1 . I live in Xizhou in Yunnan Province, on the historic Tea Horse Road. I have to admit that when I first heard that Paul Salopek was going to walk the entire globe on his own two feet, I was blown away. I couldn’t imagine that there could be such an unusual person in the world.
Last May, I met Paul. He told me that it was his first time in China. He talked to me with great excitement about the history, migrations, and discoveries in my region of China. He spoke of the Shu-Yandu Dao (the Southern Silk Road), the travels of the 17th-century Chinese explorer Xu Xiake, the Tea Horse Road and the early 20th-century American botanist Joseph Rock. He also talked of Xuanzang. Paul considered many of them heroes and in a sense Chinese pioneers of slow journalism.
I decided to accompany Paul on his walk toward Yunnan. On September 28, 2021, we set out. Our days were simple: walk, eat, sleep, and repeat. We woke up at sunrise, set off in high spirits, and rested at sunset, dragging ourselves into exhausted sleep.
We met many people on the road. Some were curious, surrounding us and watching us; some gave us directions; some invited us into their home to take a rest; some spoke of the charm of their hometown. We met many beautiful souls, simple souls and warm souls. We were walking with our minds.
Together, we were impressed by the biodiversity of the Gaoligong Mountains. As I walked on ancient paths through mountains, I seemed to hear the antique voices of past travelers urging me to be careful on the road.
Looking back on the more than 200 miles I walked with Paul, I came to a realization. Walking for its own sake, while healthy and admirable, is only a small part of the benefit of moving with our feet. A deeper reward is rediscovering the world around us, shortening the distance between each other, and sharing each other’s cultures.
1. How did the writer first respond to Paul’s travel plan?| A．Scared. | B．Puzzled. |
| C．Disappointed. | D．Surprised. |
| A．He was a western journalist. | B．He had a knowledge of China. |
| C．He came to China several times. | D．He was Joseph Rock’s acquaintance. |
| A．They honored the ancestors. | B．They set off in high spirits. |
| C．They satisfied the locals’ curiosity. | D．They built bonds with people. |
| A．To share and reflect on a journey. | B．To suggest a new way of travel. |
| C．To advocate protection of biodiversity. | D．To introduce and promote Chinese culture. |
2 . It takes Sanduk Ruit about five minutes to change someone’s life. The Nepalese doctor can make a small incision (切口) in his patient’s eye, remove the cataract (白内障) damaging the patient’s vision and replace it with an inexpensive artificial lens. He said, “Some of our younger doctors even do it faster than that.”
In the past decades, Ruit has personally restored the sight of more than 100,000 people across Asia and Africa, and taught his rapid-fire technique to countless other eye doctors in parts of the world. His patients suffer from eye conditions that are mostly preventable. But because of poverty and limited access to public health services, they have been unable to seek treatment. Their stories are all too common in the developing world.
Driven by a belief that the world’s poorest people deserve safe, affordable and high-quality eye care just as much as anyone else, Ruit has made it his mission to root out avoidable blindness.
In 1994,he joined the late Australian eye doctor Fred Hollows, who was his mentor and close friend, in establishing Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology-an eye hospital in Kathmandu devoted to providing world-class eyecare for the people of Nepal. The hospital makes the state-of-the-art lens that is commonly used in treating cataracts or myopia, and exports it to more than 30 countries worldwide.
For the patients who cannot reach urban areas, Ruit and his team conduct mobile eye camps in remote parts of Nepal and neighboring countries. They often trek for days to those areas and clean out structures like tents, classrooms or even stables for use as temporary operating rooms. When the eyepatches (眼罩) come off the day after an operation, it’s an extremely moving moment for all relevant persons. Ruit said that he was so grateful that he could make a difference in so many people’s lives.
