Chinese are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Not caring about the  money, parents often send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the United States and Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course activities where they will either learn a musical instrument(乐器) or ballet, or other classes which will give them a head in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is. So parents will spend an unreasonable amount of money on education. Even poor couples will buy a computer for their son or daughter. However, what most parents fail to see is that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap.

Parents can see that their children are very skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize though, is that today's children are short of self-respect and self-confidence.

The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents are not teaching them the most important skills that they need to be confident, happy and clever.

Parents can achieve this by teaching practical skills like cooking, sewing and doing other housework. Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking requires patience and time. It is an enjoyable but difficult experience. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and finish his job successfully step by step. His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and lots of self-confidence.

Some old machines, such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your child to play with will make him curious and arouse(激发) his interest. He will spend hours looking at them, trying to fix them; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. These activities are not only teaching a child to read a book, but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.

1.Most Chinese parents don't realize_______.

A．how much the best education is worth       B．when children should be educated

C．what children really need in later life        D．why school tests don't satisfy children

2.What is the main idea of the last paragraph?

A．Fixing old machines is very important.        B．Interest is necessary for everything.

C．Broken things are useful for children.        D．Using hands helps improve thinking ability.

3.The writer's attitude（看法） to children's education is that

A．the cheaper an education is, the better it is

B．children today should learn different skills

C．practical skills are useful to children's growth

D．school education can't meet parents' expectation.

The Chinese are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Some parents send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the US or Australia, regardless of how much this costs. Many also want their children to take extra-curriculum activities (课外活动) where they either learn a musical instrument or ballet, or other classes that will give them a better start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is, so parents often spend a large amount of money on education. Even poor parents manage to buy a computer for their son or daughter.

In fact, most parents fail to see that the best education they can give their children is usually very cheap. Parents can see that their children’s skills are different; they will usually be skilled in some areas while poor in others. However, they fail to realize that today's children are lack (缺乏) of self-respect and self-confidence.

The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take exams and how to study effectively. They are not teaching them the most important skills they need. They do not teach them to be confident, happy and clever.

Parents can help achieve this by teaching their children practical skills like cooking, sewing and other housework.

Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands patience and time. It is an enjoyable but difficult experience. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and finish his job step by step. The result, a well--cooked dinner, will give a child a lot of satisfaction and confidence. All these will help the children step to success in the future.

An old machine such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your child as a toy may make him curious and arouse(唤醒) his interest. If he will spend hours looking at it, and try to mend it; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. Such activities do more than teaching a child to read a book. They teach them to think and to use their minds. This is much more important than learning by reading a book.

1. Is the writer satisfied with the Chinese parents’ ideas of educating their children?

2. Put the underlined sentence “the more expensive an education is, the better it is” into Chinese.

3.What are the children lack of today?

4. How is the experience of cooking according to the fifth paragraph?

5.What does the underlined word “They” refer to(所指的是) in the last paragraph?

Do you know that women’s brains are smaller than men’s? Normally the women’s brain weighs 10% less than men’s. Since research has shown that the bigger the brain, the cleverer the animal, men must be more intelligent（聪明的） than women. Right? Wrong. Men and women always score similarly on intelligence tests, despite the difference in brain size. Why? After years of study, researchers have concluded that it’s what’s inside that matters, not just the size of the brain. The brain is made up of “grey matter” and “white matter”. While men have more of the white matter, the amount（数量）of “thinking” brain is almost the same in both men and women.

It has been suggested that smaller brain appears to work faster, perhaps because the two sides of the brain are better connected in women. This means that little girls may learn to speak earlier, and that women can understand sorts of different information at the same time. When it comes to talking to the boss on the phone, cooking dinner and keeping an eye on the baby all at the same time, it’s women who come out on top every time.

   There are other important differences between two sexes（性别）. As white matter is the key to spatial（空间的）tasks, men know better where things are in relation to other things. “A great footballer always knows where he is in relation to the other players, and he knows where to go,” says one researcher. That may explain one of life’s great mysteries: why men refuse to ask for directions … and women often need to!

