【推荐2】At the age of 17 years 64 days, Mack Rutherford has become the youngest person to fly around the world alone! Mack’s journey around the world lasted five months and he flew across 52 countries in total. His record-breaking flight began in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, on 23 March, 2022. He was 16 years old when he took off and celebrated his 17th birthday by himself in his plane.

Mack faced many challenges during his adventure. Because of his small-sized aircraft, he had to land whenever the weather got too rough. However, at some points he literally couldn’t land, such as when flying non-stop for 10 hours over an ocean. At other points, he faced extremely hot weather, such as in Dubai. In Sudan, a country in Africa, Mack also faced sandstorms which made it hard for him to see where he was going. Mack battled strong winds and pouring rain during his flight, but he never stopped smiling, joking and updating his flowers on his social media account along the way, and managed to expertly pilot his plane to safety.

And if Mack’s surname “Rutherford” sounds familiar, it’s because his elder sister Zara also flew around the world earlier this year, and still holds the female version of the record! The Rutherford siblings (兄弟姐妹) were inspired by their parents to become pilots. “I have known for certain I wanted to fly since I was eleven,” Mack said, “My dad Sam is a professional ferry pilot, my mum Beatrice is a recreational (娱乐的) private pilot.”

Mack hopes to inspire young people to begin working towards their own goals, “No matter what background you have, I believe it is never too early to work towards your dreams and you shouldn’t limit yourself by others’ expectations.” With both feet firmly back on the ground now, it’s time for Mack to turn his attention towards catching up on his schoolwork!

1. What can we know about Mack’s flight?

A．It began when he was 17 years 64 days old.

B．It made him the youngest person to fly alone.

C．It was a successful record-breaking attempt.

D．It took off in the capital of his home country.

2. What challenges did Mack face?

A．Limitation of flight hours.

B．Darkness and safety issues.

C．Loneliness of flying alone.

D．Bad weather and long distance.

3. Why did Mack and his sister want to be pilots?

A．To be inspired by their parents.

B．To encourage each other to dream big.

C．To serve as examples for their siblings.

D．To live up to their parents’ expectations.

4. What does Mack hope to do with his attempt?

A．To encourage young people to become pilots.

B．To inspire young people to fight for their dreams.

C．To warn young people of the dangers of flying.

D．To free young people of worries about school work.

5. What does Mack will do next?

A．He will start a new journey to other place.

B．He will help young people to dream big.

C．He will work towards his another dream.

D．He will focus on his schoolwork.

【推荐1】There’s a little restaurant in a small Alabama town where there’s no cash register and no prices, just a whole lot of soul ... and soul food.

At Drexell & Honeybee’s in downtown Brewton near the Florida border, the menu changes daily, but there’s always a hearty selection of Southern dishes to enjoy: fried chicken and cornbread often show up at lunchtime from Tuesday to Thursday.

What makes this place special? No matter how down on their luck a person is, they never have to worry about having no money for their lunch. Once you’ve finished your dessert — a blueberry cobbler, perhaps? — you just leave whatever you can in a private booth near the restaurant entrance, even if that’s just a handful of coins or a little thank-you note.

The owners, a husband and wife team—Freddie and Lisa Thomas-McMillan—make no profit from their restaurant. Lisa once told GNN, “Whatever needs people have, if we can help them... we will. It’s our chief mission.”

100% of the donations go back into serving people food. “It’s a feeling of great happiness when knowing that their customers leave “with a full stomach, a full heart, and the understanding that you’re loved and worthy of love.” Through the years, she’s run a food bank. She’s opened her home to the needy. She says it may have started in the second grade when she learned a powerful lesson about sharing from a little girl who always had a better sandwich, but shared it happily with Lisa in a daily trade. Of course, the pandemic(流行病) has made running a restaurant a little more tricky in recent months. “But we figured out a way to do to — go orders and keep everyone safe …It is working out very well. We feel proud to be able to do what we do, with CO VID-19 affecting so many people.”

1. Which characteristic does the restaurant in a small Alabama town have?

A．It has no menu or waiters.	B．It has an outstanding cook.
C．It has the best dessert in Alabama.	D．It’s a sweet family-style restaurant.

2. What is the major target of their restaurant according to Lisa?

A．To advertise the restaurant.	B．To feed the needy.
C．To win them fame.	D．To encourage donations.

3. What do they want to get most from their deeds?

A．The money.	B．The reputation.
C．The joy.	D．The recognition.

4. What can we infer about Lisa from the text?

A．She always has a very big heart.	B．She is a victim of COVID-19.
C．She has made a name for her donations.	D．She is an overnight successful person.

【推荐2】It’s a sunny early autumn afternoon and in between attending Sunday school and running off to soccer games and other fun pastimes, several local youths gather to harvest food for the Issaquah Food & Clothing Bank.

“Digging the potatoes — it’s really fun,” Alexandra Mohn, 9 years old, said.

She, her twin sister Isabella and about a dozen other children from their church have been tending to a garden for months, and with the leadership of Wally Presto they have grown more than 225 pounds of fresh vegetables for the food bank.

