(  B  )

   Long bus rides are like television shows. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end with commercials thrown in every three or four minutes. The commercials are unavoidable. They happen whether you want them or not. Every couple of minutes a billboard glides by outside the bus window. "Buy Super Clean Tooth  paste."  "Drink Good Wet Root Beer." "Fill up with Pacific Gas." Only if you sleep, which is equal to turning the television set off, are you spared the unending cry of "You Need It! Buy It Now!"

　　The beginning of the ride is comfortable and somewhat exciting, even if you‘ve traveled that way before. Usually some things have changed new houses, new buildings, sometimes even a new road. The bus driver has a style of driving and it‘s fun to try to figure it out the first hour or so .If the driver is particularly reckless (鲁莽的) or daring, the ride can be as thrilling as a suspense story. Will the driver pass the truck in time? Will the driver move into the right or the left?  After a while, of course, the excitement dies down. Sleeping for a while helps pass the middle hours of the ride. Food always makes bus rides more interesting. But you‘ve got to be careful of what kind of food you eat. Too much salty food can make you very thirsty between stops.

　　The end of the ride is somewhat like the beginning. You know it will soon be over and there’s a kind of expectation and excitement in that. The seat of course, has become harder as the hours have passed. By now you’ve sat with your legs crossed, with your hands in your lap, with your hands on the arm rest, even with your hands crossed behind your head. The end comes just at no more ways to sit.

A Survey Report On the Middle School Students Laptop (手提电脑) Buying The students in Sunshine Middle School hope to know the situation on the middle school students buying laptop through the questionnaire (调查问卷) survey. By this, they could study the information to find the laptop brand (品牌), price and the main use which the middle school students prefer. They gave out 200 questionnaires. The followings show the results.

                1Laptop brand                                      2 Laptop price

         3The buying places                                    4The main use

C

It is quite reasonable to blame traffic jams, the cost of gas and the great speed of modern life,but manners on the road are becoming horrible.Everybody knows that the nicest men would become fierce tigers behind the wheel.It is all right to have a tiger in a cage,but to have one in the driver's seat is another matter.

Road politeness is not only good manners,but a good sense.It takes the most cool-headed drivers great patience to give up the desire to beat back when forced to face rude driving.On the other hand,a little politeness goes a long way towards reducing the possibility of quarrelling and fighting.A friendly nod or a wave of thanks in answer to an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of good will and becomes so necessary in modern traffic conditions.But such behavior of politeness is by no means enough. Many drivers nowadays don't even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it.

However,misplaced politeness can also be dangerous.A typical example is the driver who waves a child crossing the street at a wrong place into the path of oncoming cars that may not be able to stop in time.The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they want to.

An experienced driver,whose manners are faultless,told me it would help if drivers learnt to correctly join in a traffic stream without causing total blockages that give rise to unpleasant feelings.Unfortunately,modern drivers can't even learn to drive,let alone master the roadmanship. Years ago,experts warned us that the fast increase of the car ownership would demand more give and take from all road users.It is high time for all of us take this message to heart.

B

There have been plenty of evidences and researches to show that women are better at communicating than men, at least when it comes to perceiving (理解) and expressing feelings. However, regardless of their social status, age, or level of education, it seems that men tend to hold the audience’s attention more easily than women do. Studies report that both male and female audiences tend to listen more attentively to male speakers than female speakers. Besides, even when the speeches are basically the same, audiences also tend to remember more information from speeches given by male speakers than from those given by female speakers. Even at a meeting, another study finds, audiences are more focused and less absent-minded when listening to a man than they are when listening to a woman.

Before we jump into a conclusion and decide these findings are all gender-biased, it is noteworthy that these findings can be explained from the biological point of view. The lower tones which men speak in are often easier on the ears. On the other hand, a high-pitched (尖厉的) voice, which is characteristic of women’s voice, may not seem favorable for the audiences ears, and in turn may prevent people from actually hearing the information hidden in a speech.

