Loma just had to get in touch with someone：“I had to tell my best friend something important. I tried calling her but I couldn’t get through. So I sent her an e-mail and then I spoke to her on MSN. Without technology I would not have been able to tell her. ”

Staying connected with friends and family is important for us. That’s why we asked our readers to tell us how cell-phones, e-mail, blogs, text messaging, and personal pages help them keep in touch. More than 1,500 responded.

Most of them told us they couldn’t live without technology：80％of teens said they need technology to stay in touch. Almost 30％said they’d be completely out of their friends without their cell-phones and other methods of communication.

What do they do when they’ve got news they need to share now? Most teens say they try to reach their friends by phone. But if they don’t reach them, they use QQ, e-mails, and text messaging to get the words out.

Lots of people use one way of communication—like text messaging—to get a friend’s attention and then use another where they can talk more. “My friends and I always tell each other everything that happens. So I send them text messages to tell them to come online so we can talk about it,” said Sabeiha.

 “When planning to get together with friends”, Julian said, “the easiest and fastest way I know is to send a text message to my contact group.”Jocelyn said. “If I want to go to see a movie with a few friends, I usually send text message to them. By telephone, you have to call every single friend one by one. But text messaging allows you to send the same message to as many as you’d like, which saves a lot of time. ”

1. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?

  A. E-mails.     B. Blogs.         C. Personal pages.    D. Personal letters.

2.What do most young people use first when they have news to tell their friends?

  A. MSN.      B. QQ.            C. Phones.          D. Text message.

3. The underlined part “get the words out” means“      ”.

   A. send the message          B. send the e-mail

C. talk with their friends       D. meet their friends

4. In which part of a newspaper can you find this passage?

    A. Sport.       B. Education.       C. Technology. D. Culture.

My mother-in-law, Dorothy, is showing me the red notebook that’s almost as precious to her as my husband’s baby pictures. Inside the notebook is a list of the books she has read since 2007. For some people waking up in the middle of the night is a terrible thing. But for my mother-in-law, that time is a gift. At 87, she is getting the education she never had by working her way through great literature. She has now read close to 100 books, including every single novel by Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Henry James and Thomas Mann.

My mother-in-law discusses her passion with the enthusiasm of a young girl, although she can also be a very tough critic, writing “VG’ for “ very good” in the margins next to her favorites. So far, only a handful of books have received the top prize.

Born in Ridgefield, Conn, Dorothy was the youngest daughter of an Italian gardener. She taught herself English by reading The New York Times. Eager to come to Manhattan, she became a nurse, married a dentist and spent the next several decades keeping the house and raising a family. In her later years, she put her nursing skills to good use by taking care of my father-in-law, who had lung cancer. There were many trips to the emergency room in the middle of the night and then a long hospital stay. She stayed awake to watch over him for 15 hours a day. Always a light sleeper, she developed sleeplessness as a result of the stress.

It worsened after he died. Deeply sad and lonely for the first time in her life, she began waking up around 2am. Julian and Sylvia, the elderly couple next door suggest she read literature. And so Julian, a great lover of literature, became her “professor”, providing books from his large library. Suddenly the terrifying hole turned onto a world of amazing characters.

Why is Dorothy considered a tough critic?

   A. Because no books are inspiring enough in her eyes.                        

B. Because only a few books are thought highly of by her.

   C. Because she only reads books by famous writers.                         

D. Because she finds fault with every book she reads.

It can be inferred from the passage that _____.

   A. the books Dorothy has read were bought by her husband.                   

B. the couple next door are college professors.

   C. the author loves literature too.                                         

D. Dorothy was a great wife.

The underlined part “the terrifying hole” in the last paragraph refers to _____.

   A. the frightening death                                                    

B. Dorothy’s lack of education

   C. waking up in the middle of the night                                    

D. a hole in a book that Dorothy read

What helped Dorothy get over the sadness and loneliness of losing her husband?

   A. Living with her son.                                                  

B. Reading literature.

   C. Seeing her son’s baby pictures.                                         

 D. Talking with neighbors.

As the US wakes up to China’s rising status (地位) as an economic and strategic competitor, US parents are urging their children to learn Chinese, reports Julian Borger.

    The US is being swept by a rush to learn Mandarin (普通话) -- from wealthy New York mothers hiring Chinese nannies (保姆) for their small children to a defence department education project in Oregon.

    The forces driving Mandarin’s momentum (势头) are parental ambition for children facing a future in which China is almost certain to be a major player, and the government is worried about that America may get left behind in that new world.

