How do we know the time? A clock, a watch or a mobile phone can help us. However, many years ago there were no clocks and knowing the time was not so easy.
About 5, 500 years ago, the Egyptians invented the sun clock. This was a tall stone building. Its shadow (影子) showed the movement of the sun. So people were able to know midday. The Egyptians made a sundial about 3,500 years ago. It was smaller than the sun clock and could let people know the time for half a day. On cloudy days or at night it was impossible to tell the time with a sun clock or a sundial. Water clocks were the first clocks not to use the sun. The idea is simple. Water flows (流动) from one bottle to another. When the water reaches a certain level, it shows the hours. The Egyptians used water clocks about 3,400 years ago. These clocks were popular in the Middle East and China. But they failed to make people know the exact time.
In the 13th century, the mechanical clock was invented. This was more exact, but it was expensive to make one. Over the next few centuries it was developed. For example, springs(发条) were added. This enabled people to get the correct time and allowed clocks to be smaller. In 1927, the first quartz clock was developed. Clocks became cheaper to build. It's also cheaper for ordinary people to own a clock. People began depending on them more and more to run businesses, markets and so on. More recently, in 1956, came the digital clock. And
nowadays satellites send our mobile phones the time to the exact second.
There has been a lot of progress in timekeeping. Clocks are always changing but some things never change.
1. What does the word "ordinary" in Paragraph 3 mean in Chinese?| A．现代的 | B．特殊的 | C．普通的 |
| A．Four. | B．Five. | C．Six. |
A．  |
B． |
C．  |
| A．The importance of time. |
| B．The inventions of clocks. |
| C．The development of timekeeping. |
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【推荐1】Whenever the word “peace” comes into our mind, we can’t help thinking of a white-coloured bird with a leaf in its mouth. But do you know why this little bird became a symbol of peace?
The symbol first appeared in the story of Noah’s Ark (诺亚方舟). In the story, when the heavy rain that flooded (淹没) the earth stopped pouring down, Noah sent out (派遣) a white dove to see if there was any land. Then the dove returned with an olive branch (橄榄枝) in its mouth, which meant that it had found dry land somewhere. This brought hope to Noah. From then on, the white dove was considered the symbol of hope and new life.
In another very popular story from Central Asia, a big war was about to happen between two kingdoms. When one of the kings asked for his helmet, he was told that a dove had made a nest in it. The king’s mother wanted him to keep the nest and the doves. The king agreed and headed for the war without his helmet. After seeing this, the other king asked the reason. The king told the truth. The other king was deeply touched. And they finally agreed to make peace instead of war. A nest of doves became a reason for stopping a war. Since then, the dove has been connected with peace.
Later, many artists felt the bird is a symbol of peace. But it was Pablo Picasso who made the white dove a popular modern symbol of peace when he used it on a poster for the World Peace Congress (WPC) in 1949.
1. Why did Noah send out a white dove?| A．To find where his ark sailed to. | B．To search for other living things. |
| C．To see if the heavy rain had stopped. | D．To check if there was dry land nearby. |
| A．Sad. | B．Excited. | C．Embarrassed. | D．Frightened. |
| A．The heavy rain. | B．A nest of doves. |
| C．The first king’s mother. | D．The goodness of the first king. |
【推荐2】Why are dogs our best friends? Maybe because they can understand our words much better than we think, according to a study in Hungary. It found that dogs understand not only what we say, but also how we say it.
“The results were very exciting and very surprising,” said the researcher Attila Andics, from Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest.
For the study, the researchers first trained 13 dogs for months. The dogs had to sit quietly inside machines, so that the researchers could check their brain activity.
Then the researchers put headphones on dogs and played people’s voices to them. There were four different voices. Some were positive words, such as “well done”, or neutral（不带感情色彩的）words like “however”. The words were also in different tones（音调）. Some were positive and some were neutral.
Brain scans（扫描）showed that the dogs could recognize（辨认）words, as well as the tone of words, much like people do. The positive words with a positive tone brought the stronger activity in their brain’s reward centers（反应中枢）.
“It shows that for dogs, a nice phrase can work very well as a prize, but works best if both words and tones match,” said Andics.
They also found that dogs deal with meaningful words with the left side of the brain and tones with the right. Human brains work in the same way.
It gave us a new understanding of language, said Andics. That is, not only humans understand the meaning in words, other species（物种）do too.
