Who are the top students in the world, do you know? Last week the Organization for Economic Co-operation Development (經(jīng)濟(jì)合作與發(fā)展組織) picked the best students in the world. They are Finnish (芬蘭的). The OECD gave a test to 280 000 15-year-old students from more than 40 coun­tries and regions (地區(qū)) last year. The OECD wan­ted to know how well students were doing at school.
Finnish students were No. 1 in the reading test and second in maths after Hong Kong students. Those from Japan and Finland were top in science. In the problem solving, Finnish students came sec­ond to those from South Korea. The test also showed Finland had more top students than the other countries.
Finns (芬蘭人) of your age have done a really good job but don’t have a sense of envy. You can learn from them. Most Finnish students make good use of the Internet. Of course not for computer games, but for doing more exercises and finding out more information.
Libraries are also important. Finland spends a lot of money on them. Many students have a free card. They read for at least one or two hours a day.
What do you usually do on the Internet? How often do you go to libraries?
【小題1】Students from which country or region did best in the reading test?

Once, a circle lost a piece of its own. The circle wanted to be whole, so it went around looking for its missing piece. But it was incomplete, so it could only roll very slowly. It enjoyed the flowers and the sunshine along the way. It talked with worms. It found lots of different pieces, but none of them fit. So it left them all by the side of the road and kept on looking for the missing piece.
Then one day the circle found a piece that fit perfectly. The circle put the missing piece into itself. It could be whole with nothing missing. It was so happy and began to roll. Now that it was a perfect circle, it could roll very fast, too fast to see flowers or talk to worms. It realized how different the world was when it rolled so quickly. It felt so sad that it stopped, left its found piece by the side of the road and rolled away slowly.
Sometimes we are perfect when we lose something. A man who has everything is a poor man in some ways. He will never have hopes, dreams or something better. He will never know someone loves him or someone is giving him something he has always wanted or never had.
We couldn’t be perfect, but we must be brave enough to love, strong enough to forgive, kind enough to share happiness with others and clever enough to know there is enough love around us and then we can always live a wonderful time in our lives.
【小題1】
The circle rolled very slowly because it       .

Think rock. paper, scissors is a children’s game? Think again.

Top players from  around the world came together in Toronto to compete for a ten-thousand-Canadian dollar prize and the title (頭銜) of world champion.
More than 500 players, including national from Australia, Norway and New Zealand, attended.
The simple game is often used to make decisions and solve some simple problems.
Players hold their fists (拳頭~) closed and count to three before making one of three hand signals: a fist 0ock),flat hand (paper) or two fingers (scissors). Paper covers rock, scissors cut paper and rock breaks scissors.
Players  have different ideas about the history of the game, but it is believed to have been played for centuries in Japan
The Paper Scissors Stone Club was found in  England in 1842 and provided an environment where  players could play together.
In 1918, the name was changed to World RPS  Club and its headquarters (總部)moved from London to Toronto. In 1925 its members were over 10,000.
The world championships have been held since 2O02, which are held once every year
【小題1】The winner could get______

Many children use the Internet to get useful knowledge and information, and to relax in their free time. But some of them are not using in a good way. Here are some rules to make sure you are safe and have fun on the Internet.
● Make rules for Internet use with your parents. For example, when you can go online, for how long and what activities you can go online.
● Don’t give your password (密碼) to anyone else, and never leak out the following information---your real name, home address, age, school, phone number or other personal information. 
● Check with your parents before giving out a credit (信用) card number.
● Never send a photo of yourself to someone in e-mail unless your parents say it’s OK.
● Check with your parents before going into a chat room. Different chat rooms have different rules and attract different kinds of people. You and your parents must make sure it’s a right place for you.
● Never agree to meet someone you met on the Internet without your parent’s permission (允許). Never meet anyone you met on line alone.
● Always remember that people online may not be who they say they are. Treat everyone online as strangers.
● If something you see or read online makes you uncomfortable, leave the site. Tell a parent or teacher right away.
● Treat other people as you’d like to be treated. Never use bad language.
● Remember—not everything you read on the Internet is true.
【小題1】 If you want a true friend on the Internet , you can ____________ .
A  tell the people what your name is .      B  meet the people on line alone.
C  write an e-mail about yourself .        D  get your parent’s permission.
【小題2】It’s good for children to ________ on the Internet.

