【推荐1】Sitting in the garden for my friend’s birthday, I felt a buzz (振动) in my pocket. My heart raced when I saw the email sender’s name. The email started off: “Dear Mr Green, thank you for your interest” and “the review process took longer than expected.” It ended with “We are sorry to inform you…” and my vision blurred (模糊). I had put so much time and emotional energy into applying for the programme, and I thought the rejection meant the end of the road for my science career.

So I was shocked when, not long after the email, Professor Mary Devon invited me to observe the work being done in her lab. I jumped at the chance, and a few weeks later I was equally shocked — and overjoyed — when she invited me to talk with her about potential projects I could pursue in her lab. I got it and decided I was going to give it my all.

I found myself working with a robotics professor on techniques for collecting data from the desert remotely. That project, which I could complete from my sofa instead of in the burning heat of the desert, not only survived the lockdown but worked where traditional methods didn’t. In the end, I had a new scientific interest to pursue.

When I applied to graduate school, I found three programmes promising to allow me to follow my desired research direction. This time I had the perspective (视角) to keep it from sending me into panic due to my being rejected. It helped that in the end I was accepted into one of the other programmes I was also excited about.

Rather than setting plans in stone, I’ve learned that sometimes I need to take the opportunities that are offered, even if they don’t sound perfect at the time, and make the most of them.

1. What do we know from Paragraph 1?

A．I was actually declined.

B．I was spending my birthday.

C．I felt peaceful receiving the email.

D．I had devoted little to my dream job.

2. What did the author decide to do after talking with Professor Mary Devon?

A．Criticize the review process.	B．Stay longer in the Sahara Desert.
C．Apply to the original project again.	D．Put his heart and soul into the lab work.

3. How did the author feel about the project with the robotics professor?

A．Demanding.

B．Inspiring.

C．Misleading.

D．Amusing.

4. What can we learn from this passage?

A．An invitation is a reward.	B．An innovation is a resolution.
C．A rejection can be a redirection.	D．A refusal can be a discouragement.

【推荐2】I would never forget the time when we were standing at the top of a church tower. My father had brought me to this spot in a small town not far from our home in Rome. I wondered why.
“Look down, Elsa，” Father said. I gathered all my courage and looked down. I saw the square in the center of the village. And I saw the criss­cross (纵横交错) of streets leading to the square. “See, my dear，” Father said gently. “There is more than one way to the square. Life is like that. If you can't get to the place where you want to go by one road, try another.”
Now I understood why I was there. Earlier that day I had begged my mother to do something about the awful lunches that were served at school. But she refused because she didn't believe the lunches were as bad as I said.
When I turned to Father for help, he would not interfere (干涉). Instead, he brought me to this high tower to give me a lesson. By the time we reached home, I had a plan.
At school the next day, I secretly poured my lunch soup into a bottle and brought it home. Then I asked our cook to serve it to Mother at dinner. _____________She swallowed one spoonful and sputtered, “The cook must have gone bad！” Quickly I told what I had done, and Mother stated firmly that she would deal with the matter of lunches at school the next day!
In the following years I often remembered the lesson Father taught me. I began to work as a fashion designer two years ago. I wouldn't stop working until I tried every possible means to my goal. Father's wise words always remind me that there is more than one way to the square.
1. The author's father took her to the top of a church tower to ________.

A．find out how many ways lead to the square

B．enjoy the beautiful scenery of the whole town

C．help her forget some unpleasant things earlier that day

D．inspire her to find out another way to solve her problem

2. What did the author want her mother to do earlier that day?

A．Do something delicious for lunch.

B．Speak to the school about lunch.

C．Taste her awful lunch.

D．Dismiss the cook.

3. The underlined sentence in the fifth paragraph means ________.

A．the cook agreed to serve the soup to Mother

B．the matter of lunch was successfully settled

C．her father persuaded her mother successfully

D．the method the author thought of was effective

【推荐3】There was something in the elderly woman's behavior that caught my eye. Although slow and unsure of step, the woman moved with deliberation, and there was no hesitation in her gestures. She was as good as anyone else, her movements suggested. And she had a job to do.

The elderly woman had walked into the store along with a younger woman who I guessed was her daughter. The daughter was displaying a serious case of impatience, rolling her eyes, huffing and sighing, checking her watch every few seconds. If she had possessed a belt, her mother would have been fastened to it as a means of dragging her along to keep step with the rush of other shoppers.

The older woman detached from the younger one and began to glance over the DVDs on the nearest shelf. After the slightest hesitation, I walked over and asked if I could help her find something. The woman smiled up at me and showed me a title scrawled(潦草地写) on a crumpled piece of paper. The title was unusual and a bit unfamiliar. Clearly a person looking for it knew a little about movies, about quality.

