Free solo climbing is a risky form of rock climbing where the climber makes the climb alone without ropes or any other protective things. In June 2017, Alex Honnold completed an ultimate free solo climb up El Capitan, a 3,000-foot wall in Yosemite National Park.
On a freezing November morning in 2016, Alex determined to take up a challenge-a free solo climb of the world’s most famous vertical(垂直的)cliff. Every step, he had to be extra careful to keep the balance. All the time he had to shine his headlamp on the cold, smooth part of stones to decide where he could next place his foot. Unlike parts of the climb higher up that Alex could climb with his strong fingers, this lower part he must manage with a perfect balance of fine skills and confidence.
Every move tied people’s hearts. The cameraman said. “Every time I got no response, I thought Alex was bailing. But it turned out that I was wrong-He was still moving on.”
More physically challenging parts wait for him to climb up with his feel and hands pressing the rock. The Free blast is the most frightening part. In 2016, after several failures, Alex knew he would try again. His foot tap-tap-tapped against the wall as if he was feeling his way into the huge rock, but he wouldn’t turn back this time. And then, he stood on the top and he made it!
People view free soloing differently. Critics regard it as risky, considering the long list of those who’ve died attempting it. Others, myself included, recognize it as the sport's truest expression. Such was the attitude of Austrian climber Paul Preuss, the father of free soloing. He believed that the spirit of mountain-climbing was to master a mountain with wonderful physical and mental skill.
1. Why is the headlamp mentioned in paragraph 2?A.To prove how dark the environment is. |
B.To indicate how risky the free soloing is. |
C.To share the great pleasure of a solo climber. |
D.To introduce the location of the mountain climber. |
A.Alex was climbing. |
B.Alex was giving up. |
C.Alex was struggling. |
D.Alex was being saved |
A.A great dream is limitless. |
B.Wisdom is better than force. |
C.Gains can't make up for losses. |
D.Strong will leads to a smooth path. |
5. What did Alex need to climb the lower part?
6. What does "turn back" mean in paragraph 4?
7. How does Paul Preuss feel about free soloing?
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Like any exercise, running
【推荐2】In a year that has been characterized by the restriction, there are two activities I have found myself doing more of: running and writing.
At first glance, these two passions seem to be completely opposite. When I write, I’ll retreat (缩进) into my head, where I dig memories, ideas, characters to shape into stories. When I run, I’ll fully inhabit my body. The sounds and feelings of physical effort—foot strike, heartbeat and sweat—drown out the thoughts.
Despite their differences, though, there are similarities. Running and writing are both things we do alone. They both demand at times that we dig deep, keep going and never give up. I’ve also found that running can be complementary to writing. If I’ve been sat for hours, there’s nothing more restorative than getting out for a run. Sometimes when I’m least expecting it, solutions to tricky twists present themselves and ideas drop in as if the movement of running has itself shaken things into place. On the other hand, running especially long-distances has taught me to be brave, to look inside myself to see if there’s more to give. It has also taught me patience.
I’m far from the first runner to notice that running can help the writing process. Reflecting on her writing methods in an article in The New York Times, author and lifelong runner Joyce Oates wrote: Running seems to allow me, ideally, to have an expanded consciousness in which I can imagine what I’m writing as a film or a dream. I can’t say there is an expanded consciousness when I put on my trainers after a hard day’s writing, but there’s some evidence that working up a sweat can also fire up the imagination.
It’s not clear what’s behind the creativity though increased oxygen to the brain has been shown to help cognitive processes, so there’s no reason to think it’s useless. Whatever the link between running and creativity is, next time I find myself struggling to find the right words in the face of a deadline, I’ll run for it.
1. What does running contribute to the author’s writing process?A.Exhaustion and challenges. | B.Relaxation and consciousness. |
C.Affection and physical benefits. | D.Inspiration and creative solutions. |
A.Really helpful. | B.Clearly different. |
C.Negatively related. | D.Potentially dangerous. |
A.She is stressed over struggles and deadlines. |
B.She challenges the claim that running improves creativity. |
C.She is determined to find out why running helps creativity. |
D.She will keep running in order to help her writing process. |
A.What I Have Learned From Running |
B.Running May Fire up the Imagination |
C.Differences Between Running and Writing |
D.Science Says Running Is Good for One’s Health |
6. What did the author learn from long-distance running?
7. Why did the author mention Joyce Oates?
8. How does running influence the author’s writing?
【推荐1】My doorbell rings at 11 a.m. On the step, I find an elderly Chinese lady. She is small and slight. She holds a paper carrier bag in her hands.
I know this lady. It is by no means her first visit. Her daughter, Nicole, bought the house next door last October. Nicole, who is currently in Shanghai, has apparently told her mother that I am having heart surgery shortly, and the result is that her mother has decided I need to be supplied with meals.
I know what is inside the paper carrier bag — a stainless-steel container with a meal of rice, vegetables and either chicken, meat or shrimp. This has become an almost-daily occurrence.
Communication between my benefactor (恩人)and me is somewhat handicapped by the fact that she doesn’t speak English and all I can say in Mandarin is “hello”. Once, she brought an iPad and pointed to the screen, which displayed a message from Nicole telling me that her mother wanted to know if the food was all right.
