1 . A fresh and gentle wind on your face, soft sand under your feet and blue waters as far as the eye can see. Is there any other Olympic sport that is played in such pleasant conditions as beach volleyball？

“I’ve gone to a lot of beautiful places, and met a lot of beautiful people. That wouldn’t have happened if I had been playing another sport.” said Randy Stoklos, America’s most famous beach volleyball player.

The sport began as a four-a-side game on beaches in Southern California in the 1920s. The first recorded two-man game took place there in 1930, and the first tournament (锦标赛) was held in Los Angeles 18 years later. The winners were awarded a case of Pepsi. In the 1950s, women started playing and the sport soon spread to Europe and South America. Yet at that time, beach volleyball was more an entertainment show than a sport, with beauty contests included. The Association of Volleyball Professionals was founded in 1983 and beach volleyball developed into a fast, athletic sport. Its world-wide popularity won beach volleyball a place at the 1996 Olympics in Atalanta, where 24 male teams and 16 female teams took part. At present, the US and Brazil are the best in the world at beach volleyball.

The game came to China in the early 1990s and there have been national tournaments since 1994. It became an official event at the Eighth National Games in 1997. China’s You Wenhui and Wang Lu finished ninth in the women’s beach volleyball world championships in Brazil.

1. The passage is mainly about ______.

A．the history of beach volleyball

B．how to play beach volleyball

C．the importance of beach volleyball

D．women’s beach volleyball in China

2. According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE？

A．Beach volleyball was first played like other Olympic: sports.

B．Beach volleyball has always been an entertainment show rather than a sport.

C．Beach volleyball began on beaches in Souther California.

D．Women started playing beach volleyball in South America in 1945.

3. When did beach volleyball officially become an Olympic event？

A．In 1948,

B．In 1996.

C．In 1950.

D．In 1997.

4. According to the passage, we can learn that______.

A．in 1996, beach volleyball became an official event in China

B．China’s beach volleyball team is the best in the world

C．China’s beach volleyball players won the first place in Brazil

D．beach volleyball came to China in the early 1990s

2 . Once upon a time, there was a man who worked very hard just to keep food on the table for his family. A few days before Christmas, he _________ his five year-old daughter after _________ that she had used up the family’s only roll of expensive gold wrapping paper.

As money was tight, he became even angrier when on Christmas Eve he saw that she had used all of the gold paper to _________ one shoebox. He was also concerned about where she had gotten _________ to buy what was in the shoebox.

The next morning the little girl, _________ excitement, brought the gift box to her father and said, “This is for you, Daddy!” Holding the box, the father was embarrassed by his earlier behavior, _________ what he had done to her.

But when he _________ the shoebox, he found there was nothing. “Don’t you know, young lady,” he said _________, “when you give someone a _________, there’s supposed to be something inside the package!”

The little girl __________ him with sad tears rolling from her eyes and whispered, “Daddy, it’s not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was __________.” He fell on his knees and put his arms around the girl and begged her to __________ him for his unnecessary anger.

An accident took the girl’s life only a short time later. It is said that the father __________ this little gold box by his bed for all his life. Whenever he was __________ or faced difficult problems, he would open the box, take out an imaginary kiss, and __________ his daughter’s love.

1.

A．praised

B．encouraged

C．thanked

D．punished

2.

A．promising

B．learning

C．admitting

D．agreeing

3.

A．decorate

B．draw

C．buy

D．measure

4.

A．time

B．advice

C．space

D．money

5.

A．filled with

B．ready for

C．different from

D．related to

6.

A．thinking

B．forgetting

C．ensuring

D．regretting

7.

A．closed

B．opened

C．accepted

D．found

8.

A．happily

B．anxiously

C．angrily

D．shyly

9.

A．hand

B．lecture

C．solution

D．present

10.

A．looked up at

B．caught up with

C．lived up to

D．made up for

11.

A．empty

B．broken

C．full

D．colorful

12.

A．love

B．hate

C．forgive

D．defend

13.

A．kept

B．observed

C．used

D．searched

14.

A．interested

B．discouraged

C．surprised

D．terrified

15.

A．share

B．refuse

C．remember

D．remove

3 . Before Douglas Engelbart, computers were as big as rooms and used mostly for handling numbers. But in the late 1960s, Engelbart invented almost everything your personal computer has today: a mouse, hypertext, screen sharing and more. Engelbart was adding real-time edits, graphics, hyper-linking and sharing screens — all before the birth of the World Wide Web. “The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing,” said Engelbart, and as it turns out, he held all the right cards.

If he’d been British, Engelbart would have been knighted (授爵), but the Portland, Oregon, native instead lived out the rest of his years as an unsung hero, trying to fry even bigger fish in Silicon Valley. His blueprint of the Internet was totally different from today’s profit-driven, streamlined version. Engelbart imagined an information system built on the backbones of cooperation and education, all meant to enhance the collective human mind. He wanted a computerized network of real-time, human-wide cooperation, with the open-source spirit of Wikipedia and the purposefulness of Change.org.

By the late 70s and early 80s, Engelbart and his ideas were cast aside in favour of Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows, along with their profit-generating vision for personal computing, and a user-friendly approach to the Internet. Engelbart’s team of researchers abandoned him, and he had a lesser position at a company called Tymshare while still battling with his pie-in-the-sky visions of a better world. Even worse, when Engelbart’s mouse invention gained widespread use years later, he never gained the profits — it had been licensed to Apple for around $40,000, Engelbart revealed.

