I paid 30 yuan for a watermelon the other day. When I ate it at home I found it more bitter than sweet. I was 36   to throw it away for it cost me money 37  . But to eat it was a 38  thing no better than tasting goldthread(黄连)
Things like this  39  occur in our daily life. For example, last week when going on a tour we failed to find the  40  we had been seeking.  41  we were so uncomfortable as if on pins and needles(如坐针毡).In such a case we had better  42  home immediately, but most of us tourists still chose to  43  our way until we finished visiting all the scenic spots,  44  actually we did not quite enjoy them.
If we   45   , we’ll get nothing; we would have spent money  46  .If we don’t give up, what we’ve got is something to cause suffering or pain, or    47  disaster. Since that’s the case, why are we still unwilling to  48 with it? The only 49 _ is: it means money.
Then what 50 __does money contain? Its importance lies in none 51 __the following two aspects: (1) it can be used for our living;(2) it can be used for daily life. When a sum of money that should be able to obtain joy or enjoyment is certain to 52 the purpose, isn’t it wise to give it up? Isn’t it a sort of 53 for money-spending or even for enjoying ourselves?
To abandon and forget a sum of money that is to be of no value or to produce   54  values can be counted as   55 value of money. Isn’t it so?

English teenagers are to receive compulsory (必修的) cooking lessons in schools. The idea is to encourage healthy eating to fight the country’s increasing obesity (肥胖 )rate. It’s feared that basic cooking and food preparation skills are being lost as parents turn to pre-prepared convenience foods.

Cooking was once regarded as an important part of education in England---even if it was mainly aimed at girls. In recent decades cooking has progressively become a minor activity in schools. In many cases the schools themselves have given up cooking meals in kitchens in the schools. But the rising level of obesity has led to a rethink about the food that children are given and the skills they should be taught.

“What I want is to teach young people how to do basic, simple recipes like a tomato sauce, a bolognaise, a simple curry, a stir-fry---which they can use now at home and then in their later life”, said Ed Balls, the minister responsible for schools.

The new lessons are due to start in September, but some schools without kitchens will be given longer to adapt. There is also likely to be a shortage of teachers with the right skills, since the trend has been to teach food technology rather than practical cooking. Also the compulsory lessons for hands on cooking will only be one hour a week for one term. But the well-known cookery writer, Pru Leith, believes it will be worth it.

“If we’d done this thirty years ago we might not have the crisis we’ve got now about obesity and lack of knowledge about food and so on. Every child should know how to cook, not just so that they’ll be healthy, but because it’s a life skill which is a real pleasure”.

The renewed interest in cooking is primarily a response to the level of obesity in Britain which is among the highest in Europe, and according to government figures half of all Britons will be obese in 25 years if current trends are not stopped.

1.The passage mainly talks about        .

A．the reason for obesity                    B．the lost cooking skills

C．the healthy eating                       D．the compulsory cooking classes

2.Which of the following is NOT the purpose for English teenagers to receive cooking lessons?

A．To encourage teenagers to eat healthy food.

B．To reduce the country’s increasing obesity rate.

C．To stop parents from turning to pre-prepared convenience foods.

D．To prevent basic cooking and food preparation skills from being lost.

3.In what way will cooking lessons benefit the students?

A．They will be healthy and enjoy the pleasure of such a life skill as well.

B．They will be able to do some basic, simple recipes like a tomato sauce.

C．They will be able to make food experiments with the knowledge and skills.

D．They will be able to control the level of obesity in the whole country.

4.The well-known cookery writer, Pru Leith, thinks it        to offer compulsory cooking lessons in schools.

A．difficult           B．necessary         C．funny            D．timely

5.It can be inferred from the passage that       .

