1 . A young and fearless child, Thomas Alva Edison wanted to know the inner workings of the world around him and was not afraid to dive (潜水) into the river behind his house to find answers. At five, his curiosity to understand fire ended with the family barn burned down. His dangerous curiosity and endless questions drove his father crazy. But his mother saw something else in her son.
Edison’s “turnabout” really began at age eight. He was registered at Reverend Engle’s school in 1855．The lessons were likely boring to the little boy. He daydreamed through classes.
One day, in front of Edison, Reverend Engle complained that the boy was addled and unable to be taught. Edison ran home in tears. The next day, his mother, Nancy Edison, brought him back to discuss the situation with Reverend Engle. She became angry at the teacher’s ways — Everything was forced on the kids. She said her son was much smart and that she would educate him at home. Surprisingly, this marked the end of Edison’s formal education and the beginning of the great inventor.
Mrs. Edison equipped her son with works of literature and history as well as science that fed his passion (求知). She encouraged Edison’s hands-on experiments. Young Edison applied what he learned to practice. Despite a few explosions and burns that happened at home, Mrs. Edison encouraged her son to go on in that path.
It was the model of discovery and innovation (创新) that Edison learned from his mother that would mark the rest of his creative life. Edison met challenges with his head and hands.
The light of Edison, which has lasted more than a century, might never have reached us were it not for an admirable mother who saw the promise in her son where others only saw problems.
1. What can we know about young Edison?| A．He was curious about the world around him. |
| B．His carelessness led to a fire in the classroom. |
| C．His action made his teacher quite proud. |
| D．He was forced to drop out of high school. |
| A．Nervous. | B．Frank. | C．Energetic. | D．Stupid. |
| A．She thought that her son made little progress. |
| B．She couldn’t afford the cost of private education. |
| C．She was dissatisfied with the teaching at school. |
| D．She believed that the school was to be closed. |
| A．Put homeschooling before everything. |
| B．Focus on the promise their children show. |
| C．Develop their children’s love for experiments. |
| D．Take no notice of mistakes their children made. |
Lin Qiaozhi was
When Lin Qiaozhi
Eight years later, Lin graduated from PUMC with the Wenhai scholarship, the
The new People’s Republic of China witnessed Dr. Lin Qiaozhi playing a key role. Over the next several
Though Lin never married or had children of her own, she was known
It
1. What programme is the speaker hosting?
| A．Today on History. |
| B．The American Sportsman. |
| C．ABC’s Wide World of Sports. |
| A．He’s a sportsman. | B．He’s a fisherman. | C．He’s a politician. |
| A．Fishing and hunting experiences. |
| B．Sportsmen’s successful experience. |
| C．Different sorts of sports. |
| A．To put on sports shows. |
| B．To honor Curt Gowdy’s work. |
| C．To call on people to do exercise. |
If you’re into ancient Chinese architecture, check out 73-year-old Wang Yongxian on Douyin,
内容包括：1. 活动内容 （至少两点）；2. 活动反响
注意：
1. 写作词数应为80左右；
2. 文中不得出现你所在学校的具体名称。
Learn from Great Chinese Scientists
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________6 . Every spring, seventh graders across the United States apply for the Caroline D. Bradley (CDB) Scholarship. The four-year scholarship allows students to attend the high school of their choice. Between 25 and 30 seventh graders are chosen yearly by the Institute for Educational Advancement (IEA), which manages the program. After 18 years at the Institute, Bonnie Raskin, the CDB Scholarship program director, is retiring.
“Watching kids grow up and develop is what inspires me and my workmates at the IEA,” Raskin told me during a recent interview by video.
The IEA, which is based in Pasadena, California, is a public organization. Its goal is to meet the needs of gifted students across the country. For generations of CDB Scholars, Raskin has served as an experienced advisor and role model. She, in turn, is proud of the students who are able to find a right path they truly love.
