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 ________.

When you meet someone for the first time, you will form an impression in your mind of that person in the first moment. Your reactions to other people, however, are really just barometers (晴雨表) for how you perceive(理解) yourself. Your reactions to others say more about you than they do about others. You cannot really love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate yourself. We are usually drawn to those who are most like us and tend to dislike those who display those aspects of ourselves that we dislike.

Therefore, you can allow others to be the mirror to illuminate (阐明;照亮) more clearly your own feelings of self-worth. Conversely（相反地）, you can view the people you judge negatively as mirrors to show you what you are not accepting about yourself.

To survive together peacefully with others, you will need to learn tolerance. A big challenge is to shift your perspective from judgment of others to a lifelong exploration of yourself. Your task is to assess all the decisions, judgments you make onto others and to begin to view them as clues to how you can heal yourself and become whole.

Several days ago I had a business lunch with a man who displayed objectionable table manners. My first reaction was to judge him as rude and his table manners as annoying. When I noticed that I was judging him, I stopped and asked myself what I was feeling. I discovered that I was embarrassed to be seen with someone who was chewing with his mouth open and loudly blowing his nose. I was astonished to find how much I cared about how the other people in the restaurant perceived me.

Remember that your judgment of someone will not serve as a protective shield against you becoming like him. My judging my lunch partner as rude does not prevent me from ever looking or acting like him. In the same way, extending tolerance to him would not cause me to suddenly begin chewing my food with my mouth open.

When you approach life in this manner, those with whom you have the greatest dissatisfactions as well as those you admire and love can be seen as mirrors, guiding you to discover parts of yourself that you reject and to embrace your greatest quality. 

1.We can know from the passage that the author advises people to _____________.

A. avoid inappropriate manners.

B. learn tolerance towards others.

C. pay attention to others’ needs and feelings.

D. judge others favorably in any case.

2.The underlined word “objectionable” in Paragraph 4 has the closest meaning to ____________.

A. discouraging          B. satisfying          C. unpleasant           D. acceptable

3.According to the passage, the following statements are all true except _____________.

A. You can’t really love or hate others if they are similar to you.

B. We are easily attracted by someone who is similar to us.

C. Our first judgment of a person mostly comes from our personal opinion.

D. The moment we see a stranger, our mind forms an impression of that person.

4.Throughout the entire story, the last paragraph serves as a(n) ______________.

A. explanation            B. example         C. background         D. conclusion

5.It can be implied from the text that ___________.

A. the writer’s first reaction to the man was to judge him as offensive

B. we will need to learn tolerance to coexist with others

C. we shouldn’t focus on judging others but should constantly reflect on our own

D. the writer didn’t care about other people’s view of him

In many parts of the world cars play an essential role in daily life and many societies would stop to function without them. So the claim that in 20 years’ time no one will own cars may be hard to believe. But this is the prediction made by a team of transport researchers who are taken seriously not only by governments but also by car manufacturers.
The Human Science and Advanced Technology Institute at Loughborough in the UK is part of an international research program. The team there believes that by 2020 all cars will be computerized, which will mean extremely large fuel savings, no accidents and better use of roads. The super-intelligent car of the 21st century will drive itself and it will not be owned by on individual. Instead, we will have a choice of cars and change them as frequently as we change our clothing.
According to Dr. David Davis, who leads the research team, these predictions are based on the rising cost of the car culture ,which had blocked up our cities, polluted our air and caused more deaths than both world wars put together.
Davis says cars will be fitted with intelligent cruise control devices to regulate the distance between one car and another. Brakes and accelerators (加速器) will become redundant（多余的） because the car will automatically speed up or slow down to match the speed of the car in front. Computers are much safer drivers than people, so cars in a road train will be able to drive much closer together than cars driven by people.
By 2010 Dr. David Davis believes car technology will give motorists a clear view of the road whatever the weather conditions by projecting an image of the road ahead onto the car’s windscreen. And by 2020 cars will travel in convoy linked to each other electronically. Cars will be connected by an electronic tow(牵引) bar to the car in front to form “road-trains”. “The front vehicle in such a train burns the ordinary fuel” says Davis. “But all the others in the train would burn about ten percent of the normal amount and so produce about ten percent of the pollution.
【小题1】We know from the passage that governments and car manufactures ________.

A．don’t believe the prediction that no one will own cars by 2020.

B．are devoted to the technological innovation (创新) in car industry.

C．consider the predictions made by the researchers seriously.

D．have put the super-intelligent car into mass production.

Friendships are some of the most important relationships that we will ever have in our lives. But how to build a solid friendship? Here are five tips for you.
Tip 1. _____
True friendships can only be built in honesty. This is more than just telling the truth. Being real and open about who you are and your thoughts and feelings are a part of building a solid friendship. If your “friends” don’t even really know you, who are they really friends with?
Tip 2. Shared Experiences
As you build your friendship, you will share many experiences together. Some of these may be great adventures or hard times that the two of you go through together. These shared experiences are things that you will laugh about, talk about, and cry about no matter how much time passes.
Tip 3. Sacrificial（牺牲精神的）love
Love is the basis（基础）of all solid relationships. I am not referring to the emotion（情感） of love, but to the action of love. Love is what will cause a friend to get out of bed in the middle of the night to help another. Love is what will put aside someone’s own wants to make sure that their friend is alright.
Tip 4. Understanding
When a friendship is solid, it will be based on each other’s understanding. You may not agree with everything that a friend says or does, but you will be able to put yourself into his or her shoes to begin to understand. Offering understanding to a friend is very important, as it allows them to feel that they have someone in their corner that they can talk to and who will offer advice and suggestions, without having to worry that if they don’t always follow it, the friendship will be lost.
Tip 5. Acceptance
A solid friendship is one in which two people accept one another, faults and all, for just who they are. There is no having to build up false excuses, or hide away the “dark secrets” from one another. We accept each other as whole, complete, and totally unique people.
【小题1】What’s the best title of Tip 1?

第二节 书面表达(满分25分)
某天，你班贴出了一张通知。请根据通知内容要点和要求写一篇英语发言稿。
　　内容要点：
　　 ● 你对“周五读报活动”的看法； ● 陈述你的理由…… (可举例说明)；
　　 ● 你的具体建议 ……
　　要求：
1. 短文字数不少于120，开头已经给出，不计入总词数；
2. 内容充实，结构完整，语意连贯,可根据内容要点适当发挥，但不要逐条翻译；
3. 书写须清楚、工整。
Notice
　　 Our monitor suggests that we have “Friday News Hour”. But some classmates do not agree. We will have a class meeting in English tomorrow afternoon to discuss this suggestion. Please prepare your talk and take an active part.
　　May 6th, 2008
　Dear fellow students ，
Our monitor suggests that we have “Friday news hour”。