1 . According to the majority of Americans, women are every bit as capable of being good political leaders as men. The same can be said of their ability to dominate the corporate boardroom. And according to a new Pew Research Center survey on women and leadership, most Americans find women indistinguishable from men on key leadership traits such as intelligence and capacity for innovation, with many saying they're stronger than men in terms of being passionate and organized leaders.
So why, then, are women in short supply at the top of government and business in the United States? According to the public, at least, it's not that they lack toughness, management talent or proper skill sets. It’s also not all about work-life balance. Although economic research and previous survey findings have shown that career interruptions related to motherhood may make it harder for women to advance in their careers and compete for top executive jobs, relatively few adults in the recent survey point to this as a key barrier for women seeking leadership roles. Only about one-in-five say women's family responsibilities are a major reason why there aren't more females in top leadership positions in business and politics.
Instead, topping the list of reasons, about four-in-ten Americans point to a double standard for women seeking to climb to the highest levels of either politics or business, where they have to do more than their male counterparts to prove themselves. Similar shares say the electorate and corporate America are just not ready to put more women in top leadership positions.
As a result, the public is divided about whether the imbalance in corporate America will change in the foreseeable future, even though women have made major advances in the workplace. While 53% believe men will continue to hold more top executive positions in business in the future, 44% say it's only a matter of time before as many women are in top executive positions as men. Americans are less doubtful when it comes to politics: 73% expect to see a female president in their lifetime.
1. What do most Americans think of women leaders according to a new Pew Research Center survey?| A．They have to do more to distinguish themselves. |
| B．They have to strive harder to win their positions. |
| C．They are stronger than men in terms of willpower. |
| D．They are just as intelligent and innovative as men. |
| A．They have unconquerable difficulties on their way to success. |
| B．They are lacking in confidence when competing with men. |
| C．Their failures may have something to do with family duties. |
| D．Relatively few are affected in their career advancement. |
| A．Personality traits. | B．Gender bias. |
| C．Family responsibilities. | D．Lack of vacancies. |
| A．More and more women will sit in the boardroom. |
| B．Gender imbalance in leadership is likely to change. |
| C．The public is undecided about whether women will make good leaders. |
| D．People have opposing opinions as to whether it will have more women leaders. |
2 . Though leaders from the International Olympic Committee(IOC)have announced a first-of-its-kind postponement of the Tokyo Summer Olympics because of the corona virus epidemic,people all over the world are still concerned about its preparations.Officials from the Tokyo Olympic Committee say they are sparing no effort and announce the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021 is going green.The 5,000 medals Japan has made are more special than most.
One novel focus of the Tokyo Olympics is to be"sustainable”－to avoid using too many natural resources,so that the games are easy on the environment.As part of this goal,the organizers decided to make all of the Olympic medals out of metal recycled from old electronics.
Almost all electronics are made with small amounts of"precious metals",like gold and silver.But collecting enough of these metals to make 5,000 medals was a huge challenge.That's because the amount of metal in each device is tiny.It would take about 20,000 cell phones to get just l kilogram of gold.
Beginning in April 2017,the organizers placed collection boxes around the country,and asked people to turn in their old electronic devices.Soon people began to respond to the initiative(倡导），turning in smart phones,digital cameras,handheld games,and laptops.At first,collection went slowly,but soon more and more areas began to take part.By the end,1,621 local governments had helped out with the collection process.
Then came the job of breaking those devices down into smaller pieces.After eing taken apart and sorted, the small electronics were smelted(熔炼）to get all the gold,silver,and bronze elements.This is a tricky job, which calls for careful attention and good skill.It's also dangerous,because some of the metals and other things aren't safe for people to touch or breathe.
By the end of March,2019,the organizers had hit their targets of getting enough metal for the medals. They had collected around 32 kilograms of gold,4,100 kilograms of silver and 2,200 kilograms of bronze.And now all the 5,000 medals are available for the would-be winners.
1. What can we know about the Tokyo Olympics medals?| A．They are hugely valuable. |
| B．They are of high quality. |
| C．They are made from e-waste. |
| D．They are designed uniquely. |
| A．The difficulty of making the medals. |
| B．The initiative to recycle used smart phones. |
| C．The classification of the collected devices. |
| D．The process of collecting old electronics. |
| A．creative | B．demanding | C．well-paid | D．time-consuming |
| A．To advocate sustainable use of resources. |
| B．To promote the spirit of Olympic Games. |
| C．To introduce a new technique to make medals. |
| D．To show the gravity of environmental damage. |
3 . We've seen a worldwide health crisis (危机) bring out the worst in some people, but fortunately, we've also been able to see it bring out the best in others.
