假如你是李华，是育英中学的学生。五月十二日四川地震爆发后，你和你的同学度过了几个不眠之夜。请写一篇120词左右的短文，介绍你们那几天的主要活动及感受，向21世纪英文报投稿。要点如下：

1．  每晚观看新闻，关注灾区救援工作的进展；

2．  捐出全部零花钱，并在周末走上街头义卖报纸；

3．  向报纸及网络投稿寄托哀思；

4．  五月十九日下午全校师生为遇难者默哀三分钟。

提示：  灾区 the striken area      遇难者 victims      默哀  observe silence

Dear editor,

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

Yours,

Li Hua

Rail passengers are being forced to pay thousands of pounds more in fares as a result of poor advice from the national telephone helpline and individual stations, a consumer organization reveals today. Research by Which? found that in some cases passengers are being charged almost double the cheapest price because of errors made by staff .

Which? asked 25 questions of both station staff and the National Rail Enquiries (NRES) helpline. Only half of the 50 questions were answered correctly. If customers had followed all the advice given ,they would have been ￡1,263.60 worse off .

Bad advice was given for the cheapest fare for a single journey between London and Grantham. For a ticket bought on the day of travel, both NRES and a King’s Cross station clerk quoted GNER’s ￡44.50 fare, ignoring a Hull Trains service which leaves 10 minutes earlier and costs just ￡20.

Some of the most costly misinformation was given for journeys where season tickets should have been recommended. Passengers making a return journey between Swindon and Penzance twice in a week could buy a ticket from one company for ￡70 which would cover all the travel. But both NRES and station staff quoted ￡67 for each journey, making ￡134．However, the NRES website proved to be a much more reliable source of information .

Which ? also checked “the earlier you book, the cheaper the ticket” claims by five companies and found this was not always the case. On some services, prices went up and down at random.

Ithiel Mogridge, 52, gave one example of poor advice :” Last Christmas I found my brother a ticket on the thetrainline.com to travel from Blackburn to Yate. While the direct route was ￡51, this one involved a change in Newport and cost just ￡21．I emailed the details to him and his partner. They went to Blackburn station, where the clerk insisted the fare was ￡51.”

Malcolm Coles, editor of which.co.uk, said :”Staff training needs to be improved. In the meantime, we’ve designed a checklist, available at which.co.uk/ rail advice. “

1．According to the passage “which ?”is a ________.

A．national telephone helpline

B．department under the British Rail

C．consumer organization

D．website under the National Rail Enquiries

2．When the author said that customers “would have been ￡1,263.60 worse off”, he was telling us that customers would have _________.

A．saved ￡1,263.60 if they had followed the advice

B．spend ￡1,263.60 more than the lowest price

C．used ￡1,263.60 for the survey of 25 questions

D．been cheated of ￡1,263.60 from the poor advice

3．The phrase at random in paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to “_________”.

A．casually           B．purposefully           C．exactly         D．unavoidable

4．The passage is mainly concerned with the phenomenon that ________.

A．train passengers get bad advice on fares

B．rail passengers are ill-treated by station staff

C．booking clerks and the telephone helpline offer reliable information

D．rail passengers can get cheaper tickets if they book earlier

In this age of Internet chat, videogames and reality television, there is no shortage of mindless activities to keep a child occupied. Yet, despite all these, my 8-year-old daughter Rebecca wants to spend her leisure time writing short stories. She wants to enter one of her stories into a writing contest, a competition she won last year.

As a writer I know about winning contests, and about losing them. I know what it is like to work hard on a story only to receive a rejection slip from the publisher. I also know the pressures of trying to live up to a reputation created by previous victories. What if she doesn’t win the contest again? That’s the strange thing about being a parent. So many of our own past scars and dashed hopes can surface.

A revelation (启示) came last week when I asked her, “Don’t you want to win again?” “No,” she replied, “I just want to tell the story of an angel going to first grade.”

I had just spent weeks correcting her stories as she spontaneously (自发地) told them. Telling myself that I was merely an experienced writer guiding the young writer across the hall, I offered suggestions for characters, conflicts and endings for her tales. The story about a fearful angel starting first grade was quickly “guided” by me into the tale of a little girl with a wild imagination taking her first music lesson. I had turned her contest into my contest without even realizing it.

Staying back and giving kids space to grow is not as easy as it looks. Because I know very little about farm animals who use tools or angels who go to first grade, I had to accept the fact that I was co-opting (借用) my daughter’s experience.

While stepping back was difficult for me, it was certainly a good first step that I will quickly follow with more steps, putting myself far enough a way to give her room but close enough to help if asked. All the while I will be reminding myself that children need room to experiment, grow and find their own voices.

1．What do we learn from the first paragraph?  

A．Many children find lots of fun in mindless activities.

  B．Rebecca is much too occupied to enjoy her leisure time.

  C．Rebecca draws on a lot of online materials for her writing.

  D．Rebecca is different from any other child of her age. 

2．What did the author say about her own writing experience?   

  A．She did not quite live up to her reputation as a writer.

  B．Her way to success was full of pains and frustrations.

  C．She was constantly under pressure of writing more.

