1 . Banff National Park is home to an amazing wildlife population. But the busy Trans Canada Highway that cuts through the park is a hazard to the lovely animals. To address the problem, Banff first put-up wildlife fencing on either side of the highway to discourage animals from entering the busy road. Then, since 1996, they’ve opened six wildlife overpasses and 38 underpasses to help the animals cross the highway in safety. I was fortunate to visit Banff’s Red Earth Overpass with Trevor Kinley, the project manager with Parks Canada. He told me that so far, they have documented 10, 000 safe animal crossings on this overpass alone. “ Some animals have learned how to use the crossings much more quickly than others. Black bears are the fastest learners, followed by deer. Wolves and lions take the longest to work out how to use them, ” Kinley said, laughing. “ But those animals that are slower to adapt are usually more capable and determined at figuring out the safest way to cross those overpasses and underpasses. ”
There is some criticism (批评) that channeling so much wildlife into a few bridges and tunnels is like making a trap for the animals, offering big animals an easy meal on either side. “ But research has shown that this is not the case, ” Kinley assured me. “ There are no more killings around the crossings than there are anywhere else in the park. ”
Walking over the Trans Canada and then walking underneath through one of the tunnels, I was amazed to see the fresh tracks of black bears, wolves, deer and many kinds of smaller animals. Somehow, all these animal footprints made me so happy, knowing that all this wildlife was passing safely under and over the longest road in Canada.
Hopefully, the success of the wildlife crossings in Banff will continue to inspire similar solutions around the world, where human pressure on wildlife continues to grow.
1. Which of the following best explains “ hazard ” underlined in paragraph 1?A.Shelter. | B.Message. | C.Answer. | D.Danger. |
A.They are stupid animals. | B.They are cautious learners. |
C.They are very dangerous. | D.They are good at adapting. |
A.There are too many bridges and tunnels. | B.Many animals will not use the crossings. |
C.More killings might happen at the crossings. | D.Illegal hunting might be encouraged in the park. |
A.Concerned. | B.Disappointed. | C.Shocked. | D.Delighted. |
2 . Japanese researchers placed electronic devices(装置)on seals(海豹)in Antarctic waters to collect surprising information about the environment there. Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research started the research project in 2017. The team recently reported its results in a study in the publication Limnology and Oceanography.
Eight Weddell seals were fitted with the devices,which have antennas(天线)to send electronic signals.The 580-gram monitoring devices were attached(缚上;系上)to the animals’heads. They were designed to measure data such as water temperatures and sea salt levels.
Investigative teams on ships have difficulty reaching important research areas in Antarctica. These include areas along continental shelf formations where ice is attached to the shore, the National Institute of Polar Research said in a statement. Nobuo Kokubun led the project. Since the seals are active year-round, Kokubun added, “I thought we should have them collect the data.”
He told Reuters that the research also helps scientists follow the seals’ behaviors and learn about their relationship to the environment. “During the summer, we can go to Antarctica on icebreakers to conduct actual research activities, so that we can collect data there.” Kokubun said. ”But during the winter. such things cannot be done in so many places.“
Information gathered from the seals showed that one of the animals traveled as far as 633kilometers from Japan’s Showa Station in Antarctica. Another dove to a depth of 700 meters.Kokubun said the scientists learned from the data that warm seawater from the upper levels of the open sea reached Antarctica from March through the winter of 2017. The water flowed below the ice, bringing in sea creatures like Antarctic krill, an important food for seals.
Kokubun and his team plan to keep finding new ways to further examine the effects of climate change on Antarctic coastal areas. Next, he hopes to make the device small enough to fit on other animals at the South Pole, such as penguins,“The advantage with penguins is that they come back to the same place and we can collect data from them immediately,”Kokubun said.