Actually, as it turns out, it is men that talk more than women do, especially when they feel an urge to show off their expert knowledge or dispense their opinions when asked. This assumption has been backed by studies, which show that men really enjoy talking, or bragging, in their field of knowledge. In fact, men tend to give more and longer answers than necessary to the questions they are asked. In one study, for instance, when asked to give their opinions on a new cell phone, men spoke for thirteen minutes each on average, while women spoke for only three minutes each on average.

Goldfish have pretty boring lives, so maybe it’s a good thing they can only concentrate for nine seconds! But according to new research, humans are becoming like goldfish. Our attention span (时长) is getting shorter ...and it’s all because of technology.　　

“We move quickly from one site to another on the web,” says Doctor Ted Selker, a computer scientist from Massachusetts, “and we are losing the ability to concentrate.” With millions of websites to choose from, the attention span of the average internet user is just seconds. There are other digital distractions（分心）too: email, instant messaging and quickie movies on websites. 

Some people are worried about the effect on young people. “You need time to understand and think about what you read,” says Julia Wood, from London. “Young people search the net all the time and their brains become full of useless information but there is no time to make sense of it. I am trying to persuade my pupils to read more books, so that they concentrate on one subject for longer.”　　

Other teachers are trying more unusual methods to improve students’ concentration. Anne Savan, from Wales, was so worried about her students that she started playing Mozart during her lessons. She says that it had an amazing effect: “The music made them calmer, and their concentration was much better.”

But not everyone believes that there is a problem. Ray Cole, an educational psychologist says: “On the web, young people learn to make quick decisions about what is and isn’t worth reading.

They might look at five unhelpful websites very quickly, before stopping and reading a sixth useful website more carefully. In a world with so much information available, this is an important skill.”

In China, many people are leaving the countryside to find jobs in the cities, because the countryside is much poorer than the city, and often there isn’t much work there. Services such as hospital and transport are usually much better in the city than in the countryside. They hope that their lives will improve when they move to the city.

   But in the big cities of Europe like London or Paris, people are moving out of the city. These rich families want to live a quieter life. They are tired of the noise and the dirt of the city, and they are tired of the crowded streets, crowded trains and buses. They don’t want to live in the cities any more. They want a house with a garden in the countryside, and breathe the fresh air there.

    So they move out of the cities. Some don’t go very far, just a little way out of the city, to the towns near the cities, other people move to the real countryside with sheep, cows and green fields. There, they start new lives and try to make new friends.

    Not all those who move from the city to the countryside are happy. After two or three years, many people who have done this feel that it is a big mistake. They don’t make so much money and there isn’t much work to do. People in the countryside are very different and aren’t always very friendly.

    As a result, quite a lot of people who have moved to the countryside move back to the city. “It’s wonderful to see crowds in the streets and cinema lights” they say.

In China, many people are leaving the countryside to find jobs in the cities, because the countryside is much poorer than the city, and often there isn’t much work there. Services such as hospital and transport are usually much better in the city than in the countryside. They hope that their lives will improve when they move to the city.

   But in the big cities of Europe like London or Paris, people are moving out of the city. These rich families want to live a quieter life. They are tired of the noise and the dirt of the city, and they are tired of the crowded streets, crowded trains and buses. They don’t want to live in the cities any more. They want a house with a garden in the countryside, and breathe the fresh air there.

    So they move out of the cities. Some don’t go very far, just a little way out of the city, to the towns near the cities, other people move to the real countryside with sheep, cows and green fields. There, they start new lives and try to make new friends.

    Not all those who move from the city to the countryside are happy. After two or three years, many people who have done this feel that it is a big mistake. They don’t make so much money and there isn’t much work to do. People in the countryside are very different and aren’t always very friendly.

    As a result, quite a lot of people who have moved to the countryside move back to the city. “It’s wonderful to see crowds in the streets and cinema lights” they say.