About 30 years ago,I left Cuba for the United States with my son. After getting settled finally in Brunswick,New Jersey,I enrolled (注册) my son in kindergarten. Several weeks later,my son's teacher asked me to meet him at his office.

  In the teacher's office,an exchange of greetings was followed by his ques?tions, "Is your son mentally retarded (智力发育迟缓的) ?Does he suffer from any kind of mental disability?"

  Was he talking about my wonderful Scola? No,no, it can't be. What a helpless,lonely moment!I told him that Scola was a quiet,sweet little boy,instead. I asked him why he was asking me all these questions.

  My son could not follow the teacher's directions,he told me,and thus,Scola was disrupting the class. Didn't he know my son did not speak English yet?

He was angry, " Why hasn't your son been taught to speak English? Don't you speak English at home?"

  "No,I didn't speak English at home," I replied. I was sure my son would learn English in a couple of months,and I didn't want him to forget his native language. Well,wrong answer!What kind of person would not speak in Eng-lish to her son at home and at all time? "Are you one of those people who come to this country to save dollars and send them back to their country,never wanting to be a part of this society?" Needless to say,I tried to tell him I was not one of "those people". Then he told me the meeting was over,and I left.

  As I had expected,my son learned to speak English fluently before the school year was over. He went on to graduate from college and got a job,earning close to six figures. He travels widely and leads a well-adjusted,contented life. And he has benefited from being bilingual (双语的) . Speaking more than one language allows people to communicate with others;it teaches people about other cultures and other places—something very basic and obviously lacking in the "educator" I met in New Jersey.

1. The teacher asked the author to his office         .

   A. to discuss Scola's in-class performance

   B. to get Scola enrolled in kindergarten

   C. to find a language partner for Scola

   D. to work out a study plan for Scola

2. What does the underlined word " disrupting" in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

   A. Breaking.

   B. Following.

   C. Attending.

   D. Disturbing.

3. The author's attitude towards being bilingual may best be described as         .

   A. critical   B. casual 

   C. positive   D. passive

4. This text is likely to be selected from a book of         .

   A. medicine   B. education

   C. geography D. history

 Every person uses his/ her own special word to show his/ her ideas and feelings. Some of these expressions are commonly used for many years. Others are popular for just a short time. One such American expression is "Where's the beef?". It is used when something is not as good as it is said to be. In the early 1980s, "Where's the beef?" was one of the most popular expressions in the U-nited States. It seemed as if everyone used it at the time.

Beef,of course,is the meat from a cow,and no food is more popular in America than a hamburger made from beef. In the 1960s a businessman named Ray began building small restaurants that sold ham?burgers at a low price. Ray called this "McDonald's". Ray became one of the richest businessmen at last in America.

Other business people watched his success. Some of them opened their own hamburger restaurants. One company called " Wendy's" said its hamburgers were bigger than those sold by McDonald's or anyone else. The Wendy's Company began to use the expression "Where's the beef?" to make people know that Wendy's hamburgers were the biggest. The Wendy's television advertisement showed three old women eating ham?burgers. The bread that covered the meat was very big,but inside there was only a bit of meat. One of the women said she would not eat a hamburger with such a little piece of beef. "Where's the beef?" she shouted in a funny way. The advertisement for Wendy's ham?burger restaurants was a success. As we said,it seemed everyone began using the expression "Where's the beef?".

1. started McDonalds resta'urant.     

   A. Ray   B. McDonald

   C. Wendy   D. Three old women

2. Other people wanted to open hamburger restaurants because they thought       .

   A. they could sell hamburgers at a low price

   B. hamburgers were easy to make

   C. beef was very popular in America

   D. they could make a lot of money

3. The Wendy's Company made the expression known to everybody .

   A. with many old women eating hamburgers

   B. by a television advertisement

   C. while selling bread with a bit of meat in it

   D. at the McDonald's restaurant

4. We can learn from the passage that the expression "Where's the beef?"       .

   A. means the beef in hamburgers is not as much as it is said to be

   B. means the hamburgers are not as good as they are said to be

   C. is used when something is not as good as it is said to be

   D. means Wendy's is the biggest

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