1 . Revolutionary TV Ears

TV Ears has helped thousands of people with various degrees of hearing loss hear the television clearly without turning up the volume (音量) and now it’s better and more affordable than ever! With TV Ears wireless technology, you set your own headset volume, while other TV listeners hear the television at a volume level that’s comfortable for them. You can even listen through the headset only and put the TV on mute (静音) if the situation calls for a quiet environment — maybe the baby is sleeping. Or perhaps you are the only one who is interested in listening to theballgame.

TV Ears patented technology includes a revolutionary noise reduction ear tip, not used in any other commercially available headset. This tip reduces outside noise so that television dialogue is clear and understandable. Get the technology that has proven to help the most demanding customers. That’s why TV Ears has earned the trust and confidence of audiologists (听觉学家) nationwide as well as world-famous doctors.

Doctor Recommended TV Ears! “My wife and I have used TV Ears almost daily for the past two years and find them a great help in our enjoyment of television. As a retired ear doctor, I heartily recommend TV Ears to people with normal hearing as well as those with hearing loss.” — Robert Forbes, M. D, CA

Customer Recommended TV Ears! “Now my husband can have the volume as loud as he needs and I can have the TV at my hearing level. TV Ears is so comfortable that Jack forgets he has them on! He can once again hear and understand the dialogue.” — Darlene & Jack B, CA

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1. TV Ears helps you ________.

A．improve your sleeping quality	B．listen to TV without disturbing others
C．change TV channels without difficulty	D．become interested in ballgame programs

2. What makes TV Ears different from other headsets?

A．It can easily set TV on mute.	B．Its headset volume is adjustable.
C．It has a new noise reduction ear tip.	D．It applies special wireless technology.

3. The passage made it more believable by ________.

A．using recommendations	B．offering reasons for this invention
C．providing statistics	D．showing the results of experiments

4. In which part of a magazine can we probably find this text?

A．Sports.

B．Science.

C．Music.

D．Medicine.

4 . Eradajere Oleita thinks she may have a partial solution for two of her country’s persistent (持续的) problems: garbage and poverty (贫困). It’s called the Chip Bag Project. The 26-year-old student and environmentalist from Detroit is asking a (n) _________ of local snack lovers: Rather than _________ your empty chip bags into the trash (垃圾桶), _________ them so she can turn them into sleeping bags for the _________.

Chip eaters drop off their _________ bags from Doritos (多力多滋薯片), Lay’s (乐事薯片), and other favorites at two _________ in Detroit: a print shop and a clothing store, where Oleita and her volunteer helpers collect them. After they _________ the chip bags in soapy hot water, they _________ them open, lay them flat, and iron them together. They use soft materials from old coats to line the insides.

It _________ about four hours to sew a sleeping bag, and each takes around 150 to 300 chip bags, __________ whether they’re single-serve or family size. The result is a sleeping bag that is “waterproof, lightweight, and easy to carry __________,” Oleita told the Detroit News.

Since its start in 2020, the Chip Bag Project has __________ more than 800,000 chip bags and, as of last December, __________ 110 sleeping bags.

Sure, it would be simpler to __________ the money to buy new sleeping bags. But that’s only half the __________ for Oleita—whose family moved to the United States from Nigeria a decade ago with the hope of __________ a better life—and her fellow volunteers. “We are__________ ourselves to making an impact not only socially, but environmentally,” she says.

And, of course, there’s the symbolism of recycling bags that would otherwise land in the __________ and using them to help the homeless. It’s a powerful reminder that environmental problems and poverty often go __________. As Oleita told hourdetroit.com: “I think it’s time to show __________ between all of these issues.”

1.

A．advice

B．question

C．favor

D．permission

2.

A．throw

B．track

C．leak

D．lock

3.

A．design

B．detect

C．digest

D．donate

4.

A．homeless

B．disabled

C．old

D．sick

5.

A．heavy

B．empty

C．luxury

D．full

6.

A．moments

B．decisions

C．locations

D．conclusions

7.

A．clean

B．load

C．soften

D．resolve

8.

A．dig

B．slice

C．lift

D．knock

9.

A．pays

B．takes

C．delays

D．wastes

10.

A．resulting in

B．figuring out

C．contributing to

D．depending on

11.

A．out

B．around

C．over

D．on

12.

A．reached

B．related

C．found

D．collected

13.

A．destroyed

B．repaired

C．compared

D．created

14.

A．lose

B．lend

C．raise

D．drop

15.

A．goal

B．income

C．profit

D．way

16.

A．risking

B．recommending

C．attaining

D．realizing

17.

A．driving

B．devoting

C．enjoying

D．encouraging

18.

A．store

B．trash

C．solution

D．family

19.

A．day after day

B．step by step

C．face to face

D．hand in hand

20.

