It’s not easy growing up. Growing up can be a real “pain” for some of us. Sometimes we feel trapped, sometimes we feel sad, sometimes we are fearful, and sometimes we just don’t understand why we can’t stay young forever. But we should take a look back on all the hardships in life with a positive attitude and learn from them. We must overcome every obstacle one small step at a time. We should realize that all of our growing pains actually turn into growing gains! Throughout our lives we are going to face many challenges and pains, but we should never let these obstacles keep us from following our dreams. We must overcome every obstacle one small step at a time. As a young girl, my parents forced me to do so many things that I didn’t like. They made me learn to play the violin and then the piano. At that time I hated music and I also hated them. But looking back now, I am so glad that my parents encouraged me to take music lessons. Music has enriched(丰富) my life in so many ways. I now realize that my parents and teachers wanted me to have a better life than they did themselves. We are all going to experience growing pains, but they are just part of our life. They might seem so huge at the time, but we must be strong. Think about how we would feel if we had no challenges and lived a life like that. Life would be really boring and meaningless. The future is ours! A little hard work and sweat never hurt anyone! If we realize that these pains are just small bumps(碰撞) on our road to success, we will realize that our growing pains are actually growing gains!
1.
The underlined word “obstacles” (in Paragraph 2) roughly means things that ______.
A.
are related to your studies
B.
you easily achieve
C.
make you happy
D.
make it difficult for you to do something
2.
How does the author now feel when remembering what her parents did for her in the past?
A.
She is fearful
B.
She is grateful
C.
She feels trapped
D.
She feels hateful
3.
We can know from the last paragraph that _____________.
A.
life without challenges is dull
B.
life needs no pains but sunshine and happiness
C.
we should give up faced with challenges as the future is ours
D.
we shouldn’t easily pay a little hard work in growing up
4.
The purpose of the passage is to tell readers____________.
A.
life is full of hardships
B.
growing pains can turn into growing gains in a positive way
C.
everyone is painful in growing up
D.
everyone should do what they don’t like when young
Dear Bridge of Hope supporters, July 2010 was a productive month for the teachers at BOH. Marilyn traveled to Liberia and helped Kathleen Ngenda with her teacher training program on Basic Adult Literacy. During the eight-day training, she helped the teachers learn to pronounce, spell and write correctly. They are currently working on personal sets of cards and lists so that they can teach this concept to students in the fall. Kathleen plans on two trips back to the school to monitor teachers in their teaching. Marilyn found a very dedicated （投入的）and enthusiastic group of elementary teachers who are focused on bettering themselves as educators. BOHUSA will offer financial support for their further educational studies this fall. Our goal is to have all staff be certified by the end of 2013. The Liberian government recommends a C-certificate for teachers of elementary students, which can be obtained in one year of education classes (taken on Saturdays). There is a great need to add seventh and eighth grade classrooms and a library. There is actually no room, however, and so we need to add a second floor. Currently the ground floor houses the church and the school uses this space for daily services. The first floor would give space for three more classrooms, in addition to a large reading room and computer labs. About $40,000 to 50,000 is required to meet the educational needs. If you would like to contribute to this building project, please make out your check to: Bridge of Hope 12002 Arnold Rd. Orrville, Ohio 44667 Bridge of Hope Foundation is a non-profit organization. You do not have to pay tax on your contributions.
1.
Marilyn went to Liberia to ______.
A.
take a trip
B.
visit a school
C.
take training classes
D.
help train teachers
2.
What do we know about the school from Paragraph 4?
When I first got an e-mail account ten years ago, I received communications only from family, friends, and colleagues. Now it seems that every time I check my e-mail, I have an endless series of advertisements and other correspondence that do not interest me at all. If we want e-mail to continue to be useful, we need specific laws that make spamming(发送垃圾邮件) a crime. If lawmakers do not do something soon to prohibit spam, the problem will certainly get much worse. Computer programs allow spammers to send hundreds of millions of e-mails almost instantly. As more and more advertisers turn to spam to sell their products, individual(个人的) e-mail boxes are often flooded with spam e-mails. Would people continue to use e-mail if they had to deal with an annoying amount of spam each time? This problem is troubling for individuals and companies as well. Many spam e-mails contain computer viruses that can shut down the entire network of a company. Companies rely on e-mail for their employees to communicate with each other. Spam frequently causes failures in their local communications networks, and their employees are thus unable to communicate effectively. Such a situation results in a loss of productivity and requires companies to repeatedly repair their networks. These computer problems raise production costs of companies, which are, in the end, passes on to the consumer. For these reasons, I believe that lawmakers need to legislate (立法) against spam. Spammers should be fined, and perhaps sent to prison if they continue to disturb people. E-mail is a tool which helps people all over the world to communicate conveniently, but spam is destroying this convenience.
1.
According to the text, what is the major cause of the flooding spam?
A.
Companies rely on e-mail for communications.
B.
More people in the world communicate by e-mail.
C.
More advertisers begin to promote sales through spam.
D.
Many computer viruses contain spam e-mail.
2.
According to Paragraph 3, who is the final victim of spam?
Sports shoes that work out whether their owner has done enough exercise to warrant time in front of the television have been devised in the UK. The shoes — named Square Eyes — contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the wearer has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter(传话器) passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day’s efforts. The design was inspired by a desire to fight against the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final year design project at Brunel University to London, UK. “We looked at current issues and childhood overweight really stood out,” she says. “And I wanted to tackle that with my design.” Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps. Swan calculated how exercise should translate to television time using the recommended daily amounts of both. Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equals precisely one minute of TV time. Existing pedometers （计步器） normally clip onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can be easily tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to cheat. “It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort,” she says. “That was one of my main design considerations.”
1.
According to Swan, the purpose of her design project is to ________.
A.
keep a record of the steps of the wearer
B.
deal with overweight among teenagers
C.
enable children to resist the temptation of TV
D.
prevent children from being tricked by TV programs
2.
Which of the following is true of Square Eyes shoes?
A.
They regulate a child’s evening TV viewing time.
B.
They determine a child’s daily pocket money.
C.
They have raised the hot issue of overweight.
D.
They contain information of the receiver.
3.
What is stressed（强调）by health experts in their suggestion?
A.
The exact number of steps to be taken.
B.
The precise number of hours spent on TV.
C.
The proper amount of daily exercise and TV time.
D.
The way of changing steps into TV watching time.
4.
Compared with other similar products, the new design ________.
A.
makes it difficult for lazy teenagers to cheat
B.
counts the wearer’s steps through shaking
C.
records the sudden movement of the wearer
D.
sends teenagers’ health data to the receiver
5.
Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
