1 . Two young Tasmanians have taken out a top national science award for their hi-tech invention, designed to keep the inventors’ great-grandmother safe.

The 18-year-old cousins, Isaac Brain and Mitchell Torok, have won equal first place in the engineering section of the BHP science and engineering awards. The pair, who finished Year 12 last year, created a smartwatch-style device that can detect whether an elderly person has fallen and cause an alarm.

The device will now be showcased on the world stage at a science and engineering fair in Arizona, US, which brings together students from around the world who are first-place science winners.

Mitchell, who went to Rosny College, Hobart, said he dreamt up the idea because he was worried about his 89-year-old great-grandmother Gwen Brook, who lives in an independent apartment next to an aged-care facility in Hobart. “If she falls over and hurts herself, there’s a chance that no one would be able to find her quickly,” Mitchell said. “So we decided to build a cheap and easy device that aged-care residents could wear.”

Called “aWear”, the device can be worn as a watch. It links to a database that can send a real-time text message to nurses. As well as an alert button, the device also features an “accelerometer” that measures the speed of a wearer’s movement to detect a fall.

Isaac, who went to Launceston College, Launceston, developed the software and web development for the device. “The accelerometer measures movement — so when an increase in movement is detected it records that data and it is then analysed to determine whether a fall has occurred,” Isaac said. Isaac will study computer science at Melbourne University this year. He said a key feature of the device was that it caused an alert to staff even if the wearer did not press the alert button.

Mitchell will study mechatronics engineering at the University of NSW. He designed the watch and spent a lot of time testing it. “We have done a lot of test falls — with Mitchell falling onto pillows,” Isaac said.

1. What device did the two young cousins develop?

A．A database system to monitor people’s movements.

B．A wearable calculator to measure the speed movements.

C．A real-time text messaging system for aged-care facilities.

D．A smartwatch-style device to detect falls and alert caregivers.

2. What was the primary motivation behind the cousins’ invention?

A．To win a national science competition.

B．To create a product that could be commercialized.

C．To develop a solution to assist their great-grandmother.

D．To show their engineering and software development skills.

3. Which of the following words can describe the device?

A．Ground-breaking and complicated.	B．Economical and convenient.
C．Transformative and clumsy.	D．Costly and profitable.

4. What can we conclude from the cousins’ success?

A．Hard work pays off.	B．It’s never too late to learn.
C．The simplest way is the best way.	D．Ups and downs make one strong.

2 . Some mothers and daughters like to go shopping or walking together or picnicking as part of their bonding experience. Others become firefighters together. That’s the route that Montgomery County mother Betsy Gekonge took with her 17-year-old daughter Mokeira. The pair recently graduated from the Montgomery County Fire Academy together and received their Firefighter certificate.

The rising high school senior says she thought she’d be going to the fire academy alone. She never expected to have company. “This is quite out of my expectation because I never expected her to do it with me,” said Mokeira.

“Taking classes with my mom was fun because we could study together but also joke around. We share a lot of funny stories at family events,” Mokeira told the Montgomery County Fire Chiefs Association. “Montgomery County is a great place for new volunteers because you learn a lot from knowledgeable, professional firefighters in a positive environment. It teaches you a lot.”

Mokeira is one of the first individuals to gain her Firefighter certificate at age 17 since Pennsylvania’s law changed, making 17 —the youngest legal age to become certified instead of 18.

The pair will work as volunteer firefighters for Barren Hill Fire Company in Lafayette Hill. According to the Pennsylvania Fire and Emergency Services Institute, there were 300,000 volunteer firefighters across the state in the 1970s. That number dwindled (减少) to 38,000 in 2018.

“It’s really fulfilling to volunteer and learn about fire safety that helps us and others in our daily life,” Betsy added. “I’ve built a lot of relationships in our community through volunteering.” “Our decision was primarily motivated by this, and now I have gained great satisfaction from it. It gives me a sense of purpose and I’m helping to contribute to the solution,” said Mokiera.

1. What did Betsy and Mokeira decide to do bond with each other?

A．Go shopping.	B．Take a walk.
C．Become firefighters.	D．Have a picnic.

2. How does Mokeira feel about her mother’s choice?

A．Surprised.

B．Annoyed.

C．Confused.

D．Worried.

3. Why did Betsy and Mokeira volunteer to work for their community?

A．To learn fire safety skills.	B．To work as career firefighters.
C．To address the shortage of employees.	D．To strengthen ties with their community.

4. What does the author intend to highlight about the story?

A．The importance of fire safety education.

B．A serious challenge faced by firefighters.

C．An inspiring example of mother-daughter job relation.

D．The potential for family members to volunteer together.

3 . The summer after my freshman year college, I had to get my first job. This was probably one of the _________ tasks I have ever had to do. I had never held a job when I was in high school because my parents wanted me to put all my _________ into my studies.

