1 . Called the “Iron Hammer” in her playing days, Lang Ping is considered as one of the biggest heroes of Chinese sports.
At the 1981 World Cup in Japan, the Chinese women’s team showed the world their speed and power for the first time. Playing outside hitter, Lang helped the team take home its first major title. Thanks to teamwork and their strong spirit, they achieved a record of five world titles in a row, which include two World Cups, two World Championships and a gold medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Despite a lot of victories, after eight years of hard training and fighting, Lang retired as a player in 1986. But she never said goodbye to her favorite sport. In 1995, Lang became the head coach of the Chinese national team and led China to silver medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic and the 1998 World Championships in Japan.
Though she left the job in 1999 to coach an Italian club, in 2013 she returned to coach the young national team. In 2016, her team took home the gold medal at the Rio Olympics, making her the first person to win an Olympic gold for volleyball both as a player and a coach. The team was listed fourth after the preliminary competition. But Lang said in a public interview, “Sometimes you know you may not win, but you still have to pull out all the stops.”
Lang plays an important role in the creation and passing on of an honorable tradition of fighting and teamwork. “The spirit of Chinese women’s volleyball team is never to give up. My duty as the coach is to guide this young team to carry on this spirit,” said Lang. The spirit is about more than sport; it is an important source of spiritual strength for the country to draw on in its effort to press ahead.
1. When did Lang win her first world champion?| A．In 1981. | B．In 1984. | C．In 1986. | D．In 1995. |
| A．They won the first prize. |
| B．They had a good start. |
| C．They won all the games. |
| D．They didn’t enter the final. |
| A．Put you on the spot. | B．End up with the game. |
| C．Go all out. | D．Catch your eye. |
| A．We have to do sports every day. |
| B．We should keep fighting to the end. |
| C．We should try our best to be a coach. |
| D．We must spend time learning volleyball. |
| A．Lang Ping, a very strict coach |
| B．Lang Ping, a hero of Chinese sports |
| C．The Chinese people’s love for volleyball |
| D．The spirit of Chinese women’s volleyball team |
Stephen Curry, the son of the famous basketball star Dell Curry, is also a well-known NBA basketball player in the world. He spent his childhood years
1. Who is Mary?
| A．The woman’s mother. |
| B．The woman’s aunt. |
| C．The woman’s sister. |
| A．She competed in the Olympics and won. |
| B．She retired from swimming. |
| C．She worked at a bank. |
| A．In 1984. | B．In 1988. | C．In 2000. |
4 . When Kevin Durant gave his tearful MVP speech in 2014, the NBA star made sure to thank one person who had been there with him from the very beginning: his mother. His heartfelt words about the sacrifices she made for Durant and his brother led to a lifetime movie about her journey as a single parent, The Real MVP: The Wanda Durant Story.
Today, the NBA superstar’s mom travels the country as a motivational speaker and philanthropist (慈善家). On Monday, she spoke at Thomson Reuters’ in New York about her personal struggles to achieve financial stability and shared the financial advice she gave her son when he entered the league with CNBC.
“I wanted him to realize he has worked hard,” she says, “And it is OK for him to enjoy himself because of his hard work. But it is also imperative that he prepares for his future.” While she advised him to enjoy the rewards of his labor, she also wanted to make sure that her son knew the importance of financial planning.
She told the audience that when she found herself a single parent to two children at 21, she couldn’t follow the financial principles. Rather than planning for the future, she focused only on how her money could make ends meet for that moment.
Recently, Durant has teamed up with Laurene Powell Jobs for a new philanthropic program called College Track which is aimed at helping disadvantaged kids attend college. As part of the program, Durant has committed to donating $10 million to his hometown’s public school system.
Durant’s mom says that in addition to his financial decisions, she is proud of his philanthropic work and his desire to help the community. “I thought giving back was always very important, and so we talked about that and he had seen that from us as a family and it’s one of the things that I taught him,” she says.
