OUR KIDS ARE AMAZING ---especially compared with everybody else’s (who seem to cry all the time). How do you show your love for your kids this holiday season? With toys that are smooth and colorful, interactive and exciting. And with ones that have educational value---because you are the boss.

1. FLAX ART HOSPITAL PUZZLE AND PLAY SET

Here is a toy that doesn’t need power---and the kids have to put it together themselves. This 50-piece puzzle set is made of soft-edged hardwood and makes a complete hospital, with an X-ray room. It also includes eight patients, a car and a driver. 

  $135;  flaxart.com.

Sure, it’s cool, but this colorful baby toy also develops problem solving and motor skills. It has a head and legs, a magnetic(磁性的) hand and a tail. Suitable for little ones from 6 to 36 months. 

  $19．95;  tinylove.com.

3. ROBOSAPIEN

  This small, remote-control robot is really powerful. It performs 67 preprogrammed functions, including throwing, kicking, picking up and dancing. You can even program your own function-which, sadly, does not include doing windows.

  $99;  robosapienonline.com.

4. MINI PEDAL CAR

  Want a Mini Cooper but can’t fit the family inside? Get one for the kids. They can jump into this Mini car, which comes in hot orange with a single adjustable(可调的) seat, and ride away. But it could spoil them for that used car they’ll be driving when they turn 16．For ages 3 to 5．$189; miniusA.com  (click on “gear up,” then “Mini motoring gear”).

21. Which toy is said to have the special design for children’s safety?

       A. ROBOSAPIEN

       B. MINI PEDAL CAR

       C. FLAX ART HOSPITAL PUZZLE AND PLAY SET

       D. TINY LOVE ACTIVITY BALL

22. Which toy are fit for three-year-old kids?

       A. 1 and 3．         B. 2 and 4        C. 1 and 2    D. 3 and 4．

23. Educational value is mentioned in all the toys EXCETP _________.

       A. FLAX ART HOSPITAL PUZZLE AND PLAY SET

       B. TINY LVE ACTIVITY BALL

       C. ROBOSAPIEN

       D. MINI PEDAL CAR

24. This passage is written for __________.

       A. parents        B. children  C. the writer  D. the boss

Cats and dogs aren’t usually friendly but they can work together well when there’s a common goal.

Matt Hirst’s pets were recently caught on camera conspiring to open the kitchen door while the master was away.

According to his post on Reddit, Hirst — who lives in the U.K. — had been arriving home all week to notice one of the doors open, even though he knew he shut it before he left. After the fourth time the door was open he decided to set up a hidden camera.

 “The first time, I assumed I just must have left the door open. The second time, I checked the whole house thinking that someone was breaking in (and began to suspect the cat). The third time I figured it must be the cat, and decided to catch him out, so set the camera up and left it going all day,” he wrote.

Just three hours after leaving the house, the cat jumps up onto a scratch tower and starts pawing at the door.

It takes the cat just over a minute to finally break through and then both cat and dog escape to the other side.

资*源%库 Click at 25. Which of the following about cats and dogs are true?

   A. Cats and dogs can never work together.

   B. Cats and dogs can be friends if they work together.

   C. Cats and dogs can get along well with each other if they live under the same roof.

   D. Cats and dogs can cooperate with each other in order to finish something.

26. What can we learn from the passage?

   A. Matt Hirst wrote to the newspaper about the story.

   B. Matt Hirst set up a hidden camera the first time he found the door was open.

   C. Matt Hirst didn’t see how the cat and the dog open the door in person.

   D. Matt Hirst was glad that his cat and dog are clever.

27. How did the cat open the door of the kitchen?

   A. The cat got the key to the door.

   B. The cat and the dog knocked the door open together.

   C. The cat opened the door with its paws.

   D. The cat opened the door with the help of its owner.

28. Where will you probably read this passage?

A. On a website.  B. In a science fiction.  C. In a newspaper.  D. In a magazine.

Sleeping in is one of the best parts of the weekend. After a long, exhausting work week, sometimes all you want to do is sleep. On Friday night, you slide under the covers, smiling in anticipation. Now you can finally catch up on your sleep.

Except you can’t. When you open your eyes Saturday morning, it’s still early. If this were a weekday, you’d be up before your alarm. So what’s the deal?

We hate to break it to you, but you’ve pretty much done this to yourself. Your body is very good at recognizing patterns and adjusting accordingly. If you’ve got a 9-to-5 job, you’re getting up early five days a week. This effectively sets your body clock to wake you at a certain time each day. You can shut off your alarm clock, but your body clock will just keep ticking.

There’s another reason that you probably don’t want to think about: You’re just not as young as you used to be. We need less sleep as we get older. Babies need between 16 and 20 hours. Teenagers should (but often don’t) get nine hours a night. Younger and middle-aged adults need eight. In general, the older you get, the harder it is to snooze the day away.

