Hotpot has a long history of over 1,000 years in China. It used to
Chongqi ng Hotpot is the staple dish of the city. Hotpot restaurants in Chongqi ng are everywhere — if you look up on the street you are in, chances are that you
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3 . Quantum mechanics (量子力学) is a branch of science that studies the smallest particles (粒子) in the universe, like atoms (原子) and even smaller things. It might sound super complex, but let’s break it down in simple language.
Imagine you have a small particle, like an atom. In the world of quantum mechanics, these particles don’t behave like the things we see in our everyday lives, like balls or cars. Instead, they act kind of like waves and particles at the same time, which is really strange!
One of the most famous ideas in quantum mechanics is the “Uncertainty Principle”, raised by physicist Werner Heisenberg. This principle says that we can’t precisely know both the position and the speed of a particle at the same time. It’s not because our measuring tools are bad; it’s because the particles themselves are naturally uncertain.
Another weird thing about quantum mechanics is something called “Entanglement.” Imagine you have two particles that are connected in a special way. If you change one of them, the other instantly changes, no matter how far apart they are. It’s like they’re talking to each other faster than the speed of light, which goes against what we know from everyday experiences.
Quantum mechanics also deals with probabilities. Instead of saying, “This particle will be here at this exact time,” scientists say, “There’s a certain chance it’ll be here, and a certain chance it won’t.” It’s like predicting the weather, but on a super small scale.
In a nutshell, quantum mechanics is a strange and fascinating world where particles act both like waves and particles, where you can’t know everything about a particle at once, and where particles can be mysteriously connected no matter how far apart they are. It’s a mind-boggling field that challenges our understanding of how the universe works, and even though it’s tough to grasp, it’s an essential part of modern physics.
1. How does the author illustrate the behavior patterns of particles in paragraph 2?| A．By presenting reliable technical data. |
| B．By comparing them to everyday objects. |
| C．By clarifying quantum mechanics concepts. |
| D．By associating them with chemical reactions. |
| A．Their physical appearances. | B．Their speed limitations. |
| C．Their unusual properties. | D．Their predictable movements. |
| A．Accurate forecasts are tough. |
| B．They are analyzing lots of data. |
| C．The scale of studies varies greatly. |
| D．Detailed studies are time-consuming. |
| A．Its developmental history. | B．Its research challenges. |
| C．Its unexpected applications. | D．Its underlying principles. |
4 . Listed below are some nice family-friendly museums in Chicago, pick one that interests your kids most and take your little ones there to have fun.
Shedd Aquarium (水族馆)
It was open to the public on May 30th, 1930. Visitors with limited movement can use easy slopes (斜坡) to reach the exhibits, which are also explained to children through an app.Families can spend the night in the aquarium during the special event called Asleep with the Fishes.
Elmhurst History Museum
It’s a museum about history that has won awards and was created in 1957. It shows different exhibits about many history-related subjects, has a fun interactive exhibit about its own history, and offers various public programs, tours of exhibits, and special events for the community. The museum is a fantastic place for families to visit for a day or two, and it even has places for picnics and holiday train journeys.
Chicago Children’s Museum
Founded in 1982, the museum displays impressive exhibits for children, featuring dinosaur bones, a play area only for babies and a famous and fun climbing area for children.Moreover, the museum offers various exhibitions and daily art classes for children, which are free of charge. Visiting the museum on the weekend is a good choice for economical family amusement.
Field Museum of Natural History
With millions of things in its store, it was established in 1893. Disco ver more than 4billion years of life on Earth through interesting displays and interactive events, and discover protection campaigns worldwide. It is now considered as famous as the Smithsonian Institution, established in 1846 in Washington, and the American Museum of Natural History, which originated in 1869 in New York.
1. What is special about the Shedd Aquarium for family visitors?| A．They can go on a picnic there. |
| B．They can sleep overnight there. |
| C．They can surf the Internet. |
| D．They can learn the history of Chicago. |
| A．Have discounts on holidays. | B．Watch dolphins’ exhibitions. |
| C．Take a fun climb. | D．Take free art classes on an app. |
| A．Shedd Aquarium. | B．ElmhurstHistoryMuseum. |
| C．Chicago Children’s Museum. | D．Field Museum of Natural History. |
5 . Being a Volunteer (志愿者)
What can you do to help people?
*
Volunteering is a great way to have fun with your family. Talk to your parents, brothers or sisters.
*Help yourself by helping others.
When you volunteer to help others, you are helping yourself. It’s amazing to know that volunteering can calm you down when you feel upset. Lots of people really enjoy volunteering, because doing volunteer work could make a big difference in their life. So where do you start?
*Create your own opportunity for your future.
