1 . On the banks of the beautiful Macquarie River, Bathurst is a town of pretty tree-lined streets, beautiful parks and wonderful heritage buildings. Many activities are held there year-round. Here are some for you.
The Lazy Sunday Afternoon
January 1
Join us for the Lazy Sunday Afternoon as we show you local award-winning wine from Three Views Vineyard. Please call in advance to book. Enjoy cheap wine tastings and a selection of cheeses. For those who do not want to drive, a pick-up is available.
International Museum Photograph Day
January 15
Celebrate International Museum Photograph Day with a selfie at Bathurst Regional Council Museums with free entrance. To win a prize for the most imaginative photographs, just use the marking Museum Photograph Day Bathurst when you post on Facebook.
Bathurst Miniature Railway
From February 1 to February 16
Bathurst Miniature Railway operates every third Sunday of the month. It is located next to the Tennis Centre in Durham Street. The club started in 1977 and today operates nearly 600 meters of race track in Durham Street Bathurst. Over the years more tracks for your enjoyment of sports have been added.
Challenge Bathurst
From November 28 to December 1
Challenge Bathurst is a great opportunity to drive your own street car or track racing car on the famous Mount Panorama Racing Circuit. With the most exciting 6.2 kilometers of bitumen (沥青) on the planet open for your speeding enjoyment, you won’t want to miss your chance to gain an unforgettable experience.
1. What do we know about the Lazy Sunday Afternoon?| A．It is held monthly. | B．It is free of charge. |
| C．It refuses to offer pick-up service. | D．It requires booking ahead of time. |
| A．A man loving food and wine. | B．A girl fond of taking pictures. |
| C．A kid expecting free car rides. | D．A teenager wanting to play tennis. |
| A．To introduce some events in Bathurst. | B．To advertise some summer activities. |
| C．To show races on the Bathurst streets. | D．To provide opportunities for indoor sports. |
2 . When leaving school, I was pleased that my exam results meant that I could study engineering at university. But I also wanted to travel before starting my course. A friend of mine told me about the Schools Exploring Society, an organization which helps students take a gap year （a year between leaving school and going to college）. It has three foreign journeys a year, taking 16-20-year-olds on science and nature trips. I love being outdoors, and a mountaineering trip to Alaska was on offer. So I signed up immediately.
There was one problem, though. I had to raise a large amount of money for the trip. It was a big task, but I managed to make it. I washed cars, worked in a cafe and also sold off some of my old books, clothes and CDs. Then, just before starting out, I started worrying. Can I do this? Am I fit enough? What if I see a bear?
Seventy of us traveled to Alaska. The first two days after arrival were spent in a school hall preparing our equipment and five tons of food. Then we left for the beautiful Talkeetna Mountain. On the trip we dug paths and recognized plant species. Then we climbed a mountain that was over 6,000 feet high. It was tiring but exciting.
Looking back, a gap year was so right for me. I learned a lot about accepting other people for what they are. We had to help each other and it made me less selfish. My gap year has also made me more able to concentrate. Now, whenever Tm worried about anything, I think I did Alaska-I can do this!
1. We can learn from Paragraph 1 that the author .| A．hadn’t taken foreign trips before |
| B．made the trip together with his friends |
| C．was not satisfied with his exam results |
| D．was going to study engineering at a college |
| A．His body was not strong. |
| B．He couldn’t afford the trip. |
| C．He had no outdoor experience. |
| D．He had little time to prepare for the trip. |
| A．was well worth it |
| B．got him interested in plants |
| C．made him fall behind others in study |
| D．helped him know more about himself |
| A．To explain how to prepare for trips. |
| B．To advise on how to spend a gap year. |
| C．To describe his experience in his gap year. |
| D．To encourage students to do part-time work. |
3 . Wouldn’t it be wonderful to travel to a foreign country without having to worry about the headache of communicating in a different language?