Even if you do manage to sleep in, you may never fully catch up on your sleep. If your body needs eight hours every night and you only get six or seven from Monday to Friday, you’d have to sleep an extra five to ten hours on Saturday to make it up. And experts say even that may not be enough.

The bottom line: Sleep when you can, and enjoy those extra weekend morning hours. Who doesn’t want a longer weekend?

29. What does the underlined sentence mean in Paragraph 1?

   A. You know that you will oversleep on Saturday morning.

   B. You needn’t get up early on Saturday morning, so you will have a better sleep.

   C. Since you don’t work on Saturday, you needn’t go to sleep as usual.

   D. You know that even though you needn’t get up early on Saturday morning, you will wake as usual.

30. What can we learn from Paragraph 3?

   A. If you have a 9-to-5 job, you are likely to develop a flexible body clock.

   B. Once you have set your body clock, it is not easy to change it.

   C. The author will not break the pattern, but you will do it yourself.

   D. If you adjust your body clock accordingly, you are healthy.

31. Which of the following is the reason why you can’t sleep in on weekends?

   A. You are not willing to admit that you are old.

   B. You need to relax on the weekend.

   C. Your body clock still works on weekends.

   D. You can never get enough sleep.

32. Which is the best title of the passage?

   A. Why can't I sleep in on weekends anymore?

   B. Why can’t I catch up on my sleep?

   C. How to turn off my body clock on Saturdays?

   D. How to get more sleep on Saturday mornings?

With more recognition than Halloween and less than Christmas, Valentine’s Day as an imported festival faces a dangerous situation in China, where it’s caught between forces of tradition and fashion. Valentine’s Day has a natural enemy in China. And it is not the Chinese equivalent, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month on the lunar calendar, usually around half a year away from Feb. 14. It is the Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year, which will influence the Feast of Saint Valentine.

The real disagreement between East and West probably took place over a century ago, when China’s door was forced open by Western powers and Chinese scholars supported westernization as a means to strengthen our nation’s ability to compete. The introduction of the solar calendar and Western measurements was both an acknowledgment of their influence and an effort to be accepted by the world order.    

For a full century, we have had two systems running in parallel. When it comes to the eventual outcome, practicality usually beats all other concerns. Laws can help, such as the three traditional festivals of Tomb Sweeping, Dragon Boat and Mid-Autumn gaining legal status in 2008 and giving every Chinese citizen a day off, but laws cannot push what people have no feelings for. So, the celebration or boycott of imported holidays or homegrown ones should be no cause for worry. If they are irrelevant, no social media will change the public’s mind; and if they are accepted, there must be a need which they happen to satisfy.

Since we have no global Qin Shihuang to force one system on every country, we can always rely on a dual (双重) approach by which we share with the outside world on one hand but preserve our own ways of life on the other.

33. What does the author say about Valentine’s Day in China?

   A. It is better received than Christmas.

   B. It brings potential danger to people.

   C. It becomes increasingly popular.

   D. It happens to have a natural enemy.

34. The underlined word “equivalent” in the first paragraph refers to ________.

   A. the Chinese Valentine’s Day                B. the Spring Festival

   C. fashion                                             D. custom

35. Which of the following can decide what to celebrate according to the author?

   A. Laws.              B. Media.      C. Needs.                D. Tradition.

  Now it is job hunting season again. The job fairs flood with hundreds and thousands of 2011 graduate students. Owing to the global financial crisis, most of the graduate students admit that job hunting is not that easy any longer.
  It is always a painful process for college students to find jobs. 　36　   . However, job positions are quite limited. In order to get a job, the candidates should be more competitive than ever before.
  A Chinese expert predicted that the job hunting pressure in China, with a rocketing increase in the active labor force, would reach its climax in 2006. Yet, this situation continues in 2010. In order to transfer the human resources that are more than needed or wanted to the less developed areas in China, the government has tried to launch a series of policies to help release the pressure. 　 37 　.　　　
　　38　. A higher education may be more helpful to find a good job in the future, while the temptation of an exciting job and the strong will of being a “real” adult urge the youth to step into society early. For example, when an undergraduate mechanical science and technology major at a famous university is preparing for his postgraduate exam, he receives an offer from a big foreign company one day. 　39　. Anyway, it is really tough to prepare for the postgraduate examination.
　  40　. This is a tough time and everyone should have some shining points to win the employers’ favor. As products of universities, college students are expected to be first-rate talents and should step into the excellent group in the society. However, these students may achieve unexpected success in the fields where their professional knowledge functions to its maximization.
A. Most probably, he is so excited that he decides to quit the exam next year.
B. Almost everyone worries about the result of the postgraduate examination.
C. “Survival of the fittest.” Darwin’s evolution theory appears in the personnel market.
D. With many colleges enlarged in recent years, large numbers of graduates need to hunt jobs.
E. What’s more, financial support is provided to encourage the graduates to start their own career.
F. To go on with further education or to find a job is one of the hardest decisions for the graduate students to make now.
G. Competition for a job would be fierce as graduates this year will have to join the job hunting group from previous years.