Have you ever asked yourself why children go to school? You will
We send our children to school to prepare them
Actually, there is more in education than just
2 . A 12－year－old girl who had a feeling that she might be quite clever has taken a test and proved she was absolutely right.
Lydia Sebastian achieved the top score of 162 on Mensa, Cattell Ⅲ B paper, suggesting she has a higher IQ than well－ known geniuses Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. The comparison(比较)doesn't sit well with the British student, who's currently in Year 8 at Colchester County High School, a selective girl's grammar school in Essex , England.
“I don't think I can be compared to such great intellectuals (有极高智力的人)such as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. They've achieved so much. I don't think it's right, ” Lydia told CNN.
Lydia sat the test in her summer holidays, after raising the idea with her parents and pestering(纠缠)them for the best part of a year. It turns out the test wasn’t that hard after all.
“I was really nervous before the test and I thought it was going to be really hard. But as I started the test, I thought it was a bit easier than I thought it was going to be, ”she said.
Lydia's not quite sure what she wants to do when she leaves school, although she's leaning toward something based around maths, because it's one of her favorite subjects. “ All I'm going to do is work as hard as I can, and see where that gets me, ” she said.
The top adult score in the Cattell III B test is 161. A top 2% score－which allows entry to Mensa, the club for those with high IQs－would be 148 or over. Lydia scored 162, placing her in the top 1% of the population.
1. Lydia wanted to have an IQ test because________.| A．all people around thought that she was smart |
| B．she felt that she might have a high IQ |
| C．her parents strongly wanted her to do so |
| D．the grammar school advised her to do so |
| A．Be accepted by. | B．Be related to. |
| C．Be satisfied with. | D．Be relevant to. |
| A．She doesn't have to work hard with her high IQ. |
| B．She has a tendency to focus around maths. |
| C．She is quite sure about what to do in the future. |
| D．She will drop out of the grammar school. |
| A．No one has achieved å higher IQ than Lydia. |
| B．Whoever has a high IQ can enter Mensa. |
| C．Only adults with high IQs can enter Mensa. |
| D．Mensa is a club for those with high IQs at least 148. |
3 . Working from home has been a long-held dream for many employees craving more flexible work arrangements and comfort. With the fantasy coming true because of the outbreak of COVID-19, however, quite a few people find it less romantic than expected. Amid the ongoing epidemic, a large number of Chinese companies have ordered employees to work from home, looking to control the spread of the virus as staff members return from the Spring Festival travel rush.
Allowing employees to work from home-even if they are not symptomatic-and enabling virtual meetings could help limit the spread of the virus and assuage employees’ fears about exposure.
But there’s another side to the coin. As millions of people started to work at home, people found video communication difficult. Many telecommuting platforms, including DingTalk, an all-in-one mobile workplace from Alibaba, went through temporary outages due to surging demand.
Fu Yangang, a product manager at a house trading company in Beijing, found he couldn’t receive any messages from colleagues during an online meeting at home on Tuesday, and neither could they. Similar problems arose when they switched to Zoom, a California-based video communication app which provides remote conferencing services.
Residences filled with distractions such as spouses, parents, kids or pets set up another obstacle for many employees working from home. Xia Baigi, who works for an Internet company in Beijing, was required to stay at home in Jilin Province until Feb.10, but has found what was an oft-wished for working style a hindrance to productivity. Her parents, who don’t have much to do, suddenly became concerned about her job and asked many questions. “I love my mom and dad, but their current behavior just adds stress and strain,” she said. “Sometimes I have to lock myself in my own room to avoid their enthusiasm.”
For people who are able to stay as productive as they would in an office environment, they came across a different problem： “surprisingly” longer working time at home. Working for an investment company in Shanghai, Zhang Fei felt he could never escape from his job working at home in Shandong Province, which makes time management a whole lot messier. “There is no longer a’ work’ and’ no work’ time. My work comes calling at all hours, which can keep me at a frenetic pace,” he said. With the return date drawing closer, he said, he never felt so excited about being back at the office.
