1 . After months of expectation and secrecy, the official mascot（吉祥物）of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games—a giant panda-inspired cartoon character made its first public debut with cheers at Beijing’s Shougang Ice Hockey Arena.
The panda is named “Bing Dwen Dwen” in Chinese. Bing means “ice” in Chinese, while Dwen Dwen suggests “health and cleverness” —characteristics also shared by pandas.
Pandas are perhaps the most recognized animal species in China, organizers said “Pandas combine China’s traditional culture and its modern appearance together with winter sports elements in a fascinating image that shows our great expectations for the Games and shows that we welcome the world. ” said Beijing Mayor Chen Jining, who also serves as an executive president on the organizing committee.
“I have already seen the mascot and from what I’ve seen it’s a wonderful choice, ” IOC President Thomas Bach said before introducing the character. “The mascot really takes in the best elements and characteristics of China and the Chinese people. It will be a great ambassador （大使） for the country and the 24th Winter Olympics. ”
The ring of light surrounding the mascot’s face is suggestive office and snow tracks, as well as the flowing “ribbons” of the National Speed Skating Oval. The oval is one of two new competition sites in downtown Beijing expected to become a landmark of the Games, according to its chief designer Cao Xue.
The introduction of the mascots marks the key point of a journey that began in August 2018, when Beijing organizers started a global design competition for the mascots. A total of 5,816 designs were received from 35 countries, and were reviewed by Chinese and international experts in a comprehensive evaluation and selection process.
The new mascot will serve as spirited symbol of the Games that will take place in the three zones of downtown Beijing, the suburban district of Yanging and co-host city Zhangjiakou in surrounding Hebei province.
1. What does the underlined word “debut” in paragraph1 mean?| A．Design | B．Attention | C．Appearance | D．Understanding |
| A．health and strength | B．modern appearance |
| C．traditional culture | D．expectation and welcome |
| A．The origin of the mascot image |
| B．The introduction to the mascot designer |
| C．The hard work behind the mascot design |
| D．The hidden meaning of the mascot image |
| A．The Mascot of the 24th Winter Olympic Games |
| B．A Historical Moment of the Winter Olympic Games |
| C．Comments on the Mascot of the 24th Winter Olympics |
| D．A Spirited Symbol of the Winter Olympic Games |
2 . Future football stars
Football academies were set up by leading football clubs so their coaches could run trials to discover and train talented boys from as young as eight as potential players for their first team.
This means that in Britain there are at least 9,000 boys at any one time attending academies after school who think they are going to be a famous footballer.
This doesn’t put off all the boys who are spotted by the big football clubs and are desperate to join the academies.
| A．Unfortunately, for most this isn’t the case. |
| B．The benefits are still there for them of course. |
| C．All the big football clubs have a football academy. |
| D．But, luckily for him, he was still young enough to get over it. |
| E．But football is not alone when it comes to this kind of thing. |
| F．Most of these won’t get into a team and most won’t become professionals. |
| G．And footballers are much more likely to get injured when they play games. |
3 . They are the world's fittest people. But even Olympic athletes have had their share of difficult, heart-breaking or embarrassing (令人难堪的) moments.
The 1904 Olympics, St Louis, USA
American Fred Lorz crossed the finish line of the Olympic marathon with a time of 3 hours and 13 minutes. He had beaten the second runner by 15 minutes. Lorz looked happy and fresh, and smiled for the photographers. Just before they gave him the gold medal, the race officials arrived and took away the medal, and Lorz was banned (禁止) from races for a year. Then an official told the truth. He had travelled by car for 11 miles of the marathon!
The 1908 Olympics, London, England
The Italian Dorando Pietri was one of the unluckiest marathon runners. When he arrived at the stadium, he was very tired. The people were cheering , but Pietri couldn't continue . He fell down and got up again four times. Finally, around seven metres from the finish line, he fell down again and didn't move. Worried officials ran over and picked him up. He crossed the finish line and won the gold medal. But a few hours later the Olympic officials had to take it away from him again. They said he couldn't be the winner because Olympic officials had helped him cross the line.
