1 . Today’s grandparents are joining their grandchildren on social media, but the different generations’ online habits couldn’t be more different. In the UK the over-55 s are joining Facebook in increasing numbers, meaning that they will soon be the site’s second biggest user group, with 3.5 million users aged 55-64 and 2.9 million over-65s.
Sheila, aged 59, says, “I joined to see what my grandchildren are doing, as my daughter posts videos and photos of them. It’s a much better way to see what they’re doing than waiting for letters and photos in the post. That’s how we did it when I was a child, but I think I’m lucky I get to see so much more of their lives than my grandparents did.”
Interestingly, Sheila’s grandchildren are less likely to use Facebook themselves. Children under 17 in the UK are leaving the site - only 2.2 million users are under 17 -but they’re not going far from their smartphones. Chloe, aged 15, even sleeps with her phone. “It’s my alarm clock so I have to,’ she says. “I look at it before I go to sleep and as soon as I wake up.”
Unlike her grandmother’s generation, Chloe’s age group is spending so much time on their phones at home that they are missing out on spending time with their friends in real life. Sheila, on the other hand, has made contact with old friends from school she hasn’t heard from in forty years. ”We use Facebook to arrange to meet all over the country,” she says. “It’s changed my social life completely.”
Parents have an important role to play if they want their kids to spend more time in real life. Peter, 38, who spends most of his time in front of a screen, is recently determined to set a better example to his kids. In the evening or at weekends, he would leave his smartphone home and take his kids out to nature.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 1?| A．Older people have difficulty using social media. |
| B．Children spend more time with their grandparents. |
| C．More and more elderlies begin to use social media. |
| D．Social media have become more friendly to the elderly. |
| A．Worried. | B．Satisfied. | C．Excited. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．People tend to have less social life as they get older. |
| B．Young people are getting away from their smartphone. |
| C．More young people choose to meet their friends in person. |
| D．Social media actually help old people to meet their friends. |
| A．Different Online Habits Across Generations | B．The Good Old Days Without Smartphones |
| C．The Next Generation of Social Media | D．The Use of Smartphones at School |
2 . How coming to China has changed my life and career
Hello, everyone. My name is Jonathan Lopez, and I am a dual(双重的) citizen from Colombia and Canada.
When I was 18 years old, I had the opportunity to leave Columbia for the first time to go to see my father in Canada. I studied in a university in Canada, during which I had a chance to go study abroad in universities in Netherlands and Australia, travelling to many countries.
When it came to China, I had so many ideas about what China was supposed to be about. The surprise is that it was nothing like I imagined in a more positive way than expected. When I come here,
It's been only three years in China and it's just the beginning. There is so much more that I can continue to learn in this place, and it's just an open invitation for people that are thinking to study abroad, work abroad or do things anywhere in the world, to also consider China. Hence, this is a place to be, and this is a place where you can learn and grow a lot.
| A．So I decided to stay |
| B．And then I was ready to come to China |
| C．Today I want to share why coming to China changed my life |
| D．And this is something that really can change your life as well |
| E．mobile payment was one of the things that struck me the most |
| F．By the time I graduated from university I had already traveled to 61 countries |
| G．I realize all the potential that this place has and all the things that I could learn about China |
3 . Do American children still learn handwriting in school? In the age of the keyboard, some people seem to think handwriting lessons are on the way out. Ninety percent of teachers say they are required to teach handwriting. But studies have yet to answer the question of how well they are teaching it. One study published this year found that about three out of every four teachers say they are not prepared to teach handwriting. Some teachers are teaching handwriting by providing instruction for 10 ~15 minutes a day, and then other teachers basically teach it for 60 ~ 70 minutes a day — which really is pretty much for handwriting.
Many adults remember learning that way — by copying letters over and over again. Today’s thinking is that short periods of practice are better. Many experts also think handwriting should not be taught by itself. Instead, they say it should be used as a way to get students to express ideas. After all, that is why we write.
Handwriting involves two skills. One is legibility, which means forming the letters so they can be read. The other is fluency — writing without having to think about it. Fluency continues to develop until high school. But not everyone masters these skills. Teachers commonly report that about one fourth of their kids have poor handwriting. Some people might think handwriting is not important any more because of computers and voice recognition programs.
