Parents should stop blaming themselves because there’s not a lot they can do about it. I mean the teenager problem. Whatever you do or however you choose to deal with it, at certain times a wonderful, reasonable and helpful child will turn into a terrible animal.

I’ve seen friends deal with it in all kinds of different ways. One strict mother insisted that her son, right from a child, should stand up whenever anyone entered the room, open doors and shake hands like a gentleman. I saw him last week when I called round. Sprawling himself (懒散地躺) on the sofa in full length, he made no attempt to turn off the loud TV he was watching as I walked in, and his greeting was no more than a quick glance at me. His mother was ashamed. “I don't know what to do with him these days,” she said. “He’s forgotten all the manners we taught him.”

He hasn’t forgotten them. He’s just decided that he’s not going to use them. She confessed (坦白) that she would like to come up behind him and throw him down from the sofa onto the floor.

Another good friend of mine let her two daughters climb all over the furniture, reach across the table, stare at me and say, “I don’t like your dress; it’s ugly.” One of the daughters has recently been driven out of school. The other has left home.

“Where did we go wrong?” her parents are now very sad. Probably nowhere much. At least, no more than the rest of that unfortunate race, parents.

1.This text is most probably written by ______.

A．a doctor for mental health problems

B．a headmaster of a middle school

C．a parent with teenage children

D．a specialist in teenager studies

2.The underlined word “it” in the second paragraph refers to ______.

A．the advice that parents want their children to follow

B．the change from good to bad that’s seen in a child

C．the opinion that a child has of his parents

D．the way that parents often blame themselves

3.From the second example we can infer that the parents of the two daughters ______.

A．pay no attention to them

B．feel helpless to do much about them

C．have come to hate them

D．are too busy to look after them

4.What is the author's opinion about the sudden change in teenage children?

A．Parents should work more closely with school teachers.

B．Parents should pay still sore attention to the change.

C．Parents have no choice but to try to accept it.

D．Parents are at fault for the change in their children.

—How unhappy your roommate looks!?

—Yes, but he's not willing to tell me what it is _______ is troubling him.?

A. what   B. which        C. as       D. that

  First Frenchman: I once heard someone shout, "Look out," I put my head out of a window and a basin of water fell on me. It seems that "Look out" may mean "don‘t look out."

　　Second Frenchman: Once I was on a ship and heard the captain shout, "All hands on deck," I put my hands on the deck and someone walked on them.

　　Third Frenchman: I once visited an English friend early in the morning and the maid who came to the door and said, "He’s not up yet. Come back in half an hour," When I went again for him, she said, "He‘s not down yet."

　　"If he’s not up and he’s not down, where is he?" I asked.

　　She said, "He’s still in bed. When I say ‘He’s not up ’ I mean ‘he has not yet got up’. When I say ‘He’s not down ’ I mean ‘he has not yet come downstairs,’"

"All hands on deck" means “ _______ ”.

　　A. All the sailors gather on deck            B. Give your hands to me

　　C. Put your right hand and left hand on deck   D. Shake your hands with me

When the maid said, “He’s not up yet.” She meant that _______ .

　　A. he has not grown up yet    B. he has not yet got up

　　C. he has not woke up yet     D. he has not yet come upstairs

When the third Frenchman went back, the English friend _______ .

　　A. was washing his face        B. was having his breakfast

　　C. was still in an upstairs room  D. was reading a newspaper

Which do you think is the best title for this article?

　　A. Three Frenchmen and their English Friends  

B. The English Language

　　C. Three French Stories

D. What a Language!

It’s amazing what a little free beer can accomplish. In 1997 the small Danish island of Samso, located in the Kattegat Strail, won a contest hosted by the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy. Samso, then known for its dairy and pig farms, would become Denmark’s showcase for sustainable power, eventually going carbon-free. How that would happen, however, was far from clear, since the government initially offered no funding, tax breaks or technical expertise(专门知识).

Given that almost all its power came from oil or coal — and the island’s 4,300 residents didn’t know a wind turbine(风力发电机) from a grain silo(谷仓) — Samso seemed an strange choice. Soren Hermansen, though, saw an opportunity. A restless native son who grew up on a family farm, Hermansen was teaching environmental studies at a local school when he heard about Samso’s award. He volunteered to be the first — and only — participant. “I realized this could happen,” he says. “This was realistic.” He may have been the only one who thought so.

Hermansen knew Samso islanders were conservative, but that could be an advantage: once he convinced enough potential first movers to act, the rest would follow. So Hermansen showed up at every community or club meeting to campaign for the renewable-energy project. He pointed to the island’s unexplored potential for wind power and the economic benefits of making Samso energy-independent. He sometimes brought free beer.

It worked. The islanders bought shares in new wind turbines to build 11 large land-based turbines, enough to meet the entire island’s electricity needs. Not satisfied with that, they supported the construction of 10 huge offshore turbines，which provide power that the island’s dependence on cars and ferries needs. Today Samso isn’t just carbon-free — it actually produces 10% more clean electricity than it uses, with the extra power fed back into the national electricity network at a profit.

Hermansen has become a green angel, traveling from country to country telling the story of Samso’s success when he’s not at home running the Energy Academy, a research center for clean power. But he’s the first to say that the real credit belongs to the islanders，and that Samso’s lesson is that environmental change can only come from the ground up.

What was Hermansen’t response to the Samso’s winning the contest?

A. He regarded it as a chance.

B. He was not satisfied with the award.

C. He thought it was strange.

D. He thought it was reasonable.

From the second paragraph we can learn that __________.

A. many Samso islanders participated in the green project actively

B. most Samso islanders were against the renewable energy project

C. Samso has a long history of making use of renewable energy

D. at first people showed little interest in the renewable energy project

Why did Hermansen show up at every community or club meeting?

A. It was his duty to keep the islanders informed of government policies.

B. He wanted to convince the islanders to use clean power instead of oil or coal.

C. He wanted to persuade the islanders to be involved in the wind power project.

D. He wanted to share his beer with other islanders.

What can we learn about Hermansen’s personality from the last paragraph?

A. He is practical.                 B. He is courageous.

C. He is modest.                  D. He is ambitious.

My basketball coach at Princeton used to say, "On the court, you can tell who is selfish(自私的)."
  　When my sister Michelle brought Barack Obama home to meet the family, she said to me, "I want you to take him out to play, to see what type of man he is when he’s not around me." So I invited Barack to play basketball with a few friends of mine.
  　I was very nervous although I had already met Barack a few times. I was thinking this guy seemed like a good guy. We played a hard five-on-five. He was thin but not weak. He played extremely left-handed. He dealt with everything perfectly. He wasn’t the best guy out there or the worst guy. I liked the fact that he was confident but wasn’t proud. Barack was very team-oriented (有团队精神的), very unselfish. He played as if he was one of us —he wasn’t trying to be president of Harvard Law Review. But the best part about it was that when we were on the same team, he did not pass me the ball each time. He wasn’t trying to suck up to my sister through me. I was glad to give my sister the good news, "Your boy is straight."
  　He isn’t selfish, which is the greatest praise you can give both a player and a leader. America has got a guy who is running a government in an efficient (有效率的) manner. That’s the same guy I got to know playing basketball when he was visiting my family.
【小题1】 Why does the author begin the passage with his coach’s words?