1 . During the COVID-19 pandemic, Julia began her second year as a first grade teacher in an online classroom. One September afternoon, she received a call from and Cynthia, who was having technical difficulties with her granddaughter's tools for online learning.
Julia immediately knew something was wrong with Cynthia. The two women had spoken many times before, but Julia had never heard she sounded like this. Her words were so jumbled that Julia could barely understand her. Julia called her headmaster, Charlie, who convinced her that he would call and check on Cynthia himself.
Just like Julia, Charlie could barely understand Cynthia. He suspected she might be having a stroke (中风) — he recognized the signs from when his own father had suffered one. Charlie immediately became concerned that Cynthia's two grandchildren, ages six and eight, were probably home alone with her and scared. Charlie asked his office manager to send an ambulance to the grandmother's home.
The quick response from Julia and Charlie saved Cynthia's life. She arrived at the hospital in time to get treatment before long-term damage occurred. Thanks to an extended stay in the hospital, she has regained most of the movement throughout her body except for one hand and a region of her mouth.
“I'm proud of the people I work with, that they responded so quickly and that it did make a difference to Cynthia,” says Julia. “I am so pleased to be part of such a caring community.” But the school's crisis response is only one piece of the community's extraordinary efforts to help Cynthia and her granddaughters. Another family with young children took in the two girls.
Virtual learning has been a challenge across the country, but it's fair to say that it has helped the community grow closer. Many teachers there gave their personal phone numbers to students and families in case they needed extra help. In this case, the exchange was literally life-altering.
1. Cynthia called Julia in order to .| A．complain about the poor contents of online learning |
| B．consult about her granddaughter's academic performance |
| C．seek some help for lack of certain technical knowledge |
| D．volunteer her services as a teacher in an online classroom |
| A．brief |
| B．unclear |
| C．gentle |
| D．impolite |
| A．By recalling his own previous sufferings from the disease. |
| B．By using his professional knowledge to form the judgment. |
| C．By combining Julia's call with the granddaughters' description. |
| D．By identifying the symptoms that a stroke patient may have. |
| A．It has caused much inconvenience to parents. |
| B．It will bring about unavoidable leak of privacy. |
| C．It has provided more benefits than challenges. |
| D．It needs technical guidance to be highly effective. |
2 . Nothing succeeds like success, as every parent of a straight-A student knows, but trying to stress academic excellence by telling your child, “You’re so smart!” may be counterproductive. Why? According to a 2017 study, children who think their intelligence is fixed are less likely to pay attention to and bounce back（重新振作）from mistakes than children who think intelligence can grow and change.
In the study, researchers looked at 123 children. The team assessed the children to determine whether they had a “growth mindset”(believing that you can work harder to get smarter), or a “fixed mindset” (believing that your intelligence is unable to change). They then asked the children to complete a fast-paced computer accuracy task while their brain activity was recorded. During the recording, researchers noted that brain activity stopped within a half-second after making a mistake, as children became aware of their mistake and paid closer attention to what went wrong. The larger the brain response was, the more the child focused on the mistake. Based on the data, they concluded that children with a “growth mindset” were much more likely to have a larger brain response after making a mistake. While children with a “fixed mindset” were able to “bounce back”, only if they gave their full attention to the mistake.
For parents, the lessons are clear. Don’t pay your children compliments that suggest that intelligence is fixed. If your child hands you an A+ score, don’t say, “You’re so smart!” Instead, say, “Wow, that studying really paid off!” or “You clearly mastered this material-way to go!” Note the effort, not the intelligence.
Besides, many parent shy away from addressing a child’s mistakes, telling them “It’s OK. ”You’ll get it next time. ” without offering them the chances to figure out what goes wrong. Instead, it’s better to reassure your children that mistakes happen, and work to figure out where and how they make the mistake.