1. What is The Real MVP: The Wanda Durant Story mainly about?| A．Durant’s career path. |
| B．Durant’s hard childhood. |
| C．Durant’s mother’s devotion to the family. |
| D．Durant’s mother’s struggling to be independent. |
| A．Enjoyable. | B．Important. |
| C．Unusual. | D．Hopeful. |
| A．To share experience of her life and education on her son. |
| B．To make Durant realize the importance of financial planning. |
| C．To give the audience advice on how to achieve financial stability. |
| D．To explain that we can enjoy rewards by working hard. |
| A．Enjoying now and planning for the future. |
| B．Sharing rewards and creating a charity program. |
| C．Spending less money and saving for the emergencies. |
| D．Donating money to the charity and helping more schools. |
| A．His kind heart. | B．His poor hometown. |
| C．His mother’s teaching. | D．His difficult life experiences. |
5 . Do you like running enough to make it a habit? Tierney Wolfgram does; she has made running a lifelong career and isn’t stopping.
In February, the 16-year-old from Woodbury High School, Minnesota, US, competed at the 2020 US Olympic Trials.
She finished the marathon (42.195 km) with a time of 2:42:47 as the youngest competitor in the race and ranked 76th out of 390 runners.
However, the cross-country (越野的) season was postponed to winter because of the coronavirus pandemic. So she jumped at the opportunity to train for another race — the Parkway Marathon in California.
In November, Wolfgram, who turned 17, broke the Women’s American Junior marathon record with her time of 2:31:49. The old record was 2:34:32, which had stood since 1984.
“I’m absolutely stunned,” said Wolfgram’s assistant coach, EmKay Sullivan. “I knew she was going to break it, but she really showed out!”
During the run, Wolfgram once hit a wall pretty hard, but she overcame it to finish. “I guess I can say I gave it my all,” she told Runner’s World.
“I When I finished all was thinking was I was super happy,” Wolfgram said.
This was only her third marathon. In 2018, when Wolfgram was 15 years old, she ran her first marathon just because she wanted to see if she was capable of doing it. “I believed that I would get faster as the distances got longer… and I’m still gad that I did it.”
When preparing for that first marathon, she ran up to 120 miles (about 190 kilometers) per week.
Although her parents didn’t have any background in running, they helped Wolfgram train. At first, her dad would take her out in the morning and run about l3 miles. The distance would gradually increase each day. On top of her runs in the morning, she would do cross-country practice after school.
After the Parkway Marathon, Wolfgram shifted to recovery mode. She and her team now prepare for the indoor track and cross-country race this winter.
As for the marathon, Wolfgram will consider attending the Olympics Games in 2024 after it’s scheduled.
1. Why does Wolfgram choose running as a career?| A．She enjoys it so much. |
| B．She can earn a lot of money. |
| C．She wants to compete in Olympics. |
| D．She doesn’t want to be stopped by others. |
| A．Only adults cold compete in the cross country season. |
| B．She was not fully prepared for the cross-country season. |
| C．The cross-country season was put off because of COVID-19. |
| D．The two competitions were held on the same day. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Surprised. | C．Worried. | D．Interested. |
| A．Her coach’s support. | B．Her parents’ encouragement. |
| C．Her hope to break the national record. | D．Her desire to prove to herself she could do it. |
| A．Strong-willed. | B．Outgoing. |
| C．Humorous. | D．Modest. |
The legendary charity runner Rosie Swale Pope has jogged (慢跑) her way across Europe to Istanbul, Turkey, as she continues her 6,000-mile journey from Brighton in the U.K. to Kathmandu in Nepal. The 73-year-old took on the challenge in an effort to raise support to improve health, education and living of local communities in Nepal, which was destroyed by a destructive earthquake in 2015.
“It is not about just giving people food. It is about helping these talented people to grow their own food,” she said as she jogged by the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, the top tourist attractions in Istanbul.
Pope, from Tenby, Wales, began her journey to Kathmandu from Brighton, a town on the English Channel, in July 2018. Turkey is the 13th country she’s jogged through. The Republic of Georgia is next on her itinerary.
“I never know where I sleep every night. I sleep in fields. I sleep in the streets. I get up and run. I meet people I would never meet any other way,” she said. She transports her belongings in a bright red cart (手推车) that she drags behind her while she runs.
Recognized as one of the world’s longest solo runners, she ran around the world in 2004 to raise money for charity, and in 2015 she ran across the United States — from New York to San Francisco — to honor her late husband, Clive, who died from prostate cancer.