1. Why many people can work from home in China?| A．Because many employees think it is a fantasy idea. |
| B．Because the employers think more highly of working from home than traditional working. |
| C．Because the COVID-19 occurred. |
| D．Because large number of Chinese companies want to avoid the Spring Festival travel rush. |
| A．Increase. | B．Ease. | C．Give up. | D．Find. |
| A．After Fu Yangang and his partners switched to Zoom, their problem was solved. |
| B．Xia Baiqi’s parents could give her more constructive advice. |
| C．Xia Baiqi locked herself in her own room to avoid distractions. |
| D．By saying “There is no longer a ‘work’ and ‘no work’ time.”, Zhang Fei meant he can work less time when at home. |
| A．Working from home has unexpected challenges |
| B．Working from home can save you a lot of trouble |
| C．How to avoid distractions when working from home |
| D．More flexible, less work time |
4 . Most of the people who appear most often and most gloriously in the history books are great conquerors and generals, while the people who really helped civilization forward are often never mentioned. We do not know who first set a broken leg, or launched a seaworthy boat, or calculated the length of the year, but we know all about the killers and destroyers. People think so much of them that on all the highest pillars in the great cities of the world you will find the figure of a conqueror or a general.
It is possible they are, but they are not the most civilized. Animals fight, so do savages; so to be good at fighting is to be good in the way in which an animal or a savage is good, but it is not to be civilized.
This is what the story of mankind has on the whole been like. But we must not expect too much. After all, the race of men has only just started. From the point of view of evolution, human beings are very young indeed, babies of a few months old. Scientists assume that there has been life of some sort on the earth for about twelve hundred million years; but there have been men for only one million years, and there has been civilized men for about eight thousand years.
| A．Even being good at getting others to fight most efficiently is not being civilized. |
| B．Most people believe those who have conquered the most nations are the greatest. |
| C．However, every year conflicts between countries and nations still claim thousands of lives. |
| D．And not only has it won, buts also because it has won, it has been in the right. |
| E．So there has been little time to learn in, but there will be oceans of time in which to learn better. |
| F．People don’t fight and kill each other in the streets, but nations still behave like savages. |
In 1968, I was a student at the Sophia Hagopian High School in Beirut, Lebanon. One day, I went to the head teacher’s office and told him that my parents could not pay the tuition (学费). Although I was the top student in my class, I was sent home because of being short of money. This was a heartbreaking experience for me, as I really wanted to continue my education.
I went home and spent my day at my father’s tire-repair shop. One day, a very old man saw me in the shop and wondered why I was not in school. I told him the reason. He offered to help by calling the head teacher of the Hovaguimian-Manougian High School and asking him to accept me without tuition. The next day, I took a city bus to the school and went to the head teacher’s office. However, when I told the head teacher the reason for my visit, he shouted at me that there was no free tuition. I immediately turned around and rushed back to my home.
On the third day, one of my classmates from Sophia Hagopian High School came to inform me that the head teacher had sent him to tell me that I should come back to school and register (登记). When I arrived at school, I told the registrar that I could not pay the tuition. She said that my tuition had been fully paid. I asked the registrar who paid for my tuition so that I can thank him, I was told that the kind person wanted to remain unknown.
I went to my classroom, but kept wondering who was the person that gave me the golden opportunity to continue my education. I went back to the head teacher's office after classes and begged the registrar to tell me the name of the kind person. Finally, on the condition that I wouldn’t go and express the thanks, she told me that it was my English teacher, Olivia Balian. I promised that I would not talk to her.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
A year later, I came to the United States and finally received two Master’s degrees.
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After visiting my former high school, I really wanted to see Ms. Balian and thank her for her generosity (大方).
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6 . Mr. Peter Johnson, aged twenty-three, battled for half an hour to escape from his trapped car yesterday when it landed upside down in three feet of water. Mr. Johnson took the only escape route—through the boot(行李箱).
Mr. Johnson’s car had finished up in a ditch(沟渠) at Romney Marsin, Kent after skidding on ice and hitting a bank. “Fortunately, the water began to come in only slowly,” Mr. Johnson said. “I couldn’t force the doors because they were jammed against the walls of the ditch and dared not open the windows because I knew water would come flooding in.”
