1 . By the time the British adventurer Ash Dykes reached Chongqing 178 days after starting to trek (长途跋涉) along the Yangtze River from its source to the sea, the most difficult part of the journey was over. Dykes had completed about 2,430 miles, and all he needed to do was cover the next 1,550 miles in 187 days or less to complete the whole journey.
On August 26 last year, a three-man team, including two guides and a horse, hit the road at the starting point, the source of the Yangtze River in the south of Qinghai Province. Then at different times for the next two months, different people had come to join them.
In order to cross the plateau (高原) and mountains in good weather, the journey was planned to start in summer. However, because of the problems in preparations, Dykes arrived in Qinghai in late August as the days were becoming shorter and colder. Not wanting to wait for another year, he decided to continue.
Within a few days three of the adventurers experienced serious high altitude sickness (高原反应). In the mountains, the team had to light fire to scare off bears, and once they had been followed by a group of wolves for two days. They were forced to quit the journey. In fact, Dykes has been walking alone since late October.
“The rest of the trip would be much easier,” Dykes said. He started from Chongqing on the second half of the journey on March 11. At the same time,he called on more people to join him in some parts of the trek as a way to encourage environmental protection.
“Travelling along the Yangtze River is not only a great act, it’s also a chance to enjoy the true beauty and wonders of China, and attract people’s attention to the environment and good work to protect it,” he wrote on his Weibo. “However, the kindness and warmth of the local people have struck me so much that it is they that make the journey unforgettable.”
1. What do we know about Dykes’ journey along the Yangtze River?| A．It will cover about 3,980 miles. |
| B．It will be joined by more and more people. |
| C．It began in Qinghai and will end in Chongqing. |
| D．It’ll take him over a year to finish the whole journey. |
| A．Bad weather conditions. |
| B．Not enough preparations. |
| C．No partners. |
| D．High altitude sickness. |
| A．The importance of protecting the Yangtze River. |
| B．The best way to travel along the Yangtze River. |
| C．People’s effort to protect the Yangtze River. |
| D．Dykes’ journey along the Yangtze River. |
2 . A new study establishes that environmental damage caused by corn production results in 4,300 premature deaths annually in the United States, representing cost of $39 billion.
The paper, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Sustainability, presents how researchers have estimated for the first time the health damages caused by corn production using detailed information on pollution emissions, pollution transport by wind, and human exposure to increased air pollution levels.
The study also shows how the damage to human health of producing a litre (升) of corn differs from region to region and how, in some areas, the health damages of corn production are greater than its market price.
“The deaths caused per litre in western corn belt states such as Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska tend to be lower than in eastern corn belt states such as Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio,” said lead researcher Jason Hill.
It’s important for farmers to have this information so that they can carry out practices that reduce the environmental influence of the crops they grow. Farmers can greatly improve the environmental profile of their corn by using precision agriculture tools and switching to fertilizers that have lower ammonia (氨) emissions. The study’s results also suggest potential benefits from improving nitrogen use efficiency, switching to crops requiring less fertilizer, and changing the location where corn is grown.
Aware that changes in practices can take time and planning, Hill suggests farmers could be offered motivation to switch to crops that demand less applied nitrogen while still offering market and nutritional benefits.
Hill said, “The number of deaths related to corn production could be reduced through these key strategies”.
1. Which of the states has the lowest death rate caused by corn production?| A．Nebraska. | B．Illinois. |
| C．Indiana. | D．Ohio. |
| A．Improve nitrogen use efficiency. |
| B．Plant crops with no fertilizer. |
| C．Change the corn’s location. |
| D．Using precision agriculture tools. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Optimistic. |
| C．Pessimistic. | D．Neutral. |
| A．Health and lifestyle. |
| B．Art and design. |
| C．Science and environment. |
| D．Fashion and business. |
3 . Even though these monuments are extremely well known, they hold secrets that not many people are aware of.
Empire State Building
On the 103rd floor of the Empire State Building in New York, there is a secret observation deck that not a lot of people know about. To access the balcony, you have to take a series of elevators and then a very steep, narrow staircase. The observation deck isn’t open to the public, but many celebrities have been photographed there.
Eiffel Tower
There is a secret apartment and office at the very top of the Eiffel Tower that has just recently become open to the public. In 1889, Gustave Eiffel, the engineer of this famous Paris landmark, built himself a private apartment and office. It has been restored and has wax models of Gustave, his daughter, and American inventor Thomas Edison on display.
