1 . There were smiling children all the way. Clearly they knew at what time the train passed their homes and they made it their business to stand along the railway, wave to complete strangers and cheer them up as they rushed towards Penang. Often whole families stood outside their homes and waved and smiled as if those on the trains were their favorite relatives. This is the simple village people of Malaysia. I was moved.

I had always traveled to Malaysia by plane or car, so this was the first time I was on a train. I did not particularly relish the long train journey and had brought along a dozen magazines to read and reread. I looked about the train. There was not one familiar face. I sighed and sat down to read my Economics.

It was not long before the train was across the Causeway and in Malaysia. Johore Baru was just another city like Singapore, so I was tired of looking at the crowds of people as they hurried past. As we went beyond the city, I watched the straight rows of rubber trees and miles and miles of green. Then the first village came into sight, immediately I came alive; I decided to wave back.

From then on my journey became interesting. I threw my magazines into the waste basket and decided to join in Malaysian life. Then everything came alive. The mountains seemed to speak to me. Even the trees were smiling. I stared at everything as if I was looking at it for the first time.

The day passed fast and I even forgot to have my lunch until I felt hungry. I looked at my watch and was surprised that it was 3:00 pm. Soon the train pulled up at Butterworth. I looked at the people all around me. They all looked beautiful. When my uncle arrived with a smile, I threw my arms around him to give him a warm hug (拥抱). I had never done this before. He seemed surprised and then his weather-beaten face warmed up with a huge smile. We walked arm in arm to his car.

I looked forward to the return journey.

1. The author expected the train trip to be________.

A．adventurous

B．pleasant

C．exciting

D．dull

2. What did the author remember most fondly of her train trip?

A．The friendly country people.	B．The mountains along the way.
C．The crowds of people in the streets.	D．The simple lunch served on the train.

3. Which of the following words can best take the place of the word “relish” in the second paragraph?

A．choose

B．enjoy

C．prepare for

D．carry on

4. Where was the writer going?

A．Johore Baru.

B．The Causeway.

C．Butterworth.

D．Singapore.

2 . We all know that regular exercise is vitally important for both a healthy mind and body. Research has shown that just five minutes of exercise in a “green space” can help people to keep mentally healthy.

Let’s take a look at some ways to get close to nature and make them a part of your regular exercise routine.

Get on your bike

Cycling is a cheap, easy and fun way to get some good exercise in the outdoors. Try leaving your car at home and cycling to work one day, if that’s possible. Or get the family together and go on a weekend bike ride. Check out the local cycle paths before you go, and plan a safe route. Make sure you take some healthy snacks with you to keep your energy levels up.

Try some outdoor yoga

Practising yoga can be great for reducing anxiety and aiding relaxation, so why not take your yoga mat and try out some asanas (yoga postures) in the open air? Yoga is great for stretching tight muscles and increasing flexibility as well as improving mobility, control and breathing. Why not finish your practice with some quiet meditation to further calm the mind?

Go running

Instead of spending hours on the treadmill（跑步机）, grab a friend and go off for a jog around your local park, or some nature trails. If you are used to running on a treadmill, you may find it harder at first, so make sure you have some good, supportive running shoes. You could also find out where your nearest Parkrun is. They are open to everyone, free, and are safe and easy to take part in.

1. If you want to cycle with your family, you’d better __________.

A．have a healthy body

B．check the bikes carefully

C．learn some survival skills

D．make good preparations for it

2. What’s the advantage of outdoor yoga according to the text?

A．Getting closer to nature.

B．Feeling relaxed or peaceful.

C．Keeping active and energetic.

D．Having no effect on people’s bodies.

3. What problem do some people have if they want to run around their local park?

A．It takes them some time to get used to it.

B．It needs some patience to continue.

C．It makes them lose interest in running.

D．It leads them to fall behind their friends.

3 . I’d been thinking of taking a course on scuba-diving(水肺潜水)for months, but wasn’t sure because I was afraid of snakes! Sea snakes. Just thinking about it made me sick.

