Actress Jia Ling topped the social media topics on the second consecutive day of the Chinese Lunar New Year as her great weight
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“Her achievement is quite
Kjell Lindgren wanted to be an astronaut for as long as he could remember. He spent much of his childhood abroad with his family on several U. S. Air Force
Lindgren’s hopes of becoming an astronaut, though, would come to
So Lindgren came to a medical school, eventually specializing in emergency medicine. As part of his training, he
Lindgren worked as a flight doctor at NASA, treating crews that were preparing for spaceflight. Then, in 2009, he was selected as a NASA astronaut. Since then, Lindgren
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 . Darwin was not a bright boy. He was much slower than his younger sister, and he was in many ways a naughty boy. However, at the age of eight he was trying to make out the names of all plants he saw, and he was busy collecting all sorts of things and he even imagined producing coloured roses by watering them with certain coloured liquids. Once he read the book Wonders of the World, he wished to work wonders himself some day.
One summer vacation Darwin became a great collector of beetles (甲虫). At that time he only collected them but made no scientific study of them. One day on tearing off the bark (树皮) he saw some unusual beetles, and seized one in each hand, then he saw a third and new kind, which he didn’t want to lose, so he put the one that he held in his right hand into his mouth. But it sent out some gas, which burned his tongue. He was forced to spit it out. It was lost, so was the third one.
Darwin accepted the offer by the navy (海军) to go on a voyage to explore the Southern Sea in the name of the government on a warship at the age of twenty-two. He was on board for five years. And during the long voyage he collected a great many of facts in Natural Science.
1. In his early years, Darwin was _________ in producing coloured roses.| A．successful | B．helped | C．interested | D．not interested |
| A．to have a wonderful job |
| B．to work with surprising results |
| C．to make something difficult to understand |
| D．to produce beautiful things |
| A．taste the gas it sent out | B．spare his right hand to catch the third one |
| C．save the life of the beetle | D．eat it as he was hungry |
| A．“Wonders of the world” was his famous work. |
| B．He was forced to explore the Southern Sea by the government. |
| C．When he was young he showed interest in natural science. |
| D．He ran much slower than his younger sister. |
Xu Yuanchong dedicated his career to building
6 . Skiing has always been a big part of Mikaela Shiffrin’s life. Her dad ski raced all through college and her mom raced and coached skiing. The Shiffrins taught Mikaela and her brother, Taylor, to ski at a very young age. At two and a half years old, Mikaela made her first ski run down her driveway on plastic skis.
Mikaela loved skiing. From ages 8 to 11, she did hundreds of training runs on small hills to learn the skills of slalom skiing (障碍滑雪). When Mikaela was 11, she began to learn at the Burke Mountain Academy, a Vermont boarding school for skiers. She took classes, studied, and practiced her skiing. According to Burke Mountain Academy headmaster Kirk Dwyer, “What separated Mikaela from others was the degree of her commitment (投入) to be the best. Mikaela practiced more than anyone and believed in herself then and now.” At age 14, Mikaela began her international career when she raced in the world championships for 13- and 14-year-olds. And she won!
By the time she was 17, she had already won her first World Cup race. “Living away from home four and five months at a time can be difficult,” Mikaela says. “But it can also be exciting. I’m getting to see the world.” When Mikaela began ski racing in Europe, her mother, Eileen, stayed with her. She worked as her high-school teacher while they were on the road. “She has always been a super-hard worker,” says Eileen.
For Mikaela, working hard is a full-time job. Even her off-season is work time. “If you want something, just try your best,” she says. At the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, 18-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin became the youngest slalom skier ever to win an Olympic gold medal.
1. According to the text, Mikaela _______.| A．learned to ski by herself | B．was born into a skiing family |
| C．first skied when she was 3 years old | D．got to know slalom skiing at the age of 14 |
| A．Mikaela was cleverer than the other kids |
| B．Mikaela was too young to learn skiing |
| C．Mikaela was a hard-working girl |
| D．Mikaela was a slow learner |
| A．Her mother. | B．Her father. |
| C．Kirk Dwyer. | D．Taylor Shiffrin. |
| A．The 2014 Winter Olympic Games |
| B．The Burke Mountain Academy |
| C．An introduction to slalom skiing |
| D．A young skier’s fight for success |
7 . Although Mark Twain is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers, the world-renowned author once indicated that he would have preferred to spend his life as a famous Mississippi riverboat pilot. Though the comment was probably not entirely serious, Twain so loved life on the river that as a young man, he did in fact work as a riverboat pilot for several years.
