1 . Do you often say “sorry” to others? Elton John once sang, “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.” But in Canada, there aren’t many words that are easier to say or more commonly used.
Or, that’s the way it seems, say visitors to the country. And it’s something that Canadians admit (承认) themselves. So why do they apologize so much, even when they don’t need to?
It’s part of Canadian culture, say some people. That doesn’t mean other cultures are less polite. But saying “sorry” does at least show you’re trying to be nice—and many people think Canada is a polite country, so its citizens maybe trying to protect that idea.
For many Canadians, apologizing has become something they do without thinking. Even if someone has walked into you in the street and you weren’t at fault, you’re likely to say “sorry”. It could be a way to avoid conflict—even if you’re really angry, it’s often easier to say “sorry” than to shout at someone and have a fight.
And according to some people, when Canadians say “sorry”, that doesn’t always mean they’re really sorry. Sometimes it means they know that something bad happened, but not saying they think it’s their fault, said one user.
That idea is even in Canadian law which says that making an apology does not mean you’re admitting you’re at fault.
So how do you apologize and mean it? A survey from 2020 found that only 62% of Canadians actually think “I am sorry” is a good apology. Instead, 80% think “I sincerely apologize” is the best thing to say.
1. What Elton once sang in the passage means ________.| A．we don’t want to hurt others |
| B．most of us hate the word of ‘sorry’ |
| C．it’s not easy for us to say “sorry” to others |
| D．it’s hard to pronounce the word of ‘sorry’ |
| A．Other cultures are less polite than Canadian culture. |
| B．The word “sorry” is often spoken in Canada. |
| C．Visitors to Canada never hear the word “sorry”. |
| D．Many words are more easily spoken than the word “sorry”. |
| A．argument | B．discussion | C．touch | D．greeting |
| A．He is telling that it’s his fault. |
| B．He is admitting you are at fault. |
| C．He is sincerely apologizing to you. |
| D．He is polite when something bad happens. |
| A．“Sorry” is used less than “thanks” in Canada. |
| B．You shouldn’t say sorry to the man who walks into you in Canada. |
| C．People think it’s their fault while saying “sorry”. |
| D．“I sincerely apologize.” is the best thing to really say “sorry” for most Canadians. |
2 . Earth Day comes every April 22. It’s a day to do some good for the planet. It’s also a time to think about how to help year-round. Get inspired by reading about three young people who have taken action for Mother Earth.
Fighting wildfires When Reshma Kosaraju was 12, her family moved to California. Soon after, the Camp Fire started.“It was one of the largest fires in California’s history,” Reshma, now 17, says. Her school was about 200 miles south of the fire. But students had to wear masks because of the smoke.“It was a terrible experience for me,” she says. It made her want to find a solution. She created a way to use AI to predict forest fires. Her method is nearly 90% accurate (准确的). |
Recycling power On his 10th birthday, Sri Nihal Tammana learned a scary fact. Every year, 15 billion batteries (电池) are thrown out. They pollute groundwater and harm the environment. Nihal’s organization, Recycle My Battery, provides recycling bins for batteries. It is now a team of 250 student volunteers around the world. In the past three years, they’ve helped recycle more than 26,000 batteries. |
Rescue effort Miles Fetherston -Resch, 10, is in the business of saving oceans. When he learned that sharks are in trouble, he persuaded his mom to help him start a non-profit (非营利的) organization. It’s called Kids Saving Oceans. Its website sells T-shirts, hats, and stickers made out of recycled plastic found in the ocean. A part of every sale —some $40,000 so far—is donated to charities that support clean waterways. |
1. Reshama Kosaraju is trying to help fight wildfires by________.
| A．using technology | B．starting an organization |
| C．raising money | D．giving money to fire stations |
| A．There was no clean drinking water in his city. |
| B．The world’s environment got worse and worse. |
| C．Sharks are endangered because of water pollution. |
| D．A huge number of old batteries polluted the environment. |
| A．Give it to their school. | B．Give it away to charities. |
| C．Spend it on toys. | D．Spend it helping poor kids. |
| A．Kid heroes for the planet | B．How to save energy at school |
| C．A school’s green group | D．How to recycle at school |
3 . Being a teenager can be challenging, but it can also be exciting. You’re becoming more independent and making decisions for yourself. You are also learning to take risks and solve problems better than you could before. And changes are happening throughout your body, even in your brain.
