1 . The tea gardens in Sri Lanka are actually large estates( 种植园). The best tea usually comes from plants grown on high grounds, the cool hilltops with rows and rows of tea plants. The plants are about one metre apart. The plant is often pruned so that it remains only 60 to 90 centimetres high. Pruning is important because it encourages the growth of tender shoots, or young leaves. It is from these shoots that the best tea is got.
Practically all the tea pickers are women. The estates prefer to employ women pickers because they are more careful. Their thin fingers can easily remove the twin leaves and new shoots from the plant, which are the parts used for processing tea. The pickers carry large baskets into which they throw their pickings. A skilled worker can harvest between 9 to 14 kilogrammes of tea leaves a day. Usually new shoots can be picked from the plants about every ten or fifteen days.
Processing tea shoots into the familiar dry tea leaves requires great care and skill. There are various methods of processing depending on the type of tea required. For black tea, the young green leaves are first spread out on shelves to dry. This process removes much of its water and the leaves become soft. After this, the leaves are passed through heavy rollers. This operation will press the leaves for juices which give the tea both its colour and taste. Then the leaves are spread out on floors and left to ferment（发酵）under wet conditions. Fermentation develops the rich taste of black tea. The fermented leaves are then dried with a hot-air blower until they become rolled-up black leaves. The final step is to sort and grade them before the black tea is ready for sale to countries all over the world.
1. In the first paragraph, the word “pruning” means ________ .| A．regular cutting of the plants |
| B．frequent watering |
| C．regular use of chemicals |
| D．growing the plants high in the mountain |
| A．they work harder than men do in the picking |
| B．they can throw their pickings more easily into the baskets |
| C．their fingers fit them better for the job |
| D．they can more easily find the twin leaves |
| A．Three. | B．Four. | C．Five. | D．Six. |
| A．To introduce various methods of tea processing. |
| B．To persuade readers to buy tea from Sri Lanka. |
| C．To tell a story that had happened in the tea gardens. |
| D．To inform readers of tea growing, picking and processing. |
2 . Last year, my oldest son Matthew went off to college. Things at home were not as “busy” as they used to be. We still had our 15-year-old son Gabriel with us, but we missed having Matthew around.
My wife soon had a crazy idea. “Let’s get a dog.” she suggested. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea, but I agreed. I mean, what better way to replace a kid that has gone off to college than to get a dog.
When we got to the animal shelter, it seemed like every dog was a pit bull (比特犬). I’d had many bad experiences with pit bulls as a child, so I didn’t want to take one of them home with me.
While I walked along the rows and rows of cold metal cages, a dog caught my eye. He was scared, and looked like he’d given up on life. There was only one problem: he was a pit bull.
As he looked at me with his big, beautiful eyes, I could see into his soul. I could see how scared he was and that he just wanted a happy life. I couldn’t just walk away — I had to at least go over and look at him. I approached his cage, and he just sat there, looking at me. I stuck my finger through the hole in the cage and petted him on the head. I expected him to get mad, but he didn’t.
I knew that this dog had never felt love before, and that he was enjoying every bit of the love I could give him in that moment. Tears began to stream down my face because I felt everything that this poor creature was feeling right then. He just wanted to be loved; he just wanted a home and a family.
It’s been a year since we took the dog home, and our lives have been changed forever.
Now, his favorite thing to do is give us kisses with his giant tongue every morning. He is always there to greet us when we come home with a huge smile. He’s shown us more love than any other living creature on Earth ever had before. And every time I look into his eyes I see love,compassion and gratitude — things I never thought that a pit bull was capable of feeling.
1. Why did the author’s wife want to get a dog?| A．Because she liked a pit pull. |
| B．Because she thought it was a crazy idea. |
| C．Because she wanted the dog to replace her kid. |
| D．Because one of their children was admitted to college. |
| A．Accepted. | B．Excited. | C．Frightened. | D．Delighted. |
| A．They missed having Matthew around even more. |
| B．They found it hard to get along with him. |
| C．They lived a life full of love. |
| D．They regretted adopting him. |
| A．To share a warm story about adopting a pet. |
| B．To stress the benefits of keeping a pet. |
| C．To suggest people keep a pet of their own. |
| D．To give advice on how to keep a pet. |
3 . Short and shy, Ben Saunders was the last kid in his class picked for any sports team. “Football, tennis cricket-anything with a round ball, I was useless”, he says now with a laugh. But back then, he was the object of jokes in school gym classes in England’s rural Devonshire.
