1 . Like fine food, good writing is something we approach with pleasure and enjoy from the first taste to the last. And good writers, like good cooks, do not suddenly appear full-blown. Quite the opposite, just as the cook has to undergo a particular training, mastering the skills of his trade, the writer must sit at his desk and devote long hours to achieving a style in his writing, whatever its purpose is — schoolwork, matters of business, or purely social communication.
You may be sure that the more painstaking the effort, the more effective the writing, and the more rewarding.
There are still some faraway places in the world where you might find a public scribe to do your business or social writing for you, for money. There are a few managers who are lucky enough to have the service of that rare kind of secretary who can take care of all sorts of letter writing with no more than a quick note to work from. But for most of us, if there is any writing to be done, we have to do it ourselves.
We have to write school papers, business papers or home papers. We are constantly called on to put words to papers. It would be difficult to count the number of such words, messages, letters, and reports put into mails or delivered by hand, but the daily figures must be extremely large. What is more, everyone who writes expects, or at least hopes whatever he writes will be read, from first word to last, not just thrown into some “letters-to-be-read” files or into a wastepaper basket. This is the reason we bend our efforts toward learning and practicing the skills of interesting, effective writing.
1. In this passage, good writing is compared to fine food because ______.| A．both are enjoyable |
| B．both are hard to learn |
| C．both are necessary to life |
| D．both take a long time to prepare |
| A．they rely on quick notes | B．they have excellent secretaries |
| C．they have a computer to do it | D．they prefer making phone calls |
| A．it will receive immediate attention | B．it will be dealt with by the secretary |
| C．it is likely to be neglected | D．it is meant to be delivered soon |
| A．to explain and persuade | B．to comment and criticize |
| C．to interest and entertain | D．to argue and demonstrate |
2 . We have to make certain our limited money is well spent. But what should we spend our money on? A 20-year study conducted by Dr. Gilovich, a professor at Cornell University, reached a powerful and straightforward conclusion: don't spend your money on things.
The trouble with things is that the happiness they provide peters out. We get used to new possessions, and what once seemed exciting quickly becomes the norm. We keep raising the bar and always look for an even better one. Possessions, by their nature, cause comparisons. We buy a new car and are thrilled with it until a friend buys a better one — and there's always someone with a better one. Most of us usually assume that the happiness we get from buying something will last as long as the thing itself. It seems intuitive (直觉的) that investing in something we can see, hear, and touch on a permanent basis delivers the best value. But it's not the case at all.
Gilovich has found that experiences deliver more-lasting happiness than things. Experiences become a part of our identity. Everyone's experience is unique. We are not our possessions, but we are the accumulation of everything we’ve seen, the things we’ve done, and the places we’ve been to. “Our experiences are a bigger part of ourselves than our material goods,” said Gilovich. “You can really like your material stuff. You can even think that part of your identity is connected to those things, but they remain separate from you. In contrast, your experiences really are part of you. We are the sum total of our experiences.”
Besides, we don't compare experiences in the same way that we compare things. It’s hard to quantify the relative value of any two experiences, which makes them that much more enjoyable. And expectation of an experience causes excitement and enjoyment, while expectation of obtaining a possession causes impatience. Experiences are enjoyable from the very first moments of planning, all the way through to the memories you keep forever. The temporary happiness achieved by buying things can be regarded as “puddles of pleasure”. In other words, that kind of happiness evaporates quickly and leaves us wanting more. Things may last longer than experiences, but the memories that remain are what matter most.
