1 . Many years ago, my dad was facing a serious heart condition. He was unable to do a steady job. He suddenly fell ill and had to be admitted to the hospital.
He wanted to do something to keep himself busy, so he decided to volunteer at the local children’s hospital. My dad loved kids. It was a perfect job for him. He ended up working with the seriously ill children. He would talk, play, and do arts with them.
One of his kids was a girl with a rare disease that paralyzed (使瘫痪) her from the neck down. She couldn’t do anything, and she was very depressed. My dad decided to try to help her. He started visiting her in her room, bringing paints, brushes and paper. He stood the paper up, put the paintbrush in his mouth and began to paint. He didn’t use his hands at all. All the while he would tell her, “See, you can do anything you set your mind to.” At the end of the day, she began to paint using her mouth, and she and my dad became friends. Soon after, the little girl was sent home because the doctors felt there was nothing else they could do for her. My dad also left the children’s hospital for a little while because he became ill. Some time later after my dad had recovered and returned to work, in came the little girl who had been paralyzed and only this time she was walking. She ran straight over to my dad and hugged him really tight. She gave him a picture she had done using her hands. At the bottom it read: “Thank you for helping me walk.”
My dad would cry every time he told us this story and so would we. He would say sometimes love is more powerful than doctors, and my dad — who died just a few months after the little girl gave him the picture — loved every single child in that hospital.
1. How did the author’s father help the paralyzed girl?| A．He helped her practice walking. | B．He visited her and made a toy for her. |
| C．He showed her that she could still do things. | D．He painted special pictures for her. |
| A．She eventually became a unique painter. |
| B．She was sent home and never seen again. |
| C．She gradually recovered and walked. |
| D．She sent the author’s dad a picture painted with her mouth. |
| A．It’s better to give than to receive. | B．A sick person should not focus on his disease. |
| C．Volunteering is a worthwhile thing to do. | D．Love can sometimes bring great results. |
| A．To make his serious heart condition less serious. | B．To keep himself occupied and pleased. |
| C．To realize his childhood dream. | D．To earn money to pay for treatment. |
2 . Tea drinking was common in China for nearly one thousand years before anyone in Europe had ever heard about it. People in Britain were much slower in finding out what tea was like, mainly because tea was very expensive. It could not be bought in shops and even those people who could afford to have it sent from Holland did so only because it was a fashionable curiosity. Some of them were not sure how to use it. They thought it was a vegetable and tried cooking the leaves.
Tea remained scarce (稀少的) and very expensive in England until the ships of the East India Company began to bring it directly from China early in the 17th century. During the next few years so much tea came into the country that the price fell and many people could afford to buy it.
At the same time people on the Continent were becoming more and more fond of tea. Until then tea had been drunk without milk in it, but one day a famous French lady named Madame de Sevigne decided to see what tea tasted like when milk was added. She found it so pleasant that she would never again drink it without milk. She was such a great lady that her friends thought they must copy everything she did, so they also drank their tea with milk in it. Slowly this habit spread until it reached England and today only very few Britons drink tea without milk.
At first, tea was usually drunk after dinner in the evening. No one ever thought of drinking tea in the afternoon until a duchess (公爵夫人) found that a cup of tea and a piece of cake at three or four o’clock stopped her getting “a sinking feeling” as she called it. She invited her friends to have this new meal with her and so, teatime was born.
1. What do we know about the introduction of tea into Britain?| A．Tea reached Britain from Holland. |
| B．The Britons got expensive tea from India. |
| C．The Britons were the first people in Europe who drank tea. |
| D．It was not until the 17th century that the Britons had tea. |
| A．In the late 19th century. | B．In the 18th century. |
| C．In the 17th century. | D．In the 16th century. |
| A．drinking tea with milk in it | B．drinking tea without milk in it |
| C．drinking tea after dinner | D．drinking tea in the afternoon |
| A．The history of tea. | B．The ways of making tea. |
| C．The birth of teatime. | D．The habit of drinking tea. |
3 . Amblyopia is the most common cause of vision loss in children. In all cases of amblyopia, there’s a stronger eye and a weaker eye, and it’s winner-take-all in the cortex (大脑皮层). The cortex learns to ignore the signal from the weaker eye. By ignoring the weaker eye, the brain doesn’t fuse (融合) images from both eyes. As a result, people with amblyopia can have trouble seeing in 3D.
