For most people, retirement is the time during which they will spend the rest of their lives at home, bored to death. But being an active individual, I ______to sit at home and live a dull life.
That is why I came to China soon after I retired in 2010 and taught ______at a high school in Xingtai, Hebei province. As Mother’s Day approached that year, I decided to hold a party for the students and their ______.
With the help of the Chinese teachers, I ______to hold a competition for the most ______and original gift that a student can create for his or her mom. To be honest, I was ______of persuading my students to inform their parents about the party. However, I was pleasantly ______that most of the parents took time off their busy schedule to come.
My plan included ______each student to stand up in front of the class and ______express his or her feeling toward his or her mother. Some of my students were ______enough to make their speeches in both English and Chinese. My shy students ______their timidity(胆怯) to stand elegantly and expressed their ______for their mothers! The mothers could not ______their tears from being overjoyed by the tender(温柔的)words of their children.
I felt extremely proud of my students. I was again surprised ______I asked the students to present their handmade ______to their mothers. I was deeply moved by their ______. At the end of the ______most parents expressed their gratitude(感激)to all of us.
That night strengthened my attitude toward life and ______. I realized that I don’t have to ______. I can share my knowledge of English with my students through ______at schools and make a positive difference in their lives. Age is not a limit.
1.A. decide B. want C. hate D. fail
2.A. history B. English C. art D. Chinese
3.A. parents B. teachers C. friends D. schoolmates
4.A. continued B. refused C. planned D. hesitated
5.A. thoughtful B. expensive C. common D. shabby
6.A. proud B. fond C. guilty D. skeptical
7.A. disappointed B. confident C. surprised D. anxious
8.A. forcing B. begging C. forbidding D. permitting
9.A. silently B. freely C. quickly D. merely
10.A. considerate B. selfless C. honest D. mild
11.A. took part in B. caught up with C. gave way to D. got rid of
12.A. forgiveness B. support C. regret D. love
13.A. hold back B. give up C. note down D. put out
14.A. if B. although C. when D. because
15.A. tools B. foods C. gifts D. clothes
16.A. generosity B. creativity C. determination D. contribution
17.A. class B. party C. conference D. feast
18.A. entertainment B. childhood C. money D. retirement
19.A. hang out B. stay home C. go abroad D. hold on
20.A. teaching B. wandering C. touring D. studying
Brush, ink, inkstone and paper are known as the Four Treasures of the Scholar’s Studio. 1.
The brush pen was used as early as the seventh or sixth century BC. The holder is usually made of bamboo. Different from the pen we use today, the tip of the brush pen is soft and big. 2.The animal hair used is extremely important to the quality of the brush, but the material for the holder is relatively less important.
The brush was used with ink, basically made from pine soot (松烟) or lampblack and glue with many other kinds of additives. 3.A writer then rubs the dry ink stick against an inkstone, a polished and often decorative piece of stone with a shallow bowl carved into one end. Water is added to the shallow bowl, while the writer moves the ink stick in a circular motion (运动) to form dark, liquid ink. 4.
Archaeological (考古学的) evidence shows paper was invented around the first century BC. People used materials such as raw hemp (生麻) and tree bark to produce paper. 5.By the third century, paper was already widely used instead of traditional writing materials such as bamboo slips and silks.
A. It is usually made of wolf, rabbit, or goat hair.
B. Brush pens were used to write and paint as well.
C. Ink is kept as a solid, dry stick until ready for use.
D. In the past, the scholar-official class used these treasures as tools of writing.
E. Since these materials were readily available, paper was inexpensive to produce.
F. So some inkstones with fine decorations can fetch really high prices on the market.
G When a desired blackness of ink is reached, the writer then uses the brush to lift the ink directly from the inkstone.
An oval-shaped (椭圆形) structure, which is believed to be 121meters across, is shown in a picture of Antarctica.
Some say the structure is evidence that human civilization once lived in the South Pole, while others say it may be a natural phenomenon.
