1 . My sister Alice and I have been trying to get people to stop dropping cigarette butts (烟头) for seven years. One day, we were walking in our hometown and saw hundreds of cigarette butts on the ground. They made the town look so ugly that we decided to start a group to make people stop dropping butts. We called it “No Butts About It”.
At first, we drew pictures with “The Earth is not your ashtray (烟灰缸)” written on them. We put the pictures around our hometown — in parks, on beaches, and along roads. We wanted to make people understand that dropping butts hurts the environment. Most smokers don’t think that dropping butts hurts the Earth. But it does, and all rubbish does!
Later, we wrote to companies and asked them for money to help us. We used the money to buy ashtrays and gave them to smokers. We wanted smokers to carry the ashtrays with them so they didn’t have to drop butts.
At the moment, we are trying to get cigarette companies to put an ashtray in each pack of cigarettes. Some companies want to do it. Many people have started to join our group since it began. Today there are 45 other “No Butts About It” groups in America.
Now there are even groups in England, Australia, and India! Many newspapers have written about my sister and me over the last seven years. And we have won many prizes for what we do. But we are not interested in prizes. We just want to make the Earth a better and cleaner place for animals, plants and people. One day, it will be.
1. What did the writer think about the cigarette butts in the first place?| A．They made the town smelly. |
| B．They made the town unhealthy. |
| C．They made the town dirty. |
| D．They made the town poor. |
| A．Gave ashtrays to the smokers. |
| B．Stopped people buying cigarettes. |
| C．Picked up the cigarette butts. |
| D．Won prizes for starting groups. |
| A．No companies wanted to give money to them. |
| B．The writer believes that the Earth will be a better and cleaner place. |
| C．There are only 45 “No Butts About It” groups in the world. |
| D．The writer likes to be on newspapers and win prizes. |
| A．Save our town from cigarette butts |
| B．Buy yourself an ashtray |
| C．Cigarette butts also destroy other countries |
| D．No butts prizes |
2 . Elephant Transit Home
In both Africa and Asia elephants are being threatened by changes in their natural habitats (栖息地). People are moving into the elephants’ habitats and endangering their survival. In the country of Sri Lanka, there is one place where elephants are not only protected but also respected. It is called the Elephant Transit Home (ETH).
Set up in 1995, the ETH aims to protect and nurture baby elephants that are found injured or living without their mothers in the wild. Every year about 30 baby elephants in Sri Lanka need help. As many as possible are brought to the ETH. There they are given food, shelter, and medical care. Most importantly, they are given the chance to be with other elephants and become part of a herd (象群).
A day at the ETH begins early in the morning when the baby elephants are given their first feeding of milk. During the day, each baby will drink an average of 13 gallons of milk. Older elephants are fed mostly coconut leaves and other native plants. Then the elephants are allowed to walk around, eating the grass and forming a herd. The cost of caring for the baby elephants is high. The ETH spends about $125,000 each year on powdered milk for the baby elephants.
At the ETH, workers try to reduce human connection with the elephants. They also try to increase bonds (联系) between the elephants. It usually takes three years for a baby elephant to be set free into its natural habitat. The elephants are sent back to the wild together with other orphans with whom they have bonded. This program helps them return to the wild as members of a herd that will communicate with each other and take care of each other.
The ETH is considered one of the best animal protection sites in the world. Not only are the elephants cared for, they are treated with respect. Most importantly, they go back to live in the wild, where they belong.
1. What does the underlined word “nurture” in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Set free. | B．Relate to. | C．Focus on. | D．Care for. |
| A．It changes elephants’ habitats for the better. |
| B．It receives about $125,000 each year. |
| C．It helps to keep baby elephants safe. |
| D．It protects 30 elephants every year. |
| A．To study them better in a natural environment. |
| B．To help them make it in the wild as a herd. |
| C．To provide them with more living space. |
| D．To train them to stay away from hunters. |
| A．To introduce an animal protection site. |
| B．To show the ways of wildlife protection. |
| C．To explain the threat baby elephants face. |
| D．To persuade the readers to protect elephants. |
3 . Traveling on an airplane can be a very tiring task even in the best of conditions, Sophie Murphy noticed an awful tension on a recent flight from Sydney to Melbourne. She first thought it was caused by typical bad-tempered passengers. But as the flight neared its end, it became obvious that something was very wrong.
A teenage boy with Down syndrome (唐氏综合症) who was traveling with his family had become upset and would not return to his seat, regardless of the cabin crew’s warnings over the loudspeaker that it was almost time to land. The pilot was forced to circle above the airport, delaying the landing—and angering people on the already tense flight.
As the boy’s elderly parents failed to persuade him to get off the floor and back into his seat, Murphy, who had been a teacher for more than 20 years, stood up and quickly headed to the back of the plane.
