1 . There are around 400,000 students in London. As university can be a costly time, many of these students will want to look for part-time work. Here are 4 relatively easy jobs to bag yourself in London and ensure a bit of pocket money through your university experience.
Waitressing
It is not hard to find waitressing jobs since London has an abundance of pubs and eateries. Gumtree and Indeed are good places for such opportunities. Hospitality UK and Next door are other great websites. However, as many of these positions are advertised on the windows of restaurants and pubs, going inside and asking the staff there about the positions is a much better idea. This will also demonstrate you as active and confident. Rates are around £12--15 an hour.
Mystery (神秘)shopping
It may not have you laughing to the bank but it's extra pocket money. You go at any time as a regular customer and check out the services that the business provides. You report back to the client and they will pay for your purchases alongside £5 —10.
Care Assistant
For those who have a heart of gold and want to help, caring is the way. There's a huge demand for people to spend your free time with elderly people or help people with disabilities. It can be cooking meals or making sure they're taking their medicine on time.
Receptionist
If you're a good communicator and can act professionally, a receptionist might be a great opportunity for you, which will help you build administrative skills and experience. Receptionist jobs are available at doctors surgeries, dentists, gyms, large offices and more.
1. Which is the preferable way to land a waitressing job?| A．Referring to Gumtree. | B．Surfing Next door. |
| C．Inquiring about positions in person, | D．Contacting advertisement company. |
| A．Amusing bank staff. | B．Working at fixed times. |
| C．Making purchases for clients, | D．Feeding back service quality. |
| A．Waitressing. | B．Mystery shopping. |
| C．Care Assistant. | D．Receptionist. |
2 . The idea of billions of people going through a few masks a week during this pandemic definitely rings alarm bells, but a team of researchers in Melbourne may have the solution.
They’ve discovered that adding millions of discarded face masks to road-paving (铺路) mixtures would actually lower the cost of the road, while preventing billions of them from landfills. Just one kilometer of road would need three million masks, and the polypropylene (聚丙烯) plastic used to make single-use surgical face masks also increased the flexibility and durability of the road.
The new material is a mixture of about 2% torn masks, with recycled concrete aggregate (RCA)—a material obtained from waste concrete and other minerals from destroyed buildings. This recycled material was found in the study to be ideal for two of the four layers generally required to create roadways. Paving a kilometer of two-way road with the RCA and three million face masks would result in a change of 93 tons of waste from landfills.
The final product then is more resistant to wear than asphalt (沥青), as well as being cheaper too, provided there was a method for collecting masks. The research team did a cost-analysis and found that, at $26 per ton, the RCA was about half the cost of mining raw materials, and as much as a third of the cost of shipping the used masks to a landfill.
The widespread application would be ideal for large infrastructure (基础设施) projects. For example, Washington has the 11th worst roads in terms of unaddressed repairs in the U.S. If the damaged roads in Washington state were repaired with the RCA/mask mixture, it would reuse nearly 10 billion masks, sparing American landfills hundreds of millions of tons of trash.
It’s said that the team is looking for private industry partners or governments willing to give their plastic mask road an opportunity for a large-scale test.
1. What does the underlined word “discarded” mean in paragraph 2?| A．Recycled. | B．Produced. |
| C．Mixed. | D．Abandoned. |
| A．2% torn masks, concrete and tons of trash. |
| B．Polypropylene plastic and building materials. |
| C．Single-use surgical masks and recycled concrete aggregate. |
| D．Waste concrete and other minerals from destroyed buildings. |
| A．To tell us what the team has found. |
| B．To prove this material is cost-effective in paving roads. |
| C．To explain repairing roads costs a lot of materials. |
| D．To praise the hard work the team has done. |
| A．The material used to pave roads is made of masks. |
| B．Generally speaking, it requires two layers to create roadways. |
| C．It remains to be tested whether the solution is practical. |
| D．The damaged roads in Washington were repaired with the RCA. |
3 . In an incredible display of compassion and kindness, a man from Turkey was spotted trying to warm a pigeon in the most creative way.
