She had to pack up her bedroom in Virginia Beach, where she lived with her mother, two sisters and brother. She had to say goodbye to her two dogs, who used to sleep in her bed, and to the beach, where she loved to ride waves on her boogie board.
But it was time to take the leap, however heartbreaking and awkward it would be. Even at 14, Douglas knew that.
So off she went about 1,200 miles to West Des Moines, Iowa, to train with a coach from China and live with a white family she had never been met. When she arrived, Douglas thought that she must be the only black person in the state. When she woke up, she always said, “This isn’t my bed set. Where am I?”
Liang Chow, who had coached the Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson, transformed Douglas into one of the best gymnasts in the world, helping her skyrocket from an average member of the national team to the top of the sport. And a couple with four young daughters became her second family, nurturing her in Iowan while her real family supported her from afar.
That move also was important in Douglas’s making history. By winning the Olympic all-round title, she became the first black woman to do so. She also became the fourth American woman to win the all-round, following Mary Lou Retton in 1984, Carly Patterson in 2004 and Nastia Liukin in 2008.
Douglas won, scoring 62.232 points, and led the competition from beginning to the end. Viktoria Komova, who sobbed into her coach’s chest when she learned she had lost, won the silver, with 61.973 points. Aliya Mustafina, the 2010 world all-round champion, won the bronze with 59.566 points. The other American in the competition, Aly Raisman finished fourth after losing a tiebreaker (决胜局) to Mustafina.
Douglas said she had felt confident all along that she would win. “It was just an amazing feeling.” she said, giggling (咯咯笑). “I was just like, believe, don’t fear, believe.” After sacrificing so much, she had no other choice but to push forward, she said.
1. Why did Douglas leave her home at 14? (no more than 10 words2. How did she feel when Douglas first arrived at the new home? (no more than 5 words)
3. What does the underlined word “skyrocket” in Paragraph 4 most probably mean? (no more than 3 words)
4. According to Para. 5, what achievement did Douglas make? (no more than 15 words)
5. What do you think of Douglas from the story? Give your reasons. (no more than 20 words)
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【推荐1】It’s said that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at what’s on their bookshelves. What do my bookshelves say about me? Well, I’d always thought of myself as a cultured person, but my bookshelves told a rather different story.
So, in October 2011, I registered my blog, ayearofreadingtheworld.com, and posted a short appeal online. I explained how narrow my reading had been and asked anyone who cared to suggest what I read from other parts of the planet. I had no idea whether anyone would be interested, but within a few hours, people started to get in touch.
Books came from surprising sources. My Panamanian read, for example, came through a conversation I had with the Panama Canal on Twitter, which advised I try the work of the Panamanian author Juan David Morgan. I found Morgan’s website and sent him a message, asking if any of his Spanish-language novels had been translated into English. And he said nothing had been published, but he did have an unpublished translation of his novel “The Golden Horse”, and he emailed it to me.
Morgan was by no means the only wordsmith to share his work with me in this way. From Sweden to Palau, writers and translators sent me self-published books and unpublished manuscripts (手稿) of books that hadn’t been picked up by Anglophone publishers or that were no longer available, giving me privileged glimpses (初步的感受) of some remarkable imaginary worlds.
The books I read that year have opened my eyes to many things. That can be an uncomfortable experience, particularly when I’m reading a book from a culture that may have quite different values to my own. But it can also be really enlightening. Wrestling with unfamiliar ideas can help clarify my own thinking and show up blind spots in the way I might have been looking at the world.
When I looked back at much of the English-language literature I’d grown up with, I began to see how narrow a lot of it was, compared to the richness that the world has to offer. Little by little, that long list of countries that I’d started the year with changed from a rather dry, academic register of place names into living, breathing entities.