Mr. Johnson, a sweet salesman of Sitting Home, Kent, first tried to attract the attention of other motorists by sounding the horn and hammering on the roof and boot. Then he began his struggle to escape.
Later he said, “It was really a half penny that saved my life. It was the only coin I had in my pocket and I used it to unscrew the back seat to get into the boot. I hammered desperately with a hammer trying to make someone hear, but no help came.”
It took ten minutes to unscrew the seat, and a further five minutes to clear the sweet samples from the boot. Then Mr. Johnson found a wrench(扳子) and began to work on the boot lock. Fifteen minutes passed by. “It was the only chance I had. Finally it gave, but as soon as I moved the boot lid, the water and mud poured in. I forced the lid down into the mud and scrambled clear as the car filled up.”
His hands and arms cut and bruised(擦伤), Mr. Johnson got to Beckett Farm nearby, where he was looked after by the farmer’s wife, Mrs. Lucy Bates. Huddled in a blanket, he said, “That thirty minutes seemed like hours.” Only the tips of the car wheels were visible, police said last night. The vehicle had sunk into two feet of mud at the bottom of the ditch.
1. What is the best title for this newspaper article?| A．The Story of Mr. Johnson, A Sweet Salesman |
| B．Car Boot Can Serve As The Best Escape Route |
| C．Driver Escapes Through Car Boot |
| D．The Driver Survived A Terrible Car Accident |
| A．The hammer | B．The coin. |
| C．The screw. | D．The horn. |
| A．Luckily the door was torn away in the end |
| B．At last the wrench went broken |
| C．The lock came open after all his efforts |
| D．The chance was lost at the last minute |
| A．the ditch was along a quiet country road |
| B．the accident happened on a clear warm day |
| C．the police helped Mr. Johnson get out of the ditch |
| D．Mr. Johnson had a tender wife and was well attended |
7 . Every kid wishes to be an adult. Do you remember playing house as a child-pretending to be a grownup like your parents? Did you imagine you were a doctor, a soldier or a teacher? At that time, anything seemed more exciting than being young. But now some grownups become “kidults”（kid+adult), who participate in the culture and activities traditionally intended for children.
Some kidults collect toys they once played with.
“Kidults can be like vitamins to society. Adults who value their childhood and hold on to pure, childlike emotion may be needed in such a rough and dry society,”said Lee Sojung, professor of Foreign Studies at Hankuk University.
Tim Greenhalgh, a professor in London explained that some kidults just refused to grow up.
| A．They find they cannot leave childhood behind |
| B．Other kidults still enjoy children's stories and fairy tales. |
| C．Kidults often run into the problem of finding a job at their level. |
| D．They do so because life in a busy and stressful city frightens them. |
| E．Hello Kitty, Garfield, and Snoopy have many adult fans around the world. |
| F．He added that kidult culture may fill the generation gap between adults and kids. |
| G．They may not be great parents as well as able to take on adult responsibilities. |
8 . If you’ve ever travelled with other people, the chances are you’ve had to make compromises. When you want to get up early to watch the sunrise, for example, your friends may argue that getting enough sleep is more important. And when you want to try the different food, your friends might say it looks strange and push you to a Chinese restaurant instead.
This is probably why more people these days are choosing to travel alone. According to reports on holiday habits from the Association of British Travel Agents, the percentage of people in the UK who take trips alone has been increasing, from 6 percent in 2011, to 12 percent in 2017, and to 15 percent in 2018. Most of these people said they choose to travel alone because this allows them to “do what they want”.
In fact, travelling alone is only a part of a recent trend (趋势) of people wanting to take more time alone—or what’s called “me time”. “Imagine yourself as a full pot of water and everything else that asks for your attention is an empty glass. When you provide what is needed for them you are using up your own water supply,” Editor Nicole Lyons wrote for the mental health social network Psych Central. “But how are you refilling your pot? This is where your ‘me time’ comes in.”
However, it’s still quite a common belief that those who do things alone are losers and that they’re alone simply because they don’t have anybody to be with. But why can’t people just be enough for themselves?
