1 . I’m a talker. I am keen on debating, gossiping and teasing when I have people to talk to. Under lockdown, however, I’ve only had my partner, Peter.
We not only lived, worked and travelled together, we mostly socialized together, too. Under the first UK lockdown, our already closeness began to feel uncomfortable. While talking to Peter, I could see his attention drift.
For the first time in our 10 years together, we needed to be alone. I tried to manufacture this by going on walks on my own, but a short walk wasn’t doing the job. I had hiked in remote spaces all over the world but always in a pair or group — for safety reasons. I considered my options and hit upon an idea: the semi-solo hike.
Could we do a circular hike but walk in different directions? This would give us the space and peace of a solo hike — done by a person alone. It felt like a promising way out, and he agreed to give it a try.
We started with a four-mile loop (环路) from Reeth. At the start, we parted ways. At first, I was aware of how close we were, which lessened the appeal. As I gained ground, however, I found myself very much alone. I set my own pace, and I decided to take my time.
I sat on a rock and breathed out. That moment — with the weak sun through the clouds and the breeze blowing — felt extraordinary to me. I was born and raised in London and had never imagined leaving until I met an outdoorsman. Now, my former life as a city girl felt crazy. In remembering what I had gained, I felt the tension leave me. There, in the chilly air, I no longer needed to talk. The semi-solo hike gave us a shared experience with added room to breathe.
I didn’t see Peter on the way but reunited back where we started, both pleased.
The semi-solo hike is admittedly silly in theory, but for me it has been a lifeline. It has given me the gift of time alone and, in a year of constant closeness, the joy of reuniting.
1. What motivated the author to adopt the semi-solo hike?| A．Peter’s disinterest in her words. |
| B．Her habit of venturing into the wild. |
| C．The lack of privacy under lockdown. |
| D．Her desire to engage in outdoor exercise. |
| A．Their routes coincide sometimes during the hike. |
| B．They depart in a separate way to different destinations. |
| C．They hike in each other’s company throughout the journey. |
| D．They start and return to the same place by a different route. |
| A．Fearless and refreshed. | B．Free and relaxed. |
| C．Tense and depressed. | D．Upset and embarrassed. |
| A．An appropriate distance creates beauty. |
| B．There are more solutions than difficulties. |
| C．Access to nature is better than social circles. |
| D．Hiking helps improve interpersonal relationships. |
2 . Covid-19 has brought a great deal of trouble for all of us since March 2020. During this time, mobile phones have been the solution for the boredom and restlessness caused from staying indoors. The most downloaded apps on play store 2020 are;
TikTok
TikTok was the most downloaded app. With over 111.9 million downloads, TikTok has seen a huge growth in 2020, twice more than what it got in 2019. 20% of its total downloads were from India and around 9. 3% of the total downloads were in the US.
Zoom
Zoom was the second most installed app in the overall downloads category. With nearly 94. 6 million installs, Zoom is the most used app for online meetings and virtual classrooms. 17% of its downloads were in the US and India. Offices and educational institutes were shut down and to continue working and studying from home, people relied heavily on Zoom for video conferencing and calling.
WhatsApp ranked third in overall downloads with more than 100 million downloads. It is one of the most popular and widely used chat applications; WhatsApp also supports communication between international phone networks.
It ranked fourth in the overall downloaded list. Facebook is the world’s most popular social networking application. Facebook builds technologies that give people the power to connect with friends and family, find communities and grow businesses.
1. What do we know about TikTok?| A．It is an India-based app. | B．It has most users in America. |
| C．It is used for growing business. | D．It has doubled its download than in 2019. |
| A．TikTok. | B．Zoom. | C．WhatsApp. | D．Facebook. |
| A．Communication. | B．Training. | C．Teaching. | D．Payment |
3 . One day about eight years ago in the departure lounge (休息室) of a flight from New York's LaGuardia airport to O'Hare in Chicago, I found a young boy in tears and his mother at his side also appeared upset, I walked to them and invited them to our VIP lounge.
As it turned out, the boy, Miles and his mom were returning to their home in Kansas City. Miles has had some health problems. Though he had received more than thirty operations in a Jewish Hospital in New York, he would be back for more.
