1 . Eric Weiner’s The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers reawakened my love for philosophy. It is not an explanation, but an invitation to think and experience philosophy.
Weiner starts each chapter with a scene on a train ride between cities and then frames each philosopher’s work in the context (背景) of one thing they can help us do better. The end result is a read in which we learn to wonder like Socrates, see like Thoreau, listen like Schopenhauer, and have no regrets like Nietzsche. This, more than a book about understanding philosophy, is a book about learning to use philosophy to improve a life.
Why does the author list great philosophers in paragraph 2?| A．To compare Weiner with them. |
| B．To give examples of great works. |
| C．To praise their writing skills. |
| D．To help readers understand Weiner’s book. |
2 . The goal of this book is to make the case for digital minimalism, including a detailed exploration of what it asks and why it works, and then to teach you how to adopt this philosophy if you decide it’s right for you.
To do so, I divided the book into two parts. In part one, I describe the philosophical foundations of digital minimalism, starting with an examination of the forces that are making so many people’s digital lives increasingly intolerable, before moving on to a detailed discussion of the digital minimalism philosophy.
What is the book aimed at?| A．Teaching critical thinking skills. | B．Advocating a simple digital lifestyle. |
| C．Solving philosophical problems. | D．Promoting the use of a digital device. |
3 . As we age, even if we’re healthy, the heart just isn’t as efficient in processing oxygen as it used to be. In most people the first signs show up in their 50s or early 60s. And among people who don’t exercise, the changes can start even sooner.
“Think of a rubber band. In the beginning, it is flexible, but put it in a drawer for 20 years and it will become dry and easily broken,” says Dr. Ben Levine, a heart specialist at the University of Texas. That’s what happens to the heart. Fortunately for those in midlife, Levine is finding that even if you haven’t been an enthusiastic exerciser, getting in shape now may help improve your aging heart.
What does Levine want to explain by mentioning the rubber band?| A．The right way of exercising. |
| B．The causes of a heart attack. |
| C．The difficulty of keeping fit. |
| D．The aging process of the heart. |
Traditional Chinese dragon boat races were held in Milan, Italy on Saturday, attracting the participation of more than 500 people.
Among the seven teams was one composed entirely of Italians. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Italy organized the event to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, which has become a way for the Chinese community to express their longing for their homeland and family. It also offers an opportunity for local people to learn about traditional Chinese culture.
(blob:https://v-hls.chinadaily.com.cn/cddfe3d6-9b07-45b6-9f18-bb974dcd449b)
The dragon boat race was held in Italy to _________.
| A．express the local Chinese’s longing for their home |
| B．strengthen the ties between Italians and Chinese |
| C．honor the ancient poet Qu Yuan |
| D．celebrate the Chinese traditional festival |
5 . The shark was not an accident. He had come up from deep down in the water as the dark cloud of blood had settled and dispersed in the mile deep sea. He had come up so fast and absolutely without caution that he broke the surface of the blue water and was in the sun. Then he fell back into the sea and picked up the scent and started swimming on the course the skiff and the fish had taken.
Sometimes he lost the scent. But he would pick it up again, or have just a trace of it, and he swam fast and hard on the course. He was a very big Mako shark built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws. His back was as blue as a sword fish’s and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and handsome. He was built as a sword fish except for his huge jaws which were tight shut now as he swam fast, just under the surface with his high dorsal fin knifing through the water without wavering. Inside the closed double lip of his jaws all of his eight rows of teeth were slanted inwards. They were not the ordinary pyramid-shaped teeth of most sharks. They were shaped like a man’s fingers when they are crisped like claws. They were nearly as long as the fingers of the old man and they had razor-sharp cutting edges on both sides. This was a fish built to feed on all the fishes in the sea, that were so fast and strong and well armed that they had no other enemy. Now he sped up as he smelled the fresher scent and his blue dorsal fin cut the water.
When the old man saw him coming he knew that this was a shark that had no fear at all and would do exactly what he wished. He prepared the harpoon8 and made the rope fast while he watched the shark come on. The rope was short as it lacked what he had cut away to lash the fish.
1. Which of the following books is the excerpt from?| A．Charlotte’s Web | B．The Old Man and the Sea |
| C．Tow Sawyer’s Adventure | D．Robinson Crusoe |
| A．To show what a shark is like | B．To draw readers’ attention |
| C．To demonstrate the coming danger | D．To introduce a sea monster |
6 . Landslides and earthquakes are even more dangerous now than in the past because around half of the world’s population now live-in cities. Many people in cities and towns in South America and Asia are at risk from landslides. In April 2017,the city of Mocoa in Colombia was hit by a landslide, leaving many dead and injured. A great number of people live at risk from earthquakes too. These have claimed more than 1.6 million lives in the last hundred years.
