1 . Mark and his brother Jason both were looking at the shining new computer enviously. Jason was determined not to go against their father's wishes but Mark was more adventurous than his brother. He loved experimenting and his aim was to become a scientist like his father.
“Dad will be really mad if he finds out you've been playing with his new computer.” said, “He told us not to touch it.”
“He won't find out,” Mark said, “I'll just have a quick look and shut it down.”
Mark had been scolded before for touching his father's equipment. But his curiosity was difficult to control and this new computer really puzzled him.
It was a strange-looking machine — one his dad had brought home from the laboratory where he worked. “It's an experimental model.” his father had explained, “so don't touch it under any circumstances.” But his father's warning only served to make Mark more curious. Without any further thought, Mark turned on the power switch. The computer burst into life and seconds later the screen turned into colours, shifting and changing, and then two big white words appeared in the centre of the screen: "SPACE TRANSPORTER."
“Yes!” Mark cried excitedly. “It's a computer game. I knew it! Dad's only been pretending to work. He's really been playing games instead!” A new message appeared on the screen:
“ENTER NAMES
VOYAGER 1:…
VOYAGER 2:…
Mark's fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed in both of their names.
“INPUT ACCEPTED. START TRANSPORT PROGRAM. AUTO-RETRIEVE INITIATED.”
The screen turned even brighter and a noise suddenly rose in volume.
“I think we'd better shut it off, Mark,” Jason yelled, reaching for the power switch. He was really frightened.
But his hand never reached the switch. A single beam of dazzling white light burst out of the computer screen, wrapping the boys in its glow, until they themselves seemed to be glowing. Then it died down just as suddenly as it had burst into life. And the boys were no longer there. On the screen, the letters changed:
“TRANSPORT SUCCESSFUL. DESTINATION: MARS. RETRIEVE DATE: 2025.”
1. Why did Mark touch the computer against his father's warning?| A．He wanted to take a voyage. | B．He wanted to practice his skill. |
| C．He was so much attracted by it. | D．He was eager to do an experiment. |
| A．In an information processing center. | B．In a scientific research center. |
| C．In an electronic factory. | D．In a computer company |
| A．He was afraid of being scolded. | B．He didn't like the loud noise and light. |
| C．He didn't want to play games any more | D．He was afraid something dangerous might happen. |
| A．They were sent to another planet. | B．They were blown into the air. |
| C．They were hidden in the strong light. | D．They were carried away to another country. |
2 . A study of 500,000 songs released in the UK between 1985 and 2015 showed that pop music had decreased in happiness and increased in sadness.
In a report published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, researchers at the University of California examined hundreds of thousands of songs and classified them by their mood. “‘Happiness’ is going down, 'sadness' is going up, and at the same time, the songs are becoming more 'danceable' and more 'party-like',” co-author Natalia L. Komarova told The Associated Press.
The study found songs in 2014 like Stay With Me by Sam Smith, Whispers by Passenger and Unmissable by Gorgon City have a “low happiness” trend. However, tracks from 1984 like Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen, “Would I Lie To You?” by Eurythmics and “Freedom” by Wham had a “high happiness” trend. “The public seems to prefer happier songs, even though more and more unhappy songs are being released each year,” the researchers wrote.
Apart from the emotional trends, researchers discovered that dances and pop were the most successful styles of music and that there was a “clear downward” trend, with the popularity of rock beginning in the early 2000s. “So it looks like, while the overall mood is becoming less happy, people seem to want to forget it all and dance,” Komarova wrote in an email.
It was also found that the “maleness” of songs—the frequency of male singers in popular music-had decreased during the last 30 years. “Successful songs are characterised by a larger percentage of female artists compared to all songs,” they wrote.
This discovery appears at a time when the conversation around sex equality in the music industry is at its height, with more male artists and songwriters.
1. The researchers examined lots of songs to________.| A．find songs for dances and parties | B．choose songs for a journal |
| C．know better about songs | D．release more songs |
| A．Whispers. | B．Freedom. | C．Stay With Me. | D．Unmissable. |
| A．rock became popular in the early 2000s |
| B．fewer unhappy songs came to light every year |
| C．female artists were less skilled in writing songs |
| D．male singers were better at performing pop music |
| A．Music Calls for Sex Equality. | B．Music Industry Is Going Down. |
| C．Pop Music Has a Long History. | D．Pop Music Is Getting Sadder. |
3 . Over the centuries the French have lost a number of famous battles with the British. However, they’ve always felt superior in the kitchen. France has had a reputation for cooking excellence for centuries, and Britain for some of the worst cooking in the world. But according to a recent survey, that reputation may no longer reflect reality.
