Street Ping Pong— Ping!

Do you like table tennis? If you had travelled to cities in the UK like London or Birmingham last summer, you might have seen one of the dozens of free tables that were there as part of a project （項目） called Ping!.

What is Ping!?

Ping！is a three-year table tennis project. It has been running since 2010 and this year, 2012, is the final year. The idea is to put free table tennis tables in eight different towns in the UK for four weeks during the summer. Each table comes with its own bats and balls and is free to play. You can find the tables outdoors.

What does Ping! hope to achieve?

It would be great if Ping！helped find a new Olympic table tennis star but what Ping! really hopes. to achieve is just to get people playing and having fun together."Putting a ping pong table on the street gives people a chance to connect with other people," said Meera Sodha, Ping! Project Manager.

One of the towns that took part in the project was Hull, a city in England. Forty-five tables were put into the city. Jakob Adamski, an ESOL student learning. English, said, "I really enjoyed playing table tennis in the park. It was also a good way for me to practise my English and meet people."

1.When did the Ping! project start?

A. Last summer.                             B. Last winter.

C. In 2010.                                              D. In 2012.

2.What's the Ping!project?

A. Choosing table tennis stars.

B. Holding table tennis matches.

C. Teaching people how to .play table tennis.

D. Putting free table tennis tables in some towns.

3.The purpose of the Ping!project is

A. to help people practise English

B. to invite people to visit the UK cities

C. to get people to play and have fun together.

D. to encourage people to take part in the 2012 0lympics

The right name is important in the business world. All you have to do is think of the names for some of the products you buy every day and you’ll agree that the name and the product are connected in the everyone’s mind.

In many countries, successful trade or brand names are protected by law. This is so that other companies cannot make a product and, in fact, be buying something different. Businesses register a company or a product name with the government. In fact, more than 1,000 product and company names are registered every hour. Many companies spend a lot of money to find the right name for their products. A good example of this is. In the car industry. Some successful names for cars have powerful associations （聯(lián)系）.The Ford Mustang and the Jaguar are only two examples of choosing the names of animals that are fast and strong.

When a U. S company decides to sell its product in another country, it has to make sure that the product name translates properly. When Coca-Cola introduced its soft drink to China, it looked for the right name. It wanted a name that would do two things. One was to present its image（形象）in Chinese and the second was to be close to its first brand name—Coke. It took some efforts before finding the right word —which sounds similar and translates as “happiness in the mouth”. Asian company names are not new to the United States. The brand names of Samsung and Sony have been successful. Finding the right brand name is a big business. Asian companies that sell to foreign markets pay to find a name that will connect with its customers. There are even naming companies that specialize in inventing product names. These companies can charge （要價）up to $100,000 a word for their creations. But it’s worth it. Successful companies know how important the right brand names are for their development.

1.Why are trade names protected by law in many countries?

A. To make companies pay for naming service.

B. To help people choose the best products

C. To present good images of the products.

D. To prevent good images from being copied

2.What can we learn from the passage?

A. Many companies care about the cost of finding the right names

B. Creative trade names can help companies to have a larger sale

C. The government often does business with naming companies

D. It is considered necessary for cars to be names after animals

3.What’s the best title for the passage?

A. The Business of Names

B. The Development of Names

C. The Rules of Naming Business

D. The Methods of Choosing Names

Reading Oliver James'Affluenza, I thought about what often happens at home. My 12-year-old daughter is in tears."I have so take a test tomorrow. I don't understand any of it," she cries out. After shouting and shutting her door, she calms down enough to go through her notes. The following dry I ask her how the test went and the just says "OK,I got a nine".

"Wow. well done!" I say, before she finishes with "But I never get a ten!"

According to James, this obsession with getting top marks has been a bad development, which encourages people to think of education in terms of work and money. To test this, I asked my daughter why she was so worried about her tests. She looked at me as if I was thick. "Well, if I don't get good grades, I won't be able to afford nice things like a car and stuff."

I was quite surprised, because I don't consider myself a pushy parent. But James suggests and it leaves students feeling failures even if they are very bright. He points to the Danish system（體制）of education as a better model. Creating happy citizens who have good social skills is seen as more important than high achievements at school or the needs of business.

For me, I cannot remember the last time I had to work out the area of a circle, recite a Shakespeare poem or grammar rules, yet I have lived a happy life. What I really needed to learn at school was how to make polite conversations, or how to avoid getting into debt or how to develop good personality.

This is in fact similar to what Oliver James really has in mind. And he is looking for schools where students are encouraged to find and follow their own interests, something more like Tongjon. Tongjon has been developed in some Korean private schools. It is quite different from the more rigid system of learning things by heart that is used in Korea, and indeed in many other school systems around the world.