Most disaster experts believe that things could get a lot worse. Professor Hou Ming of Peking University studies volcanoes. He warns that the world has not seen the worst yet. The worst eruption in human history was probably Mt Tambora in 1815,in Indonesia. Dust from the volcano rolled across the Earth’s skies. There was no summer in Europe and America the following year. But evidence shows that 73,000 years ago there was a much greater eruption. “It reduced temperatures by maybe 6°C in some places, and the whole planet was sent into winter for years. And there are about two of these events every 100,000 years...”
Why is Mt Tambora mentioned in the text?
| A．To demonstrate the world could get worse. |
| B．To show volcano eruptions have taken many lives. |
| C．To explain a natural disaster by showing an example. |
| D．To describe the worst volcano eruption in human history. |
7 . Even before they became fashionable companions for humans, Asia’s wild otters faced plenty of threats. Their habitats are disappearing. They have long been hunted for their coats, or killed by farmers who wish to prevent them consuming fishes. The pet trade, which began picking up in the early 2000s but appeared to speed up a few years ago, has made things worse. The numbers of wild Asian small-clawed otters and smooth-coated otters, two species that are in highest demand, have declined by at least 30% in the three decades to 2019.
The international agreement that governs trade in wildlife, known as CITES, now prohibits cross-border trade in these species. But laws banning ownership are often poorly implemented, as in Thailand, or full of holes, as in Indonesia. And the otter-keeping craze has been dramatically improved by the internet, says Vincent Nijman of Oxford Brookes University.
The purpose of the writing is to ________.
| A．advertise for a photo-sharing app |
| B．introduce the popularity of pet otters |
| C．discourage the illegal otter pet trade |
| D．describe the characteristics of otters |
8 . Otters, are cute, this no one can deny. They have big eyes, short and flat noses and claws (爪子) like tiny hands. They look even cuter when they wear hats and throw food balls into their mouths as if they were bar snacks, like Takechiyo, a pet otter in Japan. Documenting Takechiyo’s funny behavior has earned his owner nearly 230,000 followers on Instagram, a photo-sharing app.
The function of the first paragraph is to ________.
| A．present the main idea | B．introduce the main topic |
| C．set readers thinking | D．illustrate the writer’s point |
9 . Although these teachers are separated by thousands of miles, their methods of encouraging children to write spring from a common source: the Bread Loaf School. There, near Vermont’s Middlebury College, grade school and high school teachers give up part of their vacations each summer to spend six weeks brainstorming, studying and trading experiences as they try to design new methods of getting their pupils to write. Says Dixie Goswami, a professor who heads Bread Loaf’s program in writing: “We have nothing against ‘skill-and-drill’ writing curricula, except that they don’t work.” Instead, Bread Loaf graduates have created one inventive program to work together to cultivate student writers.
What’s the purpose of the Bread Loaf literature and writing program?
| A．To help students study English and train for advanced degrees. |
| B．To promote teachers’ teaching ability to motivate students to write. |
| C．To look for excellent educational leaders in every part of America. |
| D．To cover the cost for tuition and board of rural schools with funds. |
10 . What causes traffic jams? That’s easy: too many cars. No, wrong. Think again. What causes much of the jamming on our streets are traffic lights.
Think of all the hours in your life wasted as your car journey is stopped by lights to let non-existent traffic through, and then ask yourself this: who is the better judge of when it’s safe to go—you, the driver at the time and the place, or lights programmed by an absent regulator（控制器）？……
……
Not only do traffic lights help to lengthen journeys pointlessly, but also the UK’s large number of 24-hour traffic lights amounts to GPH (严重的全球性危险). About 30 percent of our CO2 output is from traffic. Professor David Hegg, the influential transport expert, admits that 40 percent of that comes from traffic waiting. Every litre of fuel burnt produces 2.4 kg of our CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Multiply the minutes of forced waiting at controlled lights by the hours in the day and night, by the days in the year, by the number of vehicles, and the environmental effect becomes clear.
The purpose of the passage is to _________.
| A．call out to stop the traffic lights |
| B．complain about the heavy traffic |
| C．explain how cars pollute the environment |
| D．call on drivers to give way to other road users |
