1 . The Board of Education of the Islip Union Free School District is accepting applications for this key leadership role, director of Schools, in the 2,788 student K-12 school district located on the south shore of Islip Town approximately 50 miles from Manhattan. The Board is seeking an experienced educational leader who has the following characteristics:
•Knowledge of K-12 curriculum and instruction, technology, the budget process, finances, labor relations, and community engagement.
•Experience as a successful classroom teacher and an effective educational leader in New York State.
•A strong commitment to academic excellence, and with outstanding communication and leadership skills.
New York State SDA or SDL certification required.
The Board is prepared to offer a regionally competitive salary package. An application and a brochure describing the position and the school district can be found at: www.esboces.org.
Application deadline: December 18, 2020. Send letter of intent and resume to: Islip UFSD. Director Search passes them on to Dr. Julie Davis Lutz, Chief Operating Officer, Eastern Suffolk BOCES, PO Box 454, Medford, NY 11763. Or directly email: suptsearch@esboces.org.
1. What is the advertised position you can apply for?| A．A teacher. | B．An assistant. |
| C．An educational leader. | D．An operating officer. |
| A．Financial support. | B．Rich experience. |
| C．Extraordinary skills. | D．Adequate knowledge. |
| A．Beyond December 18, 2020; www.esboces.org. |
| B．By December 18, 2020; www.esboces.org. |
| C．Beyond December 18, 2020; suptsearch@esboces.or |
| D．By December 18, 2020; suptsearch@esboces.org. |
2 . Mother's Day is a holiday that celebrates and honors mothers in the United States. It is celebrated on the second Sunday in May. It became an official holiday in the country at the start of the 20th century as a way to honor mothers whose sons had died in war.
The holiday is celebrated in a number of ways. People give mothers gifts like flowers, cards, and jewelry to thank them for all their hard work. A popular symbol of the holiday is the flower called carnation. This is because when the holiday first began in the U.S. people were encouraged to wear a red carnation if their mother was alive or a white carnation if their mother was dead. Many people take their mothers out for a special meal. In fact, Mother's Day is the most popular date in the U.S. for people to go out and eat and it is estimated that people spend billions on meals and gifts. Mother's Day is also the most popular day to make long distance calls in the U.S. It is the second most popular gift-giving day after Christmas.
Since its establishment, Mother's Day has been criticized for becoming highly financial. In fact, the founder of the U.S. holiday, Anna Jarvis, began protesting the holiday and was even arrested for disturbing the peace for a public march. Jarvis's own mother started the campaign to establish a mother's holiday during the American Civil War.
Mothers are not the only people celebrated on this day. All mother figures including grandmothers, great-grandmothers, stepmothers, and foster mothers are honored on the holiday. In schools many students make special gifts, including handmade cards. While widely recognized, Mother's Day is not a federal holiday. Many other countries around the world have their own version of Mother's Day.
1. Who was the holiday intended for at the beginning?| A．All mothers. | B．The sons giving lives in war. |
| C．All sons. | D．The mothers losing sons in war. |
| A．People give their mothers carnation flowers as gifts. |
| B．People prepare a special meal for their own mothers. |
| C．People spend too much on celebration of the holiday. |
| D．People telephone to their mothers anywhere anytime. |
| A．She criticized Mother's Day for high expenses. |
| B．She organized a public march and broke the peace. |
| C．She was strongly against her mother for the campaign. |
| D．She spent too much in celebrating the first Mother's Day. |
| A．The ways of observing Mother's Day. | B．The origin of Mother's Day. |
| C．Different opinions on Mother's Day. | D．The holiday of Mother's Day. |
3 . Argentina soccer legend Diego Maradona has died aged 60 of heart failure on Wednesday. Heart failure is a chronic condition that gradually damages the heart's ability to pump blood. Fluid can build up in the lungs as a result — a condition known as pulmonary edema. It is an increasingly common problem that can be fatal.
Regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the game, Maradona became a household name after inspiring his country to World Cup glory in 1986. He took center stage at the tournament with a memorable performance against England where he scored a symbolic goal that he later described as the "Hand of God".
The small forward out-jumped legendary keeper Peter Shilton and knocked the ball into the net. The goal was allowed to stand, though it was claimed to be a handball. Later in the very game he scored one of the best goals in history after weaving his way past seven English defenders.
His impressive career was also marked by numerous controversies and his notorious lifestyle led to alcoholism and addiction.
Argentina's President Alberto Fernandez announced three days of national mourning for the passing of the superstar, and posted a tribute to Maradona on Twitter. "You took us to the top of the world. You made us feel incredibly happy. You were the greatest of all. Thank you for having existed," it read.
Maradona will lie in honor for public viewing at Argentina's presidential palace. Fans headed to the streets across Argentina and in Naples on Wednesday to pay tribute to（悼念） their hero. Meanwhile, a minute's silence would be observed ahead of all European matches this week in honor of the Argentine.
"He will go down in history as someone who set football alight and thrilled global fans young and old with his brilliance and skill."
1. Why did the famous football player Maradona die?| A．Old age. | B．Heart illness. | C．Loss of blood. | D．Lung cancer. |
| A．His achievements in life. | B．His "Hand of God". |
| C．His great performance in 1986. | D．His legendary life. |
| A．good | B．bad | C．common | D．healthy |
| A．Respectful. | B．Unkind. | C．Impolite. | D．Friendly. |
4 . A doctor entered the hospital hurriedly after being called in for an important surgery. He found the boy's father in the hall waiting worriedly.
On seeing him, the father cried out, "Why did you take all this time to come? Don't you know that my son is in danger? Don't you have any sense of duty?"
The doctor smiled and said, "I am sorry. I wasn't in the hospital and I came as fast as I could after receiving the call and now, I wish you'd calm down so that I can do my work."
"Calm down?! What if your son was in this room right now? Would you calm down? If your own son dies while waiting for a doctor, then what will you do?" said the father angrily. The doctor smiled again and replied, "We will do our best and you should also pray for your son's healthy life."
The surgery took some hours after which the doctor went out happy, "Thank goodness! Your son is saved!" And without waiting for the father's reply, he carried on his way running by saying, "If you have any questions, ask the nurse."
"Couldn't he wait some minutes so that I can ask about my son's state?" shouted the father when seeing the nurse minutes after the doctor left.
The nurse answered, tears coming down her face. "His son died yesterday in a road accident. He was at the burial when we called him for your son's surgery. And now that he saved your son's life, he left running to finish his son's burial."
1. What did the doctor do after he received the call for the surgery?| A．He asked another doctor to do his duty. | B．He went to the hospital as soon as possible. |
| C．He discussed the boy's state with the father. | D．He waited until his son's burial was finished. |
| A．he had waited too long | B．no one cared for his son |
| C．the doctor was cold to him | D．the surgery took a long time |
| A．Angry. | B．Excited. | C．Sorry. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．Seeing is believing | B．Time waits for no man |
| C．Practice makes perfect | D．Think before you decide |
5 . In the eyes of many foreigners, Chinese are the best hosts (主人) and the worst guests in the world. They’re not really bad guests, but because the guest-host relationship in China is much different than in some western counties, it appears they are not nice guests. And western guests sometimes look rude (粗鲁的) in the eyes of Chinese guests.
In China, guests are almost like gods. Whenever I enter a Chinese person’s home, there is always fruit on the table for me, and someone is quick to bring me a cup of tea or water. In the west, generally the guest is not a god. Acting according to the host’s way of doing things is usual behavior for a guest.
My wife’s mother, a very kind elderly Chinese lady, doesn’t smoke. When I see some of her guests smoking in her house, as a non-smoker, I feel unhappy. Usually I want to stop them directly, but I must realize that in China, to be a good host, she must not do that. In most North America homes, if you are a guest, and the hosts are not smokers, you should not smoke in their house. At the very least, you could ask, “Is it OK if I smoke” “But, don’t be surprised if they say, “No, you can’t smoke.” In our culture, if you smoke in their home, you are a bad guest, but if they don’t allow you to smoke in their house, they are not a rude guest.
