1 . Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has long worked to make her city less dependent on cars. She wanted to see more people using bicycles to get around. Over a number of years, the city government set limits on cars and increased the amount of bike paths from 200 kilometers to over 1,000 kilometers.
This year, Parisians are not complaining about too much automobile traffic. Instead, they say there are too many bikes. “Now, it’s really like a bike traffic jam(阻塞),” Thibault Quere, a spokesperson for France’s Federation of Bicycle Users, said. ”It’s kind of a good difficulty to have, especially when we think about what Paris used to be.”
Some famous roads along the River Seine are completely closed to cars. Now you see people riding bikes, running and walking with their families along the river. In another part of Paris, a bike path on Sebastopol Boulevard is one of the busiest in Europe, after opening in 2019. In one week in early September, it reached a record high of 124,000 riders.
The city will host the Summer Olympics in 2024 and plans to add more bike paths by then. Paris wants to reduce its pollution by half during the games, even as visitors from around the world will be in the city for the event. Organizers say all of the competition sites will be reachable by bike through a 60-kilometer network of bike paths.
The change to Paris, however, has not been easy. With more people using bikes, more people are making mistakes. Some of them are new to cycling and disobey traffic rules. But the environment may be improving. Cycling is good exercise and helps reduce pollution, which is still a problem for the large city. The French government blames atmospheric pollution for 48,000 early deaths in the country each year.
Hidalgo was re-elected in 2020 and plans to keep making what she calls a “Paris that breathes”. Her newest five-year bike plan includes over $250 million for more bike paths and bike parking. The new budget is an increase of over $100 million from her first five-year plan.
1. What can be learned from the second paragraph?| A．Hidalgo’s effort has paid off. | B．Parisians prefer to travel by car. |
| C．Parisians find it difficult to ride bikes. | D．Quere disagrees with Hidalgo. |
| A．To compare the famous roads in France. |
| B．To praise people enjoying riding bicycles. |
| C．To stress the importance of France in Europe. |
| D．To show how busy a cycle path is in Paris. |
| A．Tour local bike shops. | B．Ride to competition sites. |
| C．Promote the sights in France. | D．Support the athletes around the world. |
| A．Friendly. | B．Helpful. | C．Determined. | D．Honest. |
2 . Four Unmissable Cultural Attractions in Cambridge
Set on the east bank of the River Cam, Cambridge is surely one of England’s most traditional and famous cities, where there is a world-famous university and great writers, thinkers and scholars. It comes as no surprise that this age-old centre of learning is home to a variety of splendid museums.
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam, a museum at the University of Cambridge, houses about half a million artworks worldwide. Highlights include masterpieces by Titian and Canaletto, Anglo-Saxon jewelry (珠宝), and a wide range of priceless china, to name just a few. The museum is closed on Mondays.
Polar Museum
This small museum is based in the university’s Scott Polar Research Institute, set up by a surviving member of Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition (探险) to Antarctica. It’s packed with all manner of objects relating to polar exploration; sleeping bags, Inuit artworks and expedition diaries. The museum is open from Wednesdays to Saturdays; check the latest times before visiting.
Museum of Zoology
Celebrate the diversity of animal life at this university museum, which has some of the best natural history collections in the world. It’s home to a variety of impressive exhibits, from an almost-70-foot fin whale to an African elephant. The specimens (标本) on display cover the whole animal kingdom. It is open from Tuesdays to Sundays.
Centre for Computing History
With a focus on the social and cultural impact of technology, this museum explores the incredible advances made in computing over the past few decades, as well as during the earlier days of the Information Age. It’s a great day out with children, with mobile phones, calculators, game players and old-fashioned computers all on show. The museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
1. What will you enjoy in Fitzwilliam Museum?| A．Valuable artworks. | B．Expedition diaries. |
| C．Animal specimens. | D．Old-fashioned computers. |
| A．On Monday. | B．On Tuesday. | C．On Friday. | D．On Sunday. |
| A．Polar Museum. | B．Museum of Zoology. |
| C．Fitzwilliam Museum. | D．Centre for Computing History. |
3 . Art is everywhere. Any public space has been carefully designed by an artistic mind to be both functional and beautiful. Then why is art still widely considered “the easy subject” at school, insignificant to wider society, a waste of time and effort?
