Reading Comprehension
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。

     The amount of time kids spend online is a source of frustration for many parents. Initially, parents welcomed the Internet into their homes, believing they were opening up an exciting new world of educational opportunities for their children. However, many parents soon realized that, instead of using the Internet for homework or research, their kids were spending hours exchanging messages with friends, playing online games or talking to strangers in chat rooms.
     Maintaining a healthy balance between entertainment media and other activities in their children's lives has always been a challenge for parents. The Internet has made this challenge even more difficult. The engaging nature of Internet communications and interactive games means many children and teens have trouble keeping track of time when they're online.
     Unfortunately, parents and teachers are usually not aware that there is a problem until it becomes serious. This is because it is easy to hide what you are doing online and because Internet addiction is not widely recognized by the medical community. And mental health practitioners continue to debate whether this behavior is an ”addiction,” with some identifying it as “compulsive behavior.”
     Children and young people can easily become hooked on online activities such as multi-user games, instant messaging and chat rooms. The most vulnerable children, according to the Computer-Addiction Services at Harvard Medical School, are those who are ”lonely and bored or from families where nobody is at home to relate to after school.”
     Children who are unpopular or shy with peers are often attracted to the opportunities for creating new identities in online communities. Boys, in particular, are frequent users of online role-playing games, where they assume new identities and interact with other players. Although playing these games with other users may appear to be social activity, for the introverted（内向的） child or teen, excessive playing can further isolate them from friends and peers.

阅读选择 
阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的4个选项( A、B、C、D)中选出1个最佳选项。   

        On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln went to Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to speak at the National Soldiers Cemetery. The Civil War was still going on. There was much criticism of President Lincoln at the time. He was not at all popular. He had been invited to speak at Gettysburg only out of courtesy. The principal speaker was to be Edward Everett, a famous statesman and speaker of the day. Everett was a handsome man and very popular everywhere.
        It is said that Lincoln prepared his speech on the train while going to Gettysburg. Late that night, alone in his hotel room and tired out, he again worked briefly on the speech. The next day Everett spoke first. He spoke for an hour and 57 minutes. His speech was a perfect example of the rich oratory of the day. Then Lincoln rose. The crowd of 15,000 people at first paid little attention to him. He spoke for only nine minutes. At the end there was little applause. Lincoln turned to a friend and remarked, “I have failed again.” On the train back to Washington he commented sadly, “That speech was a flat failure, and the people are disappointed.”
        Some newspapers at first criticized the speech. But little by little, as people read the speech, they began to understand better. They began to appreciate its simplicity and its deep meaning. It was a speech which only Abraham Lincoln could have made.
        Today, every American school child learns Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address by heart. Now everyone thinks of it as one of the greatest orations ever given in American history.

阅读选择：阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的四个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。

阅读选择
阅读下面短文,请从短文后所给各题的4个选项( A、B、C、D)中选出1个最佳选项。

阅读选择
阅读下面短文,请从短文后所给各题的4个选项( A、B、C、D)中选出1个最佳选项。  

        It is estimated that there are more than 8 million restaurants in the world today. So it might surprise you to learn that restaurants as we know have only existed for a few centuries. Before 1765, there were no restaurants. There was nowhere in which a server brought you food and drink that you chose from a menu. In fact, there was no menus anywhere.
        There were places where travelers could eat centuries before that. The countryside was full of inns that would serve food. And there were bars where one could get a drink. The rich could also eat meals supplied by private cooks. But there was nothing that could be called a "restaurant".
        A Frenchman changed that. In 1765, he opened a place in Paris that sold soups. On his sign, he used the term "restaurant" to describe what he was selling. Soups were considered "restorative", so he called them "restaurants". Finally, people started buying his soups even when not ill. And as time went on, people began to use the term "restaurant" to refer to the place where soup was sold rather than the soup itself. More "restaurants" opened up in France, and people began to buy soups more regularly.
        Then, restaurants in Paris began to serve food other than soups. In the 1780s, menus started to appear. By the 1800s, there were many types of restaurants, and the restaurant concept was spread throughout the British Empire.
        A slow start gave way to rapid growth. Cities and towns around the world are filled with restaurants today. It is estimated that there are 1.6 million restaurants in Europe. In America, there are nearly a half million restaurants. 

阅读选择 
阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的4个选项( A、B、C、D)中选出1个最佳选项。   

阅读选择

阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的4个选项( A、B、C、D)中选出1个最佳选项。                         

Reading Comprehension
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。

     Today's video game worlds in the U.S.A. are so detailed that they give the player a realistic and rewarding experience. It is not just children that play these games; it is also common for men from 18 to 30 have at home some sort of game console（控制器）.
     People think this may affect real-life behavior and ask ‘are life-like computer games a good thing?’, especially the first-person games where the player takes on active roles like shooting at others in armed battles.
     As modern characters in computer games have become more people-like than cartoon-like, as the language becomes more informal or casual, and as the sound effects become more realistic, many kinds of concern have been raised about the link between computer games and the children's aggressive behavior. Worried parents have welcomed the computer game classification, which is similar to film ratings. This makes it easier for parents to monitor what their children are playing with.
     Are computer games making us more aggressive? There is no evidence that proves a link between an increase in computer game violence and aggressive or violent behavior in children, but the question still arises: is it acceptable for computer games to depict life-like scenes of violence?
     What lessons do players take from games like Grand Theft Auto where players speed through city streets trying to reach their destination in the quickest time regardless of people walking along the streets in their way or Hooligans: Storms over Europe where men run violently into football fields, fight competitors and attack police. Do you think these computer games make it difficult to tell right from wrong and fact from fiction?

