1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
Living your best life

It was a bright spring morning in a suburban Rochester, New York, neighborhood. Three young men,     1     hearts were full of excitement, were preparing for a road trip across the United States. It would be the adventure of a life time. I was one of those young men. For my friends and     2    , going on a cross-country trip was at the top our bucket lists!

A bucket list simply lists things you want to see, try or accomplish     3     your lifetime. But it’s not something simple like learning to ride a bike or passing a math test. You need to dream big!     4     this may not sound practical, it’s a good mental exercise and a lot of fun. The sky is the limit! Why? Because making a bucket list can push you to do something extraordinary!

Making a bucket list can also help you get in touch with your values. People live busy lives, so it’s easy to get     5     (trap) in life’s daily routines. But taking time to chew over     6     you really want from life can help you get a fresh perspective.

If you’re ready to start making your own bucket list, you first need to decide what to put on it. You could make a list of unusual things you’d like to do, such as doing     7     underwater photo shoot as a mermaid (美人鱼). If you love animals, you could put a trip to Tokyo     8     (visit) a night bird café on your list.

What’s on my list? Well, since I fancy     9     (look) into the night sky, I want to spend a few nights in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. If the skies are clear, I would have a view of the whole Milky Way Galaxy! Now it’s your turn. What strikes your fancy? You     10     (not) discover what you are capable of until you dream BIG.

2 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Family history

During the late 19^th century, in what is now Slovakia, a newspaper editor and novelist named Anton Bielek worked to preserve the Slovak language and culture at a time     1     Hungary was in power and trying to impose its language on the region. His marriage to Agnes, a Hungarian noble woman, was thus highly debatable. When Bielek was eventually imprisoned for his work, Agnes’ family took her in, and she gave birth to their daughter Anna. Anna grew up, moved to America, and became my great-grandmother.

I know the story above because my uncle spent a significant amount of time     2     (investigate) our family history. Studying one’s family history helps us connect the big historical events with the actual people behind them. It can also give us a deeper sense of who we are and where we came from.

If you want to investigate your family history, it’s easiest to start with     3     you know. Try making a family tree that lists your parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. If you don’t know the names of certain people, you     4     be able to ask older relatives, thereby involving them in your research.

After you’ve gone back as far as your living relatives can remember, tracing your family history gets     5     (hard). Depending on where you come from, there may or may not be documents with     6     (record) names, birth dates, ect. In some places, however, records     7     these might be available online.

One challenge my uncle faced when studying our family history was identifying one ancestor who had changed his name after moving to the United States. My uncle was required     8     (make) several inferences in order to figure out his original name. He also needed to know that the first name Chaim frequently     9     (translate) into English as Harry.

Difficult     10     researching your family history may be, it is worthwhile pursuit if you want a better understanding of where you come from. You may even find some exciting stories about things your ancestors were involved with and experienced.

3 . Savings You Can Phone In

Costs are going up and money is tight, so any ways to save money are going to be more than welcome. One area it’s common to overspend is your mobile phone. You really shouldn’t be paying more than £8 or £10 a month, so if you’re currently charged £20, that’s at least £120 saved a year. And if your bill is even higher, the savings will be even bigger. So how do you do this? Here are my quick and simple ways to reduce your bills.

Ditch your existing network

Though there seem to be dozens of different mobile networks, there are actually only four different signals. These are provided by the big four of EE, O2, Three and Vodafone. All the others “piggyback” on one of those, meaning you can find the same signal and coverage (though 5G might not be included—we’ll come back to that). So there’s no need to be scared that changing provider will mean you lose reception. This opens up a raft of (usually) cheaper alternatives.

Do you need 5G?

The fastest speeds come with 5G coverage, and it’s tempting to choose a network that offers this. But to take advantage you need two things. A 5G capable phone and for 5G to be set up in your area. If you don’t have both of these, then it’s worth shopping around for a cheaper 4G SIM.

Don’t update your handset.

Going SIM-only is a sure fire way to cut costs. By keeping your existing phone for another year or two, you’ll reduce your monthly payments to just the calls, data and texts allowance. If you do need or want to upgrade, then try to buy it outright. Yes, this could prove costly, but using savings will help you avoid a hidden surcharge many networks add via contracts.

