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This old story is about an old man and a clever monkey. Aesop, a Greek writer first told the story many years ago. This monkey belonged to the old man. The old man likes the garden very much. When birds came to the garden the monkey chased them away. He also helped the old man in many other ways. The old man often fell asleep during the day in his chair. Then the monkey sat at the old man’s side and chased the flies away from the old man’s face.One hot afternoon in the summer, the old man was asleep in his chair. A fly came and sat on the end of the old man’s face. The monkey chased it away. Soon the fly came back and sat on the old man’s face again. The monkey chased it away. This continued about four or five times. The monkey at last became very angry. He jumped up, ran to the garden, and picked up a large stone. The next time when the fly sat on the old man’s face, the monkey hit it hard with the stone. He killed the fly. But unfortunately he broke the old man’s face. From this story we can learn: sometimes things done out of（）will may be
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Almost everyone has experienced the joy of sports. Nevertheless, thoughtful observers will continue to reflect on the pros and cons of the modern drive to rationalize sports in a quest for the ultimate possible athletic performance.
When did sport begin If sport IS, in essence, play, the claim might be made that sport is much older than humankind, for, as we all have observed, the beasts play. Dogs and cats wrestle and play ball games. Fishes and birds dance. The apes have simple, pleasurable games. Frolicking infants, school children playing tag, and adult arm wrestlers are demonstrating strong, trans-generational and trans-species bonds with the universe of animals--past, present, and future. Young animals, particularly, tumble, chase, run, wrestle, mock, imitate, and laugh (or so it seems) to the point of delighted exhaustion. Their play, and ours, appears to serve no other purpose than to give pleasure to the players, and apparently, to remove us temporarily from the anguish of life in earnest. Some philosophers have claimed that our playfulness is the most noble part of our basic nature. In their generous conceptions, play harmlessly and experimentally permits us to put our creative forces, fantasy, and imagination into action. Play is release from the tedious battles against scarcity and decline which are the incessant, and inevitable, tragedies of life. This is a grand conception that excites and provokes. The holders of this view claim that the origins of our highest accomplishments--liturgy, literature, and law--can be traced to a play impulse which, paradoxically, we see most purely enjoyed by young beasts and children. Our sports, in this rather happy, non-fatalistic view of human nature, are more splendid creations of the non-datable, trans-species play impulse.
Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education, announced a pilot reform to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), George Bush’s education law, which was passed in 2002. Up to ten states, she said, would be allowed to target their resources at the most severely struggling schools, rather than at the vast number needing improvement. The change drew a predictable mix of praise and censure. Above all, though, it was a reminder of utter inaction elsewhere. Congress, which was supposed to re-authorize the law last year, has made little progress. On the campaign trail, concerns over Iraq and the economy have made education a minor issue. Contrary to appearances, the law’s main tenets are unlikely to be abandoned completely. But for the Democratic candidates in particular, a proper debate on NCLB is to be avoided like political quicksand. Most politicians agree that the law has the fight goals--to raise educational standards and hold schools accountable for meeting them. NCLB requires states to test pupils on math and reading from third to eighth grade (that is, from the ages of eight to 13), and once in high school. Some science testing is being added. Schools that do not make "adequate yearly progress" towards meeting state standards face sanctions. Pupils in failing schools can supposedly transfer to a better one or get tutoring. Most also agree that NCLB has big flaws that must be fixed. Few pupils in bad schools actually transfer--less than 1% of those eligible did so in the 2003-04 school year. Teachers’ unions say the tests are focused too narrowly on math and reading, fail to measure progress over time and encourage "teaching to the test". They also complain that the law lacks proper funding. The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a conservative policy group, has exposed wide gaps in state standards. Test-data reflect this. In Mississippi 90% of fourth-graders were labeled "proficient" or better in the state reading test in 2006-07. Only 19% reached that level in a national test. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, offers NCLB tepid support but fails to elaborate. At Democratic rallies, NCLB is little more than a whipping-boy. Hillary Clinton proclaims that she will "end the unfunded mandate known as No Child Left Behind". But though she and Barack Obama deride NCLB publicly, each endorses the idea of accountability. They favor using more sophisticated "assessments" in place of tests, want to value a broader range of skills, punish schools less and support them more. How these ideas would be implemented remains unclear. Not surprisingly, more controversial proposals can be found among those not running for president. Chester Finn of Fordham thinks the federal government needs greater power to set standards, while states should have more leeway in meeting them. A bipartisan commission on NCLB has issued a slew of proposals. Particularly contentious is a plan to use pupils’ test scores to help identify ineffective teachers as in need of retraining. Of course, standards alone do not improve education. Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama propose a host of new programs for schools, described on their websites if rarely on campaign. But accountability is likely to remain a big part of school reform. Last April a group of philanthropists announced a $60m effort to make education the top domestic issue of 2008. So far, it looks like money ill spent. Which of the following is NOT a weakness of NCLB
A scorching sun, an endless sea of sand and a waterless, forbiddingly lonely land—that is the image most people have of deserts. But how true is this picture Deserts are dry lands where rainfall is low. This is not to say rain never falls in deserts: it may fall once or twice a year in a fierce torrent that fades almost as soon as it has begun, or which evaporates in the hot air long before it has got anywhere near the earth. It may fall in a sudden sweeping flood that carries everything in its path. Rains may only come once in five or six years or not fall for a decade or more. The Mojave desert in the United States remained dry for twenty-five years. Without water no living thing can survive, and one feature of the true desert land-scape is the absence of vegetation. With little rain and hardly any vegetation the land suffers under the sun. There are virtually no clouds or trees to protect the earth’s surface and it can be burning hot. Under the sun, soils break up and crack. Wind and torrential rain sweep away and erode the surface further. Eight million square kilometers of the world’s land surface is desert. Throughout history deserts have been expanding and retreating again. Cave paintings show that parts of the Sahara Desert were green and fertile about 10,000 years ago, and even animals like elephants and giraffes roamed the land. Fossil and dunes found in fertile and damp parts of the world show that these areas were once deserts. But now the creation of new desert areas is happening on a colossal scale. Twenty million square kilometers, an area twice the size of Canada, is at a high to very high risk of becoming desert. With a further 1.25 million square kilometers under moderate risk, an area covering 30% of the earth’s land surface is desert, becoming desert, or in danger of becoming desert. The rate of growth of deserts is alarming. The world’s dry lands which are under threat include some of the most important stock-rearing and wheat-growing areas and are the homes of 600～700 million people. These regions are becoming deserts at the rate of more than 58,000 square kilometers a year or 44 hectares a minute. In North Africa at least 100,000 hectares of cropland are lost each year. At this rate there is a high risk that we will be confined to living on only 50% of this planet’s land surface within one more century unless we are able to do something about it. What does the passage tell us about rainfall in the desert
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