Mother used to ask me what the most important part of the body is. Through the years I would   ­­1  ­­­ at the correct answer. When I was younger, I thought   2   very important to us, so I said, “My ears, mum.” She said, “No, many people are   3  . But think about it and I’ll ask you again.”

Since making my first   4  , I had often thought over the question. So the next time I told her, “Mum, it must be our eyes.” She said, “You are   5   fast, but the answer isn’t correct because there are blind people.”

   6   the years, mother asked me a couple more   7   and always her response was, “No, but you are getting   8  , dear.” Last year, my Grandpa   9  . Everybody was heartbroken, crying. When it was our   __10   to say our final good-bye to Grandpa, Mum asked me, “Do you know the important body part yet, my dear?”

I was   11   when she was asking me. I always thought this was a    12__ between us. She saw the   __13   look on my face and told me “This question’s very important. It shows you have really   14   your life.” I saw her eyes full of tears. She said, “My dear, the most important body part is your   15  .” I asked, “Is it because they hold up your head?” she replied, “No, it is   16   on them a crying friend or a loved one can   __17   their head. I hope you’ll have a shoulder to cry   18   when you need it.”

Then and there I understood the most important body part is not a   19   one. It is being sympathetic(同情的) to the pain of   20  .

1.A. guess          B. believe                   C. doubt                D. notice

2.A. love           B. health           C. sight                   D. sound

3.A. blind                   B. invisible                  C. deaf                    D. thoughtful

4.A. discovery B. decision                 C. advice                D. attempt

5.A. thinking      B. learning                  C. growing                  D. changing

6.A. Over           B. Till                      C. Beyond                    D. Before

7.A. times          B. things            C. questions               D. ways

8.A. stronger    B. taller                 C. nicer                    D. smarter

9.A. left out      B. got ill             C. passed away          D. got wounded

10.A. turn          B. duty                    C. pity                     D. chance

11.A. satisfied   B. shocked                  C. interested             D. excited

12.A. test           B. secret                C. match             D. game

13.A. worried B. regretted                C. puzzled          D. pained

14.A. lived                  B. found            C. disliked                  D. enjoyed

15.A. feet          B. shoulders               C. hands            D. hair

16.A. how                  B. why                    C. because          D. whether

17.A. put                    B. carry                 C. leave                   D. rest

18.A. on             B. by              C. above             D. for

19.A. valuable B. selfish                C. useful                  D. precious

20.A. Grandpa  B. the deaf            C. others            D. the blind

 

My father used to like drinking. Every time when he got    1   , he would shout loudly and beat my     2   , who left my father and me when I was seven.

   I went to a boarding （寄宿的） school when I was thirteen, and I finally  3  see my father drunk every day. However, I didn’t talk to anybody and     4   all my spare time alone in school because of the pain in my heart. When other boys   5   on the playground, I would sit there alone. This lasted for several weeks until a new   6   who was about forty came to our class. She, of course,   7   I was different. She asked me to answer her question in her first class. I  8   and answered her question in a very   9   voice, with my head down. That noon, after lunch, she found me and had a talk with me. She asked me   10   I need any   11  . Nobody had ever    12  me like that. I finally told her   13   about my family.

   “Things won’t get   14  ,” she said.

   From that day on, every time when she saw me, she would give me a smile. She often asked me to answer her questions in class, and she helped me with my studies after class.   15   time went by, I didn’t feel so  16   as before.

   The day I left that school, I asked her   17  she did all that for me.

   “My mother   18   when I was ten. I know how hard it is   19   a mother,” she said.

   I will never   20   her ----- my dearest teacher.

