1 . Chinese-language teacher Xie Fang is excited that one of her former students from Indonesia has been admitted to Beijing Language and Culture University. The 19-year-old student, Alvin Rizqi Adrian, achieved his dream of studying in China with a scholarship provided by the Chinese government.
Xie met the boy five years ago when she was selected to teach Chinese at Budi Utama Three Languages National School in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The school, founded in 2006 by local Chinese, teaches in three languages - Indonesian, English and Chinese. The school has more than 970 primary, middle and high students, half of whom have Chinese ancestry.
Xie taught students to speak and comprehend Chinese during her year at the school. “Most Indonesian children start to learn Chinese after they enter primary school,” Xie said. “But the textbooks from Singapore seemed relatively difficult for them at that stage.” Xie modified the content of the textbooks to make it easier and more interesting for the Indonesian children to learn Chinese.
One student in particular, Alvin Rizqi Adrian, impressed Xie a great deal. “At that time, he was a middle school student. He was so interested in Chinese that he worked very hard to learn and practice,” she said. Since 2004, Guangdong has sent 1, 000 Chinese teachers to more than 30 Chinese schools in 10 countries and regions.
Indonesia has the largest number of Chinese teachers sent from Guangdong, who mainly work in kindergartens, schools and universities founded by overseas Chinese. They usually spend one to two years on the foreign assignment. 11 Those days in Indonesia made me feel very appreciated. The local people have respect for Chinese teachers; Xie said. She keeps in touch with her Indonesian students through the Internet. "If I had the opportunity to go to Indonesia to teach again, I would be very happy to see the children improve their Chinese,n Xie said.
1. What made the Chinese-language teacher Xie Fang happy?| A．She realized her dream to teach in Indonesia. |
| B．One of her former students will graduate soon. |
| C．She can serve overseas Chinese in 3 languages. |
| D．Alvin Rizqi Adrian has been admitted to study in China. |
| A．Beautified. | B．Improved. |
| C．Invented. | D．Studied. |
| A．practical | B．sensitive |
| C．diligent | D．reliable |
| A．Chinese Teacher Helps Indonesian Realize His Dream |
| B．Adrian, an Indonesian, Has Achieved His Big Dream |
| C．Chinese-language Teachers, Academic Achievements |
| D．Local Indonesians Show Respect for Chinese Teachers |
2 . Australia and New Zealand’s health organizations have given their advice on when to use sunscreen (防晒霜), suggesting Australians apply it every day to avoid bad health effects.
A Sunscreen Summit took place in the Australian State of Queensland. During the summit, representatives from some of Australia’s leading research, medical and public health organizations examined the evidence on sunscreen use the determined that in most parts of the country it is beneficial to apply sunscreen every day.
“Up until now, public health organizations have recommended applying sunscreen ahead of planned outdoor activities but haven’t recommended applying it every day as part of a morning routine (惯例),” professor Rachel Neale from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute said. “In recent years, it has become clear that the DNA damage causes skin cancer and melanoma (黑色素瘤), which is caused by repeated small exposure to sunlight over a period of time,” Neale said. “In Australia, we get a lot of sun exposure from everyday activities such as walking to the bus stop or train station,” Neale said.
A study showed that one in two Australians believed it was unhealthy and potentially dangerous to use sunscreen every day. However, Terry Slevin from the Public Health Association of Australia says it is wrong. “There is consistent and compelling evidence that sunscreens are safe,” Slevin said. “Importantly, medical trials have found that people who use sunscreen daily have the same levels of vitamin D as those who don’t,” Slevin added.
Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, which is made worse by the country’s close to Antarctica where there is a hole in the ozone layer (臭氧层), letting in higher numbers of UV rays.
1. What made Australian health organizations advise Australians to use sunscreen?| A．The makers of sunscreen. |
| B．Australian government. |
| C．The Sunscreen Summit. |
| D．New Zealand’s researchers. |
| A．Using sunscreen as a morning routine. |
| B．Using sunscreen before outdoor activities. |
| C．Reducing the use of sunscreen. |
| D．Reducing outdoor activities. |
| A．Sunscreen will never take effect. |
| B．Sunscreen is bad for people’s health. |
| C．People using sunscreen have the same levels of vitamin. |
| D．D. People using sunscreen won’t have skin cancer. |
| A．Interesting. | B．Disappointing. |
| C．Boring. | D．Convincing. |
3 . On average, American kids ages 3 to 12 spent 29 hours a week in school, eight hours more that they did in 1981. They also did more household work and participated in more of such organized activities as soccer and ballet (芭蕾舞). Involvement in sports, in particular, rose almost 50% from 1981 to 1997: boys now spend an average of four hours a week playing sports; girls log half that time. All in all, however, children’s leisure time dropped from 40% of the day in 1981 to 25%
“Children are affected by the same time crunch (危机) that affects their parents,” says Sandra Hofferth, who headed the recent study of children’s timetable. A chief reason, she says, is that more mothers are working outside the home. (Nevertheless, children in both double-income and “male breadwinner” households spent comparable amounts of time interacting with their parents 19 hours and 22 hours respectively. In contrast, children spent only 9 hours with their single mothers.)
