1 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Cao Zhi, a prince of the state of Cao Wei,     1    (fall) in love with an official’s daughter. However, she married his brother, Cao Pi, and the prince became disappointed. Later, he composed an     2    (emotion) poem about the love between the goddess and mortal. In the poem, he praises the nymph (女神)     3     her beauty.

“Gazing at her from afar,

She shines like the sun     4    (rise) above the rosy mists (迷雾) of dawn;

Observing her close by,

She is as bright as a lotus emerging from clear ripples (涟漪).”

In the 4th century, Gu Kaizhi, a Chinese artist,     5    (move) by the story. He illustrated the poem and created     6     we call the Nymph of the Luo River.   Unfortunately, the original 4th painting was lost. However, artists made several copies of it,     7    (probable) during the Song dynasty. The painting is in     8     form of a long scroll (卷轴), which describes the plot in sections. Let's unfold the scroll and find out about this beautiful story.

In the beginning, Cao Zhi travels with a group of attendants and has to cross the Luo River. Here, Gu Kaizhi gives full play to his artistic     9    (imagine). Through clever composition and application of vivid colors, he describes the meeting between Cao Zhi and the nymph, Fu Fei. She flows lightly and stops when she wants to go.     10    (attract) by her charm, Cao loses his heart to Fu Fei.

2 . 语法填空

The poem Dream     1     Langston Hughes is very short with only 8 lines. When I read the poem aloud I can hear that the ends of the second and fourth sentences rhyme—“die” and “fly”. The last word from the sixth and     2    (eight) sentences also rhyme—“go” and “snow”. These     3    (rhyme) words sound nice and make the poem pleasing to read.

When I close my eyes, I can see different     4    (image) from the poem. For example, I can see two hands being held. I can see a bird flying in the sky. I can see a field and I can imagine     5     it looks like with lots of snow. I start to feel cold when I read these lines!

I learnt     6     new phrase, “hold fast”, which     7    (mean) to hold onto something. “Barren” is also a new word to me, which means empty.

I think the poet is giving us     8    (advise). He wants us to keep dreaming, because life is much     9    (good) when we dream and have something     10    (look) forward to.

3 . The Four Best Astronomy Books

This list has been updated 24 times since it was first published in 2015. Our selection includes editions specifically written to attract youngsters, some of which are for more advanced students. Each of them contains breathtaking, full-color images.

●The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide

The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide (about $30) is a great resource suitable for beginners and experts. It offers in-depth guidance on everything from picking the perfect telescope to avoiding light pollution, with tips on how best to explore the deep sky.

Features:

Over 500 bright photographs

Detailed maps of the Milky Way

●Far out: A Space-Time Chronicle

Far out: A Space-Time Chronicle (about $25) takes you on a journey through time using the concept of light speed to introduce the vastness of the universe. It’s a real page-turner, with one impressive photo after another, and will let your imagination run wild.

Features:

Making connections to human history

Written in a poetic style

Informative and thoughtful

●NightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe

This book (about $18) has sold upwards of 600,000 copies of its three previous editions. It comes with a variety of charts showing various events, such as when to expect a solar and lunar eclipse (日蚀和月蚀).

Features:

Great for those using telescopes

Helpful telescope shopping tips

●Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide

Perfect for ordinary people or those wanting to get a taste of the subject before devoting themselves to a formal class, this book (about $11) makes it easy for them to learn the main topics and basic rules of a college-level course on their own.

Features:

No math required

Self-tests to check progress

Explaining professional terms

1. What can we say about the book Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle?

A．It is funny and strange.	B．It is exciting and imaginative.
C．It is breathtaking and popular.	D．It is instructive and challenging.

2. Which book is suitable for college astronomy beginners?

A．Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle	B．The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide
C．Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide	D．NightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe

3. What do the four books have in common?

A．They all have colorful pictures.	B．They are all updated regularly.
C．They are all aimed at young kids.	D．They all focus on the solar system.

4 . “The Road Not Taken” appears as a preface to Frost’s Mountain Interval, which was published in 1916 when Europe was engulfed in World War I; the United States would enter the war a year later. Frost wrote this poem at a time when many men doubted they would ever go back to what they had left.

