1 . A flock of wild mandarin ducks(鸳鸯) are the biggest draw in the West Lake scenic area in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, with tourists flocking from around the country to see them. However, some of the tourists have been feeding the ducks, even pulling them by the neck to force-feed them. On Monday, a video claiming that some of the ducks had died from over-feeding went viral on social networking sites.
Although there are prominent signboards warning people against feeding them, tourists just cannot hold back. Some even believe the ducks are underfed and they are doing them a favor, little realizing that their action can be detrimental to the birds' health.
Human food does not always go down well with ducks, particularly potato chips, as the oily snack can damage the health of mandarin ducks. However, tourists can frequently be seen feeding the ducks food that the birds cannot digest. Besides, feeding the ducks could stop them from competing in the wild to find their food. If they become dependent on food provided by humans, they will lose their survival skills. Also, by giving food to them, the tourists are polluting the environment. Especially, food thrown into the water could harm the ecosystem there.
However, the tourists know little about the harm they cause to the environment and there is a need to create awareness about it. Meanwhile, the number of mandarin ducks at West Lake has dropped from 336 last year to 260 this year. Maybe the declining numbers will wake the tourists up to this reality.
1. What is the main reason for the ducks' death in the West Lake according to the passage?| A．The ducks are fed with oily snacks. | B．The tourists fail to see the warning signs. |
| C．The tourists feed the ducks too much food. | D．The tourists kill the ducks by pulling their necks. |
| A．harmful. | B．sensitive. | C．vital. | D．beneficial. |
| A．Human food is not suitable for ducks to digest. |
| B．Food thrown into the water does harm to the ecosystem. |
| C．Tourists' feeding ducks may have a bad effect on ducks and the environment. |
| D．Ducks may lose their survival skills if receiving food from people all the time. |
| A．More mandarin ducks are seen in the West Lake this year than before. |
| B．People have already known the damage they did to the mandarin ducks. |
| C．More mandarin ducks are likely to be introduced to the West Lake in the future. |
| D．It's high time that people should be aware of the harm to ducks caused by overfeeding. |
2 . Every January, more than 3,000 people take part in one of the most difficult races on Earth: the Tough Man Competition in the U. K.
This race is not normal. The participants (参加者) run, swim and climb around the 15 km course. First, the participants run 1 km along a muddy road. Next, they crawl (爬) under low nets on the ground.
After the nets, the runners jump off a high platform into a lake and swim for 1 km. Then, they reach the field of fire. Here, the runners run across a field and jump over small bonfires (篝火). Next, the participants must crawl through a long tunnel which is partly under water. Finally, the runners run 2 km through nettles (荨麻) before they reach the finishing line. What’s more, the competition takes place in January when temperatures are freezing. People travel from throughout the world to participate in it.
The competition is quite dangerous and every year there are accidents. Injuries like broken bones and cuts are quite common. One-third of the participants can not complete it. Runners have to be very athletic and most people train all the year to prepare for it. There are similar events, but this is the first one in the world. Many people do the competition because it is so famous. Every year the organizers change the events and add new things. This means that the competition stays exciting and challenging, so people go back year after year.
1. According to the text, the participants in the competition ________.| A．must run 15 km |
| B．may take the risk of being injured |
| C．have to take a medical examination |
| D．must crawl through a long tunnel before the finishing line. |
| A．The participants are all British. |
| B．It is intended for overweight people. |
| C．It is exciting but quite tough. |
| D．Only one-third of the participants can complete it. |
| A．They hold the same activities. |
| B．They create more events. |
| C．They hold the competition in winter. |
| D．They organize the competition in different countries. |
| A．To warn the participants of danger | B．To advertise the Tough Man Competition. |
| C．To introduce the Tough Man Competition. | D．To inform the participants of the competition. |
3 . Listen carefully to the footsteps in the family home, and you can probably work out who is walking about. The features most commonly used to identify people are faces, voices and fingerprints. But the way they walk is also a giveaway.
Researchers have used video cameras and computers to analyze people’s gaits(步态), and are now quite good at it. But translating such knowledge into a practical identification system can be tricky. Cameras are often visible, are difficult to set up, require good lighting and may have their view blocked by other people. A team led by Dr. Ozanyan and Dr. Scully have been looking for a better way to recognize gaits. Their answer: pressure-sensitive mats.
