1 . Rome can be pricey for travelers, which is why many choose to stay in a hostel (旅社). The hostels in Rome offer a bed in a dorm room for around $25 a night, and for that, you’ll often get to stay in a central location (位置) with security and comfort.
Yellow HostelIf I had to make just one recommendation for where to stay in Rome, it would be Yellow Hostel. It’s one of the best-rated hostels in the city, and for good reason. It’s affordable, and it’s got a fun atmosphere without being too noisy. As an added bonus, it’s close to the main train station.
Hostel Alessandro PalaceIf you love social hostels, this is the best hostel for you in Rome. Hostel Alessandro Palace is fun. Staff members hold plenty of bar events for guests like free shots, bar crawls and karaoke. There’s also an area on the rooftop for hanging out with other travelers during the summer.
Youth Station HostelIf you’re looking for cleanliness and a modern hostel, look no further than Youth Station. It offers beautiful furnishings and beds. There are plenty of other benefits, too; it doesn’t charge city tax; it has both air conditioning and a heater for the rooms; it also has free Wi-Fi in every room.
Hotel and Hostel Des ArtistesHotel and Hostel Des Artistes is located just a 10-minute walk from the central city station and it’s close to all of the city’s main attractions. The staff is friendly and helpful, providing you with a map of the city when you arrive, and offering advice if you require some. However, you need to pay 2 euros a day for Wi-Fi.
1. What is probably the major concern of travelers who choose to stay in a hostel?| A．Comfort. | B．Security. |
| C．Price. | D．Location. |
| A．Yellow Hostel. | B．Hostel Alessandro Palace. |
| C．Youth Station Hostel. | D．Hotel and Hostel Des Artistes. |
| A．It gets noisy at night. | B．Its staff is too talkative. |
| C．It charges for Wi-Fi. | D．It’s inconveniently located. |
2 . By day, Robert Titterton is a lawyer. In his spare time though he goes on stage beside pianist Maria Raspopova — not as a musician but as her page turner. “I’m not a trained musician, but I’ve learnt to read music so I can help Maria in her performance.”
Mr Titterton is chairman of the Omega Ensemble but has been the group’s official page turner for the past four years. His job is to sit beside the pianist and turn the pages of the score so the musician doesn’t have to break the flow of sound by doing it themselves. He said he became just as nervous as those playing instruments on stage.
“A lot of skills are needed for the job. You have to make sure you don’t turn two pages at once and make sure you find the repeats in the music when you have to go back to the right spot.” Mr Titterton explained.
Being a page turner requires plenty of practice. Some pieces of music can go for 40 minutes and require up to 50 page turns, including back turns for repeat passages. Silent onstage communication is key, and each pianist has their own style of “nodding” to indicate a page turn which they need to practise with their page turner.
But like all performances, there are moments when things go wrong. “I was turning the page to get ready for the next page, but the draft wind from the turn caused the spare pages to fall off the stand,” Mr Titterton said, “Luckily I was able to catch them and put them back.”
Most page turners are piano students or up-and-coming concert pianists, although Ms Raspopova has once asked her husband to help her out on stage.
“My husband is the worst page turner,” she laughed. “He’s interested in the music, feeling every note, and I have to say: ‘Turn, turn!’ Robert is the best page turner I’ve had in my entire life.”
1. What should Titterton be able to do to be a page turner?| A．Read music. | B．Play the piano. |
| C．Sing songs. | D．Fix the instruments. |
| A．Boring. | B．Well-paid. |
| C．Demanding. | D．Dangerous. |
| A．Counting the pages. | B．Recognizing the “nodding”. |
| C．Catching falling objects. | D．Performing in his own style. |
| A．He has very poor eyesight. | B．He ignores the audience. |
| C．He has no interest in music. | D．He forgets to do his job. |
3 . “Few articles change owners more frequently than clothes. They travel downwards from grade to grade in the social scale with remarkable regularity,” wrote the journalist Adolphe Smith in 1877 as he traced a coat’s journey in the last century: cleaned, repaired and resold repeatedly; cut down into a smaller item; eventually recycled into new fabric. But with the improvement in people’s living standards, that model is mind-boggling in the era of fast fashion. The average British customer buys four items a month. And it is reported that 350,000 tonnes of used but still wearable clothes go to landfills in the UK each year.
