1 . An 18-year-old US girl gained unexpected appreciation and a surprise after she gave “extra help” to an elderly man in the restaurant she was working.
It's social media that made her seemingly small action go viral and brought her appreciation from hundreds of thousands of strangers and a scholarship to Texas Southern University.
The heroine Evoni Williams has reportedly been working full-time to earn money for further study in a restaurant in La Marque, Texas, the United States. It was last week when an old man named Adrian Charpentier asked for help to chop his ham for his hands were weak because of illness. On that busy morning when she had loads of work on shoulder, Williams helped the man without hesitation. The moment she was leaning over the counter and cutting the ham was shot by a customer known as Laura Wolf.
Wolf posted the picture on the Internet and wrote, “I'm thankful to have seen this act of kindness and caring at the start of my day while everything in this world seems so negative. If we could all be like this waitress and take time to offer a helping hand. . . ” According to local reports, Wolf didn't know Williams, neither did Williams know her act was shot and shared on the web. However, the small act of kindness soon accumulated its own power on and outside the Internet.
Besides praise from netizens and media reports across the United States, a 16000-dollar scholarship to Texas Southern University was recently granted to Williams to support her study plan on business management.
“We wanted to reward Evoni's act of kindness and let her know that good deeds do not go unnoticed,” said Melinda Spaulding, an administrator at Texas Southern University.
1. What did Evoni Williams help Adrian Charpentier do?| A．Cut his ham. | B．Paid his bill. |
| C．Changed his food. | D．Took a picture for him. |
| A．To attract people's attention. | B．To support Williams' study. |
| C．To share a beautiful picture. | D．To encourage people to help others. |
| A．To help Charpentier open a restaurant. |
| B．To sponsor elderly customers in the restaurant. |
| C．To support Williams to learn business management. |
| D．To achieve Wolf's dream of helping people in need. |
| A．No pains, no gains. | B．Do well and have well. |
| C．All that ends well is well. | D．A merry heart goes all the way. |
2 . When you hear the beginning of your favorite song from the radio, suddenly your neck is covered in goose bumps.
It's such a thing that a group of scientists call “skin excitement”—a feeling of cold caused not by a drop in temperature or sudden scare, but by the sense of beauty. “Skin excitement” can come from a song, a painting, a moving movie scene, or even a beloved memory-pretty much anything that causes the giving out of pleasure-soaked dopamine in your brain. But it does not come for all of us.
Your favorite music uncovers a lot about your personality，and so does how you respond to that music. Studies suppose that as few as 55 percent of people experience “skin excitement” when listening to music. And if you count yourself among this group, the goose bumps on your skin aren't the only giveaway—scientists can read it in your brain, too. In a new study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Harvard researchers performed brain scans on 10 students who said they reliably got cold when listening to music, and 10 students who didn't. They found that the cold-prone brains may really be excited by stronger emotions.
Cold-prone brains are generally more likely to show stronger emotional intelligence than no-cold brains. Cold-prone minds tend to have unusual active imagination, reflect more deeply on their emotions, and appreciate nature and the beauty of music and art to a stronger degree than no-cold brains.
So, what type of music causes the chills? It seems that the type is not so important; participants in the new study reported getting cold from songs of every kind. And any song connected with a strong emotional memory of the listener can produce the most reliable results. For me, that's the song Sailing to Philadelphia by Mark Knopfler, which I listened to as a kid in the car with my dad, on the way to the summer camp.
1. What can we learn about “skin excitement” in the text?| A．It helps to produce doparmine. | B．It is caused by the pain in the skin. |
| C．It can be experienced by every music listener. | D．It is the human body's reaction to something nice. |
| A．The percentage of music lovers in students. |
| B．The solutions to the goose bumps on one's skin. |
| C．The differences between cold-prone and no-cold brains. |
| D．The relationship between one's music preference and personality. |
| A．Beautiful and intelligent. | B．Emotional and dishonest. |
| C．Imaginative and sensitive. | D．Brave and strong-minded. |
| A．Responses to Music Vary among People | B．A Feeling of Cold Is Caused by Horrible Music |
| C．Your Favorite Music Reveals Your Personality | D．Favorite Music May Bring Forth Goose Bumps |
3 . A shocking news report has revealed that more than one in five species of maple trees faces extinction, warning that 75% of the threatened species are “geographically restricted” in their native regions.