As the Russian poet Pushkin said," Inspiration(靈感）is needed in geometry(幾何學(xué)）just as much as in poetry ",and inspiration does not come from endlessly revising for tests or getting worried about them .

1.What does the writer probably think of his/her daughter?

A. She sets herself a goal too high to reach.

B. She should be more polite to her parents.

C. She is hard-working but not very bright.

D. She takes her grades much too seriously.

2.What does the word "obsession"in paragraph 3 mean?

A.A plain and unavoidable fact.

B.A satisfied and very proud state.

C.A practical and widely-used way.

D.A fixed and often unreasonable idea.

3.What can we infer from the passage?

A. Social skills are as important as high grades.

B. Interest in grades can shake self-confidence.

C. The writer regrets not having studied hard at school.

D. Danish educational system is for very smart students.

4.The writer wants to tell us that____.

A.learning happily is the key to self-development.

B. top marks may be helpful to increase one's interest.

C. tests should be improved to give children inspiration.

D. education should meet one's needs for word and money.

Dr.Jack Todd is very interested in clean water .__1._,so it's natural that he is to developer of a small and affordable system(系統(tǒng)）to clean waste water, His “Living  Machine" can clean wastewater in your home or in your business.

__2._ The wastewater goes into a big plastic tank where bacteria(細(xì)菌）start to break down the waste.A few days later after it is dealt with, the water is brought into a greenhouse filled with plants and fish.With the help of sunlight, the plants and animals remove more chemicals from the water,making it cleaner,Then the water can be reused for washing or bathing _3.__ but the water is clean enough for watering the flowing, washing the dog, or even for bathing or swimming.

The advantage of this technology is that it is affordable and good for the environment. __4.__. It can help to use less fresh water, and it can help keep the water supply unpolluted.

閱讀短文，根據(jù)短文內(nèi)容回答問題。

Every year, wildfires(野火) destroy much forest land. homes are broken down, and thousands of people die. smokejumpers are stop helping to stop this.

Smokejumpers are a special kind of firefight. they jump from planes into areas that difficult to reach by car or on foot. they race to put out fires as fast as they can.

At a fire site, Smokejumpers first examine the land and decide how to fight the fire. their main goal is to stop fire from spreading. using basic tools such as shovels and axes, smokejumpers clear land of burnable material like plants and other dry material. they carry water with them too, but not much.

Although most smokejumpers are men, more women are joining. Most important are your weight and height. Smokejumpers in the U.S. for example ,must be 54 to 91 kilograms, so they don’t get hurt when they land, or get blown by strong winds.

Smokejumpers must be able to live in the wilderness. in Russia ,many smokejumpers know how to find food in the forest and even make simple furniture from trees.

They work is dangerous, the hours are long. But for these firefighters, smokejumpers isn’t just a job. They love being able to jump out of planes, fight fires, and live in the forest. As 28-year-old Russian smokejumpers Alexi Tishin says,“This is the best job for the strong and brave.”

1.What are Smokejumpers?

2.Where do the jump from?

3.What’s their main goal?

4.Why should they have proper weight?

5.What’s needed to be a smokejumpers?

根據(jù)中文意思完成句子。

1.很抱歉我沒能參加你的生日晚會。

_____for missing your birthday party.

2.你在課余時間喜歡讀書嗎？

Do you _____ in your spare time?

3.杰克會和同學(xué)們相處得很好。

Jack will _____ his classmates.

4.這個演講非常精彩。我們都聽得很認(rèn)真。

The speech _____ we all listened carefully.

5.他們很難在這么短的時間內(nèi)想出新的辦法。

_____ a new way in such a short time.

根據(jù)中文和英文提示詞語，寫出意思連貫、符合邏輯、不少于60詞的短文，所給英文提示詞語僅供選用，請不要寫出你的真實(shí)校名和姓名。

生活中每個人都有過與他人分享的體驗，如分享一本有趣的書、一段難忘的經(jīng)歷、一個閃光的想法……

現(xiàn)在，某英文報紙就分享（Sharing）話題征文，請你投稿。描述一次你與他人分享的經(jīng)歷，并談?wù)勀愕母惺堋?/p>

提示詞語：share…with…;experience; interest; learn; change; encourage; enjoy; happiness; confident

It is believed that travelling to Yangzhou in ________ March is ________ enjoyable experience.

A . /; the                      B. the; an          C. /; an     D. the; the

---My pen is missing. I can’t find it anywhere.

---I’m afraid you have to buy _________.

A. it                            B. one                        C. any                          D. few

Listen! The music sounds very _________.

A. beautiful                          B. delicious                 C. well                          D. wonderfully