1 . I was the only kid in college with a reason to go to the mail box, because my mother never believed in email, or cell phones in general. I was literally waiting to get a letter to see how the weekend had gone, which was usually the warmest comfort for me.
So when I moved to New York and got sucker-punched in the face by depression, I did the only thing I could think of — writing letters like my mother for strangers. I blogged about those letters and crazily promised I would write you a hand-written letter if asked to.
Overnight, my inbox became this harbor of heartbreak — a single mother in Sacramento, a girl being bullied (恐吓) in rural Kansas…, all asking me to write them a letter and give them a reason to wait by the mailbox. And this is how the act The World Needs More Love Letters was born, fueled by those trips to the mailbox. But the thing about these letters is that most of them have been written by people, who have grown up into a paperless world where some best conversations happen swiftly on a screen.
I’ve been carrying this mail crate (大木箱) with me these days, which is a magical icebreaker. So I get to tell total strangers about a woman whose husband was traumatized (受精神创伤) from war in Afghanistan, and how she left love letters throughout the house as a way to say, “Come back to me.” And the man, who had decided to take his life, tonight slept safely with letters just beneath his pillow, handwritten by strangers who were there for him.
These are the kinds of stories that convince me that letter-writing will always be needed, even in these days, because it is an art now.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．The efficiency of write letters. |
| B．The author’s care for her family. |
| C．The author’s attachment to letters. |
| D．The author’s love for the college life. |
| A．The letters’ comforting effect on people. |
| B．Her intention of providing professional aid. |
| C．The positive influence of modern technology. |
| D．Her mother’s fear of modern communication. |
| A．It is capable of doing magic tricks. |
| B．It starts a conversation with passers-by. |
| C．It helps people to recover from traumas. |
| D．It is hot enough to melt ice on a cold day. |
| A．Love for Writing |
| B．Priceless Family Letters |
| C．Love Letters to Strangers |
| D．The Art of Writing Letters |
2 . The very unusual series of events finished as Sondrup was heading home from an extended work shift. She had just completed her fourth continuous night shift, and
While driving home, Sondrup
“It’s
Under what she described as a turn of fate (命运), Sondrup
Sondrup courageously
“I really feel that my guiding
The man Sondrup rescued recently reached out to express his
| A．tiredness | B．happiness | C．stress | D．anger |
| A．description | B．memory | C．opinion | D．request |
| A．believed | B．summarized | C．tracked | D．noticed |
| A．preserved | B．introduced | C．trapped | D．exchanged |
| A．possible | B．different | C．strange | D．interesting |
| A．Obviously | B．Normally | C．Formally | D．Likely |
| A．pulled over | B．turned on | C．looked around | D．worked out |
| A．progress | B．accident | C．reference | D．survival |
| A．watched | B．explored | C．climbed | D．contacted |
| A．struggle | B．contribution | C．experiment | D．wisdom |
| A．recognized | B．encouraged | C．concentrated | D．promoted |
| A．proposal | B．focus | C．goal | D．force |
| A．key | B．awkward | C．spare | D．public |
| A．demand | B．appreciation | C．desire | D．view |
| A．solution | B．title | C．health | D．personality |
3 . The Mona Lisa is the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting of a woman with a mysterious smile. This week, the painting gave up a secret.
Scientists used X-rays to examine the chemical organization of an extremely small part of the more than 500-year-old painting. The researchers discovered a technique Leonardo used in the work. A team in France and Britain discovered an oil paint used for the Mona Lisa was a special, new chemical mixture. It suggests that the Italian artist may have been in an experimental mood when he set to work on the painting early in the 16th century.
“He was someone who loved to experiment, and each of his paintings is completely different technically,” said Victor Gonzalez. He is the study’s lead writer. “In this case, it’s interesting to see that indeed there is a specific technique for the ground layer of the Mona Lisa,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. Specifically, the researchers found a rare compound, plumbonacrite (水蛭石), in Leonardo’s first layer of paint. The discovery, Gonzalez said, proved that da Vinci most likely used lead oxide to thicken and help dry his paint.
The scientists looked into its atomic structure using X-rays in a synchrotron (同步加速器). The machine moves particles at close to the speed of light, permitting researchers to look deeper into the paint structure. “Plumbonacrite is really a fingerprint of his recipe,” Gonzalez said. “It’s the first time we can actually chemically prove it.”