The 2000 Olympics, Sydney, Australia
Eric Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea became one of the most loved athletes of the 2000 Games. His race was the 100-metre freestyle swim. He jumped into the pool and started swimming. After the first 50 meters he was very tired. He went more and more slowly and almost stopped in the middle of the pool. The officials worried that he was drowning(淹死）.But Moussambani continued and finished the race with a time of 1 minute and 52 seconds, the slowest in the history of the Olympics. Still, Moussambani was happy. He had never swum in a pool of that size before.
1. Why was Lorz's gold medal taken away at the 1904 Olympics?| A．Because he broke the rules. |
| B．Because officials made a mistake. |
| C．Because officials picked him up halfway. |
| D．Because he beat the second runner badly. |
| A．He broke a world record. |
| B．He finally won the gold medal. |
| C．He fell down after finishing the race. |
| D．He received help as he crossed the finish line. |
| A．They felt sorry for him. | B．They thought highly of him. |
| C．They showed no interest in him. | D．They had mixed feelings about him. |
| A．The Suffering Moments of the Olympics | B．A Share of the Fittest People |
| C．The Most Loved Athletes | D．The Bad Olympics in history |
4 . Parents around the world often urge children over and over-wash your hands! It can be difficult, however, to get children to remember to wash. But what if washing hands was connected to a fun creative activity? What if instead of simply reaching for the soap, a machine could drop it right into your hands?
Well, such a machine was recently built by a boy and his sister in the U.S. state of Maryland as part of a creative competition.The not-for-profit Rube Goldberg Organization is holding the competition.
Every year, the Rube Goldberg competition assigns a specific task, considering inventions that use complex systems to carry out a simple everyday task. At first, the task for 2020 was supposed to be “turn on a light.” But when the COVID-19 happened, the task was changed to “drop a bar of soap into someone’s hand.”
Those taking part in the competition are schoolchildren. But with schools closed to slow the spread of the virus, organizers changed the rules. This year, the team can include any family members and people were asked to send in recordings of the machines to compete. One thing has not changed: The machine must complete the task in less than 10 steps.
In Maryland, the Diel family wanted to enter. So, Caitlin and her brother Ben designed and built their own Rube Goldberg machine. Next, they had to demonstrate that it could complete the task-throwing the soap just right to be caught in someone’s hand. After 106 failed attempts, they finally had success. With their video demonstration, they can now enter the competition.
Dr. Anne Glowinski teaches child psychiatry (精神病学) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She said that “creativity and play” connects with children. It is better than the message. “We have to wash our hands because of this horrible virus”. Glowinski added.
1. What might be a task of inventions assigned by the Rube Goldberg competition?| A．Sweeping the floor. | B．Exploring nature. |
| C．Writing a novel. | D．Painting the house. |
| A．All kinds of inventions are admitted. | B．A video of the entry is qualified to enter. |
| C．Teachers are encouraged to get involved. | D．The task must be finished within 10 steps. |
| A．Practical. | B．Unnecessary. | C．Economical. | D．Complicated. |
| A．The habit of washing hands is very important. |
| B．It calls on schoolchildren to compete in a contest. |
| C．More inventions are encouraged from everyday items. |
| D．It introduces a contest making handwashing fun for kids. |
5 . I’m sure we all know that exercise is great for our health．But sometimes finding that motivation(动力) to work out can be a little difficult．So, in this post, I’m going to share my top four reasons for working out．
Whenever I move to a new city to study or work, I look for exercise classes to do．You meet likeminded people, and you can support each other during a difficult workout．
Exercise makes you feel confident(自信的)．
We all know the physical advantages of exercise on our bodies but we don’t always talk about the mental(心理的)ones．
Exercise helps to reduce stress(压力)．
Going for a run can help you forget the problems and worries of daily life．
Finally, exercise makes us feel strong and healthy!
Every day, the 20 minutes in the gym get easier, the weights feel lighter and you feel a great sense of achievement．
So, next time you’re feeling down or stressed, put your trainers on and get some exercise．It might not be easy but I promise you’ll feel so much better once you’ve finished!
| A．Exercising is sociable． |
| B．Exercise can change your mind． |
| C．During exams, I always spend an hour a day in the gym． |
| D．When the class finishes, you all share a collective feeling of happiness! |
| E．When you work out, your body produces something that makes you happy． |
| F．It’s a great feeling doing something you couldn’t do before through hard work． |
| G．Exercise might give you a feeling of confidence from being comfortable with your body． |
6 . A 62-year-old man has set an amazing world record, planking (平板支撑) for 8 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds. George Hood spent around 2,100 hours planking to train to win back his record from Chinese policeman Mao Weidong, who took the record in 2016 at an event Mr. Hood also competed in.
