It is found that American students spend less than 15% of their time in school. While there’s no doubt that school is important, a number of recent studies reminds us that parents are even more so. A study published earlier this month by researchers at North Carolina State University, for example, finds that parental involvement — checking homework, attending school meetings and events, discussing school activities at home — has a more powerful influence on students’ academic performance than anything about the school the students attend. Another study, published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, reports that the effort put forth by parents (reading stories aloud, meeting with teachers) has a bigger impact on their children’s educational achievement than the effort devoted by either teachers or the students themselves. And a third study concludes that schools would have to increase their spending by more than $1,000 per pupil in order to achieve the same results that are gained with parental involvement.

So parents matter. But it is also revealed in researches that parents, of all backgrounds, don’t need to buy expensive educational toys or digital devices for their kids in order to give them an advantage. They don’t need to drive their offspring (子孙，后代)to enrichment classes or test-preparation courses. What they need to do with their children is much simpler: talk.

But not just any talk. Recent research has indicated exactly what kinds of talk at home encourage children’s success at school. For example, a study conducted by researchers at the UCLA School of Public Health and published in the journal Pediatrics found that two-way adult-child conversations were six times as potent in promoting language development as the ones in which the adult did all the talking. Engaging in this reciprocal（双向的) back-and-forth gives children a chance to try out language for themselves, and also gives them the sense that their thoughts and opinions matter.

The content of parents’ conversations with kids matters, too. Children who hear talk about counting and numbers at home start school with much more extensive mathematical knowledge, report researchers from the University of Chicago. While the conversations parents have with their children change as kids grow older, the effect of these exchanges on academic achievement remains strong. Research finds that parents play an important role in what is called “academic socialization” — setting expectations and making connections between current behavior and future goals. Engaging in these sorts of conversations has a greater impact on educational accomplishment.

1.Parents are even more important than schools because ______.

A. parental involvement makes up for what schools are not able to do

B. teachers and students themselves do not put in enough effort

C. parental involvement saves money for schools and the local government

D. students may well make greater achievements with parents' attention

2.It can be inferred from the 2^nd paragraph that ______.

A. educational toys are unaffordable nowadays

B. digital devices can give children an advantage

C. some parents believe in enrichment classes

D. talking with children is a very simple task

3.The word "potent" is closest in meaning to ______.

A. powerful    B. difficult     C. necessary        D. resistant

4.Which of the following will more encourage children's success at school according to the passage?

A. Parents order their children to stop playing video games.

B. Parents discuss with their children the possible future career.

C. Parents lecture their children on getting too low marks on tests.

D. Parents introduce colleges around the US to their children.

The practice of magic includes special words, actions, and objects. Most magic involves a person called a magician, who claims to have supernatural powers. Magic words.
To work most magic, the magician sings or speaks special words in a certain order. These words are called incantations or spells. Some spells form prayers to demons(魔鬼), spirits, or other supernatural forces. Many societies believe the magic will not work unless the magician recites the spells perfectly. Other magic words have no meaning, though they supposedly possess power when spoken by a magician. Magic actions accompany the words spoken in performing much magic. Many of these movements act out the desired effect of the magic. For example, a magician trying to make rain fall may sprinkle(洒) water on the ground. The magician's combined words and actions form a ceremony. Magic objects include certain plants, stones, and other things with supposed supernatural powers. Any such object may be called a fetish(物神). But this term often refers to an object—for example, a carving or a dried snake—honored by a tribe for its magic powers. Many tribes believe fetishes have magic power because spirits live in these objects. Many people carry magic objects called amulets(护身符)to protect themselves from harm. Many amulets are stones or rings engraved(雕刻) with magic symbols.
The magician, in some societies, nearly everyone knows how to work some magic. In other societies, only experts practice magic. Magicians may be called medicine men, medicine women, shamans, sorcerers, or witch doctors. In many societies, magicians must inherit(遗传) their powers. In others, any person may become a magician by studying the magical arts.
Many societies believe magicians must observe certain rules and taboos (forbidden actions) for their spells to work. For example, they may be required not to eat various foods or to avoid sexual activity for a certain period before the ceremony.
【小题1】What do magic words mean to people in some society?