Turn off data abroad

As a result of leaving the EU, some of the networks have ditched free mobile roaming (漫游) in Europe. This could lead to very expensive extra charges for using your phone on holiday, so make sure you check the costs levied by your provider when abroad. Some have introduced daily caps, but they’re not always valid outside Europe.

And even if you don’t actively use your phone when away, many apps are still using data in the background. One easy way to avoid these extras is to turn off data roaming before you leave the country. You should also find out whether you’ll be charged to receive voicemail messages. If so, turn that off too before you depart.

Check you’re out of contract

These savings will come when you don’t have a contract. That allows you to change your plan or even your network. But if you are still in the midst of a contract that lasts 12, 18, 24 or more months, you’ll need to wait or face early cancellation charges. Put the date in the diary, and come back to this article to start cutting your bill.

1. Changing mobile network provider will not lead to your losing reception because ______.

A．the cheaper providers are independent of the big four ones

B．the cheaper providers rely on the big four ones for signal and coverage

C．the alternative providers are equipped with the latest 5G network

D．there is fierce competition among various providers to offer the best signal

2. What may happen if data roaming is still functioning when you are travelling abroad?

A．It will turn off automatically when reaching the daily caps.

B．Many apps will provide useful data in the background free of charge.

C．Extra charges are likely to be caused for using your phone abroad.

D．Voicemail messages will be inaccessible due to the improper use of roaming.

3. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The more money you spend on your mobile phone, the more surplus (剩余额) you will have.

B．A 4G SIM is more affordable and has access to 5G as long as the area is covered.

C．Your costs for many services will be higher if you don’t update the handset within a year.

D．Canceling a contract ahead of the scheduled period may result in your paying extra charges.

4 . My past students are starting to organize a scientific conference for my 60th birthday to be held about a year from now. Their gesture reminded me of Rabbi Hanina’s words: “I have learned much from my teachers, more from my colleagues and the most from my students.”

We all started as students. Just as kids bump into things as they’re learning to _________ the world, many of us have scars from early encounters with our mentors._________ arise when those mentors attempt to establish their authority by trying to make us respect traditional thinking. Memories of these events should encourage us to do better as we_________ roles and mentor others later in life.

For example, the first advice I received from my postdoctoral mentor was to develop specialized skills and focus them on a _________ field, where I would establish myself as the world expert._________ , I decided not to follow this advice as soon as I recognized by drilling down narrowly, one often fails to make further progress. In these situations, the potential for a _________improves with a broader and more flexible perspective, which enables “out of the box” opportunities for drilling deeper around it.

Keeping this in mind, I encourage my students to think broadly and _________ about the most exciting problems in astronomy, such as: “What happened before the big bang?”; “What will happen in our distant cosmic future?”; “What is the nature of dark matter?”; or “When did life start in the universe?”

It is customary to consider a student’s raw potential as a stand-alone commodity whose value can be_________ through examinations. But my experience taught me that young scientists do not blossom into exceptional researchers _________ they are supported by encouraging words and inspiration; these ingredients are as __________ as nutrition and water are for seeds of flowers.__________ the initial belief in the potential of a student to become a successful scientist, this outcome may not come true.

As chair of the Harvard astronomy department for almost a decade, I witnessed many examples of students who were initially very slow to make progress but blossomed academically as soon as they selected a different advisor and a new topic for their Ph. D. A good mentor__________ the strengths of the mentee. As a result, a successful mentoring experience often reflects a good __________ between a fledgling(新手的) scientist and an advisor. They should both be congratulated for their shared academic DNA.

On the one hand, mentors get a kick from Oscar Wilde’s insight: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...” But on the other hand, they should allow students to break free from the __________ path with creativity. The rule of thumb is to give young scholars just enough space to explore freely and learn from their __________ without damaging the direction of their future careers. The learning curves could be steep; some of my 50 students over the past few decades started slow but eventually rose to the greatest heights. Patience is key.

1.

A．process

B．explore

C．reform

D．include

2.

A．Conflicts

B．Negotiations

C．Approvals

D．Mysteries

3.

A．play

B．deny

C．access

D．change

4.

A．commercial

B．strange

C．narrow

D．broad

5.

