Mr. and Mrs. Smith have just opened a small restaurant. In order to attract customers (顾客) , they put a notice in front of the restaurant, and it said, “Meals on the House for three days.”

    A foreign student came to the place. He didn’t know much English.He happened to pass by the restaurant. It was lunch time and he felt very hungry. “Well, here is a restaurant. I am going to have something to eat.” He walked to the restaurant when he saw the notice. “American people are really strange. They even eat dinners on the house!__________ ” he said to himself.

He looked around and found a ladder (梯子) near the restaurant. He was very glad. But as he reached the top, he heard someone shouting at him. “Hey! What are you doing up there?” Mr. Smith was looking at him angrily and beside him was a policeman.

 “Doesn’t your notice say ‘Meals on the House for Three Days’? Is it just a joke?” the foreign student asked.

When they heard this, both Mr. Smith and the policeman laughed. “ Do you know what ON THE HOUSE means? Look it up in the dictionary,” the policeman suggested.

根据短文内容选择最佳答案。

 It is Julie’s birthday. Uncle says he will take Julie and her cousins to see a movie. They drive a car to the cinema. The children are very excited.

When they get to the cinema, they see a long queue(队) in the ticket hall. Uncle joins the queue to buy the tickets for the movie. He tells Julie and her cousins to go and buy something to eat. They go to a shop nearby. Julie buys a bag of popcorn(爆米花). Her cousins buy a piece of chocolate and some ice-cream.

Soon, Uncle has the tickets and they go into the cinema. They find their seats and sit down. After a while, the lights(灯)go off and the movie begins.

  If there is one person who has left a deep impression on me, it's my teacher, Mrs. Pathak .who

was my class teacher for three years. In my childhood, how I wished I had a mother or a sister like

her. One moment she could be hard-working and strict, another moment kind and patient.

    She always encouraged us to tell the truth. For example, if one had not done the homework.

he need not lie. She allowed us to make mistakes, saying we couldn't be perfect all the time. but we

should try.

    Another thing she taught me was punctuality She set a good example with her own actions.

She was always on time, so we students tried our best to be on time.

    She surprised us with her sense of humour. Her classroom teaching was always humorous.

After class .she talked to us and told us jokes

    We reallv felt free to ask questions and Mrs. Pathak would give the answers. If she did not

 know-there had been some occasions—she would say so. We all then tried to find out the

 answers. Whoever came up with the answers was praised and given the prize. Now I sometimes

 wonder whether Mrs. Pathak just wanted to encourage us to explore and find answers by ourselves

Many people like to read the Guinness Book of World Records(《吉尼斯世界纪录大全》), and some people want to be in it! How do people get their names in the book? They do something new and different, such as making the world’s largest cake with more than 54,000 eggs.

For many people, it is fun to make world records(记录). It’s exciting. But who eats the cake?

    While some people are making world records, others don’t have much food to eat. Hunger is a very serious problem in many places. How many old people do not have enough money to buy good food? How many children go to bed without dinner? The answer is “too many”.

Do your parents ever say, “Act like a lady” or “be a gentleman” to you? But in the eyes of today’s teenagers, what qualities should a lady or a gentleman have? Let’s take a look.

What is a gentleman? The girls have their say:
Huang Xiaoyu of Guizhou: A gentleman is not a strong, stupid guy. He doesn’t get angry. He cares about others’ feelings. He’s always ready to help. There is a boy in my class I think is a gentleman. I didn’t do well in the mid-term English exam. He comforted（安慰）me by saying I would do better next time. His words made me feel happier.
Chen Tingting of Shenzhen: A gentleman always says, “ladies first”. When it comes to cleaning up the classroom, he does the heavy work. He lets girls go into rooms first. There aren’t any gentlemen in my class. When there are snacks, the boys in my class are always the first to grab them!
    Boys tell us what they think a lady is:
Wu Yifan of Dalian, Liaoning: A ladylike girl is gentle and quiet. But she’s not shy; she’s not afraid of expressing herself. She is kind and beautiful. To me, actress Dong Jie is a lady. She is pretty and gentle. She also has a kind heart. She does a lot for charity.
Wang Lichao of Tianjin: A lady is not just pretty-looking but wise too. She never says rude words. She is not noisy. She is always calm and at ease. I don’t think there are any real ladies in my class. Most of the girls are of a style I call “wild beauties”.

When you’re not at home, many worries may start to crowd your mind. Did I turn the coffee maker off? Did I lock the door? Are the kids doing their homework or watching television? With a smart home, you can quiet all of these worries.

A smart home is a home with a communication network. This network connects devices(装置), such as lights and TV sets, and allows them to be controlled from far away through electrical wiring(线路), mobile phone communication or WiFi over the internet.

More and more people may start to consider owning a smart home, because it makes life much easier. It can help keep your room at a certain temperature. It can record what happens inside the home and send the video to your phone. When you are on vacation abroad, you can use a smart home controller to turn on or off the electricity when necessary. Some smart homes can receive a visitor, allowing him to come in and offering him a drink. They can even feed the cat and water the plants.

Besides, smart homes are easy to fix. Most smart home technology and devices are wireless and can be set up with a small tool(工具), using only the guiding information. When a problem appears, you can deal with it yourself without paying a professional worker.

