1 . I was typing papers for new school students when Mama called. We talked about some senseless things for a while before she finally told me about it. "Well, Donner, there's this class up at the high school this summer." she said. "They say they can teach me to read and write. I'm trying to decide whether"
"Of course, you should do it! That would be so wonderful. I'd be so proud of you." I answered. She was 63 and had survived two alcoholic husbands and was an expert at buying and selling garage sale junk to keep food on her own table and buy Christmas presents for me and my brother's kids. She used food stamps to buy food and other goods. Mama laughed, seemingly with relief. "Well, you know, I'd about gotten used to being the silliest old lady in town," she said.
It turned out that her neighbor had found the class for her. The young woman had been doing Mama's "business" for a while in my absence, helping to allay my guilt over leaving Mississippi. The friend was a little crazy, but Mama liked her. She was real and, by then, I hated pretension as much as Mama did. When I was little she would tell me: "Remember, Donner Kay, nobody's better than anybody else."
Three months into the class. Mama left a message on my answering machine: "Donner, I taught a class tonight!" She was almost singing the words. "The teacher let me teach the class!" She soon wrote me a letter in a careful, boxy print I had never seen, instead of the strange way she had long written family names she had memorized.
The next time I flew home to visit, we both laughed like 12-year-olds as she read words from billboards on the way from the airport. Her grammar was getting better. She kept talking about her classes and the other students.
1. Why did Donner's mother phone her according to Paragraph 1?| A．To advise Donner to take a course. | B．To show her support for Donner. |
| C．To tell Donner her decision. | D．To ask Donner for advice. |
| A．admit | B．forget | C．punish | D．reduce |
| A．Astonished. | B．Delighted. | C．Puzzled. | D．Worried. |
| A．What progress Donner's mother made. |
| B．The difficulty Donner's mother had in learning. |
| C．How Donner's mother learned to read and write. |
| D．The effects other students had on Donner's mother. |
2 . A table-waiting robot cat built by a Chinese technology firm can carry plates of food, navigate a restaurant, miaow at diners and even react to having its ears stroked (抚摸).
Making its debut at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the so-called BellaBot was built for Chinese restaurants lacking enough waiters.
It is the brainchild of the Chinese robotics and artificial intelligence firm PuduTech. It features four shelves in the centre of its tower-like body to carry plates. Having been loaded up with meals by its human colleagues, the cat-themed robotic waiter miaows when it delivers food to diners to encourage them to take their plates. If customers thank BellaBot by stroking its ears, it will respond with a look of pleasure on its on-board screen, which displays animations of a cat’s face. “The owner’s hand is so warm,” BellaBot has been programmed to respond.
However, much like a real cat, the robot’s reaction soon changes if it is petted for too long. “It gets mad to remind you not to interrupt its job,” the designers introduced. The BellaBot waiter robot is a more personality-rich update to PuduTech’s previous model, which featured a more utilitarian (实用主义的) design and user interface.
Both BellaBot and its predecessor were designed with a particular mind to Chinese restaurants which are often short of waiting staff.
In a real-world food-service setting, however, BellaBot may find it difficult to operate at peak times. Nevertheless, restaurants are expected to increase their reliance on automation whether in the form of robotic waiting staff or otherwise. Furthermore, improvements in technology will see consumer robot designs grow steadily better at communicating with humans and facing new activities.
1. The underlined word “debut” in the second paragraph probably means_____.| A．first production | B．first sale |
| C．first appearance | D．first design |
| A．load plates by itself and deliver food to diners |
| B．help diners find seats in a restaurant |
| C．react to diners with its ears stroked |
| D．remind diners not to pet it for too long |
| A．make an advertisement |
| B．introduce an updated invention |
| C．predict future robot designs |
| D．solve the problems Chinese restaurants are facing |
| A．Chinese robotics and artificial intelligence |
| B．A Chinese technology firm |
| C．Improvements in robot design |
| D．Table-waiting robot cat |
3 . We humans like to conquer.