At first, it was very hard. I filled out dozens of _________ but got no calls back in the first two weeks. It made sense because I had _________ no job experience. All I could _________ was that being a high school graduate and a year of college.

However, halfway through the third week, I finally got a call back from one of the places I _________. We had set up a meeting time, and after my _________, I was more than ready to start working the following Monday. I was _________ at the chance of working for my wages.

When I started, it was very clear that I was not _________. I made mistakes with orders and often __________ sales promotions (推销). My parents made a bet I would not __________ the first two weeks, and I would be back looking for more __________. However, I stuck with it.

After working a while, I got better at orders, and always __________ the cheaper options for customers. A couple of weeks later, I had been told by the manager that I had __________ the award of the best employee of the month. It taught me a lot about responsibility and gave me the __________ of working.

1.

A．funniest

B．worst

C．hardest

D．lightest

2.

A．energy

B．motivation

C．wisdom

D．ambition

3.

A．questionnaires

B．surveys

C．certifications

D．applications

4.

A．exactly

B．absolutely

C．partly

D．doubtfully

5.

A．explain

B．claim

C．interpret

D．offer

6.

A．signed up

B．applied to

C．checked in

D．headed for

7.

A．interview

B．graduation

C．arrangement

D．performance

8.

A．surprised

B．disappointed

C．excited

D．worried

9.

A．skilled

B．frightened

C．patient

D．satisfied

10.

A．avoided

B．abandoned

C．postponed

D．forgot

11.

A．spend

B．last

C．continue

D．wait

12.

A．ideas

B．expectations

C．jobs

D．instructions

13.

A．sold

B．produced

C．kept

D．recommended

14.

A．confirmed

B．received

C．guaranteed

D．become

15.

A．confidence

B．importance

C．expectation

D．hope

4 . Most Popular UK Destinations for a Staycation

Looking for a cheap stay cation to brighten up your winter? Here are the most popular destinations in the UK.

Blackpool

Whether you’re seeking the thrills of Blackpool Pleasure Beach or are keen to catch a glimpse of Blackpool Tower, the city’s most appealing attraction, the seaside town offers various amazing views. It’s no wonder the town has gained 980.8 million views on TikTok. With accommodation price £75 for a night, you’ll have a golden opportunity to enjoy Blackpool's Illuminations (彩灯) display and the Seaside Trail.

Searborough

North Yorkshire’s Scarborough sees 49,500 monthly searches and 686.4 million views on TikTok. One of the local highlights is the annual St Nicholas Fair. While a one-night stay in Scarborough costs £85, the town offers holiday-makers opportunities to experience ancient British culture at the 12th-century castle ruins.

Swansea

The Welsh town sees 27,100 monthly searches and has 622.4 million views on TikTok. Swansea’s Waterfront Wonderland brings with it the Alpine Village and various amusement attractions. Spending a night here costs just 10 pounds more than in Scarborough. But if you book a week earlier, you can get a 5 percent discount in total. With Cardiff only being an hour’s drive from Swansea, you have the perfect opportunity to catch a game of ice hockey.

Bournemouth

Bournemouth isn’t called Sunny Bournemouth for nothing, as holiday-makers can enjoy breathtaking views along the Jurassic Coast. With a World Heritage Site within its borders, it’s no surprise to see this town with the high number of views on TikTok (868.3 million). A one-night stay will cost you £105, giving you the perfect opportunity to get relaxed.

1. What is the most attractive in Blackpool?

A．Blackpool Pleasure Beach.	B．Blackpool Tower.
C．The Illuminations display.	D．The Seaside Trail.

2. How much will a tourist at least pay for a night in Swansea?

A．£ 70.

B．£ 85.

C．£ 85.75.

D．£ 90.25.

3. Which of the following has the second-highest number of views on TikTok?

A．Blackpool.

B．Swansea.

C．Scarborough.

D．Boumemouth.

5 . As she was leaving, she was e__________ (渴望的) to say goodbye to each of us in the nursing team. （根据中英文提示拼写单词）

6 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Yue Opera, one of the five major Chinese operas and the second     1    (large) type nationally, is known as “Chinese drama” abroad. It originated in Shengzhou City in Zhejiang Province, which was part of the Yue State in the Spring and Autumn Period, so it     2    (name) Yue Opera. It has at least thirteen     3    ( school) and prevails(盛行) in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian, Jiangxi and Anhui areas, as well as cities in northern China such as Beijing and Tianjin.

Yue Opera was born in 1906 as “little song class”. In 1938, it    4    ( formal) adopted the name of Yue Opera.

