1 . You can never imagine the social distancing policy resulted in some lifelong friendships between people who would have otherwise never met during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The unlikely friendship began at the peak of the lockdown in May 2020. The lockdown was particularly hard for Mary O’Neill, who has been living alone since her husband passed away 37 years ago. Though she has two children, four grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren, most live out of state. The 99-year-old spent her days watching television game shows and playing Yahtzee. Benjamin Olson, a then one-year-old who lived next door, was also stuck at home and unable to play with kids of his age.
The unusual friendship developed gradually. At first, Mary would wave at Benjamin from her window whenever she saw the young boy in the yard. Then, she ventured outside to greet him in person. The routine eventually expanded to daily gatherings by the fence that separated the two homes. The unlikely pair even invented a socially distanced game that Mary calls “cane ball.”
“I came out of the house one morning, and he threw his ball toward the fence,” she told the journalist. “I got my cane, and I reached over the fence and hit the ball toward him, and he’d throw it back. That’s how it started.”
When the weather turned, the two were unable to meet in the yard as regularly. But Benjamin’s mother, Sarah, kept the friendship alive by frequently stopping by Mary’s house with the bundled-up toddler. The bond between the two has blossomed even further since Mary got vaccinated (接种疫苗). The two give each other hi-fives across the fence and often sit outside Mary’s house, blowing bubbles. This spring, Mary gifted Benjamin with a colorful toy truck collection that had once belonged to her son. The young boy returned the favor with a gift of his own— a pile of dirt that he carefully carried in his small palm and dropped at her door.
Certainly, you wouldn’t guess that a 99-year-old and a 2-year-old would be friends, but they can be.
1. What can we learn about Mary O'Neill?| A．Mary lived alone because of the lockdown. |
| B．Mary likes watching TV and playing Yahtzee most. |
| C．No family members looked after Mary in the lockdown. |
| D．Mary herself created a socially distanced game. |
| A．risked | B．shouted | C．rushed | D．escaped |
| A．Sarah was confused about the relationship. |
| B．Sarah stopped Benjamin visiting Mary’s house. |
| C．Sarah hoped to keep the friendship longer. |
| D．Sarah was not satisfied with the unlikely friendship. |
| A．Getting vaccinated is a good way to make friends. |
| B．The lockdown leads to a heart-warming friendship. |
| C．A ball game benefits the development of friendship. |
| D．Exchanging gifts helps people build true friendship. |
2 . Sacrificing Sleep to Get Top Grades Doesn't Work
Sacrificing sleep and skipping meals to study in looking for academic excellence actually doesn't work, a new Harvard study has revealed recently.
Children who study hard are also likely to look after themselves, and cultivate healthy emotional regulation skills, rather than behaving in ways that are bad for their health.
Dr Christina Hinton, a research member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said, "
| A．Children struggling for excellence tend to make extra sacrifices |
| B．Children making sleep sacrifices can lead to excellence |
| C．The findings showed that children who work hard are also likely to develop health |
| D．Highachieving students have more potential than those lowachieving students |
| E．Having a growth attitude appears to have more impacts on the others around them |
| F．A survey found very young children smoke cigarettes and use energy drinks to prepare for their exams |
| G．Getting top grades does not require pushing yourself at all costs |
3 . What if you could give your children everything they wanted without them having to take any effort at all to get it？Would they appreciate what they now have？Would they know how to even maintain the lifestyle or how to keep the business moving forward and not downward?
There is some debate among parents of this new generation about the question of whether our children have been given so much that they now expect everything all at once. A case in point is a friend of mine who has a son in his late twenties. It is not that he doesn't have a good paying job and a really nice house. Actually his house is a lot better and bigger than I ever had at his age. But, he is not satisfied with what he has；he wants everything else right now, not tomorrow, but right now.
What he wants is a bigger house, a fancier car, and all the newest gadgets(小玩意) that come on the market. He never thinks he should work a little longer and save his money or that he shouldn't have it all. Maybe we have spoiled our children to expect more than what they should normally expect and then expect all of these worldly possessions to keep coming their way.
Now, the situation with my friend's son is one where his son calls him and complains that life is difficult and that he is having a hard time getting what he wants. The discussion usually then turns to waiting a little longer and working to save money but this discussion usually ends with his son still being disappointed with his life.
Each life must come from work, sacrifice and satisfaction of being able to provide for your family, but there is little room for just wanting when waiting, working and patience could get it done.