A．generations

B．inspirations

C．connections

D．expectations

6 . “It’s raining. It’s pouring. The old man is snoring (打鼾). He bumped his head when he went to bed, and he couldn’t get up in the morning.” Why couldn’t the old man in the children’s song get up? (Let’s kindly suppose that he just didn’t want to get up) This was possibly because in the absence of sunlight, the body was still producing the hotmon (激素) melatonin (褪黑素), which makes people sleepy.

There are many ways that rainfall affects human behavior. But how much does rain really affect people’s moods and behavior?

In 2008, researchers from the University of Minnesota and Lanzhou University published a paper. They proposed that decreased rainfall was influential in social upheaval (社会动荡) and the downfall of the Tang, Yuan and Ming dynasties in ancient China. This is thought to be related to reduced rice cultivation.

But how might rain affect social behavior in the modern world? A 2009 New York Times investigation found that murder rates in New York drop significantly on rainy days. Meanwhile, in Britain, Dr. Peter Langmead-Jones of Greater Manchester police published a study in 2015 detailing an analysis of 6.6 million police records over one decade in Manchester. “ The research showed that the heavier the rainfall, the lower the recorded crime,” he said.

Langmead-Jones also found that there is a strong association between heavy rain and relatively few violent crimes recorded including domestic abuse (家庭暴力). This might be because heavy rain stops people from going out to buy alcohol and the reduced alcohol consumption results in fewer crimes.

It’s not all good news though. One study in 1997 concluded that the behavior of children can predict oncoming storms — they were observed to exhibit their worst behavior when barometric (气压的) pressure fell. Another study in 2012 found that women are much more likely to be affected psychologically by rain and that they report much lower levels of life satisfaction than men on rainy days.

For all the complaints about rain, it does have some characteristics that hold broad appeal. The sound of raindrops can be very comforting and often features in sleep — inducing relaxation apps. The theory behind this is that the pitter patter of raindrops is a form of “pink noise”. It can decrease brain activity and consequently improves the quality of sleep. So if it’s raining where you are, the best thing to do may be to have a nap.

1. The author uses the lyrics of a song in the first paragraph to ______.

A．introduce the interesting song to readers

B．voice his understanding of why the old man couldn’t get up in the morning

C．illustrate one way that wet weather influences human behavior

D．explain why people often get up late on rainy days

2. What is the meaning of the underlined word in the third paragraph?

A．Success.

B．Prosperity.

C．Failure.

D．Development.

3. According to Dr. Peter Langmead-Jones, relatively few crimes are recorded on rainy days because ______.

A．people prefer to take a nap at home when it’s raining

B．most people are depressed on rainy days

C．people are too lazy to go out when it’s raining

D．alcohol consumption is reduced due to wet weather

4. According to the article, the influences that rainy days have on human behavior include ______.
①decreased grain output
②relatively few criminal records
③higher chance of feeling low in spirits
④more possibility of feeling sleepy

A．①②③

B．①②④

C．①③④

D．②③④

5. According to the last paragraph, what’s the positive impact of rain on human behavior?

A．The sound of raindrops helps people sleep better.

B．On rainy days, all people can get more sleep.

C．It offers a good chance to listen to relaxing music.

D．People feel more satisfied with themselves when it’s raining.

7 . 阅读短文，并按照题目要求用英语回答问题。

They asked Katherine Johnson for the moon, and she gave it to them. With little more than a pencil, a slide rule (计算尺) and one of the finest mathematical minds in the country, Mrs. Johnson, who died at 101 on Monday, calculated the precise track that would let Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969 and, after Neil Armstrong’s history — making moonwalk, let it return to Earth.

Mrs. Johnson was one of several hundred strictly educated, supremely capable yet largely unrecognized women who, well before the modern feminist (男女平等主义者) movement, worked as NASA mathematicians. But it was not only her sex that kept her long unsung. For some years at midcentury, the black women were subjected to a double separation (隔离): They were kept separate from the much larger group of white women who in turn were separated from the agency’s male mathematicians and engineers.

Mrs. Johnson broke barriers at NASA. In old age, Mrs. Johnson became the most celebrated of the black women who served as mathematicians for the space agency. Their story was told in the 2016 Hollywood film Hidden Figures, which was nominated for three Oscars, including best picture.

In 2017, NASA dedicated a building in her honor. That year, The Washington Post described her as “the most high-profile of the computers” — “computers” being the term originally used to describe Mrs. Johnson and her colleagues, much as “typewriters” were used in the 19th century to represent professional typists.

She “helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space,” NASA’s administrator, Jim Bridenstine, said in a statement on Monday, “even as she made huge steps that also opened doors for women and people of color in the universal human quest to explore space.”

As Mrs. Johnson herself was fond of saying, her term at Langley — from 1953 until her retirement in 1986 — was “a time when computers wore skirts.”