1. Why did the author create the blog “A Year of Reading the World”?| A．To learn from others’ bookshelves. |
| B．To broaden her cultural horizons. |
| C．To get recommendations from readers. |
| D．To find out the literary works she lacked. |
| A．They presented a challenge to the author. |
| B．They blocked the author’s reading journey. |
| C．They offered unique access to literary worlds. |
| D．They inspired confidence in the author’s project. |
| A．Provide her with unfamiliar topics. |
| B．Make her absorbed in other cultures. |
| C．Show fields she needs to learn more about. |
| D．Reveal areas she lacks insight in her worldview. |
| A．Exploring the Global Literary Landscape |
| B．The Challenge of Reading the World |
| C．Uncovering Stories from Every Country |
| D．The Impact of Culture on the Worldview |
【推荐2】I went online to check if my pay was in my bank account. To my amazement, I discovered that not only had I been paid, a company I’d never worked for had also paid me! I knew I’d have been beside myself if my own salary was not in my account, so I tried to get the money back to the right person. It is easier said than done.
The bank couldn’t help as it wasn’t a bank problem. The human-resource department as the company that paid me was unable to help as I didn’t have enough details. I rang the bank again. Thankfully I had sympathetic call operator who gave me a name, so I again rang the company “Daniel” worked for.
I expected the bank would contact me to arrange to take the money from my account and repay Daniel. I heard nothing for a month and the money remained in my account when Daniel called, explaining he’d tried to get back his money but had been unsuccessful as neither the bank nor his company felt it was their error. He had rung to ask if I could speak to the bank, but after chatting for a few minutes we realized we could probably fix this problem ourselves.
We decided I would take the money from my account and he would pick it up from me. Due to my busy job I was unable to meet Daniel personally but he left me a lovely bottle of wine in exchange for what was rightfully his. I never had any intention of keeping Daniel’s pay, but red tape (繁琐手续)made it difficult to do the right thing. It all came down to two people being able to do what a huge bank and a large company couldn’t do — admit a mistake has occurred and fix it.
1. The underlined phrase “beside myself” in paragraph I probably means ______.| A．very fortunate | B．very angry |
| C．really thankful | D．at ease |
| A．He didn’t know what to do with it. |
| B．He felt lucky to get it. |
| C．He thought of keeping it for himself. |
| D．He wanted to return it to the right place. |
| A．Daniel had been repaid when he called the author. |
| B．The author was to blame as he didn’t have enough details. |
| C．Neither the bank nor the company admitted their fault. |
| D．Daniel had the same name as the author’s. |
| A．The author and Daniel solved the problem themselves. |
| B．It cost Daniel a lovely bottle of wine to get back his money. |
| C．The author gave the money back to the company. |
| D．The call operator offered to solve their problem. |
【推荐3】When I left the train at Victoria Station my first impression was traffic and crowds. I had never believed my geography teacher when he told us there were more people in London than in the whole of my country. I thought he had just said it to make his lesson more interesting, but I believed him now.
However, I got to my little hotel at last. The first thing that took my eye was the porter, a big fat man with a round pink face like an advertisement for babies’ food. Then I met the manager. He rubbed his hands all the time as if he was washing them and smiled without stopping. What he said I could not understand, though I had learned English at school. I said to myself, “Perhaps he doesn’t speak it very well — some English people don’t.” But I told him my name, and he smiled again and told one of the boys to show me up to my room. Ten minutes later I was lying in a hot bath washing off the last dusty remainders (残余物) of the continent. Another ten minutes I was under the bedclothes and fast asleep.
When I woke the next morning, I felt hungrier than I had ever felt in my life before. I seemed to have a hole instead of a stomach. I dressed quickly and hurried down to the dining-room.
The waiter came hurrying up. Before I came downstairs I had prepared myself very carefully for what I must say. I had looked three times in my dictionary to make sure that “breakfast” really meant “breakfast”. I had tried to get the right pronunciation and had stood in front of a mirror and twisted my mouth until it ached.