A taxi driver in Spain has been providing COVID-19 (新冠肺炎) patients with free rides to and from the hospitals. Doctors and nurses wanted to surprise him with their thanks for helping out.
They tricked him down to the hospital under the pretense of needing to pick up a sick patient, but in reality, doctors and nurses lined the hall waiting to applaud (鼓掌) him.
“This is a surprise that has been given to a taxi driver who takes patients to the hospitals without charge,” wrote the taxi company that first shared the video.
The man seemed completely taken aback by the gesture, stopping in the middle of the doors as the whole room cheered for him.
He was also given an envelope full of money and the satisfying results of his own COVID-19 test.
The video has since been shared tens of thousands of times across the world, because kind gestures break the language barrier (障碍).
“When the crisis is finished, there will have been two types of people... the good and the bad,” one user wrote. “With workmates like him, I am proud to be a taxi driver, son of a taxi driver, and father of a taxi driver.”
With the word in hard times, just knowing good people are there doing good deeds is something we can all appreciate.
1. We can learn from the story that____________.| A．the driver took doctors to and from the hospitals |
| B．the taxi company ticked the driver to pick up a patient |
| C．the patients lined the hall to thank the driver |
| D．the driver stayed safe from COVID-19 |
| A．Worried. | B．Amazed. | C．Frightened. | D．Excited. |
| A．It moves people of different nations. |
| B．It encourages more people to be a taxi driver. |
| C．It shows there will have been two types of people. |
| D．It calls for doctors and nurses to fight COVID-19. |
| A．There is always kindness around us. |
| B．We should be proud of our own jobs. |
| C．Helping others is the biggest happiness. |
| D．Taxi drivers play an important part in this crisis. |
4 . Most of the new diseases we humans have faced in the past several decades have come from animals. The more we come into contact with wild animals, the more we risk a so-called disease “spillover” from animals to humans.
“As people move and wildlife move in response to a changing environment, humans and wildlife and animals will come in contact more regularly,” said Jeanne Fair from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Fair argues that by shifting animal habitats, climate change will also make the opportunities for disease spillover more frequent. “Everything is sort of shifting and will shift into the future as the environment changes through climate change,” Fair said.
Scientists, including climatologists and epidemiologists (流行病学家) on Fair’s team at Los Alamos, are beginning to model how changes to the climate will impact the spread of infectious diseases. It’s early days for this kind of research, but previous studies suggest that extreme weather has already played a role in at least one outbreak. Scientists say drought and deforestation have combined to force bats out of rain forests and into orchards (果园) in Malaysia to find food. Those bats, a common disease reservoir, then passed the Nipah virus through pigs to humans for the first time in the late 1990s.
“We’re going by the past data to really predict what’s going to happen in the future,” Fair said, “And so, anytime you increase that wildlife-human interface, that’s sort of an emerging disease hot spot. And so, that’s just increasing as we go forward.”
Jeffrey Shaman, head of the climate and health program at Columbia University’s public health school, argues we don’t yet know whether climate change will cause a net increase in infectious disease rates globally. For example, mosquitoes carry disease that affects millions of people across the world every year. As their habitats expand in some parts of the world, they might contract diseases elsewhere. Shaman says what we know for certain about climate change is that it will make it harder to predict where disease outbreaks will pop up.
1. How does climate change affect the spread of disease according to Fair?| A．By breaking animals’habits. | B．By increasing animals’varieties. |
| C．By promoting animals’breeding. | D．By changing animals’living environment. |
| A．Explaining the influence of Nipah virus. |
| B．Proving the harm of bats to human beings. |
| C．Showing the effects of climate change on disease. |
| D．Presenting scientists’early study about the cause of disease. |
| A．Humans should give up studying animals. |
| B．Frequent contact with animals can cause disease outbreaks. |
| C．Disease hot spots will disappear if animals die out. |
| D．Past data can solve the problems in the future. |
| A．Climate Change and Disease Spillover |
| B．Animals’Interaction with Humans |
| C．Early Studies about Extreme Weather |
| D．Scientists’Prediction for Disease Outbreaks |
5 . Many of the Earth's creatures die because of humans' choices. These choices have nothing to do with food or shelter or anything else that helps humans survive. What kills millions of animals all over the world is that humans want to make money by doing so.
People use parts of animals for everything from hats to handbags, from jewelry to ashtrays and to make powders that supposedly improve a person's life. Deciding that a species is endangered and protecting it by law are not always enough. People who kill wildlife illegally rarely get caught.