Sabahattin Yılmaz was at home one chilly day. After a rain shower had passed, he noticed something landed on the sill (窗台) outside his window—a cold and wet pigeon. The animal was trembling and soaked; it clearly didn’t have the chance to seek shelter before the rain began. Feeling for the poor pigeon, Yılmaz thought of a way to dry him off.
Rather than pick him up and take him inside to warm up, Yılmaz plugged in a hairdryer and used it to dry off the bird. Little did he know that his neighbor captured the whole moment on video. In the video, Yılmaz can be seen leaning out of his window. He was stretching his arm as far as he can so the hot air can reach the pigeon. The bird willingly let the man warm him up, crouching (蹲伏) to let his outer feathers dry.
Yılmaz told the media that he spent about fifteen minutes drying off the bird. He said he had just opened his window when he saw the pigeon around the corner of the sill. He described it as wet and “about to freeze” from the cold and rainy weather.
After fifteen minutes, Yılmaz gave the pigeon birdseed, which he ate happily. However, the bird remained wet still. “I saw that it was still there so I warmed it up again, after the pigeon recovered again, and after eating a good amount of seed, it flew away,” Yılmaz recalled.
He also didn’t know that he was being recorded at the time and that the video was shared online. He simply did it out of the kindness of his heart. “The pigeon is a living creature and deserved to continue living, that is why I did it,” he said.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．An online video about a pigeon became a hit. |
| B．A man warmed up a wet and cold pigeon. |
| C．A man invented a creative way to help birds. |
| D．A man lives in harmony with a pigeon. |
| A．It was scared and flew away. |
| B．It was annoyed and refused his help. |
| C．It was ready to accept his assistance. |
| D．It was happy to settle in his home. |
| A．A man was filming Yılmaz’s kindness. |
| B．A pigeon was jumping back and forth when dried off. |
| C．Yılmaz was warming a pigeon in a novel way. |
| D．Yilmaz was stretching his arms to catch a pigeon. |
| A．Indifferent but creative. | B．Patient and ambitious. |
| C．Talented but careless. | D．Sympathetic and warm-hearted. |
4 . It might seem strange to be making predictions about 2021, but one thing is clear: technology has been affected just as much as every other part of our lives. Another clear thing is that today’s most important technology trends will play a big part in helping us deal with and adapt to the many challenges facing us. From the shift to working from home to new rules about how we meet and interact in public spaces, technology trends will be the driving force in managing the change.
One of the major technology trends that are likely to play out this year is 5G and enhanced connectivity. Each successive advance in mobile connectivity from 3G onwards has unlocked new use cases for the Internet. 3G made web browsing and data-driven services useful on mobile devices, 4G led to the growth of streaming video and music platforms as bandwidths (宽带) increased, and 5G, similarly, will open more doors in terms of what is possible.
5G means that services relying on advanced technologies such as augmented (增强的) reality and virtual reality, as well as cloud-based gaming platforms like Google’s Stadia, become a practical thing, anywhere at any time. They also threaten to make cable and fiber-based (光纤) networks redundant, with their need for us to be tied to a particular location.
In short, 5G and other advanced, high-speed networks make other new technologies available anywhere, any time. A great example is Norwegian fishery operator Salmar that uses a 5G network to automate the care and feeding of its fish. Image recognition algorithms (算法) are used to detect which fish are over or under-feeding, and automatically distribute food and medicine needed to keep them healthy. Initiatives like this will become increasingly important during 2021, where businesses look to increase automation across their workforces.
1. Which of the following is highly influenced by 5G technology?| A．Data-driven services. | B．Streaming video. |
| C．Music platforms. | D．Google’s Stadia. |
| A．Useful. | B．Unnecessary. | C．Expensive. | D．Special. |
| A．To show the development of Norwegian fishery. |
| B．To explain how to keep fish healthy. |
| C．To present the application of 5G technology. |
| D．To propose new initiatives for businesses. |
| A．Different predictions of technology trends. |
| B．Successive advances in mobile technology. |
| C．One of the technological highlights of the year. |
| D．The driving force in managing changes. |
5 . Adults with a poor education are also likely to have poor health, a growing body of evidence suggests. Study after study has confirmed the link, and now experts are zeroing in on the reasons for it and what can be done. “Persons with a higher education tend to have better jobs, and better income, better benefits,” said David R. Williams, a professor of public health in America.
