1 . It all started with a tweet from a social media influencer Jérôme Jarre on March 15 after he was on a call with a volunteer in Somalia who had just seen a 6-year-old girl die after walking 90 miles with her mother in search of water. In Somalia alone, 6.2 million people are in need of help.
In his video, Jarre says that everyone is on social media from food and water companies to airlines. What if they could find an airline willing to send food and water to Somalia?
With Turkish Airlines being the only airline that flies to Somalia, he started a GoFundMe campaign (活动) called “Love Army for Somalia” and challenged viewers to post on social media #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia to get them to set aside one of their flights to Somalia for food.
The campaign took off, and other social media influencers joined the movement to help spread the word. Within days, many famous people joined the cause. Turkish Airlines listened and came back with an answer, saying they would keep donating (捐赠) a plane to be filled with food until the end of the famine (饥荒). This campaign received $1 million within 24 hours with the average (平均的) donation being around $28 — the highest donation of $50,000 came from Alex and Ani, a jewelry company.
The goal was to reach $1 million in 10 days and the amount (数量) of money raised in such a short time by so many people surprised Jarre. However, they don’t want this to be a one-off campaign, and to keep the campaign going they’ve come up with another hashtag, #NominatedForSomalia, and ask each donor to encourage three friends to donate through social media.
Jérôme Jarre is in Somalia right now and sharing wonderful images that will put a smile on your face and make sure help is reaching the right people.
1. What happened to the 6-year-old girl?| A．She lost her way. | B．She lost her life. |
| C．She failed to be a volunteer. | D．She failed to stay close to her mother. |
| A．To set up an organization. | B．To give up using social media. |
| C．To raise money from the public. | D．To apply for a job in an airline. |
| A．Paragraph 2. | B．Paragraph 3. | C．Paragraph 4. | D．Paragraph 5. |
| A．It was a great success. | B．It drew little attention. |
| C．It fell short of its goal. | D．It was questioned by viewers. |
| A．Hopeful people in bad situations |
| B．Huge social influence of famous people |
| C．The big change social media makes in our life |
| D．A powerful story on using social media for good |
2 . In January 2016, I was eighteen years old at the time. I was going through a
I rewatched “The Nanny” and then I met a lovely girl named Hannah in an online community. We shared how much we loved the
I started to
In March 2017, the
Life, however, had other plans and I
I can’t describe the feeling of our first hug (拥抱) — it was
She is my best friend, and
| A．reasonable | B．long | C．hard | D．different |
| A．failed | B．finished | C．changed | D．wanted |
| A．waiting for | B．looking for | C．giving up | D．picking up |
| A．understood | B．praised | C．warned | D．attracted |
| A．sitcom | B．girl | C．Internet | D．job |
| A．forget | B．care | C．write | D．talk |
| A．stop | B．love | C．avoid | D．teach |
| A．common | B．easier | C．new | D．stronger |
| A．landed | B．needed | C．left | D．created |
| A．treated | B．supported | C．hurt | D．challenged |
| A．tough | B．private | C．eventful | D．unexpected |
| A．memory | B．importance | C．cost | D．possibility |
| A．publicly | B．jokingly | C．quickly | D．honestly |
| A．visit | B．follow | C．check | D．thank |
| A．refused | B．helped | C．managed | D．hoped |
| A．boarded | B．sent | C．built | D．owned |
| A．free | B．boring | C．fearful | D．magical |
| A．team | B．connection | C．network | D．habit |
| A．calling | B．inviting | C．telling | D．seeing |
| A．work with | B．hear from | C．ask for | D．stay with |
3 . Why did humans evolve to walk upright? Perhaps because it’s just plain easier. Make that “energetically less costly,” in science-speak.
Bipedalism — walking on two feet — is one of the defining characteristics of being human, and scientists have debated for years how it came about. In the latest attempt to find an explanation, researchers trained five chimpanzees to walk on treadmill while wearing masks that allowed measurement of their oxygen consumption. The chimps were measured both while walking upright and while moving on their legs and knuckles. That measurement of the energy needed to move round was compared with similar tests on humans and the results are published in this week’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It turns out that humans walking on two legs use only one quarter of the energy that chimpanzees use while knuckle-walking on four limbs. And the chimps, on average, use as much energy using two legs as they did when they used all four limbs.
