2 . Scotland is packed with beautiful places to visit and you could honestly spend months and months exploring everything this wonderful country has to offer! Next I’m going to take you through some of the best place to visit in Scotland, based on where we have personally visited so far!

Glen Coe

If you asked me where my favourite place to visit in all of Scotland is... I would say, Glen Coe. The whole area of Glen Coe constantly had my face in shock due to the beauty that I was witnessing1 was witnessing (亲眼看见). It’s just a stream of dramatic mountains, lakes, rugged (崎岖的) beauty and more.

Fort William

Fort William is probably one of the most well-known places to visit in Scotland. It’s a popular tourist destination thanks to being home to the UK’s tallest mountain: Ben Nevis. Fort William is also the starting point for one of the world’s most famous train rides: The Jacobite. Harry Potter fans will recognize it as the Hogwarts Express, and this train ride will take you through the beautiful countryside, crossing some iconic Harry Potter filming locations such as the Dumbledore’s Grave and the Glenfinnan Viaduct!

Isle Of Skye

This island feels totally different from other parts of Scotland and is truly rugged and ready! There are many hot spots to explore including the Old Man of Storr, the Fairy Glen. I even stayed on a private island with its very own lighthouse, which was one of the coolest places I’ve ever visited and one of the most romantic places stay in Scotland.

Cairngorms National Park

This is the largest national park in the UK so it’s another popular place to visit in Scotland and it’s no surprise why. It’s absolutely beautiful and there’s so much happening at the Cairngorms National Park! From skiing or meeting local reindeers, you’ll not go bored and you’ll be surrounded by beauty the entire time.

1. Which place probably attracts Harry Potter fans most?

A．Glen Coe.	B．Isle Of Skye.
C．Cairngorms National Park.	D．Fort William.

2. What can you see in Cairngorms National Park?

A．The Jacobite.	B．Local reindeers.
C．The UK’s tallest mountain.	D．A cool lighthouse.

3. Where is the text probably from?

A．A geography textbook	B．A science journal.
C．A travel blog.	D．A diary.

5 . There are many famous lakes in China. The following are some of them.

West Lake, Hangzhou

West Lake is a gift of nature. Located in the west part of Hangzhou and surrounded (围绕) by green hills, this lake is famous for beautiful scenery, a lot of historical sites and native products. In addition, West Lake can always be seen in paintings.

Kanas Lake, Xinjiang

Kanas Lake is one of the deepest lakes in China. It is home to about 800 kinds of plants and more than 100 kinds of birds. Surrounded by snow-capped mountains and thick forest, the lake takes on different colors in different seasons. Kanas Lake is also a mysterious (神秘的) place, and it’s said that large creatures have been seen in it.

Erhai Lake, Yunnan

Located in the northwest part of Dali City, Yunnan Province, Erhai Lake is a plateau (高原) lake. As the lake has a shape of an ear, it gets the name Erhai. Called “the pearl on plat-eau” for its beautiful scenery, it is also one of the most attractive places in Yunnan.

Yamdrok Lake, Tibet

Surrounded by beautiful snow-capped mountains, this lake is fed by many small streams.

With an area of 675 square kilometers, this lake has large lakeside grassland, which serves as highland pastures (牧场). There are lots of fish living in the lake, which are caught by local people. From April to October, fish caught in this lake are sold at the market in Lhasa.

1. Which lake is preferred by painters according to the text?

A．Yamdrok Lake.

B．Kanas Lake.

C．Erhai Lake.

D．West Lake.

2. What do Kanas Lake and Yamdrok Lake have in common?

A．They are fed by many small rivers.

B．They can serve as highland pastures.

C．They are surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

D．They are famous for a lot of strange animals.

3. Why does Erhai Lake get its name?

A．It looks like an ear.	B．It is very beautiful.
C．It is a plateau lake.	D．It has many stories.

