1 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

World Olive (橄榄) Tree Day takes place     1     26th November every year. It was established     2     (official) at the 40th session of the UNESCO General Conference in 2019.The olive tree, especially the olive branch, holds an important place in people’s mind. Since ancient times, it     3     (symbolize) peace, harmony and     4     (wise) .It is important not just to the countries     5     these noble trees grow but also to people and communities worldwide.

Protecting and growing the olive tree is     6     increasingly urgent thing as the world fights against climate change. The conservation of cultural and natural heritage is one of UNESco’s     7     (center) goals, and marking World Olive Tree Day strengthens the efforts to achieve it.

World Olive Tree Day is set up     8     (encourage) the protection of the olive tree and stress the values it symbolizes,     9     (inspire) people to appreciate its important social, cultural, economic and environmental significance to humans.

There is much to learn, share and celebrate on World Olive Tree Day, and UNESCO encourages everyone to participate in     10     (activity) such as debates, conferences, cultural events and exhibitions organized worldwide.

2 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct.

Teaching in Front of a Camera

Wageningen University is keen on developing forms of education that reach people all over the world. The basics of the course topics are covered in short films and three-minute to seven-minute presentations     1     (use) techniques such as animation and voice-over(画外音).

“The online Master’s programmes are quite different from the large scale MOOCs(在线课程),” explains Busstra. In the Master’s courses, the short “knowledge clips” dealing with the essential topics     2     (link) to an assignment directly to help the students actively absorb the knowledge themselves. Teachers can also use them to test     3     the material has come across well. Busstra says, “The teacher has to think up new ways of working - getting students to make a film clip, for instance,     4     they present a research setup they have have thought up themselves, or to respond to someone else’s idea, or to work on a document in groups.” The students also get the chance to post a question while they     5     (watch) an online film - equivalent of putting your hand up during a lecture. Fellow students and teachers can then answer     6     question online. “There are a lot of misunderstandings about online education,” says Busstra, “one of them being     7     there is only one-way communication. But people are gradually gaining confidence in it. It will stay typically Wageningen: small-scale and     8     (base) on interaction and group work.”

The investment     9     online learning is paying off in the regular education programme too, according to Busstra. Students in Wageningen can pick up the basics at home through the knowledge clips. During lectures, teachers     10     then provide more in-depth analysis, talk about their own work and supervise students more personally. “Increasingly, on-campus and online education will no longer be two separate worlds.” expects Busstra.

3 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct.
Hi, everyone.

Traditionally,     1     the year winds down, it’s a time for reflections—to give thanks, reconnect with loved ones, and cherish the more meaningful parts of life, removed from our usual day-to-day distractions.

Of course, the events of 2020 haven’t shown a lot of respect for our traditions. In a year of so much tragedy, it can be tough to give thanks when you’re doing your best to get by. And far too many of us will have to gather around a table with an empty chair, if we were able to gather together at all.

One thing, though, we can say about 2020 is that it forced us all to cherish what is most important, what’s most meaningful in our lives. To stop taking things for granted,     2     truly matters. To be grateful for what we have, and to be alive to the pain of those     3     (fortunate).

Throughout this challenging year, I’ve been moved, again and again, by the sacrifices so many were willing to make on behalf of others. The healthcare professionals who risked their lives to save ours. The workers who have kept our lights on and our shelves stocked, always essential to our economy, but finally     4     (recognize) for it. The protesters of every race and age who saw injustice in their streets and their institutions and demanded change. And the less heralded leaders, the quiet change-makers who saw need in their own communities and leapt to address it. They checked in on their neighbors, delivered food and PPE to seniors and those experiencing hardship, offered mental health support to those     5    (recover) from trauma.     6     holes this pandemic tore wide in our social fabric, these emerging leaders stepped forward to patch it up.

These are exactly the leaders Michelle and I started our Foundation to support. We always thought they     7     (lead) us into a bright future, if only we     8     empower them, connect them with each other, and give them a dose of inspiration when they needed it.

What we learned in 2020 is that these emerging leaders aren’t just building a brighter future, they’re safeguarding our present. In hard times, they are the ones who’ve given me solace. It’s     9     sacrifice in which I found hope. And as we begin to close the chapter on a difficult year with encouraging news on the horizon, it’s their leadership     10     will guide us today and tomorrow.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everybody.

—Quoted from Barack Obama’s Christmas speech in 2020

4 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Preserving more habitats for China’s giant pandas is providing a giant payoff.    1    (save) the giant panda from dying out isn’t just good for the panda, but it’s also good for economy, a new analysis by an international team of scientists shows.

The results,    2    (publish) in the magazine Current Biology, stress the economic bene-fits that go hand in hand with environmental protection. Giant pandas are one of the    3    (rare) species around the world. But pandas fell on hard times in recent decades, thanks largely    4    human encroachment (侵入). In 1980 alone,many habitats    5    (destroy) artificially, and in 1990, their habitats covered only 12,340 square kilometers,     6    is a major threat to the pandas in large part because bamboo, their main food source, is so low in nutrients that they must wander a lot of land in order to find and eat enough of it.

