Julie, Frank, Unicorn or Luna — your child surprises you with an important new friend, a friend they have imagined. There are good reasons to play along. For one thing, it’s a sign of your child’s growing imagination. For another, their best new friend can give them comfort, and confidence in the world.
Imaginary friends are surprisingly common. A 2004 study suggested well over half (65%) of all children may have had one by age seven. This is quite commonly seen. Typically, imaginary friends appear in children’s lives from around age three and are usually gone by the age of 11. And there may be more than one. The study found some children have different playmates up to 13 were recorded.
The burning question for most parents is why their child has an imaginary friend. There’s no real answer, but children may make up impressive stores including the friend’s family and lifestyle — for play companionship (陪伴) on to develop ideas and stories. Boys may like superhero-style friends, while girls often act as wise advisers for their friends. Not all friends are human, and this is just another way young children show their imagination and ability to develop characters and role play. Your main worry is keeping up with the main stories and names.
So how do you manage your child’s unknown playmate? Most advice suggests you don’t ask too many questions as your child likes to be in control of their special relationship — and they may not tell you everything. They can be changeable too, changing friends at will. The only thing to watch out for is an imaginary friend who keeps causing trouble Dirty shoes can’t be blamed on (把责任推给……) Julie, Frank, Unicorn or Luna without some fair parental intervention (干预). Make it clear that while they are under your roof (屋顶) the imaginary friend has to follow your house rules.
1. What does the author mention in the first paragraph?| A．The reasons why kids want to have an imaginary friend. |
| B．Advantages of playing along with imaginary friends. |
| C．Parents’ worries about imaginary friends. |
| D．Kids’ dependence on imaginary friends. |
| A．Kids usually have many imaginary friends. |
| B．Imaginary friends will keep kids company for life. |
| C．Having imaginary friends is against kids’ nature. |
| D．It is common for kids to have imaginary friends. |
| A．They are inspired by heroes around kids. |
| B．They may show up for different reasons. |
| C．They are trustworthy for parents. |
| D．They are usually humans. |
| A．Ask their kids and their imaginary friends to follow house rules. |
| B．Take their kids out to join in some outdoor activities. |
| C．Help their kids to find an imaginary friend. |
| D．Talk to their kids honestly and heartfully. |
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【推荐1】Modern science proves that a healthy lifestyle matters much to how long youcan live and how well you live. Here are some tips for you to form a healthy lifestyle.
Keep a scientific diet. Keep in mind that sugar can be removed from our diet completely. Over intake(摄入量) of sugar is one of the main reasons for getting fat. Over intake of protein or fat and low intake of fiber can also lead to getting fat. We only need a few grams of protein to keep our body in order.
Be always in a good mood. There is a relationship between the mood and health.A good mood keeps you in high spirits. Thanks to the Internet, we can enjoy and learn much without going out. Take a look at some online shops and pick up some bargains, enjoy music and movies and chat with good friends. Just keep happy.
Enough sleep. Two studies show the reasons why teens and adults don't haveenough sleep. With teens, a major reason is mobile phone use; with adults, it's work. Meanwhile, a third study of young children shows that lack of sleep in early life may lead to serious problems in future. Everyone needs at least 8-hour sleep to recover from tiredness and the hurt caused by hard work in the daytime.
Proper exercise. Do exercise to keep away from fatness. Because of the quickpace of the modern life, you don't have time to do exercise every day, but at least three times a week and 45 minutes each time.
1. What is the writer's purpose in writing the passage?| A．To tell the readers how to take proper exercise every day. |
| B．To make some surveys among those who have health problems. |
| C．To ask people to care about their health rather than their work. |
| D．To provide some advice on how to form a healthy lifestyle. |
| A．Low intake of protein. | B．Low intake of fat. |
| C．Over intake of sugar. | D．Over intake of fiber. |
| A．have too much homework | B．use mobile phones too much |
| C．eat too much sugar every day | D．don't have enough exercise |
| A．135 minutes. | B．115 minutes. |
| C．90minutes. | D．45 minutes. |
【推荐2】Giant pandas are among the most lovable animals alive today. Unlike their relatives, such as the polar bear, pandas don’t eat meat but survive on a diet of only bamboo. So why and how have pandas abandoned their taste for meat to pick up a vegetarian diet?
Pandas today don’t eat meat. However, they’ve kept much of their meat-eating adaptations from times past. Their digestive systems have not changed much from their meat-eating days. Out of the huge 12.5 kg of bamboo they eat in a single day, only about 17% of it is digested. To survive, pandas eat large amounts of bamboo while having a low-metabolic (新陈代谢的), lazy lifestyle to make up for the poor energy return.
The giant panda’s shift to a vegetarian diet is in line with the inactivation of a specific gene — Taslrl, which provides them with the ability to taste certain amino acids (氨基酸) abundant in meat. Its inactivation in pandas would lead to their dietary change.