You can’t see the changes in your brain, but they’re affecting how you develop into an adult. At this time in your life, there is a process (过程) going on inside your brain that makes it work faster and more efficiently (高效地). Imagine that the structure of your brain is like a big road map. There are lots of roads leading to different destinations (终点): When you were a child, as you learned new things, your brain created more roads leading to different destinations. By the time you become a teenager, the most important places on the map have many different roads leading to them. Now your brain’s job is to make that map more efficient. It clears away the roads that you don’t need and works to make the other roads faster.
As a result, your experiences as a teenager actually affect the way that your brain develops. If you spend hours playing video games, what abilities do you use? You learn to see something with your eyes and respond (作出反应) to it with your hands, right? As you develop those abilities, your brain is making sure that the roads leading to them are especially fast and efficient. So, your video game playing could be preparing you for a job such as a fighter pilot, or even a doctor.
This is a great time for you to practice new abilities and discover what you're good at and what you love doing. Go out and try different activities, and stick with them if you think they're useful. Remember that with everything you do, you're shaping your brain for the future.
1. As a teenager, you are becoming more _________.| A．challenging | B．independent | C．exciting | D．difficult |
| A．By changing its structure. | B．By stopping learning new things. |
| C．By finding more destinations. | D．By working more and more efficiently. |
| A．They should learn to be more efficient. |
| B．They should read many books and remember them. |
| C．They should play more video games when possible. |
| D．They should try more and hold on to the useful activities. |
| A．How to play computer games well. | B．What a teenager likes to do. |
| C．How the brain helps you to develop. | D．How the brain changes at different ages. |
| Summary (概要) Write a summary of the book. 1st paragraph—Write about the setting (when and where the story takes place). Introduce the main character or characters in the story. Discuss what problems the main character faces in the story. You can also answer the questions of what and how. 2nd paragraph—Summarize what happens up until the high point of the story. (Don’t give away the ending. ) Use some of the connecting words below to help you write you review first, second, third, last, also, between, finally, after that, because, next, as a result, later, during, for example. |
| Opinion 3rd paragraph—Give your opinion on the book. Use these guidelines (准则). Write about why you like or dislike the book. Give details, for example: Is the book fun? Is it too easy to read or too hard? Is it believable? Do you like the ending? What is your favorite part? What connections do you make with your life or other books? Talk about the writer’s style of writing and give examples from the book. |
| Recommendation (推荐) In this last paragraph—Explain whether you will recommend this book to your classmates or not. Rate (分等级) the book from 1 star to 5 stars, and give reasons why you give it the stars. Examples should include a quote (引述) or quotes from the book or a summary of the part of the book that you like or don’t like. |
1. According to the passage, your book review should include ________.
| A．two paragraphs | B．three paragraphs | C．four paragraphs | D．five paragraphs |
| A．summary | B．characters | C．opinion | D．recommendation |
| A．the problems of the characters | B．the ending of the story |
| C．some quotes from the book | D．your favorite part of the book |
| A．Did the writer tell us advice on writing books? |
| B．Did the writer tell us ways about reading books? |
| C．Did the writer tell us how to write books reviews? |
| D．Did the writer tell us reasons why people like book reviews? |
5 . Pets have their own body language. Their body language is different and it depends on what kind of animal you have chosen as your pet. Understanding your pet’s body language will help you communicate with it better.
★When dogs feel stressed out or scared, their eyes will look bigger than usual. If your dog doesn’t feel well, it might look as if it’s squinting (眯起眼看). If your dog doesn’t look directly at you, but look out of the corner of its eyes, it might be about to hurt others.
★When your cat looks at you and blinks (眨眼), it’s likely to show its love to you. You can do this back to your cat to show your love. For cats, closing its eyes is a way to show trust. If your cat feels scared, its tail may look like the end of a toilet brush.
★Birds can show their feelings through their eyes, feathers and voices. Look at your bird’s eyes. If its pupils (瞳孔) become large and small from time to time, this can be a sign that it’s excited or greatly interested or scared or angry. Birds will ruffle (弄乱) their feathers when they clean themselves. However, if their feathers remain ruffled, this may mean they don’t feel well. Then you can take them to an animal hospital for a checkup.
1. If your cat trusts you, it will ________.| A．open its eyes | B．sit by your side | C．close its eyes | D．blink slowly |
| A．how cats show their trust | B．how cats show their love |
| C．how birds show their anger | D．how birds show their sadness |
| A．How to choose a right pet. | B．How to play with your pet. |
| C．How to understand pet’s body language. | D．How to keep the dogs, cats and birds. |
6 . Think back to when you were in a classroom, maybe a math classroom and the teacher set a difficult problem. Which is your answer?
