Many children first learn the value of money by receiving an allowance (pocket money). The purpose is to let children learn from experiences at an age when financial mistakes are not very costly．

The amount of money that parents give to their children to spend as they wish differs from family to family. Timing is another consideration．Some children get a weekly allowance．Others get a monthly allowance．

    In any case, parents should make clear what，if anything, the child is expected to pay for with the money．At first, young children may spend all of their allowance soon after they receive it. If they do this，they will learn the hard way that spending must be done within a budget．Parents are usually advised not to offer more money until the next allowance．

    The object is to show young people that a budget demands a choice between spending and saving．Older children may be responsible enough to save money for larger costs，like clothing or electronics．Many people who have written on the subject of allowances say it is not a good idea to pay your child for work around the home．These jobs are a normal part of family life．

    Paying children to do extra work around the house，however，can be useful．It can even provide an understanding of how a business works．

    Allowances give children a chance to experience the three things they can do with money．They can share it in the form of gifts or giving to a good cause. They can spend it by buying things they want．Or they can save it.

    Saving helps children understand that costly goals require sacrifice．You have to cut costs and plan for the future．Requiring children to save part of their allowances can also open the door to future saving and investing．Many banks offer services to help children and teenagers learn about personal finance.

A saving account is an excellent way to learn about the power of compound interest．

    Compounding works by paying interest on interest．So，for example，one dollar invested at two per-cent interest for two years will earn two cents in the first year．The second years，the money will earn two percent of one dollar and two cents，and so on．That may not seem like a lot．But over time it adds up．

Giving an allowance, parents should consider all the following EXCEPT_______.

    A. how much the child should get each time  B. whether the child has made a budget

    C. where the money really goes          D. how often a child can get it

The author of the passage holds the opinion that________.

    A. what children learn by handling allowances may be beneficial in the future

    B. children can learn to set up their own business with their allowances

    C. keeping allowances in the bank is the best choice for children

    D. it is not a good idea to pay children for housework at home

The underlined words “compound interest” in the passage probably mean ________.

    A. increasing curiosity to learn how to make more money

    B. stronger power to hold one’s attention to saving money

    C. money paid by the bank on your original money and the gain from it

    D. the sum of money that you earn from keeping your money in the bank

What is the best title for the passage?

A. Be Generous to Pay Your Children．     B. Be Wise to Avoid Financical Mistakes．

C.Saving Allowances Does Good to Children.D.Allowances Help Children Learn about Money．

     President Obama's plan to improve former president George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind program is an improvement on a good thing. But it doesn't go far enough.

     Obama outlined a goal that by 2020, all grade school and high school students are on a path toward college.

     However, what we need is a practical plan that not only requires all high school graduates to take at least two years of college but also makes it financially possible for them to do so. We've provided a free public education through the 12th grade. If we're going to keep up—or catch up——with some other countries (like China) in preparing young people for careers, a 12-year education programme no longer is enough.

     About 3 million students across the US will graduate from high school this spring. But only 2 million will go on to college, according to a survey by the National Centre for Education Statistics (NCFES). For the more than 1 million who won't go on, money is a main reason. If tuition(学费) were free, about half of them could make up other costs from family or part-time jobs.

     Critics (批评家) of free college tuition will say we can't afford it because of the federal deficit (联邦赤字) and other rising costs. Let's see some government spending in detail:

     In the last nearly 10 years, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us $ 1,000 billion. Federal money which was spent on public primary and secondary education in the last year for which figures are available was $ 47 billion. If we end costly and unnecessary wars and nation-building efforts abroad, the federal government could provide more money on public education, for which state and governments now carry most of the burden.

What's the program No Child Left Behind about this year?

All children being taken good care of by the government.

All grade school and high school students receiving college education.

No child being left alone at home.

All children having good jobs in the future.

The author probably agrees that President Obama's plan ________.

has nothing to do with George W. Bush's program.

will surely succeed in ten years

is about 12-year education for all the children

doesn't contain practical measures(措施) to achieve its goal

If tuition were not paid for, about ________ American students could afford college education.

A. 3 million

B. 2.5 million

C. 2 million

D. 1 million

What can we learn from the passage?

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were necessary.

The federal government has enough money for the plan.

Critics of free tuition think highly of the plan.

Obama's plan might be difficult to carry out.

It may help you to know that there is no such thing as a perfect speech. At some point in every speech, every speaker says something that is not understood exactly as he has planned. Fortunately, the moments are usually not obvious to the listeners. Why? Because the listeners do not know what the speaker plans to say. They hear only what the speaker does say. If you lose your place for a moment, wrongly change the order of a couple of sentences, or forget to pause at a certain point, no one will be any the wiser. When such moments occur, don’t worry about them. Just continue as if nothing happened.

   Even if you do make an obvious mistake during a speech, that doesn’t really matter .If you have ever listened to Martin Luther King’s famous speech — “ I have a dream”, you may notice that he stumbles（结巴）his words twice during the speech. Most likely, however, you don’t remember. Why? Because you were fixing your attention on his message rather than on his way of speech-making. People care a lot about making mistakes in a speech because they regard speech-making as a kind of performance rather than as an act of communication. They feel the listeners are like judges in an ice-skating competition. But, in fact, the listeners are not looking for a perfect performer. They are looking for a well-thought-out speech that expresses the speaker’s ideas clearly and directly. Sometimes a mistake or two can actually increase a speaker’s attractiveness by making him more human.

