1 . 阅读下面短文, 在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Do you know what the ballet, jeans, and eyeglasses have in common? They     1     (invent) in Italy. Now, another Italian symbol is making headlines as a possible solution to a huge     2    (environment) problem. In a time when the world searches for ways     3     (reduce) plastic waste, pasta straws might be one of the answers.

Recently, a picture     4    （show）the initiative (倡议) some bars in Italy have been taking was posted on the Internet,     5     has been spreading like crazy.

    6     (interest), there are already a couple of companies that sell pasta straws: Stroodles and The Amazing Pasta Straw. The straws are tasteless while in cold beverage, as they're just made of wheat and water. According to the Stroodles website, the straws last roughly     7     hour before softening up, after which they can be composted (制成堆肥) or even consumed.

"Stroodles is not just a straw company and there is a much     8     (big) picture, as I feel I can leave a long-term impact by creating a ripple effect (连锁反应) by triggering many small challenges all across the world, especially among people that are less conscious     9       sustainability and their respective     10     (act) and behaviors, "company founder Maxim Gelmann said.

2 . Electronic waste, also known as e-waste, consists of a discarded phones, printers, TVs, electric toothbrushes and many other electronic goods no longer in use.

A shocking 53. 6 million tons of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2019 — less than a fifth of which was recycled, according to UN's Global E-waste Monitor 2020 report.

Of the total e-waste last year, Asia contributed the biggest amount — 46.4 per cent — followed by the Americas(24.4 percent), Europe (22.3 percent), Africa (5.4 percent) and Oceania (1.3 percent).

The combined heap of e-waste for 2019 averaged 7. 3 kg for every man, woman and child on Earth. The UK averaged the second-biggest in the world, at 23.9 kg, behind Norway, which averaged 26kg.

The report also reveals that just 17.4 percent of the e-waste was properly collected and recycled. E-waste is a health and environmental hazard (危害), containing hazardous substances such as mercury, which damages the human brain.

After a device is discarded and e-waste is warmed up, toxic chemicals are released into the air, damaging the atmosphere. E-waste in landfills can also seep (渗透) toxic materials into groundwater, affecting animals and plants.

Gold, silver, copper, and other high-value materials were collectively valued at $57 billion. However, they were mostly dumped or burned rather than being collected for treatment and reuse. In countries with developing markets, an increasing number of household electronics like refrigerators, air conditioners, and lamps are now being bought, leading to the rapid increase in e-waste. A global obsession with smart phones, which tend to be replaced by an updated model after a year, also helps build e-waste piles.

It's not that countries don't have policies to fight e-waste since 2014, the number of countries that have adopted a national e-waste policy has increased from 61 to 78, the report says. But advances are slow, enforcement (执行) is poor, and policies fail to encourage the collection and proper management of e-waste. The lack of effective policies around the world needs to be addressed (解决) as soon as possible.

1. According to official figures, how much e-waste was recycled in 2019?

A．53.6 million tons.	B．10.8 million tons.
C．9.3 million tons.	D．20.1 million tons.

2. E-waste does harm in many aspects EXCEPT ________________.

A．health condition	B．electronic products
C．energy resources	D．environmental protection

3. What's the attitude toward reducing e-waste according to the report?

A．Tolerant.

B．Indifferent.

C．Ambiguous.

D．Critical.

4. What's the main idea of this text?

A．E-waste is increasing.	B．E-waste is being reduced.
C．E-waste is harmful to people.	D．E-waste is being encouraged.

3 . A proud and happy all-female Delta flight crew lit up the skies earlier last October, flying 120 female students from Salt Lake City to NASA in Houston for tours of the facilities and to meet with female leaders in the industry.

The flight was part of the airline’s Women Inspiring our Next Generation (WING) program, which was created in 2015 to help close the gender gap in aviation (航空) and expose more young girls to STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers. This is the fifth WING flight, with more than 600 female students flying Delta so far through the program.

The flight was planned and executed (执行) completely by women, including pilots, ramp agents, gate agents and flight control.

“At Delta, we believe you have to see it to be it, “said Beth Poole, general manager of pilot development, who helped start Delta’s WING initiative, in a statement. “We’re taking ownership to improve gender diversity by exposing girls at a young age and providing a pipeline so that 10 years from now, they will be the pilots in the Delta cockpit (驾驶舱) inspiring generations of women who follow. ”

While the students, who ranged in age from 12 to 18, were in Houston, they met with female mentors in aviation. They toured NASA’s Mission Control Center, Johnson Space Center and other key facilities in areas of flight and space exploration.

“It didn’t seem realistic to go after a career in aviation, but today I realized, ‘Hey, I can do this too’, ” said Katelyn J, age 17, a 12th grader from Advanced Learning Center.