In an attempt to solve this problem, doctors start treating patients with amblyopia at a young age, while their brain pathways are still developing. The children, usually under 7 years old, are often told to wear an eye patch over their strong eye to force the brain to rely on the weaker. But whenever the eye patch is removed, the competition can start over. For lasting improvement, new treatments need to teach the brain to stop suppressing (抑制) key visual cues coming from the weaker eye, says neuroscientist Dennis Levi of the University of California.
Now, several research teams are taking a new way that aims to get the brain to make better use of the information coming from both eyes, Several companies are working on treatments based on this new angle. One is called Luminopia.
Luminopia’s therapy involves having children watch videos through a virtual reality headset. As the children watch, the headset blocks out certain parts of the display for each eye, so the patients actually have to combine input from the two images to get the full video.
The company conducted a trial showing that children with amblyopia begin to see better on eye chart assessments after three months of one-hour sessions done six days a week, But they have yet to measure improvements in long-term effectiveness. It is believed that if people with amblyopia don’t learn to fuse signals from both eyes from a young age, they never will. So some scientists think attempting to treat adults, whose brains have suppressed signals from their weak eye for decades, is a lost cause.
1. Why does a person with amblyopia have trouble seeing in 3D?| A．His brain is unable to receive images. |
| B．His cortex overlooks signals from the weaker eye. |
| C．His stronger eye can’t send signals to the brain. |
| D．His weaker eye fails to receive signals. |
| A．Ineffective. | B．Temporary. |
| C．Wonderful. | D．Comprehensive. |
| A．Activating the weak eye to get the full video. |
| B．Forcing the brain to rely on the weaker eye. |
| C．Improving the situations with eye chart assessments. |
| D．Blocking out the images received from the stronger eye. |
| A．It has an instant effect. | B．Adults are is main targets. |
| C．More trials need to be conducted. | D．It has long-term effectiveness. |
4 . According to reports, three-quarters of all crops around the world depend on pollinating (授粉的) insects like bees and butterflies. By pollinating, pollinators enable the production of seeds. Without them, crop farming can become extremely difficult or costly threatening food supplies and prices globally.
Research has shown a rapid and consistent decline in pollinator populations. Average butterfly populations have almost halved since 1991 and bee populations in particular face a sharp decline. Given the world’s growing dependence on these insects, we can only expect the problem to worsen if no action is taken.
Much has been written about how intensive farming practices the use of chemical pesticides and pollution are threatening the survival of these helpful insects. To add to the already critical situation, global warming is contributing significantly to the rapid disappearance of pollinators.
Climate change is a major threat to pollinators, with rising temperatures and increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events affecting the food sources and habitats, on which pollinators depend for their survival.
Climate change also changes the timing and availability of lowering plants, leading to mismatches between pollinators and their food sources. A study has found that climate change has shifted plants’ blooming to earlier times and caused certain plants to move to higher areas, resulting in a decline in pollination.
Another study has found that climate change could lead to a decline in the quality of nectar, which is the main food source for many pollinators. As temperatures rise, the sugar content of nectar decreases, making it less nutritious for pollinators. This leads to a decline in the health and reproductive success of pollinators, as well as a decline in the pollination of plants.
Needless to say, cutting global emissions is key. It’s essential that we continue to advocate for emission reductions. From country-level to individual businesses, more concrete roadmaps to net zero are a must.
