1 . One of the joys of growing up in the leafy suburbs of London was the freedom of living inside a wood. The street where my parents’ house sits runs through one comer of Epping Forest, a carefully manicured (修剪的) greenbelt to retain a sense of unspoilt wilderness. As a result, my brother and I were immediately able to go out of our back gate to climb trees, build dens in the bushes and swing on ropes hung from boughs.

My three boys also have a place, called Glamis Adventure Playground, where they can easily escape their parents, swing on ropes, and even pitch tents for an overnight camp, despite growing up in one of the UK’s most deprived and densely populated boroughs. It’s an oasis of fun for young people constructed on a wasteland with the aim of enabling children to create their own fun.

The tragedy, however, is that they may be the last generation of inner-city kids to experience such freedom. Adventure playgrounds such as Glamis are now an endangered species, according to recent research by Play England, which found that 15 per cent of the 147 sites in operation just five years ago are now shut. Many of the playgrounds, run by local authorities, would end up getting killed off by funding cuts begun in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

But even those that still survive today remain at risk due to health and safety concerns and a downplaying by government of play as an essential part of the developmental process, according to Play England chair of trustees Anita Grant.

“Adventure playgrounds are built on trust, autonomy and freedom by children making their own games without the adults telling them what to do,” Grant says. “But there is a new way of discussing play where people talk about learning through play. As soon as you start viewing play like this, as something that needs outcomes, it stops being play for children.”

Another threat to adventure playgrounds is more pernicious than funding cuts: a fear about letting children out on their own to play. Research conducted in 2020 for the British Children’s Play Survey found the average age children were allowed out on their own was 11, two years later than their parents’ generation.

“The professionalization of parenting” — the idea that there is a recipe for children becoming well-rounded adults that has encouraged mums and dads to micromanage their offspring — is to blame. “Taking risks is a really important part of a child’s development but that often conflicts with what people feel is their responsibility as parents,” Dodd says. “Freedom of play is undervalued because we want our children to get a new skill that we can put on social media and brag about.” Typically, children must now play in a way that is being defined by adults.

1. Which of the following is NOT a reason why adventure playgrounds are becoming rare?

A．Parents tend to be afraid of letting kids play outside by themselves for safety’s sake.

B．Parents and kids are switching their attention from adventure playgrounds to social media.

C．The essential role of play in the developmental process is undervalued by the government.

D．the local authorities running these adventure playgrounds have economic difficulties.

2. The expression “in the wake of” in Paragraph 3 may mean ________.

A．irrelevant to	B．compared with
C．coming after	D．independent of

3. We may infer from the last paragraph that________.

A．Parents agree on a standard definition of play, which shouldn’t involve risk-taking.

B．Parents think social media can help their kids acquire new skills that they can brag about.

C．Parents prefer to consult a professional recipe so that their kids may become well-rounded adults.

D．Parents involve themselves too much in children’s play in the name of parental responsibility.

4. The best title of this passage may be ________.

A．Children’s play, nowadays a grown-up matter.

B．Children’s play, barely an essential part of development.

C．Children’s play, definitely a learning process.

D．Children’s play, always an undervalued skill.

2 . Whether in work or study, great people always do things as effectively as possible. Productive (高效的) people have one thing in common: A solid routine made up of small habits that helps them to keep a healthy mindset and lifestyle. Research shows a habit takes about 2l days to become normal behavior.     1    

●Make daily to-do lists.     2     Some people prefer to make their to-do lists first thing in the morning, while others like to do them each night to prepare for the day ahead. As a matter of fact, either way helps you to manage your time and workload efficiently.

●    3     Writing down your thoughts in your diary can help you achieve goals. You should even write down your progress, no matter how small it is, to help motivate you to keep going. This process will help you reflect and improve your memory and brain function.

●Have a rest. Whatever you are working on, you do not have to use up every ounce of energy you have.     4     When coming back, you’ll become clear-headed and happy, leading to greater productivity than just rushing through it.

