1 . Becoming a real runner
I would never use the word “athletic” to describe myself. To me, athletes are people who really enjoy working out. I remember crying in middle school when I had to run a mile during gym class. I huffed and puffed as I jogged. As I grew up, I would go to the gym, but I never enjoyed working out. That, I thought, was for real runners.
In June 2017, my friend sent me an email that would forever change my attitude towards running. He was training for a 200-mile relay (接力赛) and wanted me to be on his team. I would run three legs between four and six miles each over the course of two days. Figuring that I would never again have the chance to work with some top runners, I immediately agreed, and started running outside to prepare.
That first run was hard. I purposefully avoided Central Park in order to stay away from real runners. After a few blocks, I was already winded, and ran the rest of the way home. I called my mom, choked up, to say I had no hope at all of running this relay. But she encouraged me to keep at it, so I didn't quit. I went from running four miles a week to eight within one month before my advanced training began.
I was frightened going into the first training session with the team as everyone else was super “athletic”. We ran for five miles, and I was significantly slower. However, my teammates were so supportive that I felt the runner’s high, which I had never believed existed.
One day, about two weeks into training, my ankle gave out while I was running in Central Park. I was diagnosed with a stress fracture (应力性骨折). The doctor told me to stop running for two months. It took me a while to face the fact that I was out of the race. My doctor told me that he too had once been struck down with a stress fracture, and the following year, he beat his best running time in a half-marathon. That brought me hope.
I made it through the next two months by picturing myself running again. Just yesterday, for the first time since that fateful day, I took my outdoor run with my physical therapist. I mentioned that I might run a half-marathon the next year. Now I wake up excited for the days I get to run. Maybe I am a “real runner” after all.
1. According to the article, when did the author start to feel passion for running?| A．After she got into the habit of working out. |
| B．After she got the courage to run outdoors on her own. |
| C．After she ran with some top runners and got their encouragement. |
| D．After she broke her ankle in training and stayed in bed for two months. |
| A．helpful advice. |
| B．immediate treatment. |
| C．experience in the marathon. |
| D．personal experience with an injury. |
| A．She didn’t take the relay seriously. |
| B．She had a strict and overprotective mother. |
| C．She felt disappointed about withdrawing from the race. |
| D．She would have expected to run a half-marathon if she had won the race. |
| A．urge readers to exercise regularly. |
| B．share with readers the fun of running. |
| C．warn readers to be careful about running. |
| D．encourage readers to pursue their hobbies. |
2 . Eat like a king in the morning, a prince at noon, and a peasant at night. This saying is all about the importance of breakfast. And now scientists can tell us just why it’s so important. According to a study carried out at Imperial College London, UK, skipping the first meal of the day not only means you eat more at lunch, but also that your brain wants to find more unhealthy foods.
The study suggests that there is a special part of our brain called the orbitofrontal cortex, which plays an important part in making choices about what we eat. It is used for identifying the taste of food, especially when skipping breakfast. It is more likely to target high-calorie foods when you’re on an empty stomach.
Scientists did an experiment on this. Dr Tony Goldstone from Imperial College London, scanned the brains of 21 men and women, around the age of 25. On the first day, these people skipped breakfast before the scans. On the second day, they had cereal, bread and jam as breakfast. After the scan on both days, they had their lunch.
When the volunteers had skipped breakfast, they ate around 20 percent more at lunch, compared with days when they had eaten breakfast. Their brain scans also showed the orbitofrontal cortex was especially responsive to high-calorie foods. “We believe that bit identifies the value of foods — how pleasant, how delicious something is,” Goldstone told The Guardian.
1. From Paragraph 1, we learn that ________.| A．scientists found out why eating breakfast is important |
| B．it’s easy to lose weight without breakfast |
| C．there’s no need to have good food for supper |
| D．eating breakfast makes your brain smarter |
①The volunteers skipped breakfast. ②The volunteers had lunch.
