1 . Wang Pufang is an inheritor of the technique for making handmade colorful lanterns. She has devoted her whole life to
Wang also makes lanterns for new
Wang explained that lanterns represent her
In order to make more people
| A．looking for | B．working over | C．passing down | D．thinking about |
| A．regulation | B．adjustment | C．absence | D．technique |
| A．adult | B．child | C．artist | D．tutor |
| A．produced | B．advocated | C．bought | D．brought |
| A．warns | B．causes | C．marks | D．stresses |
| A．lighted | B．completed | C．presented | D．exchanged |
| A．clients | B．couples | C．villagers | D．visitors |
| A．wish | B．reward | C．honour | D．privilege |
| A．unique | B．worthwhile | C．appropriate | D．significant |
| A．children’s | B．colleagues’ | C．generation’s | D．acquaintances’ |
| A．elderly | B．friendly | C．familiar | D．local |
| A．miserable | B．meaningless | C．challenging | D．interesting |
| A．recorded | B．excluded | C．mentioned | D．explained |
| A．pay for | B．learn about | C．focus on | D．set up |
| A．origin | B．story | C．history | D．attraction |
2 . The dog Pooch Chi Chi managed to open the door and let a fire crew in after his owner collapsed on the kitchen floor.
Responders were searching for another entrance when they heard a “click” as the dog managed to unlock the door to let them in. They found the man, named only as Mr Green, collapsed on the floor in the kitchen as the fire took hold on the hob. Firefighters then swiftly put out the fire and carried out first aid until paramedics (急救医士) arrived.
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service said “a potential disaster” was avoided with help from the dog. They said they were called to the scene after a smoke detector was activated and a Careline alarm was sounded.
Mr Green initially answered the call but operator at Careline lost communication. Within six minutes, the crew was on scene and investigating. They could hear the alarm but were unable to establish contact with the man inside. With curtains drawn, the crew could not see inside but could hear a dog barking. They tried the front door, but it wouldn’t open. As the crew looked for another entrance, they heard a “click” and the front door opened. The crew went inside to find a man collapsed on the floor in the kitchen when a fire was beginning to take hold on the cooker. They contacted the ambulance service, put out the fire and allowed fresh air in. Firefighters then carried out first aid and established the man until paramedics arrived. It wasn’t until later in the incident that they discovered that Chi Chi had managed to open the front door and let the crew inside.
Ian Bolton, Crew Manager for Home and Partnerships at Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service added: “Having monitored diction in people’s homes means the fire service are only minutes away from providing lifesaving assistance. This is a real success story and highlights the importance of Careline and the fire service. Careline’s system, combined with the speed of our crews getting to the incident, saved Mr Green’s life. The cherry on the cake, however, was Chi Chi letting the crews in before they had to force entry to the property.”
1. How did the firefighters get into the kitchen?| A．They broke the door. | B．They unlocked the door. |
| C．The dog opened the door. | D．They found another entrance. |
| A．The operator lost his senses. | B．The system broke down accidentally. |
| C．The man fell down and couldn’t move. | D．The crew couldn’t see inside. |
| A．The dog unlocking the door. |
| B．The use of the smoke detector. |
| C．The swift reaction of Mr. Green. |
| D．The joint work of Careline and the fire service. |
| A．Discouraging. | B．Competent. |
| C．Considerate. | D．Energetic. |
3 . It’s a beautiful fall day. Before we camp near the river, the children dashed along the water’s edge, leaping off the bank into the slow current, pushing through the mud. The scene is happily familiar. We’ve been coming to rivers since our daughters were babies. In the beginning we went to the wilderness because my husband and I loved it and selfishly wanted them to love it, too. Now we go because we can’t live without it.
According to a report released in February, teenagers in the U.S. are in the midst of an alarming mental health crisis. A survey conducted in fall 2021 found that 30% of teen girls have seriously considered suicide, a jump of 60% in the past decade. Boys are struggling, too. The CDC report calls for greater school involvement in supporting at-risk kids, better access to mental-health services and higher standards for health education. As the mother of two teenage girls, these statistics are terrifying. What can we as parents do?
