A．信息归纳

    阅读短文内容。根据所提供的信息，完成信息卡内容。

    I am Lily，a student in Beijing．I am fifteen years old．My birthday is on July 6th．I like volleyball very much．I play volleyball with my friends after school．My mother is 42 years old．Her birthday is in June．She is an English teacher in a middle school．My father is 45 years old．His birthday is in October．He likes playing basketball．He can play it very well．

    Bill is my pen friend from the US．He is sixteen years old．His birthday is on March 8th．He likes Soccer and baseball．He likes ice-cream very much．He eats it every day．Bill always helps me with my English．I like him very much．

Information Card

    What will happen if you don't eat your breakfast? A short time age, A. test was given in the United States. People of different ages, from 12 to 83, were asked to have A. test. During the test, these people were given all kinds of breakfast and sometimes they got no breakfast at al. Scientists wanted to see how well their bodies worked when they had different kinds of breakfast.

    The results show that if a person eats a right breakfast, he or she will work better than if he or she has no, breakfast. If a student has fruit, eggs, bread and milk before going to school, he will learn more quickly and listen more carefully in class.

    The results also show that having no breakfast will not help you lose weight. This is because people become so hungry at noon that they eat too much for lunch. So they will gain (增加)weight instead of losing weight.

Information cards

What's in a Name?

    Many American names come from England. But where did most English names come from?

    Centuries ago, most people in England had only one name-- their first name. In the 11th century, five or six of the 50 people in a village might be named William, and it was easy to get confused. But in the Middle Ages, people found a way to describe each person exactly. If there were four Williams in one village, one might be referred to as William the son of John. A second might be called William from the hill. A third, William the blacksmith(铁匠). And a fourth, William the brown haired. In conversation, people might refer to the four Williams as William John's son, William hill, William smith, and William brown.

    It was 300 or 400 years before the extra(附加的) names gradually developed into last names, or surnames. They were passed on from generation to generation. By the 1300s, Robert, the son of William smith, had the name Robert smith, even if he was not a blacksmith like his father. As the last name became widely accepted, the first letter was capitalized, as in Robert Smith. By the 15th century, most people of the upper and middle classes had surnames.

    Many surnames were based on father-son relations. The "son of" part was added to the father's first name, like Johnson, meaning John's son. Sometimes it was shortened to just "s", as in Jones or Evans.

    Surnames like Hill described the place where a person lived. They are the most common type of surname. A third kind of surname was based on a person's job. Forester was someone who looked after the forest. In the Middle Ages, occupation names such as Baker, Carpenter, and Miller became common. The fourth kind of surname was nickname(绰号). A man whose surname was Bear might be as fierce as a bear.

    Have you ever wondered why some surnames are so common? The most common surname in the English language is Smith. Being able to make metals(金属)into tools was an important skill in the Middle Ages, and many people were trained as blacksmiths. The most common American surnames are Smith, Johnson, William and Brown.

    Mr White works in a factory. There are not many people in the factory. They make shoes there. The workers go to work very early in the morning. On Saturday and Sunday they don't go to work. They stay at home. Mrs White cooks for the workers in the factory. She likes cooking and she cooks well. In the middle of the day the workers have lunch in the factory. They are very friendly. They like the food Mrs White cooks.

    Every month, junior high schools in China choose one hero of the month. This person is a hero because he or she has done something to help protect animals in danger. Huang Jing decided to write a letter to the President of China.

Dear Mr President.

    I have been doing a project at school recently about animals in danger. I think the situation all over the world is really terrible. I am writing to you to suggest what China should do to help protect animals more.

    I know that there are nearly 2, 000 nature reserves in China, which is good. I live in Beijing and there are about 30 reserves outside the city. We visited one of them last month to sec for ourselves.

    I feel so sorry for the giant panda. It's one of the most popular animals in the world and a real symbol of China. We learned that pandas mainly live on bamboo, and that a panda can eat half its body weight of bamboo in 24 hours！That's a lot of bamboo. I think we should try to do more to stop cutting down forests. Pandas are already a rare animal and it would be so sad if they became extinct(灭绝)forever.

    The other animal we should try to protect more is the Chinese alligator(场子努). These creatures live in some parts of eastern China. These beautiful animals live in freshwater rivers and lakes but the water in some places isn't clean enough for them to live in. It's really dirty in fact. The government should stop factories polluting the lakes and rivers.

    If we protect these beautiful animals in China, more foreigners may wish to visit China to see them. They could be an important tourist attraction. It would be good if more people came to visit our beautiful country, especially to see the quieter areas in the country. Now most visitors just see the cities.

    I hope you will encourage more people to think about such an important subject.

Sincerely yours,

Huang Jing

    You may think that inventions are far away from your everyday life. But in fact, almost everyone can invent things. It's just that they do not realize that their ideas could be the start of an invention. Once inventors see their ideas have some practical value, they don't let them slip way.

    For example, the inventor of the dishwasher, American Josephine Cochrane, loved to give dinner parties. But she found it took long to wash her dishes by hand. She decided that a machine could do the job faster and with fewer mistakes. So, in 1886, she set out to make one for herself.

    Here are the steps to create inventions. The first and most important step is to find the problem. You can start by looking at what is wrong with things you use now. You can ask grandparents or neighbors if they remember ever saying: "I wish someone would invent something for…" Or you can look at people in different areas--such as on the street, or at school. Then you might notice situations or things in need of improvement. Remember to record you ideas and work. This will help you develop your invention and protect it when it is completed. The next step is to think about possible solutions (解决方法). An invention is a new way of solving a problem. So think of many, varied and unusual ways. You can often come up with a solution to a problem by looking at it from a different side.

    The hardest part of inventing, even for a lot of inventors, is coming up with a problem and finding a solution. Once you have an idea, you can always get help building your invention. This problem-solving technique can also work in your everyday life. So, why not try it in your studies, in your relationship with others, or even in the way you look at the world?