③The volunteers had a brain scan.
| A．①②③ | B．③②① | C．①③② | D．③①② |
| A．of the usual breakfast | B．more than the usual breakfast |
| C．of the usual lunch | D．more than the usual lunch |
| A．Breakfast still most important | B．Three meals a day |
| C．Experiments on breakfast | D．Experiments on lunch |
3 . Having worked for more than a decade in finance in the oil industry in Canada, Tori Fahey found herself wanting more from life. But it wasn't through desperation that her circumstances changed: “I didn't get fed up and storm off, nothing like that; it was curiosity about other interests and wanting to experience something new.”
Fahey left her job and completed an MBA before setting up a move to New York to begin a degree. However, the opportunity of an open year between the MBA and the degree came up, and as a keen touring cyclist, Fahey realised that a much dreamed-about adventure was now becoming a possibility: "The ride in Africa had been on my fantasy list. It was a moment when I realised that I could do anything, so I should."
Fahey rode across Africa, a 7,500-mile trip that took four months. The whole experience had a life-changing impact. Fahey said: “Bicycles provide a literal freedom. You don't allow yourself to feel like that in everyday life because there are so many distractions. But when you' re out on the bike and there's nothing else, you' re really free to experience what life is.”
Post-degree, Fahey worked on projects with the UNDP(United Nations Development Project) in Montenegro with the aim of bringing investment to rural communities.
It was while working on these projects that the seeds were sown for the next new investment. “It was through my trip across Africa that I discovered pannier and rack systems inconvenient and I was never going to use them again.” Little did she know this would lead her to start up her own company.
In 2013, Apidura was born, producing storage solutions for people looking to travel the world by bike, race across continents and carry all they need to do so. It's now a successful global brand, but Fahey remains reflective about what else the company can do for people.
1. Why did Fahey leave her job in Canada?| A．She was bored with the job. | B．She was disappointed with life. |
| C．She wanted to add new dimensions to her life. | D．She found it hard to adjust to the circumstances. |
| A．Demanding. | B．Liberating. | C．Eventful. | D．Dangerous. |
| A．To encourage bicycle traveling. | B．To make her investment profitable. |
| C．To help cyclists carry traveling stuff. | D．To increase the pleasure of riding bikes. |
| A．A tough path to fame. | B．An adventure across Africa. |
| C．The benefits of green travelling. | D．The story behind the birth of Apidura. |
4 . Most teenagers are still trying to find their passion and purposes in life. However, not Gitanjali Rao. The 15-year-old girl has been coming up with innovative solutions to worldwide problems since she was ten. It is, therefore, not surprising that the teenager has won the honor of “America's Top Young Scientist”.
In the third grade, Rao was inspired to build a device after witnessing the shocking story unfold in Flint, Michigan, where cost-cutting measures led to the use of a polluted river as the city's primary water supply and incredibly high levels of lead made their way into people's drinking water.
After two months' research, Rao designed a small and portable device that used sensors to instantly detect lead in water. Called Tethys, after the Greek Goddess(女神) of freshwater, it attaches to a cellphone and informs the residents via an app if their drinking water contains lead. The design earned her the 3M Young Scientist Challenge in 2017. She is currently working with scientists and medical professionals to test Tethys' potential and hopes the device will be ready for commercial use by 2022.
Later, Rao took on another social issue-drug addiction. Her app, called Epione, which won the Health Pillar Prize at the TCS Ignite Innovation Student Challenge in May 2019, is designed to catch drug addiction in young adults before it's too late.
More recently, the teenager has developed an app named Kindly, which uses artificial intelligence technology to detect possible signs of cyberbullying(网上欺凌). When users type in a word or phrase, Kindly is able to pick it up if it's bullying, and then it gives the option to edit it or send it the way it is. It gives them the chance to rethink what they are saying so that they know what to do next time.
All kinds of awesome, Gitanjali Rao has been selected from 5,000 equally impressive nominees(被提名人) for TIME Magazine's first-ever “Kid of the Year”.