1. Which of the following best explains “counterproductive” underlined in paragraph 1?| A．Opposite | B．Competitive |
| C．Successful | D．Unknown |
| A．They made fewer mistakes. | B．They tried to avoid mistakes |
| C．They had smaller brain response | D．They focused more on the mistake. |
| A．You are so careless |
| B．Paying compliments to children |
| C．You’ll get it the next time |
| D．Let’s find out how you made it. |
| A．Overstressing the intelligence. |
| B．Pay compliment to children. |
| C．Addressing children’s mistakes. |
| D．Offering chances to find mistakes. |
3 . Digital technology（数字技术）has made life easier for most people. With a smartphone in hand, people can shop online, watch TV shows and arrange a taxi.
Zhu Yiwei, 17, from Anhui province, wanted his grandfather to have access to this convenience, so he bought him a new phone as a gift. But his grandfather still uses the phone just for calling and messaging. “He said other functions make him confused, ”said Zhu.
This is a common problem faced by the elderly in the digital age.
Although China already has more than 900 million internet users, among them, those aged 60 and above make up just 6.7 percent, according to the Statistical Report on Internet Development.
Even though the elderly have access to the internet, they mainly do it for communication and information acquisition（获取），according to a survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Other services are still strange to them. That’s why elderly people are sometimes called “digital refugees（难民）”.
For example, since the COVID-19 pandemic, people are often asked to show a green health code on their phone to get into public places. But most elderly people don't use smartphones. Even if they have one, many don't know how to operate it, People's Daily noted.
“We have made a lifelong contribution to society, but now we feel abandoned by it,”a 75-year-old Beijing resident surnamed Bai told the Global Times.
For the elderly, one way of mastering digital technology is to learn from younger family members. However, not all of these younger people have the patience or time to teach the elderly. In addition, aging results in many physical problems, such as weak eyesight and bad memory. This makes it harder to use smartphones.
The government and other organizations in China are trying to help. See Young, a Beijing-based NGO, aims to help China's elderly use mobile services. Student volunteers have been providing free computer and smartphone training for elderly people in over 200 communities across the country.
Zhao Jingchuan, 17, from Xi'an Gaoxin No 1 High School, and his team members also tried to help. This year, their draft proposal（草拟提案）was brought to the two sessions. They suggested more ways to help introduce the technology to the older generation, including sending manuals(手册），offering technical support, and cybersecurity(网络安全）education.
1. Why is Zhu Yiwei's example mentioned in the second paragraph?| A．To praise him for caring for the elderly. |
| B．To show how the elderly use phones. |
| C．To tell about how the young and the elderly get along. |
| D．To present the topic of the difficulties elderly people face in the digital age. |
| A．they hardly have opportunities to use the internet |
| B．they have trouble using digital technology |
| C．they are unwilling to use new technology |
| D．they don't have suitable digital products |
| A．Attacked. |
| B．Defeated. |
| C．Left behind. |
| D．Held back. |
| A．The expectations of the elderly in the digital age. |
| B．The advantages of digital technology for the elderly. |
| C．The efforts made to help the elderly use technology. |
| D．The help young people provided for the elderly. |
4 . The joy of giving is real, according to a study. Research presented in the Journal of the Association for Psychological Science shows that those who give gifts are happier — and happier for longer — than those who receive gifts.
Researchers conducted two studies last year. In one，participants were given $5 every day for five days and were required to spend the money on the same thing each day. Some participants were required to spend the money on themselves, while others were required to give to make a donation to charity. In a second experiment that was done online, participants played 10 rounds of a word puzzle game and each won 5 cents per round, which they could keep or donate.
In both experiments, participants reported their overall happiness. Those who donated their money showed that their happiness declined at a much slower rate than those who kept the money or spent it on themselves.
The researchers note that when people focus on an outcome, they can easily compare outcomes, which may diminish their sensitivity to each experience. When people focus on an action, they may focus less on comparison and instead experience each act of giving as a unique happiness-inducing event. Further analyses ruled out some potential alternative explanations, such as the possibility that participants who gave to others had to think longer and harder about what to give, which could promote higher happiness.