Guests in China also have special habits. Some western people may not adapt to these habits very soon. Thankfully my wife is Chinese, so whenever we visit a Chinese family she tells me to buy them a gift. However, giving a gift to a host is not always necessary in my country. So, if you invite international guests to your home, don’t be too surprised if they don’t bring you a gift.
In China, you probably won't need to change the guest-host relationship very much because you will probably only be the host, and Chinese are naturally very good hosts. If western hosts invite you to their house, try not to be too surprised if their style of treating you is not what you have expected.
1. When a western guest visits a Chinese family,he often___________.| A．buys some fruit |
| B．feels like a god |
| C．wants some gifts |
| D．takes a cup of tea |
| A．It's OK if you smoke here. |
| B．Let's smoke together. |
| C．Sorry, you can't smoke here. |
| D．Smoking is a bad habit. |
| A．think back to |
| B．get used to |
| C．look forward to |
| D．keep close to |
| A．Foreigners should learn from Chinese. |
| B．Hosts must do things in the guests' way. |
| C．Western hosts are always nice to guests. |
| D．People should understand cultural differences. |
6 . Alibaba Group will extend its digital operating system to 1.5 million small neighborhood stores in China. Under the so-called Plan W, Alibaba is looking to develop a number of smaller shops with a daily revenue of over 10,000 yuan ($1,456) in lower-tier cities, townships and villages.
The latest move falls under Alibaba’s Ling Shou Tong (LST) business unit, which connects the millions of street stands in China and improves marketing, delivery, and inventory management abilities through digital means. The data-backed retail management system has been designed to digitize the business of millions of mom and pop stores and neighborhood convenience stores.
Alibaba will offer a smart point-of-sale system, some 10,000 new product offerings, and a variety of online touchpoints to help users access offline stores virtually. Alibaba intends to help these mom and pop stores double or even triple their revenue, and they can sell more efficiently, and get flexibility to refill stocks based on their changing needs.
Its POS machine performs every function throughout the retail process and provides real-time suggestions. For instance, it would send out alerts on potential stock shortage, and would recommend cost-effective purchase to enhance the store’s profitability. The machine also collects average selling price for a certain product in the nearby areas, thereby giving references to shop-owners to make informed pricing decisions.
Furthermore, an inventory monitoring system is in operation to give real-time advice on product display. This is coupled with a three-layer warehouse system covering 200 cities and townships to ensure the timely delivery of products, based on geographical shopping preferences that are present in Alibaba’s data book.
Despite slow consumption growth at home and abroad, one in every five small shops surveyed by LST reported they have witnessed positive revenue growth. Average daily revenue surpassed 7,000 yuan, compared with the 3,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan range for average offline stores.
1. Why does Alibaba come up with Plan W?| A．To open 1.5 million small neighbourhood stores in China. |
| B．To improve supermarkets’ digital operating system in urban areas. |
| C．To increase revenue of smaller shops through digital means. |
| D．To move Ling Shou Tong business unit to under-developed areas. |
| A．By warning possible stock shortage. |
| B．By increasing profit at a higher price. |
| C．By comparing prices of a product in different cities. |
| D．By offering shop-owners advice on bargaining. |
| A．The data-backed retail management system. | B．The point-of-sale system. |
| C．The inventory monitoring system. | D．The three-layer warehouse system. |
| A．Application of Digital Means to Small Shops | B．Real Secrets of Alibaba Group’s Success |
| C．Great Hope of Street Stands in China | D．Possible Ways of Increasing Small Shops’ Profit |
7 . Space is becoming more crowded. Quite a few low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites have been launched into the sky, which are designed to move around the Earth only a few hundred kilometres above its surface. SpaceX and OneWeb plan to launch LEO satellites in their thousands, not hundreds, to double the total number of satellites in orbit by 2027.