Actually, Robert Frost wrote “The Road Not Taken” as a joke for a friend, the poet Edward Thomas. When they went walking together. Thomas was habitually indecisive about which road they ought to take and when looking back often regretted that they should, in fact, have taken the other one. Soon after writing the poem in 1915. Frost complained to Thomas that he had read the poem to an audience of college students and that it had been “taken pretty seriously... despite doing my best to make it obvious by my manner that I was fooling. ... It is my fault.” However, Frost liked to make jokes, “I’m never more serious than when joking.”

Indeed, shortly after receiving this poem in a letter, Edward Thomas’s Army was sent to Arras, France, where he was killed two months later. When Frost sent the poem to Thomas, Thomas initially failed to realize that the poem was about him. Instead, he believed it was a serious reflection on the need for decisive action.

Frost was disappointed that the joke fell flat and wrote back insisting that the sigh at the end of the poem was “a mock sigh, hypo-critical for the fun of the thing.” The joke made Thomas angry; Thomas was hurt by this characterization of what he saw as a personal weakness — his indecisiveness, which partly sprang from his paralyzing depression. Thomas warned Frost that most readers would not understand the poem’s playfulness and wrote, “I doubt if you can get anybody to see the fun of the thing without showing them and advising them which kind of laugh they are to turn on.” Edward Thomas was right, and the critic David Orr has referred to “The Road Not Taken” as a poem that “at least in its first few decades came close to being reader-proof.”

1. What did the college students think of the poem?

A．It fooled them.	B．It deserved high praise.
C．It confused them in a manner.	D．It concerned something serious.

2. How did Edward Thomas react to the poem when receiving it?

A．He felt so hurt by it as to go to Arras.	B．He wrote back to criticize its mock sigh.
C．He doubted if anybody could see its fun.	D．He thought it relevant to the situation then.

3. What does the critic David Orr mean by saying “The Road Not Taken ... came close to being reader-proof”?

A．Readers were forbidden from reading the poem.

B．Readers didn’t know who to laugh at in the poem.

C．Readers might fail to appreciate the teasing in the poem.

D．Readers couldn’t appreciate the beauty described in the poem.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．A Poem Over-interpreted	B．Friendship revealed by a Poem
C．Fun of Rereading a Classic Poem	D．The Secret to Understanding a Poem

5 . How might you drag a good writer’s work down to a bad one? Try the spell-check button. A study at the University of Pittsburgh indicates spell-check software may shorten the gap between people with different levels of language skills, hampering (妨碍) the work of writers and editors who place too much trust in the software.

In the study, 33 undergraduate students were asked to correct a one-page business letter, half of them using Microsoft Word with red and green lines underlining potential errors. The other half did it the old-fashioned way, using only their heads. Without grammar or spelling software, students with higher SAT verbal scores made, on average, five errors, compared with 12.3 errors for students with lower scores. Using the software, students with higher verbal scores reading the same page made, on average, 16 errors, compared with 17 errors for students with lower scores.

Dennis Galletta, a professor of information systems at the Katz Business School, said spell-checking software is so sophisticated that some have come to trust it too thoroughly. “It’s not a software problem, it’s a person behavior problem,” he said. Microsoft technical specialist Tim Pash said grammar and spelling technology is meant to help writers and editors, not to solve all their problems. The study found the software helped students find and correct errors in the letter, but in some cases they also changed phrases or sentences underlined by the software as grammatically suspicious, even though they were correct.

1. On whom might spell-check software have a bad influence?

A．Authors who have age gaps.	B．People with lower language levels.
C．Writers having too much faith in it.	D．Editors seldom taking advantage of it.

2. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?

A．Using spell-check software helps reduce the mistakes.

B．Spell-check software causes students to make more mistakes.

C．There is no obvious difference after using spell-check software.

D．Spell-check software has advantages over the old-fashioned way.

3. What does the underlined word “sophisticated” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Advanced.

B．Complicated.

C．Difficult.

D．Cheap.

4. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．Spell-check restricts writers’ creativity.

B．Spell-check software can make writing worse.

C．The advantages and disadvantages of softwares.

D．The reasons for people’s abandoning spell-check software.

6 . Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler

Saint Maybe is an example of how one small mistake can result in tragedy (悲剧) for a family with lives changed forever. The true strength of the novel lies in the author’s ability to write with sincerity and understanding. I’ve read this book many times over and always find it inspirational when it comes to writing my own novels about the complexities of family life.