The waiter asked me something I could not understand, but I spoke only one prepared word, “breakfast”. He looked at me in a puzzled way, so I repeated it, still he did not understand. It was unbelievable that English people didn’t understand their own language. The waiter shook his head, bowed and went away, but he came back in a minute and brought the manager with him. I was feeling slightly annoyed, but I said, “breakfast”. The manager smiled and washed his hands, but looked as helpless as the waiter. I took out a pencil and wrote on the table napkin, “BREAKFAST”. I had never seen such surprised faces in my life — so perhaps I did not pronounce it correctly after all.
A little later the waiter brought a tray with tea, toast, butter and marmalade — enough to feed a small army. I was hungry, and I left nothing. When the waiter came back, his face showed a little surprise. In another minute he brought another tray with a huge portion of bacon and eggs. He must have misunderstood me, but I thought it was no use explaining to people who don’t understand their own language, so I just set to work on the bacon and eggs and ate on steadily, wondering all the time whether I would possibly clear that plate.
1. From the passage we know that the writer was ________.| A．English | B．not a stranger |
| C．a foreigner | D．an African |
| A．ordered again |
| B．still looked hungry |
| C．ate up everything on the plate instead of leaving a little to show that he had had enough |
| D．knew nothing about table manners |
| A．would suffer because of having too much |
| B．enjoyed his breakfast |
| C．would take great interest in English breakfast |
| D．would refuse to pay the bill |
| A．breakfast in England |
| B．a foreigner’s experience in England |
| C．a journey to the continent |
| D．the importance of learning English |
【推荐1】When talking about the Chinese Women′s Volleyball Team, we will think of one person，Lang Ping. She uses her strong will and professional skill to help the team go to the world stage. For us, she is a hero．
Lang Ping was born on December 10th, 1960 in Tianjin, China. She showed great interest in volleyball at a young age. Lang Ping started practicing volleyball in April 1973 and trained hard. In 1978, she started to play for the Chinese national team. She won many world competitions， including the World Championship crown in 1982 and a gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics．
People in China like to call Lang Ping "Tie Lang Tou". She was so strong and did a very good job in playing volleyball. Nobody could beat her. What′s more, no matter what she did, she never gave up．
After retiring (退役) from the national team, Lang Ping moved to the US to study. There, she lived a quiet life and gave birth to a baby girl. In 1995, Lang Ping became the head coach of the Chinese national team. She led the team to win some world competitions. Later, Lang Ping left the national team because of health problems．
Lang Ping has become the coach of the Chinese Women′s Volleyball Team since 2013. It is not easy for her to make the women volleyball players be trained better than before．However，she never gave up. Finally, all her efforts paid off. On August 21, 2016, the Chinese Women′s Volleyball Team won the gold medal in the Rio Olympics．
Lang Ping is a true hero. She always has a strong will to do everything. We can learn a lot from her．
1. Why did Lang Ping leave the Chinese national team as a head coach?| A．Because she wanted to live a busy life． |
| B．Because she had some health problems． |
| C．Because she had to give birth to a baby． |
| D．Because she wanted to teach another team． |
| A．18． | B．35． | C．56． | D．53． |
a.Lang Ping moved to the US．
b. Lang Ping started practicing volleyball．
c. Lang Ping became a coach．
d. Lang Ping retired from the national team．
| A．a﹣b﹣d﹣c | B．b﹣a﹣d﹣c |
| C．b﹣d﹣c﹣a | D．b﹣d﹣a﹣c |
| A．We should always have a strong will and never give up． |
| B．We should learn how to become popular and famous． |
| C．We should keep playing volleyball to become healthy． |
| D．We should ask other people to call us "Tie Lang Tou"． |
【推荐2】Ice-skating athlete Alysa Liu is no stranger to breaking records. In 2016, the then 10-year-old became the youngest figure skating（花滑）champion in U.S. history. In 2018, at the age of 12, Liu became the youngest to compete in, and win, the U.S. junior championships. That same year, she was also the youngest to land a triple axel （三圈半跳）in an international competition.