We must at least minimize, if not prevent, the usage of pesticides, since these chemicals are harmful to pollinators and can have a far-reaching effect on pollination as a whole.
1. What does paragraph 1 try to show?| A．The influence of crop crises. | B．The importance of pollinators. |
| C．The serious challenges faced by humans. | D．The increasing difficulty of crop production. |
| A．Curious. | B．Suspicious. | C．Humorous. | D．Anxious. |
| A．How climate change has affected pollinators. |
| B．Causes of the decline in pollinator populations. |
| C．The importance of pollinators to the ecosystem. |
| D．Why chemical pesticides are harmful to pollinators. |
| A．Starting keeping bees. | B．Reducing pesticide use. |
| C．Increasing the amount of nectar. | D．Building more habitats for pollinators. |
5 . With the increasing development of technology, we now have the ability to get much information from foreign media sources (媒体资源). Because we can learn much about events happening in other countries from the media, such as magazines and newspapers, many people may think that reading magazines and newspapers is the best way to learn about a foreign country. However, I believe that only reading magazines and newspapers as a way of learning about a foreign country has several limitations.
We cannot deny that magazines and newspapers actually present some valuable information about foreign countries. However, the information that they present is often one-sided, so that readers can only learn about one opinion on an event happening in a foreign country. Also, the words and pictures in magazines and newspapers may not be true. If a government wants to hide some facts, it may force the media to tell lies to its readers, and thus the information that readers receive may not be true.
I think that the best way to learn about a foreign country is to travel or live there for a while. By traveling or living in a country, you can see things that do not appear in magazines and newspapers, and learn about the local political situation, state of the economy, and the culture. You can get more information about a country by talking directly with local people about the overall situation, and can truly understand the local culture by living with them for a while. But if you are at home reading a newspaper or magazine, you simply get information provided by others passively (被动地) instead of collecting information directly.
So, I believe that the best way to learn about a foreign country is not by reading magazines and newspapers but by placing yourself in that foreign country.
1. What does the text mainly discuss?| A．How people get information in no time. |
| B．Where people can get information they need. |
| C．Why it’s important to learn about a foreign country. |
| D．What the best way to learn about a foreign country is. |
| A．Disagree. | B．Promise. | C．Realize. | D．Accept. |
| A．True but not enough. | B．Correct but not fresh. |
| C．Limited and not always true. | D．Not enough and not valuable. |
| A．You’ll have a quicker mind by learning more. |
| B．You’ll have a chance to read local newspapers. |
| C．You’ll meet people who are different from you. |
| D．You’ll learn truths that the media don’t provide. |
6 . Sunday sadness is real, for tomorrow is the start of working days.
An excellent choice is exercise. Breaking a sweat has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, boost mood and improve sleep, all good ways to fight Sunday stress. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, just five minutes of aerobic exercise can reduce anxiety.
●Take a nature pillActually, any form of exercise or movement can increase your fitness level while decreasing your stress.
Some folks turn to drinking alcohol, even crazily, to cope with the Sunday night blues. That’s a poor choice: Alcohol rattles your normal sleep patterns, trapping you in lighter stages of sleep and dramatically reducing the quality of your rest at night.
“It continues to pull you out of rapid eye movement and the deeper stages of sleep, causing you to wake up not feeling restored,” said Rebecca Robbins, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health, in a previous CNN interview.
●Wind downThis is going to sound impossible, but try to avoid your cell phone and work email on Sunday. Being constantly connected keeps us excited even on our days off, discouraging relaxation.
Does the idea make you even more nervous?