Yet the gradual revival of the second-hand trade has gathered pace in the past few years. At fashion website Asos, sales of vintage clothes (古董衫) have risen by 92%. Clothing was once worn out of necessity, and now it is simply a way of life. Busy families sell used items on eBay, teenagers trade on Depop and some fashion people offer designer labels on Vestiaire Collective. Strikingly, it has become big enough business that mainstream retailers (零售商) want a slice of the action.
For some buyers and sellers, the switch to the second-hand is born of financial difficulties. Only a few have become worried about the impact of their shopping habit on the planet. But the shift is only a partial solution. Some people worry that some mainstream brands may “greenwash” — using second-hand goods to improve their image, rather than engaging more seriously with sustainability.
However, the biggest concern may be that people keep buying because they know they can resell goods, still chasing the pleasure of the next purchase but with an eased conscience (愧疚). Boohoo, a powerful fast fashion company, has seen sales and profits rise, despite concerns about environmental problems in its supply chain that led to an investigation last year.
A new Netflix series, Worn Stories, documents the emotional meanings that clothes can have: Each old item is full of memories. Actually, a handbag from a grandmother and a scarf passed on by a father are both valuable for us. A love of style is not a bad or an unimportant thing. But a committed relationship is better than a quick flash. Can we learn to appreciate our own old clothes as well as others’?
1. What does the word “mind-boggling” underlined in paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Unbelievable. | B．Popular. | C．Reasonable. | D．Influential. |
| A．old clothes are more popular than new pieces |
| B．the online second-hand markets are booming |
| C．the fashion world begins to favor vintage clothes |
| D．many clothing brands are innovative in their new products |
| A．It makes people feel free to pursue fast fashion. |
| B．It makes people more cautious about their budgets. |
| C．It encourages people to choose eco-friendly clothes. |
| D．It pushes people to be more engaged with sustainability. |
| A．Old items have lost favor with the public. |
| B．Old items are worthy of being long cherished. |
| C．Older generations attach great importance to old items. |
| D．Older generations care about the quality of their clothes. |
4 . I was ten when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Prior to that, she had been a(n)
She could do anything, I
Now, she faced her illness with the same
Every accomplishment was a
Because my mother accepted her condition with such optimism, I rarely felt sad or resentful about it. Instead, I viewed her drive to look forward to things I
| A．gentle | B．energetic | C．talented | D．decent |
| A．changed | B．failed | C．improved | D．paused |
| A．imagined | B．admitted | C．doubted | D．believed |
| A．applied | B．spoke | C．wrote | D．studied |
| A．success | B．sincerity | C．enthusiasm | D．wisdom |
| A．familiar | B．strange | C．exciting | D．changeable |
| A．Gradually | B．Particularly | C．Alternatively | D．Finally |
| A．drag | B．pull | C．guide | D．wheel |
| A．art | B．significance | C．safety | D．plan |
| A．solution | B．milestone | C．dream | D．warning |
| A．hospital | B．court | C．work | D．college |
| A．saying | B．hiding | C．pretending | D．showing |
| A．gifts | B．disabilities | C．weaknesses | D．privileges |
| A．strong | B．hopeless | C．helpful | D．fortunate |
| A．took into account | B．bore in mind | C．took for granted | D．kept in check |
5 . “I like pigs,” Winston Churchill supposedly once said. “Dogs look up at us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals.” Whether Churchill’s contemporary George Orwell also liked pigs is less clear. But he, too, surely saw something in them that was lacking in other domestic beasts, for it was they who ended up running the show in novel Animal Farm. Pigs, then, are intelligent social creatures.
And, like all animals, they sometimes fight. A study just published in Animal Cognition by Ivan Norscia, a biological anthropologist at the University of Turin, in Italy, and his colleagues, looked at how a group of 104 domestic pigs went about resolving such incidents. In total, Dr. Norscia and his team studied the details of 216 pig conflicts over the course of six months.