1. What do we know about Ruit?| A．He refused to do operations for the rich. |
| B．He wasn’t mean with his excellent technique. |
| C．He joined Fred Hollows in the nineteenth century. |
| D．He restored more than a million people’s sight in person. |
| A．Making a lot of money. |
| B．Obtaining relevant data to write scientific papers. |
| C．The desire to make his technique well-known. |
| D．The idea that all sick people should get proper treatment. |
| A．Kind-hearted and responsible. |
| B．Friendly and energetic. |
| C．Open-minded and outgoing. |
| D．Clever and brave. |
| A．Science. | B．Sports. | C．Education. | D．Figures. |
3 . Marine life (海洋生物) in Florida Keys is negatively influenced by two forces: human activity and climate change. The former involves fishing, tourism and diving while the latter causes a large increase in intense hurricanes. Fortunately, when the researchers of Florida Museum of Natural History started looking for sea urchins (海胆) on the ocean floor off the coast of Florida Keys in the summer of 2020, they uncovered their population had relatively been stable since the 1960s.
The researchers visited 27 sites along a 20-mile stretch of coast near Florida Keys looking for tracks that reflected the presence of burrowing echinoids (穴居海胆类动物). “The findings that burrowing echinoids have been highly resilient (有适应力的) against climate change and environmental pollution over the last 60 years was a huge discovery for us.” said study co-author Tobias Grun.
Grun said, “However, we know little about their current distribution, population size, and health. The reason is not the lack of interest by the scientific community but lies in that fieldwork is very expensive.”
As the climate crisis progresses, it’s important to understand why some marine creatures are more resilient in bearing the impacts of a worsening environment than others. Grun said, “Evolution may be at play. Some marine animals are very opportunistic. They can tolerate a wide range of abiotic factors like pH, temperature, and salinity, to name a few.”
Grun added, “At this point, our data show that burrowing echinoids are more resilient than many other marine species and are doing comparatively well. That does not mean that we can push our luck and keep going the way we are right now. Our study provides some hope that these creatures are resilient, but much more work is needed to translate our findings into a larger scale. The reasons for their resilience are also widely unknown.”
1. Which has an effect on the marine life in Florida Keys?| A．Wildfire. | B．Pollution. | C．Fishing. | D．Flood. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Important. | C．Subjective. | D．Outdated |
| A．The goal. | B．The staff | C．The cost | D．The usage |
| A．It’s necessary to do further research. |
| B．It’s right to keep going the present way. |
| C．The reasons for sea urchins’ resilience are well known. |
| D．Fish are more resilient than other marine species. |
4 . Trainers and parents saw children play sports at a young age and then saw them become professional. Many correlated the training to success. Competitive sports are good for young children because they teach children life skills, provide health benefits, and offer special opportunities.
To begin with, sports teach children life skills. A formal athlete stated, “I played soccer in high school and college and found team sports weren’t just about winning, but also about developing a solid ethic(行为准则), and learning why that’s important.” In short, playing highly competitive sports teaches kids many life skills like teamwork. People will have to use teamwork for the rest of their life, and sports can help them improve that skill. Taking part in sports can help develop a positive attitude towards life, which will help in the long run.
Sports are also good for kids because they provide health benefits. It is healthier for a kid to play a sport competitively than to waste time playing video games all day. Furthermore, a research group of University of California said, “96 percent of the participants(参与者) said they enjoy their sports. They’re all loving life.” That is to say, kids playing highly competitive sports tend to enjoy life instead of doing something else like watching TV.
On the other hand, some people might argue that competitive sports are bad for young children because they are so time-consuming. However, the time spent is not “robbing” kids of their childhood, but offers unique opportunities. Athletes can get success to live their dream life by playing sports. Even though sports are time-consuming, they offer distinctive opportunities.
In conclusion, competitive sports are good for children because they can provide wholesome benefits, create new experiences, and build skills that will last a lifetime.
1. Why is the formal athlete mentioned in paragraph 2?| A．To show a reason | B．To give an example. |
| C．To list a background. | D．To draw out a new point. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Uncertain. | C．Uncaring. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．Common | B．Unreasonable | C．Unique. | D．Frequent. |
| A．The ways to play sports. |
| B．The reasons for playing sports. |
| C．The problems of kids’ playing sports. |
| D．The benefits of kids’ playing sports. |
5 . Do you like Chinese traditional painting and dance? They are two important parts of the traditional Chinese art. But what about when they meet each other?