1. What was found according to the study in Hungary?| A．Dogs can’t understand people’s words. |
| B．Dogs can only understand what we say. |
| C．Dogs understand not only what we say, but also how we say it. |
| D．Dogs can understand what we thought better than our words. |
| A．Researchers played with the dogs. | B．Researchers made dogs sit inside machines. |
| C．Researchers scanned the dogs’ brains. | D．Researchers played people’s voices to the dogs. |
| A．positive words with a neutral tone | B．positive words with a positive tone |
| C．neutral words with a neutral tone | D．neutral words with a positive tone |
| A．Dogs deal with meaningful words with the right side of the brain. |
| B．Human brains run in the same way as dogs’ do. |
| C．The researchers trained the dogs for years to check their brain activity. |
| D．Researcher Attila Andics was disappointed at the results of the study. |
| A．Dogs are as clever as humans. | B．Dogs are good at learning humans’ language. |
| C．Dogs can do what humans do. | D．Dogs can understand the meaning in words. |
Seeing blood in a scary movie might make you cover your eyes, but real blood isn’t scary at all.
Blood donors are those giving blood — usually about 200ml at a time — to blood banks or blood donation (捐赠) centers.
Students of all ages, though, can learn more about the donation process by visiting a local blood donation center.
| A．Then the blood can be used for people in need |
| B．Donating blood is not only one of the easiest ways to save lives. |
| C．In fact, blood is the gift of life and keeps us alive. |
| D．Donating blood is not difficult. |
| E．Most people are able to donate blood again in several months if they wish |
| F．We donate blood to save others in any situation. |
【推荐1】A new way of travelling will appear in the next few years—flying taxis. Many of us grow up watching sci-fi movies with taxis flying in the air. Science stories are now becoming science facts.
The Japanese airline ANA has teamed up with a U.S. business called Joby Aviation. The two plan to start using flying taxis at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka. They are now working together on making the flying taxis. They need to work out what traffic rules the taxis will need to follow, and what kind of training flying taxi drivers will need. The five-seat, all-electric taxi will be able to take off and land directly. It can fly up to 241 kilometers and can reach 321 kilometers per hour.
Joby Aviation’s CEO said that the taxis would be good for the environment because they will help decrease (减少) people’s carbon footprint (碳足迹). Now it takes over one hour by car to get from Osaka Station to Kansai International Airport. But in the future, it will only take 14 minutes in a flying taxi.
“Japan badly needs flying taxis with most people living in urban areas, and Tokyo is one of the most crowded cities in the world,” Joby Aviation’s CEO said. The chairman of ANA said, “Being able to provide customers with the chance to travel quickly and safely is very wonderful.”
1. What can we learn about the flying taxis?| A．It’s powered by gas. | B．It can hold five people. |
| C．It has been made successfully. | D．It can reach 241 km/h at most. |
| A．Rich. | B．Poor. | C．Village. | D．City. |
| A．People’s opinions on flying taxis. | B．The advantages of flying taxis. |
| C．Reasons for flying taxis’ appearance. | D．The problems flying taxis will bring. |
| A．Japan’s traffic situation is very bad now. |
| B．Tokyo’s transportation is very convenient. |
| C．Japan is in great need of flying taxis. |
| D．Most people like living in big cities like Tokyo. |
| A．Interesting Science Stories | B．Traffic Rules Taxis need to follow |
| C．Environment-Friendly Travel | D．Taxis Flying in the Air |
【推荐2】About 180 years ago, an English man called Rowland Hill passed a small village. He saw a postman gave a letter to a girl. The girl looked at the envelope(信封) for a moment, and then she handed it back to the postman. “I am sorry,” she said. “I don’t have enough money to pay the postage(邮资). ”
Hill came up to the postman and paid the postage for the girl’s letter. When he gave her the letter, she said with a smile, “Thank you very much. This letter is from Tom, my boyfriend. He went to London to look for work. I knew I couldn’t pay the postage. So I asked him to put a cross or a circle on the envelope. The cross tells me that he is well. The circle tells me that he has found work. I don’t need to open the letter because there’s nothing in it. ”
“I must do something about it,” Hill said to himself. At last, he got an idea. “The postage has to cost much less,” he said. “What about a penny(便士) for a letter? The sender of the letter must pay the postage. He has to buy a stamp(邮票) and put it on the envelope. ”
The first postage stamp in the world appeared in 1840. It had a picture of the Queen on it.
1. Why did the girl give the letter back to the postman?
| A．Because the letter was not for her. |
| B．Because she wanted to send the letter. |
| C．Because she couldn’t pay for the letter. |
| D．Because she didn’t want to receive(收到) the letter. |
| A．Rowland Hill. | B．The sender. | C．The girl. | D．The receiver. |
| A．The cross told the girl that Tom had found work. |
| B．Rowland Hill paid the postage and opened the letter. |
| C．The first postage stamp in the world appeared in 1841. |
| D．The first postage stamp had a picture of the Queen on it. |
【推荐3】In winter, in many places, the ground will be covered with snow. Some people will ▲ themselves in to get away from the cold weather. Some, however, would like to spend the season making snowmen and playing in the snow maze (迷宫).
