As a self-described military brat (小家伙) , Kathryn Miller has always loved the armed forces. In the summer of 2020, Miller teamed up with her friend Kailyn Rowland to create a documentary for National History Day, a nonprofit organization that holds an annual contest for students. Their documentary, Women at West Point: Breaking Barriers of the Long Gray Line, tells the story of the first women who graduated from West Point in 1980.
In March, Miller and Rowland were announced to have been selected for a Special Recognition of Champions Award as “individuals who have made exceptional contributions to women in the Army” “What we did was never for an award or for recognition; it was about sharing the story of these women, so to receive the award was really special,” Miller said.
Miller and Rowland spent countless hours working on their documentary, reaching out to the 62 women of the class of 1980 and interviewing more than 25 percent of them. “This was hours and hours of research and interviews,” Miller said. “We did Face Times with the women, we met in person, we called them, and so we had so much information, so many news articles going back 40 years. “Miller, whose mom was a veteran (老兵) and dad was a teacher at the United States Military Academy, lived in West Point as a child. “I always saw female cadets (学员) , and it always seemed like, ‘Oh, boys and girls, that’s completely normal, ‘so it was such a shock to me when I realized that girls didn’t always have that opportunity. “While making this documentary, Miller also realized her love for sharing other people’s stories. “I came to realize how much power there is in getting the story right, “she said, “And we were able to experience the gratitude from these women for sharing their stories and showing them that the younger generation really appreciates the doors they opened for us.
1. What’s Kathryn Miller’s purpose of creating the documentary?| A．To express her love for the armed forces. |
| B．To win first place in the competition. |
| C．To introduce the first female graduates of West Point. |
| D．To encourage girls to study at West Point. |
| A．The gains from making the documentary. | B．The challenges the creators met. |
| C．The ways of contacting those women. | D．The effort behind the documentary. |
| A．Miller’s parents used to teach military affairs. |
| B．Women used to have little access to military education. |
| C．Studying in West Point is challenging for women now. |
| D．Young people nowadays care little about those stories. |
| A．Passionate. | B．Modest. | C．Humorous. | D．Ambitious. |
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【推荐1】As the cost of attending university has increased greatly over the last two decades, a heated debate is emerging over who should pay for the cost of higher education. I am proud to be in the small minority of students who “earn as they learn” and absorb the cost of their own university education in spite of the many obstacles.
As for the remaining majority, collectively, they claim that they have no capacity to pay for college. I think it’s more a matter of them simply not wanting to pay or contribute. During college I consistently endured comments from peers with scholarships and loans, and peers who had new cars and expensive apartments, who would ask me, eyes bulging, “you mean your parents didn’t help you at all?” “How did you pay for tuition?” My response was simple: “I worked.” They would look at me blankly, as though I had told them I’d gone to the moon.
Sometimes, I did feel a little sorry for myself, especially when I compared myself to wealthy students. I once asked another student if she worked. “Oh, no!” she said, astonished. “I go to school full-time.” She was only taking 13 credit hours, and yet was “too busy” to work. She went on to explain that her parents paid for everything and provided her with every necessity, and many luxuries too!
Truthfully, I was a little envious of her easy life as I took 18 credit hours so that I could graduate within four years. Besides, I was working 25 hours a week so I could pay tuition without future loan debt. And here’s something amazing: I pulled through A’s and was at the top of my class!
I am particularly proud that I have relieved my parents of the burden of my university education. Furthermore, by taking care of myself, without their assistance, I have given them the satisfaction of knowing that they successfully completed the task of raising me into adulthood.
1. Why did the author work when in college?| A．Because he was eager to buy a new car. | B．Because he wanted to pay his tuition. |
| C．Because he enjoyed working. | D．Because he wasn’t qualified for scholarships. |
| A．The author was envious of the girl’s wealthy life. |
| B．Students with loans will have to pay the future debt. |
| C．Working part-time will help one get all A’s in their study. |
| D．The author felt miserable because his parents were not rich. |
| A．To express his pride of working part-time while studying. |
| B．To complain about the hardship of working while studying. |
| C．To criticize those who do not work part-time at college. |
| D．To introduce his approach to happiness. |
| A．How to win scholarships? | B．Do you support yourself? |
| C．Earn as you learn? | D．Who should pay for tuition? |
【推荐2】Hugh Lyon and David Lawrence have been riding together for years. They have both lived in Falkirk, Scotland their whole lives, but didn’t meet until they got involved in Cycling Without Age. “Despite the fact that we’re 20 years apart in age, roughly, we both went to the same secondary school,” said Lyon, 74.
The 56-year-old Lawrence serves as a “pilot”, driving the trishaw — a bike with a passenger seat in the front that Cycling Without Age uses for their rides. They go for rides about once a week, often discussing the history of their town.
