1 . You learn all kinds of things from books. Books open up a whole new world to you. They can make you smile and comfort you when you are sad.
You must have many hobbies, reading, painting and so on. One day, you happen to see a poster, “World Book Day”. Interested, you stop and read the poster.
Hello and welcome to World Book Day World Book Day is here to change lives through a love of books and shared reading, and bring books to the children who need them most. World Book Day is an excellent chance for everyone to celebrate the joy of reading. ●Share A Story Live—our exciting digital events programme, beaming authors (作家) straight into your school. through reading. ●Raising money, raising readers—our digital events programme, beaming fundraising ideas to help us change lives ●World Book Day Book Club—a new online reading community. ●Share A Story Corner—stories to encourage families to read together. Happy World Book Day!  For up-to-date information, visit our website worldbookday.com! |
| A．celebrate the joy of reading |
| B．change lives by raising money |
| C．meet famous authors at home |
| A．Share A Story Live | B．Share A Story Corner | C．World Book Day Book Club |
| A．By writing a letter. | B．By making a phone call. | C．By visiting a website. |
| A．catch readers’ attention |
| B．encourage families to write books |
| C．help readers form reading habits |
2 . Everybody wants to hang out with fun people. Nobody wants to be classified as “boring”. It’s just that some of us need a little help in this department. Being fun to hang out with fun people starts with developing healthy self-esteem (自尊) , an adventurous spirit, and a kind personality.
Be confident.
Show interest. Listen and show kindness to others during conversation. If people think they can talk to you about anything, they’ll invite you to hang out more often.
Smile. Looking the part of a fun person is half the battle, and it’s not even really much of a battle because once you get the hang of it, smiling just becomes a reflex, and an attractive one at that.
Learn how to “hang out”.
| A．Be positive |
| B．Hold the conversation |
| C．Don’t control the conversation |
| D．Have a healthy sense of self or good self-esteem |
| E．Hanging out means the same thing to every person |
| F．All of this will make you an ideal person to hang out with |
| G．Hanging out can mean different things to different people |
3 . Dandelion (蒲公英) seeds can travel for miles before finally floating down and settling somewhere new. Researchers recently discovered how the plants decide to spread. “We noticed that the dandelion parachute (降落伞) is closed in foggy mornings but then open again when the sun is up during the day,” according to Naomi Nakayama, a researcher of bioengineering. “The dandelion uses a bunch of hairs to improve air drag and aid its flight. Unlike insects or birds, they don’t need any energy input to fly a long distance- even hundreds of kilometers—they simply catch the wind.”
Researchers discovered the parachutes open and close using what they say is like an actuator (触动器), a device that changes energy and signals into movement. But this actuator doesn’t use any energy. The middle of the dandelion’s parachute is able to sense the amount of humidity (湿度) by absorbing water molecules (分子) in the air. Using signals about humidity information, they either open their parachutes and fly off or they close them and stay where they are.
“The center of the parachute changes its shape, moving the hairs altogether in harmony,” Nakayama says. “It’s basically a sponge made of no-longer living plant cells, which are arranged in a tube empty inside. The inner side and the outer side swell with water to different degrees, and that drives the movement.”
Knowing what causes dandelions to spread their seeds could help scientists learn how they deal with climate change. They say understanding the response could help researchers design new soft robots, which are those made from flexible materials that imitate soft bodies. “How plants move their body parts are different from animals and a simple, localized expansion could be enough to move arms,” Nakayama says. “Movement of a few arms has been achieved, but this is the first of many arm actuators. It is simple in design, so there is a lot of space for biomimicry (仿生学)”.
1. What makes the dandelion fly?| A．Energy. | B．Wind. | C．Fog. | D．Parachute. |
| A．By spreading their seeds. | B．By changing energy into movement. |
| C．By feeling humidity information. | D．By staying where they are. |
| A．Scientists make a robot out of dandelion. | B．Plants move just like the animals. |
| C．Dandelions move with arms. | D．Plants can inspire biomimicry. |
| A．Observing Dandelions | B．Dandelions and Climate Change |
| C．Making Soft Robots | D．Dandelions and Biomimicry |
4 . Twin sisters Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi won the women’s double free title to take China’s third gold in artistic swimming at the 19th FINA World Championships on Thursday.
