1 . Voluntourism — a new trend (趋势) of volunteer tourism

Have you ever thought about going abroad to volunteer? Nowadays there’s a trend that more and more people are interested in volunteer tourism.

Making a difference in a country less lucky than your own is seen by most as a really good thing to do. More and more volunteers are seeking meaning and a sense of purpose in life. “They use their skills to help on projects abroad, such as building hospitals, teaching English in schools, looking after children in orphanages (孤儿院), etc.”

However, some people are against this so-called “voluntourism”. Volunteers take away jobs from locals who would have otherwise done that work. Yes, sometimes volunteers have specific knowledge which can benefit communities, such as IT skills or speaking English as a native language. But sometimes they are put to work on construction sites (建筑工地), for example, depriving (使失去) locals of a job on project.

Besides, many young travelers are untrained for the role. This could become a health and safety problem on construction sites or when caring for children. I volunteered myself last year in a library and school in Ghana. I helped to reshelve books, talked to the librarian about the running of the library and played games with the children. However, I’m not an experienced teacher or librarian, and I felt like the locals were far too trusting of my opinions and decisions, just because I come from a more developed country.

Furthermore, volunteer tourism is seen by some as just that-an industry, a way for companies to make money. About $2 billion was spent by volunteers in 2015.Surely it would be better if this money were directly given to places where it is needed the most. Instead, most of the money is going to tourism companies, while local communities only see a very small amount of it. I met some Danish girls who had paid €7,000 each to a company to volunteer at an orphanage, but very little was spent on the orphanage itself.

I think volunteering abroad helps us develop as a person, and is a shining addition to a CV. Volunteer projects are usually very valuable for communities, but often good for those who take part in voluntary work just as much, if not more, as those they are helping.

1. What do we learn about volunteers working abroad?

A．They have no safety problems.

B．They may cause the locals out of job.

C．They become less willing to be volunteers.

D．They would like to work in richer countries.

2. Which statement is true according to the passage?

A．Volunteer tourism has become an industry.

B．Volunteers spend lots of money helping with the charity work.

C．Some volunteer travelers are very experienced and suitable for the role.

D．Volunteer tourism provides locals with more and more job opportunities.

3. What does the author want to tell us in the last paragraph?

A．Voluntourism offers volunteers good jobs.

B．Volunteering gives a lot to poor countries.

C．Voluntourism brings volunteers advantages.

D．The quality of volunteering needs improving.

4. Which of the following shows the development of ideas in the passage?
I：Introduction            P：Point             Sp：Sub-point (次要点)        c：Conclusion

A．

B．

C．

D．

2 . Sunday evening, October 30, 1938, was peaceful in New York City. Some people were returning home from a trip to the countryside, and others were sitting down to dinner. In those days, televisions were not very common. Most people listened to the radio for news and entertainment.

At eight o’clock that evening, there was a concert of dance music, but Suddenly, the programme was cut off by a news report: a large spaceship had landed in a field and an army of Martians (火星人) was moving towards New York City and then the radio went silent.

People felt worried. Some drove out of the city as quickly as possible, but soon the roads were crowded with cars. Some people put wet towels on their faces because they thought there was a gas attack. In New Jersey, some farmers went out with guns. Although it was dark, they found a large cylinder (圆柱体) standing in a field, and, thinking it was the Martian spaceship, the shot at it many times.

Many people were so frightened that they did not hear the next announcement on the radio: “Ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to a radio play called The War of the Worlds.”

A message was sent to police stations that there was no real Martian attack, and the police Offices soon returned calm to New York City.

Many people were very angry that they had been fooled by the play, and complained to the radio station. But what about the spaceship that the farmers found in the field? The next morning, they found that they had damaged a large water tank (罐)!

1. According to the news report, ___________.

A．a Martian spaceship had landed	B．a spaceship was found at the airport
C．there would be a concert that evening	D．there was a gas attack in New York City

2. The road was crowded with cars because ___________.

A．many people wanted to see the Martians

B．the Martian army was standing in the way

C．people were trying to get home from work

D．many people were trying to leave New York City

3. Who went out in the fields with guns to fight the Martians?

A．Policemen.

B．Firemen.

C．Dancers.

D．Farmers.

4. What can we learn about the radio station from the article?

A．it was fooled by a news reporter.

B．It played a joke on the listeners.

C．It called the police to catch the Martians.