All work and no play could make for some very messed-up kids. “Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about himself,” says T. Berry Brazelton, professor at Harvard Medical School Unstructured(unorganized)play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to handle their relationships with their peers, but kids ages 3 to 12 spent only 12 hours a week engaged in it.
The children sampled spent a quarter of their rapidly decreasing “free time” watching television. But that, believe it or not, was one of the findings parents might regard as good news. If they’re spending less time in front of the TV set, however, kids aren’t replacing it with reading. Despite efforts to get kids more interested in books, the children spent just over an hour a week reading. Let’s face it, who’s got the time?
1. By mentioning “the same time crunch” (Line 1, Para. 2) Sandra Hofferth means ______.| A．children have little time to play with their parents |
| B．both parents and children suffer from lack of leisure time |
| C．children are not taken good care of by their working parents |
| D．both parents and children have trouble managing their time |
| A．he has plenty of time reading and studying |
| B．he has more time participating in school activities |
| C．he is left to play with his peers in his own way |
| D．he is free to interact with his working parents |
| A．extracurricular activities(after-class activities) promote children’s intelligence |
| B．most children will turn to reading with TV sets switched off |
| C．efforts to get kids interested in reading have been fruitful |
| D．most parents believe reading to be beneficial to children |
4 . A comparison of nesting data recorded in the early 1900s with similar data today for more than 200 species of California birds shows that over all they are breeding(繁殖)5 to 12 days earlier than they did 75 to 100 years ago.
Earlier studies found that many but not all birds in California’s mountains are moving north or to higher altitude to find cooler temperatures in the face of global warming.
The shift to earlier breeding that we detected allows birds to nest at similar temperatures as they did a century ago, and helps explain why half the bird species in the mountainous areas of California did not need to shift upward in altitude in response to climate warming over the past century, said Steven Beissinger, a UC Berkeley professor of environmental sciences.
Early spring arrivals have long been noted by the public and reported by scientists, but the assumption has been that the birds are tracking resources, primarily food: with warming temperatures, plants produce leaves and seeds earlier, and insects appear earlier.
The new study spotlights another major reason: by nesting a week earlier, birds produce eggs and young at a temperature about 1 degree Celsius lower than if they nested at the normal time in the same place. This exactly counterbalances the approximately 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures over the past century.
“By nesting a week or 10 days earlier, birds are avoiding some of the negative effects of climate warming,”Beissinger said.” the good news is that there may be more flexibility for species to respond to climate change than we thought, and not all species may need to move farther north or to higher altitudes, “he added. “But we don't know yet whether staying in place and shifting schedules earlier is a permanent solution, or only provides temporary relief from the 2 degree Celsius rise in temperatures forecast to occur.”
Birds may find, for example, that the window of good temperatures for breeding becomes shorter, which may limit the opportunity to re-nest if they fail the first time. Larger species that have a longer nesting period might not have an enough time to complete their nests before it starts to become too warm, he said.
1. To fight against the global warming, earlier studies found that _______.| A．some birds tried to find cooler places |
| B．some birds failed to nest more than ever |
| C．some birds began to produce eggs earlier |
| D．some birds woke up earlier to catch insects |
| A．Early birds catch insects and get tender leaves |
| B．Global warming is responsible for earlier springs |
| C．Birds are smart in adapting to the climate changes |
| D．Birds are likely to have difficulty in breeding ways |
| A．Adds to |
| B．Reduces to |
| C．Makes up for |
| D．Goes along with |
| A．Birds’ moving north and global warming. |
| B．Early breeding of birds and climate changes. |
| C．Changes of birds’ life and early spring arrivals |
| D．Birds' reaction and early appearance of foods. |
5 . China's first astronaut 38-year-old Yang Liwei returned safely to earth Thursday morning, when his craft Shenzhou 5 touched down as scheduled after more than 21 hours in the earth's orbit. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao called the landmarkdebutflight a “complete success”. The descent capsule(返回舱) carrying Lt. Col. Yang Liwei touched down on the grasslands of the Gobi Desert, in central Inner Mongolia at 6:23 am Thursday (Beijing Time), the Beijing-based China's Aerospace Command and Control Center said. Minutes later, Yang grabbed the capsule hatch with his hand, pulled himself out, smiled and waved at recovery teams and reporters. “It is a splendid moment in the history of my motherland and also the greatest day of my life,” Yang, a former fighter pilot from Northeast China's Liaoning Province, said immediately after emerging. In an interview with CCTV, China's state television, Yang said he was “feeling excellent”. Shenzhou 5 landed at dawn, 4.8 kilometres (3 miles) from its designed landing target, the officials said. “The spaceship operated well,” the astronaut Yang Liwei said in his first publicized comments. “I feel very good and I am proud of my motherland.” After a physical exam on spot, Yang's condition was found as "good." Li Jinai, the commander of China's manned space program, called Yang a “space hero” and a “national hero”. Following Yang's touchdown, China's premier Wen Jiabao immediately spoke to Yang from Beijing's command and control centre and offered his congratulations.
