Here are some facts about homes in the United States and the people who live in them. In the early 1990s, about 50% of the Americans owned their homes and the rest rented(租) their homes. The rented homes were usually apartments(公寓).
74% of the people in the US make their homes in or around cities. 26% live in the country. Dogs live in about 40% of all homes in the US. About half that number have cats.
Families in the US are becoming smaller. On the average(平均), 2.64 people lived at home in the early 1990s. In the1960s, the average was 3.5.
Half of the teenagers in the US have their own bedrooms.
An American moves, on the average, twelve times in his or her life. In Japan a person moves about five times, and in England a person moves eight times.
【小题1】Most Americans live ________, according to the passage.

Each nation has many good people who help to take care of others．For example，some high school and college students in the U.S.A. often spend many hours as volunteers in the hospitals，orphanages（孤儿院）or rest homes．They read books to the people in these places，or they just visit them and play games with them or listen to their problems．
Other young volunteers go and work in the homes of people who are sick or old．They paint，clean up or repair their houses，do their shopping or mow（割；修剪）their lawns．For boys who no longer have fathers，there is an organization called Big Brothers．College students and other men take these boys to baseball games or fishing trip and help them get to know things that boys usually learn from their fathers．
Each city has a number of clubs where boys and girls can go to play games．Some of these clubs show films or organize short trips to the mountains or some places of interest．Most of these clubs use a lot of high school and college students as volunteers because they are young enough to know the problems and needs of young boys and girls．
Volunteers believe that some of the happiest people in the world are those who help to bring happiness to others．
根据短文内容，判断正（T）误（F）。
【小题1】In America，it takes most of high school and college students little time to be volunteers in hospitals，orphanages or rest homes.
【小题2】Some young volunteers can go and play in the homes of people who are sick or old.
【小题3】If a boy has no father，he can get to know things that boys usually learn from their fathers in an organization called Big Brothers.
【小题4】Most of the clubs don’t like to use the high school or college students as volunteers because they’re too young to remember anything.
【小题5】If you bring happiness to others，you will feel happy too.

It’s so beautiful outside that spending the day in the office would be very boring. So why not take the vacations(假期)off? A new survey(调查)found that 31﹪of U.S workers don’t always take all of their vacation days. Americans have 12 vacation days on average(平均)each year, but they give back an average of 3 vacation days each year.
So why don’t they use up their vacation days? Some say they would rather get money back for their unused days; some busy workers say they just can’t leave their work. Americans have fewer vacation days than workers in any other country surveyed.
The French take their vacations seriously. French workers get an average of 39 vacation days, and 40﹪ plan to take at least one there-to-four-week vacation.
Workers in Sweden receive an average of 25 vacation days a year, but they can’t find time to use them all. More workers there return vacation days than any other country surveyed.
British workers have the longest working week in Europe(欧洲),with 23 vacation days --the shortest vacation. So they feel overworked.75﹪ say their weekends or vacations are too short and 40﹪ would sacrifice a day’s pay(工资)for one more vacation day.
【小题1】____________ U.S workers don’t always take all of their vacation days.

阅读下面的短文，并根据文章后的要求答题。
　It is widely accepted that television is playing an important part in people's lives. But, there is a heated discussion as to whether television does good or harm.
Television keeps one learning more about present events, allows one to follow the most re¬cent developments in politics and science, and offers various programs which are .both instructive and exciting. The most distant countries, the strangest customs and the most attractive scenes of nature are brought right into one's room or house.
However, some people insist that television is bad rather than good. They argue that it has brought about many serious problems. The major one is its effects on young people. Children are now so used to getting their information and entertainment from television that their ability to read and write as well as physical ability has been greatly weakened. Even worse than that, vulgar( 庸俗的) advertisements and poor programs may develop their bad tastes, shape their view points badly towards human life to such a degree that their minds might be destroyed.
In a word, television has both advantages and disadvantages. Whatever effects it has, one point is certain, television in itself is neither good nor bad. It is the use to which it is put that decides its value to society.
【小题1】What are people discussing nowadays?
___________________________________
【小题2】What are the advantages television has brought us ?(至少2点)
___________________________________
【小题3】Why do some people think television is bad rather than good?
___________________________________
【小题4】It is the use to which it is put that decides its value to society. ___________________________________
【小题5】What's your opinion about television?

Street art is a very popular form of art that is spreading quickly all over the world. You can find it on buildings, sidewalks, street signs and trash cans(垃圾桶) from Tokyo to Paris, from Moscow to Cape Town. Street art has become a global culture and even art museums and galleries(画廊) are collecting the works of street artists.

Street art started out very secretly because it was criminal to paint public and private things without permission(允许).
People often have different opinions about street art. Some think it is a crime and others think it is a very beautiful new form of culture.
Art experts say that the street art movement began in New York in the 1960s. Young adults painted words and other images on walls and trains. This colorful style of writing became known as graffiti(涂鸦). Graffiti art showed that young people wanted to be against society. They didn’t want to accept rules and travelled around cities to create paintings that everyone could see. In many cases, they had trouble with the police and the local government.
One well-known New York street artist is Swoon. She cuts paper images of people and puts them on walls or sets them up on sidewalks. Swoon didn’t start her career as a street artist. She studied art, but as time went on, got bored with the works she saw in museums and galleries. People in New York enjoy Swoon’s strong and imaginative style. Some museums have already bought some of her works.
Advertising companies also use street art in their ads because it gives people the feelings of youth and energy.
In Today’s world the Internet has a big influence on street art. Artists can show their pictures to the audience all over the world. Many city residents, however, say that seeing a picture on the Internet is never as good as seeing it live.
The street art movement lives with the energy and life of a big city.
【小题1】What can we learn from Paragraph1?