The results are especially interesting because according to one of the researchers, Ed O’Brien of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, they conflict with past research. “If you want to sustain happiness over time, past research tells us that we need to take a break from what were currently consuming and experience something new. Our research reveals that the kind of thing may matter more than assumed: Repeated giving, even in identical ways to identical other，may continue to feel relatively fresh and relatively pleasurable the more we do it,” O’Brien said.
So for all the holiday gifts you give this season, expect to feel happy and know that feeling is going to stick around for a while.
1. What’s the function of the first paragraph?| A．To lead to the topic. |
| B．To highlight the importance of the study. |
| C．To recommend a journal. |
| D．To persuade people to give gifts regularly. |
| A．To challenge the past research. |
| B．To rule out different experimental data. |
| C．To show the benefits of donation. |
| D．To make the conclusion more convincing. |
| A．Develop. | B．Show. | C．Reduce. | D．Lack. |
| A．Gift giving will result in longer happiness than receiving. |
| B．Thinking longer and harder on giving will promote higher happiness. |
| C．The feeling of happiness will disappear soon if people just give holiday gifts. |
| D．Taking a break from what were currently consuming will sustain happiness. |
5 . Being trapped in an elevator(电梯) can be one of the worst experiences of one’s life. Some people who have such experiences may be afraid to use elevator again. In fact, there are some useful tips to follow when people are in trouble with the elevator.
First, take deep breaths and keep calm. Too much fear will add to your panic(恐慌) and make you too nervous to think clearly. Tell yourself to be patient and believe that nothing is impossible.
Secondly, use the emergency(急救) call inside the elevator or your mobile phone to let people outside know your are stuck in the elevator. There is an emergency call on the wall of each elevator. You may use your mobile phone to give light and find it. The phone number can be found around it.
Thirdly, putting on messages on Wechat(微信) is also a good idea to allow more people to find you are in need of help. If help hasn’t come, knock the door hard to get attention from other people in the building.
Fourthly, move less and try to relax. Even if the workers have known your situation, it may take them a long time to repair the elevator and bring you back to safety. Instead of keeping moving all the time, you are advised to keep still and relax yourself as much as possible, or you will make yourself tired out. Make sure that you are fine when the door is open.
1. According to the passage, when in trouble with an elevator, you should________ first.| A．Keep calm and think clearly | B．do nothing but wait |
| C．shout out for help | D．try to break the door open |
| A．tired | B．kept |
| C．troubled | D．trapped |
| A．they can spend their time easily |
| B．their situations can be known by more people |
| C．they can become less nervous |
| D．they can make more friends |
| A．To introduce how to use an elevator. |
| B．To teach us how to save ourselves when trapped in an elevator. |
| C．To warn us not to take an elevator. |
| D．To tell us an elevator often goes wrong. |
6 . 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. |
7 . Men hunted.Women gathered. But the discovery of a woman buried 9,000 years ago in the Andes Mountains with weapons and hunting tools challenges this widely accepted view. The woman, thought to be between 17 and 19 years old when she died, was buried with items that suggested she hunted big-game animals by spear (矛) throwing.
The objects accompanying people in death tend to be those that accompanied them in life. Although some scholars have suggested a role for women in ancient hunting, others have dismissed this idea even when hunting tools were uncovered in female burials.
To examine whether this woman found at this site was an exception, the researchers examined 429 skeletons at 107 burial sites from around 8,000 to 14,000 years ago. Of those, 27 individuals were buried with hunting tools—11 were female and 15 were male. The sample was sufficient to “justify the conclusion that female participation in early big-game hunting was likely nontrivial,” said lead study author Haas.
The findings add to doubts about “man-the-hunter” assumption about early humans since the mid-20th century. That theory assumes that it was men who went out and hunted, bringing home meat to feed women and children, who were responsible for gathering berries, plants and nuts to enrich the dict.
