1 . You may have heard video game characters deliver lines like “Shatter (击碎) the darkness with thunder!” But it’s refreshing to hear it in an unexpected place — the classroom. Xia Zhendong is a physics teacher working at a senior high school in south China. Now in his 30s, Xia has won the hearts of millions of online viewers with his classroom experiments.
In one video, Xia pointed a self-made “thunderbolt wand (魔杖)” toward a hanging light tube in his classroom and said, “Shatter the darkness with thunder.” Suddenly, an electric arc (弧线) emerged from the tip of the wand, illuminating the tube. After the cheers from his students, he went on to explain the science behind it—static electricity (静电) and point discharge (尖端放电).
“The idea came when I enjoyed playing a popular game on my smart phone,” he said. In his spare time, he likes to try out what students are interested in to get closer to them. Apart from the “thunderbolt wand”, Xia has done many other creative experiments. Once, he lit steel wool with a battery to show the heating effect of electric current. Another time, he used a “laser weapon” to pop balloons while explaining the principles of lasers.
For Xia, physics is supposed to be fun. So, when he saw his students struggle with physics, he decided to make a change. “Circuit diagrams (电路图) are abstract, and I want them to actually see the electricity through lightning to realize that knowledge is not just on paper. You can see it and even touch it,” Xia said. Now, Xia has also started free live classes online. “I hope that through online classes, more students can also have access to fun physics lessons. And their parents can also join in. I hope that physics could make them feel happier,” Xia said.
1. What does the underlined word “illuminating” mean in paragraph 2?| A．Shining light on. | B．Cutting down on. |
| C．Getting stuck in. | D．Taking advantage of. |
| A．The effect of acting a video game character. | B．Online viewers of his videos. |
| C．The pleasure in playing an online game . | D．Wild cheers from his students. |
| A．Because he hopes to get more students to have his classes. |
| B．Because he wishes to get more parents involved in his lessons. |
| C．Because he expects more students to have fun in learning physics. |
| D．Because he wants to win more hearts of online viewers of his videos. |
| A．What makes a fun teacher. | B．Bringing magic to school. |
| C．How to make physics fun. | D．Getting students to learn physics. |
2 . Pushpa hates tears but when she tells of incidents from her childhood, which she spent battling poverty, she can’t help feeling overwhelmed. “We used to be able to afford only one meal every day,” she says. But as challenging as those early years were, they would lead to her remarkable life as a scribe (抄写员) for people with special needs.
Pushpa remembers enjoying a blessedly normal childhood, peppered with “toys, dinners out and movies at the theatre”, until around grade 4. But life as she knew it disappeared when an accident left her father disabled.
“My mother, who wasn’t well-educated, had to work for ＄500 per month.” But what hit her hardest was her struggle to continue her education. The memory of her grade 7 teacher refusing to allow her to attend classes over unpaid school fees still hurts.
One day in 2007, while travelling with two visually impaired (有缺陷的) college students by bus, she heard them talk about how difficult it was for them to continue their education. “I remembered my own struggle to finish my studies so I seized the opportunity to help them.”
“I was a little nervous at first because I had passed my grade 10 examination only with a third class,” she smiles. “Since then, I’ve written exams for students who have low IQ, or are blind or visually impaired, or have met with an accident.”
It is, by no means, an easy task. “I read out the questions slowly and, sometimes, several times, and wait for the student to tell me the answer. I have seen scribes getting irritated (愤怒的) at students and that should not happen.” she explains.
Over the last 16 years, the young girl who once survived on handouts has come a long way. Connecting with examinees by word of mouth, till date, Pushpa has written 1,086 exams for special-needs test-takers and won the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2018 for her efforts. “You should be prepared to help the student for those few hours, without expecting anything in return.” Pushpa adds.