1. What did Mrs. Johnson do as a NASA mathematicians, according to Paragraph 1? (no more than 15 words)
2. What barrier(s) did Mrs. Johnson have to break at NASA? (no more than 10 words)
3. How did NASA recognize Mr. Johnson’s contribution? (no more than 10 words)
4. What does the underlined phrases mean in the last paragraph? (no more than 10 words)
5. What do you learn from Mrs. Johnson’s experience? (no more than 20 words)

8 . Smartphones are our constant companions. For many of us, their glowing screens are a ubiquitous (十分普遍的) presence, drawing us in with endless distractions. They are in our hands as soon as we wake, and command our attention until the final moments before we fall asleep.

Steve Jobs would not approve.

In 2007, Jobs took the stage and introduced the world to the iPhone. If you watch the full speech, you will be surprised by how he imagined our relationship should be with this iconic (标志性的) invention. This vision is so different from the way most of us use these devices now.

In his remarks, Jobs spent an extended amount of time demonstrating how users could utilize (应用) its touch screen before detailing the many ways Apple engineers had improved the age-old process of making phone calls. “It’s the best iPod we’ve ever made,” Jobs exclaimed at one point. “The killer app is making calls,” he later added. Both lines drew thunderous applause.

The presentation confirms that Jobs imagined a simpler iPhone experience than the one we actually have more than a decade later. For example, there was no App Store when the iPhone was first introduced, and this was by design. Jobs was convinced that the phone’s carefully-designed native features were enough. He did not seek to completely change the rhythm of users’ daily lives. He simply wanted to take experiences we had already found important — listening to music, placing calls, generating directions — and make them better.

The minimalist (简约主义者) vision for the iPhone Jobs offered in 2007 is unrecognizable today — and that is a shame.

Under what I call the “constant companion model,” we now see our smartphones as always-on portal (通道) to information. We have become so used to it over the past decade that it is easy to forget the novelty (新奇) of the device. It seems increasingly clear to me that Jobs probably got it right from the very beginning: Many of us would be better-off returning to his original minimalist vision for our phones.

Practically speaking, to be a minimalist smartphone user means only using your device for a small number of features that do things of value to you. Otherwise, you simply put it away outside of these activities. This approach removes this gadget (小玩意) from the position of a constant companion down to a luxury object, such as a fancy bike, that gives you great pleasure when you use it but does not dominate your entire day.

Early in his 2007 keynote jobs said, “Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” What he didn’t add, however, was the follow-up promise: “Tomorrow, we’re going to reinvent your life.” The smartphone is fantastic, but it was never meant to be the foundation for a new form of existence. If you return this innovation to its original role, you will get more out of both your phone and your life.

1. According to Steve Jobs, what was the main selling point of Apple’s first iPhone?

A．It allowed its users to have access to the Internet.

B．It was actually an iPod that could make phone calls.

C．It was installed with applications by third-party developers.

D．It could fulfill people’s desire to multitask in their daily lives.

2. According to the article, a minimalist smartphone user is likely to ________.

A．expect to reinvent his life with the device

B．buy the latest model of iPhone and see it as a luxury

C．spend more time working than playing with his device

D．remove the unnecessary applications from the device

3. The underlined word “it” in the 7^th paragraph probably refers to ________.

A．the native features of smartphones	B．the information on the Internet
C．the novelty of the device	D．the constant companion model

4. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．The minimalism of iPhone helps users bring out the best of the device.

B．Jobs expected iPhone to be the foundation for a new form of existence.

C．Smartphone users have changed their life to enjoy pleasant experiences.

D．The invention of App Store has made smartphones luxury objects.

5. The author’s purpose in writing the article was to ________.

A．tell readers why Steve Job created the iPhone

B．remind readers not to be addicted to their smartphones

C．show readers that smartphones can greatly change their lives

D．encourage readers to block Internet access on their smartphones

9 . It’s hard to turn down hamburgers, French fries, potato chips and all of the other junk food that seem to call out to us. However, eating too much junk food can harm your body, particularly if you’re between the ages of 10 and 19.

“Junk food shapes adolescent brains in ways that impair (损害) their ability to think, learn and remember. It can also make it harder to control impulsive (冲动的) behaviors, said Amy Reichelt, a brain and nutrition specialist at Western University, Canada. “It may even increase a teen’s risk of depression and anxiety.”

Reichelt and two other researchers reviewed more than 100 studies, including their own, about how poor food choices can impact adolescent brains. They found adolescents are more sensitive than any other age group to processed foods with a lot of fat and sugar as their brains are not yet fully formed.

Adolescent brains are still developing the ability to assess risks and control actions. The prefrontal cortex (前额皮质) is the part of the brain that tells us we shouldn’t eat chips all the time and helps us resist that urge. However, this region is the last to mature — it doesn’t fully develop until we are in our early 20s.