Delta has achieved 100% pay parity for employees in frontline jobs. In the past four years, 7. 4%of the airline’s newly hired pilots have been women. The WING program is one of the ways they’re hoping to increase those numbers.

“I’ve loved being able to look at all of the things these successful women have accomplished, ” said Shanae C., 17, a 12th grader from Jordan Technical Institute. “I think we ill learn from them and build on their foundation of success.”

1. What can we know from this text?

A．Female pilots receive their training at the early age.

B．More and more female pilots will take males’ place.

C．Male pilots are more likely to have air crash than female pilots.

D．The WING program is intended to train more youngsters in STEM.

2. What does the word underlined mean?

A．Minority.

B．Diversity.

C．Equality.

D．Majority.

3. Where is this text most likely from?

A．A poster.

B．A travel brochure.

C．A novel.

D．A newspaper.

4. What’s the best title of this text?

A．The Gender Gap Is Closed	B．The Sky Has No Limit
C．Female Pilots Are Better Than Males	D．Gender Discrimination Exists in Aviation

4 . My parents’ new dog Mercy would rush out of bed and go-go-go all day long. So when they brought home a Christmas tree, they expected _________. But to their astonishment, Mercy didn’t seem to care. She paid zero attention to the tree _________ growing in the living room. Nor did she _________ the fancy gifts under it.

A few days before Christmas, Polly, my step mom, awoke early as usual. As she _________ the living room, she stopped cold. She saw that every last _________ was gone. Only the tree was still there. To find out the burglar, Polly walked toward the back door. She pushed the _________, bathing the backyard in light. Oh, yes, it was Mercy. She _________ in a nest of torn wrapping papers, _________ boxes, and curling bits of ribbons. Clearly Mercy’s self-control had _________. She’d silently carried one after another out of the doggy door and anything edible (可吃的) was __________including cookies, chocolates, and four pounds of Milk-Bones.

Nature took __________ on Mercy, and she eventually survived her midnight snack. Only one problem __________. With all the gift tags destroyed, how could my parents send back thank-you cards?

Mercy presented the problem, so Mercy provided the __________. A few days later, Polly happened to find Mercy __________ licking a plate where a doughnut had just been. Polly shot a picture of the shamefaced puppy and used it to make the cover of the thank-you card. Inside, the whole story was __________. We all laughed off the ruined presents and admitted that amid all the gift-giving, it’s really a season for MERCY.

1.

A．risk

B．chaos

C．fun

D．change

2.

A．suddenly

B．naturally

C．gradually

D．immediately

3.

A．used to

B．adapt to

C．react to

D．appeal to

4.

A．left

B．found

C．heard

D．approached

5.

A．dust

B．leaf

C．decoration

D．present

6.

A．switch

B．tree

C．pet

D．alarm

7.

A．waited

B．lay

C．appeared

D．moved

8.

A．cleaned-up

B．fixed-up

C．chewed-up

D．used-up

9.

A．failed

B．worked

C．counted

D．improved

10.

A．discovered

B．wasted

C．gone

D．rescued

11.

A．punishment

B．respect

C．comfort

D．pity

12.

A．changed

B．remained

C．ended

D．repeated

13.

A．love

B．answer

C．luck

D．food

14.

A．guiltily

B．hopefully

C．regretfully

D．regularly

15.

A．created

B．offered

C．explained

D．announced

5 . “Music is where everything started,” Samira Horton says.     1     She has been rapping and performing since she was 6 years old. Through music, DJ Annie Red says, “I can express myself and let out my emotion.”

The rising hip-hop star uses music to share a message about bullying. “I was bullied a lot,” she says, “even today, especially because of my voice.” DJ Annie Red has a deep voice.     2     But DJ Annie Red has found a way to rise above their rude remarks. Instead of thinking of her voice as a weakness, she uses it to spread her anti-bullying message far and wide.

    3     She posts her music online, too. She likes to give students a rhythmic and interactive show while teaching them how to overcome bullying. “It makes them feel like they're not alone.”

Annie Red believes that standing up to bullying is more important than ever.     4     “You don't have to show your face at all,” she says. “Someone could easily be affected by that.”

    5     She believes that kids of her generation can make things better by finding their passions, and using those passions to inspire changes, as she has. “Kids' being more confident in themselves and wanting to do something that they really enjoy doing is something that motivates me to keep doing what I do.”

A．But she sees a brighter future ahead.

B．People have told her she sounds like a boy.

C．She encourages kids of all ages to stand up to bullying.

D．DJ Annie Red has performed at schools, festivals and Brooklyn Net games.

