1 . I turned 8 years old the day I skipped school for the first time. It was easily done: Both my parents left for work before my school bus arrived on weekdays, so when it showed up at my house on that cold winter morning, I simply did not get on. The perfect crime!
And what did I do with myself on that glorious stolen day, with no adult in charge and no limits on my activities? Did I get high? Hit the mall for a shoplifting extravaganza (狂欢)?
Nope. I built a warm fire in the wood stove, prepared a bowl of popcorn, grabbed a blanket, and read. I was trilled and transported by a book — it was Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises — and I just needed to be alone with it for a little while. I ached to know what would happen to Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley and Robert Cohn. I couldn’t bear the thought of siting in a classroom taking another exam when I could be traveling through Spain in the 1920s with a bunch of expatriates (异乡客).
I spent that day lost in words. Time fell away, as the room around me turned to mist, and my role — as a daughter, sister, teenager, and student — in the world no longer had any meaning. I had accidentally come across the key to perfect happiness: I had become completely absorbed by something I loved.
Looking back on it now, I can see that some subtle things were happening to my mind and to my life while I was in that state of absorption. Hemingway’s language was quietly braiding itself into my imagination. I was downloading information about how to create simple and elegant sentences, a good and solid plot. In other words, I was learning how to write. Without realizing it, I was hot on the trail of my own fate. Writing now absorbs me the way reading once did and happiness is their generous side effect.
1. Why did the author skip school on that day?| A．Because she’s fascinated by a novel. | B．Because it’s a biting cold winter morning. |
| C．Because her parents left home early. | D．Because she’s anxious to take the exam. |
| A．Reading a fiction by the fire. | B．Travelling with a bunch of expatriates. |
| C．Being occupied by one’s passion. | D．Breaking the rules and regulations. |
| A．Mending. | B．Destroying. | C．Entering. | D．Blocking. |
| A．The author was tired of his roles in the real-life. |
| B．Becoming a writer is the author’s childhood dream. |
| C．The author skipped school when he was 8 years old. |
| D．Writing has a horrible effect on the author’s life now. |
2 . Within the environmental movement, the question often arises whether global warming can be mitigated (缓解) by planting more vegetation. The idea is that the plants will consume carbon dioxide (CO2) that is causing the warming, while producing oxygen for us to breathe. This is acceptable on condition that global warming is indeed caused in some way by CO2 in the air.
However, actual scientific debate on the issue has shifted away from CO2 as the probable cause, especially after the findings that the temperatures changed 800 to 1000 years before carbon dioxide changed. In other words, CO2 levels are an indicator of temperature change, not a cause.
While there is nothing we can do to control the global climate, there is still a lot we can do to improve our local climates. Land use is the biggest decisive factor of local temperature and air quality. On clear days, the temperatures in big cities can be 5.6 degrees Centigrade higher than in the countryside around them. This is because the concrete (混凝土) of sidewalks and buildings and the asphalt (沥青) of roads take in sunlight and transform it into heat. Some get so hot, one could cook an egg on them! These vast surfaces of man﹣made stone also store lots of heat, which they radiate (散发) all night long. Just before sunrise, when the earth should be its coolest, roadways are still warm to touch.
If vegetation was blocking the Sun from the sidewalks and roads, the vegetation would absorb the sunlight, fueling the plants’ oxygen-making engines, and the rock would stay at surrounding temperatures. The easiest and most obvious choice is trees, particularly wide-reaching trees like the oak. Another possibility, especially outside the city centre, could be vine-covered trellises (棚架).Covering rooftops with grasses or other short vegetation reduces a building’s cooling cost as sharply as having trees or trellises that provide shade for windows does.
The reason why vegetation does not warm the air like rock does is that plants take water from the ground and evaporate (蒸发) it through their leaves. The Sun’s energy isn’t radiated as heat — it is used to change water into water vapor. The evaporative cooling works so well that the leaves stay 5.6 to 8.33 degrees Centigrade cooler than they would have been without water. While we can’t improve global climate, increased vegetation can help cool local climates.