For the same reason that soccer players want to hold the World Cup trophy(奖杯) and tennis players crave a Grand Slam win, mountaineers dream of reaching the highest peak on the planet — Mount Qomolangma, which towers about 8,844 meters above sea level.
“Everybody wants to stand on top of the world,” Mirza Ali from Pakistan who had just “conquered” Mount Qomolangma, told the Los Angeles Times.
However, this desire to conquer has become so strong that we have begun to travel in the wrong direction.
During this year’s climbing season—from March to May—at least 11 climbers died in the Himalayas, making it one of the worst seasons on record. And the fact that many of the climbers were inexperienced is one of the major factors(因素) contributing to the tragedy, according to USA Today.
“They don’t train very hard. They underestimate(低估) Qomolangma,” Jangbu Sherpa, who has been working as a guide on Mount Qomolangma since 2006, told NBC News. “There are lots of climbers who just want to check the box so that they can say they’ve been to the top of the world.”
This ignorant attitude of climbers also leads to other problems—apart from putting their own lives at risk, of course. According to HuffPost, the mountain’s cleaning group collected 12 tons of trash—including food wrappers(包装袋), and oxygen tanks—left behind this climbing season. This once holy(神圣的) and peaceful corner of the world has, as The Atlantic reporter Margret Grebowics put it, “lost its magic”.
Perhaps what we should do now is restore meaning to the activity itself—real meaning. And for Alison Levine, a US mountaineer who reached the summit(山顶) of Mount Qomolangma in 2010, the meaning doesn’t come with the summit itself, but with everything that led her up to it.
“When I did make it to the summit, what I realized is that standing on top of a mountain doesn’t change you and doesn’t change the world,” Levine told the NPR. “It’s really about the journey. The journey is the most important thing on any mountain.”
It’s true that we humans like to conquer. But the first step of conquering anything is probably to learn to conquer our own greed(贪婪) and ignorance.
1. What does the underlined word “crave” mean?| A．have no interest in | B．have a strong desire for |
| C．be optimistic about | D．be likely to win |
| A．Not having enough training and experience. |
| B．Not bringing enough number of oxygen tanks. |
| C．Not having professional climbing equipment. |
| D．Not being accustomed to the cold weather. |
| A．Being on top of the world. |
| B．Being able to change the world. |
| C．The journey to reach the summit. |
| D．The spirit to conquer the summit. |
| A．Regretful. | B．Critical. | C．Encouraging. | D．Doubtful. |
4 . An elephant and a crocodile were once standing beside river. They were disputing which was the better animal.
“Look at my strength,” said the elephant. “I can pull up a tree, roots and all with my trunk”
“Ah! But your skin is not nearly so thick as mine,” replied the crocodile. “No knife or tooth can cut through it.”
Just as they were coming to blows, a lion happened to pass.
“My dear friends!” said the King of all animals, going up to them. “Let me know the cause of your disagreement.”
“Will you kindly tell us which is the better animal?” cried both at once.
“Certainly”, said the lion, pointing across the river. “Do you see the soldiers’ metal hat on that wall?”
“Yes!” replied the beasts.
“Well, then,” continued the lion, “go and get it, and bring it to me, and I shall be able then to decide between you.”
Upon hearing this, off they started. The crocodile, being used to the water, reached the opposite side of the river first, and was soon standing beside the wall.
Here he waited till the elephant came up. The elephant, seeing that the crocodile had no way of reaching their goal, raised his long trunk, and took down the hat quite easily.