For our family, the answer has always been nature. After they started school, wilderness trips became our way of disconnecting from our digitized lives, and reconnecting with each other ourselves and the natural world. What began as a family experiment was now a cornerstone in our parenting philosophy: a way of raising healthy, curious, kind, resilient (对困境有承受力的) kids in an increasingly messy world.
I’ve seen firsthand how even a few nights out a few times a year have taught our daughter valuable life skills like cooperation, compassion, resilience, problem-solving and adaptability, which is relevant to everything we do in life.
Will our strategy work? We’re still in the thick of the experiment, so it’s too soon to tell. All we can do is pay attention, keep talking, keep trying and keep going.
1. What might be the initial reason for the couple to take their daughters to nature?| A．They loved going to the wilderness. |
| B．Their daughters liked camping. |
| C．It was a beautiful day for an outing. |
| D．It started as a family experiment. |
| A．Americans are suffering mental crisis. |
| B．Girls tend to be more helpless than boys. |
| C．The findings have aroused social concern. |
| D．No mental-health services could be accessed. |
| A．Why she loves taking her daughters to the wild. |
| B．What they experience in the outdoor adventures. |
| C．How the daughters’ growth has been transformed. |
| D．How the daughters balance schooling and recreation. |
| A．How to play in the wild. | B．How to be positive. |
| C．How to conquer nature. | D．How to see connections. |
4 . Digging out potato tubers (茎块) is one of the greatest rewards gardens have to offer. Children in particular are surprised at seeing these tubers that almost magically become chips, mash (泥) or baked potatoes.
Happily, potatoes are very easy to grow. Seed tubers are placed in good garden soil, ideally with some compost (堆肥) for every square meter, in a sunny spot, about 10cm deep at 30cm intervals in rows 60-70cm apart.
Seed tubers are offered as earliest and second earliest and maincrop. The second earliest and maincrops can be stored for winter use but earliest are usually consumed in summer.
Seasoned potato growers buy early seed potatoes in February and place them in a cool, reasonably light place and let them sprout (发芽). It takes six weeks for small sprouts to form.
Early potatoes are typically planted from middle March in the South, but are likely to emerge before the first season finishes in May. The shoots are frost-sensitive requiring protection on cod nights with either earth or newspapers.
Second early and maincrop potatoes are planted in middle April—the frost risk will be low, but not absent, by the time they emerge. As the stems (茎) grow, soil should be drawn around them until the leaves meet in the row in early summer. At this stage, the potato field is a series of ridges (脊，垄). The tubers form in the ridge, protected from light that turns them green. Covering with black plastic or a thick layer of compost is also accessible instead of ridging, but plastic is not sustainable and slugs (鼻涕虫) can multiply in compost.
Once the flowers are fully open, it is time to dig plants when the tubers are the size of a hen’s egg. They grow rapidly but gradually lose their juicy new potato flavour, so harvest freely.
1. What’s the writing purpose of paragraph 1?| A．To describe a magic process. |
| B．To recall a childhood memory. |
| C．To raise a potato-related topic. |
| D．To introduce a gardening award. |
| A．The closer the intervals are, the faster they will grow. |
| B．The warmer the weather is, the better they will grow. |
| C．The earlier they are planted, the healthier they will grow. |
| D．The deeper they are planted, the stronger they will grow. |
| A．Frost. | B．Plastic. | C．Ridges. | D．Slugs. |
| A．How to cook potatoes. | B．How to grow potatoes. |
| C．How to harvest potatoes. | D．How to preserve potatoes. |
5 . In July 2021, astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) planted pepper seeds as part of an experiment to test which plants could be successfully grown in space. The peppers were harvested four months later, and the team celebrated with a party and taste test.