Within hours, Chinese space officials announced that the country's space dreams will continue with a "Shenzhou 6" mission, most possibly within a year. They said China also had worked out plans to conduct space walking by its astronauts, and eventually build up a space station. However, Chinese scientists ruled out building a space shuttle, like the United States.
Yang's flight came four decades after the former Soviet Union and the United States pioneered manned spaceflight. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth in April 1961. One month later, the United States launched Alan B. Shepard Jr.
1. What is true of the first Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei?| A．He is now a fighter pilot. |
| B．He was helped to get out of the descent capsule. |
| C．He spent nearly a day in space. |
| D．He was called a “space hero” and a “national hero” by China's premier Wen Jiabao. |
| A．space walking | B．setting up a space station |
| C．building up a space shuttle | D．sending up “Shenzhou 6” |
| A．first public appearance | B．space |
| C．carrying person | D．space-ship |
| A．Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man in the world to travel in space. |
| B．the United States launched Alan B. Shepard Jr. about 40 years ago. |
| C．China is the third country in the world to carry out the manned space flight successfully. |
| D．“Shenzhou 6” will carry more than one astronaut in the mission. |
6 . Visit the grocery store on an empty stomach, and you will probably come home with a few things you had not planned to buy. But hunger is not the only culprit behind such purchases. The location of store displays also influences our shopping and may make or break some healthy eating habits.
The checkout area is a particular hotspot for junk food. Studies have found that the products most commonly found there are sugary and salty snacks-and a few studies have suggested that simply swapping in healthier choices can shift customer behavior. A 2012 study in the Netherlands found that hospital workers were more likely to give up junk food for healthy snacks when the latter were more readily available on canteen shelves, for example, in 2014 Norwegain and Icelandic researcher likewise found that replacing unhealthy items with healthy ones in the checkout area significantly increased last-minutes sales of healthier foods.
These findings caught the attention of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which has been working with more than 1,000 store owners to encourage them to stock and promote consumption,” says Tamar Adjoian, a research scientist at the department. “Making healthy food more convenient or appealing can lead to increased sales of those products.”
Adjoian and her colleagues wondered if such findings would apply to their city’s dense urban checkout areas, so they recruited three Bronx supermarkets for their own study. They gave one checkout line in each store a healthy makeover, replacing candy, cookies and other processed snacks with fruit , nuts and similar items containing 200 or fewer calories per serving. Then they recorded purchases over six three-hour periods in each store for two weeks.
Of the more than 2,100 shoppers they observed, just 4 precent bought anything from the checkout area. Among those who did, however, customers in the healthy lines purchased nutritious items more than twice as often as those in the standard lines -and they bought unhealthy items 40 percent less often. The findings were reported in September in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
The potential influence may seem small, but Adjoian believes that changing more checkout lines would open customers’ eyes to nutritious, lower-calories foods. Health department officials are now exploring ways to expand healthy choices at checkout areas throughout New York City.
1. The underlined word “culprit” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ______ in the passage.| A．something to blame | B．something related to culture |
| C．something that results | D．something concealed |
| A．shops put great emphasis on increase in last-minute sales of food |
| B．healthier choices were rarely seen in company canteens or in supermarket |
| C．customers’ shopping behavior could be changed by what is easily available |
| D．sugary and salty snacks were among the most common items in checkout areas |
| A．Only a little attention has been drawn to Adjoian’s research. |
| B．Only several healthy items are displayed and then purchased. |
| C．Only three Bronx supermarkets have been involved in the study. |
| D．Only a small proportion (部分) of shoppers buy things from checkout areas. |
7 . It is well-known that twins are closer to each other than most brothers and sisters -- after all, they probably spend more time with each other. Parents of twins often notice that they develop special ways of communicating: they invent their own words and one can often finish the other's sentence. In exceptional(例外) circumstances(情况), this closeness becomes more extreme: they invent a whole language of their own, as in the case of Grace and Virginia Kennedy from Georgia in the USA, who communicated so successfully in their own special language that they did not speak any English at all until after they started school.