“It’s the fulfillment of my interest in gardening and wanting to have a mission for the children of the church,” said Prestbo, who grew up on a small farm in the Spokane Valley.

Having had a garden nearly everywhere he has lived, Presto now volunteers to teach classes at the Bellevue Demonstration Garden, and keeps a large garden at his home in Sammamish. Much of what is grown there is also donated. The “Spirit of Peas” garden is made up of two 4-b y-16 plots in Issaquah’s pea patch on Juniper Street. For three years, Prestbo and his young gardeners have been growing things such as peas, lettuce, spinach, chard, broccoli and carrots.

“I plant a little bit of everything, so the children have a chance to see how to plant the different types of vegetables,” Prestbo said. “This is a special chance for them to experience gardening first-hand and get their hands dirty.”

This year the group began planting in May. Now with the nights growing colder and colder, the last crops to harvest are tomatoes, potatoes, and cucumbers.

“When they were digging the potatoes out of the ground it was like an Easter egg hunt,” Graig Mohn, Alexandra and Isabella’s father, said.

On the way to harvest the potatoes, the children said they wanted to dig up more than last year. In the end, their efforts yielded (出产) more than 60 potatoes, small and large, according to Prestbo.

1. What’s the passage mainly about?

A．Students grow vegetables for the food bank.

B．Students gain experience by growing vegetables.

C．Growing vegetables brings great fun to children.

D．Prestbo has done much to help the students.

2. With the help of Wally Prestbo ________.

A．children have planted the potatoes in the fields

B．children have gathered some fresh vegetables

C．children have spent a meaningful holiday

D．children have been taken good care of

3. Prestbo makes use of most of his gardens ________.

A．to grow vegetables to make money

B．to provide money for the “Spirit of Peas”

C．to grow peas for the food bank

D．to grow vegetables mostly for charity

4. Why has Prestbo grown different kinds of vegetables?

A．To make the garden more attractive.

B．To make the children informed of how to plant vegetables.

C．To show children the managing strategies.

D．To add to the variety of donated vegetables.

【推荐2】China’ Forbidden City----traditionally off-limit at night for anyone except emperors and visiting dignitaries (显要人物）---- was decorated with lanterns as China celebrated the end of the Chinese New Year holiday. The complex, home to Chinese emperors for five centuries, was opened at night for the first time since it was reopened as the Palace Museum 94 years ago.

The complex and palace walls were illuminated with red lanterns and a light show, designed to recreate the feelings of the royal court, while the China National Traditional Orchestra and the Peking Opera performed. An image of a treasured scroll called A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains was cast onto the palace roof.

Most of China’s 1.3 billion people, however, had to watch the show on television. Only 3,000 people were allowed in: 2,500 invited guests and 500 people who booked their tickets online. “The 3,000 visitors can show off for the whole year,” one person said on Weibo. When booking for the second day opened at midnight, the booking system crashed for more than an hour due to great demand. The free tickets were quickly taken when it reopened. A lively secondary market soon appeared. Scalpers were selling tickets for as much as 9,999 yuan on online trading sites.

The Palace Museum is now on a campaign to attract more visitors, with its former curator Shan Jixiang saying he wants to make traditional Chinese culture more accessible to the general public. More than 80 percent of the palace is now accessible to visitors, up from 30 percent in 2012. Shan has set a target of 85 percent by 2020 to mark the palace’s 600th anniversary . Creativity today has made the Palace Museum younger and drawn traditional culture closer to the public.

1. What does the underlined word “illuminate”probably mean in Paragraph 2?

A．Cared for.	B．Lit up.
C．Picked out.	D．Kept safe.

2. How do most Chinese admire the night view of the Forbidden City ?

A．By watching TV at home .

B．By grabbing free tickets online

C．By buying tickets from the secondary market.

D．By receiving invitation from the Forbidden City.

3. What will happen in 2020 according to Shan Jixiang?

A．The campaign between museums will be better.

B．Creativity will make the Palace Museum younger.

C．Traditional Chinese culture will be recreated by foreigners.

D．About 85 percent of the palace will be accessible to visitors.

4. What can be a suitable title of the text ?

A．A Brief Introduction of the Forbidden City

B．Difficulties in Getting Tickets to the Forbidden City

C．Performances During the Light Show in the Forbidden City

D．Forbidden City’s First Opening to General Public at Night

【推荐1】One day an old woman was traveling alone in the mountains. Suddenly she saw something shining in the stream. When she came close, she found it was a precious stone. She put the stone into her bag and went on with her trip.
The next day the old woman met a young man, who was also a traveler in the mountains. The young man looked very hungry, so the old woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked carefully, “The stone is beautiful. Would you like to give it to me?”
“Sure. Why not?” the woman said, and handed the stone to him.
The young man left happily with the stone. He knew it was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the woman.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back and hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within your bag.”
The woman opened her bag. It was almost empty. She looked at the young man and smiled, “I have nothing special in my bag, but I do have something precious — the joy of giving!”
The young man felt ashamed and left silently.
1. How did the young man find the precious stone?

