1 . For most people, graduation is an exciting day the celebration of years of hard work. My graduation day... was not.
I remember that weekend two years ago. Family and friends had flown in from across the country to watch our class walk across that stage. But like everyone else in my graduating class, I had watched the economy turn from bad to worse. What I thought would take a week dragged into two. and then four, and 100 job applications later, I found myself in the exact same spot as 1 was before. And the due date to begin paying back my student loans was creeping ever closer.
You know that feeling when you wake up and you are just consumed with fear? Fear about something you can't control—that sense of approaching failure that remains over you as you hope that everything that happened to you thus far was just a bad dream? That feeling became a constant in my life. And the most frustrating part was no matter how much 1 tried, 1 just couldn't seem to make any progress.
So what did I do to maintain my sanity（理智）？ I wrote. Something about putting words on a page made everything seem a little clearer—a little brighter. Something about writing gave me hope. And if you want something badly enough... sometimes a little hope is all you need! So I channeled my frustration into a children's book. And then one day, without any sort of writing degree or contacts in the writing world — just a lol of hard work and perseverance—I was offered a publishing contract for my first book! After that, things slowly began to fall into place. 1 was offered a second book deal. Then, a few months later, I got an interview with The Walt Disney Company and was hired shortly after.
The moral of this story is... don't give up. Even if things look bleak now, don't give up. Things change If you work hard, give it time, and don't give up, things will always get better Oftentimes all we need is the courage to push beyond the river.
1. From Paragraph 2, we can learn that the author probably.| A．was having an exciting graduation |
| B．was getting into financial difficulties |
| C．missed the life in the university |
| D．had just applied for the student loans |
| A．By sending applications. | B．By offering contracts. |
| C．By keeping writing. | D．By publishing books. |
| A．unattractive | B．hopeless |
| C．thrilling | D．promising |
| A．Success belongs to the persevering. |
| B．A contented mind is a perpetual（长久的）feast. |
| C．A smooth sea never makes a skillful mariner. |
| D．Misfortunes tell us what fortune is. |
2 . In a large survey of people's first memories, nearly 40% of participants reported a first memory that is likely to be fictional, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Current research indicates that people's earliest memories date from around 3 to 3. 5 years of age. However, the study from researchers at City, University of London, the University of Bradford, and Nottingham Trent University found that 38.6% of 6, 641 participants claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger, with 893 people claiming memories from age 1 or younger. This was particularly prevalent among middle-aged and older adults.
As many of these memories dated before the age of 2 and younger, the authors suggest that these fictional memories are based on remembered fragments(碎片) of early experience—such as a pram(婴儿车)，family relationships and feeling sad—and some facts or knowledge about their own infancy or childhood which may have been derived from photographs or family conversations.
“Further details may be unconsciously inferred or added, e. g. that one was wearing nappy when standing in the cot(幼儿床)," added Shazia Akhatr, first author on the study and Senior Research Associate at the University of Bradford.
“When we looked through the responses from participants we found that a lot of these first 'memories' were frequently related to infancy, and a typical example would be a memory based around a pram," explained Martin Conway, Director at the Centre for Memory and Law at City, University of London and coauthor of the paper.
“For this person, this type of memory could have resulted from someone saying something like 'mother and a large green pram'. The person then imagines what it would have looked like. Over time these fragments then become a memory and often the person will start to add things in such as a string of toys along the top," he added.
"Crucially, the person remembering them doesn't know this is fictional," Conway noted. "In fact when people are told that their memories are false they often don't believe it. This partly due to the fact that the systems that allow us to remember things are very complex, and it's not until we're 5 or 6 that we form adult-like memories due to the way that the brain develops and due to our maturing understanding of the world.
1. What does the underlined word "prevalent" in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Unique. | B．Crazy. | C．Common. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．Some people have clear knowledge about their own infancy. |
| B．Added details are an important clue to recall the childhood. |
| C．Most people claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger. |
| D．Talks between family members influence the earliest memories. |
| A．By making comparison. | B．By setting examples. |
| C．By analyzing data. | D．By referring to documents. |
| A．Many people's earliest memories may be fictional. |
| B．People's earliest memories can date back to 2 or younger. |
| C．The middle-aged and adults specialize in detailing their first memory. |
| D．Memories develop due to our maturing understanding of the world. |
3 . Fou Ts'ong, a Chinese-born pianist known for his sensitive interpretations of Chopin, Debussy and Mozart.died on Monday at a hospital in London, where he had lived for many years. He was 86.
