Michael Perham (born on 16^th March, 1992 in Hertfordshire, England) is a boy who, at the age of 17, became the youngest person to sail around the world in the 50 feet racing boat, completing his journey on 7^th August, 2009. He started the world trip on the 15^th of November 2008 from Portsmouth, England.

    Just six days after Michael Perham set sail from Portsmouth, he started having serious problems with the boat, which he was unable to fix himself on the sea. He had to stop in Portugal. Just one day later, he set sail once again, with the hope of breaking David Dick’s world record for the youngest person to sail around the world.

    Michael met many challenges(挑战) along the way, including rough seas and knock-downs in the Southern Ocean, terrible loneliness and fighting storms, but the largest difficulty Michael faced was the boat itself. It caused one problem after another. Funnily he celebrated his birthday in March last year among the dolphins in Indian Ocean.

    Michael Perham has entered the record books after becoming the youngest person to sail around the world. The teenager already holds the record for being the youngest people to sail across the Atlantic, aged just 14.

    Michael Perham plans to create the Sail Michael Fund to encourage young people to take to the water. He is also aiming to take part in the 2012 Olympics.

a. Michael Perham started the world trip from Portsmouth.

b. Michael Perham became the youngest person to sail across the Atlantic.

c. Michael Perham celebrated his birthday in March last year among the dolphins in Indian Ocean.

d. Michael Perham became the youngest person to sail around the world.

(D)

Taking away a cityˈs rubbish is a big job. Every day trucks come into a city to collect it. Most rubbish is made up of things we canˈt eat or use. If we kept these things we would soon have a mountain of rubbish.

In some cities the rubbish is collected and taken outside of city to a dump. Often the city dump is placed where the ground is low or there is a big hole. The kitchen rubbish is broken into small pieces and sent into the sewage system. The sewage system takes away the used water from toilets, bathtubs and other places.

To keep mice and flies away, some earth is used to cover the newly dumped rubbish. Later, grass may be planted on the rubbish---filled land. Finally, a house or a school may be built there, and then youˈd never know that this had once been an old rubbish dump.

In other cities the rubbish is burnt in special places. The fire burns everything but the metal. Sometimes the metal can be used again in factories where things are made of metal. The food parts of rubbish are put in special piles where they slowly change into something called hurnus, which looks like black earth. It is rich with the kinds of things that feed plants and help them grow.

In 2013．Richard Blackson, the director of an US art gallery, visited 23 schools in Philadelphia. He found a room full of broken musical instruments at each school. The schools said the instruments had been there for a long time. But Blackson also found that 1,000 of the broken instruments could be repaired.

    In fact, many public schools in the United States don't have enough musical instruments because of budget(预算) curs. Several students often have to share one instrument. Thus, Blacken started a project called "Symphony for a Broken Orchestra(管弦乐团)", aiming to repair broken instruments for students.

    To raise money, he reached out to David Lang, a Pulitzer Prize－winning US musician. The musician Lang came up with the idea of writing a symphony for the broken instruments. On Dec 3,400 students and professional musicians held a concert. They performed Lang' s Symphony for a Broken Orchestra, which shares its name with the repair project.

    People can now go online to see profiles(简介) of all of the broken instruments and donate money m "adopt" one or more instruments. The project has raised over $ 237,000 (1.5 million yuan) so far, The New York Times reported. In the fall semester of this year, Philadelphia students will receive the repaired instruments.

    High school student Evelyn Mitka, 16, played a violin that was missing a string(弦) during the concert. She told Doge News that the performance taught her a lesson. "You can learn music in an untraditional way. "

66．The schools in Philadelphia didn't repair the broken instruments because ________.

67．"Symphony for a Broken Orchestra" is ________.

68．The New York Times reported that ________ according to the passage.

69．What does the underlined word " adopt" mean in the passage?

70．What can we know about Evelyn Mitka?

“Without music, life would be a mistake,” famous German philosopher(哲学家) Friendrich Nietzsche said over a century ago. Music is a big part of our lives. But in recent years, some US schools have cut music classes to control budgets(预算).

For example, Chicago public schools hurt arts education when it fired(解雇)over 1,000 teachers. Among them, 10 percent of the teachers taught art or music, according to The Washington Times. In fact, this is not just a problem in the US. In other countries, such as China and the UK, music classes are not thought to be as important as ones like science, math and history. That’s partly because music is not seen as a very important life skill, and it isn’t tested. Many students are busy with schoolwork, so parents and students choose to focus on subjects that are tested more often.

However, learning music is beneficial(有益的)in many ways.

When playing music, you need different abilities to work together. It is not as simple as it looks, according to Kenneth Guilmartin of Music Together, an early childhood music development program. For example, when playing the piano, people see music notes and decode(解码)them in their brains. They also use their fingers to make sounds. You need to deal with all these things at the same time.

Music has a special connection with science as well. You can see that many scientists are good at playing music: Einstein played the violin, and German physicist Max Planck was talented in playing the piano.

About ______ children in PA State have no homes of their own．

The underlined expression“ emotional support”means caring for a child's ______ ．

The General Meetings will be held ______ ．

The purpose of the material above is to help ______ ．

We can read material above probably from the ______ section of a newspaper．

As students, you may have many dreams. They can be very big like becoming Superman, or they can be small. You may just want to become one of the ten best students in your class.

    If you find a dream, what do you do with it? Do you ever try to make your dream come true?   

