It is only when a football player has aged and been through many battles ________ he learns an important lesson: there is no “I” in “team”.

A. after                               B. before                           C. what                      D. that

I am a strong believer that if a child is raised with approval (准允), he learns to love himself and will be successful in his own way. Several weeks ago, I was doing homework with my son in the third grade and he kept standing up from his chair to go over the math lines. I kept asking him to sit down, telling him that he would concentrate better. He sat but seconds later, as if he didn’t even notice he was doing it, he got up again. I was getting frustrated (受挫), but then it hit me. I started noticing his answers were much quicker and accurate when he stood up. Could he be more absorbed while standing up?

This made me start questioning myself and what I had been raised to believe. I was raised to believe that a quiet, calm child was a sure way to success. This child would have the willpower to study hard, get good grades and become someone important in life.

    Now those same people perhaps come to realize that their kids are born with their own sets of DNA and personality qualities, and all you can do is loving and accepting them. As parents, throughout their growing years and beyond that, we need to be our kids’ best cheerleaders, guiding them and helping them find their way.

I have stopped asking my son to sit down and concentrate. Obviously, he is concentrating just in his own way and not mine. We need to learn to accept our kids’ ways of doing things. Some way may have worked for me but doesn’t mean we need to carry it through generations. There is nothing sweeter than being personal and unique (独特的). It makes us free and happy and that’s just the way I want my kids to live their own life. 

1.Time and again the author got his son seated in order to make him ______.

A. work fast                          B. go polite                     C. stay relaxed                    D. keep attentive

2.The underlined “it” (in the first paragraph) probably refers to ______.

A. his son’s doing better while standing up

B. his failure in keeping his son under control

C. his own experience as a school boy

D. his disappointment with his active child

3.By this passage, the author attempts to tell other parents to ______.

A. correct their kids’ manners from the early ages

B. respect and trust their kids’ ways of behaviors

C. develop a good relationship with their children

D. guarantee their children’s freedom at home

4.Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?

A. Parental help with teens’ study

B. Adult influence on teen growth

C. Kids’ success in their own styles

D. Friendship between generations

Geniuses amaze us，impress us and make us all a little jealous. How do they differ from the average person？Scientists are working hard to figure out that answer. Tune in to the National Geographic Channel to find out about the discoveries they’re making in the series My Brilliant Brain.

When Marc Yu was only two years old，he began to play the piano. After a year, he started learning pieces by Beethoven. Now he’s a world-famous concert pianist at age eight. He learns newer and more difficult pieces with ease and can identify any note he hears. He seems to be specially designed for music. In Born Genius, National Geographic looks at the science behind child prodigies （神童） to explain why some children seem to be born without limits.

Geniuses didn’t come naturally to Tommy McHugh. His came only after he nearly died from bleeding in his brain. After recovering, McHugh’s head was filled with new thoughts and picture. So, he began to express them in the form of poetry and art. Now, he’s a seemingly unstoppable creative machine. Suffers of brain injury have shown that great mental ability can sometimes come from damage or disease. Accidental Genius explores this puzzling relationship.

Can normal people be trained to be geniuses? Susan Polger has shown no sign of extraordinary intelligence. Yet, during her childhood, she studied thousands of chess patterns and learned to recognize them immediately. As a result, she was able to beat skilled adult players by age 10 and can now play up to five games at the same time without even seeing the boards. Make Me a Genius examines what is takes to turn an ordinary brain into that of a genius.

If becoming a genius were easy, we’d all be done. Yet, there is much more to super intelligence than simply being born lucky. Learn more about amazing brains this month on National Geographic’s My Brilliant Brain.

1. In paragraph 2, Marc Yu’s story tells us_________________.

A. a child prodigy can work easier than others.

B. a child prodigy is trained by family.

C. a child prodigy has an unbelievable listening skill.

D. a child prodigy always practise his skills.

2.In paragraph 3, the sentence “Geniuses didn’t come naturally to Tommy McHugh.” means that ______________.

A. Tommy McHugh could not be called a genius.

B. Tommy McHugh became a genius when he was young.

C. Tommy McHugh was a robot but not a real human being.

D. Tommy McHugh became a genius after a sudden accident.

3.The writer provides different examples to _____________.

A. show how people can be geniuses.     　B. show becoming a genius is easy.

C. show geniuses are common.            　D. show people know how to explain geniuses.

4.The passage may come from_________.

A. a report         B. a novel      　C. a TV program       　　D. a newspaper

Here’s a movie—a sharp, sugar-rush of fun that’s guaranteed to entertain the entire family.