Statue of Liberty
There is actually a room in the torch of the Statue of Liberty that showcases breathtaking views of the city. People used to be able to visit that room until 1916 when German agents blew up a nearby wharf (码头). The explosion sent broken pieces into the raised arm of Lady Liberty, making the staircase up to the hidden room unsafe.
Disneyland
Hardcore Disney fans might think they know all of the secrets of the park, a famous U.S. landmark, but many haven’t heard of Club 33. This exclusive restaurant is hidden behind an unmarked door in Disneyland’s New Orleans Square. If you want to dine here on your next trip to Disneyland, don’t get your hopes up. It costs $25,000 to join the club, plus an annual fee of $12,000.
1. What do the monuments have in common?| A．They are all in Europe. |
| B．They all have skyscrapers. |
| C．They are all the best-known. |
| D．They all hide little-known secrets. |
| A．Disneyland. | B．Eiffel Tower. |
| C．Statue of Liberty. | D．Empire State Building. |
| A．Attractive. | B．Expensive. |
| C．Wonderful. | D．Beautiful. |
4 . A sense of humour, God’s greatest gift to mankind, is universally considered the most valuable personality. It is born within every person’s heart, but has to be cultivated (培养). A person without humour is just like a spring without flowers, or like a dish without seasoning (调味品). In a sense, your personality lies in your sense of humour.
Humour can improve physical as well as mental well-being. It helps us bear our burdens, reduce our tension, overcome our frustration. With a piece of joke, all our worries and sadness disappear like smoke, and we are all full of energy once again.
Humour helps us live in harmony with others. It is unavoidable to have misunderstanding and tension with others during work and study. But humour can help us solve these problems more quickly than angry words or quarrels. With it you can always keep on good terms with others.
A sense of humour is really one of the keys to happiness. It gives fun and interest to life to make it worth living.
Here are five ways to improve your sense of humour.
1. Begin to cultivate an atmosphere of humour and laughter in your relationships.
2. Start association with humourous, fun loving people.
3. Learn to laugh at yourself.
4. Collect cartoons and jokes and share them with others.
5. Use humour to deal with conflict in your relationships:
Remember that a sense of humour is learned, not inherited (遗传). You can sharpen your sense of humour if you really want to.
1. What would be the best title for this passage?| A．A Sense of Humour—a Great Personality | B．A Sense of Humour—the Secret to Success |
| C．How to. Improve Your Sense, of Humour. | D．Humour Helps to Improve Our Health |
| A．a person without humour is dull | B．humour can make us happy. |
| C．humour can help us deal with worries | D．humour can help us solve all the problems |
| A．pleasing | B．interest | C．friendship | D．eager |
| A．learned | B．cultivated | C．inherited | D．improved |
5 . How to Teach Kids to Be Calm
Children often get overwhelmed by emotions. There`re some gentle but powerful ways to bring your child to a state of peace and teach him how to calm himself.
Speak to your child about what has caused an outburst after he has calmed down. It’s much easier to address the causes of lack of calm when the child is in a state of calm. As soon as he is old enough to talk, encourage your child to express his feelings and explain what was wrong.
Teach your child to recognize the signs that he is about to lose his calm.
Teach your child a routine to go through when he or you recognize that he is starting to lose his calm. Find a quiet place where he can calm down. Show him how to take three deep breaths.
| A．Keep yourself calm. |
| B．Prevention is better than cure. |
| C．Stay close to your child when he is angry. |
| D．Listen patiently even if his problems don’t make sense to you. |
| E．An angry adult isn’t a good model for teaching a child calmness. |
| F．Or teach him a simple gentle song about happiness or calmness. |
| G．Set aside a time each day for you and your child to be calm together. |
6 . Be Healthy! Be Slim! Be Beautiful!
Discover the secret for a healthy, slim, and beautiful you!
I love this healthy diet program because it helps you lose weight, lose inches, feel healthy and look beautiful.
This healthy diet is an 8 week’s program which is unlike other diet regimes (食物疗法). In that it focuses on proper nutrition(营养) first and weight loss second. Your body must have proper levels of minerals, vitamin, and protein in order to work well. It provides a simple lifestyle change to give you more energy and improve your health most greatly. It offers control over hunger with a dense diet allowing 1,700 to 2,000 calories a day. If a person has a weight problem, their body probably is not working at proper levels of basic nutrients(营养物). We invite you to follow this program, so you can be the slim person who lives inside you.