Rather than rushing off to locate the DVD for the woman, I asked her to walk with me so I could show her where she could find it. Looking back, I think I wanted to enjoy her company for a moment. Something about her deliberate movements reminded me of my own mother, who'd passed away the previous Christmas.

As we walked along the back of the store, I narrated its floor plan: old television shows, action movies, cartoons, science fiction. The woman seemed glad of the unrushed company and casual conversation.

We found the movie, and I complimented her on her choice. She smiled and told me it was one she'd enjoyed when she was her son's age and that she hoped he would enjoy it as much as she had. Maybe, she said with a hint of eagerness, he could enjoy it with his own young children. Then, reluctantly, I had to return the elderly woman to her keeper, who was still tapping her foot at the front of the store.

I accompanied the older woman to the queue at the cash register and then stepped back and lingered near the younger woman. When the older woman's turn in line came, she paid in cash, counting out the dollars and coins with the same sureness she'd displayed earlier ...

1. What does "she had a job to do" (Para. 1) mean according to the context?

A．She had a regular job in the store.	B．She wanted to ask for help.
C．She wanted to buy a DVD.	D．She was thinking of what to buy.

2. What does the title of the DVD reveal according to the shop assistant?

A．The elderly woman had some knowledge about movies.

B．The elderly woman liked movies for young children.

C．The elderly woman preferred movies her son liked.

D．The elderly woman liked both old and new movies.

3. While looking for the DVD with the old woman, the shop assistant was ______.

A．hesitant	B．casual
C．cautious	D．considerate

4. What is the main purpose of this passage?

A．To describe what a movie nut is like

B．To remind readers to spending more time accompanying family

C．To stress the importance of company and understanding.

D．To explore the key aspects of current parental-child relationship

【推荐1】I travel on a regular basis, although I spend most days working to make a living just like you do. So whenever a chance arises for me to visit a far-off country, I jump at it. When I was studying abroad in Australia, I traveled extensively (广泛地) all over the country with two friends. We booked everything from whale watching to a private flight over Mount Kosciuszko, and racked up (累积) some impressive credit card bills. Another international student almost looked down her nose at our pricey adventures, declaring that she had come to Australia to study, not to empty her saving account on travel.

My question to her came. Why would you come literally halfway around the world to save your money and keep your nose pressed into a book every weekend? Would you go to China and not visit the Great Wall because it costs money? Would you go to Italy and skip visiting the Vatican because it requires an admission ticket?

I know where I would like my life to go in the coming months and years. But there are no guarantees that things will go as planned. In fact, nothing will go as planned.

“Oh, I’ll travel when I retire.” “I’ll travel when the kids are grown.” “I’ll travel when the house is paid off.” How often do we hear others say these? I hear these excuses all the time. But you know what happens? Age. And stress. And, well, life. Life happens and by the time you retire and your kids are grown and your house is paid off, you have bad knees and weak lungs and you simply can’t visit all those places you dreamed about in your youth. How sad! I don’t want to end up like that, holding on to youthful travel dreams that will never be reality.

I often think, what if “sometimes later” never came? So, if you are privileged enough to be able to afford to travel, then you should attack it with curiosity and energy and a sense of adventure. As for me, at the end of the day, I’d rather die with a million memories than a million dollars. Money won’t comfort me on my deathbed, but knowing that I’ve lived a full and fulfilling life might.

So travel young, and travel far.

1. Why does the author mention his travel experience in Australian?

A．To show his passion for travel.	B．To recall a wonderful experience.
C．To prove his belief in travel.	D．To attract the readers’ attention.

2. What would the author agree to do according to the text?

A．Save money for further study.	B．Spare money for an admission ticket.
C．Travel to a foreign country without money.	D．Stay at home studying on weekends.

3. What does paragraph 4 mainly talk about?

A．The regrets of missing some journeys.	B．The barriers in the future life.
C．The excuses for failing to travel.	D．The uncertainties of future for travel.

4. What is the writing purpose of the text?

A．To persuade the readers to travel young.	B．To tell his own travel experience.
C．To illustrate the benefits of travel.	D．To make a comparison between life and travel.

【推荐2】A year back I received a full scholarship to attend the University of San Francisco. All of my hard work had paid off. My mom had spent a lot in my attending a private high school, so I made sure to push myself: I volunteered, joined different clubs, and graduated with honors.

I was so excited to start a new life. I had totally packed two weeks and wanted to go to college at once before it was time to leave.

Soon enough, the big day came, but it wasn’t like what I had thought. The first two weeks were the most difficult days of my entire life. Every night I would cry myself to sleep.

I was so homesick (想家) and I didn’t know how to deal with my broken heart. To distract myself, I threw myself into my studies and I applied for a lot of jobs. In any remaining free time, I started forcing myself to the gym. I wanted to keep every part of my day busy so I wouldn’t think how lonely I felt.

