As a pioneer bullet train (动车) driver, Li Dongxiao, 52, is part of the history of China’s high-speed railway network. In 2008, he drove China’s first high-speed train,
However, all those
China’s high-speed rail network
Yang Jiang was a well-known Chinese playwright, translator, and author. She belonged to
Yang was born into a rich family in 1911,
Other than translations, Yang
1. What made Catherine start boxing?
| A．A film. | B．A friend. | C．A game. |
| A．Brave. | B．Smart. | C．Crazy. |
| A．Stay relaxed. | B．Go camping. | C．Get training. |
| A．Friendship. | B．Fitness. | C．Respect. |
4 . Song Yingxing was a Chinese scientist and encyclopedist (百科全书编纂者) who lived during the late Ming Dynasty. The British biochemist and historian Joseph Needham called him “The Diderot of China”.
Song Yingxing was born in Fengxin county in Jiangxi province in 1587. He took part in the second highest imperial (科学) examinations in Beijing six times, but failed to become a jinshi. After that, he decided to give up taking exams and turned to the practical knowledge of natural science. Then Song Yingxing spent four years teaching his students in his hometown.
Although it was a job like teaching, it was a very important stage in Song Yingxing’s life, because many of his works were written here. And Song Yingxing had been living in a secluded (隐居的) life in the past ten years. Because he didn’t want to be an official, Song Yingxing lived a very poor life in his later years.
He was the author of Tian Gong Kai Wu, an encyclopedia that covered a wide variety of technical subjects. As Joseph Needham has observed, the vast amount of accurately drawn illustrations in this encyclopedia dwarfed the amount provided in previous Chinese encyclopedias, making it a valuable written work in the history of Chinese literature. Tian Gong Kai Wu records all aspects of technology up to the mid-Ming period. The book constitutes a complete system of science and technology, and provides a systematic summary of ancient Chinese technology, the experience accumulated by China in agriculture, and China’s achievements in technology.
Many of the production techniques described in the book are still in use today. At the same time, Tian Gong Kai Wu broke from Chinese tradition by rarely referencing previous written work. It was instead written in a style strongly suggestive of personal experience. The book was translated into Japanese, French, English, German, Italian, and Russian, and was widely circulated in Europe and Japan.
In addition, Song Yingxing had made great achievements in many fields. His research was very extensive. In physics, he studied the occurrence of sound and, finally concluded that sound is transmitted in the air.
1. What can we learn about Song Yingxing from the text?| A．He adjusted the direction of life. | B．He dreamed to be a great scientist. |
| C．He received a science education. | D．He passed imperial examinations. |
| A．Busy but satisfactory. | B．Significant and rewarding. |
| C．Comfortable but worthless. | D．Challenging and intolerant. |
| A．Make something seem smaller. | B．Apply something to practice. |
| C．Provide evidence of something. | D．Take advantage of something. |
| A．It provided abundant first-hand experience. | B．It was written in multiple foreign languages. |
| C．It focused merely on agricultural technology. | D．It largely referenced previous encyclopedias. |
5 . Norman Lear, a genius producer and screenwriter, passed away on Tuesday in Los Angeles at the age of 101. “Lear’s hit comedy shows changed television forever,” said Darnel Hunt, a leading artist on TV.
Lear grew up in an ordinary family in Connecticut, where an unexpected accident brought about his father’s business collapse. So he had to drop out of college and joined the army. In his late 20s, he moved to Los Angeles where he struggled hard for several years, selling furniture door to door. Later on, unsatisfied with his life, he eventually turned to writing for a nightclub comedy act.
By 1971, when he was almost 50, Lear had produced and directed some shows, among which was the hit show All in the Family. In the beginning, it didn’t get on the air smoothly. However, once it did, this show made it to the top 10 for eight of its nine seasons, promising Lear’s life was to change.
This successful show was just the beginning of Lear’s dominating position in comedy shows. Then came The Jeffersons, about a family on its way up. It ran for eleven seasons, one of the longest running comedy shows on television, becoming another successful story. When interviewed about the hit of his shows, Lear said, “Our team read two or three newspapers a day, paid a lot of attention to our families, and came in to talk about everything that was affecting us in our daily lives.” Therefore, it came as no surprise that viewers had a sense of Lear’s own family after watching All in the Family.
