1 . There are many podcasts (播客) that teach English and you can listen to them anytime. Here is a list of some of the best podcasts that you must see.
Learn English Podcast
This podcast has three levels.The first is for beginners, the second is for intermediates (中级学生) and the third is for upper intermediates. If a person wants to learn Business English,then episodes are also made for him.Every podcast is short but very informative. Worksheets and vocabulary tasks are also included.
Speaking Broadly
This podcast is made for advanced learners. Explained through discussion and interviews, each episode has non-native English speakers and every recording also has expert feedback. You will see some common mistakes made by English learners and you can improve your English by learning from those mistakes.
The English We Speak
This podcast airs one episode daily and every episode is only three to four minutes, which talks about phrases and idioms.There are two people in each episode who communicate with each other. Whatever level you are,you will find it rewarding
Elementary Podcast
This podcast is mainly for beginners and intermediate level learners. The length of a podcast is around 25 minutes but you can pause it anytime and continue whenever you want. The hosts of each episode are different.
1. Which podcast provides exercises going with it?A.Learn English Podcast. | B.Speaking Broadly. |
C.The English We Speak | D.Elementary Podcast. |
A.It records just expert speakers. | B.It aims at beginners. |
C.It presents some typical mistakes. | D.It provides feedback from listeners. |
A.They have the same length. | B.They are both interactive. |
C.They share the same contents. | D.They are suitable for beginners. |
2 . Once upon a time, a daughter complained to her father that her senior high school life was unhappy and that she was tired of struggling with homework all the time.
Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, h placed potatoes, eggs and coffee beans in them. After 20 minutes, he took them out, putting the potatoes and eggs in a bowl and the coffee in a cup.
Turning to his daughter, he said, “Look closer, and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After puling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to taste the coffee. Its good smell brought a smile to her face.
“Father, what does this mean?” she asked. He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and the coffee beans were in the same adversity (逆境)—the boiling water. However, each one reacted differently.
The strong and hard potato became soft and weak in boiling water. The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard. However, the coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new. “Which one do you want to be like,” he asked. “When adversity knocks on your door, how will you respond?”
In life, challenges happen to us all, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us.
1. Why did the girl complain to her father?A.Because of her tiring job. | B.Because of her hard school life. |
C.Because of her father’ s busy work. | D.Because of the food her father cooked. |
A.The girl liked the coffee best. |
B.The father was good at cooking. |
C.Different people have different reactions to adversity. |
D.The girl didn’t like the potatoes and eggs. |
A.thick | B.hard | C.strong | D.easily-broken |
A.Challenges and responses. | B.Adversities and a chef. |
C.A chef and coffee beans. | D.Father and daughter. |
3 . Like most people, I was not sure about using virtual reality (VR) (虚拟现实) for travel. However, driven by the chance to experience places and things I could never visit without time, money, and travel, I visited the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) to check out their spacewalk VR Transporter. The visit turned out to be the most unforgettable experience that I’d ever had. After an hour or so, I took off the VR headset (眼罩), feeling as if I had actually been staying in space for months.
As we move through the post-COVID era (后疫情时代), international travel and large events have both been slow to return, so Ceek, an APP for virtual events and experiences, has been developed to allow users to travel through time and space with great joy. Mary Spio, Ceek CEO, explains that the combination of sights and sounds is important. “So our users can listen and see everything at the same time.”
The promise of VR is that it helps us rethink what travel even means. “Traveling can be crossing cultures, crossing memories, and can be done in your mind,” says David Askaryan, CEO of the Museum of Future Experiences. He says MOFE’s VR technology create “an experience where the world around you just completely changes for 70 minutes.”
In the post-COVID era, with our vacation days or travel money running short, virtual reality may be the next best way to visit the destinations that have been lighting up our social timeline, or are on our list. As for me, I’m already planning my next VR trip: an underwater VR experience.
1. Why did the writer visit MSI?A.To study space science. | B.To buy VR headsets. |
C.To try VR travel. | D.To learn spacewalk skills. |
A.Travel through space and time with great joy in reality. |
B.Listen and see everything in the world. |
C.Experience a wonderful virtual trip. |
D.Discover the sights and sounds during the post-COVID era. |
A.It focuses on one culture. | B.It provides a new experience. |
C.It helps build up memories. | D.It changes the world around us. |
A.It will become popular. | B.It will happen underwater. |
C.It will be more expensive. | D.It will take days to finish. |
4 . Olympic Games organizers in France presented the 2024 Olympic torch (火炬) that will light the Summer Games in the country a year from now. In the Olympic torch tradition, many people carry the torch in turn from Greece to the current location of the Games. After it has traveled thousands of kilometers. the torch will light the Olympic cauldron (火炬台) at the Opening Ceremony of the next Olympic Games.