D．It often announced the news about spaceships.

3 . The rate of childhood obesity in the U. S. has tripled over the past 50 years. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) made waves this year by recommending that doctors put obese kids as young as two years old on intensive, family-oriented lifestyle and behavior plans. It also suggested prescribing weight-loss drugs to children l2 and older and surgery to teens 13 and older. This advice reflects the organization’s adoption of a more active position on childhood obesity.

Yet the lifestyle programs the AAP recommends are expensive, inaccessible to most children and hard to maintain. Few weight-loss drugs have been approved for children. And surgery has potential risks and few long-term safety data. Furthermore, it’s not clear whether interventions in youngsters help to improve health or merely add to the psychological burden overweight kids face from the society.

Rather than paying close attention to numbers on a scale, the U. S. and countries with similar trends should focus on an underlying truth: we need to invest in more and safer places for children to play where they can move and run around, climb and jump, ride and skate.

Why is it so hard to get kids moving? Experts blame the problem on the privatization of sports — as public investment in school-based athletics dwindles, expensive private leagues have grown, leaving many kids out. In addition to fewer opportunities at school, researchers cite increased screen time and a lack of safe places for them to play outside the home. New York City, for example, had 2,067 public playgrounds as of 2019 — a very small amount for its large population. In Los Angeles in 2015, only 33 percent of youths lived within walking distance of a park.

Kids everywhere need more places to play. Public funding to build and keep up these areas is crucial, but other options such as shared-use agreements can make unused spaces available to the public. These opportunities aren’t primarily about changing children’s waistlines — they’re how we keep childhood healthy and fun.

1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?

A．Childhood obesity is well under control in recent years.

B．Weight-loss surgery are recommended to children 12 and older.

C．AAP plays a more active role in fighting against childhood obesity.

D．Expensive as it is, lifestyle programs are practical for most children.

2. The underlined word “dwindle” is closest in meaning to ______.

A．decline

B．quit

C．increase

D．develop

3. In the author’s opinion, what measures should be taken to create more safe areas?

A．Prepare fitness equipment at home.

B．Live within walking distance of a park.

C．Promote investment in private athletics.

D．Open up playgrounds when school’s out.

4. What’s the main idea of the text?

A．Sports play an important role in children’s growth.

B．More safe areas for outdoor fun are in urgent need.

C．Family-oriented lifestyles are crucial to children’s health.

D．Medical intervention is important to ease psychological burden.

5 . 假如你是李华，你的美国朋友Tom向你发来e-mail，询问我支持新疆棉花吗。请你给他回信，内容包括：
1. 民众对于知名运动品牌（sportswear brands）禁用新疆棉（a ban on Xinjiang cotton）的不同看法并陈述理由；
2. 你对于民众中抵制（boycott）知名运动品牌的看法并陈述理由。
注意：
1. 词数100词左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Tom,

How are you doing?

I’m glad to share with you

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I’m looking forward to your reply.

Yours,

Li Hua

6 . After more than a year of pandemic, after months of an aggressive vaccination campaign, the United States should finally be better prepared to protect itself against the coronavirus. Nearly all of our long-term-care residents are vaccinated. Tens of millions of other people have been vaccinated, and tens of millions more have some level of immunity from previous infection. With more people protected, a new surge could behave differently, but early signals from the states with rising case numbers suggest that this will not universally be the case.

Just look at Michigan, the leading edge of this new surge. Cases are going up quickly, and hospital admissions are moving in lockstep (步伐一致) —just as they have in past surges. This is a bit of a surprise. The United States is entering a new phase of the pandemic. Although we’ve previously described the most devastating (毁灭性的) periods as “waves” and “surges,” the more proper metaphor now is a tornado: Some communities won’t see the storm, others will be well fortified against disaster, and the most at-risk places will be crushed. The virus has never hit all places equally, but the remarkable protection of the vaccines, combined with the new attributes of the variants. has created a situation where the pandemic will disappear, but only in some places. The pandemic is or will soon be over for a lot of people in well-resourced (实力雄厚的), heavily vaccinated communities. In places where vaccination rates are low and risk remains high, more people will join the 550,000 who have already died.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky spent her weekly press conference on Monday pleading with the American people, noting “the recurring feeling I have of coming doom (厄运).” She asked the country to “work together to prevent a fourth surge.” Three distinct factors are now shaping this country’s pandemic experience.