Such mats are nothing new. They have been part of security systems. But Ozanyan and Scully use a complicated version that can record the amount of pressure applied in different places as someone walks across it. These measurements form a pattern unique to the walker. The researchers turned to an artificial-intelligence system to recognize such patterns, and it seemed to work. In a study in 2018, they tested the system on a database of footsteps of 127 people. They found its error rate in identifying who was who was a mere 0.7%. And Scully says even without a database of footsteps to work with, the system can determine someone’s sex and, with reasonable accuracy, a subject’s age.
One application of the mat-based gait-recognition system might be in health care, particularly for the elderly. A mat placed in a nursing home or an old person’s own residence could monitor changes in an individual’s gait that indicates certain illnesses. That would provide early warning of someone being at greater risk of falling over.
Gait analysis might also be used as a security measure in the workplace, monitoring access to restricted areas, such as parts of military bases, server farms or laboratories dealing with dangerous materials. Perhaps the most interesting use of the mats, though, would be in public places, such as airports.
1. What is mainly talked about in Paragraph 2?| A．Research equipment. | B．Research findings. |
| C．Research assumption. | D．Research background. |
| A．collect data | B．ensure safety |
| C．determine age | D．analyse pressure |
| A．monitor security work progress | B．detect potential health problems |
| C．keep track of travelling frequency | D．warn passengers of possible dangers |
| A．Listen to Your Footsteps | B．Applaud Pattern Recognition |
| C．Love the Way You Walk | D．Better the Mats You Step on |
4 . Unsolved Mysteries About the Planet Earth
♦ Mystery 1: Where did all the water come from?
Water covers 70 percent of Earth’s surface and earns it the nickname “the blue planet”. But where did it come from? The most popular scientific theory states that the H2O came from several violent asteroids (小行星) filled with ice. Another suggests that the water actually has been around since Earth’s formation. However it happened, though, it’s certainly worked out well for Earth’s life forms.
♦ Mystery 2: What about all the oxygen?
Another thing is the planet’s oxygen. Tiny creatures released oxygen as a waste product, filling the atmosphere with it. After that, the level of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere went wildly up and down until it finally calmed down around 540 million years ago. Since then, it’s remained at about the breathable level we experience today. But what caused it to be suddenly steady?
♦ Mystery 3: What caused the Cambrian (寒武纪) Explosion?
The Cambrian Explosion refers to the explosion of complex life forms that occurred on Earth about 540 million years ago. Before then, life had consisted mostly of bacteria. But at the beginning of the Cambrian period, complex creatures began developing at a rate never seen before. Suddenly, life forms had brains, eyes, and bones. Most living creatures today can trace their blood back to the Cambrian period.
♦ Mystery 4: Will we ever be able to predict earthquakes?
We still haven’t been able to come up with a way to accurately predict earthquakes. We can certainly try, but our current technology cannot predict them exactly. We know that earthquakes start when rocks crack underground and send earthquake waves toward the surface, but we haven’t figured out why that happens, or how to predict it.
1. What was created later by creatures on Earth?| A．Oxygen. | B．Water. | C．Bacteria. | D．Ice. |
| A．Earth is called the blue star because of water coverage. |
| B．The level of oxygen has been steady all the time. |
| C．Complex creatures had rapid development in the Cambrian period. |
| D．We know nothing about predicting earthquakes. |
| A．It is the oldest mystery of the four. |
| B．It will be solved in the near future. |
| C．It is the most difficult mystery to solve of the four. |
| D．It is a matter that has extremely practical significance. |
5 . A new study shows that when teachers participate in a training programme focused on prosocial (亲社会的) classroom behaviour, their students are better able to control their emotions, and that children who can regulate emotions are more likely to be academically successful.
For the study, which appears in Prevention Science, researchers looked at more than 100 teachers and 1,817 students from kindergarten to third grade to see if teachers could support students’ emotional and behavioural growth through the Incredible Years-Teacher Classroom Management (IY-TCM) programme.
The programme uses videos and training sessions, along with role-playing and coaching, to help teachers learn management skills such as using behaviour-specific praise, building positive relationships with students, and considering how to reduce poor behaviour. Teachers in the training group increased interactions with students by 64 per cent compared with 53 per cent for teachers in the control group without the training.
“Emotional regulation is the ability to recognize what behaviour is appropriate in the present situation,” says Wendy Reinke, a professor in the College of Education at the University of Missouri. “For example, a student might have difficulty controlling the feeling of anger if he or she becomes annoyed with another student. But under this programme, the teacher encourages them to move to a different spot in the classroom, effectively teaching them that sometimes stepping away and taking a break is a good way to calm down and manage the feeling.”