Meanwhile, teen brains get more buzz (兴奋) from rewards. The parts of the brain that make us feel good when we do something pleasurable — like eating tasty foods — are fully developed by the teen years.

In fact, these regions are even more sensitive when we are young. That’s because dopamine (多巴胺), a natural chemical that lifts our mood when we experience something good, is especially active in adolescent brains.

Therefore, the teen brain has two strikes against it when it comes to resisting junk food. “It has a heightened drive for rewards and reduced self-regulation,” said Reichelt.

Reichelt and her team conducted their own study using mice, whose brains develop much like our own. They discovered that the “teenage” mice that had a high-fat diet performed worse on memory tests than those eating a normal diet. Researchers said the high-fat diet may make the mice’s prefrontal cortex work less effectively.

So, what’s the best way to say no to junk food? Researchers suggest exercise. When we exercise, the brain’s reward system becomes less sensitive to food cues (线索). Exercise also triggers the body to make a protein that helps brain cells grow and boosts connections between the prefrontal cortex and other brain regions. The prefrontal cortex thus can work better to help us make wise decisions and control our impulses.

1. What is the purpose of the first two paragraphs?

A．To figure out what junk food is.

B．To explain the dangers of junk food.

C．To show how junk food affect the brain.

D．To analyze why junk food is hard to resist.

2. What makes it harder for young people to resist junk food according to the study?

A．Processed food makes them sensitive.

B．It is hard to control impulsive behaviors.

C．Their still-developing prefrontal cortex.

D．The low level of dopamine in their brains.

3. What did the study on mice prove?

A．Our mood could suffer from eating junk food.

B．High-fat diets may negatively affect our creativity.

C．The brain of a mouse is similar to that of a person’s.

D．High-fat diets can harm our ability to process information.

4. How does exercise help us according to the last paragraph?

A．It reduces the desire for junk food.

B．It activates the brain’s reward system.

C．It helps the prefrontal cortex work better with dopamine.

D．It makes the body produce a protein that controls our impulses.

5. What column of the newspaper is the article probably taken from?

A．Fashion.

B．Technology.

C．Health.

D．Entertainment.

10 . Ebra Ferrell got the standard well wishes on social media on her 53rd birthday. Meanwhile, she got some _______ messages too. One was about a family who had just _______ their four-year-old son due to cancer. His older brother was especially _______. Could Ferrell help?

That _______ and the 30 others like it were exactly what Ferrell was looking for. To celebrate her 53rd, Ferrell had put out a(n) _______ on social media. She wanted to _______ 53 random acts of kindness by the end of her birth month, and she needed _______ on people who could use one. When she got the note about the family, she sent a wind chime (风铃) with the words “Listen to the wind and know that I am near” _______ on it. It now _______ in the four-year-old’s bedroom, where his brother can go to listen to it whenever he wants.

This is not the first time that Ferrell has decided to give ________ for her birthday. For her 47th, she ________ Love with Skin On, an organization devoted to doing good deeds in her town and ________. Its motto is simple: Be Love, Do Stuff. Over the years, Ferrell has ________ and touched well over 100 strangers, some found via social media callouts, others with ________ from her grandkids.

Ferrell ________ everything herself: gift cards, pay-it-forward purchases, and care packages, as well as the gas it ________ to play fairy godmother (仙女玩具). Her family often gives some ________ birthday cash to her with their   ________ not to spend it on anyone else, which she ________ ignores. “I got a couple of Amazon gift cards for my birthday this year, and ‘YESSS!’” It’s Ferrell’s party, and she’ll ________ if she wants to.

1.

A．mysterious

B．unusual

C．amazing

D．embarrassing

2.

A．lost

B．missed

C．cured

D．ignored

3.

A．eye-opening

B．breathtaking

C．heartbroken

D．absent-minded

4.

A．message

B．boy

C．disease

D．victim

5.

A．rule

B．call

C．apology

D．reply

6.

A．offer

B．count

C．request

D．gather

7.

A．agreement

B．comment

C．restriction

D．information

8.

A．invented

B．carved

C．shaped

D．painted

9.

A．hides

B．lies

C．hangs

D．runs

10.

A．treatments

B．instructions

C．presents

D．ceremonies

11.

A．founded

B．visited

C．investigated

D．thanked

12.

A．upward

B．above

C．beneath

D．beyond

13.

A．settled in

B．moved on

C．slowed down

D．reached out

14.

A．pension

B．help

C．account

D．insurance

15.

A．makes up

B．shows off

C．pays for

D．cares about

16.

A．sells

B．takes

C．generates

D．purchases

17.

A．extra

B．precious

C．ideal

D．rare

18.

A．promise

B．command

C．alarm

D．decision

19.

A．accidentally

B．fortunately

C．hopefully

D．naturally

20.

A．behave

B．give

C．agree

D．obey