1 . Steve Sparks was a young successful lawyer working for a famous law firm when his 3-year-old daughter’s serious leg problem changed his focus and the direction of his life. The problem led to many visits to doctors and an uncertain future. In a moment his life’s focus shifted from where he was going to take his clients to lunch to whether his daughter Katie was ever going to see her fourth birthday.
For three years Katie received many treatments in the hospital. And with the help of wonderful doctors and kind care-givers in Nemours Foundation, who Steve and his wife Michelle describe as heroes, Katie’s illness was cured.
Forever changed by the experience and inspired by the heroes who saved his daughter’s life, Steve felt he couldn’t go back to business as usual. He felt there was something else he was meant to do. He joined the Nemours Foundation as their lawyer. The job change came with a 65% pay cut from what he was making, but Steve’s purpose had found him and it was more important than a paycheck.
Fast forward 18 years, Katie is now a healthy 20-year-old junior in college and Steve is the Senior Vice-president of the Nemours Foundation where he brings Kati story and his purpose to work every day.
In 3 weeks Steve will celebrate Katie’s 21st birthday, and give a big thank-you to Nemours by riding his bicycle from Nemours’ headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida to Wilmington, Delaware. He will ride more than 900 miles in 9 days and raise 100,000 for the Nemours Foundation. His purpose hasn’t just become a part of his work. It has become a part of himself and his family.
1. What’s the text mainly about?| A．A hospital saved a girl’s life. | B．A girl going through a disease. |
| C．A man with a good purpose. | D．A family suffered a lot. |
| A．Injury. | B．Reduction. | C．Share. | D．Hole. |
| A．To find his purpose. | B．To cure his daughter. |
| C．To earn more money. | D．To help others. |
| A．Sometimes we find our purpose and sometimes our purpose finds us. |
| B．Unless you work hard, you cannot overcome any difficulty. |
| C．Anyone who is kind to others deserves good returns. |
| D．Nothing is more important than health. |
2 . There you are, looking through your WeChat moments or your Weibo feed, and you come across a post saying something like this: “I just got accepted to Harvard and 0xford! Are they sure they didn’t mix my applications up with somebody else’s?”
This person is clearly humblebragging. The term “humblebrag” was first coined back in 2010 by the late US comedian Harris Wittels, and it describes when someone makes a seemingly modest statement, but the actual purpose is to bring attention to something they are proud of.
The example above is a modesty-based humblebrag. The person wants to tell others: “I got accepted to Harvard and Oxford!” However, they don't want to seem too proud of their accomplishments. So, instead, they word it in a way to be more modest and bring down the importance of their achievements.
Although people who humblebrag think it will make them more likeable because they aren’t talking proudly about their victories, a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that humblebragging actually has the opposite effect.
“Humblebragging doesn’t have the intended result because it seems insincere. That ‘poor me’ attitude combined with self-promotion does not lead to a favorable impression,” said Ovul Sezer, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the University of North Carolina, US. “ Even simply bragging or complaining (抱怨) is better, because at least those messages are seen as more sincere.”
Sezer’s study also found that nearly 60% of humblebrags were complaint-based humblebragging, with most people humblebragging about their looks, followed by their money or wealth, and finally about their performance at work. “It’s such a common phenomenon. All of us know some people in our lives, whether in the social media or in the workplace, who do this annoying thing,” commented Sezer, adding that we all do it to some extent.
So, if you want to share your achievements with others, what’s the best way to do it then? Sezer suggests that people admit their self-promotion and harvest the rewards of being sincere. She also suggests finding a go-between, adding, “If someone brags for you, that’s the best thing that can happen to you, because then you don’t seem like you’re bragging.”
1. The underlined word “coined” in Paragraph 2 probably means “________”.| A．recognized | B．invented |
| C．bought | D．copied |
| A．Hesitating to talk about your achievements. |
| B．Bringing people’s attention to your achievements. |
| C．Talking proudly about your achievements in the social media. |
| D．Pretending to be modest when talking about your achievements. |
| A．Cautious. | B．Ambiguous. |
| C．Supportive. | D．Disapproving. |
| A．Share their achievements with their best friends. |
| B．Bring down the importance of their achievements. |
| C．Find someone else to talk about their achievements. |
| D．Talk about their achievements after someone else does. |
3 . Esports (electronic sports) are organized competitions where players — often referred to as “athletes” — face off against each other in video games. They are not just games in a sense. Actually, they are a sport that can improve the players’ thinking ability, hand-eye coordination, willpower and team spirit.
