1 . Although growing up in a poor family in post-war 1950s, Gloria Stewart remembers her poor but kindhearted parents always had an extra setting at their table, especially at Christmas.
The warmth of her mum and dad’s welcome for poor guests at the coldest time of the year inspired the 69-year-old grandmother to spread her own seasonal joy. “Mum and dad hadn’t even got a penny,” recalls Gloria. “But it didn’t matter. They’d never turn down any homeless one who knocked on the door.”
“When I became a mum, I tried to make the festive season as special as possible. However, I once met an old lady who was spending Christmas alone in bed. It broke my heart.”
In December 2007, Gloria hosted the first Home Alone lunch after advertising to the public and receiving donations. It took a special person with a big heart and an even bigger table to invite 87 lonely old people for Christmas. Her Home Alone event has lasted up to now.
Every Christmas, Gloria wears her most sparkly dress to serve the traditional roast to every table of her smiling, grateful guests, making time to speak to as many of them as possible. After her first lunch, Gloria was nicknamed Mrs. Christmas. And now she has written a book about her extraordinary life helping bring joy to the elderly who would normally spend Christmas alone.
She wrote in her book, “When I was a child, I had few friends and I was laughed at for being so poor. So I was determined no one else should bear the loneliness and hardship I had suffered.” Having battled cancer three times, Gloria became even more determined to make sure Christmas was not clouded by sadness.
Now the Home Alone event has grown to serving turkey lunch to over 500 happy guests. The kind lady received an award from Sheffield City Council for her efforts and was praised by former Prime Minister David Cameron.
But for Gloria, the real prize comes as she watches the smiles light up the faces of her lunch guests. She says, “There really is no greater reward. Just for a few hours they escape their loneliness and are surrounded by love.”
1. The first two paragraphs intend to tell us ________.| A．why Gloria had a suffering childhood |
| B．how Gloria’s parents celebrated Christmas |
| C．what memories Gloria had about her parents |
| D．that Gloria was inspired by her parents’ kind act |
| A．Her desire for success. | B．Her parents’ will. |
| C．Her tough life experiences. | D．Her friends’ encouragement. |
| A．A Home Alone Event | B．A Big-hearted Grandmother |
| C．A Special Memory of Christmas | D．A Shared Christmas Dinner |
2 . For nearly a decade now, Merebeth has been a self-employed pet transport specialist. Her pet transport job was born of the financial crisis(危机)in the late 2000s. The downturn hit the real estate (房地产)firm where she had worked for ten years as an office manager. The firm went broke and left her looking for a new job. One day, while driving near her home, she saw a dog wandering on the road, clearly lost. She took it home, and her sister in Denver agreed to take it. This was a loving home for sure, but 1, 600 miles away. It didn’t take long for Merebeth to decide to drive the dog there herself. It was her first road trip to her new job.
Merebeth’s pet delivery service also satisfies her wanderlust. It has taken her to every state in the US except Montana, Washington and Oregon, she says proudly. If she wants to visit a new place, she will simply find a pet with transport needs there. She travels in all weathers. She has driven through 55 mph winds in Wyoming, heavy flooding and storms in Alabama and total whiteout conditions in Kansas.
This wanderlust is inherited from her father, she says. She moved their family from Canada to California when she was one year old, because he wanted them to explore a new place together. As soon as she graduated from high school she left home to live on Catalina Island off the Californian coast, away from her parents, where she enjoyed a life of sailing and off-road biking.
It turns out that pet transporting pays quite well at about $30, 000 per year before tax. She doesn’t work in summer, as it would be unpleasantly hot for the animals in the car, even with air conditioning. As autumn comes, she gets restless—the same old wanderlust returning. It’s a call she must heed alone, though. Merebeth says, “When I am on the road, I’m just in my own world. I’ve always been independent-spirited and I just feel strongly that I must help animals.”