Miles enjoyed spending his time in our VIP lounge looking at the entire wall filled with the pictures of many celebrities (名人) who often came to our office. We soon added Miles' picture to the wall among those celebrities.
Among the celebrities, Miles like the country singer Garth Brooks best. Miles would just sit and stare at Garth's picture,
One day, Mr. Brooks was waiting in the lounge for his flight. As he looked at the collection of photographs, Garth asked about the youngster with the big smile. We told him about Miles. We also told him how much Miles loved and respected (尊重) him. He nodded and left.
About six months later, Garth was going to be performing in Kansas City and he asked our workers to help him get in touch with the family. He wanted Miles to be his guest. That evening, not only did Miles sit in the front row, but he and Garth also had a private meeting after the performance.
Although Miles would receive many more treatments after that special evening, his smile greeted us with every following visit. The face of a sick boy was changed by the joy of a stranger.
1. What does the author probably do?| A．A worker at an airport. | B．A killed photographer. |
| C．A country music singer. | D．A doctor in a Jewish hospital. |
| A．Interviewing celebrities he saw there. |
| B．Seeing pictures of celebrities on the wall. |
| C．Drawing pictures of the celebrities there. |
| D．Singing together with his favorite singer. |
| A．Determined and generous. | B．Proud and selfish. |
| C．Kind and helpful. | D．Powerful and rich. |
| A．Importance of Good Service | B．Kindness from Strangers |
| C．A Serious Health Problem | D．A Helpless Mother |
4 . The human brain remembers negative experiences more easily than positive ones. Our brains have developed in this way because threats, like dangerous animal, have a more immediate effect on people's survival compared to positive things like food or shelter. As a result, you clearly know what makes you unhappy, but do you know what makes you happy?
Research suggests that our level of happiness is partly shaped by the choices we make. If you've been chasing wealth, fame, power and some material things, you may be looking for happiness in the wrong places. Psychologists suggest that the following habits can make people happier.
People who own close relationships tend to be happier than those who do not. The number of our friends is not important. What matters is the quality of our relationships. Relationships that bring happiness usually consist of the sharing of feelings, acceptance, mutual respect and trust.
People who exercise regularly can improve both their physical and mental well-being. Some research has shown that exercise can be as effective as some medicine in treating depression.
If we are so interested in an activity, we may lose track of time, and we can be in a state of flow. The activity could be playing the piano, surfing the Internet or playing a game. People who experience flow in their work or life tend to be happier.
People are more likely to be happy if they know what their strengths are and can use them regularly. People are especially happy when they can set goals and use their strengths to achieve them.
People, who think positively by being grateful, mindful and optimistic, are more likely to be happy. Being grateful means being thankful. Being mindful means considering, focusing on, and enjoying the experiences of the present moment. Being optimistic means being hopeful about the future.
1. Human brains remember negative things more easily because negative things_________.| A．tend to affect human survival immediately |
| B．are much more important than other thing |
| C．can make people live much happier |
| D．are easy to remember |
| A．being famous | B．setting life goals |
| C．chasing power | D．earning money |
| A．think more about our future |
| B．focus on everything in our life |
| C．be positive in our life and work |
| D．only enjoy the present moment |
| A．Why people remember positive things easily. |
| B．Why people remember negative things easily. |
| C．What makes people happy. |
| D．What makes people sad. |
5 . Whenever we see a button, we want to press it because we know that something will happen.This is true in most cases, for example, on a doorbell.But some buttons are actually fake (假的), like the “close” button on a lift.
Many people are in the habit of pressing the “close” button because they don't have the patience to wait.But lifts' “close” buttons are a complete trick, at least in the US—the doors will not close any faster no matter how hard you press.
It started in the 1990s when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in the US, making sure that all lifts stayed open long enough so that people with disabilities could enter safely.Only repair workers can use the buttons to speed up the doorclosing process if they have special keys.
But to normal lift riders, the buttons aren't completely useless.According to psychologists, fake buttons can actually make you feel better by offering you a sense of control.
