1 . As a young girl, having read stories of men conquering Mount Everest and rowing across the Atlantic, I dreamed of doing something really adventurous. However, I believed that to be a successful adventurer you had to be a man. Years later I was to disprove this belief by becoming the first British woman to walk to the Magnetic North Pole.

In 1995 I was reading a newspaper in the garden, when I spotted a feature which said: “WANTEND ten novice arctic explorers”—to take part in an expedition to walk 350 miles to the Magnetic North Pole.

I recognized immediately that this was the opportunity I had been waiting for. The ad went on to describe the qualities that the organizers were looking for: the ability to work in a team, and the ability to raise £15, 000. I was prepared to do this because I wanted to know if I could survive in the Arctic. There was no reason to delay so I sent off for more details. When the brochure arrived, the most significant thing that hit me were the words on the front page. Are you man enough for the Ultimate Challenge?

Immediately my mind raced back to those books I had read all those years ago as a child, about all those men who had been successful adventurers. Only men could be successful adventurers. I was angry. Suddenly that became all the motivation I needed to follow up on this opportunity. “I’ll show them,” I thought to myself. “If they think only men can do this, I am going to prove them wrong.”

1. What was the author’s dream when young?

A．To be a success.	B．To be a man.
C．To be an adventurer.	D．To write adventurous stories.

2. Which quality should the participants possess according to the ad?

A．Co-operation.	B．Survival skills.
C．Money-making ability.	D．Adventure experiences.

3. What made the author angry?

A．Racial prejudice.	B．Sex discrimination.
C．Books offending women.	D．Unfairness in society.

4. Which message does the passage convey?

A．Hard work will pay off.	B．Practice makes perfect.
C．Women can do what men do.	D．Every trade has its master.

2 . It’s hard to imagine the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Headlands connected by anything but the Golden Gate Bridge, as if its red beams (梁), constructed 75 years ago, were always part of the permanent landscape.

A delicate fireworks display recently celebrated the bridge’s 75th anniversary, but you can still celebrate on a smaller scale and catch a lot more. Try shopping for some anniversary souvenir, joining in a guided tour, or simply going for a walk across the 1.7-mile-wide bridge.

Beyond the bridge, the beloved City by the Bay is still appealing with secret San Francisco musts to keep the celebration going. Here are a few more:

Bourbon and Branch

This Prohibition-style “private” saloon requires a password to enter. Dark, intimate and decorated faithfully like the 1920s, this is the ideal spot for business dealings. Cell phones are prohibited, which only adds to the authentic atmosphere.

House of Air

A favorite among locals and tourists, this activity center has dozens of trampolines (蹦床) to jump on, trampoline walls to bounce off. Space is rented by how much time you want to bounce about, but be cautious about overdoing it; jumping around for even 10 minutes is exhausting!

Nightlife at California Academy of Science

For anyone who wished that film “Night at the Museum” could be real, every Thursday night the California Academy of Science offers a simulated (模拟的) rainforest and aquarium, all under the same roof. There’s also live music, several bars and a different theme every week.

Musee Mecanique

It may be called a museum. It’s full of wind-up toys, dancing puppets, shooting galleries and vintage arcade games. Some of the exhibits may seem frightening, but this is a unique trip back into the history of how we have fun. Bringa pocket full of coins.

1. Which event was recently held to celebrate the bridge’s birthday?

A．A fireworks display.	B．A walk across the bridge.
C．A guided tour around it.	D．A special offer on souvenirs.

2. Which of the following suits people liking sports?

A．Bourbon and Branch.	B．Musee Mecanique.
C．House of Air.	D．California Academy of Science.

3. What can we do in Nightlife at California Academy of Science?

A．Play with a variety of toys for free.	B．Appreciate some virtual wildlife.
C．Do some extreme sports with locals.	D．Make a deal with business partners.

3 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

The restaurant Spyce is taking hungry locals to the future with its high-tech approach to fast-casual cuisine (烹饪). The place is being praised as the world’s first restaurant that     1     (feature) a robotic kitchen.

The project is the brainchild of co-founders Michael Farid, Kale Rogers, Brady Knight and Luke Schlueter,     2     came up with the idea while studying at MIT.

Spyce offers various     3     (choose) of food in Latin, Mediterranean and Asian styles. When customers enter Spyce,     4     are met with a human guide who shows them to a touchscreen kiosk (自助服务终端) where they can place their order. This order is then sent to a visible kitchen where the food     5     (prepare) by robots. Finally, it is handed over to a human employee     6     (add) decorations like cilantro (香菜), before being distributed to     7     customer.

“The way our robot cooks it uses a sautéing (用少量油煎的) technique and it cooks an     8     (amaze) meal for you in about 2.5 minutes, said Knight, lead electrical engineer of the restaurant. Most dishes cost less than $8.

