1 . I’m 62 now and always planned to volunteer with older people when I retired. There was such a big gap in the care and support this generation receives and I found the thought heartbreaking — no one should have to feel lonely and stuck at home.
I started volunteering three years ago. My team of volunteers have set up seven groups in our town. We host tea parties for those aged 75 and older who live on their own and regularly provide support, friendship and companionship for the most isolated (孤独的) older people in the community.
Working with my older neighbors is rewarding. To hear their stories and the hardships they have overcome is inspiring. I feel like I’m making a positive difference to the lives of older people by sharing my time with them, helping them stay active and social and making clear to them that they are valued by our community.
As an area coordinator (协调人), I also help recruit (招募) and manage volunteers, without whom the work would be impossible. So many go above and beyond what’s asked, offering time, energy and kindness, just because they care. I’ve found enthusiasm from people making the lives of our older neighbors better, and they are a constant source of inspiration for me.
I’ve met amazing people from all walks of life. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done that enriched my life. I will keep focusing on reducing loneliness and isolation among the elderly and helping them enjoy the old age they deserve.
1. What inspired the author to begin volunteering?| A．Loneliness and isolation. | B．Love for volunteering work. |
| C．Lack of social support for the old. | D．Older neighbors’ companionship. |
| A．It is meaningful. | B．It gives her confidence. |
| C．It is challenging. | D．It reduces her loneliness. |
| A．Considerate and specialized. | B．Inspiring and thoughtful. |
| C．Supportive and innovative. | D．Caring and accommodating. |
| A．Managers. | B．Volunteers. |
| C．Coordinators. | D．Senior neighbors. |
2 . 400 million tons of plastic are generated annually, most of which comes from single-use plastic While countries are making progress in reducing this waste through paper bags and straws, there are still applications where the properties of plastic are necessary.
Transparent (透明的) wood is an alternative for such applications and is highly preferred since it prevents the harm of petroleum-derived (石油衍生的) plastic products. German scientist Siegfried Fink first created transparent wood in the year 1992, and over the past three decades it has been significantly improved by other researchers as well.
In its natural form, wood is not transparent. However, researchers have found that removing lignin, a naturally occurring biopolymer that provides structural support for the plant tissue, can make it transparent. To do so, the wood is soaked in a warm solution consisting of multiple chemicals, followed by boiling it in another solution. This removes the lignin completely and turns the wood white. However, the space that was occupied by lignin needs to be filled up to maintain structural integrity. This process is done by using a resin (树脂) at a temperature of 185 Fahrenheit (85℃).
The final product can have as much as 90 transparency, and it doesn’t break easily. More importantly, it is more biodegradable than glass or plastic.
While transparent wood isn’t commercial yet, it has been employed in a wide variety of applications ranging from construction to energy storage, making flexible electronics and packaging.
The researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology ( IIT) conducted a life-cycle analysis (LCA) of transparent wood to determine the environmental impact of its production and end-of-life (EOL) cycle. The study found that using hydrogen peroxide for delignification, followed by using epoxy for infiltration, was the most eco-friendly. When scaled up for industrial production, the former method would lower electricity consumption by as much as 98. 8 percent.
EOL analysis showed that transparent wood had a reduced ecological impact compared to polyethylene (聚乙烯), paving the way for it to be commercially adapted to replace the petroleum-based material.
1. Why is transparent wood preferred compared to plastic?| A．It is easier to make. | B．It is environmentally friendly. |
| C．It can be used longer. | D．It can be used repeatedly. |
| A．The natural form of wood. | B．The importance of chemicals. |
| C．How transparent wood is made. | D．How lignin keeps wood strong. |
| A．It can be recycled. |
| B．It will replace plastic soon. |
| C．The most eco-friendly way to produce it. |
| D．Potential damage caused by it to the environment. |
| A．Promising. | B．Difficult. | C．Profitable. | D．Uncertain. |
3 . The fruit-tree pinhole borer (针孔蛀虫), as its name implies, makes holes in fruit trees. It lays its eggs and raises its young in the galleries thus created . Yet the beetles (甲虫) do not feed directly on the wood they bore into. Instead, they devour fungi (真菌) that grow on the wood thus exposed.
