1 . When the pandemic(流行病) hit last spring, 9-year-old Zoe Benard of California started baking(烘) sweet treats with family members. But what started out as a fun way to pass the time has become a one-girl mission to raise $10,000 for Parkinson’s disease research.
Through a series of weekend bake sales since July, the homeschooled fourth-grader has taken in nearly $3,500 through the sale of her homemade banana bread, cookies and brownies. For a weekend sale, she’ll bake up to 25 pieces, four to five pans of brownies and three batches(炉)of cookies.
One hundred percent of the money made by selling treats is given to Team Fox, a research organization set up by actor Michael J.Fox, who has the disease. Zoe’s grandfather, 75-year-old Joe Contogenis, who is the inspiration for her sales, also has Parkinson’s. Contogenis can no longer run or play tennis the way he did before his diagnosis(诊断) three years ago.But he comes to every one of Zoe’s bake sales and is often moved to tears by the generosity of Zoe’s customers.
“She is a little entrepreneur(企业家) and has always been an out-of-the-box thinker,” Christine Eris, her mom, said. “we were cleaning our house out and found a magic set, and now she’s reading books on magic. She taught herself how to solve the Rubik’s Cube in a minute and a half. She just learns and practices things until she perfects them.”
Zoe sells her treats for $1 to $2, or $12 for a full piece of banana bread. Eris said many customers give more because they know it’s for a good cause. One customer arrived with a $200 check and another with a $100 bill. Zoe said her goal is to keep hosting sales until she reaches her $10,000 goal. Then she will either start over or find another cause to support. She also plans to start her own children’s cooking channel on YouTube because she finds the process of baking so fun.
1. What encouraged Zoe to host bake sales?| A．Her grandfather suffering from Parkinson’s. |
| B．The support of a research organization. |
| C．Her favorite actor’s suggestion. |
| D．The kindness of strangers. |
| A．She has improved her creativity by practicing magic. |
| B．She has loved to cook since she was a kid. |
| C．She cares for everyone around her. |
| D．She is good at learning |
| A．To teach people with Parkinson’s to cook. |
| B．To look for a long-term partnership. |
| C．To collect money by hosting sales. |
| D．To enjoy free time with her family. |
| A．Strict and patient | B．Helpful and caring |
| C．Humorous and fearless. | D．Warm-hearted and honest |
2 . Do you remember the last time you got excited over a pair of shoes? Sure, you might have appreciated them, but did you jump for joy and act like they were the greatest thing you’d ever seen? You may not think that shoes are something worth going crazy over, but this woman would disagree. After all, she went wild when she put a pair on for the first time in her life.
It’s amazing how often we take advantage of things in life. When we’re used to something, we don’t always appreciate how lucky we are to have it. While we’re here complaining that our WiFi isn’t fast enough and our videos keep buffering, there are people in Africa who don’t even get to eat three meals a day. While most people work hard for the things they own, it’s important to stop and think of what others don’t have every now and again.
That’s what Laura Grier did one day. The woman was in Bwindi National Park, Uganda, when she felt obliged to stop and help someone by the side of the road. The person in question was standing around without any shoes on, and the sight convinced Grier to give up her own footwear. She had more shoes at home, while this woman had never even worn a pair before.
Laura’s generosity was definitely appreciated by the stranger who treated her benefactor to a celebratory dance. The woman couldn’t keep the smile from her face as she went wild in her brand new shoes. Grier was thrilled that her good deed had made the stranger so happy, and she cheered on the Ugandan woman as she danced in the street.
The next time you buy a pair of shoes, remember how lucky you are to have them.
1. Why did Laura Grier give her shoes to the woman?| A．To show her generosity. | B．To get permission to pass by. |
| C．To offer her help. | D．To reward her dance for her. |
| A．Nervous. | B．Excited. | C．Thankful. | D．Lucky. |
| A．Never expect too much of life. | B．Try to know more about Africa. |
| C．Don’t admire what others have. | D．Appreciate what we already have. |
| A．One Woman Overjoyed by Her First Pair of Shoes |
| B．One Lady Forced to Offer Her Pair of Footwear |
| C．Ugandan Woman Dances to Welcome Her Guest |
| D．Grier Greatly Thrilled at Beautiful African Dance |
3 . Movies about the future often show people travelling around in flying cars. Last Tuesday, that vision came a step closer to reality for a Japanese company called SkyDrive, as it showed off its new flying car, the SD-03, in action. The small car flew around for four minutes, staying about 1-2 meters off the ground.