All of us need a bit of hardship, struggle, learning to overcome obstacles, understanding perseverance, and developing an attitude that speaks loudly about accepting responsibility for one's own destiny.
1. The writing method of the passage is ________ .| A．listing facts | B．giving an example |
| C．explaining reasons | D．making comparisons |
| A．live a happier life | B．learn to be independent |
| C．never be satisfied with it | D．be grateful for his parents |
| A．the result of parents' spoiling their children |
| B．the way for parents to prepare for a better life |
| C．the advice for parents on how to raise their children |
| D．the solution for parents to solving their family issues |
| A．What our life offers us. |
| B．What we should do for our family. |
| C．How we should gain what we desire. |
| D．How we should prepare for our destiny. |
4 . What kinds of rooms are your favorite spots for studying? We are going to guess that they are probably not painted bright red or yellow. But maybe they should be. Imagine. You are suddenly asked to prepare for an exam. You have two rooms to choose from. One is a pale blue, and the other is a bright red. Which one do you settle into for study? Is one going to get your brain fired up for learning, or let you relax into a best state of concentration?
According to researchers at Curtin University in Australia, it might be the best to camp out in the bright red room when you are looking to store information. It might sound strange, since we often think of pale rooms — soft blues or light greens — as relaxing, or even reassuring (令人安心的). And they seem to be: The Curtin University study showed that pale colors made participants feel more relaxed and calm, while bright colors increased heart rate. But calming and relaxing, it turns out, may not always be the best environment for deep concentration or knowledge gaining. Reading comprehension (阅读理解) was much better in the bright rooms than in the paler rooms. Although participants reported that they generally preferred the pale rooms to study in as an approach to relax into work, the researchers saw just the opposite — that the bright-colored rooms seemed to lead to greater concentration.
While this might seem only surprising, the finding gets into a rather controversial area of psychological (心理学的) study. The Yerkes-Dodson Law says that a little bit of stress is good for achieving best performance, while too much stress negatively affects it. The higher heart rate and the reports of the bright colors creating a heavy atmosphere might just suggest that a little stress was good for the brain.
1. What is the common idea mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．Few people like bright red or yellow. | B．Pale colors are connected with good grades. |
| C．Light-colored rooms make you feel nervous. | D．Bright-colored rooms are not good for studying. |
| A．Participants’ preferences in colors. | B．How participants reacted to colors. |
| C．Time participants spent in the rooms. | D．What participants read in the rooms. |
| A．Most people know how to make use of colors. |
| B．Stress is needed when you want to concentrate. |
| C．The higher the stress, the better your performance. |
| D．Being relaxed is very important to people studying. |
| A．Findings about people’s favourite room colors. |
| B．Bright-colored rooms can create a heavy atmosphere. |
| C．Room colors can affect one’s academic performance. |
| D．Light-colored rooms help people feel relaxed into work. |
5 . Feeling a bit bored? It could be just what you need to produce your best ideas, excite your creativity or simply give your brain a rest.
Nowadays, in the age of round-the-clock entertainment, it’s (technically) trickier to be bored. If the show you’re watching has lost its spark, you can easily amuse yourself on social media without even leaving the sofa. But that’s not necessarily a good thing. Feeling disengaged from the task in hand, or a lack of stimulation (刺激), does have its benefits, according to researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.
Being bored motivates you to search out something less boring to do. For example, if you decide there’s nothing worth watching on TV, you might choose to switch off and take up a new hobby. This, according to researchers, can explain why the lockdowns of the past two years saw a surge (激增) in creativity among people stuck at home from banana-bread-making to picking up a paintbrush for the first time since childhood.
But what about those times when you have no choice but to stick with the boring situation, waiting for a bus, for instance? The good news is that the boredom you’re feeling now could spark your creativity later, says a 2019 study published in the Academy of Management Discoveries journal. People who’d taken part in a bean-sorting task later performed better at coming up with creative ideas than another group who’d been given something more interesting to do first.
Ultimately, don’t take it for granted that there’ll always be something close at hand to entertain us. With boredom, we will not run the risk of becoming boring ourselves.
1. What does the author imply in paragraph 2?| A．Wondering mind can be healthy. |
| B．Social media can surely entertain us. |
| C．Being bored may be something good. |
| D．Being involved in the task is beneficial. |
| A．People were stimulated by boredom. |
| B．People were better equipped at home. |
| C．People had more hobbies to choose from. |
| D．People were more concerned about mental being. |
| A．To create a boring situation. | B．To reduce people’s boredom. |
| C．To make a funny performance. | D．To show an entertainment at hand. |
| A．What is the point of creativity? |
| B．Are we more easily bored nowadays? |
| C．How can we deal with daily boredom? |
| D．Does boredom make us more creative? |
6 . Experts say over half of the world’s seven thousand languages are in danger of disappearing. Every two weeks one language disappears.