Pandas have evolved to a great degree to cope with their relatively recent bamboo-eating lifestyle. Pandas must seize long and thin pieces of bamboo shoots. To assist with this, they have developed a long “fake-thumb” (伪拇指). So giant pandas have six fingers in each paw which provides better support for them to seize objects such as bamboo in one paw quickly. Researchers have found that the surface of the panda’s tongue is different. While other bears and many meat-eating animals have smooth tongues, pandas have evolved tiny projections (隆起物) on the surface of their tongues that serve to file down (锉平) food. This is especially useful for pandas as they remove the outer cover of bamboo.
Time will tell if pandas will adapt and survive, go back to eating meat, or disappear in the wild. Whatever the future holds, we can be grateful that, for the time being, we get to share our planet with these adorable animals.
1. Why are the numbers mentioned in paragraph 2?| A．To illustrate the variety of food. |
| B．To represent the evolutionary rule of pandas. |
| C．To describe the changes of living environment. |
| D．To show the ineffectiveness of digestive system. |
| A．The low-metabolic ability. | B．The amino acids in meat. |
| C．The Taslrl gene’s inactivation. | D．The supplies of bamboo. |
| A．Seizing bamboo shoots. | B．The low energy return. |
| C．Developing more fingers. | D．The vegetarian diet. |
| A．Pandas’ adaptation to the new environment. |
| B．Pandas’ evolutionary reason and feature in eating. |
| C．Pandas’ unique lifestyle. |
| D．Pandas’ special appearance. |
【推荐3】With much of the world locked down to prevent the spread of COVID-19, many of us are looking for heartening news we can get. Global air pollution has been reduced. Even the number of wildlife seems to increase. But these developments seem so slow. We may, however, be able to take lasting comfort from one fact during this period: The number of people growing their own food at home has increased.
More people are thinking about where their food comes from and how easily it can be affected. Urban farming can improve food security and lower stress. But to be clear, the pandemic isn’t likely to have an impact on grocery shelves. Lockdowns in the U.S. don’t include food transportation. And while there may be concerns about some harvests falling short due to a lack of labor, there’s still plenty to go around. If store shelves appear empty, don’t blame the supply chain. Blame those who loaded up three carts of produce because they figured the world was about to end. Nervous customers are the real threat to food security.
Urban farming is pretty much what it sounds like: a farm in an urban setting. That setting could be as simple as a window-sill or even a rooftop. And backyards are perfect choices. Why waste all that sunlight when you can have green peppers and golden potatoes?
In fact, urban farming is always a good thing even when we’re not in pandemic times. But we should remember urban farms won’t feed entire cities. Large-size rural operations still do a pretty good job of that. The real value of urban farming may be that you’ll have a much deeper appreciation for the natural systems on which we depend. The farm produces a harvest of teachable moments about what it takes to grow different crops and how difficult it actually is.
1. What does the underlined word “heartening” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．surprising. | B．alarming. | C．interesting. | D．encouraging. |
| A．Panic buying. | B．Poor harvests. | C．Lack of labour. | D．Broken supply chains. |
| A．To stress the importance of sunlight. | B．To introduce some vegetables into urban areas. |
| C．To show backyards’ role as a farming place. | D．To encourage people to take up urban farming. |
| A．is more environmentally friendly | B．makes us understand natural systems better |
| C．should be operated in large sizes | D．can support the whole city |
【推荐1】Summer is around the corner, and you may already be dreaming about how you’ll spend your break. Chances are, staying in school is not your top pick. But for 13-year-old Simone Jones of Philadelphia — and more than 2 million other students in the U.S. — going to school in the summer is the only choice. That’s because Simone goes to a year-round school.
In fact, year-round schools have almost the same number of vacation days as traditional-calendar schools. In a year-round school, summer break is usually shortened to about four weeks; the remaining vacation time gets spread out over the rest of the year. Simone, for example, gets a few weeks off in the fall, winter, and spring.
That extra time off during the school year can be a good thing. “Everyone thinks a year-round school is hard,” says Simone. “But the little breaks take a lot of pressure (压力) off us.”
Reorganizing the year can prevent summer learning loss — that is, forgetting what you’ve learned from the prior (之前的) school year. However, there is a downside. In fact, some schools have tried year-round schedules (时间表) only to turn back when it was difficult to carry out. Try setting up a soccer game with another school when you’re on a break every few weeks. Planning family trips can be difficult too, especially if siblings (兄弟姐妹) are on different school schedules.
What does summer vacation mean in our culture? It’s an American tradition, a time to create lasting memories. But is tradition a good enough reason to keep it around? Summer break began 120 years ago, when it was very hot in the summer, so schools started closing. Today, we have air conditioning. And most parents work. For many kids, summer days are spent mostly indoors, playing video games and watching TV. Clearly the world has changed. Is it time for summer break to change, too?