But recent research suggests hunting was very much a community-based activity, needing the participation of all able-bodied individuals to drive large animals, the study said. Meanwhile, the spears used at that time had low accuracy, encouraging participation, and using it was a skill learned from childhood. Women may also have been freed from child care demands by “allo-parenting”—raising children was a job shared by many.
“Our findings have made me rethink the most basic organizational structure of ancient hunter-gatherer groups, and human groups more generally,” Haas said.
1. The discovery of the buried woman shows ________.| A．she was killed by a big-game animal | B．she might use hunting tools when alive |
| C．women were good at throwing spears | D．women were buried alone after death |
| A．limited | B．direct | C．significant | D．passive |
①allo-parenting ②big-game hunting ③tasks of gathering ④less accurate tools
| A．①②③ | B．②③④ | C．①③④ | D．①②④ |
| A．most of our ancestors were buried with hunting tools |
| B．we should reconsider previous views on human groups |
| C．division of labor in hunter-gatherer society remains unchanged |
| D．the tomb found in the Andes justifies “man-the-hunter” assumption |
8 . I made an important decision when I was in Junior 3.
Before I made that decision, I was one of the boys who tried too hard to act as an adult. I didn't know that only kids want to show themselves as adults.
I didn't listen to my parents and teachers, and my grades became poor. Then came the high school entrance exam.
At the turning point of my life, my mom wanted to have a conversation with me. I wanted to turn it down but when I looked at her eyes, I felt I couldn't refuse. Instead of asking me to study hard, to my surprise, Mom just asked what I wanted to do in the future. Without thinking too much, I just said I would like to study hard.
Mom smiled and asked again: “I asked: what do you WANT to do？”
I never seriously thought about the question. So, I kept silent.
“Whether you want to go on studying or enter the society, ” she went on, “it is your own decision. Your life should be decided by you, not by anyone else, including me.” After saying that, she had tears in her eyes.
For the first time in my life, I was asked to make my own decision. I sat in my chair and thought about myself, my life and what kind of person I wanted to become.
It took me what seemed to be ages to make the biggest decision so far in my life—I wanted to be a man who makes a difference in the world. To achieve that, I needed to study hard.
The path to my future became clear to me. I didn't act rebelliously any more. With passion in my heart, I studied hard. Now, I'm one of the best students in the class.
Thanks to that decision, I have become what I am today.
1. When did the boy make an important decision?| A．When he was in Junior 3. | B．When he was in high school. |
| C．A year ago. | D．When he was 17. |
| A．乘客 | B．激情 | C．传递 | D．反对 |
| A．She taught the boy the importance of study. | B．She had a big fight with the boy. |
| C．She had a conversation with the boy. | D．She told the boy to study hard. |
| A．The boy's grades were poor before he made the decision. |
| B．The boy's mother didn't force him to study hard. |
| C．He wanted to make a difference in the world. |
| D．The boy's mother made a decision for the boy. |
9 . Light pollution is a significant but overlooked driver of the rapid decline of insect populations, according to the most comprehensive review of the scientific evidence to date.
Artificial light at night can affect every aspect of insects' lives, the researchers said. "We strongly believe artificial light at night — in combination with habitat loss, chemical pollution.invasive (入侵的) species, and climate change — is driving insect declines, " the scientists concluded after assessing more than 150 studies.
Insect population collapses have been reported around the world, and the first global scientific review published in February, said widespread declines threatened to cause a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems".
There are thought to be millions of insect species, most still unknown to science, and about half are active at night. Those active in the day may also be disturbed by light at night when they are at rest.
The most familiar impact of light pollution is moths (飞蛾) flapping around a bulb, mistaking it for the moon. Some insects use the polarisation of light to find the water they need to breed, as light waves line up after reflecting from a smooth surface. But artificial light can scupper (使泡汤) this. Insects are important prey (猎物) for many species, but light pollution can tip the balance in favour of the predator if it traps insects around lights. Such increases in predation risk were likely to cause the rapid extinction of affected species, the researchers said.
