2 . Playgrounds for All Kids

Most of us are all too familiar with the typical playground set-up. Monkey bars, swings, and slides, all accessed by steps and surrounded by a sea of sand or wood chips.     1     However, many disabled children end up being unable to access all of the equipment because of the way it’s constructed.

    2    Its founder, Cody Goldberg, wanted to build a place for his disabled daughter Harper to play freely. It uses spiral (旋转的) walkways leading to activities, rather than steps, where kids in wheelchairs ride alongside those on skateboards.     3     Play areas are both wheelchair and walker accessible.

Goldberg describes the idea behind designing these playgrounds as completely inclusive. They don’t strictly cater to (迎合) children with disabilities and are not meant to prevent any child from access to play.     4    

The inclusive playground model is now spreading across the county. While the original Harper’s Playground is located in Portland, Oregon, similar playgrounds have popped up throughout the state. Harper’s Playground is now teaming up with those interested in building a park of their own.     5    

Changing the way playgrounds are built will have a wide-spread effect. It will affect the way schools are designed and built, and it will affect how the workplace is treated, and then ultimately it will change the way people with disabilities are thought of and treated.

A．What are their accessible playgrounds like today?

B．Harper’s Playground was created for just this reason.

C．Harper’s Playground began to work on its initial designs.

D．The equipment and layout provide access to a fun experience for all.

E．Slides are built extra wide so a caregiver and a child can go together.

F．It hopes to eventually spread across the country and, ultimately, the world.

G．The intention of these public playgrounds is to give kids a safe and fun place to play.

4 . Millions of people go online each day only for fun or to pass the time. Besides the list of things like books, music, movies and televisions, you can now add surfing the Internet as a primary way of entertainment and passing the time.

So how many people actually use the Internet today? According to some reports, about 40% of the world’s population has a connection with the Internet. That’s a huge increase from only 1% in 1995.

The number of Internet users continues to grow. In 2005, the number of Internet users was more than one billion. Just five years later, that number doubled to over two billion. In 2014 that number passed the three billion mark!

Today, about 75% of all Internet users live in the top 20 countries. The other 25% are spread out amongst the remaining countries. The country with the most Internet users is China with over 640 million users. The total is more than the next three countries—the United States, India and Japan—combined.

Of all those billions of Internet users, a large part of users are children. From computers in schools to mobile devices, children are growing up in a connected world. Studies have shown that over 75% of children spend more than two hours each day of “screen time”, which means time is spent in front of a computer or mobile device.

Too much “screen time” can be harmful to children. For example, too much screen time has been linked to many problems, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol（胆固醇） and overweight. What’s more, school-age children who use a computer more than two hours per day are more likely to have emotional, social, and attention problems. Thus, if you’re one of the 75% that spend more than two hours per day in front of a screen, consider cutting back and getting outside to enjoy the natural world.

1. How does the author prove that more and more people use the Internet?

A．By explaining a rule.

B．By telling an interesting story.

C．By introducing an experiment.

D．By showing the changes of numbers.

2. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “combined” in paragraph 4?

A．put up

B．taken up

C．added up

D．made up

3. Why does the author discuss the harmful effects of “screen time” in the last paragraph?

A．To explain why “screen time” is useful.

B．To stress the importance of “screen time”.

C．To voice his view on less “screen time”.

D．To show the difficulty of quitting “screen time”.

7 . “I wish I didn’t have to go to school, Grandpa." complained Alex, throwing his bag on the ground and sitting m the bench beside him. "It's such a waste of time. I’d much prefer to be out working. I could be earning money already If started working now at a restaurant like Big Chicken, I’d be earing good wages as well as good tips and I’d be able to travel and see the world like you did!"

Grandpa smiled across at Alex and looked at him a moment. “It reminds me of a story I once heard-an old tale from China.”

"Long ago in China, there was a kite. Although it rose higher than all the other kites, it longed to go higher. It saw the clouds and the birds way above and hated not being able to go up there. In fact it scolded the string for holding it back. The string was not happy with this situation and thought it was unfair."

"One day, the wind was particularly strong. The kite went up rapidly as the string was let out quickly. “Aw, not again, string!" yelled the kite to the string. 'Stop holding me back! Let me go higher this time! Let go of me!" The string let go and dropped towards the earth, no longer pulled up by the kite. Without the tension of the string holding it, the kite dropped quite quickly down. The kite was badly injured. Do you see the lesson in this for your situation?"

”YES! Thanks Grandpa! I understand now." exclaimed Alex. "What the story is actually saying is that sometimes you need constraint in order to reach your potential. Sometimes it's the things you think are holding you back that are actually mostly responsible for your growth. The string is to finish school and the kite is my future potential being realized. And the wind is my education lifting me higher and higher."

Grandpa smiled back. "Exactly, Alex. Well done. I am proud of you, young man.

1. What do we know about Alex?

A．He couldn't fit in with his classmates.

B．He behaved badly at school.

C．He desired to do what he wanted to do.

D．He wanted to earn money to support his family.

2. In the old tale, why did the string show dissatisfaction to the kite?

A．Because both of them dropped towards the earth.

B．Because the kite blamed the string for holding it back.

C．Because the string hated not being able to go higher.

D．Because the kite could see the clouds and the blue sky.

3. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．The kite and The String	B．The Grandpa and The Grandson
C．Making yourself a good kite	D．A Story full of fun

8 . What is volunteer travel?