Clint Masse, a Canadian man, is one of them. He and his team worked six and a half days a week. After three weeks of their work, they did it—they broke the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest snow maze.
Masse lives in Manitoba and it is located in the north of Canada. The man has been building snow mazes for more than 20 years. However, he had never completed such a large one. The maze covered an area of 2,790 square meters. It had walls that were 2 meters tall and 0.6 meters thick. There were statues (雕像) to surprise visitors and fire pits (火坑) to keep them warm. It took around 30 minutes to walk through the maze, depending on your luck.
The maze cost Masse 57,000 Canadian dollars (about 306,000 yuan). The man and his team used a snow machine to make enough snow for the project. Man-made snow is stronger than natural snow. “If you drive through the snow walls, you will break your car before you break the walls,” Masse said.
Masse felt excited when he knew he had broken the Guinness World Record. He said his family had had a bad harvest, so the record was very important. It could help him attract thousands of visitors to his large maze and earn lots of money.
1. Which of the following can be put into ____▲_____.| A．prepare | B．provide | C．lock | D．hide |
| A．visitors can put up statues in the maze |
| B．walls of the maze are two meters thick |
| C．visitors don’t feel cold inside the maze |
| D．all visitors can walk through the maze in half an hour |
| A．Happy. | B．Embarrassed. | C．Upset. | D．Surprised. |
| A．A famous Canadian artist | B．A popular Canadian place |
| C．The most interesting snow maze | D．The largest snow maze in the world |
Kites have been flown in Japan for hundreds of years. In the 1700s, kites were flown in autumn to give thanks for a good harvest. They were also flown to send good wishes to couples who had their first son.
| A．In this way, he could determine how long the tunnel should be. |
| B．What they learnt helped them make the first airplane flight in 1903. |
| C．No one knows when the first kite was made. |
| D．Kites have been used for scientific purposes in the western world. |
| E．Today in Japan, kites are often flown as part of a celebration. |
Can kids make their own newspapers? They do in Paris. Student editors at a French newspaper for kids called Mon Quotidien, do every day.
The ten-year-old newspaper sometimes sells 200,000 copies every day. It gets more than one million dollars every year! This is much more than many other newspapers.
How do they decide what to put in the paper? All the adult editors working on the children’s newspaper agree that the paper should be simple to read. Kids should be able to finish it within 10 minutes. The paper covers(报道) kids’ favorite subjects like school life, animals and science. It also talks about big world problems.
In order to make the paper more popular with kids, adult editors invite students aged 10 to 15 to join them. They have meetings every Wednesday and Sunday. Adult editors, reporters and kids sit together and decide which topics should come out in the paper and on which page. Which topic should come out on the front page, world news or bears in the zoo? Often the kid editors and adult editors disagree. Sometimes, the adult editors have to give up because their little editors won’t give in. Usually the student editors stay in the newspaper office for three hours at each meeting. Any kid in France can call the newspaper if they are interested in being a one-day editor.
1. The French newspaper Mon Quotidien has a history of 10 years.
2. The newspaper is for the kids to create and practice, not to earn any money.
3. The editors of the newspaper are all kids.
4. The children can finish reading the newspaper within 10 minutes because it’s simple.
【推荐3】On October 18, 2021, people lighted the flame（火）of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Olympia, Greece. Later, a few people took turns to carry the torch（火炬）, first to Athens, and then to Beijing by plane. Here are some interesting facts about the Olympic flame.
Where does the Olympic flame come from? The idea for the Olympic flame comes from a Greek story. To save humans from hunger and cold, Prometheus stole a fire from the god Zeus and gave it to humans. After that, humans saw fires as a symbol of light and freedom. In honor of the god, the Olympic flame appeared in ancient Olympic Games.
How do people light the flame? People don’t use a match to light the torch. They use a special mirror and the sunlight. What if it is a cloudy or rainy day? People usually collect a fire a few days before the ceremony and keep it in a special container（容器）. It is for the poor weather.
Can the flame go underwater? In the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, the flame went underwater in the Great Barrier Reef, the torch burnt at 2000℃. And the high temperature stopped water from putting out the flame.
What if the Olympic flames goes out?
A car follows the torch to relay at all times. Inside is a lantern with a backup（备份）flame. If the torch goes out, runners will use the backup flame to light the torch again.
1. When did people light the flame of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games?| A．In 2022. | B．In 2021. | C．In 2000. |
| A．To save humans from hunger and cold. |
| B．To be a symbol of light and freedom. |
| C．To honor the god Prometheus. |
| A．a match | B．a special mirror and the sunlight | C．a special container |
| A．No, it can’t. | B．Yes, it can. | C．We’re not sure. |
A． | B． | C． |
【推荐1】Popular music in America is what every student likes. Students carry small radios and listen to music before class, after class, and at lunch. Students with cars buy large speakers and play the music loudly as they drive on the street.
