In Britain, in a population of 60 million, there are 13 million grandparents, many of whom live alone a long way from their grandchildren.The loneliness of these older people has become an issue that schools are trying to teach children about .

On a popular teacher’s website, there is a classroom activity to help make children aware of the implications of the different generations of the same family living far from each other. It’s a story about Mrs. Eiderdown, an elderly lady whose grandchildren have moved to Australia with their parents. She lives alone and rarely sees her family .

First of all, the children speculate about Mrs. Eiderdown’s life.  What does she have for breakfast ? what does she do all day ?how does she feel about her life ?

One day, Mrs. Eiderdown decides that she wants a pet to keep her company and puts an advertisement in a local shop window. Then she waits at home to see if anyone will answer her advertisement .

A tall thin man rings her doorbell. he is holding a cardboard box. Mrs. Eiderdown chats with the man for ten minutes before she realizes that she hasn’t looked in-side the box to see what the pet is. She can hear a his-sing sound. The children guess what is in the box(a snake). Mrs. Eiderdown thanks the man but says she doesn’t think the snake is a good idea .

The next time the doorbell rings, there’s a lady on the doorstep, also carrying a cardboard box.In the bottom of the box, Mrs. Eiderdown sees something black and hairy with eight legs. Again ,the children say what they  think it is (a spider). Mrs. Eiderdown thanks the lady for her kindness but says that a spider is not the sort of pet she has in mind.

At last, the little girl next door brings her a dog .Mrs. Eiderdown’s life improves a lot because of the dog. more importantly, of course, the little girl, whose own granny lives a long way away, starts to visit Mrs.Eiderdown more often. This interactive classroom idea has led to a greater awareness among children about the possible loneliness of older people who live quite near them .

1.what’s the main idea of the passage?

A. children get to know about the trouble of the elderly

B. neighbors help select pets for Mrs. Eiderdown

C. society helps the lonely people in the UK

D. school send pets to the lonely elderly

2.what does the underlined sentence in the third paragraph mean ?

A. they talk about how she feels about being old

B. they try to experience her loneliness

C. they try to imagine how she lives

D. they write about her life story

3.what can we infer from the passage ?

A. the little girl often visits her own granny

B. the people who offer pets are lady’s neighbors

C. the farther the elderly live ,the lonelier they feel

D. the little girl begins to care more about Mrs. Eiderdown

 

 

While staying with a family, I found their teenage son, David, aged 16, didn’t share his true feelings with his parents. If his parents were present when I asked him how he felt about things, he would look down or away or say something unrelated such as, "Today, I will go out. "or "Okay, I guess. "However, when we were alone he would open up and tell me how he felt. For example, while sitting at the dinner table, I asked him how he felt about his history class and the teacher. He thought for a moment but said nothing. I thought he was afraid to answer in front of his parents, so later I asked him again in private. He said, "On a scale (级别) of 0-10, it is a big fat zero. He is the most boring teacher I have ever had. "I asked him why he didn’t tell me this earlier. He said it was because his parents didn’t want to hear that. They just wanted to hear that everything was wonderful and they always told him to stop complaining.

     This made me think a lot. My belief is that children are born with the desire to share feelings. I also believe they are born with perfect emotional honesty. Unfortunately, such valuable things are disappearing gradually. It really is a great loss, which I believe, will negatively affect both the children’s ability to know about themselves and their success in future relationships.

     I see the situation as a missed opportunity, an opportunity for parents to get closer to their children, an opportunity to understand their children and to help them feel understood; however, communication gaps (分歧) have been made. Parents are more interested in "correcting" their children’s ways of expressing themselves than in getting to know their children.

70. We can know from the passage that _________.

A. David is not good at talking  B. David likes showing his true feelings in public

C. David hates his parents      D. David dislikes his history teacher

71. According to the author, children who don’t show their true feelings ____________.

A. won’t succeed in their future careers

B. will not have good relationship with their parents

C. won’t have clear ideas of themselves

D. will have no difficulty getting along with others

72. The author thinks that parents should ____________.

A. stop complaining about their children

B. try to understand their children’s true feelings

C. find more ways to communicate with their children

D. correct their children’s ways of communication

While staying with a family, I found their teenage son, David, aged 16, didn’t share his true feelings with his parents. If his parents were present when I asked him how he felt about things, he would look down or away or say something unrelated such as, "Today, I will go out. "or "Okay, I guess. "However, when we were alone he would open up and tell me how he felt. For example, while sitting at the dinner table, I asked him how he felt about his history class and the teacher. He thought for a moment but said nothing. I thought he was afraid to answer in front of his parents, so later I asked him again in private. He said, "On a scale (级别) of 0-10, it is a big fat zero. He is the most boring teacher I have ever had. "I asked him why he didn’t tell me this earlier. He said it was because his parents didn’t want to hear that. They just wanted to hear that everything was wonderful and they always told him to stop complaining.