The 25-year-old twins, who also won the women’s technical double and the women’s team technical, beat the Ukrainian and Austrian teams with a score of 95.5667 points. The Ukrainian Aleksiiva sisters, Maryna and Vladyslava, got the silver medal with 94.1667, while Anna-Maria and Eirini Alexandria of Austria came third on 92.8000.
“I feel very happy and excited to win the third gold medal for the Chinese artistic swimming team,” older sister Wang Liuyi told Xinhua. “The help of the coach and the encouragement of teammates have given us a lot of motivation. We have overcome tiredness and various difficulties. I did very well today and I’m satisfied with my performance.”
Wang Qianyi said: “This is the first time for us to compete in both the double and the team events, so I felt a little bit of pressure.”“In spite of tiredness, we were able to withstand (承受) this pressure. I feel very happy,” she added.
Since the start of the FINA Worlds, the sisters have delivered seven performances in the preliminaries and the finals.
According to Qianyi, a key to success was the winter training plan by the coach, which has laid a very good foundation for them. “In terms of physical fitness, both of us have greatly improved. The coach gave us a solid training and gave us a lot of trust. We are encouraging each other too,” she said.
On Friday, the sisters will compete in the team free final, which is their last event in the Championships. Wang Liuyi said: “We hope to be able to work together with our teammates in the final tomorrow, to have a better performance and achieve better results.” “The World Championships is a big test for us. We hope to play steadily, step by step, and do a good job. I believe that no matter what kind of difficulties we meet, we can overcome them,” Qianyi added.
1. At what score did the twin sisters win the third gold?| A．92.8000. | B．94.1667. | C．95.5667. | D．95.5692. |
| A．Others’ encouragement. | B．Their strict training plan. |
| C．Their self-confidence. | D．Their physical condition. |
| A．They are honest. | B．They are experienced. |
| C．They are determined. | D．They are talkative. |
| A．Sports news. | B．A science report. |
| C．Entertainment. | D．Advertisement. |
5 . When she was 2 years old, Blosberg’s dad was diagnosed (诊断) with a serious illness that disrupts the central nervous system — MS (多发性硬化症). But 13 years later, her eyes started moving around rapidly and uncontrollably and her skin became extremely sensitive. The symptoms she was experiencing felt “familiar” because they really looked a lot like the things that her dad was experiencing.
After Blosberg was officially diagnosed with MS in 2011, she realized she needed to connect with other teenagers who had MS and truly understood what she was going through. “I knew there had to be other kids out there, and I wanted to connect with them,” she says. Blosberg then decided to create a Facebook page for young people with MS and obtained the help of the National MS Society. “If you find anyone else young, let me know,” Blosberg recalls saying to the organization. “I want to talk to them. I want them to know that they’re not alone.”
MS is often considered “an adult illness”. Blosberg’s Facebook page was her way of bringing young people with MS together. But she decided to take things one step further by founding a nonprofit, the MS Monkey, that supports children and teenagers who have been diagnosed with the illness. Through it all, Blosberg says her entire family has been proud of her — especially her father. “He knows what it’s like to live with MS,” she shares. “He’s my role model, though. I grew up watching him live with MS and not let MS get in the way.”
1. What can we know about Blosberg?| A．She had difficulty in her study. | B．She was diagnosed with an illness. |
| C．She helped her dad out of trouble. | D．She followed his father’s dream. |
| A．To advertise the National MS Society. |
| B．To record her experience to fight against MS. |
| C．To call for more volunteers like her father. |
| D．To connect more young people with MS. |
| A．Outgoing and humorous. | B．Open-minded and generous. |
| C．Warm-hearted and strong-willed. | D．Determined and energetic. |
| A．No one has to fight alone | B．A common illness |
| C．My dad and I | D．A charity for treating MS |
Varatha Shanmuganathan is an 87-year-old woman in India. She has become the
This is not Shanmuganathan’s first Master’s degree. After earning her Bachelor’s degree, she returned to Sri Lanka
In 1990, she moved to London to teach English as a second language and received her first Master’s degree from the University of London.