1. What does paragraph 3 mainly talk about?A.The reasons why seals are a good pick. |
B.The difficulties the researchers met with. |
C.The disadvantages of the research. |
D.The formation of Antarctic waters. |
A.It challenges some traditional views. |
B.It is an eye-opener for the researchers. |
C.It is in urgent need of improvement. |
D.It simply focuses on the seals’ behavior. |
A.They will further study the penguins. |
B.They will make use of the same device. |
C.They intend to expand the research further. |
D.They plan to help the endangered penguins. |
A.Increasing Temperature of Antarctic Waters |
B.Seals Help Researchers Study Antarctic Environment |
C.Seals Are in Danger of Dying out Due to Global Warming |
D.Climate Change and Its Far-reaching Consequences |
3 . Chen Yuzhu, a 29-year-old young man, opened his first Chinese beef rice noodles restaurant in 2014 in the neighborhood of New York City’s Queens borough. He then took the flavor of his childhood memory to three other states in the US, building a recognized brand.
Actually, he started his own catering (餐饮) business after he lost his job and found noway out. It was at that time that beef rice noodles of his home village flashed in his mind.
However, the early days of setting up his business were not that easy. He frequently worked 18 hours a day, transported food at 2 am and promoted (推销) the restaurant near the New York City subway entrance by yelling, “Special noodles from my hometown, Guizhou!” But it didn’t work well. During the first two weeks. daily sales were only $200 at most, which wasn’t enough to pay the rent. He felt so anxious that he tried every possible means. Two months later, his Chinese beef rice noodles finally gained great popularity. His store has become hot spots for vloggers (视频博主) and he has made himself famous among locals as the“Rice Noodle Prince”.
“At first, running restaurants was for survival, but then I felt a sense of achievements. I became more open, inclusive and made a lot of friends. And the process to learn, make efforts and get inspired was really cool.” Chen said.
1. For what purpose did Chen Yuzhu plan to open the restaurant at first?A.To make a living. | B.To promote special Chinese food. |
C.To become very wealthy. | D.To gain popularity. |
A.Shy. | B.Cautious. | C.Generous. | D.Determined. |
A.Chen Yuzhu sold noodles at the New York City subway entrance. |
B.The noodles were rather welcome during the first two weeks. |
C.Chen Yuzhu met with a lot of difficulties when he started his business. |
D.The noodles Chen Yuzhu sold were delivered from Guizhou. |
A.Chen Yuzhu has made a lot of Chinese friends. |
B.Making a lot of money is due to his family’s support. |
C.Chen Yuzhu has really benefited a lot from his business. |
D.Chen Yuzhu wants to open more restaurants in the future. |
4 . When the pandemic(流行病) hit last spring, 9-year-old Zoe Benard of California started baking(烘) sweet treats with family members. But what started out as a fun way to pass the time has become a one-girl mission to raise $10,000 for Parkinson’s disease research.
Through a series of weekend bake sales since July, the homeschooled fourth-grader has taken in nearly $3,500 through the sale of her homemade banana bread, cookies and brownies. For a weekend sale, she’ll bake up to 25 pieces, four to five pans of brownies and three batches(炉)of cookies.
One hundred percent of the money made by selling treats is given to Team Fox, a research organization set up by actor Michael J.Fox, who has the disease. Zoe’s grandfather, 75-year-old Joe Contogenis, who is the inspiration for her sales, also has Parkinson’s. Contogenis can no longer run or play tennis the way he did before his diagnosis(诊断) three years ago.But he comes to every one of Zoe’s bake sales and is often moved to tears by the generosity of Zoe’s customers.
“She is a little entrepreneur(企业家) and has always been an out-of-the-box thinker,” Christine Eris, her mom, said. “we were cleaning our house out and found a magic set, and now she’s reading books on magic. She taught herself how to solve the Rubik’s Cube in a minute and a half. She just learns and practices things until she perfects them.”
Zoe sells her treats for $1 to $2, or $12 for a full piece of banana bread. Eris said many customers give more because they know it’s for a good cause. One customer arrived with a $200 check and another with a $100 bill. Zoe said her goal is to keep hosting sales until she reaches her $10,000 goal. Then she will either start over or find another cause to support. She also plans to start her own children’s cooking channel on YouTube because she finds the process of baking so fun.
