“ELSA, IT’S YOU!” It was the four-year-old’s surprise birthday party, and her favorite Disney character, Elsa from Frozen, had arrived. The two merrily began to sing the movie’s big song, “Let It Go”. You would swear they were celebrating at the most magical place on earth, but this wasn’t Disney World. It was the pediatric（儿科）cancer ward at a hospital on Long Island in New York. And the princess was a college student volunteering for A Moment of Magic, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to lift the spirits of sick children, which has 400 volunteers from 11 colleges around the country.
It all began with a movie Frozen. Kylee McGrane, now 23, noticed that she and Elsa had matching blond hair and big blue eyes. At that time, she was searching for a new community project, ideally one with kids. That sparked an idea—dressing up as Disney princesses and visiting pediatric cancer patients.
“When kids are in a hospital for so long, they don’t get all the magic that most kids do,” says McGrane. “It’s nice to give them time to be themselves.” In 2015, after raising $2,000 on a Go Fund Me page to pay for costumes and travel expenses, McGrane and her friend landed their first gig, at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York. They dressed as Elsa and her sister, Anna, to the squealing delight of the girls and blushing smiles from the boys. “To see the kids believe in me, my character…It was life changing,” says McGrane.
They also have a growing kingdom of fans. Shara Moskowitz from New Jersey says that her seven-year-old daughter, Avery, still talks almost every day by phone or text to the princesses she met nearly two years ago at her birthday party. Avery was receiving treatment for a neuroblastoma（成神经细胞瘤）. “My daughter found something that she really needed to connect to,” says Moskowitz. “These girls gave her that moment of imagination, freedom, and happiness of dreaming”.
1. The princess performances were given in order to________.| A．raise money for "A Moment of Magic" | B．cheer up children suffering from cancers |
| C．celebrate children's birthday in Disneyland | D．share the spirits of the movies with volunteers |
| A．Kylee landed a good part in the movie Frozen. |
| B．Kylee was financed by Cohen Children's Medica Center |
| C．Kylee had matching blond hair and big blue eyes with Elsa. |
| D．Kylee's idea of princess performance was inspired by the movie Frozen. |
| A．their performances were well received and popular |
| B．their performances greatly depressed those children |
| C．their performances helped build a magic world for girls |
| D．their performances freed the kids with cancer from sufferings |
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【推荐1】With a leather book cover, a golden overhang, made from colored paper and edges of the book painted red, the French version of An Introduction to The Analects of Confucius《论语入门》is a classic from the Age of Enlightenment in France. The book is about the political ideas, ethical thoughts and moral concepts of China more than 2,000 years ago. Francois Bernier, the author of the book, would never have expected that the French version of the Chinese classic translated by him could be brought to China more than 300 years after he finished it.
The French version of An Introduction to The Analects of Confucius is a national gift. 2019 marked the 55th anniversary of the establishment of China-France diplomatic ties. On March 24 of that year, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Nice, France. Before their meeting, Macron presented Xi with the original French version of An Introduction to The Analects of Confucius published in France in 1688.
As a classic of traditional Chinese culture, The Analects of Confucius《论语》was introduced to Europe as early as the 17th century. Commenting on the influence of Chinese culture in France, Macron said the thoughts of Confucius had deeply inspired French thinkers such as Voltaire and had a long-lasting influence on the French Enlightenment (启蒙运动).
After hearing Macron’s introduction, Xi said he would take this precious gift back to China’s National Library. President Xi once said that the rich philosophical ideas, humanistic spirit, edifying thoughts (教化思想) and moral concepts of China’s fine traditional culture can provide useful inspiration for understanding and transforming the world, for governing the country, and for moral construction.
1. What does An Introduction to The Analects of Confucius mainly deal with?| A．Music history, ethical thoughts and folk songs. |
| B．Political ideas, ethical thoughts and fairy stories. |
| C．Moral concepts, classic works and military ideas. |
| D．Ethical thoughts, moral concepts and political ideas. |
| A．Macron saw them as an inspiration to many French inventors. |
| B．Macron saw them as guidelines for the French Enlightenment. |
| C．Macron considered them great valuable to French in some ways. |
| D．Macron considered them the best way to spread Chinese culture. |
| A．Science. | B．Travel. | C．Culture. | D．Technology. |
【推荐2】A boy shivered in the harsh Oslo winter, pathetically wrapping his arms around himself on a bus stop bench. He wasn’t wearing a coat and temperatures in the Norwegian capital regularly plunge to -10C during winter.
A heartbreaking scene, but the actions of the ordinary people who witnessed the difficult situation of 11-year-old Johanne Linnestad Flaaten were both joyous and inspiring.
A young woman sat next to the boy and noticed him rubbing his arms. She immediately asked him, “Don’t you have a jacket?”