They then made their way together back again across the river. The elephant was trying to keep up with the fast-moving crocodile in the water and became careless. When he was forced to turn sharply to avoid a floating tree branch, the elephant dropped the hat and it fell to the river bottom. The crocodile noticed the accident, so down he dived, and brought it up in his huge mouth. They then returned, and the crocodile laid the metal hat at the lion's feet. The King took it up, and turning to the elephant, said: “You, because of your size and trunk, were able to reach the hat on the wall but, having lost it, you were unable to get it back. And you,” said the lion to the crocodile, “although unable to reach the hat, were able to dive for it and save it. You are both wise and able in your own ways. One is no better than the other.”
1. The underlined word "disputing" in Paragraph 1 means____.| A．playing | B．quarrelling | C．complaining | D．deciding |
| A．His big mouth | B．His strong skin | C．His swimming skill | D．His dangerous teeth |
| A．He ordered them to fight. | B．He made a quick decision. |
| C．He suggested a competition | D．He asked them to describe themselves |
| A．The hat got wet in the river. | B．He hit a floating tree |
| C．He was trying to swim too fast | D．He wanted to fight the crocodile |
| A．By working together | B．planning carefully |
| C．By sharing their ideas | D．By listening to the lion |
5 . When visitors to the Palace Museum feel a need to sit down for a cup of tea or find a bathroom without a long line, they soon will be able to turn to their smart phones for the information they need.
This modern day solution comes thanks to an agreement signed on Friday by the museum and Huawei Co., the telecommunication giant, to build a “smart network” using 5G technology. Under the agreement, 5G Wi-Fi signals will cover the Palace Museum, China's royal palace from 1420 to 1911, and the branch museum of the institution under construction in northwestern Beijing.
“It’s essential to always stay close to the latest technology to better serve the public,” said Shan Jixiang, former director of the Palace Museum. Shan said there is still much room for improvement in the handling of a huge number of cultural relics (文物)，such as when the priceless painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival is exhibited again in the future. When it was last exhibited in 2015, visitors stood in long lines until 3 am to get a glimpse. The museum ended up preparing instant noodles to serve the hungry visitors. “I don't want that scenario to reoccur," Shan said. “Our operation can be done in a more scientific way.
The new system will also make use of the closed--circuits television cameras that are set up all over the Palace Museum to safeguard the museum's precious relics. More than 1.86 million of them are housed at the museum, which recorded nearly 20 million visits from the public last year, topping all museums worldwide. “How can we make sure no single visitor who might have evil ideas threatens these treasures?" Shan said. “After adopting the internet of things, we can instantly detect any motion involving the artifacts to prevent such threats.”
The 5G network also will be used to improve remote consultation through webcams, which will facilitate conversations with overseas scholars to jointly find the best answers for restoration and preservation issues.
1. What do we know about the Palace Museum?| A．Its visitors won't have to queue up for the bathroom. |
| B．It has served as China's royal palace for over 500 years. |
| C．It will cooperate with Huawei to promote its management. |
| D．It will set up advanced television cameras for the purpose of safety. |
| A．Disaster. | B．Situation. | C．Operation. | D．Exhibition. |
| A．It is better than any other museums. | B．It has a rich collection of cultural relics. |
| C．It enjoys great popularity all over the world. | D．It faces a tough challenge of protecting relics. |
| A．A Feast for Museum Visitors | B．A Revolution in Exhibition |
| C．A Protector of Cultural Relics | D．A Connection Between Old and New |
6 . 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. |
7 . A new course on world heritage, and its conservation offers a good opportunity for the young people to learn about the heritage(遗产) of humanity and gain a sense of responsibility to help protect the planet we live on.
According to a world heritage education programme jointly launched by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO) and China’s Ministry of Education, the course will first be offered at several schools in Beijing before being included as a mandatory course(必修课) for high school students nationwide.
The new course covers photos slide shows and documentaries on the magnificence of the world heritage sites. The class aims to tell children what world heritage is and why and how it should be protected. A total of 171 nations, including China, have signed the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage Listed are 754 sites all over the world, of which 29 are in China—the third most after Spain and Italy. Currently, protection of the country’s cultural and natural resources leaves much to be desired. Education is undoubtedly the best way to cultivate people’s sense for protecting cultural and natural resources.