Soon after, I began to limit food, and then I became worse. Finally, I went to see a doctor. When the doctor weighed me, I was crazy about the number of my weight. So I continued to lower my goal, and convinced that controlling this number was the solution to my homesickness. But when I was told that I had no choice but to spend time on my studies. I quickly started recovery in my mind.

How could I do? I told myself that school was what I was best at. I decided to get rid of my homesickness and took exercise actively. My first term of college had passed by at last and I had gotten straight A’s. That’s why I want to share my story—to help other students feel less lonely.

1. How was the author during the two weeks before she left for the college?

A．She was as normal as before.

B．She couldn’t wait to leave for the college.

C．She was afraid to leave her home.

D．She didn’t enjoy her mother’s company.

2. What is the author’s problem at the beginning of studying in the university?

A．Her weight.	B．Her diet.
C．Her homesickness.	D．Her bad study habit.

3. Which can best replace the underlined phrase “distract myself” in paragraph 2?

A．achieve my dream	B．earn money by myself
C．improve my studies	D．take my attention away

4. What is the main purpose of the author in writing the text?

A．To look back at her past middle school life.

B．To help girls to lose weight.

C．To help lonely college students.

D．To increase her own confidence.

【推荐1】By 1938, Europe had been experiencing an increased number of attacks on Jews. With no end in sight, Jewish refugee(难民) agencies requested the British government to allow them to bring in only Jewish children under17 years of age. This was to be only temporary, until the situation in their home countries was improved.
Kindertransport, meaning “children transport” in German, was then born. Children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other Nazi-occupied regions were transported to the United Kingdom. There they were either placed with other families or in hostels. Later, it was found that many of these children were the only survivors of their families. Nicholas Winton was among those people who helped to save Jewish children. He managed to rescue 669 children from Czechoslovakia and bring them safely to England. In 1938 around Christmas, 29-year-old Nicky was about to leave for a skiing holiday. Suddenly, Martin Blake, one of his good friends, contacted(联络) him from Czechoslovakia, asking him to travel there to help political refugees on the run from the Nazis. And Nicholas agreed.
Nicky spent his entire holiday of 3 weeks in the capital city of Prague where he saw the situation first-hand. Once back in England, he immediately started organizing the evacuation(撤离) of children from the Czech region. From advertising for the necessary permits, Nicky worked tirelessly. By August 1939, 669 children had been helped by Nicky and his friends. Haplessly, the last group of children due to leave Prague in the beginning of September could not do so— World War Ⅱ broke out, and swallowed them up.
Nicky did not discuss his particular task with his wife, Grete. It was only when she found a scrapbook in 1988, with names of the rescued children, their (lost) parents and the foster families that had taken them in, that his heroism came to light. Nicky has received several awards in Britain and the Czech Republic.
1. Kindertransport aimed to_____.

A．help the homeless

B．transfer the affected

C．stop German attacks

D．save Jewish children

2. We can learn from the text that Nicholas Winton_____.

A．knew nothing about what happened in Prague

B．did a lot to help Jewish children out of danger

C．always told his wife what he was doing

D．saved 669 children and their parents

3. The underlined word “Haplessly” in Paragraph 4 can best be replaced by “___”.

A．Unfortunately	B．Hopefully
C．Strangely	D．Importantly

4. Which of the following can best describe Nicholas Winton?

A．Strict but caring

B．Proud but patient

C．Warm-hearted and cautious

D．Hard-working and humorous

【推荐2】Justin Salas was only 14 years old when he lost his ability of using his sight completely and was declared legally blind. Now at the age of 22, the ambitious young man is a living example that nothing is impossible — even though he can’t see, Justin is a professional photographer and skilled rock climber.

Justin’s blindness wasn’t the result of an unfortunate accident. His eyesight had always been poor and he started wearing glasses when he was 5 years old. But it wasn’t until his first year of high school that his eyesight started to become worse at a rapid pace. His glasses no longer helped and tests showed that his eye nerves were dying, although the cause was a mystery for all the doctors who he had seen.

A doctor at the Dean McGee Eye Institute in Oklahoma City, one of the best eye clinics in the country, told Justin’s parents that the condition was psychological and he should just go home and relax. After a whole year of scans and blood tests, doctors gave him the diagnosis of "optic neuropathy (视神经病变) of unknown origin" and shattered his world when they told him it was incurable. Without the ability to do the things he most enjoyed, the young boy pulled away from the world. He didn’t speak at all for some days. He just stood in front of an oversized computer screen, because if he leaned very close, he could still make out the blurry outlines of familiar shapes and letters.

But one day, his close friend Beau Johnson asked him if he wanted to ride a bike. On the way, Johnson carefully reminded him of the things that he couldn’t see in front of him. And Justin gradually began to expose himself to the outside world again. Because of this, Justin’s family all called him Justin’s "Seeing Eye person".