This year, a dance drama titled Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting (《只此青绿》) was staged on CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala and became popular.
According to CCTV, this poetic dance program was inspired by the 900-year-old Chinese painting A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains (《千里江山图》), created by Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng at about 18. The painting is amazing in its sweeping size, rich coloration and the expressive details, reported by CCTV. It shows a Chinese blue-green landscape: mountains and groupings of infinite (无限的) rise and fall between cloudless sky and rippling (涟漪的) water.
When the dancers moved elegantly, audiences seemed to be looking at the moving mountains and rivers. “It brings me a pure experience of beauty. It is not only a drama but also an exhibition. Vast mountains and rivers are coming to life!” Internet user Mo Weisha wrote in a review. “More than a thousand years later, green mountains and rivers still impress people as they did long ago.” Some people even decided to watch the dance again when it was staged in the theaters later. In fact, in recent years, more and more modern shows have featured Chinese traditional culture and received warm welcome. As for the reason, it is due to people’s great love for traditional culture.
“The younger generations have grown up with a more open mind. They accept Chinese culture and are proud of it,” Yao Wei, director of Henan TV Station’s Innovation Center, told China Daily.
1. What’s the writing purpose of paragraph 1?| A．To raise a question. | B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To describe the art world. | D．To show a doubtful thought. |
| A．CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala. | B．A Chinese blue-green landscape. |
| C．Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng. | D．An old Chinese traditional painting. |
| A．Traditional culture is accepted and loved by people. |
| B．Green mountains and rivers greatly impress people. |
| C．The poetic dance can be staged in the theaters later. |
| D．Increasing modern shows feature Chinese traditional culture. |
| A．It explains why Chinese art enjoys popularity. |
| B．It shows us art can come to life through dance. |
| C．It highlights the beauty of Chinese traditional art. |
| D．It tells us the love for Chinese traditional painting. |
6 . In traditional stick puppet shows in Shanxi, puppeteers hold up and manipulate (操控) the puppets using three rods (杆). The puppets are dressed in traditional costumes and frolic (嬉戏) on stage. They are able to change their facial expressions and perform complicated movements.
Such art can’t be created without the painstaking effort of puppet makers like Wang Maowei, 40, who is from Xiaoyi, Shanxi.
“When I chose puppet-making as a teenager, I gradually fell in love with it and decided to dedicate myself to the craft,” Wang said. In 2008, Xiaoyi’s stick puppet plays were added to the national intangible cultural heritage list.
It takes 40 to 50 days to make a stick puppet. The average height of a puppet is 75 centimeters to 1 meter, and they have different costumes to fit various plays and plots. “To make puppets, you need to have sensitivity and a basic foundation in the fine arts,” Wang said.
Traditional Xiaoyi puppet plays use the style of local operas, which are appealing to the elderly. Years ago, Wang realized that plays must cater to the market. He decided to start with the appearance of the puppets.
Stick puppets are traditionally carved from wood and are both time-consuming to make and heavy to hold. Wang found that a special kind of kraft paper is a perfect substitute (替代品). It means craftspeople can put things inside the puppets’ heads to allow them to be operated — the nose, eyes and mouth of a puppet can all move via the use of rods.
Journey to the West, a classic Chinese novel, has been frequently adapted in puppet shows. In the tale, the Monkey King can use his eyes to distinguish monsters from ordinary human beings. To recreate this power in his show, Wang makes the Monkey King puppet shoot laser beams (激光) from his eyes and spit (喷) fire from his mouth.
“It requires time and energy to create a delicate piece of work... These puppets are like my own children and I always take good care of them,” Wang said.
1. According to Wang Maowei, what specific skills are required for making stick puppets?| A．Creativity and imagination. |
| B．Patience and physical strength. |
| C．Sensitivity and a basic knowledge of fine arts. |
| D．Engineering and technological skills. |
| A．To reduce production time and effort. |
| B．To make puppets look more beautiful. |
| C．To reduce the costs of making puppets. |
| D．To make them lighter and easier to operate. |
| A．By making it sing and dance. |
| B．By making it spit fire from its mouth. |
| C．By making it fly across the stage. |
| D．By making it shoot laser beams from its ears. |
| A．tell | B．appreciate | C．enjoy | D．prevent |
7 . Feeling hungry? Well, get your chopsticks ready! Ho Chi Minh City Food Tours are the tastiest way to travel around the city.
