At the opening ceremony (典礼) of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, everyone was amazed by the Malan Flower Children’s Choir (合唱团). The song moved people around the world. The choir was named after Malan Village. Deng Xiaolan taught music there for 18 years. Sadly, Deng passed away soon after this great performance, leaving behind her beloved village and the children she taught.
Deng Xiaolan was born in a small village in Hebei Province in 1943. She learned the violin and singing when she was young. She joined the school band after entering Tsinghua University, and she also taught her colleagues to play the violin after graduation. She worked in Beijing until she retired(退休). In 2004, the 61-year-old woman started volunteering to teach music in Malan Village.
Deng’s arrival (到来) brought changes to the children in the village. They fell in love with music. They would sing together in the morning, at noon, and at dusk (黄昏). Their beautiful voices went along with the birds’ songs and the wind through the trees. Some of the children went to college to study music and even became music teachers later. To let the children experience the beautiful views of our capital city, she even paid for their trip to Beijing. She led them to the Palace Museum, the Tiananmen Square, and so on. They opened their eyes to the outside world as well.
Teaching music in the village for such a long time was not easy for Deng, but she believed that music could make children healthier and happier. “In the last 18 years of her life, mum devoted (奉献) most of her time and energy to music education for children in Malan Village, which brought her great joy and made her life more meaningful. Her hard work had a big effect even though she’s no longer with us, ” said her daughter.
1. Is Deng Xiaolan still alive?2. When did Deng Xiaolan start volunteering to teach music in Malan Village?
3. What changes did Deng’s arrival bring to the children?
4. Do you think it’s necessary for the old people to volunteer in the way like Deng Xiaolan’s? Why or why not?
People say that a dog is man’s best friend. Once dogs find their “people”, they will stay by their side until the very end. Sadly, however, many families lost or even gave up their dogs.
Leo is a dog from Thailand. He became popular on the Internet because of his amazing story. About four years ago; the poor dog was left behind by his owners somewhere near a gas station. Hoping his owners would return for him, the dog never left his spot(地点).
Luckily. Leo was never truly alone. Seeing the poor thing, people there decided to help him out. Saowalak, a 45-year-old woman, took the poor dog back to her home after giving him food. However, Leo just kept on running away only to return to his old spot and wait for someone by the side of the road.
In the end, she let him but still brought over some food every day so that Leo wouldn’t be hungry.
Another person, Anuchit, also cared about Leo and decided to put some photos of the dog online to find his family. That’s when the Internet did its magic. After being put on the Internet, the photos finally reached Leo’s missing family. They called Anuchit, telling him how the dog in the pictures looked like their dog.
It turned out that Leo was their dog. They lost him back in 2015. They looked for him for a week but had little hope of finding him. They thought that they would never see him again.
The family and Leo got the chance to see each other again. But while both seemed happy to be reunited(重逢), it also seemed like something has changed with Leo. When the family asked Leo to get into the car and go home with them, Leo stopped. …
1. Did Leo become popular on the Internet because he was cute?2. Why did Leo keep on running away after Saowalak took him back to her home?
3. According to the passage, what does “the Internet did its magic” mean?
4. What did Leo decide to do next? Please write an ending for the passage. (No more than 30 words)
More than 30 years after saving a drowning (溺水的) person in Qingyun Lake, Zhao Li has won the national role model award. Zhao was among 10 winners of the role model awards last November. Indeed, he is just one of the everyday heroes in China.
Zhao, a villager living near the lake in Shandong province, has saved 16 people from drowning, including a child who accidentally dropped into the water and a woman who tried to kill herself.
“I think one person’s ability is limited (有限的). A professional team can save more people’s lives,” he says. Because of this, he started a saving center with strong - swimming volunteers in August 2020..
Actually, it’s not easy to set up such a saving center. They bought speedboats and life vests with their own money. Recently, the center has more than 100 volunteers. In their latest effort, they rushed to Xinxiang city and helped more than 1, 000 people out of the flood in three days. When Zhao faced the flood, he was not afraid.
Li Lingzhi, a college student in Guangxi, tried to stop a man from stealing cables last August. He suffered a serious knife cut on his face while fearlessly fighting with the thief. The thief was finally caught by police, and fortunately Li recovered.
Besides, without thinking the risk of COVID - 19 infection, Wang Yong, a courier (快递员) in Wuhan cit, organized a team and offered free buses, as well as daily groceries (杂货) to medical workers from Jinyintan Hospital, a place to treat patients during the peak of the COVID - 19 in early 2020.
