1 . When Amelia thinks about her freshman year two years ago, she remembers being tardy to her 8 a.m. first period class from time to time. “It was so hard to wake up in the morning,” she said. “I had to bike to school and I lived on the other side of the island.”
Like other teens, mornings area struggle because she had several hours of homework and extracurricular activities the night before, but research shows that’s not the entire story. According to psychotherapists, Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright in their book Generation Sleepless, today's teens are sleepier than ever and earlier school start time is disturbing their body's circadian (昼夜节律的) rhythm.
“One of the things that happens somewhere around age 12 is that their brain clock becomes set to a later pace,” said Turgeon, which put sateen about two hours behind the sleep schedule of a young child or an adult. “That means they want to go to sleep later and they want to wake up later,” she said.
“We consider adequate sleep —the very lowest amount—to be about eight hours,” said Wright. However, the average sleep time for high school students is usually about 6.5 hours. And missing out on just a couple hours of rest each night has negative consequences for developing teenage brains.
When a teen is tired, the amygdala—which is the part of the brain that responds to danger—will become more active. And the parts of the brain that are in charge of judgment become less active. Sleep issues are commonly associated with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder (双相情感障碍) and ADHD (多动症). “We see teens with very serious mental health issues and accidents and soon things that parents really worry about—and getting enough sleep addresses those issues.”
Even with research showing that letting students sleep well contributes to better academic performance, lower truancy (旷课) rates and improved mental health, there has been pushback from parents and school districts about delaying the start of the school day.
1. What does the underlined word “tardy” probably m can in paragraph 1?| A．Late. | B．Busy. | C．Tired. | D．Excited. |
| A．They feel more tired than ever | B．They sleep later and wakeup later. |
| C．They have about 6.5 hours of sleep | D．They sleep about two hours later than adults. |
| A．The teens are always feeling tired |
| B．The amygdala becomes more active. |
| C．The lack of sleep causes many problems. |
| D．The teenagers have trouble sleeping |
| A．Favorable | B．Doubtful | C．Ambiguous. | D．Disapproving |
2 . Chinese people may not be that familiar with sports tourism, but it is one of the fastest growing parts of tourism, because an increasing number of people are expressing their curiosity in sports events during their trips even if sports are not the key reason of their travel.
Sports tourism refers to tourism involving participation in or watching sports events and staying in an environment different from the usual tourist hotels or resorts.
Rural tourism, one kind of sports tourism, which consists of fishing, hiking, horse riding and other outdoor activities, is expanding quickly. This form of tourism has been attracting many tourists.
Sports tourism is a booming industry today, with an annual growth rate of about 15 percent globally.
| A．It plays a vital role in rural construction. |
| B．People are paying more attention to safety in travel. |
| C．But sports tourism is still an emerging area in China. |
| D．However, this area has long drawn people’s attention in China. |
| E．The origin of sports tourism can be traced back to Ancient Greece. |
| F．In China, however, the growth rate is 30 — 40 percent despite a slow start. |
| G．Marathons, hiking, cycling and camping fall in the area of sports tourism. |
3 . On Wednesday, two things happened. In Syria, 80 people were killed by government airstrikes. Meanwhile, in Florida, Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully launched and fired a sports car into space. Guess which story has dominated mainstream news sites?
The launch of Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful ever launched by a private company, went off successfully. Musk sent his cherry-red Tesla roadster running toward Mars, launching “a new space age”. The event attracted phenomenal publicity and made the rocket launch a masterstroke of advertising for Tesla.
Meanwhile, in Syria, where hundreds of thousands of refugees(难民) may be forced to return to unsafe homes, a UN human rights coordinator for Syria said despondently(沮丧地) that he was no longer sure why he bothers to videotape the effects of bombing, since nobody ever pays attention. He wondered what level of violence it would take to make the world care.
There is, perhaps, no better way to appreciate the tragedy of 21st-century global inequality than by watching a billionaire spend $90m launching a $100,000 car into space.
Musk said he wanted to participate in a space race because “races are exciting” and that while strapping his car to a rocket may be “silly and fun … silly and fun things are important”. Thus, anyone who mentions the huge waste the project involves, or the various social uses to which these resources could be put, can be dismissed as a killjoy.
But one doesn’t have to hate fun to question the justification for pursuing a costly new space race at exactly this moment. If we examine the situation honestly, it becomes hard to defend a project like this.
