Sports Saturdays

The Fox Valley Park District has partnered with six schools throughout Aurora and North Aurora to offer its traditionally popular Sports Saturdays program beginning from Jan. 9.

Free to families with children in Grades 1 through 5, Sports Saturdays provide a safe environment for children to participate in activities that include sports, crafts and general fitness. “Sports Saturdays are an opportunity for kids to get out of the house and do what they love most—play! Park District instructors are on hand to teach and assist,” said manager Rafael Martinez, who oversees the program. “They’ll get a chance to take part in different sports, and it also gives parents a couple hours of free time while their kids are enjoying themselves in a safe setting.”

Sports Saturdays are run at six different primary schools around the area. The program runs for eight Saturdays through Feb. 27. Children can participate in the activities at any school, and even visit a different school each week.

Three Ways to Register
Online

Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To sign up for Foxlink, an adult member of the household must complete a Family Information Form and return it to the Park District along with proof of address (driver’s license, state ID or tax bill).

By Mail / Drop Off

Make checks payable to Fox Valley Park District. Fill out the registration form and mail to:

FVPD, 150 W. Illinois Ave., Aurora, IL 60506 ATTN: Brochure Registration.
In Person

Registrations are processed during office hours after resident registration has begun. Cash, check, Visa, MasterCard or Discover is accepted.

Eola Community Center, 555 S. Eola Road, Aurora 60504

1. Sports Saturdays aim to ________.

A．attract more children to attend the local schools

B．encourage schools to promote kids’ physical education

C．provide kids with chances to enjoy the fun of rich activities

D．assist parents to take care of their kids in the winter vacation

2. Children taking part in Sports Saturdays ________.

A．are from six schools

B．are from the same grade

C．will be together with parents

D．will be protected by instructors

3. To register, one has to ________.

A．pay for the registration form	B．provide identification for address
C．come to an interview in person	D．apply in three different ways

“Dear Daddy” Notes

My father was the gentlest, most loving and caring dad in the world—until we had an argument. During those moments, he transformed into a stubborn man who never considered that there could be a side other than his own. My words surely never reached his “open mind” because his ears were closed. There was no point trying to argue with my dad. He always had the last word. I could never win.

When my father refused to understand that I needed the privacy of a phone in my room, my frustration turned to tears. When he sensed that I was gaining the upper hand in defending my case for wearing lip gloss to school in junior high, he ended our “discussion”, leaving me silently defeated and miserable. So when he refused to change his idea about letting me go on my senior class trip to Montreal, I could do nothing but race from his room in despair. If I couldn’t get him to listen to my side of our arguments, maybe I could get him to read it.

With the hope that his eyes would be more open than his ears, I began to plead(抗辩) my case in a note that began “Dear Daddy” and ended with how much I respected his opinion, how much I hated to fight with him and how much I valued our relationship and, above all, how much I loved him. I folded my note into an envelope, slid it under the door of his bedroom and raced back to my own room.

It was only minutes before I heard a knock at my door. When I saw the look on my father’s face, I knew that my note had melted his temper, softened his stubbornness and touched his heart.

The victory of winning my dad’s permission to go to Montreal was sweet. But even sweeter was the discovery of a strategy that enabled me to have an argument with my dad that didn’t end in tears, but instead with a hug. My “Dear Daddy” notes became a follow-up to many of our confrontations(对抗). During our most emotional arguments, when his unyielding final word drove me to tears, when his “I’m your father, that’s why!” left me speechless, I knew just how to get through to him.

Years later, when my father died, his memory lived on through the many stories about him that friends and family continued to share. One of my favorites was the “Dear Daddy” notes. It always made me smile to remember some of our most passionate arguments and how my dad would become so pig-headed, until he read my notes. He surely must have seen through my calculating strategy, but he never let on; he enjoyed every note that turned him to see my way.

4. What did the author think about her father during an argument?

A．Gentle.	B．Stubborn.
C．Aggressive.	D．Open-minded.

5. The “Dear Daddy” notes could help the author ________.

A．avoid meeting her father	B．stop the argument with ease
C．deliver her meassage more quickly	D．make her father understand her

6. After he died, the author’s father impressed her most with his ________.

A．generous love	B．pig-headed decision
C．patient company	D．heated discussion

Imagine a town with crosswalks but no pedestrians, cars and trucks but no drivers. Welcome to Mcity, a fake “city” built by researchers who are testing out the driverless cars of the future.

The controlled test environment, which opened today (July 20, 2015) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, covers 32 acres (the size of about 24 football fields) and contains all the trappings of a real suburb or small city. There is an entire network of roads lined with sidewalks, streetlights, stop signs and traffic signals. There’s even a “downtown” area complete with fake buildings and outdoor dining areas.

The idea behind Mcity is simple: test out new driverless car innovations in a human-free environment before these technologies are unleashed in the real world.

"Mcity is a safe, controlled, and realistic environment where we are going to figure out how the incredible potential of connected and automated vehicles can be realized quickly, efficiently and safely," Peter Sweatman, director of the Mobility Transformation Center at U-M, said in a statement.

The roads of Mcity are built to stand up to “rigorous, repeatable” testing, according to MTC officials. While Mcity drivers don't have to compete with real pedestrians, there will be one mechanical foot-traveler (a robot-like machine named Sebastian) that steps out into traffic to see whether the automated cars can hit the brakes in time. The fake city also features a traffic circle, a bridge, a tunnel, some unpaved roads, and even a four-lane highway with entrance and exit ramps, according to a report by Bloomberg Business.