In the survey, 71% of the Britons said they cook at home every day, while only 59% of the French said they cook daily. British home cooks spend more time cooking each week and also produce a greater variety of dishes than French home cooks.
The reaction in London was predictably enthusiastic. British food has greatly improved since the 1990s.Once upon a time, the menu for many family meals would have been roast beef, potatoes and over- cooked vegetables, but not now. Home cooks are experimenting with the huge range of ingredients now available in British supermarkets and are preparing all kinds of new dishes, using the cookbooks that sell millions of copies every year. As a result, there’s much more diversity in British food now, compared to French food, which tends to be very traditional.
Some French people say that the survey did not show the whole picture. They agree that during the week French women don’t cook as much as they used to because most of them work and don’t have much time. They tend to buy ready-made or frozen dishes, but many of them make up for it on the weekend. There’s also a difference between Paris and the countryside. It’s true that people in Paris don’t cook much, but elsewhere, cooking is still at the heart of daily life.
For many French people, opinions about British food have not changed. When Bernard Berthe food editor at a magazine, was asked about British food, he replied: “I don’t go out of my way to try it. It is not very refined. You can say that I’m not a fan at all.”
1. According to the passage, nowadays British people ________.| A．cook less at home than the French every day |
| B．no longer eat roast beef and over-cooked vegetables |
| C．are more willing to try cooking all kinds of new foods |
| D．buy more cookbooks than French people do |
| A．French women cook less often now. | B．The French prefer ready-made dishes. |
| C．French women seldom cook on the weekend. | D．Cooking is at the heart of people’s life in Paris. |
| A．He would love to try it. | B．He shows no interest in it. |
| C．He considers it worse than before. | D．He considers it better than before. |
4 . If our kids don’t fall, they don’t learn to get up. I still remember the day in high school that my mom forgot to pick me up from school. I’m the oldest of four children, and no doubt she’d had a long day with the other kids and it’d slipped her mind. After waiting at school for an hour, I walked the three miles home, and when I got to my house, I shut our front door with anger, stormed into the kitchen and screamed in my mom’s face that she’d forgotten me.
Later that night, my dad told me I no longer had a ride to school the next day. I figured my mom would still take me, but when the morning came, she refused. It was midterm, and as a straight-A student ready to start college applications, being late wasn’t an option (选择). In my mind, missing these tests would have been the end of my academic career. I begged my mom. I told her she was ruining my future and everything I’d worked for. But she held her ground, and that day, I walked to school. And I missed my tests.
My mom didn’t rescue me from failure. She let me suffer from it. She let me figure it out. She let me learn. Now, as a mom myself, I’ve realized that I want my kids to experience failure because failure is how we grow, learn and think outside of ourselves. It’s how we self-educate to learn what’s right and respectable, and what’s not. It’s how we become responsible and enthusiastic. Falling down makes us better because we learn how to get up.
1. What is one of the reasons that the author got angry that day?| A．She was tired. | B．She failed in a test. |
| C．She was late for school. | D．She had to walk home by herself. |
| A．Terrible. | B．Meaningful. | C．Embarrassing. | D．Colorful. |
| A．gave in to me | B．said yes to me |
| C．stayed in the place | D．kept to her idea |
| A．My Way of Growing | B．The Value of Failure |
| C．My Love for Mother | D．Failure in My Life |
5 . Long before "digital" and "native" were words that could reasonably fit into the same sentence, kids had adventures in the great outdoors—the sort of nature—filled adventures filmmaker Paul Ward experienced as child growing up on a farm.
“Unfortunately, children today don't have the same exposure to nature,” says the father of Estella, nine, and Sylvie, seven. “Instead, these digital natives are often glued to their screens.”
Wanting to reconnect this young generation with the outside world-through a medium that they're familiar with-Ward teamed up with film producer Vicky Pope to create Wild Eyes, a website that uses technology to help children to get in touch with nature.
Ward and Pope spent two years developing Wild Eyes, which requires users to complete interesting tasks in nature, such as setting up camp or finding a certain kind of bird. Once a challenge is complete, the player uploads a photo to the website to earn online encouragement and "likes" from other players.
“It's all about interacting with kids on their own terms,” says Ward.
Ward, who spent almost two years working as a producer for the Discovery Channel in Los Angeles, says the response so far has been positive. "We've had more than 15,000 site visitors to date, which is really encouraging."
Both Ward and Pope are working hard to ensure all the tasks are affordable and adaptable for both the home and classroom. They believe there's also a future benefit to turning square eyes into wild eyes.
“As David Attenborough says, people will only protect what they care about and they'll only care about what they've experienced,” he says. “Given so much of our lives are lived online, if we care about looking after our natural world, it's important we provide attractive digital experiences that engage young kids with nature.”
