People all over the world have some strange hobbies, and one of the most unusual in Britain is “trainspotting”. It’s usually men over the age of 40, but not always. You’ll see them standing around at railway stations and other places where trains pass by, and you’ll see them taking photos and exchanging notes with each other. So, what are they doing?
Well, they’re collecting information about trains—the numbers on the front of the trains, or the make and model of the “locomotive”—the part of the train which pulls all the other parts. In the same way that some people collect toys or stamps, these men collect and exchange all kinds of details about trains and railways.
The idea goes back as far as 1942. That year, a young man named Ian Allan was working at Waterloo railway station in London. It was his job to answer letters from people about trains, and quite a lot of the questions he received were very similar. He found himself getting a little annoyed at sending the same replies to the same questions, so he had a word with his boss. He asked if he could write a booklet giving the answers to the most frequently asked questions—an early version of the FAQs you see on websites nowadays. His boss said if he wanted to waste his time on such a project, he should do it in his own time.
So he did. The first 2,000 copies were all sold in days, and by the 1950s, a million copies of British Railways Locomotives were selling every year. Ian Allan went on to become a successful publisher, and got an Order of the British Empire from the Queen in 1995. He died in 2015, but his trainspotting hobby lives on.
1. What do trainspotters do to take “trainspotting” as a bobby?| A．They collect railway toys, stamps and train models. |
| B．They watch the sceneries in railway stations. |
| C．They collect and exchange details about trains. |
| D．They build and collect model trains based on photos. |
| A．Because he found it interesting to answer those questions. |
| B．Because he was paid to reply to the common questions. |
| C．Because he wanted to start a FAQs website of his own. |
| D．Because he aimed to answer the annoying questions at a time. |
| A．Ian’s boss gave him a lot of help to publish his booklet. |
| B．Ian’s booklet wasn’t well received when first introduced. |
| C．Ian’s trainspotting bobby is not popular anymore nowadays. |
| D．Ian’s project on train-related questions made him successful. |
| A．An introduction to some strange hobbies. |
| B．What trainspotting is and how it came to exist. |
| C．What makes trainspotting popular in the UK. |
| D．How Ian Allan developed his trainspotting hobby. |
Many cultures have stories of talking trees that give advice as well as warnings to people. Alexander the Great and Marco Polo were said to have visited such a tree in India. And in some modern stories, such as the film Avatar, trees can communicate with animals and people.
New research has found something amazing: it seems that plants can communicate after all.
It has been known for some time that plants use chemicals to communicate with each other. This happens when a plant gets attacked by insects. The plant gives out chemicals from the leaves that are being eaten. This is like a warning, or a call for help: “I’m being attacked!” When another plant gets the chemicals, it starts to give out its own, different chemicals. Some of these chemicals drive insects away. Others attract the wasps! The wasps kill the insects that are eating the plants. Scientists hope to learn more about this plant warning system, so that we can use it to grow more crops.
More surprisingly, plants also use sound to communicate. People can’t hear these sounds, but plants are making them. Some plants make noises with their roots. Corn and chilli plants do this. Some trees make clicking noises when there is not enough water.
Most surprisingly of all, plants have an amazing system of communication that can link nearly every plant in a forest. Scientists call this system the “wood wide web”. The wood wide web is linked underground by fungi. It links the roots of different plants to each other. It is in some ways similar to the Internet we use. Using the wood wide web, ▲ . However, it may lead to bad effects. Plants may use it to steal food from each other, or spread chemicals to attack other plants. Perhaps one day scientists will learn how to create a “firewall” to help prevent these attacks within the wood wide web.
Scientists are learning more every day about the secret ways in which plants talk to each other. Who knows? Maybe one day we will know enough about plant communication to be able to “talk” with them ourselves.
