The story behind the shopping cart

Characters

Sylvan Goldman – owner of a grocery shop

Fred Young – Sylvan’s friend, a mechanic(機(jī)械師)

One night in 1936, in an American city. Inside Fred’s workshop, Sylvan sits next to Fred, who is making adjustments(調(diào)試) to their new i? 1. – a shopping cart.

Sylvan:????????????? My customers don’t like our shopping cart.

Fred:????????????? Really? So they p? 2. shopping with those heavy baskets?

Sylvan:????????????? (nods) I’ve got a huge crowd of customers every day, b 3. none of them wants to use the cart.

Fred:????????????? I don’t understand. We invented the cart so that people don’t need to carry a basket around the shop.

Sylvan:????????????? (laughs) And so that they will buy more groceries!

Fred:????????????? So why don’t they like the shopping cart?

Sylvan:????????????? Young men think that pushing a cart around makes them look w 4. and slow, and young women think it’s unfashionable.

Fred:????????????? Of course it isn’t fashionable right now. It’s only just been invented! But I’m sure older people will appreciate it.

Sylvan:????????????? Um…

Fred:????????????? What? They don’t like the cart e? 5.? ?

Sylvan:????????????? Well, they think pushing it makes them look helpless!

Fred:????????????? Oh no. We need to do something, Fred. We can’t just g? 6. up on this invention!

Sylvan:????????????? We won’t. (He gets up and walks around the room. Suddenly, he stops.) Aha! I’ve got an idea.

Fred:????????????? What is it?

Sylvan:????????????? I’ll hire(雇傭) some good-looking guys and girls to push the carts around and pretend they’re shopping.

Fred:????????????? Oh! So the real shoppers will see these attractive people using the carts and think, “Hey, if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me!”

Sylvan:????????????? E 7. .

Fred:????????????? Hey! Maybe you could get one of the girls to greet your customers and encourage them to use the cart.

Sylvan:????????????? Great idea!

To most of us, school means classes, teachers, schedules, grades and tests. But for the children at Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, school is very different.
Firstly, there are no lessons. All the children, aged between 4 and 19, do whatever they want. There are no teachers, only “staff members”. The idea behind this is that you do not need to make children learn, because children want to learn anyway. “You do not need to say to a three-year-old, ‘Go explore your environment.’ You can’t stop them!”says Daniel Greenberg, a founder of the school. “But if you make children do what you want all day… they will lose all taste of learning.” At Sudbury Valley School, you will find children talking, reading, painting, cooking, working on computers, studying French, playing the piano, climbing trees, or just running around. Two boys spent three years just fishing!
The other way that Sudbury Valley School is different is that the children can decide the rules. Every week, there is a school meeting where both children and staff have one vote (投票)each—even the four-year-olds. They decide the school rules, how to spend the school money, and even which staff they want and do not want anymore.
When the school first opened in 1968, people said it would never work. But today, the school has 200 students, and 80% of its students go on to college. Even the two boys who went fishing all the time have successful careers today. One of them is a musician and the other is a computer scientist.
【小題1】What's special about the school?

Liu Bing is Zhang Kun’s friend,  and now he is in a high school in Ottawa.  This is a letter   1    Liu Bing to Zhang Kun. 

Dear Zhang Kun, 

Thank you    2    your postcard.  I’m    3    to you in the reading-room.  Now I have many new friends here.  Henry is one of them.  He is my classmate.  He is 14    4    old.  His mother is a Canadian,  but his father is from Australia.  He often    5    me to go to his home for dinner    6    his parents. 

His family like China very much.  At school,  we have many good teachers.  One of them is from the USA.  We    7    her Miss Green.  She teaches English.  Our French teacher is Mr.  Smith,  and he is from Paris.  He loves    8    very much,  and we all love him.  Our Chinese teacher is Mr.  Scott,  and he likes Chinese kung fu very much.  After school,  he often talks to me in Chinese.

   9    is your English now?  I want to know something    10    you very much, please write to me soon.

                                                           Yours,

Liu Bing

1.A. for            B. to           C. from             D. at

2.A. for            B. with         C. at               D. to

3.A. telling        B. talking      C. writing          D. speaking

4.A. year       B. month        C. months           D. years

5.A. tells      B. asks         C. ask              D. call

6.A. and            B. with         C. for              D. in

7.A. calls      B. tell         C. tells            D. call

8.A. us         B. we           C. I                D. it

9.A. What       B. How          C. Where            D. Who

10.A. about     B. at           C. in               D. for

Napoga is a 12-year-old girl in Ghana(加納)，Africa. It is hard for her family to get clean water. Every morning，she leaves home at half past five to get clean water for her family in a village far away. It takes her six hours to get enough clean water for daily cooking and drinking. She has no time to go to school or to play with her friends. Millions of people in the world are like Napoga. They can't get enough clean water to keep healthy.
Earth Day is April 22. But on all other days，we must also remember it. The water we use is the most important natural resource(自然資源) on the earth.
Water covers 70% of the earth's surface. But most of that is sea water. We can't use it for very many things. Fresh water covers only 1% of the earth's surface.
You probably feel lucky that your life isn't as hard as Napoga's. But that doesn't mean you don't have to worry about water. We all face serious water problems. One of them is water pollution. All kinds of things from cars，factories，farms and homes make our rivers，lakes，and oceans dirty. Polluted water is very bad for people to drink. And dirty water is bad for fish，too. Now, 34% of all kinds of fish are dying out.
How do cars and factories make our water dirty？First，they pollute the air. Then，when it rains，the rain water comes down and makes our drinking water dirty. Dirty rain，called acid rain(酸雨)，is also bad for plants，animals and buildings.
Scientists say that in 30 years，more than half of the people in the world won't have enough clean water. We have to learn how to save more water for ourselves and our children. Here is some advice for saving water：
●Turn off the water while you brush your teeth. You can save as much as 450 liters(升) each month.
●Leaky taps(漏水的龍頭) waste a lot of water. Fix them right away！
●You can easily cut your 10-minute showers in half----and you'll be just as clean.
●When you wash dishes，don't let the water run.
●Only wash clothes when you have a lot to wash. If your washing machine isn't full，you're  wasting water！
【小題1】On the earth，_______.