Some years ago,writing in my diary used to be a usual activity.I would return from school and spend the expected half hour recording the day's events,feelings,and impressions in my little blue diary.I did not really need to express my emotions by way of words,but I gained a certain satisfaction from seeing my experiences forever recorded on paper.After all,isn't accumulating memories a way of preserving the past? When I was thirteen years old,I went on a long journey on foot in a great valley,wellequipped with pens,a diary,and a camera.During the trip,I was busy recording every incident,name and place I came across.I felt proud to be spending my time productively,dutifully preserving for future generations a detailed description of my travels.On my last night there,I wandered out of my tent,diary in hand.The sky was clear and lit by the glare of the moon,and the walls of the valley looked threatening behind their screen of shadows.I automatically took out my pen... At that point,I understood that nothing I wrote could ever match or replace the few seconds I allowed myself to experience the dramatic beauty of the valley.All I remembered of the previous few days were the dull characterizations I had set down in my diary. Now,I only write in my diary when I need to write down a special thought or feeling.I still love to record ideas and quotations that strike me in books,or observations that are particularly meaningful.I take pictures,but not very often-only of objects I find really beautiful.I'm no longer blindly satisfied with having something to remember when I grow old.I realize that life will simply pass me by if I stay behind the camera,busy preserving the present so as to live it in the future. I don't want to wake up one day and have nothing but a pile of pictures and notes.Maybe I won't have as many exact representations of people and places;maybe I'll forget certain facts,but at least the experiences will always remain inside me.I don't live to make memories-I just live,and the memories form themselves. Before the age of thirteen,the author regarded keeping a diary as a way of _ . A) observing her school routine B) expressing her satisfaction C) impressing her classmates D) preserving her history
D
My son Jack, a fourth grader, was having a hard time in getting interested in story books recently, so I offered to read the first few chapters to him. In the early pages of 'Incident at Halk Hill', a quiet little boy has a special meeting with a female badger .Soon after, another badger is caught in a steel leg trap , and the author describes in detail the pain and scare of an animal struggling to its death. We meet the cruel hunter and his ill treatment of a dog; we see the badger being skinned by the boy's father;and we experience the child's confusion when beaten by his father in anger. _ , I thought. Last night , I returned from a weekend away to find that Jack had finished the whole book on his own. "It was really, really good and sad, and violent," he reported. "There was a lot of killing." "Were there any happy parts?" I asked, "The boy's life was saved by the badger, and that was good. But then that badger got caught in a trap again and at the end it's dying, too. " Jack said, "It was so sad that I almost cried. " I told him that many books have made me cry, beginning with Heidi, when I was just his age, right on up to the novel I finished last week. "Well," he admitted then, "I actually did cry. Reading that book just reminded me of all the sadness in the world, and it made me feel sad ,too. " So, I think, now he has been through the sad tone of the passage , the discovery that words on a printed page can give rise to such strong emotion ,that a book can move you right out of your own comfortable little self and into someone else's pain. Thus we come to realize that if we are to remain fully engaged in life, open to its mysteries and feel sorry towards its suffering, we indeed need stories to grab us by the neck and remind us of the sadness in the world that is not our own. 'Incident at Halk Hill' is a _ story. A) sad B) happy C) funny D) boring
A
Q: A new study says electronic toys are not helping babies learn. "Even if companies are marketing them as educational, they're not teaching the babies anything at this time," said Anna Sosa the study's author. Researchers listened to audio recordings of parents playing with their babies aged 10 months to 16 months. The researchers compared the experiences when the children played with electronic toys, traditional toys such as blocks, or when the children looked at books. What they found is that parents talked less with their babies when the babies played with electronic toys. Why is this important? Research shows that how quickly children develop language is often based on what they hear from parents. When the infants played with electronic toys, parents said little to their children. But with traditional toys, such as blocks, parents shared the names and descriptions of the animals, colors and shapes as their children played. There was even more information given by parents as their babies looked at the pictures in books. Of course, there is no need for parents to throw out electronic toys, but they should look at their infants' play with such toys as entertainment, not a learning experience. Toy Industry Association spokeswoman Adrienne Appell responded to the study. She said it is important that parents make time to play with their children. "Playing is a way that kids can learn so much, not only cognitive skills, but social and developmental skills," she said. She added that play should be balanced, including time for just "make believe" activities, as well as traditional and electronic toys. According to Adrienne Appell, playing _ . A) can't take the place of learning B) shouldn't take most of children's time C) can't develop children's cognitive skills D) is good to children's overall development
A: D
*Question*
Football T-shirts are more commonly connected with boys than girls. This can often cause a problem when you want to find a cool shirt for a girl. That is not to say that there are no cool shirts out there for girls to wear. The problem is that they are often harder to find than the ones for boys. You can get custom shirt printed for girls from a number of custom print stores. Of course you have to make sure that they are legally allowed to use the logos and colours of the team you want to support. You can also go through official channels to get the shirt you want. The official channels will generally be the large sportswear stores or the official stores of the teams. These stores will be able to use the colours of the teams and even put the name of the person who the shirt is for on it. If you do not feel like you have to try the T-shirts on, then an online store may be your best choice. The reason for this is that you can visit various stores and find the best ones. If you want to see what the T-shirt looks like in real life, then going to a store is the best choice. Large sportswear stores often have football shirts. These are the best places to go if you do not live close to an official store. And these stores usually have lower prices than the official stores. According to the text, football T-shirts _ . A) are all made by boys B) are seldom loved by girls C) are only designed for boys D) are difficult to find for girls
**Answer**
D