The esports industry has experienced significant growth in recent years around the world, though it’s still in the nascent stage, which means it has huge growth potential going forward.
While the assumption is that esports are only a recent phenomenon, in reality the first esports-like event was held back in 1972, when some Stanford University students competed against one another in the game Spacewar. The prize? A year-long subscription to Rolling Stone magazine.
The ’80s saw the first true videogame tournament, with over 10,000 players gathering for the Space Invaders Championship. However, most of the period saw that players focused on beating each other’s highest scores rather than competing in organized tournaments.
As gaming became more popular, the ’90s became the first decade when esports (a term which wasn’t yet coined) began to really take off, with companies such as Nintendo and Sega holding professional gaming tournaments. This is also when we began to see money becoming a factor in professional gaming. But it is the 1997 Red Annihilation Quake tournament that is considered the world’s first real esports event. Only a few weeks later, the Cyberathlete Professional League was formed — an organization which is considered a pioneer of esports.
Due to the normalization of gaming and the Internet (along with technological advances), the real surge ( 激增 ) of esports came in the recent decade. It was then that we began seeing what we now know to be modern-day esports. As streaming platforms such as YouTube took off, people began to show interest in not only playing videogames but watching them too. Popular tournaments now sell out stadiums and professional players can earn millions from prize money, advertising and salaries.
1. What does the underlined word “nascent” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Beginning. | B．Peak. |
| C．Mature. | D．Final. |
| A．By providing examples. | B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By following the order of time. | D．By following the order of importance. |
| A．They spread worldwide overnight. |
| B．Prize money appeared in the 1990s. |
| C．The first real esports event was held in 1972. |
| D．The athletes in esports are programmers. |
| A．They are getting popular. |
| B．They become too commercialized. |
| C．They boost the normalization of the Internet. |
| D．Their development relies on advertising. |
4 . Carrots are grown on farms and in family gardens throughout the world. Carrots are easy to raise and easy to harvest. They taste good, and people from all countries love them.
When people think of carrots, they usually picture in their minds a vegetable that is long, thin and orange in colour. But carrots come in many different sizes and shapes. And not all carrots are orange. For the best results, carrots should be grown in sandy soil (土壤) that does not hold water for a long time. The soil also should have no rocks. To prepare your carrots garden, dig up the soil, loosen it and turn it over. Then, mix in some plant material or animal fertilizer. Weather, soil conditions and age will affect how carrots taste. Experts say warm days, cool nights and a medium soil temperature are the best conditions for growing carrots that taste great.
Carrots need time to develop their full sugar content. This gives them their good taste. But carrots lose their sweetness if you wait too long to remove them from the ground. The best way to determine if a carrot is ready to be harvested is by its colour. Usually, the brighter the colour, the better the taste.
Carrots are prepared and eaten in many different ways. They are cut in thin pieces and added to other vegetables. They are cooked by themselves or added to stews. Or, once they are washed, they can also be eaten just as they come out of the ground.
1. What does the underlined word “picture” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Understand. | B．Describe. |
| C．Explain. | D．Imagine. |
| A．Choosing wet land. | B．Digging up the soil. |
| C．Making the earth loose. | D．Mixing in plant material or animal fertilizer. |
| A．Orange is not the only colour that carrots have. |
| B．They are easy to raise but hard to harvest. |
| C．Only one factor affects the way carrots taste. |
| D．It is only by colour that you can decide if you should harvest them. |
| A．Because sometimes people are very busy. |
| B．Because it takes time for carrots to keep sugar. |
| C．Because carrots have different kinds. |
| D．Because weather always changes. |
5 . The joy of giving is real, according to a study. Research presented in the Journal of the Association for Psychological Science shows that those who give gifts are happier — and happier for longer — than those who receive gifts.
Researchers conducted two studies last year. In one，participants were given $5 every day for five days and were required to spend the money on the same thing each day. Some participants were required to spend the money on themselves, while others were required to give to make a donation to charity. In a second experiment that was done online, participants played 10 rounds of a word puzzle game and each won 5 cents per round, which they could keep or donate.
