When students and parents are asked to rate subjects according to their importance, the arts are unavoidably at the bottom of the list. Music is nice, people seem to say, but not important. Too often it is viewed as mere entertainment, but certainly not an education priority(优先). This view is shortsighted. In fact, music education is beneficial and important for all students.

Music tells us who we are because music is an expression of the beings who create it, it reflects their thinking and values as well as the social environment it comes from. Rock music represents a lifestyle just as surely as does a Schubert song. The jazz influence that George Gershwin and other musicians introduced into their music is obviously American because it came from American musical traditions. Music expresses our character and values. It gives us identity as a society.

Music provides a kind of perception (感知) that cannot be acquired any other way. Science can explain how the sun rises and sets. The arts explore the emotive (情感的) meaning of the same phenomenon. We need every possible way to discover and respond to our world for one simple but powerful reason: No one way can get it all.

The arts are forms of thought as powerful in what they communicate as mathematical and scientific symbols. They are ways we human beings “talk” to each other .They are the language of civilization through which we express our fears, our curiosities, our hungers, our discoveries, our hopes. The arts are ways we give form to our ideas and imagination so that they can be shared with others. When we do not give children access to an important way of expressing themselves such as music, we take away from them the meanings that music expresses.

Science and technology do not tell us what it means to be human. The arts do. Music is an important way we express human suffering, celebrations, the meaning and value of peace and love.

So music education is far more necessary than people seem to realize.

1.According to paragraph 1, students      .

2.In Paragraph 2, the author uses jazz an example to      .

3.According to the passage, the arts and science        .

4.What is the main idea of the passage?

There once lived a young man who was always unhappy and complained about his poverty. One day, he went to see a fortune teller to inquire how to become_____1____. The fortune teller said, "Young man, you are already wealthy now."

"Where is my wealth?" the young man asked _______2____.

"It is with you. Your _______3___ is (are) your wealth. You use them to see this world. You use them to see all the ______4______things in this world. You can read, study and learn. Your hands are your wealth. You can use them to work. You can use them to hug your beloved ones. Your ____5_____are your wealth. You can go to any places..." the fortune teller said.

"You call these wealth? Everyone has them," the young man said.

"These are wealth. What you have now are not what others can luckily have. Are you ______6___ to give your eyes to me? I am willing to give you a lot of money to _____7_____ for them," the fortune teller said.

"No, are you crazy? I am not going to exchange my eyes for money! They are _____8____ to me!" the young man ____9_______.

"Precisely, these are wealth to you. You will not exchange them for money. Furthermore, although a lot of people have their wealthy things, they do not ____10_____ them or treasure them. They are not_____11____ to Heaven for giving them their wealth. They even complain that Heaven is unfair to them. Do you want to _____12_____one of them before you will treasure them?" the fortune teller said.

Everyone is wealthy. But we should not ____13______it for granted. We need to treasure our wealth, take care of it and use it _____14_____. We should not overuse it because once it is ____15____, it is gone forever. Remember it is our wealth that we do not want to lose.

A woman saw three old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard, hungry. She did not know them but invited them in. “ We do not go into a house together,” they replied. And she asked why.

One of the old men explained: “His name is Wealth,” pointing to one of his friends, “ and he is Success, and I am Love.” Then he added, “ Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home.”

The woman went in and told her husband what had happened. Her husband was overjoyed. “How nice!” he said. “Since that is the case, let Wealth come in and fill our home with wealth!” His wife disagreed, “My dear, why not invite Success?” Their daughter-in-law gave her own suggestion: “Wouldn’t it be better to invite Love? Our home will be filled with love then.” “Let’s heed our daughter-in-law’s advice,” said the husband to his wife. “ Go out and invite Love to be our guest.”

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other two also got up and followed him. Surprised, the woman asked Wealth and Success: “ I only invited Love, why are you coming in?”

The old men replied together. “ If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would have stayed out. But since you invited Love, wherever he goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!”

The underlined word “ heed” means “     ”.

A. give         B. refuse        C. follow         D. offer

What’s the best title of the passage?

A. The importance of Love.        B. An old couple and Love.

C. Which one is the best choice?    D. Wealth, success and love.

From the story, we can know that the daughter-in-law is full of     .

A. care         B. imagination    C. love         D. cleverness

Which of the following is TRUE?

A. Without love, there won’t be anything.  

B. Without wealth, the husband has nothing.

 C. Without success, you have to love others.

 D. Without carelessness, you will get everything.

Goals are the guides all through our life. We all have goals that we are moving towards and making a great effort to achieve. This is a good thing. Or can it be bad? How many of us never reach our goals and yet we have tried so hard and really thought about nothing else? I believe the mistake most of us make is that we do not focus on our present situation.

Let me explain. Most of us see our present situation as a stepping stone that we use simply as a means of reaching our final destination. We don’t take time to truly appreciate where we are today and all the great things we already have in our lives. We should focus our attention on the journey and not on the destination, or we will miss the beautiful scenery along the way.

Let’s use our job as an example. Now most of us want a promotion. We have plans to become the manager or general manager in our companies. Unfortunately, most of us will never reach the goal, but will watch others achieve our goal instead.

What we should be doing is focusing on the job we are currently in now. Forget where we want to get to and just focus on the present. You see, what we can control is our performance in our current job. We can decide to be the best we possibly can in our current job. Now this may mean further education to have the skills we currently do not have. It may mean working harder to produce better results than our colleagues. It could simply be a change of attitude, such as stopping complaining and becoming a more devoted and supportive employee. By doing our current job to the best of our abilities, we in fact give ourselves the best chance of promotion.

So the best thing for all of us to do to achieve our goals is to just focus on what we have and where we are now. Do the best and be the best we possibly can in our current situations, and we will give ourselves the very best chance of reaching our goals in the future. We have heard the old sayings and they are true: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”, “Patience is a virtue”, and so on.

Have patience, have appreciation of what we already have, and take time to help ourselves be the very best we can. Do these things and we will all reach our goals, but more importantly, we will enjoy our life every day.