1 . Steph Clemence always intended to go to college. She had good grades and considered herself college bound. But life has a tendency to throw obstacles in the way. When her father died tragically in a car accident, leaving her mother to support three daughters on a modest income, paying for college became out of the question.

Around that time, Steph tried to figure out what to do with a life that had differed so much from the plan she’d carefully laid out. The answer came one afternoon when she was cleaning her bedroom closet and found a list from the English teacher she’d had in her junior year, Dorothy Clark. One afternoon, Mrs. Clark walked into the classroom carrying a stack of papers. She instructed each students to take one. The handout was titled Mrs. Clark’s Book List. “It wasn’t homework,” the teacher announced, “but it could be a road map. Some of you might not go on to higher education, but you can continue to learn.” It would, she believed, form the equivalent of two years at a liberal arts college.

“She knew the income levels of the kids in my high school,” says Steph. “Working-class and logging families. She knew most of us would not go to college. She was right. But she knew we could continue to learn after high school. She was also right about that.” Steph studied the list. Each of those books sparked her passion to learn more about the person, subject matter, or time in history. That made her look for other books that weren’t on the list, hoping to deepen her knowledge. Over the years, the reading list was a constant in her life, traveling with her even on vacations.

Now Steph is 70 and she never did get to college. But she has only four books left to read from the list. She expects to complete them sometime in 2023. “Each of the books has added something to who I am and how I see the world.” she says, “I now have gained an insight to see why things happened and what it might mean.”

1. What prevented Steph going to college?

A．Her bad grades.

B．The lack of financial support.

C．Her low income.

D．Her tragic accident.

2. Why did Mr. Clark create the book list?

A．To prepare students for college.

B．To serve as a reading task for students.

C．To share her favorite books with students.

D．To encourage students to continue learning.

3. How does Steph feel about the book list now?

A．Regretful.

B．Moved.

C．Fulfilled.

D．Determined.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．A good reading habit.

B．An influential reading list.

C．An impressive English teacher.

D．A memorable experience in high school.

2 . A man wearing sunglasses grabs the mic and stands in a relaxed posture ready to make the audience laugh. Seeing how easily he moves, one can hardly notice that the stylish comedian, Gao Xiang, has any problems with vision.

Gao was diagnosed with the rare eye disease — Stargardt. Initially, he refused to accept the cruel situation. He kept escaping the fact until 2013, when he could use the computer more efficiently with the help of special programs designed to help visually disabled people . Consequently, he got the courage to be frank about his and found that people didn’t care about the problem as he had imagined. His working ability also helped remove any feelings of inferiority that he had. He tried to become mentally stronger to accept reality and get his life back on track.

Two years ago, he decided to become a full-time stand-up comedian. What has been motivating Gao to be so active in the comedy industry is his eagerness to draw the public’s attention to the disease. “As it is a rare disease, medical institutions and companies might lack the driving force to make great efforts to find a cure,” he says. “I want to unite the patients in China and voice out loud our urgent demands.”

Besides, he and two friends launched a public account on WeChat called Stargardt Care Center, through which they share inspiring stories of people suffering from the eye disorder, instructions for those on how to use computers and translations of foreign essays that explore the possibilities of curing the disease. By now, the account has managed to attract more than 1, 000 Stargardt patients and their family members. And some Non- Governmental Organisations also have got in touch with them to see if they could provide help to the community.

“Stand-up comedy has saved me and enabled me to meet interesting people and do what is worth doing,” Gao says.

1. What does the underlined word “inferiority” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Being proud.

B．Being bored.

C．Being unconfident.

D．Being modest.

2. What drove Gao to become a comedian?

A．His eagerness for money.	B．His faith in challenging himself.
C．His ability in performance.	D．His desire to fight the disease.

3. What can people do with the Gao’s public account?

A．The visually disabled can learn computer skills.

B．Experts can provide medical help for the patients.

C．Patients can read original articles about the disease.

D．Comedians can post jokes to meet interesting people.

4. Which of the following could best describe Gao Xiang?

A．Sensible and tolerant.	B．Positive and inspiring.
C．Talented and aggressive.	D．Enthusiastic and punctual.