A: Oh no, this is too hard for me. I’m not even going to try and work it out.
B: Ah, this is quite hard but I like to push myself. Even if I don’t get the answer right, maybe I’ll learn something in the process.
Carol Dweck, the psychologist(心理学家) of Stanford University, gave problems to a group of ten-year-olds. The problems were too hard for them. One group said positively that they loved challenges and understood their abilities could be developed. Professor Dweck said they had a “growth mindset” and focused on what they could achieve in the future. But another group felt that their intelligence (智力) was being judged and they had failed. They had a “fixed mindset” and were unable to imagine improving. To improve their self-esteem (自尊), these students even looked for someone who had done worse than them.
Professor Dweck believes that there is a problem in education at the moment. For years, children have been praised for their intelligence or talent, but it makes them afraid to face failure. They want to please by getting high grades, but they are not really interested in learning. According to Dweck, the solution is to praise the process of children making an effort, using learning strategies and improving. This way they will become interested in getting better and achieve more. She thinks that keeping working hard over time is the key to success.
Psychologists have been testing these theories. They taught students that if they left their comfort zone (区域) and learned something new and difficult, the neurons (神经元) in their brains would form stronger connections, making them more intelligent. In another study, some children who didn’t perform well made great progress after learning growth mindset skills for a year. They came top in tests, beating children from much more better schools. These children had felt before that making an effort was a sign of foolishness, but they came to see it as the key to learning.
So, back to our question in the beginning. If you answered B, well done! You already have a growth mindset. If A, don’t worry, everyone can be excellent with a little effort and self-awareness (自我意识).
1. Who did Carol Dweck give problems to?| A．Twenty-year-olds. | B．Fifteen-year-olds. | C．Ten-year-olds. | D．Five-year-olds. |
| A．He doesn’t want to experience what he doesn’t know. |
| B．He faces challenges positively to help himself grow. |
| C．He looks for someone who did worse than him. |
| D．He focuses on what he has achieved at present. |
| A．A person with a fixed mindset can easily improve himself in his comfort zone. |
| B．Guiding students to focus on learning process can help them achieve more. |
| C．Praising children for their intelligence has a positive influence on learning. |
| D．Intelligence or talent is the key to people’s success. |
| A．Practicing growth mindset skills helps students get improvement. |
| B．Staying in the comfort zone is a good way to be confident. |
| C．Keeping working hard makes people afraid to face failure. |
| D．Testing students can often make them more intelligent. |
| A．Differences Between Growth and Fixed Mindset | B．A Scientific Experiment About Intelligence |
| C．The True Meaning of Success | D．Develop a Growth Mindset |
7 . Do you like listening to music? Will all the sounds bring happiness to you? Do you know some sounds are noise? What is noise? Noise is a loud or unwanted sound. It is also a kind of pollution.
Where is noise from? Noise can be caused by many kinds of things, such as transportation, factories, machines and so on. To some people, rock music is also noise.
What will happen to people who live near noisy machines or use them for a period of time? Doctors find that noise can influence their health and behavior. It can cause high blood pressure, hearing loss, sleep problems and other harmful effects.
Scientists use a unit called the decibel (分贝) to measure the loudness of a sound. The sound of a quiet room, for example, measures 35 decibels. The sound of an ordinary talk measures between 40 and 65 decibels. The sound of the traffic and some rock music can measure over 120 decibels. The sound at this high level causes great hearing loss.
How do you reduce the damage? Turn down your music player and wear earplugs (耳塞) when you work in a noisy environment. Earplugs can protect your ears.
