1 . The best spring destinations in Tibet
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has long been an ideal and mysterious destination for visitors. Now with the arrival of spring, the climate is becoming more pleasant and Tibet has become an even better trowel destination. Here we recommend some of the best tourist destinations in Tibet which might suit your travel taste.
Peach blossom valley: Nyingchi
The peach blossoms in Nyingchi, Tibet Autonomous Region have been named as “the most beautiful peach flowers in the world”. A great time to visit Nyingchi for the peach blossoms would usually be from March 20 to Apil 15 each year.
The peach blossom valley in Bomi County, Nyingchi, stretches for 30 kilometers, making it one of the longest in China. Peach blossoms can be seen everywhere- around houses, across farmlands and along streams. Peach trees bloom depending on the altitude and climate, so visitors will have the chance to enjoy the blossoms throughout April.
The Yarlung Zangbo River Grand Canyon
The Yarlung Zangbo River Grand Canyon is the deepest canyon in the world. With a total length of about 500 kilometers, its altitude spans from 1,182 meters at Namchak Barwa, the highest peak of the eastern Himalayas, to 550 meters around the Yarlung Zangbo River Valley in Metog County.
One unique feature of the spring sight here is that visitors can enjoy both the peach blossoms and the snow-capped mountains at the same time.
Nanyi Valley
Nanyigou scenic spot is 20 kilometers away from Milin County and is an important birthplace of the mysterious Tibetan medicine culture. The scenic area rovers a total area of 820 hectares. The ecological conditions here are so good that the place is rich in various animal and plant species.
Surrounded by mountains and shrouded (遮蔽) in clouds, Nanyi Valley is an ideal spring destination for visitors, where you can find peach and azalea blossoms everywhere.
1. What do the three tourist destinations have in common?| A．They are all covered with snow. |
| B．They are rich in various animal and plant species. |
| C．They provide beautiful peach blossoms for visitors. |
| D．They are the birthplaces of the Tibetan medicine culture. |
| A．It’s the second deepest canyon In the world. |
| B．Visitors can have fun from March 20 to April 15 each year. |
| C．It is 550 meters away from the eastern Himalayas. |
| D．Visitors can admire the snow-capped mountains there. |
| A．Tourism. | B．Technology. | C．Agriculture. | D．Photography. |
2 . I can’t miss the little old lady with her kerchief (方头巾) on her head, a black umbrella blowing all over. I can tell she is freezing. She is standing at a bus stop, and I’m driving by, late for my early morning shift. I decide to stop and offer her a ride.
Of course, she declines, but when I ask again and insist, finally, she gets in the car. I take her to her destination, and by the time she gets out of my car, she is smiling and thanks me.
I was late for work that day, but I was so glad that I stopped. That was 40 years ago, and the beginning of a new habit, one that continues when I’m out driving in bad weather.
If there’s someone at a bus stop, especially if it’s an elderly person waiting at off hours and in bad weather, I will pull over and ask if they need a ride.
Once, a young doctor jumped in. She had finished a long shift and had been waiting and waiting at the bus stop. She had no hesitation and, for the first time, I was able to help someone who performs miracles (奇迹) on a daily basis. That felt good.
But the best part of my ride offers is the conversation. I do tend to ask a lot of questions: where are you from, where are you going, family, background, pets and whatever else comes to mind. Surprisingly, everyone wants to chat. We are usually laughing by the time the ride is over. “What a shame!” I often think when they hop out, as the stories were just getting started.
Now as retirement approaches, I believe I have found my calling. I will be happy to join a community driving program to take people to one appointment or another — or perhaps just to the coffee shop to sit and listen for an hour.
As the years pass, perhaps I will be the one standing at the bus stop. Perhaps there will be somebody who rolls down a window and offers me a seat for a little ride. I will continue to take that leap of faith in the kindness of strangers.
