The Chinese New Year is the most important holiday for the Chinese people. For the Chinese，the New Year comes with the first day of the First Moon，between January 21 and February 19. People get ready for the holiday for fifteen days.
Finally，at midnight it is the first day of the First Moon. People close the shops and the streets are empty. Everyone locks（锁） the doors and stays at home.
It is an important time for the family. The younger people bow(鞠躬) to the older people. The Chinese call this Ke Tou. This means “to touch the ground with the forehead（额头）”．Then the younger people wish the older people a happy New Year. The older people give children gifts of money inside envelopes（信封）. The family then go to sleep.
In the morning，people dress in（穿上） their best clothes. Some people stay at home，others go out to pay a New Year Call. They are very polite and do not use bad words. It's the most important day of the year.
【小题1】“The Chinese New Year” in the passage means “______”．

Many students ask for advice about improving (提高) their English. There are three basic(基本的) questions.
The first question is about real English. Li Hao from Hubei wrote, “I enjoy watching English films and listening to real English songs. But it takes a long time. What do you think?”
This is a great way to learn English! Talk about the film or song with your friends, and guess the meaning of the new words. Just enjoy yourself!
The second question is about speaking. Sam, from Suzhou wrote, “Our school has a foreign teacher. But I'm shy and can’t speak to her. What should I do?”
When I visit China, lots of people in the street say, “Hello! How are you? Where are you from? Do you like China?” These are good questions to start a talk. Many people are shy when they speak English, so before you begin, take a deep breath and smile! Smiling always helps.
The third question is about vocabulary. Oliver, from Anhui wrote, “I want to remember all the new words. I write them down, but I forget them quickly. What should I do?”
Try to remember eight or ten words a day. Write them on pieces of paper and place them in your bedroom. Say the words when you see them, and change them every day. And when you’re shopping, how about counting the English words, or saying the English names for everything you see?
【小题1】How many basic questions do the students often ask?

Dear Addie,
Greetings from New Jersey, how is New Zealand? I’m very excited to have you as my pen pal. I guess it’s my turn to tell you about myself.
First off, I live with my parents, two sisters, and our pet dog Brighty. Our town is called Whippangong. It is only about a half-hour away from New York City. My oldest sister, Ingrid, just turned 17, that means she now has a drive’s license. She drives us to the mall. Do you have a mall near you in Te Awamutu? My other sister is 11 and her name is Lucy. I guess I would say that she is my best friend. We still fight, though. She rides horses and takes lessons every Saturday morning. I have to go with her sometimes, and that is truly the most boring thing in the world. Do you like horses?
I take tap dancing classes. I like to practice in the food store. The sound of my feet stepping on the hard floors echoes(发出回声). I play scores in the fall; I’m on the swim team during the summer. I like swim, but I am really looking forward to diving this year. Next year I will start music lessons in school. I think I am going to play the piano.
Our house has eight rooms and a small backyard where every year we try to grow vegetables. We mostly get zucchini because the rabbits eat everything else. I guess rabbits don’t like zucchini. I have a bike and mum allows me to ride up and down our street, but nowhere else. I hope that I will get to ride it to school someday. Right now I ride the crowed and yucky bus.
Well, that is enough about me for now. I look forward to hearing from you again soon. I hope your surfing lessons went well. And I hope your mum does let you learn to play the drums.
Write soon
Love,
Jessica
【小题1】 In this letter, Jessica doesn’t talk about     .

The price office changes during the year.
It is useful for rice farmers to know how the price changes, then they can sell their rice when the price is high. But it was hard for farmers to guess how the price would change from month to month. 
Last year, the price of rice was very low in November. This was a bad time for farmers to sell their rice. November, December, and January were all bad months. The best month for farmers to sell rice last year was April. July and August were also good times to sell rice.
Between August and November, the price of rice were down every month. During other parts of the year, the price went up and down.

【小题1】The price of rice was the highest in________ last year.

Having a cheetah as a pet in the house? Does it sound scary to you? But for a family in South Africa, one cheetah is treated as a VIP (Very Important Person) in the house.
The big cheetah is named Jolie, after the film star Angelina Jolie.      【小题1】     She can often be found eating from the kitchen table, taking a short sleep on the sofa, or even sleeping on Lucy and Jeff’s bed. The big cat also sleeps and plays with the Browns’ other pet, the more usual one — a sheepdog (牧羊犬).      【小题2】
Having a cheetah as a pet is unusual. At first, Mrs Brown wasn’t willing to keep a cheetah as a pet. She said, “    【小题3】     But we are now happy that we did it — she is part of the family.”
Just like her name, four-year-old Jolie has achieved a celebrity status (名人地位) in the Browns’ hometown. Fans often come to their home to take pictures of her.      【小题4】
However, a cheetah is always a cheetah.      【小题5】    “She makes a lot of mess in the house, urinating (小便) everywhere and chewing everything. It’s her wild instincts (本能),” said Mrs Brown.
There might be some problems of having a cheetah as a pet in the house, but some unusual fun must also be waiting ahead.