It was a mountain bike he received for his 15th birthday that changed him. At first the teen went biking alone in a nearby forest. Then he began to cycle along with a runner friend. Gradually, Saunders set his mind building up his body, increasing his speed, strength and endurance. At age 18, he ran his first marathon.
The following year, he met John Ridgway, who became famous in the 1960s for rowing an open boat across the Atlantic Ocean. Saunders was hired as an instructor at Ridgway’s school of Adventure in Scotland, where he learned about the older man’s cold-water exploits (英勇行为). Intrigued, Saunders read all he could about Arctic explorers and North Pole expeditions, then decided that this would be his future.
Journeys to the Pole aren’t the usual holidays for British country boys, and many people dismissed (不予考虑) his dream as fantasy. “John Ridgway was one of the few who didn’t say, ‘You are completely crazy’,” Saunders says.
In 2001, after becoming a skilled skier, Saunders started his first long-distance expedition toward the North Pole. He suffered frostbite, had a closer encounter with a polar bear and pushed his body to the limit.
Saunders has since become the youngest person to ski alone to the North Pole, and he’s skied more of the Arctic by himself than any other Briton. His old playmates would not believe the transformation.
This October, Saunders, 27, heads south to explore from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back, an 1800-mile journey that has never been completed on skis (滑雪板).
1. We can learn from the text that Ridgway ______.| A．dismissed Saunders’ dream as fantasy. |
| B．built up his body together with Saunders. |
| C．hired Saunders for his cold-water experience. |
| D．won his fame for his voyage across the Atlantic. |
| A．He once worked at a school in Scotland. |
| B．He followed Ridgway to explore the North Pole. |
| C．He was chosen for the school sports team as a kid. |
| D．He was the first Briton to ski alone to the North Pole. |
| A．excited. | B．convinced. | C．delighted. | D．fascinated. |
| A．was accomplished by his old playmates. |
| B．set a record in the North Pole expedition. |
| C．was supported by other Arctic explorers. |
| D．made him well-known in the 1960s. |
4 . At first I told only those closest to me, but soon it became clear that I would need more support. And isolating myself, I suspected, was partly to blame for being depressed in the first place. As I started to open up and share the news, I began to feel more like myself-someone who isn’t embarrassed by life’s setbacks, who handles difficult situations with humor and honesty.
No surprise, the wonderful people in my life have all been very kind and sympathetic, but overall, people’s reactions have varied. Most people who don’t believe in depression also don’t believe in being medicated for it. Their warnings ranged from mindful caution to downright fear that I’d become addicted to pills and turn into a dull lifeless person.
Many reacted to the D-bomb the same way I did. “You’re depressed?! But you’re one of the happiest people that I know! You hula-hoop in Walmart!”（I really do-every time I go.）These are the people I wanted to hug, they made me feel like I hadn’t turned into Debbie Downer.
The third, and perhaps most popular, reaction to my dropping the D-bomb has been the chains of friends revealing personal connections to mental illnesses. “My mom is bipolar（双相型障碍）... My uncle has been clinically depressed for years.” I was dumbfounded. Why isn’t anyone talking about the illnesses that affect our most important body part-our brain?
Admitting I have depression and anxiety has, at times, made me feel like admitting defeat. I’m angry that despite having every reason to be happy, sometimes I’m not. I don’t know why I’m sad. I just am. And I so wish I wasn’t. I’d like to think, though, that even at my worst, I’m worthy of honesty, compassion and understanding. I struggle with my brain the way others struggle with their heart. I have deeply and laugh loudly. I work hard; I play harder. And I always hula-hoop at Walmart.
1. What does the expression “Debbie Downer” probably mean?| A．A kind and sympathetic person. | B．A negative or pessimistic person. |
| C．A person easily admitting defeat. | D．A person suffering from mental illness. |
| A．Sad but strong. | B．Dull but optimistic. |
| C．Anxious but relieved. | D．Defeated but happy. |
| A．What are the ways to defeat depression? |
| B．How a depressed person can get more support. |
| C．How one self-declared optimist deal with depression. |
| D．What’s the difference between depression and brain disease? |
5 . Technology may have made working from home easier than ever, but according to a new study, staff who are out of sight may not perform as well as those in the office. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US, wanted to find out whether being watched while undertaking a task made a diffrence to its outcome.
