1 . Arsh believes in the importance of making the world a more beautiful place. The talented boy not only paints but also sells his artwork and donates the money.

It all started when his parents bought him a set of painting tools for his 8th birthday. Once he had his own materials, he began spending much of his free time putting color on his canvas. As Arsh’s paintings began to grow in number, he decided to give them as gifts to friends and family. Receiving a positive response from people around him, he soon realized his pieces had the potential to get much more than smiles and praise.

His light-bulb moment came shortly after: he would sell his artwork and donate the money to charity. His first plan was to raise $1,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which he accomplished in around nine months by selling his paintings on social media and at local art shows. Since then, he’s broadened his reach to benefit other organizations, including childhood cancer nonprofit Compass to Care and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He’s raised over $16,000 for charities so far.

Arsh’s artwork is often colorful and cheery, as one might expect from a youngster, but it showcases the impressive technique of a gifted artist. Some pieces are more abstract in nature; others feature realistic renditions (演绎) of flowers and animals. They range in size and complexity, and, accordingly, price. Small paintings might sell for $10 while larger canvases, up to five feet, have gone for $800.

Last year, Arsh won The Diana Award, an honor presented by a UK charity founded on Princess Diana’s belief that young people have the power to change their country. And the young artist has advice for other kids looking to make a difference. “Helping others doesn’t have to be, like, money or anything. It can be your time, your skills, your talent,” he says, “and overall, just be kind to other people to make their day better.”

1. What made Arsh interested in painting?

A．A birthday present from his parents.	B．His parents’ deep love for painting.
C．The encouragement of others around him.	D．His fascination with the beauty of nature.

2. Why did Arsh decide to sell his artwork?

A．To pay for his painting materials.	B．To get more attention from others.
C．To attract children’s interest in art.	D．To help those people who are in need.

3. What can we learn about Arsh from the text?

A．His fundraising plan is going well.

B．He will turn his attention to his studies.

C．All his paintings sell at high prices now.

D．He is going to teach other children to paint for free.

4. What does Arsh want to say in the last paragraph?

A．Every child has a unique talent.

B．Everyone has the ability to help others.

C．Talent plays an important role in learning art.

D．Helping others is the responsibility of young artists.

2 . Popular people are admired and loved by their peers (同龄人).     1     Popular people have plenty of friends and usually have a high social status in their peer group. Here are some general tips that will help you become a more likable and popular person.

Avoid offering help in exchange for approval (认可). Trying to be helpful will have the opposite effect.     2     Popular people help others because they have a useful skill, not because they want to win someone else’s friendship.

Be the glue in your social circle. When you have plans to meet a group of friends for a social outing, make a habit of inviting someone who hasn’t met everyone in the group yet. If you re hanging out with a friend and run into another friend, remember to introduce them to each other.     3    

Practice positivity. People who often complain about life and are more pessimistic have fewer friends. Therefore, it’s important to have a positive attitude and avoid constant complaining.     4     It can be a key step in making close friends. But if you talk about your problems over and over again, your friends might not enjoy hanging out with you.

    5     Many people make the mistake of avoiding social relationships at their school or workplace. They think these places are for work or studying, not socializing. But most of us spend a lot of time at work or college. If you refuse to socialize with people you see almost every day, you’ll miss out on some valuable relationships.

A．Build relationships at work place and school.

B．Otherwise, your friends might feel awkward.

C．Make sure you are popular with your friends.

D．You’ll be regarded as people who need friendship.

E．And many people want to be associated with popular people.

F．However, sometimes sharing your problems with others is a good thing.

G．Peers have a special gift that enables them to make friends wherever they go.

3 . WELCOME

STUDENT HANDBOOK

The administration, faculty, and staff of American Heritage and American Academy welcome you to the new school year. Please take the time to become familiar with the following information. It can be helpful during the school year for the students and an effective means to avoid confusion and misunderstandings.

Academic Reporting

The-175-day academic year is divided into two semesters, each with two grading periods, and report cards are given at the end of each. Plus, progress reports are issued throughout the year, with their distribution dates listed in the booklet’s back.

Conference Days & Exam Days

Conference days are normally held on the Friday, which are required to be attended by all the students, following the distribution of report cards.

Fourth, fifth and sixth graders take exams during exam week at the end of the school year. All students are expected to be present during finals. Any student who must miss an exam date is required to request permission in writing stating just cause for absence.

Requirements for Promotion

To be eligible（有资格的）for promotion, a student must successfully complete all grade level requirements including maintaining a “C” average or higher in Reading and/or Mathematic s for the year and for second semester.

