The world’s oldest pen pals have both become 100 years old after many years of transatlantic letters and have now switched to Zoom. Centenarians (百岁老人) Geoff Banks from Honiton, Devon, and Celesta Byrne from the US, started writing to each other aged just 16 in 1938. They met as part of an educational project to put British and American students in contact — and decades later they are still corresponding.
Former engineer Geoff even kept in touch with Celesta during WWII when he served as a mechanic on British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in the Pacific. It has been so long that Geoff, a retired engineer, barely remembers how they started talking. Geoff said, “I honestly struggle to remember how we got in touch, and I think it was something to do with an American school’s scheme. It matched us up with Americans for a pen pal relationship, and somehow I ended up with a letter from an American girl, and we have just kept corresponding ever since. There were a couple of years when we struggled to keep in touch because of the war. Now I correspond mainly by email. Email is much easier for me these days because I can’t write very well anymore. We just talk about daily lives and our families really, but we don’t discuss the football.”
They now touch base via video app Zoom. Geoff said, “I have this new thing called Zoom to chat with her, but I leave all the technology to younger people. They’re much better at pressing all the buttons.”
Despite having chatted for decades, the pair only met twice — first in 2002 while Geoff visited New York aged 80, and then again two years later. Having such a unique relationship, the pair deny there is any romance there. Celesta said, “We’re just friends, like people who live next door. It’s nice to hear his voice.”
1. What played a key role in the pen pals’ contact?| A．A school program. | B．An educational email. |
| C．A pen pal’s introduction. | D．A correspondence course. |
| A．Their favourite sports. | B．Their everyday life. |
| C．Their family traditions. | D．Their experiences in the war. |
| A．Lay foundation. | B．Take a chance | C．Stay in contact. | D．Make a difference. |
| A．Effects of War on Friendship | B．True Friendship Lasts Forever |
| C．Pure Friendship Differs from Love | D．The Communication Problems of Old People |
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【推荐1】America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while—then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand.
Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.
Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is they don’t show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. Sometimes, we Chinese, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily life. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.
For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?| A．Friendships between Americans usually extend deeply into their families. |
| B．Friendships between Americans usually last for all their lives. |
| C．Americans always show their warmth even if they are very busy. |
| D．Americans will continue their friendships again even after a long break. |
| A．warmly welcomed at the airport | B．offered a ride to his home |
| C．treated hospitably at his home | D．treated to dinner in a restaurant |
| A．Americans’ and Chinese’s opinions of friendships | B．Americans’ hospitality |
| C．Friendships between Chinese | D．Friendships between Americans |
From kindergarten to the sixth grade, we often played in the hills of our neighborhood. Our childhood memories were buried at the top of that hill.
On a beautiful spring day, one of the three of us, Kelsey, made a suggestion. She said, “Let’s bury some of our favorite things. like toys or storybooks. That way we can come back someday and dig them out.” Bailee added, “Bury the things that we used to love but now we don’t really use anymore.” The next day, we put our things in plastic bags, dug a hole in the hill and buried them. We grew up quickly, and we waved goodbye to childhood. We were all in middle school and it was time to take this “growing up” period seriously.
Years flew as quickly as a wink, and the three of us drifted apart as we made other friends. Different activities and changing personalities separated us. Four years later, a reunion was in order. After a few phone calls, we were standing at the top of the hill, all together again. We carefully dug out the plastic bags. When opening the bags, we were surprised. Many of our favorite objects now couldn’t be found, lost into the soil. Only insect-eaten bits of cloth and dirty plastic remained. They were useless junk. So we buried them again. And we said goodbye.
I believe that day we buried more than just our junk. A voice inside my head often whispered to me, “The junk is valuable because it records the wonderful things in the past that you could still remember.” As high school began, our friendships stopped. There is no upset today, just good memories. Our friendships were wonderful while they lasted, but finally, it was time to move on to bigger and different things. Sometimes the best memories are those that are buried in the ground, undisturbed.
