1 . Whatever your interest is — Titanic, history, food, music or even Game of Thrones’ filming sites — one of the different tours on offer here in Belfast can satisfy you.
.GAME OF THRONES TOUR
A guided coach tour takes you to explore some of the exciting filming sites in the hit show. You can step into “Winterfell” and experience archery in a recreated film set in “Stark Family” costumes, or even meet some “Stark Family” members!
.TITANIC TOUR
Take the world’s only guided Titanic Boat tour to see the ever changing story of Belfast’s rich sea heritage and how the area has developed into a major tourist attraction. Exploring the Titanic story, the boat tour allows you to view the Titanic Quarter from the water. You also have a chance of seeing many seals living in Belfast.
.MUSIC TOUR
Take a bus journey through the heart of this rock and roll city. Sit back, relax, and enjoy music by way of amazing guitar players, from folk songs to rock and Hollywood soundtracks. Finish up at the wonderful Belfast Music show at the Oh Yeah Music Centre in the Cathedral Quarter.
.CITY TOUR
If you’re short on time but still want to get a general overview of the city, book a private guided taxi tour or a guided open top bus tour. It’s the best and quickest way to find out all about the city’s history and other places of interest.
1. Which tour is suitable for visitors with limited time in Belfast?| A．GAME OF THRONES TOUR. | B．TITANIC TOUR. |
| C．MUSIC TOUR. | D．CITY TOUR. |
| A．Learn how to sail a boat. | B．See a large number of seals. |
| C．Appreciate the movie Titanic. | D．View the Titanic Quarter on land. |
| A．A science magazine. | B．A history textbook. |
| C．A research paper. | D．A travel brochure. |
The traditional Chinese craft of turning thick bamboo into delicate slices achieves fame on overseas short video platform TikTok, receiving more than 10 million
Anne,
Bamboo weaving art,
My teenage son, Jordan, always complained about having to be home earlier than all his friends. He would tell me that he was already seventeen, but still had a curfew (宵禁). He believed he was practically an adult. I pointed out that he was not an adult as he was still in high school.
“You don’t trust me!” he yelled. Before I continued, he rolled his eyes, slammed the door and walked away. I sighed. How could I make Jordan see that I only wanted to keep him safe?
I decided to go for a walk, hoping the December air would clear my head. I opened the front door and nearly stepped on her: a small black cat, just like a meatball. “Hi, Meatball,” I said, bringing her into my arms. I walked back in, touching her neck gently. Meatball seemed happy enough to come in the house, but after an hour or two, she sat by the door, meowing to go back outside.
“Why won’t she just stay in with us all the time?” Nathan, my youngest son asked.
I explained to him that she was happy here but she liked being able to come and go as she pleased.
“That must be nice,” Jordan muttered from the other room, complaining why the cat, not him, could come and go. He even asked me to give Meatball a curfew.
Meatball became a regular.
One night, temperatures were unusually low. Meatball stood at the door, meowing to go outside.
I shook my head at her, afraid that she might freeze to death. She stared at me and meowed again. I patted her head, “I know you’re not happy, but it’s for your own good.”
“Mom’s not being mean to you,” Nathan told the cat. “She’s just trying to keep you from turning into a frozen meatball.” We both laughed at his joke.
The next morning, I couldn’t find Meatball. I asked the kids if anyone had seen her.
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。
Jordan nodded, “I let her out last night.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________As I drove to the animal hospital, Jordan sat in the back, holding Meatball inside his coat.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________4 . Given the crowds of visitors and many attractions at the Disney parks, it's easy to get lost. Thankfully, you will always find a worker to point you in the right direction. When you do, you just might start to notice something unique about their body language—and it's just one of the many secrets Disney employees won't tell you.
Cast members, as park employees are called, are taught in their training to always point with two fingers instead of one. The first reason for this is that pointing with just the one index finger(食指), as most Americans do, is considered impolite in some cultures and countries. The Disney parks have always attracted many international visitors, so the friendlier two-finger gesture became the norm among employees, in an effort to be sensitive and welcoming to every person. Employees have even affectionately named it "the Disney point”. Michaela Paris, a former Disney employee, said the Disney point is a sign of respect.