3 . Being honest may not get you a lot of friends, but it will get you the right ones. That’s true, so you should pursue authentic positivity in your friendships, the opposite of toxic (有毒的) positivity that would have you encouraging friends in all things, regardless of what you might feel or observe or know about the challenges of life.     1    

1. Ask questions.

A feature of authentic positivity is a curious mindset, a mentality where you are less locked into “telling it like it is” and more interested in wondering and exploring the possibilities together with your friend.     2     If your friendship has a history of welcome advice-giving, your question could be “Are you looking for ideas, or do you just want me to listen?”

2.     3    

“That’s so disappointing” is sometimes the most positive thing you can say to your friend when they are struggling. Resisting the urge to say “It’s all going to work out; don’t worry” shows your friend that you see them in their pain, and that you are available to support them here and now.     4     You can use “yes/and” statements like “What happened at work is so frustrating—AND I know how creative you are, so you’ll find a way to move forward.”

3. Learn to apologize —and ask for an apology.

    5     That includes you, too. Being authentic in a friendship means having the freedom to say to a friend, “I’m sorry I hurt you.” It also means being able to say, “Your words/ actions hurt me.” Friendships that stand the test of time have room for mistakes, and for repair.

A．Name hard truths.

B．Don’t disappoint your friend.

C．Every friend misses the mark sometimes.

D．Instead, friends should be authentic and positive.

E．Here are three ways to be an authentically positive friend.

F．But that doesn’t mean you need to focus on the negative all the time.

G．Positive friends ask each other questions, and listen deeply to the answers.

4 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Zhang Qi,     1     has a doctorate in AI technology from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, was recently in the news because of his salary. Zhang was enrolled under Huawei’s “     2     (gift) youngster” plan, which aims at attracting talents from     3     the globe. So far, only four candidates have passed the seven rounds of interview successfully and got high salaries.

5 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Sanxingdui Site,     1     (date) back to 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, was first discovered in 1929. It is considered one of the most important archaeological sites along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

    2     (get) a better understanding of the unique civilization, archaeologists reconducted an     3     (invest) of No. 1 and No. 2 pits in October 2019. This time, six more pits were discovered, including the largest gold mask ever found, ivory and silk.

6 . My kids sat on Gee’s living room floor and respectfully lifted Christmas decorations out of a cardboard box. They shouted with delight when they discovered a tiny toy cat. Finally, my son was _____ about a tiny modern helicopter, just on the contrary, my daughter with a traditional Mickey Mouse.

Gee stood beside them, _____ each treasure. She turned to me and continued to say she and Tom built their collections over time by buying one or two nice ones each year in the after-Christmas sales. Eventually, we left, with boxes in my arms and she was smiling. Her _____ belongings, gathered over a lifetime, found a new home.

We first met Tom and Gee in the early days of our marriage. Jim and I worked full-time, and in the morning we _____ our garbage cans on the roadside, which would have to wait the long, lonely 10 hours there until we returned to _____ them. Every day we’d come home to find them neatly _____ in their spot next to our garage. Finally we saw an old couple who lived with his 10-year-old grandson across from us pick them up.

Tom and Gee quietly picked up garbage cans and taught us what it _____ to be a neighbor. They taught us that home doesn’t end at a boundary line. It _____ to all these people. These people, the _____ among them and the love that flows through them all explain what a home is.

This Christmas, we’ll make our tree attractive with Gee’s decorations. We’ll bring beautifully packaged Christmas presents to some neighbors like the couple. To others, we’ll ______ a wave and a “Merry Christmas.”

1.

A．doubtful

B．anxious

C．pitiful

D．crazy

2.

A．designing

B．getting

C．explaining

D．weighing

3.

A．strange

B．precious

C．modern

D．spare

4.

A．laid

B．emptied

C．deserted

D．stored

5.

A．store up

B．deal with

C．make out

D．care about

6.

A．buried

B．transformed

C．placed

D．developed

7.

A．occurred

B．meant

C．reflected

D．expected

8.

A．turns

B．adds

C．agrees

D．extends

9.

A．control

B．words

C．connections

D．comfort

10.

A．stop

B．create

C．keep

D．exchange

7 . Humans are fascinated by the source of their failings and virtues. This preoccupation inevitably leads to an old debate: whether nature or nurture (养育) shapes us more. A revolution in genetics has poised this as a modern political question about the character of our society: if personalities are hard-wired into our genes, what can governments do to help us? It feels morally questionable, yet claims of genetic selection by intelligence are making headlines.

