Robots in class

    Over 600,000 children in the United States spend their long time in hospital each year．Many of them say that they have difficult in returning to school after hospital stays．Thanks to technology，kids who are sick in the hospital no longer have to miss time in the classroom．

    A program called PEBBLES makes it possible for kids in hospital to take part in classroom discussions by using robot．PEBBLES(Providing Education by Bringing Environments to Students)supplies robots to help kids who are staying in hospital keep up with their classmates．

    For Achim Nurse，a 13-yers-old patient at Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Valhalla，New York，PEBBLES helped him so much．When he first learned about the program，he wasn’t so sure it would work．    

   “When I first saw it，it looked difficult，”said Achim．

    However，after 30 minutes of working with the robot，Achim discovered that he had gotten good at operating it．

    The robots work in pairs—一one in the hospital with the student，the other in the classroom．

    The robot in the classroom gives the student in the hospital a feel of“tele-presence．”A live picture of the students is shown on a video screen in the classroom．Meanwhile，in the hospital room，the student knows clear about what is going on in the classroom．

    The robot at the school has four wheels．so it can move around from class to class．Its“face” is an auto-focus(可以自动调焦的)camera．By using a control box，the student call turn the robot’s head，raise its hand，and adjust the volume(音量)．It is even equipped with a scanner(扫描器)and printer，so if the teacher want to have an exercise or testing class，the student can participate from the hospital．

   “The robot is greeted by students in the classroom．It is also greeted by the sick student。”said Andrew Summa，national director of the robot project．

根据短文内容完成下面各题。

1．Try to use the phrase underlined in the first paragraph to make a sentence．

2．Guess the Chinese meaning of“keep up with”．

3．The robot is greeted by students in the classroom．It is also greeted by the student in the hospital．(改写为同义句)

4．According to the passage，we can know that____

  A．We can operate this kind of robot easily．   

  B．the student in hospital cannot adjust the volume by using control box．

  C．The teacher wants to have a test in the class now. Although the student in the hospital has this kind of robot，he also cannot participate it．

5．What do you think of the robot project in the United States? Do you think it can help sick students? What do you think are its limitations?

Dear Editor,(编辑)
I am unhappy these days.I am a student in Grade 3 of a middle school. I want to be a policewoman in the future.(未来) But my mother doesn’t like the job. She always  says it is too dangerous for a girl to work as a policewoman. She thinks girls should work in the office. She hopes that I can work as a teacher. But I really dislike being a teacher. I don't like work with children. When I talk with her about it , she is often angry. She always thinks she is right. I don’t know what to do. Can you help me?
Yours,
Lily
【小题1】Where does Lily want to work?

根据短文内容填写单词，使短文意思完整，一空一词。（每空1分，共10分）

Do you   81   robots(机器人)?   82    a lot of robots in the world now. Some of the robots can walk, sing and dance. Some can talk  83   people. Most of   84   can do heavy work. In a few years, a robot can will be able to(能够)   85   a car, a train, a ship or a plane. In a hospital, a restaurant or a shop, we may     86    a robot at work. At that time, we don’t   87   to do the cooking   88    go shopping ourselves. We   89    give orders(命令) to a robot and it can do all the housework. Robots can be our good   90   .

The Reading Club meets in the library after school. We read and talk a___86____ English story books. It is a lot of fun. I tell the o____87___ students about good books. Then, they tell me about their f____88___ books. We also learn about new books and choose what we want to r____89__ next. We can read books alone, or we can listen to recordings of storybooks on CDs. I like l____90____ to stories on CD. I can hear many d___91____ voices and sounds. This h___92____ me speak and understand English.
S____93_____ we read books in pairs. Students in Grade 9 help me read difficult books. They tell me what the words mean and help me understand. This is very h___94____. I like to learn f____95___ the older students.

Mom:    Daniel, I need to talk to you about your behavior. Dad and I realize there is probably an explanation for why the house is so dirty, but you shouldn’t have run out of the room and closed the door so hard like that.

Daniel:     Mom, I’m sorry, but I was so angry! You want me to act like an adult but you and dad treat me like a child. Why didn’t you just ask me what had happened?

Mom:    Well, I know that grown-ups are supposed to make good decisions but sometimes we make mistakes. We were angry too. None of us stopped to think and we should have. Can you explain to me now why the house was a mess and what you did with the money we left?

Daniel: Spot was sick, Mom. Eric and I didn’t want to call you and dad on your vacation, so I used the money you left and some of my own to take him to the vet. We stayed there and waited for him all day. That is why we didn’t have time to clean the house.

1. Who is Spot?

2. Where were Daniel’s parents when Spot was sick?

3. Why did Daniel’s mother talk with him?