1. Which one can replace the underlined words in paragraph 2?| A．Dies away. | B．Is too little. |
| C．Is not real. | D．Costs too much. |
| A．Experiences deliver less-lasting happiness than things. |
| B．Experiences can exist in our memory forever. |
| C．Our experiences take up all parts of ourselves. |
| D．Our experiences are what separate us from others. |
| A．Spiritual wealth is of great value to us. |
| B．Experiences can be compared with each other. |
| C．Expecting an experience increases our feeling of anxiety. |
| D．People are more likely to be impatient when buying things. |
| A．How can we gain happiness with money? |
| B．How can we make happiness last long? |
| C．Why should we spend money on experiences instead of things? |
| D．Why do experiences achieve permanent happiness than things? |
3 . That morning, I dropped our eldest at kindergarten and returned home to let our two younger children play while I worked on my medical report. It was a wonderful chance to work from home, but it hit me that my career in hospital wasn't making a difference in anyone's life. I needed something that would stretch my limits and push me to grow. My career enabled me to work from home. I could work from home, and become a foster mother, providing safety for a child who needed it desperately.
On Monday morning. I picked up the phone and dialed the number I had Googled for the nearest Department of Children's Services. The man on the other end was receptive to my questions and explained the next step of training, involving eight weeks of classes designed to prepare and educate foster parents. We continued through all the classes, the home visits, background checks, and seemingly endless steps.
Five long months after we were approved, the phone rang. In the middle of the night, I woke my husband and rushed to East Tennessee Children's Hospital. Our placement was waiting for us in the emergency room, sick and lack of nutrition. It didn't take long for us to realize the full depth of her suffering. Six months later, her half-brother came to us by our request. We now had five children under our care.
On August 12, 2016, our family of seven walked into a small courtroom. The children's lawyer and social worker were there. With just a few words, our adoption was finalized. These two amazing children weren't going home, because they were already home. We are their forever family, and they are our forever children. We may not be able to change the entire world, but we have changed the world entirely for our new children.
1. How did the author feel about her hospital work?| A．Lacking of motivation. | B．Filled with challenge. |
| C．Highly motivating. | D．Unusually Demanding. |
| A．She felt sympathetic for abused children she knew. |
| B．She wanted to make a difference in other people. |
| C．She felt confident about her ability to raise children. |
| D．She experienced training to raise children properly. |
| A．The child to be adopted. | B．The need to get trained. |
| C．The approval of adoption. | D．The official at the hospital. |
| A．To put the adopted kids elsewhere. | B．To receive another adopted child. |
| C．To make the adoption officially legal. | D．To begin the kids' adoption in her home. |
4 . It’s not new for labs to use robots. But earlier robots usually stayed in one place.
The UL robot, which scientists at the University of Liverpool (UL) have developed, is the opposite of that. The 1.75-meter robot is similar in size to a human. Though it weighs much more than most people, it’s able to easily move about in the same sort of space as humans do.
It uses a special laser system called LIDAR to guide itself—even in the dark. Once it’s close to a work station, it can move into a more exact position through its touch sensors. With one long arm which can turn in almost any direction, the robot is able to use several different kinds of lab equipment to run its own experiments. Some of the equipment has been changed slightly to make it easier for the robot, but basically and most impressively, it’s the same equipment a human would use. The robot was built and programmed by Benjamin Burger, a PhD student at the university, who says it took a lot of effort to program the robot so that it can do things without making mistakes.
Over the next 8 days, the robot ran 688 experiments, always choosing its next experiment based on the results of the last one.
Andrew Cooper, who led the program says, “The robot ran for 172 hours, stopping for only a couple of hours each day to recharge its batteries. To do the same amount of work would have taken a human several months. It isn’t cheap—it cost around $125,000 and took years to program. But the scientists compare that to the cost of other laboratory equipment which they say can also be quite expensive. The fact that the robot can be used for many different purposes is a huge advantage. It is meant to help scientists, rather than replace them, and it frees up time for the human researchers to think creatively.”