1. How was Ward's childhood different from his children's?| A．He did a lot of outdoor activities. | B．His vocabulary was limited. |
| C．He seldom played in the wild. | D．He had no computer or TV set. |
| A．Expand their knowledge about nature. | B．Complete their tasks given by the website. |
| C．Share their outdoor activities with others. | D．Participate in activities organized by the website. |
| A．To help children get closer to nature. | B．To start a new business. |
| C．To develop a new network technology. | D．To help a film producer. |
| A．Experiencing the Great Outdoors | B．Keeping away from the Screen |
| C．Combining the Screen with Nature | D．Looking after the Natural World |
6 . At 5:30 am, carer（护工）Ivy Bowen's clock wakes her up. She puts on her uniform, and then walks to a bus stop to the hospital where she works. Two hours and two buses later, the 68-year-old arrives at 8:00 am, half an hour before her shift（轮班）.
For Tracey Griffiths and her son Carl, this half an hour has been life-changing. Because for nearly two years, Ivy has spent that time bringing Carl cups of tea and chatting. Thanks to these chats, as well as Ivy's devotion and caring skills, Carl has begun speaking again after four years of silence.
Four years ago, a serious accident left Carl unable to move and talk. When he did finally speak, one of his first words, unsurprisingly, was "Ivy". "Ivy is there and it makes a huge difference. Thanks to her, Carl's speech is coming on by leaps and bounds," says Tracey.
Ivy should have retired（退休）two years ago but she is still there, because she wants to be, and so do the hospital's managers and her grateful patients. Ivy is now in charge of 25 patients at the hospital. She makes tea and coffee for families as well as patients, and makes sure that everyone in her care gets enough fresh water. She also helps with feeding, giving creams or anything else that might need doing.
Ivy's great wish to improve the lives of patients has driven her to find other ways, in which she can help them out. For Ivy, the recipe for good care is simple. "Treat everyone as you would like to be treated yourself," she says. "I love everything about working at the hospital. To be able to come in, have a chat and change someone's day a bit, it means a lot."
1. When should Ivy Bowen begin her work every morning?| A．At 5:30. | B．At 7:30. |
| C．At 8:00. | D．At8:30. |
| A．To chat with the patients. | B．To give creams to the patients. |
| C．To feed all the patients. | D．To provide water for the patients. |
| A．Ivy's son. | B．Ivy's patient. |
| C．The nursing director. | D．A famous doctor. |
| A．Carl has great difficulty in keeping silent. |
| B．Carl makes a huge difference to Ivy's career. |
| C．Carl is too afraid to see the carers as well as doctors. |
| D．Carl has made progress in speaking with the help of Ivy. |
7 . Bats are mammals which give birth to live young and produce milk to feed them. Over sixty different kinds occur in Australia. Most eat insects, but eight feed only on flowers and fruit, and are known as fruit-bats or flying-foxes. Four of these are among the world's largest bats. They may weigh up to one kilogram and their wings may span（跨越）more than a meter.
The favorite food of flying-foxes is the blossom of eucalypts（桉树）and some other native trees, and various bush fruits. The bats are beneficial to the trees because they act as pollinators（传粉者）and dispersers（扩散器）of their seeds. The great distances they can fly means they carry pollen and seeds far from the parent tree.
Camps are places where the large flying-foxes gather during the day, sometimes in many thousands. Along the coast they may be in mangroves（红树林），further inland they are often in deep rainforests, and west of the Dividing Range they are usually along water-courses. Their location may be known only to a few local people. The same campsites tend to be used year after year, although not necessarily every year, or all year round.
Damage to cultivated fruit varies greatly from one year to the next and between different areas. The factors controlling it are not well understood. Some areas rarely experience attacks, others do so most years, Widespread shortages of natural food, such as those occur during droughts, may cause large numbers of animals to move well beyond their usual range in search of food. This applies particularly to Little Red Flying-foxes, which occur further inland than the other species.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．The weight of bats. | B．The usual size of bats. |
| C．The main food of bats. | D．The species of bats. |
| A．They eat nothing but fruits. | B．They prefer fruit to flowers. |
| C．They are also known as fruit-bats. | D．They are known as the largest bats. |
| A．they eat harmful insects |
| B．they help trees to grow abundantly |
| C．they keep many native trees free of disease |
| D．they act as cleaners for trees and flowers |
| A．live in groups in the daytime | B．camp in places where there are no water |
| C．prefer mangroves to rainforests | D．camp in different places year after year |
8 . Covid-19 has brought a great deal of trouble for all of us since March 2020. During this time, mobile phones have been the solution for the boredom and restlessness caused from staying indoors. The most downloaded apps on play store 2020 are;
TikTok
TikTok was the most downloaded app. With over 111.9 million downloads, TikTok has seen a huge growth in 2020, twice more than what it got in 2019. 20% of its total downloads were from India and around 9. 3% of the total downloads were in the US.
