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You can easily find that your sister or brother is different from you. You live together in the same house and have the same parents, but you have different personalities(性格).

Why? One possible reason is the way your parents treat you.

Firstborn children receive all the attention from their parents. Generally speaking, a firstborn has twice as many photos as any other child has. Parents usually give firstborns more responsibilities (责任)and depend on them to take care of younger brothers and sisters. As a result, firstborns are often responsible, hard-working, and serious. They often want to do well at school and in work. More firstborns became American Presidents, for example George W.Bush, George Washington and Lyndon Baines Johnson, than second or last-borns.

When a second child arrives, parents are more relaxed. The second child has to compete (竞争)with the first-born for parents’ attention and love. These children often choose different sports and hobbies to develop different personalities. They are often outgoing, but can be jealous and get angry easily.

The youngest child is usually the happiest, and has fewer responsibilities and more freedom(自由的). These children do well at school and in work, but have to be creative（创造性的） to get their family’s attention. They are often friendly and cool. Many famous talk-show hosts were born last.

1.The underlined word “jealous” means_______ in Chinese

A. 友好的             B. 嫉妒的            C. 快乐的

2.The writer thinks that the second-born children are often ______.

A. outgoing but jealous

B. cool and friendly

C. hard-working and serious

3.. ______ is usually the happiest in the family according to the passage.

A. The eldest child

B. The second child

C. The youngest child

4. We can learn from the passage that ______.

A. the second child is very similar to the firstborn child

B. brothers and sisters usually have the same personalities

C. more firstborns became American presidents than second or last-borns

5. The passage is mainly about ______.

A. birth order and personalities

B. children and their parents

C. different children and different work

 

Chinese are very generous (慷慨) when it comes to educating their children. Not caring about the money, parents often send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the United States or Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course activities. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is.  However what most parents fail to realize is that today's children lack self-respect and self-confidence.

Parents can achieve this by teaching practical skills like cooking, sewing and doing other housework.

Cooking demands (要求)patience and time.  A good cook always tries to improve his cooking. so he will learn to work hard and gradually(逐渐), finish his job successfully.  His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and a lot of self confidence.

Some old machines, such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your child to play with will make him curious and arouse his interest. He will spend hours looking at them, trying to fix them; your child might become an engineer when he grows up.  These activities are not merely   teaching a child to read a book, but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.

1.Parents in China, according to this passage,_______.

A．are too strict with their children

B．are too rich to educate their children

C．have some problems in educating their children correctly

D．are too poor to educate their children

2.Generally speaking, what most parents fail to realize is_____.

A．that their children need to take extra-course activities

B．that the more expensive an education is, the better it is

C．that today's children lack self-respect and self-confidence

D． that their children first need to be a good cook if they want to get good marks in the exams

3.The writer of the passage does not seem to be satisfied with_____.

A．the parents' ideas of educating their children

B．the education system

C．children's skills

D．children's hobbies

4.Doing some cooking at home helps children_____. ,

A．learn how to serve their parents

B．learn how to become strong and fat

C．benefit (受益)from it and prepare themselves for the future

D．make their parents believe that they are clever

5.According to the last paragraph we can conclude that____.

A．broken radios and television sets are useful

B．one’s curiosity may be useful for his later life.

C．an engineer must fix many broken radios.

D．a good student should spend much time repairing radios

 

  Height is just one of the thousands of features your genes decide. In fact, because you have two parents, your genes provide you a height that usually lands somewhere between the height of each parent. If both your parents are tall, then most probably you will be tall, too, but if you have questions about how tall you're going to be, ask your doctor if he or she can help you find it out.
But genes don't decide everything. For example, eating an unhealthy diet can keep you from growing to your full potential(潜力). Getting plenty of sleep and enough exercise will help you grow to the expected height.
No doubt you're wondering how fast you should grow. It depends. There's no perfect or right answer. Generally speaking, kids grow about 2 inches (6 centimeters) a year between age 3 and the time when they start puberty (when your body starts changing and becoming more grown up).
Your doctor will know how your growth has been going over the years. Two centimeters here and 2 inches there are not nearly as important as the height you're at now, how you've been growing up to this point, and what other changes your body may be going through.
Don't be scared if you seem to have grown a lot in a very short time. Everyone has a growth spurt（高峰）during puberty. The age for starting puberty is about 10 for girls and about 11 for boys. But it can be earlier or later ----between 7 and 13 for girls and 9 and 15 for boys.
You'll usually begin to notice that you're growing faster about a year or so after your body starts to show the first changes of puberty. 
【小题1】. The Chinese for the word “puberty” is 　　　　　　　　　.