“No, someone stole,” he replied. She questioned him and discovered he was on a school trip and was told to meet his teacher at the bus stop. She asked him the name of his school and where he was from as she selflessly covered her own coat around his shoulders.
Later, another older woman at first gave him her scarf, and then wrapped him in her large padded jacket.
Throughout the day, more and more people offered Johanne their gloves and even the coats off their backs as they waited for their bus.
Johanne’s predicament was a hidden camera experiment by Norwegian charity SOS Children’s Village as part of their winter campaign to gather donations to send much-needed coats and blankets to help Syrian children get through the winter. Many of the refugees have left their homes without winter clothing.
“People should care as much about children in Syria as they care about this boy,” Synne Runnine th information head of SOS Children’s Villages Norway, told The Local. She also noted that the child was a volunteer who was never in any danger during the filming.
1. Why did Johanne Linnestad Flaaten shiver on the bus stop bench?| A．His parents couldn’t afford him a warm coat |
| B．Someone stole his jacket. |
| C．He was a volunteer to do an experiment. |
| D．He was doing an experiment of cold resista |
| A．difficult situation | B．miserable life |
| C．inspiring courage | D．selfless spirit |
| A．People’s care about Johanne is enough. |
| B．People’s care about children in Syria is not enough. |
| C．People should care more about children in Syria than they care about Johanne. |
| D．People should care more about Johanne than they care about children in Syria. |
| A．When You Have No Coat in a Harsh Winter |
| B．When You Face Refugees Crowding into Your Country |
| C．When You Help Syrian Children without Winter Clothing |
| D．When You Meet a Boy Wearing No Coat |
【推荐3】Shortly after graduating in 2012, Dutch fashion designer Bas Timmer heard some upsetting news. While he had been busy drawing designs for his new brand, a friend’s father, who was homeless, had died of hypothermia（体温过低）just meters away from his studio. The young man set aside his personal ambitions and instead used his design skills to create Sheltersuit—a jacket that doubles as a sleeping bag to protect the world's homeless against extreme weather.
To transform the coat into a sleeping bag, the wearer simply zips（用拉链拉上）on a second piece to the bottom. The suit’s large hood（兜帽）helps protect against bright street lights at night, while a built-in scarf adds warmth and protection. When not in use,the “portable shelter” can be tucked away in the accompanying backpack.
The designer had originally intended to create a limited number of Sheltersuits and then go back to develop his clothing brand. “I thought, OK, I'm going to make 100,” he says. However, demand for the product, which was an instant hit, has never stopped. Over the past four years, Timmer and his team have distributed 6,000 Sheltersuits to the homeless in Europe.
To help pay for the production cost, Timmer set up the Sheltersuit Foundation, which accepts donations from both groups and individuals. Since March 2019, the team has also been using its factory to create clothing, bag and other things for paying customers.
Though Timmer’s efforts are deserving to be praised，the special clothing is not the solution(解 决）to this serious social issue，which is largely the result of income loss and the rising house prices in US cities like San Francisco and New York. Hopefully, governments, groups and individuals will come together to find a way to help the people that are down on their luck.
1. What did Timmer do after knowing a friend’s father’s death?| A．He took aim at the poor. |
| B．He went to comfort his friend. |
| C．He closed his studio at once to design a new brand. |
| D．He created a kind of jacket against coldness for the homeless. |
| A．Raised. | B．Removed. |
| C．Put away. | D．Given back. |
| A．Great demand. | B．Huge profits. |
| C．Unique styles. | D．Personal ambition. |
| A．He found it hard to make money. |
| B．He hoped to raise money for production. |
| C．He was unwilling to make clothes with his own money. |
| D．He expected more people to participate in the creation. |
【推荐1】With a 30-year career under her belt as an accomplished head nurse and a veteran(老兵) of the 2003 SARS outbreak, Wang Yuying once again found herself wearing protective clothes for a mission to fight COVID-19 in Wuhan.
Wang Yuying arrived in Wuhan, Hubei Province, on the night of February 1, which was only seven hours after she received the call that she had been assigned to help at the center of the novel coronavirus.
Wang was one of the 135 medical workers dispatched by Peking University First Hospital to help treat seriously ill COVID-19 patients in Wuhan during the height of the outbreak. The day after arriving, Wang started to take care of the patients. Four days later, she was assigned as the head nurse of the medical team from Peking University First Hospital, and their team was asked to start taking care of patients independently within two days.
Despite the heavy work, Wang still paid attention to the psychological condition of both the nurses and patients. She could remember the birthdays of all 100 nurses and she would surprise them with a cake or a letter from family. She noticed the signs of worry in the patients. She would talk to them gently and comfort them to create a bond with them. Wang thinks attentive care and psychological nursing also played an important role in treating the COVID-19 patients.
