1 . I parked outside the grocery store that weekend, still tired after another stressful week of work. I’m an accountant, and it was the middle of busy season, which meant tight deadlines and crazy hours. A long weekend was coming up, and a friend suggested that I relax at a nearby woman recover center. I moved through the passageway with my shopping cart, hurrying to beat out a few others who were heading for the already long checkout line. It took me more than an hour to finish the shopping.
When I got back to my car, groceries in hand, I found a note on my car. In beautiful handwriting and blue ink, the writer explained that her car had scraped(刮擦) my Honda Civic when she pulled into the space next to mine. “I’m sorry!” she wrote, and added her insurance policy(保险单) number and cell phone number. At the bottom, she signed her name, Elyse.
What an honest person！I was quite surprised. Few people act like that nowadays. Most people would have just driven away. A few weeks later I got the estimate for the repair: $1,500! There’s no way she’ll pay this much, I thought. I picked up that note with the beautiful blue script and dialed the number, ready for an argument.
“Hello?” Elyse answered cheerily. “Hi, you left a note on my car?” I began. But even when she heard how much the bill was going to be, Elyse still sounded just like she had in her note, so friendly—and calm. How was it possible for her to be like that? I wondered. Believe it or not, I got the money for the repair.
When the busy period at work finally passed, I decided to go to the recover center that my friend had suggested. I had my doubts if it would help, but it couldn’t hurt, right?
Checking in at the front desk, I looked through the guest book, looking for a blank spot to write my name. Finally, I reached the last page. There, at the top, in the same perfect handwriting that she had used in her note to me, was Elyse’s name.
1. The author got her car scraped when she was _______.| A．parking her car outside the grocery store |
| B．doing some shopping in the grocery store |
| C．driving to the grocery store |
| D．on her way to the woman recover center |
| A．Elyse is a woman who is difficult to deal with |
| B．anyone who scrapes others’ car should write down his name and address |
| C．the grocery store where the author did shopping was not busy |
| D．the author didn’t expect Elyse could pay for the repair voluntarily |
| A．She is an accountant and usually very busy. |
| B．She is always too busy to make any friends. |
| C．She is quite selfless and likes helping others. |
| D．She is poor and always trying to get money from others. |
| A．A fixed amount. |
| B．A repair price. |
| C．A guessed amount. |
| D．An exact price. |
| A．Elyse is the boss of the woman recover center |
| B．the author would return the money for the repair to Elyse |
| C．the author is eager to learn perfect handwriting from Elyse |
| D．the author may meet Elyse and they might become friends |
2 . An Olympic Village is a place that houses Olympic competitors. It is a place where they prepare for what might be the most important moment in their life. But we want to know more about this mysterious (神秘的) place: What really happens in the village?
We asked swimmer Natalie Coughlin, a three-time Olympian and 12-time medalist. She says, “People think it’s a lot more attractive and interesting than it is. It isn’t. It’s like a huge college campus, including a bank, a salon, a post office, and a huge cafeteria — except that everyone is anxious, getting ready for their biggest event under unbelievably high pressure.”
But some other Olympians look differently at their campus. “It’s like the first day of college,” water polo player Tony Azevedo says. “You’re super excited. Everyone’s meeting people and trying to socialize with others.”
Coughlin says the best spot to be in the village is the cafeteria. Not only does it provide a place to talk with the rest of the athletes from your country, but it’s a great chance for people-watching. One of her favorite games was to tell what sport someone in front of her took based on their body type.
Living in the same village means athletes run into one another all the time. Coughlin shares this story: While in London in 2012, at one point applause (欢呼) broke out at the arrival of someone. Coughlin thought it was one of the British royals, but it was Jamaica’s Usain Bolt (the world’s greatest runner alive). Runner Allyson Felix — a winner of six gold Olympic medals — has also had her run-ins. In 2008, she came across the world-famous U.S. men’s basketball team, including Anthony, Bryant, Wade and other top players.
