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3 . Eric Ashby’s fascination with nature began at an early age. His first article, Bird Photography: an Ideal Hobby for Boys, was published when he was just 16 and illustrated with photographs that he’d taken.
His interest in photography had been sparked four years earlier in 1930, when the wildlife photographer Cherry Kearton came to Southsea, Ashby’s home town, to present a show of his work. The 12-year-old Ashby saw the show and immediately started saving his pocket money to buy a camera for filming wildlife in the nearby New Forest. But Ashby’s films did not reach the public due to the World War II.
In 1953, he and his wife Eileen moved to Badger (獾) Cottage, in the heart of the New Forest. It was here that Ashby perfected the techniques that would make him famous through the new medium of television. His patience and technical knowledge allowed him to film badgers at their holes during daylight — the first time this behaviour had ever been captured on camera.
In 1961, at the age of 43, Ashby finally got his big break, when the BBC showed his 45-minute film The Unknown Forest. The film had taken four years to make and received a very positive response from viewers. The nature writer Richard Mabey was hugely impressed and remarked that the film “changed the standards for home-grown wildlife documentaries”.
After the film was shown, he was given the nickname “the silent watcher”. The nickname not only stuck, it became the title of his second film.
In 1963, Ashby made the first British wildlife film in colour, although it took four years before The Major appeared in its full glory, as the BBC did not broadcast (播放) in colour until 1967.
He was awarded the Royal Geographical Society’s Cherry Kearton Medal and Award in 1975 and in 1992 received an MBE. He died, aged 85, on 6 February 2003, but his legacy lives on.
1. What does the underlined word “sparked” mean in Paragraph 2?| A．Revived. | B．Inspired. | C．Assessed. | D．Increased. |
| A．Unique scenes and the new medium TV. | B．Animal knowledge and new standards. |
| C．The positive response from viewers. | D．The recommendation from a nature writer. |
| A．The Major took Ashby 4 years to make. | B．The Major was not broadcast on BBC. |
| C．The Major was another success for Ashby. | D．The Major was the first color film in the UK. |
| A．An Award Winner | B．A Silent Watcher | C．The Life of a Badger | D．The Story in a Forest |
4 . The 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to former U. S. Poet Laureate (桂冠 诗人) Louise Gluck. The prize committee cited “her unmistakable poetic voice that with plain beauty makes individual existence universal”. Gluck is the first American woman to win the award since Toni Morrison in 1993. Gluck, 77, joins a list of literary giants and previous Nobelists who include, in this century, Canadian short-story master Alice Munro, Chinese magical-realist Mo Yan, etc.
Gluck’s work includes 12 collections of poetry and a couple of volumes of essays on literary writing. “All are characterized by striving for clarity (清晰). Childhood and family life, the close relationship with parents and siblings is a theme that has remained central to her,” Anders Olsson, the chairman of the Nobel Committee for Literature, said. “She seeks the universal, and in this she takes inspiration from myths and classical themes,” Olsson added, citing her 2006 collection Averno, which the committee described as “masterly” for its “visionary interpretation of the myth of Persephone’s fall into hell in the captivity of Hades, the god of death”.
Being a professor at Yale and a resident of Cambridge, Gluck also served as U. S. Poet Laureate from 2003 to 2004 and is no stranger to awards. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for her collection of poems titled The Wild Iris, in which “she describes the miraculous return of life after winter in the poem Snowdrops,” the Nobel literature committee said Thursday. She also won the 2014 National Book Award for poetry for Faithful and Virtuous Night. In 2016, President Obama awarded the National Humanities Medal to Gluck in a White House ceremony.
The publicity-shy Gluck did not immediately issue any comment about the latest honor for her body of work, which spans more than half a century. In a 2012 interview, she acknowledged that prizes can make “existence in the world easier” but did not amount to the immortality (不朽) of a true artist.