First, the United States did a terrible job preventing transmission (传染) of the disease. The country’s level of excess death has been high, signaling that the pandemic’s true toll has been even steeper than the officially released COVID-19 deaths. Most other countries did not experience the same levels of consistent transmission. Most estimates place the number closer to 100 million, and possibly tens of millions more.

Second, the U.S. is vaccinating people quite efficiently. It has given out the largest absolute number of doses (药的一剂) in the world. Almost three-quarters of the U.S. population over 65 has received at least one dose of the vaccine, with nearly half now fully vaccinated. On a percentage basis, the U.S. has immunized nearly three times the number of people that Germany, Italy, and France have, and in two months, the U.S. will almost certainly have a very large percentage of vaccinated adults.

Third, the virus has had staggeringly unequal effects on the American population. For a person of a given age, the risk for certain racial and ethnic groups is several times that of a white person. Native American, Latino, Pacific Islander, and Black communities have suffered large and deadly outbreaks across the country. Racialized economic hierarchy (等级制度) as well as, perhaps, distrust of the medical establishment-are holding down vaccination rates in poorer places with less access to care. So some communities have both higher risk and fewer fully protected people.

This all makes for an extremely messy and volatile (不稳定的) current situation. The first two factors mean that some places, such as California, will see the pandemic’s worst pressures fade. But where the virus is already spreading quickly, the danger is still high, and the days are running out to slow transmission via vaccination. So far, the fatality (死亡) numbers have not turned upward. Now we can only wait to see if deaths will follow hospital admissions at the pace of past surges—or if something has changed.

1. It can be inferred from the case of Michigan that _________.

A．Michigan has an edge in bringing the pandemic under control

B．more patients are receiving proper medical treatment in hospitals

C．a new surge in cases and hospital admissions is unexpected and scary

D．a growing number of residents have been immune to the infection

2. The new phase of the pandemic is described as a tornado because _________.

A．the tornado that strikes during the pandemic makes people suffer more

B．the measures to fight the coronavirus produce uneven results in different areas

C．some poor communities are protected while some areas most at-risk are crushed

D．the crushing effects of the pandemic will last as long as the tornado effects do

3. What factors are shaping American’s pandemic experience?
①less access to medical care
②inaccurate estimates of death tolls
③distrust of governmental policies
④disadvantaged socio-economic status of ethnic groups
⑤a larger percentage of vaccinated adults
⑥efficient prevention of the transmission

A．①②③④⑤

B．①②③④

C．①②④⑤

D．①②③④⑥

4. Wat’s the author’s attitude towards the present situation of the pandemic?

A．Frustrated.

B．Optimistic.

C．Indifferent.

D．Desperate.

7 . Moving around Bogota can be a bit of a Jekyll-or-Hyde experience. On the one hand, the city is infamous (声名狼藉的)for having the world’s worst traffic. Yet, on the other, its cycling infrastructure is considered a good model of sustainable urban mobility, according to the Copenhagenize Index, which ranks bike-friendly cities. The Colombian capital generated a now-international movement in the 1970s called Ciclovia, which sees 1.5 million people cycle across 128km of car-free streets each Sunday morning.

So, when the pandemic reached its shores in mid-March, Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez, an avid cyclist herself, introduced one of the world’s first plans to encourage bike travel, using traffic cones to create 76 km of temporary lanes.

“Everyone started using a bicycle, and they already knew how to get around on one because we have this bike culture thanks to the Ciclovia,” says Carlos Pardo, a local cycling advocate and senior advisor at the New Urban Mobility Alliance. Pardo got involved at the beginning of the pandemic by partnering with a local bikeshare company to provide 400 free e-bikes to health workers. Now, he’s busy persuading the public that the government’s new bike lanes should become permanent fixture (固定设施).

“Some drivers say, ‘you took away our lane’, but we’re saying, we took one car lane and made a two-lane bidirectional bike lane,” he explains. “So, you’re duplicating the effectiveness of the space, and moving more people per hour, per direction.”

Biking has enjoyed a renaissance (复兴) around the world as urban citizens avoid public transport for the relative safety of a two-wheeled commute. Now, many advocates like Pardo are working with local governments in the hope of turning these pandemic-response measures into lasting changes—ones that are more plausible now than ever after lockdowns provided an unprecedented (空前的)opportunities to fast-track infrastructure trials. The results of these urban planning experiments could not only radically shape the way we commute across global cities, but also make them more adaptable to future shocks.

