1 . On Monday, about 270 pilot whales got into difficulty on a sandbank at Macquarie Heads, near Strahan on Tasmania’s west coast, about 190 kilometres from Hobart. Another 200 of the animals were found early on Wednesday, making it Tasmania’s largest recorded stranding event. The Department of Primary Industry, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) said that about a third had died.
Marine biologists arrived in the area to carry out rescue operations. They planned to use specialized equipment such as special tarpaulins to push the whales back into the deep water. The local police also assisted in the rescue.
The whales that were stranded are Pilot Whales, and they are found in almost all the oceans of the world, according to the Marine conservation group. Pilot whales are in fact one of the largest members of the dolphin family, but they are treated as whales for the Marine Mammals Protection Regulations issued in 1992.They were named pilot whales because it was thought that each pod followed a ‘pilot’ in the group.
Cetacean stranding, commonly known as beaching, is a phenomenon in which whales and dolphins strand themselves on land, usually on a beach. Several explanations for why cetaceans strand themselves have been proposed, including changes in water temperatures, unusual features of whales’ echo location in certain surroundings, and geomagnetic disturbances, but none have so far been universally accepted as a definitive reason for the behavior.
In recent years, whale strandings have become more frequent around the world. In November 2018, a dead sperm whale that had washed ashore in eastern Indonesia consumed a horrifying collection of plastic trash, including 115 drinking cups, 25 plastic bags, plastic bottles, two flip-flops and a bag containing more than 1,000 pieces of string. In all, the plastic contents of the whale’s stomach weighed 13.2 pound (six kilograms). The bags are black due to a reaction with the creature’s stomach acids, according to Thai Whales organization. A person, on average, breathes or swallows at least 74,000 microscopic particles of plastic each year.
1. How many whales died according to DPIPWE?| A．About 160. | B．About 200. | C．About 270. | D．About 470. |
| A．Being put into danger. |
| B．Being trapped in trouble. |
| C．Being found in extinction. |
| D．Being left or driven ashore. |
| A．Whales mistake plastics for food. |
| B．Whales need the ability of self-protection. |
| C．Whales’ living conditions are worsening. |
| D．Whales have an excellent digestive system. |
| A．Protective measures for whales. |
| B．The reasons for whale stranding. |
| C．Studying whales’ stomach deeply. |
| D．Researching the oceans’ ecosystem. |
2 . A study of more than five million books, both fiction and non-fiction, has found a marked decline in the use of emotional words over time. The researchers form the University of Bristol used Google Ngram Viewer, an online database for finding the frequency of terms in scanned books, to look for more than 600 particular words identified as representing anger, dislike, fear, joy, sadness and surprise.
They found that almost all of the categories showed a drop in these “mood words” over time. Only in the category of fear was there an increase in usage.
“It is a steady and continuous decline,” said Dr Alberto Acerbi. He assumed that the result might be explained by a change in the position occupied by literature, in a crowded media landscape. “One thing could be that in parallel to books the 20th century saw the start of other media. Maybe these media—movies, radio, drama—had more emotional content than books.”
Although both joy and sadness followed the general downwards trend, the research, published in the journal PLOS One, found that they also exhibited another interesting behavior: the ratio (比率) between the two varied greatly, apparently mirroring historical events. During the Roaring Twenties the joy-to-sadness ratio reached its highest point that would not occur again until before the recent financial crash. Then, in 1941, the ratio plunged at the height of World War II.
Nevertheless, the researchers held a reserved opinion about their claim that their result reflected wider social trends. In the paper, they even argue that the opposite could be true. “It has been suggested, for example, that it was the suppression (压抑) of desire in ordinary Elizabethan English life that increased demand for writing ‘filled with romance’… perhaps,” they conclude, “songs and books may not reflect the real population any more than catwalk models reflect the average body.”
