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．

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.

4 . America’s youth is turning its back on tobacco. According to a study recently published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cigarette smoking among US high school students is at an all-time low. One in 5 US high school students in 2016 reported using a tobacco product within the past 30 days, an improvement from 1 in 4 students just one year before.

“These findings show the importance of continuing to implement the evidence-based strategies that we now work to reduce all forms of tobacco product use, including e-cigarettes, among our nation’s youth,” says Brian King, of the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health and senior author of the study.

And it’s not just tobacco: Drug use among US teens is down across the board. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has published annual reports on US teens’ drug use since 1996, and the 2016 survey shows the lowest rates of illegal drug and alcohol use. Marijuana (大麻) use remained “mostly steady”. “It is encouraging to see more young people making healthy choices not to use illegal substances,” says former National Drug Control Policy Director Michael Botticelli.

All individual forms of tobacco such as cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cigars, and smoke-less tobacco saw declines in usage in 2016. Experts are especially encouraged by the decline in cigarettes, the most popular tobacco product among teens. In 2016, 11.3 percent of high school students reported using e-cigarettes, down from 16 percent in 2015.

Dr. King says adaptation is key to the decline of e-cigarettes. “We have over a half-century of science telling students about the harmful effects of tobacco use and what works best to prevent it,” says King. “E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product among our nation’s youth, and it’s critical that our proven strategies are modernized to keep pace with the changing tobacco product landscape.”

1. What does the underlined word “implement” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A．Delay.

B．Perform.

C．Schedule.

D．Control.

2. What does Paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A．US teens’ drug use has decreased.

B．There are many forms of tobacco.

C．E-cigarettes are popular among US teens.

D．The strategies are put forward by experts.

3. What may be the experts’ attitude towards future declines in cigarette use?

A．Disapproving.

B．Suspicious.

C．Favorable.

D．Ambiguous.

4. What would be the best title of the text?

A．US teen tobacco use declines.	B．High percent of teen tobacco use.
C．The harmful effects of tobacco use.	D．The strategies to reduce tabasco use.

5 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. What was Prof. Stone’s grandfather afraid of?

A．Leaving his home.

B．Parting from his son.

C．Taking early retirement.

2. What does old age mean to many elderly Americans?

A．Lack of moral support.

B．Loss of self-worth.

C．Change of living habits.

3. What will Prof. Stone talk about next concerning elderly people?

A．Public services they ask for.

B．Health care available to them.

C．Contributions they can make.

7 . 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

8 . 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.

9 . Everywhere I look, there are new buildings under construction. The neighborhoods that I knew as a boy, filled with beautiful old buildings, have mostly disappeared, and in their place, modern, high-rise buildings have appeared. There is good reason for this. Residents want all the conveniences of modern living. However, how can our children understand and maintain their cultural identity if we erase so much of the physical evidence of it?

The arguments for preserving historic buildings are not simply about an emotional attachment to the past. There are also good economic arguments in favour of preservation. The renovation (修缮) and preservation of historic districts can become an economic engine, drawing tourists and small businesses to the area. For example, in Dubai, the historic Al Bastikiya district draws thousands of tourists every year from all over the world. It also attracts local residents, eager to learn about their city's past.

Some have argued that historic preservation is too expensive, but many recent projects have demonstrated that this is not necessarily the case. In fact, renovation of an existing structure for adaptive reuse can cost about £40 per square metre less than even the most basic new construction, while preserving the beauty of the original building. And, although it is often claimed that old buildings have a more significant environmental footprint than new construction because they aren’t very energy efficient, architects and environmental experts maintain that the greenest building is the one that is already built. New construction almost always has a more serious environmental impact (影响) because it requires the use of all-new materials that must be transported, often over long distances, instead of recycled materials that are already on site. We recycle so many other things. We can and should recycle buildings, too.

Historic preservation is an option that opens many possibilities; demolition (拆毁), in contrast, is irreversible. Once these treasures are lost, they are lost forever, an important link in our heritage that can never be recovered.

1. What drives people to replace old buildings with new ones?

A．Their dislike of old buildings.	B．Their pride in cultural identity.
C．Their concern about young generations.	D．Their desire for modern comforts.

2. What does the example of Al Bastikiya show?

A．Historic renovation costs much money.

B．Local governments support small businesses.

C．Historic preservation brings economic benefits.

D．International tourism promises economic recovery.

3. What can be inferred about renovating old buildings from paragraph 3?

A．It uses green materials.	B．It damages architectural beauty.
C．It reduces enviromental impact.	D．It worries environmental experts.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards historic preservation?

A．Positive.

B．Doubtful.

C．Disapproving.

D．Objective.

10 . 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.