Art can connect culture with commercial products; art generates money and holds significant emotional and cultural value within communities. When people attend a concert, they are paying for music, maybe even hotel rooms, meals, and transport, but they also gain an incredible experience.
What’s more, the arts can bring communities together, reducing loneliness and making people feel safer. Social bonds are created among individuals when they share their arts’ experiences through reflection and discussion, and their expression of common values.
The arts clearly have a pretty positive impact on physical and psychological health. It is found that people who frequent cultural places or participate in artistic events are more likely to gain good health compared to those who do not; more engagement with the arts is linked to a higher level of people’s well-being. The Public Health discovered that music and art, when used in hospitals, help to improve the conditions of patients by reducing stress, anxiety and blood pressure.
Children who are involved with the arts make greater achievements in their education: those engaged with drama have greater literary ability while others taking part in musical practice exhibit greater skills in math and languages. Kids with preference for the arts have a greater chance of finding employment in the future. Participating in the arts is essential for child development; encouraging children to express themselves in constructive ways could help to form healthy emotional responses in later life.
Vital to human life, art is celebrated and used across the world. Life without art would be boring, for art is a part of what makes us human.
1. Art products differ from most other commercial products because _______.| A．their prices may climb up as time passes |
| B．most people purchase them for collection |
| C．they are more expensive and less accessible |
| D．they have both commercial and cultural values |
| A．develop a stronger tie between them |
| B．keep the community safe from illnesses |
| C．learn to appreciate their own works of art |
| D．offer honourable solutions to their problems |
| A．It helps to make responsible people out of them. |
| B．It inspires their creativity in designing their future career. |
| C．It promotes their academic performance and emotional growth. |
| D．It gives them more confidence in exhibiting their learning skills. |
| A．How Art Cures Our Hearts |
| B．How Art Benefits Communities |
| C．Art: A Bridge Between Cultures |
| D．Art: A Blessing to Humankind |
4 . Finding a California condor in the wild would be the most unusual treat. perhaps even more unusual than finding a wolf in Yellowstone National Park. In fact, the wolf was what opened my eyes to the fact that humans could bring an animal back to the place where it had disappeared.
In 1987, there were only 27 California condors left, none of which were in the wild, only in captive breeding programs, It was those breeding programs that contributed to their population rise, enough that by 1991 some of them could be freed into the wild.
Still, the hope of seeing a California condor, which remains an endangered species, is very low, let alone getting a photo of one. California condor population dropped mostly due to human factors, such as poaching and living areas destruction-these are challenges California condors still face today.
Although this is just a bird’s-eye view of the challenges California condors face and there are many others, it is part of why the opportunity to work with the US Fish and Wildlife Service team and their partners helping their recovery is so special to me as a photographer. I am not only able to photograph the birds in their wild living areas, but also understand and record how difficult the work is of those people on the front lines of the protection.
I am grateful for the work of the team, and my hope is that California condor population will continue to rise allowing future generations an opportunity I never had when I first got here-to look to the sky and see one flying around.
1. What helped the increase of the California condor population in 1987?| A．Rules for hunters. | B．Captive breeding programs. |
| C．The improved natural environment. | D．The enlargement of wild living areas. |
| A．It is difficult. | B．It is easy. | C．It is boring. | D．It is dangerous. |
| A．He guided ways for them. | B．He made records by photos. |
| C．He helped the birds to recover. | D．He rebuilt the birds’ living areas. |
| A．New Way, New Hope | B．Wolves and California Condors |
| C．A Photo of a California Condor | D．The California Condor’s Coming Back |
5 . A lot of people find it difficult to do exercise regularly, even though they know it’s good for their physical and mental (身心上的) health. Yet keeping on a workout routine doesn’t necessarily go to the gym or run around your neighborhood. Gardening is a great example of a popular hobby that can be used as a workout.