1. Which of the following is True according to the passage?| A．With some effort, we can still affect global climate. |
| B．We can do a lot to improve the climate where we live. |
| C．Temperatures in big cities are usually lower than in the countryside. |
| D．The asphalt of roads throws back sunlight. |
| A．Planting full and wide-reaching trees. |
| B．Using vehicles that get better gas mileage. |
| C．Using energy-saving equipment. |
| D．Constructing dark-colored roofs on new buildings. |
| A．Darker colors absorb more sunlight and transform it into heat. |
| B．More thick materials store heat and give off it at night. |
| C．Human activity is changing global climate. |
| D．Vegetation is neither dark nor thick; thus, it reduces localized heating. |
| A．Encourage the next generation to increase vegetation. |
| B．Promote rooftop gardening. |
| C．Remove vines and trellises from buildings. |
| D．A and B above. |
3 . Better starve free than be a fat slave. There is nothing worth so much as liberty.
There was once a Wolf who got very little to eat because the dogs of the village were so wide awake and
One night this Wolf happened to fall in with a fine fat House Dog who had
“You can be as well﹣fed as I am if you want to,” suggested the Dog. “Leave the woods; there you will live miserably
The Wolf had such a beautiful vision of his coming happiness that he
“What’s wrong with your neck?” “Nothing at all,” replied the Dog. “What? Nothing?” “Oh, just a trifle!” the Dog added, “Perhaps you see the mark of the collar
“What? A chain!” cried the Wolf. “Couldn’t you go wherever you want to go?” “Not always, but what’s the
“All the difference in the world! I don’t care about your feasts and I wouldn’t take all the tender young lambs in the world at that
| A．hungry | B．watchful | C．aggressive | D．fierce |
| A．angry | B．anxious | C．downhearted | D．frightened |
| A．wandered | B．run | C．fled | D．marched |
| A．weak | B．small | C．light | D．strong |
| A．praising | B．congratulating | C．complimenting | D．admiring |
| A．as | B．while | C．when | D．unless |
| A．instructions | B．suggestions | C．words | D．example |
| A．bark | B．stare | C．glare | D．cough |
| A．In brief | B．In return | C．In turn | D．In general |
| A．suddenly | B．finally | C．almost | D．mostly |
| A．neck | B．ankle | C．ear | D．tail |
| A．with | B．on | C．at | D．to |
| A．sense | B．difference | C．meaning | D．point |
| A．situation | B．condition | C．price | D．case |
| A．out | B．down | C．inside | D．off |
4 . You know the feeling — you have left your phone at home and feel anxious, as if you have lost your connection to the world. “Nomophobia” (无手机恐惧症) affects teenagers and adults alike. You can even do an online test to see if you have it. Last week, researchers from Hong Kong warned that nomophobia is infecting everyone. Their study found that people who use their phones to store, share and access personal memories suffer most. When users were asked to describe how they felt about their phones, words such as “hurt” (neck pain was often reported) and “alone” predicted higher levels of nomophobia.
“The findings of our study suggest that users regard smartphones as their extended selves and get attached to the devices,” said Dr Kim Ki Joon. “People experience feelings of anxiety and unpleasantness when separated from their phones.” Meanwhile, an American study shows that smartphone separation can lead to an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.
So can being without your phone really give you separation anxiety? Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist and director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, says it is what is on the phone that counts — the social networking that creates Fomo (fear of missing out).
“We are talking about an Internet-connected device that allows people to deal with lots of aspects of their lives,” says Griffiths. “You would have to surgically remove a phone from a teenager because their whole life is ingrained in this device.”
Griffiths thinks attachment theory, where we develop emotional dependency on the phone because it holds details of our lives, is a small part of nomophobia. For “screenagers”, it is Fomo that creates the most separation anxiety. If they can’t see what’s happening on WeChat or Weibo, they become panic-stricken about not knowing what’s going on socially. “But they adapt very quickly if you take them on holiday and there’s no Internet,” says Griffiths.