●Clean up and organize for tomorrow.     5     It may be a little tiring. However, tidying up your home and preparing for tomorrow can prevent stress. This daily maintaining can ensure that you do not have to spend an entire afternoon cleaning during the weekend.

A．Keep a journal.

B．Make great progress.

C．Making a list of tasks for the day helps you to stay on track.

D．After a long day, the last thing you may want to do is clean.

E．Take a break at the same time each day, despite just 10 minutes.

F．You should be energetic all day and spare no effort to finish your work.

G．Here are some habits you can start practicing to become more productive.

4 . 阅读下面短文，根据题目要求用英文回答问题。

Since there seems to be an app for everything, it may come as no surprise that there is an app for cheating. But it isn't just one app. It's hundreds of companies and apps that can be used to complete students' homework, and even exams

But what surprised me most as an educator playing this cat-and-mouse game for decades is that cheating is now spreading internationally and powered by billion-dollar companies.

Some companies offer monthly subscription formats, in which students pay $15 a month for round-the-clock access to resources including exam questions and homework "help". They also get on-demand access to many experts with advanced degrees in math, science and other subjects. These experts, available online 24/7, are the source of step-by-step answers.

As an unintended consequence of technology allowing remote learning and exams, students are finding more and more online venues allowing them to earn grades and diplomas(文凭) by cheating.

How do we limit this global supply chain of cheating?

The answer depends on the motivation behind the decision to cheat. Some students don't think of it as cheating, as they are paying a legit(合法的) company for the service; many feel pressured to get the grades and so justify the means. Many students who are cheating avoid academic consequences, as there are few technology solutions to capture original answers provided by experts, and plagiarism-catching software can't detect original work bought by these students.

However, in 2020, lawmakers in some countries made it illegal to arrange or advertise for sale certain cheating services such as paid essay writing. Did it have an effect? According to a study, many of the biggest and best-known essay mills are ending operations. But even then, fear of getting caught is probably not enough motivation to stop all cheating students. Thus, tackling this cheating requires a collective effort by educational institutions.

1. Why did the author feel shocked?
2. How do you understand the underlined part in Para. 6?
3. Decide which part of the following statement is wrong. Underline it and explain why.
•Students' academic pressure makes online cheating widespread and some measures have been taken to fight it.
4. As a student, what do you think of online cheating?(In about 40 words)

5 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

A Montessori Education

There are now at least 60,000 schools across the world using the Montessori method. There are different kinds of Montessori schools, but certain fundamental principles have remained the same.

One is the idea of teachers encouraging the children to complete the activities with as little adult involvement as possible. Take the Ecoscuola Montessori on the Italian island of Sicily. At the school, there is a subject called “Practical Life”. It involves real-life practical tasks, such as serving drinks to their classmates. For safety, teachers would take charge of boiling the water, but the children would play active roles in cleaning the work surface and then presenting the drinks to others. “During breakfast and lunch, they are also self-directed, taking it in turns to lay the table and serve their classmates,” says Miriam Ferro, the headteacher of Ecoscuola.

The method encourages not only independence, but also cooperation. Children of different ages are taught in the same classroom, so that the six-year-olds, for example, can help the three-year-olds. In addition, each session is three hours long so as to allow the children to bury themselves in what they are doing. The learning materials are also designed for being handled and explored with all the senses. For example, letters and numbers are made of sandpaper, which the child can trace with their finger.

This concept may sound sensible. But does it bring about any tangible (实际的) benefits, beyond those seen in a typical classroom?

Angeline Lillard, a professor of psychology, found some benefits for children’s development while looking at a Montessori school in Milwaukee, in the United States. Analyzing their progress at age five, she found that the children tended to have better literacy, numeracy, executive function and social skills, compared to those who had attended the other schools. And at age 12, they showed better story-telling abilities.

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6 . Directions：Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main points of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Children Deserve Arts Education

Children are introduced to the arts in many different ways. Participation in the arts improves personal confidence, problem solving skills, and even memorization and social skills. As young brains develop, it is vital that the creative side of the brain receive equal attention to the logical side of the brain to ensure maximum education. Unfortunately, there are those who believe creativity holds little or no value. However, they could never be farther from the truth.