"Disney receives plenty of foreign travelers to their parks. The typical single finger point is a symbol of disrespect and has a negative(负面的) meaning in many cultures. Therefore, Disney created 'the Disney point' to accommodate all of their guests, " Paris said.
Other sources say this way of pointing is related to Disney himself. According to the Huffington Post, it's actually how Walt Disney himself used to point things out to visitors, because he usually had a cigarette balanced between the two fingers. You won't find cast members today smoking a cigarette—there's no smoking allowed for anyone, employees or guests, once you are inside the entrances at Disney parks—but the tradition of pointing with two fingers still stands.
Keep an eye out for the statue of Walt and Mickey doing "the Disney point" next time you're at Disney World. Meanwhile don't miss other such rules that all Disney employees must follow.
1. When will a visitor probably notice "the Disney point"?| A．When asking the way. | B．When entering the park. |
| C．When greeting foreigners. | D．When smoking a cigarette. |
| A．A gesture. | B．An employee. | C．A park. | D．A statue. |
| A．offer space to. | B．put up. | C．provide food for. | D．adapt to. |
| A．Rules to follow in the park. |
| B．The life story of Walt Disney. |
| C．Some attractions at Disney World. |
| D．A possible origin of “the Disney point”. |
5 . I am rather good at using maps. But I forgot the maps and here we were, late afternoon, last day of holiday, my daughter, my cousin and I, driving along a two-lane highway in Oregon. No other car in sight, and the sun had just gone down. Where was that sweet little village?
It was supposed to be right along this river. We drove on, farther into the unknown river always at left as our guide. We kept passing farms and fields and now a few lights were coming out. In my head, I was doing a lot of self-criticism: Why didn’t we start earlier, bring the map and so on? My cousin and I were both impatient and stressed. My daughter, at least, was happy in the back seat, texting a friend. I pulled up on the shoulder of the road to think.
Just the — Wow! Amazing! A new scene appeared. Where did it come from?
Right there, out of nowhere: a magical misty landscape. Fields stretched in silent purple, with rows of tall trees, darkening in the dusk. I turned the car engine off. All was silent in the hot summer air. Beside us, a plum-covered river hardly moved between a border of trees, its dark lazy water reflecting the last light of day.
How breathtaking! Where had it been? If I had seen even a bit of beauty while driving along, I could have stopped and taken a look. I had missed it all.
We miss a lot, almost everything, in fact, in our world. Our task-focused filters (过滤器)takes care of that, selecting only what we need. We need to get to work. Have some lunch. We see what we need to see, often for purposes of survival. Gregory Bateson, speaking of beauty, said the judgment is selection of a fact. In our daily lives, who or what is doing the selecting? Can we make a change? Can we see further?
1. Where might the author be heading for?| A．A tourist attraction. | B．A destination of his holiday. |
| C．Her own home. | D．Her cousin farm. |
| A．That the holiday is unexpectedly tiring and boring. |
| B．That she hadn’t been well prepared got her cousin annoyed. |
| C．That lack of full preparation made her lose her way. |
| D．That there was no familiar river in sight. |
| A．she discovered a tourist spot unknown to others |
| B．she finally reached what she had intended |
| C．the right route to her destination was close |
| D．her carelessness brought an unexpected pleasure |
| A．Slow down your pace and enjoy the beauty in life. |
| B．Stay calm even if trapped in trouble. |
| C．Keep positive because everything has a way out. |
| D．Adjust your plan for the purpose of pleasure. |
6 . Ryder was born with a serious illness and has never been able to walk. When he started attending preschool, he had to be
Then his father
The hut made of wood was
| A．pulled | B．walked | C．driven | D．pushed |
| A．car | B．wheelchair | C．bus | D．plane |
| A．dance | B．shout | C．rush | D．slip |
| A．vehicle | B．scene | C．weather | D．class |
| A．searched for | B．put up | C．taken over | D．found out |
| A．shelter | B．help | C．benefit | D．hope |
| A．fought | B．stood | C．cared | D．sought |
| A．art | B．construction | C．music | D．literature |
| A．Consequently | B．Obviously | C．However | D．Besides |
| A．interested | B．satisfied | C．strict | D．depressed |
| A．predicted | B．interrupted | C．delayed | D．responded |
| A．big | B．bright | C．heavy | D．light |
| A．fixed | B．borrowed | C．delivered | D．thrown |
| A．changes | B．designs | C．plays | D．uses |
| A．popular | B．fantastic | C．strange | D．flexible |
7 . Electric cars are supposed to help the world go green and stop hurting the planet. Engineers at Brown University and the University of Maryland are taking that goal to another other level, with a new idea for batteries made from trees, according to new findings published in Nature.