When she found out the university offered free tuition
“She will act as a powerful role model for
Despite her achievements, Shanmuganathan said she is not quite finished yet in
“Find out what you really want to achieve and pursue it until the end. Think of something
7 . In China, people in different areas have their own ways to celebrate the Spring Festival. Especially between Northern China and Southern China, there are many differences.
One is about the food on the night before the Spring Festival. In Northern China, people usually eat dumplings during this time. For luck, people may put sugar in dumplings.
It’s true that Northern China and Southern China have differences in celebrating the Spring Festival.
| A．Here are some examples. |
| B．Many foods are made of rice. |
| C．The differences bring many bad results. |
| D．But the differences are gradually disappearing. |
| E．As a result, people in Southern China often prefer rice. |
| F．That way, they believe life in the next year will be “sweet”. |
| G．China’s north and south also have a difference in New Year decorating. |
Traditional Chinese painting is highly regarded all over the world for its theory,
Traditional Chinese painting is done with a brush
Traditional Chinese painting has its own special tools, consisting of brushes, ink, xuan paper and so on. Chinese painting can
In the 1980s, Chinese oil painting developed
Today’s skiers are used to relying on ski lifts at resorts to take them to the top of a mountain before
The pair of boards are wrapped with horsehide(马革),
According to rock carvings uncovered in the area by archaeologists, such
However, Altay plans to protect and promote its skiing culture. The local government department
10 . Have you ever made eye contact with a robot? It can be a very strange experience. Scientists even have a name for the feeling—the mysterious valley.
Now, researchers in Italy have found that it is more than just a feeling. They ran an experiment that showed how a robot’s gaze (凝视) can trick people into thinking they are socially interacting with a human being. That experience can slow a person’s ability to make decisions. “Gaze is an extremely important social signal that we employ on a day-to-day basis when interacting with others,” said Professor Agnieszka Wykowska. “The question is whether the robot’s gaze will cause very similar mechanisms in the human brain as another human’s gaze would,” Wykowska told Reuters.
The team asked 40 people to play a video game, chicken. In the game, each player has to decide whether to permit a car to drive straight toward another car or to turn to avoid a crash. The people were playing against a human-like robot sitting across from them.
During breaks in the game, players had to look at the robot. Sometimes the robot would look back and other times it would look away. As the interactions happened, the scientists collected data on behavior and brain activity. “Our results show that, actually, the human brain processes the robot’s gaze as a social signal, and that signal has an impact on the way we’re making decisions, on the strategies we use in the game and also on our responses,” Wykowska said. “The gaze of the robot affected decisions by delaying them, so humans were much slower in making the decisions in the game,” she added.
The findings could be useful in helping to decide where and how human-like robots might be placed in the future. When we understand when and how robots change social behavior, we can decide which sort of context is beneficial to humans and in which context this should not occur.
1. What does the experiment show in paragraph 2?| A．Scientists always name the robots. |
| B．A robot’s gaze can mislead humans. |
| C．Robots have the ability to make decisions. |
| D．Robots like interacting with human beings. |
| A．Learn to drive a car. | B．Get rid of a car crash. |
| C．Sit together with a robot. | D．Make a decision in a game. |
| A．Some influential social signals. |
| B．The response that robots give to humans. |
| C．The outcome of the experiment they did. |
| D．Data about humans’ communication with others. |
| A．The Future Uses of Robots |
| B．Robots Can Do Many Jobs for Humans |
| C．A Robot Can Make Decisions for Its Owner |
| D．A Robot’s Gaze Can Affect the Human Brain |