1. What does the underlined word “that” refer to in paragraph 2?| A．Earlier robots are smaller and lighter. |
| B．Labs don’t give up the earlier robots. |
| C．Earlier robots can’t move around. |
| D．Labs use robots more commonly. |
| A．It moves its touch sensors frequently. |
| B．It spreads its long arms automatically. |
| C．It is equipped with a special laser system. |
| D．It uses the same equipment as humans do. |
| A．It’s inconvenient to get recharged. |
| B．It’s worth the money and the time. |
| C．It helps other robots perform tasks. |
| D．It can inspire scientists’ creativity. |
| A．Robot Runs Experiments on Its Own |
| B．The UL Robot Finishes Its Experiment |
| C．Robots Replace Scientists Very Soon |
| D．The UL Robot Develeps Its Advantages |
5 . Every year, around 2,000 large sea animals, such as whales, die by swimming onto a beach or into water that’s too shallow for them to escape. This is known as “stranding”. This year, around 270 pilot whales are stranded after swimming into shallow water off the island of Tasmania in Australia, which is the largest whale-stranding event in Tasmania since 1935. The whales were discovered on Monday—two groups of about 60 and one group of over 200. People are working hard to save the whales, but at least 90 have died.
Rescue workers are trying to “refloat” the whales. But the whales are so large. Pilot whales can grow up to seven meters long and can weigh up to 2,300 kilograms. The whales are moved onto a sling, which allows the rescuers to drag them to deeper water. However, many of them get stranded in areas that are hard to reach. Rescuers are focusing on the easiest cases first. “We will take the animals with the best chance to start with,” says Dr. Kris Carlyon. So far, around 25 animals have been rescued. Rescue efforts are likely to continue.
Since the rescued whales are likely to return to the shore, workers are trying to make sure they don’t get stranded again in such wet weather. Dr. Carlyon says the weather around Tasmania favors whale survival. He describes it as “pretty ugly out there for people on the ground, but as far as the whales go, it’s perfect.”
Whales travel together in groups called “pods”, which work together closely. Members of the pod generally follow the leader, so if the leader gets stranded on the shores of Australia and New Zealand while travelling along the coasts, the others may do the same. It’s known that a single animal may beach itself if it’s sick or injured. It’s possible that when groups of whales get stranded, they may be following, or trying to protect an animal that’s unwell.
1. What do we know about this year’s stranding?| A．It’s the biggest in Tasmania’s history. | B．It came into being in different groups. |
| C．It has caused whales to be seriously ill. | D．It’s killed most of the stranded whales. |
| A．Challenging. | B．Interesting. | C．Fruitless. | D．Traditional. |
| A．It helps whales swim back to the sea. | B．It makes the whales strand again. |
| C．It is suitable for whales to keep alive. | D．It divides whales into groups easily. |
| A．What “pods” mean. | B．Why stranding happens. |
| C．How a single animal strands. | D．Where animals get stranded. |
6 . How often do you have a conversation with someone, and think you are paying attention to him or her, only to realize shortly afterwards that you can't remember what he said? Or, perhaps you get distracted while he is speaking and miss the message that he is trying to deliver. In today's busy world, modern life is full of distractions: TVs, radios, traffic noises, telephones, laptops and so on, which can make it difficult to listen with our full attention.
But how can we listen more effectively? Jon kabat---zinn, professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, put forward the idea of mindful listening. He said mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way, with a purpose, at the present moment and non-judgmentally.
When we listen mindfully, we can be aware of some barriers but still remain open to the speaker's ideas and messages. Mindfulness encourages us to be aware of the present moment, let go of distractions and ignore physical and emotional reactions to what people say to us.
But how can we apply mindful listening to our life? Jon Kabat-Zinn describes three key elements of mindful listening that we can use to improve our listening skills.
First of all, be present. When we listen mindfully, our focus should be on the person we are listening to without distractions. Then develop empathy. We often see the world through our own experiences. When we're empathetic, we can understand a situation from someone else's point of view. At last, listen to our own “cues”. Our cues are the thoughts, feelings and physical reactions that we have when we feel anxious or angry, and they can block out ideas and perspectives that we're uncomfortable with. Mindful listening can help us to be more aware of our cues, and allow us to choose not to let them block communication.
The rule is straightforward: simply “Listen”! Listen carefully and attentively. Pay full attention to the other person, and don't let other thoughts, like what we are going to say next, distract us.
