1 . As Ginni Bazlinton reached Antarctica, she found herself greeted by a group of little Gentoo penguins (企鹅) longing to say hello. These gentle, lovely gatekeepers welcomed her and kick-started what was to be a trip Ginni would never forget.

Ever since her childhood, Ginni, now 71, has had a deep love for travel. Throughout her career (职业) as a professional dancer, she toured in the UK, but always longed to explore further. When she retired from dancing and her sons eventually flew the nest, she decided it was time to take the plunge.

After taking a degree at Chichester University in Related Arts, Ginni began to travel the world, eventually getting work teaching English in Japan and Chile. And it was in Chile she discovered she could get last-minute cheap deals on ships going to Antarctica from the islands off Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the South American mainland. “I just decided I wanted to go,” she says. “I had no idea about what I’d find there and I wasn’t nervous, I just wanted to do it. And I wanted to do it alone as I always prefer it that way.”

In March 2008, Ginni boarded a ship with 48 passengers she’d never met before, to begin the journey towards Antarctica. “From seeing the wildlife to witnessing sunrises, the whole experience was amazing. Antarctica left an impression on me that no other place has,” Ginni says. “I remember the first time I saw a humpback whale; it just rose out of the water like some prehistoric creature and I thought it was smiling at us. You could still hear the operatic sounds it was making underwater.”

The realization that this is a precious land, to be respected by humans, was one of the biggest things that hit home to Ginni.

What is the text mainly about?

A．A childhood dream.	B．An unforgettable experience.
C．Sailing around the world.	D．Meeting animals in Antarctica.

2 . About five weeks ago, I noticed the skin of our pet lizard (蜥蜴) was growing dusty. It worried me. I reported the strange surface on the skin of the lizard to my husband and children the next morning. Seconds later, our lizard emerged from its tank with its old skin flowing behind it.

I didn’t think about it much until a morning last week when I knocked my favorite teapot off the table. It burst into hundreds of pieces. As I swept up the mess, I wondered why we had been breaking so many things over the months.

The destruction started three months ago. It was my husband’s birthday. He had just lost his job. The uncertainty was starting to wear on us, so I wanted to do something special.

“Let’s make a cake for Dad!” I cried.

My kids screamed with joy. We baked, iced and sprinkled for most of the day. Candles on the cake! Balloons on the walls! Flowers on the table!

Two hours before my husband came back home from another job interview, my daughter climbed up to grab a glass vase from a high shelf. It fell and crashed beside the cake. Tiny pieces of glass were everywhere. She sobbed loudly as I threw the cake away. My husband had banana pudding for his birthday.

Three days ago, the light in our living room suddenly went out. After several frustrating hours of unsuccessful attempts to fix it, my husband suggested watching the Michael Jordan documentary (纪录片) series The Last Dance.

The poignancy (酸楚) of Jordan retiring from his beloved basketball to play baseball and what had pushed him to make such a tough decision took me by surprise. As I watched him take off his basketball uniform and replace it with a baseball uniform, I saw him leaving behind the layer that no longer served him, just as our lizard had. Neither of them chose the moment that had transformed them. But they had to live with who they were after everything was different. Just like us. I realized that we have to learn to leave the past behind.

Humans do not shed skin (蜕皮) as easily as other animals. The beginning of change is upsetting. The process is tiring. Damage changes us before we are ready. I see our lizard, raw and nearly new.

Jordan said that no matter how it ends, it starts with hope. With our tender, hopeful skin, that is where we begin.

The underlined part “leaving behind the layer” in Paragraph 8 can be understood as           .

A．letting go of the past

B．looking for a new job

C．getting rid of a bad habit

D．giving up an opportunity

3 . I have worked as a keeper at the National Zoo, Paris for 11 years. Spot and Stripe are the first tiger cubs that have ever been born here. Globally, a third of Sumatran cubs in zoos don't make it to adulthood, so I decided to give them round-the-clock care at home.

I've got two children—the younger one, Kynan, was extremely happy about the tigers arriving - but all of us really looked forward to being part of their lives and watching them grow. I wasn't worried about bringing them into my home with my wife and kids. These were cubs. They weighed about 2.5 kg and were so small that there was absolutely no risk.

As they grew more mobile, we let them move freely around the house during the day, but when we were asleep we had to contain them in a large room, otherwise they'd get up to mischief. We'd come down in the morning to find they'd turned the room upside down, and left it looking like a zoo.

Things quickly got very intense due to the huge amount of energy required to look after them. There were some tough times and I just felt extremely tired. I was grateful that my family was there to help. We had to have a bit of a production line going, making up “tiger milk”, washing baby bottles, and cleaning the floors.

When Spot and Stripe were four months old, they were learning how to open doors and jump fences, and we knew it really was time for them to go. It was hard for us to finally part with them. For the first few days, Kynan was always a bit disappointed that the cubs weren't there.

I'm not sad about it. I'm hands-on with them every day at the zoo, and I do look back very fondly on the time that we had them.

What do the underlined words “get up to mischief” mean in paragraph 3?

A．Behave badly.	B．Lose their way.
C．Sleep soundly.	D．Miss their mom.

4 . A schoolgirl saved her father’s life by kicking him in the chest after he suffered a serious allergic (过敏的) reaction which stopped his heart.

Izzy, nine, restarted father Colm’s heart by stamping (踩) on his chest after he fell down at home and stopped breathing.

Izzy’s mother, Debbie, immediately called 999 but Izzy knew doctors would never arrive in time to save her father, so decided to use CPR.

However, she quickly discovered her arms weren’t strong enough, so she stamped on her father’s chest instead.

Debbie then took over with some more conventional chest compressions (按压) until the ambulance arrived.

Izzy, who has been given a bravery award by her school, said: “I just kicked him really hard. My mum taught me CPR but I knew I wasn't strong enough to use hands. I was quite scared. The doctor said I might as well be a doctor or a nurse. My mum said that Dad was going to hospital with a big footprint on his chest.”

What’s the right order of the events?
①Izzy kicked Colm.   ②Debbie called 999.   ③Izzy learned CPR.   ④Colm’s heart stopped.

A．③①②④

B．④②③①

C．③④②①

D．④③①②