Eleven top universities are joining the Open University to launch free Internet courses. King’s College London, along with the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Anglia, Exeter, Lancaster, Leeds, Southampton, St Andrews and Warwick, has partnered with FutureLearn, a company set up by the Open University that will offer free and non-credit bearing courses to Internet-users around the world.

The courses are modeled on the US phenomenon “Massive open online courses” ( Moocs ), which have attracted millions of users around the world and are especially popular in emerging economies.

FutureLearn will improve UK institutions for international students, said Prof Martin Bean, voice-chancellor of the Open University. “At the moment, foreign students’ perception of UK Universities is: wonderful history, great tradition, really good teaching, but a bit boring.”

Leeds University says the partnership will benefit students studying on campus. “Students will have access to a rich set of resources from both Leeds and our partners. They can also broaden their education beyond their main subject areas.”

The UK higher education industry stands among the top five export earners for Britain Moocs have grown rapidly in the US over the past year, with two providers leading the field. Coursera offers courses from 33 Universities, including Princeton, Brown, Columbia and Duke, and has reached more than 1.7 million users, EdX, a nonprofit start-up from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology courses this autumn.

Simon Nelson, one of the key architects of BBC Online, will head FutureLearn as launch CEO. “It’s really meaningful for these universities to come together –we’ll punch much harder collectively than any other university will individually,” he said.

Partner Institutions will be responsible for their own content while the OU, which has been providing distance-learning courses since 1971, will assist with course delivery and infrastructure. Details of further universities will be revealed next year, as will the courses on offer.

1. What does the underlined word “perception” in paragrah3 mean?

A．expectation        B．view             C．dream            D．proposal

2. We can learn from the passage that              

A．Coursera, one of the two providers, leads the online courses in the US.

B．Economics is the most popular subject among these online courses.

C．FutureLearn is only set up for the Internet-users.

D．About 1,7million users are taking the free courses launched by UK.

3.What is implied in Simon’s words?

A．It’s really meaningful for these universities to cooperate.

B．Single university can’t do the work very well.

C．These universities will compete with each other.

D．Joint efforts by these top universities will help the program go more smoothly.

4.All of the following statements are true except             

A．Internet-users don’t need to get credit for the courses.

B．UK may top the list of online education one day.

C．The UK higher education industry stands among the top five export earners for England.

D．Some foreign students may think UK universities are not so satisfying.

5. In which magazine would you most likely find this passage?

A．Entertainment      B．Science           C．Education         D．Business Week

  All schoolchildren should have "happiness" lessons up to the age of 18 to combat(fight) growing levels of depression, according to a senior Government adviser.
Pupils should study subjects such as how to manage feelings, attitudes to work and money, channeling (引导) negative emotions and even how to take a critical view of the media, said Lord Layard, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics.
The proposal comes only days after the Government said that lessons in manners—including respect for the elderly and how to say "please" and "thank you" should be taught in secondary schools to combat bad behavior.
Lord Layard said, "Learning hard things takes an enormous amount of practice. To play the violin well takes10,000 hours of practice. How can we expect people to learn to be happy without massive amounts of practice and repetition?"
It is believed that at least two percent of British children under 12 now struggle with significant depression. Among teenagers, the figure rises to five percent. AUNICEF study involving 21 developed countries showed that British children were the least satisfied with their lives, while the World Health Organization predicts that childhood psychiatric (精神)disorders will rise by 50 percent by 2020.
In a speech at Cambridge University, Lord Layard said the Government's lessons in manners did not go far enough. "We need a commitment to producing a major specialism in this area, with a serious teacher training program," he said.
However, happiness lessons have been criticized by academics. Frank Furedi, a sociology professor at Kent University and author of Therapy Culture, said, "In pushing emotional literacy, what some teachers are really doing is abandoning teaching. They are giving up and talking about emotions instead, so that children value all this non-discipline-led activity more than math, English or science. What is amazing about this is that time and time again, research says that it does not work. "
【小题1】 Frank Furedi believes that ______.

Parties held by the wealthy seldom welcome poor guests.But last week China made it through the doors into a gathering of the world’s richest countries.

Jin Renqing ,Chian’s finance minister,and Zhou Xiaochuan,governor of the People’s Bank of China,joined a meeting of the Group of Seven(G7)on October1,2004.It is the fist time that China has had direct talks with the club.It was a good chance to share the world powers’thoughts about critical economic issues and promote understanding.

China’a participation is a natural part of its increasingly important role in the global economy.China is the world ‘s factory and the biggest market.

America and China made up almost half of global economic growth last year.“If Anerican consumers and Chinese producers were to reduce their activities at the same time,global growth would drop greatly,”said the Economist,a leading British economics magazine.

Up to now chinese economic stability(稳定)has been closely related to world development.“The increasingly connected global economy means that China should be a part of the meeting.”said Stephen Roach,a world famous economist.

During the meeting,China represented (代表)developing countries.It callde on the world’s developed nations to increase their  spending on aid to poorer  countries.Jin said that overall official help from developed countries is only 0.23 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product(国内生产值),much lower than the 0.7per cent UN targert.And this should be changed.