Twain, whose real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, felt so closely tied to the Mississippi River that he even took his pen name, Mark Twain, from a river man’s call meaning “two fathoms deep.” When he was eleven, his father died, and he left school to become a printer’s apprentice. He worked as a printer in a number of different cities before deciding at age twenty-one to pursue a career as riverboat pilot.
When the Civil War closed traffic on the Mississippi, Twain went to Nevada. There he worked as a journalist and lecturer, developing the entertaining writing style that made him famous. In 1865, he published “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” which made Twain became an international celebrity. Following the publication of The Innocents Abroad, a successful book of humorous travel letters, Twain moved to Hartfort, Connecticut, where he was to make his home for the rest of his life. There he began using his past experiences as raw material for his books. He drew on his travels in the western mining region for Roughing It and turned his childhood experiences on the Mississippi into The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The latter title in particular so greatly influenced other writers that Ernest Hemingway praised it with these words.
“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”
Twain traveled widely throughout his career, and his adventures abroad were fuel for a number of books. After living in Europe for several years, he returned home with his family. Following the death of his wife and three of their four children, Twain’s writing depicted an increasingly pessimistic (悲观) view of society and human nature. His work, however, continued to display the same masterful command of language that had already established him as one of America’s finest fiction writers.
1. Why did Mark Twain prefer to be a riverboat pilot?| A．He was paid well. | B．He loved life on the river. |
| C．He missed the Mississippi River | D．His father wanted him to do the job. |
①An apprentice ②A printer ③A journalist ④A lecturer ⑤A riverboat pilot
| A．①②⑤ | B．②③④ | C．②④⑤ | D．①②③④⑤ |
| A．The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. | B．Roughing It. |
| C．Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. | D．The Innocents Abroad. |
| A．Humorous. | B．Ridiculous. | C．Inspiring. | D．Negative. |
8 . Do you think I’m insane?
This question came from Elon Musk near the very end of a long dinner we shared at a high-end seafood restaurant in Silicon Valley. I’d gotten to the restaurant first and settled down with a gin and tonic, knowing Musk would—as ever—be late. After about fifteen minutes, Musk showed up. Musk stands six foot one but he is absurdly broad-shouldered and sturdy. You’d figure he would use this frame to his advantage and perform an alpha-male strut (昂首阔步) when entering a room. Instead, he tends to be almost sheepish. His head tilted slightly down while walking, a quick handshake hello after reaching the table, and then butt in seat. From there, Musk needs a few minutes before he warms up and looks at ease.
Musk asked me to dinner for a negotiation of sorts. Eighteen months earlier, I’d informed him of my plans to write a book about him, and he’d informed me of his plans not to cooperate.
His rejection stung but sent me into dogged reporter mode. If I had to do this book without him, so be it. Plenty of people had left Musk’s companies, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, and would talk, and I already knew a lot of his friends. The interviews followed one after another, month after month, and two hundred or so people into the process, I heard from Musk once again. He called me at home and declared that things could go one of two ways: he could make my life very difficult or he could help with the project after all. He’d be willing to cooperate if he could read the book before it went to publication, and could add footnotes (脚注) throughout it. He would not meddle with my text, but he wanted the chance to set the record straight in spots that he deemed factually inaccurate. I understood where this was coming from. Musk wanted a measure of control over his life’s story. He’s also wired like a scientist and suffers mental anguish at the sight of a factual error. A mistake on a printed page would eat away at his soul—forever. While I could understand his perspective, I could not let him read the book, for professional, personal, and practical reasons. Musk has his version of the truth, and it’s not always the version of the truth that the rest of the world shares. He’s prone to lengthy answers to even the simplest of questions as well, and the thought of thirty-page footnotes seemed all too real. Still, we agreed to have dinner, chat all this out, and see where it left us.
1. Why did the author meet up with Elon Musk at the restaurant?| A．Because the alpha male forced him into this appointment. |
| B．Because his autobiography featured Musk’s legends. |
| C．Because he relied on this interview for factual accuracy. |
| D．Because the businessman was willing to help unconditionally. |
| A．Musk’s rejection forced him to give up on interviewing anybody. |
| B．Many of his former employees resigned because of his bossiness. |
| C．Musk agreed to cooperate if he could read the book before publication. |
| D．Musk has behaved in an unconventional way from time to time. |
| A．Dominant and impolite. | B．Creative and outgoing. |
| C．Shy and obsessive. | D．Caring and generous. |
注意：词数100左右。
参考词汇：杂交水稻 hybrid rice
Let the Scientific Spirit Live on
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Zhang Jing, the Chinese interpreter of the China-US summit, was born in Hangzhou, and
She was a hardworking student and
After graduating
Over the years, Zhang went on to do a great many foreign affairs assignments, at press conferences as an interpreter. She
