1 . A nighttime building fire in southern Taiwan Province that took hours to bring under control killed 46 people on Thursday. Officials in the city of Kaohsiung said at least 41 people were injured.
The fire started early Thursday morning local time. A statement by the fire department described it as “extremely fierce.” Flames and smoke poured from the lower floors as firefighters tried to control the fire.
The number of dead rose during the day as rescue workers searched the building which combined businesses and homes. By late afternoon, officials confirmed 32 people had died, while 14 people, who showed no signs of life, were among 55 taken to the hospital. In Taiwan, official confirmation of a death is made at the hospital.
Firefighters could be seen spraying water into the middle floors of the 13-floor building. One woman, who was not identified, said on Taiwanese television that her 60-to-70-year-old parents were still inside as rescue efforts continued. Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that officials said the building’s age and waste blocking many areas made search and rescue efforts more difficult.
Many of the people living in the 40-year-old building were retired and lived alone in apartments as small as 13 square meters, local media reported. The building had 120 living spaces on the upper floors. It also had a closed movie theater, disused restaurants and karaoke businesses below them, the Central News Agency said. Mayor Chen Chi-mai said the building was partly abandoned.
The United Daily News, a major newspaper, said fire extinguishers(灭火器) had been put in place last month. But there were only three on each floor because the residents could not pay for more.
The fire appeared to have started on the ground floor. Investigators were examining a first-floor tea shop whose owner reportedly fought with his girlfriend the day before. They had not ruled out that the fire may have been set on purpose, The United Daily News reported.
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to Paragraph 3?
| A．No signs of life were found when rescuers came. |
| B．The exact number of victims could not be confirmed. |
| C．There are hidden dangers in the building itself. |
| D．The building is used for business and residential purposes. |
| A．the fire made lots of firemen in trouble |
| B．all the victims have been properly relocated |
| C．the accident caused many injuries and deaths |
| D．the local hospital has organized blood donations |
| A．Why was the building partly abandoned? |
| B．How do the residents live in the small apartments? |
| C．Why weren’t there enough fire extinguishers in the building? |
| D．What happened to those on the ground floor that morning |
| A．The waste in the building. |
| B．Narrow rescue space |
| C．Too many retired old people. |
| D．The TV station’s live broadcasting. |
2 . The United States has over 50 famous, well-traveled national parks. Among them are Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone and Acadia. The country also has several roads called National Parkways. These long, winding paths let Visitors experience nature, history and culture from a car. Like the parks, the roads are managed by the National Park Service.
The parkways cut through some of the most scenic parts of the country. One of the longest and most popular is the Blue Ridge Parkway.
National parkways are made up of scenic roads and surrounding land. They were designed to give people driving cars a chance to see beautiful parts of the country. They have also been important for improving local economies.
The idea for National Parkways began in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a difficult economic time in the United States. Families and communities suffered. Many people were without work.
To create more jobs and improve the economy, the U.S. government built roads that passed through beautiful parts of the country that had suffered during the Depression.
One of these roads was the Blue Ridge Parkway. The early goal for the parkway was to build a road through the Appalachian Mountains that connected Shenandoah National Park with the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
In the beginning, building the parkway created some problems for local communities. People who had been living in the area were forced to move. Also, people were not permitted to drive vehicles on the parkway while carrying items for sale. But, in the end, the Blue Ridge Parkway brought jobs and money to the communities. And today, it is an important part of the local economy. In the last year, the Blue Ridge Parkway earned over a billion dollars from tourism. That is more money than any other place managed by the National Park Service.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．The U.S. national parks. |
| B．The National Park Service. |
| C．The U.S. National Parkways. |
| D．The history of National Parkways. |
| A．Offering comfortable driving. |
| B．Avoiding depressed emotions. |
| C．Watching the scenery of National Parks. |
| D．Experiencing beautiful parts of the country. |
| A．To link two national parks. |
| B．To improve the economy. |
| C．To enjoy natural beauty. |
| D．To create more jobs. |
| A．Its natural beauty. |
| B．Its economy value. |
| C．Difficulty in building it. |
| D．Its problems for local people. |
On the top of my list is The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. It is basically the book version of the world-famous film of the same title, and it’s a wonderful companion to life.
What could be more motivating than a book that teaches you how to achieve everything that you’ve ever wanted to achieve — whatever that may be — using the law of attraction? This is a book that says nothing is impossible and more importantly, makes you believe it.
The Second Best Motivational Book: The Alchemist
The most inspirational books aren’t always self-help in nature. Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is a must on every person’s shelf.
The story is of a young shepherd boy named Santiago who goes on an exciting adventure to reach his dreams. The book is full of philosophies and talks about the importance of understanding your personal legend.