And if Engelbart had won? “Hard to say,” says Jefferson of the Internet Archive in San Francisco. “The Web was bound to grow in ways its founders never intended,” he says. He notes his belief that the same spirit of knowledge-sharing and cooperation Engelbart tirelessly pushed for will one day become part of our fast-evolving Internet, even if a commercial layer clouds the original vision. But even so, fame is difficult to achieve; it often ridicules great thinkers like Galileo or Tesla, only to meet them decades after death. Granted, Engelbart was eventually allowed into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1998, and into the Pioneers Circle in the Internet Hall of Fame after his death, but the heart of his dream has yet to be realized.

1. The expression “his pie-in-the-sky visions of a better world” in Para 3 refers to ________.

A．the function of computer data processing

B．a real-time video chat on the Internet

C．a user-friendly approach to the Internet

D．an Internet of knowledge-sharing and cooperation

2. Most probably Engelbart’s greatest regret was that ________.

A．he was too crazy about his vision of the Internet when totally ignored

B．he was not profitably rewarded for his landmark inventions of computer

C．he was admitted to the U. S. National Inventors Hall of Fame too late

D．the Internet was commercially oriented against his original intention

3. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A．Engelbart rose and fell in his all-out battle over the future of the Internet.

B．Engelbart could have succeeded in the Internet with his landmark inventions.

C．Engelbart’s achievements have never been recognized.

D．Engelbart didn’t get any profit for his mouse invention.

4. Which of the following is the best title of the passage?

A．Who Benefits from the Internet?

B．Who Lost the Internet Wars?

C．Who pioneered the World Wide Web?

D．Who Commercialized the Internet?

4 . Age has never been a problem for 16-year-old Thessalonika Arzu-Embry. After all, she’s already got her master’s degree.

The North Chicago-area teen started homeschooling at the age of 4. She began having an influence on others soon after. When she was 6 years old, she was an inspirational speaker at an organization called Tabitha House Community Service, which is for people who were forced to leave their homes because of earthquake, flood and other natural disasters.

At the age of 11, she graduated from high school and then earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2013. She completed those classes online as she was traveling for church events and leadership meetings.

She doesn’t stop there, though. The teen plans to focus on aviation psychology (航空心理学) for her further study, a decision inspired by her father who is a pilot. She grew up around airplanes and took fights all the time. Her goal is to use it to help pilots deal with problems that could have deadly results once the plane takes off — a topic that has been in the news lately. For her, it’s a mix of two of her interests.

In her free time, Thessalonika enjoys playing tennis, swimming and being active in her youth group at church. She also has three self-published books, which are on her site. Jump the Education Barrier is written to help students finish college, and in the future aims to help business owners with trends. Her third book The Genius Race is designed to help people to be talents in various areas of life.

1. Which of the following is TRUE about Thessalonika?

A．When she was 6 years old, she started homeschooling.

B．She gained her master’s degree at the age of 11.

C．She majored in science and technology.

D．In 2013 she got her bachelor’s degree through completing courses online.

2. What is her next plan according to the passage?

A．Major in aviation psychology.

B．Deliver inspiring speeches for church events and leadership meetings.

C．Be active in her youth group at church.

D．Write another book to help people to be talents.

3. Why does she write the book Jump the Education Barrier?

A．It aims to help people to be geniuses.

B．It is intended to give students a hand to complete college.

C．It is designed to arouse people’s awareness of psychology.

D．The author hope to share her own experience with others.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．The Story of Thessalonika	B．To be a talent
C．Three Published Books	D．Homeschooling

7 . The alarm sounds. Students swing their backpack over their shoulders, board the school bus, make their way to their homeroom and the bell rings—school is back. But for more homes in America, school looks more like students waking up, making their way to the dining room or home office, setting up laptops and learning in the comfort of home.

Virtual schooling, defined as “a public school that offers only instruction in which students and teachers are separated by time and/or the location, and communication occurs through computers and/or telecommunications technology”, has increased over the past decade. According to the National Education Policy Center, enrollments (注册) in virtual schools increased by 17,000 students between the 2015—2016 school year and the 2016—2017 school year to 295,518 students.

For Arizona Virtual Academy, an online public school, they use the curriculum of K12 Inc. K12 serves students in all 50 states and more than 100 countries with digital learning platforms and technology, providing online education. “We are always improving our platforms and the technology that we use to make sure that we’re keeping up with the changing trends (趋势), not only with education but also with technology,” Dr. Kelly Van Sande said. Another piece of new technology they’ve rolled out is a new app where parents can find virtual schools available in their area.

Carrie Faulkner chose to enroll two of her children in Arizona Virtual Academy. She says they’ve done schooling online in Chicago, in California, at restaurants and on her cousin’s floor in Kansas. “It doesn’t matter whether her son is on the couch, in his bed or at the kitchen table—he can do schooling wherever he wants to,” Faulkner said. “I wish they had it for me back when I was in school. That would have been fantastic.”

1. What’s the purpose of paragraph 1?

A．To give an example of virtual schooling.

B．To introduce the topic “virtual schooling”.

C．To describe students going to school in detail.

D．To compare real schooling with virtual schooling.

2. How many students attended virtual schools during the 2015—2016 school year?

A．17,000.

B．261,518.

C．278,518.

D．295,518.

3. What can we infer about Arizona Virtual Academy?

A．They provide both online and offline education.

B．They’re intended for students in the United States.

C．Their new app lets people find schools nationwide.

D．Their platforms and technology are advanced.

4. What is Carrie Faulkner’s attitude to virtual schooling?

A．Supportive.

B．Doubtful.

C．Indifferent.

D．Concerned.