After one school year of using the programme in classrooms, students improved their social ability and ability to regulate their emotions. These improvements resulted in an increase in the tests for students in Incredible Years classrooms vs students in control classrooms. And this classroom management approach can help reduce the risk for struggling learners early on, which could help prevent more accumulative support needs in a child’s future.
1. What do the teachers do in the IY-TCM programme?| A．Learn how to identify poor behaviour. |
| B．Offer the researchers advice on emotional control. |
| C．Take care of kids from kindergarten to third grade. |
| D．Apply different ways to learning how to manage kids. |
| A．Now it is hard for students to control their anger. |
| B．A calm manner is an effective way to handle problems. |
| C．Few can realize their behaviour is unfit for a situation. |
| D．The programme will show how to handle troublesome kids. |
| A．Study results of the programme are entirely unexpected. |
| B．Students in control classrooms can better control their emotions. |
| C．The programme advances the students’ academic performance. |
| D．Students change their bad behaviour shortly through the programme. |
| A．Positive. | B．Negative. | C．Subjective. | D．Indifferent. |
6 . The DC Library offers a variety of book clubs for people to gather and discuss their love for books. Please note that sometimes book club events will be canceled on put off due to unexpected situations. Here are some of the book clubs.
Captain Hill Reads
This group meets at 6:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month to discuss recent literary fiction titles. We have many meeting places throughout the Capitol Hill neighborhood including the Southeast and Northeast libraries, community centers, restaurants, and coffee shops. To find out what we are reading and where the next month's meeting will be held, send an email to David.quick2@dc.gov.
Books & Bars Book Club
Join us at Gordon Biersch at 9th and F streets NW on the third Wednesday of each month. Books&Bars is a book club that provides delicious food, fresh drink, a comfortable atmosphere and great discussion on today’s most interesting books. For more information, Please contact KariMitchell at Kari.mitchell@dc.gov.
A Song of Ice and Fire Book Club
This club reads the series by George R. R. Martin. The popular HBO show, Game of Thrones, is based on his series. We meet on the last Wednesday of every month at Petworth Citizen at 829 Upshur Street NW. Write to Lisa at Warwick@dc.gov if you have any questions.
Cleveland Park Library Mystery Book Club
This club meets on the first Thursday of each month at Teaism, 400 8th Street, NW, downstairs. The group chooses the books each month or two to three months in advance. All types of crime writing are considered. Monthly notices are sent by emails. You can call us at 202-282-3023 for more information.
1. What do we learn about Capitol Hill Reads?| A．It reads all types of crime writing. |
| B．Its events are held in the early morning. |
| C．Its events take place in different places. |
| D．It provides food for members for free. |
| A．Fans of HBO shows. |
| B．Fans of George R. R. Martin’s books. |
| C．People who are fond of literary fiction titles. |
| D．People interested in different types of novels. |
| A．To introduce some book clubs. |
| B．To introduce some fantastic books. |
| C．To give advice on reading. |
| D．To give advice on choosing book clubs. |
7 . The plant chemicals in chocolate can help blood flow, explained scientists.
Lead author Dr. Chayakrit Krittanawong said, “Our study suggests chocolate helps keep the heart’s blood vessels (血管) healthy.” People who ate chocolate more than once a week reduced their risk of coronary artery disease (冠状动脉疾病) by eight percent. This was compared to peers who ate it less than once a week.
When LDL (low-density lipoprotein) collects, it causes vessels and arteries to become blocked up. LDL can prevent blood flow to the heart or brain, causing a heart attack or a stroke. Dr Krittanawong said, “In the past, clinical studies have shown chocolate is beneficial to blood pressure.”
Dark chocolate has long been known to be good for our health. However, recent research has suggested milk chocolate may also provide valuable nutrients for the heart. Dr. Krittanawong pointed out his study did not investigate whether any particular type of chocolate is more beneficial. He said, “Chocolate is of great help to prevent coronary artery disease. But more research is needed to show how much and what kind of chocolate could be recommended.”
While it’s not clear how much is perfect, Dr. Krittanawong warned against overeating. He said, “Moderate amounts of chocolate seem to protect the coronary arteries, but it’s likely that large quantities do not.”
1. What does paragraph 2 mainly talk about？| A．The result of the study. | B．The process of the study. |
| C．The goal of the study. | D．The means of the study. |
| A．A heart attack. | B．A stroke. |
| C．High-density lipoprotein. | D．Low-density lipoprotein. |
| A．Chocolate is good for blood pressure. | B．Dark chocolate is beneficial to health. |
| C．Milk chocolate may also benefit the heart. | D．Chocolate contains special plant chemicals. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Positive. | C．Negative. | D．Unconcerned. |
8 . The 21st International Environmental Children’s
Drawing Contest Application Guideline
When you grow up, what kind of natural environment would you like to live in？It’s not only humans that are living on the Earth. We share this planet with animals, birds, fish, insects, trees and plants. What will the earth be like in the future？Think of an Earth where all creatures can live together, and draw a picture from your imagination.
