A lot of people are experiencing hunger, so communities and organizations across the U. S. have put up community fridges in their city. The fridges offer free food to the neighborhood. Anyone can take or donate food.
The spread of COVID-19 has brought more attention to America’s hunger problem. It has also made it worse. Food shortage doubled because people lost their jobs, according to a study by Northwestern University. The loss of a job, high costs of living or not living near a store that has healthy, affordable food can all cause food shortage.
Now, there are more than 160 new community fridges in cities across the country. The fridges come with special challenges. They need electricity and looking after. Also, food safety rule should also be considered. Some experts feel the fridges cover up more important questions. Yet the community relationships they create can make a difference.
Mark Bucher, owner of a restaurant in Washington D. C, wanted to help make sure no child went hungry in his community. He created a program called Feed the Fridge. Restaurants make meals which go into 19 fridges around the city. In return, the restaurants get the money that is donated to the program. This is an example of mutual(相互的)aid. Delano Hunter, a partner of Bucher, said “The fridges are a way of providing meals, in a respectful way, to those who need them.”
However, community fridges cannot fix all the problems. Andy Fisher, an expert on food shortage, believes the problem is how the United States thinks about hunger. “People think it can be solved by handing out food,” Fisher said, “this ignores the problems that create hunger.”
Fridges are short-term solutions. I expect one day long-term solutions can be found. For now, the fridges bring life back into communities at least.
1. What advantage do the community fridges bring?| A．They improve the food safety. |
| B．They lower the high cost of living. |
| C．They connect the people in the neighborhood. |
| D．They provide affordable food to the community. |
| A．To attract more people to donate the food. |
| B．To offer food in a respectful way to adults. |
| C．To help the restaurant to make more money. |
| D．To prevent kids in his community from hunger. |
| A．It acts as a short-term solution to hunger. |
| B．It raises the living costs of the needy. |
| C．It removes hunger forever. |
| D．It brings no trouble now. |
| A．Restaurants help American community a lot. |
| B．Various problems are caused by COVID-19. |
| C．Many American people are experiencing hunger. |
| D．Community fridges strengthen ties during COVID-19. |
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【推荐1】I began cycling in 2004 when I was a poor student. It was dangerous, sure, but cycling is the fastest, cheapest point-to-point form of transport in Melbourne. I own a car now, but that’s just for transporting the baby or groceries.
I hate driving. So it’s been quite encouraging watching the growth in cyclist numbers over the past decade. It is said that over 10,000 cyclists enter the CBD (Central Business District) each day, taking pressure off public transport. But as more people take to cycling as a way of transport, the number of cyclists seriously injured or killed keeps increasing. And that is a sign that our infrastructure (基础设施) is still not good enough.
Melbourne was once a dream for cyclists--flat, long, wide roads, with plenty of paths along rivers. Now, cycling can be deadly, with roads taken up by cars. I have a friend who broke her back and was lucky to escape death and others with broken bones. In my time riding, I’ve been forced off the road by a truck, cut off by four-wheel drives, and told to get off the road. Drivers are a particularly rude to cyclists. And that’s a sign of exactly one thing: inadequate infrastructure.
We shouldn’t need to be taught how to coexist in the same narrow space. Drivers and cyclists should be kept apart. Designing bike paths so riders are channelled between moving cars and parked cars is deadly. All it takes is one daydreaming driver to fling open the door and you are gone. That’s what happened to the young university student James.
This year, there are to be new cycling lanes (车道) built on Glen Road, where James died in 2010. But these lanes are not safe. Cyclists must still pass between two rows of cars.
1. What does the underlined word “that” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Some people hating driving. |
| B．More cyclists having accidents. |
| C．More people choosing to cycle. |
| D．Distracted driving happening a lot. |
| A．Many people are bad at cycling. |
| B．There are many cars in Melbourne. |
| C．It’s dangerous to cycle in Melbourne. |
| D．Melbourne was once very beautiful. |
| A．Cross’ carelessness. |
| B．A driver’s mistake. |
| C．Unsafe bike paths. |
| D．An outdated legal system. |
| A．To stress the necessity of safe bike paths. |
| B．To encourage readers to cycle. |
| C．To criticize rude driving behavior. |
| D．To tell a personal story. |
【推荐2】“Instagram(a social networking app) will cut out many users’ accounts on December 20. To protect your account, repost this warning #KeepMyAccountSafe.” Every few months, it happens again-a dozen of annoying posts from my kids’ friends suddenly start to appear on my Instagram news feed.
According to a new study by Stanford University, most kids don’t know what news is fake. Researchers asked more than 7,800 middle school and high school students to complete 56 tasks, like distinguishing an advertisement from a real news story on a website and determining which blog in a series was most reliable. They found that students judged the credibility of blogs based not on the source of the material, but on how much detail they contained, or whether a large photo was attached.