It’s “a pretty wild scene, the biggest melting pot — a place where large numbers of people, ideas, and cultures are mixed together— you’ve been in,” said swimmer Eric Shanteau. Felix agrees, saying, “You get to meet people from other countries that you wouldn’t even come into contact with. To me that’s the coolest thing.”
1. The purpose of the first paragraph is to ______.| A．provide examples |
| B．present research findings |
| C．introduce the topic |
| D．give suggestions |
| A．They are very nervous. |
| B．They like to make friends. |
| C．They enjoy the village very much. |
| D．They spend most of their time relaxing. |
| A．She often watched other people play games there. |
| B．She often spent time with athletes from other countries. |
| C．She often gave fitness advice to others according to their body features. |
| D．She often tried guessing a person’s sport. |
| A．Why Olympians are so popular. |
| B．How they met superstars in the village. |
| C．Why the Olympic Village is mysterious. |
| D．How they communicated with other players. |
| A．Spending time with some old foreign friends. |
| B．The positive influence of the Olympic spirit. |
| C．Mixing with people from around the world. |
| D．The competitive atmosphere in the village. |
3 . It is 6:00 am on the first day of the school year. In Cherrybrook Technology High School, mathematics teacher Eddie Woo is already at work.
One of the first things before the first bell rings is to set up his tripod (三脚架) and iPad in the middle of the classroom. This technology is Mr. Woo’s core tool of the trade. “I’m Mr Woo. I record my lessons. I record all of them. In fact, I’m about to record this one,” he explains to his new maths class.
The unique approach to teaching mathematics has not gone unnoticed. Mr. Woo is arguably the most famous teacher in Australia-a maths teacher by day and an Internet sensation (轰动) by night.
He started posting videos online in 2012 for a student who was sick with cancer and missing a lot of school. Other students in the class then wanted to watch Mr Woo’s videos on his free YouTube channel and website, so he started sharing them across the country and beyond. Wootube now boasts more than 38,000 subscribers (用户) and has attracted almost 4 million viewers worldwide.
Cherrybrook Technology High School principal Gary Johnson said Mr Woo was helping address a standing shortage of maths teachers in Australia, and making maths popular again. “He has an ability to simplify mathematics to a level where kids can really understand it,” Mr. Johnson said.
12-year-old student Emily Shakespear said Mr. Woo’s teaching style made maths irresistible. “I don’t want to say it, but he sucked me into maths,” she said. Owen Potter, who attends high school in Cobar, agreed. “It’s difficult to understand how someone in Sydney can influence thousands of people across the whole country,” he said.
Mr Woo won the 2017 University of Sydney Young Alumni Award for Outstanding Achievement, and he was one of 12 Australian teachers honored at the Commonwealth Bank Teaching Awards.
1. Eddie Woo set up an iPad in the middle of the classroom with the purpose of _______.| A．listening to music. |
| B．playing a video. |
| C．recording his class. |
| D．showing pictures. |
| A．He simplified maths and shared his teaching videos online. |
| B．He recorded and shared all his attractive lessons for fun. |
| C．He made maths irresistible for audience only in Australia. |
| D．He won varieties of important awards as a maths teacher. |
| A．Mr. Woo had made a lot of money by selling videos. |
| B．Mr. Woo posted videos online to help many adults. |
| C．M. Woo’s teaching videos online are well received. |
| D．Mr. Woo created his Wootube in 2012 in Sydney. |
| A．difficult to follow. |
| B．easy to understand. |
| C．simple to handle. |
| D．challenging to learn. |
| A．Mr. Woo graduated from the University of Sydney with honors. |
| B．Mr. Woo is the most well-known maths teacher in Australia |
| C．M: Woo won all the Commonwealth Bank Teaching Awards. |
| D．Mr. Woo’s contributions to teaching have been recognised. |
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic(冠状病毒流行病),everyday heroes are appearing all over the world.
Raina owns and operates a Bakery in San Juan del Monte, Philippines. Though her business has slowed greatly with more people staying home, one pizza delivery driver came by her shop every day to buy at least 300 pieces of bread.
