1 . Ten years after dropping out, Brian a Ma this, a 30- year-old mother of two, went back to Wallace Community College.
She was recruited(录取) back to the
Two-year community colleges, which
The
Cortez Rawlins, a college freshman, said he was
The goal is for advisers to stick with students until they get a job after
A.family | B.company | C.stage | D.school |
A.hardly | B.definitely | C.secretly | D.kindly |
A.score | B.payment | C.dream | D.position |
A.serve | B.praise | C.refuse | D.protect |
A.replace able | B.common | C.relaxing | D.deciding |
A.community | B.market | C.program | D.tradition |
A.officials | B.advisers | C.winners | D.supporters |
A.fail | B.beat | C.join | D.lose |
A.solve | B.choose | C.pass | D.cause |
A.advancing | B.struggling | C.regretting | D.smiling |
A.give up | B.take back | C.work out | D.fight for |
A.graduation | B.examination | C.dinner | D.speech |
A.change | B.achieve | C.escape | D.respect |
A.small | B.creative | C.difficult | D.joyous |
A.amazing | B.public | C.scary | D.personal |
2 . World Cup soccer fans in Qatar cannot spend all of their time watching matches. So some of them
Ali Jaber AI Ali has been in Qatar for 15 years. He grew up loving camels and can
Before roads were built, camels were important to
A.bring out | B.head for | C.turn up | D.come across |
A.photographs | B.dishes | C.games | D.athletes |
A.normal | B.great | C.tough | D.extra |
A.Therefore | B.Besides | C.However | D.Instead |
A.beautify | B.qualify | C.carry | D.identify |
A.offer | B.increase | C.book | D.follow |
A.frightening | B.flooding | C.flashing | D.failing |
A.pressure | B.return | C.harvest | D.contribution |
A.culture | B.translation | C.sculpture | D.transportation |
A.extraordinarily | B.mainly | C.extremely | D.gently |
A.guess | B.imagine | C.tell | D.say |
A.recent | B.modem | C.rough | D.usual |
A.rest | B.digest | C.part | D.tap |
A.at the time | B.in a way | C.for a while | D.in a row |
A.protecting | B.protesting | C.preparing | D.proposing |
3 . An embroidered (刺绣的) butterfly made by Liang Zhongmei is so lifelike that it could easily be mistaken for the real thing. It looks as if it could flap its colorful wings and fly free from its white cloth background.
This 55-year-old embroiderer from Guizhou Province was born in a closed and underdeveloped village deep in the mountains, where most residents live by farming or as migrant workers. Losing her left arm at a very young age meant she could not feed herself, but she refused to become downhearted, and learned embroidery from her mother diligently and determinedly.
After producing several works featuring butterflies and goldfish, she won many national professional skills awards in 2011 among people with disabilities. In 2012, she opened her workshop, with embroiderers putting their designs on the shelves to sell to locals, but business was poor.
However, Liang’s career prospered after an online commercial order. Now, clothes, ties, paintings and handicrafts produced by the workshop are sold to consumers worldwide via e-commerce platforms, with profit reaching from 300,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan annually.
As the number of orders rose, Liang employed more workers, offering jobs to more than 100 female embroiderers in the neighborhood. She has also organized training courses for jobless women. “Thanks to the online buyers, our products sell well, which has changed our lives and brought us income and dignity,” Liang said.
Wang Danqing, an online seller, has worked with Liang’s team since 2015. She said, “Many young consumers prefer products with cultural elements and personal appeal. Only by combining embroidered designs with modern life can cultural heritage be seen, loved, protected and passed down.”
1. What do we know about Liang Zhongmei?A.She made a fortune when her business began. |
B.She became world-famous after winning awards. |
C.She was strong-willed while learning embroidery. |
D.She was brought up in a well-off environment. |
A.took off. | B.went wrong. |
C.held steady. | D.broke down. |
A.New designs need to be integrated into the products. |
B.Expanding the range of product sales online is crucial. |
C.It is Liang’s duty to pass on the embroidered technique. |
D.Products with personal elements are favored by the youth. |
A.Online shopping gains popularity in China. |
B.Young people take a great interest in embroidery. |
C.Liang became an expert in embroidery despite her disability. |
D.Disabled Liang achieved success by trading embroidery online. |
4 . One morning soon, you’ll get on your bike and ride from one end of America to the other, because the Great American Rail Trail is 53% complete, making a cross-country bike ride closer to a reality.
The idea of a bike trail(小路) made up of scenic paths, trails and former rail lines from Washington DC to Washington State has been 30 years in the making. Now, with more than 50% of the trail up and running, the project, run by the Rails to Trails in cooperation with local authorities, is building up, with hundreds of miles of trails in development now. Though not entirely complete, the rail trail has drawn people of all types.