Researchers have long suspected that this is a form of farming, because they have evidence that the beetles carry spores (孢子) of their preferred crop, R. sulphurea, into their smallholdings—in effect, sowing it there.
Observations of natural fruit-tree pinhole-bore r dwellings suggest that R. sulphurea grows in them more abundantly (大量地) than might be expected, given all the fungal competition around—but not why. To check whether the beetles are, indeed, weeding their crop, Janina Diehl and Peter Biedermann of the University of Freiburg did an experiment.
In the laboratory, they had mother beetles of the little wood bore restablish nests, in which the typical fungal gardens formed. But before the beetles had started laying their eggs, they collected all of the beetles and then returned half to their dwellings while leaving the other nests empty. Genetic analysis of the fungal gardens after 40 days showed that the presence of the beetles had greatly changed the fungal community. Twenty days after that, they sampled the gallery walls for fungi.
As they had hoped and expected, R. sulphurea was much more abundant in beetle-tended galleries than in those without residents. In the former, it made up half of the fungal mass extracted. In the latter, less than a third. These beetles are indeed weeding their crop.
“Further research into how exactly the beetles suppress the growth of weed fungi could alsoprovide worthwhile insights for human agriculture, which is struggling with weed resistance, for example,” says Biedermann. “It’s highly exciting for us to see how nature has been doing this for 60 million years. We humans can still learn something from these mechanisms.”
1. What does the underlined word “devour” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Sow. | B．Tend. | C．Eat. | D．Move. |
| A．The number of the mother beetles. | B．The presence of the beetles. |
| C．The quality of food fungi. | D．The types of weed fungi. |
| A．They weed crops. | B．They feed on fruit. |
| C．They live in groups. | D．They lay eggs in trees. |
| A．The research findings are of little value. |
| B．Measures should be taken to protect the beetles. |
| C．Fungi cause much damage to human agriculture. |
| D．Further research to the beetles might benefit farmers. |
4 . Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, “The British are the only people who like to be told how bad things are.” This is definitely (绝对地) true of British comedy. Most people think humor is about happy things, but for the British, the opposite is true. We love to use our cruel sense of humor to complain and be negative (消极的).
British comedy, for example, draws a fine line between comedy and tragedy (悲剧). BBC’s The Office is a TV show, famous for its dry humor. The main character, David Brent, is a foolish man, and the show’s comedy comes from his delusions. For example, he often tells himself that he is loved by everyone but the viewer can see that everyone hates him.
Stupid characters for the audience to laugh at are an old tradition in Britain. In Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, the character Malvolio is an old man whom people play tricks on. The audience will laugh away, although the reality is that this man is a truly tragic individual (个体).
This side of British humor is reflected (反映) in friendships as well. At university, my friends and I would always laugh at one another. I had an American friend who actually found this sarcasm (挖苦) quite upsetting. She didn’t realize that in Britain, the better friends you are with someone, the more you laugh at them.
This approach — laughing at everything — may sound rather depressing (让人郁闷的), but our strange humor played a big part in British history. In World War II, along with a stiff upper lip (坚定沉着), the British got through it by laughing. What else was there to do?
There is a saying in English: “Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and you cry alone.” If you are ever on the receiving end of British sarcasm, you may feel like crying, but it’s best to just laugh it off!
