People say teenagers are no good．They make too much noise in shopping malls; they drive recklessly up and down America’s main streets; they carry chips on their shoulders as big as the Sears Tower．And at least some of the time those things are true．But we shouldn’t forget that there are hard moments in the life of a teenager too．

    I watched such a moment not long ago at a woman’s funeral（葬礼）．I didn’t expect the event to affect me．Through much of the ceremony, in fact, I remained unmoved．

    Then her teenage grandson stepped forward．With his very first deep breath, every heart in that church was achingly reminded of something we had all forgotten．Softly he began: “I want to share a few values that Nana taught me．She never failed to see light in any situation．When our family dog would literally attact her, what would Nana say? ‘Oh, what beautiful markings that dog has．’ That was Nana．

    “She was a strong woman who often lived in the shadow of my grandpa, who was a successful businessman in this city．But she was the one behind the scenes who provided the strength and support for Grandpa’s career,” he said, with a voice now trembling．“That was Nana’s way．”

    Through a muffled sob, he continued．“Whenever she did anything worth recognition, you’d have to hear about it from a different source, because she was never one to brag．”

    Finally, in a voice breaking free of sorrow, he looked up and said, “Nana taught me courage．She put up an incredible fight to the end, when she died peacefully, which is how she lived her life．That was Nana’s way, and I hope I can carry on in the same manner．”

    There are no hearts as sensitive as those of teenagers, because everything is happening to them for the first time．The trouble with teenagers is that they haven’t learned to be controlled．

    When that boy rose to speak about the woman who surely had been his truest ally and est friend, his honest voice dragged each of us out into the open where we could no longer hide in the calm ritual．He exposed us to the truth about this very real woman who believed in a boy who probably tried the patience of many adults．He reminded us that his grandmother was more than another dot on the chart of life and death．

    All over again we felt those powerful losses crisscrossing our own hearts, and we knew that when you say good-bye to a beloved grandparent, you say good-bye to something happy, something young in yourself．And that something never really returns, and the pain never really goes away．

1.From the boy’s speech, we know his grandmother ____________．

    A．was a weak woman living in the shadow of his grandpa

    B．liked dogs very much even if they often attacked her

    C．could see everything around her though she was old

    D．had great influence over the boy when she was alive

2.According to the first paragraph, _____________．

    A．young people should keep quiet before the public

    B．people don’t think highly of the teenagers

    C．people shouldn’t forget the young people

    D．young people are living a hard life

3.The writer wanted to tell the readers ____________．

    A．the young people were too weak to face the fact

    B．the young people had to learn to control themselves

    C．the adults could learn something valuable from the young

    D．the adults should teach the young how to deal with the death

4.We can infer from the passage that the boy ___________．

    A．was filled with sadness and gave up finishing his talk

    B．was always very good at expressing himself

    C．practiced a lot in order to give a moving speech

    D．had great difficulty in accepting the loss of Nana

　    Many children first learn the value of money by receiving an allowance. The purpose is to let children learn from experience at an age when financial mistakes are not very costly. The amount of money that parents give to their children to spend as they wish differs from family to family. Timing is another consideration. Some children get a weekly allowance. Others get a monthly allowance. In any case, parents should make clear what, if anything, the child is expected to pay for with the money.

At first, young children may spend all of their allowance soon after they receive it. If they do this, they will learn the hard way that spending must be done within a budget. Parents are usually advised not to offer more money until the next allowance. The object is to show young people that a budget demands choices between spending and saving. Older children may be responsible enough to save money for larger costs, like clothing or electronics.

Many people think it is not a good idea to pay your child for work around the home. These jobs are a normal part of family life. Paying children to do extra work around the house, however, can be useful. It can even provide an understanding of how a business works.

Allowances give children a chance to experience the three things they can do with money. They can share it in the form of gifts or giving to a good cause. They can spend it by buying things they want. Or they can save it. Saving helps children understand that costly goals require sacrifice: you have to cut costs and plan for the future.