“It gives me a connection with people from an older generation,” said Lawrence. “Unfortunately, I’ve lost both my parents; they’re no longer with us. And for me, it gives that connection with older people and I enjoy spending time with them and hearing their stories.”
Ole Kassow, who founded Cycling Without Age, said that’s the power of the program. “The truly powerful thing about these bike rides is that they tie people and stories together to create new relationships,” Kassow said. “In my experience, friendships and the ability to form new relationships at any age are what define a good life, and often also a long and happy life.”
Kassow started Cycling Without Age in Copenhagen in 2012, but there are now 2, 700 chapters in 52 countries.
John Seigel Boettner started the Santa Barbara chapter. He has one rule for passengers. “They ask, ‘If I’m going to go for a ride, what’s it going to cost?’ I say, ‘Here’s what it costs: It costs, you have to wave. If you don’t wave, I’m going to kick you out,’” he joked.
Boettner said, “When you take a 101-year-old woman for a bike ride and she holds your hand tightly and says thank you and gives you a kiss on the cheek, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
1. What can we know about Lyon and Lawrence from paragraph 1?| A．They live 20 miles apart. | B．They were classmates. |
| C．They met due to cycling. | D．They graduated meantime. |
| A．Directing traffic. | B．Cycling the bike. |
| C．Testing a new route. | D．Sitting on the passenger seat. |
| A．To earn seniors’ money. | B．To be recognized by seniors. |
| C．To spread it around the world. | D．To bring new ties to seniors. |
| A．Proud. | B．Awkward. | C．Anxious. | D．Curious. |
【推荐3】Ottens was busy with a reel-to-reel tape recorder(盘式磁带录音机) one night in the early 1960s, trying to listen to a work of classical music. He still remembered the hours he eventually spent on the machine because the loose tape would endlessly unravel(散开) from its reel. At the time, Ottens was head of product development at Philips's electronics factory in Belgium. The next morning, he gathered his team and insisted that they create something foolproof: The tape had to be enclosed, and the player had to fit in his jacket pocket.
Trying to imagine something that did not yet exist, Ottens used a small wooden block as the target for what the future of tape recording and playback should be. The “compact cassette” was made public to the world in 1963, and he advocated for Philips to license(批准) this new design to other producers for free, paving the way for cassettes to become a worldwide standard. Billions of cassettes were sold before his team jointly introduced the compact disc (CD) with Sony in 1982.
Ottens was an extraordinary man. As a child, he managed to build a radio that enabled his family to tune in to a London broadcaster that delivered speeches from exiled(流亡的) political leaders during the German occupation of the Netherlands in the 1940s.
Despite the remaking of the music industry in the digital and streaming age, the public's interest in cassettes has quickly grown in recent years. The return and growth of its popularity is believed to be driven by a mix of nostalgia(怀旧) and an appreciation for tapes' unique status as a format, which is flexible yet is also easily seen and touched.
In the 2017 film Cassette: a Documentary Mixtape, Ottens still seems surprised by the impact of the little device. “We knew it would be a success,” he says, “but not a revolution.”
1. What does the word “foolproof” in paragraph l refer to?| A．User-friendly. | B．Foolish. | C．Typical. | D．All-round. |
| A．They were warm-hearted to help others. |
| B．They could sell more cassettes worldwide. |
| C．They could get international help for CDs. |
| D．They would spare time for other advances. |
| A．The digital music players have completely taken the place of cassettes. |
| B．The invention of cassette once had great effects on the music industry. |
| C．People now enjoy mixing digital music with nostalgic music. |
| D．Ottens knew the 2017 film about cassette would be successful. |
| A．He is extraordinary and sceptical. |
| B．He is self-confident and withdrawn. |
| C．He is proud and has a strong hands-on ability. |
| D．He is creative and gifted for electronics. |
【推荐1】In late 2020, Detroit resident Oleita posted a video on Facebook that explained how to make sleeping bags from used potato chips and other snack bags. She could help the city’s homeless people find warmth during cold winters while also giving a second life to chip bags, which aren’t easily recyclable and usually end up in the trash.
Almost immediately after Oleita posted that first call for bags, people took notice. Local businesses offered to serve as collection points, and volunteers raised their hands to get involved.
“We’re all humans who share this planet together, and it’s my duty to make sure the person next to me has access to basic necessities,” says Oleita. “We have a major climate issue happening, and the people who are most influenced are those who are economically poor.”
For most of the Chip Bag Project’s existence, Oleita made sleeping bags all by herself. Now, she has some help. The group operates with a core team of 10 volunteers who do everything from making and delivering the bags to sourcing financial sponsors and doing community outreach.
The road to success has its ups and downs. For a while, the Chip Bag Project operated out of a small space donated by a local business, and the team recently had to leave. Yet they’re not giving up. Instead, the team does everything — including production, back-end business tasks and equipment and supply storage.