The Third Best Motivational Book: The Happiness Project
Written by Gretchen Rubin, this is possibly one of the easiest and fun reads in the list. While it is indeed one of the most inspiring books I’ve come across recently, it is never preachy (说教的) as some books often become. Reading Rubin’s work is like reading the adventures of a good friend—funny, down-to-earth and inspiring.
The Fourth Best Motivational Book: Your Best Life Now
Joel Osteen’s book is a wonderful source of good advice and motivational tips. His book is simple and would be a wonderful companion to just about anybody.
When it comes to the best motivational books, everyone has an opinion. These are the books that made it to my list and I’m sure that you have your own set, too. I hope that these can help you live a better life.
1. What’s the writer’s purpose of writing this passage?| A．To persuade readers to live a better life. |
| B．To recommend some motivational books to readers. |
| C．To present that he loves reading motivational books. |
| D．To prove that he has come across some motivational books. |
| A．love making films about wonderful companions |
| B．want to teach something to others |
| C．need to achieve something difficult |
| D．have a very strong belief in themselves |
| A．Rhonda Byrne’s. |
| B．Paulo Coelho’s |
| C．Gretchen Rubin’s. |
| D．Joel Osteen’s |
| A．The Secret and The Happiness Project. |
| B．The Alchemist and Your Best Life Now. |
| C．The Secret and The Happiness Project. |
| D．The Happiness Project and Your Best Life Now. |
| A．Motivational Book Review. |
| B．Reading Skills of Motivational Books. |
| C．Motivational Books on Sale. |
| D．The Best Sellers of the Week — Motivational Books. |
4 . Facebook has developed the first machine learning model that can translate between any two of 100 languages without going into English first. It says the new multilingual machine translation model was created to help its more than two billion users Worldwide. The company is still testing the translation system-which it calls M2M-100-and hopes to add it to different products in the future.
Angela Fan, a research assistant at Facebook, said the model produces better results than other machine learning systems that depend on English to help in the translation process. The other systems use it as an intermediate step-like a bridge-to-translate between two non-English languages.
One example would be a translation from Chinese to French. Fan noted that many machine translation models begin by translating from Chinese to English first, and then from English to French. This is done “because English training data is the most widely available,” she said. But such a method can lead to mistakes in translation.
Facebook says about two-thirds of its users communicate in a language other than English. The company already carries out an average of 20 billion translations every day on Facebook’s News Feed. But it faces a huge test with many users publishing large amounts of content in more than 160 languages.
One difficulty the team faced was trying to develop an effective machine translation system for language combinations that are not widely used, Facebook calls these “low-resource languages”. The data used to create the new model was collected from content available on the Internet. But there is limited Internet data on low-resource languages.
For now, it plans to continue exploring new language research methods while working to improve the new model. No date has been set for launching the translation system on Facebook.
But Angela Fan said the new system marks an important step for Facebook, especially for the times we live in. "Breaking language barriers through machine language translation is one of the most important ways to bring people together, provide authoritative information on COVID-19, and keep them safe from harmful content,” she said.
1. What do we know about M2M-100 from the first paragraph?| A．It is still in the testing stage at present. |
| B．It can translate any of the world languages. |
| C．It is the first translation system in the world. |
| D．It has been widely used by two billion users. |
| A．The model. | B．The machine. | C．English. | D．A non-English language. |
| A．Languages that are used worldwide. | B．Languages that are seldom used. |
| C．Languages that have data on the Internet. | D．Languages Facebook uses in its system. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Negative. | C．Positive. | D．Objective. |
5 . Do you like potato chips? Can you imagine someone postponing graduation just to make them? This is exactly what happened with Du Haotian, a graduate student from Shaanxi province.
The potato chips Du is making are called guoba, originally made of millet rice, but here Du chose colored potatoes as the ingredients.
Zhenba County, located in the southern part of Shaanxi, has been striving to promote high-quality potato sales, despite the inconvenient geographical conditions. Du Haotian, a graduate student of Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, together with his team, introduced NWAFU’s colorful potato to solve the problem. After adjusting the recipe several times, it gradually turned into a popular snack at Du’s university. “We sold 10,000 yuan (of chips) in an hour during the trial period,” Du said.
At the end of last year, Du’s team set up their own factory in the village to commercialize the colorful potato and derivative snacks, planting and producing the products locally. At the beginning of this year, the production line was officially put into operation. It can process 5,000 tons of potato snacks per year, increasing the added value by 1,000 yuan to 1,500 yuan per ton of potatoes. However, while helping the local community, Du Haotian is under pressure to graduate.