It seems that there’s a good reason why dogs are always seen as man’s best friend. Scientists have found that dogs are the only animals that can read emotion(情感)in faces much like humans. The finding suggests that like an understanding friend, dogs can see if we are happy, sad, pleased or angry.
When humans look at a new face, their eyes usually look across the left, falling on the right hand side of the person’s face first. A possible reason for this is that the right side of the human face is better at expressing emotions.
Scientists have now shown that pet dogs also have “left gaze bias(左视偏好)”, but only when looking at human faces. No other animal has been known to do like this before. Dr. Kun Guo showed 17 dogs pictures of human, dog and monkey faces as well as something else with his team. The dogs’ eyes and heads show a strong left gaze bias when the animals see human faces. But this did not happen when they were shown other pictures, including those of dogs.
Guo suggests that over thousands of years living with humans, dogs may have developed the left gaze bias as a way to guess our emotions.
“Recent studies show that the right side of our faces can express emotions better than the left. If true, then it makes sense for dogs and humans to see the right hand side of a face first.”
【小题1】 Why are dogs seen as man’s best friend according to the passage?

   Nowadays, Internet becomes much easier for people to use. More and more people like to      on the Internet. How can you protect yourself from different types of Internet tricks? Following ideas can make your online shopping        .
Never click on an unsolicited (主动提供的) email. If you are        in the things, some well-known companies sell the same things. Don’t          on any website address in the email itself.
Don’t          any email that asks you for personal financial (财务的) information. Most of the legitimate (合法的) companies will not ask for your information through emails. And don’t believe what the email says        . Sometimes some emails will ask you to make a telephone call to get more information about the thing you want. When you meet this, don’t forget        the phone number on your phonebook to make sure it is the number of a legitimate company before you make the call.
When you are          information on the Internet, make sure that there is a key symbol        the bottom of your browser (浏览器) and the “https://” is in the website address. These mean that the website is safe.
Don’t send your money to an unknown website before you          the things they send to you and make sure they work well.
Shopping on the Internet is easy and fun. It is also safe if you are careful enough.

Do you have to carry a heavy bag to school? Does it make your back (背部) hurt? Well, students at a high school in Kansas (堪萨斯州), America, have a meeting with their city’s mayor（/meM/市长） to complain (抱怨) about their heavy bags. They say their bags are giving them headaches, and making their necks (脖子) and backs hurt. The mayor says he is very sorry. He says students may do more of their homework on the Internet (国际互联网) to give their back a rest.
【小题1】A heavy bag may make students ＿＿.

Everything that humans hear is in the form of waves(波). Just as the eye sees light waves in the form of colors, the ear hears sound waves in the form of noises. The ear and the eye turn these different waves into signals that the brain(大脑) can make sense of.
The ears and brain have an amazing ability to recognize(识别) particular sounds. For example, a mother often can tell when her baby is crying even if there are other crying babies in the same room. This is because the sound of her baby’s cry has special meaning to her and the brain has recorded its importance.
The ability to recognize sounds improves with experiences. As the brain receives information about sounds from day to day, it stores the information in its memory. When the brain hears new sounds, it gives meaning to them based on the information already in the memory. This is why certain words or songs can make a person happy. Often it is not the words or songs themselves that cause this feeling. The sounds are connected to happy memories for that person.
Another hearing process controlled by the brain is to decide where a sound is coming from. One ear is usually closer to the source(来源) of a sound than the other ear is. Sound waves are stronger when they reach the ear that is closer. They also reach the closer ear first. The brain recognizes these differences and uses them to decide the location of the source of the sound.
【小题1】Which of the following shows the normal hearing process of a mother hearing her baby crying?
a. The ears receive the sound waves.
b. The mother recognizes her baby’s cry.
c. The baby’s turn the sound waves into signals.
d. The baby’s cry travels in the form of sound waves.
e. The brain connects the signals to the information in the memory.

Anna and Jane had tickets for a pop concert in London. They were very excited about the concert. They had planned their day in London very carefully. They worked out which trains to catch, where to eat and where they wanted to go shopping. 【小题1】. A friend of Jane’s was working with the sound equipment backstage（后台）. He said he could get them special passes so they could go backstage. He promised to ask the group if the girls could come to say “Hello”. He said that he was sure he could get them the group’s autographs（签名）.【小题2】
Then two days before the concert, Anna got a cold.【小题3】, even though she stayed in bed and took medicine. On the evening before the concert, she had a fever and was very sick indeed.
Anna’s mother rang Jane. “Anna is too sick to go to the concert,” she said. “You had better find someone else to go with.”
The next day, Anna was feeling very sorry for herself. Then she had a visitor. It was Jane! She came with a big bag of fruit and a pile of their favorite CDs. “I’ll give the tickets to Jill and Sue in the end,” she said. “【小题4】 . It wouldn’t be much fun without you.”