“It takes a lot of determination to try something new,” Raskin said. She sees value in starting out as “a generalist (多面手) rather than an expert”, and trying to explore the unknown world.
Before joining the IEA, Raskin was a television producer. She said that the role helped her strengthen her communication skills. “You have an opportunity to do lots of different things in your lifetime,” Raskin told me. “You can take skills from one place and apply them to another.”
Raskin is also an animal lover. In her spare time, she works with Wags and Walks, a group that helps shelter dogs find homes.
Raskin hopes that more students will apply for the CDB Scholarship, which opens doors for gifted students and helps them achieve success. For seventh graders interested in applying, the application deadline is April 10 of this year.
1. What do we know about Bonnie Raskin?| A．She is a gifted person. | B．She will stop doing her job. |
| C．She set up the CDB Scholarship. | D．She once applied for the Scholarship. |
| A．To help students with their learning problems. |
| B．To provide help for students with certain talent. |
| C．To encourage students to choose their favorite subject. |
| D．To enable poor students to complete high school education. |
| A．It inspired her to explore the unknown world. |
| B．It led her to be an expert in education. |
| C．It made her brave enough to deal with strangers. |
| D．It equipped her with better communication skills. |
| A．To introduce this year’s application rule. |
| B．To encourage students to seek success. |
| C．To stress the importance of the Scholarship. |
| D．To remind students to apply for the Scholarship. |
7 . Zong Qinghou, a soft drinks giant from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, died of an illness at the age of 79. There has been much mourning at his passing on Feb. 25, 2024 as he was well-known as the founder of a company, headquartered in his hometown in the late 1980s, which later developed into the Wahaha Group, a major soft drinks company.
He is known to the public for three things — his rags-to-riches rise, his long-term frugal (节俭的) lifestyle, and his devotion to promoting China’s national industries. Forbes ranked him, with a wealth of about $5.9 billion, No.53 among Chinese billionaires last year.
Yet besides, it is also worthwhile to think over the question about whether his success in business can be imitated today and what lessons policymakers can learn from his self-made business success as they try to enrich the soil for setting up business.
Before winning a contract (合同) to work as a salesperson of a small school-run factory selling writing materials, iced treats and soft drinks in Hangzhou in 1987, Zong worked as a traveling salesman for nearly a decade after working for 15 years on various posts in local farming communities with Grade-9 education.
His sharp business sense, which he owed to poverty instead of the genes (基因) of the Zhejiang business community, enabled him to recognize business opportunities at a time when the country had just carried out the change from a planned economy to a socialist market one.
The broad space he enjoyed as a sales representative of the factory enabled him to continuously sharpen his sales strategies and enlarge his network of business partners. That not only helped him gather the start-up funds he later used to contract the whole factory, but also influenced his later management style, which he summed up as always trying to make things simpler.
As he told the media, it is the spirit of adventure of his generation and their down-to-earth work style that deserve attention, not his lifestyle, which was a personal choice.
1. Which aspect of Zong Qinghou does Paragraph 2 focus on?| A．His habits. | B．His interest. |
| C．His lifestyle. | D．His achievements. |
| A．To tell how he won contracts. | B．To tell how different his life was. |
| C．To show the ways to run a business. | D．To show its influence on his business. |
| A．His sharp sense in business. | B．His broad space and freedom. |
| C．His long-term simple lifestyle. | D．His business community’s genes. |
| A．Modest. | B．Determined. | C．Knowledgeable. | D．Humorous. |
With Harbin’s tourism developing successfully, Jiang Kedong,
The “Rabbit Dance”, marked by cheerful side-to-side foot movements, not only spread on social media, but also became a cultural symbol of Harbin’s tourism boom. At first, Jiang’s dance video
The winter month was a whirlwind (旋风) for Jiang because he adapted
A video,
Watch the video and let’s follow Jiang Kedong on an unexpected journey
9 . John Nichols was born in 1940 in Berkeley and raised in New York. Nichols began writing stories when he was 10 years old. By the time he entered college, he was writing at least one novel a year. “Never for credit, never for a class,” he said. “It was just one of the things that I did to interest and please myself.”