She found the boy in the passage between rows of seats, lying on his belly. She began chatting calmly with him, asking his name, his favorite book, and his favorite characters. He told her he felt sick and she tried to comfort him.
Minutes later, he allowed her to hold his hand—and then together they got properly back into airplane seats. Murphy asked for sick bags, and held them as the boy threw up several times. As she helped him clean up, she repeatedly told him everything would be okay and that they’d get through it together.
After the plane was finally able to land, no one was impatient to step off the flight as one might expect. Instead, calmed passengers—obviously following Murphy’s amazing example—allowed the boy and his family to depart first, smiling at them as they passed. His parents tearfully thanked Murphy for what she had done, and a doctor sitting nearby also let her know he had even taken notes on her expert way of handling the situation.
1. Why was the landing delayed?| A．Because a family ignored the warnings. |
| B．Because a boy refused to sit in his seat. |
| C．Because smoke was coming out of the engine. |
| D．Because the pilot had to change the destination. |
| A．fighting against unfair treatment |
| B．calling on other passengers to join her |
| C．communicating with the boy |
| D．asking an experienced doctor to help |
| A．The teacher’s efforts. | B．The plane’s safe landing. |
| C．The crew’s behavior. | D．The boy’s improvement. |
| A．Generous and careful. | B．Patient and energetic. |
| C．Wise and honest. | D．Kind and cool-headed. |
4 . The Tropical Paradise Holiday
Welcome to St. Anna, our tropical paradise just off the coast of Latin America. You can spend two weeks in our luxury four-star hotel. The cost of your flight is included in the holiday, and you can be picked up from your home by our special airport bus. On your arriving, our coach will be waiting to take you to the hotel. All flights leave from Heathrow on a Monday morning.
The Cowrie Hotel is built right on the beachfront, and many rooms have wonderful ocean views. If swimming and surfing are not enough for you, the hotel also offers horse rides on the island, and a discount membership of the golf club.
The Rain Forest Adventure Holiday
Every year Broughton holidays offer twelve days of unforgettable adventure in a tropical rain forest. You may have a choice of Borneo, Malaysia, Indonesia, or even to the greatest rain forest of them all, the mighty Amazonian forest.
You will fly to our special base camps at the edge of the forest, where you will be given five days of survival training, and talks on the local wildlife.
Then you take a bus into the forest. You will have to walk the final five miles to the camp sites to avoid disturbing the local ecology. All of the camp sites have been carefully built to cause the minimal amount of disturbance to the local wildlife.
Remember that these adventure holidays take you deep into the wilderness, and they are not suitable for families with young children. Also remember that no more than two dozen guests can stay at any camp at one time, so if you want to go on one of these very special holidays, you will need to book early!
1. Choosing the Tropical Paradise Holiday, travellers can enjoy ______.| A．a welcome party |
| B．beautiful ocean views |
| C．different indoor activities |
| D．free membership of the golf club |
| A．Different means of transportation will be used. |
| B．Travelers will learn to talk with wild animals. |
| C．The holiday will end with survival training. |
| D．Booking early, travelers will get a discount. |
| A．People loving water sports. |
| B．People travelling with children. |
| C．People preferring comfortable hotels. |
| D．People concerned with environment and wildlife. |
| A．Price. | B．Transportation. | C．Reservation. | D．Leaving time. |
5 . There came Bryan’s game time. He sat back on the sofa and began to
Soon, Bryan’s
Bryan looked down at his hands. They felt stiff now, and it seemed like they were stuck around the controller. Bryan felt
Bryan ran to the kitchen to tell his mom what had happened. “Well, at least we know that video games haven’t
That day Bryan got a
| A．eat | B．watch | C．play | D．write |
| A．moved | B．left | C．kept | D．closed |
| A．hands | B．head | C．eyes | D．neck |
| A．or | B．so | C．but | D．until |
| A．turned | B．walked | C．looked | D．settled |
| A．sell | B．pause | C．start | D．run |
| A．where | B．which | C．how | D．what |
| A．on | B．with | C．from | D．to |
| A．shouldn’t | B．mustn’t | C．wouldn’t | D．couldn’t |
| A．worried | B．disappointed | C．excited | D．angry |
| A．fixed | B．observed | C．designed | D．dropped |
| A．ruined | B．opened | C．relaxed | D．occupied |
| A．though | B．too | C．instead | D．still |
| A．desire | B．lesson | C．belief | D．challenge |
| A．suspect | B．slave | C．master | D．loser |
6 . If there’s one cliché (陈词滥调) that really annoys Danah Boyd, a specialist researcher who has made a career from studying the way teenagers use the web, it’s that of the digital native. “Today the world has computer-mediated communications. Thus, in order to learn about their social world around them, teenagers are learning about those things too. And they’re using that to work out the stuff that kids have always worked out: peer (同龄人) sociality, status, etc.” she says.