Nashville resident Tom Adkinson, 72, is on board with the idea of gardening to stay fit. He has three gardens, which he uses primarily to grow tomatoes, sweet banana peppers and okra. Like traditional exercise, Adkinson does a lot of preparation before gardening, and then he spends hours watering and weeding (除草) all three gardens, involving bending and stretching, which he compares to performing garden yoga.
“It is wise of Adkinson to do so. Even though gardening may not appear difficult, using the body in new ways can make you hurt if you don’t warm up beforehand,” said Zeller, who teaches at the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Cape May County in New Jersey.
Working in your garden just two hours a week could improve your mood. And the communal gardening, which is done by a number of people as a group in communities and schools, provides social benefits that can reduce stress and help fight against loneliness and even dementia according to studies.
“With all these benefits, gardening for fitness will be a trend (趋势) in the coming year,” announced Mandal, CEO of the fitness coaching app Future, “Our users at Future have already been asking their coaches to add gardening and landscaping activities into their routines because it’s easy to get and fit into their lifestyle.”
1. What do the underlined words “on board with” mean in paragraph 2?| A．In support of. | B．At the risk of. |
| C．Under the control of. | D．In opposition to. |
| A．Having a good rest. |
| B．Getting enough water ready. |
| C．Doing warm-up exercise. |
| D．Preparing tools for weeding. |
| A．Tips for gardening. |
| B．The benefits of gardening. |
| C．The process of garden management. |
| D．The difference between personal and group gardening. |
| A．Running. | B．Yoga. | C．Gardening. | D．Walking. |
6 . Yue-Sai Kan was born in China. In 1972, she moved to New York. When Kan was a child, she was told by her father that she should always aim to (力争) be the first because no one remembered the second. What her father said has been a driving inspiration over the years for her to become a bestselling author and a successful businesswoman.
Her new book Be a Pioneer, which is the tenth she has written and her first Chinese-language autobiography (自传), was produced after three years, inspired by her father’s words.
When writing an autobiography, the biggest challenge is not how to present one’s life, but to remember it. To help with reconstructing her story, Kan asked many friends and colleagues she made over the years to write down their memories of her from earlier times. So besides featuring Kan’s own words, the new book is also filled with those of her friends’s, which gives Kan a new understanding of herself — a woman who works hard, studies hard. and the most important thing is that she is a woman filled with a sense of responsibility.
“My helper Stephanie mentioned that I was worried because we were running out of money for the company. My housekeeper reminded me that before the start of one of my events she found that I had fainted (晕倒) in the bathroom. I was so tired that I was getting sick. They know more about me than myself,” Kan says.
“Writing a book is a good business to be in, not so much to make money but to grow the brain. I believe what I do will benefit the world. All the things I have done in Be a Pioneer — my successes and my failures — can be a good example to young people in particular. That’s the main reason why I wrote the book,” adds Kan.
1. What can we know about Kan’s book Be a Pioneer?| A．It took her 10 years to finish. |
| B．It is full of her father’s words. |
| C．It was completed with her friends’ help. |
| D．It tops the tenth on the bestseller list. |
| A．Being short of money. | B．Having no supporters. |
| C．Having to write it in Chinese. | D．Remembering her past. |
| A．To tell Kan is weak in health. |
| B．To show Kan is a worried woman. |
| C．To report the path of writing is difficult. |
| D．To state how Kan’s story was reconstructed. |
| A．Setting an example. | B．Earning money. |
| C．Making herself popular. | D．Proving herself to her father. |
7 . Every Saturday night, all through that lazy spring, I used to take a rose to Miss Caroline Wellford. Every Saturday night, rain or shine, at exactly eight o’clock.
Miss Caroline was abandoned by her future husband Jeffrey Pinniman, who married Christine Marlowe, a younger and prettier girl. It almost became a scandal (丑闻) in our town. Miss Caroline could hear unkind things about her everywhere she went. For six months she had shut herself up in her house and seemed determined to turn herself into an odd old maid. She looked like a ghost that night when I delivered the first rose. “Hello, Jimmy,” she said listlessly (无精打采地). When I handed her the box, she looked shocked — “For me?”