E．Her 2017 book, The Bully Stop, is based on her song “No You Won't Bully Me”.

F．The 13-year-old from Brooklyn, New York, is known to the world as DJ Annie Red.

G．That's because people can bully others on social media while hiding behind a username.

6 . Many people think daydreaming is bad for their emotions and has negative effects on their life and those around them. It makes adapting to life very hard and brains work less effectively.

Contrary to common ideas, the brains of people who are daydreaming might not stop working, but may be working harder, new research has shown. Scientists scanned the brains of people lying inside magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, as they pushed buttons or rested in turn. The scans showed that the “default (默认的) network” deep inside a human brain becomes more active during daydreaming.

In a surprise finding, the scans also showed strong activity in the executive network, the outlying region of the brain associated with complex problem-solving, says Professor Kalina Christoff, who is a co-author of the study. “People assume that when the mind wanders away, it just gets turned off—but we show the opposite. When it wanders, it is turned on.” says Christoff.

The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest, “People who let themselves daydream might not think in the same focused way as when performing a goal-oriented task, but they bring in more mental and brain resources,” says Christoff.

F. Diane Barth said at Psychology Today that the more we daydream, the more our brain is able to hold onto the task when we are being bombarded (轰炸) from all sides by all kinds of noises, information input, and conflicting demands. You're not trying to escape the task at hand; rather, you're trying to get rid of all of the information and stimuli (刺激物) that could pose as bothers.

According to Christoff, people typically spend one third of their waking time daydreaming. “It is a big part of our lives, but it has been largely ignored by science,” she says. “The study is the first to use MRIs to study brain activity during spontaneous thoughts and subjective experiences. Until now the only way is to use self-reports that are not always reliable.”

1. What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Scientists.

B．Scans.

C．MRI machines.

D．Study subjects.

2. The findings by Christoff show daydreaming ________.

A．may help us get relaxed	B．may be beneficial to our health
C．may use less energy than focusing	D．may help us arrive at solutions faster

3. Which of the following may Barth agree with?

A．Daydreaming provides us with many stimuli.

B．Daydreaming is actually an act of concentration.

C．Daydreaming can make us forget unhappy things.

D．Daydreaming reminds us of more useful information.

4. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．MRIs are reliable to study brain activity.

B．People should spend more time daydreaming.

C．More studies about daydreaming need to be done.

D．People should make full use of daydreaming time.

7 . The key to a successful garage sale is to get the word out. The best way of advertising your sale is to place an ad in the local newspaper. If you have a city and neighborhood paper, make sure you advertise in both. The ad should be large enough to stand out. It should also include information on where the sale is located with directions, the “hot" items you're selling and the time when the sale will start and end. An ad should be placed at least two days before the sale and run until the day of your event. That way people can plan their route to the sale in advance.

Signs must be another great way to inform your community. Post them where people gather, such as stores and community centers. Some businesses have a central bulletin board, which is the best place to advertise. Other places to post are at the local college or university campus. This is especially helpful if your sale is happening in August or early September when students have returned to school and are looking for cheap finds.

Post signs round your neighborhood. You should also place both ads and direction signs, especially if you're located on a side street without a major presence. Signs will attract and direct people. Just make sure your print is in bold letters and use large direction signs so that people can read the information from the front seat of their car.

1. You should place an ad at least two days before the sale so that people can ________.

A．get enough cash for the sale	B．compare prices of the items
C．select the items they will buy	D．decide on their route beforehand

2. Why should signs be posted in a community center?

A．Schools are nearby.	B．There are many stores.
C．Students often meet there.	D．More people gather there.

3. What advice is given for printing the signs according to the last paragraph?

A．Colored signs are preferred.	B．Bold letters should be used.
C．Large pictures should be included.	D．Phone numbers should be provided.

4. The best title for the passage might be ________.

A．Advertising Garage Sales	B．Advantages of Garage Sales
C．Importance of Garage Sales	D．Printing Ads for Garage Sales

8 . When American Matt Stopera’s iPhone went missing, he thought, “Well, bad luck. These things happen.” One year later, Matt’s misfortune has turned to good fortune as he found a new friend and became an Internet celebrity in China.

You may already be familiar with this story since it spread on Weibo for weeks during the Spring Festival, but it started when Matt began seeing photos of a Chinese man in front of an orange tree on his photo stream (照片流). He wrote about it and some Chinese readers decided to see if they could find the mysterious man. They did. It turns out that “Brother Orange,” as he became known, owned a restaurant in Guangdong and the iPhone he was using, a gift from a nephew, was Matt’s old phone.