Absorbing the elements of Shaoxing Opera, Yue Opera enriched them and created its own type of music. It is good    5     expressing emotions through singing.     6    ( maintain) its soft tunes, sweet melodies(旋律),     7     refined style, Yue Opera adopted artistic achievements from the modern drama, Kunqu Opera and Western music, and created     8     new performance style.

Up to now, many years of development     9    (make) Yue Opera a most important opera style next to Peking Opera in China, taking its theme from fairy tales, literary classics and    10    (history) stories. Popular plays include Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (known as The Butterfly Lovers), Dream of the Red Chamber and Mrs. Xianglin.

7 . The sky turned orange and the hospitals were in chaos. Thousands of Iraqis came to emergency rooms complaining that they could not breathe. Some had to be put on respirators. Schools closed and airports cancelled flights. Life came to a stop amid a cloud of dust.

Such scenes have occurred almost weekly in Iraq since April. In decades past, two or three big sandstorms were expected every year. This spring, Iraq has already recorded at least eight. Sandstorms have always been a fact of life in the Middle East, and are now growing more frequently and intensely.

Scientists say dust storms are complex and poorly understood, but their main causes are natural. In 2015, some people blamed a fierce summer storm in the Levant on Syria’s civil war thinking that military vehicles travelling through fields kicked up enough dust to blanket the region. Researchers at Princeton University later cited a more ordinary mix of unusual heat and strong winds as its reason, not gunners.

Still, people plainly contribute to the problem. Demand for water is making a dry region even drier. A World Bank study in 2019 found that human actions, such as over-exploiting rivers and lakes, produce a quarter of the Middle East’s dust. Iran has drained wetlands for farming. Turkish dams on the Tigris and Euphrates mean drier riverbeds downstream. All of this means more dust needs to be swept up by the wind. The decrease of the region’s forests because of fires and cutting down trees means there is less vegetation to hold it back. Syria, for example, has lost an estimated 25% of its woodland and since 2001, most of it to summer fires. Climate change will make the problem worse.

For those who work outside, sandstorms make life unbearable. Sandstorms bring tiny particles that travel deep into the lungs. The World Bank estimates that air pollution causes 30,000 premature deaths a year in the Middle East — and rising.

Economic costs will mount, too. Workers stay at home. Crops are buried under dust. The UN puts the direct economic cost in the Middle East at $13 bn a year, with indirect costs many times bigger.

1. What do the scenes described in Paragraph 1 show?

A．The seriousness of sandstorms in Iraq.	B．The high frequency of sandstorms in Iraq.
C．The steps taken to address Iraq’s sandstorms.	D．The Iraqis’ negative response to sandstorms.

2. How does Paragraph 3 mainly develop?

A．By offering analyses.	B．By giving an example.
C．By providing research results.	D．By challenging a general view.

3. What does the underlined part “All of this” in Paragraph 4 refer to?

A．A drier climate.

B．Water shortage in the Middle East.

C．The impact of human activities on water resources.

D．Decrease of forest areas across the Middle East.

4. What’s the author’s attitude towards the Middle East’s sandstorm problem?

A．Puzzled.

B．Worried.

C．Doubtful

D．Optimistic.

8 . When most people think of drones (无人机), they think of technology and fun. Safe to say, few people would think about farming. However, a group of students from York College of Pennsylvania have been building a drone that will not only help local farmers but the environment, as well.

Samantha Gotwalt and Blayde Reich, two senior Mechanical Engineering majors at York College in the group, both found the work to be quite fascinating. According to Samantha, the idea came from a York College professor, who has worked with drones, and wanted to get students involved with a project beneficial to the community. “We really want to help farming and agriculture. It’s super-important to America and our economy,” Blayde says. “We want to help the smaller farmers, and one of the perks is not having to spend their money on fertilizer and pesticides (杀虫剂).”

The idea is to design and build a drone that will take video imagery of the fields to determine what is needed to produce the best crop, while saving money and sparing the environment by reducing pollutants in the water runoff. Ideally, that data gained will help the farmers better determine what chemicals they need — and what they don’t.

However, finding the right equipment for the project was a challenge, starting with what drone the team would design for this particular usage. Samantha says she researched durability and control of drones to help make the proper determination.

“We are flying over the field and we want to have enough efficiency and go relatively slow enough that our pictures turn out well - and fly low enough that it is not using up all of its power,” she says. “The fields are a couple hundred acres(英亩), so you need your drone to be able to fly the length of that field.”

Blayde says the team continues to learn a great deal of information that will help the farmers and the environment.

1. What does the underlined word “perks” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Challenges.

B．Features.

C．Benefits.

D．Solutions.

2. What particular usage is the drone designed for?

A．Spreading proper quantities of pesticides.

B．Helping to determine the chemicals needed.

C．Assisting to monitor the state of crops.

D．Measuring the areas of the fields.