“A sense of control is very important.It reduces stress and increases wellbeing，” said Ellen J．Langer，a psychology professor at Harvard University.Experts also added that a lot of buttons that don't do anything exist in our lives for this same purpose.
For example, pedestrian crosswalk buttons don't live up to their names either.Pressing them used to help make the traffic signals change faster, but that was before computercontrolled traffic signals were introduced.
But psychologists found it interesting that even when people are aware of these little “white lies”， they still continue to push fake buttons because as long as the doors eventually close, it is considered to be worth the effort.
1. What is the author's purpose in writing the text?| A．To describe different fake buttons. |
| B．To explore the functions of fake buttons. |
| C．To analyze various habits of pushing buttons. |
| D．To explain the disadvantages of fake buttons. |
| A．They work when people press them hard. |
| B．They were designed for a sense of control. |
| C．They never speed up the doorclosing process. |
| D．They take the safety of the disabled into account. |
| A．They can make people feel better. |
| B．They help computers work faster. |
| C．They can control the traffic signals. |
| D．They help pedestrians cross safely. |
6 . When I was a child, I often saw my Grandma throwing bread that was no longer fresh to birds. Not surprisingly, this attracted few birds. Later on, we discovered bird food at the local store. Feeding garden birds in the UK has come a long way since then. Today, the birds can enjoy many kinds of food: from plant seeds to sunflower hearts and from cakes to meat balls. All this comes at a huge cost of about £200m a year. Sometimes, I wonder if we might be feeding our garden birds better than our kids. But maybe it’s worth it. Our generosity is having an important effect on the behavior and even evolution of these birds.
Take the goldfinch for example. In the 1960s, this was a rare bird. Today, goldfinches can be seen in many gardens. Other new visitors include the spotted woodpecker, which has left its usual woodland for food on bird tables. Evolution is meant to progress slowly: over thousands of years. Yet during the past few decades, the beaks of many kinds of birds have become longer because birds with longer beaks can get more food, and then are more likely to live on.
Actually, the British habit of feeding garden birds goes back much further. During the sixth century, St Serf of Fife fed a robin in his garden; during the winter of 1890, workers in London were seen giving their lunches to songbirds. The real change took place in the 1980s, when a few farsighted businessmen realized that encouraging the British to be more generous to garden birds can help them make money. Therefore, various kinds of bird food and modern bird feeders were produced. As a result, the number of species using garden feeding stations increased very quickly, from about 10 to over 100. Then, in 2005, Springwatch came, which turned our love of garden birds into an entertainment show.
Is bird feeding completely good for birds? Not everyone thinks so. Studies by the Zoological Society of London have shown that by bringing together many birds, bird feeders may help the spread of disease. In Australia, some bird experts believe—probably wrongly—that bird feeding creates a “dependence culture”.
But we shouldn’t forget one major benefit of feeding garden birds—it connects millions of people to the natural world. This is especially important for people who seldom reach the wider countryside. As I write this, there comes some noise outside my window: several birds were singing and flying around in my garden. It’s a sight I could only imagine years ago, when feeding garden birds just meant throwing hard bread to them.
1. What does the author mean by saying the underlined part in Paragraph 1?| A．Feeding garden birds is a huge waste of money. |
| B．We spend quite a lot of money on the food of garden birds. |
| C．We should care more for our kids rather than garden birds. |
| D．Feeding garden birds can bring more joy than feeding kids. |
| A．These birds have given up traditional woodland. | B．Food for these birds becomes richer and better. |
| C．Longer beaks mean more chances of survival. | D．These birds grow faster than ever before. |
| A．It is completely good for birds. |
| B．It may help the spread of disease. |
| C．It connects more and more people to the natural world. |
| D．It may reduce birds’ ability to find food by themselves. |
| A．Annoyed. | B．Pleased. | C．Surprised. | D．Bored. |
A new review based on a research shows that acute stress affects the way the brain considers the advantages and disadvantages, causing it to focus on pleasure and ignore the possible negative (负面的) consequences of a decision.
The research suggests that stress may change the way people make choices in predictable ways.