第四节完型填空：（共20小题，每小题1.5分，共30分）

Recent studies show that only one out of three people have strong and healthy self-confidence . That ____26 two out of every three people simply don’t know the ____27 they already have to be successful when it’s _____28 there in their hands!___29 if you want others to believe in yourself first. Rememer: “ No one can ask you feel inferior unless you _____30them.” A successful businessman says, “you can’t push anyone up a ladder____31 he knows he can climb himself.”

Many of us have an image____32 , the  image we have of ourselves. ___33one guy put it: “You can’t win horse race if you think you look_____34 on a horse.” To succeed, the first person you have to ____35 is yourself! So stop believing your own lies about yourself. Just ____36 your mind and you will change your life.

One of the most harmful weapons that can kill you success in life are the two little words: “____37”You know that people used to ____38 that if human being s traveled faster than 30 miles an hour it would ____39 our circulation of blood and kill us?Thank  goodness a few people didn’t believe that ___40 thinking, or we wouldn’t be riding in cars , buses, and flying in airplanes today. You’ll never know until you____41.

Roger Bannister was the first human being to run a mile in less than 4 minutes. But _____42 he did it, most people in the would didn’t think it was even _____43. Yet only weeks after Bannister did it , suddenly _____44 all over the world began running a mile in less  than 4 minutes! If we believe something can be done, we’ll _____45 do it.

26 .A. means     B. reflects   C. reads      D. explains

27. A. chance     B. strength  C. ability     D. reason 

28. A. immediately B.properly   C. accurately D. right

29. A. Because   B. But      C. What     D. While

30. A.let        B. challenge  C. admit    D. make

31. A. if        B. except     C. until     D. unless

32. A.quiz      B.question    C. problem D. mystery

33. A. When    B. As        C. While   D. Since

34. A. curious   B. good –looking C.serious  D.funny

35. A. beat      B. knock      C. strike    D. defend

36. A. settle     B. bend       C. change   D. fix

37. A. I failed.   B. Not me.     C. Can I？  D. I can’t

38. A. imagine   B. think       C. suspect   D. doubt

39. A. start      B. help        C. stop     D. quit

40. A. silly      B. empty      C. reasonable D.terrible

41. A. judge     B. realize      C. understand D.try

42. A. after      B. before      C. since    D. because

43. A. likely     B.unbelievable  C. possible D. impossible

44. A.workers    B. runners     C. competitors D.players

45. A. simply    B. seldom     C. always  D. usually                

I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty two. I can slightly remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is .It would be wonderful to see again , but a calamity (灾难)can do strange things to people .It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn’t been blind . I believe in life now.I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply , otherwise. I don’t mean that would prefer to go without my eyes . I simply mean that Atlantic the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left .

Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was totally confused and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me--a potential to live, you might call it--which I didn't see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.

The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that somewhere in the sweeping, intricate（错综复杂的） pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.

It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the simplest things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was making fun of me and I was hurt. "I can't use this." I said. "Take it with you," he urged me, "and roll it around." The words stuck in my head. "Roll it around! "By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. At Philadelphia's Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.

All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good trying for something that I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.

1.We can learn from the beginning of the passage that _______

A. the author lost his sight because of a car crash.

B. the author wouldn't love life if the disaster didn't happen.

C. the disaster made the author appreciate what he had.

D. the disaster strengthened the author's desire to see.

2.What's the most difficult thing for the author?

A. How to adjust himself to reality.

B. Building up assurance that he can find his place in life.

C. Learning to manage his life alone.

D. How to invent a successful variation of baseball.

3.According to the context, “a chair rocker on the front porch” in paragraph 3 means that the author __________

A. would sit in a rocking chair and enjoy his life.

B. would be unable to move and stay in a rocking chair.

C. would lose his will to struggle against difficulties.

D. would sit in a chair and stay at home.

4.According to the passage, the baseball and encouragement offered by the man _____

A. hurt the author's feeling.

B. gave the author a deep impression.

C. directly led to the invention of ground ball.

D. inspired the author.

5.What is the best title for the passage?

A. A Miserable Life

B. Struggle Against Difficulties

C. A Disaster Makes a Strong Person

D. An Unforgettable Experience

I remember a ____ famous scientist said that we should believe in ourselves first of all.

A. some??????????? B. certain????????? C. sure?????????? D. other