1 . Online master gardener programs allow you to learn more about plants and gardening. Some of them can also provide certification to those who wish to benefit their community in broader ways.

Advanced Permaculture Design

* Price: About $ 495（Plus $ 60 registration free）.

* Experience Level: Suitable for experienced learners.

* Reasons: If you are looking for something more in-depth, then these courses offer more advanced instruction in permaculture.

* Advantages: Opportunity to advance skills in permaculture; aid in professional development.

* Disadvantages: Not suitable for beginners.

Garden Tutor

* Price: Free.

* Experience Level: Suitable for beginners.

* Reasons: This course is free and it is suitable for beginners.

* Advantages: Completely free of charge; suitable for complete learners.

* Disadvantages: No route to certification; simpler and less comprehensive than paid courses.

Cornell Gardener Program

* Price: About $675 for a six-week organic gardening course.

* Experience Level: Suitable for beginners through to more experienced gardeners.

* Reasons: This is one of our top picks because of the institution’s excellent reputation.

* Advantages: Focus on organic, eco-friendly gardening, flexible online learning; small class sizes.

* Disadvantages: Costly option; full master gardener certification only available to local residents.

Skillshare Gardening Courses

* Price: Low prices which vary in courses.

* Experience Level: Suitable for beginners.

* Reasons: These courses offer various opportunities to learn more about gardening. If gardening is a hobby, taking one or more of them could be a great alternative to a full maste gardener program.

* Advantages: Affordable; flexible online schedules.

* Disadvantages: No route to certification.

1. Which of the following online programs charges nothing?

A．Advanced Permaculture Design.	B．Garden Tutor.
C．Comell Gardener Program.	D．Skillshare Gardening Courses.

2. What makes Cornell Gardener program different from others?

A．It only offers a short-term course.

B．It doesn’t charge any registration fee.

C．It is known for environmental protection.

D．It is intended for learners of different levels.

3. What may Skillshare Gardening Courses attract beginners most?

A．Its teaching method.	B．Its route to certification.
C．Its flexible online schedules.	D．Its experienced masters.

2 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. independently；B. participation；C. adding；D. equality；E. foundation；F. confidence G. boards；H. communication；I. exposure；J. accessibility；K. separately

Web-based education tools provide many ways to increase     1     between class members and faculty, including discussion     2    , chats, and e-mails. Researchers have found that     3     these elements to a course increases student motivation and     4     in class discussions and projects, making them have     5     in their ability.   Online forums, like Blackboard’s Discussion Board and Chat, provide public areas to post information. Each student can view another student’s answers and learn through the     6     to different perspectives. This benefits students because they can combine new opinions with their own, and develop a solid     7     for learning besides the benefits of learning     8    .

Another benefit to using web-based communication tools is to give all students a reinforced sense of     9    .   Each individual has the same opportunity to “speak up” by posting messages.

Online communication also benefits students by providing additional layer of instructor     10    .

In all, web-based learning environments permit the instructor to build one course, so students can utilize materials in whichever way works best for them.

4 . The night before the first day of school is usually an exciting and sleepless one for me. This virtual (虚拟的) school year, however, didn't give me that same feeling. In my mind, I couldn't communicate with my classmates, and I couldn't have conversations with my favorite teachers. So I went to bed, filled with more curiosity (好奇) and uncertainty than anything else.

I woke up the next day at 9 a. m., as my first class that day didn't start until 10 a.m. I sat at my desk waiting for my first online class of the day: AP Statistics. The class could only be described as two things: awkward and a bit boring. Awkward because of the lasting silence that often fell over us, as most of the students, myself included, refused to discuss their summers, and boring because I had to look at a screen instead of truly communicating with my teacher.

I would have preferred sitting in a classroom wearing my picked first-day clothes, but, I didn't say anything. I knew it was much safer for us to learn from home.

Once the class ended, my one-hour lunch block began. My virtual lunch was at 11:20 a.m.

My next two classes flew by. They had the same awkwardness and boredom, with different levels of enjoyability based on the subject and teacher.