Because of this, Chinese officials began making significant efforts to save the panda from     7    (extinct), establishing more reserves and increasing the reserve area three times. Panda numbers    8    (gradual) began to recover, hitting 1,596 in 2000 and 1,864 in 2010.

“    9    is clear that society’s investment (投资)    10    (start) to pay off so far in terms of panda population recovery,” the study authors wrote.

5 . 语法填空

Three Hours a Week: Play Time’s over for China’s Young Video Gamers

China has forbidden under-18s from playing video games for more than three hours a week, a stringent(严苛的)social intervention that it said was needed to pull the plug on a growing addiction to     1     it once described as “spiritual opium(鸦片)”.

The new rules,     2     (publish) on Monday, are part of a major shift by Beijing to strengthen control over its society and key sectors of its economy, including tech, education and property, after years of runaway growth.

The restrictions, which apply to any devices including phones, are a body blow to a global gaming industry that caters to tens of millions of young players in the world’s most profitable market.

They limit under - 18s to     3     (play) for one hour a day - 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. - on only Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, according to the Xinhua sate news agency. They can also play for an hour, at the same time, on public holidays.

The rules from the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) regulator coincide with a broader clampdown(压制)by Beijing     4     China’s tech giants, such as Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings.

The campaign     5     (prevent) what state media has described as the “savage growth” of some companies has wiped tens of billions of dollars off shares traded at home and abroad.

Gaming companies will be barred from providing services to minors in any form outside the stipulated(规定)hours and     6     ensure they have put real-name verification systems in place, said the regulator,     7     oversees the country’s video games market.

The new rules swiftly became one of the most discussed topics on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter. Some users expressed support for the measures     8     others said they were surprised at how drastic(严厉的)the rules were.

“This is so fierce that I’m utterly speechless,” said one comment that received over 700 likes.     9     expressed doubt that the restrictions could be enforced. “They will just use their parent’s logins, how can they control it?” asked one.

The NPPA regulator told Xinhua it     10     (increase) the frequency and intensity of inspections for online gaming companies to ensure they were putting in place time limits and anti-addiction systems. It also said that parents and teachers played key roles in curbing gaming addiction.

6 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Many procedures are available for obtaining data about a language.     1    range from a carefully planned, intensive field investigation of a foreign language in a foreign country to a casual study of one’s own mother tongue carried out in an armchair at home. To do this, someone has to act as a source of language data-an informant. Informants are ideally native speakers of a language,    2    provide words and sentences for analysis and other kinds of information about the language.

Many factors must be considered when selecting informants—    3    one is working with a single speaker or more people interacting. Age, sex, social background and other aspects of identity are important, as these factors are known to influence the type of the language used. The topic of conversation and the characteristics of the social setting are also highly relevant,    4    are the personal qualities of the informants.

Today, researchers often tape-record informants. This enables the linguist’s claims about the language    5    (check), and provides a way of making those claims more accurate as difficult pieces of speech can be listened to repeatedly. But obtaining naturalistic, good-quality data is never easy. People talk abnormally when they know they    6    (record), and sound quality can be poor. A variety of tape-recording procedures have thus been devised to minimize the ‘observer’s paradox’, a situation in which people feel strange to each other. Some recordings are made    7    the speakers being aware of the fact—a procedure that obtains very natural data, though ethical objections must be expected. Alternatively, attempts can be made to make the speaker forget about the recording,    8    keeping the tape recorder out of sight, or using radio microphones. A useful technique is to introduce a topic that quickly involves the speaker, and stimulates a natural language style, like asking older informants about how times have changed in their locality.

An audio tape recording does not solve all the linguist’s problems, however. Speech is often ambiguous or unclear. Where possible, therefore, the recording has to be supplemented by the observer’s    9    (write)comments on the non-verbal behavior of the participants, and about the context in general. A facial expression, for example, can dramatically alter the meaning of    10    is said. Video recordings avoid these problems to a large extent, but even they have limitations as the camera cannot be everywhere, and transcription always benefits from any additional commentary provided by an observer.

7 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Chinese scientists have created starch(淀粉) using carbon dioxide, hydrogen and electricity, according to a study     1     was published in the journal Science on Sept 24.

It's the first time in the world that synthesis(合成) of starch from CO₂     2     (achieve). Scientists believe it will have a     3     (revolution) impact on future agricultural production and bio-manufacturing.

According to Ma Yanhe,     4     author of the study, the process of plants     5     (create) carbohydrates like starch through photosynthesis(光合作用)is complex and     6     (efficient). It takes a plant about 60 steps of metabolic(新陈代谢的) reactions to turn CO₂, water and sunlight into starch. But now Chinese scientists have simplified the process from 60 steps into 11.