Honors Classes

Honors level classes are offered to scholarly qualified students in Math（Grades 2-6）, Language Arts/Reading（Grades 4-6), and Science（Grades 5-6) . Administration recommends placement based on student testing, motivation, teacher recommendation, and the good of the individual and the whole class. Students in Honors Classes will be moved to a regular class at end of semester if a “C—” or lower is earned.

1. What do we know about academic reporting?

A．Students have three-time marking periods in a semester.

B．Students are not sure when they can get reports cards.

C．Students are well informed to know their grades’ progress.

D．Students have to go to school to get reports in person.

2. What do Conference Days & Exam Days require students to do?

A．Get promoted for next year.	B．Attend a meeting on Friday.
C．Get into Honors Classes.	D．Miss exams without reasons.

3. What is the purpose of the text?

A．To provide rules of managing students’ behavior.

B．To show students’ rights and responsibilities.

C．To sign an agreement with students’ parents.

D．To offer some information about the school year.

4 . In San Francisco, a large group of sea lions move themselves out of the bay waters and hang out on PIER 39, which is a popular tourist destination. According to dock (码头)officials, this is the most sea lions seen in the region in 15 years.

“Over 1,000 sea lions have been counted this week,” PIER 39 harbormaster Sheila Chandor told many different media. “The surge in sea lions is usually a good sign of their strong population and healthy living environment,” said Adam Ratner, Director of Conservation Engagement at the Marine Mammal(海洋哺乳动物) Center in Sausalito, California.

“California sea lions are sentinels(哨兵) of the ocean,” Ratner said. Their population to some extent reflects the health of the ocean. Therefore, seeing a large number of California sea lions is clearly a good thing.

For nearly 35 years, the slippery(滑的) residents have been a star attraction for tourists. That autumn in 1989, PIER 39 had just been repaired, but the ships had not yet been moved back. At that moment, the sea lions unexpected arrival not only attracted fans but also created enemies. According to a website, some dock residents and workers were scared away by the strong and very unpleasant smell and noise of their new neighbors, while others saw these animals as a bright spot after the destructive Loma Prieta earthquake.

The officials sought help from the Marine Mammal Center to find a way to deal with sea lions. Ratner said that the final decision is to let the sea lions stay and coexist with humans. “The fact proves that this is really a good thing,” he said. “This is just a proof of how we can truly work together and think about how we can share our coasts with marine mammals and other wildlife in a way that benefits all the parties involved.”

1. How does the author start the text?

A．By describing a situation.

B．By answering a question.

C．By holding a conversation.

D．By comparing different opinions.

2. What does the underlined word “surge” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Sharp increase.	B．Tight control.
C．Slow development.	D．Sudden movement.

3. What is Ratner’s attitude to the final decision?

A．Doubtful.	B．Uninterested.
C．Supportive.	D．Unclear.

4. What message does the author seem to convey in the text?

A．Sea lions are pretty cool animals.

B．Animals and humans can live in harmony.

C．Watching sea lions might not be a proper action.

D．Sea lions should be driven out of PIER 39.

5 . In 2019, after retiring from her career as a social worker, Ane Freed - Kernis decided to build a home workshop and devote all of her free time to stone carving. “I might be covered head to to e in dust but I’m happy — it was something I needed more of in my life when I hit 60,” she says.

This appeal has its origins in Freed - Kernis’ childhood. Growing up on her father’s farm in Denmark, she used to wander through the fields with her eyes fixed on the ground, looking for stones to add to her collection. “I’ve always been drawn to the shapes and textures(质地) of stones,” she says.

After moving to England in 1977 and training as a social worker, Freed - Kernis soon became occupied with her busy career and the demands of raising her son. Stones were the last thing on her mind, until her father died in 2005. “He took a stone carving course in his retirement, and I always thought stone seemed so fun but never had the time to look into it myself,” she says. “After he died, I became determined to learn in his honour.”

Signing up for a week-long stone carving course at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Freed - Kernis began to learn how to turn a block of rock into well-designed shapes. “It was really scary at the start because you would spend hours just hammering(锤打).”

Now 65, Freed - Kernis has a thriving small business built largely through word of mouth. She creates 12 to 15 pieces a year that can take anywhere from a few days to three weeks to complete, while her prices range from £ 200 to £ 3,000. “I’m making smaller ones,” she says. “I don’t have to depend on the money much, so I want to keep prices in the range that people can afford, mainly just covering costs and labour(劳动力).”

1. Freed-Kernis was first attracted by stones when ______.

A．she was 60	B．she was a child
C．her father died	D．she moved to England

2. What can we infer about Freed-Kernis from paragraph 3?

A．She never cared about her father.