A mission to Mars does indeed sound exciting, but it’s important to have our priorities straight. First, perhaps we could make it so that a child no longer dies of malaria every two minutes. Or we could try to address the level of poverty in Alabama which has become so extreme that the UN investigator did not believe it could occur in a first-world country. Perhaps when violence, poverty and disease are solved, then we can head for the stars.
Many might think that what Elon Musk chooses to do with his billions is Elon Musk’s business alone. If he wanted to spend all his money on medicine for children, that would be nice, but if he’d like to spend it making big explosions and sending his convertible on a million-mile space voyage, that’s his right.
But Musk is only rich enough to afford these money-consuming projects because we have allowed social inequalities to arise in the first place. If wealth were actually distributed fairly in this country, nobody would be in a position to fund his own private space program.
Elon Musk is right: silly and fun things are important. But some of them are an indefensible waste of resources. While there are still humanitarian crises such as that in Syria, nobody can justify vast spending on rocketry experiments.
1. Why does the writer mention the two pieces of news at the beginning of the passage?| A．To illustrate the inequality of wealth distribution and the consequent inequality of attention distribution. |
| B．To highlight the significance of SpaceX’s successful launch of a rocket and a car into space. |
| C．To appeal to the government for more attention to the air strikes and refugee crisis in Syria. |
| D．To find out which news dominated the mainstream news sites. |
| A．Because nobody appreciated his work and all the efforts he made. |
| B．Because the violence in Syria is not serious enough to make the world care. |
| C．Because however hard he tried, nobody seemed to care about the situation in Syria. |
| D．Because he had great difficulty videotaping the effects of bombing. |
| A．The space project of SpaceX cost the government too much money. |
| B．It kills the fun to question the justification of the pursuit of space programs. |
| C．Space programs are a waste of money that cannot be justified. |
| D．Addressing problems of violence, poverty and diseases should be our top priority. |
| A．We should pay equal attention to space projects and solving social problems. |
| B．No private companies should be allowed to spend money in rocketry experiments. |
| C．The money and resources used in space projects could have been used to deal with various social problems. |
| D．Elon Musk should be blamed for misleading the public. |
4 . There’s an organization in England called Playing Out that is trying to send more children outdoors to play. In an ideal world, a child can step outside and enjoy whatever environment he or she encounters. However, many only encounter car-filled streets. Playing Out wants this to change, and its directors invited environmental writer and activist George Monbiot to have a public conversation about how to cope with such a challenge. What follows are some thoughts on the highlights of the conversation.
First, we mustn’t underestimate the positive influence of community on a child’s wellbeing. It’s an essential human need to feel a sense of belonging in a physical space. Monbiot says he gets this sense from his garden, where being in an outdoor physical location connects him with people from all over the community, who are sharing that space.
The greatest threat to modern children’s outdoor play is the presence of cars. Monbiot describes neighborhoods where there’s minimal traffic. The lines linking houses are closely connected. Compare that to neighborhoods where busy streets bisect (平分) neighborhoods and there’s hardly any interaction between households. The busy traffic literally cuts through the threads (主线), and destroys the society’s fabric (结构).
This is unfair because children have the right to use land and space as well. But their opinions are ignored when land is being developed. According to Monbiot, children should be allowed to weigh in on how they want neighborhoods to look. He said, “Children have fantastically creative solutions to problems adults can’t solve.”
Whether it’s streets, parks, rivers, or public squares, children need to get out there and fill those spaces with their games, voices and laughter. Not only will it make them healthier, but it’ll teach them to be better citizens, knowing how to interact with others and the natural world.
1. What does the underlined word “this” in Paragraph 1 refer to?| A．The challenge of cutting back on vehicles. | B．Children’s unwillingness to play outside. |
| C．The possible benefit of outdoor activities. | D．Loss of space for children’s outdoor play. |
| A．By giving the result of his research. | B．By delivering a public speech online. |
| C．By describing his personal experience. | D．By explaining the sense of belonging. |
| A．It exposes them to deadly dangers. | B．It threatens their interpersonal connections. |
| C．It reduces their access to green spaces. | D．It increases their knowledge of traffic safety. |
| A．Vehicles should be reduced to improve people’s lives. |
| B．Vehicles are to blame for children’s worsening lives. |
| C．Children should be allowed to encounter challenges. |
| D．Children’s voices should be heard in community planning. |
5 . Although problems are a part of our lives, it certainly doesn't mean that we let them rule our lives forever. One day or another, you'll have to stand up and say—problems, I don't want you in my life.