According to a National Education Association research report, “Teenagers and young adults of low socioeconomic status (SES), who have a history of in-depth arts involvement, show better academic outcomes than low-SES youth with less arts involvement.” This research report shows that the arts strengthen the academic hemisphere of the brain. According to recent studies, as the brain focuses on math problems or reading, only certain areas of their brain are activated. However, when teenagers and young adults are listening to music, drawing a picture or engaging the mind creatively, multiple areas of the brain are working at the same time. As a result, more areas of the brain are strengthened, resulting in stronger overall brain activity.

With all the benefits of arts education, it is shocking that some educational boards still believe sufficient education can be reached without the benefits of the arts. In January 2017, the Utah State Board of Education released an official command that added two classes to the school curriculum, requiring all students between sixth and eighth grades to take those courses. This in turn limited the opportunity for the students to take elective arts courses. This command created an uproar among parents and teachers in Canyon School District and—thanks to protests—was not put into effect.

Participation in the arts is one of the most precious gifts we can give our children. It brings them joy, creativity and helps them excel academically. Our education system is weakening the critical role the arts have in education. If we limit the arts within school systems, we take away our children’s chances of present and future accomplishments. We cannot do that. Our children need to have every opportunity to expand their minds through the means of the arts. We must give our youth the opportunities and advantages to reach their highest goals and dreams if we are to secure a bright future for generations to come.

8 . Teaching is widely recognized to be a stressful occupation, characterized by numerous and varied challenges: administrative burdens, long hours, classroom management difficulties, to name but a few.     1     They are also paid less than other workers with similar experience and education, a gap that has grown from 4.3% in 1996 to 17% in 2015. Further, teachers face significant social and political scrutiny as to how they do their jobs . 

    2     The statistics on teacher turnover are grim: Research estimates that between 19% and 30% of new teachers leave the field within the first five years of teaching, which can reduce the team spirits of their campus community and negatively affect student learning. In the most recent PDK poll, half of teachers surveyed said they had considered leaving the profession within the last year, with low pay and high stress most frequently cited as the reasons. Of course, teacher stress is not unique to the United States. In fact, research has yielded remarkably consistent findings around the world, with roughly 20-25% of the teaching workforce reporting high levels of stress.

But if it’s clear that teacher stress is widespread, it’s not always clear how teacher stress should be defined. Traditionally, educational policy research has focused on working conditions (i.e., school administration) as the main driver of occupational health. That is, teacher stress tends to be viewed as a result of working in a stressful environment, often characterized as lacking sufficient funding or effective leadership.     3     In many schools, some teachers are stressed out while others are not; but if working conditions were all that mattered, then every teacher in the school would be equally stressed.

Chris Kyriacou and others have argued that teacher stress is better understood as resulting from a mismatch between the pressures and demands made on educators and their ability to cope with those demands. Workforce conditions alone are not sufficient to explain why some teachers are highly stressed. Rather, what matters most is how each teacher sees the demands they face in relation to the resources they have available to meet those demands.     4     And if this is true, then it should be possible to identify and intervene with teachers who are most vulnerable to stress, above and beyond efforts to improve the larger working environment.

A．These demands take a toll, resulting in job dissatisfaction, workplace fatigue, burnout, and reduced occupational commitment.

B．Just as beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, stress depends on the teacher’s unique view of their classroom.

C．For example, this holds true for 25% of teachers in Great Britain and Italy; 20-22% in Malaysia and Germany; and 25-26% in Australia and the U.S.

D．However, if only 20-25% of teachers report high levels of stress, then that would suggest that the working environment itself is only part of the issue.

E．Teachers are isolated from colleagues for much of the day, spending less than 5% of their work time collaborating with peers.

F．Clearly, then, there must be more to the story.

9 . This Is How Scandinavia Got Great

Almost everybody admires the Nordic model. Countries like Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland have high economic productivity, high social equality, high social trust and high levels of personal happiness.