Last August, Ryan Gardill and a colleague biked 350 miles from Pittsburgh to Washington DC. Their travels took them through some beautiful and historical parts of the American East. “The trail connected me to our revolutionary and industrial history. Most of the towns on the trail were once important to America.”
The major goal of the trail is to provide the American public with the opportunity to explore their beautiful country, without getting in their car. A secondary objective is to bring prosperity(繁荣) back to the small towns and cities that once prospered along the country’s now diminished rail system, according to National Geographic.
One of these is Muncie, Indiana, a city located on a former rail system and a part of the Rail Trail. The city is already seeing the economic benefits of the trail. “A large majority of our customers are local, but the Rail Trail could help grow tourism,” said Jason Allardt, owner of the historic Kirk’s Bike Shop.
This is the hope for many once-prosperous towns and cities all throughout America, though it may take nearly 20 years to get the entire trail up and running.
1. What has made the trail attractive to people?A.It’s a bike trail with good scenery. | B.It’s a rail line across the country. |
C.It offers good adventurous paths. | D.Its construction lasted 30 years. |
A.They were the basic part of the U.S. railways. |
B.They are mostly located in the mountains. |
C.They enjoy great popularity as destinations. |
D.They’re no longer important towns in America. |
A.Enlarged. | B.Protected. | C.Decreased. | D.Destroyed. |
A.The Trail will link its scenery to the outside. | B.The Trail will help its economic recovery. |
C.It has bike paths designed for local citizens. | D.The railway has brought about its prosperity. |
5 . How important has Internet become in our lives? The Pew Research Center conducted a survey to celebrate the Web’s 25th birthday. The researchers were greatly heartened by what they found.
“In 2006, only 14 percent of American adults used Internet. Today, it’s 87 percent,” said Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project. “It is what has impressed us the most.”
The survey also showed that 70 percent of the Internet users have been treated kindly or generously online, while 25 percent of respondents said they have been treated unkindly. More than half—56 percent—of users said they’ve seen an online community come together to help someone solve a problem. 25 percent said they’ve left an online group because members were too unpleasant.
When Pew asked questions about whether being online has enriched people’s relationships—or not—the results were very positive: 67 percent of Internet users said their online communication with family and friends has generally strengthened those relationships. Only 18 percent said it has generally weakened those relationships.
According to the survey, 53 percent of Internet users said Internet has become the hardest tech tool to give up. It is 15 percent higher than the result of a similar survey conducted in 2006. In fact, more people said they would have a harder time stopping using Internet than giving up TV. (These days, so much great television streams across the Internet that it makes sense.)
“In our survey, we have found that the Web makes a few people very unhappy. There’s strong evidence pointing to the fact that Internet users tend to compare their daily lives with the ‘highlight moments’ of their friends’ lives,” said Lee Rainie. “It’s really silly.”
1. Which is the most impressive result of the latest survey?A.Users’ dependence on Internet. | B.The fast growth of Internet users. |
C.The kindness of online communities. | D.The strengthened family relationships. |
A.15%. | B.38%. | C.53%. | D.68%. |
A.Online depression cannot be avoided. | B.Don’t show off in online communities. |
C.Don’t make unnecessary comparison. | D.Copy your friends’ wonderful lifestyles. |
A.Optimistic. | B.Worried. | C.Unconcerned. | D.Doubtful. |
6 . Music is not just a set of sounds and rhythms. Its influence on brain is much deeper than any other human experience. Keep on reading to know all these amazing power of music.
A recent study suggests that preterm (早产的) babies appear to experience less pain and feed more when listening to music. Experts led by Dr. Manoj Kumar of the University of Alberta,Canada,found that music had a beneficial effect on reducing pain for preterm babies experiencing painful medical tests. It also appeared to benefit full-term babies during operations.
Many people experiencing brain damage have speech and movement-related problems. Music can help recover from brain injuries. As a different and effective treatment, doctors often advise such patients to listen to good music to improve the parts of the brain responsible for these two functions. When people with neurological (神经的) disorders hear a musical beat, it helps them to regain a balanced walk.
Though music cannot make deafness disappear, it really can stave off the loss of hearing. There was an experiment involving 163 people where 74 were musicians. Participants were asked to pass some listening tests. Musicians heard the sounds better than non-musicians, and this difference gets clearer with age. This means that a 70-year-old musician hears better than a 50-year-old non-musician, even in a noisy environment.
Besides, music mends a broken heart. It is not about a thrown-away love, but about a heart attack. The matter is that music can help people recover from a heart attack or heart operation by reducing blood pressure, slowing down the heartbeat rate, and reducing anxiety. Listening to the quality music produces positive emotions, improves the movement of blood, and expands blood vessels, thus, promoting quick recovery of the whole cardiovascular (心血管的) system.