   As you work on your speech, don’t worry about being imperfect. Once you free your mind of this, you will find it much easier to give your speech freely.

The underlined part in the first paragraph means that no one will ______ .

   A. be smarter than you        

B. notice your mistakes

   C. do better than you         

D. know what you are talking about

You don’t remember obvious mistakes in a speech because ___________.

   A. your attention is on the content

   B. you don’t fully understand the speech

   C. you know what the speaker plans to say

   D. you find the way of speech-making more important

It can be inferred from the passage that ___________.

   A. giving a speech is like giving a performance

   B. one or two mistakes in a speech may not be bad

   C. the listeners should pay more attention to how a speech is made

   D. the more mistakes a speaker makes, the more attractive he will be

What would be the best title of the passage? 

   A. How to Be a Perfect Speaker        

B. How to Make a Perfect Speech

   C. Don’t Expect a Perfect Speech       

D. Don’t Expect Mistakes in a Speech

Which of the following statements is true?

   A. If you are careful enough, you can make a perfect speech.

   B. Speech-making is a kind of performance.

   C. Listeners are not judges and they pay more attention to the message.

   D. Martin Luther King is not a good speaker.

When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard. I remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than most of the adults in our community.

　　When Dr. Gibbs wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres, and his life’s goal was to make it a forest.

　　The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant care and growth. He never watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them so that each successive tree generation would grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and weed out(淘汰) the weaker trees early on.

He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots, and how trees that weren’t watered had to grow deep roots in search of moisture. I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.

　　So he never watered his trees. He planted an oak and, instead of watering it every morning, he’d beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! I asked him why he did that, and he said it was to get the tree’s attention.

Dr. Gibbs passed away a couple of years after I left home. Every now and again, I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I’d watched him plant some twenty-five years ago. They’re extremely tall, big and robust since they have deep roots now. However, the trees in my garden trembled in a cold wind although I had watered them for several years.

It seems that adversity(逆境) and suffering benefit these trees in ways comfort and ease never could. I stood there deep in thought.

　　Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I stand over them and watch their little bodies, the rising and falling of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy. But I think it’s time to change my prayer(祷词) because now I know my children are going to encounter hardship..

According to Dr. Gibbs’ theories, trees will become weaker if they______

    A. are lack of care   B. are watered   C. are weeded out    D. are beaten

.According to Para.3 and Pare.4, we can infer that Dr. Gibbs’moto（座右铭）may be_____

     A. “seeing is believing”        B.“Put everything in proper use”

     C. ”Practice makes perfect”     D. “No pains, no gains”

.The underlined word robust in Para.5 most probably means______

      A. strong         B. strange         C. deep        D. old

Which of the following may be the author’s best prayer for his two sons now ?

  A. I wish them strong wings, with which they can fly higher and touch the sky.

  B.I wish them nice fortune so that they can meet people like Dr. Gibbs in the future.

  C.I wish them deep roots into the earth since the rains fall and the winds blow often.

  D.I wish them great shades under the tree since the sunlight is always sharp and bitter.

Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

   A. A Nice Doctor                      B. The Deep Roots  

C. Adversity and Suffering              D. My Childhood Memory

As the pace of life continues to increase, we are fast losing the art of relaxation. Once you are in the habit of rushing through lift, being on the go from morning till night, it is hard to slow down. But relaxation is essential for a healthy mind and body.                              

Stress is a natural part of everyday life and there is no way to avoid it. In fact, it is not the bad thing it is often supposed to be. A certain amount of stress is vital to provide motivation and give purpose to life. It is only when the stress gets out of control that it can lead to poor performance and ill health.                                                

The amount of stress a person can withstand depends very much on the individual. Some people are not afraid of stress, and such characters are obviously prime material for managerial responsibilities. Others lose heart at the first signs of unusual difficulties. When exposed to stress, in whatever form, we react both chemically and physically. In fact we make choice between "fight" or "flight" and in more primitive days the choice made the difference between life or death. The crises we meet today are unlikely to be so extreme, but however little the stress is, it involves the same response. It is when such a reaction lasts long, through continued exposure to stress, that health becomes endangered. Such serious conditions as high blood pressure and heart disease have established links with stress. Since we cannot remove stress from our lives (it would be unwise to do so even if we could), we need to find ways to deal with it.                                                               

People are finding less and less time for relaxing themselves because_____.                                                  

A. they do not know how to enjoy themselves                                       

B. they do not believe that relaxation is important for health      C. they are travelling fast all the time                                                    

D. they are becoming busier with their work  

According to the writer, the most important character for a good manager is his ________.   

A. not fearing stress                                                  B. knowing the art of relaxation         

C. high sense of responsibility                                   D. having control over performance   

Which of the following statements is true?  

A. We can find some ways to avoid stress. 

B. Stress is always harmful to people. 

C. It is easy to change the habit of keeping oneself busy with work.  

D. Different people can withstand different amounts of stress.  

In Paragraph 3, "such a reaction" refers back to_______. 

A. "making a choice between 'flight' or 'fight'"                                                         

B. "reaction to stress both chemically and physically"                                                      

C. "responding to crises quickly"

D. "losing heart at the signs difficulties" 

In the last sentence of the passage, "do so " refers to ______.     

A. "expose ourselves to stress"                               

B. "find ways to deal with stress" 

C. "remove stress from our lives"                   

D. "established links between diseases and stress"