“What if, in the distant past, an ancient civilization developed in Antarctica, creating splendid structures and temples there?” Peter Turney says in a post on Ancient Code.
The post says scientists first thought the discovery could be a sastrugi (雪面波纹)一a natural phenomenon formed by years of battering (磨损) by strong, freezing winds and heavy snowfalls. But sastrugi are not known to form in oval shapes.
This is not the first time people have suggested there was a lost civilization in Antarctica.
Ever since last year, some people have been claiming (声称) that a strange pyramid in the Antarctic has appeared.
A video posted on YouTube by Third Phase of the Moon, a YouTube channel, showed a picture of a pyramid-like structure in the snow. Responses to the picture were varied, with some users backing-up the claims, such as James Jason, who commented: “Excellent report by Third Phase!I also believe things are about to get very dramatic (戏剧性的)，and that is for everyone on our planet.”
Ashoka Tripathi from the University of Calcutta said the pictures showed clear evidence of an ancient human settlement beneath the ice sheet. “These are clearly characteristics of some sort of human-made structure, like some sort of pyramidal structure,” he said. “The patterns clearly show nothing we should expect from nature. We clearly have evidence of human engineering here,” John Emerson, his colleague, added.
But others were against it, such as Gordon Anderson, who said, “I have spent a lot of time on snow covered mountains—skiing down, and this looks natural to me—not man made anyway!”
1.What makes Peter Tumney believe in human civilization in Antarctica?
A. The ice sheet.
B. A heavy snowfall.
C. A big sastrugi.
D. An oval-shaped structure.
2.What is Third Phase of the Moon?
A. A picture.
B. A person.
C. A channel.
D. A video.
3.Who thinks the pyramidal structure is natural?
A. James Jason.
B. Ashoka Tripathi.
C. John Emerson.
D. Gordon Anderson.
4.Which of the following might be the best title for the text?
A. Antarctica, a possible land of civilization
B. South Pole, a splendid place to live in
C. Evidence of a newly-found planet
D. An excel lent post on Ancient Code
For as long as I can remember, seniors have attracted too little attention from society as a whole. For example, people may shrink physically as they get older and have a higher incidence of falls, but how many people have thought about buying a more comfortable and stable chair for their elderly parents?
We spend generously on our children, such as hiring a nanny to take care of them. When we look for a nanny for our baby, we believe that someone who charges 8,000 yuan must be better than a person who charges 5,000 yuan because they have a better grasp of how to interact with babies. But when we look for someone to take care of our elderly parents, we usually keep our budget as low as possible. We just want to ensure that caregivers will prepare three meals a day for our seniors, but we don’t take their psychological needs into consideration.
The differences in attitudes are obvious. However, we are not yet old, so perhaps it’s hard for us to understand the bitterness of the elderly: regression (衰退) in health, a handful of pills every day, not being able to catch up with developments in the digital age, and the disappearance of the old streets and favorite restaurants from the good old days. Those are the kinds of lives they live and we may even live through something similar in the decades to come.
If we think about how we want to be treated when we grow old, we should start the changes today. Because the elderly were once the backbone of society and made huge contribution they should enjoy the fruits of the county’s development as well.
1.What situation might old people face according to the text?
A. A high and stable income.
B. Physical inconvenience.
C. Much concern from the public.
D. Lack of favorite food and fruits.
2.Which of the following can replace the underlined word “nanny”in paragraph 2?
A. tutor
B. coach
C. storyteller
D. babysitter
3.Why is it difficult for us to understand the bitterness of old people?
A. Because we fail to catch up with their development.
B. Because we are sharing a similar lifestyle with them.
C. Because we are too young to experience their condition.
D. Because we have spent much money looking after them.
4.What does the writer think of the elderly?
A. They can make greater contribution.
B. They deserve the attention from society.
C. They should start to change themselves.
D. They need a handful of pills every day.
This is a big week for Maya Van Wagenen. Her very first book Popular, her 8th grade diary, hit shelves across the country. She’s in New York to appear on The Today Show, and does a million interviews that accompany the book’s publication while she says she is worried about keeping up with the lessons she is missing back at her high school in Georgia.