  D．Most of her stories had been rejected by publishers.

3．Why did Rebecca want to enter this year’s writing contest? 

  A．She believed she possessed real talent for writing.

  B．She was sure of winning with her mother’s help.

  C．She wanted to share her stories with readers.

  D．She had won a prize in the previous contest.

4．The author took great pains to refine her daughter’s stories because ________. 

  A．she believed she had the knowledge and experience to offer guidance

  B．she did not want to disappoint Rebecca who needed her help so much

  C．she wanted to help Rebecca realize her dreams of becoming a writer

  D．she was afraid Rebecca’s imagination might run wild while writing

5．What’s the author’s advice for parents?   

  A．A writing career, though attractive, is not for every child to pursue.

  B．Children should be allowed freedom to grow through experience.

  C．Parents should keep an eye on the activities their kids engage in.

     D．Children should be given every chance to voice their opinions.

Educating girls quite possibly brings in a higher rate of return than any other investment available in the developing world．Women education may be an unusual field for economists，but increasing women's contribution to development is actually as much an economic as a social issue．And economists provides guideposts that point to an explanation for why so many girls are deprived (被剥夺) of education.

     Parents in low-income countries fail to invest in their daughters because they do not expect them to make an economic contribution to the family：girls grow up only to marry into somebody else's family and bear children．Girls are thus seen as less valuable than boys and are kept at home to do housework while their brothers are sent to school — the prophecy (预言) becomes self-fulfilling, trapping women in a bad circle of neglect．

     An educated mother，on the other hand，has greater earning abilities outside the home and faces an entirely different set of choices．She is likely to have fewer but healthier children and can insist on the development of all her children，ensuring that her daughters are given a fair chance．The education of her daughters then makes it much more likely that the next generation of girls，as well as of boys, will be educated and healthy．The bad circle is thus transformed into a good one．

      Few will question that educating women has great social benefits, but it has enormous  economic advantages as well．Most obviously，there is the direct effect of education on the wages of female workers．Wages rise by 10 to 20 percent for each additional year of schooling．Such big returns are impressive by the standard of other available investments，but they are just the beginning．Educating women also has a significant influence on health practices，including family planning.

1．By saying “the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling…” in the second paragraph，the author means that          .

     A．girls will turn out to be less valuable than boys

     B．girls will be capable of realizing their own dreams

     C．girls will eventually find their goals in life beyond reach

     D．girls will be increasingly discontented with their life at home

2．The author believes that a bad circle can turn into good circle when          .

     A．women care more about education       

       B．girls can gain equal access to education

     C．a family has fewer but healthier children   

       D．parents can afford their daughters' education

3．What does the author say about women’s education?

     A．It deserves greater attention than other social issues.

     B．It is now highly valued in many developing countries

     C．It will bring in greater returns than other known investments

     D．It has aroused the interest of a growing number of economists.

4．The passage mainly discusses          .

     A．unequal treatment of boys and girls in developing countries

     B．the potential earning power of well-educated women

     C．the major contributions of educated women to society

     D．the economic and social benefits of educating women

In the future your automobile will run on water instead of gas! You will be able to buy a supercomputer that fits in your pocket! You might even drive a flying car!

For each prediction that has come true today, several others have missed by a mile. Many of these predictions didn’t consider how people would want to use the technology. Or if people really needed it in their lives or not. Let’s look at some predictions from the not-too-distant past.

Robot Helpers

Where’s the robot in my kitchen? Nowhere, of course. And he’s probably not coming anytime soon. Robots do exist today, but mostly in factories and other Manufacturing environments.

Back in the 1950s, however, people said that by now personal robots would be in most people’s home.

So why hasn’t happened? Probably because robots are still too expensive and Clumsy. And maybe the idea of robots cooking our dinners and washing our clothes is just too weirD．At home we seem to be doing fine without them.

Telephones of tomorrow?

In 1964 an American company introduced the video telephone. They said by the year 2000 most people would have a video phone in their homes. But of course the idea hasn’t caught on yet.

Why? The technology worked fine, but it overlooked something obvious: peoples desire for privacy. Would you want to have a video phone conversation with someone after you just stepped out of the shower? Probably not — it could be embarrassing! Just because a technology available doesn’t always mean people will want to use it.

And finally, how about that crazy prediction of the flying car? It’s not so crazy anymore! But a flying car remains one of the most fascinating technology ideas to capture our imagination. Keep watching the news — or perhaps the sky outside your window — to see what the future will bring.

1．The whole passage is mainly about ________.

A．predictions that have come true

B．predictions that haven’t come true

C．why predictions don’t come true easily                                

D．what technology will bring about

2．Which of the following is probably not the author’s belief?

A．Predictions needn’t consider people’s practical use of technology.

B．The future isn’t always easy to guess.

C．Not all past predictions have come true.

D．Many of the high-tech things our parents thought we’d be using by now simply never appeared.

3．The underlined word “weird” probably means ________.

A．wonderful          B．stupid                 C．practical               D．strange

4．What does the author think of the flying car?

A．It is too difficult to imagine.                B．It is too crazy an idea.

C．It is likely to be made.                        D．It is often reported in the news.