But Steve Graham at Vanderbilt University says word processing is rarely done in elementary school, especially in the early years. American children traditionally first learn to print, and then to write in cursive, which connects the letters. But guess what we have learned? More than 75 per cent of students choose to print their essays on the test rather than write in cursive.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 1? ________.| A．Teaching handwriting is a basic requirement in the teaching job |
| B．Most teachers prefer to teach handwriting |
| C．Teachers spend little time in teaching handwriting |
| D．The keyboard has taken the place of the handwriting entirely |
| A．The students are taught by practising for a long period. |
| B．The letters are repeated many times. |
| C．Handwriting includes two skills. |
| D．To write in cursive is taught first. |
| A．How to improve handwriting in school |
| B．Right or wrong: the death of handwriting |
| C．Handwriting involves two skills |
| D．Handwriting lessons are on the way out |
| A．negative | B．objective |
| C．critical | D．unconcerned |
4 . Smart phones are greatly changing the way we walk down the street. Office workers and young people are walking like the old as they check emails and messages.
Scientists have found mobile phones make us walk more slowly, with modest steps, to avoid falling over. The leader of the study said the walk is just like someone in their eighties. Researchers found people writing a text message walk more than twice as slowly as those without a phone, finding it harder to stay in a straight line.
The scientists examined 252 people walking while reading a text message, writing one, speaking on their phones or without their phones at all. Writing a text is the hardest activity, causing people to look down at their phone 46 percent more, and 45 percent longer, than when reading a message. This led people to walk 118 per cent more slowly than when they were without their phones. People walked almost a third more slowly while reading a text and 19 per cent while talking on the phone.
Smart phones were found to stop people from walking in a straight line, putting them at greater risk of running into other people, cars or street lamps. This increased the need to slow down and take more careful steps.
John Timmis said the idea for this study came from following someone walking down the street in the afternoon, who was walking as if he had had several drinks. I thought it was a bit early for that, then walked up alongside him and saw that he was on his phone. Simply being on the phone changes the way people walk.
1. What does the underlined word “modest” mean in the second paragraph?| A．Young. | B．Straight. |
| C．Low. | D．Small. |
| A．Those not carrying phones. |
| B．Those writing a text message. |
| C．Those reading a text message. |
| D．Those speaking on their phones. |
| A．The need to walk straight. |
| B．The desire to use their phones. |
| C．The chance of possible accidents. |
| D．The traffic jams during rush hours. |
| A．Seeing office workers walking like the elderly. |
| B．Seeing people walking in the street hurriedly. |
| C．Watching young people who were walking normally. |
| D．watching a person who was walking in the street in a strange way . |
5 . Cyber bullying (网络霸凌) is a form of bullying but because it happens online or on mobile phones it can happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are being bullied at school you can usually get away from the bullies when you are at home.
It is a good idea to keep a copy of the abusive (辱骂的) texts, emails, comments or messages that you receive and record the date and time they were sent.
You should not reply to any messages you receive because it can encourage the bullies and end up worrying you more. In addition, you must never give out any personal details on the Internet.
| A．They can be there to help you. |
| B．It is a good idea to check your phone. |
| C．But with cyber bullying there is no way out. |
| D．No one has the right to make you feel this way. |
| E．Keeping records can be useful when it comes to reporting the bullying. |
| F．When bullying happens at school, it's usually a small group of people. |
| G．Such information includes your real name, address, age or phone number. |
6 . The COVID-19 has changed every aspect of our lives, including our eating habits. Comfort food was made for times like these, and it seems the healthy-food trend that took root in recent years is reversing (彻底转变), at least for the time being. Shopping habits have changed. To be in favor of old processed foods like frozen pizza, hot cakes and canned spaghetti, convenience foods with long shelf life are designed.
No judgment here. Money is tight in many families, and busy parents are putting breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table in between video conference meetings. Besides, convenience foods are engineered to taste good and make us feel good (at least in the short term).
But you might want to save room for something green on your plate, if you can find it at the store. That’s because a growing body of research is showing that our food choices don’t just affect our shapes. What we eat also may affect our mood and behavior—and not in the “I can’t believe I ate a dozen cookies in one sitting” sort of way. Indeed, there may be something in the food we’re eating (or not eating) that's influencing our state of mind.
