1 . A 15-year-old Indian girl, Kumari, who pedalled her injured father more than a thousand kilometres across India, has been invited to try out for the national cycling team.
In January, a motor-bike driver, Mohan Paswan, who made a living by carrying passengers in New Delhi, was injured in a traffic accident. After the accident, Paswan couldn't drive. So his daughter, Kumari took a train across the country to take care of him. But without income, Paswan could no longer afford the rent and they were running out of food. They decided to go home. With the last $20, the 15-year-old girl bought an old bicycle, and planned to take her father to their home village across India --- in a heroic, life-saving ride.
Kumari rode a bicycle with her father, sitting on the pillion(后座)and holding their belongings from Gurugram city, near New Delhi, to their village in the northeastern state of Bihar. They arrived home on May 16 after covering 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) in seven days.
The father and daughter's arduous journey on a second-hand bike bought with their remaining funds made headlines. It also caught the attention of the Cycling Federation of India, which offered Kumari the chance to try out for the country's team. "She covered this long and difficult distance in seven days with her father and some luggage too. I thought she has something in her endurance level. We can try her," chairman Onkar Singh told the journalist.
“She said she only wants to pursue her studies. We told her that we also take care of studies at our academies. Singh said the federation would test Kumari to see if she is suitable for competitive cycling.
There were also other people who praised Kumari's efforts, describing it as a "'beautiful model of endurance and love."
1. What made Kumari have to ride a bike back home?| A．That her father was injured. |
| B．That she could only afford a bike. |
| C．That her home village was far away. |
| D．That she wanted to join in the cycling race. |
| A．dangerous | B．lovely | C．pleasant | D．tough |
| A．Because she has extraordinary physical ability. |
| B．Because he didn't have anyone better than her. |
| C．Because she only wants to pursue her studies. |
| D．Because she is suitable for competitive cycling. |
| A．strong and caring | B．positive and confident |
| C．warm-hearted and brave | D．hard-working and beautiful |
2 . Every September, as summer ends and the first day of school approaches, I spend a lot of time thinking about darkness.
Perhaps other teachers would say the same, jokingly. But I teach a high school course on trauma (创伤) literature, and my students belong to a generation described as the most spoiled (宠坏的), stressed and easily hurt in history. So the question of darkness is often on my mind.
In 2016, Collins Dictionary included “snowflake generation” among its Words of the Year, describing young adults of the 2010s as a group “less resilient (适应的) and more likely to feel upset than previous generations.”
But after twelve years of teaching this course, which covers some of the most emotionally difficult texts in contemporary literature — narratives (讲述) of war, slavery and so on — I’m pretty sure the comment on my young students is wrong. In particular, I don’t buy the narrative that this generation lacks the resilience necessary for difficult literature. For years, I’ve watched my students circle tirelessly around some difficult questions that puzzle us. Instead of hiding from that world, they try to change it in a way that will allow them to control it successfully.
This is why every September, I ask my students to read the most difficult books I can find. I don’t do this to hurt them. Literature is practice. And I want my students, through these difficult books, to practice living. I want them to practice recognizing historical gaps and to bridge them.
“But this too is true: stories can save us,” writes Tim O’Brien in The Things They Carried. I believe and stick to that idea, year after year, on the first day of school. Not because these stories will save my students. But because I’m hoping my students will grow up and save the rest of us.
1. What are the young adults of the 2010s like according to the Collins Dictionary?| A．Unsocial and anxious. | B．Stressed but strong-willed. |
| C．Sensitive and greedy. | D．Enthusiastic but self-centered. |
| A．Pay. | B．Believe. | C．Obtain. | D．Suspect. |
| A．The author has no knowledge of the young adults. |
| B．What the author wants is to help the young adults hide. |
| C．The author doesn’t know the meaning of “snowflake generation”. |
| D．The author knows a lot about the young adults from teaching them. |
| A．To comment on the new generation again. | B．To recommend some trauma literature. |
| C．To introduce some teaching experiences. | D．To seek some advice from the public. |
3 . Social distancing is not a new concept in the natural world, where infectious diseases are commonplace. Through specialized senses animals can detect certain diseases and change their behavior to avoid getting ill.
In 1966, while studying chimps (猩猩) in a Tanzanian national park, zoologist Jane Goodall observed a chimp named McGregor who had caught a highly infectious virus. His fellow chimps attacked him and threw him out of the troop. In one instance, McGregor approached chimps in a tree. He reached out a hand in greeting, but the others moved away without a backward glance.
“For a full two minutes, old McGregor sat motionless, staring after them,” Goodall notes in her 1971 book In the Shadow of Man. “It’s really not that different to how some societies react today to such a tragedy.”