In both experiments, participants reported their overall happiness. Those who donated their money showed that their happiness declined at a much slower rate than those who kept the money or spent it on themselves.
The researchers note that when people focus on an outcome, they can easily compare outcomes, which may diminish their sensitivity to each experience. When people focus on an action, they may focus less on comparison and instead experience each act of giving as a unique happiness-inducing event. Further analyses ruled out some potential alternative explanations, such as the possibility that participants who gave to others had to think longer and harder about what to give, which could promote higher happiness.
The results are especially interesting because according to one of the researchers, Ed O’Brien of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, they conflict with past research. “If you want to sustain happiness over time, past research tells us that we need to take a break from what were currently consuming and experience something new. Our research reveals that the kind of thing may matter more than assumed: Repeated giving, even in identical ways to identical other，may continue to feel relatively fresh and relatively pleasurable the more we do it,” O’Brien said.
So for all the holiday gifts you give this season, expect to feel happy and know that feeling is going to stick around for a while.
1. What’s the function of the first paragraph?| A．To lead to the topic. |
| B．To highlight the importance of the study. |
| C．To recommend a journal. |
| D．To persuade people to give gifts regularly. |
| A．To challenge the past research. |
| B．To rule out different experimental data. |
| C．To show the benefits of donation. |
| D．To make the conclusion more convincing. |
| A．Develop. | B．Show. | C．Reduce. | D．Lack. |
| A．Gift giving will result in longer happiness than receiving. |
| B．Thinking longer and harder on giving will promote higher happiness. |
| C．The feeling of happiness will disappear soon if people just give holiday gifts. |
| D．Taking a break from what were currently consuming will sustain happiness. |
6 . In Asia, the car is as much a status symbol as it is a means of transport. A car’s design is not the only consideration when a vehicle has to suit the needs of everyone in the family .
This is the case for one particular group of drivers: The sandwich generation, who are stuck between caring for their children and caring for their parents. For them, the ‘family car’ is often shared with everyone from the newly licensed teens to adults with their own kids, or grandparents struggling with physical mobility.
With differing demands of so many people from boomers to Gen Z, your car has to appeal to all — and keep everyone safe in the event of a car accident.
Over 20% of serious driver accidents involving teens were caused by driving too fast for the road conditions. But it isn’t just risky driving behavior that causes teens to be the source of serious road accidents. In fact, according to research conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, most speed-related teen crashes are due to inexperience and a lack of driving skills rather than intentionally risky driving behavior.
It can be challenging for newbie drivers to appropriately judge the proper speed at which to take turns, especially on less-than-perfect roads or driving conditions. Helping them along is Subaru’s Active Torque Vectoring, which makes up for any over-eagerness, ensuring you can take the car through corners in a smooth and safe manner.
For seniors with slower reaction, or having difficulty stretching out their neck to check blind spots, being able to quickly avoid danger can be critical. Subaru’s Blind Spot Detection system will alert you if there’s a vehicle in the neighboring lane. What’s more, Subaru’s EyeSight Lane Departure Warning warns the driver if they start to stray by accident from their traffic lane and endanger other vehicles in the neighbouring lane, while the EyeSight Lane Sway Warning system will remind you should you begin to move back and forth in your lane.
It can be difficult to find a car that appeals to multiple generations. But there are some things you should never compromise regardless of your age or driving experience. And at the top of that list is safety.
1. According to the text, what is the reason for most speed-related teen crashes?| A．Their risky driving behavior on purpose |
| B．Their inability to check blind spots. |
| C．A lack of experience and driving skills |
| D．The busy roads or ideal driving conditions |
| A．Subaru’s Active Torque Vectoring |
| B．EyeSight Lane Sway Warning system |
| C．Subaru’s Blind Spot Detection system |
| D．Subaru’s EyeSight Lane Departure Warning |
| A．Speed up | B．Move away |
| C．Pull over | D．Turn around |
| A．The sandwich generation mainly care about their parents’ demands. |
| B．It is challenging to design a multifunctional car to satisfy everyone. |
| C．It’s extremely important to drive safely no matter how old the drivers are. |
| D．Subaru can ensure driving safety of the drivers ranging from teens to seniors. |
7 . Some of the wonder buildings are known for their beautiful construction, while others track their history from ancient times. There are some buildings in the world which are attractive and look really amazing.