The trees are experiencing a vast decline in habitat, due to urban development, wood harvesting and agricultural expansion. Time is running out for the world's biodiversity. Every recent survey of plants and animals in the wild points to this. This is happening nearly everywhere rarer maples exist. And because of climate change, the narrow habitats that support species at the edges of dry places and at the tops of mountains are quickly disappearing.
The trees can be found in subtropical and tropical regions, as far south as Indonesia. The only species found in the UK, the field maple is not under threat. Not only are the trees a popular attractive feature in parks and public spaces, but they are a key part of the natural ecosystem in woodlands, as well as being an important wood crop in several countries. Although the sugar maple in North America, which produces maple juice, is not endangered, two of the closest relatives to the species are endangered.
The report notes that conserving at-risk species in their natural habitat is the best conservation tactic. But collections in botanical gardens and seed banks-called "ex situ collections" can act as insurance policies against extinction. There are currently 14 species of maple, including four that are critically endangered, which are absent from these types of collections.
One species in Mexico, the Acer binzayedii, is in “desperate need of conservation"”despite only being discovered in 2017. “It is at risk from climate change in its cloud forest habitat and threatened by logging and forest fires while it is also absent from 'ex situ collections',” the report adds. The report recommends developing conservation plans, monitoring species currently not at risk to ensure populations are maintained, and adding those missing maple species to seed banks.
1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．Action to protect maple trees. | B．The dangerous situation of maple trees. |
| C．Various maple trees' habitats in the world. | D．The conditions for diversity in maple trees. |
| A．They cannot produce juice. | B．They are found in America. |
| C．They are not at risk of extinction. | D．They have two endangered relatives. |
| A．Topic. | B．Approach. | C．Result. | D．Conclusion. |
| A．To offer a proposal. | B．To recommend a product. |
| C．To introduce maple species. | D．To warn people of disasters. |
4 . It may be the decoration color of the moment, but painting your bedroom wall grey could actually keep you awake.
Grey isn't the only color you should avoid if you're reaching for a paintbrush. "Reds, browns and purples can all delay a peaceful night's sleep," says Natalie Armstrong, a sleep expert at mattress company Sealy.
She says, "While your room is dark when you go to sleep, many of us spend an hour or more in our bedrooms with the light on before going to sleep , which is the color of your bedroom can be so disruptive.
“Colors that are too bright can put your brain into a state of high alert, which can last long after you've turned the light off and can no longer see the color.”
Grey, white gentle, is also quite suppressive. The absence of any strong color has a depressive effect on the brain because it is a color typically used to represent sadness. While the current trend for grey is trying to change this, the deep rooted associations of grey as a dull color can make it a bad choice for bedroom decoration.
The real color champion when it comes to good sleep is blue, which is easily picked up by ganglion cells in the retinas of your eyes. The cells then send a message direct to your brain that you're in a calm environment.
And while the phrase "tidy house, tidy mind" might be ordinarily used in the daytime, it can be just as relevant at night-time. If you're trying to sleep in a room that' s heavy on clutter, you can carry that unsettled feeling into your subconscious when trying to fall into sleep, says Armstrong.
1. What's the main idea of this text?| A．The color of the bedroom walls affects sleep. |
| B．Dark colours can delay a peaceful night's sleep. |
| C．The decoration of the room plays an important role. |
| D．Grey isn't a suitable colour for bedroom decoration. |
| A．Grey is a dull colour. | B．Blue represents sadness. |
| C．Purple does good to our sleep. | D．Red can make people excited. |
| A．Because it upsets people. | B．Because people don't care. |
| C．Because it makes people feel stable. | D．Because people are fond of clean environment. |
| A．A medical book. | B．A health magazine. |
| C．A science report. | D．An advertisement brochure. |
5 . Toilet Paper Obsession
Everyone gets anxious when the world takes an uncertain turn. And often, we treat that anxiety with a little panic buying.
A study published last year in the Journal of Consumer Research found that people buy things in troubled times as a means of enerting control over their lives. The researchers noted that utility items—specifically, cleaning products—tend to move most quickly from store shelves.