The emerging(新兴的) field of nutritional psychology states that modern Western diets have contributed to increased rates of mental illness, particularly depression and anxiety. Diets that follow a Mediterranean pattern of eating—with a lot of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, beans, fish and olive oil—have been connected with lower rates of depression. A diet change of just a few weeks has been found to change moods.
As a third of all Americans are reporting that the coronavirus pandemic has done harm to their mental health, we might need nutritious food more than ever.
1. Why are convenience foods with long shelf life designed?| A．To change shopping habits. |
| B．To change the taste of food. |
| C．To show the healthy food. |
| D．To meet customers’ shopping habits. |
| A．Cookies is a kind of food you like while sitting. |
| B．Food choices may influence our mood. |
| C．A growing body needs proper sports. |
| D．Busy work can make you feel depressed. |
| A．It’s beneficial to health. |
| B．It includes too much fat. |
| C．It may cause mental illness. |
| D．It’s connected with higher rates of depression. |
| A．Can healthy food provide relief? |
| B．Do food choices affect our shapes? |
| C．What can contribute to mental illness? |
| D．How can we beat the COVID-19? |
7 . Do you remember what happened on Sponge Bob Square Pants yesterday? The day before? If so, you may be in need of a TV timeout!
Kids today are watching more TV than they watched before, researchers say. Kids ages 6 to 11 in the United States watch more than three hours of TV each day. Ten years ago, children watched only about two hours and 40 minutes of TV each day.
Why the increase? Experts say more TV shows today are focused, or aimed, at kids.
Some people want to limit kids' TV time. Researchers say that children who watch TV shows for more than three hours a day do not do as well in school. However, some programs can help kids learn. One example is BrainSurge. Some people say the show teaches kids facts.
How do you know whether a TV show can make you smart? Think about what you learn from watching, says Aletha Huston. She is a TV expert. But, she warns, don't spend too much time watching. “Limit the amount you watch. Get off the couch and do something else.”
TV Guide
This pie chart shows how long kids ages 6－11 use different types of TV technology each week.
1. What is the main idea of the text?
| A．Kids today watch more TV than they did before. |
| B．BrainSurge helps kids learn facts. |
| C．Kids do not watch proper TV shows. |
| D．More TV shows today are created for kids ages 6－11. |
| A．unusual | B．aimed | C．suitable | D．pleasant |
| A．Three. | B．Five. | C．Four. | D．Six. |
| A．Video games | B．DVD | C．VCR | D．TV |
8 . With people wearing face masks to protect themselves from being infected with the novel coronavirus, a concern now is how they are dealing with their used masks. As used face masks may carry the coronavirus, they shouldn't be carelessly thrown away as waste. Since the virus can survive for one or two days in wet conditions, the used masks may become a new source of infection.
Given that the garbage sorting has recently been carried out in only a few cities, mixed waste commonly exists. The mixture of polluted masks and recyclable waste may cause a possible danger to rubbish collectors when they put hands in the garbage cans to collect recyclable items. What's worse, if someone just throws a used mask on the street, someone might pick it up, or try to collect it to sell second-hand.
With the spread of the novel coronavirus, there has obviously been a high demand for protective equipment such as face masks among ordinary people, with the resulting generation of a huge quantity of what may be considered medical waste. Thus, the problem is how to deal with this mass of medical waste, particularly the used face masks outside of hospitals. Communities should have special trash cans around to collect used masks. If these are not provided, people should put the waste into plastic bags before casting them aside, so they are not exposed to the air.
As the main risk of medical waste is infectivity, disinfection, whether by steam, chemicals or microwave, is very important. According to regulations, only licensed companies should collect, transport and do the final management of medical waste. For example, medical waste must be collected in special containers,and be transported in special vehicles by qualified people.