The now Duchess of Sussex Rachel Meghan Markle once wrote on her blog in 2016 about how she enjoyed taking herself out to dinner and travelling alone. “It’s not easy. But it’s important,” she wrote. You should face everything and encourage yourself to move forward when the feeling of loneliness and boredom sweeps through your body and mind, according to Markle.
1. What does the underlined phrase “make compromises” probably mean in Paragraph 1?| A．Turn up. | B．Work hard. |
| C．Give in. | D．Take care. |
| A．To save more money. |
| B．To enjoy their freedom. |
| C．To calm themselves down. |
| D．To avoid troubling someone. |
| A．Explain why we need “me time”. |
| B．List some examples of “me time”. |
| C．Provide some advice for readers. |
| D．Add some background information. |
| A．A new way of travelling abroad |
| B．Me time: enjoy yourself alone |
| C．The disadvantages of travelling alone |
| D．How to find a proper partner in trips |
9 . Kids and science seem to be made for each other!
The basic science is a combination of thought and experiment called the scientific method. It’s where you start with an idea, create a way to prove or disprove your idea, and show what you learned based on facts. Learning to follow this process helps you think logically and carefully. These important thinking skills can be used in many areas of study. To give a child practice with these thinking skills is like giving vitamins to a developing mind.
One of the greatest things we can teach our children is to love learning. Learning science is a great way to do so. Children are easy to be interested in science. Because much of science is hands-on, it attracts most children. Nothing makes a child sit up and take notice like the “WOW!” of a great science showing.
Science opens doors to many subjects at school. Building love for science can be helpful in other areas of study. For example, one cannot love science for very long without becoming good at its language-math! So science encourages children to study math. An interest in science is an interest in how things were once understood compared to how they are understood now. Thus studying science lends itself easily to studying history. And after you do an experiment, you need to write a lab report. Therefore, writing becomes an important part of science.
Science is the basic thing for much of our life. The science of farming shows how our food is produced; biomedical science keeps us healthy; even our beds these days are designed according to scientific facts. We almost eat, sleep and breathe with the help of science! When we prepare the next generation of voters, creators and policy makers, it is important to make sure they are not only comfortable but also good at science.
1. According to Paragraph 2, what does learning the scientific method mean to kids?| A．Learning to do experiments. | B．Learning many areas of study. |
| C．Helping them develop thinking skills. | D．Refusing any ideas that are not logical. |
| A．Science is too difficult for children. | B．Children usually consider science boring. |
| C．Science can arouse children's interest in learning. | D．Children who are careless shouldn't learn science. |
| A．He usually has no time for other subjects. | B．He usually loses interest in other activities. |
| C．He is usually bad at such subjects like history. | D．He is likely to learn many other subjects well. |
| A．Why Kids Should Learn Science | B．Why Science Is Important |
| C．How Kids Can Make Use of Science | D．What Kids Should Learn at School |
Many young people believe shared bicycles have many advantages. They are not expensive to rent, they do not have to be protected from thieves, and there is no need to repair them. You just have to change them for another one. They are also environment friendly and lower the use of cars, which also helps to relieve traffic. In fact, it is considered an awesome（可怕的） combination of technology and tradition.
Since they appeared, shared bicycles have raised a lot of dust. There is no doubt about the benefits but the disadvantages cannot be ignored. Many problems related to shared bicycles have appeared. It is not only due to bad behavior from some users who always want to seize the bicycles, but also because of the mess that has been created since one can leave the bicycle anywhere, which is against public urban order management. There are so many poorly parked bikes that sometimes they end up blocking streets.
In Xi Luo yuan, Beijing, the “Civilized Use of Bicycles” campaign （运动）has been launched. In addition to having 40 officially permitted stops, there are also clear signals（信号） to lead users to these stops. A team of supervisors keep order in the area. This is the first area that is part of an official system to manage bicycles. The purpose of this campaign is to solve the mess that the popularity of shared bicycles is causing in Beijing, both with the participation of companies and the users. If the pilot plan works out well in Xi Luo yuan, it will be extended to all of the cities in China.
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