French designer Mathieu Lehanneur created the torch. which is 70 centimeters long and made of lightweight steel. Lehanneur said its shape is inspired by the famous Seine River, which flows through Paris. He said the torch is equal from top to bottom and all around the middle, which stands for equality between athletes. The twisting shape of the torch represents peace.
The torch was made with lightweight steel. Its lower half copies the movement of the Seine, along which the opening ceremony will take place for over 500,000 viewers.
Lehanneur said he wants the torch to represent the kind of event that Paris 2024 hopes to be. “I wanted to move away from the torch appearing as an object of conquest (征服),” Lehanneur said. He also told reporters that designing the torch was much more techn1cal than he thought it would be. “The magic is not the torch itself. but the flame” Lehanneur said.
The torch will be lit up in Olympia, Grecce on April 16, 2024, followed by a nine day torch relay before sailing across the Mediterranean Sea from Athens to Marseille on May 8. It will then pass through several important places , which include Strasbourg , the Pantheon in Paris, the Mont Saint-Michel and multiple French territories.
Tony Estanguet, the Paris 2024 chief, said the torch is “very ,very beautiful”. He also said it is “...very pure, It’s perfectly balanced in the hand.”
1. Why is the torch equal from top to bottom?A.It is easy for torch-bearers to carry. | B.It is the symbol of the Seine River. |
C.It represents peace among nations. | D.It shows equality between players. |
A.He wishes Paris 2024 to be the best ever. | B.The torch is more important than the flame. |
C.Designing the torch is harder than he thinks. | D.He thinks highly of the torch’s appearance. |
A.Twenty two days. | B.Fifteen days. | C.Nine days. | D.Eight days. |
A.A travel brochure. | B.A sports magazine. | C.A science report. | D.A research paper. |
5 . For some people, nothing beats a long walk on a sandy beach. But there’s no denying that it’s not as easy or as fast to get around on the beach as it is on a road or a sidewalk. But why is it so hard to walk on sand?
The problem with sand is that it’s soft; you “sink in” at each step. This forces you to use 2.1 to 2. 7 times more energy with every step you take. Another idea is that people walk more difficultly on soft than they do on hard surfaces, a study found. The researchers compared how people walked on foam (沫) and hard surfaces by analyzing the forces under their feet and how much oxygen each person consumed. They found that walking on soft surfaces, such as sand, mud and snow, caused people to take longer steps — actions that use more energy than walking on a hard surface.
But as experienced beach walkers know, there’s a way to make it easier to walk on sand: Just add water, When sand is wet, it becomes more compact (紧密), and walking on it is more similar to walking on hard surface. In other words, it’s much easier to cross a beach by walking along the shoreline, where the waves roll in and out. This is a balance though; too much water could make the sand soft once again. If water isn’t an option, there is another way to make walking on sand easier — increasing your surface area. This could be accomplished by wearing shoes.
Although it’s more difficult, there are some good reasons to exercise on sand. The impact forces are lower on sand than on hard surface. Research suggests that walking across sand is much easier on your joints (关节) and muscles, especially compared with an unforgiving surface such as concrete (混凝土). This means sand is a better surface for helping athletes recover more quickly from workouts.
1. Why is the question raised in the first paragraph?A.To show problems. | B.To call up readers’ memories. |
C.To invite readers to answer it. | D.To draw readers’ attention to the topic. |
A.By putting on shoes. | B.By taking longer steps. |
C.By walking in the water. | D.By using special breath methods. |
A.Sand. | B.Concrete. |
C.Foam. | D.Snow. |
A.Tips for Beach Vacation | B.All Kinds of Sports on the Sand |
C.Why Is It So Hard to Walk on Sand? | D.Where Are We With the Sand Research? |
6 . Seba Stephens is only 10 years old, but he’s a very talented musician. He plays drums, bass, guitar and piano. Recently, he earned a professional certificate (证书) in music through the Berklee Online program at the famous Berklee College of Music.