That promises to change things on Earth. LEO satellites can bring Internet connectivity to places where it is still unavailable. This will also be a source of new demand for the space economy. Morgan Stanley, a bank, projects that the space industry will grow from $350 billion in 2016 to more than $1.1 trillion by 2040. New Internet satellites will account for half this increase.
For that to happen, however, three worries must be overcome. Debris (碎片) is the most familiar concern. As long ago as 1978, Donald Kessler, a scientist at NASA, proposed a scenario (设想) in which, when enough satellites were packed into low-Earth orbits, any collision could cause a chain reaction which would eventually destroy all spacecraft in its orbital plane. Solutions exist. One solution is to grab the satellites with problems and pull them down into the Earth’s atmosphere. Another is to monitor space more closely for debris. But technology is only part of the answer. Rules are needed to deal with old satellites safely from low-Earth orbits.
Cyber-security is a second, long-standing worry. Hackers could take control of a satellite and steal intellectual property, redirect data flows or cause a collision. The satellite industry has been slow to respond to such concerns. But as more of the world’s population comes to rely on space for access to the Internet, the need for action intensifies. Measures will surely be taken to protect network security.
The third issue follows from the first two. If a simple mistake or a cyber-attack can cause a chain reaction which wipes out hundreds of billions of dollars of investment, who is responsible for that? Now the plans of firms, wishing to operate large numbers of satellites are being studied. But there is a long way to go before the risks are well understood, let alone priced.
As space becomes more commercialized, mind-bending prospects open up: packages moved across the planet in minutes by rocket rather than by plane, equipment sent to other small planets, passengers launched into orbit and beyond. All that and more may come one day. But such activities would raise the same questions as LEO satellites do. They must be answered before the space economy can truly develop.
1. What can we learn about LEO satellites from the passage?| A．They will limit the space economy |
| B．They will increase in large numbers. |
| C．They will move beyond the Earth as far as possible. |
| D．They will monitor old satellites. |
| A．To avoid network attack. |
| B．To make the Internet accessible to backward areas. |
| C．To lighten the financial burden of space firms. |
| D．To accelerate the development of bank industry. |
| A．block low-Earth orbits with packed satellites |
| B．pull down satellites into Earth’s atmosphere |
| C．put the disposal of old satellites at high risks |
| D．bring destruction to spacecraft in the same orbit |
| A．It should be further confirmed for its ownership. |
| B．It should be continued because of its advantages. |
| C．It should be done carefully to avoid potential risks. |
| D．It should be stopped in the face of the space economy. |
8 . Andrea Yoch loves her adult sons, but would also love not to live with them. This is especially true in the 2, 200-square-foot rental in St. Paul, where she and her husband moved after the boys left their childhood home (a 5,000-square-foot property with a pool). But now Ben, 20, and Ryan, 23 are crammed with their parents in a house where a movie playing in one room can be heard in almost any other.
After her sons showed up due to the lockdown after the Coronavirus crisis struck—Ben from Boston, where he is a college student, and Ryan from New York, where he was starting out as an assistant advertising account executive—Ms. Yoch rushed to set up temporary offices in a bedroom and a basement that now also functions as a super crowded gym. “I would give anything for them to restart their lives,” she said.
As the pandemic continues, Wall Street bankers, Uber drivers, academics, artists and many other adults have given up their independent lives and migrated home. Some fled heavily populated cities for the rural suburban houses where they grew up and for the promise of home-cooked meals and free laundry. Others ended up in downsized spaces designed for empty nesters or in apartments already shared with other family members, such as grandparents or teenage siblings.
Parents caught by the increase of layoffs and canceled contracts found themselves feeding grown children who were in the same position. Mothers who had grown accustomed to freedom were suddenly expected to go back to cooking and cleaning.