The researchers said most human-caused threats to insects have analogues in nature, such as climate change and invasive species. But light pollution is particularly hard for insects to deal with.
However, unlike other drivers of decline, light pollution is relatively easy to prevent. Simply turning off lights that are not needed is the most obvious action, he said, while making lights motion-activated also cuts light pollution. Shading lights so only the area needed is lit up is important. It is the same with avoiding blue-white lights, which interfere with daily rhythms. LED lights also offer hope as they can be easily tuned to avoid harmful colours and flicker rates.
1. What is discussed in the passage?| A．Causes of declining insect populations. |
| B．Consequences of insect population collapses. |
| C．Light pollution: the key bringer of insect declines. |
| D．Insect declines: the driver of the collapsed ecosystem. |
| A．How light travels in space. |
| B．How light helps insects find food. |
| C．How the food chain is interrelated. |
| D．How light pollution affects insects. |
| A．Selective things. | B．Similar things. | C．Variations. | D．Limitations. |
| A．To offer solutions. |
| B．To give examples. |
| C．To make comparisons. |
| D．To present arguments. |
10 . Scientists have been trying to figure out how to alter the genes of humans for many years, and it looks like they’ve finally cracked (破解) the code. But while this may seem like a great step forward in science, some also believe that it’s one step back when it comes to ethics (道德准则). In August, a group of scientists from the USA and South Korea worked together to successfully edit a human embryo (胚胎) and remove a genetic mutation (突变) that would have led to heart disease, reported The Guardian. This was done with the help of CRISPR, a gene-editing tool that allows scientists to “cut and paste” human DNA.
Although this was the first example of an embryo’s genes being changed successfully, the advantages of gene editing have already been tested in living patients. In 2015, a five-month-old girl from the UK was saved after doctors used edited cells to fight off her cancer. As of today, she’s alive and well. And in the USA last year, scientists managed to remove HIV cells from several patients by editing the genes inside their bodies.
Some people hope that in the future, diseases or birth defects could simply be "edited out”. However, others believe this could lead to so-called designer babies, giving parents the option to choose everything from eye color to intelligence. “You could find wealthy parents buying the latest “upgrades” for their children, leading to even greater inequality than we already live with,” Marcy Camovsky, director of the San Francisco Center for Genetics, told BBC News.
In spite of these ethical concerns, experts say it’s not possible to create the “perfect” human being. Despite the progress scientists have made, we don’t understand human genes enough to give all unborn children great brainpower or amazing singing abilities. “Right now, we know nothing about genetic enhancement,” Hank Greely, a director at Stanford University, USA, told The New York Times. “We’re never going to be able to say, honestly, this embryo looks like it would score high on the two-part SAT.”
So it looks like if we want good exam results, or to impress people with our piano skills, we’ll have to stick with the old fashioned method of plain hard work---at least for now.
1. The underlined word “alter” in Paragraph 1 probably means ________.| A．record | B．change | C．remove | D．increase |
| A．A genetic mutation related to heart disease was removed by scientists. |
| B．A newborn baby with cancer was saved by edited cells. |
| C．HIV cells were removed from patients9 bodies. |
| D．Some birth defects were simply edited out. |
| A．They don’t think it is an effective way to fight diseases. |
| B．They are concerned that it could lead to genetic mutations. |
| C．They think it could lead to designer babies and increased inequality. |
| D．They worry that it could make parents abandon children with birth defects. |
| A．Gene editing is regarded as the perfect way to treat birth defects. |
| B．There is still a long way to go to fully understand human genes. |
| C．Gene editing could help enhance human intelligence in the near future. |
| D．Scientists are pessimistic (悲观的) about the future of gene editing. |