Many people believe that being under constant observation damages their creativity while others live in fear of freezing in front of an audience during a public event. But the findings suggest that the pressure of others actually makes people achieve more. "You might think having people watch you isn't going to help, but it might actually make you perform better," said lead author Vikram Chib, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Krieger Institute. “An audience can serve as an extra bit of incentive.” When people know they are being observed, parts of the brain associated with social awareness and reward stimulate a part of the brain that controls motor skills, improving their performance at skilled tasks.
In the new experiment, Dr Chib and colleagues asked 20 participants to play a game on a Nintendo Wii or Xbox Kinect. The participants performed the task both in front of an audience of two and with no one watching. Their brain activity was monitored with functional magnetic resonance imaging (磁共振成像). While people were watching, participants were an average of five percent better at the video game—and as much as 20 percent better. Only two participants didn't perform better in front of others. But if the audience was a lot bigger, and the stakes (赌注) higher, the results could have gone the other way. “Here, people with social anxiety tended to perform better," added Dr Chib. “But at some point, the size of the andience sould increase the size of one's aniery. We still need to figure that out."
The research was published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
1. People usually believe that being watched while undertaking a task can_________.| A．slower their reaction | B．result in better achievement |
| C．encourage their creativity | D．increase their fear of getting cold |
| A．observation | B．association | C．improvement | D．encouragement |
| A．Socially anxious people performed worse with others watching. |
| B．Being under observation helped most participants' performance. |
| C．The size of the audience increased the size of one's anxiety. |
| D．Functional magnetic resonance imaging could monitor brain activity. |
| A．Working at home is more efficient than in the office. |
| B．Reasonable amount of pressure from others promotes performance. |
| C．The larger the audience is, the better the performance will be. |
| D．People tend to perform better at all tasks when being watched. |
6 . By now, most of us have picked up at least one pandemic hobby. And there's a seemingly common pandemic hobby trend: People who haven't been able to go anywhere are making imaginary travel plans. Maybe you're among those who have spent hours researching locations-even though you're not actually planning to travel.
It turns out that you aren't alone. People who seem to be sticking to public safety recommendations are still planning trips they don't intend to book. And, when I suddenly found myself addicted to an imaginary girls' trip to Joshua Tree, I wondered whether this was a healthy distraction.
"It's an escapist imagination," said Regine Galanti, a psychologist, adding that there's nothing wrong with escapism during a global pandemic.
On the one hand, distractions are often beneficial right now. We are a full year into living with COVID-19 as a pandemic, and that means you've probably had to navigate a range of emotions like discomfort, sadness, or even boredom. So any hobby that doesn't harm anyone or endanger your well-being is probably a worthy attempt.
Even if vacation planning is your happy place, Dr. Galanti suggests you "actually think about what you're trying to achieve." Why? "Maybe what you're saying is, I need a vacation from work," Dr. Galanti explains. "Then take three days off even if you are not going anywhere. "When you figure out what you're looking for, you might be able to find a small socially distanced adventure in your backyard or a quiet place. Vacation planning is a good way to spend some time, but there might be an even better way to get what you're desiring.
Anyway, when uncertainty is all around us, creating things to look forward to isn't a terrible idea. And when things are safer, you'll have all your plans in place.
1. Why do people make imaginary travel plans during the pandemic?| A．To develop a new hobby. | B．To stay safe and sound. |
| C．To be distracted from reality. | D．To get ready for future travel. |
| A．Express. | B．Balance. | C．Adapt to. | D．Deal with. |
| A．Objective. | B．Negative. | C．Supportive. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Figures. | B．Lifestyle. |
| C．Food and recipe. | D．Science and technology. |
7 . The COVID -19 pandemic has changed life as we knew it just a few weeks ago. Millions of people worldwide are now under required or voluntary lockdowns. All public attractions, including museums and aquariums, are closed, and the usually crowded streets of popular tourist destinations are empty. An unexpected silver lining during these challenging times for humans is that many animals are finally getting a chance to leave their normal habitats and move about freely.