1. What do we know about Pushpa according to Paragraph 1?| A．Her ambition to serve people. | B．Her early fight against poverty. |
| C．Her inability to control emotions. | D．Her gratitude to the past hardships. |
| A．She was sympathetic for others. | B．She expected to shoot to fame. |
| C．She was professional in the job. | D．She was eager for much money. |
| A．Intelligence. | B．Respect. | C．Patience. | D．Cooperation. |
| A．A Helping Hand | B．A Hardship-filled Life |
| C．An Old-fashioned Job | D．A Devoted Prize Winner |
3 . My dad is easy-going and has a gift for chatting. He
One Saturday, we went
Dad said, “Hi, how are you today? This is my son. I have a restaurant, and we
Back in the car, Dad said to me, “The cashier was obviously
| A．owns | B．describes | C．visits | D．recommends |
| A．supermarket | B．hospital | C．restaurant | D．company |
| A．hiking | B．camping | C．exploring | D．shopping |
| A．imagined | B．believed | C．noticed | D．remembered |
| A．beautiful | B．unhappy | C．professional | D．polite |
| A．received | B．needed | C．avoided | D．offered |
| A．suitable | B．frightening | C．special | D．friendly |
| A．helped | B．refused | C．waited | D．forgot |
| A．problem | B．idea | C．hope | D．experience |
| A．talking to | B．looking after | C．going after | D．laughing at |
| A．work | B．play | C．tour | D．exercise |
| A．drive | B．tie | C．treat | D．lead |
| A．quitted | B．finished | C．missed | D．regretted |
| A．in peace | B．in danger | C．in a hurry | D．in low spirits |
| A．warmly | B．immediately | C．secretly | D．comfortably |
4 . In our life, there are moments when we wonder whether to offer a helping hand. These
It was a summer afternoon, and Bill was attending a
Bill recalled, “Sometimes when you’re
As Bill stood there, feeling
From then on, Bill’s life was changed. He studied hard to become a doctor. He was
| A．ambitions | B．gestures | C．qualifications | D．reasons |
| A．course | B．appetite | C．preferences | D．opinions |
| A．unfamiliar | B．unimportant | C．contradictory | D．transformational |
| A．concert | B．test | C．reunion | D．competition |
| A．Nevertheless | B．Therefore | C．Otherwise | D．Besides |
| A．agreed | B．talked | C．proposed | D．apologized |
| A．kind | B．gentle | C．rude | D．alone |
| A．teenagers | B．colleagues | C．doctors | D．teachers |
| A．attaining | B．regretting | C．desiring | D．forgetting |
| A．increasingly | B．permanently | C．slightly | D．rarely |
| A．amused | B．invited | C．chose | D．met |
| A．find | B．involve | C．suspect | D．acknowledge |
| A．gave | B．let | C．reached | D．acted |
| A．faithful | B．equal | C．identical | D．caring |
| A．as to | B．thanks to | C．in place of | D．in spite of |
5 . Yoriko, a sheepshead fish (kobudai in Japanese), first met Arakawa nearly 30 years ago. Arakawa started
“I’d say we
On one dive when Arakawa was visiting, he noticed Yoriko’s
“I’m not sure if it’s the
It sure sounds like this is one human who’s been truly caught in a net of
| A．fishing | B．training | C．diving | D．swimming |
| A．fast-developing | B．longstanding | C．open | D．regular |
| A．understand | B．miss | C．please | D．support |
| A．enjoy | B．do | C．make | D．change |
| A．human-looking | B．good-looking | C．strange-looking | D．natural-looking |
| A．admire | B．fear | C．perceive | D．know |
| A．mouth | B．back | C．tail | D．head |
| A．eager | B．happy | C．unwilling | D．unable |
| A．Initially | B．Thankfully | C．Unexpectedly | D．Basically |
| A．return | B．recovery | C．growth | D．arrival |
| A．preference | B．gift | C．nature | D．habit |
| A．trust | B．security | C．responsibility | D．fun |
| A．cheated | B．caught | C．freed | D．saved |
| A．unashamed | B．grateful | C．proud | D．regretful |
| A．peace | B．hope | C．love | D．joy |
6 . Phones, tablets and smart watches will be mostly banned (禁止) from classrooms in the Netherlands from Jan 1, 2024, Sky News reported.
The move is meant to limit distractions from social media, messaging and other sites. Devices will only be allowed if they are needed for the lesson, for medical reasons, or for people with disabilities.
“Scientific research showed that mobile phones are a disturbance (打扰). We need to protect students against this,” said Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands. “Students need to be able to concentrate and need to be given the opportunity to study well.” Dijkgraaf noted that schools could manage the implementation of the ban themselves. However, he added that laws would follow if the results are not good enough.
The United Nations also warned of the risks of smartphones in schools, the BBC reported.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said that too much mobile phone use was linked to reduced educational performance. And high levels of screen time have a bad effect on children’s mind, noted The Guardian.
UNESCO said its call for a smartphone ban sent a clear message that all digital technology including artificial intelligence should always be less important than a human-centered vision of education and can never replace face-to-face interaction with teachers. Based on its analysis of 200 education systems around the world, UNESCO estimate one in four countries and regions had laws or policies banning phones in schools. Besides the Netherlands, France introduced its policy in 2018, and Finland had a similar decision in June. In 2021, the Ministry of Education in China banned mobile phones, tablets, and other digital devices in the classroom, Xinhua reported.