1. The study was carried out by way of_________.| A．scanning the books with an online scanner | B．counting the number of words in the books |
| C．searching digitized texts for emotional words | D．analyzing different topics of the books |
| A．Usage decreased in all the categories of mood words. |
| B．Usage of most mood words kept falling over time. |
| C．The decline was caused by the rise of other media. |
| D．The unfavorable position of literature led to the decline. |
| A．increased | B．changed | C．dropped | D．twisted |
| A．their research result reflected wider social trends. |
| B．their research result was the contrary of social trends. |
| C．there was a suppression of desire in Elizabethan English life. |
| D．catwalk models reflect the population better than songs and books. |
3 . I was in the Sants Cruz Mountains not long ago, speaking and singing at a women’s conference. We were focusing on the theme of loving others in practical ways through our gifts, and something in particular happened during one of the sessions (会议) will remain imprinted in memory.
A young Syrian woman (Lilith) was invited to the conference at the last minute, and everyone seemed surprised and delighted that she’d actually come. Just a few days earlier, Lilith had fled her country and found refuge with one of the women attending the conference.
Lilith had witnessed horrors no one of her young age should ever see. Despite the further danger it presented, she’d decided to leave her home and her family to find safety here in America. Knowing some of her story, and seeing her sitting through the sessions at the retreat (畏缩不前) — head, covered in a scarf, bowed toward the floor — broke my heart.
Lilith’s story touched all of us, including Pam, an attendee, who was a quilt maker. Pam had just finished a beautiful quilt, and had brought it with her. She, along with a few of the leaders, decided to give it to Lilith as a symbol of their comfort and love. Lilith had left her own mother behind in her homeland and I can’t imagine how frightened and alone she felt. But in her absence, I could see there were lots of “mamas” in this community of women, who were more than ready to love her.
During our last session, Lilith was called forward and prayed over, hugged, and wrapped up in that beautiful quilt. I thought of the many hours Pam undoubtedly spent working on it, and the terrible events that led Lilith to this moment — surrounded by the beauty and love the quilt
embodied (包括). I wept. When they told her it was for her, she wept.
A quilt wrapped around a ravaged young woman is just one practical, loving act.
1. What is the purpose of the women’s conference?
| A．To get together to dance and sing. | B．To win equal rights for women. |
| C．To help others in a practical way. | D．To exchange gifts with each other. |
| A．A place of interest. | B．A place of danger. |
| C．A place of conference. | D．A place of shelter. |
| A．To attend the women’s conference. | B．To find her family. |
| C．To find safety. | D．To find a better job. |
| A．sympathetic | B．enthusiastic |
| C．intelligent | D．talented |
4 . We all want to be happy. In the pursuit of happiness, we often purchase shiny things, visit new places, and change our appearances, but the truth of the matter is that these small bursts of high excitement cannot last long. We tend to let one simple human necessity slip away: conscious kindness.
Conscious kindness is an act of looking for opportunities to be kind to others and yourself. Usually acts of kindness are performed when the opportunity arises, such as holding the door open for someone and returning an item dropped on the ground to the person walking ahead of us. We call these “random acts of kindness”. In other words, there is no pattern, meaning or plan to focus on your act. Conscious kindness pushes you out of your comfort zone and sends you into the world to deliberately add moments of kindness to someone’s life.
A recent study set out to investigate the effect of a seven-day kindness activity on changes in subjective happiness. It was found that performing acts of kindness for seven days boosted the participants’ well being more than that of the control group who performed no acts of kindness. It’s no surprise that “a positive correlation can be drawn between the number of kind acts and an increase in happiness”. (Lee Rowland & Olive Scott Curry, The Journal of Social Psychology)
When you open your mind to changing the way you see the world, you begin to be consciously kind. To do this, you must begin with yourself. Being kind to yourself first and this is where goodness will be born; the goodness that comes from you can then be shared and spread to those around you. Speak gently to yourself. You become what you think about. Struggling with and dwelling on negative thoughts will only waste your energies.
Then move on to giving conscious kindness to those around you. Realize that behind every face you see on the street is a story you will never fully know. Understand that, overall, people are good, and they just want to live a happy life. Practice being a kind person, and you will be amazed at those who follow you and you will silently influence their lives.
1. What does the author think of the pleasure of visiting a new place?| A．It is impressive. | B．It is changeable. | C．It is worthwhile. | D．It is short-lived. |
| A．By design. | B．By accident. | C．All the time. | D．For the time being. |
| A．To discuss. | B．To describe. | C．To persuade. | D．To report. |
| A．Try to Get Happiness | B．Focus on Conscious Kindness |
| C．Benefits of Conscious Kindness | D．Ways to Be Consciously Kind |
5 . Tang Dynasty poets sang for about three centuries in different tones. There were many famous poets living in the Tang period, such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi and Li Shangyin. The Poems of Tang Dynasty edited in the Qing Dynasty is a collection of more than 28,900 poems that were written by over 2,200 poets. But it didn't cover all the poems of the Tang Dynasty.