The first animals to take advantage of human absence were Annie and Edward, two penguins who live at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. A video released on March 15, 2020, showed the couple eagerly duckwalking around, exploring the aquarium's various exhibits. The video, which instantly became popular, inspired other institutions to share short videos of their four-legged creatures playing as well.
The Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio joined the fun trend on March 16, 2020，with a “Home Safari” live-stream series-the first staring its adorable baby panda，Fiona. “Let us help make your children's hiatus from school fun and educational,” zoo officials announced. “Join us for a Home Safari Online Live each weekday at 3 pm，where we will highlight one of our amazing animals and include an activity you can do from home.
Meanwhile，the San Diego Safari Park has kept their webcams（网络摄像头）rolling，allowing fans to enjoy lovable animals without leaving home. Animals in the wild are also lively as humans stay indoors. The absence of cruise ships is bringing large numbers of dolphins to a port in Cagliari，while groups of wild turkeys are happily walking on the streets of Oakland.
Though the animals indeed appear to be having a good time，the heartwarming videos and images shared on social media, are also bringing much -needed cheer to millions of humans worldwide. Stay strong and healthy! We are all in this together!
1. What changes has the COVID-19 pandemic caused to the zoo animals?| A．They are now under required or voluntary lockdowns. |
| B．They can enjoy a free life without tourists' disturbance. |
| C．They will be faced with unexpected existing challenges. |
| D．They get a chance to wander about freely in the wild. |
| A．Courses. | B．Sightseeing. | C．Activities. | D．Interruption. |
| A．To enable people to admire animals at home. |
| B．To film the animals wandering about in the zoo. |
| C．To compete for more viewers online. |
| D．To record people's life in the COVID-19 crisis. |
| A．The Pandemic Affects the World |
| B．Lovely Animals Bring fun to People |
| C．Animals Play in the Absence of Humans |
| D．Stay Strong and Healthy in the Pandemic |
8 . 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. |
9 . 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. |
10 . Albert Einstein’s 1915 masterpiece “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity” is the first and still the best introduction to the subject, and I recommend it as such to students. But it probably wouldn’t be publishable in a scientific journal today.
Why not? After all, it would pass with flying colours the tests of correctness and significance. And while popular belief holds that the paper was incomprehensible to its first readers, in fact many papers in theoretical physics are much more difficult.
As the physicist Richard Feynman wrote, “There was a time when the newspapers said that only 12 men understood the theory of relativity. I do believe there might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than 12.”
No, the problem is its style. It starts with a leisurely philosophical discussion of space and time and then continues with an exposition of known mathematics. Those two sections, which would be considered extraneous today, take up half the paper. Worse, there are zero citations of previous scientists’ work, nor are there any graphics. Those features might make a paper not even get past the first editors.
A similar process of professionalization has transformed other parts of the scientific landscape. Requests for research time at major observatories or national laboratories are more rigidly structured. And anything involving work with human subjects, or putting instruments in space, involves piles of paperwork.
We see it also in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the Nobel Prize of high school science competitions. In the early decades of its 78-year history, the winning projects were usually the sort of clever but naive, amateurish efforts one might expect of talented beginners working on their own. Today, polished work coming out of internships(实习) at established laboratories is the norm.
These professionalizing tendencies are a natural consequence of the explosive growth of modern science. Standardization and system make it easier to manage the rapid flow of papers, applications and people. But there are serious downsides. A lot of unproductive effort goes into jumping through bureaucratic hoops(繁文缛节), and outsiders face entry barriers at every turn.
Of course, Einstein would have found his way to meeting modern standards and publishing his results. Its scientific core wouldn’t have changed, but the paper might not be the same taste to read.
1. According to Richard Feynman, Einstein’s 1915 paper ________.| A．was a classic in theoretical physics |
| B．turned out to be comprehensible |
| C．needed further improvement |
| D．attracted few professionals |
| A．Unrealistic. | B．Irrelevant. |
| C．Unattractive. | D．Imprecise. |
| A．The application of research findings. |
| B．The principle of scientific research. |
| C．The selection of young talents. |
| D．The evaluation of laboratories. |
| A．What makes Einstein great? |
| B．Will science be professionalized? |
| C．Could Einstein get published today? |
| D．How will modern science make advances? |