In addition to evaluating fully automated, or driverless cars, the researchers also hope to test out so-called connected vehicles within Mcity’s limits. Connected cars can either communicate with one another (vehicle-to-vehicle control, or V2V) or with pieces of equipment, such as traffic lights, that are located near roadways (vehicle-to-infrastructure control, or V2I).

Even the smallest details of Mcity have been planned out in advance to copy the conditions that connected and automated vehicles could face in the real world. For example, there are street signs covered up with graffiti, and faded yellow and white lane markings line the streets.

Mcity is just one part of a much larger project that MTC and its partner organizations are establishing in an effort to get a whole fleet of connected and driverless cars on the road in Ann Arbor by 2021. In addition to the fake city, MTC is also continuing to launch connected and semi-autonomous(半自动) cars on real roadways. Eventually, the University of Michigan and the Michigan Department of Transportation said they hope to put 20,000 connected cars on the roads of southern Michigan.

7. According to the passage, Mcity ________.

A．is a real town used to evaluate the function of future cars

B．is a fake city with transportation system but no pedestrians

C．covers an area of 32 acres with as many as 24 football fields

D．owns a downtown area with a bridge and some unpaved roads

8. Why did researchers build Mcity?

A．To test new driverless cars.

B．To make a real suburb or small city.

C．To control road environment.

D．To build an entire network of roads.

9. It can be inferred from the passage that ________.

A．some connected and semi-autonomous cars have been put into use

B．the researchers plans to create a robot-like machine to direct the traffic

C．the widespread use of driverless cars will soon come into reality in America

D．MTC is attempting to make connected and driverless cars available on real roads

10. How does the passage mainly develop?

A．By presenting descriptions of the design.

B．By describing a cause and its effects.

C．By providing the time order.

D．By comparing the opinions.

Read the following passage and then answer the questions.

The Gate without a Latch(插销)

¹ THERE was a farmer, who had a little gate, which opened from his yard into a field. This little gate wanted a latch, and therefore could not be fastened.

²When he passed through the gate, he was very careful to pull it after him; but other people were not always so mindful. Even with all his care, the wind would often blow it open again after he had closed it.

³The result was, that the gate was generally either flapping backwards and forwards in the wind, or standing wide open.

⁴In this way the poultry were always getting out; and the sheep and lambs were always getting in. It took up half the children’s time to run after the chickens and drive them back into the yard, and to send the sheep and the lambs back into the field.

⁵ The farmer’s wife was always telling him that he ought to get the latch mended; but he used to say that it would cost six pence, and that it was not worthwhile. He said that the children might as well be driving the sheep and the poultry in and out of the yard and the field as be doing nothing. So the gate remained without the latch.

⁶One day a fat pig got out of its sty, pushed open the gate, ran into the field, and thence wandered into a thick wood. The pig was soon missed and a hue-and-cry was raised after it.

⁷The farmer was in the act of tying up a horse in the stable; but he left it, to run after the pig.

⁸His wife was ironing some clothes in the kitchen; and she left her work, to follow her husband.

⁹The daughter was stirring some broth (肉汤) over the fire; and she left it, to run after her mother.

¹⁰The farmer’s sons and his man joined in the chase after the pig; and away they all went, men and women, to the wood.

¹¹But the man, making more haste(忙乱) than good speed, sprained his ankle in jumping over a fence. The farmer and his sons were obliged to give up chasing the pig, to carry the man back to the house. The good woman and her daughter also returned to assist the poor man who was hurt.

¹²When they got back to the house, they found that the broth had boiled over, that the dinner was spoiled，and that two shirts, which had been hanging before the fire, were burned and utterly ruined.

¹³The farmer scolded his wife and the girl, for being so careless as not to take the shirts and the broth from the fire before they left the kitchen.

¹⁴He then went to his stable, where he found that the horse, which he had left loose, had kicked a fine colt and broken its leg. The servant was kept in the house for a fortnight, by the hurt to his ankle.

¹⁵Thus, besides the injury done to the farmer’s man, the farmer lost two weeks’ work from his servant, a fine colt, a fat pig, and his two best shirts, to say nothing of the loss of his dinner—all for the want of a six-penny latch!

¹⁶In this way were two good old proverbs proved: “For want of a nail the wheel comes off.” “Safe bind, safe find.”

Questions 1 to 5. Judge if the following statements agree with the information given in the passage. Choose A for TRUE if the statements agree with it; choose B for FALSE if the statements don’t agree with it; choose C for NOT GIVEN if the information the statements carry is not mentioned anywhere in the passage.
Questions 6 to 9. Match the following words with their meanings in the passage. Note that there are four choices more than you need.

11. The farmer’s children took care of the animals after school.
12. All the family went to look for the missing pig.
13. The farmer hurt his ankle in jumping over a fence.
14. The farmer blamed his daughter for ruining his shirts.
15. The farmer suffered a great loss for saving six penny.
16. want
17. poultry
18. raise
19. spoil
20. What can be learned from this story?

A．It’s never too late to mend.	B．No man can do two things at once.
C．Well begun is half done.	D．Pre-measure prevents future troubles.