1 . Have you ever heard about Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Surely, they are all about finding the best deals on holiday gifts for yourself and family members. And have you heard about GivingTuesday? Here is something about it!
GivingTuesday is observed annually on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which encourages people to help those in need by making financial donations or doing good in their local community. The “Global Day of Giving” was started in 2012 by New York City nonprofit 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation.
Unlike Black Friday, GivingTuesday serves a more altruistic purpose. In its first year, the movement brought in almost $10 million for charities, and things have only improved since. In 2019, many GivingTuesday social media campaigns worldwide helped raise an amazing $ 1.9 billion from 27 million donors! Over the past five years, many higher education institutions have also been using the Tuesday after Thanksgiving to ask alumni for donations. In 2019, the University of Michigan, which calls it Blueday, received 5887 gifts totaling over $4 million, while Pennsylvania State University raised $710 000 to benefit over 85 University programs.
Though donating money certainly helps, there are many other ways to support the great cause, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can video tutor kids struggling with online learning, or team up with an adult to get groceries or medications for an elderly neighbor. Alternatively, call on your peers to help you with a service project that addresses an issue close to your heart, or pick one from the several ideas suggested on the GivingTuesday website. You can also donate your gently-used clothes and toys to local shelters, or mail a handwritten note to a grandparent or a friend you miss seeing.
What are you going to do to make a positive difference in your community on GivingTuesday? Let us know by adding your comments below!
1. Why does the author mention Black Friday and Cyber Monday in Paragraph 1?| A．To make a comparison. | B．To lead to the topic. |
| C．To arouse readers’ interest. | D．To express his doubt. |
| A．To promote the development of economy. | B．To attract people to buy more holiday gifts. |
| C．To call on more universities to donate money. | D．To encourage people to help those in need. |
| A．Selfless. | B．General. | C．Specific. | D．Complex. |
| A．Where people can offer their kind help. | B．What people can do on GivingTuesday. |
| C．How people can stay safe during COVID-19. | D．Why people need to support the great cause. |
2 . In Asia, the car is as much a status symbol as it is a means of transport. A car’s design is not the only consideration when a vehicle has to suit the needs of everyone in the family .
This is the case for one particular group of drivers: The sandwich generation, who are stuck between caring for their children and caring for their parents. For them, the ‘family car’ is often shared with everyone from the newly licensed teens to adults with their own kids, or grandparents struggling with physical mobility.
With differing demands of so many people from boomers to Gen Z, your car has to appeal to all — and keep everyone safe in the event of a car accident.
Over 20% of serious driver accidents involving teens were caused by driving too fast for the road conditions. But it isn’t just risky driving behavior that causes teens to be the source of serious road accidents. In fact, according to research conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, most speed-related teen crashes are due to inexperience and a lack of driving skills rather than intentionally risky driving behavior.
It can be challenging for newbie drivers to appropriately judge the proper speed at which to take turns, especially on less-than-perfect roads or driving conditions. Helping them along is Subaru’s Active Torque Vectoring, which makes up for any over-eagerness, ensuring you can take the car through corners in a smooth and safe manner.
For seniors with slower reaction, or having difficulty stretching out their neck to check blind spots, being able to quickly avoid danger can be critical. Subaru’s Blind Spot Detection system will alert you if there’s a vehicle in the neighboring lane. What’s more, Subaru’s EyeSight Lane Departure Warning warns the driver if they start to stray by accident from their traffic lane and endanger other vehicles in the neighbouring lane, while the EyeSight Lane Sway Warning system will remind you should you begin to move back and forth in your lane.
It can be difficult to find a car that appeals to multiple generations. But there are some things you should never compromise regardless of your age or driving experience. And at the top of that list is safety.
1. According to the text, what is the reason for most speed-related teen crashes?| A．Their risky driving behavior on purpose |
| B．Their inability to check blind spots. |
| C．A lack of experience and driving skills |
| D．The busy roads or ideal driving conditions |
| A．Subaru’s Active Torque Vectoring |
| B．EyeSight Lane Sway Warning system |
| C．Subaru’s Blind Spot Detection system |
| D．Subaru’s EyeSight Lane Departure Warning |
| A．Speed up | B．Move away |
| C．Pull over | D．Turn around |
| A．The sandwich generation mainly care about their parents’ demands. |
| B．It is challenging to design a multifunctional car to satisfy everyone. |
| C．It’s extremely important to drive safely no matter how old the drivers are. |
| D．Subaru can ensure driving safety of the drivers ranging from teens to seniors. |
3 . The Notting Hill Carnival is London’s biggest street festival and one of the most famous carnivals in the world. The carnival is an important cultural event for London’s Afro Caribbean community and celebration of multi-cultural British life.