Then another friend invited him to a rock climbing gym, telling him that he didn’t have to see to climb but that he could feel to climb. The boy took him up on the offer, and he has been climbing ever since. Some of the rocks are as high as 50 feet, but Justin has never cared about them and finished climbing them with the help of his friend.

Maybe you wonder how Justin knows where to position his feet during a climb. Well, that’s what friends are there for. They call out some information like "Handhold one o'clock, Justin! One o'clock" from down below, which is the only thing that he can really depend on, apart from his own memory. "The process is feeling all the holds and having someone tell me where the holds are," Justin says. "Then I feel every shape of the hold, in which direction it goes. I start memorizing and putting pieces together and memorizing how my body feels when I’m in certain positions. So I know, whenever I go back to do it again, how it feels. And then I do the route over and over again, even if it takes falling dozens of times."

It’s been working pretty well, though, as Justin has climbed many high-level rocks during his short career, and even landed several sponsorships, including one from chalk company FrictionLabs.

But rock climbing is not the only extraordinary thing Justin Salas does. He is also a professional photographer and has his own photography business, specializing in adventure shots, landscape photography and so on. There was no doubt that this new passion gave him a way to see through his own vision loss. To frame his shots properly, Justin has other still working senses — the sound of his subjects’ voices, the warmth and angle of the sun on his body and his memory from when his eyes actually worked.

Even though he can’t see what he shoots, you can have a good view of his shots on his Twitter. Looking at them, nobody could probably guess that the photographer is legally blind.

1. What do we know about Justin’s blindness?

A．He has lost his eyesight since he was five.

B．His blindness resulted from an accident.

C．He didn’t know why his eyes suffered a lot.

D．His inferior glasses made his eyesight worse.

2. What does the underlined word "shattered" probably mean?

A．Challenge.

B．Interrupt.

C．Shake.

D．Destroy.

3. Why was Johnson called the Seeing Eye person by Justin’s family?

A．He inspired Justin to take cameras as his "eyes".

B．He succeeded in making Justin recover his eyesight finally.

C．He helped Justin get out of the shadow of blindness slowly.

D．He taught Justin how to live independently and confidently.

4. How does Justin become familiar with the rock climbing route?

A．With the help of a coach.

B．Through his own memory.

C．Through the angle of the sun.

D．By using a high-tech electronic device.

5. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．Justin is very skillful and professional in photography.

B．Viewers don’t care much about Justin’s blindness.

C．Justin doesn’t wish others to talk about his story.

D．Justin’s photographs are very popular online.

6. Which word can best describe Justin Salas?

A．Easy-going.

B．Strong-minded.

C．Creative.

D．Selfless.

【推荐3】After Chika, my adopted daughter, received her treatment in the US, I took her back to Haiti to see the orphanage (孤儿院) numerous times. On one of these times, I got to know that Chika’s father was still alive and sound, in a place known as Tabarre. As a matter of fact, I had been told that he might also be dead.

I drove to his house. Stepping out in front me was her father, a short, strong man with a broad mustache. I said to him that I came because of Chika’s medical condition — the brain tumor (肿瘤). I explained that her life could be in the balance. I then inquired if it was significant for Chika to be buried in Haiti. He responded by saying, “It doesn’t mean. Whatever you think.”

I eventually came to my utmost mission. I requested him to see his daughter — and her to see him — perhaps because, deep down, I doubted about another chance. Yet as we drove back, there was part of me feeling as if I had been nudged (轻推) to the side of the picture. Although I have done much for Chika, this man has a certain claim that I never have.

Yours, not yours! The paperwork at the orphanage was signed by me. It obligates me to feed, educate, and protect Chika. But in the end, it is a document, not parenthood. Yours, not yours! I wrestled with this question many times. Chika, remember what you once asked? How did you find me? I promised myself you would never feel lost again.

After two hours, the father walked over, shook my hand, and left. That night, Chika rested her head upon my shoulder and after a few seconds mumbled, “Dad? What will you do while I sleep?”

“I’ll read,” I said. “And think about how much I love you.”

She nodded, her eyes glowed. “That’s what I’ll do too.”

At that moment, I didn’t care who belonged to whom. I was hers, even if she were not mine.

1. Why did I call on Chika’s father?

A．To accuse him of his fake death.

B．To ask him about Chika’s condition.

C．To invite him to see Chika one last time.

D．To persuade him of our legal parenthood.

2. What does the underlined phrase “in the balance” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Evaluated.

B．Unexplained.

C．Lengthened.

D．Undetermined.

3. How did I feel as I drove Chika’s father back?

A．Unclear and angry.	B．Eager and relieved.
C．Uneasy and troubled.	D．Embarrassed and bored.

4. What’s the best title of the passage?

A．My Love, Not Mine!	B．Who Is “Legal” Father?
C．Your Father, Not Yours!	D．Who Belongs to Whom?