Oleita has served as a community organizer for the past decade, and she has experienced homelessness herself. She knew that this project needed to do more than just hand out sleeping bags. “This isn’t just a trash issue; it’s also a climate issue. And it’s not just a climate issue, but a human issue too. I’m always thinking of the world as interconnected — energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transferred.”
1. What made Oleita want to help homeless people?| A．Cold winter. | B．Polluted environment. |
| C．Personal experience. | D．Social responsibility. |
| A．It consists of ten people. | B．It is facing low efficiency. |
| C．It managed to run well. | D．It is just about a human issue. |
| A．Modest. | B．Kind-hearted. | C．Ambitious. | D．Self-motivated. |
| A．A touching story. | B．Turning trash into treasure. |
| C．An accidental post. | D．Helping people in need. |
【推荐2】Speaking of “desires of our hearts”, Billy Graham explained on TV it’s different than just asking for your wants and wishes. It is the deepest and truest desires of your heart. His word made me sink into deep thought. I came to realize my desire was to be someone who made a difference in the lives of people and in the lives of animals. After all, dogs had always been a large part of my life, from the time when I was a little girl growing up in central Oklahoma.
Then, something happened that shook my entire heart. The “love of my life” dog, Nicholas, died because of cancer, which made me heartbroken. However, I didn’t lose hope. I began to do research and form a small group called Small Paws Rescue. I started sending the latest news on our rescue efforts to about 25 people. Within a few months, we had grown to a group of several hundred.
A few years passed and my rescue stories were being read by more than six thousand people in 28 different countries. National media outlets began asking me to do interviews and to film episodes for Animal Planet.
It took me a while to realize that I had not only found my purpose in life, but each of the desires of my heart had been included as well. Now my days are filled with helping people and animals. I travel this beautiful country attending Small Paws Rescue functions. In the past t hirteen years, Small Paw s Rescue has rescued more than 8,000 Bichons and has made a difference in the lives of thousands of people, too.
I’ve been made whole and complete, and what more could any person ever ask? The delight of doing what I do overflows from every cell of my body, and I can never repay this wonderful gift that has given my life purpose.
1. Why is Billy Graham mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To describe a situation. | B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To promote the program. | D．To give a presentation. |
| A．It gained more attention. | B．It was a dog adoption center. |
| C．It’s now owning 25 staff. | D．It’s merely a chat group. |
| A．Everything comes to those who wait. | B．Paying out would always get repaid. |
| C．Helping others brings joy. | D．Barking dogs seldom bite. |
| A．Small Paw s Rescue | B．A Call to Action | C．A Friendly Reminder | D．The Purpose in Life |
【推荐3】Tya started volunteering as a Greenpeace firefighter after the great forest fire in Riau in2015.
“My family was my main reason to sign up. My parents had a respiratory (呼吸的) infection caused by the smoke. Small children were also forced to stay at home. What is certain is that we are directly impacted by the forest fires,” said Tya.
Now, every year, as summer rolls around, Tya gets worried because that’s when most forest fires occur, either naturally or as a result of land clearing. “In my opinion, forest fires are the result of human activities of those who no longer think about clean air,” she said.
Before carrying out tasks in the field, she had to take a volunteer firefighting course held by Greenpeace Indonesia. As a new firefighter, Tya’s first few duties have been to carry out awareness campaigns to talk about the dangers of forest fires. In order to protect nature, she encourages the public to reduce their use of single-use plastic and also to carry ashtrays to hold cigarette butts. “It could be simple acts but the effect that is felt is extraordinary, especially when people around you are also slowly becoming more aware of climate issues,” she said.
In 2016, Tya and her team spent two weeks putting out fires in the Bukit Timah area. On one of the days, a strong wind had picked up, flaming the underground fire back up to the surface where it quickly started getting worse. Back at camp, Tya and her other colleagues were worried for the safety of their teammates. Fortunately they made it back safely, but their faces looked more tired than usual.
Despite the challenges, the courageous young woman stands ready to do what she can to protect the environment. “As a firefighting volunteer, I must be ready when called upon in the event of a fire and ready to be placed wherever I am needed.”
1. What do we know about Tya?| A．She became a firefighting volunteer before 2015. |
| B．She was influenced by the forest fire indirectly. |
| C．She had a respiratory infection caused by the smoke. |
| D．She became a volunteer mainly because of her family. |
| A．Her first duties were too simple. | B．Small acts could make a difference. |
| C．She sacrificed a lot to finish the duties. | D．People had much awareness of climate issues. |
| A．Brave and responsible. | B．Humorous and helpful. |
| C．Confident and generous. | D．Traditional and optimistic. |
| A．A Story of a Firefighter Volunteer | B．The Influence of Forest Fires on Indonesia |
| C．A Meaningful Voluntary Firefighting Course | D．Preventing Respiratory Diseases Caused by Fires |
