Children like to imagine they are someone else in a game. As a parent you might never guess how it can benefit your child. It helps your child：

Develop Social Skills

As children play pretend games，they explore relationships between family members，friends and co­workers and learn more about how people interact.Playing doctors，they imagine how physicians care for their patients.Imaginative play helps develop empathy(移情) with others.If children can imagine how it feels to be left out of a game or to lose a pet，they are better able to help those in need.They become more willing to play fair，to share，and to cooperate.

Build Self­confidence

Young children have very little control over their lives.Imagining oneself as a builder of skyscrapers or a super hero defending the planet is inspiring to children.It helps them develop confidence in their abilities and their potential.

Promote Intellectual Growth

Using imagination is the beginning of abstract thought.Children who can see a king's castle in a mound of sand or a delicious dinner in a mud pie are learning to think symbolically.This skill is important in school where a child will have to learn that numbers symbolize groups of objects，letters symbolize sounds，and so on.

Practice Language Skills

Kids who pretend with their friends do a lot of talking.This helps increase their vocabulary，improve sentence structure and develop communication skills.

Get Rid of Fears

Pretending can help children get rid of their fears and worries.When children role­play the big，bad monster under the bed，they gain a sense of control over him and he doesn't seem quite so big or so bad.

1.Which of the following can help children develop social skills in a game?

2.Why can imagination build children's self­confidence?

3.Which of the following is NOT true according to the article?

4.The best title for this passage probably is________.

Some people try to protect their children from unpleasant realities like illness, financial loss and death. But doctors point out that children can often end up feeling left out if they are old enough to understand what’s going on, but are not told the truth about family worries.

One widowed father told me how deeply he regretted that he and his late wife did not tell their son that his mother was dying of leukemia(白血病). “For months we kept that truth to ourselves. We thought we were protecting our son from emotional pain,” he recalled. “It was a great mistake. I had time to prepare myself. But my wife’s death stunned our boy. It was years before he trusted me again.”

Says Judith Davenport, a psychotherapist(心理治疗医师) who practises in Santa Monica, California. “It’s important to let children experience the reality of death, if it can be done in an atmosphere of love and caring. A child whose sibling, parent or grandparent is seriously ill can be made to feel helpful by being allowed to run errands(跑腿) or answer the phone. Even a very young child can comfort a sick loved one with a brief cheering visit.”

In many matters, if children are not told the facts about a financial setback, says Grace W. Weinstein, writer of Children and Money, they may imagine the worst. For example, they might think they’ll have no food to eat or will lose their home, when the simple reality may be that luxuries(奢侈品) will have to be taken away.

Even the busiest family can arrange to share a relaxed evening meal together at least once or twice a week. Mealtimes are often the only time that families can engage in stimulating(机动人心的) conversations.

Says Michael Abrahams, a licensed(得到许可的) clinical social worker in Rockville, MD. “How mealtime is used to argue or talk, discipline or praise is a good barometer(晴雨表) of whether a family is drifting apart or drawing closer.”

Another way to strengthen family closeness is to encourage your youngsters to invite a friend

for dinner from time to time, giving each child a turn at choosing the guest. This makes parents get to know their children’s friends, and also helps youngsters feel they are respected members of the family.

A joint endeavor can be stimulating if you choose one that everyone enjoys. Try planting and cultivating a garden, or organizing that box of old snapshots into a family album(相册), or learning how to bake bread from starch.

One father recalls the shared sense of success he and his son experienced when they finished building a dining-room table. “We started six months ago with plants and planks,” he says. “When the job was done, we looked at each other and said, ‘We did it1’”

1．The passage is written mainly for _____________

       A．parents                B．children               C．social workers     D．teachers

2．Judging from the passage, what does “sibling” in the third paragraph mean?

       A．Friend                 B．Brother and sister C．Cousin                D．Relative

3．What does the writer suggest in order to strengthen family ties?

       A．Youngsters should invite friends to dinner at home.

       B．Parents had better plant and cultivate a vegetable garden.

       C．Make sure to let the child, no matter how old he is, know right now if somebody in your        family is going to die.

       D．Parents should tell their children of financial setback in the family in order that they get        prepared psychologically(心理上)。

4．Why does building a dinner-room table give the father and his son shared sense of success?

       A．Because building a table a great pleasure.

       B．Because others didn’t believe that they could finally do it.

       C．Because a dining-room table is very important to the family.

       D．Because they achieve something by doing something together.

阅读理解

　　“There is no arguing about taste”--runs the Latin proverb. But taste did not just happen. Cultural, historical, biological and environmental events have interacted to cause frogs, for example, to be viewed as delicious in southern China but to be regarded with revulsion(厌恶) in northern China. Even though much remains unknown, tastes cannot be dismissed as inarguable or illogical(不合逻辑的); an attempt will be made here to discover why, as Lucretius put it,“What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others.”

　　Among the thirty million tribal(部落的) people of India, a total of 250 animal species(物种) are avoided by one group or another. Most of these people will not eat meat from a tiger or any of various snakes. Although they say they feel a relationship with these animals, it is obvious that both are highly dangerous and that hunting them regularly would be foolish.

　　Monkeys are avoided, probably because they look like human beings in appearance; in these tribes, man-eating is viewed as extremely cruel. An unwillingness to eat some female animals is believed to have been caused by respect for the mother's role, but it could also be due to a policy of allowing the females to reproduce and provide more young for people. Many tribes avoid eating any animal that has died of unknown causes, a wise attitude in view of the possibility that the animal might have died from a disease that could spread to humans. Animals that eat waste food are similarly avoided, an adaptive(适应性的) step that prevents contact with parasites(寄生虫), and that might explain why members of one tribe eat any of twenty-one different species of rats, but not the house rat.

1．We can infer from the first paragraph that _____.

[　　]

A．people from different parts of China never share the same food

B．taste is illogical and inarguable and cannot be explained

C．all the people in Southern China eat frogs

D．the author does not quite agree with the Latin proverb

2．The tribal people in India don't eat snakes or tigers because _____.

[　　]

A．they feel a relationship with them

B．they have parasites on them

C．they think it safe to leave them alone

D．they may spread disease

3．The members of one tribe eat many species of rats except the house rat because _____.

[　　]

A．house rats are not green food

B．house rats look terrible

C．house rats are their friends

D．house rats eat waste food

4．The Indian tribes' choice of food shows that their decision is based on _____.

[　　]

A．their Gods' teachings

B．their own safety

C．where they live

D．their tastes