1 . People with social anxiety disorder often have trouble feeling confident when communicating with others. However, you can build up your confidence by making sure that your body language sends a positive message about yourself. Even if you don’t feel confident, practising confident body language can make you feel better about yourself.     1    

    2     Look confident by keeping eye contact in social activities. Good eye contact shows others that you are interested and comfortable. Look into the other person’s eyes most of the time. If direct eye contact feels too frightening, you can start by looking at a place close to the person’s eyes.

Keep your chin up. Do you look at the ground when you are walking? Is your head always down? If so, you need a change by walking with your head up and your eyes looking forward. You may feel unnatural at first.     3    

Give a firm handshake. How is your handshake?     4     So work on making sure that you offer a firm handshake when meeting others. After practice, it will come naturally.

Slow your movements.     5     Everything from hand gestures to your walking pace can make a difference. Slow down and practice to find the walking pace that suits you, which will make you feel more confident.

A．Avoid looking at others.

B．Make eye contact throughout the conversation.

C．Fast movements make you look more anxious.

D．So it’s important to have confident body language.

E．A weak one is an clear sign of a lack of confidence.

F．But gradually, you’ll get used to this more confident gesture (姿势).

G．Here are some tips to increase your confidence through body language.

2 . How to Stop Spam Calls for Good

If you made a list of the little things that bothered you the most, phone call scams would no doubt be at the top. Telemarketers, or more often, automated robot-callers, have tricks for interrupting you at the worst possible moment.     1    

Fact is that robot-callers are never going to stop trying to reach you. Their schemes bring in hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of dollars annually. And unfortunately, older people are more likely to fall prey to these scams.     2    

Sign up for the National Do Not Call Registry

Your first move: Join the Federal Trade Commission’s National Do Not Call Registry. You can get on the list by calling 1-888-382-1222 from the phone number you want to register.     3     To date, the agency has taken 51 legal actions against companies and telemarketers, recovering $112 million.

Use spam-filtering apps and tech

    4     A spam-filtering app can give you a second layer of protection and is a good add-on to your overall smartphone security. The app’s makers maintain a large database of user-reported robocalls. When one of those numbers dials you, the app blocks the phone from ringing and informs you the call is spam. Genius!

    5    

You probably know that a caller who insists you owe money to the IRS or says you’ll be arrested if you don’t settle a debt is a scammer. But your 10-year-old kid and your older parents and grandparents may be tricked. And remember: Knowing how to stop spam calls is just one step toward avoiding scams; don’t forget to explain how to stop spam texts to your loved ones, too.

A．Warn family members

B．Report to the police at once

C．Follow these steps to pull the plug on them once and for all.

D．If you have multiple numbers to input, register them at DoNotCall. gov.

E．Spam calls can reach you anytime and anywhere when you use your smartphone.

F．They’re annoying, but that’s not the only reason you should know how to stop spam calls.

G．The National Do Not Call Registry will prevent a lot of unwanted calls, but it won’t stop all of them.

3 . 北京冬奥会已经结束了，世界各地的运动健儿们都参加了这一盛会，大家有没有为运动员的获奖而激动，为他们的坚持而感动?想想你最崇拜的一位运动员是谁，以My favorite athlete 为题，写一篇英语作文。
要点：1. 介绍你最崇拜的运动员。
2. 你为什么最崇拜他/她?
3. 你从他/她身上学到了什么?
写作要求：1. 包括以上所有要点，并作适当发挥；
2. 条理清楚，语句通顺，意思连贯，书写规范；
3. 80—100词左右。

4 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。1.

A．Being a rare fish, the vaquita is at the edge of extinction.

B．Generally, a vaquita’s life expectation is over two decades.

C．Genetic modification could be the only way to save vaquitas.

D．Vaquitas were first discovered by Spanish in 1958.

2.

A．It banned the fishermen from using fixed nets in the Gulf of California.

B．It banned the fishermen from fishing vaquitas.

C．Its police force worked with Sea Shepherd to feed vaquitas.

D．It inspected local fishermen to stop illegal fishing.

3.

A．He founded the Natural Resources Defense Council.

B．It was great to tell vaquitas good stories.

C．All work would be meaningless without continuous efforts.

D．The parties should record their actions with cameras.

