Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.   
“I would never have said to my mom,’ Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?’” says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”  
Music was not the only gulf(分歧). From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.   
Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversations on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent-child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.
No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friends.”   
But family experts warn that the new equality can also result in less respect for parents.   
“There’s still a lot of strictness and authority on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,” says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”   
Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these evolving(演化的) roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic process that encourages everyone to have a say.   
“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds,were on the ‘after’ side,” explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”

Your children’s teacher will be providing extra time for test preparation. This school year’s test will be held on January 8 and 9. The test preparation time is open to all students, and we strongly encourage your children to attend.
This year we are changing the time for our test preparation: it will be on Thursday mornings from 8:10 to 8:50. This helps children who ride the bus and cannot stay for the after-school period. It also helps avoid conflicts with after-school activities.
Danielle and Marina will be working with the recent new test takers 6 days on the following Thursdays: 15^th, Nov; 29^th, Nov; 6^th, Dec; 13^th, Dec.; 20^th, Dec. and 3^rd, Jan.
Besides the test preparation lectures on these dates, teachers are already putting test preparation into their usual courses. We are finding that we can help our students to be both skillful and whole-hearted readers and test takers — after all, we all know that the best test preparation is good reading and writing training.
What can you do at home? Again, the best and most effective test preparation for the ELA test is reading and more reading. The research is quite clear — students who do well in the tests are those who are good readers. Reading not only builds reading ability, it also helps build confidence — important for successful test taking! But do discourage your children from spending too much time on books that are too hard or even a bit too hard. Children best develop comprehension skills when they are reading books just right for them (too easy doesn’t hurt here either).
Finally, on Friday, December 7, we will have a morning lecture on the ELA. Please pay attention!
【小题1】The text is mainly about ________.

BUILDING up a close bond (关系) with friends is important in all cultures. But different cultures have different ways of socializing.
The Chinese love going to restaurants. Family, friends and colleagues all go out to eat as a way of relaxing. So Chinese restaurants are much louder and noisier places compared with those in the Western world.
Although British people do socialize by going out for dinner, most people meet in pubs. They go there in the evening and sometimes during the day. Most people order wine or beer.
Going for a drink with colleagues after work is a particularly important British tradition. A recent survey of office workers found three-quarters of people regard the after-work drink as the key to building positive relationships with colleagues.
But for the French, the preferred place to socialize is in cafés. They are a central part of daily life in France and its culture. People will go to cafes at all times during the day.
In the morning, people may go there to buy a newspaper and a cup of coffee. At lunch they may go there for something to eat. Then when it's evening they may return to enjoy a glass of wine.
While the meeting place is different from culture to culture, "Essentially (本质上) they serve the same purpose, which is that humans need a place to come together to meet," said Aidan Saunders, a professor of social history at the University College London. "We are sociable animals."
People from different parts of the world have different values, and sometimes these values are quite against each other. However, if we can understand them better, a multicultural environment will offer a wonderful chance for us to learn from each other.
【小题1】What is the passage mainly about?      

Less than one year after France imposed(强加于)a nationwide ban on smoking in most public places, it will, from Jan. 1, 2008, extend the ban to bars, restaurants, hotels, nightclubs - and the most cherished of all: caf†s.

Ireland and Italy show that countries with longstanding smoking traditions may introduce bans fairly smoothly, as they did in 2004 and 2005. In Germany, where regulations vary locally, Berlin will join France on Jan 1. But fierce critics of the new law in France say it all but destroys the caf†'s basic function: to serve as the socioeconomic glue of society.

C†cile Perez, owner of La Fronde, a typical Parisian neighborhood caf† said: "In the morning, street cleaners in bright green uniforms sip coffee next to well-dressed businessmen; at lunch hour, working-class types rub shoulders with those of the latest fashion at the bar, while couples of all ages rub noses over salads; during the after-work rush, there is a steady soundtrack of clinking glasses combined with conversation; the constant, no matter what time of day, is the smoke that drifts through the air in curls and clouds, seemingly unnoticed."

"Our motto in France is: liberty, equality, fraternity," Olivier Seconda, a regular at the caf†, said.

"The caf† is the place that represents that. You're free to smoke, everyone pays the same price for a beer and different kinds of people talk with one another. This new law goes against that."

Seconda expects the ban to be felt even more strongly in small villages far from Paris, where the caf† is often the only means of social activity. "People already miss the space that allows people of all walks of life to share something-even if it is sometimes no more than a few words and the smoke floating between them."

69. In Germany, ______.

    A. caf† smoking will be forbidden from Jan,1, 2008

    B. the tradition of caf† smoking is and will be well-kept

    C. local customs are well respected in terms of smoking

    D. there are different regulation on smoking

70. C†cile Perez mentions the curls and clouds of smoke drifting through the air to ______

    A. describe a friendly atmosphere                         B. show the beauty of his own caf†

    C. support the ban on smoking                               D. remind us of something unnoticed

71. Olivier Seconda implies that ______.

    A. the caf† provides people with enough liberty, equality, and fraternity

    B. people, regardless of their social class, enjoy equal rights in a caf†

    C. the new ban on caf† smoking should be put in effect only in villages

    D. people would not find fun in a caf† without smoking a cigarette

72. The passage is written to _______.

    A. show the writer's personal opinion against a new law

      B. provide information for law-makers to pass a new law

    C. tell why some people are unhappy about smoking ban in caf†s

    D. compare attitudes to a law, held by people from different countries

Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests they both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.
“I would never have said to my mom, ‘Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?’” says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”
Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.
Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversations on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent—child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.
No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”
But family experts warn that the new equality can also result in less respect for parents. “There’s still a lot of strictness and authority on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,” says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”
Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these evolving roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic(民主的) process that encourages everyone to have a say.
“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the  ‘after’ side,” explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily done by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”
【小题1】The underlined word gulf in Para.3 most probably means _________.