1. What advice did Kelsey offer to her friends on that spring day? (no more than 12 words)2. What does the underlined phrase in Paragraph 3 probably mean? (no more than 3 words)
3. Why were the author and her friends surprised when opening the bags? (no more than 10 words)
4. What does a voice inside the author’s head often tell her? (no more than 10 words)
5. What do you think of your childhood time with your good friends? Please explain. (no more than 20 words)
【推荐3】Friends play a very important part in everyone’s life. Friendship usually develops during childhood. New friends are made when you progress through school. Those friends that you make as a student can usually last long. Friends influence your development, maturity( 成熟) and sense of responsibility (责任). A familiar opinion is “You can tell a lot about a person by knowing who his friends are.” Friendship is based on common interests. If you like sports, most of your friends are likely to be active. If you enjoy reading and shopping, most of your friends do the same.
Some people call you their friends for the wrong reasons. These people are not really friends. They are superficial (表面的) only “ friends” on the outside, not the inside where it counts. Superficial friends only want to be your friends if it is to their advantage. True friends are there whether you are rich or poor. It is easy to have many so-called “friends” if you are rich. By this time you should be able to recognize your friends as the real or the “phoney”.
True friends are most special. Sometimes they might not easy to find, so you can consider yourself very lucky if you have one true friend. This friend is eager to help you whenever necessary. He or she knows you would do the same for them. A true friend is someone you can talk to about any subject or problem. You and your true friend have good understanding of each other. True friends support you, take your side, and build up your confidence.
1. What’s the main idea of the first paragraph?| A．How to make true friends. |
| B．What is friendship based on. |
| C．We should make friends in our childhood. |
| D．Friends play a very important role in our life. |
| A．It is easy to have many true friends if you are rich. |
| B．If you have no music in you, none of your friends will be a music lover. |
| C．The friendship developing during your school days will be with you for a long time. |
| D．What you value above anything is the friendship developing during childhood. |
| A．Friends in need. |
| B．Fair- weather friends. |
| C．Those who can help you. |
| D．Those who often gives you money. |
| A．True friends are too difficult to find. |
| B．You can only share sadness with a true friend. |
| C．You can only share happiness with a true friend. |
| D．True friends will stand by you whatever happens. |
阅读下列四篇短文，从每小题后所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该选项涂黑。
Long ago in a small town, there was a place known as the House of 1,000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit it.
When he arrived, he bounced(跳) happily up the stairs to the doorway of the house. He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1,000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as his. He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1,000 great smiles just as warm and friendly. As he left the house, he thought to himself, “ This is a wonderful place. I will come back and visit often.”
In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the door. When he saw the 1,000 unfriendly looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1,000 little dogs growling back at him. As he left, he thought to himself, “This is a horrible place, and I will never go back there again.”
All the faces in the world are mirrors. What kind of reflections do you see on the faces of the people you meet?
1. Why was the first dog surprised when he entered the house?
| A．Because he didn’t expect to see so many happy dogs. |
| B．Because he didn’t know there were 1,000 mirrors in the house. |
| C．Because he was always in a mixed mood. |
| D．Because he saw so many dogs smiling at him. |
| A．Because there were 1,000 mirrors in the house. |
| B．Because he thought he could keep himself warm in the house. |
| C．Because he liked everything presented to him. |
| D．Because he felt he was welcome here. |
| A．make an unfriendly noise | B．smile |
| C．say hello | D．stare |
| A．A Small happy Little Dog |
| B．The House of 1,000 Mirrors |
| C．The Wonderful Place and the Horrible Place |
| D．Two Little Dogs |
【推荐2】Throughout all the events in my life, one in particular sticks out more than the others. As I reflect on this significant event, a smile spreads across my face. As I think of Shanda, I feel loved and grateful.
It was my twelfth year of dancing, and I thought it would end up like any other year: stuck in emptiness, forgotten and without the belief of any teacher or friend that I really had the potential to achieve greatness.