A lover of classical music from a young age, Mr. Fou began taking piano lessons when he was 7. Mr. Fou made his first stage appearance in 1952. The concert caught the attention of officials in Beijing, who selected him to compete and tour in Eastern Europe. Mr. Fou soon moved to Poland, where he studied at the Warsaw Conservatory(音乐学校)on a scholarship. To prepare for the fifth Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1955.he practiced so diligently that he hurt his fingers and was nearly cut from the first round of the competition.
Mr. Fou was one of the first Chinese pianists to achieve global prominence when he took the third place in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955. He also won a special prize for his performance of Chopin's mazurkas(马祖卜舞曲). Almost overnight, he became a national hero. To China, Mr. Fou's recognition in a well-known international competition was proof that the country could stand on its own artistically in the West. Chinese reporters flocked to interview Mr. Fou, while many others sought out his father, Fu Lei, for advice on child-rearing.
In 1981, a volume of letters written by his father, primarily to Mr. Fou, was published in China. Full of advice, encouragement, life teachings and strict paternal love, the book Fu Lei's Family, Letters became a best-seller in China. Besides influencing a generation of Chinese, Mr. Fu's words resonated(共鸣)long after his death with the person for whom they were intended.
"My father had a saying that 'First you must be a person, then an artist, and then a musician, and only then can you be a pianist.'" Mr. Fou once recalled in an interview. "Even now, I believe in this order-that it should be this way and that I am this way."
1. What can be learned from Paragraph 2?| A．Fou Ts'ong competed and toured in Beijing. |
| B．Fou Ts'ong first performed on the stage at 7. |
| C．Fou Ts'ong made great efforts for competitions. |
| D．Fou Ts'ong started learning music in Eastern Europe. |
| A．It earns Chinese art a place in the West. |
| B．It promotes the spread of Chinese culture. |
| C．It proves Chinese people's talent for music. |
| D．It enables Chinese art education to be recognized. |
| A．Mr. Fu's words. | B．Young Chinese. |
| C．Fou Ts'ong and his family. | D．Readers of Fu Lei's Family Letters. |
| A．Pursuing art is a long and painful process. |
| B．It requires various qualities to be a pianist. |
| C．Everyone should develop an interest in art. |
| D．Talent is of the greatest importance for a pianist. |
4 . When Ma Hu was chosen for a baseball training camp in Beijing, the 12-year-old didn't have the slightest idea how baseball was played or even what a baseball field looked like.
The son of a migrant worker in Ningxia, northwest China didn't have enough warmth of family. In the past, he was a headache for the teachers at school, acting up in the class and fighting with classmates during break time.
"I was lost at the street crossing and got picked up by the camp people" is how Ma describes how he came to join the training camp run by the Power Baseball Angel project. It was launched by Sun Lingfeng, former captain of the men's national baseball team, in 2015 to provide professional training to children from poor households and remote areas.
When Ma joined the camp, it had only 16 boys. They were told those who could get into the national top three would qualify for college admission. Other good players could join professional baseball teams. Still others could work at the base, leaching the newcomers.
Ma, now 15, has become a professional baseball player with a bright future. His story, including his early days when he fought with his teammates and ignored the coaches instructions, is part of an award-winning documentary Tough Out on the young baseball players at the camp, which was released in December 2020.
The documentary focuses on the team of underprivileged and abandoned children who struggled to learn a new sport and build a new life for themselves while fighting low self-esteem（自尊）and pursuing their dreams. It is dedicated to people who work hard silently, seize every opportunity and refuse to admit defeat.