Not all animals are so aggressive toward their ailing neighbors. Sometimes it’s as simple as avoiding those who may infect you.
When Kiesecker, a lead scientist in America, studied American bullfrog in the late 1990s, he found that bullfrogs could not only detect a deadly smell of infection in other bullfrogs, but healthy members actively avoided those that were sick. Bullfrogs rely on chemicals signals to determine who is sick or not.
Caribbean lobsters also shun diseased members of their community, well before they become infectious. It takes about eight weeks for lobsters infected with the deadly virus Panulirus argus mininuceovirus to become dangerous to others. Normally social animals, lobsters begin keeping away from the diseased as early as four weeks after infection – once the lobsters can smell certain chemicals released by sick individuals.
Overall, it’s important to note that, unlike us, animals don’t realize if they stay home, they might actually reduce the infection rate,” Kiesecker explains. “As humans, we have that ability. It’s a big difference.”
1. What can we learn about the chimps from Goodall’s observation?| A．They kept a distance from one another. |
| B．They became aggressive when infected. |
| C．The infected avoided contact with others. |
| D．The infected were forced to leave the group. |
| A．Avoid. | B．Cure. | C．Get rid of. | D．Get along with. |
| A．Humans are more sensitive to virus. |
| B．Humans are less likely to get infected. |
| C．Humans treat infectious diseases in a wiser way. |
| D．Humans can detect chemical signals more quickly. |
| A．Help Me Out |
| B．Leave Me Alone |
| C．Stay Away From Us |
| D．Stay Home Stay Healthy |
4 . A new study has found that ride-sharing services result in much more pollution than other kinds of private and public transportation. Ride-sharing trips also draw passengers away from more environment friendly methods of travel, like public transportation, walking or biking, the study found.
Several studies in recent years have suggested that ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft can worsen traffic problems in cities. The new study represents an attempt to center on how ride-sharing services affect pollution.
Overall, the researchers reported that ride-sharing trips now "result in a 69 percent more climate pollution on average than the trips they replace." The study notes that the same passengers could have chosen to travel by bus, train, bike or on foot.
One of the big reasons they give for this result is that ride-sharing vehicles are often driven with no passengers in the car. This happens when drivers are either waiting for rider requests, are on the way to pick up passengers. This situation, known as "deadheading," takes up about 42 percent of all ride-sharing driving activity, the study found. The researchers said that deadheading results in about 50 percent more carbon dioxide than one person driving in a private vehicle.
Both Uber and Lyft have said in the past that most studies on the subject overstate (夸大）the effects of their services on pollution. Uber told Reuters news agency in a statement it had no comment on the latest report and that the study made misleading claims about ride-sharing. Meanwhile, the company said it would work directly with cities to address climate changes, promoting sharing trips and other means of transportation.
1. Which of the following is the best title of the passage?| A．Ride-sharing becomes a new trend that can’t be avoided. |
| B．Ride-sharing industry is met with criticism. |
| C．Ride-sharing services increase pollution. |
| D．Ride-sharing services need improvement. |
| A．a driving process where the driver is not carrying passengers |
| B．a potential risk that the driver may lose control of the vehicle |
| C．a period of driving hours when vehicles produce more carbon dioxide |
| D．a situation in which a driver has too many passengers to pick up |
| A．barking up the wrong tree | B．not seeking the truth from facts |
| C．killing two birds with one stone | D．beating around the bush |
| A．Ride-sharing attracts exactly the same number of people as traditional means of transport. |
| B．the study was conducted to prove the influence of ride-sharing services on modern cities |
| C．ride-sharing service is not an environmentally friendly way to travel |
| D．the new report has forced Uber to make big changes to achieve its goal |
5 . I became a magician by accident. When I was nine years old, I learned how to make a coin disappear. I’d read The Lord of the Rings and ventured into the adult section of the library to search for a book of spells—nine being that curious age at which you’re old enough to work through more than 1,200 pages of fantasy literature but young enough to still hold out hope that you might find a book of real, actual magic in the library. The book I found instead taught basic sleight-of-hand technique, and I dedicated the next months to practice.
At first the magic wasn’t any good. At first it wasn’t even magic; it was just a trick—a bad trick. I spent hours each day in the bathroom running through the secret moves in front of the mirror. I dropped the coin over and over, a thousand times in a day, and after two weeks of this my mom got a carpet from the hardware store and placed it under the mirror to muffle the sound of the coin falling again and again.
I had heard my dad work through passages of new music on the piano, so I knew how to practice—slowly, deliberately, going for precision rather than speed. One day I tried the illusion in the mirror and the coin vanished. It did not look like a magic trick. It looked like a miracle.