Nordic nations were ethnically homogeneous(同质的) in 1800, when they were dirt poor. Their economic growth took off just after 1870, way before their welfare states were established.     1    

The 19th-century Nordic elites did something we haven’t been able to do in our country recently. They realized that if their countries were to prosper they had to create truly successful “folk schools” for the least educated among them. They realized that they were going to have to make lifelong learning a part of the natural fabric of society.

    2     The German word they used to describe their approach, bildung, doesn’t even have an English equivalent. It means the complete moral, emotional, intellectual and civic transformation of the person. It was based on the idea that if people were going to be able to handle and contribute to an emerging industrial society, they would need more complex inner lives.

Today, Americans often think of schooling as the transmission of specialized skill sets — the student can read, do math and recite the facts of biology.     3     It is devised to help them understand complex systems and see the relations between things — between self and society, between a community of relationships in a family and a town.

The Nordic educators worked hard to cultivate each student’s sense of connection to the nation. Before the 19th century, most Europeans identified themselves in local and not national terms.     4     The idea was to create in the mind of the student a sense of wider circles of belonging — from family to town to nation — and an eagerness to assume shared responsibility for the whole.

That educational push seems to have had a lasting influence on the culture. Whether in Stockholm or Minneapolis, Scandinavians have a tendency to joke about the way their sense of responsibility is always nagging at them. They have the lowest rates of corruption in the world. They have a distinctive sense of the relationship between personal freedom and communal responsibility.

A．Bildung is the way that the individual matures and takes upon him or herself ever bigger academic responsibility.

B．What really launched the Nordic nations was generations of phenomenal educational policy.

C．Bildung is designed to change the way students see the world.

D．But the Nordic curriculum conveyed to students a pride in, say, their Danish history, folklore and heritage.

E．They look at education differently than we do.

F．The Nordic educators also worked hard to develop the student’s internal awareness.

10 . A new study from North Carolina State University found that biology textbooks have done a poor job of including material related to climate change. For example, the study found that most biology textbooks published in the 2010s included less information about climate change than they did in the previous decade--despite significant advances in our understanding of how climate change is influencing ecosystems and the environment.

“In short, we found biology textbooks are failing to share enough information about climate change, which is a generation-defining topic in the life sciences,” says Jennifer Landin, author of the study. “These books are the baseline texts for helping students understand the science of life on Earth, yet they are providing very little information about a phenomenon that is having a great impact on habitats, ecosystems, agriculture--almost every aspect (方面) of life on Earth,”

For the study, researchers investigated coverage of climate change in 57 college biology textbooks published between 1970 and 2019. The researchers found climate coverage has varied greatly over those five decades and that the amount of climate coverage in textbooks fell off in the 2010s. In addition to length, the nature of the content has also changed greatly over time.

“One of the most troubling findings was that textbooks are devoting less space to addressing climate solutions now than they did in the 1990s--even as they focus more on the effects of climate change,” Landin says. “That suggests to students that nothing can be done,which is both wildly misleading and contributes to a sense of fatalism (宿命论) regarding cli-mate change.”

“We are hoping that this study will serve as a wake-up call for publishers and instructors. We need to do a much better job of putting climate change into our courses if we want to pre-pare students to understand the role that climate change is playing in shaping life on Earth and how we study it,” Landin says.

1. What is the example in paragraph 1 used to do?

A．Prove biology textbooks’ poor performance.

B．Show the dissatisfaction with climate change.

C．Attract the attention of students studying biology.

D．Show the content of textbooks published in the 2010s.

2. What is the problem of biology textbooks according to Landin?

A．No enough material about climate change.

B．Providing little new information about biology.

C．Not covering every aspect of life on Earth.

D．No generation-defining topics in the textbooks.

3. How did the researchers conduct the study?

A．By tracking textbook publishers.

B．By doing surveys of students in colleges.

C．By observing climate change for 50 years.

D．By investigating college biology textbooks.

4. What does Landin expect the study to function as?

A．A wake up call for biology science.

B．A warning to take biology seriously.

C．A direction of studying climate change.

D．An alarm bell for publishers and teachers.