Sometimes a language disappears immediately when the last person speaking it dies. Or, a local language might disappear more slowly. This happens when an official language is used more often and children stop learning the local language of their parents. Official languages often represent a form of control over a group of people.
Throughout history, the language spoken by a powerful group spreads across a civilization. The more powerful culture rarely respects the language and culture of smaller groups. Smaller cultures lose their local language as the language of the culture in power has a stronger influence.
Experts say protecting languages is very important for many reasons. Languages contain the histories, ideas and knowledge of a culture. Languages also contain valuable information about local medicines, plants and animals.
Many endangered languages are spoken by native cultures in close contact with the natural world. Their ancient languages contain a great deal of information about environmental systems and species of plants and animals that are unknown to scientists. As the last speakers of a language die off, the valuable information carried within a language also disappears. Language is, in many ways, a window to the mind and the world.
Any hope for protecting languages can be found in children and their willingness to learn. It is these young people who can keep this form of culture alive for future generations.
1. Which of the following is true?| A．There have existed 7,000 languages in history. |
| B．No one can prevent languages from disappearing. |
| C．There will not be any local languages left some day. |
| D．Half of the world’s languages will possibly disappear. |
| A．it represents the working of the human minds |
| B．local languages are more closely related to culture |
| C．ancient languages can reveal ancient people’s thoughts |
| D．it contains information about both culture and nature |
| A．children are interested in learning it | B．people are forced to speak it |
| C．it is linked to a powerful culture | D．it keeps pace with the times |
| A．local languages | B．language protection |
| C．the power of language | D．language and culture |
7 . Ottawa is the capital of Canada.It is the second largest city in Ontario and the fourth largest city in the country.
The Centre Block is the main building on Parliament Hill (国会山). It is also the location of several ceremonial spaces, such as the Hall of Honor and the Memorial Chamber.The present Centre Block is the second iteration of the building, after the first was destroyed by fire in 1916, and it is one of the most recognizable buildings in Canada.
Downtown Ottawa is the commercial and economic centre of the city.Most of the buildings are office towers.While most of Ottawa's hightech industry is based elsewhere, it has a significant presence in the downtown core.The downtown also contains a number of apartments, hotels, and the older single family homes and townhouses along its edges.
The National Gallery of Canada is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery has a large and varied collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs.Although its focus is on Canadian art, it also holds works by some noted American and European artists.
The Rideau Canal is the oldest continuously operated canal system in North America.At the very beginning, the purpose of the Rideau Canal was military, as it was intended to provide a secure supply and communication route between Montreal and the British naval base in Kingston. It remains in use today primarily for pleasure boating, with most of its original structures undamaged.The locks on the system open for navigation in midMay and close in midOctober.
1. The underlined word “iteration” in the 2nd paragraph probably means “ ”.| A．repair | B．design |
| C．copy | D．landmark |
| A．a large number of tall towers |
| B．head offices of Ottawa's hightech industry |
| C．a number of apartments and hotels |
| D．the older single family homes and townhouses |
| A．paintings and drawings |
| B．sculptures and photographs |
| C．works by Canadian artists |
| D．artwork by Americans and Europeans |
8 . A British friend told me he couldn't understand why Chinese people love eating sunflower seeds (葵花子) as a snack so much. “I’ve met a lot of older Chinese and many have a crack in their front teeth; I believe that's from cracking the seeds,” he said.
I had never noticed the habit, but once he mentioned it, I suddenly became more aware. I realized that whenever I’m watching TV or typing a report, I always start mindlessly cracking sunflower seeds. My friend doesn't like sunflower seeds, and, to him, it seems unnecessary to work so hard just to get one small seed.
When we were young, the whole family would usually get together for Chinese New Year. Then, we all lived close to one another, usually in a small city, and sometimes even neighbors would go doortodoor on Chinese New Year’s Eve to check out what every household was making.
I remember my parents would be in the kitchen cooking. In the living room, a large table would already be laid out, complete with a fancy tablecloth, readymade dumpling fillings, and dishes full of candy, fruits and sunflower seeds.
