of that it does women.

More than a century ago American men surpassed and outlived the women. But in the 20th century, women began living longer, primarily because pregnancy（怀孕) and giving birth to children had become less dangerous. The gap grew steadily. In 1946, for the first time ever in the United States, females outnumbered males.

Parts of the reasons are self-made. Men smoke more, drink more and take more life-threatening chances than women. Men are murdered (usually by other men) three times as often as women are. They commit suicide at a higher rate and have more than twice as many fatal car accidents as women do. Men are likely to be involved in alcohol-related deaths.

But behavior doesn’t explain away the longevity gap.

Today, some scientists studying the gender gap believe that the data point to one conclusion Mother Nature may be partial(偏袒) to women.

Every living thing is assembled according to instructions on its chromosomes (染色体), and humans have 23 pairs of them. But in males, one of these is a weak non-matching pair, expressed by “xy”. The agreement pair in females is “xx”, and its genetic “backup” power is sometimes listed as a clue to woman’s superior restoring force. If the male’s single “x” chromosome isn’t perfect, it is possible for a serious genetic disorder to appear. Some blood diseases, for instance, are diseases caused by a shortcoming in a single gene on the “x” chromosome. They are far more common in males than females.

1.What may the underlined word “outlive” in Paragraph1 mean?

A. Become stronger than. B. Live longer than.

C. Be wiser than. D. Be born more earlier than.

2.What can we infer from the second paragraph?

A. Female fetuses are more than male.

B. The female are surpassing the male with age increasing.

C. By the age of 30, the female are more than the male.

D. Over 90, men are more than women in the United States.

3.How many exact diseases are mentioned as examples killing twice men than women?

A. Two. B. Three. C. Ten. D. Five.

4.The best title for this passage is _____

A. Why women live longer than men

B. Women are different from men

C. American men once lived longer than the women

D. Men smoke and drank more than women

Helping Students Find Their Writing Voices

One of the most frustrating things for writing teachers is reading papers that simply lack style. When all of the research has been completed and all of the sentences are structured well, but the paper still lacks some pizzazz（活力），it can be boring to grade. If you are searching for ways to help your students find their voices, why not try making students themselves the topic of the writing? 1.

Who are you?

One of the most difficult questions for students to answer is “Who are you?” 2. In doing this, through writing, students will start to see their personalities differently and, hopefully, be able to add a feature to their writing.

Dear John

3. Encourage them to write to a famous person they’ve always admired, and then the one they absolutely hate. Explore how their language changes between the two letters. When students know their audiences, it is much easier for them to add the kind of personality their audience wants to see．

4.

When students write about what matters most to them, they will often give you the best writing you’ve ever seen. You’ll get those when you ask questions that hit home. When students have something to say about a given topic, it can be easier for them to get their ideas down and then work on their writing style.

Get the words on paper, and then edit them

The most valuable lesson students can learn is to write first, and edit later. Have students write for five minutes about their topics. If they can get their ideas down on paper, that’s 90% of the battle.

5. This can help them realize that, once they have the ideas down, the rest is just fine tuning（微调）. Once they have this skill mastered, it’s easy for them to start adding their own personal voices to their papers.

A. What matters to you?

B. What style is taught in class?

C. When they write about themselves, students’ voices often shine through.

D. Writing letters is a great way for students to explore their writing style.

E. Have your students explore who they are and what makes them unique.

F. Voice is that magical quality which is able to make a creative writing idea sing!

G. After that, have them edit these ideas into a really strong introductory paragraph.