The editor of the new Cool Camping Britain guide chooses some of his favorite new finds in England, Wales and Scotland.

Cleadale, Isle of Eigg, Inner Hebrides

       Is this Britain’s most beautiful campsite? From the grassy point looking seaward to the mountains, it’s not hard for campers to see how the island inspired The Lord of the Rings author’s fantasy landscapes. The campsite itself is as wild and wonderful as its setting.

       Open April - September, from ￡5 per tent per night.

Swattesfield, Thornham Magna, Suffolk

       Deep in the wilds of north Suffolk, this seven-acre campsite has only been open for a few years, with two fields separated by a lake and surrounded by woodland. The position is perfect. It’s a great place to do nothing but get into nature. You can put up your tent in the bottom field or the woodland beyond.

Open Easter - October, from ￡10 per tent per night.

Pleasant Streams Farm, near St Austell, Cornwall

       This site, by a lake, is all about simple pleasures. Located in the former mining village, it has a summerhouse(凉亭) with books and games for a rainy day. There are many animals including pigs, hens, goats and ducks on the farm and a pub just a 10- minute stroll away. There’s very little to do here, no bells and no whistles. Campfires are encouraged.

       Open Easter - September, from ￡10 per tent per night.

Troytown Campsite, St Agnes, Isles of Sciily

       Its only campsite, Troytown, couldn’t be in a more remote position. Isolation is its greatest advantage — so bring plenty of books to read and don’t expect a phone signal. But at least one of life’s necessities is available. Lying on the hillside overlooking the bay and near the island of the Gugh, it might just win the prize for best beer garden view in England.

Open March - October, from ￡7. 50 per tent per night,

1. Which of the following is TRUE about Cleadale, Isle of Eigg, Inner Hebrides?

  A. It has been open for a few years.     B. A beautiful lake surrounds it.

  C. It offers the longest service.         D. The rent of a tent per night is the lowest.

2. Which place can you choose if you like a simple farm life?

  A. Cleadale, Isle of Eigg, Inner Hebrides.

  B. Swattesfield, Thornham Magna, Suffolk.

  C. Pleasant Streams Farm, near St Austell, Cornwall.

  D. Troytown Campsite, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly.

3. In Troytown Campsite, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, you can’t ________.

  A. contact others by phones               B. view the bay from the hillside

  C. get everyday necessities                       D. relax yourself by reading

Perhaps Van Gogh（1853-1890）isn’t the most famous artist in the world, but his personal story is probably the most well known. The paintings he created didn’t become famous until after he died. Last year marked the 125th anniversary of his death. An art exhibition was in Beijing till Dec. 6, in which more than 3,000 photos of the artist’s masterpieces were shown. However, the paintings that made him famous after his death did little for him when he was alive.

Van Gogh was born into a rich family in the Netherlands. He started his career working for an art dealer. But then he tried other things like teaching in England. He also tried to become a priest, but failed the exams.

Finally, he found something else to believe in while he was living in a small mining town in Belgium—art. He returned to his childhood love of painting and drawing.

       He was an important and great artist in a generation that challenged the Impressionist style. Post-Impressionists, like Van Gogh, wanted to show the world as it felt to them, not always as it looked.

       Van Gogh used different forms and colors to make his art more abstract. The way he used colors was especially impressive. In Wheatfield with Crows (1890), the colors are very intense. Corn is yellow, grass is green, and crows are black. But the colors are used in such a way that it looks better than a photograph.

Unfortunately, Van Gogh’s art wasn’t very popular while he was alive. He was poor and was thought to have mental problems, which led him to cut off his ear and eventually die by shooting himself. Arguably, it wasn’t the art that gave him mental problems. What made him so sad may have been the difficulty of working as an artist in a practical world.

4. What can we know about Van Gogh from the passage?

  A. He was born into a rich family in the Netherlands 125 years ago.

  B. He was a teacher, a priest and a miner before he became an artist.

  C. He did not get much wealth or fame from his works before he died.

  D. He decided to be an artist when he worked as an art dealer.

5. According to the passage, Van Gogh impressed people deeply by ________.

  A. how he used colors in his paintings

  B. how he became famous for his paintings

  C. how he showed the world exactly as it looked

  D. how he began to love art while living in Belgium

6. What might have caused Van Gogh’s mental problems?

  A. The art of painting.                 B. The loss of one of his ears.

  C. Pressure from his family.                    D. Not being accepted or recognized.

7. What can be the best title of this passage?

  A. Wheatfield with Crows              B. An Artist’s Sad Story

  C. Childhood of Van Gogh                D. An Art Exhibition of Van Gogh

       Times are a little tough at our house right now. Neither of us makes a lot of money, but years of experience have taught us how to walk between the raindrops and make it from one month to the next with a fair amount of grace. I cook a lot at home, more when we're facing lean times. When I know that I have to keep us fed on not much money, I fall back on my grandmother's recipes. She taught me to cook.

       When I was a kid, my twin brother and I spent long summer weeks and Christmas vacations with my mother's parents in the mountains of North Carolina. Rather than go hunting with my grandfather on frozen mornings, I found myself more and more in the kitchen with my grandmother, watching her making a lemon cheese pie with her soft hands.

       My great-grandmother died when my grandmother was 11 years old. As the eldest daughter, she was expected to take on all of the housework while attending school. Throughout the Great Depression, she learned how to make a little food go a long way. Vegetables were cheap, so she cooked a lot of them, mostly only using small amounts of meat for seasoning. Roast beef was a twice-a-month luxury, but there was nothing she couldn't do with a chicken, every part of it. Nothing went to waste.

