1 . As leaves fall and temperatures drop, the winter blues are setting in. The winter blues are very common, with many of us experiencing depression and sadness for no reason.
●Recognize the symptoms. The most common signs are general sadness, a lack of energy, oversleeping and overeating. Other signs include loss of interest in activities you typically enjoy.
●Be exposed to the sun. According to mental health experts, the winter blues happen because we get inadequate sunlight in the winter than we do in other seasons.
●Get some exercise and consume healthy food. A brisk walk or some exercise will make natural “eel good” chemicals called endorphins (内啡肽) flow through your body. Avoid having too much sugar. If you are crazy for sweet food like cookies candy, it may be a sign that you need more protein (like meal, chicken, or fish).
●
●Seek for help.
| A．Find a treatment that works for you |
| B．Strike a balance between study and rest |
| C．Here are steps to relieve the winter blues |
| D．Sunlight shortage adds to depressed feelings |
| E．Worse still you may get tired easily most of the day |
| F．If your winter blues start affecting all aspects of your life |
| G．Be generous to yourself, and allow yourself to make mistakes |
2 . Sores Duman is a normal 29-year-old. Later in the week he will see an action movie with his mate Piebe. Before that, he may go to McDonald’s with Martey, another friend. It might take more time than usual for his friends to get ready for these activities. Piebe is 79 and Martey 94. Does Sores think his weekend plans are strange? “No, I do similar things with friends of my own age. I don’t see the difference in age as an obstacle (障碍).”
Mr. Duman lives at the Humanitas care home in Deventer, Holland. His housemates’ average age is over 85. He lives there with ten other students and around 150 elderly residents. They are part of a project that provides them with free housing in exchange for 30 hours per month living as a “good neighbour”.
Both parties appear to benefit from the programme. Mr. Duman estimates that he has saved over €10,000 per year in rent. He claims that living in a care home has not affected his university experience. “We have big parties here.” he says, “we host things from chess games to yoga classes.” In a promotional video, one resident calls the project gezelling a Dutch word that roughly translates as homelike: “Now and then they put me into the walker and race me through the hall,” she explains.
Such projects could help fight against loneliness, an increasing problem across the rich world. I goes hand in hand with social isolation(隔离). Nearly half of Britons over the age of 65 say that television or pets are their main form of company. Loneliness is also said to have serious health consequences: a study from 2015 found that lonely people had on average a 26% higher risk of dying in its seven-year study period than those who were not lonely. And the problem may get worse as social isolation is becoming more common. Creating a space for the elderly to mingle with youngsters can lift spirits—and help cash-strapped millennials (千禧一代).
1. How does Mr. Duman feel about his present life?| A．Dull. | B．Content. | C．Strange. | D．Special. |
| A．Rough. | B．Beneficial. | C．Comfortable. | D．Promotional. |
| A．Various activities are held in the care home. |
| B．Mr. Duman is required to live with 150 elderly people. |
| C．Mr. Duman pays over €10,000 per year for the rent. |
| D．It helps to fight against the loneliness of British elders. |
| A．Care—Hold up the Blue Sky of the Elderly |
| B．Live with the Old to Enrich Your College Life |
| C．A Win-win Project—Housing Students with the Old |
| D．Loneliness—the Number One Killer of the Old-aged |
3 . I started out with animals as a volunteer in a safari park. For me, it’s about both providing care and supporting their conservation in the wild, which is what led me to Laos in South East Asia, setting up a sanctuary for Sun and Moon bears. They are facing a tough time - they are caught in the wild, and then sold to bear bile (熊胆) farms where they are treated inhumanely.
It was full-steam ahead right from the start. Before I’d even boarded the plane to Laos, Matt, a friend from charity Free The Bears, had called me saying they had rescued a tiny female Sun bear. They named it Mary.
She was found in a tiny cage on the back of a truck that was filled with rubbish. When I met Mary for the first time, she was scared and weak, but after a few days in a caring environment with the right nutrition she quickly found her feet.
It wasn’t all easy work. I remember taking her for a walk one day and she shot off up a tree far beyond our reach just as we were heading back to our nursery centre. She loves honey, but she was so intelligent (and stubborn) that she wouldn’t just come for it. I ended up having to trick her with a game, and finally managed to get her low enough to grab her.
I have countless memories like that which will always make me laugh. But it’s still mentally exhausting to know that more than 10,000 bears are kept in cages across Asia. So I can’t describe the feeling of great joy when we get them into our centre. Seeing them take their first steps on grass after knowing nothing but bars and concrete is what it’s all about. They deserve to have the life they were intended for.