Lithium-ion batteries (锂电池) have become the new form of rechargeable batteries thanks to their extraordinarily long charge. You’re probably reading this story from a device powered by such a battery. Most electric cars like ones made by Tesla use lithium-ion batteries.
These batteries use a liquid solution that conducts lithium ions from the battery’s cathode and anode (阴极和阳极), but the liquid is not what helps ensure electrical power goes from the battery to the device it’s powering. The problem is that this liquid is made of harmful materials that are sometimes unstable. They sometimes have explosive results. A solid conducting structure would prevent this from happening, but it could be likely to crack and break, making the battery useless.
An ideal material for solid state lithium-ion batteries would be thin and flexible to resist structural stresses, and it is wood from a tree. The team in charge of the new research developed a mixed material made of copper (铜) and fibers coming from wood. They tested it out as a model for conducting ions back and forth in a lithium-ion battery, and found it works 10 to 100 times better than other solid-state conductors-a record high.
The new findings are just based on basic model tests, and a rechargeable battery made of trees is still quite a way off. But if it passes test as a practical form of energy, it can very well replace rechargeable batteries. It is not hard to imagine electric cars having better sales for their real green, but saying that their batteries are just made from trees is beyond our imagination.
1. How are engineers making electric cars greener according to the text?| A．By improving the materials of batteries. |
| B．By reducing lithium ion in the batteries. |
| C．By using liquid to conduct electric power. |
| D．By producing more lithium-ion batteries. |
| A．They contain eco-friendly liquid. |
| B．Their charge lasts for a long time. |
| C．They offer electrical power stably. |
| D．They are safe and unlikely to explode. |
| A．It is resistant to structural pressures. |
| B．It is much thicker and less changeable. |
| C．Its copper and fibers conduct ions well. |
| D．It proves to be a practical form of energy. |
| A．They have taken effect for a long time. |
| B．They are still being tested at present. |
| C．They will never replace current batteries. |
| D．They will make electric cars hard to sell. |
8 . Elaine Su shared her experience of asking her neighbors to put up Lunar New Year decorations, helping her two-year-old son experience the festival as part of the large community. In a neighbourhood mostly consisting of non-Chinese residents, more than half of the households complied the tradition as well.
Interviewing her for the story provoked my own memories of celebrating Lunar New Year. The holiday was a big deal for me as a kid growing up in Jiangsu.
Legend says the holiday originated with the fight against a mythical beast called Nian, who came down from the mountains to hunt people on New Year’s Eve. Villagers discovered that Nian feared the colour red, candle light and loud noise. So they began to decorate with the vibrant hue, light their homes with lanterns and set off firecrackers to prevent its return.
On New Year’s Eve, my family would come together to celebrate with food prepared by my grandma. Moments before the countdown, the sound of firecrackers would fill every corner of our apartment and the celebrations continued into the next day.
For breakfast, we would eat yuan xiao, a kind of glutinous rice ball, which symbolizes the idea of reunion. Then, it was off to visit my grandparents, who were already awaiting us and my other extended family with lucky money and more traditional delicacy!
My favourite part of the holiday came after the adults were playing mahjong. My cousins and I were finally freed from our parents. With all the lucky money, we hit the streets and bought more snacks and more firecrackers!
Having immigrated to Canada for years, I further lost touch with my Chinese culture as I gradually dived into my new life in a new country. Maybe it’s time for me, like her, to reclaim Lunar New Year.