Shenzhen International Airport Terminal（航站楼）
Shenzhen International Airport Terminal is in China. This building is a wonder of Italian architects（建筑师）Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas. Thanks to these two architects who created the design of Terminal 3 of Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport in a highly creative and wonderful way, the building reflects the sunlight from its inside during the daytime.
The La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science
The La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science is an eye-catching building. The design of this building was given by Architects of Lyons in France. The building was constructed in a hexagonal（六角形的）shape, having six floors. It is one of the best medical colleges of Melbourne, Australia.
De Rotterdam
De Rotterdam is one of the best constructed buildings of Netherland. The architect, Rem Koolhaas gave it an ideal and beautiful look. This is one of the largest buildings of Europe. It has three mix-style towers, beautiful accommodation（住宿）areas, the commercial center, the conference hall, restaurants and cafes for the visitors. It also has an indoor swimming pool where lots of people enjoy different water games in summer.
The Roof Gardens Kensington
You can give any name to this restaurant, but what it is known for is its special style of construction. The locals name “The Roof Gardens Kensington” a dreamy and romantic place for the visitors. It is much more expensive but the food served at this restaurant is indetective in terms of its taste and quality.
1. What can we learn about Terminal 3 of Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport?| A．Sunlight can be reflected from its inside. |
| B．The design of the terminal once won a prize. |
| C．It offers many kinds of global special foods. |
| D．It was designed by a world famous architect. |
| A．One who enjoys playing all kinds of water games. |
| B．One who prefers food with wonderful taste and quality. |
| C．One who studies different styles of doors and windows. |
| D．One who dreams enjoying a lovely and romantic dinner. |
| A．Unaffordable. | B．Perfect. |
| C．Unnecessary. | D．Reasonable. |
8 . Turtles have an unfortunate habit of eating plastic objects floating in the sea. These then cannot be broken down and digested, and may ultimately kill them.
It is widely assumed that this special liking for plastics is a matter of mistaken identity. Floating plastic bags, for instance, look similar to jellyfish, which many types of turtles love to eat. Yet lota of plastic objects that end up inside turtles are not similar to jellyfish. Joseph Pfaller of the University of Florida therefore suspects that the smell of micro-organisms (微生物) which grow on floating plastic objects fools turtles to feed.
Researchers at the University of California noticed that certain chemicals, which are released into the air by micro-organism — colonised plastics, are those which many seabirds sniff to track down food. These chemicals mark good places to hunt because they indicate an abundance of the seaweed and bacteria. Since turtles are known to break the surface and sniff the air when swimming towards their feeding areas, Dr. Pfaller indicated that they are following these same chemicals, and are fooled into thinking that floating plastic objects are edible.
To test that idea, he and his colleagues set up an experiment. They arranged for 15 of the animals, each around five months old, to be exposed, in random order, to four smells delivered through a pipe to; the air above an experimental area. The smells were: the vapour from deionised (去离子) water; the smell of turtle-feeding meal; the smell of a clean plastic bottle; and the smell of a similarly plastic bottle that had been kept in the ocean for five weeks to allow seaweed and bacteria to grow on it. Two of the smells-the smell of meal and that of five-week-old bottles-proved far more attractive to the animals than the others.
On the face of it, then, the turtles were responding to the smell of old bottles as if it were the smell of food. In an unpolluted ocean, pretty well anything which had this smell would be edible-or, at least, harmless. Unfortunately, five-week-old plastic bottles and their like are not.
1. What is most people's opinion on turtles' special habit?| A．Turtles prefer jellyfish to plastics. |
| B．Turtles enjoy the taste of plastics. |
| C．Turtles like being fed with plastic tools. |
| D．Turtles choose to eat plastics for a mistake. |
| A．Fit to eat. | B．Pleasant to smell. |
| C．Far to reach. | D．Easy to digest. |
| A．Many seabirds can track the food. |
| B．Most animals find food through smells. |
| C．Two smells are especially favored by turtles. |
| D．The favored smell leads turtles to seek for food. |
| A．To explain why the ocean is polluted. |
| B．To ask for people to feed turtles proper food. |
| C．To arouse the awareness of protecting the ocean. |
| D．To show his agreement on Dr. Pfaller's research. |
9 . I have always been creative since I was a little girl. My childhood was filled with arts, crafts and music, and every day was an exciting adventure of creation.