1. What does the underlined word “sanctuary” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Bear farm | B．Pet hospital | C．Regional office | D．Wildlife shelter |
| A．She was caged | B．She was injured |
| C．She was buried in rubbish | D．She was abandoned in a truck |
| A．Their tricky games | B．Her playful behavior |
| C．Her climbing trees quickly | D．Their shared love for honey |
| A．Tiring but fruitful | B．Delightful and rewarding |
| C．Challenging but worthwhile | D．Unpredictable and demanding |
4 . Whether you’re stuck at home, too busy to shop or want to save time, it’s convenient to shop online for groceries. Here are our picks for the top four online grocery shopping sites in the US.
Instacart
Instacart lets you shop at various stores in your local area, including Costco, CVS, Ralph’s, BevMo, Petco, and more. Shoppers subcontracted (转包) by Instacart deliver your items right to your doorstep. Delivery fees vary according to peak hours, but you’ll get free delivery on all orders over $35 with an Instacart Express $99 annual membership.
FreshDirect
FreshDirect focuses on delivering high-quality, fresh, organic food with a short supply chain, working directly with its local farmers, dairies, fishermen, and other food partners. Delivery fees vary, but a $79 six- month subscription to FreshDirect Delivery Pass gets you unlimited free deliveries.
ShopFoodEx
ShopFoodEx offers more than 15,000 grocery and household items to browse by category or search by brand or item. This isn’t a local delivery site, so shipping rates can be rather high, even up to $16 for an item that costs only a few dollars. However, shipping rates are clearly stated before you order anything, and the price may be worth it for a hard-to-find item.
GoBio!
Canadian-owned and operated, GoBio! offers high-quality food delivered to the US and Canada, with free shipping on orders over $85. GoBio! aims to help people cook and bake healthy meals with organic ingredients. Check out the Recipes page for inspiration for cooking delicious organic meals.
1. What do we know about Instacart from the text?| A．It offers locally grown food. | B．Orders are shipped from overseas. |
| C．It works with several companies | D．It is available in many countries |
| A．Instacart | B．FreshDirect | C．ShopFoodEx | D．GoBio! |
| A．A travel guide | B．A shopping website |
| C．An entertainment magazine | D．An official document |
5 . Being a good team player is an essential skill, especially at work and school. Don’t worry if you struggle with teamwork. You can improve your skills as a team player.
Share credit with your teammates. No one likes a credit hog (贪婪的人), so don’t steal the spotlight. Treat the team’s accomplishments as a group success.
Pick team members who have skills that complement (补充) yours, if you can. If you have a choice on who you’ll work with, look for people who are different from you.
Include input from all team members so everyone is heard. A team can only thrive if everyone feels valued and heard. Not all ideas are winners, but the group must still listen to them and consider if they’re good ideas for this project. Make it a priority to collaborate (协作) as much as possible. If team members start to feel as though their ideas don’t matter, they’ll stop being an active part of the team.
Participate in brainstorming sessions to encourage collaboration. When you can, meet in person so you can have a free exchange of ideas.
| A．Speak up when you have ides about a topic. |
| B．Make sure you do an equal share of the work. |
| C．Don’t expect your teammates to take responsibility of keeping you on track. |
| D．This will hurt your overall output as you’ re losing valuable ideas and expertise. |
| E．Plus, acknowledge the individual contributions made by your teammate. |
| F．If this isn’t possible, schedule a digital conference through service providers like Skype. |
| G．It’s better to have diverse ideas and skills on your team, as you’ll be able to be more creative. |
6 . Researchers at the Harvard Medical School have been looking at how sleeping and dreaming affect the way we perform certain tasks. Previous research has already shown that a person who has a nap (小睡) after learning a task will be able to complete the task better when they wake up than a person who doesn’t sleep. Now it has been revealed that if the person dreams about the task while they are asleep then they will be able to perform it even better.
For instance, if a student stays up all night to revise for an exam then he or she won’t do as well as a student who combines their study with sleep. But the student who will do best in the exam is the one who sleeps and dreams providing the dreams are related to what he or she is learning.
The time we are asleep is divided into different periods. These periods are known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep. During REM periods our dreams are more vivid and intense and easier to remember when we wake up. Brain activity is also higher.
According to Associate Professor Robert Stickgold, a memory and dream researcher at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, there’s convincing evidence that when we dream, the brain is making connections that help us learn what we have been learning previously.