“Stress affects how people learn,” says Professor Mara Mather. “People learn better about positive than negative outcomes under stress.”
For example, two recent studies looked at how people learned to connect images(影像) with either rewards or punishments. In one experiment, some of the participants were first stressed by having to give a speech and do difficult math problems in front of an audience; in the other, some were stressed by having to keep their hands in ice water. In both cases, the stressed participants remembered the rewarded material more accurately and the punished material less accurately than those who hadn’t gone through the stress.
This phenomenon is likely not surprising to anyone who has tried to resist eating cookies or smoking a cigarette while under stress –at those moments, only the pleasure associated with such activities comes to mind. But the findings further suggest that stress may bring about a double effect. Not only are rewarding experiences remembered better, but negative consequences are also easily recalled.
The research also found that stress appears to affect decision-making differently in men and women. While both men and women tend to focus on rewards and less on consequences under stress, their responses to risk turn out to be different.
Men who had been stressed by the cold-water task tended to take more risks in the experiment while women responded in the opposite way. In stressful situations in which risk-taking can pay off big, men may tend to do better, when caution weighs more, however, women will win.
This tendency to slow down and become more cautious when decisions are risky might also help explain why women are less likely to become addicted than men: they may more often avoid making the risky choices that eventually harden into addiction.
1. We can learn from the passage that people under pressure tend to ______.
| A．keep rewards better in their memory |
| B．recall consequences more effortlessly |
| C．make risky decisions more frequently |
| D．learn a subject more effectively |
| A．ways of making choices | B．preference for pleasure |
| C．tolerance of punishments | D．responses to suggestions |
| A．women find it easier to fall into certain habits |
| B．men have a greater tendency to slow down |
| C．women focus more on outcomes |
| D．men are more likely to take risks |
8 . The different parts of a health care system have different focuses. A hospital's stroke （中风） unit monitors blood flow in the brain. The cardiac unit is interested in that same flow, but through and from the heart. Each collection of equipment and data is effective in its own field. Thus, like the story of blind men feeling an elephant, modern health care offers many separate pictures of a patient, but rarely a useful united one.
On top of all this, the instruments that doctors use to monitor health are often expensive, as is the training required to use them. That combined cost is too high for the medical system to scan regularly, for early signs of illness, so patients are at risk of heart disease or a stroke.
An unusual research project called AlzEye, run by Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, in cooperation with University College, London (UCL) , may change this. It is attempting to use the eye as a window through which signals about the health of other organs could be discovered. The doctors in charge of it, Siegfried Wagner and Pearse Keane, are studying Moorfields' database of eye scans, which offers a detailed picture of the health of the retina (视网膜).
The project will go a step further：With the information about other aspects of patients' health collected from other hospitals around England, doctors will be able to look for more accurate signs of disease through eye scans.
The Moorfields data set has lots of linked cases to work with--far more than any similar project. For instance, the UK Biobank, one of the world's leading collections of medical data about individual people, contains 631 cases of a "major cardiac adverse event". The Moorfields data contain about 12, 000 such. The Biobank has data on about 1, 500 stroke patients. Moorfields has 11, 900. For the disease on which the Moorfields project will focus to start with dementia, the data set holds 15, 100 cases. The only comparable study has 86.
Wagner and Keane are searching for patterns in the eye that show the emergence of disease elsewhere in the body. If such patterns could be recognized reliably, the potential impact would be huge.
1. Why does the author mention “the story of blind men feeling an elephant” in Paragraph 1?| A．To claim the ineffectiveness of our health care system. |
| B．To tell the similarity in various health care units. |
| C．To explain the limitation of modern health care. |
| D．To show the complexity of patients' pictures. |
| A．The challenge of making advanced medical instruments. |
| B．The high risk of getting a heart disease or a stroke |
| C．The inconvenience of modern health care service. |
| D．The incomplete and expensive health monitoring. |
| A．By thoroughly examining one's body organs. |
| B．By identifying one's state of health through eye scans |
| C．By helping doctors discover one's diseases of the eye |
| D．By comparing the eye-scan data from different hospitals. |
| A．It takes advantage of abundantly available medical data. |
| B．It makes the collection of medical data more convenient. |
| C．It improves the Moorfields' competitiveness in the medical field. |
| D．It strengthens data sharing between the Moorfields and the Biobank. |
9 . When the leaves begin to change colors,it means one thing for many travelers：Fall festival season is here.If you’re interested in visiting a fall festival in America,here are some of the country’s best fall festivals for you to choose from.