1. Why did Sun Lingfeng start the Power Baseball Angel project?| A．To promote baseball in big cities of China |
| B．To train children who are fond of baseball. |
| C．To select players for the national baseball team |
| D．To offer poor kids professional baseball training |
| A．Promising. | B．Independent | C．Caring. | D．Honest. |
| A．Naughty. | B．Disadvantaged | C．Outgoing. | D．Ambitious |
| A．A Moving Story of a Baseball Camp Founder |
| B．An Award-winning Documentary on Baseball |
| C．Potential Boys Fighting Hard for College Dreams |
| D．Poor Youngsters Staying Ahead through Baseball |
5 . Waterbuurt is a residential(住宅的) development in Amsterdam, which consists of nearly 100 floating homes on Lake Eimer.
The floating homes are not ordinary houseboats but real floating houses. They only move with the changing tide(潮水). Designed by Dutch architect Marlies Rohmer, the houses have a basic design but are also comfortable. Although Waterbuurt is still a work in progress, there are some of the houses where there are already residents.
Two thirds of the Netherlands’ people live below sea-level, and with the flooding(发洪水) becoming a serious concern, there are many who believe that living on water in the European country is much safer than living on land. The prices of land homes in large city centers like Amsterdam has risen in recent years. But water is not that expensive.
“Moreover, houses in the cities have to stay there for 50 or 70 years,” Dutch architect Koen Olthuis said. “And as cities change, the only choice is to demolish these houses and build new ones. But floating buildings can be moved and adapted.”
The floating homes are built atop underwater platforms, and consists of a light steel frame(钢架) and wooden walls and paneling(嵌板). The bedrooms and bathroom are located on the lower floor, which is partially flooded. The kitchen and dining room are located on the higher ground floor, while the main living area and the outdoor terrace are on the top level.
All floating homes are designed with a lot of extras that buyers can choose, like floating terraces,a second entry, or a boardwalk around the house.
Waterbuurt is set to become the largest water settlement in the history of the Netherlands. Apart from floating houses, it will include floating parks and even floating high buildings. It is sure to meet even the most difficult buyers and win more acceptance from local people.
1. What can we infer about the floating houses?| A．The prices are slightly lower. | B．They are free from flooding. |
| C．They are easy to take down. | D．The total completion is done. |
| A．Build. | B．Destroy. | C．Design. | D．Buy. |
| A．Waterbuurt can exist for 50 to 70 years in total. |
| B．Waterbuurt is very common in Amsterdam now. |
| C．People are unwilling to accept this new kind of house. |
| D．Floating houses have as many functions as traditional houses. |
| A．Curious. | B．Optimistic. | C．Indifferent | D．Pessimistic. |
6 . Liu Jingyang, a 28-year-old bank clerk living in Beijing, loves watching food shows on live-streaming platform after a long day at work. She feels that viewing the vloggers (视频博主）eating is very relaxing at bedtime. “It’s a very healing process to just think about nothing while watching people eat all that colorful and inviting food and seeing their overreactions as they enjoy it,” Liu told Beijing Review. She said she is also curious about how people can eat more than 10 times what she can.
However, some of these big eaters have recently been caught “fake eating,” vomiting (呕吐）after pretending to have eaten, leading to much food waste. They immediately came under fire from the public. The anger was fueled because many critics are aware that approximately one in nine people in the world are starving, based on statistics from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
In addition, food-wasting food shows are misleading because they go against the virtue of thriftiness, Cheng Shengkui, a researcher at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV).
Before gaining popularity in China in about 2014, food shows were already big hits in countries such as the Republic of Korea and Japan. The mouth-watering treats and large meals are the main reasons for attracting viewers, according to a paper published in 2018 in Today’s Massmedia, a Chinese academic journal.
The big eaters’ income mainly comes from advertisements, donations or tips by viewers, or sales of products. But as the market became more profitable, some people who can’t really eat a huge amount of food, but still wanted to grab the money from audiences and advertisers, began to resort to fake eating.
With more media reports exposing dishonest acts and food waste, the industry has had to undergo reform. Several live-streaming platforms have announced that they will strengthen inspection of food shows, while some live-streamers voiced opposition to food waste and advocated thriftiness.