As a middle schooler in a Texas town, Maya once considered herself as an outsider. “I always struggled with making friends and finding confidence,” she says. “I felt bulled(欺负)and alone and it was really hard for me.” She said it was Betty Cornell’s Teen-Age Popularity Guide, a 1950s how-to book bought by her dad that greatly inspired her. She decided to follow the advice—devoting each month of her 8th grade year to different chapters like “Neat-looking” and “Be a Hostess”—and see if she could, in fact, become popular. Everyday, she’d taken notes on how people responded to her secret effort(nobody knew she was conducting this social experiment) and then she’d write detailed stories about her experience over the weekend.
After she finished the project, she sent the diary to her family. Her aunt passed it to a writer friend who in turn forwarded it to his agent. The agent wanted to sign Maya immediately. It was just the beginning: Penguin was the first publisher to bite and shortly after, Dreamworks got the movie right.
And while she’s riding the high of Popular for the time being, she has something else on her mind: her next book. Besides all that homework she has to do when she gets home, she is also writing a novel, for she has a two-book deal from Penguin.
“People always ask me, ’Why don’t you just home-school so you have time to work?’” she says. “But it’s fun in school, and I want to be a young adult writer! This is my chance to experience high school, so it’s the most important.”
1.Before she read Betty Cornell’s book, Maya felt that her school life was .
A. amazing
B. inspiring
C. difficult
D. simple
2.What is the book Teen-4ge Popularity Guide mainly about?
A. Advice for teenagers to be well-received.
B. Advice for teenagers to take notes.
C. Ways for teenagers to conduct experiments.
D. Ways for teenagers to write stories.
3.Which of the following first published Maya’s book Popular?
A. The Today Show.
B. Penguin.
C. Her aunt.
D. Dreamworks.
4.What can we infer from Maya’s words in the last paragraph?
A. Her study at high school is necessary and important.
B. More chances are available to home-schooled writers.
C. Many adult writers will come to visit her school.
D. Young writers should have teaching experience.
Some scientists win the Nobel Prize for their work. Other scientists win the “Ig Nobel” Prize, which honors real science that is so strange. “We want to make people laugh and then think,” says Ig Nobel founder Marc Abrahams. He and his colleagues pick 10 of the world’s strangest scientific studies on subjects like Physics Biology, Medicine, and so on, to honor each year. Here are two of the strangest Ig Nobel winners since the prize was founded 26 years ago:
No-blink photos, almost guaranteed.
Why is someone always blinking(眨眼)in your photo?Science says: because you don’t take enough pictures.
Winner, 2006 Mathematics Ig Nobel:
An Australian photographer wondered how many group shots she should take to be pretty sure no one was blinking. She found ou you need to divide the number of people by 2 to figure it out. Twelve people?Take at least six photos. But with groups over 50, someone will always be caught blinking no matter how many photos you take.
The five-second rule is true—sometimes.
Have you ever dropped food on the floor, said, “Five-second rule!” then picked it up and eaten it? The idea is that bacteria won’t stick if you pick it up quickly.
Winner, 2005 Public Health Ig Nobel:
Jillian Clark was still in high school when she did her winning research on the five-second rule. She dropped foods on the floor and then studied the bacteria they picked up in five seconds. Her discovery? If the floor is clean, the food is safe to eat. But how clean is your floor? You need a powerful electron microscope to know for sure.
1.Why was the “Ig Nobel” Prize founded?
A. To promote laughter and thought.
B. To honor strange scientists.
C. To help people win the Nobel Prize.
D. To make people fight for honors.
2.How many shots should you take to ensure a no-blink photo for a group of32 people?
A. 2.
B. 6.
C. 12.
D. 16.
3.Which subject was Jillian Clark’s research about?
A. Mathematics.
B. Public Health.
C. Biology.
D. Physics.
