Beijing is a city bridging the ancient and the modern. From Buddhist temples to museums, narrow hutong
But for all its ancient buildings, Beijing is also a place
It is a distinct visual contrast (反差) that shouldn’t work,
The
2 . To become the Olympic champion in the individual (个人) all-around event, Gabby Douglas had to leave everything she
As it turned out, Douglas did
Not so long ago, Martha Karolyl the coordinator (联络人) of the women’s national team, did not think Douglas had what it
“I’m going to inspire so many people,” she said. “I’m ready to
| A．tried | B．thought | C．judged | D．knew |
| A．take up | B．pack up | C．clean up | D．do up |
| A．goodbye | B．hello | C．thanks | D．no |
| A．cause | B．observe | C．ride | D．strike |
| A．common | B．time | C．fun | D．tough |
| A．breathtaking | B．heartbreaking | C．eye-catching | D．head-spinning |
| A．dropped out | B．moved on | C．pulled over | D．went off |
| A．reason | B．talk | C．compete | D．train |
| A．met | B．helped | C．understood | D．needed |
| A．approximately | B．gradually | C．exactly | D．possibly |
| A．defeated | B．pleased | C．respected | D．assisted |
| A．forced | B．transformed | C．persuaded | D．put |
| A．world | B．city | C．team | D．state |
| A．amateur | B．elected | C．average | D．enthusiastic |
| A．clarifying | B．defending | C．winning | D．demanding |
| A．followed | B．organized | C．watched | D．led |
| A．confident | B．nervous | C．excited | D．uneasy |
| A．viewed | B．appeared | C．mattered | D．took |
| A．now and then | B．more and more | C．far and wide | D．on and on |
| A．shine | B．fly | C．dance | D．score |
3 . In April last year, I saw a post on the PNP (Pilots N Paws) website from a family in Topeka. They had to move to Virginia but they were on a very tight
It just
When I met Tiffy’s owners, they seemed very
After some goodbyes, I asked George and his wife to help me
The flight was
| A．turn | B．budget | C．schedule | D．connection |
| A．food | B．shelter | C．medicine | D．transportation |
| A．desperately | B．temporarily | C．secretly | D．originally |
| A．appeared | B．proved | C．happened | D．showed |
| A．waited | B．offered | C．hurried | D．failed |
| A．see off | B．look for | C．hand over | D．pick up |
| A．confused | B．nervous | C．annoyed | D．curious |
| A．hard | B．fine | C．common | D．lucky |
| A．coworker | B．passenger | C．stranger | D．neighbor |
| A．speed up | B．work out | C．come back | D．take off |
| A．feed | B．follow | C．change | D．load |
| A．call | B．join | C．leave | D．serve |
| A．unnecessary | B．unexpected | C．unavoidable | D．uneventful |
| A．returned | B．fought | C．flew | D．agreed |
| A．thankful | B．generous | C．proud | D．sympathetic |
4 . Reading Art: Art for Book Lovers is a celebration of an everyday object — the book, represented here in almost three hundred artworks from museums around the world. The image of the reader appears throughout history, in art made long before books as we now know them came into being. In artists’ representations of books and reading, we see moments of shared humanity that go beyond culture and time.
In this “book of books,” artworks are selected and arranged in a way that emphasizes these connections between different eras and cultures. We see scenes of children learning to read at home or at school, with the book as a focus for relations between the generations. Adults are portrayed (描绘) alone in many settings and poses —absorbed in a volume, deep in thought or lost in a moment of leisure. These scenes may have been painted hundreds of years ago, but they record moments we can all relate to.
Books themselves may be used symbolically in paintings to demonstrate the intellect (才智), wealth or faith of the subject. Before the wide use of the printing press, books were treasured objects and could be works of art in their own right. More recently, as books have become inexpensive or even throwaway, artists have used them as the raw material for artworks — transforming covers, pages or even complete volumes into paintings and sculptures.
Continued developments in communication technologies were once believed to make the printed page outdated. From a 21st-century point of view, the printed book is certainly ancient, but it remains as interactive as any battery-powered e-reader. To serve its function, a book must be activated by a user: the cover opened, the pages parted, the contents reviewed, perhaps notes written down or words underlined. And in contrast to our increasingly networked lives where the information we consume is monitored and tracked, a printed book still offers the chance of a wholly private, “off-line” activity.
1. Where is the text most probably taken from?| A．An introduction to a book. | B．An essay on the art of writing. |
| C．A guidebook to a museum. | D．A review of modern paintings. |
| A．Wealth and intellect. | B．Home and school. |
| C．Books and reading. | D．Work and leisure. |
| A．Understand. | B．Paint. |
| C．Seize. | D．Transform. |
| A．The printed book is not totally out of date. |
| B．Technology has changed the way we read. |
| C．Our lives in the 21st century are networked. |
| D．People now rarely have the patience to read. |
5 . As an artist who shares her journey on social media, I’m often asked by curious followers how to begin an art journey. Unfortunately, there is no magic list I can offer. I do remember, though, what it was like to be a complete beginner. So I’ve put together some good tips for starting an art journey.