The introduction of such a programme in Chinese classrooms will certainly help our young people realize the significance of common heritage, learning about world heritage sites, the history and traditions of different cultures, ecology, and the importance of protecting biological and cultural diversity.
More importantly, it will help cultivate a sense of responsibility in the minds of young participants. This is critical in protecting these cultural and natural legacies, as well as our living environment and the limited resources for sustainable development.
1. Which of the statements is TRUE according to the passage?| A．The world heritage education programme was jointly launched by the United States and China’s Ministry of Education. |
| B．The course will first be offered at all the schools in Beijing. |
| C．Protection of the country’s cultural and natural resources has been perfect thanks to people’s efforts. |
| D．China ranks high among the countries with 29 sites listed on the list. |
| A．What world heritage is. | B．Why we should protect world heritage is. |
| C．How world heritage should be protected. | D．All of the above. |
| A．employ | B．affect |
| C．develop | D．appreciate |
| A．To inform us of the reason for protecting the heritage. |
| B．To tell us the way to protect the heritage. |
| C．To tell us a new course. |
| D．To tell us heritage preservation starts with education. |
8 . “What kind of rubbish are you?”This question might normally cause anger，but in Shanghai it bas brought about weary complaints over the past few months. On July 1st，the city introduced strict rubbish-sorting regulations that are expected to be used as a model for our country. Citizens must divide their waste into four separate categories and put it into specific public bins. They must do so at scheduled times, when monitors are present to ensure that rules are obeyed and to examine the nature of one's rubbish.
Violators could be hit with fines of up to 200 yuan ($29). For repeat violators, the city can add black marks to their credit records, making it harder for them to obtain hank loans or even buy train tickets.
Shanghai authorities are responding to obvious environmental problem. It produces 9 million tons of garbage a year. But like other cities in china, it lacks a recycling system. Instead, it has relied on rubbish pickers to pick out whatever can be reused. This has limits. As people get wealthier, fewer of them want to do such dirty work. The waste, meanwhile, just keeps piling up. China produces 80 billion pairs of one-off chopsticks a year.
Many citizens appear to support the idea of recycling in general but are frustrated by the details. Rubbish must be divided according to whether it is food, recyclable, dry or hazardous（有害的），the distinctions among which can be confusing, though there are apps to help work it out. Some have complained about the rules surrounding food waste. They must put it straight in the required public bin, forcing them to tear open plastic bags and toss（投掷）it by hand, Most annoying are the short periods for throwing trash, typically a couple of hours, morning and evening. Along with the monitors at the bins, this means that people go at around the same time and can keep an eye on what is being thrown out; no one wants to look bad.
1. What's the purpose of Paragraph l?| A．To complain about rubbish dividing. |
| B．To explain the four categories of the waste. |
| C．To introduce the rules on waste sorting. |
| D．To show the goal of rubbish, sorting regulations. |
| A．People who don't pay for train tickets. | B．People who argue with the monitors. |
| C．People who obtain bank loans. | D．People who are against the regulations. |
| A．Complex distinction among the four categories of rubbish. |
| B．Short scheduled time for tossing rubbish. |
| C．Being observed by monitors when throwing the garbage. |
| D．Being fined when blamed due to improper behavior. |
| A．A Restart of Waste-sorting | B．A New Age of Garbage Classification |
| C．Learning to Classify Rubbish | D．Rubbish-sorting Benefits the World |
9 . A while back I caught a news report on something called ―couch surfing and the network of trusting souls who make this phenomenon possible. They offer to put up travelers free of charge and help them on their ways. At first, it sounded unbelievable. I mean, inviting strangers into one’s home for one or two nights? Give me a break.
However, I was intrigued. I decided to find it out. The only way to truly learn about this phenomenon was to dive in. So I planned a trip to Finland, a country I’ve always wanted to explore. I would couch surf at every stop there.
