In the summer of 1980 a Spanish tourist, Gaspar Carner, went to Great Britain on holiday. When he was travelling in Scotland, he decided to visit Loch Ness, the famous lake where people say there is a monster. But while he was going across the lake in a boat, his bag fell into the water. In the bag were his passport, car keys, pen, and all his money. Loch Ness is 150 meters deep, so he didn’t expect to see the bag again!
Fourteen years later, in 1994, some scientists decided to explore the lake. They looked for the Loch Ness monster. Suddenly one of them saw something black in the water. They carefully went nearer. They thought the black thing was the monster. They went nearer and nearer. It was a bag. They took the bag out of the lake. They found that the photo on the passport was still clear. One of the scientists knew Gaspar Carner. So the bag was returned to him.
【小題1】Carner visited Loch Ness _____.

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 (職員)”. 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 for learning.”

At Sudbury Valley School, you will allow children to talk, read, paint, cook, work on computers, study French, play the piano, climb trees, or just run 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 each — even the four-year-olds. They decide the school rules, how to spend the school budget（預算）, and even which staff they want and do not want any more.

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 time have successful careers today. One of them is a musician and the other is a computer scientist.

1.What does the school believe?

A. Teachers cannot teach children well.

B. Children learn best when they do what they want to do.

C. Learning is for adults — children should only play.

D. Children should only learn about one thing at a time.

2.What does Daniel Greenberg say about three-year-olds?

A. They love learning.                 

B. They are very naughty.

C. They want to be outside all the time.       

D. They are too young to learn anything.

3.What happens to the children after they leave this school?

A. They do the same things as children from other schools.

B. They have problems getting into college or getting a job.

C. They usually do very unusual jobs.

D. They are not successful in their business.

4.What is the main topic of the article?

A. Children’s hobbies                  B. Education in the US

C. A school without rules                   D. An unusual school

When you sit and watch TV hour after hour, do you ever think of what it may be doing on your health?
More and more children are becoming overweight and near-sighted   1   they spend too much time in front of the TV. Also, they are growing less and less creative since watching TV. It doesn’t   2   any active thought.
Last week, the TV-Turnoff Organization began its ninth TV-Turnoff   3    in the US. The organization encourages people to play games, read books, lie under a tree, talk to family members and friends   4   watching TV.
American school children   5   , on average, 1,000 hours a year watching TV-more time than they spend in school. That’s too much, said the doctors   6   organized this year’s TV-Turnoff Week.
Doctors say that the   7   children watch television, the more overweight they may become. The fat children eat while they watch the television makes this weight  8   more serious.
To keep mentally and physically healthy, children need to take exercise, talk with friend and family, read, and  9   the world around them. Could you go a week without television? It might be    10   for many TV lovers, but why not give it a try?

Robots have come a long way since 15^th century. We’ve got robots to build cars, carry heavy things, work in dangerous places and explore planets. But things haven’t stopped there.

In 1986, Honda made a robot called ASIMO. And now, it has been developed greatly. Standing at 130cm and weighing 54kg. ASIMO is very much like a small astronaut wearing a bag on the back. And he can walk, flight, climb and run fast. Isn’t it wonderful?

The world’s first robot teacher is Saya. With her human-like face, she can show expressions like happiness, surprise, sadness, dislike, fear and she can even smile or show anger at students, which look much like a real teacher’s. To do this, her rubber skin is pulled from the back with motors inside. And her eyes and mouth have wires(電線) too. She can also say some simple words like “hello” or “thank you”.

In the UK, the development of robots is exciting. The mini-robots will send food, clean floors, collect and throw away waste. These robots can open doors by themselves and stop if anything or anyone is in the way.

These mini-robots are very useful for controlling infection(傳染). Usually clean and dirty work is done by the same person, but here, you’ll have robots that do”dirty work”, like collecting dirty sheets, or taking away hospital waste; and you’ll have robots that do”clean work”, like bringing meals or clean sheets to patients. The robots have separate work so there’s no way for infection, which is great. But of course, robots would not take the piece of humans, but would free up more time for nurses to be with patients.

But if this is what it’s like in 2011, what’s it going to be like to 2021?

1.In the following, which is ASIMO’s behavior?

  A. Smiling at people, saying “hello”.

  B. Sending food or opening doors by himself

  C. Fighting, climbing or running fast

  D. Collecting waste for patients

2.What makes Saya look real?

  A. Her face and rich expressions         B. Her clothes and shoes

  C. Her walking and running speed        D. Her rich knowledge

3.Which of the following is true according to the passage?

  A. Robots have come a long way since 1986.

  B. The first robot teacher was made by Honda.

  C. Saya looks like a small astronaut.

  D. If anyone or anything is in the way, mini-robots will stop.

4.The main idea of Paragraph 5 is that _______.

  A. nurses would have more free time with patients

  B. robots would not take the place of humans

  C. dirty and clean work is always done by the same person

  D.mini-robots are useful for controlling infection

Diving or Drowning

A rich young man decided that he would like to do some diving in the sea, so he bought a rubber suit and all the other things that he needed, and took some lessons at a diving school. Then one day he walked into the water by himself and began to explore the bottom of the sea.

He saw a lot of beautiful fish and other things, and then, after half an hour, he suddenly saw a man waving his arms and legs around wildly near the bottom of the sea. He was wearing only a bathing suit.

The rich young man was very surprised to see him, so he took out a plastic notebook and a special pencil, which could write under water, and wrote, “What are you doing here?”

He showed the notebook to the other man, who then took the pencil and wrote, “Drowning!”

1.What did the rich young man want to do?

2.How did he prepare himself for this?

3.What did he first see at the bottom of the ocean?

4.What was the man doing?

5.What did the rich young man do?