Dutch artist Rembrandt may have used a similar mixture when he was painting in the 17th century. Gonzalez and other researchers have found plumbonacrite in his work, too. “It also tells us that those recipes were passed on for centuries,” Gonzalez said. “It was a very good recipe.”
But the Mona Lisa and additional works by Leonardo still have other secrets to tell. “There are plenty, plenty more things to discover,” Gonzalez said. “What we are saying is just a little brick more in the knowledge.”
1. What is the secret of the painting of the Mona Lisa?| A．The use of plumbonacrite. | B．Leonardo’s love for experiment. |
| C．The way to dry the painting. | D．The oil in the first layer. |
| A．Unclear. | B．Positive. | C．Doubtful. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．By making comparisons. | B．By listing related examples. |
| C．By describing the study process. | D．By quoting experts’ opinions. |
| A．A Creative Painter | B．A Smiling Mona Lisa |
| C．A New Discovery in the Mona Lisa | D．A Pioneering Painting |
4 . When it comes to travel, sometimes wandering is one of the most exciting things you can do. In a time when travellers are both more adventurous and eco-conscious than ever, it’s no surprise that there’s a wealth of new vocabulary to describe how we travel, when we travel and how the experience makes us feel. Here are eight of our favourite travel words that you may not have heard before.
We’ve kicked off a blog with the staycation, “a holiday in one’s own country”. The term first became popular in the mid-2000s, when the global financial crisis meant people had less income to spend on flash holidays and instead searched for cheaper local choices. Since 2020, the staycation is experiencing a revival (复兴). Benefits of staycations include cheaper travel costs, no spending hours in the airport and, of course, no need to worry about whether your passport expired (过期) last year.
Once upon a time, if you wanted to meet new people on your travels, you could stay at a hostel or with a host on Airbnb. Now, you can couch surf. And not just in “the staying at various friends’ houses until you find a new place to rent” sense: couch surfing is quickly becoming a hot new travel trend. Travellers can now choose to couch surf all across the world via a website which treats travel as a cultural exchange, allowing people to connect with willing hosts and crash on their sofas.
Given that single-use and climate strike were selected as the Collins 2018 and 2019 Words of the Year respectively, it’s clear that the climate crisis is very much on everybody’s mind. This desire to make more sustainable choices is also affecting the way we spend our vacation days. Ecotourism is another popular travel trend, defined as tourism that is designed to contribute to the protection of the environment. Examples of ecotourism include ditching short-haul flights, staying at eco-friendly resorts, or booking a staycation.
1. When did the staycation become popular firstly?| A．About in 2018. | B．About in 2019. | C．About in 2005. | D．About in 2010. |
| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. | D．Six. |
| A．The eco-friendly travel ways. | B．The cheap ways to get around. |
| C．The changing words of travel. | D．The spread of history and culture. |
| A．The other new travel words. | B．Ways to protect environment. |
| C．Other examples of ecotourism. | D．Experiences of reaching culture. |
5 . In a heartwarming tale from Georgia, a 72-year-old senior recently celebrated his college graduation in cinema studies, an achievement made even more special by the presence of his proud 99-year-old mother.
Sam Kaplan of Lawrenceville decided to start on his educational journey at Georgia Gwinnett College in 2019, half a century after he had firstly chosen not to get higher education following his high school graduation in 1969. The catalyst for his return to academia came when he heard a radio announcement about a degree programme in cinema studies.
Recalling that moment, Kaplan said, “I was driving down the highway when I heard about the degree programme. The next exit led to Collinsville, so I immediately exited, and within five minutes, I was enrolling in classes. I’ve always had a passion for writing and storytelling. I longed to transform my narratives into screenplays, but I realized I needed the basic knowledge to do so,”
Kaplan admitted that the journey was a mix of anxiety and excitement, but it proved to be greatly rewarding. He graduated with a 3.975 grade point average and perfect grade honours, majoring in cinema and media arts, and had desires to continue creating screenplays in the future.
“It was an exciting and nerve-wracking (神经紧张的) challenge. Re-recognizing myself with the art of studying and communicating with fellow students was a lot of fun,” he told FOX5 Atlanta.
The most heartwarming thing of Kaplan’s graduation day was the presence of his mother, 99-year-old Virginia Kaplan, during the ceremony. Virginia expressed her huge pride, saying, “I am so proud of him. He faced numerous challenges but insisted, and I am delighted, pleased, and extremely proud,” the mother also added. “With his new degree, he’s going to stand out in whatever he does. Who knows, I might even make an appearance in the movies.”
