My husband is in the hospital with cancer and has been seriously ill for a month. He was always 1. slender , but he has lost a lot of weight. I find myself2. astonished that I hardly recognize him. Now, his yellow skin hangs 3.loosely on his skeleton, as he lies there unaware. A machine next to the bed records his slow 4. pulse . I have sat here waiting for some 5. hint of life—a finger movement, anything—but there is never any change. Time seems to stand still and I feel my own pulse 6. quicken and hear my own breathing. Doctors and nurses come in and out at 7. intervals and look at his charts. Our eyes meet and somehow, together, we become 8. aware that this is a special moment for us. I know that he would want me to be bold and show strength as he always had. He is the man who 9. volunteered at countless community associations while he himself was ill. He is a man with 10. responsibility who never needed a calendar to remember a friend or relative's birthday or our anniversary. It is my duty to show how proud I am to have been a part of this great man's life.Is teaching important? Well, of course it is. There was a time when all necessary knowledge could be taught to the young by family members. But as societies became more complex and division of labor more common, it was impossible for family members to teach the information and skills young people needed to become useful members of the society. As the need for specialists appeared, the job of teaching came into being in our country, and teaching as a job has been of increasing importance over the past one hundred years. Today, we have strict rules for teachers. We hope all children can go to school. Many things tell us that teaching is indeed an "important" job. In recent years, there has been an increasing need for teachers to be "responsible". This means that the public expects teachers to succeed in teaching important information to the young. Teachers' salaries today, while not much, certainly are much higher than they were in the past. These increases have come about because people have realized that quality people, individuals who are highly able to teach, will not do it if they are not offered enough money. Today almost no one says that "anybody will do" for a teacher. The public expects "quality people" to teach the young, and progress is being made to give salaries that will make people who have abilities become teachers1. In the author's opinion, the job of a teacher ___D_____.A. is done best by family membersB. is too complex for most peopleC. is free of rules .D. is important for society2. The cause for the new job of "teacher" was _____B___.A. the increased importance of laborB. the need for specialistsC. the strict rules of the governmentD. the increased number of children in school3. According to the writer, ___A_____ is on the increase nowadays.A. a need for teachers to have responsibility for themselvesB. a need for teachers to teach responsibility to studentsC. the numbers of students who are entering schoolD. the numbers of people who take the job of teacher4. We learn from this passage that __C______.A. money encourages teachers to be responsibleB. money is not a responsible reason to become a teacherC. money is a good way to attract people to become teachersD. money was much higher for teachers in the past5. What do people hardly ever say these days? AA. Anyone can be a teacher.B. Progress is being made.C. Teachers have abilities.D. Quality people are teaching the youngFor most people learning to drive, the driving test arises ahead as a major barrier. It is also a general source of conversation whenever drivers are gathered together. There are probably more tall stories about the driving test than about any other motoring subjects; the most remarkable thing about those stories is the number of times the old ones appear again, years after they were first heard, in new and exaggerated forms. All driving examiners have had to pass a very strict selection process, followed by at least six weeks' training. In the course of this training the Department makes sure that their driving is of a consistently high standard. Driving test centers are chosen with equal care. It would be nice to have centers and examiners town by town. But this is just not possible, because the centers have to be at places where there is enough parking space for candidates (考生) and where there are enough test routes. Routes are carefully chosen to make sure that they are all roughly comparable-the proportion of right and left turns, hills, pedestrian (行人) crossings and so on. The object of all this is to make sure, as far as possible, that all candidates in the driving test have to cope with the same sort of conditions whether they take the test in New York or California. The work that examiners do in actually carrying out tests is checked continuously by supervising examiners. This is to make as sure as possible that every candidate for the driving test has a proper and equal chance of showing the examiner, in the words of the Regulations, "that he is competent to drive without danger to and with due consideration for other users of the road." This is all that the examiner is concerned with.6. It can be learned from the passage that ___A____.A. whenever people learning to drive get together, they often talk about the driving testB. new and exaggerated stories about the test are always appearingC. there are more tall stories about the driving test than any other subjectD. the same stories about the test reappear years later7. According to the passage, driving examiners ___C____.A. are trained for six weeks, then have a difficult selection interviewB. are given regular driving tests themselves by supervising examinersC. sometimes have more than six weeks' trainingD. are tested during the selection process to see if their driving is of a high standard8. There isn't a test center in every town because ___D_____.A. some examiners can go to occasional centers from the permanent centersB. routes and conditions have to be the same everywhereC. there has to be enough parking space for the candidates and the examinersD. not every town could provide enough test routes close to permanent centers9. We can judge from this passage that ____D____.A. the detailed records are checked after each test by a supervising examinerB. sometimes candidates are tested by a supervising examinerC. it's true that some examiners never pass anyone on Thursday afternoonsD. examiners are only concerned with a candidate's