You may have known several kinds of police --- traffic police, fire police and street police. But have you ever heard of energy-saving(節(jié)能) policeman?
A group of 22 energy-saving policemen went to work last week in Beijing. They go around the city to see the use of energy in hotels, office buildings, shopping centers and other public places. One of their aims is to make sure that these places have set their air conditioning(空調(diào)) no cooler than 26℃.
They also set up a special phone line so that people can tell them which buildings fail to follow the rule.
“If everyone sets their air conditioning at 26℃, Beijing will save 400 million kilowatthour of electricity in one summer. That’s one-third of all the usages of the city in the season,” said a TV advertisement.
Other Chinese cities, like Wuhan in Hubei Province and Yangzhou in Jiansu Province, are going to follow Beijing’s steps in setting up a similar police team.
As one of the fastest developing countries, China is using a lot of energy. This has a great effect on the country’s environment and limited(有限的) energy.
From 1986 to 2005, the country experienced 20 warm winters continuously(連續(xù)). Numbers show that Chinese cities have to spend billions of yuan solving environmental problems every year.
At the beginning of this month, China made its first action plan to fight pollution. It aims to reduce energy usage by 20% and increase renewable(可更新的) energy up to 10% from 7% by 2010.
To introduce the public to a green life, last week Beijing held a show on energy-saving technology and productions. Environment-friendly machines, such as a vending machine that helps collect used bottles, have attracted lots of attention. “We want to tell people that there are certain ways to protect the environment. Each of us can find effective ways to do it on our daily lives,” said Liu Qianguang, an environmental engineer in Beijing.
【小題1】The job of the energy-saving policemen is ______.

One thing that British and Chinese cultures share is a love for fine tea. Today, when we think of Western tea culture, we often think of the English and beautiful china tea cups.
Afternoon tea
People believe that an English lady, Anna, first introduced the idea of afternoon tea. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the English ate only two main meals each day: breakfast and a heavy supper that would last for several hours in the evening. As a result, people often got very hungry during the long wait between these two meals. To solve this problem, Anna came up with the clever idea of inviting some friends to join her for an afternoon meal between four and five o’clock. This meal included cakes and sandwiches. And tea was served(供應(yīng)) to wash down the food. In order to make this afternoon meal important, fine china cups and plates and silver teapots, knives, forks and spoons were used. Soon, afternoon tea parties became popular social occasions. Today, afternoon tea parties continue to play an important part in the social life in modern Britain.
Will you come for coffee?
Coffee also has an important role in British culture. People often use the words “Will you come for coffee” to mean “Would you like to come to my home for a chat?” Normally, several different drinks such as tea, hot chocolate or a soft drink like orange juice will be served as well as coffee, and you will be asked what you would like. However, you will not normally be offered wine at a “coffee” party.
Coffeehouses and the London Stock Exchange
In the 17th century London, coffeehouses were busy and noisy places. Businessmen and bankers went to coffeehouses to do their business, as well as to drink coffee. In fact, the London Stock Exchange(倫敦股票交易所) is believed to have started from these coffeehouses.
【小題1】Anna introduced the idea of drinking afternoon tea because she ______.

As prices and building costs keep rising, the “do-it-yourself” (DIY) is getting more and more popular in the USA.
“We needed furniture for our living room,” says John Rose,” and we just didn’t have enough money to buy it. So we decided to try making a few tables and chairs.” John got married six months ago, and like many young people these days, they are struggling to make a home at a time when the cost of living is very high. The Roses took a 2-week courses for ＄280 at a night school. Now they build all their furniture and make repairs around the house.
Jim Hatfield has three boys and his wife died. He has much work at home as well as a job in a shoe-making factory. Last month, he received a car repair bill for＄420. “I was deeply unhappy about it. Now I’ve finished a car repair course, I should be able to fix the car by myself.”
John and Jim are not unusual people. Most families in the country are doing everything they can do to save money so they can fight the high cost of living. If you want to become a DIY, you can go to DIY classes. And for those who didn’t have time to take a course, there are books that tell you how you can do things yourself.
【小題1】Many newly married people in the USA ______.

