1 . From the first use of the rocket to carry satellites into space to the setting up of space stations, human beings have been putting great effort into space research. And so far, we have achieved many successes. But there are still numerous tasks in front of us and we should not stop trying to progress.
The international space station（ISS）is an important step we should take in space exploration. It is not only helpful but also essential. It provides a proper space environment for many experiments that we have wanted to do for a long time. It is also a base for the observations of the earth and the universe. It could also be an important base for later travel to the moon and Mars. In a word, if we want to explore space more, the first thing we should do is to set up a space station.
As the space station costs a lot of money, it is hard for one country alone to establish one. The USA seems to be the only country that has the ability to build a space station alone, and it has tried to do so, but not very successful. So it aggregated many other countries to work on it together. Though it is still extremely expensive, it is much cheaper than doing it alone. It is really a job that needs everyone's effort and will benefit everyone.
Led by the U.S. and Russia, the ISS is a joint project between six space agencies involving 16 countries. Called the greatest achievement in human cooperation, the ISS has come to the end of a ten-year's hard work in construction. China has applied for participation in（taking part in）the project many times. Unfortunately all the applications were rejected, which drove China onto the path of independent development. As the Long March Ⅱ-F/T1 carrier rocket blasted off（left the ground）and successfully carried the Tiangong-1 into space on September 29, 2011, China took a big step toward its Space Station Era.
Some West media suggested that the successful launch of Tiangong-1 would disturb the balance of global space power, raising concerns about “China threat”. China's space project is not designed for military purpose but for developing space technology to explore space resources and make use of them for mankind's well-being.
1. What can we know from Para. 2?| A．People have traveled to Mars from the international space station. |
| B．Many experiments have been done in the international space station. |
| C．The necessity of building the international space station is not realized now. |
| D．The international space station is necessary for people to explore space more. |
| A．Scolded. | B．Allowed. |
| C．United. | D．Forbade. |
| A．That it requires a lot of money. |
| B．That it needs everyone's effort. |
| C．That it is too far away from the earth. |
| D．That it will benefit every participating country. |
| A．To break the balance of global space power. |
| B．To show that China can build a space station alone. |
| C．To raise international concerns about “China threat”. |
| D．To make use of space peacefully for mankind's well-being. |
2 . Many people believe that you lose the ability to learn new languages as you get older. Language experts, however, will tell you that you’re never too old to learn a new language. As you get older, it can be more difficult to learn a new language, though.
Children and adults learn new languages in different ways. For children, language is their life. They study for thousands of hours every year, because they need to learn languages to become part of their communities. Adults, on the other hand, are already part of a language community. Learning a new language means becoming part of another language community, and adults rarely get the chance to practice as much as young children do.
Moreover, children learning a new language are expected to make mistakes. This gives them freedom when learning to be daring and confident. Adults, however, often feel pressured to be perfect when learning a new language. This can discourage many people and make it even harder to learn a new language.
When young children learn a new language, they come to see all kinds of languages as a “normal” part of society. This mindset(思维模式) helps them embrace learning a new language without feeling like they’re doing something unusual or “too hard”.
So if you want to learn a new language, go for it! It’s never too late to learn a new language. If you’re older, it may take more work, but it can be done. If you’re a young child, though, now it is the time to step out and learn a new language!
1. By saying “language is their life” in Paragraph 2, the author means that children ________.| A．can’t live without language | B．lead a happy life every day |
| C．practice a new language a lot | D．are taken good care of by adults |
| A．They often feel pressured. | B．They usually have too many interests. |
| C．They think making mistakes is natural. | D．They always make all kinds of mistakes. |
| A．The behavior they have. | B．The learning attitudes. |
| C．The future plans they have made. | D．The materials they are using. |
| A．can never be learned by the old people |
| B．can be learned by the old people easily |
| C．can be understood only by the old people |
| D．can be learned by both the old and the young |
3 . Teenagers who check social media for several hours a day are at the risk of developing ADHD, a study has concluded.