1. According to the text, Simone Jones _____.| A．suffers from summer heat | B．studies at a year-round school |
| C．has become tired of going to school | D．keeps forgetting what she’s learned at school |
| A．The number of vacation days. | B．When students go to school every day. |
| C．What subjects students may choose. | D．How the holidays are organized. |
| A．problem | B．choice | C．danger | D．duty |
| A．was started in the early 19th century | B．doesn’t have to be that long any more |
| C．is a tradition for people to keep alive | D．is a good time for kids to enjoy themselves |
【推荐2】We talk continuously about how to make children tougher and stronger, but whatever we’re doing, it’s not working. Rates of anxiety disorders and depression are rising rapidly among teenagers. What are we doing wrong?
Nassim Taleb invented the word “antifragile” and used it to describe a small but very important class of systems that gain from shocks, challenges, and disorder. The immune (免疫的) system is one of them: it requires exposure to certain kinds of bacteria and potential allergens (过敏原) in childhood in order to develop to its full ability.
Children’s social and emotional abilities are as antifragile as their immune systems. If we overprotect kids and keep them “safe” from unpleasant social situations and negative emotions, we deprive (剥夺) them of the challenges and opportunities for skill-building they need to grow strong. Such children are likely to suffer more when exposed later to other unpleasant but ordinary life events, such as teasing and social rejection.
In the UK, as in the US, parents became much more fearful in the 1980s and 1990s to those rare occurrences of crimes and accidents that now occur less and less. Outdoor play and independent mobility went down; screen time and adult-monitored activities went up.
Yet free play in which kids work out their own rules of engagement, take small risks, and learn to master small dangers turns out to be vital for the development of adult social and even physical competence. Depriving them of free play prevents their social-emotional growth.
What can we do to change this situation? How can we raise kids strong enough to handle the ordinary and extraordinary challenges of life? We can’t guarantee that giving primary school children more independence today will bring down the rate of teenage suicide tomorrow. The links between childhood overprotection and teenage mental illness are suggestive but not clear-cut. Yet there are good reasons to suspect that by depriving our naturally antifragile kids of the wide range of experiences they need to become strong, we are systematically preventing their growth. We should let go — and let them grow.
1. Why does the author mention the immune system in Paragraph 2?| A．To stress its importance. | B．To help understand a new word. |
| C．To question the latest discovery. | D．To analyze the types of anxiety. |
| A．Because their children are not independent enough. |
| B．Because they want to keep their children from being teased. |
| C．Because parent-monitored activities are a must. |
| D．Because they are concerned about their children’s safety. |
| A．It can reduce children’s risky behavior. | B．It can strengthen children’s friendship. |
| C．It can promote children’s toughness. | D．It can develop children’s leadership skills. |
| A．Parents should stop trying to protect their children. |
| B．Parents should try their best to raise their children on their own. |
| C．Parents should try to teach their children all about life. |
| D．Parents should prepare the children for the road, not the road for the children. |
“I have two kids in college, and I want to say ‘come home,’ but at the same time I want to provide them with a good education,” says Jacobs.
The Jacobs family did work out a solution: They asked and received more aid from the schools, and each son increased his borrowing to the maximum amount through the federal loan (贷款) program. They will each graduate with $20,000 of debt, but at least they will be able to finish school.
With unemployment rising, financial aid administrators(管理者) expect to hear more families like the Jacobs. More students are applying for aid, and more families expect to need student loans. College administrators are concerned that they will not have enough aid money to go around.
At the same time, tuition（学费）continues to rise. A report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education found that college tuition and fees increased 439% from 1982 to 2007, while average family income rose just 147%. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade,
“If we go on this way for another 25years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education,” says Patrick M. Callan, president of the center. “The middle class families have been financing it through debt. They will send kids to college whatever it takes, even if that means a huge amount of debt.”
Financial aid administrators have been having a hard time as many companies decide that student loans are not profitable enough and have stopped making them. The good news, however, is that federal loans account for about three quarters of student borrowing, and the government says that money will flow uninterrupted.
1. How did the Jacobs manage to solve their problem?
| A．They asked their kids to come home. |
| B．They borrowed $20,000 from the school. |
| C．They encouraged their twin sons to do part-time jobs. |
| D．They got help from the school and the federal government. |
| A．more families will face the same problem as the Jacobs |
| B．the government will receive more letters of complaint |
| C．college tuition fees will double soon |
| D．America’s unemployment will fall |
| A．They blamed the government for the tuition increase. |
| B．Their income remained steady in the last decade. |
| C．They will try their best to send kids to college. |
| D．Their debts will be paid off within 25 years. |
| A．provide most students will scholarships |
| B．dismiss some financial aid administrators |
| C．stop the companies from making student loans |
| D．go on providing financial support for college students |