“Many people assume that because young people are fluent in social media, they can distinguish fake news, but our work shows the opposite to be true,” wrote lead study author Sam Wineburg, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education.
Both Google and Facebook are now taking steps to control misleading news from making its way on their platforms, but they won’t be able to eliminate it completely. That is why it’s now more important than ever to teach our kids to think critically when it comes to believing various information sources.
“In the coming months, we look forward to sharing our assessments and working with educators to create materials that will guide young people in the sea of disinformation they encounter online,” said Wineburg.
1. How does the author introduce the topic of the passage?| A．By stating opinions. | B．By showing findings. |
| C．By quoting sayings. | D．By citing a post. |
| A．The source of the material. | B．The popularity of the website. |
| C．The amount of details. | D．The size of relevant photos. |
| A．Digest. | B．Update. | C．Estimate. | D．Remove. |
| A．Stronger Together: The Internet Changes Our Life |
| B．Be Careful: Kids Are Bad at Identifying Fake News |
| C．Reliable News Has No Place on Social Media |
| D．Educators Have a Long Way to Go to Guide the Young |
【推荐3】Highway safety experts have long been concerned about a possible increase of accidents and deaths as people in their 70s, 80s and beyond continued to drive. However, a recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that drivers age 70 and older were less likely to be involved in a car accident than those 35 to 54.
The study, published in June in The Journal of Safety Research, recorded a 43 percent drop in accidents among drivers 70 and older from 1997 to 2018. For middle-aged drivers, the decline in accidents was half that, 21 percent. Although seniors rarely drove as far as younger drivers did, older adults had better safety records per mile driven. In 2017, for the first time ever, drivers 70 and older had fewer crashes reported to the police than middle-aged drivers, the institute found.
The study’s authors credited two major factors for the improved safety record of older drivers: Seniors today are healthier than in decades past, and most are operating safer vehicle. To that, I would add, they’re helped by significant safety improvements in roadway design. For example, when stop signs or traffic lights were replaced by roundabouts at crossroads, overall crashes dropped 37 percent, injury crashes by 75 percent, and deaths by 90 percent.
Still, there’s no question that an aging mind and body can compromise driving safety. Flexibility and reaction time necessarily decline as-we get-older. Age-related health challenges that can worsen driving ability include arthritis (关节炎), hearing loss and dementia (痴呆). The most important lesson for older drivers is to acknowledge (承认) such changes and know how to make up for them if possible.
Brenda Vrkljan, a specialist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, is doing what she can to help older adults continue to drive safely by monitoring where and when they drive and how they behave behind the wheel.
A program called Candrivee which Dr Vrkljan helped establish, is tracking the driving patterns of older adults to assess what changes might improve safety. She and colleagues are placing cameras in aging drivers’ cars to record their unsafe missteps, like failing to check mirrors before changing lanes or not stopping soon enough. Afterward, the drivers can view the video, offering them an opportunity to bear witness to their limitations.
1. What can we learn from the recent study?| A．Accidents among middle-aged drivers have been increasing since 1997. |
| B．Accidents among older drivers dropped sharply from 1997 to 2018. |
| C．Older drivers had better records though they drove less frequently. |
| D．Older drivers were less willing to report accidents to the police. |
| A．Measures to protect older drivers on the road. | B．Suggestions on making cars safer for older drivers. |
| C．Reasons for better safety record among older drivers. | D．Advantages of replacing stop signs at crossroads. |
| A．improve | B．weaken | C．ensure | D．balance |
| A．To help older people to pass a driving test more easily. |
| B．To decide whether older drivers can continue driving. |
| C．To study why older drivers fail to check mirrors before changing lanes. |
| D．To provide a chance for older drivers to improve their driving. |
American cuisine is shaped by the natural wealth of the country. Having never faced agricultural hardship, Americans don’t have to rely on rotating crops, such as the Japanese, whose food culture now showcases buckwheat (荞麦) alongside rice, or the Indians, or the French and Italians, who feature beans alongside wheat. “That kind of negotiation with the land forced people to incorporate(接受) those crops in to the culture,” says Barber. And so eating soba noodles becomes part of what it means to be Japanese, and eating beans becomes part of what it means to be French.
So if what we eat is what we are, what are Americans? Well, meat. “If Americans have any unifying food identity, I would say we are a mostly white meat culture,” says Barber. “The protein-centric dinner plate, whether you’re talking about a boneless chicken breast, or a 16-ounce steak, as an everyday expectation is something that America really created, and now exports to the rest of the world.”
Every single culture and religion uses food as part of their celebrations, says Ellen Gustafson, co-founder of the FEED Project and The 30 Project, which aims to deal with both hunger and overweight issues globally. “The celebratory nature of food is universal. Every season, every harvest, and every holiday has its own food, and this is true in America as well. It helps define us.”