1. What's the function of the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the topic. | B．To make a conclusion. |
| C．To criticize the distractions. | D．To describe daily situations. |
| A．Making a judgment correctly. | B．Sharing messages with the speaker. |
| C．Stopping people's running thoughts. | D．Making sure of feeling understood. |
| A．The feeling of trusting others. | B．The ability to understand others. |
| C．The attitude of caring about others. | D．The behavior of listening to others. |
| A．Applications of Mindful Listening. |
| B．Key Elements of Mindful Listening. |
| C．A Research on Mindful Listening. |
| D．An Introduction of Mindful Listening. |
7 . For the first time, a British group, PDSA, gave its Gold Medal to a rat named Magawa for its work searching out unexploded landmines （地雷）in Cambodia.
Magawa was born in Tanzania, but is now based in the Cambodian city of Siem Reap. He has discovered 39 landmines and 28 pieces of unexploded ones, and helped clear more than 1.5 million square feet of land over the past four years.
Over 5 million landmines have been laid in Cambodia during the civil war in the 1980s and 1990s. In Cambodia, over 19,000 people have been killed by landmines. Another 51,000 have been injured.
Magawa is part of the “Hero Rat" project, which works across South East Asia and Africa, training rats to save lives by detecting landmines. Magawa started its training at the age of 10 weeks.
He was trained to detect TNT, the chemical compound within explosives（炸药）.The ability to sniff （嗅） out TNT makes him much faster than any person in searching for land mines.
According to Christophe Cox, co — founder and CEO of APPO, a charity that trains the rats, the creatures can screen an area of 200 square meters in half an hour. "We really trust our rats. Very often after clearing a minefield, our teams will play a game of soccer on the cleared field to assure the quality of our work. So far our trainers have never had any accidents with rats because their size and weight permits them to walk across mine fields. They also work much faster than people.
Described as friendly and hardworking by Malen, a Belgian trainer, Magawa has a work-life balance that is likely the envy of many a human. When he is not in the minefield, the 2-foot-long rat likes snacking on bananas, peanuts and watermelons, and taking a spin on the running wheel.
1. What is the purpose of the “Hero Rat" project?| A．To show honour to the brave rats. |
| B．To save lives by detecting landmines. |
| C．To analyze the chemicals in the landmines. |
| D．To help people get rid of poverty in Africa. |
| A．To show their trust in their rats. |
| B．To show their life after work. |
| C．To introduce a hobby of his group. |
| D．To find a way to celebrate success. |
| A．He is trained at a Belgium training base. |
| B．He takes no risk of setting off landmines. |
| C．He often searches for food when he is at work. |
| D．He brings attention to the problem of landmines. |
| A．Sufferings caused by landmines. | B．Hero Rat project set up to train rats. |
| C．A rat awarded for life-saving work. | D．Good ways to deal with landmines. |
8 . Ghaliya works for a national newspaper in Indonesia. One day a garbage collector came to her house in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. The man asked if she had an old mobile phone his children could use to get on the Internet. It does not matter if it is an ugly one, as long as my children can use it for learning at home," he said. Then Ghaliya thought there must be many people who need second-hand mobile phones.
Shortly after the pandemic hit Jakarta, she and 11 other journalists organized a group to provide food and money for needy people. They started hearing from parents who wanted their children to study online but lacked a way to connect to the Internet. Thinking of her meeting with the garbage collector, Ghaliya and her group decided to offer mobile phones to poor students.
Many of these children were not able to do face-to-face learning when the new school year started in July. When the journalists announced their campaign through social media, the reaction was overwhelming. Many people donated second-hand phones, while others gave cash donations.
By the end of November, the journalists had collected more than 200 mobile phones and donations of more than $35,000. They used the money to buy more phones. They also paid for Internet use for those needing it. Currently, nearly 300 phones have been given to students in and around Jakarta as well as to distant areas like Papua, the country's most eastern province.
Helping students take part in online schooling brings happiness to Ghaliya and her group friends. “We really hope the mobile phones can be used as much as they can during the pandemic," she said.