3. What technical issue of the drone shall be tackled?

A．Its camera capacity.	B．Its data collection ability.
C．Its durability and control.	D．Its material and efficiency.

4. What can best describe the students?

A．Disciplined and realistic.	B．Experienced and reliable.
C．Humble and reserved.	D．Responsible and creative.

9 . One morning a few years ago, at home in the Mänoa Valley on Oahu, scientist Kimberly Carlson looked out of the window and saw a rainbow so bright and clear that it took her breath away. That wasn’t a shocker: Hawaii is possibly the best place in the world to see rainbows today, and Manoa has particularly ideal conditions for clear bows: frequent rain showers and sunlight. But Carlson, now an environmental science professor now at New York University, realized she didn’t know the answer to a simple question: Would climate change affect Hawaii’s and the whole planet’s breathtaking rainbows? She shared the question with some climate scientist colleagues, and it interested them so much that they enlisted a class full of students to investigate.

Rainbows are not special because their basic ingredients are common and governed by relatively straightforward physics. “The basic recipe for seeing any part of the natural rainbow,” says Lee, “is sunlit rain.”

In November, they published their findings. “Climate change is affecting rainbows—now we know that’s true,” says Carlson, the lead author on the paper, which used computer models to simulate future rainbow-ready conditions. As major weather patterns change because of climate change, many parts of the world-particularly places nearer to the poles, like Alaska or Siberia, will get more rain—potentially adding dozens more rainbow-rich days by the end of the century.

The changes follow broader patterns of climate change; in fact, the shifts highlight some of the biggest risks and dangers. The increases in the Arctic, for example, are likely to play out because water that used to fall from the sky as snow will more often drop down as rain in a hotter future. And today’s rainbow-rich Amazon is predicted to suffer more frequently drought—both because the forest, which currently creates it sown rain, will lose that superpower as it shrinks, and because planet-wide climate change is shifting and changing the major weather patterns that cause tropical rainfall.

1. Why does the author mention Carlson’s experience in paragraph 1?

A．To explain a rule.	B．To introduce a topic.
C．To present a fact.	D．To make a prediction.

2. What is the most important reason of seeing a natural rainbow?

A．Frequent sunlight.	B．Frequent rain showers.
C．The sunlit rain.	D．The geographic position.

3. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．Climate change causes more rainbows.

B．More rainbows worsen the climate condition.

C．There will be less rainbows in Siberia.

D．The temperature will be lower in Alaska.

4. What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A．There may be more snow than rain in the Arctic.

B．Rainbows will be on the increase always.

C．Increase of rainbows is a natural phenomenon.

D．Amazon may suffer from drought more frequently.

10 . As Gwen Erickson approached 97, she began raising one of America’s most popular, yet endangered butterflies—the monarch butterfly (帝王蝶). She managed to _________ 27 butterflies last year and this year the _________ has gone up to 61.

The whole process is a little _________, beginning with collecting eggs from the milkweed leaves that grow in her backyard. Four days after Erickson placed the eggs in jars on her living room table, the caterpillar (毛毛虫) appeared, and then, within several weeks, formed a chrysalis (蛹). Two weeks later the beautiful butterflies _________. Erickson then released the butterflies into the wild, but a couple seemed a little _________ to leave their loving home and _________ the senior by flying around the house.

Erickson remembered her first attempt to raise _________ and said she hoped it could enable her grandchildren to _________ an interest in these beautiful insects. However, it’s she who has found the _________ in raising butterflies in the end.

Erickson doesn’t like to talk about herself and what she does, but she does so this time as she wants to ____________ others to care for this endangered species. Happily, a friend and her son have joined her in her new-found ____________. Hopefully, we will see a(n) ____________ in those decreasing numbers.

This new ____________ is a fine example of people caring for the smaller things in life. It ____________ us that it’s never too late to be ____________ in life.

1.

A．steal

B．donate

C．keep

D．photograph

2.

A．number

B．size

C．range

D．variety

3.

A．money-saving

B．labor-demanding

C．energy-efficient

D．time-consuming

4.

A．sped up

B．turned up

C．woke up

D．grew up

5.

A．impatient

B．delighted

C．surprised

D．unwilling

6.

A．accompanied

B．attended

C．greeted

D．impressed

7.

A．flies

B．pests

C．butterflies

D．bees

8.

A．regain

B．develop

C．remove

D．express

9.

A．decoration

B．fossil

C．herb

D．pleasure

10.

A．allow

B．encourage

C．arrange

D．invite

11.

A．passion

B．exit

C．species

D．fiction

12.

A．opportunity

B．result

C．change

D．inspiration

13.

A．hobby

B．version

C．rumour

D．exercise

14.

A．promises

B．reminds

C．upsets

D．strengthens

15.

A．polite

B．generous

C．optimistic

D．purposeful