1. What encouraged Zoe to host bake sales?A.Her grandfather suffering from Parkinson’s. |
B.The support of a research organization. |
C.Her favorite actor’s suggestion. |
D.The kindness of strangers. |
A.She has improved her creativity by practicing magic. |
B.She has loved to cook since she was a kid. |
C.She cares for everyone around her. |
D.She is good at learning |
A.To teach people with Parkinson’s to cook. |
B.To look for a long-term partnership. |
C.To collect money by hosting sales. |
D.To enjoy free time with her family. |
A.Strict and patient | B.Helpful and caring |
C.Humorous and fearless. | D.Warm-hearted and honest |
5 . As 17-year-old Norwood drove through St. Petersburg, Florida, last February, the laughter and chatter from the four teenage girls inside her car quickly gave way to sharp cries. A car behind heavily hit them, sending their black car into a tree five meters away. As smoke rose from the other car, a bystander (旁观者) shouted, “It’s about to blow up! Get out!”
Terrified but not hurt, she got out through the window. Along with two of her friends, who’d also managed to free themselves, she ran for her life. But halfway down the street, she realized that her best friend, Simmons, wasn’t with them. Norwood ran back and found Simmons stuck in the back seat. “She wasn’t moving,” Norwood told Inside Edition. She threw open the back door and pulled her friend out, trying to avoid the broken glass.
She dragged Simmons to safety and placed her on the ground. “I put my head against her chest. No sign of life. That’s when I started CPR (心肺复苏术).” Norwood, who longed to have a career in medicine, had passed the national CPR test just the day before.
Looking down at her dying friend, Norwood knew she had only a little time to practice what she’d learned. She started pumping Simmons’s chest and breathing into her friend’s mouth. No response. She tried again and again. Slowly, Simmons began coughing and opening her mouth for air. The CPR worked! Soon, doctors arrived and rushed Simmons to the hospital. And then she heard how her best friend had saved her life. “I wasn’t shocked,” Simmons told CNN. “She will always help any way she can.”
1. What is the best title for the text?A.Breath of Life | B.A career in medicine |
C.A Car Accident | D.Practice what one learns |
A.Their car broke down. |
B.They sat by a smoking flat. |
C.Their lives were in danger. |
D.They blocked the traffic. |
A.She fell out of the car and struck her head. |
B.She became unaware of the surroundings. |
C.She was unable to move in the front seat. |
D.She got seriously hurt but wide awake. |
A.Unskilled but practical. | B.Typical but useless. |
C.Strange but successful. | D.Repeated but effective. |
6 . Taking pressure off sports competitions
Sports are a great way to have fun and stay active. Competitions can make sports more exciting. But because somebody wins and somebody loses competitions can also make kids be under pressure. A little pressure can be OK. But too much pressure is bad news.
What is a competition?
There are different kinds of competition in sports.
Why do I feel under pressure?
Do you ever have “butterflies” in your stomach? It's that nervous feeling some people get when starting to attend a new school or preparing for a big soccer match. Believe it or not, the best player on your team gets nervous before a big game.
How can I deal with pressure?
When you're competing in sports, you need a lot of energy.
A.Read on to learn more about sport pressure. |
B.What if you want to give up? |
C.But usually only one person or team does. |
D.It takes a lot of work to become skilled at a sport. |
E.Even professional players feel nervous sometimes! |
F.One secret to having lots of energy is to get plenty of sleep. |
G.You may compete by yourself, as part of a team, or both. |
7 . Many people, including some successful men, wear the same clothing daily to focus their decision-making energy on more important things.
Available online or from various shops, it allows everyone to adopt the latest fashion trends instantly. Though that sounds like a win-win for all, the rapid change in styles and the affordable prices result in impulse (冲动) purchases, many of which are thrown away after being worn just once or twice.
Julia's idea for the “One Outfit (服装), 100 Days” began as a comment she made to her husband during the summer.
A.Julia is also tired of making decisions on small things. |
B.The experiment has aroused curiosity of many students. |
C.Julia's “One Outfit, 100 Days” challenge, however, has a selfless aim. |
D.Thanks to Julia's idea, the whole school began to follow her challenge. |
E.She hopes more people will learn from her and apply the 3Rs to their life. |
F.Over 21 billion pounds of cloth ends up being waste yearly in the US alone. |
G.Thinking further, she decided it would be a way to show her eco-friendly lifestyle. |
8 . With the development of our society, cellphones have become a common part in our lives. Have you ever run into a careless cellphone user in the street? Maybe they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on WeChat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new "species" of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name—phubbers (低头族).