For astronauts living mostly off prepackaged foods for months at a time on the ISS, fresh and flavourful produce is welcomed. With long missions to the Moon and Mars in focus, NASA is working to find sustainable ways for astronauts to enjoy fresh foods, which will add key nutrients to their diets and improve their state of mind.
Astronauts have grown radishes, zinnias and a variety of lettuces on board the ISS before, but this is the first time they grew peppers, which posed a new challenge, reports Elizabeth Howell for Space. com.
Biologists at the Kennedy Space Centre spent two years picking the perfect pepper. They wanted to try peppers because they’re a great source of vitamins and nutrients, and they can be eaten raw or cooked. Plus, peppers are fairly low maintenance to grow.
In June, a carrier delivered supplies to the ISS along with a package of 48 pepper seeds. Astronauts on board planted the seeds in a microwave oven-sized growing container. The conditions in it—such as lighting, watering and air circulation—were controlled by a crew based at the Kennedy Space Centre. On board, the astronauts collected data and offered feedback on the flavour of the peppers.
“This is important because the food astronauts eat needs to be as good as the rest of their equipment,” LaShelle Spencer, a plant scientist at NASA, said over the summer. “To successfully send people to Mars and bring them back to Earth, we will not only require the most nutritious foods, but the best tasting ones as well.”
1. Why did astronauts attempt to plant pepper in space?| A．There were no enough food for astronauts. |
| B．Only pepper can grow in space. |
| C．Pepper can grow better than other plants. |
| D．Humans wanted to test which plants can grow in space. |
| A．It needn’t too much later care. | B．Its nutrients are the highest. |
| C．The vitamins in it are the most. | D．It improves their state of mind most. |
| A．Package. | B．Container. | C．Seed | D．Microwave. |
| A．The idea that pepper is grown in space is silly. |
| B．Astronaut need special nutrition to keep the best state of mind. |
| C．Pepper can’t be eaten cooked in space but it can be eaten raw. |
| D．It is the carrier that is in charge of sending feedback on the peppers. |
6 . After their three children grew up and left home, Margaret Thompson and her husband, Kenneth, stretched their legs together on walking holidays in Switzerland. In Interlaken, year after year, they would head up the mountain and watch the paragliders (空中滑翔) launch themselves into the sky. Back in town, in a large park, they watched them return to earth. “Some day I’d love to do that,” Thompson told Kenneth.
But there was always so much to do in Interlaken. So she continued to watch the gliders take flight and land. Kenneth died in 2005. Eleven years later, and three decades after those walking holidays, Thompson finally took to the skies herself, in a paraglider with an instructor. Thompson was 80.
Recently, Thompson heard from an instructor that grown men, when airborne, sometimes cry and beg to be brought down. But what she remembers is “feeling free. You feel weightless. It’s quite windy. It blows you around. You sail along and look around you, and see all the toy houses down below. You feel like you are up in heaven somewhere there, watching everyone down below.”
Thirty years seems a long time to hold on to a dream. “It was,” she says. Why did it take so long? “I wanted to do it, but I felt somebody should benefit from it.” She did not think of just enjoying the experience? “I don’t think so. There had to be a cause at the end of it all,” she says. With her first paraglide, she raised ￡1,500 for Moorfields eye hospital in London, most of it with the aid of social clubs run by the Presbyterian church she regularly attends.
Is she scared of getting older? “Fear? No. People say: ‘Isn’t getting old awful?’ I say: ‘No. You are free to do more things that you want to do.”
Thompson felt no fear paragliding. “I mean, you sort of say to yourself: Well, if anything happens to me now, I’m OK. People might worry about falling, it being the end of them. But that didn’t bother me at all. When it’s your time, it’s your time. No matter where you are.”