1. Who got the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature?| A．Mo Yan. | B．Toni Morrison. |
| C．Alice Munro. | D．Louise Gluck. |
| A．Careers. | B．Nature. | C．Daily life. | D．Classical myths. |
| A．By presenting Gluck’s outstanding achievements. |
| B．By proving Gluck’s great passion for writing. |
| C．By showing Gluck’s contributions to literature. |
| D．By stressing Gluck’s influence on other poets. |
| A．She is content with it. | B．She takes it very seriously. |
| C．She thinks she deserves higher honors. | D．She doesn’t attach great importance to it. |
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7 . Tracy was always hard-working and creative. She started a website called TEAM for girls when she was 16, and it’s doing better than ever.
TEAM now has 10 million visits every month.
When she was ten, Tracy drew four characters (人物). They are all girls, and they are good friends. She called them “Amazing Girls”. The main amazing girl, Miss E, represents (代表) her younger sister Elizabeth. Amy writes stories, and Mary answers questions. “Amazing Girls” finally became TEAM. “TEAM” means “Together everyone achieves more”.
At that time, Tracy wanted a safe and warm site for girls, but she couldn’t find one. So she decided to create one herself.
At first, Tracy asked family members and friends for help. Her computer teacher also helped her a lot. She created a small website. “There was a homepage, which had the four characters and simple flash animations (动画),” Tracy says. “It was very, very simple, but it was a start.”
Now it is a heaven for millions of girls. It has message boards, quizzes, games, music, and more. Girls can help each other with homework here. And they can also discuss fashion, dancing and singing stars. They feel free and comfortable. They have made their life more fruitful and meaningful.
“I’m able to learn so much about culture around the world,” Tracy says. “The goal for the site was, and still is, to help young girls to believe in themselves.”
1. How many visits does TEAM have every month now?| A．10 million. | B．16 million. | C．17 million. |
| A．Answers questions. | B．Draws characters. | C．Writes stories. |
| A．Because she wanted to make money. |
| B．Because she couldn’t find one for girls. |
| C．Because her computer teacher asked her to create one. |
| A．do their homework | B．dance and sing | C．believe in themselves |
| A．Girls’ Success | B．Girls’ Website | C．TEAM’s Meaning |
8 . John von Neumann was the oldest of 3 children of a banker, and his speed of learning new ideas and loving problems stood out early. At 17, his father tried to persuade him not to become a mathematician because he might lead a poor life being a mathematician, so von Neumann agreed to study chemistry as well. In 1926, at 23, he received a degree in chemical engineering and a Ph. D. in mathematics. From then on, mathematics provided well enough for him, and he never had to turn to chemistry.
In 1930, von Neumann visited Princeton University for a year and then became a professor there. His first book was published in 1932. In 1933, the Institute for Advanced Study was formed, and he became one of the 6 full-time people in the School of Mathematics (Einstein was one of the others).
World War Ⅱ hugely changed von Neumann’s areas of interest. Until 1940 he had been a great pure mathematician. During and after the war, he became one of the best mathematicians who put mathematical theories into practice. During the last part of the war, he became interested in computing machines and made several fundamental contributions. After the war, von Neumann continued his work with computers, and was generally very active in government service. He received many awards, was president of the American Mathematical Society and was a member of the Atomic Energy Commission. He died of cancer in 1957.
Von Neumann made several great contributions and any one of them would have been enough to earn him a firm place in history. He will be remembered as one of the greatest minds of the 20th century.
Von Neumann really was a legend in his own time, and there are a number of stories about him. His driving abilities is a part of his legend. He reported one accident this way: “I was driving down the road. The trees on the right were passing me in an orderly fashion at 60 miles per hour. Suddenly one of them stepped in my path.”
1. According to the text, von Neumann’s father believed that _________.| A．a mathematician needed a good memory |
| B．von Neumann had the ability to learn two subjects at the same time |
| C．von Neumann had the gift for solving problems at a high speed |
| D．a mathematician couldn’t earn a lot of money |
| A．25. | B．26. | C．29. | D．32. |
| A．He lost interest in chemistry. |
| B．He began to research how to put mathematics into practice |
| C．He realized the importance of engineering. |
| D．He left college and served at the government department. |
| A．humorous | B．intelligent | C．brave | D．calm |
9 . Sara Hinesley, who is 10, doesn’t understand why it is so remarkable that she won a national handwriting competition.