1. The writer starts the passage by ________.| A．telling stories | B．giving advice | C．listing numbers | D．giving examples |
①chemicals ②leaves ③sound ④fungi
| A．②③④ | B．①③④ | C．①②④ | D．①②③ |
| A．plants can share information and even food with each other |
| B．scientists can help stop the plants from attacking each other |
| C．plants can use chemicals to attract insects to attack other plants |
| D．scientists can build a system to link almost every plant in a forest |
| A．The secrets of how plants communicate. |
| B．The study about the plant warning system. |
| C．The plants that give advice as well as warnings. |
| D．The reasons why scientists do research about plants. |
Known as the “gentleman of the Chinese teas”, West Lake Longjing tea is a familiar name for Chinese tea drinkers. It is recorded that this top-grade green tea was produced in the Tang Dynasty. And it became Emperor Qianlong’s favorite in the Qing Dynasty.
Longjing tea is famous for its pleasant smell and rich taste. The key lies in the roasting process. Once the leaves are picked, they are dried for up to 10 hours. Tea makers then heat the leaves by hand, with temperatures up to 260 °C. There are 10 skilled hand movements during the roasting process. They are then left to cool and dry. Unlike other green tea, leaves are pan-fried, creating a completely different quality. “Such a process calls for real craftsmanship*—with both patience and hard work”, noted China News. For this reason, it was listed as a national-level non-material cultural heritage* in 2008.
Fan Shenghua, 59, is one of the inheritors* of this skill. He first learned it from his father when he was 14.His first experience making the tea by hand was unforgettable.“I quickly drew my hands back. Then my father said seriously, ‘This will be your life’s work, my son’,” he told China Daily.
Fan has been making Longjing tea ever since.His hands, full of calluses*, show years of hard work.
The process of roasting tea by hand takes plenty of time. That’s why many tea producers have begun to use machines.
“It’s easier, but the finished product is not as good,” Fan told China News. “Machine -made tea floats* longer in water and tastes bitter.”
In March, President Xi visited Hangzhou and watched Fan roast tea leaves. Later, Xi said, “The things made by hand cannot be replaced by modern technologies.”
To pass on the tradition of this tea-making process, Fan has taken on apprentices who will continue his craftsmanship.
“Making the tea by hand is demanding, but it keeps the best of the tea. We need to pass it along,” Zhou Yunfeng, 22, one of Fan’s apprentices, told China Daily.
1. The most important in making Longjing tea is the ________.| A．rich taste | B．hard work |
| C．pleasant smell | D．roasting process |
①Heat the leaves.②Pick the leaves.
③Dry the leaves for 10 hours.④Leave the leaves to cool and dry.
| A．①②③④ | B．①②④③ | C．②③①④ | D．②④①③ |
| A．serious | B．common | C．difficult | D．important |
| A．Machines will take the place of the inheritors finally. |
| B．Longjing tea is a non-material cultural heritage in China. |
| C．The craftsmanship makes hand-made Longjing tea special. |
| D．Hand-made Longjing tea floats longer than machine-made tea. |
4 . The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our daily life a lot in 2020, including the way we travel. Recently Airbnb has done a research on it and here is the result. The top three ways may continue in 2021. Let’s take a look.
Nearby travel
With many travel rules during the pandemic, people preferred traveling to nearby places in 2020, for they care a lot about the public safety. According to the research, 62 percent of people are interested in taking a vacation nearby with an increase of 80 percent．People who live in large cities want to get back in touch with nature. Travelers are looking for places different from their everyday flats, such as farm stay.
Pod travel
During the pandemic, we found people want to be more connected. So “Pod travel”, getting together with loved ones in safety places, is growing rapidly. According to Airbnb, 85 percent of people choose to travel with family or close friends in quiet villages. It has increased 90 percent. Pod travel can not only improve the relationship among relatives and friends, but also reduce the risk of suffering the pandemic.
Cloud travel
To stay safe, many people worked and learned at home in 2020 because of the pandemic. In order to get the balance of working and relaxing, cloud travel resulted. It is a kind of travel online. According to Airbnb, there was a 128 percent increase in it. “People actively took part in the new kind of travel. It could free themselves from the rush work, and also open their mind to the wonders of the world freely.”