1. What gave Rao the idea of inventing the device Tethys?| A．The incident of lead pollution. |
| B．The issue with drug addiction. |
| C．The shortage of water supplies. |
| D．The high cost of purifying water. |
| A．It'll remove metal from water. |
| B．It'll make it to market soon. |
| C．It'll win her a higher prize. |
| D．It'll be fitted to cellphones. |
| A．Receive pre-warning signals of threat. |
| B．Input words into a computer automatically. |
| C．Choose from secure social networking sites. |
| D．Weigh their words before posting them online. |
| A．Ambitious and humble. | B．Optimistic and adventurous. |
| C．Talkative and outstanding. | D．Creative and productive. |
5 . Ever wonder how your brain works when making decisions bigger than medium versus spicy salsa, like buying a car or accepting a job offer? Researchers from the University of Dundee in Scotland conducted a study that clarifies why you may want to have a small bite before making that big decision.
Benjamin Vincent from the University of Dundee’s Psychology department and his co-author Jordan Skyrnka tested 50 people two times: once when they followed their normal eating patterns and once when they did not eat anything during the day. Using three different types of rewards (food, money, and song downloads), the team discovered when presented with the choice of receiving the reward now versus double the award at some point in the future, participants would usually volunteer to wait for 35 days to earn a larger bounty, but when they were hungry, they said they would only wait three days.
“We wanted to know whether being in a state of hunger had a specific effect on how you make decisions only relating to food or if it had broader effects, and this research suggests decision-making gets more present-focused when people are hungry,” Vincent said in a story about the study on the university’s website. “You would predict that hunger would impact people’s preferences relating to food, but it is not yet clear why people get more present-focused for completely unrelated rewards. Hunger is so common that it is important to understand the non-obvious ways in which our preferences and decisions may be affected by it,” he said.
In an earlier study of the subject by a team at Cambridge University in England, the researchers noted that serotonin plays a major role in the decision-making process. “Since the raw material for making serotonin—an amino acid called tryptophan — only comes from diet, levels of the chemical decline between meals,” reports a piece in the Telegraph about the study. “This can lead to aggressiveness and impulsiveness,” say the team.
1. How did Benjamin Vincent and Jordan Skyrnka carry out their research?| A．By analyzing reasons. | B．By making comparison. |
| C．By giving examples. | D．By filling questionnaires. |
| A．bonus. | B．quantity. | C．income. | D．fortune. |
| A．It’s common to make a wrong decision if you are hungry. |
| B．Make sure you are not hungry before making a big decision. |
| C．The more hungry you are, the quicker you will make a decision. |
| D．Being hungry drives you to make a decision connected with food. |
| A．What should be eaten to make a wise man. |
| B．How can we get enough serotonin from our diet. |
| C．What other factors will influence one’s decision-making. |
| D．How does a chemical function in the course of making a decision. |
6 . Places You Can Volunteer in L. A.
There are many ways you can help others during the holiday season. Here are our picks of volunteer opportunities.
Big Sunday
Big Sunday is holding its ninth BIG Stuffing Event on June 22, with the goal of volunteers' creating at least 2,000 bags of food to deliver to needy people. The bags will be turned in at Big Sunday's office on June 23, where volunteers will add fruits and then distribute (分发)them the next day.
Address: 6111 Melrose Ave
Phone: (323)549-9944
Hollywood Food Coalition
Hollywood Food Coalition is partnering with Gobble Gobble Give to give away food boxes, health care kits and other necessities. Volunteers are needed to hand them out. You can also give away things such as pies, dinner rolls and milk for the meals.
Address: 5939 Hollywood Blvd
Phone: (323) 462-2032
Los Angeles Mission
Los Angeles Mission has special events, including packing food boxes for homeless people on June 20 and distributing those boxes on June 25. It serves three meals every day at its downtown location, and needs five volunteers per shift(轮班)--4 ： 30 a. m. to 8 ： 30 a. m. ，8 ： 30 a. m. to noon and 12-30 p. m. to 4 : 30 p. m.
Address ： 303 E 5th St
Phone： (213)629-1227
Union Rescue Mission
Union Rescue Mission needs volunteers to help prepare food for its June 21 celebration and helpers to clean up after the June 21 event. Register to volunteer online and reserve days and locations where you want to help.