The research team, from the University of Southern California, tracked 2,600 teenagers aged 15 and 16. They asked them how many times they checked their phones and other digital devices for various reasons, and then monitored them for symptoms of ADHD. After two years, those who had checked their phones the most often were twice as likely as those who cheeked the least often to show signs of ADHD.
Writing in the JAMA medical journal, the scientists said, “Modern media devices immediately inform users when new text messages, social media postings, or video game play invitations arrive. Exposure to such information may draw attention away from important tasks. Frequent distraction could interrupt the development of constant attention and organization skills.”
They believe constant access to instant entertainment also has an impact. Researcher Professor Adam Leventhal said all previous researches had focused on the link between ADHD and televisions. "What's new is that previous studies on this topic were done many years ago, when social media, mobile phones, tablets and mobile apps didn't exist. We can say with confidence that teens who are exposed to higher levels of digital media are significantly more likely to develop ADHD symptoms in the future, he said.
Leventhal believes the findings help fill a gap in understanding how new mobile media devices and seemingly limitless content pose a mental health risk for children. And the findings serve as a warning.
British scientists welcomed the findings. But Professor Andy Przybylski of the Oxford Internet Institute said, “The study relies on survey responses provided by the students in question. It is not clear if teachers or parents would rate the children similarly or if the self-reported measure of digital screen use is related with either actual behavior or higher quality survey items.”
1. How did the researchers conduct the study?| A．By monitoring 2,600 teenagers with ADHD. |
| B．By controlling different teens, time spent on social media. |
| C．By tracking the participants for two years. |
| D．By analyzing data from previous researches online. |
| A．It will cause diverse ADHD symptoms. | B．It will create higher ADHD risks. |
| C．It will weaken teenagers' confidence. | D．It will have a major influence on organization skills. |
| A．It provides a better understanding of the media. | B．It should have focused on parents' responses. |
| C．Its findings are not reliable enough. | D．It's a breakthrough in this field. |
| A．The use of digital media is on the rise |
| B．Teens' exposure to modern media calls more attention |
| C．Heavy use of social media may increase Teens' ADHD risks |
| D．Teens are increasingly exposed to ADHD |
4 . I became a gardener when I was twelve. My early
At that time, we had a big yard in which a beautiful maple tree stood. But my mother often looked with
At that age, I always did something
I planted some lily (百合花)seeds in the yard. But they failed to
Regardless of their
It has been many years since I made my first garden out of my desire to
| A．memory | B．dream | C．intention | D．design |
| A．please | B．change | C．help | D．annoy |
| A．doubt | B．appreciation | C．surprise | D．excitement |
| A．collect up | B．care about | C．clean up | D．come in |
| A．equal | B．similar | C．superior | D．opposite |
| A．painful | B．valuable | C．upsetting | D．interesting |
| A．come up | B．break out | C．hold on | D．get through |
| A．to | B．with | C．in | D．by |
| A．Luckily | B．Cheerfully | C．Regularly | D．Eventually |
| A．Inetead | B．However | C．Therefore | D．Besides |
| A．shouted | B．laughed | C．glanced | D．jumped |
| A．convenient | B．troublesome | C．enjoyed | D．dangerous |
| A．sadness | B．displeasure | C．delight | D．relief |
| A．other than | B．more than | C．rather than | D．less than |
| A．dislike | B．encouragement | C．threat | D．suggestion |
| A．decided | B．stopped | C．continued | D．struggled |
| A．devote | B．turn | C．respond | D．lead |
| A．defeat | B．satisfy | C．respect | D．challenge |
| A．proud | B．comfortable | C．strange | D．disappointed |
| A．freedom | B．life | C．growth | D．nature |
5 . There are as many kinds of careers as there are people.They vary greatly in the type of work involved and in the ways they influence a person’s life.The kind of career you have can affect your life in many ways.By making wise decisions concerning your career, you can help yourself build the life you want.To do that, you need as much information as possible.The more you know about yourself, the better able you will be to choose a satisfying career.