But good news is that all problems can be dealt with. Now read on to know how to solve your problems.
Talk, it really helps. What most of us think is that our problem can be understood only by us and that no talking is going to help.
Write your problems.
Don't lose faith and hope. No matter what you lose in life, don't lose faith and hope. Even if you lose all your money, family…you should still have faith.
Your problems aren't the worst. No matter what problem you get in life, there are another one million people whose problems are huger than yours.
Go about and solve your problems because every problem, however big or small, always has a way out.
| A．Of course, we've been fighting troubles ever since we were born. |
| B．When we have a problem, a pressing, critical, urgent, life-threatening problem, how do we try and solve it？ |
| C．Having a personal diary can also be of huge help if you don't want a real person to talk with. |
| D．But the truth is that when you talk about it, you're setting free the negative energies that have been gathering within you. |
| E．We can often overcome the problem and achieve the goal by making a direct attack. |
| F．Tell yourself：when they can deal with them, why can't I？ |
| G．With faith and hope, you can rebuild everything that you lose. |
1. 微信的益处（如：增进感情；方便生活；…）
2. 微信的弊端（如：浪费时间；微信诈骗；…）
3. 你的看法
相关词汇：微信WeChat
注意：1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯
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7 . Royal Dutch Shell is launching a $ 300 million and forestry program, at a time when an increasing number of oil companies are putting money in carbon offset (碳补偿)plans to meet climate goals. The company will spend the money over the next three years on projects to store carbon, including large forests in the Netherlands and Spain, and will start offering motorists the option of purchasing carbon offsets when they buy petrol at the pump.
The executives of the company explained that these carbon offset projects were a new business opportunity for Shell, as well as a way to meet its climate targets. “We believe that over time we will be building a business, because these carbon credits will become more valuable as carbon becomes more limited," they said. Shell recently decided to cut its net carbon footprint (碳排放)by 2-3 percent in five years, which includes emissions (排放)from the products it sells. The company plans to produce carbon credits from the forestry projects, then sell these credits on to customers buying its oil and gas products, or apply the credits to its own operations to lower its carbon footprint.
Plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and restoring forests and other natural areas is considered one of the simplest ways to store carbon. However, the voluntary market for carbon credits based on forestry projects has its critics, as projects in developing countries can be hard to monitor. Shell's move has also been criticized by some environmentalists. They worried that there was a risk of " greenwash when companies invested in forestry projects. "There is an entire debate about whether forestry projects truly reduce emissions or not," they said, pointing out that planting in one area could cause deforestation (滥伐森林)to another.
Shell said it would rely on the third party to ensure its forest program to meet the Voluntary Carbon Standard and strict biodiversity requirements. Mark Lewis, head of climate change investment research at BNP Paribas, said, " Planting trees to offset emissions, as far as it goes, is a step in the right direction."
1. What is popular among oil companies these days?| A．Studying climate changes. |
| B．Launching forestry programs. |
| C．Working out carbon offset plans. |
| D．Attracting motorists to buy their petrol. |
| A．By quitting the emissions of its products. |
| B．By reducing its carbon footprint by a quarter. |
| C．By limiting the oil used by its own operations. |
| D．By putting carbon credits it produces on the market. |
| A．The projects can't really stop carbon emissions. |
| B．The projects are hard to monitor in poor countries. |
| C．The projects may lead to deforestation in other forests. |
| D．The projects haven't met strict biodiversity requirements. |
| A．Discount. | B．Cheat. |
| C．Decline. | D．Change. |
8 . The decade of the “young old” begins
The year 2020 will mark the beginning of the decade of the yold, or the “young old”，
| A．The yold are also better off |
| B．In short, the yold are not just any group of old people |
| C．The yold are both young and old |
| D．as the Japanese call people aged between 65 and 75 |
| E．Health worsens with age, but the yold are resisting the decline better than most |
| F．The yold are busier, too |
| G．The yold can’t resist aging |
9 . Moscow city authorities have begun using comics（漫画） with characters from Russian fairy tales to explain to migrants（移民） how they should behave. They say a 100-page guide is needed to "keep a positive image" of the city and could help reduce "tensions" between natives and migrants. But critics have pointed out that foreign migrants and natives may be regarded as antagonists in the manual(手册).