“Some parents see this as a welcome surprise, but it can also add a lot of financial stress,” said Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at the investment bank Stifel. “You can’t assume that parents are necessarily in a better-off position than their adult children: a lot of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and don’t have enough savings to accommodate extra people living in their households.”
1. Which word best describes Ms. Yoch’s life with her two sons?| A．Inconvenient. | B．Satisfying. |
| C．Disappointing. | D．Exciting. |
| A．People without jobs. | B．Grown-ups with no houses. |
| C．Children staying abroad. | D．Parents with no children around. |
| A．Because they are too busy to take care of them. |
| B．Because they want their kids to be independent. |
| C．Because they are in no better financial situation. |
| D．Because they have already sold or rented out their houses. |
| A．The generation gap between parents and their children. |
| B．The problems caused by two generations living together. |
| C．The parents’ life being affected by children in the lockdown. |
| D．The economic crisis brought about by the deadly Coronavirus. |
9 . Welcome to our school. You can do a lot of things here. Come and join us.
| Timetable | |
| Sunday 8:30---11:30 Personal Inventions You can see many inventions by the students； you may also bring your own inventions. | Monday 19:00---21:00 Space and Man Dr. Thomas West If you want to know more about the universe. |
| Wednesday 19:30---21:00 Modern Medicine Mrs. Lucy Green Would you like to know medical science? | Friday 18:30---21:00 Computer Science Mr. Harry Morison from Harvard University Learn to use Windows XP. |
1. You may have a chance to introduce your inventions on _________.
| A．Monday | B．Friday . | C．Sunday | D．Wednesday |
| A．Mr. Morison | B．Dr. West | C．Mr. Thomas | D．Mrs. Green |
| A．19:00 to 21:00 on Monday | B．8:30 to 11:30 on Sunday |
| C．18:30 to 21:00 on Friday | D．19:30 to 21:00 on Wednesday |
10 . Most kids can walk into a library or bookstore and find hundreds of books to read. But it’s not that simple for kids who are blind. They read in a different way. Jenny Lee and other braille (盲文) transcribers take the printed words of a book and change them into a code of raised dots. Blind people can read these dots with their fingers. To know what braille feels like, take a ballpoint pen and press hard onto a piece of paper. Now turn the paper over and touch the raised dot made by the pen point.
When Lee first saw the dots of the braille alphabet, she wondered if she’d ever be able to read and write them easily. She took a class and practised hard for about six months before she passed the final exam: she had to convert 35 pages of a book into braille. Today, Lee works for a publisher. One of her jobs is to change children’s books into braille.
To do this, Lee first types the story into a computer and then uses a computer program to translate it into the braille code. Next, she looks over the translation several times to make sure it’s mistake-free. After that, a copy of the braille story is printed with a special printer. Then Lee and a proofreader work together to find and correct any mistakes. When a book is ready, many copies of it are printed. Afterwards, some are sold through websites and others are sent to libraries.
Sometimes, going over a story again and again gets tiring. That’s when Lee takes a break. Several of Jenny Lee’s co-workers, who are blind, use guide dogs. When the animals aren’t working, Lee likes spending a few minutes with them. To her, playing with dogs “is always a pick-me-up in the middle of the day”.
“I love this mission,” Lee says. “Through my brain power and my fingers, I am putting the dots into some kid’s hands.”
1. How does the writer explain what braille feels like?| A．By explaining what braille words look like. |
| B．By describing how blind people read books. |
| C．By asking readers to experience it themselves. |
| D．By giving examples of different braille words. |
| A．She was excited to get a new skill. |
| B．She was amazed at the clever idea. |
| C．She realized she could teach it herself. |
| D．She believed it would be difficult to learn. |
| A．A discussion to release work stress. |
| B．Something to improve one’s appetite. |
| C．Something to help restore one’s spirit. |
| D．A free ride accompanied with a guide dog. |
| A．Profitable and hopeful. | B．Tiring but meaningful. |
| C．Relaxing and helpful. | D．Boring but challenging. |
