1 . Most children now chat daily either online or through their mobile phones.
Sometimes the online world, just like the real world, can cause problems, such as bullying (恃强凌弱) or arguments.
| A．Going online is great fun. |
| B．Computer studies are part of schoolwork now. |
| C．The language of chat is strange to many parents, too. |
| D．There are some websites that are not suitable for the children. |
| E．To keep children safe, your management must cover the family computer. |
| F．They are connecting to a huge number of other children all over the world. |
| G．Surfing the Internet takes up too much of the time that should be spent on lessons. |
2 . While video games used to be considered harmful to young people, various studies have also proved the positive effects of computer games, especially action video games.
Angela Pasqualotto from the University of Trento and her team have now tested whether such video games can help primary school children learn to read. They’ve developed such a computer game called Skies of Manawak.
“Reading involves many important skills, including knowing how to move our eyes on the page or how to use our working memory to connect words into a meaningful sentence,” explains Pasqualotto. “It’s known that action video games improve these still, such as vision, general attention, working memory and cognitive (认知的) flexibility.”
For their study, the researchers tested 150 school children between the ages of eight and twelve. Half of them played the game Skies of Manawak two hours a week for six weeks. The other half, the control group, received the educational game Scratch, which is intended to teach children the basics of programming. Both games are basically to train the executive (执行的) functions of the brain.
“We started by examining the children’s ability to read words, non-words and paragraphs and their attention control,” explains Pasqualotto. “After six weeks, these skills were tested again.”
“We found a seven-fold improvement in attention control in the children who played our action video game compared to the control group,” said Pasqualotto. The team also saw significant improvements in reading speed and accuracy among Skies of Manawak players—there were no improvements in the kids who played Scratch. It’s also worth mentioning that the children’s reading skills have improved, although the game itself doesn’t contain any reading exercises.
“For the study, we also carried out three further evaluation tests six, twelve and eighteen months after the training. Each time, the trained children performed better than the control group,” adds Pasqualotto.
Of course, while the study suggests some benefit in action video games, it does not mean that one must do nothing else.
1. What did the 150 school children do in the study?| A．They received training on programming. | B．They finished some reading ability tests. |
| C．They created video games on their own. | D．They played games with reading exercises. |
| A．Its influence on reading skills is not temporary. | B．The study results about it seem to be untrustworthy. |
| C．Reading ability can’t be improved with its assistance. | D．Kids need consistent reading training after playing it. |
| A．They have nothing to do with reading. | B．People shouldn’t get addicted to them. |
| C．School kids are supposed to avoid them. | D．They should be replaced with Scratch. |
| A．Video Games Prove Harmless to Young People at School |
| B．Time for Children to Play Video Games Should Be Limited |
| C．Children Easily Fall in Love With Reading in a Video Game |
| D．Playing Action Video Games Improves Kids’ Reading Skills |
3 . In the United States, when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what “keeping up with the Joneses” is about. It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbors.
The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighborhood outside New York City. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he saw that rich people had servants, Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbors.
It was like a race, but one could never finish his race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They moved back to an apartment in New York City.
Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich lifestyle of their neighbors. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series of short stories. He called it “Keeping up with the Joneses” because “Jones” is a very common name in the United States. “Keeping up with the Joneses” came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand’s series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.
People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are “Jonses” in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.
1. Some people want to keep up with the Joneses because they ______.| A．want to be as rich as their neighbors | B．want others to know or to think that they are rich |
| C．don’t want others to know they are rich | D．want to be happy |
| A．live outside New York City | B．live in New York city |
| C．live in apartments | D．have many neighbors |
| A．an important name | B．a popular name in the United States |
| C．his neighbor’s name | D．not a good name |
| A．Negative. | B．Positive. |
| C．Supportive. | D．Objective. |
4 . Schools in the UK are cutting time spent on PE lessons because of exam pressures. Secondary school teachers said that older teenagers were especially likely to miss out, because the time spent on physical education for 14-16 -year-olds had fallen in the past five years.
Teachers said that increased pressure to produce exam results was leading to children being pulled out of PE lessons. One in three said exam pressures were behind the decline, and they said subjects such as English and Maths had been given more time at the cost of PE.
Almost all of the teachers from the 487 schools said PE should be more valued for its advantages to young people. Mental health experts also warned that cutting down on exercise could increase children's mental health problems. Cal Strode, spokesman for the Mental Health Foundation, said cutting PE time would be "short-sighted and dangerous". He said, "It is worrying to hear that PE is being cut at a time when students are facing problems with stress and anxiety in increasing numbers. There's a close relationship between mental and physical health."
Tom Madders, director of campaigns at charity Young Minds, said, "Schools' cutting down on physical education because of exam pressures is worrying. Schools that value health also do better in study, so it makes sense to keep good health, rather than putting children under more pressure."
Rising exam stress has been raised as a problem by experts who warn that children are under greater pressure because of a competitive jobs market. Ali Oliver, an expert, said, "The PE is good for physical and mental health. So cutting down physical education time is depriving young people of these advantages at a time when they need them most."
1. What do we know about the text?| A．Schools that value health do worse in study. |
| B．Children in the UK have serious mental problems. |
| C．Many teachers don't realize the importance of PE |
| D．Good physical health is good for mental health. |
| A．The teachers in the UK. | B．Cal Strode | C．Tom Madders | D．Ali Oliver |
| A．parents' expectations | B．poor mental health |
| C．future work | D．schools' requirements |
| A．The importance of physical education |
| B．Teachers' support of getting more PE time |
| C．The serious problems of education in the UK |
| D．Schools' cutting down PE time for exam pressure |
5 . A typical school day in the UK starts around 8:30 am. This is often even earlier elsewhere in the world, with students sitting down to their first lesson at 7:30 am in the US. The average teenager ideally needs eight to nine hours’ sleep each night, but in reality a lot of teenagers struggle to get this much. A lot of the problems arise because our sleep patterns are not fixed, and they change as we grow.
So a later school start time could help to solve this problem, by ensuring to get their eight plus hours of sleep and react properly to their body’s natural rhythms (规律). There has been a general shift over the past 25 years to shorten the school day. This is not at the cost of teaching time (which has remained constant) but at the cost of natural breaks, which has led to reduced lunch time and lesson breaks.
Later start times could help teens’ grades and health. This is mainly because it makes the management of children easier. Supervising (监管) hundreds of children “playing” requires effective staffing (人员配备). And there is always the fear that behavior worsens during breaks. So the theory goes that having them in class and strictly supervised must be better.
But this means that students barely have enough time to absorb what they were doing in maths before suddenly they are thrust into ancient history. And teaching staff also transit from one class to another, with hardly a rest or time to refocus.
Clearly rethinking the school day could benefit everyone involved. Anyway, it could also lead to better achievement in teenagers and less of a struggle for parents in the mornings. For teachers, it could also mean a less stressful day all around and what could be better than that?
1. How do schools often shorten the school day?| A．They reduce children’s lunch time and lesson breaks. |
| B．They reduce the teaching time. |
| C．They properly adjust children’ natural rhythms. |
| D．They increase more holidays. |
| A．To supervise children more easily. |
| B．To make children quickly take in what they. Learned. |
| C．To reduce children’s excitement. |
| D．To make children behave better in class. |
| A．It will add to the teacher’s pressure. |
| B．It has always been there for 25 years. |
| C．Parents may support it. |
| D．It benefits the students only. |
| A．The benefits of a less stressful day. |
| B．The benefits of later school start time. |
| C．How to solve teenagers’ sleep problem. |
| D．The reasons why teenagers sleep differently. |