Somewhere along the way, however, I lost touch with my creative self. At 21, I landed a job at a big insurance firm out of my business degree. I would go to the office, sit at my desk and repeat the same work five days a week, 9 to 5. The days were long and tedious. Working this way for one year was painful enough, let alone a lifetime. Before long I decided to make a change.
One thing I had developed an interest in was sewing, so I took a sewing course at a community college. It was only a five-week course but it awakened my interest and got my confidence up.
As I dreamed bigger, I began looking into college courses for Fashion Design and three months later I signed up for a part-time design course. I attended classes two nights a week. Although exhausting, it gave me energy, enthusiasm and happiness.
As it became more evident that fashion was what I wanted to do full time, the reality of my day-to-day work at the insurance firm became harder. I felt bored. No energy, no motivation and zero fulfillment.
I knew I needed to make a big change. After struggling for quite a while, I made a tough decision— leaving my job and studying my design course full time. Two years later I got my diploma.
The last few years have been exciting because I have been following my heart to do what I love. Today I'm living a creative life as the designer of my own fashion brand.
1. What does the underlined word in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Flexible. | B．Boring. | C．Pleasant. | D．Endless. |
| A．She quit her job and took the fashion design course full time. |
| B．She got a job and attended a part-time sewing course. |
| C．She successfully built up her own fashion brand. |
| D．She took sewing and fashion design courses full time. |
| A．To share her great achievement with us. |
| B．To appeal to us to live a creative life and make changes. |
| C．To inspire us to follow our heart and do what we really like. |
| D．To convince us of the vital importance of creativity and enthusiasm. |
10 . A Bridge Linking Art and the Audience
According to a 2018 report, people aged between 16 and 24 make up about 15 percent of the population but only 10 percent of museum-goers. Similarly, people aged over 35 go half as much as you would expect from their population size. We have reached the point of recognising the disconnection between art and the audience but haven’t yet determined how to bridge the gap. Two answers to tackling this challenge lie in telling a greater diversity of art histories and communicating these stories in more accessible ways.
In 2018, a radio program called Art Matters was started with the aim of discussing art from a pop-culture viewpoint with topics that would engage younger and more diverse audience. It offers an accessible pathway to art history with conversations on different topics. Art history is about storytelling; art content shines when there is an effort to bring audience along for the discussion.
More traditional institutions are paying attention. Recently the Getty Museum issued a social-media challenge for people to recreate paintings using items they had at home. Users displayed incredible creativity, and the museum was flooded with submissions. This reaction proves that there is a potential desire for the audience to engage with art topics if the format is appealing. Since many people feel intimidated and think that there’s a base level of understanding required to join the conversation, the Getty initiative serves as a reminder that there are many pathways to engaging with it.
Another result of the Getty challenge was the exposure given to a diversity of artworks. The famous opera singer Peter Brathwaite, for example, made scores of attractive recreations highlighting centuries of black paintings. His efforts opposed the idea that there were not many historical paintings of black figures. It is extremely important that we do a better job of showing the complex and diverse stories that are represented in art.
Social media have offered a platform for people who have not traditionally had a seat at the table. Anyone can recognise a gap in the field and address it. Accounts have gathered tens of thousands of followers. They are the proof that there is hunger to hear these art histories, and these themes work brilliantly for museum programming.
But there is only so much that can be done without the museums and galleries changing meaningfully from within. We need to see a better balance of these stories represented in permanent collections. We also need a much wider diversity of people and interests represented on board. Ensuring that art-and writing and talking about art-is able to continue on the rising generation of storytellers, inside and outside of institutions, getting the funding and support they need to paint a brighter picture for the part.
1. What challenge is the author trying to tackle?| A．People doubt a great diversity of artworks. |
| B．Fewer and fewer young people go to museums. |
| C．Art appears too distant from common audience. |
| D．Adult audience has a different understanding of art. |
| A．Tired. | B．Worried. | C．Annoyed. | D．Surprised. |
| A．make the art history stories accessible in a traditional way. |
| B．change meaningfully for activities like the Getty challenge. |
| C．limit the number of storytellers both in and out of institutions. |
| D．improve the permanent collections by adding famous artworks. |
| A．lacks the channels to understand and talk about art history. |
| B．prefers to view artworks and hear art stories on social media. |
| C．feels satisfied with people and interests represented on board. |
| D．refuses to engage with diverse art topics and art history stories. |