Some pigs tend to be attackers; others tend to be victims. Who is what depends largely on weight, for, among pigs pounds mean power. The attacker might bite, kick, bump or lift the victim (or string together a sequence of those actions). Most conflicts ended in seconds, but some lasted a minute or two.
In most animal species that would be that. However, many of the pig conflicts Dr. Norscia observed had interested parties beyond the protagonists (主角). He therefore wanted to understand the role of these bystanders in resolving fights —and what this says about pigs’ cognitive (认知) abilities.
Since there was usually not enough time for a bystander pig to intervene during the heat of a conflict (though this did occur), he and his colleagues looked at what happened in the three minutes directly following an aggressive interaction. Sometimes, they found, the protagonists made up on their own —for instance, by touching noses.
On other occasions, though, a third pig stepped in. Sometimes this bystander acted as a peacemaker, engaging with the attacker and reducing the number of subsequent attacks compared with what might otherwise have been expected. Sometimes, by contrast, the bystander engaged with the victim. This appeared to calm the victim down, for it reduced anxiety-related behavior such as shaking and scratching.
1. Why does the author mention Winston Churchill in the first paragraph?| A．To prove pigs are clever. | B．To show pigs are inspirational. |
| C．To state Churchill loves pigs. | D．To introduce the topic of the text. |
| A．Their ages. | B．Their weight. |
| C．Their safety needs. | D．Their cognitive abilities. |
| A．To comprehend the role of bystanders in conflict resolution. |
| B．To figure out the relationship between pigs. |
| C．To record the details of 216 pig conflicts. |
| D．To find out the reason for pigs’ conflicts. |
| A．By shaking it. | B．By touching its nose. |
| C．By scratching its back. | D．By offering comfort to it. |
6 . As the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) has gone global, we’ve watched professionals fail as they try to improve their emotional intelligence because they either don’t know where to focus their efforts or they haven’t understood how to improve these skills on a practical level. In our work consulting with companies and coaching leaders, we have found that if you’re looking to develop particular EI strengths, it helps to consider areas for improvement others have identified along with the goals you want to achieve and then to actively build habits in those areas rather than simply relying on understanding them conceptually.
The first step is to get a sense of how your self-perception (how you see yourself) differs from your reputation (how others see you). This is especially true for the development of EI because we can be blind to how we express and read the emotional components of our interactions. For example, most of us think that we’re good listeners, but very often that’s really not the case. Without this external reality check, it will be difficult for you to identify the ways that your actions affect your performance. Getting teed back from others can also provide proof of the necessity of shifting our behavior and motivation to do so.
To give you the best sense of where the differences lie between your self-perception and reputation, you should use a 360-degree feedback assessment that takes into account the multiple aspects of EI. The key is to find one to give you feedback, which is focused on development and not on performance assessment. And that can give you a detailed understanding of how other people’s assessments of you differ from your own assessments.
Secondly, when you get your feedback from an assessment, let that inform what you want to improve. But also consider what your goals are. When it comes to cultivating strengths in emotional intelligence, you’re at a huge disadvantage if you’re only interested because others say you should be. Your emotional intelligence is so tied up in your sense of self that being intrinsically (内在的) motivated to make the effort matters more when changing longstanding habits than it does when simply learning a skill.
That means the areas that you choose to actively work on should lie at the intersection of the feedback you’ve gotten and the areas that are most important to your own aspirations (抱负). Understanding the influences of your current EI habits relative to your goals will keep you going over a long period at time as you do the work or strengthening your emotional intelligence.
1. What do we know from the first paragraph?| A．EI can be better improved with others’ help. |
| B．Leaders are badly in need of improving their EI. |
| C．EI plays a key role in professional development. |
| D．Professionals fail to understand the concepts of EI. |
| A．You help your siblings make a key decision. |
| B．Your career development speeds up with others’ help. |
| C．You reflected yourself and made a New Year resolution. |
| D．Your teacher directed you towards a better attitude in study. |
| A．To improve your EI, following your inner call is the most reliable. |
| B．It’s bard for others to know your EI because it hides deep inside. |
| C．To improve your EI, you should take your goals into consideration. |
| D．Acquiring a new skill is more significant than improving your EI. |
| A．Your inner self discourages you from improving your EI. |
| B．Effective EI development is determined by different factors. |
| C．The importance of performance assessment is underestimated. |
| D．EI development is unlikely to happen unless you know what EI is. |
7 . English is the language for international communication, especially in areas such as science and technology. Galileo Galilei said, “Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.” Using numbers and mathematical symbols, one can write “words” and “sentences”. When appropriate, several “sentences” together might form a “mathematical story”. Mathematics has also grammar — the mathematical logic which determines whether statements are valid or not.