— Eric James

Silly Verse For Kids by Spike Milligan

This book is so tiny and thin, but I loved all these funny poems inside-and it made me want to write rhymes. After reading this, I started writing my own poetry. I like including silly poems and lyrics in my books, which is definitely down to the influence of this book. It’s a book that you would read as a kid and it would really stimulate your imagination.

— Liz Pichon

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

A book read at my father’s knee and one that inspired my imagination and shaped my writing life. My desire to fall down a rabbit hole that might take me to Wonderland surpassed (胜过) my other childhood wishes. Wonderland with its Cheshire Cat and never-ending tea parties, which were reflected in a life-long love of cats and cakes, suited me best.

— Menna van Praag

Bambi by Felix Salten

My mum read this to me before I could read, and later I read it to myself again and again. In the Suffolk countryside where I grew up, I would often spot deer in the fields. This book made me stop and study the animal tracks on the ground and made me think about the world around me in a different way, setting me on the path to being a writer.

— Polly Crosby

1. What is the advantage of Saint Maybe?

A．The content of the book.	B．The example in this novel.
C．The complexities of life.	D．The author’s writing abilities.

2. Which book would you choose if you want to read poems?

A．Saint Maybe

B．Silly Verse For Kids

C．Alice in Wonderland

D．Bambi

3. What do the four books have in common?

A．They influence the four readers greatly.	B．They are mainly recommended for kids.
C．They can stimulate readers’ imagination.	D．They allow readers to see the world differently.

7 . I never saw daffodils (水仙花) in Gaza.     1     When I was walking in the gardens, a line from Wordsworth’s poem came to mind: And then my heart with pleasure fills,/And dances with the daffodils.

My father used to say, “English is a window looking over the world.” He specialised in English Language and Literature. At home lively debates would erupt about literature or philosophy.     2     I was born into a refugee (难民) family as my father and grandmother had to leave their motherland for Kuwait because of war decades ago. When I was 13, my family travelled to Gaza but we had to stay there as a war broke out in Kuwait. I became a refugee for the second time. However, my parents were determined that my education was of the greatest importance.     3    

In the following years, I studied hard and finally worked as a research fellow to investigate the impact of conflict on health in the Middle East and North Africa. During this time, I attended an artistic workshop, which offered the skills to share my research findings through artistic media like poetry.     4     I didn’t find it difficult to write — I’d be walking along, and the lines just seemed to flow out of me.

Recently, a poem inspired by my research will be featured in the Creative Encounters exhibition, which forms part of the Cambridge Festival.     5     They bring a lightness and beauty, and within this lightness and beauty lies hope.

A．In this way, I rediscovered my love of poetry.

B．I specifically focused on the health of people in Gaza.

C．So they enrolled at the English Department of a top University in Gaza.

D．Despite the happy atmosphere in our home, a shadow lay across our lives.

E．They knew from experience that even if everything was lost education remained.

F．It was only when I came to University of Cambridge that I saw them for the first time.

G．While my research can’t express Gazans’ sufferings, my words can be a voice for them.

8 . 阅读下面材料, 在空白处填入适当的内容 (一个单词)或括号内单词的正确形式.

A Journey to the Center of the Earth is an 1864 science fiction novel by rules verge. The scientific knowledge in the book is old, but this has nothing to do with the     1     (popular) of the book.

There are three main     2     (character) in the book: axes, the narrator of the story; his uncle, Professor Lidenbrock, the scientist of geology, and Hans, their     3     (faith) Iceland guide.

The Professor was     4     impatient person, but he insisted on continuing the journey, and finally     5     (manage) it. Hans was silent and incredibly calm. As long as the Professor was hiring him and paid his wage     6     (regular), he could do anything for him, despite the seemingly hopeless situation. His faith, courage and excellent skills saved the other two companions for several times.

One day, the Professor found a book,     7     described the way down to the center of the Earth. He and his companions got equipped immediately,     8     (start) their adventurous journey. What was waiting for them? Well, we can only figure this out by reading the book.

The book is a short one. Some words in it may be difficult     9     (understand). But don't worry! Not knowing these words will not stop us understanding the plot. And the rest are easy. Therefore, it should be a suitable book     10     high school students and the fans of science fiction.