The hoarding of toilet paper, as perhaps the most fundamental cleaning product, may represent our most fundamental fears. An invisible enemy stalks us. We need to hold on to something in uncertain times. Maybe a stockpile of toilet paper brings assurances.
The thing is, it's not actually going anywhere. For all the sharp words and even sharper elbows thrown around by toilet paper marauders, they seem to be missing one important fact: There is no toilet paper shortage.
As The New York Times points out, retailers that see their shelves emptied often restock them in a day, often in just a few hours.
You are not using more of it. You are just filling up your closet with it," Jeff Anderson, president of paper product manufacturer Precision Paper Converters, tells the Times.
The thing is, the toilet paper-obsessed shoppers have been infected with something many times more contagious than any coronavirus: fear.
“People are social creatures. We look to each other for signals for what is safe and what is dangerous,” Steven Taylor, a clinical psychologist at the University of British Columbia, tells Fox News. “And when you see someone in the store panic-buying, that can cause a fear-contagion effect. People become anxious ahead of the actual infection. They haven't thought about the bigger picture, like what are the consequences of stockpiling toilet paper.”
1. What is the study mainly about?| A．Troubled times. | B．Rush purchase. |
| C．Consumer demand. | D．Cleaning products. |
| A．A sense of safety. | B．A kind of virus. |
| C．A feeling of anxiety. | D．A stock of toilet paper. |
| A．Because of great need. | B．Because of coronavirus. |
| C．Because there is no toilet paper in stock. | D．Because people are easily infectious. |
| A．Negative. | B．Positive. | C．Optimistic. | D．Indifferent. |
6 . How can kids become heroes? Do they have to save the world? No. To become a hero, kids just have to think about what others need and find a way to help. Katie Stagliano is one of those hero kids.
Katie loved to garden. When she was 9, she harvested a huge cabbage which weighed 40 pounds. The cabbage was far bigger than what her family needed, so she thought about what to do with it.
She knew that there were lots of hungry people in South California, where she lived. So she decided to donate her enormous cabbage to a soup kitchen. It turned out that her kind donation helped feed more than 275 people.
Then Katie thought about other gardeners who had more vegetables than they could eat.
Suddenly, she saw a way to solve both problems. Katie realized that she could help fight against hunger by encouraging kids to plant vegetable gardens and donate their harvest to hungry people. That's how Katie's Krops was born.
Katie says, "My dream is that there are no hungry people." To make that dream come true, Katie got her whole school involved. The students planted a huge garden, but Katie knew she could do more. She contacted an organization called Fields to Families, which sent a master gardener to help.
It's so great to help people," Katie adds, but kids don't have to grow huge cabbages. If they could grow "even one vegetable plant and donate the harvest to a local soup kitchen, we could make a huge difference in the fight against hunger".
It's been several years since Katie Stagliano started work on her dream. Today, more than 60 gardens around the United States are being grown by kids. Young gardeners have donated tens of thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables to stop hunger.
Sadly, many people are still hungry. However, Katie's Krops and hundreds of child gardeners are planting and harvesting to change that.
1. What did Katie Stagliano want to do?| A．She wanted to be a hero. | B．She wanted to grow a huge cabbage. |
| C．She wanted to help those hungry people. | D．She wanted to encourage kids to donate vegetables. |
| A．Her harvest of a big cabbage. | B．Her duty to help the poor. |
| C．Her interest in planting vegetables. | D．Her desire to become a hero. |
| A．She planted a huge garden. | B．She asked an organization for help. |
| C．She donated her harvest to her school. | D．She encouraged all the citizens to work with her. |
| A．A Hero Kid. | B．The Harvest Donation. |
| C．Child Gardeners. | D．Katie Stagliano's Dream. |
7 . Forget wearing your heart on your sleeve. It's your hair that reveals what you're really like.
If you want to show your goal-set side, go for a high ponytail. People with this hairstyle tend to be results-driven and logical, according to Jean Haner, a US expert in face reading who wrote The Wisdom of Your Face. When she first came out as an actress, Li Bingbing's looks were often described as fragile, partly because of her long locks. But now, her polished high ponytail has convinced everyone that she is unstoppable and will go to any lengths to achieve her goals.