Notting Hill Carnival takes place in London every August bank holiday. Bank holiday refers to a public holiday, for example Christmas Day. It is the most colourful and largest street event in the UK. The festival celebrates the traditions of the Afro-Caribbean community, who immigrated to England from the West Indies in the 1950s. They brought with them the Caribbean idea of the carnival, with colourful costumes, parades, steel bands and street dancing. The tradition to hold the carnival began in 1964 and it has taken place every year since then.
Preparations for the carnival start many months in advance. Costumes need to be made, and floats built, ready for the carnival street parades. Steel bands practise traditional Caribbean music on instruments built from used oil buckets. Just before the festival, the streets are decorated with yellow, green and red banners, and recording devices are set in place to carry the rhythmic sounds over the loud noise of the London traffic. The carnival is celebrated over three days, and is full of music and colour. Parades of steel and brass bands, floats, and dancers in colourful costumes make their way through the narrow London streets, watched by tens of thousands of people. The streets are lined with stands selling tropical fruits, such as fresh mangoes, watermelons and pineapples. Everyone in London dances—young and old, black and white—and even the policemen on duty take part in the fun. For these three days in August, a little Caribbean magic touches the streets of London.
1. What is the writer's main aim in writing the text?| A．To encourage people to celebrate the traditions of black people |
| B．To talk about problems with Afro-Caribbean community |
| C．To recommend people spend more time outdoors |
| D．To introduce and describe the Notting Hill Carnival |
| A．takes place every bank holiday |
| B．is held annually in August |
| C．is organized by the bank of England |
| D．is held at the beginning of July |
| A．fruit stands are not allowed in the streets. |
| B．preparations start early in the morning |
| C．music and colour fill the streets of London |
| D．traffic is banned from the main shopping streets |
| A．The festival is popular with everyone in London. |
| B．Only Caribbean people take part in it. |
| C．It is gaining in popularity among the white in recent years. |
| D．The streets in London are filled with pop music. |
4 . It was Thanksgiving Day a few years ago. My daughter was sitting on the couch watching the parade. My dogs kept lifting their noses to sniff the turkey slowly cooking in the oven. And my sons and I were secretly getting a piece of pumpkin pie with cream to hold us until dinner was done. As we lifted our forks I said, “Life is short! Eat dessert first!” Then I smiled as we ate our pie with delight and gave the outside part to the dogs.
Later I decided to take my oldest dog, Snoopy out for a walk. As we slowly walked through the ankle deep leaves I let my mind wander to memories of Thanksgivings past. I could see my grown children as babies sitting in their high chairs covered in mashed potatoes. I remembered all of those years spent visiting their grandparents and all of the special foods they made. There was sausage stuffing, noodles and cheese, and fried potatoes. There was turkey and delicious desserts made with love. And there was the three day nap (小睡) you wanted to take after dinner.
Even more than the food were the memories of joy that stuck in my mind and stayed in my heart. There were the smiles and hugs, the shared stories and laughter, the love so freely given at this time of the year. I went back inside with all of them flowing through me. I felt both glad and sad at the same time. I was happy for all the blessed times we had shared over the years and sad that they had flown by so fast. Most of all, though, I felt at peace and thankful to God for this wonderful life we are given here.
The truth is the more you love, the more thankfulness fills your heart. The more you love, the more joy you create in your life. Make the most of each day you are given here then. Be thankful for the glorious gift of life. Be the blessing you were meant to be and make every day Thanksgiving Day.
1. What do the first two paragraphs focus on?| A．The preparations for Thanksgiving |
| B．The happy memories of Thanksgiving |
| C．The various ways to celebrate Thanksgiving |
| D．The customs of celebrating Thanksgiving |
| A．Happy times spent with her family seemed short. |
| B．She wished she were young again. |
| C．She had many regrets in those happy times. |
| D．Things changed much and she never felt the same. |
| A．Desserts were the author’s favorite. |
| B．The author’s grandparents were good chefs. |
| C．Delicious food was the best part of her memories. |
| D．The get-together of the family was full of love. |
| A．We should make the best of Thanksgiving Days. |
| B．Everybody should treasure the time with their family. |
| C．People should live at present and be grateful for what they have. |
| D．Thanksgiving Days are the best time for people to express their love. |
5 . In the small village of Goss in Austria, a century-old brewery tradition had a novel transformation towards Sustainability (可持续性), Göss in home to the Gösser Brewery, the world’s first large scale zero-carbon brewery.