阅读选择：阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的四个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。

     It is difficult to estimate the number of youngsters involved in home schooling, where children are not sent to school and receive their formal education from one or both parents. Legislation and court decisions have make it legally possible in most states for parents to educate their children at home, and each year more people take advantage of that opportunity.
     Supporters of home education claim that it is less expensive and far more efficient than mass public education. Moreover they quote several merits: relief of school overcrowding, added curricular and pedagogical （课程和教学法） alternatives, strengthened family relationships, lower dropout rates, increased motivation, higher standardized test scores, and reduced discipline problems. Supporters of home schooling also believe that it provides the parents with the opportunity to reinforce their moral values through education.
     Critics of home schooling movement claim that it creates as many problems as it solves. They acknowledge that, in a few cases, home schooling offers educational opportunities superior to those found in most public schools, but few parents can provide such educational advantages. Some parents who withdraw their children form the schools in favor of home schooling have an inadequate educational background and insufficient formal training to provide a satisfactory education for their children. Typically, parents have fewer, not more technological resources available than do schools. However, the relatively inexpensive computer technology that is readily available today is causing some challenge to the notion that home schooling is in any way not so good as more highly structured classroom education. 

     Finally, a sociological （社会学） concern is the restricted social interaction experienced by children who are educated at home. Technology will never replace the pupil-teacher relationship. Also, while relationships with parents and brothers and sisters may be improved, children taught at home may develop a distorted （歪曲的） view of society.

Reading Comprehension
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。

 Urban Gardening

​      Urban gardening refers to the practice of planting a garden in the city. Apartments, town homes, and other areas with little or no land are being used for gardening. This method of gardening is becoming more common as the amount of land for gardening in cities is becoming smaller and smaller. 

      Containers, hanging baskets and raised beds are examples of items people use to create a garden in a confined space. Some cities also offer a shared community garden for people who have no room to grow plants at home.
      Many types of plants can be grown in containers and baskets. Tomatoes and peppers, for instance, can grow in containers on windowsills (窗台). Plants grown on a windowsill should usually receive at least six to eight hours of sunlight daily. Herbs are often grown in containers or baskets in the kitchen. They do not require much space and can be handy for cooking.
      People who want to grow more plants may use raised beds which are usually made of wood pieces and filled with a mixture of soil and fertilizers. They can be built on top of any hard surface, including roof tops. People like them because the beds often cost much less than most other methods of gardening.
      Community gardening could be an option for anyone who does not have space for a garden at home. Most cities that offer this will rent a small plot of land to someone for a fee, or allow them to use it free of charge. Instead of dividing the land into separate plots, some cities allow everyone in the neighborhood to share and work on the same land. This method could be beneficial for people in the neighborhood who share the passion for growing things.

Reading Comprehension
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。

Reading Comprehension
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。

     A straight-A student got a C in cooking class and didn’t like it. She didn’t like it so much that her dad filed a complaint in federal court about it. He insists that the teacher, who is white, discriminated against his daughter, who is black. He seeks to have her grade changed from a C to an A and asks for unspecified financial damages.
     Virginia Brown is in the ninth grade at Ashley High School. Since her first year in school, she has had perfect attendance and all her grades have been A’ s. Virginia’s father said her heart was broken when she got the C.
     “She cried the whole weekend,” he said. “She wouldn’t come out of her room. Her eyes were red and puffy（肿）. My little girl hasn’t been this upset since her cat got run over by a car when she was 6 years old.”
     Virginia is a model student. She’s the class president. She’s on the swim team, the volleyball team, and the track team. She belongs to the chess club. She is a member of the Girl Scouts and sings in her church choir.
     The home economics teacher is 28-year-old Jessica Smith. This is her first year teaching. Ms. Smith said that discrimination was absolutely not the issue. “Some of my best friends are African Americans,” she said. “This isn’t a black and white problem. Everybody in America wants to sue（起诉）everybody else. I’m going to sue them for defamation（毁坏名誉） of character and whatever else my lawyer comes up with.“
     The school principal, who grew up in India, said that he supported Ms. Smith 100 percent. He said that Virginia is an excellent student who would have no problem getting into the best universities even with a C in cooking. “She won’t have any difficulty finding a great university, but she might have problems finding a husband,” he laughed. “She’d better look for man who likes to eat out a lot.”

Reading Comprehension
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。

Reading Comprehension
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。

阅读选择。阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的4个选项（A、B、C、D）中选出 1个最佳选项。 

阅读判断：
下面的短文后列出了十个句子，请根据短文的内容对每个句子作出判断：如果该句提供的是正确信息，选择A；如果该句提供的是错误信息，选择B；如果该句的信息文中没有提及，选择C。 

阅读选择
阅读下面短文,请从短文后所给各题的4个选项( A、B、C、D)中选出1个最佳选项。