Curious, Raina finally asked why the driver was buying so much bread. She was shocked by his response. It turns out that the driver whose name is Raymond was using his own tip money to buy the bread to distribute it to homeless people in Quezon City.
Raina was so impressed by Raymond’s kindness that she shared the story on Facebook. Raymond explained that he’s gone hungry as a child himself, so seeing people in need as he made his deliveries urged（敦促） him into action.
He said, “when I give them food, they end up crying. They even tell me that their last meal was the night before I spoke to them. I know what I am giving is not enough but at least they could sustain for a few hours.”
Things are not easy for Raymond right now, either. He’s got three kids at home and his wife is out of work and pregnant(怀孕的).Still, he’s setting aside his tips and a bit of his won salary to feed others.
Once Raina’s Facebook post went popular, more people began sending Raymond donations for his cause. When his boss found out what he was up to, he sent him a check for 10,000 Philippine pesos. (菲律宾比索---货币单位)
Raymond says that he’ll continue to do his part to make sure his neighbors are okay! This is just another example of how some people are stepping up when the rest of the world is forced to step back.
1. What has made Raina’s business a lot worse than before? (No more than 5 words)2. Why did Raymond give the homeless food? (No more than10 words)
3. What does the underlined word in Paragraph 5 probably mean? (1 word)
4. What happened after Raymond’s story got around? (No more than 10 word)
5. How does Raymond’s story inspire you? (No more than 20 words)
5 . On a flight from Dallas, Texas, to Cincinnati, Ohio, to visit a friend in 2013, event planner Paige Chenault daydreamed about the grand birthday parties she’d throw for her daughter one day. (Paige was five months pregnant at the time.) Then, flipping through a magazine, she saw a photo of an impoverished Haitian boy, skinny. “I thought, this kid has nothing,” Paige says.
The image stayed with her, and she resolved to do something to help. “I decided I would use my talents to throw birthday parties for homeless kids,” Paige says. For the next four years, Paige and her husband, Colin, took time out from parenthood to visit shelters to determine how best to pull off the parties.
Finally, in January 2017, Paige launched the Birthday Party Project, a nonprofit organization, and recruited friends and family to help decorate Dallas’s 75- occupant Family Gateway Shelter with balloons and streamers, celebrating the birthdays of 11 boys and girls, with 60 more homeless kids in attendance. “That first party was better than I could have ever imagined,” says Paige.
Now Paige and her staff of three paid employees work with regional volunteers to plan monthly themed parties at 15 shelters across the country, some of which house abused or abandoned kids. Each child celebrating a birthday that month gets a $30 gift, a decorative place mat, and an individual cake or cupcake.
One of Paige’s favorite parts of each party is when the kids make a wish and blow out the candles. “They rarely get a chance to dream big,” says Paige.
Her daughter, Lizzie, now seven, often helps out at the parties. Paige says, “The one thing I’ve always wanted is for my kid to be generous.”
1. What was it that made Paige want to help the homeless children?| A．A flight from Dallas to Ohio. | B．Her daughter’s birthday. |
| C．The photo of a Haitian boy. | D．Her talent for throwing parties. |
| A．adorable | B．poor | C．talented | D．frustrated |
| A．A total of 75 full-time workers are employed by Paige at present. |
| B．After unsuccessful attempts, Paige finally threw a wonderful party for the homeless kids. |
| C．Kids can spend $30 to celebrate their birthday. |
| D．Paige devotes herself to the cause of helping the homeless kids. |
| A．Kind and perseverant. | B．Ambitious and honest. |
| C．Caring and sensitive. | D．Responsible and disciplined. |
| A．Bring Sunshine to the Homeless |
| B．A Warm story Between Paige and her daughter |
| C．Paige and Her Birthday Party Project |
| D．How to Light Up the Life of the Abandoned Kids |
6 . Most young architects particularly those in big cities— can only dream about working in a building of their own. And making that dream come true often means finding a building no one else seems to want, which is exactly what happened to David Yocum and his partner, Brain Bell. Their building is a former automobile electrical-parts film in Atlanta. From the outside, it looks too old, even something horrible, but open the door and you are in a wide, open courtyard, lined on three sides with rusting (生锈的) walls.