Kids can come up with their own ways to raise money or provide needed services. You can make and sell products, and donate the money. Volunteering gives kids a sense of responsibility. Volunteering can also help kids learn important things about their future.
| A．The answer is to be a volunteer |
| B．Do things with family members |
| C．You can’t finish some housework |
| D．Some volunteer work is not important |
| E．And then you can see what they might like |
| F．School is a good place to start if you are looking for volunteer ideas |
| G．For example, they can know what kinds of things they will be best at |
6 . Pleasanton Partnerships in Education Foundation (PPIE) was started in 1987 to raise money by organizing running events for local schools. Based in Pleasanton, California, a suburb of San Francisco, the non-profit organization recently hosted a family-focused fitness event for the community. “Our event helps to bring the community together,” said Mindy Louie, events and outreach manager for PPIE. “We have more than 3,000 participants, hard-working volunteers and viewers.”
This year’s fitness event took place on April 30 at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. It featured races of two miles, five kilometers and ten kilometers. A new Kids Challenge consisted of a quarter-mile run to encourage younger children to participate. When asked to describe the run, 11-year-old Jeremy Louie said, “Fun, exciting and enjoyable.” Jeremy added that he was happy to help support his school.
PPIE supports all 15 schools in the Pleasanton Unified School District, which include more than 14, 500 students and 800 teachers and staff. The nonprofit organization tries to fund programs affected by budget cuts, while encouraging fitness and athleticism. To date, the PPIE has raised over $1 million for the school district.
A local runners’ group called the BURN Youth Development (B. Y. D.) participated in the fundraising. The B.Y.D. has since grown to more than 100 youth members, 30 of whom ran in April’s PPIE event. Jerry Wu, the group’s founder and lead coach, explained that the B.Y.D. was born to keep kids running. “Watching them running strongly and happily makes me smile every time,” Jerry said.
Jerry encourages teamwork and teaches the students valuable running techniques. As a B.Y.D. member, Ollie Gu, an eighth grader, was one of the top finishers in the ten-kilometer run. He completed the race in 40 minutes and 46 seconds and won first place in the 12-to-15 year-old age group. “The race was extremely rewarding,” Ollie said. “I’m looking forward to it next year.”
1. Which race was recently created?| A．A ten-kilometer run. | B．A quarter-mile run. |
| C．A five-kilometer run. | D．A two-mile run. |
| A．To stress the great influence of PPIE. |
| B．To show a small budget for education. |
| C．To introduce the school district in brief. |
| D．To advertise the organization’s programs. |
| A．Their duties as athletes. | B．Their feelings as coaches. |
| C．Their recognition of the B.Y.D. | D．Their anticipation of the next run. |
| A．Sports volunteers. | B．Young sportsmen. |
| C．Running with teachers. | D．Racing for education. |
7 . A happy beagle (小猎犬) called Bella loves Amazon boxes. It tears into them while ignoring other delivery boxes. Little Bit, a tortoiseshell cat, is similarly consumed — but by socks. It raids (偷袭) the laundry basket in the middle of the night and also paws through the open suitcases of house guests, who almost always find themselves missing a sock in the morning. Pets do some pretty weird things. But these strange behaviors often make perfect sense to the pets, said scientists who study animal behaviors. “These behaviors are not invented on the spot,” said Carlo Siracusa, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. The pets are doing behaviors that their wild ancestors did, but they’ve changed them a bit to fit their new lives as pets.
Dogs can be trained to roll over and play dead. But their ancient instincts from their wolf ancestors are still there. Instincts, or instinctive behaviors, are behaviors that are done without thinking. They don’t have to be learned. For example, some dogs will scratch the ground after pooping(排便). But they’re not trying to bury their poop. They want other animals to notice it. “They are depositing smell in those areas,” Siracusa said. “It’s almost like drawing a picture with a big red marker around it,” he added.
Cats, on the other hand, almost always bury their waste. “They are covering their tracks,” says Monique Udell, an expert on human-animal interactions who works at Oregon State University. Cats are predators, meaning they hunt other animals for food. But other animals hunt them, too. So they don’t want to be seen-or smelled. Mikel Delgado, the founder of a California-based cat behavior consulting service, said that many other cat behaviors, arise from cats’ wild origins.
While dogs share many behaviors inherited (继承) from wolves, they’ve also developed a few of their own. “Puppy dog eyes”, the innocent look that many humans are helpless to resist, is one. Over the time period that they’ve lived with people, dogs have developed certain muscles around their eyes. This helps them make the adorable expressions that win over humans. Like wolves, dogs also like to lick faces. Humans think their pets are kissing them, but they are not. “It’s how wolf puppies get food from their parents’ mouths,” Siracusa said. “It also can be a sign of submission. When a lower-ranking individual approaches a higher-ranking one, it gets down real low and licks the dominant one to say: ‘I’m not a threat to you.’”