But then, I wanted to know why people loved it so much. They all said that under the sea was like a totally different world, yet a beautiful one. And because of that, I decided to take the risk and try to face my fear.

So, after taking a private course from my diving instructor, Mbak Vita，I went to Sepa Island with her, to take the final exam.

First dive, 12 meters in depth. “What am I doing?” I asked myself. “What if something bad happened?” I tried hard not to panic and told myself to keep a good thought, “It’s gonna be a wonderful experience. Just do it!” Then I went down. My heart beat fast and my ears hurt as I went deeper. I followed Vita’s instructions closely until I felt comfortable to explore the sea.

Suddenly all around me was green. It felt like I was living in a green world! I saw some corals(珊瑚), big ones, and lots of beautiful fish hiding in the sand.

I was enjoying the beauty all around me when my instructor waved at me with her hand holding a pink flipper(橡胶蹼). “That flipper looks familiar,” I thought. Yes! That was my flipper! I didn’t realize that my right flipper had managed to get away from my right foot!

So, that was the first dive. In total，we dove 5 times in 2 days. We managed to dive up to 18 meters in depth. The next dives were smooth and for sure I didn’t lose my flipper! I was so happy to see different types of fish swimming in front of me as if I was invisible(不可见的).It was indeed so beautiful and peaceful down there. Now I can see why people love diving under the sea.

1. How did the author feel about learning scuba-diving at first?

A．Uncertain.	B．Excited
C．Comfortable.	D．Disappointed.

2. What does the underlined word “panic” in Paragraph 4 mean?

A．Feel tired and sleepy.	B．Keep cool and relaxed.
C．Keep quiet and patient.	D．Feel nervous and worried.

3. What happened during the author’s first dive?

A．She saw a sea snake.

B．A flipper fell off her foot.

C．The sea water turned green.

D．She lost her instructor in the sea.

4. What would be the best title for the text?

A．A pleasant trip to the beach

B．My first experience with scuba-diving

C．Why a person starts scuba-diving

D．How scuba-diving affects my life

4 . After two years of careful consideration, Robert McCrum has reached a conclusion on his selection of the 100 greatest novels written in English. Take a look at a few in his list.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)

By the end of the 19th century, no book in English literary history had enjoyed more editions and translations. This world-famous novel is a complex literature that one cannot resist.

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)

A great work that’s been repeatedly printed, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels comes third in our list of the best novels written in English.

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson (1748)

Clarissa is a tragic heroine, pressured by her dishonorable family to marry a wealthy man she dislikes, in the book that Samuel Johnson described as “the first book in the world that shows the knowledge about the human heart.”

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)

Tom Jones is a classic English novel that gets the spirit of its age and whose characters are well-known since they have come to represent the society at that time.

Emma by Jane Austen (1816)

Jane Austen’s Emma is her most outstanding work, mixing the best parts of her early books with a deep sense of feelings.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)

Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel—a classic adventure story with supernatural elements—has fascinated and influenced generations of writers.

1. Which English book has got the most translations before the 20th century?

A．Tom Jones

B．Gulliver’s Travels

C．Robinson Crusoe

D．Emma

2. What does Samuel Johnson think we can learn about from the book Clarissa?

A．The human heart.	B．Quarrels in a family.
C．A love story.	D．The spirits of the time.

3. What makes the characters in Tom Jones famous?

A．Their classic life styles.	B．Their representation of the society.
C．Their typical spirits of the age.	D．Their different nationalities.

5 . The Education Secretary Michael Gove said all schools should follow the example set in the Far East where pupils are expected to follow a longer day and get less time off. In a speech, he warned the current shape of the academic year was created to fit the needs of an agricultural economy, with pupils taking time off in October to help harvest. The lack of time spent in the classroom is particularly damaging to children from poor backgrounds, Mr. Gove said.