Don’t worry about the taste, though. The Spyce robots     9     (precise) execute recipes created by chef Sam Benson. You can always trust the daily special     10     its advisory board.

4 . My friend went to work in the south, so he asked me to watch his courtyard. Every morning or evening, I would take a chair to sit in the courtyard reading. It felt so ______.

My friend often kept the courtyard clean and tidy without any ______. But I was so lazy. Apart from ______ sweeping away some fallen leaves in the courtyard, I never ______ any grass shoots breaking through the earth. In the early spring, by the stone bench on the left side of the courtyard, several green buds ______. In the late summer, the grass really ______. They were shaped like those forest orchids, ______ they were yellow, unlike those forest ______ orchids, whose flowers were purple or brown red. I picked one flower and some leaves and found a friend who botanized. On ______ them, my friend immediately asked me where I picked them. After that, he ______ me, “You are going to get rich!” I looked at my friend in ______. He excitedly explained, “This is a kind of ______ orchid. At the flower market, the orchids are worth at least 10, 000 dollars each.”

I called to tell the incredible ______ to the friend who had gone to work in the south. At this, my friend was ______. After a while, he said gently, in fact, the orchid ______ the earth every year, but he thought it was a (n) ______ weed, so he uprooted it each spring just as it sprouted. My friend couldn’t help ______, “I have almost destroyed a kind of rare flower.”

Yes, who will never ______ some rare orchids in their own lives? We always remove those wild weeds that haven’t yet bloomed ______ and don’t give them the chance to flower and bear fruit to ______ their value.

1.

A．empty

B．fluent

C．charming

D．plain

2.

A．weeds

B．flowers

C．leaves

D．trees

3.

A．meanwhile

B．frequently

C．seldom

D．occasionally

4.

A．abandon

B．remove

C．cancel

D．distribute

5.

A．came up

B．came back

C．came down

D．came across

6.

A．appeared

B．died

C．dried

D．bloomed

7.

A．but

B．so

C．or

D．as

8.

A．organic

B．wild

C．chemical

D．unknown

9.

A．tasting

B．hearing

C．seeing

D．packing

10.

A．appointed

B．greeted

C．congratulated

D．contributed

11.

A．passion

B．puzzlement

C．emotion

D．amusement

12.

A．foreign

B．valueless

C．rare

D．common

13.

A．news

B．garden

C．market

D．botany

14.

A．curious

B．shocked

C．concerned

D．anxious

15.

A．broke in

B．broke down

C．broke out

D．broke through

16.

A．ordinary

B．excellent

C．priceless

D．fantastic

17.

A．complaining

B．noticing

C．announcing

D．sighing

18.

A．admire

B．miss

C．purchase

D．plant

19.

A．at a time

B．in no time

C．on time

D．in time

20.

A．determine

B．consult

C．prove

D．stay

5 . Apologies are commonly known as a sign of empathy(共情) in the workplace. But over-apologizing or excessively saying sorry when you don’t need to is a bad habit that can weaken your authority, and more importantly, it hurts your pride.     1    , what can you do? Below are four alternatives to saying “I’m sorry”:

When someone bumps(撞) into you or they’re in your way

When someone bumps into you, saying excuse me or pardon me is more appropriate than saying sorry.     2    .

When you have a question

Practice speaking up in meetings without apologizing first. You’re not interrupting or annoying if you have a question, so don’t assume you are.

    3    

“Thank you.” These two words are often more powerful than an apology. Try replacing feelings of shame with gratitude. Saying “Thank you. Let’s begin.” acknowledges that your colleagues waited for you.

When someone makes an unreasonable request for your time

Instead, say, “No, I’m not able to do that.” If people make unreasonable requests for your time, it’s wise to learn how to push back.     4    . You may be worried about saying “no” because you fear people will dislike you or get upset. Typically, the opposite is true, and people will respect your honesty.

    5     On the contrary, a well-placed apology can be very powerful.

A．Don’t apologize for taking up space

B．We cannot say “no” randomly

C．When a colleague offers you good advice

D．When you’re late for a meeting and make others wait

E．If you find yourself falling into the habit of over-apologizing

F．Remember, saying you’re sorry isn’t necessarily a sign of weakness

G．Stating your limits and expectations clearly doesn’t mean you’re being difficult

6 . Whether you consume it in ice cream, coffee, cupcakes, pudding, or protein shakes, the vanilla you eat in the future might taste just a little bit sweeter thanks to a surprising new ingredient: used plastic.

Admittedly, it doesn’t sound very appetizing. To scientists Joanna Sadler and Stephen Wallace at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, however, what’s even less delicious is plastic waste, which currently enters the ocean at a rate of 8 million tons per year—enough plastic waste to outweigh all of the ocean’s fish by the year 2050. To help stop the plastic pollution on land and at sea, they’ve designed a novel way to turn it into vanillin, a chemical substance in vanilla extract that gives it its distinct vanilla smell and flavor.