1. Why does the author mention Liu Jingyang in the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the topic of food waste. |
| B．To show why food-eating programs are popular. |
| C．To begin a discussion on ways to reduce food waste. |
| D．To show vloggers from an ordinary person’s perspective. |
| A．Eating smartly. | B．Living healthily. |
| C．Valuing life. | D．Being economical. |
| A．To get relaxation. | B．To make more money. |
| C．To attract more viewers. | D．To become famous. |
| A．They will be cancelled. | B．They will be expanded in time. |
| C．They will be carefully monitored. | D．They will experience ups and downs. |
7 . Amanda had just come home from school. Exhausted but looking forward to receiving an email from her friend in New Zealand, she turned on her computer and waited impatiently for it to start up. As she waited, she began thinking about the times she spent with Bridget, her best friend, since primary one. Just then, an envelop popped out on her screen. Amanda sat up and clicked on the “Inbox” bar, expecting to see her friend's usual email.
Amanda was surprised to see the email address belonging to Bridget's brother in bold at the top of a row of emails in her inbox. He seldom wrote to her because he was much older and they had nothing in common. A feeling of dread passed through her but she ignored it.
“It was probably nothing,” she said as she clicked on the email. What she saw was totally unexpected. It was a short email. He simply said that Bridget had been in a serious car accident and was hospitalized in the intensive care unit. He would write again later. Amanda's jaw dropped and her fingers that had been so busy clicking the mouse buttons earlier slid off the computer table.
At a loss as to what to do, Amanda hurriedly typed an email in response. She asked Bridget's brother for more information about the accident and Bridget's condition. Amanda's eyes brimmed with tears that threatened to flow down her cheeks. She could not help remembering that Bridget had told her of her plans to return to Singapore to visit her. She wanted to call Bridget’s brother immediately but it was only then that she realized she did not have his number.
Sitting up, she clicked on the 'Inbox' bar to check her incoming message again. However, the sign 'No New Message' flashed at the bottom of her screen.
1. What can we know about Amanda from Paragraph 1&2?| A．She missed her best friend Bridget very much. |
| B．She was happy to hear from Bridget’s brother. |
| C．She hasn't contacted her friend Bridget for long. |
| D．She has never heard from Bridget’s brother before. |
| A．Loneliness. | B．Fear. | C．Regret. | D．Relief. |
| A．Excited. | B．Disappointed. | C．Surprised. | D．Concerned. |
| A．A Shocking Email | B．A Car Accident |
| C．A Terrible Day | D．A True Friend |
8 . While Charlotte Uhlenbroek loves the adventure, she is also glad to be back in civilization, at least for the moment.
She's just finished filming a TV series called jungle-a 19-week job that involved her exploring the dense jungles of the Congo, the Amazon and Borneo. She says that it was fascinating, but daunting as well. So what was her most challenging experience? “Definitely climbing an 80-metre-high tree in Borneo, when I'm scared of heights! I had to keep going up and up, when a voice inside me was saying, ‘Down! Down!’ I kept thinking the ropes were going to break and send me down below.”
And “down below” was where the bugs were — clinging, stinging, sucking beasts. Apart from the usual mosquitoes, in the Amazon rainforest she was troubled by sand-fly bites. “I've had some horrible bites but these really are the itchiest bites I've ever had. At one stage, I counted 70 bites on one arm,” she says. “Just as annoying were the sweat bees in the Congo. They try to drink the sweat on your face and even the tears from your eyes. The most disgusting thing, though, was try to pull the leeches off your skin. The more I pulled, the more they stretched and the tighter their jaws clung to my leg. I kept shouting, ‘Get them off!’ and the film crew kept saying, ‘Just one minute...this makes a really good shot!’”
Back in London, what has she been enjoying since her return to “civilization”? “I've been having lots of nice, long showers,” she says. “In the Congo, the possibility of using up our water supplies was always a worrying thought. And I find that when I've been in hot, uncomfortable conditions for a while, the things I look forward to more than anything else are being with my family and enjoying my favourite meal.”
1. Why does Charlotte explore the jungles?| A．She enjoys taking adventures. |
| B．She takes part in shooting a TV series. |
| C．She wants to challenge herself. |
| D．She is interested in the jungle bugs. |
| A．Inspiring | B．Frightening |
| C．Exhausting | D．Rewarding |
| A．She climbed tall trees with the help of ropes. |
| B．The film crew helped her to get the leeches from her leg. |
| C．The mosquito bites she had were the worst bites she'd ever had. |
| D．when she gets home, she loves doing the cooking for her family. |
| A．Bitten By The Jungle Bug |
| B．Exploring The Amazon Jungle |
| C．Return To “Civilization” |
| D．What A Jungle Journey! |
9 . A sleepover (过夜) program, which is designed to make kids believe that their favorite toys enjoy reading, can help encourage children to pick up more books, a new study suggests.