A．Therefore

B．Additionally

C．However

D．Consequently

6.

A．failure

B．obligation

C．ignorance

D．breakthrough

7.

A．independently

B．mutually

C．temporarily

D．undoubtedly

8.

A．embraced

B．evaluated

C．contained

D．imposed

9.

A．if

B．lest

C．while

D．unless

10.

A．crucial

B．elaborate

C．unpredictable

D．inaccessible

11.

A．Within

B．Given

C．Without

D．Due to

12.

A．spots

B．hides

C．applies

D．recalls

13.

A．argument

B．interaction

C．criticism

D．interview

14.

A．beaten

B．broken

C．chaotic

D．fresh

15.

A．mentors

B．imitations

C．fortune

D．mistakes

5 . Trading Ages

It took five hours every morning to make Karoline and Nick look like elderly people in their seventies. They were given a synthetic wrinkled skin, false teeth and false hair. They also wore body suits to make them look fatter and contact lenses to make their eyes look older. The discomfort of the makeup, the heavy suits, and the contact lenses (which made their eyesight worse)gave them a small taste of the physical problems of old age. They were also coached to walk and speak like people in their seventies.     1    . There was a video diary to record their experiences and hidden cameras to record how other people reacted to them.

    2     Karoline was astonished to be ignored by some workmen, who only hours before had been whistling at her when she had been an attractive young woman. Nick said, “I learned that how people treat you depends on what you look like.” On one occasion a bus driver treated him very rudely when he tried to pay his fare with a large bill. “I was amazed. He wouldn’t have talked like that to my young self.”

There is a point in the documentary when Karoline breaks down and cries. It comes at the end of a day out with her two new senior citizen friends, Betty and Sylvia. It is partly because she feels guilty that she is tricking them, but mainly because she realizes that they are individuals, and not just members of what she had previously thought of as “the elderly.” “They were talking about real things and I felt unqualified. They had been through so much.     3    . It was as if I was seeing the young people inside them. Before I would have just seen the wrinkles.”

    4     Nick said, “I’d never thought about getting old before.” Karoline said, “The whole experience of living as an old person helped me to understand them far better and also to understand myself. I felt in a way that they were just young people in an old body trying to deal with the problems of old age. I’m not ready to be 73, but I’m not scared like I was.”

A．It made me realize how ignorant I was.

B．Though she loved her 86-year- old grandmother she had found it hard to visit her.

C．Both Karoline and Nick found making the program life changing.

D．Afterward, both of them described the “invisibility” of being old.

E．Then they had to live each day, for a month, as an old person.

F．Nick was also nearly robbed when he was taking money out of an ATM.

6 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Accenting Accents

To be a “slasher”, a person with multiple occupations, is a recent popular concept among young Chinese. However, Xu Kaifei     1    （do） this since 20 years ago.

Born and brought up in Haikou, Hainan Province in South China, Xu is a now new media journalist. But the 36-year-old,     2     stage-name is Jin’anzai, is better known as a rapper（说唱歌手）.

Xu’s high school years were filled with pop songs from Hong Kong,     3    （write） in the Cantonese dialect, which is mostly spoken in south China, including Hong Kong.     4    （listen） to them, he realized that few people used the Hainan dialect to write songs. In 2008, he wrote a rap song, Domldoml, meaning     5     to do in Hainanese.

“Hainanese is not a systematic language. It is difficult to rhyme（押韵） when rapping. But the artist wrote good words. Also, the genre（类型） of this song is advanced, many years ahead of today’s Hip Hop trend,” a music fan posted on Net Ease Cloud Music, a music platform set up by Internet technology giant Net Ease, commenting     6     Xu’s effort.

    7     Xu’s social media account has only about 26,000 followers, much less than famous pop stars’ accounts, he is still proud of his music because     8     records his hometown’s beautiful dialect. Over 80 percent of the population in Hainan speak Hainanese, according to the website of the Hainan Provincial Government. In 2019, over 9 million people    9    （estimate） to live in Hainan.

Today, more and more songs and films are including dialects. It not only creates an artistic effect but also guides dialect speakers     10    （rediscover） their language. Such artistic offerings can break geographical limitations and win the appreciation of people in other areas.

7 . Did Tea and Beer Bring About Industrialization?