Again the next Saturday, at exactly the same time, I found myself delivering another rose to Miss Caroline. The third time she opened the door so quickly that I knew she must have been waiting. There was a little color in her cheeks and her hair no longer looked so straggly (散乱地).
The morning after my fourth trip to her house, Miss Caroline played the organ again in church. She held her head high with the rose pinned to her blouse. Week after week I delivered the rose, and gradually Miss Caroline returned her normal life.
When I made my final trip to Miss Caroline’s house, I said, as I handed her the box, “This is the last time I’ll bring this, Miss Caroline.” She hesitated and invited me to come in and handed me a model of a sailing ship, exquisitely (精巧地) carved. She said. “I’d like you to have it. You’ve brought me great happiness, Jimmy — you and your roses.”
Fleeing back to the shop, I looked in the file where Mr. Olsen kept his untidy records, and I found what I was looking for. “Pinniman,” it said.
The years went by, and one day I came again to Olsen’s flower shop. My old boss and I talked a while. Out of curiosity, I asked, “D’you suppose that Mrs. Pinniman ever knew her husband was sending flowers to his old flame?” “Jeffrey Pinniman never even knew about it.” Mr. Olsen smiled, “It is a lady who said she wasn’t going to sit around watching Miss Caroline make a martyr (长期受折磨者) of herself at her expense.”
1. Who is the person that sent the rose?| A．Miss Caroline. | B．Mrs. Pinniman. | C．Mr. Olsen. | D．Jeffery Pinniman. |
| A．Deserted by her husband, Caroline lived in a mess. |
| B．People in the town all show great sympathy for Miss Caroline. |
| C．Jimmy had thought Jeffery Pinniman sent roses to Miss Caroline. |
| D．Christine put an end to the marriage of Miss Caroline and Jeffery Pinniman. |
| A．Kind and considerate. | B．Awful and selfish. |
| C．Active and helpful. | D．Thoughtful and patient. |
| A．A poor woman. | B．A special Saturday night. |
| C．A rose from a stranger. | D．A rose for Miss Caroline. |
8 . A man came home from work late to find his 5-year-old son waiting for him at the door.
“Daddy, may I ask you a question?”
“Yeah sure, what is it?” replied the man.
“Daddy, how much do you make an hour?”
“If you must know, I make $20 an hour.”
Looking up, the little boy asked, “Daddy, may I please borrow $10?”
The father was angry, “If the only reason why you asked that is that you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you are being so selfish. I work hard every day for such this childish behavior?”
The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy’s questions. “How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?”
After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down and started to think: “Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $10 because he really didn’t ask for money very often.”
The man went to the door of the little boy’s room and opened the door. “Are you asleep, son?” He asked. “No daddy, I’m awake,” replied the boy.
“I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too strict with you earlier,” said the man. “It’s been a long day and I took out my bad feelings on you. Here’s the $10 you asked for.” The little boy sat straight up, smiling, “Oh, thank you, daddy!” Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled(褶皱的)bills.
The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at his father. “Why do you want more money if you already have some?” the father complained. “Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,” the little boy replied. “Daddy, I have $20 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you.”
1. Why was the father angry at first?| A．Because he misunderstood his son. | B．Because he worked too late that day. |
| C．Because his son wanted to buy a silly toy. | D．Because his son asked for too much money. |
| A．To offer his son more money. | B．To check if his son was asleep. |
| C．To make an apology for his strictness. | D．To take out his bad feelings on his son. |
| A．That his son owed him money. | B．That his son had owned money. |
| C．That his son had told a lie to him. | D．That his son refused to talk to him. |
| A．Inspired. | B．Panicked. | C．Regretful. | D．Doubtful. |
9 . When the first digital emoticon “:-)” was posted on Sept 19, 1982, by professor Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University, US, internet history was made. Now, there are more than 3,600 emojis available for us, noted CNN.
“They offer things that words aren’t saying. They clarify that when you say ‘okay’, what kind of okay that is.” Jennifer Daniel—head of the Emoji Subcommittee for the Unicode Consortium, an organization in charge of choosing official emojis—told CNN. Daniel went on to say that emojis add natural elements of face-to-face communication to conversations, such as body language, intonation, volume and eye contact.
