3. Some people text ________ they are driving or riding a bike. This is very dangerous.

阅读下面的短文，用括号中所给单词的正确形式填入空白处，补全文章。

My classmates and I had a picnic last Sunday. We went to the small hill behind our town by bike. We     7     (take) all kinds of food and drinks. We had great fun playing games. We even had a party there. We told     8     (story), played chess, worked out riddles and sang songs. The hill was covered with beautiful flowers and green bushes. The sun shone brightly on us. We stayed there for three hours and enjoyed     9     (we) a lot. Everybody is looking forward to another picnic there.

A Shameful Experience

“I’m disappointed (失望的),” said my father after he saw the paper my teacher sent with my terrible test grade. I’ve always looked up to my father so when he told me those words, I hung (垂下) my head in shame.

In sixth grade there was a national test that the students were _________ to take. We were told of its importance and difficulty. All my friends and classmates spent that year _________ while I passed the time watching TV and playing on the computer. I believed that I didn’t need to know any more information than what I knew in order to pass. I would say “I’ll study tomorrow” whenever my parents worried about reviewing. When the day came, I sat down in that cold room and made a terrible _________ — it was impossible to answer any of the questions. I just looked at the clock and watched time pass while everyone around me completed the exam.

When the _________ came back, my teacher became disappointed and sent a note to my parents. I let everyone down. The next year, I had to take more classes while my friends played outside. I stayed home and studied every day in order to retake and pass the test. It was stupid that I acted carelessly and thought too _________ of myself. As a result, I had to _________ the results.

Now I have a greater sense of my goals and no longer give up as easily as before. I work harder towards the things I want to _________ and try to focus (关注) more on my school work.

That shameful experience taught me many _________ lessons. I understood that I need to pay attention to the little things in life because they can influence our lives. I realized that I needed to work harder if I wanted a better future. It also proved to me that we always learn from our past and our mistakes because we are made up of the experiences we had and tomorrow we will become more than we are today.

I hurried into the local store to get some last minute Christmas gifts. Surprised at the prices of the toys, I wondered if the grandkids would even play with them.

In the doll aisle (通道) , I saw a little boy about 5 holding a lovely doll. He kept touching her hair and held her gently. He counted (数) his money with his aunt but found out it was not enough. Then his aunt asked the boy to wait and left.

Then I talked to him and knew the doll was for his sister who was in heaven because of a car accident. His mother was going to be with her so he hoped his mother could take the doll to her. He also wanted his mother to take his photo with her so she wouldn’t ever forget him. He said he hoped to buy a white rose as well because mom loves white roses very much.

My heart nearly stopped beating. Noticing my sadness, the boy lowered his head and stopped talking. I reached into my purse and pulled out some bills and asked, “Shall we count your money again?” He grew excited and said, “Yes, I just knew it had to be enough”. Quietly I put my money in with his and we began to count it. Of course it was more than enough for the doll. He bought both the doll and a white rose. It was a great relief (宽慰) to find the smile on his face.

Two days later I read in the newspaper about a drunk driver hitting a car and killing a little girl and the mother. On the photo, the mother was holding a lovely white rose, the beautiful doll, and the picture of the little boy in the store.

The love that little boy had for his little sister and his mother was touching. I realized “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Good and Bad Effects (影响) of Technology

Technology helps us to keep in touch with old friends, family members, and co-workers. The human uses technology to travel, communicate, learn, do business and live in comfort. For example, the e-mails offer speedy bringing of messages, they cut down the paper costs.

Good effects of technology

Technology is very useful for the students. They can take the courses and achieve their degree online just as any student in the university as the technology offers many chances to the students all over the world to receive an education online.

Technology helps the companies to save the time and make a lot of money. They use the technology to communicate with each other, they can send the information to many different people at once without calling a meeting or requiring printing materials.

What’s more, technology is very important in our life as it has improved the transportation. It has mechanized (使机械化) the farming. It has improved communication, education and the way of learning.