1. According to the research, what kind of activity increased most in 2020?| A．Nearby travel | B．Pod travel | C．Cloud travel | D．Home stay |
| A．safety | B．hobby | C．wealth | D．family |
| A．Paul would like to stay at home to enjoy the fantastic movies with his sister. |
| B．Lee will spend the coming May Day with his parents in a peaceful countryside. |
| C．Louis had a wonderful trip with her new friends from different countries last month. |
| D．Karen plans a long trip to Xinjiang with her pen friends during the summer vacation. |
Everyone knows by now that plastic pollution is a big problem for the environment. Beying, for example, has dealt with this by stopping using thin plastic bags, plastic tableware and other plastic products in supermarkets, restaurants and hotels since May 1, 2020.
But an even better method might be on the way. Researchers at a French company called Carbios have discovered a bacterial enzyme that can break down plastic. The enzyme, which was first found in compost leaves, can not only break down plastic in hours, but also use the things left to create new products.
In fact, the first compost enzyme was found in 2012. Scientists changed its genes, allowing it to break down 90 percent of one ton of waste plastic in less than 10 hours. “It had been completely forgotten, but it turned out to be the best,” said Marty.
The new enzyme was discovered in research published in April, 2020. Before that, the team, led by Professor Alain Marty, studied over 100,000 micro-organisms to find one that could break down plastic quickly.
The enzyme especially breaks down PET, a kind of plastic that is most commonly used for plastic bottles and food packaging. It is also the fifth most common kind of plastic that we use.
However, waste bottles must be ground up and heated before the new enzyme is mixed in. These will make the recycled PET more expensive. But because of a shortage of this recycled plastic, people still like paying more money for it.
Carbios said it is working together with companies like Pepsi and Nestle — main users of plastic themselves - to develop their research and start using the enzyme in the factories. “There is still a lot of work to do to use it in the factories, but this opens the door.” said a research scientist.
1. In Paragraph 1, the writer mentions Beijing to show ________.| A．plastic is useful in our daily life | B．ifs easy to break down plastic |
| C．plastic causes serious pollution | D．it’s necessary to stop using plastic |
① studied lots of micro-organisms
② discovered the new enzyme
③ found the first compost enzyme
④ changed genes of the enzyme
| A．②-①-④-③ | B．③-④-①-② | C．①-②-③-④ | D．④-③-②-① |
| A．the new mixed enzymes | B．plastic bottles and food packaging |
| C．common kinds of plastic | D．grinding up and heating waste bottles |
| A．A Natural Way to Recycle Plastic | B．The Most Common Way to Stop Plastic |
| C．The Bright Future of Using Plastic | D．A New Way to Create the New Enzyme |
6 . People in poor and faraway areas have few chances to visit the Internet. In Africa, 72% of the population cannot connect to the Internet. Luckily, “Balloon Internet System”, developed by Loon, is now providing service to faraway, mountainous places in Kenya where there are too few people to support the building of signal equipment on the ground.
The balloons, are about 24 meters tall and 8 meters wide. They are made of a plastic material that is built to last at least 100 days. They are filled with gas that is lighter than air and rise up to 20 kilometers into the sky — a height twice as high as airplanes fly. This helps the balloons avoid weather problems and wildlife. The balloons move through the skies by wind currents that carry them up and down during the flight path. They are designed to link up with a team of balloons over areas with little Internet connectivity. Stations on the ground send signals from local Internet service providers up to the balloons. These signals are then fed back to earth in a similar way to how satellites work. Then people on the ground can connect to the high—speed Internet service. Solar energy collectors power the equipment during the day and charge a battery as well. The battery runs the system at night. When the life of the balloon ends, a parachute self—deploys to guide it back down to the ground.
The sky—based system has many advantages. It is cheaper than building signal equipment on the ground and undeveloped countries are able to afford it. Moreover, it already showed success in Peru and Puerto Rico during natural disasters. The balloons were usable in 48 hours in May after a powerful earthquake struck a rural part of Peru. In the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, Loon balloons were deployed after Hurricane Maria hit in 2017.
