The first creature
Humans are explorers since the dawn of civilization. We
Our first steps into space began. Laika
That hasn’t stopped people from signing up and blasting off. NASA’s Apollo program had ended
2 . Some high school students think it useless to receive higher education. Therefore, they choose not to go to college. If you're one of them, think again. Here are some reasons why you should go to college and receive a good education there.
Schools and universities are the first places to get knowledge. We take that knowledge later on to build our careers after graduation. More knowledge will be gained after you start working, but without education, that job will not be within easy reach. Knowledge leads to knowledge.
While limited within the walls of the educational places, we openly explore other cultures of the world! We come to know that ours is not the only culture. Other cultures have valuable things to share, enriching our own. Education also makes us want to travel and exchange with various cultures, getting more experience.
When there's a recession in the economy（经济）, those who attended college will be more likely to find a new job than those who only finished high school and have a limited skills set. The more education you have, the more chances you will get to improve the quality of your life as you have a better job and earn a higher salary.
When you're skillful and knowledgeable, you gain access to people of similar backgrounds and tastes. It means a good education leads to excellent networking. Good networking can benefit you a lot in your later life.
A good education makes you a more interesting person. You can talk about ideas and events instead of just other people and what's on sale in stores. An educated person doesn't gossip（说闲话）, having a preference to discuss ideas and listen to what other people have to say.
1. What can we learn about college education from Paragraph 2?| A．It offers you a chance to study abroad. | B．It can allow you to gain more knowledge. |
| C．It can improve the quality of your daily life. | D．It encourages you to travel around the world. |
| A．change. | B．drop. | C．growth. | D．support. |
| A．You can gossip about others’ affairs. | B．You are likely to study well at school. |
| C．You can work well with your coworkers. | D．You get to know excellent people with similar interests. |
| A．The benefits of attending college. | B．The exchange with other cultures. |
| C．The access to good networking. | D．The ways of college education. |
3 . Simple ways to improve your written English
Many people think it is really difficult to improve (提高) their writing in English. Don’t worry, though. Here are some simple steps that you can take to improve your written English.
● Increase your vocabulary.
To express yourself clearly, you need a good active vocabulary. That’s not just being able to know lots of words — it means actually being able to use them correctly.
Tip: When you learn a new word, try to learn all the forms of that word.
●
People often say that we learn to write best by reading. Reading in English is useful in many ways. It is a great way to get an idea of the different styles of writing and see how to use words properly.
Tip:
● Improve your grammar.
Grammar is very important because it improves the quality (质量) of your writing.
Tip:
● Just do it!
The best way to improve your writing is to get a pen and paper and write. Be prepared to write several versions (版本) of each text.
| A．Know your readers. |
| B．Read widely and often. |
| C．Always check your writing twice. |
| D．Remember, practice makes perfect! |
| E．Choose books or articles that interest you. |
| F．Use simpler language and shorter sentences to show your ideas. |
| G．Do this by learning new words with example sentences, not just word lists. |
4 . The Best National Parks to Visit in Winter
While most parks tend to draw families in the summer and fall, there are also ideal spots for adventurous winter trips.
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
The country’s oldest and best-known national park takes on an almost otherworldly atmosphere in winter: the air filled with rolling steam, the strong colors of hot springs, the surrounding white landscapes, let alone the impressive wildlife during this time, like bison, wolves, and playful red foxes. Just book a guided hiking tour to get a ranger’s perspective on the park and local people.
Joshua Tree National Park, California
With its giant red rocks and unique trees, you’ll feel like stepping onto a foreign planet as you spend hours hiking the Panorama Loop or Maze Loop. The park is recognized as an International Dark Sky Park, featuring virtually zero light pollution and the country’s best views of a starry sky.
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
A significantly lower number of visitors in winter means you can take in unblocked views of the South Rim, and get to see the rare beauty of the Grand Canyon dusted with snow. For those adventurous and daring, it is recommended to hike the Bright Angel Trail and take the chance to see the canyon’s wintertime wildlife, including mule deer, elk, and bald eagles.
Virgin Islands National Park, St. John
Surprise! Not all wintertime national park trips need to involve snow. Virgin Islands National Park is most famous for its white-sand beaches. You can also hike inland to visit old sugar plantations, or venture out to the water to swim along with sea turtles and manta rays. You will definitely enjoy a different winter here.
1. Which park will one choose if he/she is interested in stars?| A．Yellowstone National Park. | B．Joshua Tree National Park. |
| C．Grand Canyon National Park. | D．Virgin Islands National Park. |
| A．We can have a poor view of the South Rim there. | B．It lies in an area with rolling steam and hot springs. |
| C．There is a slight decline in visitor numbers in winter. | D．The Bright Angel Trail is challenging in cold weather. |
| A．Hiking. | B．Skiing. | C．Swimming. | D．Hunting. |
5 . Who needs friends? According to most psychologists (心理学家) we all do, especially nowadays when so many other aspects (方面) of modern life are changing. It seems that having friends keeps us both healthy and happy.