Adult(成年人) drivers listen to music on the car radio as they drive to work. They also listen to the news about sports, the weather, and the life of American people. Most of the radio programmes are music. Pop or popular music singers make much money. They make a CD or a tape which radio stations use in many places. Once people all over the country hear the popular singer, young people buy his or her tapes. Some of the money from these tapes goes to the singer. Wherever(无论哪里) the singer goes, all the young people want to meet him or her. Now the singer has become an outstanding star.
There are other kinds of music that are important to Americans. One is called folk music(民间音乐). It tells stories about the common life of Americans. Another is called western or country music. This was started by cowboys who would sing at night to the cows they were watching. Today, any music about country life and the love between a country boy and his girl is called western or country music.
1. ________ kinds of music are mentioned in this passage.| A．Two | B．Four | C．Three | D．Five |
| A．make much money | B．are loved by young people all over the country |
| C．make a CD or a tape | D．are wanted to sing on the radio |
| A．excellent | B．patient | C．valuable | D．handsome |
| A．the young people | B．common life of Americans |
| C．life of cowboys | D．school life in America |
| A．Most students in America like popular music. |
| B．Most of the radio programmes in America are folk music. |
| C．Adult drivers in America listen to music all the time while driving. |
| D．Everyone in America wants to meet pop singers wherever they go. |
The kind of food we eat depends on which part of the world we live in, or which part of our country we live in. For example, in the south of China they eat rice, but in the north they eat noodles. In European countries near the sea, people eat a lot of fish. In central Europe, away from the sea, people don’t eat so much fish, but they eat more meat. For example, in Germany and Poland, there are hundreds of different kinds of sausages.
In North America, Australia, and Europe, people eat with knives and forks. In China, people eat with chopsticks. In parts of India and the Middle East, people use their fingers to pick up food.
Nowadays it is possible to transport food easily from one part of the world to another. We can eat whatever we like, at any time of the year. In Britain, bananas come from Africa; rice comes from India or the U.S.A.; strawberries come from Chile or Spain. Food is a very big business. But people in poor countries are still hungry while people in rich countries eat too much.
1. 10,000 years ago, people ______ .
| A．learned to farm the land |
| B．cooked different kinds of food |
| C．couldn’t find food around them |
| D．transported food from one country to another |
| A．eat with chopsticks | B．eat with knives and forks |
| C．use their fingers to pick up food | D．use bread to pick up food |
| A．Chile and Spain | B．America and Australia |
| C．China and Japan | D．Germany and Poland |
| A．What we eat depends on where we live. |
| B．Poor countries are still having food problems. |
| C．Rich countries don’t need food from others. |
| D．Nowadays we can eat whatever we like at any time of the year. |
【推荐3】Outside, it's a cold winter's day. Inside a large shopping center, people are hanging around. But then, without warning, a pop song starts to play loudly. A teenager boy walks lazily to the center of the open space, and dances crazily to the music. He's joined by two of his friends, then some of the old people. In a few seconds, more than sixty people are dancing to the music - all in time and all in step. At first, onlookers (旁观者) are puzzled, and then they start smiling and clapping. They now know what they're seeing : a flash mob (快闪) .
According to Wikipedia, the term "flash mob" was created by Bill Wasik, an editor at Harper's Magazine, in 2003. In a year, the phrase had entered the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Since then , hundreds - possibly thousands - of flash mobs have been performed around the world, in almost every kind of public space imaginable!
Each flash mob has its own style, but most flash mobs follow a similar formula (方案). Often, the organizers search for willing participants (参与者) using social media. Instructions and dance moves are given through the Internet. There are usually several rehearsals (排练) before the big day.
While it's happening, a few lucky passers-by watch it live. Most people who watch it, however, will see it later online. Some of the most popular flash mobs on YouTube have been watched more than 10 million times. A famous example is MP3 Experiment Eight, a flash mob that took place in New York City in July 2011 with over 3 ,500 participants. This event was different from normal flash mobs in that much of it was completely silent - and there were no rehearsals.
Flash mobs provide the participants, onlookers and online viewers with a lot of enjoyment and pleasure. For this reason alone, they're a modern, popular art form that should be celebrated.
1. Why does the author mention the Concise Oxford English Dictionary?| A．To disagree with Bill Wasik. |
| B．To show the rapid development of flash mobs. |
| C．To tell us the meaning of "flash mob". |
| D．To compare it with Wikipedia. |
| A．It was played online. | B．It was played with no sound. |
| C．It was the earliest flash mob. | D．It was most accepted by onlookers. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Hopeless. | C．Uncaring. | D．Doubtful. |