Creating carbohydrates more efficiently is so important for     7     (sustainable) on Earth, noted ChinaDaily. If such an approach can be scaled up(扩展) to the level of industrialization, it     8     (save) more than 90 percent of the farm land and freshwater resources, and avoid negative effects on the environment     9     pesticides and chemical fertilizers(肥料), and it will improve food     10     (secure) and promote sustainable societies, according to Cai Tao, another author of the study.

8 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Do you know the hit movie Godzilla vs Kong? Two giant monsters     1     (battle) each other in the city streets may be just the escapism(逃避现实) audiences need right now. Godzilla vs Kong, released on March 26, presents     2     two monsters facing off once more on the silver screen after nearly 60 years.

Many cities agree that the title delivers on     3     (it) promise of monster action. From inventive daylight fighting     4     an exciting battle on Hong Kong’s coast, the monster movie gives all the explosive action you expect.

“The visual     5     (effect) are amazing, feeling like exactly the first popcorn movie     6     we all need right now. There is a realism and yet also a necessary fantastical distance for some unusual concepts in this movie, and they all fit     7     (beautiful) together,” wrote Mark Hughes on Forbes.

Even with the impressive scenes, some critics say that the film lacks substance despite reconnecting with the spirit of the     8     (origin) Japanese films.

“Some people strongly recommend that the movie     9     (watch), but there’s just no real soul to any of these monsters,” Luke Goodsell wrote on ABC Arts. He also said that most of the supporting human characters     10     (appear) “dull”.

9 . Directions:After reading the passages below.fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent andgrammatically correct.For the blanks with given words,fill in each blank with the proper form of the word given:for the other blanks,use one word for each blank the best fits the context.

One of the most important New Year's resolutions     1     every parent should make for 2021 is to ensure everyone in the family spends less time with screens. Since last year, a number of new studies     2     (confirm) that the effects of technology on kids are even worse than many parents feared.

Children between the ages of 8 and 11 who spend more than two hours a day looking at screens were associated with lower cognitive function than those who engaged in less screen time, according to researchers who published a study in The Lancet in September. While researchers noted there is no causal link, they wrote,“Emerging evidence suggests that mobile device and social media uses have an unfavorable relationship with attention, memory, impulse control, and academic performance”--- perhaps     3     technology encourages multi-tasking and can cut into kids' sleep time.

The Times also reported many elite schools are moving towards eliminating or reducing screens, while many public schools are touting technology in classrooms.     4     fears of a technological divide were once centered on the high cost of technology and high-speed internet access, the concern is now that less affluent children     5     be spending more time with technology. Already, research by Common Sense Media has found that higher-income teenagers spend less time with screens for entertainment compared to lower-income teens. Of course, a total ban isn't necessarily a smart strategy, either. Some screen time can be important for helping kids learn to use technology they     6     (need) in their careers. They might also use it in beneficial ways     7     (access) educational games and programs, and stay connected to family and friends, for example.

And     8     parents blame their kids' bad behavior on their technology use, it's also important to take a look in the mirror. Moms and dads need to reduce their own screen time, too. A study published in June in Pediatric Research found that there's     9     vicious cycle: The parents' use of phones and its interference in parent-child interactions is associated with kids acting out(模仿).This might then prompt parents to continue using their phones as a way to cope with stress.

New Year's celebrations are the perfect time to get the whole family to look up from their screens       10     offering some fun alternatives like board games, scavenger hunts, baking treats or getting together with family and friends. Kids will soon discover that there are plenty of things that aren't on Facebook to "like."

10 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

A massive fire tore through the main market in the city of Hargeisa in northern Somalia overnight, injuring about two dozen people and     1    (destroy) hundreds of businesses, officials have said.

Images     2    (post) on social media showed flames and huge clouds of smoke in the night sky over the city, the capital of the breakaway region of Somaliland. The cause of the blaze     3     devastated the sprawling Waheen market, the lifeblood of the city and home     4     an estimated 2,000 shops and stalls, is not yet known.

Officials said it started on Friday evening but was largely brought under control by dawn on Saturday, although some small areas were still burning.

“The town has never witnessed such a massive calamity,” Hargeisa’s mayor, Abdikarim Ahmed Mooge, told reporters at the scene. “This place was the economic centre of Hargeisa and     5     the firefighters’ best efforts made to contain the fire, the market is destroyed.” He said the blaze could have been brought under control before causing such extensive damage but that the firefighters’ attempt     6    (deny) due to access problems. The vast market is a crowded warren of shops and makeshift stalls, with no proper streets, only narrow pathways.

The Somaliland president, Muse Bihi Abdi, said during a visit to Waheen     7    about 28 people, nine of them women, were injured, but that so far no loss of life     8    (report). He said the government would be releasing one million dollars to help with the emergency response to the disaster.

Hargeisa chamber of commerce chairman Jamal Aideed said the loss of the market was immense     9     it accounted for 40% to 50% of the city’s economy.

“I have lost everything tonight, this fire was the biggest I have ever seen in my life,” said market trader Bashi Ali. “I had several businesses in the market and all of them burned to ashes.     10    we can learn from this disaster is to plan the market well,” he added.