Because of her devotion and focus on both the patients and nurses, her team finished their work with success on April 4. Wang Yuying has been a head nurse for three decades and is one year away from retirement. For her, the experience in Wuhan was also a chance to find and train those who will follow in her footsteps — the future head nurses.
1. What did Wang Yuying do in 2003?| A．She served as a head nurse and a veteran. |
| B．She participated in the fight against SARS. |
| C．She reported the event of SARS. |
| D．She protected the nurses from being infected. |
| A．Command. | B．Treat. |
| C．Send. | D．Receive. |
| A．About 10 months. | B．About 6 months. |
| C．About 4 months. | D．About 2 months. |
| A．Careful and considerate. | B．Gentle and inspiring. |
| C．Creative and intelligent. | D．Confident and patient. |
Darius Brown is a 14-year-old boy in the eighth grade. He lives in Newark, New Jersey. When he was 2 years old, doctors told his mother, Joy Brown, that he had a fine motor skills disorder (精细运动技能障碍) which could make it hard for him to do things with hands, like tying shoes and using scissors. And the poor boy can never recover.
When Darius Brown was 8 years old, his elder sister, Dazhai, taught him how to make a bow tie (蝴蝶领结). At first, Joy worried that he might hurt himself. “He was resolute to learn how to make bow ties,” said Joy. “So he sat and watched Dazhai for months and took it all in. Then he practised and practised. ” Before long, she said, “he was making bow ties by himself.” One day, he made a bow tie out of Ninja Turtle fabric (忍者神龟布料). He wore the new bow tie to school the next day. His friends wanted such bow ties of their own. So Darius began to make more.
In 2017, he found a great use for this new skill. That was the year Hurricane Irma hit Florida and Puerto Rico. The powerful storm flooded homes and streets. It left hundreds of dogs and cats homeless. The dogs and cats needed families to adopt them. Darius said he realized he could help. He would give the animals special bow ties to make them look cute. Darius learned that some of the rescued animals were brought to an animal shelter in New York City. So he dropped off about 25 pet-sized bow ties. It worked even better than he’d expected. Darius realized that such a small thing could give a homeless animal a better chance of being adopted.
Darius has donated more than 600 bow ties to shelters since starting his project in 2017. Shelter workers say that Darius’ bow ties are of great help.
1. What will trouble Darius Brown for all his life? (no more than 5 words)2. What does the underlined part in Paragraph 2 probably mean? (no more than 5 words)
3. How did Darius’ classmates think of his Ninja Turtle bow tie? (no more than 5 words)
4. According to Darius, what would be the result if a homeless animal wore a bow tie?(no more than 10 words)
5. What do you think of Darius Brown? Please explain. (no more than 25 words)
【推荐3】Most kids spend their weekends playing or watching TV–but for one 11-year-oldboy, Thiago, in Brazil, Saturdays are for helping street dogs. Thiago has always loved animals. He wished he could do something for the estimated 30 million abandoned dogs and cats in Brazil. So he decided to give them baths to help them live better.
At the end of 2020, Thiago created the project I’m homeless but I’m clean with his father and started to change the lives of the street dogs around him. While talking to my father, I told him about my idea of bathing street dogs so they stayed clean and fragrant and people looked at them differently on the street, Thiago told The Dodo.
The project got off to a bumpy start. “Catching dogs on the street was difficult,since they were always scared and many were victims of abuse,”Thiago said. “So we spent some time without baths until my father spoke to Noah’s Ark and we started to bathe their newly rescued dogs.” After the dogs took their baths they each got a photo shot with Thiago. Thiago’s father posted the pictures on social media to highlight each one. “The project has borne fruit, because most of the furry ones are adopted,” Thiago said. “This gives a lot of motivation to continue.”
Thiago hopes that his efforts will change the way people think of the homeless animals, and will convince more people to open their homes to them. And for those who don’t have the space or ability to adopt a dog, Thiago encourages them to help in other ways–such as donating, volunteering at a shelter or putting out small bowls of food and water on their sidewalk. Even the smallest effort can make a difference.
1. What was Thiago’s decision on spending his weekends?| A．Playing games. | B．Watching TV. |
| C．Adopting dogs. | D．Bathing dogs. |
| A．It’s a photo studio. |
| B．It’s a social platform. |
| C．It’s an animal protection organization. |
| D．It’s an environmental protection organization. |
| A．It will not suffer from hunger. |
| B．It will find its owner very soon. |
| C．It will be caught by people quickly. |
| D．It will be more likely to be adopted. |
| A．An experience of bathing dogs. |
| B．A boy’s kindness to street dogs. |
| C．The efforts to rescue homeless animals. |
| D．Thiago’s cooperation with Noah’s Ark. |