The number of TV series about groups of friends shows just how important friendship is to us. Psychologist Dorothy Rowe says that many of us now turn to our friends, instead of our families, for advice, comfort and security. One woman named Rebecca she interviewed even told her that if she had got to choose between her husband and her friend, she would choose her friend.
Since our friends mean so much to us, it is not surprising that the happiest marriages are also friendships. “Once the romantic stage of a relationship has passed, it is friendship that holds people together,” says Rowe. If the couple do not make some change, they will either get tired of each other and break up or stay together and seek friendship with others.
But is friendship equally important to women and men? According to author Rhonda Pritchard, women are more likely than men to have close friends. “ You tell a friend things that you’d never tell a partner”，says one woman she interviewed. For men, friendship is usually based on doing things together rather than the private conversations that are typical of women friend. Men share time and activities like building a fence or a business, running, riding a bike, fishing or watching football, but they don’t often share their feelings.
Although many women find their relationships with a husband or boyfriend is not enough, many men say that their partner is their best friend. Even women who are very happily married are likely to become very unhappy without a close friend and can even find the breakup of a close friend as painful as the end of a marriage.
Lasting friendships can provide a lot of the same support that families provided in the past, but the perfect situation is to have your family there for as well. Friendships and family relationships can both change, but a friend will not consider you when making really important decisions in the same way that a family member will.
1. What did Rebecca think about friendship?| A．Families are reliable forever. | B．Her friend means more to her than her husband |
| C．One needn’t have too many friends. | D．Friends are as important as families. |
| A．they are encouraged by their partners. |
| B．they are not fairly treated by their partners |
| C．they don’t get what they need from their partners. |
| D．they think their friends are more romantic. |
| A．Women often do things together. |
| B．Women often talk about business with friends. |
| C．Men seldom talk about their feelings. |
| D．Men often talk to their friends about work and family. |
| A．feel as upset as when a marriage ends. | B．share feelings with their partners. |
| C．treat their partners as friends. | D．turn to their husband for comfort. |
6 . International Women's Day is March 8. The first celebration was held in 1911, and the event was recognized by the United Nations starting in 1975.
It's a great time to think about the origin of the word "woman". Some people think the word “woman" is a compound(混合)of the words“womb”and“man". Not so. Rather,it's a compound of "wife" and "man", a combination that can be traced back to Old English. You see, when Old English was first being spoken in the 5th century AD, there were two distinct words for men and women: "wer" meant "adult male",and "wif” meant “adult female". There was a third word,“man", which simply meant "person"or "human being”. These words could be combined:“wer" plus“man"(in the form of "waepman")meant "adult male person" and“wif” plus"man”("wilman") meant “adult female person”.
Those middle forms,“wimnan"and "wommon"with the two M's in the middle, remind me of Noah Webster's efforts to simplify English spelling by suggesting changing the spelling "woman” to“wimmen" to have the spelling better match the pronunciation. He put that in his 1806 Compendious Dictionary o f the English Language, but it didn't become popular.
And the Old English word for "adult male" evolved into a simplified form. The compound word "weapman" melted into the simple word we use today: "man".
Maybe the lesson to take from all this is that the role of women in society has always been complex. Whatever the case, the word "woman" today was originally a compound of the Old English words for"woman” and “human being”.
1. Where can you find the first source of the word "woman"?| A．In paragraph 1. | B．In paragraph 2. | C．In paragraph 3. | D．In paragraph 4. |
| A．To link the spelling to the pronunciation. |
| B．To keep up with the times more closely. |
| C．To satisfy the readers’ requests |
| D．To make it easy to pronounce. |
| A．By the 1600s. | B．In the 5th century AD, |
| C．In 1809. | D．By the Middle English period |
| A．To tell us the origin of Women's Day. |
| B．To tell us the history of the word "woman". |
| C．To stress the roles women are playing |
| D．To teach us the development of a language |
7 . Winter can usually kill most wildfires. But in the far North，some forest fires just don’t die. They are thought of as “zombie (僵尸) fires”.
“Zombie fires” usually sleep underground in winter. Covered by snow, they smoke through the cold. Fueled by carbon-rich peat (泥炭) and soil in the North, most of these hidden fires spread slowly for less than 500 meters during the winter. When spring comes, the flames (火焰) of the fires appear near sites that they burned in winter, and they turn to burning fresh fuels around. This may happen well before the traditional fire season in the far North.
“Zombie fires” had been known mostly from firefighters’ stories. Few scientists studied them until details in some satellite images attracted one research team. Rebecca Scholten, a member of the team, studies earth systems at Vrije University Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Her team noticed an unusual thing. “New fires have been starting very close to the former years’ fires in recent years，and we wonder how often the fires might survive the winter,” Scholten explains.