However, there were differences among chimpanzees in how much energy they used, and this difference corresponded to their different gaits and anatomy. One of the chimps used less energy on two legs, one used about the same and the others used more, said David Raichlen, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona.
“What we were surprised at was the variation,” he said in telephone interview. “That was pretty exciting, because when you talk about how evolution works, variation is the bottom line, without variation there is no evolution.”
Walking, on two legs freed our arms, opening the door to manipulating the world, Raichlen said. “We think about the evolution of bipedalism as one of first events that led hominids down the path to being human.”
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the L. S. B. Leakey Foundation.
1. The underlined word “Bipedalism” means .| A．moving sideways | B．walking upright |
| C．walking on four legs | D．running fast |
| A．Masks protect chimpanzees from any harm. |
| B．Masks help chimpanzees walk steadily. |
| C．There was heavy smoke in the room. |
| D．Masks helped to measure how much oxygen chimpanzees consumed. |
| A．have no idea on how human walking on two legs came about |
| B．have had different views on why chimpanzees walk on four legs |
| C．have had different views on how human walking on two legs came about |
| D．have had similar views on how human walking on two legs came about |
| A．How did chimpanzees save energy? | B．Why didn’t chimpanzees walk on two legs? |
| C．David Raichlen researched into chimpanzees. | D．Different chimpanzees consume different energy. |
| A．conserve energy | B．differ from other animals |
| C．free their brains | D．strengthen their legs |
4 . My mother spent at least 12 hours every day rolling country cigarettes to support our family. One day she showed me her wage book,
As I watched her finally
When I was 13, I read the autobiography of Helen Keller. I
At the age of 22, I came back to my village to set up an institution that
Of course, to change people’s mind is challenging. The quickest way to
| A．pointing | B．asking | C．testing | D．giving |
| A．keep | B．break | C．play | D．remember |
| A．order | B．suppose | C．teach | D．advise |
| A．try | B．refuse | C．manage | D．pretend |
| A．agreement | B．complement | C．development | D．excitement |
| A．difference | B．plan | C．mistake | D．decision |
| A．dream | B．trouble | C．curiosity | D．demand |
| A．priceless | B．careless | C．fearless | D．worthless |
| A．abandoned | B．admired | C．conveyed | D．inspired |
| A．hometown | B．community | C．downtown | D．college |
| A．hesitated | B．applied | C．hated | D．agreed |
| A．activity | B．program | C．library | D．campaign |
| A．give out | B．turn out | C．step out | D．break out |
| A．changed | B．finished | C．fulfilled | D．connected |
| A．beautiful | B．joyful | C．useful | D．careful |
| A．supported | B．arranged | C．protected | D．introduced |
| A．recognition | B．invitation | C．examination | D．education |
| A．debate | B．question | C．argue | D．convince |
| A．gift | B．treat | C．job | D．bargain |
| A．affecting | B．receiving | C．suffering | D．improving |
5 . If you want to learn something new in your spare time, there are some choices for you.
AR Workshop
615-258-5569 | arworkshop.com/nashville
AR Workshop is a DIY studio that offers hands-on classes for decorating home from raw materials. Join an instructor-led workshop where you can make wood signs, framed signs, round signs, centerpiece boxes and more! AR Workshop will help you take your home decoration to the next level and have fun while creating it!
Artistic Elements Dance
615- 472-9471 | artisticelementsdance.com
Artistic Elements’ aim is to develop dancers with excellent, professional technique, humble character and team spirit. We offer Beginner to Pre-Professional Level Classes to dancers from 18 months to adults in the styles of ballet, jazz, musical theatre, hip hop and more! Our experienced teachers all well-trained are willing to share the love of dance with each student who walks through our doors and ensure our dancers train safely in a positive environment. In addition to group classes, Artistic Elements offers private lessons, open master classes and birthday parties.
Melody Music Studios
615-510-3798| melodymusicstudios.com| musiclessonsnashvilletn. asp Melody Music Studios offers exciting music and voice lessons, in the student’s home or the instructor’s personal studio. We offer all styles, traditional and/or by ear, in a fun and positive environment. There’s a grace period (宽限期) of three business days to cancel after the trial lesson (试课), and if you’re not satisfied, it’s FREE! So you have nothing to lose to sign up today!