Although it can be found in natural vanilla bean extract, vanillin also can be made synthetically using chemicals coming from petrol. To create it from plastic, instead, researchers genetically modified a strain of E. coli bacteria so that it can make vanillin from a raw material used in the production of plastic bottles.

According to their research paper, around 85% of the world’s vanillin is synthesized from chemicals that are obtained from fossil fuels. That’s because demand for vanillin—which is used widely not only in food, but also in beauty products, cleaning products, and herbicides—is far greater than supply. In Madagascar, which grows 80% of the world’s natural vanilla, pollinating, harvesting, and curing vanilla beans is a long and painstaking process that couldn’t possibly yield enough vanillin for modern appetites. And even if it could, the only way to naturally increase vanillin supply would be to plant more vanilla plantations, which would drive deforestation.

Being able to create vanillin with plastic instead of petroleum means increasing vanillin supply while decreasing plastic waste, reducing industrial reliance on fossil fuels, and preserving forests.

“Using microorganisms to turn waste plastics, which are harmful to the environment, into an important product is a beautiful demonstration of green chemistry,” said Ellis Crawford, publishing editor at the United Kingdom’s Royal Society of Chemistry.

1. How do scientists produce vanilla?

A．Extracting it from plastic bottles.

B．Forming it without bacteria.

C．Changing the formula of protein shakes.

D．Taking it from ocean life.

2. Which of the following words has the closest meaning to the underlined word “synthetically” in paragraph 3?

A．Naturally.	B．Artificially.
C．Biologically.	D．Industrially.

3. What can be learned from the passage?

A．Madagascar is the biggest vanilla import country in the world.

B．Making natural vanilla is an easy process.

C．Enlarging vanilla plantations is environmentally-friendly.

D．Producing vanilla from plastic is a win-win solution.

4. Where will you possibly read this passage?

A．In a science magazine.	B．In a travel booklet.
C．In an economic textbook.	D．In an advertisement.

7 . It was just after 5 pm. I was holding a cup of tea at Sainsbury’s, the second largest chain of supermarkets in the U. K. We were around a dozen customers in the supermarket’s cafe, and most of us were on our own. Despite placing the special sign “Reserved for customers in the mood for a chat” in an obvious position, I got no takers.

Government announcers tell us that Britons of all ages are suffering loneliness. About 200, 000 senior citizens have not spoken to a friend or relative for over a month. Family doctors suspect that some of their patients are making appointments because they are lonely. The receptionists also agree that the front desk is a magnet for the isolated to come and experience a bit of human contact. And the young, even with their busy lives on social media, are also affected. New research from Sainsbury’s Living Well Index reveals that almost two thirds of the people aged between 18 and 24 have admitted to sometimes feeling lonely.

To ease the problem of loneliness, Sainsbury’s has launched “Talking Tables,” which are reserved spaces where people can have a chat. They appear in a variety of formats. A sign-posted table located in cafés in-store is one of them. The concept has been developed in close association with Chatty Café. Alexandra Hoskyn was inspired to start a network of Chatty Cafés in the U. K. in 2017 after finding herself socially isolated as a new mother at home with young children.

“We know from our Living Well Index that community connections are a key driver of helping people live well,” says Judith Batchelar, director of Sainsbury’s brand. “We hope that by bringing people together at our ‘Talking Tables,’ we can develop the potential of our store space to help people be better connected to the communities they live and work in.”

A European friend suggested that all this unsolicited(自发的) friendliness may not seem very British. However, a staff member at the Sainsbury’s sounded more positive: “It’s early days, and you cannot change people’s habits overnight.”

1. Who might come to “Talking Table”?

A．Only the lonely old people.

B．People having communication problems.

C．Teenagers active in social media.

D．Anyone eager to chat.

2. What can we infer from the text?

A．“Talking Table” is a pioneer in the UK.

B．“Talking Table” was inspired by some new mothers.

C．Friendliness can change British habits directly.

D．“Talking Table” can produce a sense of belonging.

3. What is the important element for people’s well-being according to Judith Batchelar?

A．Personal ambition.	B．Physical and mental health.
C．Communication in the community.	D．Relations with family.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The largest supermarket chain in the UK Sainsbury’s.

B．The supermarket’s cafes helping ease loneliness.

C．The latest study on loneliness of senior citizens.

D．The approaches to getting rid of loneliness.

8 . Diana Nyad was a professional swimmer. She was in her twenties when she decided to swim around Manhattan. The first time she tried, she didn’t succeed. But she didn’t give up. She tried again and swam the twenty-eight miles in less than eight hours. Then she had another goal: to swim from Cuba to Florida, a distance of 110 miles. She didn’t stop to sleep. But she didn’t finish. Jellyfish attacked her, and the weather threw her off course. Did she try again? Yes, but not until thirty-three years later.