You too, can love dieting especially if you are losing weight and losing inches. For more information about our program, please get to our address in the internet: http://www.Shaklee.net/ lifestyle_for_heath/products.
1. This passage is mainly about _____.| A．how people should keep fit | B．why people should keep fit |
| C．a healthy diet program | D．ways to lose weight |
| A．become shorter | B．become thinner |
| C．become fatter | D．become taller |
| A．this program makes a change in your lifestyle |
| B．this program can stop you from feeling hungry |
| C．this program tries to tell us what people should do to become slim |
| D．this program allows you 1,700 to 2,000 calories for each meal |
| A．the content of this program | B．some other programs |
| C．some interesting foods | D．some products you can buy |
7 . The story of Santa Claus began hundreds of years earlier. During the fourth century, a Roman Catholic church official called Nicholas of Myra became famous for his many good actions. Nicholas was made a saint after his death and it became common in northern Europe to hold a celebration on December 6th, the day Nicholas died. All kinds of stories were told about saint Nicholas and the Dutch brought one of these stories with them to America. They believed that each year the saint rode a white horse from home to home. He gave presents to children who had been good, and coal or straw to children who had been bad. Other Americans who lived nearby greatly enjoyed the Dutch celebrations. They decided to make saint Nicholas part of their own celebration of Christmas. But he got a new name Santa Claus. It was taken from the Dutch words for Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus. The Dutch imagined Saint Nicholas to be a serious, even frightening person, who could punish as well as give gifts. But in 1822, an American named Clement C. Moore wrote a Christmas poem for his children, the poem called A Visit from St. Nicholas, created a completely new Santa Claus. Dr. Moore described a short, happy, little man who rode in an open sleigh. The sleigh was pulled from house to house by eight white reindeer. At each house Santa delivered gifts by dropping them down the chimney into the fireplace. Dr. Moore’s poem was published in a newspaper in New York, in 1823. It soon became popular all over America and it became the source for the Santa Claus American children still believe in today.
An American artist named Thomas Nast also played a part in creating Santa Claus. Beginning in 1860’s, Mr. Nast drew pictures of Santa Claus for an American publication called Harper’s Weekly. These pictures showed a fat, smiling old man with a red nose and white beard. He was dressed in a red suit with white fur and a black belt. Today more than one hundred years later, that same Santa Claus can be seen everywhere at Christmas time.
1. Nicholas died ________.| A．on December 25th | B．on December 6th |
| C．in 1822 | D．in 1823 |
| A．he lived during the fourth century |
| B．he was a Roman Catholic Church official |
| C．he did a lot of deeds |
| D．he lived in Myra, the ancient capital of Lycia |
| A．gave presents to each child |
| B．gave nothing to the bad children |
| C．gave coal or straw to the bad children |
| D．gave presents to the adults |
| A．a newspaper | B．a poem |
| C．a chimney | D．a forest |
8 . You may have been told in the past that reading to your children can help their development. Now an organization is trying to stress it even more.
The American Academy of Pediatrics is now having doctors encourage parents to read aloud to their children, even at the earliest stages. They say it is an important part of the brain’s development in the first three years of a child’s life.
“Although reading to our children can be a simple thing, it has a huge effect on our children. It can encourage our children to read later on in life and give a good start to their education. It can enhance the vocabulary and other communication skills. We can continue to do something that doesn’t take a lot of time and energy to tell the children that love of reading is so important when they are babies,” said Dr Heidi Stoltenberg at Mayo Clinic Health System.
Reading to your children is very important. Stoltenberg said it is never too early to start. “It may seem kind of unusual because we don’t necessarily think babies are at an age when you would read to them, but immediately when you come home from the delivery (分娩) of your baby is a great time to start that,” Stoltenberg said.
Studies have shown that the poverty level plays a major role in parents who read to their children. Many times, that is simply because the families cannot afford books or other things to read. There are many resources (资源) in our area to help those families get reading materials. The United Way of Freeborn County, and many others across the region, have teamed up with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Many local hospitals, including Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea and Austin, also take part in Reach Out and Read.
