Father is always busy with his work. He knows nothing about housework. He never eats if everyone doesn’t cook for him.

One day, Mother was ill in bed. Father had to cook himself. First， he had to go shopping. But he didn’t know what to buy. So Mother wrote all these things on a piece of paper：

（1）cake（2） egg （3） tomato （4） fish （5） milk （6） salt （7） chicken

Father went out with the paper in his hand. Half an hour later he returned home, with a smile on his face. He brought out all the things: ONE cake, TWO eggs, THREE tomatoes, FOUR fish, FIVE bottles of milk, SIX bags of salt and SEVEN fat chickens. Mother was very surprised and she couldn’t say a word.

Many men are happier when they do some housework according to a new study.

The result surprised the workers who started the study .“We wanted to find out that men got more problems and that their life became worse when they did more housework after work，” a worker at the University of Cambridge said.The study was made in seven European countries with thousands of people. They were analyzed how much time they spent on chores such as cooking，washing，cleaning，shopping. The workers put the surprising result down and find that more and more men like doing the housework and women are more confident than they were in the past.

“In the past, men might feel sad, because doing some housework might influence their work. Women also had the problem for a long time，” the studyˈs report said. “Now some men live a better life after doing some chores.”

Justin was excited because his class would visit the fire station. His uncle Frank was one of the firemen and would show the class around during the visit.

    The next day, Justin’s class left for the fire station and waited for Uncle Frank to come and start their visit. They began by looking at the big fire trucks. “Being a fireman is a hard job,” said Uncle Frank. “You need to be in good health and get enough rest.” The kids got to try on some fire hats and climbed on the trucks. After looking at all the trucks, the class went inside, and Uncle Frank showed them where they stay when they are not fighting a fire. Uncle Frank told them that when there is a fire, the alarm rings. Just as he finished showing them the alarm, it rang! All the men ran to get ready to leave for the fire. “I am sorry,” said Uncle Frank to the class. “We need to leave now, but Mr. Martin will stay with you.” The firemen ran quickly to the fire trucks and left the station. Mr. Martin showed the class around inside the station.

    That night Justin told his parents about the great trip to the fire station. “We learned some ways to prevent fires and what to do if our house ever had a fire,” said Justin. “It sounds like you learned a lot of good information,” said Dad. “We sure did,” said Justin. “I think I’m going to be a fireman when I grow up.”

When I was seven years old, my family made me an ant farm (蚂蚁窝). First, we put clean sand in a thin glass box. Then we waited for the ants to arrive.

    After the ants were in the glass farm, they started to make tunnels (地道).I was amazed that each one knew well what to do. Each had its own job.

    On the fifth day something terrible happened. I put my face so close to the glass farm that I knocked it over. All the tunnels fell down. Although (虽然) the ants kept alive after their earthquake, one by one they began to die. I was frightened as I watched them give up building their tunnels to carry the bodies to a corner of the farm.

    My mother said that the ants were dying of sadness. They simply could not stand (忍受) that their tunnels were gone.

    Although much time has passed, I still think of that ant farm. Mom had hoped it would teach me about the natural world, but it taught me much more.

    Over the years, I came to realize the importance of teamwork. Working together, the ants were able to make an amazing world for themselves. I also learned that they should be admired (钦佩) for their hard work.

    But there was an even larger 1esson that I did not realize until recently：Adversity (逆境) is a natural part of life and must be accepted. Unlike the ants, we cannot give up when we are sad. We have to realize that if a tunnel is gone, we must build another.

Giving up is not a good choice.

Today is the first day of the week. In the afternoon, Mr. Read is driving his car to his sister’s school. Now he is very near the school. But he doesn’t know the way to it. At this time, he sees a young woman. Mr. Read comes out of his car and goes to her. “Excuse me! Where’s the school, please?” he asks. The young woman says, “It’s very near here. I want to go with you.”

Now the young woman is sitting in the car. Soon they come to a small house and she says, “Stop, please!” Mr. Read stops the car and says, “But this is not a school.” “No,” says the young woman, “this is my house. I want to get home early before supper time. Thanks for driving me home. The school is behind the factory. So go back to the factory and then turn right, and you can find the school.”

There was once a professor of medicine, who was very strict with the students. Whenever he took the chair on the exam committee (委员会), the students would be in fear, for he was seldom pleased with the answers they gave. A student would be lucky enough if he or she could receive a good mark from him. At the end of the term, the students of medicine would take their exam again. Now a student entered the room and got seated before the committee. This student was a little nervous as he knew it would not be so easy to get through the exam at all.

   The professor began to ask. The student was required to describe a certain illness, his description of which turned out to be OK.

   Then the professor asked about the cure (治疗) for illness, and the student also answered just as right.

   “Good,” said the professor, “and how much will you give the patient?”

   “A full spoon,” answered the student.