A．童年时期

B．婴幼儿时期

C．习惯养成期

D．生长发育期

【小题2】 If you want to know how fast and how tall you should grow, _____.

A．you should have enough exercise	B．you can ask doctors for help
C．you should save the environment	D．You can record your growth during puberty

【小题3】 This passage is mainly about 　　　　　　　　　.

A．how the genes work in your body	B．when is the time you grow fast
C．why you look like your parents	D．how you grow to a certain height

【小题4】 After reading this passage, we can explain 　　　　　　　　　.

A．how good it is to be a doctor	B．how much sleep time we need
C．why genes can’t decide everything	D．what healthy diet is

【小题5】 Which is NOT mentioned in the passage?

A．Your height most probably depends on how high your parents are.

B．Girls’ age for starting puberty is usually earlier than that for boys’.

C．The time showing the first changes of puberty is never noticed.

D．You may be scared sometimes when you grow too fast.

A rabbit is running into his hole. You may ask, “What happened?”
Well, when a rabbit sees something dangerous, it runs away. Its tail moves up and down as it runs. When other rabbits see this tail moving up and down, they ran, too. They know there is danger. The rabbit has told them something without making a sound. It has given them a signal.
Many other animals use this kind of language. When a bee finds some food, it goes back to his home. It can’t tell the other bees where the food is by speaking to them, but it does dance in the air. This tells the bees where the food is.
But animals say things by making sounds. A dog barks, for examples, when a stranger comes near. A cat purrs(发出呼噜呼噜的声音) when pleased. Some birds make several different sounds, each with its own meaning.
But human beings have something that no animals have---- a large number of words about things, actions, feelings or ideas. We are able to give each other information to tell or inform other people what is in our mind or how we feel. By writing words down we can remind ourselves of the things that have happened, or send messages to people far away. No animals can do this. No animals has the wonderful power of language.
No one knows how man learned to make words. Somehow he learned to make them. As centuries went by, he made more and more new words. This is what we mean by language.
People in different countries made different kinds of words. Today there are about fifteen hundred different languages in the world. A very large English dictionary, for examples, contains four or five hundred thousand words. But we don’t know all these. The words we know are called vocabulary. We should try to make our vocabulary larger. Read as many books as possible. When we met a new word, look it up in the dictionary. A dictionary is the most useful book.
【小题1】What’s the meaning of the underlined word?

A．标语

B．信号

C．唱片

D．图像

【小题2】A dog can tell something__________.

A．by giving signals	B．by making different sounds
C．by purring	D．by barking

【小题3】It has been proved that no animals are able to_________.

A．give the others information

B．express their actions and feelings with words

C．tell others how they feel

D．make different sounds, each with its own meaning.

【小题4】Generally speaking, what we mean by “vocabulary” is_______.

A．all the words that we know	B．more and more words we use
C．all the words we need	D．the dictionary which contains thousands of words

【小题5】What must we do in order to make our vocabulary larger?

A．Make more and more new words

B．look up some new words in a dictionary

C．learn more language

D．Try to read as many books as possible

In some countries, the most common unlucky number is thirteen. People don’t like to live in a house that is number 13. People don’t like to have parties with thirteen people. People don’t like to do important things on the thirteenth of the month. Also, when you add the Japanese unlucky numbers together---nine and four ---they make thirteen.

There aren’t many business meetings on the thirteenth of the month especially when the thirteenth is on a Friday. Friday is always unlucky. Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden (伊甸园) on a Friday. Jesus Christ died on a Friday. There were thirteen people at his last supper. In Europe, they kill criminals(罪犯) on Fridays.

For some people, unlucky numbers do the opposite things. My elder brother was born on the thirteenth. He passed his exams on the thirteenth. He married on the thirteenth. He became a pilot on the thirteenth. It was always a lucky number for him.

根据短文内容，选择正确答案。

1.What is the unlucky number in Japanese?

A．Thirteen

B．Nine

C．Four

D．Nine and four

2.Generally speaking, how many days are there in a year on which people don’t want to hold business meetings?

A．9

B．12

C．13

D．24

3.Which of the following is NOT used to prove that Friday or thirteen is unlucky?

A．Adam and Eve.	B．Jesus Christ’s death.
C．Jesus Christ’s last supper.	D．The author’s brother’s marriage date.

4.When did Europeans kill criminals?

A．On the thirteen every month.	B．On Fridays of the fifth month every year.
C．On Fridays.	D．On the third week of every month.

5.Which of the following is NOT true?

A．The author was born on the thirteenth.

B．The author’s elder brother passed his exams on the thirteenth.

C．The author’s elder brother married on the thirteenth.

D．Thirteen was a lucky number for the author’s brother.