Those benefits, he said, go beyond health benefits to include such other factors as having the flexibility to take a day off or part of a day to see a doctor. “People with higher levels of education tend to have more resources to cope with stress and life,” Williams said. They have stress, of course, but also more resources to cope with it — such as access to a health club to exercise away the stress — than people with less education, he said.
“Being better educated also means that a person is more likely to understand the world of modern medicine,” said Erik Angner, an assistant professor of philosophy and economics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who has researched the link between education and happiness. “Modem medicine is incredibly complex. And if you lack the basic reading skills required to function adequately in the health-care environment, you might find it harder to effectively understand your medical care.”
A report issued by Williams’ commission found that, compared with college graduates, adults who did not graduate from high school were 2.5 times as likely to be less than very good health. The report suggested that factors outside the medical system play an important role in determining people’s health. Access to medical care is crucial, but it isn’t enough to improve health. What’s needed, they suggested, is increased focus on schools and education — encouraging people to obtain more education.
1. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?| A．Poor Education May Lead to Poor Health |
| B．Higher Education Can Bring More Income |
| C．Happiness Comes from Good Education |
| D．Medical Care Safeguards Good Health |
| A．Resources to deal with life. |
| B．Ways to exercise away stress. |
| C．Factors concerning a higher education. |
| D．Benefits related to a higher education. |
| A．Better education means understanding the world better. |
| B．Modem medicine world is too difficult to understand. |
| C．People with a good education may be happier. |
| D．Reading skills help in understanding medical care. |
| A．Adults are less likely to have good health. |
| B．The medical system determines people’s health. |
| C．More education is needed to improve health. |
| D．More access to medical care is important. |
6 . After written art had to fight a tough battle for attraction during the first decade of social media, owing to a certain group of writers, it is now on a significant rise. How Instagram and Twitter have offered jumpstarts to careers of authors like Dean Cocozza sets a blueprint for thousands of ambitious writers.
Cocozza started writing lyrics for his music as a teenager. He immediately had to experience that translating art to social media is not as simple as posting whatever his pen put down.
“Anyone who uses the platform with an intent will quickly learn that you only have the glimpse of a moment to catch the viewer’s attention. So the work I shared shifted to be more to the point, often one-liners. Then stuff started to go viral.”
The success and demand for more poems resulted in his first book Zero Dark Thirty, which sold out quickly. Despite the book containing mostly short writings, even said one-liners, Cocozza emphasizes that he doesn’t write for social media. “It was a very personal project resulting from a certain period of time” in his life. There are much bigger things that he works on and plans to get involved in.
Dean Cocozza has brought back emotional depth. In-between monetized (货币化的) content, blatant (明目张胆的) advertising and “perfect lives”, social media holds a spot for a new generation of artists, including literature. Critical thinkers and authentic writers remind the app’s consumers of their emotional human nature. Art galleries and bookstores might have lost a big part of their audience to digital media — but the art itself will always find ways to survive.
1. What does the underlined word “it” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Written art. | B．A tough battle. | C．Social media. | D．A group of writers. |
| A．To earn a living. | B．To draw readers’ attention. |
| C．To protect his personal life. | D．To show emotional depth. |
| A．Works with emotional depth are widely accepted on social media. |
| B．People with perfect lives like social media better. |
| C．Art galleries and bookstores will soon disappear. |
| D．Arts of emotion depth still hold value on social media. |
| A．Positive. | B．Carefree. | C．Doubtful. | D．Disapproving. |
In this instant New York Times bestseller and “multigenerational story that’s nothing short of brilliant” (People), two sisters’ lives from the 1950s to the present are explored as they struggle to find their places—and be true to themselves—in a rapidly changing world.