   The differences begin when fetuses（胎儿）are about nine weeks old, which can be seen in the action of children when they are very young. A boy would try to climb a barrier before him or push it down while a girl would ask for help from others. These brain differences also explain the fact that more men take up jobs that require good spatial skills, while more women speech skills. It may all go back to our ancestors, among whom women needed speech skills to take care of their babies and men needed spatial skills to hunt, according to one research.

1.Which of the following is TRUE according to Paragraph 1?

A. Grey matter controls thinking in the brain.

B. Men’s brain is 10% less than women’s.

C. Grey matter plays the same role as white matter.

D. Men and women have the same amount of white matter.

2.What can you infer from Paragraphs 2 and 3?

A. Men have weaker spatial abilities.

B. Women do not need to tell directions.                                      

C. Women prefer doing many things at a time.

D. Women do many jobs at a time better than men.

3.What can you learn from Paragraph 4?

A. Our children needed more spatial skills.

B. Women may have more feelings than men.

C. Young boys may be stronger than young girls.

D. More women take up jobs requiring speech skills.

4. The passage is mainly about _______.

A. ways of being more intelligent

B. differences between men and women

C. studies on brains between two sexes

D. studies on white matter and grey matter

Much meaning can be carried, clearly, with our eyes, so it is often said that eyes can speak. Do you have such kind of experience? In a bus you may look at a stranger, but not too long. And if he notices that he is being stared at, he may feel uncomfortable.

The same in daily life! If you are looked at for more than necessary, you will look at yourself up and down, to see if there is anything wrong with you. If nothing goes wrong, you will feel angry toward others’ stare（盯着）with you that way. Eyes do speak, right?

Looking too long at someone may seem to be impolite or even rude. But things are different when it comes to stare at the opposite sex. If a man look at a woman for more than 10 seconds and refuses to turn away from his looking, his purpose is obvious, that is, he wishes to attract her attention, to make her understand that he is admiring her.

However, the normal eye contact for two people during a conversation is that the speaker will only look at the listener from time to time, in order to make sure that the listener does pay attention to what his friend is speaking, to tell him that he is interested.

If a speaker looks at you continuously when speaking, as if he tries to control you, you will feel uncomfortable. We usually find a poor liar（说谎者）looking too long at the victim, because he believes that it is a sign of honest communication to look straight in the eye. Totally wrong!

In fact, continuous eye contact only happens between lovers, who will enjoy looking at each other gently for a long time, to show feelings that words cannot express. Obviously, eye contact should be done according to the relationship between two people and the proper situation.

阅读下面短文，并根据所读内容，在文章后第 62~71小题的空格里填入最恰当的单词或短语，并将答案填写在标号为 62~71 的相应位置上。注意：每个空格只填写1个单词

Much meaning can be carried, clearly, with our eyes, so it is often said that eyes can speak. Do you have such kind of experience? In a bus you may look at a stranger, but not too long. And if he notices that he is being stared at, he may feel uncomfortable.

The same in daily life! If you are looked at for more than necessary, you will look at yourself up and down, to see if there is anything wrong with you. If nothing goes wrong, you will feel angry toward others’ stare（盯着）with you that way. Eyes do speak, right?

Looking too long at someone may seem to be impolite or even rude. But things are different when it comes to stare at the opposite sex. If a man look at a woman for more than 10 seconds and refuses to turn away from his looking, his purpose is obvious, that is, he wishes to attract her attention, to make her understand that he is admiring her.

However, the normal eye contact for two people during a conversation is that the speaker will only look at the listener from time to time, in order to make sure that the listener does pay attention to what his friend is speaking, to tell him that he is interested.

If a speaker looks at you continuously when speaking, as if he tries to control you, you will feel uncomfortable. We usually find a poor liar（说谎者）looking too long at the victim, because he believes that it is a sign of honest communication to look straight in the eye. Totally wrong!

In fact, continuous eye contact only happens between lovers, who will enjoy looking at each other gently for a long time, to show feelings that words cannot express. Obviously, eye contact should be done according to the relationship between two people and the proper situation.