The launch in Kenya creates a first in many ways: the first non—emergency use to provide service in large areas, the first successful use of balloon—powered Internet in Africa and the first of lots of business uses to come round the world.
1. Loon runs Balloon Internet System in mountainous places in Kenya to .| A．sell large balloons to its government |
| B．show its new productions to the local people |
| C．support the local people to build signal equipment |
| D．provide the local people with more chances to visit Internet |
| A．The balloons rise up as high as planes fly to avoid weather problems. |
| B．The balloons send signals to the Internet service providers on the ground. |
| C．The balloons work together to provide the areas with Internet connection. |
| D．The collectors power the equipment and run the system both day and night. |
| A．the system is cheap enough for poor countries |
| B．the system has been widely used in the two places |
| C．local signal equipment will be replaced by the system |
| D．people can use the system in terrible natural conditions |
| A．Loon Balloons Help to Connect |
| B．The Near Future of the Internet |
| C．Kenyan People in Need of Internet |
| D．The first Launch of Loon Balloons |
7 . Karate is a sport event to be held in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It will be the first appearance of karate at the Summer Olympics.
Karate, like Chinese Wushu, is a kind of martial—art. It developed in East Asia over centuries, becoming systematized in Okinawa in the 17th century. It was brought into Japan in the 1920 s. After about fifty—year development, it became an international sport event. Generally speaking, karate competition includes two types— kata（forms）and kumite（sparring）.
Kata are demonstrations of attacking and defensive movements of one person against an imaginary opponent. Competitors choose the kata to demonstrate from 102 kata that are recognized by the World Karate Federation. Competitors are not allowed to demonstrate the same Kata twice during the competition. Its stage is an 8 m x 8 m square. Lined up outside the square, seven judges judge the competition. And the scores given by three of them are added to decide who the winner is. What the score is depends on the strength, speed, rhythm, balance and power of strikes and kicks and so on.
In kumite, two competitors spar with each other. A head judge with four side judges observe their sparring. Attacks with good form, power and control get between one and three points.
•One point — “Yuko”—is given for a closed hand punch to the head, neck, stomach, side or back of the opponent.
•Two points — “Waza—ari” — are given for a middle kick to the body.
•Three points— “Ippon” — are scored for a high kick to the head.
A competitor wins by having eight points more than their opponent within three minutes. In a tie, the competitor who scores the first point is the winner. In a scoreless competition, the winner will be decided by the judges.
1. Karate is a sport that .| A．is a kind of Chinese Wushu |
| B．started and developed in Japan |
| C．started 400 hundred years ago |
| D．will appear in the 2020 Olympics |
| A．five scores decide who the winner is |
| B．a competitor demonstrates kata alone |
| C．competitors can choose the kata freely |
| D．a competitor wins by having eight points |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
| A．show us how to do karate |
| B．introduce us the history of karate |
| C．tell us the types of karate competitions |
| D．encourage us to watch karate competitions |
8 . The latest 2020 World Air Quality Report shows the changing levels of PM2.5 around the world during the year. Let's take a look at the part about Asia.
Key findings：
※As COVID—19 reduced travel and producing around the world,the air quality improved in 84% of the countries.
※Chinese cities made a 11% drop in PM2.5 levels in 2020, after a 9% drop in 2019. Most parts of Asia remain the same. South Korea was the most polluted country for PM2.5 among developed countries during 2020. Twenty—two of the top 30 most polluted cities are in India.
※Open burning had a lot to do with the air quality of cities and countries around Asia, such as Singapore, Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Sandstorms played a big role in poor air quality in the Middle East and Northwest China.