In a recent Wall Street journal article, technology policy expert A lec Ross argued that, within a decade or so. We’ll be able to communicate with one another via small earpieces with built-in microphones. That’s because technological progress is extremely rapid. It’s only a matter of time. Indeed, some parents are so convinced that this technology is imminent that they’re wondering if their kids should even learn a second language.
It’s true that an increase in the quantity and accuracy (准确) of the data loaded into computers make them cleverer at translating “No es bueno dormir mucho” as “It’s not good to sleep too much.” Replacing a word with its equivalent (同义词) in the target language is actually the “easy part of a translator’s job”. But even this seems to be a discouraging task for computers.
It’s so difficult for computers because translation doesn’t—or shouldn’t—involve simply translating words, sentences or paragraphs. Rather, it’s about translating meaning. And in order to infer meaning from a specific expression, humans have to interpret a mass of information at the same time. Think about all the related clues that go into understanding an expression: volume, gesture, situation, and even your culture. All are likely to convey as much meaning as the words you use.
Therefore, we should doubt whether a machine is able to translate the world around us. If people from different cultures can offend each other without realizing it, how can we expect a machine to do better? Unless engineers actually find a way to breathe a soul into a computer, undoubtedly when it comes to conveying and translation meaning using a natural language, a machine will never fully take our place.
1. What does the underlined word “imminent” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Ready. | B．Coming. | C．Helpful. | D．Advanced. |
| A．Their data is not adequate (充足的) enough. |
| B．The real meaning of words can change. |
| C．Their accuracy needs big improvement. |
| D．A soul hasn’t been breathed into them. |
| A．Proper translation can be difficult for humans. |
| B．Slight difference mean little in translation. |
| C．Some machines will translate our world properly. |
| D．Cultures deserve more attention than words used. |
| A．A new language translating machine |
| B．Translation will become easier |
| C．Who Will Be a Better Translator |
| D．Will Language Barrier (障碍) Actually Fall |
4 . It’s hard to turn down a tasty banana. They taste good and you don’t have to wash them before eating them. However, British scientists say that the fruit may disappear by 2050.
One reason for this is climate change. Scientists at the University of Exeter collected data from 27 countries and regions that produce 86 percent of the world’s bananas. They found that climate change has improved growing conditions in 21 of these countries. In the past 60 years the average yield has reached 1.37 tons of bananas per hectare.
However, if temperatures keep rising, this advantage will disappear. Ten of the countries, including India, the world’s biggest producer of bananas, will produce fewer bananas. By 2050, the fruit may die out.
Shouldn’t bananas grow more easily if it’s hotter outside? In fact, the perfect temperature range for growing bananas is between 24℃ and 32℃. If temperatures get too high, they will stop growing.
Another reason for this phenomenon is diseases. Unlike other crops, the bananas we grow come from shoot cuttings rather than seeds. This means that all banana plants have the same genotype. In other words, if a disease is able to kill one plants it could kill them all.
One serious disease is called Panama. Caused by fungus（真菌）in the soil, it spreads easily. It has spread across South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Australia. If one banana plantation suffers from the disease, it will take 30 years until it is able to grow bananas again. Scientists have not found a cure for this disease.
1. What does the underlined word “this” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．People’s love for bananas. | B．The taste of bananas. |
| C．The future disappearance of bananas. | D．The convenience of eating bananas |
| A．More countries will start to grow bananas. |
| B．Bananas will not be able to grow any more. |
| C．Bananas will grow better in most countries. |
| D．Bananas won’t be as tasty as before. |
| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. | D．Five. |
| A．What diseases bananas may suffer from. | B．How bananas are grown. |
| C．How diseases can easily kill bananas. | D．Which diseases can kill bananas. |
5 . Teenagers need to eat healthy food while they’re still young so that they will grow up to be healthy adults. Therefore, it is necessary for school cafeterias(食堂) to provide healthy food. With this in mind, the government has introduced a new food safety regulation that will improve health levels in schools.