Wellfleet Oysterfest
Wellileet Oysterfest is a two-day event held in Wellfleet,Mass.The meeting on Cape Cod is one that the locals look forward to all year long.Feed on oysters(牡蛎）and other seafood，while you watch the fastest oyster-eaters in the world compete in the famous Oyster Shuck-Off,a competition for taking the outer covering of oysters.The competition is taken very seriously.
Harvest on the Harbor
It takes place in Portland,Maine.The festival celebrates all that is best about Maine’s food and wine.This celebration is held every October,and includes the Maine Lobster Chef of the Year Competition and Savory Samplings at the Marketplace.The latter allows travelers to taste the best local food that Maine has to offer at Casco Bay.
Killington Hay Festival
If you’re looking for a fall festival that includes hay sculptures(干草雕塑)，take part in the yearly Killington Hay Festival.When you begin to see the giant hay sculptures,you’ll know you’ve arrived.Past sculptures have changed from a 20-foot-tall kangaroo to a family of penguins.
1. What can we learn about the meeting on Cape Cod?| A．It takes place twice a year. | B．It lasts three days in all. |
| C．It’s loved by the locals. | D．It’s not open to tourists. |
| A．People who want to go to a festival in November. |
| B．People who want to try Maine’s local food. |
| C．The fastest oyster-eaters worldwide, |
| D．The best cooks around the world. |
| A．They all serve seafood. | B．They are all liked by eaters. |
| C．They all last for two days. | D．They all take place in fall. |
10 . Are you preparing for a big test? If so, you may want to play some basketball in between hitting the books. Doctors are starting to find more and more information that suggests a connection between exercise and brain development. Judy Cameron, a scientist at Oregon Health and Oregon Health and Science University, studies brain development. According to her research, it seems that exercise can make blood vessels(管), including those in the brain, stronger and more fully developed. Dr. Cameron claims this allows people who exercise to concentrate better. As she says, "While we already know that exercise is good for the heart, exercise can really cause physical changes in the brain."
The effects of exercise on brain development can even be seen in babies. Babies who do activities that require a lot of movement and physical activity show greater brain development than babies who are less physically active. With babies, even a little movement can show big results. Margaret Barnes, a pediatrician(儿科医生), believes in the importance of exercise. She thinks that many learning disabilities that children have in elementary school or high school can be traced back to a lack of movement as babies. "Babies need movement that stimulates their five senses. They need to establish a connection between motion and memory. In this way, as they get older, children will begin to associate physical activity with higher learning," says Margaret.
Older people can beef up their brains as well. Scientists from 11 universities studied a group of seniors ranging in age from seventy to seventy-nine. Their study showed a short-term memory increase of up to 40 percent after exercising just three hours a week. The exercise does not have to be very difficult, but it does have to increase the heart rate. Also, just like the motion for infants (婴儿), exercise for older people should involve some complexity. Learning some new skills or motions, such as with yoga or tai-chi, helps to open up memory paths in the brain that may not have been used for a long time.
For most people, any type of physical activity that increases the heart rate is helpful. The main goal is to increase the brain's flow of blood. And your brain can benefit from as little as three hours of exercise a week.
1. What is the best title of this passage?| A．How to exercise |
| B．How exercise helps the brain |
| C．How to get good scores on a test |
| D．How the brain can change |
| A．Exercise makes us stupid. |
| B．The brain needs special mental exercise. |
| C．The more exercise, the bigger the brain. |
| D．Physical exercise helps us think better. |
| A．three hours per week |
| B．40hours per week |
| C．three hours per day |
| D．40hours per month. |
| A．It is easy to learn. |
| B．It can be done in groups. |
| C．It does not increase the heart rate. |
| D．It includes learning new motions. |