5 . My grandfather was a rigid perfectionist. Everything had to be orderly, precise and punctual. I was frightened of him until the day he died. Growing up, my mother desperately wanted to please him. She probably thought he might leave if she didn’t.

In fact, I now think the fear of being left alone, abandoned, was a current throughout much of her life. A few years into my father suffering from Alzheimer, my mother’s voice on the phone sounded so upset that I had to tell her, “Just be with yourself for a little while.”

“No, I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that,” she said abruptly, closing the door on the subject. A while after my father died, she told me that she kept the television on all the time because it made her feel less lonely. “It makes the house seem more lived in,” she said. I had given in to my annoyance and either turned the volume down or turned it off. But after she told me that it filled in some of the loneliness, I never reached for the remote again.

We have had a long journey together, she and I. Over a half-century of memories, now that the journey has ended, I have a choice which ones to study which ones to turn over in my hands and dust off.

I choose to look at the ones that ache with a sweet truth not told often enough: there was love between us. It was just hard to find sometimes. I choose to remember her face on that winter day in Manhattan, when I came to her with a broken heart. I choose to remember walking on the shore with her in summers when we rented a beach house; somehow the sea always transformed us. And how she looked on my wedding day when she handed me a bracelet that had belonged to my grandmother. “Something old,” she said.

1. From the author’s point of view, what did her mother feel in her much time of life?

A．A sense of relief.	B．A sense of excitement.
C．A sense of being deserted.	D．A sense of being pleased.

2. How does the author support the theme of the text?

A．By giving examples.	B．By stating arguments.
C．By interviewing her father.	D．By visiting her grandfather.

3. The author writes the story to ________.

A．express regret for her grandfather

B．show her sympathy toward her mother

C．reveal her deep feelings for her mother

D．emphasize her concern about the generation gap

6 . Barbara, 70, and me, at 71, have swum together for at least 50 years. We swim in a quiet cove (小海湾). It’s home to seagulls, a duck or two, and kayaks (独木舟) on occasion. The difficult summer drought of 2021 brought a burning sun that warmed the water. As the drought eased and the water cooled in late August, we decided to keep swimming. We have both read Bonnie Tsui’s Why We Swim, a fine book about cold-water swimming. We challenged ourselves to swim for as long as possible through September and into October.

I have long loved swimming, though the fear of being seen as fat has dogged me. I am one of those female bodies poorly displayed in bathing suits. Cold-water swimming deepened my sense of well-being and let me use my body. It became a ritual Barbara and I embraced as swimming sisters. When she returned to the United States immediately after our Canadian Thanksgiving, I did not know how I could continue our cold-water tradition. I wasn’t prepared to freeze alone.

But, I had to swim; there were larger commitments I should stick to. In the summer, we planned to cross from the cove to an island across the lake. I had to stay fit. We also planned to host a cold-water swimming race for locals in the fall. We would make it an annual event, improving our strength and endurance (耐力) so that, in our 80s, we might swim through October and into November.

With these plans in mind, I joined my local city pool. I had not been in a public pool for about 30 years. But my body said swim, my brain said swim and my heart, could not let go. So I went anyway.

I am swimming. I am alive to my love of the water, alive to my promise for the spring and the summer that will come. I intend to step back into the lake in May, and through September and October with Barbara. We are perfectly matched in our devotion, and increasingly aware of the miracle of being able-bodied enough to share the cold-water wonder side by side.

1. Why was the book Why We Swim mentioned in the first paragraph?

A．It guided the author to learn to swim.

B．It analyzes the advantages of swimming.

C．It is the author’s favorite book about swimming.

D．It partly contributed to the author and Barbara’s common interest.

2. What does the underlined word “commitments” probably mean in paragraph 3?

A．Promises .

B．Preparations .

C．Requirements .

D．Opportunities .

3. What effort did the author make to achieve her goals?

A．She went to a gym to improve her strength.

B．She became a member of the local public pool.

C．She swam across the lake to the island on her own.

D．She participated in a local cold-water swimming race.

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing this article?

A．To describe her friendship with Barbara.

B．To express her passion for cold-water swimming.

C．To recommend people to go swimming to keep fit.

D．To explain how she overcame her fear of swimming in public places.