Her adventures also include sailing alone from the U.K. to the U.S. in a 17-foot boat. She described herself as “just an ordinary person, and I am old,” but she’s made special connections all over the world. “I meet people I would never meet any other way and actually it is a way of giving more to life because I have more. You don’t go out and you don’t wait for the world to come to you,” she said.
1. What’s the purpose of Pope’s jogging from Brighton to Kathmandu? (no more than 15 words)2. What does the underlined word in Paragraph 3 probably mean? (1 word)
3. How does Pope bring her belongings when she jogs? (no more than 10 words)
4. What did Pope do in 2015? (no more than 15 words)
5. What do you think of Pope? Please explain. (no more than 20 words)
“Tennis – I’m saying goodbye.” With these words, Russian tennis superstar Maria Sharapova, 32, has announced her retirement.
“How do you leave behind the only life you’ve ever known?” she asked herself. Several reasons played a role in Sharapova leaving the tennis court for good.
Over the last couple of years, she’s dealt with an injury in her right shoulder and inflammation (炎症) in her forearms that may have prevented her from returning to top form. In more recent news, the death of her longtime friend, US basketball legend Kobe Bryant, also played a factor in her decision to retire.
“As I think you’ve seen throughout my career, my perseverance ( 毅 力 ) has been my greatest tool, my greatest strength,” Sharapova said in an interview. “But I’ve started feeling like it was becoming a weakness, because the stubbornness (执着) that was keeping me going was keeping me going for wrong reasons.”
Sharapova rose to stardom (明星身份) at age 17 when she won Wimbledon in 2004. She won a total of four Grand Slam singles titles: the 2006 US Open, the 2008 Australian Open, and the 2012 and 2014 French Open. She also earned the Fed Cup title in Russia in 2008 and an Olympic silver medal in singles in 2012, among many other accomplishments.
For 16 straight years from 2004, Sharapova was the world’s highest-earning female athlete, according to Forbes. Off the court, she made millions of dollars from companies such as Evian and Nike, as well as starting her own candy company.
“Tennis showed me the world --- and it showed me what I was made of,” Sharapova wrote on Facebook on Feb 26, alongside a photo of herself as a young girl with a tennis racquet (球拍). “It’s how I tested myself and how I measured my growth. And so in whatever I might choose for my next chapter, my next mountain, I’ll still be pushing, I’ll still be climbing，I’ll still be growing.”
1. What made Maria Sharapova decide to retire at the age of 32? (no more than 10 words)2. What does Para. 5 mainly talk about? (no more than 10 words)
3. How did Maria Sharapova become the world’s highest-earning female athlete? (no more than 20 words)
4. What does the underlined sentence mean in the last paragraph? (no more than 10 words)
5. Do you think perseverance (毅力) is always our greatest tool? Give your reason. (no more than 20 words)
It was a need that he first
Dale took his mother’s advice, tried desperately and after several attempts
Out of this early struggle to
| A．admitted | B．filled | C．supplied | D．recognized |
| A．assignment | B．education | C．advantage | D．instruction |
| A．training | B．board | C．teaching | D．equipment |
| A．between | B．during | C．over | D．through |
| A．while | B．when | C．because | D．though |
| A．permits | B．interest | C．talent | D．clothes |
| A．on | B．for | C．in | D．with |
| A．light | B．flexible | C．optimistic | D．outgoing |
| A．gaining | B．achieving | C．developing | D．obtaining |
| A．prevent | B．protect | C．save | D．free |
| A．suggested | B．demanded | C．required | D．insisted |
| A．presence | B．practice | C．patience | D．potential |
| A．hopefully | B．certainly | C．finally | D．naturally |
| A．key | B．breaking | C．basic | D．turning |
| A．progress | B．experience | C．competence | D．confidence |
| A．horse-riding | B．football | C．speech | D．farming |
| A．in return | B．in brief | C．in turn | D．in fact |
| A．convey | B．overcome | C．understand | D．build |
| A．express | B．stress | C．contribute | D．repeat |
| A．besides | B．beyond | C．like | D．with |
