Holidays are really important. Many of us will have childhood memories of summer holidays where we were taken away from home to experience new environments and learn in different ways.
But holidays are expensive and, for those on low wages or living on benefits, they are often unobtainable. Even the cheapest holidays require travel and other additional costs that are difficult for many families to meet.
For working parents, the long summer break can be a very difficult problem for childcare. When an annual leave allowance amounts to only five weeks, there is a need to spread this across the year. Couples can find themselves taking leave in turn in order to care for children who are on holiday. For some ’ this makes even an affordable family holiday difficult.
The schools that I visit in Nottingham are full of experienced staff committed to giving our children a caring and inspiring learning environment. The number of children receiving free school meals is quite large in Nottingham and many schools have breakfast clubs to make sure that children get a healthy start to the day. Most schools undertake programs of group or individual educational support. Schools also have an important role in sofeguaiding children's welfare through the ongoing touch and support with their pupils. During the long summer holidays, much of this is missed.
While teachers are holidaying in the UK, many of their pupils spend the whole six weeks on the street where they live. The lack of free school meals for six weeks can result in pressure on a family budget and an inability to afford the inspiring experiences that help children to continue their learning.
In setting out its plans for a five-term year, Nottingham City Council (委员会)is seeking to reduce the summer holiday down lo four and a half weeks, with a more balanced five terms of roughly eight weeks, each followed by a two-week break. We believe this will give real “down time" for school staff and pupils alike but will be short enough not to cause a real break in learning.
We acknowledge that this change may be difficult for some school staff, particularly whose own children are educated in other authorities. However, this must be weighed against the benefits for city children for whom we all have the greatest duty of care.
【小题1】 The passage is probably written by   .

完型填空（共20小题，每题1分，满分20分）

Good Work Ethics （规范）

When I was younger, about 14, I was already ready to work．My father was a dairy man and he had been working his entire life．For him, getting up at 5 a．m．and working a couple of hours before I went to school, and then   36   more after school until there was not enough37   to see, were normal．

My father considered putting good work ethics in me to be very   38  ．He began to show me these, not through   39  , but through his actions．He would not  40   a job until it was done．He   41   put his all into everything he did．   42   , he showed me this not just in working, but in everything．Like when I was in soccer, I wanted to  43  a game once．and he explained to me-that I had made a  44   and that even if I just skipped one game, then I did not 45   to play the rest of the games．

So the day I started my first job at the age of 14, I was  46   to show my father that I could do it well, and that I was not going to  47 . My entire  48   was to make my father proud of me. I knew that     ___49   I did, he would not say it in words, but he would show it．My first job was doing   50    for a company．As most of you know, construction is not an easy job, especially being so   51 _. When someone as young as I was started working, they would either __52   or get stronger．I got stronger．I worked the   53   I had been taught and I gave that day everything I had．In the end, my boss was impressed．He even called to tell my parents what a good worker I was, and my parents' eyes   __54   ．From that day on I have worked every job to my full   55   , because that day defined （explain the truth of）my life．It defined how I was going to work, and I will always stick to it．

1.A．going        B．learning       C．working       D．playing

2.A．light B．time    C．chance        D．strength

3.A．ridiculous         B．easy    C．hopeless     D．important

4.A．words       B．truth   C．facts    D．practice

5.A．finish        B．find     C．do       D．quit

6.A．might        B．could  C．would D．should

7.A．Finally      B．However     C．Therefore   D．Thus

8.A．enjoy        B．skip     C．defeat          D．dip

9.A．commitment    B．improvement     C．devotion     D．conclusion

10.A．decide   B．stop    C．resist  D．deserve

11.A．interested      B．shocked      C．surprised    D．prepared

12.A．stick       B．fail       C．leave          D．play

13.A．problem         B．world  C．trick    D．goal

14.A．in case   B．now that      C．even if         D．as though

15.A．construction          B．negotiation         C．communication D．reception

16.A．weak      B．young C．old      D．poor

17.A．break     B．struggle       C．pause D．work

18.A．manner B．moment      C．method       D．way

19.A．stared    B．lifted   C．shone D．closed

20.A．ambition         B．skill     C．spirit   D．potential

How far would you be willing to go to satisfy your need to know？Far enough to find out your possibility of dying from a terrible disease？These days that’s more than an academic question，as Tracy Smith reports in our Cover Story.

There are now more than a thousand genetic(基因的) tests，for everything from baldness to breast cancer，and the list is growing.Question is，do you really want to know what might eventually kill you？For instance，Nobel Prize?winning scientist James Watson，one of the first people to map their entire genetic makeup，is said to have asked not to be told if he were at a higher risk for Alzheimer’s(老年痴呆症)．

“If I tell you that you have an increased risk of getting a terrible disease，that could weigh on your mind and make you anxious，through which you see the rest of your life as you wait for that disease to hit you.It could really mess you up.” said Dr.Robert Green，a Harvard geneticist.

“Every ache and pain，” Smith suggested，could be understood as “the beginning of the end.”“That’s right.If you ever worried you were at risk for Alzheimer’s disease，then every time you can’t find your car in the parking lot，you think the disease has started.”

Dr.Green has been thinking about this issue for years.He led a study of people who wanted to know if they were at a higher genetic risk for Alzheimer’s.It was thought that people who got bad news would，for lack of a better medical term，freak_out.But Green and his team found that there was “no significant difference” between how people handled good news and possibly the worst news of their lives.In fact，most people think they can handle it.People who ask for the information usually can handle the information，good or bad，said Green.

1.The first paragraph is meant to________.

A．ask some questions

B．introduce the topic

C．satisfy readers’ curiosity

D．describe an academic fact

2.Which of the following is TRUE of James Watson?

A．He is strongly in favor of the present genetic tests.

B．He is more likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.

C．He believes genetic mapping can help cure any disease.

D．He doesn’t want to know his chance of getting a disease.

3.According to Paragraphs 3 and 4，if a person is at a higher genetic risk，it is________.

A．advisable not to let him know

B．impossible to hide his disease

C．better to inform him immediately

D．necessary to remove his anxiety

4.The underlined part “freak out” in Paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to “________”．

A．break down? B．drop out

C．leave off? D．turn away