1. What are the first three paragraphs mainly about?| A．How the author started offering rides. |
| B．The value of the author’s actions. |
| C．An old lady who impressed the author. |
| D．An accident that happened 40 years ago. |
| A．Helping people who contribute to society. |
| B．People accepting her offer without hesitation. |
| C．Chatting with her passengers. |
| D．Making friends with her passengers. |
| A．Become a taxi driver after retirement. |
| B．Continue driving people to their destinations. |
| C．Wait to be offered a ride at a bus stop. |
| D．Share her stories with more people. |
| A．Elderly people need more care and support. |
| B．It is important to find a purpose in life. |
| C．Offering rides to strangers involves risks. |
| D．Always believe in the goodness in people. |
3 . Sometimes one plus one does equal three, as was the case when McNee, a basketball coach, met Mandekic. When Mandekic, a math teacher, told McNee how hard it was to get students excited about math at a gathering, he suggested, “Why not throw in something they enjoy, like sports?” “You are kidding!” Mandekic dismissed his idea at the moment.
The idea of mixing basketball and mathematics got its first shot two years later, when Mandekic and McNee, the now colleagues - who had launched a tutoring non-profit - were invited to run a summer-school program for kids who’d failed Grade 9 math at Vanier School.
When the students showed up for their first day, they weren’t exactly thrilled. Over the next few hours, Mandekic and McNee gave the kids techniques to improve their shooting while also helping them calculate their field-goal percentage - which, in turn, taught them math knowledge. At the end of the game, the winning team was determined based on which group had the highest total percentage and had done the most efficient math. “When the bell rang, they were so focused on collecting their data and figuring out which team won that they didn’t leave,” says Mandekic. The classes, later named BallMatics, soon spread to other schools.
Later, McNee and Mandekic established a private school called Uchenna. At the school, kids with excellent basketball skills study all subjects, train at their sport and work part-time helping out with the BallMatics after-school programs. For the school’s first graduates, the value of BallMatics is clear: all of the 16 boys landed university scholarships for their performance in the classroom, not on the court. “The school’s commitment to academics is the key reason for our success. The coaches would bench students who didn’t keep up in class.” Abbott, one of them, says, “At Uchenna, we were student athletes, after all, not athlete students.”
1. How did McNee’s suggestion sound to Mandekic at first?| A．Confusing. | B．Absurd. | C．Practical. | D．Professional. |
| A．They enhanced students’ concentration. |
| B．They improved students’ shooting techniques. |
| C．They helped students learn math unknowingly. |
| D．They guaranteed students’ show-up percentage. |
| A．Students got balanced development. |
| B．The coaches cared little about students. |
| C．Uchenna attracted more and more students. |
| D．He doubted the education idea of the school. |
| A．Big Win | B．Math Struggling |
| C．Numbers Game | D．Athlete Training |
4 . “Who’s a good reader? It’s you, isn’t it?” This is a typical example of “parentese (父母语)”. Recent research suggests that parents speaking parentese to their babies can give their language development a serious boost. In the study, researchers found that teaching parents how to speak proper parentese enhanced their ability to communicate with their babies — and even improved the children’s long-term language skills.
Parentese is distinct from conventional baby talk, which mostly relies on silly sounds and made-up words. In the 1960s, scientists studying speech patterns across different languages noticed a unique style that adults used addressing young children. This language was characterized by simple words and grammar, high pitch (音调) and a much slower speed. The baby-directed speech was first named “motherese” before it was called “parentese”.
Later research showed parentese is grammatically correct, with real words and phrases, which helped babies differentiate between words and process what was being said. “We’ve known for some time that use of parentese is associated with improved language outcomes, but we didn’t know why,” says Patricia K. Kuhl, the study’s senior author. But Kuhl thinks the new research suggests why parentese helps babies learn language skills.
“We now think parentese works because it's a social attraction for the baby brain,” she says. “Its high pitch and slower speed are socially engaging and invite the baby to respond.”
All 71 families in the new study had their children equipped with a special coat with an audio recorder built in. During four separate weekends when the babies were 6, 10, 14 and 18 months old, the researchers recorded all of the interactions between family members and the babies. The 48 families who were randomly selected for a course in parentese learned about ways to include more parentese in conversation.