The new regulation took effect on April 1. It requires those who are in charge of kindergartens, primary and secondary schools to eat with students in their cafeterias. Schools will also be required to make information regarding food sources and suppliers public.
The regulation also suggests that parents should eat with students at school in order to provide advice on food safety. Schools must find food safety problems and solve them in a timely manner.
If a school is caught buying low-quality food or failing to report food safety events, the people in charge of the school will be warned, fired or handed over to law enforcement(执法机关), the regulation says.
Parents across China have become increasingly angry about food safety events in schools, according to The Beijing News.
The most recent example occurred in March at the Chengdu No.7 High School Development School. Parents posted videos and photos of bad food that was served in the school’s cafeteria, China Daily reported. The school’s headmaster was eventually fired. In October, the head of an international school in Shanghai was fired after law enforcement found bad tomatoes and onions in the schools kitchen.
1. What does the new regulation require schools to do?| A．Allow teachers and students to eat together. |
| B．Improve the conditions of their cafeterias. |
| C．Show the public where their food comes from. |
| D．Build more than one cafeteria. |
| A．Parents should play a part in improving food safety in schools. |
| B．Teenagers should go home to eat meals every day. |
| C．Food safety problems can be easily solved. |
| D．Parents are angry about food safety events in schools. |
| A．School cafeterias often offer bad food to cut their costs. |
| B．School headmasters nationwide are not doing their jobs well. |
| C．Food can get bad more easily in the south than in the north. |
| D．The punishment for offering bad food is serious. |
| A．Students’ eating habits. |
| B．Food safety in schools. |
| C．School headmasters. |
| D．Parent-teacher relationships. |
6 . Taylor Pollard remembers when her younger sister, Kheris Rogers, was in first grade she once asked to stay in the bathroom longer---she hoped it would make her skin lighter. Kids were making fun of Rogers’ dark complexion. So Erika Pollard, the girls’ mom, moved Rogers to another school. Kids still made fun of her, but this time the kids bullying（霸凌）her were black.
Taylor Pollard wanted to help her sister feel good about herself. In 2017, she took a picture of Kheris. She posted it online. She wrote Kheris was “flexing in her complexion”. That is an expression their grandmother used often to encourage the girls to feel beautiful. Complexion means skin color. Flexing is a term for “showing off” or “showing pride”.
Then the sisters received many messages supporting Rogers and decided they wanted to direct that energy. Together, they came up with the idea of putting the message on a T-shirt Their business, Flexin’ In My Complexion, started shortly after that in April 2017. Erika gave the sisters about $100. Then their project got off the ground. They used some of the money to build a website. They also learned how to screen print T-shirts. The sisters set up shop in the garage behind their mom’s house in LA.
The sisters are co-CEOs. So far the sisters have sold more than 10,000 T-shirts. Flexin’ in My Complexion has done more than make money for the sisters. It has also helped Rogers become confident. When she was being bullied, Rogers says she would come home from school upset.
“I would always come home crying; I would just have tears coming down my face,” she says. “My confidence is probably 10 million times higher right now. You have no way of knowing but my confidence back then was probably as low as it could be.”
1. What made Rogers’ classmates laugh at her?| A．Her skin color. | B．Her behavior. |
| C．Her schoolwork. | D．Her family background. |
| A．By visiting their grandmother and asking her for help. |
| B．By choosing a new school for her. |
| C．By introducing her to kids with similar experiences. |
| D．By sharing her picture online. |
| A．To remember their grandmother. | B．To advertise their T-shirts. |
| C．To encourage others. | D．To support their family. |
| A．Honest and polite. | B．Brave and confident. |
| C．Popular but unhappy. | D．Hard-working but impatient. |
7 . Due to climate changes, Arctic ice is breaking up earlier in the spring, and its area is decreasing. This is creating problems for polar bears that make their homes off northern Alaska and in Hudson Bay.
