Do you know what American students have to do in their schools? In America, at the beginning of the term, students must select their courses and teachers first. While in China students usually have no chances to select their courses and teachers.

Selecting is very important for your grades in America. So at the first term, don’t select too many courses, or you’ll feel very nervous and it may influence your study. Then you have to ask for some teaching plans. There is some information about subjects, time arranging, marks and textbooks. At the same time, you must choose the teachers. Different teachers have different teaching methods. If the teacher is called “killer” by the last grade, many students will give up choosing him. Because this kind of teacher will leave too much homework, too many exams and give too low grades.

There is another thing after you select the courses and the teachers. How to buy textbooks makes each student feel hard. The textbooks in America are very expensive. Each copy is about $30～50. In order to save money, many students buy some used textbooks, and some students usually borrow textbooks from the school library. You must get enough ready before classes. In class, discussing is very important. The teacher encourages you to raise questions or show your own opinions. They don’t usually ask you to sit well. Instead they allow you to sit or stand everywhere you like. They don’t give you much homework to do. You can learn some knowledge and do exercises by yourself.

64. What do the American students do at the beginning of the term?

65. Why do American students choose teachers?

66. What do American students have to do besides selecting their courses and teachers?

67. How can they get the textbooks?

68. What does the writer want to tell us in the passage?

Shopping is popular with many people around the world. They seem to find new ways to buy things every day. They visit shopping centers, order things through the mail, or buy things on the Internet. 60

For young people, one of the most popular ways to shop is to use a vending machine (自动售货机). These machines offer all kinds of things and you can find them everywhere. In the USA, there are vending machines which sell CDs. 61 The strangest product on sale from a vending machine is in Japan. Just put your coins in the vending machine Tokyo, press the button, and out comes a “kabutomushi”，that is, a black beetle. You keep it as a pet!

Japan now has “Robosho”—a shop with no shop assistants, only robots. A robot reads your credit card and then gives you what you what. 62 People are very surprised that the robots can serve them as well as shop assistants do.

Some shops in the UK are like social clubs for teenagers. Many of them have a café inside. The Youth Station has a large nightclub for teenagers under 18, with a DJ playing music in a room that hangs the ceiling. Sports Town has a big screen, where you can see live sports from around the world. 63

Do you feel nervous when you sit a math exam? For most, math can be difficult but new research suggests that it can also cause us physical pain.

Scientists came to this conclusion with an in-depth experiment. They began by finding out how much participants (参与者) fear math. Those participants were asked a series of questions such as how they feel when they receive a math textbook or when they walk into a math lesson.

According to their answers, participants were divided into groups. One group was made up of people who were very afraid of math and participants in the other group were more comfortable with this subject.
　 Both groups were then given either math tasks or word tasks. When a math task was going to come next, a yellow circle would appear but when a word task was soon to come, a blue square would be shown.

Using a brain-scan (扫描) machine, scientists noticed that whenever from Group One saw a yellow circle, their brain would respond（反应）in a way similar to when their body is feeling pain. For example, if they burnt their hand on a hot stove. But they reacted less strongly when they knew that they would be faced with a word task.

However, scientists saw no strong brain response from people in the second group.

“When you are really thinking about it (math problems), your mind is racing and you are worrying about all the things that could go wrong,” explained Ian Lyons from University of Chicago, US, leader of the study. “The more worried people were about the math, the more they activated brain regions that we know are often caught when people experience pain or detect a threat（威胁）.”

More interestingly, the brain activity disappeared when participants actually started dealing with the math tasks. “This means that it’s not that math itself hurts, instead, the anticipation of math is painful.” Lyons said.

According to the study, scientists suggested that things could be done to help students worry less and move past their fear of math, which might mean they perform better in tests.

57.　 What have scientists recently discovered about how people react to math?

A.Most people find it difficult to work out math problem.

B.The fear of math can cause physical pain.

C.They have found out just how much people fear math.

D.They have found out what makes people fear math.

58.The underlined word “anticipation” is closest in meaning to _______.

A.expectation　 　B. understanding　 C. experience　　 D. participation

59.Which of the following statement about the experiment is true?

A. When people are worried, more parts of their brains are activated.

B. Both groups responded the same in the experiment’s word tasks.

C. People might get better results in math exams if they are less worried about it.

D. When participants saw a yellow circle, they felt the same as they got their hands burned.

　　　 We take most of our photos when we travel, but teens from Massachusetts, US, took photos of every corner of their own communities. And they found things they didn’t know before.

Gang graffiti（青少年团伙涂鸦）on public walls, a mother hugging her son, and abandoned（废弃的）buildings—these are photos teenagers took in Smerville, a city in Massachusetts.

It’s part of program to ask teenagers to care about the safety of their communities. They took photos and found problems.

“I found I was a photographer and I wanted to show people what I saw.” said Faith Blass, 15. Blass found some leaves with holes burned by cigarettes on a street, which expresses a possible smoking problem among teenagers.

“Even though I’ve lived in Somerville my whole life, from this program I got to see a new side of the town,” said Judcine Felix, 16. “I saw it more carefully and saw things I hadn’t seen before.

Felix took pictures of broken benches and a broken light bulb in the area where she used to live. She said she was shocked to see how bad the condition of the area is, compared with where she lives now.

More than 400 photos are on display in a city hall. One police officer said the photos were wonderful and caught people’s attention.

