Most recently, it’s very common in students who need a parent present for job interviews．Naturally, it’s easy to blame the students in these situations, but the bigger problem is us． We—as parents—are so eager to shelter our kids that we fail to realize that this in itself is harming them．As the mother of two young sons, I have to remind myself constantly that the biggest responsibility I have as a parent is to help them develop the skills needed to live in, to live without me．So, I’ll let them fail．
I’ll let them fail because as long as they are safe and warm inside their comfort zones, they will never grow．And failure with loss, heartbreak, disappointment, etc —will be part of growth for them．Call me the anti-tiger mom, but leaving them alone is my way of helping them become equipped to fit in this world as we know it today．From terrorism and seemingly endless natural disasters, to our national debt and beyond, if we expect the next generation to stand up to the very real problems of our time, we need to stop feeding them and start teaching them how to fish．
It’s a small price to help them learn a skill they’ll use for the rest of their lives, including when I don’t accompany them on job interviews．
【小题1】Why do parents accompany their kids on job interviews?

A．Because they want to protect their kids from difficulties．

B．Because they think they can help them on the questions．

C．Because their kids are too shy to attend interviews．

D．Because their kids strongly request them to do so．

【小题2】According to the author, what is beneficial to kids’ development?

A．Sheltering them．

B．Keeping them safe．

C．Leaving them alone．

D．Blaming them．

【小题3】Why does the author stress（强调） failure in kids’ life?

A．To make them stronger than other kids．

B．To help them grow in this tough world．

C．To help them develop all social skills．

D．To make them learn to compromise．

【小题4】Which of the following might be the best title for the text?

A．Never Shelter Your Kids

B．Let Your Kids Fail

C．Be Eager to Grow Up

D．Live Without Parents

It is commonly believed that school is   1         people go to get education. However, it has been said that today children interrupt their education to go to school. The difference   2        schooling and education suggested by this is important.

Education is endless, 3            (compare) with schooling. It can take place anywhere. It includes both the standard learning that takes place in schools and     4_          whole universe of learning out of class. Though the experience of schooling can be known in  5        (advanced), education quite often produces surprises. A chance talk with a   6          (foreign) may lead a person to discovering how little he knows of another country. People obtain education from babies on. Education, then, is a very broad and   7        (limit) term. It is lifelong experience that starts long before the start of school.

Schooling,  8       the other hand, is a basic experience,  9          style changes little from one way to the next. Throughout a country, children arrive at school at the same time, take 10        (fix) seats, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams and so on. Schooling has usually been limited by the edges of the subjects being taught.

A desert is a beautiful land of silence and space. The sun shines, the wind blows, and time and space seem endless. Nothing is soft. The sand and rocks are hard, and many of the plants even have hard needles instead of leaves.

The size and location(分布) of the world’s deserts are always changing. Over millions of years, as climates change and mountains rise, new dry and wet areas develop. But within the last 100 yeas, deserts have been growing at a frightening speed. This is partly because of natural changes, but the greatest makers are humans.

Humans can make deserts, but humans can also prevent their growth. Algeria Mauritania is planting a similar wall around Nouakchott, the capital. Iran puts a thin covering of petroleum(石油) on sandy areas and plants trees. The oil keeps the water and small trees in the land, and men on motorcycles(摩托车) keep the sheep and goats away. The USSR and India are building long canals to bring water to desert areas.

In this passage, “needles” refers to _______.

A. small, thin pieces of steel.

B. long, thin pieces of branches.

C. small pointed growth on the stem(茎) of a plant.

D. small, thin pieces of sticks.

Which of the following is NOT true?

A. The greatest desert makers are humans.

B. There aren’t any living things in the deserts.

C. Deserts have been growing quickly.

D. The size of the deserts is always changing.

People in some countries are fighting a battle against _______.

A. the growth of deserts B. the disappearance of desert plants

C. natural changes  D. congenital climate

We can guess that Mauritania and Algeria belong to _______.