A math teacher compares math to English and says, “Math may be viewed as a language — a simpler, more consistent and more regular language than English. Numbers represent nouns, while operational signs (+, －,×, ÷, =) serve as verbs. Both components are governed by rules of syntax. Math facts, such as 2×3=6, may be thought of as math sentences. Students should be encouraged to speak in complete sentences to convey an entire thought. Math at the simple sentence fact level is a much easier language than English. Although math has an infinite number of nouns, it has only five verbs (+, －, ×, ÷, =) associated with four basic operations.”
Nina is an English teacher in elementary school and has 12 years of teaching experience. She has no doubts about the logical connection between English and mathematics. She says, “They are definitely languages. In both languages there are patterns and rules. They are both taught through visualizations and illustrations. Teaching vocabulary is like teaching fractions. You need to illustrate in both languages and practice a lot.”
However, English and mathematics as languages are similar and yet different. The language of mathematics, for example, is precise and less flexible—it cannot afford ambiguity, while natural languages contain constructive ambiguity derived from their cultural and contextual wealth of meanings. Mathematics as well as English as a second language does not develop naturally as a child develops a natural language; they need to be learned.
1. What can be inferred from the first paragraph?| A．English grammar can also be used in math. |
| B．English and math are both general languages. |
| C．Math is the medium of international communication. |
| D．Both English and math have logic behind them. |
| A．Math is much easier than English. |
| B．Math is the simplest language. |
| C．Both math and English can convey an entire thought. |
| D．Math at the simple sentence fact level is much easier than English. |
| A．Unclarity. | B．Evidence. | C．Certainty. | D．Similarity. |
| A．To explain the logic behind English and math. |
| B．To argue for the differences between math and English. |
| C．To compare math and English as languages. |
| D．To promote the development of science and technology. |
8 . Our clothes do a lot for us. They keep us warm in the winter or cool while we’re working out. They let us dress to impress or comfortably veg out on the couch with the TV on. But some researchers think our clothes could be doing even more. Those scientists and engineers are dreaming up new ways to make clothes safer, more comfortable or just more convenient.
Some ideas for new clothes aim to protect people from harm. One new shoe design, for example, features pop-out spikes (鞋钉) on the sole that grip the ground. This could help people keep their footing on slippery or uneven ground. A new fabric coating, meanwhile, could absorb and neutralize (中和) some chemical weapons. That coating is made from a metal-organic framework that breaks down harmful compounds. It could offer protection to people in war-torn countries.
Not all advanced clothing is designed to save lives. Some could just make clothes more comfortable. One day, for instance, you may not need to layer up to stay warm. Fabric filled with nanowires could reflect your body heat back onto your skin. Electric current humming through those metal threads could provide warmth, too. This maybe especially useful for hikers, soldiers or others working in super cold conditions.
Some researchers have dream up wholly new uses for clothing —like turning wearers into walking power outlets. Flexible solar panels sewn into fabric could absorb the sun to recharge phones or other devices on the go. Another team threaded fabric with magnetized (磁化的) copper and silver to write data into fabrics. Such data-packed fabric could be used as a hands-free key or form of ID.
Many of these ideas have not yet left the lab—and they’re still pretty far from hitting retail (零售) shelves. But inventors hope these and other innovations could someday let you get more from your clothes.