And even though all of the participating families used some form of parentese at the start of the study, the babies of parents who received coaching showed the most improvements in their conversation skills. Beyond that, those babies had a 100-word vocabulary compared with the control group, who only knew 60 words at 18 months.
1. Which aspect of the study does paragraph 1 focus on?| A．Its aim. | B．Its result. | C．Its procedure. | D．Its participants. |
| A．It was easy to follow. | B．It was unique to mothers. |
| C．It was full of made-up words. | D．It was similar to traditional baby talk. |
| A．It teaches babies more social skills. | B．It inspires babies to speak more. |
| C．It has short-term effects on babies. | D．It helps babies differentiate words and phrases. |
| A．The parents knew more parentese skills. |
| B．Their babies grasped 60 words at 18 months. |
| C．The parents failed to use parentese through the study. |
| D．Their babies received more coaching on a 100-word vocabulary. |
5 . Shaping, drying, glazing and firing... in less than 5 minutes, a mini vase only millimeters in size starts to take shape as viewers watch on. As the founder of a miniature ceramics (微型陶瓷) studio, Wang Wenhua never expected that his works would surprise viewers in China, let alone those abroad, and that his short videos would earn over 45 million views and 4.2 million likes on a video application.
Having worked in China’s “Porcelain Capital (瓷都)” Jingdezhen in East China’s Jiangxi Province for 14 years, Wang said he had once seen the world’s biggest ceramic here but he had never seen the smallest, so he decided one day to try something different—making micro porcelain.
Things were not easy in the beginning, and many people doubted him. “They called me crazy and mocked me when I went to factories and asked them to help make miniature tools for me to create micro pottery. Even my wife did not support me,” Wang said.
However, Wang did not give up and after about half a year of experimentation, Wang finally made miniature tools on his own and was able to complete his first miniature porcelain—a vase.
According to Wang, the key to making a miniature ceramic work is concentration and a pair of steady hands. After numerous attempts, Wang found that the smallest works he could get were about 2 millimeters in size. “It would probably miss my original intention if I made micro pottery using a microscope, so I have focused more attention on making the smaller pieces more beautiful and complex,” said Wang.
The smallest vase that Wang has made is a bowl only 2 millimeters tall, 3 millimeters wide and 1 millimeter thick. Wang says he plans to apply for the Guinness World Records for the world’s smallest pottery work.
1. What inspired Wang Wenhua to make micro porcelain?| A．The high expectations of the viewers. |
| B．The popularity of his videos on a video application. |
| C．His decision to make something different. |
| D．The responsibility of the founder of the studio. |
| A．Ambitious and wise. | B．Brilliant and wealthy. |
| C．Talented and stubborn. | D．Determined and focused. |
| A．Using a microscope in his work. | B．Advanced tools made by himself. |
| C．Carrying out numerous experiments. | D．Attention on a thing and steady hands. |
| A．Art. | B．Fashion. | C．Education. | D．Psychology. |
6 . The Young Scholars Program
The University of Maryland’s Young Scholars Program is a perfect summer camp for academically talented teenagers who want to earn college credits, pursue academic interests or discover college life at the University of Maryland. The program is challenging and rewarding. Students have the opportunity to show that they can be successful in a university environment.
The Activities
During three weeks of exploration, teens preview the university experience, study with students who share similar interests and communicate with the best teachers of the University of Maryland in a dynamic and challenging classroom environment. Students can have trips to nearby Washington, DC and enjoy movie nights and activities at the student union. Workshops and seminars featuring speakers in academic fields further enrich the learning experience.
The Courses
The Young Scholars Program offers college courses that are at the cutting edge of theory, thought and technology. Classes generally meet every day from Monday to Friday. The program is a great introduction to the University of Maryland. Participants can benefit from the University of Maryland’s vast resources, including libraries, computers and instructional labs.
The Rewards
Upon program completion, teens will go home with better preparations for the college experience-both academically and socially. In addition, students earn three college credits that post to the University of Maryland transcript (成绩单).
The Application
The application process includes submission (提交) of the application, high school transcript and a letter of recommendation.