If ever any anxiety existed when stepping into the unknown, it disappeared when my first host met me at the train station. Ari looked like my idea of a typical Finn: tall and blue-eyed. Finns were also supposed to be famously reserved (寡言少语的). Ari was anything but. He was a live wire, giving me a warm welcome and walking with me to his apartment, where he showed me the sleeper sofa, served me tea, and engaged me in warm conversations. He also handed me a key to come and go as I pleased.
If this was what couch surfing was all about—trust and friendship—then I had gotten off to a good start. As I boarded my next train to continue my journey, I began to think about this couch-surfing idea. What encouraged these people to open their homes to strangers? I concluded that there was a desire to lend a hand to like-minded folks who might enrich their own lives.
Seven cities in 14 days. Seven hosts. Seven new friends. If couch surfing taught me anything, it’s this: Most people are good and generous. Where will couch surfing take me next? Who knows? But I can’t wait to find out.
1. Which of the following best explains the underlined word in the second paragraph?| A．relaxed. | B．bored. |
| C．interested. | D．pleased. |
| A．He was reserved like most Finns. |
| B．He talked less but he was friendly. |
| C．He treated the author as a friend. |
| D．He saw off the author at the train station. |
| A．To take an adventure with strangers. |
| B．To exchange houses for a short time. |
| C．To learn more about others’ family lives. |
| D．To enrich their own lives by helping others. |
| A．Travel on Trust and Couches |
| B．A Free Travel in Finland |
| C．Experiences in Strangers’ Houses |
| D．A Plan for Couch Surfing |
10 . It is a question that has long puzzled scientists—exactly why are tigers orange? One might think it makes them more obvious-particularly against a leafy green forest background. William Blake summed it up in his famous poem known by generations of schoolchildren: “Tyger, tyger, burning bright / In the forest of the night.” But now the answer is at hand.
While obvious to us, computer simulations (模拟) of what the big cats look to the main animals they hunt for, deer, show a different picture. Humans with normal colour vision, can see red, blue and green colours. But deer can only pick up blue and green light, they are effectively colourblind to the colour red, like some humans. It means the tigers’ orange colouration looks green to them, allowing them to mix perfectly into the background, new research claims.
Dr John Fennell at the University of Bristol and colleagues said that they used computers to estimate how noticeable a given animal was. They did this by using images of the environment in which the animal lives, and then creating images to see whether the camouflage helps the animal to mix in.
Dr Fennell writes that by simulating what the world looks like to animals who are “two-colour vision”—someone who cannot discover the difference between red and green—“we also identify the most suitable colours for hiding and visibility”.
Dr Fennell writes in the Royal Society Journal Inter face: “Considering the coat of a tiger, it has fur that appears orange to a three-colour vision observer rather than some shade of green, though the latter should be more appropriate color for an attack hunter in forests. However, when viewed as a two-colour vision observer, the tiger’s colour is very effective.”
The question then arises as to why tigers don’t grow green coats. Dr Fennell and colleagues write that mammals (哺乳动物) are not able to produce green fur. To do so would “require a significant change to mammalian biochemistry”. There is only one mammal known to have green fur but this is achieved through what might be considered as, well, cheating, not exactly real.
1. Why does the author mention the poem in paragraph 1?| A．To arouse reader s interest in poems. |
| B．To show the authors respect to the poet. |
| C．To answer the question of the color of the tiger |
| D．To stress the noticeable color of the tiger to us. |
| A．Black. | B．Red. |
| C．Blue. | D．Green. |
| A．The cover of something. |
| B．The images of something. |
| C．The way of hiding something. |
| D．The way of hunting for something. |
| A．The colour of tigers sometimes cheats people. |
| B．Getting green may prevent tigers from being extinct. |
| C．There are no mammals with real green fur in the world. |
| D．The tigers’ fur will probably evolve into green in the future. |