What do people hope to acquire from a career? Some people desire a high income.Some hope for fame.Others seek for adventure.Still others intend to serve people and make the world a better place.Before you begin to explore career fields, you should determine your values, your interests, and your aptitudes that will make you competent for your future work.Most people are happiest in jobs that fit their values, interests,and skills.Each person has many values, which vary in strength.For example, money is the strongest value and priority for some people—that is, wealth is more important to them than anything else.As a result, they focus their thoughts, behaviour, and emotions on the goal of earning a high income.Other values include devoting to religion, taking risks, spending time with family, and helping others.
Before making a career decision, you can ask yourself what is most important to you and examine your beliefs to better know your values.For example, is it important to you to work as a member of a team? Or would you rather be in charge or work alone? If working alone or being in charge is important to you, independence is probably one of your primary values.
1. How can we make a wise career decision?| A．We learn more about ourselves. |
| B．We stick to our beliefs more firmly. |
| C．We change our interest more often. |
| D．We find more career opportunities. |
| A．Experiences. | B．Abilities. |
| C．Feelings. | D．Families. |
| A．One that brings huge wealth. |
| B．One that meets inner demands. |
| C．One that develops interests and skills. |
| D．One that contributes to forming values. |
| A．The contents of our values. |
| B．The foundations of our values. |
| C．The places to achieve our values. |
| D．The ways to understand our values. |
6 . That morning, I dropped our eldest at kindergarten and returned home to let our two younger children play while I worked on my medical report. It was a wonderful chance to work from home, but it hit me that my career in hospital wasn't making a difference in anyone's life. I needed something that would stretch my limits and push me to grow. My career enabled me to work from home. I could work from home, and become a foster mother, providing safety for a child who needed it desperately.
On Monday morning. I picked up the phone and dialed the number I had Googled for the nearest Department of Children's Services. The man on the other end was receptive to my questions and explained the next step of training, involving eight weeks of classes designed to prepare and educate foster parents. We continued through all the classes, the home visits, background checks, and seemingly endless steps.
Five long months after we were approved, the phone rang. In the middle of the night, I woke my husband and rushed to East Tennessee Children's Hospital. Our placement was waiting for us in the emergency room, sick and lack of nutrition. It didn't take long for us to realize the full depth of her suffering. Six months later, her half-brother came to us by our request. We now had five children under our care.
On August 12, 2016, our family of seven walked into a small courtroom. The children's lawyer and social worker were there. With just a few words, our adoption was finalized. These two amazing children weren't going home, because they were already home. We are their forever family, and they are our forever children. We may not be able to change the entire world, but we have changed the world entirely for our new children.
1. How did the author feel about her hospital work?| A．Lacking of motivation. | B．Filled with challenge. |
| C．Highly motivating. | D．Unusually Demanding. |
| A．She felt sympathetic for abused children she knew. |
| B．She wanted to make a difference in other people. |
| C．She felt confident about her ability to raise children. |
| D．She experienced training to raise children properly. |
| A．The child to be adopted. | B．The need to get trained. |
| C．The approval of adoption. | D．The official at the hospital. |
| A．To put the adopted kids elsewhere. | B．To receive another adopted child. |
| C．To make the adoption officially legal. | D．To begin the kids' adoption in her home. |
7 . Now many young people are traveling around the world on their own, not because they have no one to travel with, but because they prefer to go alone.
Kristina Wegscheider from California first traveled alone when she was at college and believes that it is something everyone should do at least once in their life. “It opens up your mind to things and pushes you out of your comfort zone.” Wegscheider has visited 46 countries covering all seven continents.
In foreign countries, with no one to help you read a map, look after you if you get ill, or lend you money if your wallet is stolen, it is challenging. This is what drives young people to travel alone. It is seen as character building and a chance to prove that they can make it on their own.
Chris Richardson decided to leave his sales job in Australia to go traveling last year. He set up a website, The Aussie Nomad, to document his adventures. He says he wished he had traveled alone earlier. “The people you meet, the places you visit, or the things you do, everything is up to you and it forces you to grow as a person.” said the 30-year-old man.