1. How does music affect preterm babies?A.It helps develop their potential in music. |
B.It helps reduce their pain. |
C.It helps improve their hearing systems. |
D.It helps repair their neurological systems. |
A.Cause. | B.Increase. |
C.Prevent. | D.Expand. |
A.It has a positive effect on human body systems’ work. |
B.It can encourage people to do sports. |
C.It helps make a person outgoing. |
D.It helps patients recover more quickly than medicine does. |
A.People Who Can Benefit From music. |
B.The Best Time to Listen to Music. |
C.The Way to choose Quality Music. |
D.How Music Affects Our Mind and Body. |
7 . Scientists have shown that humans seem to have an ability to understand the signs of apes (大猩猩). The result is a little surprising, since most people haven’t spent much time at all with apes.
Apes use about 80 different gestures (手势) to show what they mean. Scientists have learned the meanings of these gestures by studying them for years. Scientists have studied how apes use gestures. But until now, no one had studied whether humans could understand the gestures of apes. Researchers Graham and Catherine at the University of St. Andrews in Britain decided to test this idea.
They created a simple game for people to play online. People watched short videos of apes making a gesture. Then they had to choose the correct meaning of the gesture out of four possible answers. For the videos, the researchers chose 10 of the most common ape gestures. Thousands of people played the game.
The researchers found that people could choose the correct meaning of the gestures over 50% of the time. For some of the gestures, people chose the correct meaning about 80% of the time. One example of this was the gesture of wiping the mouth, which people correctly guessed to mean “give me that food”.
Humans and other apes all developed from an earlier kind of ape that lived long ago. One possibility is that the body language of these gestures has been passed down from this shared ancestor. “If humans understand them, then it seems like a great ape gesture ability that would have been used by our last common ancestors,” Dr. Graham said.
Another possibility is that the gestures are a natural result of humans and apes sharing similar body shapes and needing to communicate similar ideas. The researchers say that they need to study how humans are able to understand the gestures of apes. They’re also curious about how humans understand other animals, like dogs.
1. What did Graham and Catherine want to find out?A.Whether humans understand apes’ gestures. | B.What gestures apes use in communication. |
C.How apes’ gestures differ from humans. | D.Why humans can learn from apes’ gestures. |
A.By sending out questions online. | B.By doing interviews in the street. |
C.By making online guessing games. | D.By starting a video-making contest. |
A.Humans and apes share similar body shapes and gestures. |
B.It may be an ability passed on from our last common ancestors. |
C.Humans have a born ability to understand animal gestures. |
D.Apes and other animals can communicate similar ideas. |
A.Wide Interest in Understanding Ape Gestures |
B.An Online Game to Know Ape Communication |
C.An Answer to the Puzzles of Ape Communication |
D.Study Into Human Understanding of Ape Gestures |
8 . The student arrived early, sat front and center, and stood out in my classroom in more ways than one. I’d say that he was about 40 years older than his classmates in my undergraduate communications class. He eagerly jumped into class discussions, with his humor and wisdom of experience. And he was always respectful of the other students’ perspectives, as if each of them were a teacher. Jerry Valencia walked in with a smile—and he left with one too.
“These students gave me the confidence that I didn’t need to feel bad about my age,” Valencia says.
One day, I spotted Valencia on campus. He said he would have to stop taking classes that semester and reapply for next year. By then, he hoped to have earned enough money and have his student-loan papers in order. He asked seriously whether he could still sit in on my communications class.
Sure, I said. But he wouldn’t get any credit.
No problem, he said.
Soon there he was again, back at his old desk, jumping into our discussions on how to find and tell stories in Los Angeles—a 63-year-old man with as much energy and curiosity as any of the youngsters in class.
A lot of Valencia’s classmates apparently knew he couldn’t afford that semester’s tuition but was still doing the homework. “Here he is, willingly taking a class for the delight of it and benefit of learning,”says Jessica Espinosa, a 25-year-old junior. Afterward, I overheard Valencia wanted to stay in school until he earned a master’s degree, but it had taken him 12 years to finish community college, so he had a long way to go.
There is something splendidly unreasonable about Valencia’s determination to get a four-year degree and then a master’s. At his current pace, he’ll be 90 when he finally hangs all that paper on the wall. But that doesn’t seem especially relevant. He’s found all the youthful energy and academic opportunity stimulating. Valencia’s grade in my class this semester will not show up on his transcripts(成绩单). But I’m giving him an A—and in the most important ways, it counts.