At the end of the day, I felt strange, and like I hadn't done anything at all or even actually gone to school. I never felt like I hadn't done anything with myself that day before. I didn't even feel like a student on a “pursuit (追求) of knowledge.” I just felt like I was watching something on my computer screen.

It wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but, it's the new normal (常态), and I and my classmates will have to get used to it.

1. How did the writer feel the night before the first day of school?

A．He was too excited to fall asleep.

B．He couldn't wait to meet his classmates.

C．He was unsure about what would happen.

D．He was looking forward to online learning.

2. Why did the writer feel bored in AP Statistics class?

A．He couldn't have real communication with the teacher.

B．He couldn't understand what the teacher said.

C．He felt the unhappiness of his classmates.

D．He thought the class was valueless.

3. What can we say about the writer at the end of the day?

A．He had got used to the new school life.

B．He preferred to have a class online.

C．He hated to do much homework.

D．He felt empty in his heart.

4. How is the text mainly developed?

A．By giving examples.

B．By giving instructions.

C．By following time order.

D．By providing research results.

7 . The other day, I came home from work to find my son Lucas ignoring me. When I asked him what he was up to, he said he was working on some school stuff and couldn’t talk. Hearing this, I decided to see what he was up to. After sitting next to him for a minute, I too was lost in focus, trying to observe and remember as many details of the crime scene as possible. This is my son’s school. He logs in with his iPad, and does all his school work online.

After completing this “assignment”, Lucas decided he wanted to go out and play some basketball and then jammed out on his guitar. He may only be 15, but he sets his own schedule. He has shown he is responsible when it comes to this.

Last summer, my wife needed to develop a website for her new business. We had looked into some services online, but my son insisted he knew how to do it. We decided to give him a try, but when we saw the final results, we were floored. We could not believe a 15­year­old child created this professional looking site.

I could not be happier with our decision to send Luccas to an online school. He is learning far more than he would be at his public school. He is well behaved and respectful, and I don’t worry who he is hanging out with. I’m grateful we had this opportunity. If you never considered online school an option, you may want to start looking into it. It could be the change your child needs to be successful.

1. What was Lucas doing when the author came home the other day?

A．He was doing his homework online.

B．He was playing computer games.

C．He was watching a movie about crime.

D．He was focusing on a novel about crime.

2. From the passage we can infer that ________.

A．the author was very strict with his son

B．the author’s wife was doing online business

C．the author was proud of his son

D．the author’s son lacked skills in developing websites

3. What does the underlined word “floored” in Paragraph 3 most probably mean?

A．Pleased.	B．Excited.
C．Worried.	D．Surprised.

4. What does the author mainly tell us in the passage?

A．His relationship with his son.

B．The behavior of his son.

C．Online school is worth attending.

D．How to bring up a child.

8 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

'This is crisis teaching': students with disabilities are neglected as coronavirus shuts schools

Homeschooling your children during the Covid-19 pandemic(流行病) is hard. For parents whose children have a disability, it's a 'herculean(困难的) task'

As her mom tells it, Sesame Street(儿童节目) is Aubrey's first and only love. Her affection for the program's cast of puppets, for Elmo in particular, is so aggressive and pure that her parents have to restrict her access to it because she gets so peculiar after watching it.

Aubrey, whose real name her parents asked be withheld to protect her privacy, is a 16-year-old student in Los Angeles. As a teenager living with autism(自闭症), routine is the bedrock of her day.

But in the days of a spiraling coronavirus crisis, predicting what comes next is all but impossible. “Think about how we are with uncertainty and multiply it by a million. For her not knowing is almost unbearable,” said her father, Pirouz Kavehpour.

Today, with 124,000 of the nation's schools closed due to coronavirus, Kavehpour has joined the ranks of millions of parents turned into homeschool teachers overnight – no easy feat for any working parent, but especially challenging for parents whose children have disabilities.