Technology has changed the world, it is very useful to us. It plays an important role in our life but has many bad effects.

Bad effects of technology

When the children use much technology, they do not have enough time to use their imagination or to read and think deeply about the material. They find the information easily but they may not remember it.

Technology can cause the finger problem by the continual use of mobile phones or playing too many video games.

Someone makes use of technology to make viruses (病毒) to find anyone’s address and self-information.

Technology is growing fast, so we need to make a right use of it and improve our life by it. Therefore, if we will be able to drive right use of technology in our life, smart technology would become the way of life in the future.

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Social media allows people to keep in touch with friends, family and the people around the world with like-minded interests, and share their own thoughts, personal updates, and opinions online. However, using social media too much and posting many selfies (自拍) have caused a rise in narcissism, according to a new study. Narcissism is when someone becomes very selfish and believes they are very talented and beautiful. They need attention from other people and think they are better than everyone else.

Researchers at universities in Swansea and Milan found that heavy users of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter showed a 25 percent rise in narcissism in just four months. The researchers studied how 74 people aged 18 to 34 used social media and looked at how their personality changed. They said that posting selfies seemed to increase levels of narcissism in a way that text messaging does not. Those who used social media too much, through posting pictures, showed an average 25 percent increase in such narcissistic personality over the four months of the study. Only one of them in the study didn’t use social media, and others’ average use was around three hours a day, not including usage for work. Some said that they used social media for as much as eight hours a day for non-working reasons.

More than two-thirds of the participants at the beginning used social media for posting pictures. Professor Phil Reed, from the Department of Psychology at Swansea University, said, “There have been suggestions of links between narcissism and the use of selfies on social media, such as Facebook, but until this study, it was not known if using such social media is related with the growth in narcissism.”

The results of this study suggest that posting selfies can increase narcissism. Professor Read said that about 20 percent of people may be at risk of developing narcissism. This is because they want attention and likes from other people after they post a selfie. They also want to show others how their life is better or how they are more beautiful or attractive. They might feel good at the moment, but in the long term, it only serves to drive good people away from them, have negative effects on their success, and leave them weak and at risk.

阅读短文，根据短文内容回答问题。

The world is developing fast because of technology and its uses in our lives. This means that the jobs we have now are changing, and that there will be new jobs in the future. What’s more, you won’t be in the same job your whole working life. It’ll be more likely that you will change jobs every few years—especially when you’re early in your job.

There are ways to be prepared for the future jobs by building different job skills. It’s a good idea to start developing these skills early, so you will be ready to jump into these future jobs as they appear.

Understanding Digital (数字的) Information

Everything is becoming more digital, which means understanding digital information will be important to success in the future jobs. You need to know how to understand and use digital technologies—both software, and hardware—as well as knowing how to read and understand a lot of online information.

If you can understand and use digital information, you will be able to learn it quickly and use it to solve problems and make decisions.

Being Creative (独创的)

No technology can match the creativity of the human mind, and many future jobs will need people to come up with new ideas and put these ideas into real use. This means it is very important to think creatively about problems. If you can imagine ways to solve problems and make new products, you are more likely to be successful in the future jobs.

Keeping Learning

As new technologies and new jobs appear, it will be more important than ever to be willing to learn new things. Those who can’t or won’t adapt (适应) to these changes will simply get left behind.

The workplace is changing fast, and will continue to change. New digital technologies will change nearly every job. So, you should take every chance to learn new skills and technologies, take training classes, and spend time researching and studying up on things that interest you or will be useful for your future jobs.

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35. 中国传统节日是中华民族悠久历史文化的重要组成部分。假设你是李华，你的英国笔友Nancy对中国传统节日很感兴趣，请你用英语向她介绍一个中国传统节日及原因，并描述上一次你是如何度过这个节日的。

There are many traditional festivals in China. I’d like to introduce one of them to you.   _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________     

Yours,

Li Hua