1. Which of the following may Dr Kim Ki Joon agree with?| A．We waste too much time on phones. |
| B．Phones have become part of some users. |
| C．Addiction to phones makes memories suffer. |
| D．Phones and blood pressure are closely linked. |
| A．We worry we may miss out what our friends are doing |
| B．We fear without phones we will run into a lot of trouble |
| C．We are accustomed to having a phone on us |
| D．We need our phones to help us store information |
| A．Approved of. | B．Relied on. | C．Opposed to. | D．Determined by. |
| A．In a research report. |
| B．In a science textbook. |
| C．In a popular science magazine. |
| D．In a fashion brochure. |
5 . Maggie, a girl of thirteen years old, lived on the west coast of the United States. She had never experienced an earthquake before; she only prepared for it. As long as she could remember, preparing for an earthquake was common at her school. Her family had made plans as well in case of a natural disaster.
One day, Maggie arrived home from school at the usual time. However, it was not the same as usual. She was home alone. Her mom would be driving home on the busy freeway and her dad was to arrive at the airport. He was coming home from a two-week business trip.
After finishing her homework, Maggie felt a little hungry, so she went to the kitchen to find something to eat: Just then she felt a shake, then the violent shaking. Maggie quickly ran under the large table in the dining room. The sounds of breaking glass and the crashing of many things were deafening, and Maggie hugged herself in fear.
After what seemed like a very long time, the earthquake appeared to be over. Maggie could hear the sound of water rushing below her in the basement. And there was the smell of natural gas in the air. Maggie knew where the main water valve(阀门) was and how to turn it off. Dad had ever shown her before.
Slowly and carefully she came out from under the table. The once tidy home was then almost unrecognizable. Walls had fallen down and many things in the room were in a mess. As Maggie approached the open basement door, she could see the steps. Carefully she made her way down into the dark basement.
While placing her feet firmly on the floor, Maggie felt a sudden pain as a large wood hit her head and shoulder. She fell unconscious onto a pile of boxes. An hour later, she woke up and found her parents beside her. She was happy that she was still alive!
1. What can we infer from the first paragraph?| A．Earthquake are the main natural disasters in the US. |
| B．Maggie’s parents taught her how to survive in an earthquake. |
| C．Earthquakes occur often in the west of the US. |
| D．Magpie has some self-help knowledge in earthquakes. |
| A．Very loud. | B．Quite familiar |
| C．Very distant | D．Quite strange. |
| A．She was the only child in her family |
| B．She was not afraid at all during the earthquake. |
| C．She was hurt on the way to turning off the water valve. |
| D．She had experienced an earthquake before. |
| A．A story of a girl in an earthquake. | B．The importance of preparing for an earthquake. |
| C．The ways to escape from an earthquake. | D．The danger of an earthquake. |
6 . As you grow rapidly through your teenage years, you will experience a lot of changes. The changes may seem difficult and they may seem to happen quickly. Don’t panic! You will deal successfully with them! You are a young adult now!
With more responsibility, you will find more freedom to make your own choices. This is a time to be well informed about your choices so that you can make healthy balanced decisions that will help shape your future. You may already know your career path or you may have no idea at all what you want to do. Both situations are fine! Work hard and the right opportunity will present itself to you.
Young adulthood means greater freedom and more choices. You will probably want to be independent. But try not to shut your family out of your life. You should learn to think of others even though you are old enough to look after yourself. Your family have been with you since you came into this world.
It is also perfectly natural in this time for you to spend more time with your friends than your family. Choose your friends wisely. A true friend will stand by you no matter what happens.
This period is part of the life cycle. There are some people who will be with you throughout life’s journey and there will be some people with whom you part and go separate ways. Leaving school can be hard. The reality is that you may not ever see all of your classmates again.
You are a young adult. It is your life. No one can live it for you. The choices that you make from now on will be your choices. So making the right choices will be important to you. Life is for living. Enjoy your life wisely!