Some of the Government's flagship academies---state schools run independent of local council controls---are using their independence to reform the school day, he said. Some open at 8:30 am and expect children to remain until at least 4:30 pm to undertake sport, music and other extra-curricular activities. Other schools such as David Young Community Academy operate four-week summer holidays for fear that children suffer an academic fall during the traditional six-week break.

Mr. Gove suggested all schools should follow a similar model to enable the nation to catch up with education systems elsewhere in the world. But his suggestions are likely to cause anger among teachers who are fiercely protective of the six-week summer break which they claim is vital for them to recharge their batteries.

Earlier this month, the National Union of Teachers actually called for a shorter school day. But addressing the Spectator Education Conference in central London, Mr. Gove said a "higher level of effort is expected on behalf of students, parents and teachers" in nations such as Singapore and elsewhere in the Far East.

He insisted the Government was changing teachers' pay and working conditions which meant they could be paid more for taking on extra duties, allowing heads to organize their staff "in a way to get more out of young people".

"The expectation is that to succeed, hard work is at the heart of everything," he said. "If you look at the length of the school day and summer holiday in England---and we compare it to the extra tuition and support children are receiving elsewhere---then we are fighting or actually running in this global race in a way without doubt we start with a significant obstacle."

1. Which of the following is right according to the passage?

A．Some schools in the UK have prolonged the school day.

B．A shorter school day helps employ more young teachers.

C．Teachers in the Far East long to have a longer holiday.

D．A longer school day makes no difference to poor children.

2. Why are teachers against Mr. Gove’s suggestions?

A．They will get less pay if the holidays are shorter

B．Children’s performance will be worse if holidays are shorter

C．They will not have enough time to relax

D．Children will have fewer after-school activities.

3. What can we infer from the last two paragraphs?

A．The length of holidays should be increased.

B．The length of the school day is disadvantageous to England.

C．England has lost the global race in education.

D．The government offers a higher pay to attract more teachers.

4. Where is the text most likely from?

A．An agricultural book.	B．A notebook.
C．A diary.	D．A newspaper.

6 . Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are compounds(化合物;复合物) that are set to solve some tough challenges: producing water in the desert, removing greenhouse gases from the air and storing dangerous gases more safely.

The Arizona desert is really dry. Anyone stuck in it without water would die from dehydration (脱水) within three days, unless he had one of Omar Yaghi's next-generation water harvesters, who is a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley. Although daytime wetness is only about 10 percent, this rises to 40 percent at night, which means there's enough water in the atmosphere to support life - if it can be transformed into liquid form.

That's exactly what Yaghi's invention does. It's about the size of a small microwave oven, designed to suck the water from the air at night and turn it into drinking water the next day using only the heat of the sun as its power source. What makes it work is a special material called a MOF, which at normal temperatures attracts water molecules (分子) onto the surface of its internal small holes. Warm it up and get the water, each harvest producing one-third of a cup of pure drinking water. "A device the size of a washing machine could produce enough water for the basic needs of a household," says Yaghi.

These crystalline (结晶的) groups of metals linked by organic molecules can be made into materials with an extremely high absorption ability, attracting specific molecules to their surfaces. In this way, MOFscling toa variety of liquids and gases.

MOFs work thanks to their distinctive structure. In fact, one MOF the size of a sugar cube has so many small holes that they would cover an area as large as six football fields. MOFs are also extremely stable, light and have many different uses: their molecular structure can be varied to attract specific molecules. Adding a small amount of heat or pressure causes the MOF to give what it's holding. More than 70,000 different MOFs have been produced to date for various applications.

1. Why is the Arizona desert mentioned in the second paragraph?

A．To introduce water harvesters.

B．To stress the importance of water.

C．To show the severity of its condition.

D．To express the urgent need for water there.

2. What plays a vital role in water harvesters?

A．Solar energy.

B．Water molecules.

C．Metal-organic frameworks.

D．MOFs' internal small holes.

3. Which can explain the phrase "cling to" underlined in paragraph 4?

A．Give off.

B．Tum into.

C．Hold onto.

D．Break down.

4. What will probably be covered in the following paragraphs?

A．The future of the MOF technology.