My Gym of Brentwoo
615-371-5437| mygym.com/brentwood
My Gym is the expert in children’s fitness. It has good programs and facilities designed to help children 6 weeks through 13 years of age develop physically and mentally. Our structured, age-appropriate, weekly classes include music dance, games, special rides, gymnastics, sports and more. Children have loads of fun as they gain strength, balance, coordination and flexibility while developing social skills and confidence.
1. If Mary wants to make her new home more beautiful, which one suits her best?| A．Melody Music Studios. | B．My Gym of Brentwood. |
| C．AR Workshop. | D．Artistic Elements Dance. |
| A．It provides various courses for dancers of all ages. |
| B．Its teachers can give professional training to learners. |
| C．It provides summer and winter camps for dance lovers. |
| D．It only focuses on developing dancers’ professional dancing skills. |
| A．must pay for it |
| B．must take the courses |
| C．can call off the class at any time free |
| D．have right to decide whether to continue |
| A．Tom, a 6-month old boy, was born with a weak heart. |
| B．Mark, a 12-year-old student, wants to get stronger. |
| C．Tony, a 31-year-old teacher, likes to build up his body. |
| D．John, a 65-year-old retired man, wants to kill his spare time. |
| A．an advertisement | B．an art show review |
| C．an exhibition guide | D．a school announcement |
6 . When I was young, a friend and I came up with a “big” plan to make reading easy. The idea was to boil down great books to a sentence each. “Moby-Dick” by American writer Herman Melville, for instance, was reduced to: “A whale of a tale about the one that got away.” As it turned out, the joke was on us. How could a single sentence convey the essence (精髓) of a masterpiece with over five hundred pages?
Blinkist, a website and an app, now summarizes nonfiction titles in the form of quick takes labeled “blinks.” The end result is more than one sentence, but not by much. Sarah Bakewell’s “At the Existentialist Café” is broken into 11 screens of information; Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” fills 13.
Blinkist has been around since 2012. It calls its summaries “15-minute discoveries” to indicate how long it takes to read a Blinkist summary. “Almost none of us,” the editors assure us, “have the time to read everything we’d like to read.” Well, yes, of course, “So many books, so little time,” declares a poster I once bought at a book market. But I judge the quality of someone’s library by the books he or she has yet to read.
That’s because a book is something we ought to live with, rather than speed through and categorize. It offers an experience as real as any other. The point of reading a book is not accumulating information, or at least not that alone. The most essential aspect is the communication between writer and reader. The idea behind Blinkist, however, is the opposite: Reading can be, should be, measured by the efficient uptake (吸收) of key ideas. No, no, no. What’s best about reading books is its inefficiency.
When reading a book, we need to dive in, let it take over us, demand something of us, teach us what it can. Blinkist is instead a service that changes books for people who don’t, in fact, want to read. A 15-minute summary misses the point of reading; speed-reading with the app isn’t reading at all.
1. What does the underlined part “the joke was on us” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．We were actually joking. | B．We were laughed at by others. |
| C．We were underestimating ourselves. | D．We were just embarrassing ourselves. |
| A．What Blinkist is. | B．Why Blinkist is popular. |
| C．How to use Blinkist. | D．Where you can use Blinkist. |
| A．There are few new books of quality. | B．Many books are hard to understand. |
| C．People do not have enough time to read. | D．People do not like reading as much as before. |
| A．Obtaining key ideas efficiently. | B．Further confirming our beliefs. |
| C．Accumulating in formation quickly. | D．Deeply involving ourselves in books. |
| A．Positive. | B．Negative | C．Uncaring. | D．Tolerant. |
7 . Ojok Okello’s dream to build a city in his father’s home village began with a small house. When he set foot there in Northern Uganda for the first time in 2013, he wanted to build a small mud brick house where he could spend time with his extended family in Okere. But the poverty of his dad’s village nagged at him.
So in 2018 he returned. By that time, he’d earned a master’s degree in rural development, where he studied up on various kinds of aid projects. International projects often didn’t work in places like Northern Uganda, he’d begun to realize, because they saw locals as recipients, not cooperators. So when he decided to help rebuild Okere, he believed it had to be done differently.