1. The best title for this passage would be ________.| A．The Choices in Life | B．The Key to Success |
| C．Say Goodbye to the Past | D．Becoming a Young Adult |
| A．your parents. | B．your deskmates. |
| C．true friends. | D．your relatives. |
| A．a period of complete freedom |
| B．too hard for young people to get through |
| C．an important time for the young to make the right choices |
| D．a very important period for young students to leave their parents |
| A．Teenagers. | B．Teachers. | C．Young parents. | D．Adults. |
7 . In habitats across the planet, animals periodically drop everything to walk, fly or swim to a new place. Some animals 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. The Cory’s shearwater is an oceangoing seabird 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. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．It describes animals’ habitats. | B．It compares different species. |
| C．It talks about migration models. | D．It introduces a tracking technology. |
| A．The opening for learning and practice. |
| B．The unique living habit of Cory’s shearwaters. |
| C．The process scientists track Cory’s shearwaters’ movements. |
| D．The way Cory’s shearwaters form their migration patterns. |
| A．They travel as much as adult birds. | B．They lower the speed for exploration. |
| C．They move in a predictable manner. | D．They look for a course with their parents. |
| A．Exploration refinement contributes to birds’ adaptability. |
| B．Man-made changes make migration easier. |
| C．Animals make a safer journey via a fixed track. |
| D．A combination of strategies assures migration success |
8 . Foreign visitors to the UK might be disappointed when they learn that not everyone there speaks like Harry Potter and his friends. Usually, there’s an assumption by many non-Brits that everyone in Britain speaks with what’s known as a Received Pronunciation (RP，标准发音) accent, also called “the Queen’s English”. However, while many people do talk this way, most Britons speak in their own regional accents (口音).
Scouse, Glaswegian and Black Country — from Liverpool, Glasgow and the West Midlands — are just three of the countless non-RP accents that British people speak with. There are even differences in accents between towns or cities just 30 kilometers apart. What is even more disappointing is that not speaking in a RP accent may mean a British person is judged and even treated differently in their everyday life.
In a 2015 study by The University of South Wales, videos of people reading a passage in three different UK accents were shown to a second group of people. The group then rated how intelligent they thought the readers sounded. The lowestrated accent was Brummie, native to people from Birmingham, a city whose accent is considered working class.
However, there is no need to be disappointed though you are not speaking in a RP accent. In fact, doing the opposite may even give you strength.
Kong Seongjae, 25, is an Internet celebrity from Seoul. After studying in the UK, he picked up several regional accents. He’s now famous for his online videos, where he shows off the various accents he’s learned. “British people usually get really excited when I use some of their local dialect words, and they become much friendlier. I think it makes a bit of bond between local people and foreigners to speak in their local accent,” he said.
So if you’re working on perfecting your British accent, try to speak like someone from Liverpool, Glasgow or Birmingham. You may not sound like Harry Potter, but you are likely to make more friends.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 1?| A．Non-Brits usually hold that all Britons speak in a RP accent. |
| B．Only “the Queen’s English” is accepted in the UK. |
| C．Foreign visitors are disappointed at their on spoken English. |
| D．Any Received Pronunciation around the world is also called “the Queen’s English”. |
| A．Favored by foreign visitors to the UK. | B．Closest to the RP accent. |
| C．Smart and easy to understand. | D．Spoken by people of lower class. |
| A．Speaking in a RP accent. | B．Speaking in regional accents. |
| C．Speaking the Brummie accent. | D．Speaking like Harry Potter. |
| A．A study about the most intelligent accent in Britain. |
| B．A comparison between different British accents. |
| C．How much British people value the RP accent. |
| D．The influence of regional accents on people’s lives. |
9 . There are many weird sports that are present around the world. From each region of the world, along with the very popular common sports, there are also those really popular but very weird kinds of sports.