Owned and operated by the Heineken Group, the world's third-largest beer maker, the Gösser Brewery was relaunched as a zero-carbon facility in June. The brewery produces 1.4 million bottles of beer every day using a mix of entirely renewable energy sources, including hydropower, biogas and waste heat. This has brought its carbon emissions (排放) down from 3, 000 tons a year to zero.
Andreas Werner, brew master at Gösser Brewery said, “Our Cöss brewery may be in a small town but our goal was to make a big influence. I am proud of what we have achieved for the Heineken Group and want to help our other breweries and the wider brewing industry makes renewable energy part of their energy mix, just as we have done.”
The brewery is helping Heineken achieve its commitment to a 40 percent reduction in CO2 emissions from production by 2022, which is kept in the company’s Brewing a Better World stability strategy.
To power its production, the Gösser Brewery uses 100 percent hydropower sources for eletnicity-35 percent from biomass for heating, 10 percent from biogas from waste water, 3-5 percent from a solar plant, and 50 percent from biogas generated from the spent grain fermentation (发酵) tank.
For this creative move towards sustainability, the brewery won the EU Sustainable Energy Award and Citizens Choice Award in June. The awards cognize creative projects in energy efficiency and renewability in Europe. “The Goss brewery is the stand-out example of this work and our commitment to sustainability,” Roland Verstappen, Heineken’s director for public and movement affairs said.
1. What is special about the Gösser Brewery?| A．It’s the world’s third largest zero-carbon brewery. |
| B．No carbon will be given off during its production. |
| C．It can produce 1.4 million bottles of beer annually. |
| D．The Heineken group newly opened it to produce more beer. |
| A．The resources of making beer. |
| B．The production of beer bottles. |
| C．The examples of sustainable energy. |
| D．The composition of hydropower sources. |
| A．It has won two international awards for its creativity. |
| B．It has helped more industries turn to renewable energy. |
| C．It has led to the draft of Heineken’s Brewing a Belter World strategy. |
| D．It has played an important role in Heineken’s achieving its goal of CO2 reduction. |
| A．A brewery’s creative move to achieve sustainability. |
| B．Profits gained from the transformation of an old brewery. |
| C．The brewery industry’s responsibility for protecting the environment. |
| D．A small business making a big difference by mixing various sources. |
6 . On 19 March 2018, you were born. I knew absolutely nothing of you and hadn’t even considered adding another member to our family.
You see, at that time I was becoming increasingly concerned about our teenage daughter. She had been spending more and more time away from the family, bad tempered and unsociable. She seemed unhappy most of the time. She had talked of wanting a dog for a long while, so I thought: if I do this for her, it will boost her mood, get her out more and give her a new focus.
To my surprise, our daughter’s reaction was not what I expected when I introduced the two of you-had 1 made a mistake?
I soon began to understand that you were not going to bring her out of her sadness. Yet you still needed taking care of, so, naturally, most of the duties of your care fell upon me.
Then, in July, our daughter was diagnosed with anorexia (厌食症). Our lives were turned upside down, as she faced the biggest challenges of her life. My husband and I had different ideas about what would be the best course of action to take; the illness sent the whole family into chaos. Without you, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity, to find clarity. On our walks together, you gave me the freedom to think clearly and rationally (理性地). I found a calmness that I never would have, had I been at home with Google.
In September, we kept our daughter off school and I looked after her, putting everything else on hold. During that time I bonded with her and she bonded with you. She rejoined school in the middle of September, and was slowly but surely on the road to recovery.
Thank you for your constant love and playfulness, and for showing me the simple pleasures of life. But most of all, thank you for being my light in the dark.
1. Who does the author write the letter to?| A．Her daughter. | B．Her dog. | C．Her husband. | D．Herself. |
| A．She needed a lifelong friend. |
| B．She would like to know more about dogs. |
| C．She wanted a dog 1o ease the tension in the family. |
| D．She hoped u dog could relieve her daughter of bad mood. |
| A．It cured her daughter of her disease. |
| B．It made her husband stay elear-minded. |
| C．It helped her belter deal with the difficult situation in her life. |
| D．It strengthened the relationship between her daughter and her. |
| A．She had anorexia. | B．She was a devoted mother. |
| C．She felt guilty to her dog. | D．She recovered from her sadness. |
7 . Bird expert Stephen Kress remembers the first time he encountered puffins (角嘴海雀). “I was totally amazed from the moment I saw them,” he says. Two years after his first encounter, while teaching at a nature camp in Maine, Kress learned that the state's puffin colonies were all but destroyed by hunters in the late 1800s. The puffins were killed for their eggs, meat and feathers.