1. What has been done to introduce the topic in Paragraph 1?| A．Telling a story. | B．Making a comparison. |
| C．Presenting research results. | D．Criticizing pets’ bad behaviors. |
| A．leaving | B．hiding | C．removing | D．detecting |
| A．Cats are interested in burying their waste. |
| B．Humans like the fact that their pet cats bury their waste. |
| C．Pet cats bury their waste because their wild ancestors did so. |
| D．Cats have changed a lot after becoming pets. |
| A．Wolves run energetically around dominant wolves. |
| B．Wolves show dominant wolves “puppy dog eyes”. |
| C．Wolves beg food from dominant wolves. |
| D．Wolves lick dominant wolves’ faces. |
8 . People have been predicting (预测) the death of cable TV (有线电视) for a long time, but this really might be it. Just a decade (十年) ago, nearly all Americans — more than 85 percent of U.S. households — paid for packages of TV channels from cable or satellite ( 卫 星) companies. That started to drop slowly at first and then far more quickly in the past few years. Now, the share of American homes that pay for traditional TV service is approaching 50 percent, according to expert Craig Moffett and S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Kagan research group.
For comparison, cellphones were around for decades before the percentage of Americans who didn’t have a landline ( 座 机) at home reached 50 percent, around 2017. Maybe it seems predictable that cable TV would go the way of the landline. I promise you that it was not necessarily obvious, even once Netflix started to take off. Old habits die hard. Old industries that make a lot of people rich die even harder. And don’t forget that some new technology habits catch on fast but don’t stick.
What may be a final drop in America’s cable TV industry is a big deal. It shows that technology can change deep-rooted ways of doing things slowly, and then suddenly.
Ian Olgeirson, a research director at Kagan who has been following America’s TV market for about 20 years, told me that he was surprised by how quickly the monthly cable bill went from being standard to outdated for many Americans. Olgeirson and other TV experts I’ve been speaking to didn’t single out a turning point in cable TV’s big drop. They said the downward trend ( 趋 势) was more like a series of progressive changes building up.
It’s clear that the cable TV system that for decades brought joy and headaches to tens of millions of Americans is wearing thin. The wild card is whether Americans keep turning away from cable and satellite TV relatively slowly, or whether it will fail suddenly.
I have always loved TV. I felt like a real grown-up when I first started to pay a huge bill for television, partly to watch my favorite football team. I had reduced my cable TV package, but then a few months ago I was told that my bill was going to increase by about $10 a month. That was it. I’m a no-cable household now, too.
1. What does paragraph 1 mainly tell us about cable TV?| A．Its falling popularity. | B．Its increasing payments. |
| C．Its various TV channels. | D．Its high service standard. |
| A．To prove technology can change the world. | B．To show it is not easy for cable TV to go away. |
| C．To illustrate there is no market left for cable TV. | D．To explain technology can bring fortune to people. |
| A．America’s TV market was down suddenly. |
| B．The death of cable TV will come in about 20 years. |
| C．Americans turned away from cable TV so quickly. |
| D．There are still many Americans showing interest in cable TV. |
| A．Cable TV won’t be replaced by satellite TV | B．Cable TV brought joy to Americans |
| C．Cable TV has existed for decades | D．Cable TV is the new landline |
9 . In a world where acts of kindness often go unnoticed, a good story that has been discovered reminds us of the power of care and the effect it can have on someone’s life.
It all started with a “Kindness Week Challenge” given to Brennan by his 8th-grade teacher, Ms. Watkins. Little did he know that this challenge would lead to a wonderful friendship with 84-year-old Ms. Ann.
Brennan’s promise to send his little attractive things every day for a week developed a habit of checking up on Ms. Ann and sending gifts regularly(定期地), long after the challenge was over.
Their friendship has now lasted for over five years, and Brennan still visits Ms. Ann every month with flowers, cakes, chocolates, cards and more.
They talk about everything from his high school life to his college goals. The pair has found that they share a common love of chocolates. Ms. Ann always hopes to hear about what he’s doing and loves to share her own stories from a different time. They have become the best friends, with Brennan treating her as his great-grandmother.
Brennan’s mom, Traci, takes pride in her son. She said, “The best thing a teenager can do is to take care of the elderly. I’m so glad my son has added more sunshine to Ms. Ann’s life. I hope he always remembers the joy he’s brought her, and his fun talks with her, keeps his kind heart, and thinks of others.”
Ms. Ann’s daughter Emma, with her husband Gould, has a 2-year-old son. They are thankful for Brennan’s friendship as they cannot always be with Ms. Ann. Brennan’s kind heart has brought more sunshine into Ms. Ann’s life, and her encouraging words have helped to inspire(启发)him in return.
1. How did the task “Kindness Week Challenge” affect Brennan?| A．He discovered his love of chocolates. |
| B．He became a good friend of Ms. Ann. |
| C．He developed a habit of receiving gifts. |
| D．He learned how to choose attractive things. |
| A．Flowers. | B．Cakes. | C．Chocolates. | D．Cards. |
| A．His kindness to others. |
| B．His talent for telling stories. |
| C．His good performances at school. |
| D．His ability to earn money for the gifts. |
| A．Worried. | B．Sorry. | C．Thankful. | D．Surprised. |
China has made solid progress in pushing forward rural vitalization (乡村振兴) as
In 2018, China released a five-year plan
In 2021, agricultural technology progress