Zoom
Zoom was the second most installed app in the overall downloads category. With nearly 94. 6 million installs, Zoom is the most used app for online meetings and virtual classrooms. 17% of its downloads were in the US and India. Offices and educational institutes were shut down and to continue working and studying from home, people relied heavily on Zoom for video conferencing and calling.
WhatsApp ranked third in overall downloads with more than 100 million downloads. It is one of the most popular and widely used chat applications; WhatsApp also supports communication between international phone networks.
It ranked fourth in the overall downloaded list. Facebook is the world’s most popular social networking application. Facebook builds technologies that give people the power to connect with friends and family, find communities and grow businesses.
1. What do we know about TikTok?| A．It is an India-based app. | B．It has most users in America. |
| C．It is used for growing business. | D．It has doubled its download than in 2019. |
| A．TikTok. | B．Zoom. | C．WhatsApp. | D．Facebook. |
| A．Communication. | B．Training. | C．Teaching. | D．Payment |
9 . Researchers found that sleep deprivation（剥夺）has something with overeating. They studied 17 healthy men and women for 11 days and nights in a lab, where researchers recorded their every movement and recorded everything they ate. That way, researchers could make calculations of how much energy the participants were taking in and how much they were burning off through activities.
After a three-day baseline period, one group was freely assigned to sleep and wake whenever they wanted for eight days, while another was woken up after only two-thirds of their usual sleep time—that amounted to about 80 minutes less sleep per night on average. The group that experienced such restricted sleep tended to eat more the following day, adding 549 extra calories to their usual diet, while those who slept as much as they wanted ate about the same on each of the eight experiment days as they did during the three-day baseline period.
The poorly sleeping group was likely to gain weight over the long term, if their sleep was continually restricted, since they didn't burn any more calories than their better sleeping counterparts. That may help explain why previous studies have found that shift workers who work at night and sleep during the day tend to gain more weight than day workers: their disturbed sleep pattern may enhance them to eat more while they don't expend any more energy to work off the added calories.
Therefore, it's important for people to remember that the relationship between sleep, eating and weight is a complex one. Getting a sufficient amount of sleep each night may play an important role in regulating how much we eat and how many calories we burn, and it may also help determine when we eat. Eating when we should be sleeping may increase the risk of weight gain, as the body is more likely to turn nighttime calories into fat rather than burning them off.
1. According to the researchers, there is a link between________.| A．sleep and health | B．sleep and activities |
| C．sleep and energy | D．sleep and overeating |
| A．eat less the following day | B．eat more the following day |
| C．wake earlier the following day | D．wake later the following day |
| A．burn more calories | B．work at night |
| C．gain more weight | D．eat more than others |
| A．the body can turn calories into fat at night |
| B．it is dangerous for people to gain weight |
| C．people should eat less to ensure a good sleep |
| D．people should pay attention to the relations between sleep, eating and weight |
10 . 60-DAY FREE TRIAL ON WINDOWS ASP. NET HOSTING
 | Free Trial with Instant Activation（激活）（Credit Cards NOT Required） Smarter ASP. NET believes in try it before buy it. We are completely confident in our ASP.NET hosting quality and customer service. Anyone is welcome to come and try us for a FULL60 days before they decide whether or not they want to buy. Unlike many other hosting companies out there, we DO NOT ask for your credit card information in advance and hope that you will forget to cancel our service. We won't ask for your credit card information until you decide to buy our service! Free Temporary Domain Name（域名） We'll give you a free temporary domain name to try out our service. You do not need to buy a domain name from us or transfer a domain name to us. |
 | Instant ASP. NET Hosting Setup & Instant Upgrades You can get your free trial. net hosting account up and running within the next few minutes. Try us risk free and start building powerful websites and save money at the same time. You can easily upgrade to a paid package in your control panel（控制板面）without any downtime. |
 | Free Support Included! Free Trial doesn't mean you're getting anything less! We offer every customer, including the Free Trial ones,24/7 Support. Should you have any questions at any time, feel free to contact our support team. Click Here To Sign Up For A Free Trial NOW! |
1. To try ASP. NET HOSTING, firstly, you must________.
| A．obtain a paid domain name | B．show your credit card |
| C．apply for a free trial online | D．determine to purchase it |
| A．you can get your free trial within several seconds |
| B．you will get fewer services in your free trial |
| C．ASP. NET HOSTING can save money for you |
| D．ASP.NET HOSTING is a free Anti-virus software |
| A．post | B．promote | C．pack | D．provide |