It’s possible that in the future some courses will include short sleeping periods as part of the learning process. The power nap is now an established practice in the professional world even if it’s frowned upon in some cultures. It’s only a matter of time before a short sleep is common while studying. And if our dreams can be controlled to relate in some way to what we are learning then our learning potential will increase even more.
We know that we can’t live without sleep. But the reasons why we sleep and why we dream while we’re asleep are still a mystery.
1. What has the new research found?| A．Our dreams remain active during sleep. |
| B．Dreams help increase our learning potential. |
| C．We tend to dream after a long period of study. ; |
| D．Sleep is necessary for keeping our brains healthy. |
| A．By using statistics. |
| B．By giving examples. |
| C．By analyzing causes, |
| D．By describing a process. |
| A．Our brains are more active during NREM sleep. |
| B．We are more likely to wake up during REM sleep. |
| C．Dreams during NREM sleep are more likely to disappear from memory, |
| D．Dreams during REM periods influence sleep quality much more heavily, |
| A．The more we sleep, the more we dream. |
| B．Short sleeps should be encouraged in class. |
| C．We dream because our brain is making connections. |
| D．The benefits of the power nap lack scientific evidence. |
7 . Marriages in Egypt are somewhat different from those in the West. They will discourage dating if single men and women aren’t related. Among the middle and upper classes, the man and woman know each other from schools or universities, where young people gather in groups like in the West.
However, the steps toward marriage are the same as those in the West.
The wedding usually takes place quickly, unless the groom-to-be is going abroad to work or study, in which case the marriage may be postponed. The marriage may be very simple, consisting only of the mosque priest (清真寺牧师) to declare the marriage contract between the groom and the bride’s father, who speaks on behalf of his daughter.
Egypt is trying to bridge the difference between traditional interpretations (方式) and modern models. At one time, Egypt gave women the right to ask for a divorce only in certain circumstances, such as her husband’s being mentally ill.
| A．Either one can say no to the marriage. |
| B．Weddings are a time of celebration as in the West. |
| C．The two families need to discuss the terms of the marriage. |
| D．Since revolution, women have entered the work place in force. |
| E．Divorce is not very common in Egypt, although it does still happen. |
| F．In the lower classes, the chance for socializing with the opposite sex is rarer. |
| G．A woman’s right to ask for a divorce in any case was put into law in Egypt in 1999. |
8 . Pluto(冥王星) is a cold world far from us in the outer part of our solar system. But researchers believe Pluto may have been born as a much warmer place. They say it may even have sheltered(隐藏) a subsurface or underground ocean—one that still exists today.
A report on Pluto appeared in the scientific journal Nature Geosciences. The lead author was Carver Bierson, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In the report, researchers pointed to evidence for a “hot start” situation at Pluto’s beginning, some 4.5 billion years ago.
Their study was based on images of the dwarf(矮小的) planet’s surface as well as computer models of the subsurface. “When Pluto was forming, new material would have been coming in and impacting its surface,” Bierson said. “Each impact is like an explosion that would warm the nearby area.” Bierson explained that if Pluto had formed slowly, the surface would have cooled between each impact and generally stayed very cold. But if Pluto had formed quickly, the surface may not have had time to cool down.
“If Pluto formed in less than 30,000 years, the heat from these impacts could have been sufficient to lead to an early ocean. Pluto may have an icy outer shell hundreds of kilometers thick on the top of an ocean of water, possibly mixed with salts and ammonia(氨). A solid rocky core could lie below,” Bierson said.
The researchers believe that parts of the ocean would gradually freeze over time. Water expands as it freezes, and cracks on Pluto’s surface may be evidence of this. At present, Pluto’s surface temperature is about minus 230 degrees Celsius.
A subsurface ocean could make Pluto a possible, although unlikely, candidate for having living organisms. Bierson said it was possible that contact between water and the rocky core could have created certain chemical elements. “Are those the right elements for life? We don’t know. We need to learn more about how life forms, or how life could form, to find these answers,” Bierson said.