It’s no surprise Boyd takes exception, really. As one of the first digital anthropologists to dig into the way teenagers use social networking sites, she gained insights into the social web by taking a closer look at what was going on.
Lately, her work has been about explaining new ways of interpreting the behavior we see online. She outlined some examples at a recent conference in San Francisco, including the case of a young man from one of the poorest districts of Los Angeles who was applying for a top American college. The applicant said he wanted to escape the influence of violence, but the admissions officer was shocked when he discovered that the boy’s MySpace page was covered with precisely the violent language he claimed to hate. “Why was he lying about his motivations?” asked the university. “He wasn’t,” said Boyd. “In his world, showing the right images online was a key part of surviving daily life.”
Understanding what’s happening online is especially important, for today’s teenagers have a vastly different approach to privacy from their parents. She says, “Adults think of the home as a very private space. That’s often not the case for teenagers because they have little or no control over who has access to it, or under what conditions. As a result, the online world can feel more private because it feels like there’s more control.”
The concept of control is central to Boyd’s work, and it applies to pointing out the true facts about teenage behavior. Boyd suggests control remains in the same places as it always did.
“Technologists all go for the idea of techno-utopia (乌托邦), the web as great democratizer (民主化)”, she says. “But we’re not actually democratizing the whole system; we’re just shifting the way in which we discriminate.”
It’s a call to arms that most academic researchers would tend to sidestep, but then Boyd admits to treading a fine line between academics and activists. “The questions I continue to want to ask are the things that are challenging to me；having to sit down and be forced to think about uncomfortable social stuff, and it’s really hard to get my head around it, which means it’s exactly what I should dive in and deal with, ” she says.
1. What does Danah Boyd think of “computer-mediated communications”?| A．They teach teenagers about social interaction. |
| B．They replace other sorts of social interaction for teenagers. |
| C．They are necessary for teenagers to have social interaction. |
| D．They are barriers to wider social interaction among teenagers. |
| A．To show how easy it is to investigate somebody’s online activity. |
| B．To explain how easy it is to misinterpret an individual online activity. |
| C．To prove how important it is to check the content of someone’s online activity. |
| D．To express how necessary it is to judge someone’s sincerity from his online activity. |
| A．parents tend not to respect teenagers’ need for online privacy |
| B．teenagers are less concerned about privacy than their parents |
| C．teenagers feel more private in the online world than in the home |
| D．parents value the idea of privacy less in a domestic environment |
| A．is willing to take on research challenges others would avoid |
| B．regards herself as being more of an activist than a researcher |
| C．is aware that she is lacking in ability to deal with the challenges |
| D．feels like abandoning the research into uncomfortable social stuff |
7 . AQUILA Children’s Magazine is the most intelligent read for curious kids. Full of enthusiastic articles and challenging puzzles, every issue covers science, history and general knowledge. AQUILA is a quality production, beautifully illustrated with contemporary artwork throughout.
Intelligent reading for 8-12-year-olds
Cool science and challenging projects
Inspires self-motivated learning
Exciting new topics every issue
AQUILA is created and owned by an independent UK company. It has 28 pages, printed on high-quality paper and there are no advertisements or posters. Instead it is full of well-written articles, thought-provoking (令人深思的) ideas and great contemporary artwork. Each monthly issue is centred around a new topic.
AQUILA works as a superb learning extension to current primary (or KS2 and KS3) curriculum (课程), but it is much more than that! Entertaining and always surprising, AQUILA is recommended because it widens children’s interest and understanding, rather than encouraging them to concentrate only on their favourite subjects. It gives children a well-rounded understanding of the world, in all its complexity.
The concepts in AQUILA can be challenging, requiring good comprehension and reading skills. Eight years is usually a good age to start. Some gentle interest from an adult is often helpful at the start.
In 2021 AQUILA will have been in publication for 29 years, but it has never appeared in newsstands or shops. We are subscription only.
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Select the Birthday option, write a gift message and choose the birthday month. We will dispatch to arrive at the start of the month you have entered. The package posts in a blue envelope marked “Open on your birthday”.
1. What is special about AQUILA?| A．It is available in shops. | B．It is for kids of all ages. |
| C．It prints readers’ artwork. | D．It has no advertisements. |
| A．Articles on modern art. | B．Family reading materials. |
| C．Knowledge beyond school subjects. | D．Ideas on improving reading skills. |
| A．Foreign language learners. |
| B．Children with learning difficulties. |
| C．Parent-child reading lovers. |
| D．Curious kids with good comprehension. |