1. Did Zhao Li win the national role model award?2. How many volunteers are there in Zhao Li’s saving center?
3. Why can Zhao Li, Li Lingzhi and Wang Yong be known as everyday heroes?
4. Everyone can volunteer to help others. Think up some volunteer activities, and write them down. (About 30 words. )
Do you have family rules? Do you think they are good or terrible? Frank is a middle school student. He is always happy with his family rules. Do you want to know what the rules are?
Take exercise every day. On weekdays, Frank always plays tennis with his classmates for half an hour after school. And his parents run in the morning. On weekends, Frank’s family often play sports together.
Let evening time only be family time. They can’t watch TV or play games after dinner. The family usually sit on the sofa and have a talk. Frank likes to talk about his school and friends. Sometimes they take a walk to the park.
Always say “I love you” and “Thank you”. Frank says “I love you” to his parents every morning before he goes to school and every night before he goes to bed. And his parents say it to him, too. When they get help from other family members, they must say “Thank you”.
Frank likes every rule in his family because he thinks his family rules help him to keep healthy. Many students don’t like doing sports but Frank is different. He is good at sports and be looks healthy. And these rules also let his family live a happy life. To follow the rules, they must show their love and thanks to each other every day.
1. Do Frank’s parents say “I love you” and “Thank you” to him?2. How many rules in Frank’s family are mentioned in the passage?
3. Why does Frank like his family rules?
4. Do you like the rule “Take exercise every day”? Why or why not?
People in Europe are soon to have another choice when looking for meat at food stores or choosing a meal at a restaurant. Instead of the usual meat from an animal, they may soon be able to buy a kind made from plants and shaped by 3D printers.
The Israeli company Redefine Meat makes the substitute (替代品) meat. It is called “New Meat”. It looks and tastes like meat. It is shaped by the printer that creates real objects of different materials — not just paper. New Meat is already sold in Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. Some restaurants pay $ 40 per kilogram for New Meat.
Eshchar, a Redefine Meat founder and leader, says the food has all the qualities of real meat but is just made in a different way.
Success is not guaranteed (保证) in the substitute meat market. However, another company that makes such products is Beyond Meat in the Unite States. Over the summer, Beyond Meat said it did not expect sales of its product in 2023 to reach the number it wanted.
Meat made from plants are seen as better for animals and the environment. But according to some recent marketing surveys, people don’t often buy substitute meat. That’s because .
1. Is New Meat sold in Greece now?2. What does Eshchar think of New Meat?
3. How is New Meat different from real meat?
4. Why may New Meat not sell well in the market? Please complete the last sentence. (at least 20 words)
In China, lots of food deliverymen (外卖送货员) work long hours every day, rushing around the cities to keep up with customer orders.
Chen Lu, 23-year-old, has been a deliveryman for an online food delivery platform (平台), Eleme, for two years. “Most deliverymen work around 10 hours a day while others work 15 hours every day,” he said, “All of them have to compete to get orders, especially during the lunchtime rush.”
Deliverymen get 5 to 7 yuan for each order, depending on the time of day, distance, and other factors. However, deliverymen are seeing their pay becoming lower than before because of the competition of the market. We all know that there are more and more platforms and deliverymen nowadays. To make more money, deliverymen have to finish more orders. Also, there will be punishment if they can’t deliver orders on time, so deliverymen struggle to deliver orders within a limited (有限制的) time. They have to ride their motorbikes faster and faster, often breaking traffic rules and working in very bad weather conditions, which can lead to accidents.
“If everyone obeys the law and also tries to deliver orders as the platforms require, it means that they can only complete 8 to 15 orders a day which is not enough for them to make a living,” said Luo, a researcher that studies working conditions in China.
Shanghai police reported a sharp rise in road accidents for the first half of 2019, and food delivery workers were involved (牵涉) in more than 80% of them. Last August, one deliveryman died in Shanghai when he was delivering the orders during the typhoon. Chen Lu said he doesn’t take a day off even in bad weather conditions. “I work every day, even in snow, and heavy rain,” he said.
1. Is Chen Lu a food deliveryman?2. How much can drivers get for each order?
3. What makes the drivers try their best to deliver orders?
4. Will you complain to the platform when the driver didn’t deliver your order on time? Why or why not?
Old John has worked as a school keeper in Hill Ford School. After walking into the school building every day, he cleans rubbish bins and bathrooms.
Last Friday, after he arrived at the school, instead of finding rubbish to clean up, he found almost 500 students lining in the hallway(大厅) with handmade cards and singing a happy birthday song to him. It was his 80th birthday. As he walked the long hallway, someone rushed to him and gave him a hug. They handed him so many cards as well and the cards filled several large boxes. Old John was touched by their expression of affection (关爱). He thanked them all. “It's the sixteenth year in this school. They're like my children,” Old John said.