9 . Could J. K. Rowling please leave Harry Potter in peace? 2010 was a good time to move on. We all know that Harry Potter’s last adventures hit the bookstore in 2007, and three years later the Warner Bros adaptations ran their course in cinema, too. For many fans, the young wizard had worked his magic through most of their childhood. But in 2018, a new Harry Potter extended universe film, Fantastic Beasts: The Crime of Grindelwald, was out.

I love Harry Potter series and I always will. It’s all there in my memory: I remember the first delight at reading “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal”. The wizarding treasure hunt, thrown by my parents for my ninth birthday with my dad dressed as Hagrid in the garden, was so clear in my mind. I remember deciphering (破译) my copy of the Deathly Hallows, the first book I read in English, and having to check the French for “wand”. The 2001 trip to the cinema to see Philosopher’s Stone, and all the ones that followed are kept clearly.

However, someone needs to call a halt to the endless afterlife of Potter’s fictional universe. It was enough in the seven books and eight films. We didn’t and don’t need a community website, a theatre play, the printed script of said movie, and even more movies.

Rowling has created 21^st-century modern literary classic. I always look up to her as the textbook classy writer: respectfully drawing attention from readers, successful but wise enough to withdraw. She also cares much about the causes she holds dear. In 2011 alone, she donated 16% of her net worth to charities. Of all contemporary authors who hit gold, Rowling remains one of the very most inspirational.

The saddest thing is that Rowling helped with the writing of the Cursed Child. She regularly “revealed” new details about Potter’s magical world on Twitter. Today, I decided to give up: I don’t follow Rowling on Twitter. I don’t want to see the new film. Thank you, Joanne Kathleen Rowling. I have enough valued stories—I don’t need new ones any more.

1. The last book of Harry Potter series was published in ______ .

A．2007

B．2010

C．2011

D．2017

2. We can learn from Paragraph 2 that the author ______ .

A．felt rather easy to understand Harry Potter series

B．was quiet fond of Harry Potter series and its films

C．read Harry Potter series with the help of his parents

D．missed the time of watching Harry Potter movies with his parents

3. What does the underlined phrase “call a halt to” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Share.

B．Appreciate.

C．Stop.

D．Change.

4. What does Paragraph 4 mainly talk about?

A．The talent J. K. Rowling has.

B．The author’s praise for J. K. Rowling.

C．The influence of J. K. Rowling’s works.

D．The author’s expectations of J. K. Rowling.

10 . Four Best Books in 2021

Now I will recommend four best books to you.

Eyes That Kiss in the Corners

by Joanna Ho

This wonderful picture book tells a story about learning to love and celebrate your Asianshaped eyes. A young Asian girl notices that her eyes look different from her friends’. They have big, round eyes. They have eyes that are filled with stories of the past and hope for the future. This book will resonate with readers about 5 years old.

Hardcover: $19.8

Second-hand: $10

Amari and the Night Brothers

by B. B. Alston

Amari Peters has never stopped believing her missing brother, Quinton, is alive. When she finds a ticking briefcase in his closet, she’s certain that a secret organization holds the key to locating Quinton. In order to find him, now she must know about magic. This book will attract teens aged about 18 years old.

Hardcover: $21.7

Second-hand: $9

Dog Man

by Dav Pilkey

The world is losing out of control as new villains flood into town. Everything seems dark and full of disappointment. But hope is not lost. Can the incredible power of love save the day? Dog Man series explores love, kindness and the importance of doing good. Readers about 5 years old will like to read it.

Hardcover: $33.1

Second-hand: $13

Starfish

by Lisa Fipps

Ever since Ellie wore a whale swimsuit and made a big splash at her fifth birthday party, she’s been teased for her weight, she tries to live by the Fat Girl Rules — like “no making waves” “avoid eating in public” and “don’t move so fast”. And she’s found her safe space — her swimming pool — where she feels weightless in a fat-obsessed world. It suits readers about 5 years old.

Hardcover: $35.6

Second-hand: $11

1. What is special about Amari and the Night Brothers?

A．It is intended for teenagers.	B．It teaches readers how to love.
C．It is the cheapest among the four.	D．It features colorful pictures.

2. What can readers learn by reading Dog Man?

A．The way of overcoming difficulty.	B．The necessity of losing weight.
C．The ability to train a dog.	D．The importance of doing good.

3. Which book saves you most if you buy a used one?

A．Eyes That Kiss in the Corners.	B．Amari and the Night Brothers.
C．Dog Man.	D．Starfish.