1 . “Some day, there’ll be no Americans left in the NBA,” said 12-year-old Xing Tao, who joined his school team two weeks ago after watching Yao Ming in a televised NBA game, “The players will all be Chinese, like Yao.”

To China, Yao is a home-grown superstar who helped make the world’s first basketball league closer to Chinese players. To the NBA, the 2.23-meter center offers an opening of a different sort into the world’s largest new market. Yao’s NBA first appearance against the Indiana Pacers in October reached 287 million families in the US. That game might have been a bit of a letdown to Yao’s fans: He played just 11 of the 48 minutes, had two rebounds (篮板) and got no points. Comparing that with his performance on December 19, also against Indiana, Yao won 29 points and 10 rebounds. “This was one of the most exciting games I’ve had,” Yao said after Houston’s 95-83 victory. The NBA has to be excited about his on-count success. In all his games, he’s averaging 12.7 points and 7.7 rebounds, quite good for a new star. “Yao Ming has brought the NBA closer to the Chinese,” said NBA spokeswoman Cheong Sau Ching, “That makes the dream seem practical for other people in China and proud to be Chinese.”

The 22-year-old Yao is not the country’s first player in the NBA: Wang Zhizhi broke down the Dallas Mavericks in November 2003. But Yao’s combination of modesty (谦虚) and skills make him a favorite back home.

1. What’s the direct reason for Xing Tao to join the school basketball team?

A．He watched an NBA game.	B．He liked basketball.
C．He hoped to play for the NBA.	D．He had dream that he would become a basketball star.

2. How many points did Yao Ming win in his first game in the NBA?

A．zero

B．two

C．29

D．10

3. What does the word “letdown” in line 6, paragraph 2 mean?

A．failure

B．surprise

C．disappointment

D．sadness.

4. Why does Yao Ming win more popularity than Wang Zhizhi at home?

A．He has performed excellently.	B．He is modest.
C．More and more Chinese people like to watch his games.	D．Both A and B.

5. What’s the main idea of this passage?

A．Middle school students want to play basketball.

B．Yao Ming makes NBA closer to China.

C．There’ll be no Americans left in the NBA.

D．There are many new stars from China in the NBA.

2 . 阅读下面一段材料，在空白处写入一个适当的单词或使用括号中词语的正确形式填入。

Back in 1995, Jack Mark made his first trip to the US and used the Internet for the first time. After searching for “beer”, he saw that no results came up relating     1     China. When he then searched for “China” and still saw no results, he decided     2     (set) up a Chinese website – the seed for Alibaba had been sown.

Ma     3     (simple) wanted his company to have a     4    (globe) and interesting name, and realized Alibaba is a story     5     (know) across the world. AS an added bonus, Ma said because it begins with A, it also appears top of lists.

The company     6    (found) in 1999 and since then has grown from 15 employees to over 30,000. Alibaba has directly and indirectly created 40 million     7     (job) for China. It floated on New York Stock Market in September 2014 for $ 25 billion, the largest IPO on earth.

Ma hopes to keep expanding Alibaba outside of China and is aiming for 2 billion consumers and 10 million small businesses to use     8     company outside of China.

Ma became the richest man in China,     9     the company he founded floated on the stock market in 2014 with a value of around $ 140 billion –the     10     (large) public offering in history.

5 . You probably know who Marie Curie was, but you may not have heard of Rachel Carson. Of the outstanding ladies listed below, who do you think was the most important woman of the past 100 years?

Jane Addams (1860-1935)

Anyone who has ever been helped by a social worker has Jane Addams to thank. Addams helped the poor and worked for peace. She encouraged a sense of community (社区) by creating shelters and promoting education and services for people in need. In 1931, Addams became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

If it weren’t for Rachel Carson, the environmental movement might not exist today. Her popular 1962 book Silent Spring raised awareness(意识) of the dangers of pollution and the harmful effects of chemicals on humans and on the world’s lakes and oceans.

Sandra Day O’Connor (1930-present)

When Sandra Day O’Connor finished third in her class at Stanford Law School, in 1952, she could not find work at a law firm because she was a woman. She became an Arizona state senator (参议员) and in 1981, the first woman to join the U. S. Supreme Court (最高法院). O’Connor gave the deciding vote in many important cases during her 24 years on the top court.

Rosa Parks(1913-2005)

On December 1,1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rasa Parks would not give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. Her simple act landed Parks in prison. But it also set off the Montgomery bus boycott (抵制). It lasted for more than a year, and kicked off the civil-rights movement. “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in,” said Parks.

1. What is Jane Addams famous for in history?

A．Her social work.	B．Her teaching skills.
C．Her efforts to win a prize.	D．Her community background.

2. What was the reason for O’Connor’s being refused by the law firm?

A．Not having training in law.	B．Her little work experience in court.
C．Her identity as a woman.	D．Her poor financial conditions.

3. Who made a great contribution to the civil-rights movement in the U.S.?

A．Jane Addams.	B．Rachel Carson.
C．Sandra Day O’Connor.	D．Rosa Parks.

4. What can we infer about the women mentioned in the text?

A．They are highly educated.	B．They are truly creative.
C．They are pioneers.	D．They are peace-lovers.

6 . Edmund Halley was an English scientist who lived over 200 years ago. He studied the observations of comets which other scientists had made. The orbit of one particular comet was a very difficult mathematical problem. He could not figure it out. Neither could other scientists who dealt with such problems.

However, Halley had a friend named Newton, who was a brilliant mathematician. Newton thought he had already worked out that problem, but he could not find the papers on which he had done it. He told Halley that the orbit of a comet had the shape of an ellipse.