Address: 545 S San Pedro St
Phone: (213)347-6300
1. When will Big Sunday give away their food bags?| A．On June 25. | B．On June 24. |
| C．On June 23. | D．On June 22. |
| A．Prepare food. | B．Pack up food. |
| C．Distribute food. | D．Add fruits to food bags. |
| A．(213)629-1227. | B．(323)549-9944. |
| C．(323)462-2032. | D．(213)347-6300. |
7 . Kleon Papadimitriou, a Greek student, had been stuck in Scotland, where he studies, with no way to return to Athens while flights were shut down. So he decided to take a bike.
He began researching what it would take to make the trip on two wheels. He once competed in a race in 2019 and was briefly trained for several weeks — but that was about all the biking experience he carried with him.
Initially, he thought the idea was more of a “dream”— an absolutely hard long journey. But soon he began purchasing the equipment he'd need. He purchased a bike, and told the news to his parents and friends.
Papadimiriou travelled anywhere between 35 and 75 miles per day, crossing initially through England and then onto the Netherlands. He biked along the Rhine in Germany for several days, passed through Austria and cycled down along the eastern coast of Italy before he took a boat to the Greek port of Patras.
Throughout his trip, he set up camp in fields and forests. He spent the last few moments of each day writing down his progress, tracking the next day's path and checking in with family and friends.
“It's just now dawning on me how big of an achievement this was.” Papadimitriou says of his 48-day journey. “And I did learn a lot of things about myself, about my limits, my strengths and my weaknesses. I really hope that the trip can inspire at least one more person to go out of their comfort zone and try something new, something big.”
1. What can we infer about Kleon Papadimitriou?| A．He was forced to leave for Scotland on bike. | B．He had a few biking experience before. |
| C．He was a famous cyclist in his hometown. | D．He cycled to the Greek port of Patras. |
| A．Because it seemed challenging to complete the journey. |
| B．Because he had no riding experience at all before. |
| C．Because his parents and friends didn't support his plan. |
| D．Because purchasing the equipment would cost too much. |
| A．2. | B．4. | C．6. | D．8. |
| A．Kleon Papadimitriou hardly communicated with his friends during the trip. |
| B．It took Kleon Papadimitriou 48 days to return to Greece. |
| C．Kleon Papadimitriou learned a lot of things about nature from the trip. |
| D．Many people have been inspired by Kleon Papadimiriou's story. |
8 . A PhD student in Michigan defended her paper while wearing a skirt made of rejection letters she received while studying. 29-year-old Caitlin Kirby printed out 17 of her rejection letters — from scholarships, academic journals, and conferences — then folded each one into a fan. She connected them in rows, and by the end she designed the item into a skirt and wore it.
She said that the idea behind her unique clothing item came out of a desire to normalize rejection and take pride in overcoming it. "The whole process of revisiting those old letters and making that skirt sort of reminded me that you have to apply to a lot of things to succeed," she said. "A natural part of the process is to get rejected along the way."
Caitlin's adviser, Julie Libarkin, a professor of earth and environmental science at Michigan State University, also encourages the acceptance of failure in her students. Libarkin believes it's important for students to get into habit of applying for things, and to get used to the feeling of rejection, so she encourages them to chase after any opportunity that comes their way. If a student doesn't get the grant or the spot in the academic journal, that's okay. They'll still have learned something in the process.
As for Caitlin? Her rejections over the years have led to great things: Since her doctorate, she's won a scholarship to do further research on urban agriculture in Germany.
Currently, she's a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As for what the future holds? "I'm prepared to receive a few more rejection letters along the way," she joked heartily, "Maybe I'll make a longer skirt."