On January 25, 2019, the skater made history once again as the youngest-ever national figure skating champion at the Geico U.S. Women’s Figure Skating Championships held in Detroit, Michigan. The record before was held by Tara Lipinski in 1997 when she was 15.
At the championships, things were going well for defending U.S. champion Bradie Tennell, who was in the lead following the short program on January 24. But things changed the following day when Tennell had a series of setbacks（挫折），first stepping out of a triple loop and then falling during a triple lutz attempt. Meanwhile, Liu, who was in second place and had already impressed the judges with a perfect triple axel in the short program, gave a perfect free skate performance.
When asked about her amazing performance, Liu said, "I was just happy that I beat my personal record, and I did a clean long program." Another thing the young champion was happy about? A trip to Disneyland for Liu and her family. "It’s so much fun," said the 13-year-old.
Liu fell in love with ice skating during her first lesson at the Oakland Ice Center. The then five-year-old showed such a natural gift that Laura Lipetsky, a former national competitor who has taught Liu ever since, asked her father, Arthur Liu, to send her to private lessons.
Unfortunately, Liu won’t take part in the 2019 World Figure Skating Championships in Japan because of the age requirement of 15. However, that doesn’t appear to affect her. She says, "I’m not too worried about that part because I get more time to work on my jumps, skating skills and just trying to learn more."
1. What is described at the beginning of the text?| A．The history of ice-skating. | B．Liu’s achievements in ice-skating. |
| C．The ice-skating champions in history. | D．A national figure skating championship. |
| A．The judges were shocked by Lipinski. | B．Lipinski met Liu for the first time. |
| C．Tennell made some mistakes. | D．Liu took the lead at first. |
| A．She likes traveling with her father. | B．She was taught to skate by her father. |
| C．She got a lot of support from Lipetsky. | D．She fell in love with skating because of Lipetsky |
| A．Positive. | B．Determined. |
| C．Patient. | D．Intelligent. |
【推荐3】“Some day, there’ll be no Americans left in the NBA,” said 12-year-old Xing Tao, who joined his school team two weeks ago after watching Yao Ming in a televised NBA game, “The players will all be Chinese, like Yao. ”
To China, Yao is a home-grown superstar who helped make the world’s first basketball league closer to Chinese players. To the NBA, the 2. 23-meter center offers an opening of a different sort into the world’s largest new market. Yao’s NBA first appearance against the Indiana Pacers in October reached 287 million families in the US. That game might have been a bit of a letdown to Yao’s fans: He played just 11 of the 48 minutes, had two rebounds (篮板) and got no points. Comparing that with his performance on December 19, also against Indiana, Yao won 29 points and 10 rebounds. “This was one of the most exciting games I’ve had,” Yao said after Houston’s 95-83 victory. The NBA has to be excited about his on-count success. In all his games, he’s averaging 12. 7 points and 7. 7 rebounds, quite good for a new star. “Yao Ming has brought the NBA closer to the Chinese,” said NBA spokeswoman Cheong Sau Ching, “That makes the dream seem practical for other people in China and proud to be Chinese. ”
The 22-year-old Yao is not the country’s first player in the NBA: Wang Zhizhi broke down the Dallas Mavericks in November 2003. But Yao’s combination of modesty (谦虚) and skills make him a favorite back home.
1. How many points did Yao Ming win in his first game in the NBA?| A．0 | B．2 | C．29 | D．10 |
| A．failure | B．surprise | C．sadness | D．disappointment |
| A．He has performed excellently | B．He is modest |
| C．both A and B | D．More and more Chinese people like to watch his game. |
| A．Middle school students want toplay basketball. |
| B．Yao Ming makes NBA closer to China. |
| C．There’ll be no Americans left in the NBA. |
| D．There are many new stars from China in the NBA. |
