The bike is one of the simplest yet most useful inventions in the world. What is the most urprising is that it was not invented 1, although the great inventor Lenardo da Vinci had drawn pictures for bikes 2 for flying machines and some other things. Those things were not produced  3  long after he died.

     A person riding a bike 4  very little energy to make it move, and there is no5  at all when he is riding one. Even so, in developed countries, most people don't go to work  6 bike. It is not because the bikes are expensive. It's because the number of 7 on the road becomes larger. It certainly becomes more   8  to ride a bike. As a result, more people put their bikes away and go to work in their cars, and 9 this way, the situation is made more serious. Perhaps the best way to make bike riding safer and more 10 is to create paths only for bikes, and to make it so difficult and expensive for drivers to ride to in their cars into the city that they will go back to use their bikes.

1. A. earlier         B. faster           C. later            D. cheaper

2. A. as for          B. and also        C. so that           D. not only

3. A. since          B. unless          C. until             D. so

4. A. costs          B. takes           C. spends           D. uses

5. A. pollution       B. air             C. environment      D. place

6. A. on            B. by             C. with             D. in

7. A. people        B. trains           C. cars              D. planes

8. A. safe          B. slow           C. boring            D. dangerous

9. A. in            B. with           C. by               D. on

10. A. wonderful     B. popular        C. helpful           D. excellent

“I had a Welsh speaking test. I'd had to memorize a paragraph in front of the whole class. I just couldn’t do it,” says 13-year-old Mary. “I pretended to be ill.” But Mary did not enjoy her day off. “I watched TV all day — it was boring. I wished I had gone to school.”
Mary’s story is not unusual in Britain. According to the latest government figures, pupil absences are rising, despite schools taking a hard line on truancy (逃学)．
Philippa James, a PhD researcher at Cardiff University’s school of social sciences, thinks she knows why: “The more schools improve methods of detection（检查）, the more children work out better methods of deception.” Teenagers told her it was now harder to skip a single lesson, so they’d miss whole days to avoid being caught.
For several years, James has researched student truancy of 60 teenagers, aged 13 and 14, including Mary, to see how the teenagers truant, for how long, and why.
Through online conversations and face-to-face interviews, she discovered that most truancy was “a response to factors within the school”. Truants are not necessarily less advanced or less intelligent. They complained of teachers who failed to engage them, and of “boring” lessons. “Many truants really enjoy school and believe in education, but drop out when aspects of it were ineffective.” James says.
The views of students like Adam, who believes that skipping lessons has little impact on his schooling, were common. “I only take-off for a lesson, or a couple of days. It doesn’t affect my education,” he told James.
James’ study concludes that schools need to address the question of why pupils want to leave in the first place. “Pupils need help from the start.” she says. “It’s a two-way process – schools must be responsive. We need to look at the reasons for truancy rather than the number, so that instead of walking away from school, students have the skills and chances to talk through problems and make a change.”
【小题1】What is one of the reasons for school truancy according to James’ study?