In 2000, Yocum and Bell found this building in the city’s West End. Built in 1947, the structure had been abandoned years earlier and the roof of the main building had fallen down. But the price was right, so Yocum bought it. He spent eight months of his off-hours on demolition (排除), pulling rubbish out through the roof, because it was too dangerous to go inside the building. The demolition was hard work, but it gave him time to think about what he wanted to do, and “to treasure what was there — the walls, the rust, and the light.” Yocum said. “Every season, more paint falls off the walls and more rust develops. It’s like an art installation (装置) in there—a slow-motion show.”
Since the back building had been constructed without windows, an all-glass front was added to the building to give it a view of the courtyard, and skylights were installed in the roof. The back of the building is a working area and a living room for Yocum and his wife. A sort of buffer(缓冲） zone between the front and the back contains a bathroom, a kitchen and a mechanical room, and the walls that separate these zones have openings that allow views through to the front of the studio and the courtyard beyond.
Yocum and Bell, who have just completed an art gallery for the city, feel that the experience from the decoration of their building, focusing on the inside rather than the outside, has influenced their work. It has also given these architects a chance to show how they can make more out of less.
1. According to the passage, it is ________ for most young architects in big cities to work in a building of their own.| A．easy | B．unnecessary |
| C．unrealistic | D．common |
| A．it was a bargain to him |
| B．it was still in good condition |
| C．it was located in the city center |
| D．it looked attractive from the outside |
| A．pulled rubbish out through the roof |
| B．removed the skylights from the bathroom |
| C．presented a slow-motion show in an art gallery |
| D．built a kitchen at the back part of the old building |
| A．benefited a lot from pulling down the roof |
| B．turned more old buildings into art galleries |
| C．got inspiration from decorating their old building |
| D．paid more attention to the outside of the art gallery |
| A．people can learn a lot from their failures |
| B．it is worthwhile to spend money on an old building |
| C．people should not judge things by their appearance |
| D．creative people can make the best of what they have |
My teacher Peter Bullock proved that science wasn’t boring and made physics great fun. In every lesson he would produce one of those worksheets in purple ink that smelled fresh from the machine. Every sheet contained a poem or a joke and we looked forward to them being handed out. I’ve kept them all to show to my own children. There was one poem in particular that’s stayed in my memory, which went:
In early days Man measured Time
By sunrise and sunset sublime;
As well as being able to turn physics into poetry, Peter had energy and passion and conveyed the sense that science was part of the world around you and not a dull boring academic discipline. I’m sure he was sticking pretty much to the standard topics—waves and electricity and so on—but he managed to convert everything into a joke or a story and did so in a clever and imaginative way.
Peter Bullock was not only an exciting teacher, but also the man who founded the debate club in my school. He encouraged me to take part and express myself in a forceful way that I’ve been doing ever since—and getting paid for it. That made me what I am today—a commercial lawyer.
Peter Bullock taught me throughout my secondary schooling and I took physics, chemistry and maths at A-level. Everyone in his class enjoyed learning. He was inspiring. He turned me on to the idea that the things you are interested in might seem dull on the surface, but you can still excite others. For example, when I tell people I’m interested in law, they may think: “How boring.” I guess being a physics teacher is much the same. Peter showed me that what matters is how you convey your own passion so that you excite other people.
1. Why did the students expect to get the worksheets in Peter’s class? (no more than 10 words)2. What is the meaning of the underlined word in Para. 2? (1 word)
3. What does Para. 3 mainly tell us? (no more than 15 words)
4. How did Peter make his students interested in the things that seem dull? (no more than 10 words)
5. What do you think is the most important quality of a good teacher? Please explain. (no more than 20 words)