However, these special relationships are the result of lives spent almost entirely in each other's company. What happens when twins do not grow up together, when they are separated at birth for some reason? Are they just like any other strangers, or are there still special similarities between them? Professor Tom Bouchard of the University of Minnesota set out to find the answer to this question. He traced(追踪) sixteen pairs of twins, who were adopted by different families when they were babies, and often brought up in very different circumstances. Each twin was then interviewed about every small detail of their life.
The results of this research make a surprising reading. Many of the twins were found to have the same hobbies, many have suffered the same illnesses, and some have even had the same type of accident at the same point in their lives. One pair of middle-aged women arrived for their first meeting in similar dresses, another pair were wearing similar jewellery. The most incredible (unbelievable) similarities are to be found in the case of Jim Springer and Jim Lewis from Ohio in the USA. The story of the 'Jim Twins' made headline news across USA. Born to an immigrant woman in 1939, and adopted by different families at birth, both babies were named Jim by their new parents.
But what can be the explanation for these remarkable similarities? Is it all pure coincidence, or is the explanation in some way genetic? Research into the lives of twins is forcing some experts to admit that our personalities may be at least partly due to 'nature'. On the other hand, analysts are also anxious to emphasis(强调) that incredible coincidences do happen all the time, not just in the lives of twins.
1. The case of Grace and Virginia Kennedy (Para. 1) is to show that ______.| A．twins communicate with each other in an unusual way. |
| B．twins are more likely to suffer from speaking problems. |
| C．most twins have exceptional abilities to invent a new language. |
| D．twins won’t have an effective communication until they go to school. |
| A．what will happen if twins spend lives entirely in the same company. |
| B．why the 16 pairs of twins have been adopted by different families. |
| C．whether separated growing up has effect on twins’ special similarities. |
| D．when the special similarities come into being during their growing up. |
| A．Book. | B．Explanation. |
| C．Literature. | D．Measurement. |
| A．depend on what the twins enjoy and suffer from. |
| B．can not be proved or accepted by all the experts. |
| C．result from the twins’ growing up and development. |
| D．are not closely linked with where the twins are raised. |
8 . "When I was 16 years old, I was diving in Greece, but I was disappointed because I saw more plastic bags than fish.” These are the words of Boyan Slat, an engineer who designed the world's first ocean plastic cleanup system.
Every year, more than 8 million tons of plastics end up in our oceans, according to the UN Environment Programme. It is predicted that the weight of ocean plastics will match the weight of all the fish in our oceans by 2050. To prevent this from happening, in 2013 Slat created the Ocean Cleanup, an environmental non¬governmental organization, and put his plan for an ocean cleanup device into action.
After years of research and develop¬ment in the Netherlands, a device called System 001/B successfully started gathering plastics on October 2, 2019. The device uses a 600-meter-long C-shaped tube to gather all the floating rubbish. Unlike other cleanup methods, the system floats freely according to the direction of the waves, which allows waste to flow into and stay within the device. A sea anchor is attached to either end. This slows down the system as it floats through the water and allows the faster-moving rubbish, carried by the waves, to flow into its mouth. System 001/B can also collect waste below the surface using a 3-meter-deep skirt（挡板）attached to the end. After being gathered, the trash will be dragged back to shore by boat and recycled.
Right now, the system operates in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area that is 3 times the size of France. Once operational, the Ocean Cleanup expects a full fleet to be able to clear 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 5 years.
"It remains to be seen whether this dream will become a reality, but it is undeniable that humanity must work together to reduce our plastic use and repair the damage our waste has caused," Slat said. "We are starting to see a young generation that gets it and is excited about a sustainable （可持续的）future, but the question still comes down to: Are we going fast enough, and how much damage will have been done before we get there?"