1. How is British comedy different from other types?| A．It is often surprising and boring. |
| B．It often laughs at human nature. |
| C．It is often about negative things. |
| D．It often makes people feel depressed. |
| A．strong abilities | B．fun characters |
| C．incorrect beliefs | D．deep confidence |
| A．To show one of the best examples of British comedy. |
| B．To explain how Shakespeare’s comedy is different. |
| C．To show how difficult it is to make people accept British comedy. |
| D．To prove Britain has a long tradition of laughing at stupid characters. |
| A．Learn from it. |
| B．Don’t take it seriously. |
| C．Reply sarcastically. |
| D．Be careful not to make stupid mistakes. |
| A．Negativity | B．complaint | C．Sarcasm | D．anger |
5 . It may seem as if Mother’s Day was invented by a company named Hallmark, but people have been taking time on the calendar to give a shout-out to Mom for a long time. The Greeks and Romans had mother goddess festivals — although their celebrations didn’t involve the menfolk taking their underappreciated mothers out to dinner. A more recent tradition was Mothering Sunday, which developed in the British Isles during the 16th century. On the fourth Sunday in April, young men and women who were living and working apart from their families were advised to return to their mothers’ houses.
Mother’s Day as it is observed in the United States started in the 1850s with Ann Jarvis, a West Virginia woman who held “Mothers’ Work Days” to promote health and hygiene (卫生) at home and in the workplace. During the Civil War, Jarvis organized women to improve sanitary conditions for soldiers on both sides, and after the war she became a peacemaker, furthering the cause by bringing together mothers of Union and Confederate soldiers and promoting a Mother’s Day holiday.
Jarvis’s work inspired another 19th-century woman, Julia Ward Howe. In 1870 Howe published her “Mother’s Day Proclamation”, which envisioned the day not as appreciation of mothers by their children but as an opportunity for women to exercise their collective power for peace. Howe started holding annual Mother’s Day celebrations in Boston, her hometown, but after about a decade she stopped footing the bill and the tradition faded away.
It was Jarvis’s daughter Anna who succeeded in getting Mother’s Day recognized as a national holiday. After her mother died, in May 1905, Anna started holding yearly ceremony on the anniversary and conducting a tireless PR campaign to have the day made a holiday. In 1908 she succeeded in enlisting the support of John Wanamaker, the Philadelphia department store magnate and advertising pioneer, and by 1912 West Virginia and a few other states had adopted Mother’s Day. Two years later, President Woodrow Wilson signed a resolution declaring the second Sunday in May a national holiday.
It wasn’t long, though, before whatever ideals the day was supposed to celebrate were buried under an amount of greeting cards and candy. By the 1920s Anna Jarvis was campaigning against the holiday she had been instrumental in creating. “I wanted it to be a day of emotionalism, not profit,” she said.
1. The first paragraph suggests that ________.| A．mothers didn’t get enough appreciation |
| B．Mother’s Day was invented by Hallmark |
| C．young people returned to their mothers’ houses |
| D．Greeks and Romans were the first to celebrate Mother’s Day |
| A．Ann Jarvis. | B．Julia Ward Howe. |
| C．Woodrow Wilson. | D．Anna Jarvis. |
| A．Because it was an emotional day. |
| B．Because the festival was not profitable. |
| C．Because the celebrations went against the original spirit. |
| D．Because the day was buried under greeting cards and candy. |
| A．The Objection to Mother’s Day |
| B．The Argument on Celebrating Mother’s Day |
| C．The Story Behind the Creation of Mother’s Day |
| D．Different Form of Celebrations on Mother’s Day |
6 . I suffered from Asperger’s at my childhood. One of the biggest
When I was in my 20s, I
Everyone is
| A．anxieties | B．challenges | C．disabilities | D．debates |
| A．symbol | B．organ | C．weapon | D．target |
| A．examined | B．fuelled | C．affected | D．adjusted |
| A．moved | B．escaped | C．rushed | D．gathered |
| A．wrestled with | B．related to | C．applied for | D．turned down |
| A．prohibited | B．switched | C．abused | D．accompanied |
| A．introduce | B．identify | C．recognize | D．confirm |
| A．means | B．spots | C．paces | D．habits |
| A．chiefly | B．ultimately | C．certainly | D．especially |
| A．restored | B．arose | C．helped | D．disturbed |
| A．entertain | B．trust | C．hire | D．equip |
| A．stop | B．start | C．wait | D．quit |
| A．difficult | B．terrible | C．bright | D．unique |
| A．recognize | B．realize | C．wonder | D．admit |
| A．difference | B．promise | C．choice | D．sacrifice |
7 . Self-image is a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves - our own conception of the sort of person we are. Self-image is built up from our own beliefs about ourselves, the beliefs formed from our past experiences, successes, failures, relationships, etc.