However, for home-users, the smart home technology is far from perfect. It can be rather expensive to own the technology and the devices. Also, because the smart home system allow its owner to get home information from anywhere, it leaves the home easy to be attacked by hackers, who may secretly use or change the information in the system.

Now, many scientists are excited at the future of smart home technology. Imagine being able to get fashion advice from your mirror, or receive food shopping suggestions from your refrigerator. While there are others who worry that those smart devices will make people lazier and lonelier. Whatever it is, one thing is for sure---smart home technology will change the way we live and work.

New Technology Revolutionizes(变革)Learning

    More and more people believe that technologies are great for learning.Today,such teaching tools as ipads are used in a lot of courses,including language, history and science.

    Many teachers are supporters of using iPads in language learning.They say that students now have much more time for discussion in the classroom.Instead of spending valuable class time listening to texts or watching teaching videos,students can do this on their own and come to class prepared for discussion.

    The teachers also say that iPads allow students to learn at their own pace.Some students might listen to a dialogue only once and understand it,so they can save time for doing other things.Other students,however,might need to listen to the same dialogue again and again to understand it.Using iPads is especially helpful to stodents who are learning a language at different paces.

    The students who are using the new tool in some courses are also happy.They believe that using ipads is a more enjoyable way to learn(such as listening to stories and watching movies).The class has become much more interesting and creative.

    There are other advantages for students.By using iPads, they can pay more attention to the material and learn more.Teaching notes are stored in their iPads and are easy to find.Some students spend more time studying now."I can listen to my language material or watch teaching videos on the bus, instead of having to wait until I get home,"a student explained.

    Many adults complain that technologies such as iPads are doing hama to students.They worry that students might use iPads to download teaching notes and use them to cheat during exams.Some believe that [pads may separate students from each other.If a student spends more time watching videos on an ipad,he will have fewer opportunities to have face-to-face communication with others.

    However,technologies are already a part of most students'day-to-day lives.As for cheating,teachers can ask students to hand in their iPads when they take exams.Education needs to make

changes with the times as technology is playing an important part.We should look forward to a wonderful future when [pads and other technologies can add a lot to the classroom.

To many students, joining social media (社交媒体) “circles” is now more important than making new friends in real life. And it’s easy. If you have a cell phone, you can download apps (应用程序) such as Sina Weibo, WeChat (微信) and QQ.

    “I love to check my friends’ updates (更新). I also enjoy news and humor shared on social media,” Said Ou Wei, 14, from Hongling Middle School in Shenzhen. Because of enjoying these, Ou distances himself from real life. “I love playing the plane-shooting game on WeChat, but have no interest in playing flying chess with my classmates,” said Ou.

    Deng Yunyun, 14, from Jianfeng Middle School in Shanghai, said that social media had influenced their life. Recently his school held a basketball match, and a student hurt his leg. Instead of giving him some help, students were busy with updating micro blogs about the accident.

    “I think they need to learn to balance their real and online lives,” said Deng,

    What makes parents and teachers worried is safety. “Many students are happy to tell their interests and personal information to their social media “friends”. Such information could bring them danger,” said Han Songjun, a teacher at Hongling Middle School. For example, WeChat’s shake-shake function allows users to connect to other users close by. But the police warn about the danger of socializing in this way. “Be careful. Do not use the locating (定位) function in any app, do not give your name, and do not post the photos of your residential area (小区),” said the police.

C

    We are used to seeing plastic all around us. From bags to bottles and toothbrushes, plastic things fill our homes, schools, and offices. But what happens at these things after we use them?

    In the United States, recycling centers received tons of plastic every day. Experts say that does not stop plastic trash from polluting the sea. Plastic can end up in the ocean if the wind blows it there or if people litter. "The ocean is getting worse everywhere," says Charles Moore, an expert.

    In 1997, Moore traveled from Hawaii to California by sea. On the journey, he discovered a huge "island" in the Pacific Ocean. The "island" was mostly made of plastic trash and it was twice the size of Texas(德克萨斯). It became known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch(垃圾堆). Moore has been watching the "island" ever since he found it. "It's 100 times worse now than it was then," he said.

    All this plastic in the ocean puts sea animals at risk. Animals can become tangled(使缠结)in plastic. They can also take pieces of plastic for food by mistake. "The plastic makes them

 feel full, but they're not getting any good from that," says Jambeck, another expert. "They usually starve to death(饿死)."

    The plastic problem doesn't just appear in the Pacific. Each year, more and more plastic ends up in all of Earth's oceans. If we continue with business as usual, the plastic in the sea

 will double by the year 2025. But there are things we can do to stop it. Jambeck suggests choosing reusable things and picking products with less packaging(外包装).

    Moore says, "It's everybody's problem." But it's one we can all help eliminate.

Many teenagers（青少年） feel that the most important people in their lives are their friends. They think that their family members and even their parent don’t know them as well as their friend do. In large families, it is quite often for brothers and sisters to fight with each other and then they can only go to their friends for advice.

   It is very important for teenagers to have one good friend or a group of friends. Even when they are not with their friends, they usually spend a lot of time among themselves on the phone. The communication(交流) is very important in children’s growing up, because friends can discuss something . These things are  difficult to say to their family members. However, parents often try to choose their children’s friends for them. Some parents stop their children from their children from meeting their good friends.