He began asking locals what their most pressing challenges were. At the time, the nearest school was 2.5 miles away, and had few teachers and books.
So Mr. Okello took out his savings and in 2019 began building a small kindergarten. Later, he began another program to help adults learn to read and write. This fall, after Okere residents said they needed a way to make money, Mr. Okello began to experiment with processing small nuts, which residents mostly women—collect and turn into butter for cooking and cosmetics.
But his project has run into some of the same challenges as other development projects in the region. It needs money. To date, almost all of the project has been funded by Mr. Okello’s savings. He’s open to donor support, as long as donors are willing to back what the community says it needs rather than impose their own agenda. And so far, he’s had some donors. But the question of funding remains a lasting one. Mr. Okello says he plans to keep using his own money until he has none left to give. “New York City was built by someone. Okere will also be built.” he says. “The most important thing is that its foundation has already been laid.”
1. What do the underlined words “nagged at” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Encouraged. | B．Transformed. | C．Honored. | D．Worried. |
| A．They lacked money. | B．They couldn’t find cooperators. |
| C．They didn’t get locals involved. | D．They lacked experts in rural development. |
| A．He met their educational needs. |
| B．He sponsored their schoolchildren. |
| C．He taught at the local kindergarten. |
| D．He found jobs for women in a cosmetic factory. |
| A．It’s short of money. |
| B．It is not welcomed by the locals. |
| C．There are not enough participants in it. |
| D．It doesn’t change the poverty of the village. |
| A．Help lay the foundation for Okere. |
| B．Solve real problems of the community. |
| C．Put forward their own construction plans. |
| D．Launch as many development projects as possible. |
8 . We are all born social and company to live happy and fruitful life. Healthy and supportive mutual relationships help reduce stress and promote the, physical, mental and emotional well-being by building skills like time management, assertiveness( 坚定自信), sociability and empathy.
Making friends has made me feel secure. However, I have to be cautious to pick up friends sharing similar tastes and values. In addition, having added to one’s circle of friends helps one feel supported.
It is true that finding time to cultivate relationships is all about effective time management. My busy uncle finds time to catch up with family and friends during his tea and lunch breaks. Similarly my friend Somya uses her time on her way back home from work in her chauffeur-driven car to catch up with people. The modern inventions of SMS and e-mail help send wishes for birthdays and anniversaries to show your love and care.
Assertiveness is as much applicable to relationships. My friend Mohana emphasizes that neither being a passive observer nor being aggressive helps relationships. It is assertiveness in our relationships that opens the lines of effective communication. It emphasizes helping friends in need and also strengthens mutually supportive relationships.
It is also true that assertiveness by intuition promotes discretion(自行决定权) of friends and helps Lalitha distinguish positive people from drains of energy. She can easily figure this out by the flow of the conversation, the way each feels understood, accepted and supported, and by how I feel, happy, bored or energized in the relationship. It also helps to know whether all benefit from each other’s positive aspects.
Handling stress in life is all about cultivating mutually supportive relationships and working on them. Manisha always says she feels great when sharing her feelings after a hard day with people who share similar ideas. Actually we all need someone who would not just hear us, but listen to us, and we need to cultivate the art of listening and understanding people.
1. A busy person can develop his social relationships by________.| A．inviting friends for dinner | B．making friends with strangers |
| C．working hard for high positions | D．getting together in the intervals of business |
| A．Being passive. | B．Being assertive. |
| C．Being aggressive. | D．Being relaxed. |
| A．lonely | B．bored | C．stressed | D．energetic |
| A．Manisha. | B．Mohana. | C．Lalitha. | D．Somya. |
| A．How should we handle our stress in life? |
| B．What is to be done for applicable relationships? |
| C．How can we pick up friends supporting us? |
| D．How people build mutually supportive social relationship? |
9 . Nearly one year after the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, students across Chicago and the suburbs in the US say when it comes to high school, the thrill is gone. Simple pleasures such as getting together with friends in the hallways and catching up over lunch in the cafeteria are displaced by a dystopian (反乌托邦的) landscape of remote learning and virtual extracurricular.
After 11 months of remote learning, and what many teens describe as the soul-crushing disappointment of canceled after school activities, experts say a growing number of teens are now struggling with anxiety and depression due to heightened levels of stress and social isolation.