It remains unclear when schools across the country will reopen. California officials already indicated they won't restart this academic year and a handful of other states have closed doors until fall. And as classrooms shift to online learning, many of the services guaranteed to the nation's roughly 7 million children with disabilities have been effectively suspended.

Federal law promises to give students educational services that address individual needs. But it's unclear when children with disabilities will get the kind of face-to-face help they had been getting at school before.(Adapted from the Guardian BY Jerry)

9 . University educators largely think highly of the wonders of teaching through technology, but skeptics question whether something is lost when professors and lectures rely too heavily on electronic media or when interaction with students takes place remotely — in cyberspace rather than the real space of the classroom. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, the Professor of Literature at Stanford University, is one such skeptic. “I think this enthusiastic and sometimes childish and blind pushing toward the more technology the better, the more websites the better teacher, and so forth, is very dangerous — is, indeed, suicidal,” he indicates.

However, Gumbrecht warns that there are few, if any, studies either supporting or rejecting the hypothesis that traditional ways of teaching are superior to teaching via the Internet. He says that he could point only to his “intuition that real classroom presence should be maintained,” and emphasizes the need for educators to examine critically where technology serves a useful pedagogical (教学法的) function and where it does not.

Yet, Gumbrecht allows that, for courses in which knowledge transmission is the sole purpose, electronic media probably can do the job well enough. Indeed, given the 20th century’s knowledge explosion and the increasing costs of higher education, using technology as opposed to real-life teachers for the transmission of information is probably inevitable, he admits. In any case, knowledge transmission should not be the core function of the university, he maintains, noting that universities should be places where people confront open questions, places for “intellectual complexity” and “riskful thinking”.

“We are not about finding or transmitting solutions; we are not about recipes; we are not about making intellectual life easy. Confrontation with complexity is what expands your mind. It is something like intellectual gymnastics. And this is what makes you a suitable member of the society.”

Moreover, discussions in the physical presence of others can lead to the intellectual innovation. “There’s a qualitative change, and you don’t know how it happens. Discussions in the physical presence have the capacity of being the catalyst (催化剂) for such intellectual breakthroughs. The possibility of in-classroom teaching — of letting something happen which cannot happen if you teach by the transmission of information — is a strength.”

1. Which of the following is the best title to this passage?

A．Cyberspace Interaction

B．The Core Function of the University

C．Information Transmission Cannot Help You Survive

D．Electronic Teaching Arouses Uncertainty

2. Which of the following might Professor Gumbercht support?

A．Professors should be keen on teaching technique innovation.

B．Technologies applied to classrooms strengthen creative thinking.

C．Traditional pedagogical function has its place in classroom.

D．The core function of the university is to focus on knowledge transmitting.

3. Cyberspace teaching could replace real-life teachers EXCEPT when ________.

A．transmitting knowledge is the only purpose of the course

B．there’s too much knowledge to put across to the students

C．the cost of college education increases greatly

D．open questions without possible answers are encouraged

4. According to the passage, discussion in the physical presence of others can ________.

A．lead to greatly improved intellectual abilities

B．lead to easier and stronger transmission of information

C．produce certain energy for intellectual breakthroughs

D．produce qualitative change in teacher-students relationships

10 . 语法填空

School districts across the United States have reported the number of students failing classes     1     (rise) many times higher than usual numbers since the pandemic broke out. Erik Jespersen is principal of McNary High School, Oregon. At his school, 38 percent of grades in late October were failing,     2     (compare)with 8 percent in normal times.

    3     (educate) see a number of reasons for the change. Students learning from home often miss assignments     4     (complete). Internet availability is     5     (limit)or not effectively established,     6     (make) it difficult to complete and upload assignments. And teachers    7     do not see their students in person have    8     (few) ways to note who is falling behind. That is especially true with many students keeping their cameras off during online classes.

The increase    9     failing grades has been seen in districts of all sizes throughout the country. Now, many schools have increased efforts to return to in-person learning. Other schools are changing their grading policies and giving students more time to complete assignments. Teachers have been instructed to give less homework     10     urged to find different ways of teaching