     This made me think a lot. My belief is that children are born with the desire to share feelings. I also believe they are born with perfect emotional honesty. Unfortunately, such valuable things are disappearing gradually. It really is a great loss, which I believe, will negatively affect both the children’s ability to know about themselves and their success in future relationships.

     I see the situation as a missed opportunity, an opportunity for parents to get closer to their children, an opportunity to understand their children and to help them feel understood; however, communication gaps (分歧) have been made. Parents are more interested in "correcting" their children’s ways of expressing themselves than in getting to know their children.

70. We can know from the passage that _________.

A. David is not good at talking  B. David likes showing his true feelings in public

C. David hates his parents      D. David dislikes his history teacher

71. According to the author, children who don’t show their true feelings ____________.

A. won’t succeed in their future careers

B. will not have good relationship with their parents

C. won’t have clear ideas of themselves

D. will have no difficulty getting along with others

72. The author thinks that parents should ____________.

A. stop complaining about their children

B. try to understand their children’s true feelings

C. find more ways to communicate with their children

D. correct their children’s ways of communication

While staying with a family, I found their teenage son, David, aged 16, didn’t share his true feelings with his parents. If his parents were present when I asked him how he felt about things, he would look down or away or say something unrelated such as, "Today, I will go out. "or "Okay, I guess. "However, when we were alone he would open up and tell me how he felt. For example, while sitting at the dinner table, I asked him how he felt about his history class and the teacher. He thought for a moment but said nothing. I thought he was afraid to answer in front of his parents, so later I asked him again in private. He said, "On a scale (级别) of 0-10, it is a big fat zero. He is the most boring teacher I have ever had. "I asked him why he didn’t tell me this earlier. He said it was because his parents didn’t want to hear that. They just wanted to hear that everything was wonderful and they always told him to stop complaining.
     This made me think a lot. My belief is that children are born with the desire to share feelings. I also believe they are born with perfect emotional honesty. Unfortunately, such valuable things are disappearing gradually. It really is a great loss, which I believe, will negatively affect both the children’s ability to know about themselves and their success in future relationships.
     I see the situation as a missed opportunity, an opportunity for parents to get closer to their children, an opportunity to understand their children and to help them feel understood; however, communication gaps (分歧) have been made. Parents are more interested in "correcting" their children’s ways of expressing themselves than in getting to know their children.

1. We can know from the passage that _________.
A. David is not good at talking B. David likes showing his true feelings in public

C. David hates his parents　　 D. David dislikes his history teacher

2. According to the author, children who don’t show their true feelings ____________.

A. won’t succeed in their future careers

B. will not have good relationship with their parents

C. won’t have clear ideas of themselves
D. will have no difficulty getting along with others

3. The author thinks that parents should ____________.
A. stop complaining about their children

B. try to understand their children’s true feelings

C. find more ways to communicate with their children
D. correct their children’s ways of communication

 

If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice. There are four skills in learning English. They are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The most important thing you must remember is that if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills, you should first master the skills of reading and listening.
Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the meaning of the sentence, the meaning of the unfamiliar words, etc. There is no need for you to pay much attention to grammars or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them, for example, in other passages or books, is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or sentences in it.
As for listening, there are two choices: besides reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes. You can only pay attention to your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening. For listening you can listen to cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to VOA or BBC programs every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes.
If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve quickly, and you can be a fluent English speaker one day.
【小题1】According to the writer, which should you improve first among the four skills?

A．Reading and listening.	B．Reading and writing.
C．Writing and speaking.	D．Speaking and listening.

【小题2】 To improve your reading, when you read you should ______.

A．look up all the new words in the dictionary

B．think about what you are reading actively

C．spend more time studying grammars

D．copy as many words and sentences as possible

【小题3】The underlined phrase “come across” in Paragraph 2 can probably be replaced by “______”.

A．meet

B．discover

C．hear

D．look for

【小题4】The passage is mainly about how to ______.

A．choose suitable listening materials

B．deal with new words in reading

C．improve your reading ability as quickly as possible

D．become fluent in speaking and writing English