Price | New from | Used from | |
Kindle (电子书) | $8.99 | — | — |
Hardcover | $1.27 | $9.61 | $1.27 |
Paperback | $5.59 | $4.86 | $1.82 |
Product details Publication date: June 11, 2019 Text-to Speech: Enabled Word Wise: Enabled
Measure Up: Mastering Your Career Search Like a Boss
Measure Up helps those desiring or going through career transition understand their value and how to best communicate their value.
Price | New from | Used from | |
Kindle | $0.99 | — | — |
Hardcover | $13.25 | — | $11.75 |
Paperback | — | $16.95 | — |
Product details Publication date: March 2, 2021 Text-to-Speech: Enabled Word Wise: Enabled
Information: A Reader
Information: A reader establishes a classic framework for thinking about information in humanistic terms. Together with Information: Keywords, it sets forth a major humanistic vision of the concept of information.
Price | New from | Used from | |
Kindle | $18.34 | — | — |
Hardcover | — | $110.00 | — |
Paperback | — | $28.005 | — |
Product details Publication date: September 14, 2021 Texto Speech: Enabled Word Wise: Not Enabled
Julius and Macy: A Very Brave Night
A fantastic woodland tale about bravery and friendship from an author-illustrator. With its attractive characters, this gently told tale reminds us that we each have courage within us and that kindness can make all the difference.
Price | New from | Used from | |
Kindle | $4.99 | — | — |
Hardcover | — | $6.99 | — |
Product details Publication date: April 1, 2021 Text-to-Speech: Not enabled Word Wise: Not Enabled
For more, click here.
| A．$8. 99. | B．$0. 99. | C．$18. 34. | D．$4. 99. |
| A．Julius and Macy | B．Measure Up |
| C．Mrs. Everything | D．Information |
| A．A travel brochure. | B．A book review. |
| C．A book-selling website. | D．A science magazine. |
8 . Ever since he was nine years old, Daniel Arundel has been helping his mother Elizabeth in the kitchen. He learnt to bake cakes and savouries (咸味小吃) at home. On Saturdays, he helped fill the rolls at the sandwich shop his mum ran. Now Daniel, who is only 19, has turned his enjoyment of making food into a successful business.
“I’ve always loved making things for people to eat and I realized I wasn’t too bad at it.” says Daniel, who started selling his cakes while at secondary schoo1. “For two years every Sunday, I would sell cakes I had baked at home with Mum on a market stand.”
His plan to open a bakery in his hometown impressed his teachers and they encouraged him to submit his idea to a national competition for ambitious business people. Although he didn’t win, Daniel was awarded an award of €1,000 to help his project.
Arundel Bakery opened on an industrial site in Oldham surrounded by offices full of staff looking for somewhere for their lunch. So he opened a sandwich shop at the front of the Bakery. He now employs three staff, including his mum, who make food for various customers. And they also help the community later by making fresh hot meals for the elderly.
Last year Daniel was runner-up in another competition to recognize entrepreneurial (创业的) talent. The competition was organized by the Edge Foundation, an education charity, which encourages career routes to young people who can’t be admitted by a university.
Daniel said, “I have been crazy in the past few years. I'm so busy and I don’t have much of a social life at the moment. I want to expand our range of dairy-free cakes for those who have an allergy (过敏反应) to food like me. I’ve put my heart and soul into my baking and getting where I am today. I know I'm still very young and I'm learning all the time. But I love what I'm doing and want to take every opportunity that comes to make my bakery a success.”
1. What did Daniel do on Sundays when he was at secondary school?| A．He made cakes at schoo1. |
| B．He sold food at the market. |
| C．He helped his mum run the shop. |
| D．He 1earnt to cook meals for his family. |
| A．They offered him a job. |
| B．They raised money for his project. |
| C．They encouraged him to study business. |
| D．They advised him to participate in a contest. |
| A．To start his first business. |
| B．To help the local community. |
| C．To satisfy consumers’ needs. |
| D．To learn a new cooking method. |
| A．He’ll research and develop special food. |
| B．He’ll spare more time to make friends. |
| C．He’ll enter for another competition. |
| D．He’ll go to university. |
9 . Santa Cruz County is home to rough coastline, grand redwoods and tracks to secret beaches making it the primary destination for your next hiking adventure!