1. According to the first paragraph, American cuisine ________.
| A．consists of varieties of regional foods |
| B．is becoming more and more globalized |
| C．has absorbed a lot from Chinese cuisine |
| D．is not as unified as its culture |
| A．Relying on rotating crops |
| B．The difficulty of planting crops |
| C．The US’ melting pot culture |
| D．The US’ agricultural wealth |
| A．eating rice | B．eating beans |
| C．eating white meat | D．eating soba noodles |
| A．American cuisine is healthier than other cuisines. |
| B．American cuisine hasn’t changed much over time. |
| C．Americans use food as part of their celebrations. |
| D．Americans are quite proud of their own cuisine. |
【推荐2】Every year, Earth Day is celebrated on April 22, and people all around the world celebrate this day by taking part in environmental awareness activities and working towards raising awareness about important issues that our planet Earth is currently facing, like global warming and pollution.
Before the 1970s, there were almost no environmental laws and industries were allowed to dump their industrial waste and fumes anywhere in the world. A US Senator by the name of Gaylord Nelson was concerned about the growing levels of pollution. So in the spring of 1970, Senator Nelson created Earth Day as a way to promote awareness about these issues in the US. His plan was successful, as 20 million Americans started a demonstration (示威游行) for Earth Day around the world. As a result, the US government started an agency called the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Over the next few years, the movement spread across the world and Earth Day became internationally recognized.
The theme of Earth Day 2021 is “restore our Earth”. The focus of this year’s theme is restoring Earth’s natural processes and ecosystems. Apart from that, the goal of this year’s Earth Day is to focus on taking green technologies and innovative (创新的) actions to restore the Earth’s natural ecosystem. More than stopping pollution and global warming, this year’s Earth Day focuses on reversing the damage caused to the Earth.
Despite strict environmental laws in many countries across the world, problems such as global warming, air pollution and climate change continue to threaten our planet. Many scientists around the world are warning us about the already irreversible problems that have been created by microplastics, oil spills and depletion (消耗) of the ozone layer. If the human race continues on the same path as before, the extinction of the human race is not too far off in the future. Earth Day seeks to help raise people’s awareness around the world about these issues and bring positive changes, so future generations stand a chance of living a safer life.
1. Which activity is suitable to celebrate Earth Day?| A．Plastic waste collection. | B．A long-distance bicycle race. |
| C．A lecture about human rights. | D．Medical research on cancers. |
| A．The history of Earth Day. | B．The success of Gaylord Nelson. |
| C．Environmental changes in the 1970s. | D．The establishment of environmental laws. |
| A．It helps to slow down global warming. |
| B．It aims to bring the Earth back to normal. |
| C．It focuses on reducing individuals’ carbon footprint. |
| D．It promotes the development of emerging industries. |
| A．To predict the future of the Earth. |
| B．To describe our terrible living environment. |
| C．To state the progress in protecting the Earth. |
| D．To increase people’s awareness of Earth Day. |
【推荐3】Science fiction is a fantasy-filled world where the impossible comes to life. In a world where science fiction fans are abundant, it is hard to escape the influence of the popular genre (类型) of entertainment— be it in the form of reading material or films. This includes the exposure of children to science fiction. Hence the effect of science fiction on children is definitely worth considering.
The main effect that can be noted is that it inspires the imagination of children. The young and inexperienced mind is exposed to the exciting world of countless possibilities. This allows the children to experience and comprehend the possible options of events that may occur, which are beyond the normal life they experience.
Besides this, the imagination of children is improved to understand the world around us with more interest. While astronomy may sound very uninteresting to a child, the possibilities of aliens living outside Earth make the topic more exciting and hence more accessible to the young thinking minds. The imagination of children would even stimulate their interest in history when it concerns science fiction related to both extinct and fantasy animals.
An enhanced imagination is vital to a sharper cognitive (认知的) ability as children are able to think out of the box and are not limited to what is normal to them in their daily lives. Their imagination would work much better as they would have curiosity raised by their science fiction experience.
Imaginative children would have an enriched life with an active mind. Aware of their surroundings, imaginative children are able to see life in a more delightful way than realistic children who may not be able to enjoy their childhood as much.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．How children become imaginative. |
| B．How children use their imagination. |
| C．How science fiction impacts children. |
| D．How science fiction creates a fantasy. |
| A．By analyzing causes. |
| B．By giving examples. |
| C．By describing a process. |
| D．By following time order. |
| A．Develop curiosity. |
| B．Inspire imagination. |
| C．Break the thinking pattern. |
| D．Limit cognitive skills. |
| A．They are able to enjoy life more. |
| B．They have easier access to science fiction. |
| C．They have more life experiences. |
| D．They are more interested in learning history |