Sara, a third-grade student at St. John Regional Catholie School in Frederick, Maryland, won the 2019 Nicholas Maxim award for her cursive (草书的) handwriting.
She paints and draws, and sculpts clay. She can write in English and some Chinese. When she learnt to write in cursive this year, Sara said, she thought it was “kind of easy”. This is all despite the fact that Sara was born without hands.
To write, Sara holds her pencil between her arms and then focuses on the shapes of letters, each point and curve. “Writing in cursive feels like creating art work,” Sara said. “I like the way the letters are formed. It’s kind of art.”
Sara has never worn a prosthesis (artificial arms), and when she is offered help or a tool that might ease some tasks — such as cutting paper with scissors — she rejects it, said her mother, Cathryn Hinesley She has this independent trend where she just knows that she can do it and she'll figure out her own way. She is beautiful and strong and mighty just the way she is, and she just lives that way. She really does. She moves through life in this way that you never really see her as having a disability because she has a “can do, I-can-solve-anything attitude”
“Sara is an evidence of strong will and the human spirit,” Cathryn said. “Every day I am amazed at the things she is capable to do and that she chooses to do. She doesn't attempt to find her way to avoid s difficulty. She finds a way to finish the task.”
Sara received her national award — a medal — at an award ceremony on June 13, where she was also given a $500 prize. She is the first student from St. John’s to ever receive the Nicholas Maxim award.
1. We can infer from the first sentence that .| A．Sara makes every effort to win the award |
| B．Sara considers it easy to win the award |
| C．Sara doesn’t take the award seriously |
| D．Sara is excited at winning the award |
| A．Brave. | B．Intelligent. | C．Generous. | D．Strong-minded. |
| A．She expects Sara to be independent. | B．She is greatly proud of Sara. |
| C．She doesn’t think Sara has a disability. | D．She is concerned about Sara's future. |
| A．Health. | B．Education. | C．Science. | D．Entertainment. |
10 . The daughter of a romantic poet and occasional freedom fighter, Ada Lovelace had a famous but absent father. She never knew Lord Byron, as just weeks after her birth in 1815, he divorced her mother Isabella Milbanke Byron and left to fight in the Greek War of Independence. In an effort to prevent Ada from developing her father’s unpredictable temper, Isabella decided that her daughter should devote her life to study.
Ada studied hard despite the fact that society did not encourage women pursuing interests in science. Her life changed when she met inventor Charles Babbage at a party. As he demonstrated a working section of his mechanical calculator, Ada was taken in by how it worked and wanted to know more. Impressed by the 17-year-old’s obvious passion, Babbage became her tutor. Ada married in 1835 and became a mother, but she continued to take an active interest in study, socialising in intellectual circles with the likes of Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday.
Ada stayed in contact with Babbage, who in 1837 had proposed a new machine, the analytical engine. In 1843, Ada was asked to translate a French text written by engineer Luigi Menabrea about Babbage’s new design. After completing the translation, Ada was encouraged by Babbage to write her own notes on his work.
After nine months of hard work, Ada presented Babbage with a detailed list of notes that was three times longer than the original article. In her calculations, Ada wrote what are considered the first ever computer algorithms to be used in a new type of machine. She essentially provided the first ideas for computer programming in what was a groundbreaking proposal on the potential of computers.
Ada died of cancer aged only 36 and her work was largely recognised until the 1950s when her notes were republished. In 1979 the US Department of Defence named a programming language ‘Ada’ in her honour.
1. What can we learn about Ada from the first paragraph?| A．She had a devoted father. | B．Her mother raised her up alone. |
| C．She had an unpredictable temper. | D．Her parents divorced before her birth. |
| A．Charles Dickens. | B．Michael Faraday. |
| C．Luigi Menabrea. | D．Charles Babbage. |
| A．Modest and outgoing. | B．Talented and diligent. |
| C．Generous and considerate. | D．Determined and independent. |
| A．Ada’s notes were published only once. |
| B．Ada named a programming language after herself. |
| C．Ada earned a reputation nearly a century after her death. |
| D．Ada’s work was largely recognized when she was alive. |