1. What can best illustrate the underlined sentence?

A．Much knowledge that is of help in learning about a new place.

B．A mixed feeling that is too confusing to express themselves.

C．An understanding that everything has both advantages and disadvantages.

D．An idea that human beings are born somewhere between good and evil.

2. What was NOT the cause of the popularity of cycling in Bogota?

A．The outbreak of the pandemic in mid-March.

B．The worldwide bike culture dating back to the 1970s.

C．The government’s support for the temporary bike lanes.

D．The local bike company’s contribution to health workers.

3. What factor is likely to stop the change of bike-friendly, slow streets?

A．The increasing number of cyclists.	B．Duplicated effectiveness of road use.
C．A well-rounded city expansion plan.	D．The growth of car ownership.

4. Which section of the newspaper includes articles of this sort?

A．Urban life.

B．Politics.

C．Sports

D．Advice column.

8 . The world food safety could be in danger because of a number of food production shocks (冲击), according to an Australian study.

The researchers from the University of Tasmania found that there were 226 shocks in the area of food production across 134 nations and the frequency has been increasing over the past 50 years.

According to Cottrell, a researcher from the University of Tasmania, the main causes behind the shocks are different. For crops, extreme weather events such as floods and no rain for a long time play the biggest part. Weather also plays a role in livestock(家畜)production, but disease plays a bigger role. Disease also leads to aquaculture(水产业)shocks, while in the ocean most of the food shocks are caused by overfishing.

“When we look at the food production systems, covering crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture,” Cottrell said, “we find that crops and livestock are more easily affected than aquaculture. And some countries in South Asia are more frequently affected than others.”

The effects of production shocks reached far away from where they happened. When one means of food production is greatly reduced, it will cause unexpected results. “The India got a lot of food production shocks in crops and livestock, largely because of floods,” Cottrell explained. “If countries like India are shocked and the rice production is much smaller, they’ll probably send less goods to another country. And that shock suddenly starts to affect all the trade partners of the major producers as well.”

According to what Cottrell said, while the international community faces a great challenge to these problems, steps taken now can help fight against unexpected shocks in the future. “This can be done through measures such as food store systems so that they are better able to deal with the effect which is caused by problems such as climate change.” said Cottrell.

1. What do we know about food production shocks?

A．Their causes are different in different production areas.

B．Some diseases are the main cause.

C．Extreme weather is the biggest shock.

D．Overfishing is the main cause.

2. Which of the following is more frequently affected according to Cottrell?

A．Livestock in Australia.	B．Crops in Australian.
C．Fisheries in India.	D．Livestock in South Asia.

3. Why does the writer mention Indian food production shocks?

A．To show India sells a lot of crops to other countries.

B．To show the shocks can cause unexpected results.

C．To show Indian shocks are more often.

D．To show India has a lot of flood.

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

A．Results Caused by the Problem of Global Food Safety

B．Measures Solving the Problem of Global Food Safety

C．Production Shocks Threatening Global Food Safety

D．The Importance of Global Food Safety

9 .     1    

Chen Chen is 8 years old. For the Spring Festival this year he was given an iPad as a present and never goes anywhere without it.     2     This is serious for such a young child.

Many children in China are suffering the same problem:     3     Xinhua New Agency went so far as to call the iPad the “No.1 killer of children’s eyesight.”

“There are about 30 shortsighted children coming every day,” said Hu Dali, a doctor at Guiyang Aier Eye Hospital. “Half of those children are suffering from reduced vision because they have played with mobile phones and iPads for too long.”

Experts say children’s version is not yet fully developed and their eyes get tired more easily.     4    

The iPad uses a very bright LED backlight. A user’s pupils (瞳孔) have to keep getting used to the new light levels. If children stare at an iPad screen for a long time, their eyes do not have time to rest.     5    

Experts suggest that users should hold their iPad between 40—60 centimeters away from them. The brightness of the screen should be made comfortable for children. Parents should also stop their children from using an iPad for more than one hour every day.

A．IPad use is damaging their eyesight

B．A month later his eyesight has reduced to 300 degrees

C．Children go eye bad due to the iPad

D．How an iPad influences children

E．This will make their eyesight worse over time

F．It does harm to their eyesight

G．This means the iPad has a greater effect on their eyes