1．A．hurt                      B．drunk                C．stressful               D．bored

2．A．brother                 B．grandma             C．mother                 D．aunt

3．A．couldn’t                B．shouldn’t            C．didn’t                   D．didn’t have to

4．A．wasted                  B．saved                 C．got                 D．spent

5．A．played                   B．would play          C．were playing         D．had played

6．A．student                 B．worker               C．teacher           D．friend

7．A．knew             B．noticed              C．smelt                    D．saw

8．A．stood up               B．woke up             C．went through    D．calmed down

9．A．angry             B．low                   C．sad              D．urgent

10．A．if               B．why                  C．when                    D．that

11．A．power                 B．relationship         C．help                      D．pressure

12．A．worried about       B．cared about        C．got on with           D．thought of

13．A．anything              B．anybody             C．everything             D．everybody

14．A．better                  B．worse                C．smaller                 D．higher

15．A．Although             B．Because              C．As                        D．When

16．A．lonely                  B．dangerous           C．hard                     D．happy

17．A．how                    B．when                 C．what                 D．why

18．A．married          B．died                  C．fell                       D．appeared

19．A．with                   B．as                      C．without                 D．for

20．A．forget                B．believe          C．upset             D．cheat

The computer, which was used to simplify difficult sums, began    1.    a calculating machine in France in 1642. Then it developed into an analytical machine. After       2.  (program) by an operator      3.   used cards with holes, it could produce an answer quicker than any person. Later, Alan Turning wrote a book about how a computer could be made    4.  work as a “universal machine”. From then on, the computer grew rapidly both in size and in brainpower. By the 1940s, it had grown as large as a room and this reality worried the designers.     5.  , with its memory    6.     (improve), the computer was made smaller. First, the memory was stored in tubes, then on transistors and later on very small chips. As a result, the shape of the computer  7.     (total) changed from a large machine to a PC and then a laptop. Connected by  8.    network, the computer was able to share its knowledge    9.     others through the World Wide Web. Since the 1970s many new applications of the computer    10.        (find) in communication, finance, trade and many other areas. The computer has become a devoted friend and helper of the human race.

 

The family sphere(范围) used to be defined by its isolation from the public realm. There was the public male realm（领域）of "rational accomplishment" and cruel competition, and the private female and child-rearing sphere of home, intuition（直觉）and emotion. The private realm was supposed to be isolated from the realities of adult life. For both better and worse, television and other electronic media tend to break down the difference between those two worlds. The membrane around the family sphere is much more permeable(可渗透的). TV takes public events and transforms them into dramas that are played out in the privacy of our living rooms, kitchens and bedrooms.

Parents used to be the channel through which children learned about the outside world. They could decide what to tell their children and when to tell it to them. Since children learn to read in stages, books provide a kind of natural screening process, where adults can decide what to tell and not tell children of different reading abilities. Television destroyed the system that separated adult from child knowledge and separated information into year-by-year slices for children of different ages. Instead, it presents the same information directly to children of all ages, without going through adult filters.

So television presents a real challenge to adults. While a parent can read a newspaper without sharing it with children in the same room, television is accessible to everyone in that space. And unlike books, television doesn't allow us to flip（翻转）through it and see what's coming up. We may think we're giving our children a lesson in science by having them watch the Challenger take off, and then suddenly they learn about death, disaster and adult mistakes.

Books allow adults to discuss privately what to tell or not tell children. This also allows parents to keep adult material secret from children and keep their secret keeping secret. Take that same material and put it on The Today Show and you have 800,000 children hearing the very things the adults are trying to keep from them. "Television takes our kids across the globe before parents give them permission to cross the street."

More importantly, children gradually learn that adults are worried and anxious about being parents. Actually, television has also places families under a lot of stress.

How Television Changes Childhood?

 

Main comparisons	Contexts
Distance between ___1__and the outside.	Homes used to be isolated from the ___2___realm.
	Homes nowadays are __3__to the outside world.
Media through which children can obtain information	In the past, children might learn __4__about the outside world with the help of parents and ___5___.
	More information is got directly through TV and other electronic media, which breaks down the __6___ between adult world and the child world.
_____7___ of the information children get	Traditionally, kids could only knew what they should learn at their age, carefully___8___by their parents.
	Everything can possibly be known by children, including many aspects of _____ life.
Effects on family education
Parental instruction	Families are now under greater stress than before.　 Adults are anxious about being parents and faced with　 new __10_____.