1. According to Bierson, what may result in the underground ocean?| A．Something like an explosion. | B．Long distance from the sun. |
| C．Salts mixed with ammonia. | D．Low temperature. |
| A．Life on it had made them. |
| B．Planets crashed billions of years ago. |
| C．Aliens from other planets created them. |
| D．There might be water and it expands when freezing. |
| A．Pluto used to have life. |
| B．Pluto has living organisms. |
| C．Scientists are working to figure out the origin of life. |
| D．Chemicals created by water and rocky core are the right elements for life. |
| A．Pluto Was Born with a Universal Explosion |
| B．Pluto May Have Ever Started Out Very Hot |
| C．Pluto Lies at the Edge of the Solar System |
| D．Pluto Is a Cold World |
9 . In the west of the city Seville in Spain, a sea of giant mirrors is reflecting the sun’s energy to provide “concentrated solar power (CSP)” while brightening the path to a new wave of green energy projects.
The 624 carefully positioned mirrors reflect the sun’s heat towards a 50-meter-tall central tower where it is concentrated and used to boil water into steam. The superheated steam is then used to turn a turbine (汽轮机) that can produce up to 11 megawatts of electricity—enough power for 6,000 homes—according to Solucar, the Spanish company that has built the power plant.
The Spanish tower, known as PS10, is the first stage of an ambitious development. By 2025 it is hoped that additional towers will create “a solar farm” with an output of 500 megawatts, which would be enough power for 180,000 homes, almost the entire population of nearby Seville.
CSP produces no greenhouse gases and the only pollution is visual. There is also the possibility that production can keep going around the clock-even when the sun has gone down. Solucar is currently testing technology at a plant near Granada that will pump 50 percent of the electricity generated in the day into the Spanish national grid (国家输电网), and use the other 50 percent to melt salt, which will then act as a kind of battery, storing the sun’s power. When dusk falls, the heat stored in the molten salt can be used to generate power through the night.
The Sahara, the world’s largest desert, has always been seen as a problem. But with large-scale CSP projects, suddenly all that empty space, with its year round clear skies and hot sun, has a value that could transform local economies. It could potentially turn Africa into an exporter of energy to power-hungry Europe.
1. What is the Spanish tower PS10 used to do according to the text?| A．Store boiled water. | B．Generate electricity. |
| C．Reflect the sun’s energy. | D．Brighten the path nearby. |
| A．towers like PS10 are set up |
| B．greenhouses are built to make profits |
| C．crops are grown with new technology |
| D．farmers mainly use solar energy at home |
| A．molten salt works better than water when producing electricity |
| B．melting salt can reduce environmental pollution |
| C．some sun power can be saved for the night use |
| D．salt is easy to melt in the sun |
| A．Critical. | B．Doubtful. | C．Subjective. | D．Optimistic. |
10 . Greg Dailey closed his picture frame store due to the coronavirus pandemic (冠状病毒大流行), and his second job of delivering newspapers became his primary source of income.
Dailey’s grocery trips began when one of his elderly customers asked him for a favor. “Mrs. Ross called me on Wednesday before my store shutting down and asked if I could throw the newspaper closer to her house,” he tells Yahoo Life. “A couple of days later, I was standing in a grocery, and I called her and asked if she needed anything from a grocery. She was astonished. Moments later, she called me back and asked if I wouldn’t mind grabbing something from Mrs. Miller across the street.”
Soon, Dailey’s 800 customers found a note he wrote tucked in with their newspaper, offering his help. “And the next day I just decided, ‘You know, what? If there are two people that live within a hundred feet of each other having issues getting the essential things they need, I’m going to put out a note.’”
The words spread not only to his community but to surrounding ones. Since then, Dailey, with the help of his family, developed a system to keep track of the orders. To date, Dailey has made more than 600 trips to the grocery for his neighbors and delivered everything to their homes for free. “These last three months has changed my life… I get emotional because some of them have become really special to me,” he says.
Dailey reopened his frame store on June 15, and he promised to continue to help seniors not only with groceries but with anything else they need. He knows those he helps will remain a part of his life going forward.
“It’s moments like this, we need to step back and take a look in ourselves and realize that we can do more… and it’s something I live by,” Dailey says. “If you have the opportunity to do something nice for someone, just do it.”
1. What favor did Mrs. Ross ask Dailey to do?| A．Go across the street. | B．Give things to Mrs. Miller. |
| C．Do grocery shopping for her. | D．Deliver the newspapers nearer to her house. |
| A．To help nearby neighbors. | B．To offer help to his customers. |
| C．To give his customers essential things. | D．To ask his customers to buy more newspapers. |
| A．Dailey’s offering of help. | B．Dailey’s frame store. |
| C．Dailey’s reflection. | D．Dailey’s emotion. |
| A．Helpful. | B．Friendly. | C．Practical. | D．Responsible. |