According to the policy, if such devices are brought to school, then they should be stored together in the same place. Meanwhile, the use of the devices for teaching purposes should not be over 30 percent of the total teaching time.
“Our school has strict rules to ban phones in class. Students who break the rules may lose their merit student qualification or admissions eligibility (保送) for college,” Dai Ting, a 17-year-old student from Chengdu, told Teens.
1. Which of the following is true according to the text?| A．Only disabled students are allowed to use smartphones in classrooms. |
| B．Personal communication with teachers is preferred. |
| C．30% of the teachers use digital devices in class. |
| D．Any digital devices found in classrooms will be destroyed. |
| A．Carrying out. | B．Bringing out. | C．Making out. | D．Putting out. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Objective. | C．Negative. | D．Not mentioned. |
| A．Digital products totally banned in Netherlands |
| B．A ban on digital products in Netherlands schools |
| C．Digital products is a distraction in Netherlands schools |
| D．Digital products’ wide use in Netherlands schools |
7 . Lights, camera, action! Have you ever dreamed of being a director? At age 29, Di Di already has almost 10 years of directing experience. Through the media company he founded, he makes advertising and promotional videos, including for Tsinghua University, his alma mater (母校).
For Di, becoming a director is an adventure based on interest. Majoring in journalism, he got into directing by chance. “In 2016,I came up with an idea for Tsinghua’s admissions(招生)video but couldn’t find a director,” Di said. “so I decided to be the director myself! I ended up really enjoying the process of being creative and working with a team. That was when I knew I wanted to be a director.”
While many people think that directors are experts at art, Di found that directors are, in fact, experts at management. “Only one-third of my time is spent on set. The rest of the time, I’m doing lots of planning with my clients and co-workers.” he said. This planning process includes working out the video’s theme with the client, creating a play, bringing together the visuals and text content, and also managing logistics (后勤) like where to park the cars and how to bring electricity to the set.
“Filming is an industry of high costs. Even short advertisements cost a lot of money per day. Any incident could result in the failure of the project, such as bad weather or the main character not turning up. You have to be quick to respond to any problems,” Di said. Despite the pressure, Di gets great joy from making an impact through his works. In 2019, he made a film for Tsinghua, which tells the story of a group of first-generation college students-the first to go to university in their families. It was viewed more than 15 million times on social media and became a hot top 20 trending topic on Sina Weibo. Being a first-generation college student himself, Di felt very passionate about the video’s goal of inspiring students to use their education to make a better life for their families. One month before the national college entrance exam in2020, Di released a feature film encouraging high school students to keep working hard after the exam was pushed back by one month.
1. Which of the following is true?| A．Di was a student whose major was directing. | B．Di became a director by accident. |
| C．Little money is needed to make a film. | D．Most of Di’s time is spent on directing. |
| A．Di’s experience of directing. | B．What it takes to be a director. |
| C．How Di started to be a director. | D．Di’s views on being a director. |
| A．Planning the set. | B．Talking about the topic. |
| C．Putting visuals and texts together. | D．Preparing meals. |
| A．Weather decides how well the process goes. | B．Di’s video helps students go to university. |
| C．Di’s video makes a difference to some students. | D．Directing is a career with little pressure. |
8 . Pretending is fun. According to a recent study in the journal Child Development, kids are fond of this trick. Aiming to test the benefits of self-distancing on children’s perseverance (毅力), the researchers asked 180 kids, ages 4 or 6, to do a pretty boring computer task for 10 minutes. Although all the kids had to do was press a key when they saw a certain picture, they were told the task was important and that they had to be “good helpers,” They could take breaks to play a game on an iPad if they wanted.
The researchers divided the kids into three groups, and asked each to think about its performance on the given task from a certain perspective (视角): self-focused, third-person or model. Kids in the self-focused group asked themselves, “Am I working hard?” The third-person group reflected on the task by asking, “Is [the name of kid himself] working hard?” And the model group? Those children imagined they were either Batman, Bob the Builder or Dora the Explorer — well-known characters who are model hard workers — and were given props (小道具) to help them get in character. They were told to ask themselves, “Is [whatever character was chosen] working hard?”