1. Why did Merebeth changed her job?| A．She wanted to work near her home. |
| B．She was tired of working in the office. |
| C．Her sister asked her to move to Denver. |
| D．Her former employer was out of business. |
| A．make money. | B．try various jobs. |
| C．be close to nature. | D．travel to different places. |
| A．She has chances to see rare animals. |
| B．She works hard throughout the year. |
| C．She relies on herself the whole time. |
| D．She earns a basic and tax-free salary. |
词数不少于60，邮件的开头呼结尾已为你写好，不计入总词数。
| The clubs in your school | painting, drama, football.…. |
| Your choice and reasons | Chinese painting club |
| Activities | attend lectures on Chinese painting visit some painting exhibitions |
| Your gains and feelings |
I'm glad to hear from you and know that you are interested in the clubs in our school.
_______________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
5 . Britney, 21, will never forget the day her grandmother told her she could never be President. Britney was young. She saw the White House on TV. I'm going to be President,” she said.
"You can't do that," her grandmother said. She added that if Britney wanted to work at the White House, she could only do the cleaning.
Britney saw things differently. She didn't give up her dream. Instead, she wrote a poem（诗）.The poem showed that she could realize her dream.
Britney isn't the first person to deal with unfairness or disappointment by writing. Many writers have done the same thing. Reading poems gives Britney ideas for her writing. One of her favorite poets is Langston Hughes. Hughes was one of the first African-Americans to make a living by writing. Hughes published （出版）his first poem in 1921 when he was 19 years old. He wrote many of his works during the 1920s and 1930s. Back then, African-Americans were kept out of many schools, jobs and neighborhoods. Hughes wrote poems about the difficulties African-Americans faced at that time. He also wrote about his hope for a better fairer future.
Many people, not just black people, read Hughes's works. More Americans learned how hard life was for black people. Slowly, things began to change. Today young poets like Britney are sharing their own messages. Britney herself is moving forward. She's now a student at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She plans to work in the government and still hopes to become President. "I just want to help people." she says. With her thoughtful words, she already has helped many people.
1. What do we know about Britney's grandmother?| A．She taught Britney to write poems. |
| B．She worked as a cleaner in the White House. |
| C．She always felt disappointed at Britney's poems. |
| D．She didn't believe Britney's dream could come true. |
| A．Her grandmother's words. | B．Hughes's encouragement |
| C．Reading other writers' poems. | D．Studying at Howard University. |
| A．earned his living by teaching poems |
| B．didn't publish his first poem until 1920 |
| C．created many of his works in his forties |
| D．influenced many Americans besides Britney |
| A．Determined and confident. | B．Selfish and mean. |
| C．Patient and careful. | D．Active and easy-going. |
假如你是李华，你的英国笔友Jack想了解在抗击疫情期间，你居家生活的情况。请参考下面提供的信息，写邮件向他介绍你的居家生活，并询问他居家生活的情况。
邮件的开头和结尾已为你写好，不计入总词数。
● take online courses, do homework and read books
● do some cooking, cleaning and washing
● do exercise, play games and watch news
● …
Dear Jack,
How is everything? In your letter, you asked me about what I was doing at home during the outbreak of Coronavirus.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Best regards,
Li Hua
7 . No one dances like you. Your mom knows it. Your friends know it. Even computers know it. Now, before you get too excited, keep in mind that it doesn’t mean you’re a particularly good dancer. Only that the way you throw your arms in the air is entirely unique.
In fact, according to a recent study, the scientists, from a research center in Finland, discovered a computer could magically identify your moves to whatever type of music. “We actually weren’t looking for this result, as we set out to study something completely different,” lead study author Emily Carlson explained in the interview. “Our original idea was to see if we could use machine learning to identify which type of music our participants (参与者) were dancing to, based on their movements.”
Unexpectedly, they built dance-recognition software. Thus, you may say, they moonwalked into the discovery.