The SD-03 is powered by batteries and has 8 motors, which lift it straight off the ground. What made this test flight special was that a pilot was on board. Toraohiro Fukuzawa, who leads SkyDrive，said, “Of the world’s over 100 flying car projects, only a handful have succeeded with a person on board.”
Many groups worldwide are working to develop flying cars. Some governments, including Japan’s, are supporting the idea, hoping that in the future, flying cars will be useful for short trips like taxi rides in cities. Flying cars could also help reach places that can’t be reached by road.
What happens when a motor fails? If flying cars are crossing a city, an accident could hurt not just people in the car, but people on the ground, too. That’s why the SD-03 has eight motors—as backups.
Some people believe flying cars reduce traffic jams. But new systems will be needed to help control traffic in the air. With many cars flying around, these systems would be too complicated to be managed in real time by humans. Besides, flying cars are expensive. When it’s ready, SkyDrive’s flying car is expected to sell for between $300,000 and $500,000.
However, people who believe in flying cars point out that cars and airplanes faced challenges at first, too. With time, many of the big problems were solved. By 2050, Mr. Fukuzawa hopes people will be able to fly anywhere inside Tokyo in just 10 minutes. “I think flying cars will become normal in the near future.” he says.
1. What was special about this test flight?| A．The car flew higher. | B．The car was cheap. |
| C．The car flew on its own. | D．The car carried a driver. |
| A．To ensure its safety. | B．To increase its flying speed. |
| C．To make it look cool. | D．To enable it to carry more weight. |
| A．Their design. | B．Their application. |
| C．Their cost. | D．Their disadvantages. |
| A．They can be easily bought. | B．They have a long way to go. |
| C．They have a promising future. | D．They are environmentally friendly. |
If you go to another country, what kinds of things would you buy? Would you buy a camera in Japan, some
Toys are not the only things made in China. "Once I wanted to buy a pair of basketball
活动目的：放松心情，亲近自然；
活动路线：从学校出发，沿江滨路(Riverside Road)骑行，目的地是花海公园(Huahai Park)；
活动内容：放风筝、野餐、露营等；
活动注意事项：自带水和食物等。
注意：1.词数80左右（开头和结尾已经写好，不计入总词数）；
2.可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Peter,
How are you? I am happy to inform you that our school will organize a cycling activity.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Looking forward to your reply.
Yours,
Li Hua
6 . Food waste is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and fruits and vegetables are particularly problematic, as an estimated 52% of harvests go bad before reaching consumers. But one Malaysian company claims to have come up with a simple and effective solution to this problem—a tiny sticker (粘贴标签) that stops fruits spoiling for two weeks.
You’ve probably seen stickers on fruits before, but not like the ones created by Stixfresh. Those common stickers are used only to provide consumers with information about the grower and how the fruit was grown, but Stixfresh has a different purpose. It contains a special, all- natural way that slows down the ripening process, keeping the fruit fresh and juicy for much longer.
Stixfresh are made with 100% organic materials and contain a mixture of ionized (电离) Sodium Chloride and beeswax, which helps slow down the bacterial activity in the fruit, thus delaying the ripening process. The company insists that the stickers are so safe that you can actually eat them.
Stixfresh founder Zhafri Zainudin says that he came up with the idea for the stickers four years ago, after visiting a friend who sold fruit. The man complained about losing money every day due to spoiled fruits, but seemed resigned (顺从的), as he knew there was no way to stop nature taking its course. However, the Malaysian entrepreneur had another idea.
“It got me to thinking. Maybe I couldn’t stop nature, but could I slow it down?” Zainudin writes on his company’s website.
The Malaysian businessman partnered with Selangor University to develop and test his stickers. It took him three years to perfect the manufacturing process and effect of his innovative product.
Originally, Stixfresh stickers were only used to prolong the shelf-life of mangos, but the company later realized that they also worked on other fruits of the same size and with similar texture, like dragon fruit and pears.
