After learning the basics of tai chi in those first few classes, I found myself bored and aching from doing the same moves over and over again. Luckily, my coach taught me how to relax my muscles and focus on peace of mind while performing the routine. With these requirements of tai chi in mind, I found to my satisfaction that
In time, I began to look into the ancient Chinese culture behind tai chi. I discovered that
A year of practising
2 . Have you read The Tale of Peter Rabbit? It’s a very famous children’s book, written by Beatrix Potter.
Beatrix was born in 1866. She and her brother kept many small animals as pets — rabbits, mice, frogs and even bats! They both liked to draw their pets, but Beatrix liked drawing animals from her own imagination most. She also loved enjoying and drawing nature when they visited beautiful places like Scotland and the Lake District.
To make some money, Beatrix started drawing cards with animals. She liked writing and illustrating (图解) letters too. One day, she wrote a letter to her friend’s son, and told the story of Peter Rabbit. She decided to make the story into a book. The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published in 1902, and it was a great success! She wrote, illustrated and published many more books. She also created dolls, painting books, games and other things according to her characters.
Three years after The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published, Beatrix bought a farm in the Lake District. She learned about farming and bought more farms and land to help protect the landscape. She enjoyed country life very much, and was very active in protecting the environment.
When Beatrix died, she left almost all her farms and land to the National Trust, an organization which protects historic places and landscapes. You can even visit Hill Top Farm today, which is exactly like it was when Beatrix lived there!
So if you haven’t read The Tale of Peter Rabbit, or other Beatrix Potter’s books, why not visit your local library or bookshop today?
1. What inspired Beatrix Potter to write “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”?| A．Her love for farming. | B．A letter to a friend’s son. |
| C．Her interest in the environment. | D．A visit to the Lake District. |
| A．She taught art classes. | B．She created dolls and games. |
| C．She worked for the National Trust. | D．She became a professional farmer. |
| A．By writing books about it. | B．By delivering speeches. |
| C．By donating money. | D．By buying farms and land. |
| A．They were sold to private investors. | B．They were left to the National Trust. |
| C．They were turned into public parks. | D．They were used for agricultural research. |
3 . Sammie Vance, 14, knows there’s nothing worse than feeling left out. For years, she’s been helping kids who feel lonely
Sammie got the idea for the Buddy Bench program at summer camp in 2017. She thought it would be
To reduce
Before long, Sammie was helping other schools acquire benches. Her work continues to
| A．see | B．like | C．make | D．develop |
| A．idea | B．topic | C．method | D．news |
| A．recognize | B．catch | C．notice | D．surprise |
| A．strange | B．cool | C．common | D．obvious |
| A．memorized | B．requested | C．supplied | D．presented |
| A．step | B．devotion | C．section | D．stair |
| A．damages | B．labors | C．energies | D．costs |
| A．burst out | B．turned out | C．pointed out | D．got out |
| A．collected | B．kept | C．raised | D．bought |
| A．offer | B．help | C．study | D．reply |
Who is the greatest teacher in Chinese history? Many people would say: Confucius.
Confucius lived in the kingdom of Lu, part of today’s Shandong Province, during the Spring and Autumn Period. His father died when he was only 3 and he had to work
Later, he became a teacher and started the first public school in Chinese history. At that time only children
Today, people still follow Confucius’ lessons. He told us that everyone has something
Confucius is not only a great teacher,
Social media is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world today. A study carried out by the PewResearch Center showed that 92% of teenagers go online daily. The wide use of social media has changed nearly all parts of teenagers’ lives.
High school student Elly Cooper from Illinois said social media often reduces face-to-face communication. “It makes in-person relationships harder because people give attention to their phones instead of persons,” Cooper said. Yet, some people believe social media has made it easier to start relationships with anyone from anywhere.
The rise of social media has changed the way teenagers see themselves. The 19-year-old Essena O’Neill announced on the social networking service Instagram that she had stopped using social media. She thought she had gotten lost in appearing perfect online. Negative comments can also do damage to a teenager’s self-esteem (自尊). Teenagers who get negative comments can’t help but feel hurt. In particular, some social media apps such as Yik Yak may provide opportunities for cyber bullying (网络欺凌).
However, Armin Korsos, a student from Illinois, takes advantage of the comments he receives over social media to improve his videos on the social networking site YouTube. “Social media can help people show themselves and their talents to the world in a way that was never possible before,” Korsos said.
But Korsos realizes that social media has become a distraction (让人分心的事). “Social media is not all necessary, though it helps people connect with their friends and know each other well anytime.”
A. Wanting to be “liked”B. Developing good habits
C. Changing relationships
D. Opening new doors
Every week I save all the change and $1 bills I have in my purse. Then every Christmas I cash it in for as many $100 bills as the saved money gets me. I then wait for a family in need. I split the money in half and give half to the family in need and the other half to my nine-year-old son, Say’ Veon, who puts it in his savings account, to teach him about delayed satisfaction. Then he helps me get gifts or give the money to the family.
I adopted Say’ Veon after his mother, a close friend of mine, passed away from cancer before his fifth birthday. Even though Say’ Veon has dealt with great loss and sadness at such a young age, his generous spirit and loving heart shine through. He has given money to someone else who needs it more, such as his friends or classmates. Say’ Veon’s acts of kindness always blow me away and I feel blessed to have him in my life.
This week I got a call from a friend, DeeDee, who is 77 years old. She was upset because she had been cheated, and the cheaters took all the money out of her checking account which she lives on, and now she didn’t have the money to pay her rent and bills.
This morning, I took the money and showed Say’ Veon how much I saved this year. I told him what happened to DeeDee, and then asked him if he would be willing to give his half along with my half and donate it to her as our person in need this year.