“Anybody can do what I do,” Mr. Hood said in an interview. “Everybody has to start somewhere. Every tree that’s planted has roots. Once that tree is planted, those roots start to grow, whether it be 30 seconds or a minute or five minutes or an hour of planking. You start repeating the process and taking care of your tree, it will grow and you will improve and you will actually get better.”
Mr. Hood’s preparation included four to five hours of planking a day and 2,000 sit-ups, 700 push-ups, and 500 squats a day. He also attended training camps and had a practice attempt in 2018 in which he lasted 10 hours and 10 minutes.
His new record-breaking plank was sponsored by a US gym called Fivel5 Fitness, which was set up to help people experiencing mental illnesses that affect their thinking, feeling, or behavior. Throughout the attempt, Mr. Hood spoke to groups and listened to words from guests with autism (自闭症) and adult learning difficulties.
After Guinness World Records judge, Philip Robertson, said that he had broken the record, Mr. Hood said he would never do plank record attempts again. However, he ended the event by doing 75 push-ups after his 8-hour plank, indicating that while his record-breaking plank days might be over, push-up record attempts are happening in the near future.
1. What was Hood talking about in the interview?| A．How to plant trees. |
| B．How to keep a record. |
| C．How to look after oneself. |
| D．How to plank as well as him. |
| A．Hood had been training hard to break the record. |
| B．Hood went to a month-long training camp in 2016. |
| C．Hood planked shorter in 2018 than the new record. |
| D．Hood likes doing all kinds of sports in his spare time. |
| A．Teach others to plank. |
| B．Work for Fivel5 Fitness. |
| C．Try to do push-up record attempts. |
| D．Continue doing plank record attempts. |
| A．To tell us a funny story about Hood’s life. |
| B．To describe the advantages of physical activity. |
| C．To provide us with information on a new record. |
| D．To record a change that happened in Hood’s body. |
7 . How often do you exercise? A new study found that most kids aged 12 to 15 weren't getting enough physical activity. The results were based on about 800 kids. As part of the study, the kids tracked and reported on their own activity levels, and took physical exams.
U. S. fitness guidelines suggest an hour or more of physical activity every day. According to the study, only 1in 4 U.S. kids get enough physical activity.
"It's certainly worrying to see that our kids have such a limited amount of physical activity each day,” said Dr. Stephen Pont. He is an expert on children's health.
Few kids in the study met the guidelines on physical activity that raises the heart rate and makes people breathe harder. Overall, about 25% said they got an hour of that kind of exercise every day. Kids also reported on which activities they did most often outside of school gym class--basketball for boys and running for girls.
The study found that fat teenagers were less active than normal-weight girls and boys. Fat girls were slightly less active than normal-weight girls, but levels were similar among overweight and normal-weight boys. The study also said that the percent of fat children aged 2 to 19 was 17%, or about 12.5 million kids.
"There's always room for improvement," said Tala Fakhouri, who was the leader of the study. She also said the results provide useful information to help with fitness campaigns such as Let's Move, which was initiated by Michelle Obama in 2010. To inspire kids to eat right and get in shape, Michelle visits schools and holds exercise events. She also calls on schools to offer regular gym classes.
The study also found kids who get physical education at school may get better grades.
1. What is the result of the new study?| A．800 kids don't get enough physical activity. |
| B．Most U.S. kids don't get enough exercise. |
| C．Kids should get physical activity every day. |
| D．It's important to take physical exams. |
| A．Swimming. | B．Basketball. | C．Running. | D．Gym. |
| A．To help kids to keep fit. | B．To provide useful information. |
| C．To offer regular gym classes. | D．To hold exercise events. |
| A．be less active than fat children | B．be more willing to help others |
| C．do better in their studies | D．try their best to get in shape |