   “Now you may go out and wait for what you can get,” said the professor. At the same time the committee discussed carefully the answers the student had given. Suddenly the student noticed that there was something wrong with his last answer. “A full spoon is too much,” he thought to himself. Anxiously, he opened the door of the room and cried, “Mr. Professor, I’ve made a mistake! A spoon is too much for the patient. He can take only five drops.”

   “I’m sorry, sir,” said the professor coldly, “but it’s too late. Your patient has died.”

Policemen do cry. Movies and television show that policemen are tough and hard. But policemen do cry.

           Ken Knapcik had been a policeman in Chicago for 20 years when one of his fellow policeman was shot during a drug arrest, and died. Shortly after, he returned home after work to find a note from his 15-year-old daughter on the dining table.

Dad

 This poem came directly from heart. I love you so much. It scares me that you go out every day and risk everything to provide us with all that we have. I am also very proud of you. I wrote this to express how much I love you and how lost I’d be without you.

Laura

P.S. Hey, be careful out there.

           Laura’s poem was called “The Best Policeman.” It was dedicated (献给) “To all the policeman in the world who have daughters who love them with all their hearts, especially to my father had been shot. Part of the poem reads: “ Daddy, my Daddy, can you hear me? Oh, God, I need my Daddy. Please don’t let him die!”

           Knapcik stood alone as he read the poem. “It took me several minutes.” he said. “ I’d got through part of it and have to stop before I could go on. I was weeping（哭泣）. She had never told me she was scared.” He took the poem to work the next day and showed it to his fellow officers. “I ‘ve never seen so many grown men cry. Some couldn’t even finishing reading it.”

           Knapcik keeps Laura’s poem in the pocket of his police jacket. He takes it with him every time he leaves the house to go to work. “I don’t want to be out there without it,” he said. “I’ll probably carry it with me forever.”

Around the world, cars are becoming more and more common. But the problem is that cars is one of the main causes of climate change. One possible way of dealing with it is to make green cars take off.

One kind of green cars that have received lots of attention is the hybrid car. This kind of car uses two kinds of power: gas and electricity. It still burns pollution-causing gas, but it uses less of the gas because it runs on electricity sometimes. Hybrid cars have become one of the most popular green cars, but they aren’t perfect and are more expensive than the usual ones.

Electric cars are one of the oldest kinds of green cars. They just use electricity, and the batteries(电池) need to be recharged(充电) when they are parked at home. Electric cars have been around since 1970s, but they have never become popular. The biggest problem is that there are almost no public places to recharge the batteries when the drivers are on the road. However that may change. The US and China have said that they will provide much money to help their people to use electric cars.

The Apollo Solar Car Team has been developing solar-powered(太阳能) cars since 1998. They have created a 250-kilogram car with three seats. It can travel with a speed of up to 70 kilometers per hour. With a few hours of sunlight, the car’s batteries will be fully charged and can power the car for three hours.

Another choice of the future is air-powered cars. It sounds a little impossible, but scientists will have good ways to make it come true. The perfect cars hasn’t been developed yet. However, researchers never stop trying their best.

根据材料内容选择最佳答案。

Mr. Hunt had a bookshop near a hospital. But he never went to see a doctor when he was ill He usually took some medicine. One day, when Mr. Hunt carried a box of books with his hands, the box fell down and hurt one of his feet.

“Go to see the doctor” says Mrs. Hunt.

“No,” he said. I’ll wait until a doctor comes here next time. Then I’ll ask him about my foot. In this way I’ll pay nothing to him.” A few days later, a doctor came into his shop and bought some books. When Mr. Hunt got the books ready. He asked the doctor about his foot. The doctor answered him at once.

“Here are your books, sir,” Mr. Hunt . “You must pay two pounds for them.”

“I’ll pay nothing for them.”

“Oh, why?”

“I told you about your foot. I want two pounds for that. Bye.”

Once upon a time，a hippo（河马）lived in a river next to a big tree．

One day，a bird came and nested（筑巢）in the tree．The songs of the bird filled the hippo with so much envy（羡慕）that he couldn’t think of anything else．Every day he would think why he wasn’t born to be a bird even though the bird told him many times he was so lucky to be so big and such a good swimmer．

Finally，the hippo made up his mind that he would come out of the river，climb the tree and start singing．However，when he tried to climb the tree，it was very clear that the hippo didn’t have wings，nor claws to climb with．

Realizing that he would never climb up the tree，he angrily hit the tree until it came crashing to the ground．Then he stepped onto the leaves of the fallen tree，and began singing．

Unfortunately，hippos can’t sing，either．All that came from his mouth were terrible noises，and when the other animals heard this，they all came around to make fun of the hippo．

He was so ashamed by this．He also felt bad about having knocked the tree over．He used all his strength to raise the tree back up again，and look after it until it completely recovered．（康复）．