With some terrific computer-generated effects, a great cast and a fun-packed storyline, Robots is the best animated film (动画片) since The Incredibles. Yep, it really is that good.

Set in a world populated by robots, Ewan McGregor plays Rodney Copperbottom, a young robot who leaves his small-town home to pursue his dream of becoming an inventor.

But after arriving in Robot City, his hopes of getting a job at Bigweld Industries are destroyed when he learns the firm has been taken over by the evil Ratchet (Greg Kinnear).

Egged on by his controlling mum, Madame Gasket (Jim Broadbent), Ratchet plans to reduce half of Robot City’s citizens to scrap metal by refusing to sell the spare parts they need to survive.

Instead, he wants to make a fortune selling expensive upgrades that few can afford. As he says, “Why be you when you can be new?”

Aided by a few misfit robots known as the Rustles—including Robin Williams as the cowardly' (胆小的）Fender (“I’m made of a metal called Afraidium”)—Rodney must track down the firm’s founder, Bigweld (Mel Brooks), and convince him to save the city from Ratchet’s plans.

The first thing that’ll strike you about the movie is the thought that's gone into creating Robot City. It’s a wondrous world full of mechanical marvels including wind-up cars and walking streetlamps.

Also terrific are the special effects. This might be an animated movie but at times you’ll catch yourself thinking it’s really a live-action film.

Of course, there have been plenty of animated movies that looked the part but were let down by a weak storyline (see Shark Tale, for example).

But Robots grips (扣人心弦) right from the start thanks to a heart-warming and thoroughly engaging plot that never bores.

My only complaints are with Williams who, as usual，has a one-in-10 success rate with his jokes. Also a letdown is a romantic subplot between Rodney and a shapely robot called Cappy (Halle Berry) that doesn’t go anywhere.

Complains aside, this is a mechanical marvel that’ll have you bolted firmly to your seat.

BEST QUOTE(引述): Fender: “Even though you had a discouraging day, just remember there’s another one coming tomorrow.”

BEST BIT: Check out those amazing images.

WORST BIT: Robin Williams, character does an unfunny Britney Spears dance routine.

IF YOU LIKED…Ice Age, The Incredibles, Toy Story... YOU’LL LIKE THIS.

1.This piece of writing is a _______.

A. commercial advertisement   B. film review

C. movie poster         D. literary essay

2.The cast of Robots is made up of all the following actors or actresses EXCEPT _______.

A. Ewan McGregor    B. Robin Williams

C. Britney Spears       D. Halle Berry

3.What is Shark Tale an example of?

A. A great cast. B. A poor plot.

C. Special effects.      D. Clumsy animation.

Americans use many expressions with the word dog. People in the United States love their dogs and treat them well. They take their dogs for walks, let them play outside and give them good food and medical care. However, dogs without owners to care for them lead a different kind of life. The expression, to lead a dog's life, describes a person who has an unhappy life. 

Some people say we live in a dog-eat-dog world. That means many people are competing for the same things, like good jobs. They say that to be successful, a person has to work like a dog. This means they have to work very, very hard. Such hard work can make people dog-tired. And, the situation would be even worse if they became sick as a dog. 

Still, people say every dog has its day. This means that every person enjoys a successful period during his or her life. To be successful, people often have to learn new skills. Yet, some people say that you can never teach an old dog new tricks. They believe that older people do not like to learn new things and will not change the way they do things. 

Some people are compared to dogs in bad ways. People who are unkind or uncaring can be described as meaner than a junkyard dog. Junkyard dogs live in places where people throw away things they do not want. But mean dogs are often used to guard this property. They bark or attack people who try to enter the property. However, sometimes a person who appears to be mean and threatening is really not so bad. We say his bark is worse than his bite. 

Dog expressions also are used to describe the weather. The dog days of summer are the hottest days of the year. A rainstorm may cool the weather. But we do not want it to rain too hard. We do not want it to rain cats and dogs.

1.A person who lives an unhappy life can be described as “_______”.

A. becoming sick as a dog          B. leading a dog’s life

C. living in a dog-eat-dog world     D. Working like a dog

2.The underlined word “mean” in Paragraph 4 most probably means “_______”.

A. violent         B. selfish          C. wild          D. Poor

3.What can we learn from the text?

A. Everyone can be successful if he learns from the old.

B. It might be difficult for the young to learn new skills.

C. Junkyard dogs are careful in money arrangement.

D. Fierce persons aren’t so awful as their appearance sometimes.

4.To support his idea, the author develops the text mainly by _______.

A. listing reasons                 B. using idioms

C. giving examples               D. Making comparisons