1. What problem is described in paragraph 1?| A．Used masks may cause infection. | B．Used masks are difficult to recycle. |
| C．The virus spreads quickly in wet conditions. | D．The novel coronavirus infection is worsening. |
| A．The causes of sorting garbage. | B．The ways of recycling used masks. |
| C．The harm of using second-hand masks. | D．The risk of handling used masks improperly. |
| A．Destroying rubbish. | B．Throwing waste. | C．Marking rubbish. | D．Reusing waste. |
| A．It costs a lot to collect and transport medical waste. |
| B．The hospital infection is mainly from medical waste. |
| C．The rules of dealing with medical waste are very strict. |
| D．License companies should be responsible for infection. |
9 . We all need to eat, and when we go to buy food at the supermarket, we’re offered many choice. But we often buy food that’s been produced in huge amounts and that’s traveled many miles before it ends up on our plate. So for some, growing their own food is a better choice – and it tastes good too!
From growing vegetables in little pots on your balcony to taking care of a small plot of land, there are many ways to produce home-grown food. It can be backbreaking work digging, weeding and watering the soil, but the result is fresh, home-grown fruits and vegetables, helping us keep a ‘five-a-day’ diet.
The recent Covid-19 pandemic lock-down means demand for homegrown food has seen a comeback in the UK. Miriam Dobson from the University of Sheffield, told the BBC that some people have been spending a lot of their time on their plots, growing plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables – which, at times, have been challenging to buy in supermarkets. She says “Coronavirus has reminded people of the weakness within our global food system. In such a difficult time, interest in self-support rises.”
But for those with limited space, a solution to grow your own vegetables lies closer to home – using pots. Sheila Brand lives in a third-floor flat in Rotterdam. She has managed to grow tomatoes and eggplants and is already harvesting raspberries. She told the BBC watching the plants grow “is very exciting: 'Oh it's got a new leaf!' ”
As well as the benefits of saving money and enjoying tasty food, growing your own from a balcony or window ledge not only improves your well-being and immediate environment, you can actually grow a lot of vegetables. So, maybe it’s time for us all to get planting and develop our green fingers!
1. A “five-a-day” diet (Para. 2) probably refers to a diet that include__________ every day.| A．Five meals | B．Enough fruits and vegetables |
| C．Five kinds of rice | D．Plenty of water |
| A．It’s more interesting, cheap and delicious. |
| B．our global food system is doing harm to us. |
| C．It saves the time and money on transportation. |
| D．it can be hard to buy fresh food during the pandemic. |
| A．In a pot. | B．On a plate. | C．In a garden. | D．On the roof. |
| A．Growing your own food can do good to your health. |
| B．Growing your own food can make your fingers green. |
| C．Growing your own food can improve your gardening skills. |
| D．Growing your own food can bring your family more happiness. |
10 . Many children love using a trampoline（蹦床）for fun. They love the excitement the activity brings to them. But are trampolines safe to use?
Starting in the early 1990s, trampolines saw a major increase in popularity. In 1989, 140,000 trampolines were sold in the United States and by 1998 that number had increased to 640,000. But with the increase in popularity there was a rise in pain. From 1990 to 1995, trampolines-related injuries jumped by 98% and in 1999 over 100,000 kids were treated in the emergency room because of using trampolines.
The data behind the danger is clear, but parents may not know that even though trampolines are made for children, they are not suitable for kids under the age of six. Kait Ellen posted an article on Facebook about her visit to a trampoline gym with her son Colton. Actually the visit was anything but enjoyable for the little guy. Colton, who was three years old, broke his bone while jumping up and down on a trampoline. And in her article there was a warning from a government department, which advised that children under the age of six should never use a trampoline.
In 2004, the first indoor trampoline park opened Thursday in LasVegas, Nevada and parks have been growing rapidly ever since. Parents should keep in mind the advice of experts for keeping their kids safe. To keep your kids from getting injured while using trampolines, you’d better keep them away from them.
1. What’s the author’s purpose in writing Paragraph 2?| A．To make comparisons. |
| B．To show trampolines’ popularity in America. |
| C．To advise people to buy trampolines. |
| D．To prove trampolines are unsafe. |
| A．Through the advice of expert. |
| B．Through a government department. |
| C．Through her son’s accident. |
| D．Through the data behind the danger. |
| A．Negative | B．Cautious | C．Uncertain. | D．Approving. |
| A．Kids can easily get hurt while playing. |
| B．Trampolines are dangerous for kids under 6. |
| C．Parents often make trampolines for their children. |
| D．Trampolines are very popular with children. |
