If you are a sleep deprived  teacher, you may not be aware of the term woodpeckering , but you've probably done it. It happens the day following a bad night's sleep. You're sitting in a long meeting and you can barely keep your eyes open, so you support your head up with your hand. Next thing you know, you are moving your sleeping head back to its upright position. Do this a few times and you are woodpeckering. I thought I knew sleep deprivation when I did my medical internship  in hospital. That year I frequently went 36 hours with no sleep. When I finished my stay in neurology , I welcomed the promise of full nights of sleep ever after. It went pretty well for the next 10 years until I became a school teacher and experienced a whole new level of sleep deprivation. Teachers' working hours go far beyond the 8 am to 5 pm schedule of kids in school. There are hours spent at staff meetings, correcting homework, preparing for the next day- and then there is the worrying. What I did in a hospital emergency room required no more intensive mental energy than what is need to keep 30 kids attentive enough to learn what I was teacher. Good teachers are like magicians keeping a dozen balls in the air to come at right time, with alarm set for 6 am to finish grading papers, memories of the day that's gone- including the students who didn't understand something, forgot their lunch or were embarrassed by wrong answers. All these will become sleep-resistant barriers. And also with some financial stress, you'll have a cycle of insomnia  with unwelcome consequences. With inadequate sleep comes irritability , forgetfulness, lower tolerance of even minor annoyances, and less efficient organization and planning. These are the very mental useless that teachers need to meet the challenges of the next day. In wanting to do a better job the next day, the brain keeps bringing up the worries that deny the rest it needs. Good teachers' sleep problems are mainly due to the   _  . A) common sleep-resistant barriers B) embarrassment for wrong answers C) diligence and devotion to teaching D) misunderstanding of their students
C

When I first began to work with international students, I asked someone at a lunch, "What brings you here today?" Looking at me like I was a bit crazy, he answered, " The bus." That was my first realization that no matter how good a speaker is, there are phrases that will always tend to cause confusion to non-native speakers. These idiomatic phrases  add color and interest to any language and are worth learning if you want to talk fluently with native speakers. "By no stretch"----The speaker is referring to something that's very hard to achieve or realize, even with great effort, as in "It was not a good meal, by any stretch of the imagination." Which means that  _ . "Half dead"----An expression of extreme tiredness, having nothing to do with actual health. Commonly used at the end of a long and tiring day. "By the book"----This means that an action should follow the rules exactly. It also describes the nature of someone who won't deviate  from a set of rules no matter what the situation is. "More power to you"----This isn't a wish for you to have better electricity from the power company----it's a statement, usually slightly ironic , that the speaker thinks that you are unlikely to do a task, but you should try if you think you can complete it. It generally means the speaker has no intention of helping you achieve your goal neither will they discourage you from attempting to reach it. For example, "I don't think you can meet that deadline, but more power to you." "As easy as pie"----A reference that something is as simple or easy as eating a delicious dessert, or that it requires little effort to successfully achieve. In chatting, this phrase does not refer to the process of cooking or eating. If a person daren't do things in a creative way, you may describe him by using "  _  ". A) by no stretch B) by the book C) as easy as pie D) the breaker of rules
B

A friend asks you to be a volunteer. Your husband asks you to glance over an e-mail he is writing to his boss. You say you'd love to. Really! But..."I don't have time". It seems plausible( ). We're all busy these days, right? But there are reasons not to use these four words, at least with yourself. Here's the big one: _ is not true. You tell yourself "I don't have time" to exercise, but we all have 168 hours a week. If someone offered to pay you $100,000 a week to go to the gym for 5 of those 168 hours, you would probably find the time to do it. Since that isn't going to happen, this is a more exact description: " It's not a priority ." There are a million things we could be doing with our time; some are priorities and some are not, even if it's wrong to say so. Try it. "I'm not going to read to you tonight, sweetie, because it's not a priority. Daddy's present priority is to check my e-mails." Using the words "I don't have time" keeps us from admitting to the fact that how we spend our time is a choice. It puts the responsibility for our lives on someone else: a boss, a client or a family member. Better to be truthful: "I have another volunteer job on which I am focusing my energy right now. It is the cause that is most important to me." Or, to your husband "I wish you had mentioned this earlier. Right now, my priority is to get our children dressed and out of the door for school. I will be available around lunch time if you would like to talk". You can find this text in the  _  section of a newspaper. A) sports B) entertainment C) culture D) science
C

Renaissance is a French word. It means "rebirth". It's a strange name for a period of history. What was exactly " reborn" during the Renaissance? To answer this question, we need to look back at the time of the Roman Empire. At this time Roman artists, scientists and writers influenced by Greek ideas were the world's most advanced. They had become skilled observers of the natural world around them, and had become experts in studying animals, plants, the human body or the stars and planets. They wrote down their ideas about what they saw, and based their theories about the world on their observations. During the fourth and fifth centuries the Roman Empire slowly broke down. Many of the Romans' art and sculptures were destroyed and some manuscripts were lost as well. But most importantly, some of the ancient attitudes were lost. A questioning approach to the world was replaced by an unquestioning one. Why did this happen? One reason was to do with the influence of the Christian Church. Through the thousand years following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church controlled many aspects of life including education and learning. The Church ran all the universities and thought that the aim of a university should be to teach old ideas more clearly, not to introduce new ones. The scholars in the universities were expected to study God and heaven from the Bible and ancient books, rather than the world around them. Take medicine for example. The main textbook for doctors had been written by a Greek doctor called Galen more than a thousand years earlier. But when Roger Bacon, a thirteenth-century priest , said that a new approach to medicine was needed --- doctors should do their own original research instead of reading writers from the past such as Galen-the Church put him in prison. By the time of the fourteenth century, however, some parts of the Christian Church were becoming less strict about their ideas and there was a new state of mind among artists, doctors and scientist. People wanted to find out more about... Roger Bacon was put in prison because he  _  . A) gave up being a priest B) showed no respect for Galen C) did some research secretly D) challenged the Church

D