“Routinely, Lear’s shows might get fifty or sixty million viewers. He was in direct contact with the living rooms and families of the country,” says Marty Kaplan, founding director of the Norman Lear Center. “Lear did everything with humor and sympathy.”
1. What can we learn about Lear from the first two paragraphs?| A．He led a challenging life in his twenties. |
| B．His shows had little impact on television. |
| C．His father expected him to be a screenwriter. |
| D．He received good education despite his father’s business failure. |
| A．His shows reflected real daily life. | B．His shows featured surprise endings. |
| C．His shows go on the air immediately. | D．His shows dominated the comedy industry. |
| A．Lear promoted his shows to families directly. |
| B．Lear won widespread popularity for his shows. |
| C．Lear carried out face-to-face interactions with viewers. |
| D．Lear always focuses on the themes of humor and sympathy. |
| A．A comedy script. | B．A story collection. |
| C．A literature review. | D．A news report. |
6 . Rita Moreno is one of the very few performers to EGOT: to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award. But come a little closer, and Moreno’s is another kind of immigrant (移民的) story.
She was a teen when MGM (米高梅电影公司) signed her in the 1950s. Major studios were still dominated by the men who’d run them for decades. They had her change her name. While recognizing her talent, they didn’t know what to do with a Latin girl. Moreno played small parts, including a girl from India and a Burmese (缅甸的) woman. What should have been her big break came when she was cast as Anita in West Side Story. She’d remember Anita as “the very first Hispanic (西班牙的) character I had ever played who had dignity, a sense of self-respect. She became my role model. ” The night Moreno won the Oscar, the Hispanic community across the USA broke out into cheers.
But that career turn didn’t happen. Instead, she received more offers to play what she described as “dusky servants”. The racial and ethnic prejudice was still at play. “It broke my heart, ”she says. Rita Moreno didn’t make another movie for seven years.
Then began her new act. Holding to her mother’s philosophy — Never give in, never quit, keep on moving — she survived professionally during those years with work on the London stage and in nightclubs, slowly reemerging on film and television, and eventually she earned herself a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Peabody Career Achievement Award.
But even as she continues to perform, her work continues off the screen, speaking out for and representing the Latin community. “I’m now known as la pionera, or the pioneer,” Moreno says. “I really don’t think of myself as a role model. But it turns out that I am, to a lot of the Hispanic community. Not just in show business, but in life. But that’s what happens when you’re first, right?”
1. What do we know about Moreno in Paragraph 2?| A．She was an actress contracted with MGM. |
| B．She had her future well-planned for her talent. |
| C．She was treated as a Hispanic girl with dignity. |
| D．She won the Oscar for acting a Burmese woman. |
| A．She did not receive any film offers. |
| B．She rejected roles of racial prejudice. |
| C．She was tired of performing on the stage. |
| D．She focused on her stage career in nightclubs. |
| A．Generous and brave. | B．Kind and grateful. |
| C．Honest and trustworthy. | D．Tough and determined. |
| A．She prefers to be a role model in show business. |
| B．She is unhappy with what happened to an actress. |
| C．She makes a difference to the Hispanic community. |
| D．She feels pressured about being a Hispanic pioneer. |
1. Where is the talk being given?
| A．In a museum. | B．In a cinema. | C．In a classroom. |
| A．Poor and difficult. | B．Dangerous in war. | C．Rich with opportunities. |
| A．Fight. | B．Respect. | C．Peace. |
| A．To explain a museum’s background. |
| B．To describe his favorite movie. |
| C．To sell a tour service. |
1. What does Greg Samson do?
| A．A host. | B．A singer. | C．A dancer. |
| A．His new songs. |
| B．His excellent dancing skills. |
| C．His show with new elements. |
| A．To keep fit. |
| B．To lose weight. |
| C．To explore a new place. |
| A．Throw a party. |
| B．Have a performance. |
| C．Hold a press conference. |
9 . Taylor grew up on the coast of New South Wales, Australia and swimming in the ocean was part of everyday life. She began spear fishing and worked her way up in her early 20s to become one of very few women who were professional spear fishers and was named the Australian Ladies National Champion.
