1 . I took a deep breath and walked through the front door, my arms full of groceries. A challenge lay ahead of me, someone who could hardly boil water: cooking the Easter Sunday dinner. What if I made everyone sick? It could truly be our family’s last super meal.
Making the holiday meal was my brother’s job, not mine. I could never fill his shoes. Peter had died in September at the age of 45 from a heart attack, but he’d been a natural in the kitchen all his life. He planned every course in detail, from the crescent rolls to the Dutch apple pie.
My family was lost without him, and we went out to dinner for Thanksgiving and ordered pizza for Christmas. By the time Easter rolled around, though, I couldn’t bear the idea of another holiday surrounded by takeout (外卖食品) boxes. Peter would have hated that. To him, there was nothing more important than a meal made with love. So I convinced Mom that we should cook Easter dinner together. But we were terrible cooks.
I had been thinking what to cook for Easter dinner. I’d bitten off more than I could chew. No one could do this half as well as Peter.
I stepped into the family room. Mom was still at church, but her newspaper was opened on the coffee table, to the sports section, as usual. She was a huge Notre Dame women’s basketball fan, and the featured story was about the forward Devereaux Peters. I read the headline and nearly dropped my grocery bags, Filling Peters’ Shoes.
That afternoon, cooking in the kitchen, I didn’t feel so alone. Mom and I pulled together and the Easter feast was not that bad. The ham may have been a little dry, but it was all made with love— just like Peter would have wanted.
1. What would Peter have preferred to do if holidays had come?| A．To go out to have dinner. | B．To order pizza. |
| C．To show off his cooking skills. | D．To cook a big dinner for his family. |
| A．the Easter dinner was the family’s last dinner |
| B．Mom persuaded the author to cook the Easter dinner |
| C．Peter enjoyed cooking a dinner with love |
| D．their Easter dinner this year was a complete failure |
| A．she wasn’t confident in cooking the Easter dinner |
| B．she was not able to eat a lot of food |
| C．the Easter dinner made her sick |
| D．she couldn’t cook the dinner alone |
| A．Cooking in the Kitchen | B．Filling Peter’s Shoes |
| C．Happy Easter Day | D．Terrible Cooks |
2 . Children walking in their sleep is not uncommon. 20% to 25% of children may sleepwalk at least once in their lifetime. So what is sleepwalking? Sleepwalking is a disorder(紊乱) that occurs during the deepest stage of sleep resulting in walking around or performing "complex” behaviors. These behaviors can range from simply walking around the bedroom,to getting dressed, walking out the front door and even driving. ‘There are several causes, but the most common ones are lack of sleep, stress, and heredity(遗传).
If you see your child sleepwalking, it's important to quietly and calmly direct them back to bed.Interacting with the sleepwalker too much can cause more confusion and even make the event last longer, You don't have to awaken them or force them out of it, but can just guide them back to their bed.
If it happens occasionally,there is no reason to be concerned. It's normal and many of us have sleepwalked at some point. However, if it happens more than twice a week and lasts for a few weeks, or if dangerous behaviors are occurring, further judgement may be necessary, Some children have succeeded in getting outside of the home or injuring themselves during sleepwalking events, both of which can be dangerous. Sometimes sleepwalking is a time that lasts for a few months to a few years. Other times it is caused by an underlying sleep disorder,so treatment could be helpful. If sleepwalking occurs more often, it is recommended that you speak with your doctor.He or she may refer you to a sleep doctor for further judgement.
Sleep studies are sometimes recommended to judge the causes of sleepwalking. These studies allow doctors to identify things like breathing or movement abnormalities. If a sleep disorder is identified, treatments to settle it may decrease your sleepwalking. In other cases, analysis of the child's sleep patterns or stress levels can help identify ways to decrease sleepwalking.
Some families have members that sleepwalk into adulthood, but most will outgrow that behavior during their teenage years. Keeping sleepwalkers safe is the most important part of the process.