Big eat & Small seat
This afternoon food tour by motorbike is focused on family-run local restaurants. These places are often small and tight with little stools. This is a tour we recommend for travelers that want to be thrown into the city’s delicious street food. It lasts from 1 pm to 5 pm at $65 per person.
A taste of Vietnam
This tour is absolutely comfortable for everyone with indoor seating and atmosphere. The menu is diverse, featuring some hands-on cooking experience and a bowl of whole crab soup that you can only find in Ho Chi Minh City. It lasts from 6 pm to 10 pm at $73 per person.
Chef’s tour
The concept for Chef’s tour is simple: We will drive you from location to location to try some of our favorite street eats in the city while adjusting the menu as much as possible to meet your tastes and personality. It lasts from 5 pm to 10 pm at $123 per person.
Street food stroll
This tour will leave you happy, full, and filled with a new appreciation for our history and culture. We will eat delicious street food while exploring the French architecture and the unique culture in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City’s District Three. A bit different from other tours, we will not use any taxi or motorbike to get from place to place. The walk tour lasts from 5 pm to 9 pm at $38 per person.
Note: During all the above tours, prices take in all food and drinks and we will also take digital photos during the trip that we send to you the next day by email.
1. How much should a tourist pay for the tour with hands-on cooking experience?| A．$38. | B．$65. | C．$73. | D．$123. |
| A．The tourists have to walk all the way. |
| B．The tourists can have free digital photos. |
| C．The tourists will eat in big restaurants. |
| D．The tourists can try the whole crab soup. |
| A．Big eat & Small seat. | B．A taste of Vietnam. |
| C．Street food stroll. | D．Chef’s tour. |
8 . Jon Pedley is making a big change. He is giving up his life as a businessman for a life of helping others. He is trading his beautiful farmhouse in England for life in a mud hut (小屋) in Uganda, East Africa.
Pedley admitted that he had not always led a very positive life. At times he drank too much and got in trouble with the law. “I had always put the pursuit (追求) of money in front of everything else. As long as I was all right, I didn’t care who I was hurting,” says Pedley.
But a visit to Uganda in 2007 gave Pedley a new outlook on life. He was amazed at what he saw and how much the people there appreciated the work he was doing. “I worked there for a few days and these people who have nothing were thanking me by giving me bags of potatoes, which are a fortune for them,” he said. Now Pedley is selling his business, his $1.5 million farmhouse, and his expensive car—and moving into a hut made of mud and boards in a small Ugandan village. There he will help run an organisation that hopes to improve the quality of life for people in the village of Kigazi. He will help to build schoolrooms for children and tanks to hold clean water for villagers. Today, people in Kigazi must walk two miles to a hospital, so Pedley will help to build doctors’ offices, too.
Pedley’s organisation will also work with English teenagers who are in trouble. The teens will be sent to a “camp” in Uganda that Pedley will run. The teens will live in mud huts and help to build water, health, and education facilities (设施) for kids in Kigazi, many of whom have lost their parents to poverty or disease. Pedley hopes the teens will see a side of life that might help them turn around their own lives and set them on a new and more positive path.
1. Which of the following best describes Pedley in the past?| A．Negative. | B．Creative. | C．Positive. | D．Selfish. |
| A．Do business with the local people. |
| B．Help farmers increase potato output. |
| C．Help villagers with building work. |
| D．Introduce tools to improve English teaching. |
| A．To encourage them to make friends with locals. |
| B．To inspire them to live a more positive life. |
| C．To train them to become doctors in the future. |
| D．To make them learn about different cultures. |
| A．From a millionaire to living in a mud hut. | B．A life-changing adventure. |
| C．A rich man becoming homeless. | D．More money, more worries. |
9 . Camping tips: Which overnight wilderness experience is right for you?
If you’re an experienced backpacker, read no further. This article is for camping rookies, those who have never slept beneath the stars or haven’t pitched a tent since their youth but are seriously thinking about overnighting in the wilderness.