Follow Your Heart by Australian writer Andrew Matthews tells us that making our dreams come true is life’s biggestchallenge.

“You may think you’re not very good at some school subjects, or that it is impossible (不可能) for you to become a star. These ideas stop you from realizing your dream,” the book says.

In fact, everyone can make his dream come true. The first important thing you must do is to remember what your dream is.

Don’t let it leave your heart (心). Keep telling yourself what you want. Do this step by step (一步一步地) and your dream will come true faster. A big dream is, in fact, many small dreams.

Never give up (放弃) your dream. There will be difficulties on the road. But the biggest problem comes from yourself. You need to decide what is the most important. Studying instead of (代替) watching TV will bring you better exam points. Saving five yuan instead of buying an ice cream means you can buy a new book. When you get closer to your dream, it may change a little. Then you will be able to learn more skills and find new interests.

C

     When we ask readers, teachers and students what their biggest problems are in reading English newspapers, almost everyone immediately answers “vocabulary”! It is true that some readers are probably to find many new words, but that is not really a “problem”. We hope to show you a good way to increase your vocabulary.

      One way to do this is, of course, to make a great effort to learn new vocabulary by using your dictionary. Look up a large number of new words you meet in the newspaper. That is not the method (方法) we are going to talk about, however. In fact, overusing the dictionary is not good for your understanding of the stories. It slows down your reading speed so much that it is difficult to see how ideas fit together. Instead, we are going to suggest very useful ways for increasing your vocabulary and your reading comprehension (理解) at the same time.

     One of the fastest way to build your vocabulary through the newspaper is on a “topic by topic” basis (基础). You can do this by reading stories with similar topics. You can also follow an interesting story for several days or more. You will begin to see a group of words commonly associated (有联系的) with the topic.

       The other way we suggest is to use context to learn vocabulary. Sometimes you can guess the meaning of the new words with the help of the sentences around them. Also, some newspapers are made to be understood easily. Stories are written for general audience, not for experts. And there are also several photographs besides the stories.

Which university is the best in the world? To answer this question, university rankings (排名) may be helpful. Recently, Times Higher Education, a London educational magazine, made a list of 100 universities with the best reputation (声誉).

    Harvard University sits on top. Massachusetts Institute of Technology comes in second and Stanford University makes the top three. China's Tsinghua and Peking University are ranked 36th and 41st place.

    Rankings can guide us when we choose a university. But it is not the only important reason. Learning about which university has the best course yon want to study is also important. Some universities may not rank highly overall but will have great courses. In China, architectural (建筑) design is the best course in Tianjin University, which is among the best in China. Mathematics at Zhejiang University also has a great reputation. In the US, New York University is famous for their philosophy (哲学) course.

    Besides, selecting a university is not only an academic (学术的) choice. For those who are going to study abroad, they also need to think about if their personality will fit the campus culture.

    Some universities such as Stanford and Duke are proud of their "high-tech culture". Their libraries are full of advanced facilities. They bring lots of convenience to the users. Other universities pride themselves on their "green campuses". For example, in the University of Minnesota, the US, students and teachers work with the local community to keep their environment nice and clean. The University of Iowa is No. l in the US for parties. Many students enjoy talking and drinking in the bar.

    Are you ready to find your dream university? Remember, the early bird catches the worm.

The Silk Road is a strange name for a road that was not a road. It was not made from silk. It was in fact different trading routes（路线）that began in Ancient times.

It was thought that the Silk Road began when King David was the ruler of the Israelities(以色列). It was also near the time when the ancient Japanese began growing rice. So the Silk Road was really old. In ancient times, some people began to explore(探索) the land around them. They found other people living in other areas. These people were different to their cultures. They ate different foods and had different products. People began to trade products for things they wanted and silk materials were traded especially. They were very expensive. It is thought that this trade gave the Silk Road its name.

    Traders usually travelled for a long time. They were away from their homes and families for many days. They did not have cars and telephones. They walked with camels and horses. The traders had to climb mountains and cross deserts. There were wild animals which could attack them. Robbers stole their goods. Sometimes the weather was very awful. Yet, still the traders continued with their business.

     This trading system from those ancient times affects the way we all eat in our different countries today. It took many years for the different crops to be traded across the world. Seeds(种子)were taken from one area to another. The people had to learn how to grow new crops. They had to learn how to use the new food to make food they could enjoy. For example, in the west,  Wheat was used to make bread. When wheat reached China, it was used to make noodles and dumplings. If the traders weren’t so brave, our food might be very different to what we know now.

B

    Here are five points you can follow to improve your English, and the first is most important,

     It’s your duty to realize your goals!

   Studying English is your own duty and not duty of your teacher or your parents. You must take an active part in your classes!

Get a teacher or go to a class!

It’s a little difficult to study English alone Also, it’s difficult to learn how to speak English if you don’t have an English teacher to talk with.

Work as hard as possible in class!

  You need to practice speaking often. You should listen carefully, take notes, remember words and read a lot in class.

    Keep studying it!

Don’t stop for a long time such as during a summer holiday! It’s important to

practice English 3 hours every week. To make good progress, you should study at least 5 hours each week.

Make English your hobby and have fun!

You can improve your English through other activities:

Reading – there are sure to be English books that you can read.

Singing English songs – choose your favorite English songs and sing them again and again.

Watching English films – many films are also in English with subtitles in your language. They are helpful.

Traveling – traveling in English – speaking countries can help you with English.