B．Other uses of the MOF technology.

C．The improvement to the MOF technology.

D．Possible limitations of the MOF technology.

7 .

GETTING A GRANT Who pays? The local education authority (LEA) for the area in which the student is living. Who can get this money? Anyone who gets a place on a first degree course, although a student who has already attended a course of advanced further education may not. Students must also have been resident in the UK for at least three years, which can exclude some students from overseas.

SPECIAL CASES

If a student has worked before going to college? A student who is 26 or more before the course starts and who has worked for at least three of the previous six years will get extra money – £155 a year if 26, increasing to a maximum of £615 at 29 or more. If a student is handicapped? LEAs will give up to £500 to help meet extra expenses – such as buying a tape recorder for a blind student, extra heating or special food. Banking? Most of the big banks offer special services to students who open accounts (in the hope that they will stay with the bank when they become rich officials). A student won’t usually have to pay bank charges as long as the account stays in credit. Some banks allow students to overdraw by £100 or so, and still don’t make charges (though they do charge interest).

1. The phrase “a grant” in the first line most probably means _____.

A．bank interest	B．a credit card
C．an education fee	D．financial aid

2. A student from Japan who has been studying in England for a year and intends to go to college in a few months will _____.

A．be unable to get money from any LEA

B．get money if taking a first degree course

C．get money from LEA when finishing his course

D．have to open a bank account before getting money

3. A 31-year-old nurse wishes to qualify as a doctor at a university. She has worked since she was 25. How much extra money will she get a year?

A．None.

B．£155.

C．£615.

D．£515.

8 . The popularity of Chinese-owned video-sharing service TikTok (抖音) continues to grow among young people in the United States. In 2019, experts say the service more than doubled its American user base to 37 million. TikTok is especially popular with teens and young adults.

The service lets users create and share their short videos that they think interesting and useful, and many of them are under 15 seconds. The TikTok app offers a wide choice of sounds, brief parts of songs and special effects tools to help create a video. Some TikTok-based memes are very popular. Videos often include popular songs from well-known artists and TikTok has even helped launch the careers of new music stars.

TikTok is considered a competitor to the video-sharing app Snapchat, as well as Facebook’s Instagram service. Snapchat and Instagram also mainly interest young users with a wide mix of photos and videos centered largely on fashion, pop culture and humor.

Last year, TikTok was the second-most downloaded app from Apple and Google stores. Only WhatsApp was downloaded more. Research company Sensor Tower guesses people have downloaded the TikTok app 1.65 billion times.

TikTok has been used by many major companies to reach young people who use little or no traditional media. One of those companies is American-based e. l. f. Cosmetics. The makeup company’s chief marketer, Kory Marchisotto, said that TikTok is “where the Gen Z party is”. Gen Z is a name used to call the generation born between the late 1990s and the early 2000s. “That’s where they’re all hanging out,” Marchisotto said.

Companies appearing on TikTok can make money through advertising. Often, the companies create user “challenges” as part of their ad campaigns. In challenges, users are invited to publish their own videos in which they perform similar dance moves. One campaign by e. l. f. Cosmetics, for example, asked people to wink and move their lips while following a song. TikTok users created 3 million videos that received more than 4 billion view.

1. Which word can best describe the videos created on TikTok

A．Traditional.

B．Formal.

C．Various.

D．serious.

2. Which was downloaded most from Apple and Google stores last year?

A．TikTok.

B．Snapchat.

C．Instagram.

D．WhatsApp.

3. What can companies do on TikTok?

A．Challenge their competitors.	B．Make advertisements.
C．Hold music concerts.	D．Promote users’abilities to make videos.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．China’s TikTok Keeps Growing Among US Youth

B．TikTok Helps Users Create and Share Short Videos

C．China-based TikTok achieves great Success

D．Companies Benefit Much from TikTok

9 . Most scientists are now certain that global warming is taking place. Gases such as carbon dioxide are creating a warm blanket around the earth. This blanket is trapping heat in the atmosphere, and so raising the temperature of the earth.