Seba and his family live in Memphis, Tennessee — a place famous for music. He grew up with music all around, but he especially loved the drumming of Stewart Copeland from the band The Police.
Before he turned three, his parents asked him what he wanted for his birthday. “Drums!” he answered. His parents weren’t sure, but after seeing him play the drums at a local music store, they decided he was serious. They bought him a junior drum kit. It was a huge step. “He didn’t stop playing — ever,” said his dad, Everett.
In just a few months, his drum teacher reported that Seba was learning extremely quickly and needed a higher level of training. He was still four.
Seba’s parents encouraged him to explore music in other ways. Seba learned bass, guitar and piano. He faced challenges. “I couldn’t see over my drum set,” he said. He also had trouble finding a good bass that was small enough,
In 2020, Everett got special permission for Seba to join a summer music program at Berklee as an 8-year-old boy. Seba studied bass in an online program. To keep up, he had to practise up to 36 hours a week.
After the intense summer, Everett thought Seba might want a break. He was wrong. Instead, Seba asked his parents to home-school him so he could keep going to Berklee during the school year. His parents had to make some big changes to make the plan work, but they agreed.
Last May, Seba became the youngest person ever to receive a professional certificate from Berklee. The certificate is equal to about four college-level classes.
1. What is Stewart Copeland?A.A teacher. | B.A drummer. | C.A pianist. | D.A soldier. |
A.Three years old. | B.Four years old. |
C.Eight years old. | D.Ten years old. |
A.No time to practise. | B.Many things to learn. |
C.Difficulties in finding proper instruments. | D.The requests made by the teacher. |
A.The Musical Journey of a Famous Musician |
B.An Online Program at Berklee College of Music |
C.A Teenage Drummer Inspires Kids’ Music Education |
D.A 10-year-old Drummer Earns Certificate From Berklee |
7 . Conflict (冲突) between teenagers and parents happens for a lot of reasons. Sometimes conflict happens between teenagers and parents just because conflict happens between human beings anyway. Humans have different needs, different feelings, different opinions about what they want, and the relationship with people can be really difficult. However, teenagers can cause further conflict because of the hormonal (生理的) changes that are happening and the stage of life that they're in.
Teenagers and parents have different understanding about rules and at times they find it difficult to look into the future. So parents and teenagers will often experience conflict about many things, do chores, homework, whether teenagers speak respectfully or not and about what they're allowed to do.
Before we think about rule boundaries (界线) for teenagers, we need to make sure that we have a really good relationship base. There's no point saying “From now on, you have to listen to me”: if you don't have a positive relationship with your teenager. We need to go back and make sure there is some degree of shared respect, and some degree of positive communication and enjoyment being together. you do that first, it means that rule boundaries are a lot easier to set up.
Often we're dealing with conflict on the fly. This is not the right time to be dealing with it. We really want parents and teenagers to sit down and think about the kinds of things that may happen in the house before the problems come. The more detailed your rule boundaries are for teenagers, the more likely it is that they are going to follow them. So this means we don't have rule boundaries like “Have the bathroom cleaned”. It needs to be “The floors mopped, nothing on the countertop and the mirrors cleaned by ten o'clock every Saturday”: Rule boundaries need to be written down, and set out ahead of time so the teenager knows exactly what's expected.
1. What's important to set up a rule boundary easily for teenagers?A.Being strict from the start. | B.Developing a good relationship with them first. |
C.Saying"No" to their requirements. | D.Avoiding close talks with them. |
A.Doing some housework. | B.Having a good reading habit. |
C.Cleaning the bathroom. | D.Finishing your homework by five. |
A.In a hurry. | B.On the plane. | C.By oneself. | D.Another day. |
A.Growing Pains | B.Teenage Problems |
C.Parent-Child Conflict and Solutions | D.Knowing the Conflict |
8 . Some people believe that humans could live on the planet Mars by the year 2100. Our own planet, the Earth, is becoming more and more crowded and polluted. It is hoped that people could start all over again and build a better world on Mars. Here is what life there could be like.
At present, our spacecraft are too slow to carry large numbers of passengers to Mars — it would take months. With the development of technology, by the year 2100, the journey might only take about 20 minutes in spacecraft that travel at the speed of light! However, the spacecraft would travel really fast, so the journey to Mars might be quite uncomfortable. Many people would feel ill.
Humans can’t live without water, air or food. So far, nobody knows whether there would be enough water or air on Mars for people. Moreover, scientists are not sure whether plants could grow on Mars. Food would most probably be in the form of pills (药片) and would not be so tasty.