1. What made Valencia different from his classmates?A.He was respectful to the teacher. |
B.He activated the class atmosphere. |
C.He was eager to learn despite his age. |
D.He often put forward different opinions. |
A.He treasured the chance of learning. |
B.He wished to show his determination. |
C.He needed the credits to further his study. |
D.He desired to have an A on his transcripts. |
A.Modest and independent. | B.Energetic and generous. |
C.Enthusiastic and motivated. | D.Considerate and intelligent. |
A.No pains, no gains. | B.It is never too old to learn. |
C.Strike the iron while it is hot. | D.Where there is life, there is hope. |
9 . Some students get so nervous before a test. They do poorly even if they know the material. Sian Beilock, a professor at the University of Chicago in Illinois, has studied these highly anxious test-takers. The students start worrying about the results. And when they worry, it actually uses up attention and memory resources (资源).
Professor Beilock and another researcher, Gerardo Ramirez, have developed a possible solution. Just before an exam, highly anxious test-takers spend ten minutes writing about their worries about the test.
The researchers tested the idea on a group of twenty anxious college students. They gave them two short maths tests. After the first one, they asked the students to either sit quietly or write about their feelings about the upcoming second test.
Professor Beilock says those who sat quietly scored an average of 12% worse on the second test. But the students who had written about their fears improved their performance by an average of 5%. Next, the researchers used younger students in a biology class. They told them before final exams either to write about their feelings or to think about things unrelated to the test. Professor Beilock says highly anxious students who did the writing got an average grade of B+, compared to a B- for those who did not.
“What we showed is that for students who are highly test-anxious, who’d done our writing intervention (干预), all of a sudden there was no relationship between test anxiety and performance. They were performing just as well as their classmates who don’t normally get nervous in these tests.”
But what if students do not have a chance to write about their fears immediately before an exam? Professor Beilock says students can try it themselves at home or in the library and still improve their performance.
1. What may the students start worrying about before an exam?A.Whether they can pass the exams. |
B.What other students do during the test. |
C.Whether they have remembered the materials. |
D.What kind of problems they will meet on the test paper. |
A.Asking the students to think nothing of the test. |
B.Asking the students to focus on the test. |
C.Asking the students to sit quietly before the test. |
D.Asking the students to write about their worries before the test. |
A.became less nervous before the test. |
B.were better at controlling their feelings. |
C.did worse than those who wrote about their feelings. |
D.did better than those who took two tests. |
A.Writing about worries before an exam can work a bit. |
B.Studying in the library can improve students’ performance. |
C.Students can only write about worries right before an exam. |
D.It doesn’t matter where to write about worries before an exam. |
10 . Elephant Transit Home
In both Africa and Asia elephants are being threatened by changes in their natural habitats (栖息地). People are moving into the elephants’ habitats and endangering their survival. In the country of Sri Lanka, there is one place where elephants are not only protected but also respected. It is called the Elephant Transit Home (ETH).
Set up in 1995, the ETH aims to protect and nurture baby elephants that are found injured or living without their mothers in the wild. Every year about 30 baby elephants in Sri Lanka need help. As many as possible are brought to the ETH. There they are given food, shelter, and medical care. Most importantly, they are given the chance to be with other elephants and become part of a herd (象群).
A day at the ETH begins early in the morning when the baby elephants are given their first feeding of milk. During the day, each baby will drink an average of 13 gallons of milk. Older elephants are fed mostly coconut leaves and other native plants. Then the elephants are allowed to walk around, eating the grass and forming a herd. The cost of caring for the baby elephants is high. The ETH spends about $125,000 each year on powdered milk for the baby elephants.
At the ETH, workers try to reduce human connection with the elephants. They also try to increase bonds (联系) between the elephants. It usually takes three years for a baby elephant to be set free into its natural habitat. The elephants are sent back to the wild together with other orphans with whom they have bonded. This program helps them return to the wild as members of a herd that will communicate with each other and take care of each other.
The ETH is considered one of the best animal protection sites in the world. Not only are the elephants cared for, they are treated with respect. Most importantly, they go back to live in the wild, where they belong.
1. What does the underlined word “nurture” in Paragraph 2 mean?A.Set free. | B.Relate to. | C.Focus on. | D.Care for. |
A.It changes elephants’ habitats for the better. |
B.It receives about $125,000 each year. |
C.It helps to keep baby elephants safe. |
D.It protects 30 elephants every year. |
A.To study them better in a natural environment. |
B.To help them make it in the wild as a herd. |
C.To provide them with more living space. |
D.To train them to stay away from hunters. |
A.To introduce an animal protection site. |
B.To show the ways of wildlife protection. |
C.To explain the threat baby elephants face. |
D.To persuade the readers to protect elephants. |