But the meanings of emojis are quite different geographically. For example, people in the West prefer to express their feelings through the mouth and chin; so, to show happiness, they often put great emphasis on the corners of the mouth turning up. But in the East, people are more emotionally restrained and their emotions are shown through the eyes instead.
Emojis can be used differently even within the same country. A smiley face with a waving hand is one such example. For most people, this kind of emoji is friendly while some young people use it to show the breakup of a relationship.
Just as language develops, so do emojis. The Unicode Consortium brings out new emojis every year, showing care when it comes to race, gender and other sensitive aspects in new emoji sets. In 2015, it released different skin tones. In 2016, different job emojis were added, such as teacher and firefighter—along with female versions for these jobs. In 2019, emojis of disabled people were added, including emojis of blind people and people in wheelchairs.
What is the future for emojis? They are already shaping social media as existing and new platforms evolve to respond to their expanding uses. Will the emoji evolve to become an international language with the growth of digitalization (数字化)? Or is technology changing so fast that emojis could go the way of the emoticon and fade in popularity after the next big thing comes along? It is hard to predict—even technology and language experts are divided on the subject.
1. Why do we use emojis, according to Daniel?| A．To replace body language. | B．To fully express ourselves. |
| C．To add fun to the conversation. | D．To stress what we want to say. |
| A．A face with a hand over the mouth. | B．A face with a raised eyebrow. |
| C．A smiley face with a waving hand. | D．A face with an upward curving of the mouth. |
| A．Recognized. | B．Remained. | C．Controlled. | D．Influenced. |
| A．It remains to be seen. |
| B．They will lose favor sooner or later. |
| C．They will become even more popular. |
| D．They will develop into a universal language. |
10 . A lunar crystal (水晶) was found in lunar basalt particles (玄武岩颗粒) collected from the moon in 2020 when the Chinese moon mission landed in Oceanus Procellarum, returning with more than 1.7 kg of lunar samples delivered safely to the Earth.
The crystal found on the near side of the moon is giving scientists hope of providing limitless power for the world forever. It is made of material previously unknown to the scientific community and contains a key ingredient for the nuclear fusion (核聚变) process, a form of power generation that uses the same forces that fuel the sun and other stars. It is transparent and roughly the width of a single human hair, and it formed in a region of the moon where volcanoes were active around 1.2 billion years ago.
One of the primary ingredients found in this crystal is helium-3 (氦-3) , which scientists believe may provide a stable fuel source for nuclear fusion reactors. The element is incredibly rare on the Earth, but it seems to be fairly common on the moon. China’s next moon mission is expected to be carried out by Chang’e 6 in 2024, which will attempt to collect the first samples from the far side of the moon, which never faces the Earth.
Although it is too early for scientists to have made financial estimates on such a fuel source, it will undoubtedly be extremely costly. There is, of course, the matter of bringing the crystals back from the moon, especially in large amounts that are needed to fuel fusion reactors.
Helium-3 produces significantly less radiation and nuclear waste than other elements. The current nuclear fusion process has raised serious safety concerns, and as a result, scientists have been searching for a way to create nuclear power from nuclear fusion. During the fusion process, radioactive waste is not produced, potentially making a securer and more efficient fuel source.
Around 25 tons of helium-3 could power the US for a year. Multiple private companies and countries with space agencies have signaled their intentions to mine the moon for helium-3, and this latest discovery could kick start the race.
1. What can we learn about the crystal?| A．It is 1.7 centimeters wide. |
| B．It is expected to power the Earth. |
| C．It is commonly found on the Earth. |
| D．It is made of previously familiar material. |
| A．Collect up nuclear waste. |
| B．Find out the elements of helium-3. |
| C．Set up lunar nuclear fusion reactors. |
| D．Take back the samples of lunar crystals. |
| A．It is low in cost. | B．It is clean and safe. |
| C．It absorbs radiation. | D．It produces no waste. |
| A．A Struggling Race to Make Crystals |
| B．An Undoubted Discovery Powering the US |
| C．An Efficient Way to Collect Crystals from the Moon |
| D．A Rare Moon Crystal Discovered by Chinese Scientists |