However, as she spent more time underwater, especially with the sharks, she had a change of heart. “I learned straight away that sharks are nowhere near as dangerous as the media would have us believe. And I learned that they all have different personalities-there’s the shy guy, the cross guy, and the aggressive guy; they’re all different.” From that point on, she decided, along with her late husband and world spear fishing champion, Ron Taylor, to hang up her spear and to only shoot them with her camera.
As a pioneering shark conservationist, Taylor succeeded in many firsts throughout her life’s work. She was the first person to dive with sharks cageless. The first person to test the power of a shark bite; she hand-fed a Great White and petted it. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do to help correct the false image that sharks are dangerous, man-eating beasts. Her research has become the basis for much of what we know about sharks today and she succeeded in becoming the first person to get Grey Nurse sharks protected in a specific area, the first shark species in the world to receive protected status.
When asked about what could be done to help save the sharks, and the oceans, Taylor said she was quite pessimistic about the whole thing. “Change has to come from the government level.”But she also recommended, “The thing that works the best is to get a good story and then get it on camera. Then go on television and speak to the public. Say it to the mothers, “Wouldn’t you like your child. . . when they’re old enough, to be able to see this wonderful, friendly shark?””
1. What sort of girl was Taylor in her early 20s?| A．Far-seeing. |
| B．Demanding |
| C．Accomplished |
| D．Environmentally-aware |
| A．Her desire to be rich. |
| B．Her understanding of sharks. |
| C．Her ambition for becoming famous. |
| D．Her marriage with Ron. |
| A．To prove her great influence on shark conservation. |
| B．To urge the protection of sea animals. |
| C．To present her achievements as a female fisher pioneer. |
| D．To show her efforts to correct people’s false impression of sharks. |
| A．Raising public awareness. |
| B．Turning to experts for advice. |
| C．Inventing stories about sharks. |
| D．Relying on the government only. |
10 . “To repair ancient books, we have a lot to do,” says Song Jing, 34, who has been working in the restoration division for ancient books at the National Library of China in Beijing for eight years. Before starting a restoration project, Song and her colleagues have to evaluate the subject to consider what problems can be solved through restoration and those that cannot. Fearing the chemicals in commercially produced pastes (胶水) might harm the books, they have to make the glues they need by themselves, starting from removing starch(淀粉) from flour.
“The restoration also requires high levels of control in brushing the paper. If the pressure is not properly controlled during the brushing process, the paper may tear, but if the touch is too light, the paper won’t stick,” Song explains.
Song was determined to join the field from an early age. As a child, she was attracted by documentaries about the world’s cultural relics (遗物) and became deeply interested in the art of artifact restoration.
In senior middle school, those earlier experiences helped her to set her sights on becoming a master restorer of ancient books.
There were not many schools offering cultural-relic restoration courses back then, and her dream destination, Peking University, only offered openings every other year.
As Song looked into undergraduate curricula (本科课程) arrangement for that particular field of study, she found it was mostly related to chemistry. Therefore, she chose to start a chemistry degree at Fudan University in Shanghai in 2008. In her spare time, she continued to read up on cultural relics and study how museums operate.
“I got to learn how certain aspects of chemistry are going a long way in restoring cultural relics,” she says.
After graduating from Fudan, she was accepted as a master’s candidate to the cultural heritage preservation program at Peking University. From then on, she has been on a mission to make her dreams a reality.
1. What will ruin a restoration work?| A．Brushing the paper. | B．Man-made glue. |
| C．Removing starch. | D．Incorrect assessment. |
| A．Demanding and Boring. | B．Complex and challenging. |
| C．Complicated and Dangerous. | D．Entertaining and profitable. |
| A．She didn’t reach the requirement of Peking University. |
| B．Only Fudan University offered her favorite course. |
| C．She wanted to be better prepared for her dream occupation. |
| D．Her interest had shifted from book restoration to chemistry. |
| A．History mirrors future. | B．Courage is the key to achievements. |
| C．Education breaks down barriers. | D．Commitment and hard work pay off. |