1. The underlined word “match” in Paragraph 2 probably means “_________”.| A．compare | B．equal |
| C．measure | D．cover |
| A．To collect ocean plastic waste. |
| B．To help to invent System 001/B. |
| C．To protect the living environment of fish. |
| D．To do research on the ocean environment. |
| A．It can collect and recycle garbage at the same time. |
| B．It can only gather ocean waste which floats on the water. |
| C．It aims to clear up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in five years. |
| D．It is an ocean-cleaning device which has already been put to use. |
| A．Young generations care less about the environment. |
| B．The future ecology of the oceans is deeply worrying. |
| C．People should work hard to decrease plastic pollution. |
| D．It's quite difficult to repair the damage to the environment. |
9 . That morning, I dropped our eldest at kindergarten and returned home to let our two younger children play while I worked on my medical report. It was wonderful, but it hit me that my career in hospital wasn't making a difference in anyone's life. I needed something that would stretch my limits and push me to grow. My career enabled me to work from home. I could work from home, and become a foster (领养) mother, providing safety for a child who needed it desperately.
On Monday morning, I picked up the phone and dialed the number I had googled for the nearest Department of Children's Services. The man on the other end was receptive to my questions and explained the next step of training, involving eight weeks of classes designed to prepare and educate foster parents. We continued through all the classes, the home visits, background checks, and seemingly endless steps.
Five long months after we were approved, the phone rang. In the middle of the night, I woke my husband and rushed to East Tennessee Children's' Hospital. Our placement was waiting for us in the emergency room, sick and lack of nutrition. It didn't take long for us to realize the full depth of her suffering. Six months later, her half-brother came to us by our request. We now had five children under our care.
On August 12, 2016, our family of seven walked into a small courtroom. The children's lawyer and social worker were there. With just a few words, our adoption was finalized. These two amazing children weren't going home, because they were already home. We are their forever family, and they are our forever children. We may not be able to change the entire world, but we have changed the world entirely for our new children.
1. How did the author feel about her hospital work?| A．Unusually demanding. | B．Lacking in motivation. |
| C．Filled with challenges. | D．Packed with chances. |
| A．She wanted to make a difference in other people. |
| B．She felt sympathetic for abused children she knew. |
| C．She felt confident about her ability to raise children. |
| D．She experienced training to raise children properly. |
| A．The foster parents must be healthy and well-educated. |
| B．It was impossible to go through all the endless process. |
| C．The man on the phone was nice and gave clear instructions. |
| D．The home visits and background checks would take eight weeks. |
| A．The child to be adopted. | B．The need to get trained. |
| C．The approval of adoption. | D．The official at the hospital. |
| A．To put the adopted kids elsewhere. | B．To receive another adopted child. |
| C．To begin the kids' adoption in her home. | D．To make the adoption officially legal. |
10 . Scientists have created the world’s first living, self-healing (自愈) robots using stem cells from frogs. Named after the African clawed frog from which they take their stem cells, xenobots are less than a millimeter wide (0. 04 inches) — small enough to travel inside human bodies. They can walk and swim, survive for weeks without food, and work together in groups. These are “entirely new life-forms,” said project co-leader Michael Levin, director of the Allen Discovery Center.
The researchers removed living stem cells, which have the ability to develop into different cell types, from frog embryos (胚胎), and left them to incubate (孵化). Then, the cells were cut and reshaped into specific “body forms” designed by a supercomputer.” They’re neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal,” said robotics expert Joshua Bongard. The cells then began to work on their own and even have the regenerative power; when the scientists cut the living robot almost in half, its cells automatically zippered its body back up.
Xenobots don’t look like traditional robots-they have no shiny clothing or robotic arms. Instead ,they look more like a tiny drop of moving pink flesh. The researchers say this is deliberate-this biological machine can achieve things typical robots of steel and plastic cannot do.” Traditional robots degrade (降解) over time and can produce harmful ecological and health side effects,” researchers said in the study. As biological machines, xenobots are more environmentally friendly and safer for human health, the study said.
Research is being done into using the robots to clean up radioactive waste or even microplastics from the oceans. Scientists are also trying to include a greater variety of cells; a new nervous system for example. However, some people argue that the addition of nerve cells would cause moral problems. The general public have also expressed concern that humans would be taken control of by robots. However, Michael Levin thinks there’s no need to worry. “Xenobots have no ability to reproduce or evolve. The supercomputer which is used to produce them does use artificial intelligence. But for now, all is fine,” said Levin.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．The advantage of AI technology. | B．The introduction of a latest robot. |
| C．The medical value of African frogs. | D．The application of robots in medicine. |
| A．Healing by itself. | B．Replacing old cells. |
| C．Living much longer. | D．Defending against attacks. |
| A．They can break up steel and plastic while degrading. |
| B．They can do everything that traditional robots can do. |
| C．They do less harm to the environment and human health. |
| D．They often change their color deliberately while moving. |
| A．Ambiguous. | B．Positive. |
| C．Skeptical. | D．Cautious. |