These “zombie fires” are rarely seen before, according to a new study from Nature. But in recent years, they are becoming more common, the study warns. It is believed that the “zombie fires” are even on the road of being a threat. Forests in the far North are warming faster than the globe’s average (平均数). Scholten says, “We’re seeing more hot summers and more large fires and strong burning. That could set the stage for the fires to become a bigger problem,” she worries. And the region’s soils hold a lot of carbon—maybe twice as much as earth’s atmosphere. More fires here could give off huge amounts of greenhouse gases. That would drive a cycle of more warming and even higher risk of fires.
1. What do we know about the “zombies fires” in the far North?| A．They will completely die out in winter. |
| B．Carbon-rich peat helps them burn slowly in winter. |
| C．They often happen after the traditional fire season. |
| D．Their flames can only appear in spring. |
| A．“Zombie fires” appear earlier than the years before. |
| B．“Zombie fires” happen far from former years’ fires. |
| C．“Zombie fires” happen more frequently than before. |
| D．“Zombie fires” appear in different shapes every year. |
| A．The global warming is slowing down. |
| B．The hot summers are less and less seen. |
| C．The area’s soils are short of carbon. |
| D．More greenhouse gases are given off. |
| A．Where Are “Zombie Fires” From? |
| B．Are “Zombie Fires” Frightening? |
| C．Pay Attention To “Zombie Fires”! |
| D．“Zombie Fires” Are Caused By Humans! |
8 . A 2020 study by Balbix found that 99% of the people surveyed reused their passwords between work accounts or between work and personal accounts.
For example, a 2019 study by Google found that 59% of the people they surveyed used a name or a birthday in their password. And 24% admitted using a password like one of these below: 1234, 12345, 123456, etc.
It's more secure to require your employees to use more than one authentication (身份验证) factor to access mobile company applications.
Finally, you can also perform passwordless authentication.
| A．Passwords are commonly shared in the workplace. |
| B．It will help you to root out password risks altogether. |
| C．Many employees still create weak and simple passwords. |
| D．These bad password habits present a threat to organizations. |
| E．That helps reduce the risk that a bad actor gains access to your systems. |
| F．Unfortunately, the passwords that employees are reusing are often weak. |
| G．However, that's not to say there is no way to reduce or uproot password threats. |
9 . What Theresa Loe is doing proves that a large farm isn’t a prerequisite for a modern grow-your-own lifestyle. On a mere 1/10 of an acre in Los Angeles, Loe and her family grow, can (装罐) and preserve much of the food they consume.
Loe is a master food preserver, gardener and canning expert. She also operates a website, where she shares her tips and recipes, with the goal of demonstrating that everyone has the ability to control what’s on their plate.
Loe initially went to school to become an engineer, but she quickly learned that her enthusiasm was mainly about growing and preparing her own food. “ got into cooking my own food and started growing my own herbs(香草)and foods for that fresh flavor,” she said. Engineer by day, Loe learned cooking at night school. She ultimately purchased a small piece of land with her husband and began growing their own foods.
“I teach people how to live farm-fresh without a farm,” Loe said. Through her website Loe emphasizes that ‘‘anybody can do this anywhere.” Got an apartment with a balcony (阳台)? Plant some herbs. A window? Perfect spot for growing. Start with herbs, she recommends, because “they’re very forgiving.” Just a little of the herbs “can take your regular cooking to a whole new level,” she added. “I think it’s a great place to start.” Then? Try growing something from a seed, she said, like a tomato or some tea.
Canning is a natural extension of the planting she does. With every planted food, Loe noted, there’s a moment when it’s bursting with its absolute peak flavor. “I try and keep it in a time capsule in a canning jar,” Loe said. “Canning for me is about knowing what’s in your food, knowing where it comes from.”
In addition to being more in touch with the food she’s eating, another joy comes from passing this knowledge and this desire for good food to her children: “Influencing them and telling them your opinion on not only being careful what we eat but understanding the bigger picture,” she said, “that if we don’t take care of the earth, no one will.”
1. The underlined word “prerequisite” (Para. 1) is closest in meaning to“ ”.| A．recipe | B．substitute |
| C．requirement | D．challenge |
| A．They are used daily. | B．They are easy to grow. |
| C．They can grow very tall. | D．They can be eaten uncooked. |
| A．It can preserve their best flavor. | B．It can promote her online sales. |
| C．It can better her cooking skills. | D．It can improve their nutrition. |
| A．The knowledge about good food. | B．The way to live a grow-our-own life. |
| C．The joy of getting in touch with foods. | D．The responsibility to protect our earth |
There
The government has recorded 72, 843 fires. The fire is just one of
Environmental