7 . 阅读下面短文,在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Shanghai is a window into a China that is open to the world. Shanghai is the place where East meets West,     1     where China meets the world. Shanghai culture is amazing, and the city is filled with smart people, dynamic interactions, a     2     (willing) to move and an appetite for being modern while embracing diversity and creating     3     business friendly environment. Shanghai is a people-centric city. I stayed in Shanghai during the pandemic and now my perception of the city     4     (change) as 1 experienced a city that cares about its citizens regardless of their nationality and origin. I felt     5     (protect) and safe during the crisis. I was very touched when Shanghai set up a hotline for foreigners to help     6     (they) during the crisis.

Shanghai is a big city in the world. While it is     7     (deep) rooted in Chinese culture, Shanghai has also moved     8     the times and become a modern metropolis From doing sports and running on Bund to traditional Chinese art or modern Western art museums, every activity is feasible in Shanghai.     9     I like the most are the traditional wet markets, restaurants     10     (offer) various dishes and the numerous cultural activities that are available there.

8 . London’s newest skyscraper (摩天大楼)is called the Shard and it cost about 430 million pounds to build. At a height of almost 310 metres, it is the tallest building in Europe. The Shard has completely changed the appearance of London. However, not everyone thinks that it is a change for the better.
The Shard was designed by the famous Italian architect Renzo Piano. When he began designing the Shard for London, Piano wanted a very tall building that looked like a spire (尖顶)• He wanted the glass surfaces to reflect the sky and the city. The sides of the building aren’t regular. So the building has an unusual shape. It looks like a very thin，sharp piece of broken glass. And that is how the building got the name: the Shard. Piano says that the spire shape of the Shard is part of a great London tradition. The shape reminds him of the spires of the churches of London or the tall masts (桅杆）of the ships that were once on the river Thames.
The Shard has 87 floors. At the top, there is an observatory. At the moment the building is empty, but eventually there will be a five-star hotel. There will also be top quality restaurants, apartments and offices.
Before building work began, a lot of people didn’t want the Shard though the plans were approved. Now they are still unhappy about the Shard. Some critics say that such a tall skyscraper might be good in a city like New York, but not in London. They say that the best thing about the Shard is its spire shape. But that is the only thing. There is no decoration, only flat surfaces. The Egyptians did that 4,500 years ago. They also think the Shard is too big for London. It destroys the beauty of the city.
Other critics don’t like what the Shard seems to represent. They say that the Shard shows how London is becoming more unequal. Only very rich people can afford to buy the expensive private apartments and stay in the hotel. But the people who live near the Shard are among the poorest in London. So the Shard seems a symbol of the division in society between the very rich and the poor.
The Shard now dominates the London skyline. It is not certain, however, that ordinary London citizens will ever accept it as a valuable addition to the city.
1. London’s newest skyscraper is called the Shard because of ._____

A．its cost

B．its size

C．its shape

D．its height

2. When he designed the Shard, Piano wanted it to _____

A．change London’s skyline

B．inherit London’s tradition

C．imitate the Egyptian style

D．attract potential visitors

3. The critics who refer to social division think the Shard_______ .

A．is only preferred by the rich

B．is intended for wealthy people

C．is far away from the poor area

D．is popular only with Londoners

4. Which would be the best title for the passage?

A．The Shard: Cheers and Claps

B．The Shard: Work of a Great Architect

C．The Shard: New Symbol of London?

D．The Shard: A Change for the Better?

9 . An underwater robot named Icefin has gone to the bottom of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier (冰川) recently, which is one of Antarctica’s fastest melting glaciers. Even so, scientists learned unexpectedly that waters at the ground line, the region where the glacier meets the sea, are more than 2 degrees Celsius above the normal freezing temperature.