One of the lessons you learn very early on as a magician is that the most amazing part of a trick has nothing to do with the secret. The secret is simple and often dull: a hidden piece of tape, a small mirror, a duplicate playing card, diversion of the audience’s attention. In this case, the secret was a series of covert ( 暗 中 的 ) technique to hide the coin behind my hand in the act of opening it, a dance of the fingers that I learned so completely I didn’t even have to think. I would close my hand, then open it, and the coin would vanish not by skill but by real magic.
1. What book did the author intend to find in the library when he was nine years old?| A．A book teaching people how to make a coin disappear. |
| B．The second book of The Lord of the Rings. |
| C．A book on how to become a magician. |
| D．A book of real magic. |
| A．clean | B．punish |
| C．lower | D．kill |
| A．Without music, life is of no value. | B．Practice makes perfect. |
| C．Great liars are also great magicians. | D．No pains, no gains. |
| A．Carrying out skillful hand moves. |
| B．Using real magic to create miracles. |
| C．Hiding some stage tools inside the coat. |
| D．Guiding the audience to focus on something unimportant. |
6 . "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. |
7 . Ants know when an earthquake is about to strike, researchers have discovered. Their behavior changes significantly prior to the quake and they resume normal functioning only a day after it. Gabriele Berberich of the University Duisburg-Essen in Germany presented these findings on Thursday at the European Geosciences Union annual meeting in Vienna according to LiveScience.
Berberich and her colleagues discovered that red wood ants preferred to build their colonies right along active faults in Germany. They counted 15,000 mounds （土堆)）lining the faults. These faults are the places where the earth violently bursts in earthquakes.
Using a special camera that tracked changes in activity. Berberich and her colleagues tracked the ants round the clock for three years, 2016 to 2019. They found that the ants' behavior changed only when the quake was over magnitude （级数）2. There were 10 earthquakes between magnitude 2.0 and 3.2 during this period, and many smaller ones. Humans can also sense quakes of over magnitude 2 only.
According to Berberich, normal ant activity consists of going about collecting food etc,during the day and resting in the night But before an earthquake, the ants didn't go back to their mound in the night and moved around outside it. This strange and abnormal behavior continued till a day after the earthquake, Berberich told a news conference, according to Livescience.
How do ants know an earthquake is coming? Berberich suggested that they could either be picking up changing gas emissions or noting tiny changes in the Earth's magnetic fields （磁场）. "Red wood ants have special cells which can detect changes in carbon dioxide levels. They also have special cells for detecting electromagnetic fields." she said. Berberich and her colleagues are planning to continue the research in areas where there are more and bigger earthquakes
1. What's the meaning of the underlined word "resume" in Paragraph 1?| A．Form. | B．Avoid. |
| C．Recover. | D．Improve. |
| A．To lead to the main topic. | B．To describe a new species of ant, |
| C．To introduce a famous researcher | D．To tell how to predict an earthquake. |
| A．They have no appetite. | B．They are too excited to rest. |
| C．They get lost on their way home. | D．They refuse to go inside their nests. |
| A．Ants can only detect smaller earthquakes. |
| B．The result of the research is completely reliable. |
| C．Ants may have two ways to predict earthquakes. |
| D．Researchers don't know how ants predict earthquakes. |
8 . Listening to music is considered a good thing for adults. Indeed it is. Scientific studies have proved it. Music has so many good effects on our body, mind and mood that this world will certainly not be a good place without music. Then, is music good for children? Some parents think so and let their children learn or listen to music. But some parents don't know the importance of music to children. Here are some reasons why music is important to children.
First, music is good for children’s intelligence. Studies have proved that children who learn music are likely to have higher intelligence than those who have no interest in or dislike music. This is because the brain gets stimulated (刺激) by the rhythm and tone of music.
Music also has soothing (抚慰的) effect on children and helps remove their stress. Today’s children are under a lot of stress from schoolwork. Being under too much stress impairs children’s health. Luckily，listening to music can help them feel better.
Music can improve children’s moods. Some children are sad by nature. They seem to be lost in their own thoughts and don’t take interest in their surroundings. In such cases，a method known as “music therapy” comes to their rescue. It changes their moods and places a new kind of spirit in them.
Music is also a universal language that children ought to learn. Our world has become a global village. People are getting more and more interested in other cultures and countries. Music can help them in understanding foreign cultures.
Now we can say that music is very important not only to adults but also to children. So children should be encouraged to learn music or listen to music.