Polar bears off Alaska normally hunt and raise their young on ice sheets that float on the ocean. But as the ice has melted, the polar bears have been forced to spend more time on land. There, they have begun to frequent beaches, feeding on the remains of whales caught by native hunters. For polar bears, this food is less nutritious than seals that they normally catch on ice sheets. The shrinking (减少) ice has also forced more polar bears into the ocean. In the past, they only had to swim short distances between ice sheets. But as the ice has shrunk, polar bears have been forced to swim longer and longer distances in the open ocean. This poses a severe danger during rough weather, and an increasing number of drowned polar bears have been observed.
In Hudson Bay, the ice breaks up three weeks earlier in the spring now than it did 20 years ago. Polar bears on Hudson Bay fast (绝食) during the summer, waiting for ice to form in the fall to hunt. Every year, the summer gets longer, and the bears get skinnier. Over the past 25 years, the average weight of the female bears has dropped 68 kg. This loss affects their ability to reproduce, and already the number of births has dropped by 15 percent. Unless the bears can learn to survive these climate changes, these giants of the ice may one day disappear.
1. What is Arctic ice doing earlier each year?| A．It's freezing. | B．It's hardening. |
| C．It's melting. | D．It's expanding. |
| A．Their young are dying. | B．Their diet is changing. |
| C．Their health is improving. | D．Their families are growing. |
| A．They are having fewer young now. | B．They suffer from various sicknesses. |
| C．They don't need stronger protection. | D．They can't find enough good males. |
| A．Medical News. | B．Society Today. |
| C．Wildlife Journal | D．Design Magazine. |
8 . American and Canadian ocean scientists are taking an unexpected opportunity presented by the coronavirus pandemic（冠状病毒大流行）. They are trying to discover whether Pacific Northwest whales benefit from the drop in boat traffic and underwater noise.
Stay-home laws have greatly reduced entertaining boat trips and ferry crossings this spring. Commercial（商业的）whale watching tours remain on hold. Large ships carrying goods continue to come and go less often. Noise and boat disturbance are considered main reasons for the decrease of the Northwest’s endangered killer whales besides reducing food supply and pollution.
“From a killer whale’s point of view, not having fast moving boats around might be quite beneficial,” said oceanographer Scott Veirs of Seattle, who is in charge of an underwater microphone network called Oreasound.
However, the decrease in sea traffic by the coronavirus pandemic may be short-lived, meaning archers have to act fast to document if the quieter seas make happier, healthier whales.
“We are all trying to remain ready,” Veirs said. “If the pandemic continues to affect boat traffic for the next couple of months, we’ll have a very rare activity when noise levels are reduced. I hope that happens, opportunity to observe killer whale activity when noise levels are reduced. I hope that happens.”
The population of killer whales in the waters of the U. S. Pacific Northwest and southwestern British Columbia has reduced to around 73. They use sound to hunt. locate and communicate, and noise from boat engines can affect the sound waves they make for echolocation（回声定位）. Other larger whales that live in Northwest waters communicate over longer distances in a frequency band（波段）that is almost the same with the low frequency noise made by large container ships.
Viers believes if we continue to not have any commercial whale watching and limit our entertaining boating, the killer whales would certainly experience less of noise disturbance with the boats.
1. What do killer whales benefit from the coronavirus pandemic?| A．Stricter laws on ocean pollution. |
| B．More whale watching tourists. |
| C．Reduced noise and boat disturbance. |
| D．Increased food supply. |
| A．The ocean traffic may increase before long. |
| B．The echolocation function of whales is damaged. |
| C．The frequency band whales use is similar to boats. |
| D．The population of killer whales drops too quickly. |
| A．The population of killer whales. |
| B．The frequency band killer whales use. |
| C．How killer whales use sound waves. |
| D．Why noise from boats affects the life of whales. |
| A．A brochure. | B．A news report. | C．A science fiction. | D．A travel diary. |
9 . My school appeared on the news last week because we had made an important change in our local area. Our class had planted a large garden in what was once only a vacant lot. It was a lot of work but it was all worth it. I got blisters(水泡) from digging, and we all got insect bites, too.