7 . Japanese researchers placed electronic devices(装置)on seals(海豹)in Antarctic waters to collect surprising information about the environment there. Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research started the research project in 2017. The team recently reported its results in a study in the publication Limnology and Oceanography.

Eight Weddell seals were fitted with the devices,which have antennas(天线)to send electronic signals.The 580-gram monitoring devices were attached(缚上;系上)to the animals’heads. They were designed to measure data such as water temperatures and sea salt levels.

Investigative teams on ships have difficulty reaching important research areas in Antarctica. These include areas along continental shelf formations where ice is attached to the shore, the National Institute of Polar Research said in a statement. Nobuo Kokubun led the project. Since the seals are active year-round, Kokubun added, “I thought we should have them collect the data.”

He told Reuters that the research also helps scientists follow the seals’ behaviors and learn about their relationship to the environment. “During the summer, we can go to Antarctica on icebreakers to conduct actual research activities, so that we can collect data there.” Kokubun said. ”But during the winter. such things cannot be done in so many places.“

Information gathered from the seals showed that one of the animals traveled as far as 633kilometers from Japan’s Showa Station in Antarctica. Another dove to a depth of 700 meters.Kokubun said the scientists learned from the data that warm seawater from the upper levels of the open sea reached Antarctica from March through the winter of 2017. The water flowed below the ice, bringing in sea creatures like Antarctic krill, an important food for seals.

Kokubun and his team plan to keep finding new ways to further examine the effects of climate change on Antarctic coastal areas. Next, he hopes to make the device small enough to fit on other animals at the South Pole, such as penguins,“The advantage with penguins is that they come back to the same place and we can collect data from them immediately,”Kokubun said.

1. What does paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A．The reasons why seals are a good pick.

B．The difficulties the researchers met with.

C．The disadvantages of the research.

D．The formation of Antarctic waters.

2. What can we learn from the information gathered from seals?

A．It challenges some traditional views.

B．It is an eye-opener for the researchers.

C．It is in urgent need of improvement.

D．It simply focuses on the seals’ behavior.

3. What can be inferred from the last paragraph about the research team?

A．They will further study the penguins.

B．They will make use of the same device.

C．They intend to expand the research further.

D．They plan to help the endangered penguins.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．Increasing Temperature of Antarctic Waters

B．Seals Help Researchers Study Antarctic Environment

C．Seals Are in Danger of Dying out Due to Global Warming

D．Climate Change and Its Far-reaching   Consequences

8 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. boom          B. enthusiastically        C. voiced             D. finds          E. sharply          F. racing G. fortune        H. distinctly                 I. venturing          J. deals            K. joined

Eight months ago, Meng Hu, 27, quit her job as a flight attendant in Guangzhou, China. She is now working full-time as a live-streaming host on Taobao.

“I’ve been talking nonstop,” Hu said, laughing. “My throat gets really hoarse. You need to talk a lot, because your mood is contagious (有感染力的). Only when you talk     1     can you get your audience excited.”

Hu is part of a rising class of creators in China who are     2     to get in on live-stream shopping, an emerging form of retail that has grown into an industry worth an estimated $66 billion. Although the trend has been part of Chinese internet culture for years, analysts say the coronavirus pandemic has brought it mainstream.

Even the Chinese government has     3     its support, calling the industry the “new engine” of e-commerce growth and encouraging live-streaming as a solution to unemployment, which has risen     4     in China due to the pandemic.

Live-stream shopping is a combination of entertainment and e-commerce. Viewers buy goods online from people who show off their latest     5    --from lipstick to laundry detergent--in real-time videos. Many compare the concept to the TV shopping channel, but the Chinese model is     6     more modern, mobile and interactive. Hosts can give their fans discount coupons(优惠券) and flash     7     in real time, while viewers can click to send their favorite stars virtual “gifts.”

Part of the allure(吸引力) of     8     into this world is the prospect of a big payday. Brands routinely announce tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in sales in a single sitting. Top influencers can earn millions of dollars a year, according to Taobao. And even well-known business leaders are getting in on the act.

For people like Hu, the live-stream host in Guangzhou, the ongoing     9     presents both “a chance and a challenge.”

“Viewers might have doubled, but there’s probably about seven or eight times more new live-streamers now,” she estimated. “So many people like me have     10     live-streaming, and are selling products and doing the same thing.”