Professor Macfarlane has spent decades trying to understand the mystery of the Industrial Revolution. Why did it happen in Britain at the end of the 18th century?

Macfarlane compares the question as a puzzle. He ________ that there were about 20 different factors and all of them needed to be present before the revolution could happen. The chief ________ can be found in history textbooks. For industry to ________, there needed to be the technology and power to drive factories, large urban populations to provide cheap labor, a ________ economy, and a political system that allowed this to happen. All these factors must have been necessary but not sufficient to cause the revolution. Most historians, however, are ________ that one or two missing factors are needed to solve the puzzle. The missing factors, Macfarlane supposes, are tea and beer.

Historians had noticed one interesting factor around the mid-18th century that required the ________. Between 1650 and 1740, the population in Britain didn’t increase, but then it grew rapidly. The population burst seemed to happen at the right time to provide labor for the Industrial Revolution. But why? When it started, it was ________ efficient to have people living close together. People got diseases, particularly from human waste. Some historical records ________ that there was a change in the incidence (发病率）of waterborne disease at that time. Macfarlane thought whatever the British were drinking must have been important in ________ disease. The English drank beer for a long time, and they were protected by the strong antibacterial agent in hops (啤酒花), which were added to make beer. But in the late 17th century a tax was ________ on malt, a basic ingredient of beer. The poor turned to water and gin, and in the 1720s the death rate began to rise again. Then it suddenly dropped. What caused this?

Macfarlane looked to Japan, which was also developing large cities at the same time. Waterborne diseases were far fewer in Japan than in Britain. Could it be the ________ of tea in their culture? Macfarlane then noticed the history of tea in Britain provided an extraordinary ________ of dates. Tea was relatively expensive until Britain started direct trade with China in the early 18th century. By the 1740s, about the time the infant death rate was falling, and the drink was common. Macfarlane ________ the fact that water had to be boiled, together with the stomach-purifying properties of tea so clearly ________ in books, meant the breast milk provided by mothers was healthier than it had ever been. No other European nation drank tea so often as the British, which, by Macfarlane’s ________, pushed other nations out of the race for the Industrial Revolution.

1.

A．claims

B．rejects

C．proposes

D．suspects

2.

A．objections

B．arguments

C．complaints

D．conditions

3.

A．take off

B．keep up

C．look over

D．knock out

4.

A．task-based

B．self-centered

C．market-driven

D．man-made

5.

A．inferred

B．convinced

C．concerned

D．impressed

6.

A．intention

B．discussion

C．attention

D．explanation

7.

A．temporarily

B．deliberately

C．economically

D．doubtfully

8.

A．predicted

B．revealed

C．concluded

D．reviewed

9.

A．spreading

B．catching

C．discovering

D．controlling

10.

A．introduced

B．reduced

C．uncovered

D．avoided

11.

A．sacrifice

B．variety

C．quality

D．popularity

12.

A．arrangement

B．expectation

C．coincidence

D．suspension

13.

A．guesses

B．declares

C．boasts

D．modifies

14.

A．entitled

B．deleted

C．described

D．simplified

15.

A．guidance

B．observation

C．impression

D．logic

8 . Directions: Write an English composition in 120-150 words according to the instructions given below in Chinese.
《中小学教育惩戒规则(试行)》规定，学校可以对违纪学生进行管理、训导或矫治，使其引以为戒并改正错误，同时也明确了实施惩戒时被禁止的行为，如体罚和辱骂等。请就如何保证校园安全和维护教学秩序, 谈谈你对《规则》颁布的看法。
参考词汇：《中小学教育惩戒规则(试行)》Punishment rules for primary and secondary education (for trial implementation)、训导discipline、矫治correct、体罚physical punishment、辱骂verbal abuse。
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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

Students in the United States are assigned to classes for different goals. Those in the more advantaged tracks and programs not only encounter more curricular material; they are also typically asked to learn the material differently. They have opportunities to think, investigate, and create. They are challenged to explore. In Keeping Track, Jeannie Oakes describes the way in which teachers differently frame their work for students in different tracks.