Car camping
At its most basic, car camping involves packing a tent, sleeping bag, fold-up chair, cooler and camp stove into your vehicle and staying at a drive-up campground. Nearly every national park, and many state and county parks and private facilities, offer drive-up campgrounds with restrooms, potable water, fire rings or pits, and maybe even hot showers. So there are lots of choices.
The downside of car camping is the fact that these campgrounds are often packed with other campers. Not a lot of privacy, they can be noisy, and possibly hinder your quest of communing with nature.
Backpacking
No vehicle required; just your feet and a good pair of hiking boots or shoes to get you to the next overnight spot. A multi-day hiking trip is without doubt the most immersive way to experience the great outdoors.
Different from maybe car camping, it requires the least expense and equipment. All you really need are a backpack, sleeping bag, water bottle, small first-aid kit, enough food to last the entire travel. It can be done just about anywhere on the planet.
Boat Camping
While this does involve owning or renting a watercraft or using a ferry or water taxi service to reach the overnight site, camping via canoe, kayak, raft or boat offers a similar get-away-from-it-all adventure as backpacking.
Experienced paddlers and boaters usually prefer to camp on their own along a secluded shoreline. But many adventure or wilderness outfitters offer guided trips that can last anywhere from a couple of days to two or three weeks. With a boat, you can sometimes camp places that not even backpackers can reach.
1. Who are the intended readers?| A．Red-blooded males | B．White-collar staff |
| C．Blue-blooded tourists | D．Green-hand campers |
| A．Backpacking allows you to communicate with nature deeply. |
| B．Car camping is the most economic way to experience nature. |
| C．The drive-up campgrounds provide people with private environment. |
| D．Boat camping offers the same adventures as backpacking. |
| A．Feature | B．Style | C．Travel | D．Entertainment |
10 . For 20 years, two brothers living in the dirty neighborhood of Wazirabad in India’s capital, Delhi, have been treating wounded black kites (鸢) that fall from the city’s skies.
Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad rescue birds of prey — mostly injured by paper kite strings — and carry them to a basement garage at home. Here, they begin nursing them to health: cleaning and bandaging wounds, fixing wings and broken bones.
Small miracles happen in the basement. Here lives are saved, a living is made and there’s some happiness too. “You don’t care for things because they share the same country, religion or politics,” say the brothers. “Life itself is relationship. That’s why we can’t abandon the birds.”
The brothers talk about how a neighborhood bird hospital refused to treat the first kite they rescued because it was a “non-vegetarian bird”. At that time, they, were teenage bodybuilders and that’s how they “came to know about flesh and muscles”. They figured out ways to bandage the kites. They became passionate about birds. “We’d lie on the ground, watching the elegant flights in the sky,” they say. “The head would spin. Have you ever felt dizzy looking into the sky?”
The street outside the brothers’ home becomes a smelly pool of sewage water which comes into the basement during the rainy season. Pigs wander in a muddy channel. Air quality reaches dangerous peaks. Yet there’s life and hope. Monkeys climb playfully over some electric wires that hang unsteadily over narrow streets. An airplane in the sky is reflected in a pool of quiet water.
When the weather clears, skies are filled with paper kites. And then the birds begin dropping, and the brothers are back at their job. Sometimes the birds fall after bumping against buildings in the smog or getting entangled (缠住) in overhead wires. At one point, there were more than 100 wounded birds in the basement. The brothers once swam across the river to rescue a bird with a broken wing.
1. Why do the brothers treat wounded kites?| A．They believe they are interconnected. | B．They like to see miracles happen. |
| C．They are deeply religious people. | D．They do it for political reasons. |
| A．Kites are not protected birds. | B．Kites feed on other creatures. |
| C．Kites keep their heads spinning. | D．Kites are dangerous to human beings. |
| A．By listing some statistics. | B．By depicting a miserable scene. |
| C．By making an analysis. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．Look at the positive side of a thing. | B．Start a great cause with small deeds. |
| C．Live in harmony with creatures around. | D．Lend a helping hand to people in need. |