Unconsciously worrying about all the things you have to do Monday brings you restless sleep, even insomnia(失眠), so write down a list of all the things you have to do Monday – or even the entire week. You can go so far as prioritizing them if you like. Not only will putting the tasks on paper jump-start your Monday morning, you’ll feel like you’ve purged your worries.
| A．Then try to check in as early in the evening on Sunday as you can. |
| B．Avoid overdrinking |
| C．Here’s how to battle the pre-workweek blues. |
| D．Here are some following ways to help you relax at weekends. |
| E．Why not increase that effect by enjoying nature? |
| F．Then relax and keep texting till your bedtime. |
| G．In fact, writing in a journal has been scientifically shown to improve overall health. |
7 . When I was nine years old, my dad worked in a heating and air conditioning company. It allowed him to work mainly in the spring and fall. With summers free, my parents took me and my two brothers to the lake every day. I supposed my parents must realize that if they didn’t find us any things to do, we would finally start fighting, as we were too bored.
On the way to the lake, my mother drove the car and my father recited (朗诵) poems so my brothers and I wouldn’t get bored. I still didn’t know how my dad had learnt so many poems by heart. But I had a great discovery that every time my father recited them, those verses (诗句) could keep us three quiet for the next twenty--minute drive. Such moments could never be achieved by what else my parents usually did such as singing, telling stories, and so on.
One of the poems that completely attracted me was a bit silly. It begins—Ladles and jellyspoons/I come before you/To stand behind you/And tell you something I know nothing about. There were still many similar ones. I found I was deeply caught. I recited these lines in my head over and over, week after week until they burned new electrical pathways in my brain. I even couldn’t help copying those poems neatly in my favorite notebooks.
It’s a love story that continues to this day, thirty years and 10 books of my own later. So the value of the story is this: Read to your kids. Sing to your kids. Recite poems for your kids. Be silly with your kids! It may make all the difference. It works for me. Thanks, Dad.
1. According to the author, why were his brothers and he taken to the lake daily in summer?| A．To reduce their study pressure. | B．To escape the heat of summers. |
| C．To teach them some new life skills. | D．To draw their attention to other things. |
| A．Poems were easy to learn by heart. |
| B．His parents were good at creating poems. |
| C．His father tried hard to get along well with them. |
| D．Poems could make the three brothers calm down. |
| A．He began to write poems himself. | B．He gradually fell in love with poems. |
| C．He made changes to some silly poems. | D．He grew to be a kid with excellent grades. |
| A．Children should be grateful to their parents. |
| B．Parents should avoid being too strict with kids. |
| C．Good family atmosphere is very important for kids. |
| D．Children should be encouraged to follow their dreams. |
8 . When it comes to an ox, very similar to a bull, people will think of 2009, the Year of Ox. The Ox is a representative of the farming culture of China. In the farming economy, oxen are the major animals pulling plows (梨).
Of course, the good of oxen is not limited to plowing. In fact, they are seen as “boats on land” for their ability to carry loads. Besides, the whole body of an ox is full of treasures. Their meat and milk are food full of nutrition, and their skin can be used to make clothes and shoes. With all these qualities, oxen are regarded as generous creatures.
In the past, oxen played an important role in the spiritual life of the Chinese. Even today, oxen still play a special part in some folk activities. For example, some people who live in southwest China will cook cattle bone soup and share it among family members when holding the ceremony for children who reach 13. They believe that the cattle bone soup represents the blood relationship among family members. In order to express their love for oxen, people in some other areas will run to shake off diseases on the 16th day of the first month by the lunar calendar, and during their run they will take their oxen along, which indicates they regard the creature as human.
Because of the contribution of oxen in their lives, the Chinese people are very grateful to the animal. In addition, the use of oxen in ceremonies and the thanks people owe to oxen help to develop various traditional customs, which becomes an important part of the folk culture of the Chinese nation.