1. By mentioning scientific studies in Paragraph 1, the author wants to show .| A．Children should listen to music |
| B．Why adults should listen to music |
| C．Listening to music is only good for adults |
| D．Why scientists are interested in music |
| A．shows. | B．changes. |
| C．improves. | D．harms. |
| A．Understanding foreign cultures better |
| B．Learning languages better |
| C．Accepting the fast developing world easily |
| D．Showing greater interest in other cultures |
| A．Why do Children Love Music? |
| B．How to Choose Music for Children |
| C．Why is Music Important to Children? |
| D．How to Teach Children Music Easily |
9 . Legend suggests that, in the late 16th century, Martin Luther (the founder of the Protestant religion) was the first to decorate an indoor tree with candles when he attempted to recreate the stars shining over a forest of evergreens.
The first mention of decorated trees being taken indoors came in 1605 in Germany ---- a country with a long Christmas tree history! The trees were initially decorated with fruit and sweets together with handmade objects such as quilted snowflakes and stars. German Christmas Markets began to sell shaped gingerbreads and wax ornaments which people bought as souvenirs of the fair and took home to hang on their trees.
Tinsel was also invented in Germany in about 1610. Up until fairly recently real silver was used, which was pulled into wafer thin strips by special machines. This was durable but tarnished quickly and many experiments took place to try and find an alternative - including a mix of lead and tin, which was too heavy and kept breaking. It was only in the mid 20th century that a viable alternative was found.
Artificial trees were invented in the 1880's in a bid to try and stop some of the damage being caused to real trees due to people lopping the tip off large trees, thus preventing the trees from growing any further. It got so bad in Germany that laws had to be brought in to prevent people having more than one tree.
1. The best title for the passage may be “_______”.| A．Martin Luther Was The First to Decorate an Indoor Tree |
| B．The Origin of the Christmas Tree |
| C．German Christmas Markets Began to Sell Shaped Gingerbreads |
| D．Artificial Trees Were Invented in the 1880s |
| A．in the late 6th century ,Martin Luther was the second to decorate an indoor tree with candles |
| B．the first mention of decorated trees being taken outdoors came in 1605 in Germany |
| C．German Christmas Markets began to buy shaped gingerbreads and wax ornaments |
| D．artificial trees were invented in the 1880s in a bid to try and stop some of the damage being caused to real trees |
| A．Silver products. | B．Wood products. |
| C．Iron products. | D．Plastic products. |
| A．Germans could buy more and more artificial trees if they want |
| B．we use artificial trees because that will increase the damage caused to real trees |
| C．the writer doesn’t like these artificial trees because he thinks they aren’t beautiful |
| D．artificial trees were invented but German government made the law which limits the number of the trees |
10 . This month, Germany’s transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, proposed the first set of rules for autonomous vehicles. They would define the driver’s role in such cars and govern how such cars perform in crashes where lives might be lost.
The proposal attempts to deal with what some call the “death valley” of autonomous vehicles: the grey area between semi-autonomous and fully driverless cars that could delay the driverless future.
Dobrindt wants three things: that a car always chooses property damage over personal injury; that it never distinguishes between humans based on age or race; and that if a human removes his or her hands from the driving wheel — to check email, say — the car’s maker is responsible if there is a crash.
“The change to the road traffic law will permit fully automatic driving,” says Dobrindt. It will put fully driverless cars on an equal legal footing to human drivers, he says.
Who is responsible for the operation of such vehicles is not clear among car makers, consumers and lawyers. “The liability issue is the biggest one of them all,” says Natasha Merat at the University of Leeds, UK.
An assumption behind UK insurance for driverless cars, introduced earlier this year, insists that a human “be watchful and monitoring the road” at every moment.
But that is not what many people have in mind when thinking of driverless cars. “When you say ‘driverless cars’, people expect driverless cars.” Merat says. “You know — no driver.”
Because of the confusion, Merat thinks some car makers will wait until vehicles can be fully automated without operation.
Driverless cars may end up being a form of public transport rather than vehicles you own, says Ryan Calo at Stanford University, California. That is happening in the UK and Singapore, where government-provided driverless vehicles are being launched.
That would go down poorly in the US, however. “The idea that the government would take over driverless cars and treat them as a public good would get absolutely nowhere here,” says Calo.
1. What does the phrase “death valley” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．A place where cars often break down. |
| B．A case where passing a law is impossible. |
| C．An area where no driving is permitted. |
| D．A situation where drivers’ role is not clear. |
| A．stop people from breaking traffic rules |
| B．help promote fully automatic driving |
| C．protect drivers of all ages and races |
| D．prevent serious property damage |
| A．It should get the attention of insurance companies. |
| B．It should be the main concern of law makers. |
| C．It should not cause deadly traffic accidents. |
| D．It should involve no human responsibility. |
| A．Autonomous Driving: Whose Liability? |
| B．Fully Automatic Cars: A New Breakthrough |
| C．Autonomous Vehicles: Driver Removed! |
| D．Driverless Cars: Root of Road Accidents |