Requiring children to save part of their allowance can also open the door to future saving. A saving account is an excellent way to learn about the power of compound interest. Compounding works by paying interest on interest. So, for example, one dollar invested at two percent interest for two years will earn two cents in the first year. The second year, the money will earn two percent of one dollar and two cents, and so on. That may not seem like a lot. But over time it adds up.

14. Many parents give children an allowance regularly to ______.

   A. meet children’s basic need for life        B. give control over their children

   C. see whether they have financial mistakes   D. help children learn how to manage money

15. For Children who receive allowances, they’d better not ________.

   A. waste money to buy gifts for their parents or friends

   B. buy their favorite clothing or electronics for themselves

   C. save money like their parents or other adults

   D. ask for the next allowance before the decided date.

16. If children are required to save their allowance, they ______.

   A. can experience the three things related to money

   B. can understand the relation between goals and sacrifice

   C. will do more work around the house

   D. help themselves found the basis for their future life

17. What does the underlined phrase “compound interest” mean?

   A. The interest based on the original money and unpaid interest.

   B. A way of helping children earn two percent interest.

   C. The interest intended for children to earn money.

   D. A saving account opened for children’s allowance.

18. What would be the best title for the text?

   A. How to Give Children an Allowance

   B. Spend Your Allowance within a Budget

   C. Allowance Helps Children Learn about Money

   D. Doing Housework Earns Children Allowance

Do American children still learn handwriting in school? In the age of the keyboard, some people seem to think handwriting lessons are on the way out. 90% of teachers say they are required to teach handwriting.But studies have yet to answer the question of how well they are teaching it. One study published this year found that about three out of every four teachers say they are not prepared to teach handwriting. Some teachers are teaching handwriting by providing instruction for 10 ?15 minutes a day, and then other teachers who basically teach it for 60 to 70 minutes a day — which really for handwriting is pretty much.

Many adults remember learning that way — by copying letters over and over again. Today’ s thinking is that short periods of practice are better. Many experts also think handwriting should not be taught by itself.Instead, they say it should be used as a way to get students to express ideas. After all, that is why we write.

Handwriting involves two skills. One is legibility,_which means forming the letters so they can be read. The other is fluency — writing without having to think about it. Fluency continues to develop up until high school.

But not everyone masters these skills. Teachers commonly report that about one?fourth of their kids have poor handwriting. Some people might think handwriting is not important any more because of computers and voice recognition programs.

But Steve Graham at Vanderbilt says word processing is rarely done in elementary school, especially in the early years. American children traditionally first learn to print, and then to write in cursive, which connects the letters. But guess what we learned from a spokeswoman for the College Board, which administers the SAT college admission test. More than 75 percent of students choose to print their essay on the test rather than write in cursive.

1.We can learn ________ from Paragraph 1.

A. teaching handwriting is a basic requirement in teaching job

B. most teachers prefer to teach handwriting

C. teachers spend little time in teaching handwriting

D. a keyboard has taken the place of the handwriting entirely

2.Which of the following is WRONG for traditional handwriting in the USA?

A. The students are taught by practicing a long period.

B. The letters are repeated many times.

C. Handwriting includes two skills.

D. To write in cursive is taught first.

3.The underlined word “legibility” in Paragraph 3 means ________.

A. easy to read     B. complex      C. unexpected  　D. unreadable

4.The best title for the passage is ________.

A. How to improve handwriting in school

B. Right or wrong: the death of handwriting

C. Handwriting involves two skills

D. Handwriting lessons are on the way out

5.The author’ s attitude towards whether still to learn handwriting in school is________.

A. negative     B. objective            C. critical             D. optimistic

Many people believe that teaching children music makes them smarter, better able to learn new things. But the organizers of a new study say there's no scientific evidence that early musical training affects the intelligence of young people.

An estimated 80 percent of American adults think music lessons improve children's abilily to learn or their performance in school. They say that the satisfaction for learning to play a new song helps a child express creativity.

Researchers at Harvard University, however, have found that there's one thing musi­cal training does not do. They say it does not make children more intelligent. Samuel Mehr is a graduate student at Harvard's School of Education. He said it is wrong to think that learning to play a musical instrument improves a child's intellectual development. He says the evidence comes from studies that measured the mental ability of two groups of 4-year-olds and their parents. One group attended music class, the other went to a class that places importance on the visual arts—arts that can be seen.