Teachers of high-track classes describe their class goals in terms of higher-order thinking and independent learning, for example: “Logical thought process”; “Scientific reasoning and logic”. Students’ view of what they learned in class reflect these goals. High-track students said they learned: “To understand concepts and ideas and to experiment with them, and to work independently”; “How to express myself through writing and compose my thoughts in a logical manner and express my creativity.”

Conversely, in low-track classes, teachers described few academic goals for their students and none related to thinking logically, critically or independently. They often focused on low-level skills, for example: “Better use of time”; “Punctuality and self-discipline”; “Good work habits”. And low-track students said they had learned how to: “Behave in class”; “How to shut up”; “How to listen and follow the directions of the teacher.”

This phenomenon is widespread. In his research in New York City, Jonathan Kozol described how, within integrated schools, minority children were disproportionately assigned to special education class that occupy small corners and split classrooms, while gifted and talented classrooms occupied the most splendid spaces filled with books and computers, where they learned, in the children’s words, “logical thinking,” and “problem solving”. Students were recommended for these classes by their teachers and parents as well as by their test scores. Kozol wrote in his notes,“Six girls, four boys, nine white, one Chinese. I am glad they have this class. But what about the others? Aren’t there ten black children in the school who could enjoy this also?”   

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

10 . Reading the Screen

The debate on literacy is one of the most heated in education. On the one hand, there is an army of people convinced that traditional skills of reading and writing are declining. On the other hand, a large number of progressives protest that literacy is much more complicated than a simple technical mastery of reading and writing. This second position is supported by most of the relevant academic work over the past 20 years. These studies argue that literacy can only be understood in its social and technical context. In Renaissance England, for example, many more people could read than could write, and within reading there was a distinction between those who could read print and those who could manage the more difficult task of reading manuscripts (手稿). An understanding of these earlier periods helps us understand today’s “crisis in literacy” debate.

It seems that there has been an overall decline in some aspects of reading and writing—you only need to compare the newspapers of today with those of 50 years ago to see a clear decrease in vocabulary and simplification of sentence patterns.

While reading a certain amount of writing is as crucial as it has ever been in industrial societies, it is doubtful whether a fully extended grasp of either is as necessary as it was 40 years ago. While print holds much of its authority as a source of topical information, television has increasingly taken this role. The ability to write fluent letters has been weakened by the telephone and research suggests that for many people the only use for writing, outside formal education, is making shopping lists.

The decision of some car factories to issue their instructions to mechanics as a video pack rather than as a handbook might end the automatic link between industrialization and literacy. On the other hand, it is also the case that ever-increasing numbers of people make their living out of writing, which is better rewarded than ever before. Schools are generally seen as institutions where books rule—films and recorded sound have almost no place, but it is not clear that this opposition is appropriate. While you may not need to read and write to watch television, you certainly need to be able to read and write in order to make programs. Those who work in new media are anything but literate. The traditional oppositions between old and new media are inadequate for understanding the world which a young child now encounters. There is evidence that children are mastering reading and writing in order to get on to the Internet.

Nevertheless, there is a crisis in literacy and it would be foolish to ignore it. To understand that literacy may be declining because it is less central to some aspects of everyday life is not the same as reluctantly accepting this state of affairs. The production of school work with the new technologies could be a significant stimulus to literacy. How should these new technologies be introduced into the schools? It isn’t enough to call for computers in every classroom. They will stand unused unless they are properly combined with the educational culture.

1. When discussing the debate on literacy in education, the writer notes that________.

A．children can read and write as well as they used to

B．academic work has improved over the last 20 years

C．there is evidence that literacy is related to external factors

D．people’s reading skills are more important than writing skills

2. What is the writer’s main point in the 4th paragraph?

A．The printed word is both gaining and losing power.

B．The car factories’ decision brings benefits to labors.

C．Those who do manual jobs no longer need to read.

D．New media offers the best career for the literate.

3. According to the passage, what is the main problem that schools face today?

A．How to teach students the skills of reading and writing.

B．How to apply new technologies to classroom teaching.

C．Raising money to purchase technological equipment.

D．Managing the widely differing levels of literacy among pupils.

4. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Modern communication has completely replaced writing letters.

B．New media has the potential to promote students’ literacy.

C．New technologies are inadequate for us to know about children’s world.

D．Current newspapers use more complicated sentence patterns than before.