During the Tang Dynasty, poems were recited when lovers walked under the moonlight. Poems were also recited when soldiers fought on the battlefield. People recited them in the open air or at temple fairs.
Tang Dynasty poets wrote poems to win fame and also to develop their temperament (性情). They poured out deep feelings for their friends and criticized injustice in the world through poems.
In the Tang Dynasty scholars had to be poets. Their readers were not only people of high social position but also common people. Poets recited poems, women singers sang poems and other ranks of people, including old women and children, read Tang poems. This atmosphere affected foreigners who visited the country at that time. As a result, Tang poetry was introduced to some adjacent countries, like Japan and Vietnam.
Tang poetry is a most brilliant page in the history of ancient Chinese literature. It's a miracle (奇迹) in the cultural history of mankind. The Tang Dynasty was a powerful empire with a vast territory. It inherited (继承) Chinese civilization that went back to ancient times, was combined with the best of other cultures and adopted the benefits of other nations in the world. Tang poetry wasn't the only spiritual wealth created by the Tang Dynasty people. Philosophy and religion, handwriting and painting, and music and dance all gained new peaks of development. Tang poetry, however, was the jewel in the crown and its greatest achievement.
1. We can conclude from the passage that ________.| A．only people in the Tang Dynasty created poems |
| B．in total there were four famous poets in the Tang Dynasty |
| C．the Tang Dynasty probably existed for about three centuries |
| D．in the Tang Dynasty most common people were poets |
| A．Why the poets created poems. |
| B．Some other kinds of spiritual wealth in the Tang Dynasty. |
| C．The significance and influence of the Tang Dynasty. |
| D．The editors of The Poems of Tang Dynasty. |
| A．strong | B．neighbouring | C．poor | D．rich |
| A．The Great Tang Dynasty |
| B．Tang Dynasty Poetry |
| C．Famous Poets in the Tang Dynasty |
| D．The Development of the Tang Dynasty |
6 . An NPC deputy (人大代表) during this year's two sessions suggested dividing the winter and summer vacations into four shorter vacations. Though it seems helpful, the proposal is out of the realities.
Firstly, the deputy believed that shorter vacations could alleviate (缓解) parents' burden of caring for their children at home and offer families more opportunities to travel together. However, the general consensus (共识) is that most parents are often so busy trying to make enough money to provide for their children's education and household costs that they don't even have enough time to keep their kids company, let alone to be able to take their kids on vacation.
Secondly, each of the breaks will only last for about three weeks. Even though this is generally a long enough time for students to go to tutoring centers (培训机构) if their parents pay extra attention to their children's studies, they may end up finding themselves continuously having to fight between a busy school term and a busier vacation. While this may help to prevent children from playing with their mobile phones or video games, is it really necessary to create a new term system to do so? As the saying goes, “Penny wise and pound foolish.”
Moreover, as some netizens have mentioned, the main purpose of winter and summer vacations is to give students more time to celebrate the Spring Festival and to escape the summer heat. Not only do longer vacations spare many students the efforts of travelling from home to school, but they also offer chances for them to do things with long-lasting positive effects, such as volunteering in the community or joining in overseas exchanges.
In a word, there is still a long way to go to improve the vacation system before a better option turns up. So what we students need to do for now is just make the best of our vacation time and prepare ourselves for the future terms.
1. Why did the deputy make the new proposal?| A．To pay more attention to children's learning. |
| B．To encourage children to relax themselves. |
| C．To increase parents-children caring and love . |
| D．To greatly reduce children's learning burden. |
| A．have more time to learn their school subjects. |
| B．find their study and rest both poorly affected. |
| C．feel more relaxed and will do better in new terms. |
| D．not be interested in phones or computer games. |
| A．空闲 | B．备用 | C．解除 | D．匀出 |
| A．valuable | B．charming |
| C．unpractical | D．challenging |
7 . For anyone still doubting the belief that our emotions impact our physical health, a new study from New Zealand should be able to settle the matter. It reports that the physical wounds of healthy seniors healed more quickly if they wrote about their most upsetting experiences.