An 11-year-old boy sometimes sent his homework late because he had to wait for his father to return from work in order to get back online. For the first time in his life, Maghribi was falling behind in his studies. He also had to take care of his sick mother, which made him pressured. But a big smile appeared on his face when he received a mobile phone sent by Ghaliy’s group.“I will use the phone to do online study every day,“ Maghribi said excitedly.
1. How did Ghaliya come up with the idea of offering mobile phones?| A．By attracting a child to study online. |
| B．By buying a mobile phone for a child. |
| C．By coming across a garbage collector. |
| D．By providing supplies for poor students. |
| A．Kind and grateful. | B．Humorous and patient. |
| C．Selfish but enthusiastic. | D．Warm-hearted and considerate. |
| A．Maghribi was grateful to Ghaliya's group. |
| B．Maghribi was one of Ghaliya's relatives. |
| C．Maghribi's father was sick and out of work. |
| D．Maghribi did well in his studies all the time. |
| A．Where there is a will, there is a way. |
| B．Education is the key to success. |
| C．Time is more precious than money. |
| D．Love brings hope to the needy. |
9 . Applications for GoCamp online volunteers are now open
GoCamp is employing English speakers to volunteer to teach English online this summer.
What will I be doing?
Volunteers will teach Ukrainian school students English.
You will:
● receive free webinars（网络研讨会）and teaching materials.
● get special training on how to work with children.
● work with teachers to encourage English-language learning.
● inspire children to discover the entire world by sharing your culture, thoughts and values with them.
Am I qualified?
● You must be at least 18 years of age. There is no upper age restriction.
● You are required to have a middle — and — up level of English.
● You are expected to be active, loving and responsible to engage children in activities you enjoy and share and give them a memorable experience.
How do I apply?
Instructions on how to apply are available on GoCamp. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. If GoCamp determines that you are a good match for the programme, the next step will be a Skype interview.
How do I get in touch?
For contact details, please email us gocamp8899@hotmail.com.
1. What do we know about GoCamp?| A．It's a language course. | B．It's a guidebook. |
| C．It's an agreement. | D．It's a website. |
| A．A Spanish-speaking adult. | B．An English-speaking adult. |
| C．A computer programmer. | D．A 17-year-old Chinese student. |
| A．Take language exams. | B．Online English Learning. |
| C．Study and work abroad. | D．Education, art and society. |
10 . If you have ever felt sick at the back of a bus or after a boat cruise, then you might have experienced motion sickness. The condition’s most common symptoms are dizziness, headaches, sweating and vomiting.
Humans haven’t always experienced this reaction. According to Fred Mast, a professor at the University of Bern, motion sickness began to affect us when we created vehicles for getting to places faster. “Our bodies were not prepared for it,” he says, explaining that human-made acceleration creates a disturbance between our vestibular system(前庭系统), which is responsible for controlling balance, and our vision. While travelling on a boat or in a car, you may not be watching the movement of the vehicle, but your vestibular system registers it. Since the human brain has not evolved enough yet to resolve that conflict, it leads to motion sickness. Motion sickness can also strike when there is simulated acceleration, such as in some video games or movie scenes in the theatre that make the viewer’s brain think it’s moving when it’s not.
While one in three people experiences motion sickness at some time, certain people are more easily affected. These include: children and young adults(according to a German survey, half of those under the age of 30 report being affected); patients; and women.
Sufferers can avoid motion sickness by making changes to how they travel. For instance, sitting facing forward at the front of a bus allows you to see the movement. Sitting in the middle of a boat or next to the wing of an airplane will reduce the amount of movement you feel. Staying away from alcohol and heavy meals ahead of car, boat or plane trips can also be helpful.
1. Which word can replace the underlined word “simulated” in Paragraph 2?| A．fake | B．sudden |
| C．frequent | D．visible |
| A．The symptoms of motion sickness. | B．The cause of motion sickness. |
| C．The function of the vestibular system. | D．The evolution of human’s brains. |
| A．The old | B．The male | C．The young | D．The adult |
| A．Closing eyes to feel the movement. | B．Sitting close to the bus driver. |
| C．Filling the stomach before a boat trip. | D．Choosing a middle seat in the airplane. |