The journey to collect the data wasn’t easy. Scientists dropped Icefin through a 700-meter-deep hole they had drilled through the glacier. “We’re proud of Icefin, since it represents a new way of looking at glaciers,” said Britney Schmidt, lead scientist for Icefin. “For really the first time, we can drive miles under the ice to measure and map processes we can’t otherwise reach. We’ve taken the first close-up look at a grounding zone. It’s our ‘walking on the moon’ moment.” The grounding zone is the region where the bottom of the glacier meets the sea water beneath it.

The team spent the last two months in minus 30℃ weather at the glacier for the project. After going down the nearly half-mile hole through the glacier, Icefin swam more than a mile to the grounding zone. As it moved along, Icefin took measurements and recorded what it saw with an inside camera so that scientists could later map the area, as well as understand the temperatures and the changing landscape there.

Thwaites Glacier, roughly the size of Florida, which prevents the ice behind it from freely flowing into the ocean, is melting at an increasingly fast rate. Its melting already accounts for about 4% of the global sea rise, Georgia Tech reported. The amount of ice flowing out of Thwaites into the sea has doubled in the past 30 years, greatly changing the landscape, temperatures and the ecosystem of Antarctica.

“We know that warmer ocean waters are eroding many of West Antarctica’s glaciers, but we’re particularly concerned about Thwaites,” Keith Nicholls, an oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey and the United Kingdom lead on the team, said in the Georgia Tech statement. “This new data will provide a new viewpoint of the processes taking place, so we can predict future change with more certainty.”

1. What were scientists surprised to discover at the bottom of Thwaites Glacier?

A．A melting glacier.	B．Warm waters.
C．The ground line.	D．An underwater robot.

2. What did Icefin do as it moved along underwater?

A．It took photos.	B．It mapped the area.
C．It drilled holes.	D．It measured sea water temperature.

3. From paragraph 4, we can infer Thwaites Glacier ________.

A．is extremely vital to Antarctica	B．is a lot larger than Florida, USA
C．is melting the fastest in Antarctica	D．is to blame for the global sea rise entirely

4. What does the underlined word “eroding” in the last paragraph mean?

A．Accumulating.	B．Shaping.
C．Raising.	D．Destroying.

10 . If you live in a town or city on the edge of a desert or coastline where sand dunes form, you might understand the threat they can have. It’s, sometimes, a piece of cake for them to cover roads, buildings, farms and other man-made developments with their unpredictable movements. Thus, figuring out how they move is important for preventing some natural disasters.

Now scientists have discovered that dunes have been secretly moving in ways we never knew before. There are different explanations on dune interaction, however, Karol Bacik, first author on the new dune study, and his colleagues have found a new one for dune movement. The researchers employed high-speed cameras to observe how dunes separated by distance can act as if they’re connected.

It turns out, currents flowing over sand dunes can carry “information” to other dunes downstream in the form of swirls(旋涡). For instance, as wind or water flows over the top of a dune, it slightly moves. This can generate “swirls” on the back of a downstream dune and push it in a direction opposite the movement of the front dune.

It’s the first time that researchers were able to provide causal explanations for some of these strange, previously unpredictable movements. The team also hopes to get out of the laboratory and into the real world, to see if their models can be applied to dune movements in complex natural systems. They plan to use satellite images over large deserts to track groups of dunes over long periods.

Perhaps they can start to alter the dune marching orders in the near future. Imagine being able to tell a dune field exactly how you want it to move. That’s the idea that this research might one day make possible.

1. We can learn that the purpose of the study is to _________.

A．stop the sand dunes from moving around

B．figure out the track of sand dune movements

C．prove the interaction of dunes with each other

D．examine a model of sand dunes in the real world

2. What does the underlined word “one” in Para. 2 refer to?

A．A study.

B．An interaction.

C．An explanation.

D．A dune.

3. Which of the following can we know from the passage?

A．A sand dune communicates with another only by currents.

B．Swirls on the back of a dune are the power to move itself.

C．Some strange dune movements have got causally explained before.

D．Researchers think it unnecessary to study further on the dune models.