Although he was supposed to graduate in June 2020, Du applied for a postponement for one year. Du said the production line project is still under construction and he wants to live up to the expectations of the villagers. “A lot of my friends and teachers told me not to do that, but I still want to stay and support the village for another half year. Otherwise, if the factory is built but does not work out, then it would be against my original intention.” Eventually, Du’s mentor supported him. Once, a villager recommended the potato snack to Du before realizing he was the founder. “At that time it warmed my heart and I experienced a sense of recognition.” Recently, Du’s potato snacks took part in a college food competition on behalf of his university. His product once soared to the top of the list with the support of many local villagers, which touched Du.
1. What factor affects local potato sales?| A．People’s lack of skills in sales. | B．The local geographical conditions. |
| C．People’s little knowledge of outside world. | D．The poor quality of potatoes produced there. |
| A．creating more job opportunities | B．enjoying delicious potato snacks |
| C．increasing values of the potatoes | D．harvesting more potatoes than before |
| A．to make potato chips a popular snack | B．to show his ability in making money |
| C．to help local villagers earn more money | D．to set up a factory for making potato chips |
| A．Courageous and calm. | B．Cooperative and generous. |
| C．Enthusiastic and confident. | D．persistent and kind-hearted. |
6 . Jan. 3 (UPI) – China’s Chang’e-4 lander-rover (探月车) spacecraft has landed on the moon’s far side—the first in history. The spacecraft, which launched on December 8th, touched down late Wednesday night.
“Congratulations to China’s Chang’e-4 team for what appears to be a successful landing on the far side of the Moon,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote on Twitter. “This is a first for human beings and an impressive achievement!”
In the coming months, the lander-rover will conduct scientific observations across the less-understood side of the Moon. Scientists hope the observations will offer new understanding of the satellite’s makeup, as well as its formation and evolution.
One of the challenges of exploring the far side of the moon is communication. Chang’e-4 can’t communicate directly with the scientists back on Earth. But in May, China launched Queqiao, a satellite that will help relay the rover’s communication. The satellite is positioned in a stable orbit around Earth that keeps both the scientists back on Earth and Chang’e-4 within its sight lines.
China launched more rockets in 2018 than the other global space agencies, and some analysts see their latest achievement as another symbol of their growing power and influence—an influence that extends into space.
The record-breaking lander-rover is outfitted with a variety of instruments such as cameras and a radar system. The spacecraft’s instruments will allow Chang’e-4 to measure the mineral composition of the moon’s far side.
“The successful landing is not just a scientific achievement, and it is also about China’s rise as a superpower,” Malcolm Davis, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told the Guardian. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm for the space program in China. There’s a lot of nationalism in China, they see China’s role in space as a key part of their rise.”
1. How long did it take China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft to fly and land on the moon?| A．About two weeks. | B．Four weeks or so. |
| C．More than a month. | D．Two months or so. |
| A．Observe the far side of the Moon. | B．Land on the far side of the Moon. |
| C．Fly to the other side of the Moon. | D．Explore the near side of the Moon. |
| A．Covered. | B．Matched. | C．Connected. | D．Equipped. |
| A．China is not satisfied with the scientific achievement. |
| B．Chinese show great excitement and interest in space program. |
| C．China will send a manned spacecraft to explore the Moon in future. |
| D．China’s role in space has gone beyond all the others countries in the world. |
7 . Chewbaca climbed into the pilot seat of the Milemium Falcon as fireworks exploded above Disneyland in Anahein, California, Wednesday. Chewbacca is an imaginary creature born in the first of the Star Wars series of movies. He was in Disneyland for a ceremony to open the new Star Wars area at the theme park.
“Chewie, let’s fire up the Falcon,” said Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker. He also attended the event to open the more than five-and-one-half hectare area called Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. It opened to the public Friday.
The furry Chewbacca had trouble starting the huge spaceship, which led actor Harison Ford to Surprise the crowd and offer an assist. Ford played the Siar Wars character Han Solo. He hit the side of the ship and said “Peter, this one’s for you,” in honor of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca in five films and died in April.
Ford stood on stage with Hamil, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger, Star Wars creator George Lucas, and Bily Dee Williams, who performed the part of Lando Calrissian in Star Wars.
Lucas created the Star Wars movie series in 1977 and sold it to Disney in 2012. He gave high praise to Galaxy’s Edge, which is set in Black Spire Outpost, a settlement on a planet called Batuu that appeared in “Star Wars” books but never in the film.
The Star Wars area offers visitors the chance to step into the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit and control a simulated flight. Guests can also drink blue milk, eat space meat cooked by a pod-racing engine and have a drink at an outer-space restaurant.
Expectations run high from generations of fans. Many of the movie series lovers have waited 40 years since the first film to visit a real-world version of the galaxy far, far away.
Disney also aims to appeal to a broad group of Star Wars lover s as well as people without any attachment to the futuristic series.