Still, the following stories shared by high school students from Chicago and the suburbs provide a glimmer of hope that for some, the pandemic-era heartbreak might develop a generation of resilient (有韧性的) young adults who will be better equipped to deal with life’s twists and turns.
Students who participate in speech, an activity that combines drama and public speaking, have been able to continue this school year, albeit (尽管) over the internet. Instead of delivering emotional monologues (独白) and duets (二重唱) to a live panel of judges, they must summon their best performances while looking into a webcam.
“Dueting is so frustrating when it comes to online,” said Jaylah Hogg, 17, a junior at Thornton Township High School in Harvey. “Wi-Fi at my house is pretty good but my partner’s isn’t. So it’s like I’m trying to time her lines in my head because she’s blanking out when she’s talking. Sometimes the judges do hold that against us.”
But it hasn’t been all bad. After nearly a year of remote learning, Deerfield High School freshman Ben Segall, 15, said he was excited that the school was expected to finally welcome students back into the building for a hybrid program later this month.
The pandemic has also crushed the athletic seasons for sports at many high schools including Senn High School in the Edgewater neighborhood. There, Davion Holmes is staying focused on applying to Wilberforce, Ohio-based Central State University.
And with some of the recent updates to the Illinois High School Association’s COVID-19 guidelines, Holmes said he remained hopeful, albeit realistic, about finally resuming his high school athletic career in the months ahead.
“I didn’t want to have to live through a pandemic, but I worked through it, and that’s something I’ll be able to tell my kids and grandkids someday,” he added.
1. What is a major problem with remote learning?| A．The heavy workload. | B．The lack of social interaction. |
| C．The large number of students in class. | D．The high levels of stress in class. |
| A．The Wi-Fi at her house was dissatisfactory. |
| B．It was hard to work as a team online. |
| C．The judges failed to do their job well. |
| D．She felt nervous in front of the webcam. |
| A．It allowed him to focus on applying to universities. |
| B．It made little difference to his athletic career. |
| C．It is something that has made him stronger. |
| D．It’s the last thing he wants to mention in the future. |
| A．To describe the pandemic’s influence on teens. |
| B．To present different views on the pandemic. |
| C．To call for attention to students’ mental health. |
| D．To encourage teens to be positive toward school life. |
| A．Athletic Career | B．Monologues and Duets |
| C．Best Performances | D．Adapting to Change |
I was traveling with my husband and three teenage sons, in the United States. We ordered our food at a fast-food place, and with my meal I also wanted a blueberry pie. My husband is the chatty one in the family and likes to socialize, so he started to a conversation about the place where blueberries grow with the girl. She answered, with some anxiety, “They grow on trees.”
The whole family’s jaws dropped! How could this girl not know where blueberries grow? We tried not to embarrass her, and just took the opportunity to teach her a little about how blueberries grow, on small shrubs on the ground. She seemed to appreciate learning something new. We can’t know all the same things, as you’ll see from the next thing I’m going to tell you.
In 2002 our family made a short trip to a coffee plantation. The road to the plantation was narrow filled with hairpin bends. I worried about hitting another car. We didn’t, lucky us! When we finally got to our destination, we learned a lot about the plantation and coffee production, but we didn’t see any coffee plants. Where were they? We decided to ask one of the people working there. “So where are the coffee plants? We can’t see them anywhere.”
She reached out her arm and caught a twig right next to us and explained, “This is the coffee plant and these little things will be coffee beans.” I looked around in embarrassment, as we were surrounded by coffee plants! She explained that coffee plants aren’t big and that they have to grow in the shade of other bigger plants. I appreciated her lesson.
We love our coffee, but I’m sure most of my countrymen would not be able to recognize a coffee plant among other tropical plants if asked. Our jaws can drop at different things, depending on geographical locations, at what we know and don’t know. Never take anything for granted!
1. What topic did the author’s husband discuss with the girl? (no more than 5 words)2. How do you understand the underlined part in Paragraph 2? (no more than 10 words)
3. How was the way to the coffee plantation ? (1 word)
4. What did the author learn from the worker? (no more than 15 words)
5. What inspiration do you get from the story? Please express it in your own words. (no more than 20 words)