The researchers found that the kids in both age groups who imagined themselves as a character spent a longer time on the task. The 6-year-olds who were asked to reflect in first person spent about 35 percent of the time on the task rather than on break, and the 4-year-olds just over 20 percent. But the 6-year-old children pretending to be fictional heroes spent 55 percent of their time working, while the 4-year-olds in this group spent 32 percent of their time on task.
The researchers believe that when the children used third-person or model characters, the kids distanced themselves from the boring task and tempting game, allowing them to gain more focus and self-control. “Taking an outsider’s perspective on one’s own behavior can improve in the face of entertaining distractions,” the researchers say.
1. What’s the purpose of the research?| A．To confirm. | B．To advertise. | C．To convince. | D．To examine. |
| A．They spent 20% more time on the task. |
| B．They asked 3 questions to themselves. |
| C．They imagined themselves as model characters. |
| D．They were the least focused group in the experiment. |
| A．Dull | B．Inspiring. | C．Attractive. | D．Difficult. |
| A．Pretending Is Fun for Kids | B．The Benefits of Self-distancing |
| C．The Way to Improve perseverance | D．Pretending Helps Kids Be More Focused |
9 . Wildlife conservation is the practice of protecting plant and animal species and their habitats. As part of the world’s ecosystems, wildlife provides balance and stability to nature’s processes. Wildlife conservation is aimed to ensure the survival of these species and educate people on living sustainably with other species.
The number of people has grown to more than eight billion today, and it continues to rapidly grow. The economic growth endangers the habitats and existence of various types of wildlife around the world, particularly animals and plants that may be displaced for land development, or used for food or other human purposes. This threat is at top of the list and means natural resources are being consumed faster than ever by the billions of people on the planet. The introduction of invasive species from other parts of the world is another threat to wildlife. Other threats include climate change, pollution, fishing and hunting.
International organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, Wildlife Conservation Society and the United Nations work to support global animal and habitat conservation on many different fronts. They work with the government to establish and protect public lands, like national parks and wildlife protection areas. They help write legislation(法规), such as the Endangered Species Act(ESA)of 1973 in the United States, to protect various species. They work with law enforcement to charge those with wildlife crimes. They also promote biodiversity to support the growing human population while preserving existing species and habitats.
National Geographic Explorers, like conservation biologists Camille Coudrat and Titus Adhola, are working to slow the extinction of global species and protect global biodiversity and habitats. Environmental filmmakers and photographers, like Thomas P. Peschak, are essential to conservation efforts as well, documenting and bringing attention to endangered wildlife all over the world.
1. Which is a goal of wildlife conservation according to the text?| A．To stop introducing invasive species. | B．To encourage harmonious coexistence. |
| C．To control the number of world people. | D．To increase the use of natural resources. |
| A．Hunting. | B．Human activity. | C．Pollution. | D．Climate change. |
| A．The activities of protection areas. |
| B．The importance of biodiversity promotion. |
| C．The relevant efforts of international organizations. |
| D．The great impact of wildlife crimes on ecosystems. |
| A．The necessity of legislation. |
| B．The wildlife conservation’s achievements. |
| C．The individuals’ contributions to the environment. |
| D．The statistics about the wildlife conservation efforts. |
10 . An extreme sport like BMX (Bicycle Motocross) may not be the first thing that comes to mind to help overcome a mental health condition. However, that is
As a child, Ducarroz spent every
The tale began when a BMX video on YouTube inspired her to try the extreme sport. She saved up for a bike. Then she began practicing
“The bike made me get out of the house, go to the skate park, and
The 26-year-old is now one of the world’s best female BMX freestylers. Ducarroz now has her
Though she still suffers occasional
“MindTricks started because of my own
| A．precisely | B．automatically | C．roughly | D．temporarily |
| A．expectant | B．boring | C．spare | D．urgent |
| A．slight | B．mild | C．occasional | D．severe |
| A．end | B．fulfill | C．measure | D．resist |
| A．put off | B．ate away | C．took over | D．slowed down |
| A．concepts | B．tricks | C．facilities | D．models |
| A．confidence | B．muscle | C．patience | D．fortune |
| A．likely | B．hesitant | C．ready | D．effortless |
| A．slowly | B．abruptly | C．swiftly | D．eventually |
| A．blocked | B．pushed | C．left | D．hooked |
| A．luck | B．sight | C．standard | D．training |
| A．panic | B．heart | C．delight | D．annoyance |
| A．carefully | B．privately | C．safely | D．humbly |
| A．appearance | B．medals | C．posts | D．choices |
| A．ashamed | B．reserved | C．collapsed | D．enlightened |