For their study, the researchers asked 73 participants to dance to various types of music—while computer software tried to determine what kind of music they were listening to. Was it Blues? Jazz? or Metal? It turned out the computer wasn’t so good at telling styles of music. It made the right guess only about one in three times. But it did surprise the researchers with its impressive ability in another aspect: it knew exactly who was dancing 94% of the time.
In their introduction to the paper, the authors suggested that, “One of the most significant features of music is its tendency to make us move. The majority of people respond to hearing music with some kind of movement, from simply clapping to a beat to making complex (复杂的) dance movements.”
Of course, we don’t dance the same way to every song. That would be, well awkward. As the authors note, dance moves are changed according to the volume (音量) of the bass drum (低音鼓). Not only that but “the presence of kick drum uniquely related to the speed of head movements.” That’s a very technical way of suggesting that we dance to the music we’re given. The thing is, at the heart of the dance are movements—and whether they’re gentle taps or all out booty-shaking, they could function as identifiable biometric data (生物特征资料).
“It seems as though a person’s dance movements are a kind of fingerprint,” study co-author Pasi Saari noted in the paper. “Each person has a unique movement signature that stays the same no matter what kind of music is playing.”
1. What was the original idea of the research?| A．To discover music features. | B．To recognize the dancer. |
| C．To identify the type of music. | D．To tell dancers’ response. |
| A．firmly supported | B．seriously reported |
| C．unexpectedly made | D．unreasonably questioned |
| A．dancing technique is decided by the given music |
| B．the volume of drums may be determined by dance moves |
| C．drum players’ head movements change the speed of playing |
| D．dance movements could function as identifiable biometric data |
| A．Is It Necessary to Carry Out Such Research? |
| B．The Way We Dance Is Kind of like a Fingerprint |
| C．The Tendency of Music to Make Us Move Is Complex |
| D．Why Do People Dance in the Same Way to Different Music? |
8 . Indoor Skydiving
Have you ever dreamt of flying? Have you ever wanted to experience the excitement of skydiving, but didn’t want to jump out of a plane? Indoor skydiving has opened up a whole new world for you to try flying.
Indoor skydiving is an activity, simulating（模拟）the free fall of a skydive. That means you learn to fly in a column of air produced by a wind tunnel （风道） inside a limited area. Before flying, you need to wear certain equipment to protect you. And each of you is equipped with an instructor that helps you learn to control your body while flying. But you aren’t trained to be more aware in the sky as a normal skydiver.
To be an indoor flyer, you can be at all ages. Fear of height or lack (缺少) of experience won’t stop you from trying. The only real limitation preventing people from flying is weight limit. Countless physically challenged flyers have safely flown with the help of experienced instructors.
Although indoor skydiving gets its name from skydiving, the similarities between the two are actually very few. The one they are in common is in the sense that they both share the freedom of flying.
However, in traditional dives, skydivers usually step out of a plane from more than 10,000 feet high, while indoor skydiving just needs flyers to lean forward and lie on the air. Also, being an outdoor activity, skydiving depends on the weather. The wind, rain, or snow can cancel your plans to jump. Indoor skydiving removes this effect from the picture. Normally, a skydive lasts just between 45-60 seconds, but tunnels allow skydivers to fly longer and as much as they like.
While most people put skydiving in the must-do list, indoor skydiving is much more than that! What used to take skydivers tens of thousands of jumps and years of experience can be learned in a relatively shorter period of time. Skydivers could be trained at lower cost compared to being trained in the sky. Because people of all ages can fly, children are quickly becoming some of the most talented skydivers. Thus, all these will certainly benefit the development of skydiving.