·Start small. I suggest using a sketchbook (素描本) for small studies. These small studies provide inspiration and may be a springboard for more complex works in the future.
·Paint often and paint from life. There’s no better way to improve than to put in those brush miles. Whether you paint still lifes, portraits, or landscapes, paint from life as much as possible.
·Continually challenge yourself to try something new.
·
The journey you’re on won’t follow a straight path.
| A．Get out of your comfort zone. |
| B．Make career plans and set goals. |
| C．Don’t throw away your beginner art. |
| D．Share your work if you feel comfortable doing so. |
| E．You’ll hit roadblocks, and you’ll feel discouraged at times. |
| F．Evaluate your performance and, if needed, redefine your role. |
| G．You’ll develop that painting muscle memory that only comes with repetition. |
6 . Turning soil, pulling weeds, and harvesting cabbage sound like tough work for middle and high school kids. And at first it is, says Abby Jaramillo, who with another teacher started Urban Sprouts, a school garden program at four low-income schools. The program aims to help students develop science skills, environmental awareness, and healthy lifestyles.
Jaramillo’s students live in neighborhoods where fresh food and green space are not easy to find and fast food restaurants outnumber grocery stores. “The kids literally come to school with bags of snacks and large bottles of soft drinks,” she says. “They come to us thinking vegetables are awful, dirt is awful, insects are awful.” Though some are initially scared of the insects and turned off by the dirt, most are eager to try something new.
Urban Sprouts’ classes, at two middle schools and two high schools, include hands-on experiments such as soil testing, flower-and-seed dissection, tastings of fresh or dried produce, and work in the garden. Several times a year, students cook the vegetables they grow, and they occasionally make salads for their entire schools.
Program evaluations show that kids eat more vegetables as a result of the classes. “We have students who say they went home and talked to their parents and now they’re eating differently,” Jaramillo says.
She adds that the program’s benefits go beyond nutrition. Some students get so interested in gardening that they bring home seeds to start their own vegetable gardens. Besides, working in the garden seems to have a calming effect on Jaramillo’s special education students, many of whom have emotional control issues. “They get outside,” she says, “and they feel successful.”
1. What do we know about Abby Jaramillo?| A．She used to be a health worker. | B．She grew up in a low-income family. |
| C．She owns a fast food restaurant. | D．She is an initiator of Urban Sprouts. |
| A．The kids’ parents distrusted her. | B．Students had little time for her classes. |
| C．Some kids disliked garden work. | D．There was no space for school gardens. |
| A．Far-reaching. | B．Predictable. |
| C．Short-lived. | D．Unidentifiable. |
| A．Rescuing School Gardens | B．Experiencing Country Life |
| C．Growing Vegetable Lovers | D．Changing Local Landscape |
7 . At present, in many American cities especially, many teachers in the public schools say they are underpaid. They point to jobs such as secretary or truck driver, which often pay more to start than that of a teacher. In many other fields, such as law, medicine, computer science, a beginning worker may make more than a teacher who has taught for several years.
Teaching has never been a profession that attracted people interested in high salaries. It is by history a profession that has provided rewards in addition to money — the satisfactions of sharing knowledge, of influencing others, of guiding young people. But in the past several years, there are more difficulties in teaching, for many, than there are rewards.
Unruly students, especially in big cities, large classes and a lack of support from the public in terms of money and understanding have led many public school teachers to leave the profession.
As a result, many of the best students, who would have chosen teaching as their life career in the past, are going into other fields.
Another reason for this change in teacher candidates is the changing status of women in the United States. Until the late 1960s and 1970s, one of the most popular choices for women was teaching. But as other professions, such as law and medicine opened up to women, women stopped pouring into teacher training programs. Thus, a major pool of excellent candidates for the teaching profession dwindled.
Bit by bit government officials and others realized that the status of the teacher had suffered. They talked about change. But the change in a vast society like the United States is not easy. People’s attitudes have formed over many years, and sometimes change takes many years.
1. What’ s the main idea of paragraph 1?| A．Teachers in public schools are paid less than people in other fields in America. |
| B．Many teachers in the public schools are unemployed. |
| C．Teachers in America are paid less because they don’t teach long enough. |
| D．Many public school teachers in America leave school because of low salaries. |
| A．Too many classes. | B．Heavy teaching burden. |
| C．Disobedient students. | D．Lack of support from parents. |
| A．Expanded. | B．Decreased | C．Changed. | D．Enhanced. |
| A．Government officials are unwilling to change the status of the teachers. |
| B．Government officials have taken measures to change the status of the teachers. |
| C．People’s attitudes towards being a teacher in a vast society can be easily changed. |
| D．It has a long way for the government to go to change the teachers’ present situation. |
8 . At some point in the stretch of days between the start of the pandemic’s third year and the feared launch of World War III, a new phrase unfolded itself before us, a mysterious foretell of an age to come: people were going “goblin mode”.