Now Halley set to work. He figured out the orbits of some of the comets that had been observed by scientists. He made a surprising discovery. The comets that had appeared in the years 1531, 1607, and 1682 all had the same orbit. Yet their appearances had been 75 to 76 years apart.

This seemed very strange to Halley. The different comets followed the same orbit. The more Halley thought about it, the more he thought that there had not been three different comets, as people thought. He decided that they had simply seen the same comet three times. The comet had gone away and had come back again.

It was an astonishing idea! Halley felt certain enough to make a prediction of what comet would happen in the future. He decided that this comet would appear in the year 1758. There were 53 years to go before Halley’s prediction could be tested. In 1758 the comet appeared in the sky. Halley did not see it, for he had died some years before. Ever since then that comet has been called Halley’s comet, in his honor.

1. Halley made his discovery ________.

A．by doing experiments	B．by means of his own careful observation
C．by using the work of other scientists	D．by chance

2. Halley made a surprising，but correct prediction in the year ________.

A．1704

B．1705

C．1706

D．1707

3. This passage in general is about ________.

A．Halley and other scientists	B．the orbit of a comet
C．Newton and Halley	D．Halley and his discovery

4. What can we know from the text?

A．Edmund Halley was an American scientist.	B．Halley made his discovery by doing experiments.
C．Newton was a famous mathematician.	D．The orbit of a comet had the shape of a circle.

7 .
What are the speakers talking about?

A．A table tennis player.

B．An outstanding movie.

C．Yang Lan’s biography.

8 . 假设你是高中生李华，你的英国笔友Mike从网上看到中国抗击疫情中的许多英雄人物之后，给你写了一封e-mail，询问谁是你眼中的英雄，请根据以下要点用英语给他回信：
1.对钟南山的简单介绍；
2.喜欢他的理由；
3.从他身上得到的启示。

Name	Zhong Nanshan
Brief introduction	famous medical scientist; the Medal of the Republic; brave fighter
Main events	managed the SARS outbreak; COVID-19 epidemic

注意：1. 适当增加相关细节，以使行文连贯； 2. 词数120左右。
Dear Mike,

I’m honoured that you’re interested in getting to know about the heroes in China in this special fight. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Take care! Hopefully everything will return to normal and we will meet soon.

   Yours,

Li Hua

9 . 依据课文内容，在空格里填入适当的词（每空1词）或依据所给词填入其正确形式（不超过3个词）

(1) Exploring space has already     1    in the fight against world hunger. It has directly resulted in the many satellites that now orbit Earth. A number of the satellites     2     data on land and weather patterns. Then the data     3     (transmit) to scientists on Earth. After careful     4    , the scientists can provide useful     5     and advice for farmers. As a result, space-based science has helped farming in its efforts to grow enough food to feed Earth’s increasing population.

(2) To the public, he was seen as a slightly     6     but kind and funny man. He had a thick moustache and long white hair, which sometimes stood on end     7    he had just received an electric shock. Although he was a     8    , he sometimes forgot things, like his friends’ birthdays. But     9     his peculiarities, he was loved by his friends and neighbours. There is even a story about how he helped a little girl who knocked on his door and asked for help with her homework. In fact, Einstein often     10     people on the street who would stop him and ask him to help explain things.

10 . Inventor, physicist, surveyor, astronomer, biologist, artist... Robert Hooke was all these and more. Some say he was the greatest experimental scientist of the 17th century. In the course of his work, he cooperated with famous men of science like Isaac Newton, and the great architect, Christopher Wren.

Hooke’s early education began at home, under the guidance of his father. He entered Westminster School at the age of 13, and from there went to Oxford, where he came in contact with some of the best scientists in England. Hooke impressed them with his skills at designing experiments and inventing instruments. In 1662, at the age of 28, he was named Curator of Experiments at the newly formed Royal Society of London — meaning that he was responsible for demonstrating new experiments at the society’s weekly meeting. Hooke accepted the job, even though he knew that the society had no money to pay him!

Watching living things through a microscope was one of his favourite pastimes. He invented a compound microscope for this purpose. One day while observing a cork under a microscope, he saw honeycomb­like structures. There were cells — the smallest units of life. In fact, it was Hooke who invented the term “cell” as the box­like cells of the cork reminded him of the cells of a monastery．

Another achievement of Hooke’s was his book Micrographia, which introduced the enormous potential of the microscope. It contains fascinating drawings of the thing he saw under the microscope. The book also includes, among other things, ideas on gravity, light and burning that may have helped scientists like Newton when they were developing their own theories on these phenomena.

Hooke made a valuable contribution to astronomy too. A crater on the moon is named after him in honour of his services to this branch of science.

1. We can infer from Paragraph 2 that Hooke is ________.

A．friendly

B．sociable

C．creative

D．helpful

2. Which is the possible reason why Hooke accepted the job as Curator of Experiments?

A．He liked designing experiments.	B．His family needed his support.
C．He wanted to please the famous scientists in England.	D．His parents couldn’t afford his education.

3. Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?

A．Hooke went to Oxford in 1645.	B．Hooke was well paid in the Royal Society of London.
C．Hooke made a contribution to medicine.	D．Hooke’s book Micrographia may have helped Newton.

4. The last paragraph is to prove that ________.

A．Hooke was the greatest experimental scientist of the 17th century

B．Hooke was good at making discoveries

C．Hooke’s contributions were not limited to one field

D．Hooke was one of the greatest astronomers