Volunteer travel involves taking a trip where all or part of the purpose of the trip is to participate in an arranged service opportunity helping others. Typically, the volunteer activity takes place in a foreign country, but some opportunities can involve national or regional projects.     1    

Charitable interests often go far beyond national boundaries. People in developed countries become interested in the struggles of people in less developed countries.     2     Volunteer travel is a way to combine a visit to a new location with meaningful work that has a direct impact on communities in other parts of the world.

    3     Historically, church groups made up a large part of this market. Once a year a religious organization or church would organize a trip to another country.     4     For example, it would be to help build a school in an impoverished(贫困的)area, or dig wells so a village would have clean water, or engage in hundreds of other projects that would impact those less fortunate. As international travel became easier and the Internet made communication between countries much easier, the interest in volunteer travel increased.

    5     Volunteering in other countries has become as accessible as browsing a website and signing up. Instead of traveling with a group that is organized at the volunteers home base, the volunteer may join a group that gathers at the worksite from all over the world. This sort of volunteer travel is sometimes referred to as voluntourism or vacanteerism.

A．The primary purpose of the trip was very specific.

B．This type of travel has been an option for many years.

C．Educational institutions also made volunteer travel an option.

D．Sometimes, donating money is not enough to satisfy the need to help.

E．The Internet has helped make community service in general more popular.

F．These trips are usually arranged by church organizations, human interest groups or non-profits.

G．A new trend is that for-profit tour operators arrange group travel around volunteer opportunities.

9 . In 1713, Italian physician Bernardinus Ramazzini described in his book a mysterious set of symptoms he was noticing among artists: “Of the many painters I have known, almost all I found unhealthy ... If we search for the cause of the extremely thin and colorless appearance of the painters, as well as the sad feelings that they are so often victims of, we should look no further than the harmful nature of the paint.”

He was one of the first to make the connection between paint and artists' health, but it would take centuries for painters to switch to less-harmful materials, even as medicine gradually found some clues to the painters' health problems.

The 1834 London Medical and Surgical Journal describes sharp stomach pains occurring in patients with no other evidence of intestinal（肠的）disease, thus leading the authors to suspect that this “painter's stomachache” was a “nervous affection” of the intestine that occurs when lead “is absorbed into the system”.

Paints weren't the only source of saturnism（铅中毒）in past centuries, though. Through the 1500s, lead was widely used in wine to make the wine tastes sweeter. Occasionally, lead was even used as a medicine. In the Middle Ages, lead could be found in makeup.

Though many kinds of people fell victim to saturnism, the disease was perhaps most widespread among those who worked with paint. The symptoms of this “stomachache” ranged, but they often included a pale face, tooth loss, fatigue, painful stomach aches, and so on. In fact, the illness that many famous artists experienced didn't just prompt their gloomy works.

Lead poisoning among historical figures is difficult to prove, in part because the condition was not known or recognized in most of their lifetimes. We can't know whether the madness, depression, and illnesses many Renaissance masters experienced can be attributed to their paint or just their physiologies（生理机能）.

1. In his book, Bernardinus Ramazzini described the following symptoms of many painters except._______

A．being extremely thin	B．depressed feelings
C．being always inactive	D．pale appearance

2. What can we know about Bernardinus Ramazzini?

A．He was an Italian physicist.	B．He invented less-harmful materials.
C．He made artists stop using paints.	D．He thought paints do harm to health.

3. When may be the connection between paint and artists' health first established?

A．In the 16th century.	B．In the 18th century.
C．In the 19th century.	D．In the 20th century.

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Lead was widely used throughout history in daily life.

B．Saturnism in past centuries came from various sources.

C．All the artists are unhealthy for they use harmful paints.

D．Typical symptoms of artists' disease may be connected to paints.

10 . My husband and I made an agreement to help each other stay off social media platforms as much as possible. We left our accounts up instead of deleting them, but consciously stopped using them.     1     Now, I’m glad to report that they have worked.

Tired of being the last to hear of things, we downloaded a few news-specific apps that provide timely information.     2     Instead of relying on articles shared by my friends, I now have access to a steady stream of headlines that span far broader than my pre-specified interests.

Staying updated on our social circle has also been a more conscious effort. Previously I was kept up-to-the-minute on engagements, weddings, new jobs and babies through updates and pictures.

Without social media, I now learn of these important events only when actually meeting the people involved.

    3     The effort taken to sit down and write is far challenging, but when I do take the time to journal, my reflections go far deeper.

I still log in occasionally.     4     Based on the screen time tracked by my phone, I used to spend an average of over 24 hours a week on various social media platforms. That is down to just 20 minutes every month now, freeing up a large amount of time for sleep, hobbies and offline interactions.

    5     I might know less about my acquaintances now, but have more time to keep directly in touch with my closest friends. Walking home last week, I was greeted by a dramatic purple-pink sunset. I would have immediately reached for my phone a year ago. Now, it was enough to simply watch it darken into the night.

A．Overall, I'm glad to have made the change.

B．I bought myself a diary again after many years.

C．We have made a few adjustments in our daily life.

D．This has also widened the range of news I keep up with.

E．I do miss the convenience of using social media to record and reflect.

F．However, social media now plays a much less important role in my life.

G．I didn't realize how programmed I had become to constantly use the app.