"The evidence there is 'no'. We found no evidence for any advantage on any of these tests for the kids participating in these music clases," said Mehr.Samuel Mehr says researchers have carried out many studies in an effort to learn whether musical training can make children smarter. He says the results have been mixed. He says only one study seems to show a small percentage increase in IQ, intellectual scores among students after one year of music lessons. He does not believe that IQ is a good measure of child's intelligence. He says researchers in his study compared how well children in the musical training group did on mental processing tasks or projects, then the results were compared to those of children who did not take lessons. There was no evidence that the musical training group did much better on the mental tasks than the other group.

The researchers comfirmed the results with a larger group of children and their par­ents.Mr Mehr says music lessons may not offer children a fast easy way to gain entry to the best schools later of their life. But he says the training is still important for cultural reasons. In his words, "We teach music because music is important for us."

1.According to the new study, musical training______.

A. makes children smarter????????????????????????

B. helps a child express creativity

C. does not make children more intelligent??????????

D. improve children's ability to learn in school

2.Samuel Mehr may agree that______.

A. the children who attended music class are smarter than those who attended arts class

B. IQ is a good measure of a child's intelligence

C. we needn't to teach children music

D. music training is still important for cultural reasons

3.In order to confirm his view, Samuel Mehr______.

A. conducted more than one research

B. interviewed many American adults

C. taught two groups of 4-yetr-olds music and arts

D. offered children a fast way to be admitted to the best schools

4.The artical may be taken from a report about _____.

A. health????????????? B. education????????????? C. ????????????? culture????????????? D.economy

According to legend, a young man while wandering the desert came across a spring of delicious crystal-clear water. The water was so sweet, he   21  his leather container so he could bring some   22  to a tribal elder who had been his teacher.

After a four-day journey he   23  the water to the old man who took a deep drink,   24  warmly and thanked his student lavishly for the sweet water. The young man returned to his village with a happy   25 .

Later, the teacher let another student   26  the water. He spat it   27 , saying it was awful. It   28  had been no longer fresh and   29  unpleasant to drink because of the old leather container.

The student challenged his teacher: “Master, the water was smelly. Why did you   30  to like it?”

The teacher replied, “You only tasted the water. I tasted the   31 . The water was simply the container for an act of loving-kindness and nothing could be   32 .”

I think we understand this lesson best when we receive   33  gifts of love from young children.   34  it’s a tray or a bracelet, the   35  and proper response is   36  and expressed thankfulness because we love the idea within the gift.

Gratitude doesn’t always come naturally.   37 , most children and many adults value only the thing given   38  the feeling embodied in it. We should remind ourselves and   39  our children about the beauty and purity of feelings and expressions of gratitude.   40 , gifts from the heart are really gifts of the heart.

1.                A．packed         B．filled           C．took D．carried

2.                A．in             B．away           C．back D．up

3.                A．presented      B．mailed          C．delivered D．showed

4.                A．said           B．laughed         C．smiled    D．nodded

5.                A．heart          B．mind           C．moment  D．occasion

6.                A．smell          B．watch          C．taste D．feel

7.                A．away           B．out            C．off  D．on

8.                A．apparently      B．still            C．sadly D．quickly

9.                A．however        B．instead         C．nevertheless   D．therefore

10.               A．change         B．pretend        C．determine D．agree

11.               A．sweat          B．sense          C．promise   D．gift

12.               A．clearer         B．fresher         C．sweeter   D．purer

13.               A．simple         B．innocent        C．worthless  D．meaningless

14.               A．Whether       B．If             C．Whatever  D．Whichever

15.               A．pretended      B．lovely          C．abnormal D．natural

16.               A．devotion       B．comfort        C．imagination     D．appreciation

17.               A．Unfortunately    B．Frankly         C．Strangely  D．Possibly

18.               A．other than      B．rather than      C．better than     D．more than

19.               A．persuade       B．teach          C．improve   D．advise

20.               A．In a word       B．Otherwise      C．Thus  D．After all