       Now I understand that her food was sacred. I feel connected to my grandmother and to hundreds of years of family when I'm in my kitchen making country food. In the delicious smells is a long tale of victory over hard times, of conquering starvation—of not just surviving, but finding joy and pleasure in every meal of every day.

       From grandmother I learned to take real satisfaction in feeding people. My grandmother would beam with pleasure over a heavily laden table and say, “Do you know what this would cost at the restaurant? ” I never knew what restaurant in particular she had in mind, but I knew that the question was totally not fair, because no restaurant anywhere can cook like a grandmother. But now, thanks to her guidance and years of practice, I can.

8. According to the passage, the author cooks a lot at home because__________.

  A. she wants to try out her grandmother’s recipes

  B. she and her husband are quite particular about food

  C. she enjoys cooking at home

  D. she and her husband are embarrassed financially

9. What does the underlined word “lean” mean in the first paragraph?

  A. with a bad harvest                B. with little money

  C. with little enengy                  D. with little work

10. According to the passage, the author’s grandmother__________.

  A. learnt to cook throughout the Great Depression

  B. was careful in budgeting

  C. preferred chicken to beef

  D. was careful in cooking vegetables

11. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A. Cook like My Grandmother          B. My Grandmother’s Sacred Food

C. My Grandmother’s Recipe           D. Joy and Pleasure in Cooking

Imagine you’re at a party full of strangers. You’re nervous. Who are these people? How do you start a conversation? Fortunately, you’ve got a thing that sends out energy at tiny chips in everyone’s name tag. The chips send back name, job, hobbies, and the time available for meeting-whatever. Making new friends becomes simple.

This hasn’t quite happened in real life. But the world is already experiencing a revolution using RFID technology.

An RFID tag with a tiny chip can be fixed in a product, under your pet’s skin, even under your own skin. Passive RFID tags have no energy source-batteries because they do not need it. The energy comes from the reader, a scanning device, that sends out energy (for example, radio waves) that starts up the tag immediately.

Such a tag carries information specific to that object, and the data can be updated. Already, RFID technology is used for recognizing each car or truck on the road and it might appear in your passport. Doctors can put a tiny chip under the skin that will help locate and obtain a patient’s medical records. At a nightclub in Paris or in New York the same chip gets you into the VIP section and pays for the bill with the wave of an arm.

Take a step back: 10 or 12 years ago, you would have heard about the coming age of computing. One example always seemed to surface: Your refrigerator would know when you needed to buy more milk. The concept was that computer chips could be put everywhere and send information in a smart network that would make ordinary life simpler.

RFID tags are a small part of this phenomenon. “The world is going to be a loosely coupled set of individual small devices, connected wirelessly,” predicts Dr. J. Reich. Human right supporters are nervous about the possibilities of such technology. It goes too far tracking school kids through RFID tags, they say. We imagine a world in which a beer company could find out not only when you bought a beer but also when you drank it. And how many beers. Accompanied by how many biscuits.

When Marconi invented radio, he thought it would be used for ship-to-shore communication. Not for pop music. Who knows how RFID and related technologies will be used in the future. Here’s a wild guess: Not for buying milk.

12. The article is intended to           .

  A. warn people of the possible risks in adopting RFID technology

  B. explain the benefits brought about by RFID technology

  C. convince people of the uses of RFID technology

  D. predict the applications of RFID technology

13. We know from the passage that with the help of RFID tags, people           .

  A. will have no trouble getting data about others

  B. will have more energy for conversation

  C. will have more time to make friends

  D. won’t feel shy at parties any longer

14. Why are some people worried about RFID technology?

  A. Because children will be tracked by strangers.

  B. Because market competition will become more fierce.

  C. Because their private lives will be greatly affected.

  D. Because customers will be forced to buy more products.

15. The last paragraph implies that RFID technology           .

  A. will not be used for such matters as buying milk

  B. will be widely used, including for buying milk

  C. will only be used for buying milk

  D. will probably not be widely used

Third-Culture Kids

Did you grow up in one culture, your parents came from another, and you are now living in a totally different country? If so, then you are a third-culture kid!

The term “third-culture kid” (or TCK) was coined in the 1960s by Dr. Ruth. She first came across this phenomenon when she researched North American children living in India. Caught between two cultures, they form their very own.    16    About 90 percent of them have a university degree, while 40 percent pursue a postgraduate or doctor degree. They usually benefit from their intercultural experience, which helps them to grow into successful academics and professionals.

17   In fact many hardships may arise from this phenomenon. A third-culture kid may not be able to adapt themselves completely to their new surroundings as expected. Instead, they may always remain an outsider in different host cultures. Max, for example, experienced this fundamental feeling of strangeness throughout his life as a third-culture kid.   18   While this can be a way to create a network of friends all around the world, it can be difficult for a third-culture kid like Max to maintain close friendships and relationships.

For a third-culture kid, it is often easier to move to a new foreign country than to return to their “home” country. After living in Australia and South Korea for many years, Louis finally returned to Turkey as a teenager. But she felt out of place when she returned to the country where she was born.   19   She did not share the same values as her friends’ even years after going back home.

While a third-culture kid must let go of their identity as foreigner when he/she returns, the home country can prove to be more foreign than anything he/she came across before. The peer group they face does not match the idealized image children have of “home”.  20 

As a part of the growing “culture”, TCKs may find it a great challenge for them to feel at home in many places.

A. Yet being a third-culture kid is not always easy.

B. In general, they often reach excellent academic results.

C. This often makes it hard for them to form their own identity.

D. However, their parents can help them see the opportunities of a mobile lifestyle.

E. Their experience abroad helps them to gain a better understanding of cultural differences.

F. Unlike other teens of her age, she didn’t know anything about current TV shows or fashion trends.

G. Additionally, making new friends and saying goodbye to old ones will at some point become routine for a third-culture kid.