1.According to the passage,China particpates in the meeting of G7 because______.

2.Which of the following is true?

3.From the passage we can infer that ________.

4.The underlined wrold “promote”in the second paragraph means_______.

“It was all his own idea, ” says Pat Peters, the 38-year-old wife of Palo Alto, California high school . Bob had just drawn up a “motherhood contract” ----- a document (文件) stating that for 70 days this summer he would take over the care and feeding of the couple’s four children, plus all household chores (杂务). Although he didn’t even know how to make coffee when he signed, he was quite confident.(He thought the experience would make a nice book.) After 40 of the 70 days, he was ready to give up. “I was beaten down, completely humbled, ” admits Peters. Three weeks later he spoke to the local press (also part of the bargain), stating, “Not only is motherhood a difficult task, not only is it never-ending, it is an impossible job for any normal human being.” Bob and Pat were high school sweethearts. After they were married in 1960, she worked as a secretary to help put him through university. Since then Bob has been the football and wrestling coach at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High while Pat raised the kids. Then two years ago Pat went back to work as a secretary at Cubberley. “I had been around children so much,” she sighs (叹气), “I couldn’t talk to a grown-up.” She continued to run the household, however----- until Bob signed the contract, whereupon she decided to relax and enjoy it. Although Peters had consulted (咨询) with his school’s home economics teachers and the head of the cafeteria (食堂), his meals were sometimes a disaster.

“I tried to slip the butter I’d forgotten under the eggs after they were frying, ” he says. For the last three weeks, the family ate out a lot—sometimes having Macdonald’s hamburgers for lunch and dinner. As for housekeeping, a home economics teacher had told Bob that a room always looks clean if the bed is made. “I found an easier way-----I shut the doors, ” he says. Soon the kids were wearing the same clothes for a week. “I made them wear their shirts inside out, and when we went to pick up Pat at work they turned them right side out so they would look clean.”

Now that Bob has publicly admitted he was wrong, he is routinely(日常地) sharing the child-raising and household tasks with Pat. The tentative (暂定的) title of his book about the summer is taken from something he shouted at the kids one day.

1.The couple signed the contract because _______.

A．Pat complained a lot about her doing the housework all by herself

B．Bob loved taking care of children and wanted his wife to have a good rest

C．they agreed that husband and wife should share household tasks

D．Bob thought it easy to take care of the family and wanted the experience for a book

2.It was agreed that if Bob failed to keep to the contract, he would have to _______.

A．pay a certain amount of money

B．do all the housework for years

C．say sorry to his wife

D．admit publicly he was wrong about motherhood

3.Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A．Bob managed to keep the kids’ clothes clean.

B．Bob tried to cook good meals for his children.

C．Bob frequently took the kids out to eat because he was too busy at work.

D．Bob taught the kids to make their beds every day.

4.Which of the following can best end the news story?

A．“My experience of being a mother.”

B．“I’m proud of you all, my dear!”

C．“Wait till your mother gets home!”

D．“Motherhood: an impossible job for anyone.”

“It was all his own idea, ” says Pat Peters, the 38-year-old wife of Palo Alto, California high school football coach Bob Peters, 39. Bob had just drawn up a “motherhood contract” --a document stating that for 70 days this summer he would take over the care and feeding of the couple’s four children, plus all household chores. Although he didn’t even know how to make coffee when he signed, he was quite confident.(He thought the experience would make a nice book.)
After 40 of the 70 days, he was ready to give up. “I was beaten down, pletely humbled（挫败的）,”  admits Peters. Three weeks later he spoke to the local press, stating, “Not only is motherhood a difficult task, not only is it never-ending, it is an impossible job for any normal human being.”
Bob and Pat were high school sweethearts. After they were married in 1960, she worked as a secretary to help put him through university. Since then Bob has been the football and wrestling coach at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High while Pat raised the kids. Then two years ago Pat went back to work as a secretary at Cubberley. “I had been around children so much,” she sighs, “I couldn’t talk to a grown-up.” She continued to run the household, however----until Bob signed the contract, therefore, she decided to relax and enjoy it. 
Although Peters had consulted(咨询) with his school’s home economics teachers and the head of the cafeteria, his meals were sometimes a disaster. “I tried to slip the butter I’d forgotten under the eggs after they were frying, ” he says. For the last three weeks, the family ate out a lot—sometimes having Macdonald’s hamburgers for lunch and dinner.
As for housekeeping, a home economics teacher had told Bob that a room always looks clean if the bed is made. “I found an easier way-I shut the doors, ” he says. Soon the kids were wearing the same clothes for a week. “I made them wear their shirts inside out, and when we went to pick up Pat at work they turned them right side out so they would look clean.”
Now that Bob has publicly admitted he was wrong, he is routinely sharing the child-raising and household tasks with Pat. The tentative（暂时的） title of his book about the summer is taken from something he shouted at the kids one day.
【小题1】The couple signed the contract because _______.