A．He found it in his food.	B．He dug it out in a valley.
C．He saw it in the woman’s bag.	D．He noticed it shining in the stream.

2. What does the underlined word “security” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Money.

B．Worry.

C．Health.

D．Trouble.

3. The man returned the stone to the woman because ______.

A．he found the stone was not precious

B．he understood the real meaning of joy

C．he felt embarrassed at taking away the stone

D．he wanted to get something even more precious

4. Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?

A．A special stone	B．The joy of giving
C．A woman and a young man	D．An experience in the mountains

【推荐2】One evening last summer, when I asked my 14 year old son, Ray, for help with dinner, his response shocked me. “What’s a colander (漏勺)?” he asked.

I could only blame myself. In the family, nobody else’s hands went in the sauce except my own. But that night, as I explained with a touch of panic that a colander is the thing with holes in it, I wondered what else I hadn’t prepared Ray for.

As parents, while we focus on our sons’ confidence and character, we perhaps don’t always consider that we are also raising someone’s future roommates, boyfriends, husbands, or fathers. I wanted to know that I’d raised a boy who would never ask the woman in his life, “What’s for dinner?”

So I came up with a plan: I would offer Ray a private home economics course. I was delighted to find that he didn’t say no. For two hours, three days a week, Ray was all mine. One day, as his tomato sauce reduced on the stove, he washed and seasoned a chicken for roasting. Then he rolled out the piecrust (馅饼皮) and filled it with apples, all while listening to my explanation on the importance of preheating an oven.

I knew that he would rather have been shooting hoops in the driveway than learning to mend socks with his mother — he tried to beg not to have sewing lessons, even though I insisted that one day, someone would find the sight of him fixing his own shirt very attractive — but it couldn’t be denied that he was learning, and more than just housekeeping. “I appreciate what you do as a mom,” he told me one day. Ray now understands the finer points of cooking, and more importantly, he realizes there’s nothing masculine (男子气概的) about being helpless.

Now, not only can he make his own dinner, but also he can make a big meal for his family. That’s what I call a man. I’m glad that I prepared so great a present for my future daughter-in-law.

1. Why was the author shocked at her son’s response?

A．Because he was not well behaved.

B．Because he refused to help with dinner.

C．Because he didn’t know the common kitchen tools.

D．Because he was very curious about kitchen tools.

2. In the author’s opinion, some parents pay little attention to     .

A．building up children’s confidence	B．telling kids what is right and wrong
C．making children live a hard life	D．preparing children for their future life

3. What would the author like to convey in the text?

A．Useful education for boys	B．Boys should be involved in housework.
C．The importance of housework	D．Cooking and sewing make boys masculine.

【推荐3】I’ve been teaching college for many years. I’ve long grown used to the torn jeans, slippers, shorts in the dead of the Maine winter, and ball caps worn backward. Still, when one of my students showed up in pajama (睡衣) bottoms, I couldn’t help asking, “Did you just roll out of bed?” He responded: “Five minutes ago.”

I'm familiar with the school of thought that says that how students dress is unrelated, so long as they’re learning. I put it in the same category as “Grammar and spelling don’t matter, so long as they’re expressing themselves”. I wonder about the wisdom of blurring (模糊) the line between bed and desk.

I smile when I think back on the occasions that my parents associated with needing to look respectable. Once, when I was 14 and my brother was 12, my father announced that he was taking us into Manhattan (just a subway ride away) to see the play. My brother and I were excited at the hope, but were shortly discouraged when my father directed us to put on our best clothes, including jackets and ties. “But why?” I begged, not wanting to change out of my comfortable jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers. “Because,” he said, “we’re going to New York.” I can still see the stars in his eyes as he said these words.

So yes, I do want my students to be comfortable. But I also want to pay my respects to those students who believe that appearances count.

I think of the woman — a somewhat older student — I had in class a few years back. She was someone to whom science did not come easily: She worked determinedly for respectable grades on every homework. But I was struck by how tastefully she dressed, day after day.

Once, I said, “You always looked so nice.” Immediately, she answered, “I’ve waited 12 years to return to school, and I dress up to remind myself to be serious about it.”

And, I might add, she seemed perfectly comfortable to me.

1. What phenomenon is described in the first paragraph?

A．Students care little about class attendance.

B．Students show their personality through dress.

C．Students tend to ignore their personal appearance.

D．Students make it a habit to be late for school.

2. What’s the writer’s attitude towards the school of thought?

A．Ambiguous.	B．Supportive.
C．Doubtful.	D．Disapproving.

3. What can we learn about the writer’s parents from Paragraph 3?

A．They considered personal appearance important.

B．They looked after their children with great care.

C．They often paid a visit to New York.

D．They preferred dressing formally on a subway.

4. Why did the older student dress tastefully every day?

A．To feel comfortable at class with others.

B．To show her serious attitude towards learning.

C．To impress others with respectable clothes.

D．To hide her embarrassment at poor homework.