1. What do we know about children 's sleepwalking?| A．Sleepwalking children sleep too much. |
| B．Sleepwalking children only walk around. |
| C．Examination anxiety can cause sleepwalking. |
| D．Few children have the sleepwalking problem. |
| A．Calming them down. | B．Following them. |
| C．Waking them up. | D．Leading them to bed. |
| A．suffer a sleep disorder |
| B．sleepwalk now and then |
| C．sleepwalk every other day |
| D．get hurt in sleepwalking |
| A．Describe the treatment process. |
| B．Present some common examples. |
| C．Provide some advice for the readers. |
| D．Introduce a new topic for discussion. |
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. |
| A．Feel tired and sleepy. | B．Keep cool and relaxed. |
| C．Keep quiet and patient. | D．Feel nervous and worried. |
| 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. |
| 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 . 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 |
5 . 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. |
6 . Scientists have been studying Antarctica for over a century, but details as basic as what it looks like beneath all that ice have largely remained a mystery. Now, Earther reports that a team of scientists from Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and the UK has published the most detailed data yet on the continent's subglacial topography （冰川下的地形）near the South Pole.
As they report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, central Antarctica is home to three large canyons （峡谷）, one of which is deeper than the Grand Canyon and nearly as wide at some points. The researchers made the discovery by flying a plane with radar over the South Pole, a spot that isn't covered by satellites. They expected to find mountains beneath the ice sheet, but the wide canyons they found between the mountains came as a surprise.
Of the three canyons, two hadn't been documented previously. The largest, the Foundation Trough （基础槽），measures 218 miles long, up to 22 miles wide, and 6,260 feet deep, putting it up there with the planet's most impressive canyons.
The discoveries are significant on their own, but the real purpose behind the research is to better understand how the West and East Antarctic ice sheets will react to rising temperatures. Human-caused climate change has made some of the continent's ice not firm, and the West Antarctic ice sheet especially has been slowly melting to the sea. If patterns continue, the coastal glaciers supporting the large ice sheets could fall down, causing sea levels to rise a minimum of 10 feet. If this happens, the canyons could be a major factor in the speed and direction of ice flow from central Antarctica to the coast.
The event isn't likely to happen in the near future, but further study o£ Antarctica's topography will allow scientists to better predict when it might.
1. Which of the following have scientists known little?| A．The shape of Antarctica ice. |
| B．The condition of Antarctica ice. |
| C．The Grand Canyon. |
| D．The beneath of Antarctica ice. |
| A．The Grand Canyon. |
| B．The mountains. |
| C．Three large canyons. |
| D．Ice sheets. |
| A．Unexpected. | B．Interesting. |
| C．Ridiculous. | D．Common. |
| A．To document the three canyons. |
| B．To find out how large the three canyons are. |
| C．To know how ice sheets react to rising temperatures. |
| D．To show the importance of the three canyons. |
7 . People have different ways of dealing with a common cold. Some take over the counter medicines such as aspirin while others try popular home remedies(治疗) like herbal tea or chicken soup. Yet here is the tough truth about the common cold: nothing really cures it.
So why do people sometimes believe that their remedies work? According to James Taylor, professor at the University of Washington, colds usually go away on their own in about a week, improving a little each day after symptoms peak, so it's easy to believe it's medicine rather than time that deserves the credit, USA Today reported.
It still seems hard to believe that we can deal with more serious diseases yet are powerless against something so common as a cold. Recently, scientists came closer to figure out why. To understand it, you first need to know how antiviral drugs work. They attack the virus by attaching to and changing the surface structures of the virus. To do that, the drug must fit and lock into the virus like the right piece of a jigsaw(拼图), which means scientists have to identify the virus and build a 3D model to study its surface before they can design an antiviral drug that is effective enough.
The two cold viruses that scientists had long known about were rhinovirus(鼻病毒) A and B. But they didn't find out about the existence of a third virus, rhinovirus C, until 2006. All three of them contribute to the common cold, but drugs that work well against rhinovirus A and B have little effect when used against rhinovirus C.
''This explains most of the previous failures of drug trials against rhinoviruses,'' study leader Professor Ann C. Palmenberg at the University of Wiscons in Madison, US, told Science Daily.
Now, more than 10 years after the discovery of rhinovirus C, scientists have finally built a highly detailed 3D model of the virus, showing that the surface of the virus is, as expected, different from that of other cold viruses.
With the model in hand, hopefully a real cure for a common cold is on its way. Soon, we may no longer have to waste our money on medicines that don't really work.