1. Who is a human being?| A．Chewbacca. | B．Chewie. | C．Mark Hamill. | D．Luke Skywalker. |
| A．It’s a planet in space. | B．It’s a place in a book. |
| C．It’s a settlement in a film. | D．It’s a community in the US. |
| A．Taste space food. | B．Tour in the universe. |
| C．Enjoy Star Wars movies. | D．Learn knowledge of space. |
| A．Disneyland in California Takes on a New Look |
| B．Actors of Star Wars Gather in Disneyland |
| C．Dream of “Star Wars” Lovers Has Come True |
| D．Disneyland Opens the Star Wars Area of the Park |
8 . The milu deer used to be common in China long ago. Like other deer, they lived together and ate grass as well as the soft parts of trees, such as small branches. However, milu deer were often hunted for food or sport in the past. The Ming and Qing dynasties did not protect them and many were killed. Later, the milu deer disappeared from China.
Luckily, before all of them were killed, some were taken to Europe. The Duke (公爵) of Bedford from Britain collected all the milu deer from Europe and put them in his deer park. The deer liked the cool, wet weather in England and their numbers increased year by year. In 1985, the government of China decided to reintroduce (再引入) the milu deer. The first deer came back to China and were placed in the Beijing Nanhaizi Milu Park. The milu deer certainly seemed happy to be back in China and their numbers started to grow steadily (稳定地).
1. What did the milu deer eat?| A．Flowers. | B．Grass or small branches. |
| C．Big trees. | D．Seeds. |
| A．People didn’t like them. |
| B．They had nothing to eat. |
| C．The Ming and Qing dynasties didn’t protect them and many were killed. |
| D．They didn’t survive the cold weather. |
| A．In the 1990s. | B．In the 1980s. |
| C．In the 1970s. | D．In the 1960s. |
9 . If someone says “give me five” to you, do not search your pocket to get five yuan! It will make others laugh! The person is not asking for your money, but your fingers.
In the US, “give me five” or “give me the high five” is a popular gesture (动作). You can see it often in films or on TV. It means the clapping (拍) of each other’s raised (举起的) right hands together.
People do it when they meet for the first time or when something happy or successful happens. For example, when a basketball team wins a game, the players will give high fives to everyone around to celebrate.
This gesture may come from the old Roman gesture of raising the right arm for the emperor (皇帝). This showed that the person raising his arm did not have a sword (刀) in his hand.
Why not try to give the high five to your friends?
1. “Give me five” is a gesture to ______.| A．ask for money | B．make people laugh |
| C．give up dreams | D．celebrate success |
| A．toes | B．hands | C．arms | D．legs |
| A．lose your money | B．go back home |
| C．win a basketball game | D．lose your way |
| A．Rome | B．America | C．China | D．England |
10 . The world is going through a basic transformation,which is changing the way we live, work and think. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is bringing dramatic change and giving rise to a future filled with exciting opportunities and new challenges. Together, governments and businesses must find solutions to society's most pressing needs—from creating a carbon-free economy to tackling population growth and urbanization.
In any period of rapid change there is a trend to look for a simple method,to greet the new things and replace the old way of doing things. But a closer look at the facts tells a different story. Complex problems require many solutions working in harmony to enable positive change.
The challenge for scientists and engineers is to provide solutions in fact, data and today's realities. And while technologies offer new tools to help uncover solutions, the process also requires hard work, imagination and lots of improvement.
Success rests on performing practical, realistic, long- term solutions that make the world cleaner, safer and more sustainable(可持续的).
The environment is a case in point. Much of the public debate has centered on the central role of renewable power sources in realizing a low-carbon energy future. While the industry is fully behind developing renewables, today we understand that a low or zero-carbon future depends on adopting a multifaceted approach.
We cannot control sunshine levels or decide when the wind blows, which means solar power and wind power generators will produce too much or too little energy at times. The transition to renewables needs to take account of serious considerations.
Batteries have been much discussed as a means of storing extra energy, but there are other choices. Power-to- X technologies enable spare energy created by renewables to be stored and redistributed when and where it is needed.
1. Which of the following best explains the underlined word“tackling" in Paragraph 1?| A．Caring about. | B．Dealing with. |
| C．Going through. | D．Suffering from. |
| A．Offer new tools to help uncover solutions. |
| B．Look for a simple method to face the future. |
| C．Find out ways to solve the problem. |
| D．Realize a low-carbon energy future. |
| A．Powerful. |
| B．Safe. |
| C．Clean. |
| D．Unsteady. |
| A．They can adjust power supply. |
| B．They take the place of batteries. |
| C．They help make more electricity. |
| D．They can create power from wind and sun. |
