要点：①春节是中国的重大节日。②节前人们要大扫除。③全家人在一起吃年夜饭。④孩子们会得到压岁钱。⑤年初一穿新衣服,走亲访友。

词数：100左右。

随着生活水平不断提高，电子媒体日益普及。请你根据下面照片所展示的不同读书方式，结合自身实际写一篇英语短文。内容包括以下要点：

1）30词左右概述照片内容；

2）这幅照片所展示何种社会现象及造成该现象的原因；

3）你更偏爱哪种读书方式，并陈述理由（至少2点）；

4）字数150左右，文中不得出现真实校名、人名。

【评分标准】卷面整洁，内容完整，语言规范，语篇连贯，词数适当。
 

    Why do earthquakes happen? Scientists believe that the surface of the earth is covered by a number of moving plates. Sometimes two plates move towards and push against each other. Sometimes they stop for years but at other times they jump and an earthquake is felt. Because of the movements of these plates, California, China and Japan have a lot of earthquakes. You can see the result in San Francisco where the Pacific plate meets the North American plate. When the 1906 earthquake happened, the Pacific plate jumped 5 to 6 metres to the north.

    China is a country where many earthquakes happen. The Pacific plate is pushing China from the east and the Indian plate is pushing China from the southwest. The power of this movement created the Himalayas and Mount Qomolongma. It now causes earthquakes in China. We cannot stop earthquakes but we can do things to make sure they do not destroy whole cities. First it is not a good idea to build houses along the line where two plates meet. Second, if you think there may be an earthquake, make sure to build houses on rock rather than sand. Third, you must make the houses as strong as possible. Weak buildings will fall down in an earthquake, but strong ones may stay up.

Teens' Sleep Shortage

    Most teens need about 8 to more than 9 hours of sleep each night. The right amount of sleep is essential for anyone who wants to do well in tests or sports. And lack of sleep affects everything from a person's ability to pay attention in class to his or her mood. It also damages teens' ability to do their best in athletics. Unfortunately, research shows that many teens don't get enough sleep, and more than 20% of high school students fall asleep in class.

    Until recently, teens were often blamed for staying up late, oversleeping for school, and falling asleep in class. But recent studies show that teens' sleep patterns actually differ from those of adults or kids. These studies show that during the teen years, the body's biological clock is temporarily reset, telling a person to fall asleep later and wake up later. This change might arise from the fact that the brain hormone melatonin (褪黑素) is produced later at night for teens than it is for kids and adults. This can make it harder for teens to fall asleep early.

    These changes in the body's biological clock are in line with a time when they're busier than ever. For most teens, the pressure to do well in school is heavier than when they were kids, and it's harder to get by without studying hard. And teens also have other time demands — everything from sports and other extracurricular(课程外的) activities to fitting in a part-time job to save money for college.

    Early start time in some schools may also play a role in this sleep shortage. Teens who fall asleep after midnight may still have to get up early for school, meaning that they may only squeeze in 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night. A couple hours of missed sleep a night may not seem like a big deal, but can create a noticeable sleep shortage over time

    In our modern world, when something wears out, we throw it away and buy a new one. The problem is that countries around the world have growing mountains of rubbish because people are throwing out more rubbish than ever before.

    How do the society become a throwaway one? First of all, it is now easier to replace an object than to spend time and money repairing it. Thanks to modern manufacturing (制造业) and technology, companies are able to produce products quickly and inexpensively. Products are plentiful and cheap.

    Another cause is our love of disposable (一次性的) products. As busy people, we are always looking for ways to save time and make our lives easier. Companies produce thousands of different kinds of disposable products: paper plates, plastic cups, and cameras, to name a few.

    Our appetite for new products also contributes to the problem. We are addicted to buying new things. Advertisements persuade us that newer is better and that we will be happier with the latest products. The result is that we throw away useful possessions to make room for new ones.

    All around the world, we can see the consequences of this throwaway lifestyle. Mountains of rubbish just keep getting bigger. To decrease the amount of rubbish and to protect the environment, more governments are requiring people to recycle materials. However, this is not enough to solve our problem.

    Maybe there is another way out. We need to repair our possessions instead of throwing them away. We also need to rethink our attitudes towards spending. Repairing our possessions and changing our spending habits may be the best way to reduce the amount of rubbish and take care of our environment.

These days, its not unusual to see middle-aged men collecting Star Wars action figures, office workers wearing Hello Kitty accessories, or celebrities like David Beckham playing with Lego bricks, it's becoming more and more common to see adult taking an interest in toys, comic books and the activities that are traditionally associated with children. This phenomenon has given rise to a new word: kidult.

What lies behind the phenomenon? One is about adults' nostalgia (怀旧)for the carefree days of childhood, and this is especially true with today's fast-paced, stressful lifestyles. Another is about a societal change in recent decades where people are starting families later. As a result, they have more time and money to spend on themselves. Some adults could only window-shop for their dream toys when they were kids, but now they can afford that radio-controlled car or high-priced doll they have always wanted.

Society traditionally disapproves of adults who refuse to put aside childhood interests, viewing the refusal as a sign of social immaturity (不成熟) and irresponsibility. Those who agree with this view sometimes claim that kidults are suffering from the pop-psychology concept known as Peter Pan Syndrome, an anomaly (异常) that people remain emotionally at the level of teenagers.

From the standpoint of kidults, though, this phenomenon is seen as nothing but harmless fun. Kidults insist that having youthful interests keeps them young, happy and creative, and their refusal to conform to society's acccptable tastes shows independent thinking. Besides, they argue that being part of the social trend of delayed adulthood is not purely a personal choice. The real causes include expensive housing, increased educational requirements for employment and poor work opportunities.