Ages: 14 — 18
Mailing address: The University of Maryland College Park
For more information, call 3014057762.
1. Which is NOT true about the program according to Paragraph 1?| A．It is intended for college students. | B．It can offer college credits for teens. |
| C．It’s worth participating. | D．It can let teens experience college life in advance. |
| A．They can learn from the best students of the University of Maryland |
| B．They can join the student union of the University of Maryland. |
| C．They can attend a meeting for academic discussion. |
| D．They can attend classes every day. |
| A．preview the university environment ahead of time. |
| B．take a part time job in the university’s library. |
| C．submit high school transcript. |
| D．call 3014057762 to contact the university first. |
7 . Women are equally responsible for the growth of a free, modern society. Here’s a look at some outstanding women who made great contributions to world history.
Maria Sibylla MerianToday, children can explain how a caterpillar (毛毛虫) turns into a butterfly (蝴蝶). But there was a time when no one knew this --not even scientists. Thanks to Maria Sibylla Merian, we know the truth about these beautiful winged insects. Merian was fascinated by insects, and she began collecting, studying, and drawing them when she was as young as 13. It was through her study of caterpillars that she discovered the truth about their life cycles.
Beryl MarkhamBeryl Markham was quite incredible in not just aviation (航空) but several other industries, including horse racing. In 1936, at age 33, Markham became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic alone from the east to the west, nonstop. The pilot played a role in the classic best-selling novel and film, Out of Africa, and had many biographies penned about her talents and life.
Madam C. J. WalkerMadam C J. Walker developed a condition that caused her to lose her hair, and with it, an interest in hair care. She began working for black hair care entrepreneur (企业家) Annie Turnbo Malone. Eventually, Walker began making and marketing her own hair care products designed for African-American women. Her company developed into the successful Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company. She is widely recognized as America’s first black female self-made millionaire.
Hedy LamarrYou might know Hedy Lamarr from the silver screen; she starred in many films. But her film career is far from her only achievement; she was also a brilliant inventor. In 1942, she received a patent for an invention that could change radio signal frequencies. It paved the way for much of the wireless technology we use today.
1. Who had a lot of enthusiasm for the study of insects?| A．Hedy Lamarr | B．Beryl Markham |
| C．Madam C.J. Walker | D．Maria Sibylla Merian |
| A．Her losing her hair. | B．A type of hair care product. |
| C．Annie Turnbo Malone’s success. | D．Her wish to help African Americans. |
| A．She was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic alone. |
| B．She was both a film star and an inventor. |
| C．She was a successful businesswoman. |
| D．She was a best-selling writer. |
8 . San Francisco Fire Engine Tours
San Francisco Winery TourRunning: February 1st through April 30th
This delicious tour goes through the city on its way to Treasure Island where we will stop at the famous Winery SF. Here you can enjoy 4 pours of some of the best wine San Francisco has to offer.(Included in tickets price)
Departing from the Cannery: Tour times upon request.Duration(时长): 2 hours
Price: $90
Back to the Fifties Tour
Running: August 16th through August 31st
This tour transports you back in time to one of San Francisco’s most fantastic periods, the 1950s! Enjoy fun history as we take you through San Francisco for a free taste of ice cream.
Departing from the Cannery: 5:00 pm and 7:30 pmDuration: 2 hours
Price: $90
Spooky Halloween Tour
Running: October 10th through October 31st
Join us for a ride through the historical Presidio district. Authentic fire gear(服装) is provided for your warmth as our entertainers take you to some of the most thrilling parts of San Francisco.
Departing from the Cannery: 6:30 pm and 8:30 pmDuration: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Price: Available upon request
Holiday Lights Tour
Running: December 6th through December 23rd
This attractive tour takes you to some of San Francisco’s most cheerful holiday scenes. Authentic fire gear is provided for your warmth as you get into the holiday spirit.
Departing from the Cannery: 7:00 pm and 9:00 pmDuration: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Advance reservations required.