1. Why didn’t Thompson take up paragliding after her children left home?| A．She was engaged. | B．She preferred walking. |
| C．She was afraid of heights. | D．She had to tend her husband. |
| A．She lost his direction. | B．She was scared to death. |
| C．She regretted paragliding. | D．She had a sense of freedom. |
| A．She got support from social clubs. | B．She wanted to make it meaningful. |
| C．She hoped to contribute to the church. | D．She had a good cause to experience fun. |
| A．Terrified. | B．Helpless. | C．Calm. | D．Doubtful. |
7 . Tate Modern, London, the UK
Together with three other Tate museums, Tate Modern located in London is a national museum of international modern art. It is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the world. Most of the exhibit items are open to the public for free, only charging for major temporary (临时的) exhibitions.
The Louvre, Paris, France
It is the world’s largest and most visited art museum and a historical landmark of Paris. Housed in the Louvre Palace, the museum has been added to the ranking many times since its opening in 1793. Its glass pyramid in the main courtyard was designed by Chinese American architect Ieoh Ming Pei, and it later became a signature design of the museum, appearing in the hit thriller The Da Vinci Code starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou.
National Museum of China, Beijing, China
Near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, it’s one of the largest museums in the world and the second most-visited art museum in the world, just after the Louvre. Covering a time span from the Yuanmou Man of 1.7 million years ago to the Qing Dynasty, the museum houses around 1.05 million items many cannot be found in museums elsewhere.
State Hermitage Museum. St. Petersburg. Russia
The State Hermitage Museum is the second largest art museum in the world. The public can visit five of the main buildings: Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage, New Hermitage and Hermitage Theatre. Frequently seen in pop culture, it often appears as a setting for films, TV series, novels and even video games.
1. Tate Modern, London, the UK is attractive partly in that________.| A．it is a national museum with three branches |
| B．entry to most of its exhibitions is free of charge |
| C．its exhibitions range from ancient art to modern art |
| D．visitors can purchase some wonderful exhibit items |
| A．It often serves as a setting for films. |
| B．It stays the same as it was when first built. |
| C．It is the most visited art museum in the world. |
| D．It was designed by a Chinese American architect. |
| A．Tate Modern, London, the UK. |
| B．The Louvre, Paris, France. |
| C．National Museum of China, Beijing, China. |
| D．State Hermitage Museum, St.Petersburg, Russia. |
8 . Last month, David Diaz Jr., a second grade student at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in Binghamton, New York, was rewarded for his courage for helping his friend, Deandre, who started choking during lunch.
During the
“I did that because you have to
When David was asked where he
David said he was
His father, David Diaz Sr., said, “I’m very
“When second grader David Diaz
While David’s medical knowledge is
| A．emergency | B．operation | C．class | D．performance |
| A．chosen | B．lost | C．buried | D．stuck |
| A．find | B．remember | C．save | D．lead |
| A．practiced | B．learned | C．noticed | D．founded |
| A．grows up | B．gives up | C．breaks down | D．looks back |
| A．bothered | B．embarrassed | C．ashamed | D．surprised |
| A．proud | B．afraid | C．fond | D．certain |
| A．forgot | B．realized | C．remembered | D．imagined |
| A．laughing | B．dreaming | C．choking | D．sleeping |
| A．scream | B．hesitate | C．pretend | D．run |
| A．book | B．bag | C．flag | D．award |
| A．common | B．lovely | C．good | D．negative |
| A．hero | B．student | C．kid | D．parent |
| A．exciting | B．interesting | C．boring | D．promising |
| A．sport | B．medicine | C．design | D．art |
9 . An international research team has examined how English lessons in primary school affect language ability in this subject in secondary school. Children who started learning English in the first grade of primary school performed significantly better in listening and reading comprehension in Grade Nine than children who started in Grade Three. The study was a continuation (继续) of an earlier paper that had only covered the period up to the seventh grade and couldn’t find any such learning advantage.
The team headed by Professor Markus Ritter from Ruhr-Universitat Bochum (RUB) and Dr. Nils Jakel from the University of Oulu, Finland, deseribes their findings in System. The study included data from around 3, 000 students who participated in a long-term study conducted in Germany between 2010 and 2014. The same data had also been used in the previous study, the researchers had published the results of which in 2017. At that time, the new research had compared two groups, one of which had started English lessons in Grade One, the other in Grade Three. In grades five and seven, they had compared both groups in terms of English reading and listening comprehension. The new analysis contained another set of data collected in 2016 to measure the English performance of the same children in Grade Nine.