When he was 24 years old, he published his eighth novel, The Sterile Cuckoo, which was about a college student. After he wrote the novel, Nichols took a trip to Guatemala, and was shocked by the poverty (贫困) there. He returned from his trip really heartbroken.
Nichols went on to create more than 20 works, most centred around his adopted home of Northern New Mexico. He is best known for The Milagro Beanfield War and The Sterile Cuckoo, both of which were adapted into films.
Nichols moved from New York to Taos, New Mexico in 1969 where he went to work at a newspaper. In 1974, he published his best-known novel, The Milagro Beanfield War, which was turned into a film by Robert Redford in 1988.
“Nichols will be remembered for his clear-eyed view of human nature,” said Bill Nevins, a professor of Literature at the University of New Mexico. “I think people continue to go back to his books... to get a sense of what it's like to live in a multi-cultural nation.”
In 1992, Nichols said he wanted to create literature with a social conscience (良知), but he also wanted to create art. “I think that we live in such a culture where anyone can act positively, even if they're only painting pictures of sunflowers,” he said. It was the beauty and the wonder of our lives that he wanted to show in his work.
1. Why did Nichols love writing?| A．For his study. | B．For credit. | C．For pleasure. | D．For his living. |
| A．Satisfied. | B．Down. | C．Positive. | D．Moved. |
| A．His unique view on human nature. | B．His work experience at a newspaper. |
| C．His focus on poverty-stricken areas. | D．His abilities to make great films. |
| A．Sunflowers can leave us energetic. | B．It's our conscience to help each other. |
| C．It's difficult to get free from hardship. | D．We should look for the positive in life. |
10 . Every parent remembers their child’s firsts: their first tooth, their first steps, their first words. Pennsylvania mum, Michelle Wallace can add another first to that list. Her daughter, Olive Wallace, only ten years old, sketched out her first musical composition in pencil. Days later, the musical piece became popular.
Olive Wallace’s grandmother is a retired Californian music teacher. Olive’s aunt also teaches music. Olive herself plays two instruments. “Olive has played the violin for 2 years at her elementary school,” says Michelle. “She also plays the clarinet and sings in her school’s choir. She loves music!”
When Olive shared with her mom the composition she’d written, Michelle shared it with the TikTok (抖音) community. “My 10-year-old daughter wrote this,” Michelle explained in a TikTok video. “Could somebody play this? I need to know if it’s any good or if it makes any sense.”
After Michelle’s video was viewed six million times, the composition had been played and shared by hundreds of TikTok musicians, including well-known professionals.
Actually Olive intended her composition as a song for the Elps, a civilization (文明) of her own creation. On her Elpjungle website, Olive writes about Elps: “For a long time, Elps had kings. King after king the Elp kingdom was led, until one king, King Whirlpool, suddenly for unknown reasons, started to go crazy. He was later overthrown and the queens took over. This song was created to show the end of the kings’ rule and the beginning of the queens. It was titled ‘For Greatness We Bring’ because shortly after the new queen was elected, a whole new kind of Elps was brought in.”
The TikTok musical world used their talents to bring her composition to life by playing the composition on many instruments. It’s clear that Olive has a bright and creative future ahead of her.
1. What can we know about Olive from paragraph 2?| A．She wants to be a teacher. | B．She comes from a musical family. |
| C．Her aunt plays two instruments. | D．Her mother is a music teacher. |
| A．To express her thanks. | B．To learn about its quality. |
| C．To show her devotion. | D．To make it gain popularity. |
| A．The reason for creating it. | B．The way to bring it to life. |
| C．The public interest in it. | D．The story behind it. |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Doubtful. | C．Positive. | D．Unclear. |
