1 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. What will Adam do in the next two months?

A．Perform some shows.

B．Write a new book.

C．Share stories with fans.

2. What does Adam say about Ramble Book?

A．It tells stories in the 1990s.

B．It is mainly in a funny style.

C．It becomes a best-seller in 2021.

3. When was The Adam and Joe Show played on TV?

A．From 1991 to 1994.

B．From 1994 to 1996.

C．From 1996 to 2001.

4. Where did Adam meet Joe Cornish?

A．At Paris College.

B．At Oxford University.

C．At Westminster School.

2 . If you’ve ever needed an excuse to bury yourself in a really good book, now is the time, 2021 is filled with page-turners, must-reads and novels with beautiful sentences. That’s why we’ve rounded up our favorite stories of the new year. If it’s out now, get your copy; if not, get ready to pre-order.

Outlawed

Price: $26. 00, $18. 18 (30%off)

Welcome to the new feminist (女权主义) world. Anna North’s western novel follows Ada, a 17-year-old who has to run away from her town after she’s unable to get pregnant (怀孕) a year into marriage. It features everything you have ever wanted in a read: strange cowgirls, a group of feminist outlaws and more.

The Push

Price: $26. 00, $16. 16 (38%off)

Nothing like a psychological thriller to kick off a new year that is hopefully not as psychologically disturbing as last year. In Aslhley Audrain’s fiction, a new mother begins to doubt not all is right with her baby.

The Wife Upstairs

Price: $27. 99, $19. 09 (32%off)

This modern adaptation of Jane Eyre trades in Gothic mystery for southern secrecy. In Rachel Hawkins’ latest page turner, expect the romance you love in the original tale with all the modern features.

Aftershocks

Price: $26. 00, $16. 86 (35% off)

This one is actually not a fiction book, but we couldn’t not include—it’s that good. Nadia Owusu’s powerful memoir (回忆录) tells her childhood and perhaps an even more meaningful journey, the one to self-discovery.

1. Which of the following books is the cheapest after the discount?

A．Aftershocks.	B．Outlawed.
C．The Push.	D．The Wife Upstairs.

2. Who is the writer of The Wife Upstairs?

A．Nadia Owusu.	B．Rachel Hawkins.
C．Anna North.	D．Ashley Audrain.

3. What is special about Aftershocks?

A．It is adapted from Jane Eyre.

B．It is a thriller about a mother and her baby.

C．It is a western novel about a feminist.

D．It tells a writer’s self-discovery journey.

3 . 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.

4 . Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden is a fantastic novel that is about seven teenagers who go on a hike for a week to a remote wilderness called Hell. When the group return home,they discover that their country has been invaded. Their families have been taken prisoner and their town is in a mess. After a series of terrifying adventures, they move back to Hell for safety reasons. While there, the group work out their choices. They decide that they will make their base in Hell but that they will not just hide. They will try to do something for their country and fight against the enemy.

The story is told from the point of view of Ellie, one of the teenagers. She has been chosen by the group as the one who should record what has happened. Ellie’s description of the story shows how seven normal teenagers can change from being innocent high school students to courageous heroes fighting for their country. Desperate and extraordinary events are described one minute and normal teenage worries and emotions the next. For example, Ellie is thinking about happy things at the same time as she is concerned about whether her parents are alive and working out ways to survive.

The main characters are Ellie, Lee, Fi, Corrie, Kevin, Robyn and Homer, and a boy named Chris who they find in hiding later on in their adventures. At the end of the book,great changes occur. The teenage characters have all grown in each other’s eyes and learned a great deal about war, about life and death, and about themselves.

Tomorrow, When the War Began is a realistic story with nervousness, excitement and fear. I found it “spellbinding” — in fact, I can’t wait to read it in one day. I think it’s worth reading for everyone.

1. What happens during the teenagers’ first stay in Hell?

A．Their country is at war.	B．They get separated.
C．They find prisoners there.	D．Their nation gives up their land.

2. What do we know about the novel from the text?

A．It is highly praised by critics.	B．It is written in the first person.
C．It features the struggle of teenagers at school.	D．It encourages people to get on with each other.

3. Which aspect of the novel does paragraph 3 center on?

A．The plot.

B．The setting.