B．She led a disappointing life in Denmark.

C．She spent lots of time studying stone carving.

D．She learned stone carving under the influence of her dad.

3. How did Freed-Kernis feel when she started stone carving course?

A．Hopeful and proud.

B．Confident and satisfied.

C．Nervous and frightened.

D．Impatient and unprepared.

4. Why is Freed-Kernis making smaller pieces?

A．They are easier to move by her.

B．They are more affordable to people.

C．She wants to save costs and labour.

D．She is too old to focus on making large ones.

6 . To produce the classic clothing, blue jeans, producers rely on indigo dye (靛蓝染料), the only molecule known to provide jeans’ unique, beloved color. While indigo itself naturally comes from a plant, growing demand for blue jeans throughout the 20th century gave rise to synthetic (合成的) indigo, which is now more commonly used.

Indigo is the dye that makes jeans blue, but it doesn’t mix with water. To dye clothes, usually, chemicals are needed to make the color stick to the cloth. But in Denmark, scientists have created a new way to dye clothes using an enzyme (酶), which is a kind of protein that can cause chemical reactions, instead of harmful chemicals. This new method is better for the environment and doesn’t use poisonous stuff.

The chemical process for dyeing blue jeans has persisted for the last century. Workers are exposed to the poisonous chemicals, which also pollute the environment near factories. Waste water from those factories often ends up in waterways, decimating local ecosystems and even dyeing rivers blue.

Ditte Hededam Welner, the study’s lead researcher, says their new enzyme works really well and is strong enough for making lots of jeans without breaking down. This enzyme makes dyeing with indican, which is like indigo, much less harmful to the planet — about 92% better than the old way.

However, the new method doesn’t fix all the environmental problems of making jeans. Making a single pair of jeans uses a lot of water — enough to fill many bathtubs — from growing the cotton to putting the final touches on the jeans.

Even though the new dyeing process is better for the environment, it’s not always easy or cheap to change to it. Welner’s team isn’t sure if jeans companies will find it easy or affordable to switch to this method. It costs a little bit more — just seven cents extra per pair of jeans — to use the enzyme for dyeing. But Welner believes it’s worth it because it’s much better for the environment.

1. Why was synthetic indigo created in the 20th century?

A．It made jeans’ color unique.	B．It was easy to dye cloth with it.
C．People liked jeans made from it.	D．People were in greater need of jeans.

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

A．Troubling.

B．Entering.

C．Destroying.

D．Defeating.

3. Which is an advantage of the new method?

A．The colour is more beautiful than the synthetic indigo.

B．The market can keep stable goods supplies.

C．Enzyme facilitates the advance of science.

D．The dye is more environmentally friendly.

4. What makes Welner worried about the new method?

A．Production costs.	B．Environmental benefits.
C．Water consumption.	D．Laborer shortage.

7 .        BBC foreign correspondent Jeremy Bowen’s recent assignment — a three-part series on Radio 4 in which he made “a personal journey through Wales”, the country of his birth — must still have left him a little shocked. Bowen, born in Cardiff but living in England and a non-Welsh speaker, did the most dangerous thing — he attacked what he saw as the way the Weish-speaking minority in Wales dominates the cultural conversation. This argument has not gone down well in the land of his fathers.

The Welsh online media has suggested this is the view from Camberwell where Bowen lives, rather than Criccieth — a journalist’s whistle-stop tour of a country he last resided in more than 40 years ago. Fellow BBC journalist Welsh speaker Huw Edwards responded to that criticism: “We are all products of upbringing — this take is 1970s Cardiff.” Edwards was even ruder about an attack on Welsh by Jonathan Meades in The Critic. “So long as it’s a hobby language it is as harmless as a Sunday painter,” wrote Meades. “But in pockets of Snowdonia and mid-Wales it is a tool not only of communication but of identity and exclusivity, thus of self-harm.” To which Edwards responded: “Meades is a brilliant writer and I have enjoyed his work over many years. I can only assume he’s crazy. Nothing else can explain this rubbish.”

Bowen’s argument is that because bilingualism (双语) has become essential for many jobs in Welsh government and media, the English-speaking majority has been disadvantaged. Meades is more concerned with a project to create a million Welsh speakers (a third of the population) by 2050. At present, only a fifth of the population speaks Welsh regularly. Such views are, however, either outdated or exaggerated (夸张的).

Largely rural Welsh-speaking Wales was discovering new confidence, thanks to the start of the Welsh-language channel S4C in 1982 and the growth of Welsh-medium education. But Welsh-speaking Wales is not responsible for the difficulties of English-speaking Wales, and the two have to find a way to coexist. The survival of Welsh is a miracle, and every Welsh person, whether or not they speak it, should celebrate that fact.