1. What is the problem with fruits and vegetables?| A．They rot away before sale. |
| B．They are wasted by consumers. |
| C．They aren’t ripe enough before harvests. |
| D．There are too many of them to be eaten in time. |
| A．It records the products growing information. |
| B．It contains information of growing products. |
| C．It shows how to delay their ripening process. |
| D．It tells ways to use organic materials properly. |
| A．his friend’s poor life | B．his good relationship with him |
| C．how he cared about fruit salers | D．how the stickers came into being |
| A．Apples. | B．Grapes. |
| C．Bananas. | D．Watermelons. |
7 . A study of violinists found that merely good players practised as much as better players, leaving other factors such as quality of education, learning skills and perhaps natural talent to account for the difference.
This finding challenges the 10, 000-hour rule promoted in Malcolm Gladwell’s 1993 study of violinists and pianists. Gladwell states that enough practice will make an expert of anyone. “The idea has been popular and entrenched in our culture for years. It’s not an idiom but an overstatement,” said Brooke Macnamara, the lead author. “When it comes to human skill, a complex combination of environmental factors and genetic factors explains the performance differences across people.”
Macnamara and her colleagues set out to repeat part of the 1993 study to see whether they reached the same conclusion. They interviewed three groups of 13 violinists regarded as best, good, or less accomplished about their practice habits, before having them complete daily diaries of their activities over a week. While the less skillful violinists reached an average of about 6,000 hours of practice by the age of 20, there was little to separate the good from the best, with each reaching an average of about 11,000 hours. In all, the number of hours spent practising accounted for about a quarter of the skill difference across the three groups.
Macnamara believes practice is less of a driver. “Once you get to the highly skilled groups, practice stops accounting for the difference. Everyone has practised a lot and other factors are at play in determining who goes on to a higher level,” she said. “The factors depend on the skill being learned: in chess it could be intelligence or working memory; in sport it may be how efficiently a person uses oxygen. To complicate matters further, one factor can drive another. Children who enjoy playing the violin, for example, may be happy to practise because they do not see it as a trouble.”
The authors of the 1993 study are unimpressed. Macnamara said it was important for people to understand the limits of practice, though. “Practice makes you better than you were yesterday, most of the time,” she said. “But it might not make you better than your neighhour or the other kid in your violin class.”
1. What does the underlined word “entrenched” in paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Rooted. | B．Advanced. | C．Changed. | D．Unconfirmed. |
| A．It convinced Malcolm Gladwell. | B．It involved violinists and pianists. |
| C．Its process was similar to the 1993 study. | D．Its result is consistent with the 1993 study. |
| A．Practicing for 11,000 hours is their main driver. |
| B．They enjoy keeping diaries about their progress. |
| C．Environmental factors have little relation to their success. |
| D．More practice makes little difference to their further progress. |
| A．What makes an expert? | B．Does practice make perfect? |
| C．The early bird catches the worm | D．Enthusiasm is the key to success |
8 . Acts of kindness are wonderful in so many ways. They
Farmer posted how he'd gone to work after the quarantine(隔离)was lifted and had forgotten his work pass.
The London worker thought he'd never
With the lock undone, Muneeb told Farmer how he'd
As Farmer quite
| A．introduce | B．challenge | C．teach | D．benefit |
| A．selfish | B．honest | C．kind | D．shy |
| A．books | B．news | C．magazines | D．requirements |
| A．case | B．advice | C．chance | D．change |
| A．left out | B．turned down | C．happened to | D．accounted for |
| A．By accident | B．As a result | C．At last | D．In return |
| A．bike | B．office | C．lock | D．key |
| A．dirty | B．ugly | C．complete | D．missing |
| A．send | B．fix | C．buy | D．see |
| A．lights | B．computers | C．cameras | D．phones |
| A．beautiful | B．broken | C．cheap | D．new |
| A．owner | B．worker | C．policeman | D．thief |
| A．greeting | B．kiss | C．smile | D．sigh |
| A．imagined | B．appreciated | C．enjoyed | D．spotted |
| A．assessing | B．stealing | C．watching | D．polishing |
| A．safe | B．dangerous | C．remote | D．crowded |
| A．ran | B．waited | C．apologized | D．escaped |
| A．sold | B．donated | C．returned | D．thrown |
| A．curiously | B．unwillingly | C．casually | D．rightly |
| A．credit | B．risk | C．shame | D．secret |