Kress decided to learn more about these “special birds.” His fascination grew into Project Puffin, a decades-long effort to bring the puffins back to Maine. Kress ran the project while working for the National Audubon Society, a major bird conservation nonprofit in the US.
Project Puffin’s origins lie on an uninhabited seven-acre island, six miles off the coast of Maine, called Easter Egg Rock. The tiny island, accessible only by rowboat, is free from predators (捕食者) and edged with rocks under which the puffins nest.
Starting in 1973, Kress’s team collected chicks from Greet Island, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, which had a healthy puffin population. The team hand -raised puffins in artificial holes, feeding them vitamin-enriched fish twice a day. “They would come out when they were six weeks old and they would work their way to the edge of the island and swim off,” says Kress.
For four years, however, none of the birds returned to the island to breed (繁殖). The project’s supporters began to question whether they would ever succeed. “That's when I began trying to think like a puffin,” Kress says.“Puffins nest in colonies because they like being with others of their kind and large groups provide protection from predators.” He thought that the young puffins did remember the island but were not brave to come ashore. Kress’s new idea was to place wooden puffins around the island, to help the birds feel safe. It worked.
Thanks to his pioneering method, Project Puffin says there are now around 1,300 pairs of puffins nesting on islands in the Gulf of Maine. What's more, the techniques Kress developed to save puffins are now used by seabird conservationists around the world.
1. What happened to Maine’s puffins in the late 19th century?| A．They were well protected. | B．They were a tourist attraction. |
| C．They were nearly going extinct. | D．They were raised for their meat. |
| A．It is inaccessible to hunters. |
| B．It seems an ideal Puffin habitat. |
| C．It is near the National Audubon Society. |
| D．It seems a perfect place for bird-watching. |
| A．Finding proper food for puffins. |
| B．Digging artificial holes for puffins. |
| C．Moving puffin chicks from Great Island. |
| D．Getting adult puffins to breed at Eastern Egg Rock. |
| A．A New Way to Save Seabirds | B．A Bird Conservation Nonprofit |
| C．A Bird Species to Be Hand-raised | D．A Great Seabird Migration Project |
8 . It's no secret that social media can make the lines on what's reality and what's fantasy unclear. But new research at York's Faculty of Health now shows how young women interact with images online can affect how they feel about their own bodies.
The research appears in the journal Body Image. The study was conducted by Jennifer Mills, associate professor in the Department of Psychology and Jacqueline Hogue. It focused on young women, aged 18 to 27 years old, who liked or commented on photos of people whom they considered to be more attractive than themselves.
The research included 118 female college students from countries all over the world. Participants reported their ages, diverse ethnic groups, whether English was their first language, and years of education in an online questionnaire six weeks before the experiment. Each participant was given a questionnaire where they had to indicate how satisfied or dissatisfied they were with their appearance or body image by using a specific standard.
Participants were then randomly assigned into one of two experimental conditions. One group of participants were asked to log into Facebook and Instagram for a period of five or more minutes and find one peer (同龄人) who they felt was more attractive than themselves. After looking at the photos, each participant was asked to leave a comment of their choice. In the other group, participants were asked to do the same task but this time they commented on a post of a family member whom they did not think was more attractive than themselves.
The results showed that these young adult women felt worse about their own appearance after looking at social media pages of someone that they considered to be more attractive than themselves. Even if they felt bad about themselves before they came into the study, on average, they still felt worse after completing the task. However, the data showed that participants’ views on their own appearance were not affected when interacting with the posts of their family members.
1. Why did the researchers most probably do the study?| A．To know social media's influence on young women's health. |
| B．To know online body images’ influence on young women. |
| C．To know how young women interact with images online. |
| D．To know why young women comment on online images. |
| A．They were asked about their backgrounds before the experiment. |
| B．They considered themselves more attractive than others. |
| C．They all used English as their mother tongue. |
| D．They were divided into two groups randomly by age. |
| A．Young women like posting attractive images on social media. |
| B．Family members help young women build up their confidence. |
| C．Young women can easily realize their shortcomings the Internet. |
| D．Comparing to peers online can affect how young women regard themselves. |
| A．Social media may negatively affect the way young women view themselves. |
| B．Young women enjoy expressing their opinions on social media. |
| C．Young women’s views on their bodies can be easily influenced. |
| D．Social media makes young women’s images more attractive. |
9 . Gone with the Wind was removed from the HBO Max streaming platform Tuesday, as mass protests against racism and police violence cause television networks to re-assess their offerings.