1. What does the underlined word “enhance” in the third paragraph mean?| A．Choose. | B．Receive. | C．Increase. | D．Prevent. |
| A．She thinks it is completely meaningless. |
| B．She believes babies may get hurt if you do that. |
| C．She insists that the parents turn to some experts. |
| D．She holds that reading to babies should start as early as possible. |
| A．Being short of time. |
| B．Being short of money. |
| C．The bad family environment. |
| D．The poor education background. |
| A．The importance of reading to children. |
| B．New ways to develop children’s reading ability. |
| C．Reasons that influence children’s reading habits. |
| D．Necessity of paying attention to children’s brain development. |
9 . When mothers I know talk about their gifted kids, I will have a lot of conflicting emotions. I get it that the moms are proud, and surely, I don’t mind hearing about the kids’ other amazing achievements. It’s the gifted thing that gets me.
I would probably feel differently if my daughter Violet was some great prodigy. Maybe I would be out there bragging (吹嘘) with some mothers if she was reading on an eighth grade level instead of struggling through “I’ll Teach My Dog a Lot of Words”. Like every other parent, I had dreams of Violet being some kind of combination of Lincoln and Mozart. But in schoolwork at least, Violet seems solidly normal, ahead of some in her class, behind when compared to others.
But why do I care? Normal is a good thing! Normal is great! As it is, what I’d like to brag about seems like a thing people never care about. My Violet is a really great little girl. She’s a little hothead, with a temper, but she also cares about other people’s feelings. When friends of hers are sick, she wants to make them little cards and pictures to help them feel well. A new little girl came to her classroom last week, and Violet noticed she was feeling lonely and scared, so she asked the new girl to play at break.
But no one brags how nice their kid is. Too bad. That’s the kind of thing I’d like to hear. I don’t think I’d mind listening to lots of stories of kindness. “Oh yeah? Well, my kid took his plate to the sink without asking!” “Yeah? My kid lined up his shoes in rows in his closet and then sat on my lap and told me I was pretty!” Listening to those kinds of stories makes me feel cheery. They make me feel like the world is a good place, full of people who care for each other. Unlike those about kids who are trying to be the best.
1. Hearing other moms bragging about their gifted kids, the author feels______.| A．calm | B．proud | C．uncomfortable | D．surprised |
| A．A person who studies hard. | B．A person who acts unwisely. |
| C．A person with unusual abilities. | D．A person with a great personality. |
| A．She is intelligent. | B．She is kind-hearted. |
| C．She is a perfect girl. | D．She is sometimes lonely. |
| A．kids’ happy lives | B．kids’ achievements |
| C．kids’ good character | D．kids’ wonderful talents |
10 . The rescue of an Austrian skier who was found alive after being buried by an avalanche is being called a “miracle”. Police in Upper Styria — the mountainous and forested region in southern Austria — said they were alerted on Christmas Day that a 26-year-old skier had not returned from the slopes. The man who alerted police said he had managed to get through to the skier’s mobile phone but heard only “cracking noises” on the line, the BBC reported.
A rescue team was able to trace the skier beneath more than 3 feet of snow using an electric avalanche victim’s transceiver (无线电收发两用机), which skiers are required to wear in avalanche-prone areas. They found the man was on a slope of Mount Pleschnitzzinken, in the northwestern area of Upper Styria. “You can’t move under a blanket of snow like this,” Stefan Schrock of the Styria mountain rescue service told Austrian public broadcaster ORF. “The man was extremely lucky that he had a big enough air pocket under the blanket of snow, so he had oxygen too and was able to breathe.”
The man was found about two hours after authorities were first alerted. However, the avalanche hit the region three hours before that when the man was buried in the snow. A rescue team and local police dogs dug the man out of the snow and he was taken down the valley suffering from hypothermia (体温过低). He was otherwise unharmed.
An avalanche also swept across a marked ski trail near the Swiss town of Andermatt on Thursday, injuring two people. Four others were either rescued themselves from the snow unhurt. Police and rescuers searched the snowslide after witnesses said more people might be buried, but the operation ended with police saying there were no more victims. The avalanche occurred mid-morning while many holiday skiers enjoyed mountain sunshine the day after Christmas.
1. Why did the man alert the police?| A．He found two people injured. |
| B．A 26-year-old skier got lost. |
| C．He heard only terrible noises. |
| D．Many people got lost on the slope. |
| A．Only the dog helped him. |
| B．He had an electronic transceiver. |
| C．A blanket of snow helped him. |
| D．He had a big enough air pocket. |
| A．For two hours. |
| B．For three hours. |
| C．For five hours. |
| D．For a week. |
| A．A terrible avalanche. |
| B．A Christmas miracle. |
| C．An exciting rescue. |
| D．A Christmas ski. |