The Ultimate Test Between Man and Horses
This is indeed a very strange kind of sport that tests your stamina (耐力). You will learn how to be agile (灵活的) while competing against a horse. This game originated in the Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells. This sport really has to do with strength. You will require great agility and strength in order to take part in this. Marathon human contestants are put to compete against those mounted people. This is how the marathon testing takes place.
Love Locked Races
This is a sports event that was first introduced in Finland. This is all about a male competitor racing with a female in a certain way. There would be many obstructions and blocks on the way which would definitely bring you challenges. The person to win would have to finish the race without losing his female partner in the course of overcoming the obstacles even for once. This race takes place really fast and the obstacles are set that way.
The Toe Sport
This is yet another weird sport that welcomes you to use your toes. This is quite the same kind of sport that you used to play as a child which involved toe wrestling. This has now been turned into a major sport that even has a World Toe Wrestling Competition. It first originated in a pub of Derbyshire.
The locals took this sport with great enjoyment and then made this so popular that it soon had its own championship. The individuals who participate have only got to use their feet and then this is tougher than it may sound.
The Mud Pit Belly Flop
This is a kind of game where even the spectators (观众) get splashed with mud but in fact that is quite the fun. The very annual Summer Redneck Games in East Dublin bring about this game and bring about some of the greatest hubcap-discus throws with it. This is also a great sport to show the strength and dexterity of your feet.
1. Which sport requires couples to participate?| A．The Ultimate Test Between Man and Horses. | B．Love Locked Races. |
| C．The Toe Sport. | D．The Mud Pit Belly Flop. |
| A．It first originated in a pub of Derbyshire. |
| B．The locals took this sport with great enjoyment. |
| C．It has a World Toe Wrestling Competition. |
| D．Even kids are fond of the sport. |
| A．People with agility and strength. | B．People with companions. |
| C．Marathon runners. | D．Horse riders. |
10 . People who sleep fewer than six hours a night are more likely to die early, researchers in University of Warwick have found in a recent study. They discovered that people who slept for less than six hours each night were 12% more likely to die before the age of 65 than those who slept the recommended six to eight hours a night.
The researchers pointed out that previous studies had shown that the lack of sleep was associated with problems like heart disease and high blood pressure. However, the researchers also found that sleeping too much was linked to an early death. Those who slept for more than nine hours a night were 30% more likely to die early, as an article in the latest Sleep suggested. That directly contradicts another passage in the same journal last month suggesting that people who slept for ten hours or longer a night were more likely to live to 100. This was thought to be because people who lived into extreme old age were healthier and therefore slept better.
However, the authors of the latest research contradicted this and suggested that long sleep was a sign of underlying illnesses such as depression and low levels of physical activity. Professor Francesco Cappuccio at the University of Warwick said: “While short sleep may represent a cause of ill-health, long sleep is believed to represent more an indicator of ill – health.”
He also mentioned: Modern society has seen a gradual reduction in the average amount of sleep people take, and this pattern is more common among full-time workers suggesting that it may be due to social pressures for longer working hours. On the other hand, the worsening of our health is often accompanied by an extension of our sleeping time.”
Consistently sleeping six to eight hours per night may be good for health. However, whether to achieve the goal depends on various factors such as the environment as well as measures of public health aimed at favourable changes of the s working environments Professor Francesco Cappuccio added.
1. What did researchers in University of Warwick find?| A．Six to eight hours’ sleep can be appropriate for people. |
| B．People at an old age are healthier because they sleep longer. |
| C．People who sleep fewer than 6 hours each night die before 65. |
| D．Sleeping for more than 9 hours a night does good to one’s health. |
| A．How long we sleep depends on our education. |
| B．Our health becomes worse because we sleep less. |
| C．Modern people sleep less because they work longer. |
| D．Long sleep is what causes our health problems. |
| A．Social pressure | B．Extension of sleeping time. |
| C．Longer working hours | D．Changes of working environments. |
| A．Time to Sleep early | B．How Long Should We Sleep |
| C．The Importance of Sleep | D．Longer Sleep Makes Better Health |