If they eat up their food, students can collect coupons(优惠券) and exchange them for small gifts, such as books, magazines, mobile phone covers and hand warmers.

“It’s been such a surprise,” said Liang zhaoyun,19, a student at a university in Shanghai, “It has given us one more motivation to finish our food.”
The measure is part of a national “eat-up” campaign(行动) which is organized by students to deal with food waste on campuses(校园).
Why only on campuses? You might ask. Because according to a report by Xinhua News Agency, students waste twice as much food as the national average(平均).
The campaign on campus food waste is receiving attention across the country.
“The aim of the campaign is not only to encourage students to finish their food. We hope it can also encourage students to choose a more environment –friendly and healthy lifestyle,” said Tao Siliang, Secretary of the Youth League Committee at Shanghai University.
Some school food is poorly prepared, so students do not like to finish it all. Some schools have taken notice of this and they are taking measures to improve it.
“I’m glad that we’ve reduced food waste since the ‘eat-up’ campaign began. But if we call on students to waste less food, we should also improve the service and food standard on campuses.” said Tao.
【小题1】From Paragraph1, we know that the students will get a coupon             .

Without proper planning, tourism can cause problems. For example, too many tourists can crowd public places that are also enjoyed by the local people of a country. If tourists create too much traffic, the local people become unhappy. They begin to dislike tourists and to treat them impolitely. They forget how much tourism can help the country’s economy(经济). It is important to think about the people of a destination country and how tourism affects them. Tourism should help a country keep the customs and beauty that attract tourists. Tourism should also advance(推进) the well-being (health and happiness) of local people.
Too much tourism can be a problem. If tourism grows too quickly, people must leave other jobs to work in the tourism industry. This means that other parts of the country’s economy can suffer.
On the other hand, if there is not enough tourism, people can lose jobs. Businesses can also lose money. It costs a lot of money to build large hotels, airports, air terminals, first-class roads and other support facilities needed by tourist attractions. For example, a major international-class tourism hotel can cost as much as 50 thousand dollars per room to build. If this room is not used most of the time, the owners of the hotel will lose money.
Building a hotel is just a beginning. There must be many support facilities as well, including roads to get to the hotel, electricity, sewers to handle waste, and water. All of these support facilities cost money. If they are not used because there are not enough tourists, jobs and money are lost.
【小题1】What is probably the reason if local people dislike tourists?

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao promised that the country would take actions to improve school bus safety on Sunday, a day after China saw its second terrible school bus accident in November, 2011.
“School buses should be safe mobile campuses(校园) for students,” the premier said at a national meeting on women and children, “Society(社会) should remember in mind that children should be the first to enjoy all kinds of social caring and the last ones to suffer from any disaster.”
School buses have become a hot topic in China since the deaths of 21 people, including 19 pre-school students, in a traffic accident between a truck and a school-owned minibus in Gansu province on Nov. 16, 2011. The nine-seat minibus was carrying 64 people at the time of the accident, according to the reports.
The second accident, in which a school bus in the northern province of Liaoning rolled over on Friday, left 35 people injured, according to China Daily.
“In recent days, a series of big accidents involving school buses has led to great anger among the people. These accidents have also made me uncomfortable,” said Mr Wang, an old teacher from Jiangsu. And he also thought that school bus safety must become a serious problem for schools and the government.
Premier Wen has already asked the government to develop new safety standard (标准) for school buses and made sure to help local government with safe buses for school-age children.
【小题1】How many seats did the minibus in Gansu province have before it was turned into a school bus?

Today we can use the Internet for many things: shopping, business, writing letters, talking to people, getting information and so on. In recent years, a new kind of English has grown on the Internet. There's no real word for it yet, so we call it e-talk.
People don't like typing too much. To save time, they turn phrases into a few letters， acronyms(首字母缩略词). Acronyms are often used in chat rooms. Some are as follows:
BRB (be right back), BTW (by the way), LOL (laughing out loud), IMO (in my opinion)
People also use many abbreviations. They are shortened forms of words. Some common abbreviations include info (information), pic (picture), puter (computer), sec (second), etc.
We usually don't see people when we communicate on the Net, so people have new ways to show feelings. Most people use their keyboards to draw "feelings", such as:
:-)  (happy)     ;-)  (joking)       :-(  (sad)        :-O  (surprised)
These days, many public discussions have picture feelings, for example:
    
(happy)           (sad)            (angry)           ( (cool)
There are even whole new words, like "newbies"(someone who is new on a chat board or forum). When you write something bad about someone else, it's called "burning" the person.
It takes time for people to get used to e-talk. Also, different groups on the Net have their own special ways of communicating. Newbies sometimes have to ask other people what they mean. As the Internet grows, e-talk will continue to grow and change.
【小题1】Why do people type acronyms?