I learned a lot about gardening and collaboration(合作), and then I learned about the media. Our teacher telephoned the TV station and informed them of what we had accomplished. She spoke with the producer. The producer checked with the directors, but they said there were plenty of stories similar to ours. They wanted to know what was special about our particular garden, since many schools plant them.
The teacher explained that, after going on the Internet to learn about the prairie(大草原), we had made a prairie garden. We had gone to a prairie and gotten seeds from the plants, and then we planted them. We did not water the garden, but we did weed it. We decided to let nature water it with rain, since that was how prairies grew in the past. We sent a picture of the garden to the news station. In the picture, the grass was so high that it stood taller than the fourth grade students.
As a result, the producer sent a reporter to our school. He interviewed the headmaster and asked him many questions about the garden. After that, they interviewed us, and we explained to them what we had learned through this project.
That night, we watched the news, and there we were. The news reporter told our story. It was only two minutes long, but it was us. We were famous. All that work, all those blisters, it was worth it. We knew that when we saw the garden every day, but now we knew that the whole city thought so, too.
1. What seemed to be the TV directors’ initial reaction to the garden?| A．They were excited. | B．They were surprised. |
| C．They were worried. | D．They were uninterested. |
| A．Weeds were allowed to spread naturally. |
| B．The grass grew faster than common grass. |
| C．The seeds came from the plants of a prairie. |
| D．Underground water was used for the plants. |
| A．We got blisters on our hands. | B．Our hard work was worthwhile. |
| C．The garden would be famous. | D．The project would be finished. |
| A．Annoyed. | B．Curious. | C．Proud. | D．Regretful. |
10 . Earthworms (蚯蚓) often lay on sidewalks or streets after a heavy spring rain, but why do they do this? Researchers give several reasons why heavy rain storms bring earthworms out of their soil homes.
For years scientists seemed to think the only reason earthworms came to the soil surface after a good rain was to prevent drowning in their water-filled homes. “This is not true as earthworms breathe through their skins and actually require wet in the soil to do so,” said Dr. Chris Lowe, lecturer in the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, United Kingdom. Earthworms are unable to drown, and they can even survive several days fully in water.
Soil experts now think earthworms surface during rain storms for the purpose of moving to another place. “It gives them a chance to move greater distances across the soil surface than through soil,” said Dr. Lowe. “They cannot do this when it is dry because of their requirements of wet in the air. "Certain earthworms surface to mate (交配), but only a few of the 4, 400 existing types, making it unlikely that mating is a primary reason for widespread surfacing.
Another explanation is that rain drop vibrations (振动) on the soil surface are similar to mole (鼹鼠) vibrations. Earthworms often come to the surface to escape them. “Rain can set up vibrations on top of the soil like mole vibrations,” said Professor Josef Gorres of the University of Vermont’s Department of Plant and Soil Science. “Similar to how earthworms move upwards when mole vibrations are felt.” Similarly, humans create vibrations when catching earthworms. To cheat earthworms out of their homes, fishermen run a piece of steel or a saw across the top of a stick, which causes a sound as the stick vibrates. Earthworms then move to the surface, much to the fishermen’s delight.
1. What do we know about earthworms from Paragraph 2?| A．They will drown in water. | B．They can’t breathe in the rain. |
| C．They breathe through skins. | D．They can always live in water. |
| A．Because they want to travel longer. |
| B．Because there is more water inside. |
| C．Because there are more suitable mates. |
| D．Because there are fewer dangers on the ground. |
| A．To show that they treat earthworms badly. |
| B．To provide evidence of earthworms escaping. |
| C．To explain why we seldom see earthworms now. |
| D．To show how people's behavior affects earthworms. |
| A．Why earthworms surface after rain. | B．All knowledge about earthworms. |
| C．How earthworms help people. | D．Why people love earthworms. |