This confirms the results of a 2010 study, and extends those findings to cover older adults — a group that is likely to suffer wounds (such as from surgery), and one with less access to other ways of lowering stress (such as exercise).
Reported in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, a research team led by the University of Auckland’s Elizabeth Broadbent made a study featuring 50 healthy adults ranging in age from 64 to 97. They were asked to write for 20 minutes per day for three days on end.
Half were asked to write about the most upsetting experience in their life, describing their deepest thoughts, feelings, and emotions about the events, ideally not previously shared with others. The others were asked to write about their daily activities without mentioning emotions, opinions or beliefs.
Two weeks after the third day of writing, all participants received a standard 4mm skin biopsy (皮下活体组织检查) on their inner arm. The very tiny wounds caused by the biopsy were photographed regularly over the following days to determine the rate at which they healed.
On the 11th day after the biopsy, the wounds completely healed on 76.2 percent of those who had done the expressive writing. That was true of only 42.1 percent of those who had written about everyday activities.
“The biological and psychological mechanisms (机体) behind this effect remain unclear,” the researchers wrote, noting that those who had done the expressive writing did not report lower stress levels or fewer depressive symptoms than the others in the control group. Even if they weren’t consciously aware of feeling more relaxed or positive, the expressive writing appeared to have caused some sort of bodily reaction — probably involving their immune (免疫的) systems — that hastened their recovery.
1. What was the difference between the two groups of participants in the study?| A．When they wrote. | B．Where they wrote. |
| C．What they wrote about. | D．How often they wrote. |
| A．about three days | B．about ten days |
| C．about two weeks | D．about a month |
| A．speeded | B．showed | C．limited | D．ruined |
| A．Sharing with others can reduce stress |
| B．Skin biopsies are likely to cause wounds |
| C．Expressive writing heals physical wounds |
| D．Upsetting experiences impact our emotions |
8 . It was about a year ago when a positive change in a community started.
I was in fifth grade, and at the time I wrote a paper about the migration of the monarch butterfly and received a perfect score. I was so happy. I called my grandmother, Nana, to tell her the exciting news. All of my talk about monarchs evoked memories from Nana’s childhood. “I remember when I was a girl out on the farm,” she said, “those black and orange butterflies were a common sight. But there do seem to be fewer monarchs fluttering (翩翩飞舞) around the neighborhood each summer. Perhaps we should try to find out where they’ve gone.”
Nana and I decided to investigate.
That weekend, Nana met me at the public library and we started our research. Our research produced plenty of information. The best information was this: it doesn’t take lots of money, equipment (设备), or government organizations to save the monarch butterflies; it takes only a little bit of land, and dedicated (专心致志的) people to create what’s called a Monarch Waystation. When I read this, an idea came to mind. “What if we set up our own Monarch Waystation?” I suggested.
“We will need several people to help us!” she replied.
The next week, Nana presented the idea to her garden club; I talked to my friends and neighbors. Nana’s garden club decided to plant a butterfly garden next to the city park. The library put together a display of gardening and butterfly books. The editor of the local newspaper wrote an informative article on how to make our community monarch-friendly. As spring turned into summer, those volunteers also worked to weed (除杂草) and care for the public gardens. We all waited and watched to see whether our plan would work—it did work! Over twenty black and orange butterflies were noticed visiting the Waystations. As summer progressed, the monarchs grew more plentiful.
It happened on a day when the sun was shining and the sky was a deep blue. As monarchs fluttered around us, people laughed and danced; Nana cried tears of happiness. It was truly a meaningful experience.