1. What is the PM 2.5 annual mean of Mongolia in 2020？| A．17.8ug/m3. | B．19.5ug/m3. | C．34.7ug/m3. | D．46.6ug/m3. |
| A．Beijing. | B．Seoul. | C．Delhi. | D．Karachi. |
| A．India faced a serious air pollution problem. |
| B．Open burning caused air pollution in the Middle East |
| C．South Korea was the most polluted country in the world. |
| D．China has made 11% drop in PM 2.5 levels in the past two years. |
9 . Video calls are very common and popular in our daily life. But have you imagined being able to touch the person on the other end of the line? Scientists are making this come true.
Researchers at the University of New South Wales, Australia, have invented a new device called SSD, which can recreate the sense of touch. Its haptic technology imitates the experience of touch by stimulating some areas of the skin. People can get the same feelings with the technology as the skin is stimulated through force, shake or move.
The new technology succeeds in solving some problems with existing haptic devices. The research team introduced a new method to recreate the sense of touch through soft, man-made “muscles”.
4tOur three-way directional SSD is built into the fingertips of a special glove. Wearing it is just like wearing a second skin - it's soft, stretchable and imitates the sense of touch - and will help new forms of haptic communication to further improve everyday activities,M said Thanh Nho Do, main author of the study.
______________ Imagine you are at home and you call your friend who is in Australia. You wear a haptic glove with the SSDs and your friend also wears a glove with 3D force sensors. If your friend picks up an object, it will physically press against your friend’s fingers. And their glove with 3D force sensors will measure these senses. The signals can be sent to your glove so your device will produce the same 3D forces, making you experience the same sense of touch as your friend.
The haptic devices could be used in varied situations, allowing users to feel objects at a distance or inside a virtual world —a world created on the Internet. This could be particularly helpful during such times like the COVID-19 when people depend on video calls to stay connected with loved ones. Or it could be used in medical practices. Doctors can feel patients without touching them.
1. The haptic technology is based on the sense of ____________.| A．smell | B．taste | C．touch | D．hearing |
| A．It is a man-made skin for beauty. |
| B．It can produce the same 3D forces. |
| C．It is successfully put into a man's finger. |
| D．It causes new problems on video calls. |
| A．It works like this. | B．It has a new method. |
| C．It is used in many ways. | D．It has some advantages. |
| A．hug his children abroad | B．teach his students in class |
| C．pick up his friend at the airport | D．cook dinner alone at his kitchen |
10 . One of the oldest arts which dates back to the Han Dynasty has been disappearing from the stage. Different from films, the shadow play* needs more attention. In the past years, Chinese artists have been trying to help it survive. Their effort has got encouragement and support from the government. In 2011, the shadow puppet* play was added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
Most of the puppets were made of leathers from animals, like donkeys and sheep. The leathers must be carefully chosen, and then people make them smooth. When the leathers become smooth enough, the artists would paint the characters on it, and then cut them out with different tools. The body parts of the puppets are separately cut out and joined together, so that they could have 24 movable joints*. Puppet players hold them with sticks connected to their most important joints during the performance.
The experienced players could act five sticks on one puppet with only one hand. Most of them show interest in puppet performances, so they can play several traditional instruments. They are also needed to sing local operas, and have a good sense of music.
Xue Hongquan has found ways to protect it from disappearing. He improved the traditional performance and introduced modern music, light as well as performing skills. Xue’s puppets could not only perform old plays, but could imitate* modern dances. “The art could be passed onto only by making more people love it and accept it,” said Xue. “So it is our duty to do something for our traditional art.”
1. The right order of making a puppet is ____________.①connect important joints
② paint on smooth leathers
③choose leathers carefully
④ cut out the body separately
| A．②-①-④-③ | B．②-①-③-④ | C．③-②-④-① | D．③-①②-④ |
| A．writing new songs for local operas |
| B．getting support from the government |
| C．playing music with modern instruments |
| D．using one hand to act five sticks on a puppet |
| A．modern arts | B．different characters | C．traditional dances | D．old instruments |
| A．a kind of traditional film that is about puppets |
| B．a modern art that is similar to the shadow puppetry |
| C．a traditional Chinese art which welcomes its new life |
| D．an old Chinese art which disappeared in Han Dynasty |