Theme
Our Earth in 2030
Age
Children aged 7 through 15
Time
October 1, 2020 to May 31, 2021
Requirements
1. Paper size: 257x364mm or smaller.
2. Draw with any type of paint, pastel, etc. you like.
3. Please print out the application form, fill in your information（in English only）.
4. Please be sure that the drawing must be drawn by yourself.
5. Applications must be sent in groups, such as a school, should be sent in a single packet.
6. Please note that drawings with text（such as posters）will not be allowed to enter the contest.
Mailing address
Please mail your drawings to: International Environmental Children’s Drawing Contest Office
Winners announcement
August 2021（to be posted on this website）
Prizes/ Awards
48 winners will receive special memorabilia. And all the works that win the contest will have opportunities to be published in the magazine.
1. When can you hand in your drawing work？| A．May 28,2020. | B．November 1, 2020. |
| C．August 12, 2021. | D．October 1, 2021. |
| A．Paper size must be smaller than 257x364mm. | B．Applications should be sent personally. |
| C．Only pastel can be used in the drawing. | D．The drawings must come from yourself. |
| A．In a research paper. | B．In a science book. |
| C．In a nature magazine. | D．In a tourist brochure. |
9 . World Book Day falls on April 23 every year. The UNESCO set it up （设立） in 1995 to help people, especially teenagers, to enjoy reading. It is also the day to remember great writers, for example, William Shakespeare, born or dead on that day.
Many countries celebrate World Book Day. Take UK as an example. On that day, millions of schoolchildren can buy half-price books in any bookshop. It has been done every year since 1998. We also celebrate World Book Day in China. Wen Jiabao, Premier of China, is so interested in reading that he does reading every day though he is very busy. On World Book Day of 2009, he called on（号召）people to do more reading. He told us that we could change the world by changing ourselves through reading.
Reading can help people in many ways. Reading helps us know a lot and become smarter. It helps us to follow the latest developments of science and technology. It gives us information about other cultures and places of the world. When we read, we may find many things that we don’t understand well. We would have to think about them or do more reading to find out the answers. The more we read, the more we know. The more we know, the smarter we become. Reading is also one of the most important ways to learn a foreign language like English. We all know that it is difficult to learn everything in the classroom, for example, the ways English people are speaking and writing today.
All in all, reading can help us know more about the world and perfect ourselves. So it is necessary for us to do some reading every day.
1. Why did the UNESCO set up World Book Day?| A．To let people learn English. |
| B．To help people enjoy reading. |
| C．To make teenagers become writers. |
| D．To help teenagers know Shakespeare. |
| A．learning a foreign language | B．knowing more about culture |
| C．having more interesting hobbies | D．understanding about the world |
10 . A bicycle may be seen by most people as just another vehicle(交通工具), but for many Londoners, cycling is a way of life.According to an official UK government survey in 2017, about 570,000 bike journeys are made every day in London.In fact, almost half of the vehicles that pass over London Bridge each day are bikes.
London introduced a public bikesharing system in 2010. “There can be no doubt that our trusty bicycles have changed the way people get around our great city,” Johnson told The Guardian in 2015.
In London, bikes are used for more than just taking short trips to and from the subway.No matter where you want to go in the city, taking a bike is usually the quickest and easiest choice.
And it's not just shared bikes that the government is encouraging people to ride.In many companies across the UK, the UK government's Cycle to Work scheme(骑行倡议) allows employees to buy a brand new bike without having to pay any tax(税)．This means that it's common to see many people cycling to and from work, and some employers even provide workplace showers and lockers(储物柜) for their workers.More importantly, a cycle-friendly boss may let you off for being late if you rode a bike to work.
Not only is it great for the environment and our body, cycling is also good for the mind.According to National Geographic Magazine, “Bike riding can improve people's happiness.”
1. How does the author show the popularity of cycling in London?| A．By making comparisons. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By using numbers. | D．By using famous sayings. |
| A．Uninterested. | B．Doubtful. |
| C．Disappointed. | D．Supportive |
| A．A tax-free bike. | B．Free bike-sharing services. |
| C．Shorter working hours. | D．Workplace showers and lockers. |
| A．不惩罚 | B．奖赏. |
| C．请假 | D．使爆炸 |