1. Which of the tours is available in March?
| A．San Francisco Winery Tour. | B．Back to the Fifties Tour. |
| C．Spooky Hallowen Tour. | D．Holiday Lights Tour. |
| A．Go to Treasure Island. | B．Enjoy the holiday scenes. |
| C．Have free ice cream. | D．Visit the Presidio district. |
| A．Take some drinks. | B．Set off early in the morning. |
| C．Wear warm clothes. | D．Make reservations in advance. |
9 . Bicycle riding has become popular world-wide. Bicycles are typically made of metals such as steel and aluminum(铝), but now there is a company making bikes differently. These bicycles are made from British-grown ash trees by the Welsh furniture maker Andy Dix.
“It’s great to push for more bikes and fewer cars on the road, but the traditional bike industry as a whole is using a large amount of energy,” Dix said. “I’ve always tried to reduce environmental impact in my work. Rather than using metals, or plastic, I’m building bikes from green materials—wood.”
It took two years to build a model bike that was made from the ash tree. Dix tested the wooden bike on the roughest road she could find and discovered that it was comfortable, strong, and excellent at absorbing vibrations (吸收震动) . He put more than 3, 000 miles on the bike. Then he rode a normal bike on broken roads, which would have shaken him to bits, and then the penny dropped. “Not only could I make a bike out of wood, but it had advantages over other materials,” Dix said.
While cutting down trees can add more carbon to the atmosphere to a certain degree，sustainable(可持续的) tree farming is possible, which can balance the needs of the environment and forest communities. And Dix said producing a tonne of aluminum results in 4, 532kg of carbon emissions while producing a tonne of wood only gives out 457kg. Making bicycles out of wood won’t make a huge difference. “We have this material growing naturally all around us. It’s time people started to think about using it,” Dix said.
The cost of a new wooden bike is out of reach for many bicycle riders. But the idea of using sustainable materials like ash trees could start a new cycling change that puts the environment first. Helping the environment could be just a pedal(踏板) away.
1. What do Dix’s words in Paragraph 2tellus?| A．The disadvantages of metal bikes. |
| B．The process of producing wooden bikes. |
| C．The changes happening to the bike industry. |
| D．The driving force for his turning to wooden bikes. |
| A．It is eco-friendly and has an excellent performance. |
| B．It is consumer-friendly but needs many materials. |
| C．It is energy-saving but hard to operate. |
| D．It is well-recognized and affordable. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Positive. | C．Worried. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Bikes made from trees may appear |
| B．Cycling is a good form of exercise |
| C．Let’s pay attention to our carbon footprint |
| D．Let’s challenge ourselves with a wooden bike |
10 . London Shops
The Craft Store is a lovely little store for those who like making things by themselves. A great number of tools can be used for everything from candle making to making your own dress! Once you get into this store, you will be attracted by all the things you can do.
Phone: (020)7636-0611 Address: 3080 Wonderland Road
The London Shop is a small shop in Baker Street which sells high-quality goods for the choosy tourists. It has a series of the usual tourist items, including lovely Rose teapots, cups and lots of teas. For the collectors there are model cars of every model from Rolls-Royce to Mini.
Phone: (020)7935-1441 Address: 198 Baker Street
Nothing New is a great store for those who love old things with a bit of history. Even if you can’t afford the prices, it’s a great place to travel around and look at the old clothes and jewellery. You might even be able to pick up old musical instruments, but that depends on luck and your budget (预算)!
Phone: (020)7038-3718 Address: 1 Farringdon Street
Active is a great store to suit all budgets. On the first floor there are informal and sports clothes for those who don’t want to spend much money on looking good. On the second floor there is equipment for the serious sportsman who wants quality and style.
Phone: (020)7487-3370 Address: Long Tall Sally 19-25 Chiitem Street
1. Who will like the Craft Store best?| A．People who are not rich. | B．People who love old things. |
| C．People who like designing clothes. | D．People who like hands-on practice. |
| A．198 Baker Street. | B．1 Farringdon Street. |
| C．3080 Wonderland Road. | D．Long Tall Sally 19-25 Chiitem Street. |
| A．Active. | B．Nothing New. |
| C．The Craft Store. | D．The London Shop. |