A. Asian countries 　　　　       B. American countries

C. European counties　　　 D. African countries

Choose the sentence which best gives the main idea of the passage.

A. The deserts of the world are always changing.

B. Man is to take measures to control the growth of the world’s deserts.

C. Deserts are lands of silence and space.

D. Deserts have grown at a fast pace in the past 10 years.

C

So long as teachers fail to distinguish between teaching and learning, they will continue to undertake everything to do for children that only children can do for themselves. Teaching children to read is not passing reading on to them. It is certainly not endless hours spent in activities about reading. Douglas insists that “reading cannot be taught directly and schools should stop trying to do the impossible”.

Teaching and learning are two entirely different processes. They differ in kind and function. The function of teaching is to create the conditions and the climate that will make it possible for children to devise the most efficient system for teaching themselves to read. Teaching is also a public activity. It can be seen and observed.

Learning to read, however, involves all that each individual does to make sense of the world of printed language. Almost all of it is private, for learning is an occupation of the mind, and that process is not open to public scrutiny.

If teacher and learner roles are not interchangeable, what then can be done through teaching that will aid the child in the quest (探索) for knowledge? Smith has one principal rule for all teaching instructions. “Make learning to read easy, which means making reading a meaningful, enjoyable and frequent experience for children.”

When the roles of teacher and learner are seen for what they are, and when both teacher and learner fulfill them appropriately, then much of the pressure and feeling of failure for both is eliminated. Learning to read is made easier when teachers create an environment where children are given the opportunity to solve the problem of learning to read by reading.

1.The problem with the reading course as mentioned in the first paragraph is that

________.

A．it is one of the most difficult school courses

B．students spend endless hours in reading

C．reading tasks are assigned with little guidance

D．too much time is spent in teaching about reading

2.The teaching of reading will be successful if ________.

A．teachers can improve conditions at school for the students

B．teachers can enable students to develop their own way of reading

C．teachers can devise the most efficient system for reading

D．teachers can make their teaching activities observable

3.The underlined word “scrutiny” most probably means “________”.

A．inquiry           B．observation        C．control           D．suspect

4.According to the passage, learning to read will no longer be a difficult task when

________.

A．children become highly motivated

B．teacher and learner roles are interchangeable

C．teaching helps children in the search for knowledge

D．reading enriches children’s experience

5. The main idea of the passage is that ________.

A．teachers should do nothing in helping students learn to read

B．teachers should encourage students to read as widely as possible

C．reading ability is something acquired rather than taught

D．reading is more complicated than generally believed

 

The evidence for harmony （ 和谐）may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents, which is the opposite of the popularly-held image(形象) of unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.

An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past. "We were surprised by just how positive today's young people seem to be about their families," said one member of the research team. "They're expected to be rebellious(叛逆的) and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds; they want a car and material goods, and they worry about whether school is serving them well. There's more negotiation(商议) and discussion between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decision-making process. They don't want to rock the boat."

So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends. "My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me," says 17-years-old Daniel Lazall. " I always tell them when I'm going out clubbing. As long as they know what I'm doing, they're fine with it." Susan Crome, who is now 21, agrees. "Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiation. For example, as long as I'd done all my homework, I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that."

Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected. It is possible that the idea of teenage rebellion is not rooted in real facts. A researcher comments, "Our surprise that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. The normal situation throughout history has been a smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over."

1.According to the author, teenage rebellion ________.

A．resulted from changes in families

B．is common nowadays

C．may be a false belief

D．existed only in the 1960s

2.What is the passage mainly about?

A．Education in family

B．Harmony in family

C．Teenage trouble in family

D．Negotiation in family

3.The study shows that teenagers don't want to ________.

A．go boating with their family

B．share family responsibility

C．make family decisions

D．cause trouble in their families

4.Compared with parents of 30 years ago, today's parents ________.

A．care less about their children's life

B．go to clubs more often with their children

C．give their children more freedom

D．are much stricter with their children