1. The second paragraph focuses on ______.| A．the qualities of oxen | B．creatures for pulling plows |
| C．treasures of the folk culture | D．tools in the farming economy |
| A．Oxen are no more important today than in the past |
| B．Ceremonies are held when people cook cattle bone soup |
| C．Oxen are treated as human in some areas of China |
| D．People run with oxen to shake off diseases every month |
| A．The special role of oxen in farming. |
| B．People’s respect and love for oxen. |
| C．The practical value of an ox’s body. |
| D．The contribution of oxen to the economy. |
| A．To stress the importance of oxen in history. |
| B．To introduce the Chinese folk culture. |
| C．To describe how to celebrate the Year of Ox. |
| D．To explain how to develop agriculture with oxen. |
9 . In the old-fashioned town of Willowbrook, two friends named Emma and Liam shared an intimate bond. They were inseparable and spent every moment together, laughing, exploring, and creating unforgettable memories.
One cold winter morning, as the first snowflakes gently fell from the sky, Emma woke up with a stuffy nose and a sore throat. She tried to brave it and get ready for school, but her body felt weak and achy. Unwillingly, she called Liam to let him know she couldn’t make it to school that day.
Liam was concerned when he heard the tiredness in Emma’s voice. “Don’t worry, Em. I’ll take care of everything at school for you,” he assured her. Feeling grateful for Liam’s understanding, Emma forced a smile and replied, “Thank you, Liam. You’re the best friend anyone could ask for.”
After school, Liam hurried to Emma’s house, carrying a meal he had prepared for her. He knocked on the door, and Emma’s mother welcomed him with a warm smile. “Oh, Liam, you’re such a thoughtful friend,” she said.
“I brought some soup and tea for Emma. I hope it will make her feel better,” Liam replied, some concern in his eyes. Entering Emma’s room, Liam found her curled up under a blanket, looking pale but relieved to see him. “Hey, I brought some comfort food to cheer you up,” he said, setting the food on her bedside table.
Emma’s eyes lit up, and she smiled weakly. “You didn’t have to, but thank you. This means the world to me,” she whispered. Sitting by her side, Liam kept her company, chatting softly and making her laugh despite her illness. The warmth of their friendship enveloped the room, bringing a feeling of comfort to Emma’s tired soul.
As Emma regained her strength, she realized just how lucky she was to have a friend like Liam. His unwavering presence and kindness had made her recovery easier and brighter. Their friendship grew stronger with each passing day, and from that moment on, they knew they would be there for each other through thick and thin.
1. What does the underlined word “intimate” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Satisfactory. | B．Informal. | C．Close. | D．Temporary. |
| A．It was too cold to go outside. | B．Liam failed to pick her up. |
| C．She was in a bad condition. | D．School was closed for the heavy snow. |
| A．Considerate and caring. | B．Brave but lazy. |
| C．Selfless and active. | D．Independent but stubborn. |
| A．Emma’s illness. | B．A precious friendship. |
| C．Liam’s company. | D．How to help a friend. |
10 . You’ve sized up the benefits of volunteering, looked over your schedule, and decided you have both the time and desire to give back to your community.
Identify your values.
If you’re motivated to serve the less fortunate, you might target organizations that work with housing-insecure populations, people with disabilities or members of historically disadvantaged groups. Motivations for volunteering are as diverse as the volunteers harboring them.
Try to involve the whole family.
Many parents who volunteer turn giving back into a family affair. Community service is a great way to teach kids the value of selflessness.
Once you find a well-run organization that aligns with (符合) your availability, values, talents, and objectives, work with your contact there to set a volunteer schedule that fits your life. If you’re exploring a frequent engagement — say, a weekly or biweekly commitment —think carefully about how much time you can afford to donate. It’s better to commit to shorter or less frequent volunteer hours than to take on an unmanageable workload.
| A．What motivates you to give back? |
| B．Don’t bite off more than you can chew. |
| C．Are you ready to build a list of ideal places to volunteer? |
| D．It’s also an opportunity to spend more time with your family. |
| E．Don’t overthink the process of finding opportunities to volunteer. |
| F．Whatever your motivations are, there’s an organization out there that needs your help. |
| G．Now comes the most difficult part: finding volunteer opportunities that are right for you. |