Nyad retired from competitive swimming in her twenties. For the next thirty years, she didn’t swim at all. She became a sportscaster (体育比赛解说员) and a journalist. But she didn’t stop all physical activities. She always kept in shape. Every Friday she took a one-hundred-mile bike ride.

In 2007, when Nyad was sixty years old, her mother died. She started to think about her own life. In the thirty years when she didn’t swim, she always thought about the possibility of trying again. She didn’t want to die without achieving her goal. She started to train again. By the summer of 2011, she tried again — and failed again — after twenty-nine hours in the water. She tried two more times and failed to reach Florida each time. What kinds of problems did she face? There were attacks by jellyfish, bad weather, and breathing problems from asthma (哮喘). How did she solve the problem of jellyfish? For her fifth attempt, she wore a bodysuit and mask to protect against jellyfish stings. On August 31, 2013, after fifty-three hours of swimming, she reached the Florida shore, thirty-five years after her first attempt. Nyad achieved what younger and stronger swimmers could not.

Nyad always tells people, “Never give up.”

1. What is the right order of the following events about Diana Nyad?
①Nyad decided to swim around Manhattan.
②She reached Florida after fifty-three-hour swimming.
③Nyad’s mother passed away.
④She retired from her swimming career.

A．④①③②

B．②①③④

C．①④③②

D．③④②①

2. How many failures has Nyad experienced since 2007?

A．5.

B．4.

C．2.

D．1.

3. Which of the following can best describe Diana Nyad?

A．Determined and persistent.	B．Professional and interesting.
C．Honest and generous.	D．Dynamic and selfless.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．If at First You Don’t Succeed

B．Swimming Cures Asthma

C．How to Swim around Manhattan

D．Getting Rid of Being Stung by Jellyfish

9 . Rebel Talk
Jane Hutcheon

Journalist, author and former foreign correspondent (通讯员) Jane Hutcheon knows a thing or two about conversations, and in Rebel Talk she draws on her rich experience in the art of guided conversations to help us begin and nurture conversations. Rebel Talk looks at ways to: transform poor conversation habits; speak up about problems; generate energy, passion and optimism; stop lecturing and giving uninvited advice; and most importantly, learn by humble listening.

From Earth: Create Your Own Natural Apothecary (药剂师)
Charlotte Rasmussen

The makings for simple skincare and medicinal home treatments can be found in your own garden or kitchen. From Earth's recipes employ pure and natural ingredients such as lily and rose and will inspire you to enlarge your herb knowledge. Beautifully photographed, this step-by-step guide explains how to use carrier oils, butters and dried flowers and is the perfect guide for anyone wanting to find a more comprehensive way of life.

Burning Questions
Margaret Atwood

Fans of Margaret Atwood, the creator of The Handmaid's Tale and more than 50 other works of fiction, poetry and essays, will be interested in her collection of essays and occasional pieces from 2004 -21. Full of wit and wisdom, Atwood focuses on subjects such as the climate crisis, freedom, debt, tech, the rise of Trump and a pandemic. Other topics include: When to offer advice to the young? (only when asked); So what if beauty is only skin deep?

Here Goes Nothing
Steve Toltz

If you like your fiction left-of-centre, then this book's for you. Angus Mooney struggles for most of his life, until he meets his wife, marriage celebrant Gracie (whose wedding ceremonies are anything but traditional). Just when things are starting to work out, an old guy with a terminal illness breaks into their house and asks to stay until he dies. When Angus does some research on their ‘guest’, he wakes up the next day in the ‘afterlife’.

1. What might you get from Rebel Talk?

A．How to solve problems.	B．How to stop a conversation.
C．How to learn in speeches.	D．How to talk productively.

2. Whose book will a flower lover be interested in?

A．Jane Hutcheon.	B．Charlotte Rasmussen.
C．Margaret Atwood.	D．Steve Toltz.

3. If you are keen on fiction, which of the following books will be a good choice?

A．Rebel Talk.

B．From Earth: Create Your Own Natural Apothecary.

C．Burning Questions.

D．Here Goes Nothing.

10 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. Where did Aretha Franklin grow up?

A．In Memphis.

B．In Detroit.

C．In Atlantic City.

2. When did Aretha Franklin sign with Columbia Records?

A．In 1980.

B．In 1967.

C．In 1960.

3. Which was Aretha Franklin’s most popular music in the 1960s?

A．“Respect”.

B．“Freeway of Love”.

C．“Chain of Fools”.

4. What does the speaker mainly talk about?

A．Aretha Franklin’s life story.

B．Aretha Franklin’s musical style.

C．Aretha Franklin’s famous songs.