ability to drive10. It can be inferred from this passage that ___A_____.A. test routes have roughly the same conditions everywhereB. candidate drivers pass the testC. all candidates are treated equally by the examiners during the testD. some test centers do not have enough parking spaceYou must face the fact that in your inmost heart you hate the thought of moving. It is easiest not to leave the rooms where your children passed through their wonderful childhood and annoying teens to a friendly but slightly distant maturity. Until, suddenly one day, the distance is absolute and they are grown up and gone. Then you find yourself living in too large a house, which consumes in its maintenance too much energy and money. When we found ourselves in this situation a few years ago, we determined to move while we still had the strength and before the emotional ties that the old house had wrapped around us became too powerful to be broken. Move while you can! But be sure you really want to, and do not move too often. It is an exhausting process. Your first task is to find a house that will suit you. It must be smaller, quieter, easier to run, and more conveniently placed for transport. Not so small, though, that it will not have room for your largest pieces of furniture, and located not too far from the neighborhood where so many friendships have been built up. At last we found one: a late Victorian cottage, in a street where the houses, all small, range from late 18th to mid 20th century. It was near enough to where we wanted to live. It had no basement (底下层), which was a great convenience for aging legs; there were only two floors: one for ourselves and one where friends, children, and grandchildren could spread themselves when they came to stay. Each floor had two rooms. There was a kitchen on the ground floor, with the bathroom above it.1. The passage concerns __D______.A. buying a house for a newly married coupleB. buying a large house for a growing familyC. buying a better house when people have more money to spendD. buying a smaller house for older people whose children have left home2. The passage implies that grown-up children are ___C____.A. more friendly to their parents when they are grown upB. distant from their parentsC. friendly but not very closeD. annoying3. The author decided to move __A______.A. when his house gave him too much work and cost too much to runB. when he grew tired of his houseC. when he suddenly got the strength to do soD. before the house collapsed4. The author advises people in his own situation ___B_____.A. to move into a very small houseB. to move somewhere where the largest possible pieces of furniture will fitC. not to move too far from the main roadD. to choose somewhere not so noisy5. According to the passage, the new house had ___A______.A. two floorsB. three floorsC. four floorsD. two bathroomsEquipment operator Dick Kemp is the proud owner of over 90 old trucks. Some of his vehicles date back as far as 1916, just twenty years after the first motorized truck was ever built and a time when there were only 160,000 trucks in the United States-compared with the 36,000,000 trucks that roar along the nation's highways nowadays. One of Kemp's most unusual trucks is a 1916 Selden with wooden spikes which was once used as a street sprinkler. Kemp began his collection in 1952 with a 1930 Bulldog Mack which he bought for only $50. This same vehicle was valued in the year 2006 at nearly a thousand times that price. Every year thousands of visitors come from all over the U.S. and Canada to see Kemp's collection, which is exhibited in a large garage and in a yard next-door. The Mack Truck Museum is open for public viewing and there is no charge. There is even a model truck playground for children to play in while their parents look at the real things. Kemp does his own restoration work, making all the trucks look shiny and run smoothly. Many truck parts he has to make for himself because manufacturers have discontinued production long, long ago. He has received countless offers to sell his trucks, but his answer is always the same: "Nothing for Sale".6. The passage says that Dick Kemp's job is __B______.A. museum workerB. equipment operatorC. truck driverD. truck manufacturer7. In which year was Kemp's unusual Selden truck made? BA. 1952.B. 1916.C. 1930.D. 2006.8. Where does Kemp show his trucks? AA. In and near a garage.B. Around the US and Canada.C. On the nation's highways.D. In a museum next to his home.9. ___B_____ might be appropriate for children.A. The Mack Truck MuseumB. Kemp's truck playgroundC. Restoration workD. Kemp's collection10. What does Kemp do himself? CA. Order discontinued parts.B. Operate the museum.C. Repair the trucks.D. Sell the trucks.Video GamingAs video gaming spreads, the discussion about its social impact is intensifying. Is it a new medium equivalent to film and music, a valuable educational tool, a form of harmless fun or something terrible that makes children violent and stupid? Video gaming is all these things, depending on whom you ask. Amid all the arguments, however, three important factors are generally overlooked: that attitudes to gaming are marked by a generational divide; that there is no convincing evidence that games make people violent; and that games have great potential in education.Attitudes towards gamingAttitudes towards gaming depend to a great extent on age. In America, for example, half of the population plays computer or video games. However most players are under 40—according to Nielsen, a market-research firm, 76% of them—while most critics of gaming are over 40. An entire generation that began gaming as children has kept playing. The average age of American gamers is 30. Most are "computer natives" who grew up with technology, argues Marc Prensky of Games2train, a firm that promotes the educational use of games. He describes older people as "computer immigrants" who, like newcomers anywhere, have had to adapt in various ways to their new technological world. Just getting by in a foreign land without some grasp of the local language is difficult, says Mr. Prensky. Computer immigrants have had to learn to use technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones. But relatively few of them have embraced video games. The word "game" itself also confuses matters, since it makes them seem like playthings. "What they don't understand, because they've never played them, isthat these are complex games, which take 30, 40 or 100 hours tocomplete," says