Once a belief about ourselves is programmed into our minds, we act upon it as if it were true. Our positive beliefs are developed when we do something successfully or are recognized by people around us. Our negative beliefs are also developed when we give in to negative ideas. When we fail in something, some of us conclude that we are unsuccessful, unwanted, condemned, etc.
Thus, self-image is the key element in determining whether our internal guidance system functions for success or for failure. It sets the limits of our accomplishments, It determines what we can and cannot do. Self-image creates your character and your personality as well.
You may think the concept of self-image being an internal guidance system was got from the thought of a trained psychologist. In reality, the idea came from Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon who was more interested in helping people by giving them emotional facelifts, rather than just physical ones.
“Expand the self-image and you expand the ‘area of the possible’,” said Dr Maltz.
Maltz determined that the human brain and nervous system function as a kind of goal-seeking device similar to that used to guide airplanes on automatic pilot. Maltz’s idea is simple: each one of us is capable of taking control of our self-image and programming our automatic guidance system for success. According to Maltz, all behavior is defined by the self-image and no real behavioral change can take place unless the self-image is changed.
1. According the passage, our self-image is build up from the following except__________.| A．experiences | B．successes | C．hope | D．failures |
| A．The formation of self-image. | B．The function of self-image. |
| C．The definition of self-image. | D．The advantages of self-image. |
| A．A doctor. | B．A chemist. | C．A psychologist. | D．An environmentalist. |
| A．It is used to guide airplanes. |
| B．It has an effect on our behavior. |
| C．It can be controlled by our nervous system. |
| D．It can serve as a goal-setting device. |
8 . See if you can understand these words that have won an award for the funniest joke at a UK arts and culture festival: “I’m not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change.”
Did you get it? The UK started to use new one pound coins that year, so the joke contains a pun (一语双关) on the word “change”.
Britain is known for its dry sense of humour, so this is a classic British joke where you have to think about it to understand it.
When a British person tells a joke, they’ll probably say it without a laugh, or even a smile, and it’ll probably be said when you least expect it.
Americans, on the other hand, enjoy being more straightforward. In a country filled with people from so many backgrounds, jokes in the US tend to be about cultural, racial and gender differences. In the US, humour can be a way to help people overcome their differences.
A great example of this comes from an American comedian, Chris Rock, who once said, “You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese.” His words prove a point about stereotypes. After all, when it comes to humour, the best jokes are the ones where we can laugh at ourselves.
1. Why is the joke in the first paragraph funny?| A．It has won an award at a UK arts and culture festival. |
| B．It uses a pun on the word “change” |
| C．You have to think about it first. |
| D．It is a classic British joke. |
| A．They may tell a joke about gender differences. |
| B．They may tell a joke about their new coins. |
| C．They may tell a joke showing a dry sense of humour. |
| D．They may tell a joke when you least expect it. |
| A．Good rappers are usually white. |
| B．White people are good at playing golf. |
| C．Chinese people are taller than Americans. |
| D．Humour can help overcome cultural differences. |
| A．The British don’t like all change. |
| B．It is not difficult for us to understand a classic British joke. |
| C．American humour helps people overcome their differences. |
| D．Americans never laugh at themselves. |
9 . Jeanne Calment, a French woman, became record breaker on 17 October of 1995, when at the age of 120 years and 238 days, she became the longest-lived human being on record. A Japanese man died in 1986 at the age of 120 years and 237 days.