1. What does the underlined word “evoked” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Made up. | B．Took away. |
| C．Showed off. | D．Brought back. |
| A．The author’s personal wish. |
| B．The beauty of the monarch butterfly. |
| C．The author’s good performance in school. |
| D．The drop in numbers of the monarch butterfly. |
| A．It should be built in a park. |
| B．It can be created and used easily. |
| C．It needs continued support from the government. |
| D．It is the best way to protect the monarch butterfly. |
| A．It caused the community to miss the past. |
| B．It organized the community around a purpose. |
| C．It taught the community to use the public library. |
| D．It informed the community about gardening practices. |
9 . “We give our girls the power (力量) to believe in themselves, go to college, and become tomorrow’s leaders,” says Felicia Gibson Jaycox, the founder (创立者) and chief executive officer of The Power of You Teens (POYT). The organization is based in Harlem, a historic African-American neighborhood in New York City.
Founded in 2014, POYT offers educational chances and positive role models for teenage girls growing up in Harlem. These “Power Girls” take part in dance, summer camp, and STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics), among other programs. The purpose, according to the group, is to empower teenage girls to help them “dream big and to inspire them to achieve the most that they are capable of.”
POYT held its sixth yearly Empowerment Event in the fall of 2019 in New York City. The theme of “Girl Boss” encouraged girls to show their inner boss spirit. Miss Teen USA Kaliegh Garris was the keynote speaker.
Kaliegh said that she and other beauty competition winners are helping to reshape traditional images of beauty and showing that women of color are not just beautiful — they also are driven, wise women whom little girls can look up to.
I asked Ashley McFarlin Buie, POYT co-director, what inspired founder and CEO Felicia Gibson to start the organization. Gibson saw the plight that girls of color are in. For some historical reasons, many girls of color are growing up in terrible neighborhoods. They seldom see people like themselves showed positively in movies, books, TV shows, and other media.
“Powerful girls grow up to be dependable and confident women, preparing for their futures as creative leaders,” Buie said. POYT centers on saving the mind, body, and spirit of Black girls through love and support, she added.
What do the girls get out of the group? “We offer chances,” Buie said, “to break barriers (屏障).”
1. What do we know about POYT?| A．It is run by teenage girls. |
| B．It was started about 6 years ago. |
| C．It provides services all around America. |
| D．It was first started in African-American neighborhoods . |
| A．Speak for women of color. |
| B．Change people’s traditional ideas of beauty. |
| C．Call on girls to be positive role models. |
| D．Encourage girls to go into business in the future. |
| A．Sad feeling. | B．Difficult task. |
| C．Bad situation. | D．Uncertain future. |
| A．Dream big | B．Power Girls |
| C．Teenage Power | D．Breaking barriers |
10 . What do you usually do to comfort your friends when they are feeling sad or depressed? You probably pat them on the back or shoulder, or maybe you give them a big, warm hug.
We used to think that knowing when and how to comfort others was an ability that only humans have. But scientists have discovered that apes have this ability, too, according to a study published in the Journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
Two researchers from Emory University in Atlanta, US, went to an Ape Protection Centre in Congo to study bonobos, which are closely related to humans .
The researchers analyzed the bonobos’ reactions after more than 370 cases of stressful situations, such as fights and losing temper, and found that some bonobos rushed to hug those that were screaming after being attacked, just like humans would have done.
However, researchers noted that not all bonobos were capable of comforting others. In the protection centre, many bonobos are orphans whose mothers were killed by hunters. They were found to be more anxious in times of tension and to have greater difficulty controlling their own emotions, making them worse at reaching out to help friends in need .
“Orphans, who have not had the benefit of a mother helping them handling their emotions, are much worse at comforting others,” Professor Frans de Waal, one of the researchers, told The Telegraph. “Bonobos with moms were able to curb their negative emotional reactions more quickly. Therefore, they pay more attention to others. ”
This pattern mirrors the way that human children have been found to react. Those who seem more capable of handling their own emotions – for example, the ones who can calm themselves down more quickly after upsetting experiences – are usually better at expressing their concerns for others.
1. The 5th paragraph is mainly developed by __________ .| A．giving examples | B．following time order |
| C．making comparisons | D．presenting causes and effects |
| A．express | B．observe | C．handle | D．hide |
| A．Orphan bonobos never give a hand to friend. |
| B．There were 370 bonobos involved in the research. |
| C．The ability to comfort others is unique to human beings. |
| D．Moms play a significant role in handling kids’ emotions. |
| A．To inform readers of a new study. | B．To uncover the mystery of Apes. |
| C．To provide better protection for Apes. | D．To compare human behaviors with Apes’ . |