Today we’ll talk about the history of blue jeans. For many people, blue jeans stand for (代表) American culture.
The history of blue jeans usually began with a man named Levi Strauss. He did not invent jeans. But he is the first person to produce and sell them in large numbers. Levi Strauss was born in Germany. In 1847, he and his family moved to the United States. He opened a small store and sold jeans. These pants were especially useful for miners (礦工) in California. They needed strong clothing. Levi Strauss worked with Jacob Davis, who had invented a step for making rivets (鉚釘) for jeans. They helped make the blue jeans stronger.
In 1873, Strauss and Davis received a patent (專利) to own this invention. Nineteenth century workers would probably be surprised to know that their pants would one day become fashions. Today, jeans are worn by people of all ages. Jeans come in many colors other than blue and in many styles and prices. Fashion designers even create very costly jeans.
Writer James published a book called Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon (偶像). In the book, he says jeans serve as a sign for two American values, creativity and rebellion (叛逆).
【小題1】 Why did Jacob use rivets for jeans?

The Chinese are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Some parents send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the US or Australia, regardless of how much this costs. Many also want their children to take extra-curriculum activities (課外活動(dòng)) where they either learn a musical instrument or ballet, or other classes that will give them a better start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is, so parents often spend a large amount of money on education. Even poor parents manage to buy a computer for their son or daughter.
In fact, most parents fail to see that the best education they can give their children is usually very cheap. Parents can see that their children’s skills are different; they will usually be skilled in some areas while poor in others. However, they fail to realize that today’s children are lack (缺乏) of self-respect and self-confidence.
The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take exams and how to study effectively. They are not teaching them the most important skills they need. They do not teach them to be confident, happy and clever.
Parents can help achieve this by teaching their children practical skills like cooking, sewing and other housework.
Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands patience and time. It is an enjoyable but difficult experience. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and finish his job step by step. The result, a well--cooked dinner, will give a child a lot of satisfaction and confidence. All these will help the children step to success in the future.
An old machine such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your child as a toy may make him curious and arouse(喚醒) his interest. If he will spend hours looking at it, and try to mend it; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. Such activities do more than teaching a child to read a book. They teach them to think and to use their minds. This is much more important than learning by reading a book.
1．Is the writer satisfied with the Chinese parents’ ideas of educating their children?
2. Put the underlined sentence “the more expensive an education is, the better it is” into Chinese.
3.What are the children lack of today?
4. How is the experience of cooking according to the fifth paragraph?
5.What does the underlined word “They” refer to(所指的是) in the last paragraph?

BEIJIN—No Car Day was first started by 34 cities in France on September 22,1998.It was started to protect the environment, By now, more than 1,000 cities around the world have had a No Car Day.
The first No Car Day in China was in Chengdu in 2001.Other cities ,including Taipei, Shanghai and Wuhua, also support the day.
In Beijing, more and more people are joining in the activity. It asks the drivers to leave their cars at home for one day each month and walk or ride a bike to work. It also calls on Beijingers not to use cars on June 5(World Environment Day).The slogan(口號(hào)) for the day is, “If we drive for one less day, we can have one more nice day.”
So far, more than 200,000 drivers have shown their support. “We can’t control the weather, but we can choose not to drive.’’ said, Wu Zonghua, a car club chairman. Beijing is trying to have 238 blue sky days this year. In the first quarter of this year, Beijing only had 52 blue sky days. This was 11 days less than the number for the same period last year. Much of the dust comes from the desert, but cars cause most of the air pollution. We must do more for No Car Day.
【小題1】There are         cities in China that support No Car Day according to the passage.