He said, “Yes, of course.” This year our total was $400.
We went to visit DeeDee and my son handed her a Christmas card with the money. She opened it and said, “Thank you.” She then looked again and stared at the $100 bills.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150个左右；2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
DeeDee froze there with her eyes wide open.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Suddenly, Say’ Veon said to DeeDee, “You are our family!”
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The Yingge dance is a combination of opera, dance and wushu. Typically, the dance
On Chinese New Year, a Yingge team
The dance team’s commitment
So far, the Yingge dance
8 . Robert Mendez Jr. is a football coach. Despite being born without limbs (四肢), he has spent his life on what he can
This year, Robert
As Robert accepted the
He said, “If there’s any
When talking of
Robert may have been born without arms or legs, but he was
| A．imagine | B．do | C．tolerate | D．benefit |
| A．sponsored | B．valued | C．created | D．received |
| A．deserving | B．demanding | C．formal | D．fortunate |
| A．player | B．individual | C．match | D．witness |
| A．donation | B．challenge | C．proposal | D．award |
| A．shared | B．obtained | C．repeated | D．proved |
| A．chance | B．joy | C．message | D．warning |
| A．intelligent | B．far | C．respectful | D．fit |
| A．write down | B．talk about | C．advocate for | D．focus on |
| A．competing | B．coaching | C．giving | D．learning |
| A．potential | B．shortcoming | C．question | D．secret |
| A．comfortable | B．enthusiastic | C．pleased | D．sure |
| A．last | B．happen | C．change | D．spread |
| A．eventually | B．similarly | C．obviously | D．merely |
| A．persuade | B．understand | C．defeat | D．motivate |
9 . Imagine a horizontal line. The very left is marked one thousand and the very right is marked one billion. On this line, where would you add a marker to represent one million? If you said somewhere in the middle, you answered the same as the roughly 50 percent of people who have done this exercise in a number line study. But the answer is actually much closer to one thousand since there are one thousand millions in one billion.
This error makes sense because “our human brains are pretty bad at comprehending large numbers,” says Elizabeth Toomarian, an educational neuroscientist at Stanford University. Our brain is built to understand how much of something is in its environment. But comprehending the national debt or imagining the size of our universe? “We certainly can use our brains in that way, but we’re recycling these sorts of evolutionarily (进化地) old brain architectures to do something really new,” she says. In other words, it’s not our fault that we have trouble wrapping our heads around big numbers.
So what can we do about the struggle to understand big numbers? It is suggested to use metaphors, analogies (类比) and visualizations. These techniques bring big numbers down to a more comprehensible scale (比例) and ideally make it relevant to something in our daily lives. For example, it may be difficult for most people to accurately place the extinction of the dinosaurs on a timeline between the Big Bang and humans because the first two both seem to be placed to the distant path. But when conceptualizing (概念化) these events using a “calendar”, it becomes easier. The Big Bang occurred at 12 a.m. on January 1st on the calendar. Dinosaurs were only present for roughly the last week of the year. And humans only emerged in the last eight sends December 31st, at 12:59:52 p.m. It’s clear now that dinosaurs are much closer to humans than the Big Bang on a timeline.
These metaphors and analogies are important if people are to really weigh the costs and benefits of events in their lives. The concept not only applies to long-term decisions, but public policies.
1. Why does the author mention the example in the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the topic. | B．To explain the main idea. |
| C．To make a summary of the text. | D．To make comparisons with other topics. |
| A．The lack of conceptual techniques. |
| B．The unwillingness to learn something new. |
| C．Our low ability to evaluate and compare. |
| D．Our inborn nature due to evolutionary factors. |
| A．Making them related to each other. |
| B．Wrapping our heads around them. |
| C．Using techniques to put them to a smaller scale. |
| D．Applying a calendar to present them. |
| A．How to make long-term decisions. |
| B．How metaphors and analogies help solve public problems. |
| C．How to weigh the costs and benefits in our life. |
| D．How important public policies are in our life |
10 . Top Family Vacation Destinations Everyone Will Love
Think of taking a vacation and need some inspiration for where to travel? We have you covered. Here are some of our top picks for kid-friendly destinations.
Anaheim, California
California is a great family vacation destination that you will remember forever. Additionally, there are many other places to visit around the Anaheim area besides Disneyland Park. Other attractions like Knott’s Berry Farm, a water park and museums are close by as well, so you are sure to have lots of family adventures.
Panama City, Florida
If you’re looking for some family beach fun, why not try Panama City in Florida? You’ll find white sand and a beautiful tropical climate. It is the perfect place to relax and enjoy yourself.
Salzburg, Austrian Alps, Austria
One of our top family vacation destinations outside of the United States is Salzburg. You can visit Mozart’s home and catch a concert show. Or, if you’re looking for a snowy outdoor adventure, then Austria is also a great place to go during the right time of year. Austria has some great family hotels. Some even offer baby monitors and child care available.
Dublin, Ireland
If you’re looking for peace and quiet, and beautiful surroundings, why not go to Dublin? It’s a place where your kids can run around wild and free and it also has a romantic feel. There are attractions to visit as well, such as Clara Lara Amusement Park, located in the Wicklow mountains and many other outdoor activities kids can take part in.1. Which of the following destinations is suitable for kids fond of coastal life?
| A．Anaheim, California. | B．Panama City, Florida. |
| C．Salzburg, Austrian Alps, Austria. | D．Dublin, Ireland. |
| A．White sand. | B．Wildlife. | C．Music. | D．Water. |
| A．They both feature theme parks. |
| B．They both offer child care service. |
| C．They are both perfect places for museum lovers. |
| D．They both provide visitors with a romantic feeling. |