Compared with life on the earth, life on Mars would be better in some ways. People would have more space. They might live in houses with huge comfortable rooms. Also, robots would do a lot of their work so that they could have more time to relax. There would probably be no schools on Mars. Every student would study at online schools with “e-teachers”.
Life on Mars would be interesting and challenging. However, it may take hundred or years to make it true. So the most important thing we need to do now is to protect our beautiful blue planet — the Earth!
1. The underlined word “spacecraft” means ________.A.spaceships | B.hot-air balloons | C.space stations | D.planes |
A.Fast and enjoyable. | B.Fast but uncomfortable. |
C.Slow and boring. | D.Slow but comfortable. |
A.There would be enough water and air on Mars for people. |
B.Food on Mars would be more delicious than that on the earth. |
C.People would be busy with work on Mars. |
D.The writer thinks living on Mars would be full of challenges. |
A.Schools on Mars | B.Food on Mars |
C.Life on Mars | D.Environment on the Earth |
9 . The Rise of “China-chic”
Over past years, guochao, or “China-chic” has been gaining popularity among Chinese consumers. Guochao conveys the cultural heritage and values of China.
The idea of guochao was first borrowed from some international brands, and began to win over Chinese consumers in 2015.
In its third stage, guochao became more common in everyday life. Over the past decade, guochao has expanded from consumer goods to experiential products. As consumers are showing greater interest in cultural identity and creativity, productions like the TV program National Treasure, and the dance show Night Banquet in Tang Dynasty Palace integrate cultural and historical elements with the latest audio-visual technologies.
Nowadays, guochao is moving to the next stage. No matter how the trend evolves, Chinese people’s positive attitude toward the country’s development and their recognition of and growing confidence in national culture won’t change.
A.The trend grew in the following years |
B.They give the viewers a totally new experience |
C.The next stage saw the rise of China’s native fashion trends |
D.It also expresses national pride and confidence in a new era |
E.The second period of guochao mainly features hi-tech sectors |
F.Its success will rely first and foremost on gaining cultural confidence |
G.The concept of “Made in China” was recognized as the representation of Chinese culture |
10 . At eleven, I decided to learn to swim. There was a pool at the YMCA offering exactly the opportunity. My mother continually warned against it, and kept fresh in my mind the details of each drowning in the river. But the YMCA pool was safe.
I had a childhood fear of water. This started when I was three years old and my father took me to the beach.The huge waves knocked me down and swept over me.
The pool was quiet. I was afraid of going in all alone, so I sat on one side of the pool to wait for others. Then came a big boy. He yelled, “Hi, how’d you like to be ducked?” With that he picked me up and threw me into the deep end.I landed in a sitting position, and swallowed water. But I was not frightened out of my wits—when my feet hit the bottom, I would make a big jump to come out of the surface. It seemed a long way down. I gathered all my strength when I landed and made what I thought was a great spring upwards. Then I opened my eyes and saw nothing but water. I tried to yell but no sound came out. I went down, down, endlessly.
When I came to consciousness, I found myself lying on the bed in the hospital.
I never went back to the pool. I avoided water whenever I could. This misadventure stayed with me as the years rolled by.It deprived(剥夺) me of the joy of boating and swimming. Finally, I decided to get an instructor. Piece by piece, he built a swimmer. Several months later, the instructor was finished, but I was not .Sometimes the terror would return.
This went on until July. I swam across the Lake Went worth.Only once did the terror return. When I was in the middle of the lake, I put my face under and saw nothing but bottomless water. I laughed and said, “Well, Mr Terror, what do you think you can do to me?” I had conquered my fear of water.
1. What was the author’s original fear of water caused by?A.His poor skill in swimming. |
B.His mother’s warning of drowning. |
C.An outing to the beach with his father. |
D.An unpleasant memory of the pool. |
A.He knew how to swim in the pool. |
B.He felt that the YMCA pool was safe. |
C.He was waiting for others to save him. |
D.He came up with an idea to go upwards. |
A.He was still a poor swimmer. |
B.He had not overcome the fear yet. |
C.He was not afraid of drowning any more. |
D.He was not satisfied with the swimming training. |
A.Goodbye,Mr Terror |
B.Hello,Childhood Fear |
C.A Swimming Adventure |
D.My Passion for Swimming |