9 . From the heartland to urban parks, school kids were released onto the baseball diamond. There was a time when baseball was the only summer game. But with competition from soccer and lacrosse, the clap of leather gloves is not as omnipresent as it used to be. Still, America’s game is a place for young boys to prove themselves.

Some boys were born athletic but Tim seemed to be growing in the opposite way: thin shoulders and no meat on his bones. But he loved baseball. And game after game, strikeout after strikeout piled up in the stat sheet. The desire was there, but the body doesn’t respond to dreams and wishes. The strikes continued.

Tim practiced his swing every day. His teammates encouraged him. His coach worked with him. Even opposing teams wished for a hit, just one hit for a boy who seemed to deserve it more than any other kid in the world.

What teammates and even the coach never saw was a gray van that pulled up each game in the parking lot adjacent to left field. Inside was Tim’s father, too weak from cancer to get out of the van. It’s a tough to watch your kid strike out, even tougher when you don’t have the strength to pitch to him.

At the end of the season, Tim stood at the plate as determined as ever. On the first pitch, the bat fell from his shoulder in a downward swing and somehow made contact. The ball dribbled down the third-base line, and Tim galloped to first. He stood on the bag wearing a smile as big as the outfield. He didn’t have the chance to advance, and when the pitcher retired the final out, Tim ran straight into left field, climbed the fence and dove into the front seat of a gray van, into the arms of a frail father whose wish for his son had finally materialized.

Sometimes it is more than a game.

1. What does the underlined word “omnipresent” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?

A．Outstanding.

B．Exciting.

C．Replaceable.

D．Common.

2. We can learn from Paragraph 3 that _____.

A．Tim's efforts won others’ respect

B．everyone believed Tim deserved a strikeout

C．Tim's coach was very satisfied with his performance

D．Tim's teammates often complained about his performance

3. What can we learn from this passage?

A．Nobody supported Tim playing baseball.

B．Tim and his father love each other deeply.

C．Tim won the game through constant efforts.

D．Tim played baseball only to satisfy his own vanity.

4. Which message does Tim’s experience convey?

A．Easier said than done.	B．One good turn deserves another.
C．Where there is a will, there is a way.	D．One false step makes a great difference.

10 . Nothing says “I love you” like a homemade gift. But imagine if this specially-crafted gift actually ended up changing the world! Before they became popular items used by millions of people, these inventions were inspired by incredible acts of love.

Garbage Disposal

John W. Hammes, an architect from Wisconsin, created the In-Sink-Erator in 1935. Hammes got the idea after watching his wife spend time wrapping food in newspaper and throwing it out. The In-Sink-Erator is a device, installed under a kitchen sink between the sink’s drain and the trap. The disposal unit shreds food waste into pieces small enough generally less than 2 mm in diameter to pass through plumbing.

Magnetic Shirt Buttons

Maura Horton’s husband, Don, was a football coach who had Parkinson’s disease. One day, after Don struggled to button his shirt before a game, Horton decided there needed to be a better clothing option for people suffering from disability. So, Horton designed a shirt with magnetic buttons in 2012. It will finally allow everyone to dress, and undress themselves efficiently.

Surgical Gloves

William Stewart Halsted, M.D. (1852 – 1922) was a renowned U.S. surgeon who is often called the “Father of Modern Surgery.” Known for his strict adherence to sterile working conditions, Halsted invented a rubber glove that allowed surgeons to lessen the transfer of germs during their work. Yet the origin of why he created them is more romantic than you would think. Halsted’s wife, Caroline, was a nurse who suffered from dermatitis during her work. According to the Washinton Post, Halsted invented the gloves especially for her and gave them to her as a gift after their marriage.

1. According to Paragraph 3, we know that _____.

A．only specific groups can use magnetic shirt buttons

B．ordinary buttons made Horton's husband lose the game

C．the designer of magnetic shirt buttons had Parkinson's disease

D．magnetic shirt buttons were originally designed for the disabled

2. Why did William design surgical gloves?

A．To treat surgical diseases.	B．To improve work efficiency.
C．To protect his wife from infection.	D．To be the father of modern surgery.

3. What do the three inventions have in common?

A．They were inspired by love.	B．They were designed to save time.
C．They were created to change the world.	D．They were invented in the 20th century.