Recently a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cellphone while letting his patient die. A pretty woman takes a selfie (自拍) in front of a car accident site. And a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone. A chain of similar events will finally lead to the destruction(毁灭) of the world.
Although the ending of the film sounds unrealistic, the damage phubbing can bring is real. Your health is the first to bear the effect and the result of it. "Always bending your head to check your cellphone could damage your neck," Guangming Daily quoted doctors' words. "The neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching." Also, staring at cellphones for a long time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.
But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. When getting together with family or friends, many people prefer to play their cellphones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Qilu Evening News reported.
It can also cost your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cellphones in broad daylight.
1. Why does the author give the example of a cartoon in Paragraph 2?A.To suggest phubbers will destroy the world. |
B.To call for people to go walking without phones. |
C.To tell people the bad effects of phubbing. |
D.To advise students to create more cartoons like this. |
① Destructing the world.
② Affecting his social skills.
③ Damaging his neck and eyesight.
④ Getting separated from his friends and family.
A.①②④ | B.②③④ | C.①③④ | D.①②③④ |
A.Supportive. | B.Confident. | C.Disapproving. | D.Unconcerned. |
A.Ways to avoid the risks of phubbing. | B.Bad effects of phubbing. |
C.Daily life of phubbers. | D.Behaviours of phubbers. |
9 . This year’s Olympic Games have been closed to most spectators (观众) because of COVID-19, but the eyes of the world are still on the athletes thanks to five extra cameras—the first step in a 3D tracking system that supplies spectators with instant insights into each step of a race.
The tracking system being used in Tokyo, an Intel product called 3DAT, feeds live footage (影像) into the cloud. There, an artificial intelligence program uses deep learning to analyze an athlete’s movements and identifies key performance characteristics such as top speed and slowdown. The system shares that information with viewers by displaying the action of slow-motion, highlighting key moments. The whole process, from capturing the footage to broadcasting the analysis, takes less than 30 seconds.
“It’s like having your own personal commentator point things out to you in the race,” says Jonathan Lee, director of the Olympic technology group.
To train their Olympic AI via machine learning, Lee and his team had to capture as much footage of best athletes as they could. They needed recordings of human bodies performing specific moves, but the preexisting footage shows average people in motion, Lee says. “People aren’t usually seven feet in the air,” he notes, but world-class high jumpers reach such heights regularly.
In the footage, a team at Intel record every part of the body—eyes, nose, shoulders, and more. Once those key points were identified, the model began connecting them in three dimensions (维度) until it had a simplified performance of an athlete’s form. Lee thinks the AI could help everyone from Olympians to average gymgoers correct their form and track changes in their moves that may indicate upcoming injury. “Long-term, what this technology will do is help improve an athlete’s performance by giving them more information,” two-time Olympic champion Ashton Eaton said.
1. What does the tracking system provide for the viewers?A.Information about 3DAT. |
B.Live footage from gymgoers. |
C.Analysis of the athletes’ personalities. |
D.Highlighted key moments in slow motion. |
A.To increase the accuracy of AI. | B.To reach the world-class heights. |
C.To record moves of average people. | D.To improve athletes’ specific moves. |
A.Lower the risk of injury. | B.Train them to be Olympians. |
C.Simplify the training process. | D.Track changes in their heights. |
A.He benefited a lot from the technology. |
B.He was positive about the future of AI. |
C.He thought AI was useless for athletes. |
D.He wasn’t interested in the development of AI. |
10 . Choosing the Right Career
For many students, choosing a career is the most important life decision they must make at school. However, choosing the right career is not that easy.
Step One: Reflection
Before you decide upon a career, think about your interests and your talents. Ask yourself: What do I enjoy doing? What am I good at?
Step Two: Planning
Step Three: Selection
Consider what kind of personality you have and what your value is: What is really important to you?
A.So how can you find a satisfying one? |
B.Then think about jobs that match you. |
C.Make an overall survey about your target job. |
D.Perhaps you like working face to face with people. |
E.So don’t push yourself to make the perfect decision right now |