Jeanne Calment lives in a small old people’s home in the south of France; her husband, her only child and her grandson have all died. She is nearly blind and deaf and is always in a wheelchair, but her doctor describes her as being more like a 90-year-old in good health than someone of 120. She still has a lively sense of humor. When asked on her 120th birthday what she expected of the future, she replied: A very short one. She also remarked that she thought the good Lord had forgotten all about her.
So what is the key to a long life? According to some doctors, diet, exercise and no smoking are the three important factors. Jeanne Calment has followed two of the tips. She has always eaten a healthy diet, and she used to do exercise every day until she broke her leg at the age of 115. However, until recently she drank two glasses of strong red wine a day, and she does smoke (now only a little). Besides, Jeanne Calment might have got very good genes from her parents. Her father lived to the age of 94 and her mother to 86.
A local lawyer bought her house when she was 80 under an agreement that he would pay her some money every year until her death. It must have seemed a good move at the time, but so far the lawyer has paid her at least three times the value of the house. Every year on her birthday Jcanne Calment sends him a card saying: Sorry, I’m still alive!
1. Which of the following could best describe the word “longest-lived” in the first paragraph?| A．Largest. | B．Highest-lived. | C．Living the longest. | D．Longest-recorded. |
| A．Her giving up smoking and drinking. | B．She does exercise every day. |
| C．She has a healthy diet. | D．The good genes from her parents. |
| A．She is unhappy. | B．She feels she is going to die very soon. |
| C．She is optimistic and humorous. | D．She wouldn’t like to live much longer. |
| A．A trip guidebook. | B．Sport news. | C．A science magazine. | D．A biography. |
10 . In habitats across the planet, animals periodically drop everything to walk, fly or swim to a new place. Wildlife such as whales and geese learn migration paths by following their parents. Others, including small songbirds, gain the distance and direction of their migration within their genetic code. And some animals use a combination of genetics and culture to guide their migration.
Another group of migrators does not quite fit either model, and researchers have only recently started to figure out how they find their way. Take the Cory’s shearwater, an oceangoing sea bird that migrates over the Atlantic every year. The young do not migrate with their parents, so culture cannot explain their journeys. And the exact paths vary wildly from individual to individual, making genetics equally unlikely.
Cory’s shearwaters are long-lived, rarely producing young successfully before age nine. This leaves an opening for learning and practice to develop their migration patterns. Researchers call this the “exploration-refinement”, and until now it has been hypothetical (假设的) because of difficulties in tracking migratory animals’ movements.
But a team of researchers has done that by attaching small geolocators to more than 150 of the birds aged four to nine. They found that younger birds traveled longer distances, for longer periods, and had more diverse paths than older birds. “We finally have evidence of the ‘exploration-refinement’ for migratory birds,” says Letizia Campioni, who led the study. Younger Cory’s shearwaters are able to fly just as fast as the adults—but they do not, suggesting that the young do more exploring, which gradually fades as they mature and settle into a preferred course.
Although it may seem less efficient than other strategies, “exploration refinement could be beneficial to birds and other organisms in a rapidly changing world due to unpredictable man-made changes,” says Barbara Frei. “It might be safer to repeat a behavior that was recently successful than to rely on patterns that were perfected long ago but might no longer be safe.”
1. Why does the author mention different migration models in Paragraph 1?| A．To give an example. | B．To lead in the topic. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To support an idea. |
| A．The opening for learning and practice. |
| B．The unique living habit of Cory’s shearwaters. |
| C．The way Cory’s shearwaters form their migration patterns. |
| D．The process scientists track Cory’s shearwaters’ movements. |
| A．They lower the speed for exploration. | B．They move in a predictable manner. |
| C．They travel as much as adult birds. | D．They look for a course with their parents. |
| A．Fixed Tracks: Safer Migration Model |
| B．Migration Models: Important Ways to Deal With Changes |
| C．A Combination of Strategies: A Wise Choice for Migration |
| D．Exploration Refinement: Migration Model With Better Adaptability |