Wavy hair is attractive to many. But if you have curly hair and all you want to do is straighten it, this usually means your life is too chaotic and you need to calm down. US singer Taylor Swift is a perfect example of this kind. By making hair straight, she's controlling its intensity and giving herself a sense of calmness, according to Cosmopolitan magazine. She may have decided to enjoy herself for a moment after all the ups and downs in her love life.
Want to have more fun in your life? Curly hair may give you away. For those who have straight hair that is always curled, it can mean they're craving for a more interesting life. The theory is that curly hair is more interesting than straight hair and will lead to more exciting experiences. If you don't believe it, take US singer Beyonce Knowles' case as an example. Her curly hairdo presents a more positive and fun image to the world.
If you have a super short wash-and-go hairstyle, you must be super confident. Miley Cyrus is one of those types. Long gone are the days when she was the lovely Disney star who had long wavy strands. Now she has a super short wash-and-go hairdo that is as rebellious as her personality. As she told E-Online, by keeping her hair short, she is speaking on behalf of girls everywhere, breaking the stereotype of more traditional hairstyles.
1. What can we learn from the text?| A．High ponytail means being more logical. |
| B．Taylor Swift used to be a lovely Disney star. |
| C．US singer Beyonce Knowles likes straight hairstyle. |
| D．Li Bingbing experienced ups and downs in her love life. |
| A．Attract more fans. | B．Bring more money. |
| C．Show your inner secret. | D．Stop you enjoying yourself. |
| A．a curly hair | B．a straight hair |
| C．a high ponytail | D．a short wash-and-go hairdo |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By making assumption. |
| C．By making comparison. | D．By quoting wise words. |
8 . In recent years, the amount of reading materials pouring off the international presses is large. Not only do we have to handle information in the printed form but we also have to deal with it in the digital form. At the same time, it's becoming increasingly necessary for us to read for study and work. The conclusion: something needs to be done to meet this rising flood.
Speed reading is one of the techniques put forward as a possible solution to the problem. Speed reading grew from information developed by the US Air Force. Air Force technicians had noticed that while in flight, some pilots were unable to recognize planes seen at a distance. During war, this could mean the difference between life and death. So they developed a machine called a tachistoscope(速示器)to help with this disability.
The tachistoscope is simply a machine that flashes pictures for different periods of time onto a large screen. They started by flashing large pictures of friendly and enemy planes slowly and then gradually shortened the flash of time while decreasing the size of the picture seen. Surprisingly, they found that with training, the average person was able to tell tiny pictures of different planes when the pictures had been flashed on the screen for only one five- hundredth of a second.
They later decided to apply this discovery to reading. Using the same machine and process, they first flashed one large word at a time for as long as five seconds on a screen, gradually reducing the size of the word and shortening the time of the flash until they were flashing four words simultaneously on a screen for one five-hundredth of a second, and were still able to obtain recognition. Speed reading was thus born and to this day, many courses teaching it still have some contents of tachistoscopic training.
With regular tachistoscopic training, almost all readers can increase their reading speed from an average of 200 words per minute to an average of 400 words per minute. However, when they stopped the training, most of these fast-readers disappointingly returned to their previous levels within only a few weeks.
Reading fast is pointless unless you understand what you read. However, research shows reading far below your normal speed is similarly harmful, for at such slow speeds, one tends to think a lot about the individual words and misses the general meaning altogether.
1. What does the first paragraph mainly talk about?| A．The need for speed reading. |
| B．The quality of reading materials. |
| C．The development of digital technology. |
| D．The characteristics of the Information Age. |
| A．To help people born with reading disabilities. |
| B．To help pilots send information more accurately. |
| C．To help pilots recognize planes quickly in the sky. |
| D．To improve the health of pilots with physical disabilities. |
| A．With great care. | B．One after another. |
| C．All of a sudden. | D．At the same time. |
| A．People need constant tachistoscopic training to remain fast-readers. |
| B．The more slowly you read, the better understanding you can achieve. |
| C．Tachistoscopic training can help everyone double their reading speed. |
| D．Speed reading courses today are almost the same as tachistoscopic training. |
9 . Binge-watching is when a person watches more than one episode of a show in quick succession(一连串，连续）". With developments in the speed and connectivity of the internet, increases in technology and the rise of on-demand entertainment companies, people can now have their favorite shows streamed directly to their television at their convenience.