1. What’s the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To provide some background. | B．To tell the main idea. |
| C．To serve as a comment. | D．To offer an example. |
| A．Reason. | B．Vehicle. | C．Task. | D．Fact. |
| A．The mother desires to star in a film. |
| B．Kaplan takes much pride in himself. |
| C．Kaplan is excellent at whatever he does. |
| D．The mother offers the unshakeable support. |
| A．Failure is the mother of success. |
| B．It’s never too late to follow a dream. |
| C．The good seaman is known in bad weather. |
| D．All things in their being are good for something. |
6 . How to Apply China Visa (签证)
How to apply China visa is the most concerned question for international tourists who plan to travel to China. Here you will find the useful information about China visa requirements and instructions.
China Visa Requirements
▶The valid (有效的) passport
Original passport valid for at least 6 months with blank visa pages, and a photocopy of data page (with your photo on it)
▶China visa application form and photo
The applicants must fill in a complete visa application form and attach it with a recent-taken colour passport photo.
So what is the requirement of the photo? The photo you submit must be passport-type (bare-head, full face) and standard with the correct dimension and background colour.
▶Effective proof of legal stay or resident status (it applies to those who do not apply for China visa in their countries of citizenship).
Supporting Application Documents
For C-Visa, a letter of guarantee issued by a foreign transport company or an invitation letter issued by a relevant authority from China side shall be provided.
For D-Visa, the original and a photocopy of foreign permanent residence identification form issued by China’s Ministry of Public Security shall be provided.
For F-Visa, an invitation letter issued by relevant authorities or individuals from China side shall be provided.
For G-Visa, an onward air (train, bus, ship) ticket with confirmed date and seat to the third country or region shall be provided.
For L-Visa, the tour itinerary (行程) and documents with round trip flight tickets and accommodation reservations, or an invitation letter issued by relevant authorities or individuals from Chinese side shall be provided.
For M-Visa, documents of business activity, trade fair invitation letter or other invitation letter issued by trade partners in China shall be provided.
Further reading: click the link China visa knowledge and types.
1. In what situation do people have to prove the legal stay for the application?| A．Not being in his country of nationality. |
| B．Without documents of business activity. |
| C．Without photos that match the requirements. |
| D．Not being invited by trade partners in China. |
| A．C-Visa and M-Visa. | B．L-Visa and D-Visa. |
| C．G-Visa and L-Visa. | D．F-Visa and M-Visa. |
| A．A science magazine. | B．A travel brochure. |
| C．A hotel poster. | D．A web page. |
One year ago, when we were in the fifth grade, a new classmate named Jack joined us. He was often late for class and had a strange smell on him, which made the girls not want to be “neighbours” with him, let alone sit next to him. It is said that once, a naughty boy curiously opened his backpack and many crushed soda cans and empty drink bottles that we usually throw into the trash fell out. Therefore, the boys in our class mocked (嘲笑) him as the “trash king”.
Later, during a class meeting, our teacher, Ms. Zhang, told us about his story of using garbage to make inventions. It turns out that Jack is not an ordinary elementary school student, but a “garbage-inspired inventor” who has won the city invention award. According to Ms. Zhang, most of his inventions were picked up from garbage dumps (堆). During that class meeting, Jack showed us his invention of a“domestic wastewater separation system”.
Afterwards, some of us became deeply interested in these small inventions and started to admire Jack’s way of “picking up trash”. We even joined him in picking up trash on weekends and during holidays. From then on, we no longer called him the “trash king“. Instead, we formed a group of five boys and actively searched for usable materials in various garbage dumps around the city. Under Jack’s guidance, we learned that there are many uses for seemingly useless trash. Once, we stayed at school to process the collected materials. Jack mentioned that he was facing a problem with his latest invention—a small cart for buying vegetables that needed to be lightweight. All other materials were solved except for the wheels. How could we find a suitable material for the wheels? We racked our brains (绞尽脑汁) and came up with different ideas, such as using soda cans or taking off the wheels from suitcases. However, Jack reminded us that our group should focus on making inventions from waste rather than causing damage to create them. We were all deep in thought.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
When I got home and drank a bottle of water, I suddenly had an idea.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Jack indeed adopted my suggestion and fixed a row of bottle caps as wheels on his vegetable cart.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The ancient Chinese built two great engineering wonders: the Great Wall and the Grand Canal. Though the Great Wall’s effect in military
The Grand Canal,
In ancient times, the Grand Canal served
Years ago, it
9 . “The Worthington Christian defeated the Westerville North by 2—1 in an Ohio boys’ soccer game on Saturday.” That’s according to a story that appeared last month in The Columbus Dispatch. That lead was written not by a sportswriter, but by an artificial intelligence (AI) tool.