1. According to the text, noise is ________.| A．a beautiful sound | B．a soft sound |
| C．a sound that people can hear | D．a loud or unwanted sound |
| A．A decibel is also a kind of noise. |
| B．Noise pollution is good for people’s health. |
| C．Machines that make loud noise are called decibels. |
| D．The decibel is a unit that measures the loudness of a sound. |
| A．cause hearing loss | B．destroy machines |
| C．help people to sleep better | D．improve people’s hearing |
| A．noise is a pleasant sound | B．all sounds can hurt people |
| C．noise pollution is a serious problem | D．noisy rock music doesn’t belong to noise |
8 . Famous Places around the World
The best time to visit …
| China China is a huge country so it depends on where you go. The best time to visit is autumn. During that time, temperatures are pleasant wherever you are. If you don’t like the heat, don’t come in summer. In Beijing, the average temperature in summer is up to 30 degrees centigrade. |
| Greece The best time to visit Greece is from April to June. If you like snow, then go to the northwest of the country in winter. It’s great for skiing. If you just want to sit on a beach and see the sunshine every day, then August is the perfect month. But, be careful! Temperatures are really high. In the southeast of Greece, it might be 30-35 degrees centigrade. |
| Mexico The weather in Mexico is hot, wet and sticky for most of the year, except in Mexico City. February to April is the best time to visit. It can get very stormy at the end of August. From time to time, there are hurricanes and tornadoes (龙卷风). |
| South Africa South Africa has a pleasant climate, with lovely warm sunny days most of the year. The summer is from November to February, and the weather is really hot at this time. In August, it’s winter and the weather is usually warm, except at night. South Africa has the world’s highest daily hours of sunshine. |
1. If you are interested in skiing, you can visit ________.
| A．China | B．Mexico | C．Greece | D．South Africa |
| A．spring | B．summer | C．autumn | D．winter |
| A．Business. | B．Travel. | C．Sports. | D．Advertisement. |
9 . There are two paths (路) in life: Should and Must. We arrive at these crossroads again and again. And each time, we have to choose.
Should is how others want us to show up in the world—what we should or shouldn’t do. When we choose Should, we’re choosing to live our life for someone or something other than ourselves. The journey to Should can be smooth, and the risk is small.
Must is who we are, what we believe, and what we do when we are alone with our truest self. Must is why Van Gogh painted his whole life without ever receiving public recognition (认可). Must is why Reyna Marder Gentin started to write for the first time after 23 years of being a lawyer.
Choosing Must sounds fantastic, right? To choose Must is to say yes to hard work and endless effort, to say yes to a journey without a road map or tour guides.
How can we actually choose Must?
Ask yourself, “What is my Must?” If you don’t know the answer, write down your biggest, most impossible dreams! Don’t worry! It’s just the first step.
Now, think about what’s actually in your way. Is it your parents? Maybe they’re just worried that you haven’t thought it through. Try to make a practical plan for what you want to do. Your parents may find it a good one. Is it money? Well, the best way to make money is to do what you love because it’s very likely that you will pay great attention to it. Choosing Must doesn’t mean we need to give up everything we already have. It’s about changing one small thing at a time.
If you believe that you have something special inside of you, it’s about time you give Must a try—today.
1. What happens if we choose the path of “Should”?| A．We have to live our life for ourselves. |
| B．We’ll have a clear picture of ourselves. |
| C．We have to give up what we have. |
| D．We don’t need to take great risks. |
| A．By comparing. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By asking questions. | D．By listing numbers. |
| A．Easy and educational. | B．Impossible and foolish. |
| C．Hard and challenging. | D．Smooth and exciting. |
| A．We’d better change a lot at a time |
| B．We’d better make money by doing what we love. |
| C．We’d better make a practical plan. |
| D．We’d better make sure what our Musts are. |
| A．To tell us to do what others want us to do. |
| B．To tell us something about his choice. |
| C．To encourage us to be our truest self. |
| D．To take others’ advice. |
10 . With the development of society, people pay more attention to environmental protection. In order to find out people’s attitude and ways of protecting the environment, 400 students in No. 5 High School were surveyed with the theme of “saving paper”.
Almost everyone agrees that it is necessary to save paper. However, only more than half of them know that the country’s forest resources are not enough. Even worse, nearly half pay little attention to the situation of China’s forest resources. The following two diagrams are about ways to deal with used paper and reasons for saving paper.
Diagram 1 Ways to deal with used paper
make other artworks 3%
print the other side 12%
use as draft paper 80%
throw away or sell it 5%
Diagram 2 Reasons for saving paper
15% 27% 58%
In conclusion, the forest resources in our country are facing a big crisis (危机). Luckily, most of the people have realized that and have their proper ways to save paper. But we still need to strengthen the action. As long as we start from the little things, we can make a big difference.
1. If the paper can be reused, what will most students do?| A．Use it to do something creative. | B．Use paper as draft paper. |
| C．Print the other side. | D．Sell it. |
| A．58. | B．60. | C．108. | D．232. |
| A．The Only Earth. | B．School Life. |
| C．Sports World. | D．Science Study. |