This behavior is nothing new. In fact, " binge-watching" has been officially listed in dictionaries since 2015. The entertainment companies recognize this behavior and many take steps to encourage it. Often, instead of releasing each episode on a week-by-week basis, an entire series will become available concurrently. Once the episode finishes many platforms will display pop-ups with “you might like suggestions, or will automatically play the next episode”.
However, recent research suggests that out of the more than half of British adults who watch more than one episode of a show back-to-back, almost a third have admitted missing sleep or becoming tired as a result; and one quarter have neglected their household chores. Next we’ll be missing work!
Bingeing has other connections-binge eating, binge drinking and binge smoking. All of them are often associated with a lack of control and a possible route to addiction. Lindsey Fussell, consumer group director, said: “The days of waiting a week for the next episode are largely gone, with people finding it hard to resist watching multiple episodes around the house or on the move.” If people find binge-watching hard to resist, coupled with the fact that it has shown to lead to negligence in many, are we witnessing the birth of a new type of addiction?
The countless of information and entertainment that television and online media can bring us is, many would say, a good thing. However, when the activity begins to bleed into other areas, causing us to stop functioning then it becomes a problem. So, what's the answer? Moderation! Neither a tiny amount, nor too much. After all, as the old proverb says, “A little of what you fancy does you good.”
1. How did the writer develop the first paragraph?| A．Listing some examples |
| B．Telling a story. |
| C．Giving a definition |
| D．Analyzing the cause and effect |
| A．similarly | B．gradually | C．naturally | D．necessarily |
| A．people have no patience to do work |
| B．people can’t control their movements |
| C．people are delighted to watch television |
| D．people can’t resist the temptation |
| A．To watch episodes in a moderate way. |
| B．To draw life lessons from the episodes. |
| C．To enjoy entertainment as much as possible. |
| D．To keep online media from stopping functioning. |
10 . The language Centers first Trivia Night tested students' knowledge on different languages and their histories last Friday at Douglass commons.
"We have decided to conduct this event when the weather is bad so that students who have nowhere to go and stay on campus can come and find a comfortable shelter during a cold winter day," Language Center Director, Teresa Valdez said. According to Valdez, the idea for Trivia night came a year ago from a junior and team-member called Elizabeth de Los Reyes. The event engaged students' interest in languages and showed the high-quality services that the Language Center provides.
Participants competed in small groups that each represented a different language and country. There were five teams in total: Russia, China, Japan, Spain and France. The competition consisted of four rounds with each round consisting of three questions relating to the following topics literature, language, geography, culture and history.
After a few warm-up questions about how people greet each other in different languages, what continent Turkey is found in, and who is the first man to fly to the moon, the questions became increasingly difficult. Each round offered an increasing amount of points a team could receive. The final question was worth 20 points. If a team did not answer it correctly, the points were taken from the total.
In the meantime, students enjoyed pizza, snacks, and drinks while sharing their linguistic (语言的) interest. Most of the participants knew two or three languages. Others knew more, such as first-year Bartek Jezierski from Poland, who can speak English, Polish, German, Spanish, and Russian.
The winners from first to third place were France, Japan and Russia respectively. All five teams were given some prizes—a blue shopping bag, a cup and stuffed toys. However, students believed the most important prize of the evening was the process of the competition—how students from diverse backgrounds and cultures were able to participate in a friendly competition, and shared their mutual (相互的) love of languages.
1. What is one of the purposes of Trivia Night？| A．To attract students to learn languages. |
| B．To help the students suffering from coldness. |
| C．To collect opinions from the students on its services. |
| D．To select the best students for the Language center. |
| A．3 | B．4. | C．12. | D．20. |
| A．Quiet. | B．Relaxing. | C．romantic. | D．Depressing. |
| A．Some snacks and drinks. |
| B．Various prizes for winners. |
| C．The course of the competition. |
| D．The services provided by the language center. |