1. What do indoor skydivers need to do before flying?| A．Jump out of a plane. | B．Become aware of the sky. |
| C．Produce a column of air. | D．Put on protecting equipment. |
| A．Their age. | B．Fear of height. |
| C．Their weight. | D．Lack of experience. |
| A．The sense of flying. | B．The cost of training. |
| C．The length of free fall. | D．The dependence on weather. |
| A．The future of skydiving depends on children. |
| B．Indoor skydiving is beneficial to skydiving. |
| C．Fewer people show interest in skydiving. |
| D．Indoor skydiving will replace skydiving. |
It was one of the hardest weeks in Michelle Burleson’s life. Her beloved 13-year-old dog, Budgie Lou, just died. There seemed to be nothing in the world that could reduce her pain until she heard a faint (微弱的) knocking on her door.
“When I heard the knock, I opened my back door, but saw nothing until I looked down to see a skinny little squirrel looking up at me”, Burleson told The Dodo.
“I noticed the squirrel was thin, so I found a handful of nuts and threw them on the patio (露台).”
She assumed that would be the end of it, but that same evening the squirrel returned. The frightened animal ran away when Burleson tried to approach her. But it didn’t take long for the two to establish a routine(常规).
“She showed up the next morning at sunrise and again at sundown, like clockwork every day,” Burleson said. “Her daily visits gave me something to look forward to.” Burleson named the squirrel Stymie. “We slowly started trusting each other more and more,” Burleson said. “At first, I was scared she might bite me or something, but she was always very gentle.”
Stymie began treating Burleson’s home as if it were her own, drinking out of Burleson’s old dog bowl and sleeping in the dog bed. “I lived at the beach so I would often leave the door open, but when I didn’t, she’d climb up to knock on the window outside my bedroom,” Burleson said. “There’s no way I would’ve felt better without Stymie showing up one day and putting a little joy back in my life.”
The little squirrel probably has no idea that she changed someone’s life forever. “She was a really great friend at one of the lowest points of my life,” Burleson said. “All I know is that animals are the best.”
1. How did Burleson feel the week before the squirrel came to her life?| A．Painful. | B．Shocked. | C．Relaxed. | D．Hopeful. |
| A．Michelle. | B．Budgie. | C．Dodo. | D．Stymie. |
| A．Come for a second time. | B．Knock on the window. |
| C．Sleep on the patio. | D．Eat the dog food. |
| A．Squirrels are the best choice of pets. | B．Names mean a lot to squirrels. |
| C．People find animals difficult to deal with. | D．Animals can change people’s life. |
10 . Milton Community Center
Milton Community Center provides a variety of programs and activities to improve the quality of life for young adults of different ages.
| First and Goal Club | Date: March 17th—May 2nd | Ages: 12—14 |
| First and Goal Club is a youth development program where students will have the opportunity to build self-confidence and grow as young adults. Here they will develop good healthy behaviors and improve working cooperation. | ||
| Mid–winter Break Camp | Date: January 26th—January 29th | Ages: 13—15 |
| Students will enjoy a fun and positive environment at Mid-winter Break Camp. They will go on educational and exciting trips, as well as joining in fun activities here at the Center. Students must bring lunch with them every day. | ||
| iMatter | Date: April 24th—May 14th | Ages: 14—18 |
| iMatter is designed to prepare the youth for their future life. This program will cover personal and professional improvement to get our young people ready for future jobs. Speakers from different work fields will come and speak about their walk of life. | ||
| College Tour | Date: March 8th—June 4th | Ages: 16—18 |
| Young adults will have opportunities to explore several colleges. Transportation will be provided from the Milton Community Center. Drinking water will be offered, but no lunch. | ||
For more information, please click here or visit http://miltoncommunity.com
1. First and Goal Club is designed for the age group of ________.| A．12—14 | B．13—15 | C．14—18 | D．16—18 |
| A．First and Goal Club | B．Mid–winter Break Camp |
| C．iMatter | D．College Tour |
| A．Go on educational trips. | B．Learn speaking skills. |
| C．Get professional improvement. | D．Explore several colleges. |
| A．On a website. | B．In a magazine. |
| C．In a brochure. | D．On a noticeboard. |