A．cooking has always been an important part of school education in England

B．the obesity rate in Britain has been rapidly growing in recent decades

C．English teenagers will have their cooking lessons twice a week for one year

D．the students will pay a lot of money to the school for the

Despite rising education levels, Americans of every age are reading less and less for pleasure these days, according to an analysis by the National Endowment for the Arts. The decline(下降) could have bad effects as people tune out books, tune in popular culture and become less socially engaged.
"We've got a public culture which is almost entirely commercial(商业化)and novelty - driven (追新)," says NEA chairman Dana Gioia. "I think it's letting the nation down."
The study gathers years of data on Americans' reading habits and finds that, at every age group, we're reading less.
Most of the data have appeared in private, government and university surveys, but today's report is the first to combine them into a single portrait. It suggests that the demands of school, work and family and the decisive advantage of other forms of entertainment have caused the decline in reading for millions of Americans.
·Only 38% of adults in 2006 said they had spent time reading a book for pleasure.
·65% of college freshmen in 2005 said they read little or nothing for pleasure.
·30% of 13 - year - olds in 2004 said they read for fun "almost every day," down from 35% in 1984.
According to Gioia, a poet, they decline is probably the single most important social issue in the United States today. The findings should be a wake - up call to educators to change the way they teach literature at every level. It was once believed that if someone went to college, they would become a lifelong reader. What we're seeing right now is that we're no longer producing readers. We're producing B. A. s and M. A. s and Ph. D. s.
Cioia also wants main media to wake up to how they can promote good books in many ways. He notes that when a character in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral recited a few lines of W. H. Auden's poem Funeral Blues, the poet briefly became a best seller.
65.The underlined phrase "tune out" in the first paragraph probably means________.
A.close    B.publish C.prove   D.read
66.According to Dana Gioia, the change of Americans' reading habit________.
A.is positive and valuable      B.does harm to the nation
C.is caused only by popular culture      D.can make poets best sellers
67.Which of the following is NOT the cause for the change in reading habit?
A.Demands of getting a B. A., M. A. or Ph. D.
B.Demands of family, school and work.
C.The change in the way the literature is taught.
D.Advantages of the entertainment.
68.We can infer that the number of teenagers reading for pleasure reduced by________in 20 years.
A.30%    B.38%    C.65%    D.5%

When we think about giving help to developing countries, we often think about giving money so that these countries can build schools and hospitals, buy food and medicine, or find clean water supplies. These seem to be the most important basic needs of the people we are trying to help. However, it's far from enough. Ladies and gentlemen, we've got to come up with some better ideas to help them.

I was very surprised, then, when I read about a plan to make cheap laptop computers for children in developing countries. A man called Nicholas Negroponte invented a cheap laptop computer, which can run without electricity. He decided to invent this computer after he visited a school in Cambodia.

The laptop which Mr. Negroponte has designed is a little different from the normal laptop computers you can buy in the shops. One difference is that it is covered in rubber so that it is very strong and won't be damaged easily. As an electricity supply can be a problem in developing countries, the computer also has a special handle so that children can wind the computer up to give it extra power when needed.

These special laptop computers will cost less than 100 US dollars and Mr. Negroponte wants to build as many as 15 million machines in the first year of production. The idea is that these computers will help the children's education as they will be able to access the Internet. These computers might not help the people in developing countries immediately, but by improving children's education they should help people to find their own solutions to their problems in the long term.

Another idea to help children in developing countries is to recycle old mobile phones so that they can be used again. In the UK, and, probably in many other countries too, millions of mobile phones are thrown away every year. The waste created by throwing away these old phones is very bad for the environment, so it seems to be an excellent idea to recycle them. In this way we will be able to achieve two important goals at the same time. We will reduce the waste we produce and help others. In other words, we will be able to 'kill two birds with one stone', and that is always a good thing.

It's an excellent idea to recycle old mobile phones because _______.

A. it reduces waste and can help others  

B. it prevents waste and can earn lots of money

C. it can send the waste produced by developed countries to other countries

D. it is good for the environment and very educative for phone users

The author gives the example of Mr. Negroponte's cheap computers _______.

A. to show what high tech can bring us.

B. to illustrate the kindness of people in the developed countries

C. to show how to find business opportunities in developing countries

D. to give an example of how to help developing countries

Which of the following statements is TRUE about Mr. Negroponte's cheap computers?

      A. His computers don’t need any power to function well.

      B. His computers are covered with rubber so that they are very cheap.

      C. His computers will help children in developing countries to have better education.

      D. His computers will help people in developing countries to find all the solutions.

Where does this passage probably come from?

      A. A magazine      B. A newspaper        C. A lecture          D. An advertisement

—What would you do if it _______ tomorrow??

—We have to carry it on, since we’ve got everything ready.?

A. rain B. rains ?

C. will rain D. is raining?