1. What can we learn about Caitlin Kirby's rejection letters?| A．She received 17 rejections in total. |
| B．29 of her rejections were from journals. |
| C．The rejections were connected into a fan. |
| D．She made some rejection letters into a skirt. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Ambiguous. |
| C．Skeptical. | D．Opposed. |
| A．Creative and considerate. | B．Caring and determined. |
| C．Optimistic and humorous. | D．Generous and intelligent. |
| A．Hard work pays off. |
| B．Education is the entrance to success. |
| C．Self-respect earns more respect. |
| D．One needs to normalize failures. |
9 . Chinese food is considered to be the biggest cultural exchange between China and other countries. The following dishes are each special in their own way.
Peking Duck
This famous dish can be found at restaurants all around Beijing. High class restaurants take this dish so seriously that some even have their own duck farms and use only a special kind of duck for their specific Peking Duck dish. Peking Duck is famous for its, thin skin, and its delicious meat, which is highly popular among all foreigners, including foreign celebrities and leaders.
Won Ton Soup
Won Ton Soup, called "Hun Dun" in Chinese, is a highly welcoming dish in China. Since China is a country of many nationalities and different cultures, each region has their own shapes for won tons. Won tons are usually boiled and served in soup, but they can also be deep- fried.
Dumplings
During the Spring Festival, Chinese families will get together and have dumpling parties. It is said that the dish was invented by Zhang Zhongjing, one of the finest Chinese physicians in history. Dumplings have a 1,800-year-long history, which is why it is one of the most popular traditional foods in China and extremely popular in Western countries. They may be cooked by boiling, steaming, simmering, frying or baking.
Egg-fried Rice
Firstly from China's ancient western regions, egg-fried rice has now become part of Chinese people's daily food. Famous for its pleasant smells, soft taste and handsome appearance, one can easily find this popular dish anywhere in China, from high class hotels to family-run restaurants on the street. While it is fairly easy to make, there are some points that should be kept in mind: use left-over rice rather than newly cooked rice for better taste. Additionally, before frying, the rice should be churned up.
1. Which of the following has its own farm?'| A．Restaurants serving Won Ton Soup. |
| B．Restaurants, serving Peking Duck. |
| C．Restaurants serving dumplings. |
| D．Restaurants serving Egg-fried Rice. |
| A．The long history. | B．The different shapes. |
| C．The special taste. | D．The unique style of cooking, |
| A．It tastes better if cooked with newly made rice. |
| B．It first appeared in the northern part of China. |
| C．It is served in restaurants of different classes. |
| D．It was invented by an ancient Chinese physician. |
10 . Florence, a 17-year-old senior student in High School, was busy ,composing(编曲)a song. She plans to release an album(唱片)with three other music lovers whom she met at the 2016 Campus Singing Competition. Edward, 18, is another one of the four students to make their own album. Actually, he was the one who came up with this fun idea in the first place.
"Everyone loves music. Being a good way to express our feelings and emotions, music can tell something about who we are and our experience of the world. We hope we can use our music to touch our peers(同龄人)." Edward said.
The album includes 15 songs across three themes - love, campus life, and youth, with pop and electronic music styles. The inspiration for the songs came from the students' lives. Take the song Sea of Tranquility for example - it was written by Edward during a flight back to Chengdu after he took part in the China High School Biology Olympiad in summer. "The sky is clear and the ground looks small from the plane. This scene makes me feel calm and peaceful." Edward explained.
The songs were created one by one with the efforts of the four writers. But a challenge soon appeared. The students found that they didn't have enough money to produce the album. So to cut down their budget, they used an iPad and headphones to record the songs in an empty classroom on the weekend.
Apart from reducing their cost, they also tried to raise money through crowd funding on the internet. They raised more than 7,000 dollars before the album was released in October. "Thanks to all the supporters, we'll keep working on our own music." Edward said.
1. Why did they make the album?| A．To earn money. | B．To be famous. |
| C．To influence young people. | D．To make friends. |
| A．Upset. | B．Stubborn. |
| C．Generous. | D．Determined. |
| A．Short of money. | B．Disagreement on the theme. |
| C．Stress from teachers. | D．Poor abilities on making music. |
| A．Album Collections | B．Student Musicians |
| C．Theme Music | D．School Life |