Richardson describes traveling alone like “a shot in the arm”, which “makes you a more confident person that is ready to deal with anything”. He said, “The feeling of having overcome something on my own is a major part of what drives me each day when I’m dealing with a difficult task. I walk around with my head up because I know deep down inside that nothing is impossible if you try.”
The great 19thcentury explorer John Muir once said. “Only by going alone in silence can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness.
1. Which of the following will Kristina Wegscheider agree with?| A．Traveling alone is a necessary experience for everyone. |
| B．It is more meaningful to travel in foreign countries. |
| C．It is comfortable to travel around without a friend. |
| D．Traveling abroad helps people to find new things. |
| A．you have to make things on your own. |
| B．it is hard for you to prove yourself to others. |
| C．you can only depend on yourself whatever happens. |
| D．it will finally build your character. |
| A．He started traveling alone at an early age. |
| B．He was once shot in the arm. |
| C．He used to work as a salesman. |
| D．His website will inspire others to travel alone. |
| A．Travel Abroad | B．Travel Alone |
| C．Travel Light | D．Travel Wide and Far |
8 . Stories are shared in many ways. They are described in books and magazines. They are read around the campfire at night. They are randomly distributed from stand-alone booths. But what else?
To revive literature in the era of fast news and smartphone addiction, Short Edition, a French publisher of short-form literature, has set up more than 30 story dispensers (分发机) in the USA in the past years to deliver fiction at the push of a button at restaurants, universities and government offices.
Francis Ford Coppola, the film director and winemaker, liked the idea so much that he invested in the company and placed a dispenser at his Cafe Zoetrope in San Francisco. Last month, public libraries in some other cities announced they would be setting them up, too. There is one on the campus at Penn State. A few can be found in downtown West Palm Beach, Fla. And Short Edition plans to announce more, including at the Los Angeles International Airport.
“Everything old is new again,” said Andrew Nurkin, director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, which is one of the libraries that set up the dispensers. “We want people to be easily exposed to literature. We want to advance literacy among children and inspire their creativity.”
Here’s how a dispenser works. It has three buttons on top indicating choices for stories that can be read in one minute, three minutes or five minutes. When a button is pushed, a short story is printed.
The stories are free. They are chosen from a computer category of more than 100,000 original submissions by writers whose works have been evaluated by Short Edition’s judges, and transmitted over a mobile network. Offerings can be tailored to specific interests, like children’s fiction or romance. Short Edition gets stories for its category by holding writing contests.
Short Edition set up its first booth in 2016 and has 150 machines worldwide. “The idea is to make people happy,” said Kristan Leroy, director of Short Edition. “There is too much unhappiness today.”
1. What do we know about the stories sent by dispensers?| A．They are easily read. |
| B．They are short in form. |
| C．They can be bought from booths. |
| D．They can be found in magazines. |
| A．Paragraph 3. | B．Paragraph 5. |
| C．Paragraph 6. | D．Paragraph 7. |
| A．To introduce French literature. |
| B．To get rid of smartphone addiction. |
| C．To make people have access to literature. |
| D．To reduce the financial stress of libraries. |
| A．Everything Old Is New |
| B．Online Reading: a Virtual Tour |
| C．Short Edition Is Getting Popular |
| D．Taste of Literature, at the Push of a Button |
9 . Faster, cheaper, better-technology is one field many people rely upon to offer a vision of a brighter future. But as the 2020s dawn, optimism is in short supply. The new technologies that dominated the past decade seem to be making things worse. Social media were supposed to bring people together, but they are better known for leaking privacy. E-commerce, ride-hailing (网约车) and the gig economy (零工经济) may be convenient, but they are charged with underpaying workers, worsening inequality and blocking the streets with vehicles.
