Please answer the questions about the prices（价格）of the two hotels（酒店）.（注：￡=英镑）

Barack Obama, a black man, is the president of the United States now. He was born in August ,1961, in Hawaii and has lived in many places. His mother was from Kansas and his father was from Kenya. Obama went to Columbia University in Massachusetts. His wife is Michelle Obama. She also worked as a lawyer and later worked for the University of Chicago. They have two young daughters.

Obama wrote a book Dreams from my father. “ I always live in the dream of my father and American people,” Obama once said. He was born in a poor family. And he was taken good care of by his grandparents when he was young. He also lived and worked in Africa. Then he got good education in Harvard University. In 2008, he became the first black president in the history of America.

1. Where was Barack Obama born?____________

A. In Hawaii    B. In Kansas    C. In massachusetts  D. In Harvard

2. Barack Obama became president at the age of ____________.

A. 37          B.47            C. 57      D. 51

3. Which is the best title of this passage?_____________

A. Education of a president   B. Dreams from my father

C. Life of Barack Obama    D. Where is Obama from

Though the ways of teaching have come a long way, the ways of communicating between teachers and students are almost the same. But now, a European country is trying to change that by building schools that have no classrooms, no subject lessons and best of all, no grades.

The idea behind the special school is that children are creative. And researchers also think that kids’ learning and ideas are as important as those of the CEO of Google, so why not give them a similar environment? Kids may be successful in such an environment.

To make kids more creative, the schools are built with special learning areas instead of traditional classrooms. And even the lessons are taught in a special way, with mobile phones and computers.

There is no “right” or “wrong” kind of education. The school believes that everything is a learning experience, whether it is about a serious science project or making a movie inside the school’s recording studio.

One of the special schools opened in August, 2011. It has five learning areas. The Cave is a secluded place where students fix their attention on individual (个人的) projects without being bothered (打扰). The Lab is a place where students can do all kinds of experiments and test their ideas. Kids can work in groups in the same projects in The Camp Fire. The Show Off is where kids can show their inventions. And if the kids need a rest, they can visit The Watering Hole, which has all kinds of fun activities.

Sounds great? And the coolest thing is that the school is free! I hope more schools like this will appear in the world!

1.What is the idea behind the special school?

A. The children are creative.

B. All the students need to be taught.

C. All the students must be successful.

D. All the students must have high grades.

2.From the passage we can infer (推断) that ?????? in the special schools.

A. students are bored???????????????? B. students are tired

C. students learn freely?????????????? D. students learn from their teachers

3.“The Cave is a secluded place ….” The word “secluded” probably means “??? ” in Chinese.

A. 清静的?????? ????????????? B. 固定的?????? ????????????? C. 吵闹的?????? ????????????? D. 混合的

4.Paragraph 5 mainly tells us that ????? .??????????????

A. the school doesn’t have grades

B. the school has clever students

C. the school has five learning areas

D. the school doesn’t have classrooms

On October 31st, 2009, Chinese famous scientist Qian Xuesen, died in Beijing when he was 98 years old. He is famous as “the country’s father of space technology and king of rocketry”.
Qian was born in 1911 in Hangzhou. He left for the United States after winning a schol­arship to graduate school in 1936. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute{学院) of Technology and later at the California Institute of Technology.
Qian began his career in the US and was regarded as one of the brightest minds in the new field of aeronautics{航空学) before returning to China in 1955.
After he returned, Qian set up the first missile (导弹) and rocket research institute of China. The institute later helped start Chinese space program. He led the development of China’s first nuclear-armed ballistic missile and worked on its first satellite.
He retired in the year before Chinese manned space program was launched in 1992. But his research formed the basis for the Long March CZ -2F rocket that carried astronaut Yang Liwei into orbit in 2003.
In August, 2009, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Qian and praised him for devoting his life to Chinese defense technologies. Qian told him, “I’m trying to live to be 100 years old”
【小题1】 Qian was regarded as __________ before returning to China.