“Your mother just can’t be bringing me meals like this all the time” I protested. “I can hardly reciprocate by cooking something from my native land, like roast beef or Yorkshire pudding for her” I said.(22)
“Oh, no,” Nicole said. “Don’t worry about that. She has to cook for the family anyway, and she wants to do it for you. You can call her Wing, which is her surname.”
The tenant in my basement suite is a university student who speaks Mandarin quite well, so with her help, I have found out that Wing is 68—13 years younger than I am — and that she lived through the Cultural Revolution. For my part, I was raised in wartime Britain.
So here we are, two grandmothers a world away from where we were raised, neither of us able to speak the other’s language. But the doorbell keeps ringing and there is the familiar paper carrier bag, handed smilingly to me by Wing.
Right now I am working on some more Mandarin words—it’s the least I can do after such a display of kindness.
“Thank you” is, of course, the first one, which somehow seems inadequate.
The underlined word “reciprocate” in Paragraph 5 probably means ________.A.do as well |
B.give in return |
C.offer generously |
D.accept with pleasure |
It was summer, and my dad wanted to treat me to a vacation like never before. He decided to take me on a trip to the Wild West.
We took a plane to Albuquerque, a big city in the state of New Mexico. We reached Albuquerque in the late afternoon. Uncle Paul, my dad’s friend, picked us up from the airport and drove us up to his farm in Pecos.
His wife Tina cooked us a delicious dinner and we got to know his sons Ryan and Kyle. My dad and I spent the night in the guestroom of the farm house listening to the frogs and water rolling down the river nearby. Very early in the morning, Uncle Paul woke us up to have breakfast. “The day starts at dawn on my farm, “he said. After breakfast, I went to help Aunt Tina feed the chickens, while my dad went with Uncle Paul to take the sheep out to graze (吃草). I was impressed to see my dad and Uncle Paul riding horses. They looked really cool.
In the afternoon, I asked Uncle Paul if I could take a horse ride, and he said yes, as long as my dad went with me. I wasn’t going to take a horse ride by myself anyway. So, my dad and I put on our new cowboy hats, got on our horses, and headed slowly towards the mountains. “Don’t be late for supper, “Uncle Paul cried, “and keep to the track so that you don’t get lost!” “OK!” my dad cried back. After a while Uncle Paul and his farm house were out of sight. It was so peaceful and quiet and the colors of the brown rocks, the deep green pine trees, and the late afternoon sun mixed to create a magic scene. It looked like a beautiful woven (编织的) blanket spread out upon the ground just for us.
1. 阅读下面材料,根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段,使之构成一篇完整的短文。续写的词数应为150左右。注意:
续写词数应为150左右;
请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Suddenly a little rabbit jumped out in front of my horse.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We had no idea where we were and it got dark.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Task one: put the correct forms of the following words into the blanks.
drive comfort out permit loss dusks noon last roll delight trip next | ||
time | event | feeling |
One summer day | My dad decided to take me on a new | excited |
In the late afternoon | Uncle Paul picked us up and | Curious |
The first night on the farm | We spend the night in the guestroom listening to the frog and water | |
Early in the | I helped Tina feed the chickens. My dad and Uncle Paul took the sheep | admirable |
In the afternoon | I got a | |
At | We got | …… |
3. Task two: answer the following questions.
1) How did the writer or the horse react to the rabbit?
2) How did the writer and his father get lost?
3) What difficulties did they meet?
4) How did they find their way back to Uncle Paul’s house?
【推荐3】Like most of us, I try to be mindful of food that goes to waste. The arugula (芝麻菜)was to make a nice green salad, rounding out a roast chicken dinner. But I ended up working late. Then friends called with a dinner invitation. I stuck the chicken in the freezer. But as days passed, the arugula went bad. Even worse, I had unthinkingly bought way too much; I could have made six salads with what I threw out.
In a world where nearly 800 million people a year go hungry, “food waste goes against the moral grain,” as Elizabeth Royte writes in this month’s cover story. It’s jaw-dropping how much perfectly good food is thrown away — from “ugly” (but quite eatable) vegetables rejected by grocers to large amounts of uneaten dishes thrown into restaurant garbage cans.
Producing food that no one eats wastes the water, fuel, and other resources used to grow it. That makes food waste an environmental problem. In fact, Royte writes, “if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world.”
If that’s hard to understand, let’s keep it as simple as the arugula at the back of my refrigerator. Mike Curtin sees my arugula story all the time — but for him, it’s more like 12 boxes of donated strawberries nearing their last days. Curtin is CEO of DC Central Kitchen in Washington, D.C., which recovers food and turns it into healthy meals. Last year it recovered more than 807,500 pounds of food by taking donations and collecting blemished (有瑕疵的) produce that otherwise would have rotted in fields. And the strawberries? Volunteers will wash, cut, and freeze or dry them for use in meals down the road.
Such methods seem obvious, yet so often we just don’t think. “Everyone can play a part in reducing waste, whether by not purchasing more food than necessary in your weekly shopping or by asking restaurants to not include the side dish you won’t eat,” Curtin says.
What does the author want to show by telling the arugula story?
A.We pay little attention to food waste. |
B.We waste food unintentionally at times. |
C.We waste more vegetables than meat. |
D.We have good reasons for wasting food. |