1. Why was Bowen recently shocked?

A．He had a narrow escape in Wales.

B．He was refused entry into his fatherland.

C．He was assigned to do a series about Wales.

D．He was criticized for his Radio program about Wales.

2. What was Edwards’ attitude toward Meades’ comments?

A．Disapproving.

B．Supportive.

C．Tolerant.

D．Uncaring.

3. What put the English-speaking majority at a disadvantage?

A．They could not speak two languages.

B．They held outdated ideas about language.

C．A third of the Welsh could speak the native language.

D．The government attached less importance to English.

4. What does the author say about the survival of Welsh?

A．It establishes Welsh dominance.

B．It is unexpected and welcome.

C．It occurs at the cost of English-speaking Wales.

D．It owes to the efforts of Welsh-speaking Wales.

8 . At some point, something will have to be done about the stuffed toys (毛绒玩具). I haven’t counted them because, truthfully, I’m not prepared to know how many there are. Lately, our neighborhood’s message boards are filled with posts about parents trying to make space, to clear out the things their kids no longer need. The tone of some of these posts can best be described as “emergency”. “Help!” they sometimes begin. “I have to get this out of my house.”

“The proliferation (激增) of children’s toys is the outcome of a long, gradual cultural change,”says Gary Cross, a professor at Pennsylvania State University. To understand how we got here — drowning (淹没于) in all those stuffed toys and bricks — it helps to look as far back as the late 19th century. “Parents were no longer passing their jobs on to the children,” Cross says. “Instead, they connect across generations through the gifting process. From the early 20th century on, goods became the things that define relationships between family members, and the way of marking success as a family.”

Then, how can parents deal with the proliferation of children’s toys at home? Naeemah Ford Goldson, a professional organizer, is also a mom of two. In her own home, Goldson likes to include her kids in the work of sorting out their toys. They know that the items they don’t need anymore will be given to people who can use them, to families who might not be as fortunate as theirs. “Doing so helps them build those habits of letting go,” she says, “so then they don’t become adults who are too dependent on material things instead of experiences, or people, and the memories we make with people.”

Her idea made sense. She told her 5-year-old they should pick some to give to kids in their community who came from another country and had to leave their toys behind. She immediately took a pink bear from the pile.

1. Why does the author present the posts in paragraph 1?

A．To show the popularity of children’s toys.

B．To offer suggestions about choosing children’s toys.

C．To praise the role of social media in buying children’s toys.

D．To introduce the influence too many children’s toys bring about.

2. What has caused the huge increase of children’s toys according to Cross?

A．Children’s demands.	B．The growth of technology.
C．The traditions in the 18th century.	D．The practice of gifting among family members.

3. What does Goldson do to avoid too many toys?

A．Involve her kids in organizing toys.	B．Put away toys for her kids.
C．Buy her kids fewer toys.	D．Sell unwanted toys to neighbors.

4. Which is the most suitable title for the text?

A．The Rise of Toy Stores in Neighborhoods	B．The Importance of Choosing Proper Gifts
C．The Challenge of Managing Children’s Toys	D．The Joy of Collecting Children’s Toys

9 . An apology tells someone that we’re sorry for the hurt we caused — even if we didn’t do it on purpose. It’s a way of saying we’re aware of what we did and we’ll try to do better in future.

    1    . Sometimes we hurt people’s feelings without wanting to. Sometimes, we do it on purpose and feel bad later on. So we apologize.

Apologies are one of the tools that we use to get along better with other people. Saying that you’re sorry is more than just words.     2    . Apologizing shows you can understand the other person’s feelings as if they were your own. What’s more, after apologizing, you might feel a little better. The other person probably will, too.     3    , you can feel good because you are trying to make things right again.

Everyone needs to apologize when they do something wrong. For example, if someone is irritated because of something you did, you need to apologize. If you say something that hurts someone, even if you don’t mean it, then you should apologize.     4    .

When someone apologizes to you, you may welcome it and be ready to forgive.     5    . If a person keeps hurting you and apologizing without making an effort to change, you might not want to hang out with that person anymore. However, it’s always good to accept an apology.

A．When you apologize in a caring way

B．When you accept an apology in a desirable way

C．It’s difficult to mend a relationship if we don’t apologize

D．Or you might not feel like being friendly again right away

E．It isn’t always easy for us to get along well with everyone all the time

F．If you lose or break something belonging to someone else, you should say sorry

G．You’re also saying that you respect and care about the other person’s feelings