Some of the dishes were to be offered to our ancestors later, while others were for neighbors and children to eat before the evening feast. I must have learned how to crack sunflower seeds back then.
I don’t think it’s right to criticize one’s choice in food or eating habits, no matter how strange they may seem.
It’s not only in China. When I went abroad, I found people had all sorts of strange habits when it came to food. In Denmark, they put salted red fish on bread and eat it for dinner, no matter how much it ruins their breath. They think it’s a delicacy, and it’s connected with their culture. I think it’s a wonderful tradition.
1. What lesson can we learn from the passage?| A．One kind of food doesn’t necessarily suit everyone. |
| B．Eating habits come from a certain culture. |
| C．It is good to form healthy eating habits. |
| D．Changing your eating habits will change your life. |
| A．She had ever typed a report about seeds. |
| B．She ate various snacks while watching TV. |
| C．She has a habit of cracking sunflower seeds. |
| D．She damaged her teeth by eating sunflower seeds. |
| A．The traditions of celebrating it disappear. |
| B．Children can eat delicious food on that day. |
| C．The families would get together for it. |
| D．Eating sunflower seeds is related to it. |
| A．acceptable | B．critical |
| C．neutral | D．doubtful |
9 . John von Neumann was the oldest of 3 children of a banker，and his speed of learning new ideas and of solving problems stood out early. At 17，his father tried to persuade him not to become a mathematician because he may lead a poor life being a mathematician，and so von Neumann agreed to study chemistry as well.In 1926，at 23，he received a degree in chemical engineering and a Ph.D.in mathematics.From then on，mathematics provided well enough for him，and he never had to turn to chemistry.
In 1930，von Neumann visited Princeton University for a year and then became a professor there.His first book was published in 1932.In 1933，the Institute for Advanced Study was formed，and he became one of the 6 fulltime people(Einstein was one of the others)in the School of Mathematics.
World War Ⅱ hugely changed von Neumann's areas of interest.Until 1940 he had been a great pure(纯粹的)mathematician.During and after the war，he became one of the best mathematicians who put mathematics theories into practice.During the last part of the war he became interested in computing machines and made several fundamental contributions.After the war，von Neumann continued his work with computers，and was generally very active in government service.He received many awards，was president of the American Mathematical Society and was a member of the Atomic Energy Commission.He died in 1957 of cancer.
Von Neumann made several great contributions and any one of them would have been enough to earn him a firm place history.He will be remembered as one of the greatest minds of the 20th century.
Von Neumann really was a legend(传奇)in his own time，and there are a number of stories about him.His driving ability is a part of this legend.He reported one accident this way，“I was driving down the road.The trees on the right were passing me in an orderly fashion at 60 miles per hour.Suddenly one of them stepped in my path.”
1. Von Neumann published his first book at the age of .| A．23 | B．26 | C．29 | D．32 |
| A．He realized the importance of engineering. |
| B．He began to research how to put mathematics into practice. |
| C．He left college and served at the government department. |
| D．He lost interest in chemistry. |
| A．He had three children. |
| B．He died from an accident. |
| C．He received many awards in his life. |
| D．He and Einstein were classmates in Princeton University. |
| A．a mathematician couldn't earn a lot of money |
| B．a mathematician needed a good memory |
| C．von Neumann had the ability to learn two subjects at the same time |
| D．von Neumann had a gift for solving problems at a high speed |
10 . Useful tips for budget-conscious travelers
Traveling can be an experience of a lifetime. Being in the center of another culture is both exciting and eye-opening.
Don’t Travel During the Peak Season
Within most regions there are local airlines that provide inexpensive solutions to getting around. This is especially handy when you have multiple destinations in mind for your trip. All you have to do is look up Mango flight bookings and you’re on your way. Once you’re in a region, getting around gets much simpler and a whole lot cheaper.
Choose Economical Accommodations
Hotel chains and expensive options may be nice, but they’re the opposite of a budget-friendly experience.
Don’t Spend All Your Money on Food
One of the best things about travel is to enjoy all the wonderful food. Tasting the authentic versions of your favorite dishes is an absolute delight. But be careful. Having a few good meals out is to be expected, but having every meal at an expensive restaurant is a very quick way to drain your money.
| A．Use Flight Bookings |
| B．Use Regional Airlines |
| C．Every region has a peak season. |
| D．It also allows us to relax our busy heads. |
| E．Instead, try and find hostel options. |
| F．But traveling can seem too expensive. |
| G．So feel free to try the local snacks. |