The term embraces the comforts of depravity(堕落): spending the day in bed scrolling endlessly through social media; pouring the end of a bag of chips in your mouth; leaving the house in your pajamas and socks only to get a single Diet Coke from the store.
First appearing on Twitter as early as 2009, “goblin mode” represents a direct departure from the “cottagecore” influence of early pandemic days, a standout trend of 2020 that thrived under the wistful ethos of making the best of what many people assumed would be only a few boring weeks at home in 2020.
But as the pandemic wears on endlessly, and the chaos of current events worsens, people feel cheated by the system and have rejected such goals. “The trend sets an unrealistic standard for people to think that if they aren’t waking up early to exercise, their lives are not put together”, one blog indicting “cottagecore” culture reads.
Most people tweeting about goblin mode characterize it as an almost spiritual-level embrace of our most debased tendencies and call it a logical progression into nihilism(虚无主义)after years of disappointment. However, Marnell, an author who has been tweeting extensively in recent weeks about entering goblin mode, says there is “healthy goblin mode and destructive goblin mode”. For her, it represents a certain air of harmless mischief. “It is cool to be a goblin,” Marnell says. “Everyone is so perfect all the time online, it is good to get in touch with the strange little creature that lives inside you.”
1. Which of the following does not belong to “cottagecore” culture?| A．Organizing refrigerators full of freshly cut vegetables. |
| B．Wearing makeup and doing elaborate skincare routines. |
| C．Making organic food and putting them in a delicate plate. |
| D．Wearing nothing but a long T-shirt to make a weird snack. |
| A．The financial crisis. | B．The endless pandemic. |
| C．The comforts of depravity. | D．The worsening system. |
| A．Accuse. | B．Praise. | C．Credit. | D．Destroy. |
| A．Positive. | B．Neutral. | C．Negative. | D．Favorable. |
9 . How to Make a Difference in Your Career
Making a meaningful career choice is a crucial decision in life.
Define what’s personally satisfying
Define your career impact
To maximize your career’s impact, consider the importance of the problem you are addressing, how effective your job is at dealing with it, and your personal fit. Your personal fit depends on your abilities and career capital-skills, connections, and reputation,
Before thinking about specific career paths, it’s valuable to consider what kinds of careers tend to have the highest impact. Remember many career categories can enable you to make a big contribution to whichever global problems you think are most pressing.
Have a plan B and a plan Z
List promising alternatives you can switch to if your plan A doesn’t work out. If you’re ambitious enough, your plan A probably has a good chance of not working out.
| A．So you should be ready to try again |
| B．Take all these factors into consideration |
| C．Explore the key categories of meaningful careers |
| D．Have a better understanding of the career categories |
| E．Finding work that is personally satisfying can be a challenge |
| F．People who show their interest in challenge get satisfying careers |
| G．There are many paths that you can take to contribute positively to the world |
10 . Young boys often dream of superpower to solve their problems “If I could just lick my fingers, my homework would be done,” many have imagined. Jerry and Joe put their ideas down on paper and created the world’s most popular superhero, Superman.
In 1931, the two became fast friends at Cleveland’s Glenville High School and ended up crating comics together. Joe was the artist and drew all the time, using bits of any kind of paper he could find. He hung out at newsstands (报摊) concentrating on magazines, especially amazing stories and then took up a pencil to recreate them at home. Jerry was the storyteller and the more ambitious of the two. He described how the creation of Superman came to him in the middle of a sleepless summer night, “I spring out of bed and write this down, and then I go back and think some more for about two hours and get up again and write that down. The inspiration for Superman’s origin story start taking shape, and the next morning, I run over to Joe’s place ...”
As is often the case, when we experience something painful in life, we deal with the feel-ing through creative expression. Jerry’s father owned a shop and died during a robbery. A young child might process that experience by wishing something could have prevented it. For Jerry, out came the Man of Steel, who was invulnerable (刀枪不入的) and tended to protect innocent people. Creating storylines must have helped Jerry to deal with the pain. Superman always wins. He stops trains and bad guys and cannot be killed.
The story of Superman has inspired kids for generations. It has calmed their fears and driven their dreams. Most importantly, the Man of Steel has inspired us all to find our super-power and use it to help others.
1. What can we learn about Jerry and Joe?| A．They became popular superheroes. | B．They used their imagination in comics. |
| C．They lived in their own imaginary world. | D．They stood out for their rich experience. |
| A．The origin of the character Superman. | B．The amusing story of Jerry and Joe. |
| C．The difficulty of creating the character. | D．The common experience of Jerry and Joe. |
| A．Ambitious. | B．Mean. | C．Unconquerable. | D．Troublesome. |
| A．A biography. | B．A movie review. | C．A science fiction. | D．A history textbook. |