“This project taught us to read between the lines. Everything is not simply what it seems. Blass said. She said that the project is more than just adults getting children to do things instead it gave them a voice and taught them responsibility.

53. What did the teenagers from Massachusetts really do?

A. They draw pictures on public walls.　

B. They helped clear the abandoned buildings.

C. They worked for their communities as volunteers.　

D. They took photos of their communities and found problems.

54. When Blass found some leaves were burned with holes, she suggested that ____.

A. the area might not safe because there have been a fire.

B. it was done by some teenagers and they might smoke.

C. no other photographer had ever found this problem.

D. the cleaners on this street didn’t work hard.

55. From the story, we know that Felix _____________.

A. took pictures of the communities where she lives now.

B. doesn’t like the area where she lives now.

C. once moved from one community to another.

D. couldn’t believe the bad condition of her living area is.

56. What does the phrase “read between the lines” mean?

A. To learn how to read and memorize the lines.

B. To watch the blanks carefully between the lines.

C. To try to understand one’s real feelings from what they say or write.

D. To learn what responsDoes working out a math problem give you a headache?

Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. was the first African-American player to take part in the international sport of tennis at the highest level of the game. He was born on July 10, 1943.

When Arthur was 6, his mother died. Arthur, with his father and his brother, lived near a large park in Richmond, Virginia. His father was the manager of the park. He took care of the park and made sure everything was right. 

Arthur was allowed to play in the park when he was seven years old. He was quite energetic. A swimming pool, tennis courts, and baseball diamonds (棒球场) were in the park. Arthur spent a lot of time playing there. He did well in sports, but he had never tried to play tennis.

He often watched the tennis players. Sometimes there were tennis lessons, and Arthur would watch even more carefully. The young man teaching the lessons noticed Arthur. His name was Ronald Charity.

Mr. Charity asked Arthur if he wanted to learn to play tennis. Arthur was excited and agreed. Arthur learned very quickly. Mr. Charity found Arthur would grow up to be a good tennis player. By the time he was ten, Arthur won a tournament (联赛). Many older and bigger players came to the park trying to win the prize, but Arthur beat them. He became known as “the kid who could play tennis”.

Arthur grew up to be one of the first successful African-American tennis players. He played and won all over the world.

50.   The park offered people all of these EXCEPT ____.

    A. tennis            B. football             C. baseball             D. swimming

51. How did Arthur meet Mr. Charity?

    A. Arthur’s father asked Mr. Charity to give Arthur tennis lessons.

    B. While swimming at the pool, Mr. Charity met Arthur.

    C. While teaching tennis, Mr. Charity saw young Arthur.

    D. Mr. Charity noticed young Arthur play tennis well.

52. Why did Arthur become known as “the kid who could play tennis”?

    A. Because he was quite energetic at the age of seven.

    B. Because he learned tennis more quickly than others.

    C. Because he was a good tennis player at the age of ten.

    D. Because he played tennis better than players who were older.

47. Lucy Smith now lives in ______.

A. Dublin        B. New York         C. Mexico City      D. Maryland

48. Till now, Lucy has already had _____________ kinds of jobs.

 A. 1                   B. 2               C. 3               D. 4

49. Lucy does not tell others to find her by _______________.

   A. sending letters                    B. giving her calls  

 C. sending her e-mail                 D. calling her cell phones

I teach a bilingual kindergarten class. One Monday I noticed that two of my students, Juan and Cynthia, had a shared   35   on Friday of that week. I informed both their moms that they could bring in   36   to celebrate their children’s birthdays.

I wondered whether   37   intended（打算）to bring in a birthday treat for the kids. On Thursday, I asked Juan and Cynthia about it, but they didn’t know anything about their parents’ plans. Both children, however, were very excited about having a birthday party the next day in class. As I was tired after work, I decided to  38   it until the next day.

The next morning my first thought was: What should I do about the cakes? It would be terrible if there was nothing for the kids to eat at the party. It   39   me as I approached （接近）the Mexican bakery on my drive to school.

The shop had four large pieces of cake for a dollar each. The only thing was that I was   40  on cash. I needed the five dollars in my purse to  41   until payday. However, I decided the    42  was the most important.

The school day went well. After story time, I told the students, “Today we are celebrating the double birthdays of Juan and Cynthia.”

I brought out the cake and lit the candles, and then we sang Happy Birthday, Cynthia and Juan smiled happily. After the candles were blown out, I cut each of the four pieces of cake into five little pieces. It was just   43  , all 20 of my students had come to class that day.

At the end, Juan said to me, “Miss Jones, I never had a birthday party before!” As I watched him walk away, still   44  , tears came to my eyes. When Cynthia came up moments later, I asked her if she’d ever had a birthday party before.

“No”, she said, “but I loved my birthday today! Thank you, Miss Jones.”

I later learned, after talking with their parents, that our simple celebration had,    45   , been both Cynthia’s and Juan’s first birthday party. I had to   46   the last couple of days of that month on the one dollar ---- but it was certainly worth it!

— Winter holiday is coming, we can have a winter camp with Grade 8

— Yes, but do you know ____________.

A. where we went B. where we will go

C. where did we go　 　　　　　D. where will we go

On this website, the news _________ every hour.

— Can I speak to your headmaster?

— I am sorry, but he _____ an important meeting now.

A. has         B. had           C. will have     D. is having