The multiple Oscar-winning US Civil War movie released in 1939 remains one of the highest-rated movies of all time, but its description of satisfied slaves and heroic slaveholders has led to criticism.
“Gone With The Wind is a product of its time and shows some of the racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been very common in American society.” an HBO Max spokesperson said in a statement.
“These racist descriptions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and criticism of those descriptions would be irresponsible."
Protests have spread like wildfire across the US since the killing of African American George Floyd while in police custody(拘留), with calls growing for police reform and the broader removal of symbols of a racist legacy, including monuments to the slave-holding Confederacy.
Floyd died last month as a white Minneapolis officer pressed a knee into his neck for almost nine minutes. The officer has been charged with second- degree murder.
12 Years A Slave writer John Ridley said in a Los Angeles Times said Monday that Gone with the Wind must be removed as it “doesn't just fall short with regard to representation" but ignores the horrors of slavery and keeps “some of the most painful stereotypes(刻板印象) of people of color.”
The film will return to the recently launched streaming platform at a later date, along with a discussion of its historical background, the company said.
No edits will be made,“because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed."
“If we are to create a more just, equal and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history.”
1. Which of the following about Gone with the Wind is TRUE?| A．It was released during the US Civil War |
| B．It deals with the cruelty of slavery |
| C．Its content about racism was criticized |
| D．It is the best award-winning movie of all time |
| A．To show the seriousness of police violence |
| B．To compare his suffering with that of slaves |
| C．To call for the removal of racist monuments |
| D．To prove racism has been common in America |
| A．Positive | B．critical |
| C．objective | D．unconcerned |
| A．Gone with the Wind removed from HBO Max after Racism Protests |
| B．Protests over Gone with the Wind Spread Like Wildfire |
| C．Growing Calls for Police Reform in American Society |
| D．Classic Movie Gone with the Wind Mirrors Racial Prejudices |
10 . The idea of billions of people going through a few masks a week during this pandemic definitely rings alarm bells, but a team of researchers in Melbourne may have the solution.
They’ve discovered that adding millions of discarded face masks to road-paving (铺路) mixtures would actually lower the cost of the road, while preventing billions of them from landfills. Just one kilometer of road would need three million masks, and the polypropylene (聚丙烯) plastic used to make single-use surgical face masks also increased the flexibility and durability of the road.
The new material is a mixture of about 2% torn masks, with recycled concrete aggregate (RCA)—a material obtained from waste concrete and other minerals from destroyed buildings. This recycled material was found in the study to be ideal for two of the four layers generally required to create roadways. Paving a kilometer of two-way road with the RCA and three million face masks would result in a change of 93 tons of waste from landfills.
The final product then is more resistant to wear than asphalt (沥青), as well as being cheaper too, provided there was a method for collecting masks. The research team did a cost-analysis and found that, at $26 per ton, the RCA was about half the cost of mining raw materials, and as much as a third of the cost of shipping the used masks to a landfill.
The widespread application would be ideal for large infrastructure (基础设施) projects. For example, Washington has the 11th worst roads in terms of unaddressed repairs in the U.S. If the damaged roads in Washington state were repaired with the RCA/mask mixture, it would reuse nearly 10 billion masks, sparing American landfills hundreds of millions of tons of trash.
It’s said that the team is looking for private industry partners or governments willing to give their plastic mask road an opportunity for a large-scale test.
1. What does the underlined word “discarded” mean in paragraph 2?| A．Recycled. | B．Produced. |
| C．Mixed. | D．Abandoned. |
| A．2% torn masks, concrete and tons of trash. |
| B．Polypropylene plastic and building materials. |
| C．Single-use surgical masks and recycled concrete aggregate. |
| D．Waste concrete and other minerals from destroyed buildings. |
| A．To tell us what the team has found. |
| B．To prove this material is cost-effective in paving roads. |
| C．To explain repairing roads costs a lot of materials. |
| D．To praise the hard work the team has done. |
| A．The material used to pave roads is made of masks. |
| B．Generally speaking, it requires two layers to create roadways. |
| C．It remains to be tested whether the solution is practical. |
| D．The damaged roads in Washington were repaired with the RCA. |