    The bottleneck is the supply of teachers. Mandarin instructors are difficult to import and difficult to train. There are visa problems in bringing over teachers from China but the biggest barrier is cultural. Teaching in Asia is generally done by rote and the change to western, interactive styles of instruction can be a large leap（跳越）.

    On the other hand, it requires enormous firmness for westerners to learn a language like Chinese, with its thousands of written characters. According to the Asia Society in New York, all of America’s teacher-training institutions turn out only a couple of dozen homegrown Mandarin teachers.

One way to ease the shortage is to find native Mandarin speakers and use fast-track methods to train them. However, the majority of Chinese-Americans grew up speaking Cantonese, the dialect（方言）spoken in Hong Kong, where their parents came from. Many are themselves signing on as Mandarin students at the private language schools springing up on the west coast.

             Title :            in the USA

My mother-in-law, Dorothy, is showing me the red notebook that’s almost as precious to her as my husband’s baby pictures. Inside the notebook is a list of the books she has read since 2007. For some people waking up in the middle of the night is a terrible thing. But for my mother-in-law, that time is a gift. At 87, she is getting the education she never had by working her way through great literature. She has now read close to 100 books, including every single novel by Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Henry James and Thomas Mann.

My mother-in-law discusses her passion with the enthusiasm of a young girl, although she can also be a very tough critic, writing “VG’ for “ very good” in the margins next to her favorites. So far, only a handful of books have received the top prize.

Born in Ridgefield, Conn, Dorothy was the youngest daughter of an Italian gardener. She taught herself English by reading The New York Times. Eager to come to Manhattan, she became a nurse, married a dentist and spent the next several decades keeping the house and raising a family. In her later years, she put her nursing skills to good use by taking care of my father-in-law, who had lung cancer. There were many trips to the emergency room in the middle of the night and then a long hospital stay. She stayed awake to watch over him for 15 hours a day. Always a light sleeper, she developed sleeplessness as a result of the stress.

It worsened after he died. Deeply sad and lonely for the first time in her life, she began waking up around 2am. Julian and Sylvia, the elderly couple next door suggest she read literature. And so Julian, a great lover of literature, became her “professor”, providing books from his large library. Suddenly the terrifying hole turned onto a world of amazing characters.

1.Why is Dorothy considered a tough critic?

   A. Because no books are inspiring enough in her eyes.                        

B. Because only a few books are thought highly of by her.

   C. Because she only reads books by famous writers.                         

D. Because she finds fault with every book she reads.

2. It can be inferred from the passage that _____.

   A. the books Dorothy has read were bought by her husband.                   

B. the couple next door are college professors.

   C. the author loves literature too.                                         

D. Dorothy was a great wife.

3.The underlined part “the terrifying hole” in the last paragraph refers to _____.

   A. the frightening death                                                   

B. Dorothy’s lack of education

   C. waking up in the middle of the night                                    

D. a hole in a book that Dorothy read

4. What helped Dorothy get over the sadness and loneliness of losing her husband?

   A. Living with her son.                                                 

B. Reading literature.

   C. Seeing her son’s baby pictures.                                         

 D. Talking with neighbors.

Word Power 
Author(s): Kaplan  $13.95
You’ll never be at a loss for words again. Energize your vocabulary with must-know everyday words that are the essentials of a good vocabulary, engaging lessons to help you use words in text, hot words often found on tests, tips to help you figure out new words, roots, and more.
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Author(s): Russell Stauffer  $ 17.95
Now this is the way to add new words to your vocabulary! Word Smart Junior will make you laugh so much. You’ll be amazed that you’ve just learned more than 120 fascinating and very useful words! Parents, teachers, and friends will marvel at your eloquence (口才)!
Grades: 3-5  Ages: 8-10
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Author(s): Marcia Reynolds  $ 16.85
Do you quake when your teacher says, “Now it’s time for grammar”? Do your verbs agree with your subjects?
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Grades: 7-9 Ages: 12-14
Grammar Smart: An Audio Guide to Perfect Usage
Author(s): Julian Fleisher    $ 12.68
The words you use say a lot about you … but the way you put them together says even more. Your grammar makes an immediate and lasting impression on your teachers, and even your friends. So don’t make the mistake of thinking that grammar is too complicated. We’ve created Grammar Smart to help you write and speak with clarity and confidence.
Grades: 6-8   Ages: 11-13  
【小题1】.
If a ten-year-old boy wants himself to be admired because of his speech ability, he may buy         .