Mr. Prensky. Games are, in fact, played mainly by young adults. Only a third of gamers are under 18. "It's just a generational divide," says Gerhard Florin, the European boss of Electronic Arts, the world's biggest games publisher. "People do not know what they are talking about, because they have never played a game. And yet, they say that millions of gamers are stupid or violent." Computer natives who have played video games since childhood already regard them as a form of entertainment equivalent to films and music. Older computer natives now have children of their own and enjoy playing video games with them. The gaming industry is trying to address the generational divide. It is producing games designed to appeal to people who have never played games and encouraging gamers (who may occasionally play simpleweb-based games, or games on mobile phones) to play more. This has led to the development of games with a wider appeal. Some of them replace the usual control pad with novel input devices: microphones (麦克风) for singing games, cameras for dancing and action games, and even musical instruments. In addition, the industry has started to attract more women, who seem to prefer social simulation (模拟) games such as "The Sims", and older people, who (if they play games at all) often prefer versions of card games and board games. Other promising areas include portable (便携式的) gaming, mobile gaming and online downloads of simple games. Many people enjoy gaming, but do not necessarily want to commit themselves to a long quest that will take dozens of hours to complete.May gaming make people violent?But aren't critics right to worry that gaming might make people violent? In his paper, Mr. Williams describes his study carried out with Marko Skoric of the University of Michigan. The study concentrated on a "massively multiplayer (多人参与的) online role-playing game" (MMORPG) called "Asheron Call 2". This type of game requires the player to wander around a fantasy world and kill monsters to build up attribute points. It is "virtually more violent than the average video game and should have more effect, given the highly repetitive nature of the violence", the researchers noted. Two groups of subjects were recruited, none of whom had played MMORPGs before and many of whom had never played video games at all. One group then played the game for a month, for an average of nearly two hours per day. The other group acted as a control. All people who participated were asked questions about how often they had aggressive social interactions (such as arguments with their spouses) during the course of the month to test the idea that gaming makes people more aggressive. Game players, it turned out, were no more aggressive than the control group. Whether the test subjects had played games before, the number of hours spent gaming, and whether they liked violent movies or not, made no difference. The researchers noted, however, that more research is still needed to assess the impact of other types of games. All games are different, and only when more detailed studies have been carried out will it be possible to say anything about the impact of gaming.Games have great potential in education.What's more, plenty of games, far from encouraging violence, are morally complex, subtle and, very possibly, improving. Many now explicitly require players to choose whether to be good or evil, and their choices determine how the game they are playing develops. Several games based on the "Star Wars" movies require players to choose between the light and dark sides of the Force, equivalent to good and evil. Even games with no educational purpose require players to learn a great deal. Games are complex and force players to make a huge number of decisions. Gamers must construct ideas about the in-game world, learn its rules through trial and error (错误) , solve problems and puzzles, develop strategies and get help from other players through the Internet when they get stuck. Games can be used in many other ways. Tim Rylands, a British teacher in a primary school near Bristol, recently won an award from Becta, a government education agency, for using computer games in the classroom. By projecting the fantasy world of "Myst", a role-playing game, on to a large screen and encouraging his 11-year-old pupils to write descriptions and reactions as he plays it, he has achieved striking improvements in their English test scores. So games are inherently good, not bad? Actually they are neither, like books, films, the Internet, or any other medium. All can be used to depict sex and violence, or to educate and inform. Indeed, that there is violence and sex in games is arguably a sign of the maturity of themedium, as games become more like films.1. Video games are valuable or stupid depending on _____B_________.A. what is overlookedB. whom is askedC. whether they are violentD. whether they are educational2. No evidence exists to show that video games _______B_________.A. are overlookedB. make people violentC. have great potentialD. are violent3. "Computer immigrants" are older people who have had to ____C____________.A. get by in a foreign landB. play complex gamesC. adjust to the new technologyD. grow up with technology4. What do we learn about "computer natives"? _____B___________A. They enjoy playing video games with children.B. They have played games since childhood.C. They are producing games which are violent and stupid.D. They like films and music as entertainment.5. What is said about the gaming industry? _____D___________A. It has started to attract more young adults.B. It is trying to persuade older people to play singing games.C. It is producing games that will take dozens of hours to complete.D. It is trying to attract people who have never played games.6. Asheron Call 2 is a kind of game that ____C____________.A. is less violent than the average video gameB. critics are right to worry about, as it is violentC. requires the player to kill monsters to build up attribute pointsD. requires the player to travel around the world7. In the study of MMORPGs, game players _____D___________.A. could not control their game playB. asked many questionsC. were more aggressiveD. were not especially violent8. More studies should be undertaken to draw a general conclusion about the impact of other types of games.9. Rather than encouraging violence, many games are subtle, possibly improving, and morally complex.10. Games are neither good nor bad just like books,films,the internet or any other medium。