The previous study had found that children who had started English lessons earlier in primary school performed worse in reading and listening comprehension in Grade Seven than children who had not started English lessons until Grade Three. However, the new analysis showed that, in Grade Nine, the early starters in English performed better than the late starters in English.
“We believe the most acceptable explanation is that lessons following the transition (过渡) period in secondary school have been increasingly adapted to the needs of children who start to take English lessons at an early stage,” concludes Nils Jakel, formerly at RUB, now at the University of Oulu.
Additional background variables such as gender, language of origin or cognitive (认知的) abilities could not account for the difference between the poorer performance in the seventh grade and the late learning gains in the ninth grade.
1. What did the early research find?| A．Students in Grade Nine were smarter than others. |
| B．Students in Grade Seven were good at learning English. |
| C．Learning English from Grade One had no learning advantage. |
| D．Learning English from Grade Three had some learning advantages. |
| A．By listing different data and numbers. |
| B．By making comparisons among different groups. |
| C．By asking the primary school students to do some tests. |
| D．By inviting some volunteers to take part in the research. |
| A．The late starters in English performed better than the early starters in English in Grade Seven. |
| B．The early starters in English performed better than the late starters in English in Grade Nine. |
| C．It is hard to find an appropriate time to start to learn English. |
| D．Academic performance has nothing to do with when to start learning English. |
| A．a website of education research | B．a book about one’s life story |
| C．an advertisement in a newspaper | D．a magazine of fashion |
10 . As summer temperatures around the country rise, many consumers are seeing their energy bills go up rapidly. The average monthly energy bill in the U. S. was $121 in 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Consumers can keep their homes cooler by using curtains or blinds and keeping them closed during the sunniest part of the day. Turing up the temperature on air conditioners by 7℃ to 10℃ for at least eight hours a day can save as much as 10% from yearly energy costs, Energy. gov reports.
Besides, a smart thermostat (恒温器) can adjust temperature and help to reduce energy bills. A smart thermostat uses Wi-Fi to connect with an app on the owner’s phone. Some models even know when the user’s phone leaves the house and adjusts the heating or cooling accordingly.
“You can raise or lower the temperature when you’re not home, so you’re not using energy in the house when you’re not going to be around to benefit from it,” says Sara Rathner, a personal finance expert. “You can also control your heating and cooling systems from wherever you are, as long as you have your phone on you.” Not all home heating and cooling systems are suitable for smart home thermostats, though. Most thermostats work best with forced air-type systems, so they won’t work with radiant (辐射的) heating systems.
Prices for smart home thermostats start at about $100 and go up from there, while a more traditional thermostat can be purchased for under $30. Rathner suggests looking for seasonal savings like Black Friday deals. Some energy providers offer discounts on new smart thermostats, too. Energy. gov has a rebate (折扣) tool to help consumers find rebates in their own state. Other high-tech devices like smart lights connected to a smart home assistant can also enable consumers to reduce unnecessary use of electricity and cut power to those that continue to draw energy even when not in use.
1. What does the underlined word “them” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Homes. | B．Consumers. | C．Air conditioners. | D．Curtains and blinds. |
| A．It’s unnecessary to lower the temperature. |
| B．It’s easy to fix a smart heating and cooling system. |
| C．It’s essential to build a smart home with a smart phone. |
| D．It’s beyond imagination to control a home’s temperature. |
| A．People can buy things with lower prices on that day. |
| B．Some high-tech devices are only offered on that day. |
| C．Energy, gov offers discounts on smart lights. |
| D．Most modern and traditional devices are priced below $30. |
| A．A smart thermostat can help save energy bills. | B．A smart device can lower the temperature. |
| C．How to operate a smart thermostat in your house. | D．The best way to keep your home cooler. |