During the late 1980s, saving elephants became a popular cause. Wildlife protection groups made sure everyone saw pictures or films of elephants with their faces cut off for their ivory. These groups also proved that certain populations of elephants were decreasing. As a result, most people stopped buying objects made of ivory. Laws against poaching (偷猎) were made stronger. Many countries made importing ivory illegal. Killing elephants for their Ivory became more risky and less profitable (有利可图的).
However, concern for certain species will become weak after a while. In the late 1970s, people protested (抗议) against the killing of seal babies. Everyone was shocked to see young seals being killed in their icy habitat. The cruel activity stopped. But ten years later, the number of seal babies killed was higher than ever.
Other animal protection movements have come and gone, such as saving the whales and protecting dolphins. The whale population appears to have increased for now. And the laws are finally changed in America to protect the dolphins that swim with tuna fish in parts of the Pacific Ocean.
In the years to come, people's attention will probably turn to some other endangered species. Plenty of them urgently need attention. During this time, will the elephants be forgotten?
1. What leads to the disappearance of millions of wild animals?| A．The growing human population. |
| B．Humans’ hope for making a fortune. |
| C．Humans’ too much need for wild food. |
| D．Not having enough laws on wildlife protection.. |
| A．Wildlife protection groups did make great efforts. |
| B．Importing ivory in all countries is illegal. |
| C．Those who killed elephants all got caught. |
| D．Hunting was completely not allowed. |
| A．To show the effort to protect seal babies. |
| B．To show an increasing number of seal babies. |
| C．To show the decrease of worry about certain species. |
| D．To show people’s protest against the killing of seal babies. |
| A．Humans should choose some rare animals to protect. |
| B．Attention must be paid to saving some endangered wildlife. |
| C．Success has been achieved in quite a few cases of wildlife protection. |
| D．Concern and movements for animal protection should be always kept. |
On Thanksgiving weekend, the Heffelmire family gathered for a meal at their home. After dinner, the family went down to the finished basement to relax except Charlotte’s father, Eric, who was in the garage to fix his truck．
Around 8 p.m., Charlotte decided to check on her dad. She walked through the kitchen. When she opened the side door to the garage, black smoke rose up into the kitchen. She could barely make out her father lying on his back, trapped under the truck. He’d removed the front passenger-side tyre and raised the truck on a jack（千斤顶）. The truck had slipped off the jack, and now the whole weight of the wheel was on his chest and shoulders．
Charlotte ran to the front of the truck and struggled to lift it. Eric was still conscious, and he yelled, “You got it! One more try!” She tried again and was able to tip the truck backward just enough for her to pull her dad by the shirt with both hands from under the truck．
She dragged him across the garage and 20 feet down the driveway. Then she ran back to the garage, which had burst into flames. “I was afraid the car was going to explode,” says Charlotte, so she climbed into the truck, which faced forward, turned the key, and pressed the gas pedal（油门）. The car slowly rolled out, the metal wheel scratching loudly against the concrete．
Safely on the driveway, Charlotte stopped the truck and ran back to the basement. “There’s a fire! Everybody get out!” she yelled as she picked up her three-month-old niece and ran out. Outside, she handed the baby to her mom, and then ran around to the burning garage. She picked up a garden hose（水管）and sprayed the fire while calling 911．
A few minutes later, firefighters and an ambulance arrived. Charlotte was treated for second-degree burns on both her feet and face. Her dad had injuries on his chest and shoulders, as well as minor burns on his face. The garage and the house were damaged but the family survived．
The Heffelmires are staying in an apartment while their house is rebuilt. “Charlotte is a remarkable kid,” says her dad. Charlotte, however, simply says, “ I was saving my family and my house. I wasn’t going to let my dad die.”
1. Eric got trapped because_________| A．the truck slipped off the jack. |
| B．the wheel fell off the truck. |
| C．the front tyre was removed. |
| D．the kitchen was on fire. |
a. Charlotte called the firefighters．
b. Charlotte saved Eric from under the truck．
c. Charlotte drove the truck out of the garage．
d. Charlotte warned the family to leave the house．
| A．b, c, a, d | B．a, b, d, c |
| C．b, c, d, a | D．a, c, b, d |
| A．the house was not fit to live in. |
| B．the truck exploded. |
| C．the three-month-old baby was injured. |
| D．Charlotte was burned on her chest and shoulders. |
| A．proud and clear-headed. |
| B．calm and quick-minded. |
| C．modest and easy-going. |
| D．independent and self-centered. |