1. What do the underlined words “veg out” in paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Relax. | B．Stand out. | C．Work. | D．Dream about. |
| A．To make them comfortable. | B．To make them fashionable. |
| C．To prevent people from slipping. | D．To turn wearers into walking power outlets. |
| A．Coats filled with nanowires. | B．Shoes with pop-out spikes on the sole. |
| C．Clothes with a new fabric coating. | D．Clothes made of data-packed fabric. |
| A．Many of these ideas are not realistic. |
| B．Many smart clothes are too expensive to afford. |
| C．People will benefit more from their clothes in future. |
| D．Many comfortable clothes will come to the market soon. |
9 . Children are naturally curious about the world around them. When Chase Hansen was only 4 years old, he encountered homeless people for the first time while shopping with his dad at an outdoor mall in Salt Lake City, Nevada. It’s no wonder that he had a lot of questions.
“Chase looked at me and said, ‘Dad, who are these people? Why don’t they have a place to stay?’” John Hansen recalled. “After I explained that they had run into hard times and were homeless, I knew that we were looking at an educational opportunity. My son wanted to help them.”
The father and son convinced a local Jamba Juice store to donate more than 100 smoothies(果汁)and the pair gave them out to homeless people in a park.
After that, they came up with an even better idea. “I wanted a way to get to know people better, “Chase said. ”So, my dad and I decided to start taking some of the homeless people we’d met out to lunch.
“A lot of people walk right past homeless people and don’t see the person,” he said. “I know now that they’re people just like us. They want to make a connection and not feel so alone in the world.”
Hundreds of lunches later, they run a self-funded charity called Project Empathy(同情)to help inspire others to meet and to create relationships with the homeless people in their neighborhoods. The organization provides a list of resources that can help homeless people with food, housing and employment.
John said that what started as a way to spend quality time with his son has turned into a passion for both of them. “Chase and I realized that the country needed an army of people to practice empathy, and that by doing something as simple as taking a homeless person to lunch, we could maybe inspire others to do the same, ”he said. “Any time you can help to give someone a voice, it’s empowering.
1. Which of the following can best describe Chase Hansen?| A．Curious and caring. | B．Knowledgeable and kind. |
| C．Successful and talented. | D．Generous and ambitious. |
| A．To help them to find the suitable shelter. |
| B．To make friends with the homeless people. |
| C．To do some research and prepare for a project. |
| D．To have a better understanding of the homeless people. |
| A．To offer jobs to the homeless. | B．To change the social-economic conditions. |
| C．To donate more smoothies to the homeless. | D．To inspire more people to help the homeless. |
| A．The Terrible Situation of Homeless People |
| B．The Relationship Between Father and Son |
| C．Father and Son Help Homeless People One Meal at a Time |
| D．Project Empathy Encourages People to Practice Empathy |
10 . Four Historic Firsts for Women in Space You Might not Know About
First Woman in Space
Soviet cosmonaut(宇航员)Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to go to space when she was launched with the Vostok 6 mission on June 16, 1963. She was selected from a pool of 400 applicants and five finalists. She was honorarily inlucted(入伍)into the Soviet Air Force so that she could join the Cosmonaut Corps. Tereshkova is the only woman ever to have been on a solo space mission.
First US Woman in Space
Sally Ride was the first American astronaut to go into orbit on June 18, 1983, as a crew member on the space shuttle Challenger for STS-7. Ride was one of 8, 000 people to answer an ad in the Stanford student newspaper seeking applicants for NASA. She was chosen to join the space program in 1978. She went on one additional mission and spent a total of 343 hours in space.
First Woman to Walk in Space
The first woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya, was also a cosmonaut. She was on her second mission when she space-walked as part of the Salyut 7-EP2 on July 17, 1984. She was also the first woman to have gone into space twice.
First Teacher to go to Space
Christa McAuliffe was a teacher and a civilian astronaut from Concord, NH who was killed with six other crew members when the space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after launch on January 28, 1986. McAuliffe was selected from more than 11, 000 applicants to participate in the NASA Teacher in Space Project. She was planning on conducting experiments and teaching two lessons from space.
1. When did Valentina Tereshkova go to space?| A．In 1963. | B．In 1983. | C．In 1984. | D．In 1986. |
| A．Valentina Tereshkova. | B．Sally Ride. |
| C．Svetlana Savitskaya. | D．Christa McAuliffe. |
| A．She was a civilian astronaut. |
| B．She was on a solo space mission. |
| C．She conducted experiments from space successfully. |
| D．She was selected from 8, 000 people to join in the space project. |