This is down to “hereditarian (遗传论的)” science and a recent paper claimed “differences in exam performance between pupils attending extraordinary and ordinary schools mirror the genetic differences between them”. With such an assertion, the work was predictably greeted by a lot of absurd claims about “genetics determining academic success”. What the research revealed was the rather less surprising result: the educational benefits of extraordinary schools largely disappear once pupils’ inborn ability and socio-economic background were taken into account. That is to say, there’s nothing to support strongly either a hereditary or environmental argument.

Yet the paper does say children are “unintentionally genetically selected” by the school system. Central to hereditarian science is a tall claim: that identifiable variations in genetic sequences can predict an individual’s ability to learn, reason and solve problems. This is problematic on many levels. A teacher could not seriously tell a parent their child has a low genetic tendency to study when external factors clearly exist. Unlike-minded academics say the inheritability of human traits is scientifically unsound. At best there is a weak statistical association and not a causal link between DNA and intelligence. Yet sophisticated statistics are used to create a frightening atmosphere of scientific certainty.

While there’s an undoubted genetic basis to individual difference, it is wrong to think that socially defined groups can be genetically accounted for. The fixation on genes as destiny is surely false too. Medical predictability can rarely be based on DNA alone; the environment matters too. Something as complex as intellect is likely to be affected by many factors beyond genes. If hereditarians want to advance their cause it will require more balanced interpretation and not just acts of advocacy. Genetic selection is a way of exerting influence over others, “the ultimate collective control of human destinies,” as writer H. G. Wells put it. Knowledge becomes power and power requires a sense of responsibility. In understanding cognitive (认知的) ability, we must not elevate discrimination to a science: allowing people to climb the ladder of life only as far as their cells might suggest. This will need a more skeptical eye on the science. As technology progresses, we all have a duty to make sure that we shape a future that we would want to find ourselves in.

1. What did a recent research paper claim?

A．The type of school students attend makes a difference to their future.

B．Genetic differences between students are far greater than supposed.

C．Students’ academic performance is somewhat determined by their genes.

D．The advantages of extraordinary schools are too obvious to ignore.

2. What does the author say about the relationship between DNA and intelligence?

A．It is one of scientific certainty.	B．It is not one of cause and effect.
C．It is subject to interpretation of statistics.	D．It is not fully examined by gene scientists.

3. What do hereditarians need to do to make their claims convincing?

A．Take all relevant factors into account in interpreting their data.

B．Conduct their research using more sophisticated technology.

C．Gather gene data from people of all social classes.

D．Cooperate with social scientists in their research.

4. What does the author warn against in the passage?

A．Losing sight of professional ethics in conducting research.

B．Misunderstanding the findings of human cognition research.

C．Promoting discrimination in the name of science.

D．Exaggerating the power of technology in shaping the world.

8 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个恰当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Thanks to the hard work of SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin, space tourism is well on the way to becoming a     1     (real). Now, the Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) plans to give visitors a chance     2     (extend) their “out-of-the-world” experience by checking into a luxurious hotel in low Earth orbit. The team is currently building modules (舱) for a smaller prototype (原型) ring. The modules     3     (equip) in zero-gravity, using semi-automatic robotic tools made for the purpose. Once     4     (complete), engineers will attempt to create artificial gravity similar to that on Mars — about 40 percent that of Earth.

9 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个恰当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

The stability of the developing livestreaming sector has made it an ideal source of jobs for those born after 1995 who have a passion for novel and newly emerging industries, experts said. A recent report by Zhaopin, an online recruitment platform, and e-commerce giant Alibaba     1     (reveal) steady growth in the livestreaming sector in the third quarter of the year,     2     job postings rising up nearly 12 percent year-on-year. The increase was around 5 percentage points     3     (high) on average than for other industries.

10 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个恰当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Can red TV dramas awaken a strong desire in young people to learn about China’s revolutionary history? The answer is yes. Chinese TV drama Awakening Age, which narrates the story of     1     the Communist Party of China (CPC) was founded in 1921, ended several months ago, but it remains a hot topic on social media,     2     discussion shows that it has played a positive role in educating young people about China’s revolutionary history. The TV series     3     (celebrate) this year’s 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC has won high praise online.