1. What can we infer about Elaine Su in paragraph 1?| A．She missed her family in China very much. |
| B．She forced her son to accept Chinese customs. |
| C．She shared her happy memories with her neighbors. |
| D．She celebrated Lunar New Year in another country. |
| A．Stirred up. | B．Wiped out. | C．Took after. | D．Set down. |
| A．By analyzing studies. | B．By answering questions. |
| C．By explaining factors. | D．By sharing experience. |
| A．The Origin of the Chinese Lunar New Year | B．The Spring Festival Stored in My Memory |
| C．An Unforgettable Interview on New Year’s Eve | D．A Chinese Celebrating the Spring Festival Abroad |
9 . London’s four wonderful hotels
Here’s a pick of four wonderful hotels, each different in terms of size, style and location, but all performing to an exceptional standard.
The Goring Hotel
Since first opening in 1910, it is London’s oldest family-owned luxury hotel with the second-largest privately-owned garden in London after Buckingham Palace. The rooms of this hotel are smaller than those of many other London’s top hotels. There are 12 interconnecting rooms, which are ideal for families.
The Beaumont Hotel
This 1926 building, formerly a parking garage, has been transformed into one of London’s hottest hotels. Its art collection, personal service, elegant rooms and hot restaurant make it a favorite on our London list. There’s also an impressive 2. 5 staff to every person and a 24-hour doorkeeper to make sure that guests’ needs are met around the clock.
The Bulgari Hotel
This hotel has some of the largest accommodations in the capital. It’s very modern and huge with six floors below and nine above ground. It feels big, but there are only 85 rooms and suites spread over six floors, indicating how spacious (宽敞的) they are. The Bulgari Hotel has many child-friendly rooms and activities to keep the kids busy：a swimming pool, a cinema, PlayStations, Xbox and lots of other games. The Bulgari spa is spread over two stories. And the doorkeeper can also arrange babysitting.
The Rosewood Hotel
Rosewood is within walking distance of many of the city’s main attractions. From the outside, the building is large and impressive with an elegant courtyard designed for horse-drawn carriages (四轮马车). There is also a great spa and fitness center. As for activities for kids, there are food activities, art and wildlife. The doorkeeper can arrange trips to the London Zoo.
1. Which of the following does the Goring Hotel provide?| A．Spacious rooms. | B．Babysitting service. |
| C．A large private garden. | D．A spa and fitness center. |
| A．Enjoy games. | B．Watch wildlife. |
| C．Take part in food activities. | D．Take a horse-drawn carriage. |
| A．The Goring Hotel. | B．The Bulgari Hotel. |
| C．The Beaumont Hotel. | D．The Rosewood Hotel. |
10 . There are many ways to travel within a city. We can walk, cycle or take a bus. But no matter which way we travel, we have to follow the route the city planners made for us.
Parkour (跑酷) practitioners, however, see the city in a completely different way. To them, there are no fixed routes. There are no walls and no stairs — since they jump, climb, roll and crawl to move across, through, over and under anything that they find in their path. The city is their playground.
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has noticed that this activity is attracting more and more people to it — there are 100,000 people taking part in parkour today in the UK alone, according to The Guardian — and how it is helpful for people to be much stronger: It trains coordination (协调) and balance. So, the organization is thinking about recognizing parkour as a new sport and adding it to the 2024 Olympics.
However, parkour practitioners themselves don’t seem to be happy with the idea. They see parkour as “a lifestyle”, wrote the website Next Sport Star. “It’s a competition against the conditions rather than just a sport.”
Indeed, many do parkour just to “escape the daily routine and experience the city in different ways”, wrote reporter Oli Mould on The Conversation. They see parkour as a way to express themselves through relaxing moves and creative routes while freeing themselves from the pressure.
It’s great that the FIG wants to develop a new sport and stay close to a new cultural form. But it would be greater if they knew that not everything in life is a competition.
1. How do the parkour practitioners travel within the city?| A．By following fixed routes. |
| B．By cycling. |
| C．By using their own ways. |
| D．By taking a bus. |
| A．It is a dangerous sport. |
| B．It should be an Olympic sport. |
| C．It is becoming a normal sport. |
| D．It can become a healthy sport. |
| A．Parkour is a lifestyle in the practitioners’ eyes. |
| B．Parkour is a daily routine for the reporter. |
| C．Parkour is already an Olympic sport. |
| D．Parkour should follow the designed ways. |
| A．Negative. | B．Unconcerned. |
| C．Worried. | D．Objective. |