Russians and migrants have repeatedly flooded in Moscow recently. Many migrants from ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia, the Caucasus（高加索） and North Caucasus, arrive in Moscow every year, attracted by the capital’s job opportunities and relatively high salaries. A significant number of them work in the Russian capital illegally.
The new guide in Russian seeks to explain the "dos" and "don’ts" to migrants. They are urged not to cause trouble, by staring at women, or eating or talking loudly on the streets. They are also warned that the police may routinely（例行公事） stop them to check their documents.
In the manual, Russia’s famous "three warriors" are meant to represent the city’s law enforcement agencies（执法机关）, while Prince Yuri Dolgoruky (a historical character) is used for tours around Moscow. Meanwhile, Vasilisa the Wise and The Snow Maiden test the reader on Russia’s language and history. A special section of the book explains the importance of following Moscow’s strict residency and employment rules, stressing that migrants could otherwise be deported(驱逐出境) or banned from entry.
The manual was written primarily for illegal migrants, Alexander Kalinin, who heads the group Support for Working Migrants in Moscow, told BBC Russian.
"We want to raise their level of law awareness," he added.
Migrant characters had initially(最初) been identified as representatives of different nationalities, but the book’s authors later decided to drop this idea so as "not to offend anyone", said Mr. Kalinin.
"The old conflict between Russian heroes and non-Slavic invaders is being revived," Yevgeny Varshaver, a migration expert told BBC Russian. He also suggested that the language used in the book would be "difficult" to understand for some migrants who were not native Russian speakers.
1. The underlined word "antagonists" in Paragraph 1 can probably be replaced by "_____".| A．friends | B．acquaintances |
| C．cooperators | D．opponents |
| A．to find well-paid jobs | B．to have a new lifestyle |
| C．to enjoy the fine climate | D．to experience a new culture |
| A．consequences the migrants may suffer |
| B．the purpose of publishing the handbook |
| C．the measures to attract foreign migrants |
| D．characters and their functions in Russian fairytales |
| A．Ways to help foreign migrants to settle in Russia |
| B．Characters from Russian fairy tales have new jobs |
| C．More and more foreign migrants to work in Moscow |
| D．Moscow fairy tale comics to help migrants behave |
10 . In China，chain restaurants especially the big multinational ones are cool．Going to Starbucks，for example，is a status symbol．It not only says，"I'm rich enough to buy this overpriced coffee，"but also，"I'm cosmopolitan （见多识广的） enough to be part of globalization．"
Where I come from in the UK，however，chains are neither fashionable nor gourmet（美食的）．Chains are where you go on New Year's Day when nowhere else is open，or when you are 5 years old and your parents can't stand hearing，"I'm hungry!"any longer．In my own case （with regards to McDonald's），a chain is where you are taken on your first"date"．Even at the age of 13，I knew to give the guy the"let's just be friends"phone call the next day．
In the UK，independent cafes and restaurants are making a comeback on the fashion scene．Nowadays，a Londoner who says"let's meet for a coffee at Monmouth"（an independent cafe） is much cooler than one who says"let's go to Starbucks"．Even if Monmouth's coffee is a little more expensive，there's a satisfaction in knowing your pounds aren't going straight to the big corporations．
Of course，there are chain stores all over the UK；you can't go five minutes without spotting a Costa Coffee．But numbers do not add up to good taste．
I do，however，have a confession （坦白）．After moving to China I had moments when all the rice and Kung Pao Chicken became too much．I，too，have retreated to McDonald's．
1. Many Chinese people like to go to multinational chain restaurants because ______ ．| A．the restaurants give customers a taste of foreign culture |
| B．the restaurants offer different food and drinks from other restaurants |
| C．they believe that eating there will show their wealth and social status |
| D．these restaurants are perfect places for a romantic date |
| A．The author has grown tired of Chinese food． |
| B．Branches of Monmouth's cafe can be found all over the UK． |
| C．Most independent stores are closed on New Year's Day in the UK． |
| D．It is cool in the UK to take your first date to a chain restaurant． |
| A．the author doesn't like food from Pizza Hut |
| B．the author doesn't like to follow fashion trends |
| C．many Britons think that numbers mean poor quality |
| D．many Britons don't like big corporations |