Matt and Brother Orange began messaging each other and a friendship blossomed with Matt invited to China to feast at Brother Orange’s restaurant on his delicious Hakkacuisine (客家菜). Matt was also overwhelmed by the warmth of the millions of Chinese who were following the story. When he opened a Weibo account he had 22 million followers almost overnight, many of them inviting him to their hometowns and offering to be his tour guide.

Matt’s story is another example of how powerful the Internet and social networking has become in bringing people together. But there is a darker side to this story and that involves how Matt’s missing iPhone turned up in China. Over three million smart-phones were stolen in America last year. Because of identification numbers, these phones can’t be used in America, so they are sent to other countries and many of them end up in China, where they can be re-activated. This is why Matt and Brother Orange could share the same iCloud account.

You should keep this in mind when buying a second-hand phone and check the serial number to see that it has not been stolen. Finding a friend through social networking is wonderful, but using a stolen phone isn’t really the best way to make the connection.

1. What happened to Matt one year after he lost his phone?

A．He was fortunate enough to get his phone back.	B．He became a famous figure on American website.
C．He gained friendship and became popular in China.	D．He lost another phone because of his iCloud account.

2. How did Matt and Brother Orange establish their friendship?

A．Brother Orange’s photo was found on the Internet.

B．Chinese readers tried their best to find Brother Orange.

C．Brother Orange received an iPhone from his nephew.

D．Brother Orange contacted Matt and invited him to China.

3. How did Matt’s followers react to his Weibo?

A．cautiously

B．enthusiastically

C．anxiously

D．humorously

4. What does the story indicate?

A．It’s wonderful to find a friend through social net-working.

B．A stolen phone is the best way to make connections.

C．People should be careful when buying a second-hand phone.

D．Matt and Brother Orange set a good example to us.

9 . Childhood is particularly important for learning. We obviously can't do all the work as every child is different. However, we're hoping that these learning apps for kids can help!

ClassDojo

Price: $2.99

Download on Amazon App Store

ClassDojo is one of a few virtual classroom style learning apps. Using this app, parents, students, and teachers can all interact with one another. Unlike many, it doesn't replace the classroom experience but acts more as a positive reinforcement (强化) and communication tool to help keep everyone on the same page. The most important thing is that you'll need to find teachers who would want to use this kind of tool.

Cram.com Flashcards

Price: $ 169. 4 per year/$29. 95 per month

Download on Ubuntu Software

Cram.com Flashcards is a study app. It allows you to create flashcards about any subject. This is a great study aid for almost anybody. The app features cross-platform syncing (同步), and provides access to over 75 million flashcards that others have made, and it works both offline and online.

Duolingo

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Download on George Play

Duolingo is one of the best learning apps for kids when it comes to learning a new language. It has a variety of language supports, including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Irish, Danish, and even English. What makes the app so great is that it's completely free to download and use.

DragonBox series

Price: $24. 99 or $27. 99

Download on App Store

The DragonBox series are a set of education games that help kids learn basic math. There are five learning apps for kids in total. All five of them deal with numbers to some extent. Math is hard to understand sometimes so it might be good to teach these concepts via the app. All five games require an up-front payment, but none of them have in-app purchases.

1. When using ClassDojo, you should ________.

A．keep up with others	B．get support from teachers
C．use it in your classroom	D．be able to make flashcards

2. How much will you pay at least to use Cram.com Flashcards for 5 months?

A．$149. 75.

B．$75.

C．$29. 95.

D．$169. 4.

3. What can DragonBox series enable students to do?

A．Learn high-level math in a fun way.	B．Figure out difficult math problems.
C．Design educational games about math.	D．Master math concepts through games.

10 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

A drama series named “Medal of the Republic”    1     (lead) to enthusiastic discussion on Chinese social media over the last few months. It claimed people’s attention before it was broadcast on September 26, 2021. According to the series’ chief director Zheng Xiaolong,    2    (compare) with most drama series that tend to document the whole life of the featured individual, this series focuses specially on the individuals’ most     3     (shine) moments.

The series tells heart-warming stories about     4     first group of eight recipients（接受者）of the Medal of the Republic,    5     is the country’s highest honor. They have made great     6     (contribute) to the development of the People’s Republic of China.

Among the recipients are Tu Youyou, awarded with the 2015 Nobel Prize,    7     Yuan Longping who is known as Chinese “father of hybrid rice” and six other remarkable heroes.

“Medal of the Republic”    8    (center) on these heroes’ devotion to their careers and continuous efforts to improve Chinese people’s lives. Through the patriotism（爱国精神）and     9     (they) never-give-up spirit displayed by the honorees, the series hopes to inspire the younger generation     10     (dramatic) to fulfill their mission on the road to the great rejuvenation（复兴）of the Chinese nation.