On a regular day, students sometimes come up to find him and say they're not feeling well or other times to tell him about something that happened at break time. He knows most of he students at the school, but can't name each one. Some of them make him know them, like Faith, who often leaves her schoolbag in the canteen, and Lucy, who just wants a hug.
Carrie, a reading teacher said,“He won't brag(夸耀) on himself, but it doesn't matter what he's doing or where he is, he will stop what he's doing at any time to give all his attention and take care of a child if that child is having a bad day. "
He works circles around all the students, cleaning up the mess others don't want to touch. He doesn't expect a lot. Old John said he hadn't planned to do much for his birthday, so he was touched as the students had prepared the surprise celebration.
Over the weekend, he worked through the handmade cards at his house. One card from a student stood out to him. It read “Old John, you are the most loved one in our school…”.
1. Is Old John a school teacher?2. How long has Old John worked in the school?
3. Why is Old John considered as the most loved one in the school?
4. Someone would say that it's worth doing a common job during his whole life. Do you agree?Why or why not?
An elder sister went to visit her younger sister in the countryside. The elder sister was married to a businessman in town and the younger sister to a poor farmer in the village. When the sisters drank tea together, the elder began to talk about the advantages of town life. She talked about how beautiful their dresses are, what good things they ate and drank, and how she went to the theater and other fun things.
The younger sister was angry when she heard what her sister said and in return laughed at the life of a businessman. “I wound not change my way of life for yours,” she said. “Maybe we are poor, but at least we are not worried. You live in a better style than we do, but though you often earn more than you need, you seem to lose all you have.”
She continued, “As an old saying goes ‘Loss and gain are brothers.’ It often happens that people who are rich one day are begging for their bread the next. Our way is safe. Though a farmer’s life is not rich, it is long.”
Pahom, the husband of the younger sister, heard the women’s talking. “It is perfectly true,” he said. “Busy as we are from childhood farming the earth, we poor farmers have no time to let anything meaningless settle in our heads. Our only trouble is that we haven’t got enough land. If I had plenty of land, I wouldn’t be afraid of anything.”
1. Was the younger sister happy when she heard what her sister said?2. Where did the elder sister live?
3. What did the sisters mainly talk about?
4. Do you want to live in town or in the village? Why?
Mama and I spend mornings cleaning up the dirt that blows into our house. Mama says all the dust is due to the drought(干旱). The dirt covers everything. It covers our clothes. We have to wash the dishes before each meal. We rarely drive the truck because Papa fears the dust from the road will ruin the motor.
When my sister, Faye, and I walk to school we wear scarfs over our mouths so we don’t breathe in the dirt. On days when the air is so bad that they close the school, we stay at home and help Mama put wet sheets over the windows. But the dirt always finds a way in.
Last Sunday, there was no dirt in the air, only bright spring sunshine and a clear blue sky. After lunch, Papa headed out to the field to check on the cattle while I played with Faye in the yard. The temperature suddenly dropped. I looked to the west and saw a huge black cloud of dust. All the birds flew away. “I must warn Papa,” I thought to myself. To avoid her fear, I gently told Faye to go back inside where she would be safe, and then headed off to the field.
The storm hit so fast, and in an instant the day turned into night. By the time I entered the cow field the fine sand was whipping(抽打) across my face. I screamed for Papa, hoping my voice would lead him back. The dirt and sand stung my skin like a thousand bees. Although I was terrified, I refused to turn back. My dad was trapped and needed my help.
1. Read for the main idea. (Limit your ideas to less than 20 words.)2. Write a possible ending. (Limit your ideas to around 80 words.)
Covering my face with one hand, I groped(摸索) my way toward the truck and opened the door.
10 . While many students raise their hands in class to ask or answer questions, some people outside school raise their hands to get others' attention. Recently, the project "Raise Your Hands for Luca" has made people realize they can also do something amazing by raising their hands to help a brave boy named Luca Williams.
Luca comes from England. When he was three, he lost his legs because of a terrible illness. Luca's parents started the Raise Your Hands for Luca Project. They hoped to raise 1.5 million pounds to buy Luca prosthetic legs (假肢) and to pay for the care he needs.
Since then, many people have joined up by writing "For Luca" on their hands and putting the picture of it onto the website. The project has also caught many big stars' eyes such as the world famous football star Maradona. Mickey Mouse also joined the project to help Luca. By now, the project has raised about 225,000 pounds for the little boy.
1. Have many famous people joined in the project?__________________________
2. What happened to Luca when he was three?
__________________________
3. Who started the Raise Your Hands for Luca Project?
__________________________
4. Do you like helping others in trouble? Why or why not?
__________________________