Toys sleepover programs are designed to get children interested in books. Children take their toys to a library for the night. At this point, workers and volunteers take photos of the toys which explore the library and read books. The next day, the children collect their toys and the photos of what the toys did during the night. They are given the books their toys chose to read.
It was found that before the sleepover the children did not spend time looking at the books in their play area at preschool. Immediately after the sleepover, the number of children who read to the toys was higher than the number who did not, but after three days the effect decreased gradually.
The researchers also tested a method for sustaining the effect. They reminded the children of the sleepover a month later, by hiding the toys and showing them the photos again the next day. This simple method brought an increase in the number of children reading to their toys.
The study proves for the first time that children who take part in sleepover programs read picture books to their toys more. “We wanted to know if there really was an effect, and if so, how long it lasts. Surprisingly, not only did the children show interest in the books, but they also began to read to their toys. This means that a new behavior pattern appeared that the children hadn’t had before. We did not expect anything like this,” said one of the researchers.
Reading is important for the development of children’s language skills and imagination. When parents read to their children, it is a passive way of reading for the child. However, when children read to their toys, it is a more active, self-directed way of reading, helping them develop into more active readers, researchers said.
1. What is the purpose of the sleepover program?| A．To develop children’s language skills. |
| B．To help children to sleep well. |
| C．To encourage children to read more. |
| D．To guide children to form a good sleeping habit. |
| A．Go around the library with their toys. |
| B．Sleep with their toys. |
| C．Read together with their toys. |
| D．Take their toys to the library. |
| A．keeping | B．testing | C．surveying | D．showing |
| A．Children showed no interest in the books. |
| B．The effect of the sleepover program could last long. |
| C．Children began to read to their toys on their own. |
| D．Whether the sleepover program had an effect remained unknown. |
10 . It is good news that you didn't get hit by China's Tiangong-1 space station when it fell to Earth on April 1. The not-so-good news is that there's a lot more space debris (碎片) where that came from.All the same, you can take off your hard hat, because your chances of getting struck are extremely small.
At any moment, there are more than 500,000 pieces of space debris orbiting(沿轨道运行) Earth. Some are no bigger than a millimeter or two; others—like Tiangong-1, which was the size of a school bus—are a potential threat. But the reason why none of these presents a danger is that when satellites reach the end of their useful lives, they can be controlled and sent on dives to the middle of the ocean. It's when something goes wrong—when communications are lost or fuel is exhausted—that re-entry becomes a crapshoot (运气). That's what happened when NASA's Skylab space station fell to Earth in 1979. Even in those situations, the odds are very much on safety's side. Roughly 70% of Earth's surface is water, and much of its landmass is unpopulated.
If you're still worried, take comfort in some numbers: in the long history of spaceflight, only one person has ever gotten on the wrong side of a piece of falling space junk.That was Lottie Williams of Tulsa, Okla, who was conked on the shoulder by a piece of a Delta II rocket in 1997. She was unhurt.
According to the Aerospace Corp, a nonprofit group that tracked Tiangong-1's fall, the likelihood of an individual being hit by space debris is less than 1 in 1 trillion.The European Space Agency says getting struck by lightning is 10 million times as likely as the 1-in-300 trillion odds of being hit by space debris.
1. What does the second paragraph talk about?| A．Different sizes of space debris and where they land |
| B．Causes of the space debris orbiting the earth |
| C．reasons for not fearing being hit by space debris. |
| D．Effects of space debris not diving to the ocean |
| A．struck | B．cooked | C．hurt | D．fell |
| A．Doubtful | B．Uncaring | C．worried | D．relaxed |
| A．Falling space debris: a threat to our life |
| B．Falling space debris: stop fearing being hit |
| C．Falling space debris: put on your hard hat |
| D．Falling space debris: get on the right side |