1. What does the author think of popular remedies for a common cold?| A．They are quite effective. | B．They are slightly helpful. |
| C．They actually have no effect. | D．They still need to be improved. |
| A．By breaking up cold viruses directly. |
| B．By changing the surface structures of the cold viruses. |
| C．By preventing colds from developing into serious diseases. |
| D．By absorbing different kinds of cold viruses at the same time. |
| A．The surface of cold viruses looks quite similar. |
| B．Scientists have already found a cure for the common cold. |
| C．Scientists were not aware of the existence of rhinovirus C until recently. |
| D．Knowing the structure of cold viruses is the key to developing an effective cure. |
| A．Drugs against cold viruses | B．Helpful home remedies |
| C．No current cure for common cold | D．Research on cold viruses |
8 . The start of the U.S. Atlantic hurricane season is just over two weeks away and forecasters are expecting particularly high activity this year. With warmer than usual conditions expected in the North Atlantic this summer, meteorologists have predicted that the season could produce eight or more hurricanes.
While forecasters cannot predict how many hurricanes — if any — will make landfall, the potential for dangerous storms to strike the southern and eastern coasts brings an additional problem for authorities already struggling with the COVID-19.
Experts say that the COVID-19 is affecting the capabilities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other organizations involved in responding to natural disasters.
Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Jeffrey Talley, who now leads global efforts on disaster management at IBM’s Center for the Business of Government, said that with FEMA and other authorities engaged with responding to the COVID-19, resources will be limited if a hurricane strikes.
“When we look at a disaster... I think of it in terms of how we prepare for, respond to and recover from those types of events,” Talley said. “Right now we’re in the middle of the response of COVID-19. None of us are really sure how long it’s going to last and how the response to disasters is going to be different, say, two months from now, six months from now, so on and so forth,” he said.
According to Talley, the COVID-19 could complicate the response to a hurricane by interrupting the flow of emergency supplies to areas where they are urgently needed at crucial moments.
Social distancing and stay-at-home orders will also force authorities along the south and east coast to rethink how they manage people who must leave their homes in the event of a disaster. While many states are already lifting some lockdown restrictions, social distancing will still be important for many months to come.
1. When will the first hurricane possibly arrive in US this summer?| A．In about eight days. | B．In about six months. |
| C．In about two months. | D．In more than two weeks. |
| A．More people will leave home to fight against a hurricane. |
| B．Rescue materials might not reach disaster areas sometimes. |
| C．Lockdown can greatly reduce damage and injury. |
| D．The pandemic makes it harder to predict hurricanes. |
| A．People throughout the country no longer need to stay at home. |
| B．The state governments are confident about tackling hurricanes. |
| C．Authorities along the coasts will stick to the former orders. |
| D．It is necessary to keep social distance in the coming months. |
| A．More Destructive Hurricanes to Be Expected. | B．More Difficult to Forecast Hurricanes Coming. |
| C．COVID-19 to Worsen Hurricane Response. | D．Social Distancing Needed in Coming Months. |
9 . Welcome to Los Angeles. Here are some best things to do in Los Angeles (LA) with your kids.
Fall at the Beach
Thanks to its almost perfect weather all through the year, a visit to the beach is one of the best things to do when in Los Angeles with kids. While they enjoy themselves nearby, you can simply relax and have a good rest in the sun.
Trip to Disneyland
A trip to the City of Angels with your little angels is incomplete without a visit to the Magic Kingdom. The joy they'll feel from being around all those Disney characters will light up your day, too.
Visit to the museums
If you want to turn your stay in LA into an educational one for your kids, you should visit the museums. Starting with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, or the California Science Center, or even the Kidspace Museum in Pasadena, you have many choices. I'm sure a visit to all these places will make your kids feel smarter.
Visit to the Universal Studios Hollywood
Your kids could get to see interesting things from some of the most popular movies ever. From the theme park of Jurassic Park to Wisteria Lane from the TV play Desperate Housewives, the Universal Studios Hollywood is a place that we all find wonderful.
1. The passage is written for those who ________.| A．will go on a business trip to Los Angeles |
| B．plan to have a trip to Los Angeles with their kids |
| C．want to educate their children by traveling abroad |
| D．are interested in the history and culture of Los Angeles |
| A．the Universal Studios Hollywood |
| B．the Magic Kingdom |
| C．the museums |
| D．the beach |
| A．children can learn a lot there |
| B．parents can take a rest there |
| C．it provides different sports equipment |
| D．it’s the best beach in the world |
10 . 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. |
| A．The rising sea level. | B．The melting of icebergs. |
| C．The increase in disasters. | D．The cause of global warming. |
| A．By offering statistics. | B．By giving an example. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By analyzing the process. |
| 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. |