C．The ending.

D．The characters.

4. What does the underlined word “spellbinding” in the last paragraph probably mean?

A．Realistic.

B．Ridiculous.

C．Interesting.

D．Historical.

5 . This Mother’s Day we asked a handful of children’s book experts and writers which stories and characters come to mind when they think about motherhood.

Runaway Bunny

by Margaret Wise Brown

Since it was first published in 1942, Brown’s Runaway Bunny has never gone out of print. It is pretty much a work of genius! Brown opened the door for parents to feel like they’re reading a story about love and caring about their children while the children are exploring their own individual identity and how close they are or separated they are from the adults in their lives.

Brown Angels: An Album of Pictures and Verse

by Walter Dean Myers

It is a collection of photographs Myers collected over the years. Myers writes, “Seeing their faces scrubbed and beaming and them dressed in their Sunday best makes me think about the hardworking parents and grandparents who have taken time to take care of their children.”

Mommy’s Hometown

by Hope Lim

This story is about a boy and his mother’s trip to her childhood home in Korea. The boy discovers the town is not how he imagined it would be. Mommy’s Hometown starts from the specific lens (镜头) of Korean culture, but has the universal feature of memory and perception.

Happy Dreams, Little Bunny

written and illustrated by Leah Hong

Happy Dreams, Little Bunny is ”a next-generation Runaway Bunny.“ Through a gentle dialogue, it guides us to find peace in our imagination and to grow in autonomy and independence.

1. Which statement of Runaway Bunny is NOT correct?

A．It has been published for 80 years.

B．It is appreciated widely.

C．It will separate adults and children.

D．It can help kids to find their individuality.

2. Whose book is the best choice for a photograph fan?

A．Margaret Wise Brown.	B．Walter Dean Myers.
C．Leah Hong.	D．Hope Lim.

3. What do these books have in common?

A．They all have no pictures.

B．They are all about Korean culture.

C．They all have gentle dialogues.

D．They are all suitable for moms and kids.

6 . Pick Up Something You Can’t Put Down

	How to Help Yourself to Be Who You Want to Be —A Simple Guide for Those Who Are Ready to Take Charge of and Redirect Their Lives. By Pam Grewall This self-improvement book offers a simple handbook to help readers recognize their strengths and weaknesses and to understand how to take control of their own destiny. www. iuniverse. com Publication Date: 10/13/2020 Page Count: 172 Hardback │ Paperback │ E-book │ Audio $23.99 │   $13.99   │ $3.99   │ $9.99
	Johnny Catching Fire By Aaron Allen God gave Johnny the strength of Samson. Now he must decide whether lo use his power for good or to get even with those who bullied him. www. xlibris. com Publication Date: 10/29/2020 Page Count:56 Hardback │ Paperback │ E-book $22.99 │   $16.99   │ $3.99
	Quotes from the Quiver By Dante P. Galiber, MD, FACC Inspired by time, space and human interaction, this collection offers a series of original and thought-provoking ideas and quotations（引言）designed to uplift and enlighten the readers. www. authorhouse. com Publication Date: 11/17/2019 Page Count: 80 Hardback│Paperback│E-book $43.99 │ $22.99   │ $3.99
	Ting Ting, the Girl Who Saved. China By Ryan O’Connor The book provides insight into China’s biggest holiday. It gives a sense of its culture and shows that girls are just as strong and brave as boys are. www. xlibris. com Publication Date: 1/28/2021 Page Count: 48 Hardback│Paperback│E-book $22.99│   $16.99   │ $3.99

1. What is special about How to Help Yourself to Be Who You Want to Be?

A．It has an audio version.	B．It was published in 2020.
C．It is designed for children.	D．It is a novel about self-improvement.

2. What do Johnny Catching Fire and Ting Ting, the Girl Who Saved China have in common?

A．They are both about school life.

B．They both have 48 pages in total.

C．They are both about Chinese culture.

D．They are available on the same website.

3. Which book is suitable for those who want to lift their spirits?

A．Johnny Catching Fire

B．Quotes from the Quiver

C．Ting Ting, the Girl Who Saved China

D．How to Help Yourself to Be Who You Want to Be

7 . 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.

8 . 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.

9 . “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

10 . 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.