Today's pessimistic mood is centered on smart phones and social media, which took off a decade ago. Yet concerns that particular technologies might be doing more harm than good have arisen before. The 1920s witnessed a criticism against cars, which had earlier been seen as an answer to the problems caused by horse-drawn vehicles which filled the streets with noise and animal waste and caused accidents. And industrialization was criticized in the 19th century by Romantics who worried about the replacement of skilled workers, the robbing of the countryside and the suffering of factory hands.
However, that pessimism can be overdone. Too often people focus on the drawbacks of a new technology while taking its benefits for granted. Worries about screen time should be weighed against the much more substantial benefits of convenient communication and the instant access to information and entertainment that smartphones make possible. A further danger is that Luddite (反对技术进步者) efforts to avoid the short-term costs associated with a new technology will end up denying access to its long-term benefits-something Carl Benedikt Frey, an Oxford academic, calls a "technology trap". Fears that robots will steal people's jobs may discourage their use. Yet in the long run countries that wish to maintain their standard of living as their workforce ages and shrinks will need more robots, not fewer.
Any powerful technology can be used for good or ill. It is the choices people make about it that shape the world. Perhaps the real source of anxiety is not technology itself, but growing doubts about the ability of societies to hold this debate, and come up with good answers. So as the decade turns, put aside the pessimism for a moment. To be alive in the tech-obsessed 2020s is to be among the luckiest people who have ever lived.
1. What phenomenon is described in Paragraph 1?| A．The seriousness of social inequality. |
| B．The rapid development of technology. |
| C．Problems brought by personal privacy leaks. |
| D．Worries about the influence of new technologies. |
| A．Negative. | B．Uncertain. | C．Sympathetic. | D．Enthusiastic. |
| A．A lack of good jobs in the job market. |
| B．An increase in the number of Luddites. |
| C．A decrease in the number of skilled workers. |
| D．An interruption to the advancement of a new technology. |
| A．Pessimism vs Progress | B．Technology vs Civilization |
| C．2020s: The Age of Technology | D．Robots: Our Future Caretakers |
10 . At the time of writing this, it's been eight days since I moved into my dorm room at Montclair State University. Commuting (通勤) or going online completely is not an option for me. I can't drive a car. And I am studying journalism, which is difficult to practice with online-only classes.
Few people are on campus. The school is doing phased move-ins. For the safety of students and staff,you have to fill out charts and forms telling the school exactly where you go and when you will move in.
Housing was not a big concern because the on-campus population has been halved. I moved in at the earliest time I could: Aug. 10. During that time, the only people I saw were joggers wheezing up the many hills around my school. To get my double room, I had to fill out an abundance of paperwork. I agreed that in the event that I get COVID-19, I'll move to a single room completely lacking in human contact, besides food delivery and online classes.
And then there was the food situation. It's unknown whether dining options will be open in time for our classes next week, and if they are, how they will be handled. The tables I spent many hours sitting at with friends have all but disappeared. There are plenty of floor signs at the canteen for all students to follow. Instead of sitting down to eat, it was grab-and-go. Pick whatever you want, and an employee will pack it for you in a box and a plastic bag.
But here on campus, it's the calm before the storm. Somehow, society hasn't collapsed. Cats and dogs are not raining from the sky. Pigs aren't flying. Right now, it's like a nature reserve. I've seen more birds, deer and squirrels than humans here.
My bizarre (怪异的) college situation leaves me with sleepless nights. Much like this whole pandemic (疫情),everything is just one day at a time.
1. What are students from Montclair State University required to do?| A．Report their whereabouts. | B．Fill out application forms. |
| C．Take online courses at dorms. | D．Move in as soon as possible. |
| A．He was infected with COVID-19. |
| B．There were not so many applicants. |
| C．He came earlier than any other students. |
| D．He submitted all the necessary paperwork. |
| A．Food will be delivered by an employee. |
| B．Students will have more choices next week. |
| C．Students are not allowed to eat at the canteen. |
| D．The canteen provides more tables and floor signs. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Concerned. |
| C．Relaxed. | D．Indifferent. |