However, I met Shanda, a talented chorcographer (编舞者). She influenced me to work to the best of my ability, pushed me to keep going when I wanted to quit, encouraged me and showed me the importance of courage. Throughout our hard work, not only did my ability to dance grow, but my friendship with Shanda grew as well.
With the end of the year came our show time. As I walked backstage and saw many other dancers, I hoped for a good performance that would prove my improvement. I waited anxiously for my turn. Finally, after what seemed like days, the loudspeaker announced my name. Butterflies filling my stomach, I took trembling steps onto the big lighted stage. But, with the determination to succeed and eagerness to live up to Shanda’s expectations for me, I began to dance. All my troubles and nerves went away as I danced my whole heart out.
As I walked up to the judge to receive my first place shining, gold trophy (奖杯), I realized that dance is not about becoming the best. It was about loving dance for dance itself, a getaway from all my problems in the world. Shanda showed me that you could let everything go and just do what you feel at that moment. After all the doubts that people had in me, I believed in myself and did not care what others thought. Thanks to Shanda, dance became more than a love of mine, but a passion.
1. What did the author think her dancing would be for the twelfth year?| A．A change for the better. | B．A disappointment as before. |
| C．A proof of her potential. | D．The pride of her teachers and friends. |
| A．By offering her financial help. | B．By entering her in a competition. |
| C．By coaching her for longer hours. | D．By awakening her passion for dancing. |
| A．Nervous. | B．Dynamic. | C．Courageous. | D．Enthusiastic. |
| A．Success lies in courage. | B．Adversity helps one grow up. |
| C．A good teacher matters. | D．Reputation comes from hard work. |
【推荐3】Johannes Fritz, a biologist, needed to come up with a plan, again, if he was going to prevent his rare and beloved birds from going extinct.
To survive the European winter, the northern bald ibis — which had once disappeared entirely from the wild on the continent—needs to migrate (迁徙) south for the winter, over the Alps, before the mountains become impassable. But shifting climate patterns have delayed when the birds begin to migrate, and they are now reaching the mountains too late to make it over the peaks, locking them in an icy death trap. Determined to save them, Mr. Fritz decided he would teach the birds a new, safer migration route by guiding them himself in a tiny aircraft. And he was confident he could succeed in this daring, unconventional plan—because he had done it before.
Mr. Fritz learned to fly, modifying a light aircraft so it would fly at speeds slow enough for his winged students to keep up. In 2004, Mr. Fritz led the first flock from Austria to Italy, and has since led 15 such migrations. Over that time, he has rewilded 277 young ibises, many of which then started to pass the route onto their own young. For now, however, the main worry is getting the birds to follow the aircraft. “While they have a strong bond with their ‘mothers’ and follow them around on the ground, flying is more difficult,” Fritz said.
“Fly Away Home was a huge hit with us biologists,” Mr. Fritz said, recalling the 1996 movie in which characters lead the migration of orphaned Canada geese in a hang glider. When Mr. Fritz declared he’d do the same with the ibises, he was initially laughed at. But through years of trial and error, he succeeded. He even learned to fly like a bird, he said. Mr. Fritz’s two sons, both now teenagers, followed their flying father and the migrating birds on the ground, and his family and colleagues witnessed the risks he was taking. But the inevitable risks are “necessary”, Mr. Fritz said. “It’s not so much a job,” he added, “but my life’s purpose.”
1. Why did Mr. Fritz guide the birds himself in a tiny aircraft?| A．He wanted to learn from them. | B．He showed them a safer flyway. |
| C．They needed to be fed in the air. | D．They were often lost on the way. |
| A．By listing concrete numbers. | B．By conducting a survey. |
| C．By performing experiments. | D．By making a comparison. |
| A．Imaginative and honest. | B．Generous and easy-going. |
| C．Energetic and open-minded. | D．Strong-willed and brave. |
| A．Fritz once starred in a film in 1996. | B．Fritz had no difficulty with his work. |
| C．Fritz thought what he did was rewarding. | D．Fritz was challenged by those around him. |