In Europe, eight of the last ten years have seen record high temperatures. On the other hand, the countries around the Mediterranean Sea are receiving even less rain than before. In Sub- Saharan Africa the crops are drying out in the fields and people are dying of starvation. In 1999, the southern United States was struck by a serious of destructive(毁灭性的) hurricanes. Scientists expect such trends to continue, and to worsen, if global warming cannot be stopped.

In addition to worrying about rising global temperatures and extreme weather conditions, scientists are closely monitoring sea levels around the world. They are slowly rising, as the northern and southern polar ice caps start to melt. This will have serious consequences for low-lying countries near the sea. Already parts of these places are disappearing under the rising sea water.

According to a new research, one contradictory feature(特征) of global warming is that it will probably lead to a period of much colder weather. Scientists base their theory on what happened the last time the world warmed up, 8,300 years ago. They have discovered that when the ice melted from the northern polar ice cap it became trapped in a lake in northern Canada. As more ice melted, this lake suddenly burst open, pouring millions of tons of freezing fresh water into the North Atlantic. This flood of water prevented the normal flow of water in the Atlantic, which takes warm water from the tropics(热带地区) north to Europe. When this flow of warm water was cut off, temperatures in Europe dropped by between three and eight degrees over the next 200 years. ''That's the concern here,'' says Richard Alley, an American climate expert. ''The climate hasn't varied much in 8, 000 years. But big changes could come back!''

1. What is the overall effect of global warming on Europe?

A．A warmer climate.	B．A decline in rainfall.
C．An increase of hurricanes.	D．A decrease of crop production.

2. What is Paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The rising sea level.	B．The melting of icebergs.
C．The increase in disasters.	D．The cause of global warming.

3. How does the author describe the climate change in Europe 8 ,300 years ago?

A．By offering statistics.	B．By giving an example.
C．By making comparisons.	D．By analyzing the process.

4. What can we infer from Richard Alley' s words?

A．Global climate change will bring more disasters.

B．Global warming will likely produce a colder climate.

C．Global warming will continue for the next two centuries.

D．Global climate will remain unchangeable in the next 8,000 years.

10 . Are you a fan of social media(媒体)? Well, you must know this news: There are some hot social media dogs who probably have way more followers than you. Here are some of them.

Boo

Boo has been called the “World’s Cutest Dog” and has over 17 million fans on the social networking website Facebook alone. The Pomeranian has appeared on the TV program “Good Morning America "lots of times. There are Boo toys, Boo notebooks and other things for sale in stores. You can also find Boo on social networking websites Twitter and Instagram.

Monty

Monty is a dog with a lot to say, usually through several messages on Twitter per day. Monty, a shepherd dog, discusses how his owner treats him badly with things like baths, and notes interesting things he sees on walks in the country (like dead sheep). At just under 4,000 Twitter followers, he isn't the dog with the largest following, but Monty is one very active social media dog.

Sutter and Colusa "Lucy" Brown

These dogs aren’t just social media dogs---they are actually" government officials". The dogs belong to California governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. and his wife. Sutter, a Pembroke Welsh corgi, is the “first dog ”and Lucy, a “ borgie” is the “deputy(代理) first dog” of California. Lucy and Sutter Brown have over 16,000 Facebook fans.

Tuna

Tuna is a “chiweenie”---a mix between a Chihuahua and a Dachshund---who was rescued (解救)after he was left on the side of the road. His new mom not only fell in love with him and decided to keep him forever, she also turned the little dog into a popular dog on Instagram. Tuna has 1.6 million Instagram followers.

1. Which dog can you see on a notebook?

A．Monty	B．Sutter
C．Boo	D．Tuna

2. In what way are Sutter and Lucy special?

A．They are lovely.	B．They are active.
C．They are treated very badly.	D．They are connected to the government.

3. What do we know about Tuna’s early life?

A．It was happy.	B．It was sad
C．It was boring.	D．It was interesting.