Many news organizations are now examining how AI might be used in their work. But if they begin their “experimenting” with high school sports because they are less momentous than war, peace, climate change and politics, they may miss something crucial. Nothing may be more important to the students who play high school sports, and to their families, neighborhoods, and sometimes, the whole town. That next game is what the students train for, work toward, and dream about. Someday, almost all student athletes will go on to have jobs in front of screens, in office parks, at schools, in hospitals or on construction sites. They may suffer blows and setbacks. But the high school games they played and watched, as well as their hopes and cheers, will stay vivid in their memories.
I have a small idea. If newspapers will no longer send staff reporters to cover high school games, why not hire high school student journalists? News organizations can pay students an hourly wage to cover high school games. The young reporters might learn how to be fair to all sides, write vividly, and attract readers. That’s what some celebrities in sports did, and do.
And think of the great writers who were inspired by sports: Hemingway on fishing, Bernard Malamud and Marianne Moore on baseball, Chen Zhongshi on football, and CLR James on cricket, who said, “There can be raw pain and bleeding where so many thousands see the inevitable (不可避免的) ups and downs of only a game.” A good high school writer, unlike a robot, could tell readers not just the score, but the stories of the game.
1. Why is the lead mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To introduce an original idea. | B．To show AI’s wide application. |
| C．To bring in the opinion about AI. | D．To stress AI’s importance to news. |
| A．Hopeful. | B．Eye-catching. | C．Competitive. | D．Far-reaching. |
| A．Rich in contents. | B．Fair in comments. |
| C．Centered on results. | D．Targeted on readers. |
| A．News Organizations Are Abusing AI | B．High Schoolers Can Do What AI Can’t |
| C．Great Writers Are Crazy About Sports | D．AI Ruins High School Students’ Memory |
10 . One of the most famous literary challenges in history was when Dr. Seuss received a challenge from his publisher that he could only use 50 words to write an entire book. That’s all well and good, but it’s a tough challenge, to be sure. However, Ernest Vincent Wright would no doubt turn up his nose, as he challenged himself to pen an entire 50,000-word novel without once using the letter “e”.
Wright managed to pull it off. The final product was Gadsby, which is about a man named, well, Gadsby, who tries to save his city with the help of a youth group. It took Wright nearly six months to complete the work, and in his introduction pages he mentioned the challenges along the way.
One of the biggest challenges was replacing pronouns, since it’s tough to write a sentence, let alone a novel, without words like “he” or “she” or “her” and so forth. Additionally, he was forced to find ways to work around using past tense words that typically end in “-ed”, which, as you might imagine, is more than a little tricky.
Still, Wright did manage to come up with 50,110 words and a full story without any cheats, making it one of the most successful lipograms (避讳某字之文) in the history of writing. Wright self-published the book in 1939 and it was read primarily by people who tried to find any cheats, so convinced were they that Wright simply must have used the letter.
The entire novel is available online to read for free, as it entered the public domain in 1968. It’s a good thing, too, as the storehouse that contained the majority of the copies burned down, destroying enough of the books that it has since become a rare book collector’s prize, with copies being valued at thousands of dollars.
At the end of the day, of course, it remains a truly great achievement. After all, “e” is the most commonly used letter in English, with more than 11 percent of all words in the Oxford dictionary containing at least one “e”.
1. What did Wright challenge himself to write?| A．An entire book with 50 words. |
| B．A 50,000-word book in six months. |
| C．A 50,000-word book without the letter “e”. |
| D．An entire book including “e” 50,000 times. |
| A．The difficulties Wright faced. |
| B．The plot of Wright’s final product. |
| C．The popularity of Wright’s final product. |
| D．The smart ways Wright used to replace pronouns. |
| A．They considered the book a great success. |
| B．They expected the book to be available online. |
| C．They wondered what lipograms mean. |
| D．They doubted if Wright really made it. |
| A．Due to their rarity. |
| B．Because Wright won a big prize. |
| C．Because they had a really long history. |
| D．Due to book collectors’ recommendation. |
