Parents should stop blaming themselves because there’s not a lot they can do about it. I mean the teenager problem. Whatever you do or however you choose to deal with it, at certain times a wonderful, reasonable and helpful child will turn into a terrible animal.
I’ve seen friends deal with it in all kinds of different ways. One strict mother insisted that her son, right from a child, should stand up whenever anyone entered the room, open doors and shake hands like a gentleman. I saw him last week when I called round. Sprawling himself on the sofa in full length, he made no attempt to turn off the loud TV he was watching as I walked in, and his greeting was no more than a quick glance at me. His mother was ashamed. “I don’t know what to do with him these days,” she said. “He’s forgotten all the manners we taught him.” He hasn’t forgotten them. He’s just decided that he’s not going to use them. She confessed(坦白) that she would like to come up behind him and throw him down from the sofa onto the floor.
Another good friend of mine let her two daughters climb all over the furniture, reach across the table, stare at me and say, “I don’t like your dress; it’s ugly.” One of the daughters has recently been driven out of school. The other has left home.
“Where did we go wrong?” her parents are now very sad. Probably nowhere much. At least, no more than the rest of that unfortunate race, parents.
【小题1】 This text is most probably written by ______.

With a hat by his feet, a blind boy sat on the steps of a building. He held up a sign which said, “I’m blind, please help.”
Only a few people put   36  in the hat. A man was walking by. He   37  some coins into the hat. He then turned the sign   38 , wrote some words, put the sign back and left.
Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people   39  to give money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man came to see   40  things were. The boy recognized his footsteps （认出他的脚步声）and asked, “Were you the one who   41  my sign this morning? What did you write?”
The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a   42  way.” What he had written was, “Today is a beautiful day,   43 I cannot see it.”
Both the   44  told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply   45  people to help by throwing some money into the   46 . The second one, however, told people that they were able to enjoy the   47  of the day, but the boy couldn’t   48  he was blind.
There are at least two lessons we can learn   49  this story. First, be thankful for what you have. Someone else has less. Help them if you can.   50  , be creative. Think differently. There is always a better way!

A bus stops at a small bus stop. A man is hungry and he wants to buy some cakes. It’s raining hard, he doesn’t want to go out in the rain. He sees a boy. “Come here, boy!” he cries. “Do you know how much the cakes are?” The boy says yes. The man gives the boy four dollars(美元) and asks him to buy two cakes. “One is for you and one is for me.” Three minutes later, the boy comes back. He’s eating a cake. He gives the man two dollars and says: “Sorry, there is only one cake left.”

1. Where is the man?

2.The man doesn’t want to go out because.

3.How many cakes does the boy get?

4.How much are they if（假如）we buy five cakes?

5.What’s the result (结果)?

The little boy entered the house, unhappy. His mother was  31     cakes in the kitchen. She smiled as she    32     but stopped when she saw his face. “Tyler,    33      happened? Is everything okay?”

“Nothing is okay, mom.” said the boy, “Today, in our science lesson, Mrs. Green was talking about the   34        .She said that the whole world is getting dirtier and that many animals and plants are dying. She wants us to think of something we can do to help. I thought all the way, but there is  35    I can do to make a difference.”

“Let me tell you    36    .” the mother said after thinking for a while. “One morning a man was walking down a beach, there he saw thousands of dying starfish covering the beach, they were pushed up by the     37   , and it was too far up for them to make their way back by    38       . The man shook his head as he walked along, ‘What a pity! So many starfish will die on the beach.’ The man felt very sorry    39     those starfish. He went on walking and just at that time he was    40      to find a boy in front who was throwing the starfish back into the sea as    41  as he could, ‘how silly you are! My     42  ,’ the man said, ‘There are so many starfish, can you throw all of them back?’ The boy didn’t stop but kept throwing, ‘ 43         I can’t help them all .I can make a difference to this one, and this one, and this one, and this one.”

“Thinking for a moment, the man    44      to help return the starfish to their home. He smiled and said to himself, ‘Sometimes the biggest lesson in life comes from the   45     person.

9.A of               B. for                C. from            D. forward

15.A shortest          B. tallest               C. smallest         D. biggest

A bus stops at a small bus stop. A man is hungry and he wants to buy some cakes. It’s raining(下雨) hard. He doesn’t want to go out in the rain. He sees a boy. 'Come here, boy!' he cries. 'Do you know how much the cakes are?' The boy says yes. The man gives the boy four dollars and asks him to buy two cakes. 'One is for you and one is for me.' Three minutes later, the boy comes back. He’s eating a cake. He gives the man two dollars and says, 'Sorry, there is only one cake left.'

1.Where is the man?

2.The man doesn’t want to go out because__________.

3.How many cakes does the boy get?

4.How much are they if we buy five cakes?

5.What’s the result (结果)?