West Cliff Drive
Although not considered a traditional “hike”. West Cliff Drive delivers on some serious strides with seaside views. Bustling beaches and surf spots to quiet bays and wildlife, this coastal path serves up some breathtaking sceneries. When the path ends, take a glance toward the ocean and see the photogenic Natural Bridges State Beach.
Phone: 8635—0936888
Wilder Ranch State Park
Grasslands, small pines, coastal redwoods, douglas firs (杉树), rough coastline, tide pools, hidden beaches, Victorian farmhouse, barns—need we say more? Wilder Ranch boasts a wide variety of landform and habitat, and offers over 34 miles of hiking, biking and horse tracks winding through coastal terraces (梯田) and valleys.
Phone: 8637—0835886
Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park
Whether you’re a family with tiny pets or tough teens, Henry Cowell has a track for you and yours. The main park area features 15 miles of hiking tracks through a variety of forested areas with redwoods, mixed evergreens, yellow pines, and even sand hills. Besides hike, swimming is also allowed in this park!
Phone: 8639—0836886
Berry Creek Falls at Big Basin State Park
Big Basin is California’s oldest State Park and is home to the largest continuous stand of Ancient Coast Redwoods south of San Francisco. The park offers over 80 miles of tracks and has a surprising number of waterfalls. It features a series of year-round waterfalls, lush (茂盛的) redwood forest and steep canyons.
Phone: 8637—0835976
1. Who most probably likes to travel to the parks mentioned in the text?| A．A lover of climbing. |
| B．A lover of swimming. |
| C．A lover of cycling. |
| D．A lover of hiking. |
| A．West Cliff Drive. |
| B．Wilder Ranch State Park. |
| C．Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. |
| D．Berry Creek Falls at Big Basin State Park. |
| A．8635—0936888. |
| B．8637—0835886. |
| C．8639—0836886. |
| D．8637—0835976. |
10 . When you hear the beginning of your favorite song from the radio, suddenly your neck is covered in goose bumps.
It's such a thing that a group of scientists call “skin excitement”—a feeling of cold caused not by a drop in temperature or sudden scare, but by the sense of beauty. “Skin excitement” can come from a song, a painting, a moving movie scene, or even a beloved memory-pretty much anything that causes the giving out of pleasure-soaked dopamine in your brain. But it does not come for all of us.
Your favorite music uncovers a lot about your personality，and so does how you respond to that music. Studies suppose that as few as 55 percent of people experience “skin excitement” when listening to music. And if you count yourself among this group, the goose bumps on your skin aren't the only giveaway—scientists can read it in your brain, too. In a new study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Harvard researchers performed brain scans on 10 students who said they reliably got cold when listening to music, and 10 students who didn't. They found that the cold-prone brains may really be excited by stronger emotions.
Cold-prone brains are generally more likely to show stronger emotional intelligence than no-cold brains. Cold-prone minds tend to have unusual active imagination, reflect more deeply on their emotions, and appreciate nature and the beauty of music and art to a stronger degree than no-cold brains.
So, what type of music causes the chills? It seems that the type is not so important; participants in the new study reported getting cold from songs of every kind. And any song connected with a strong emotional memory of the listener can produce the most reliable results. For me, that's the song Sailing to Philadelphia by Mark Knopfler, which I listened to as a kid in the car with my dad, on the way to the summer camp.
1. What can we learn about “skin excitement” in the text?| A．It helps to produce doparmine. | B．It is caused by the pain in the skin. |
| C．It can be experienced by every music listener. | D．It is the human body's reaction to something nice. |
| A．The percentage of music lovers in students. |
| B．The solutions to the goose bumps on one's skin. |
| C．The differences between cold-prone and no-cold brains. |
| D．The relationship between one's music preference and personality. |
| A．Beautiful and intelligent. | B．Emotional and dishonest. |
| C．Imaginative and sensitive. | D．Brave and strong-minded. |
| A．Responses to Music Vary among People | B．A Feeling of Cold Is Caused by Horrible Music |
| C．Your Favorite Music Reveals Your Personality | D．Favorite Music May Bring Forth Goose Bumps |
