My brother had, for years, a delightfully tame and lively blue-fronted Amazon parrot named Papagallo, which had an extraordinary talent for speech. Living with us in Altenberg, Papagallo flew just as freely around as most of my other birds. A talking parrot that flies from tree to tree and at the same time says human words, gives a much more comical effect than one that sits in a cage and does the same thing. When Papagallo, with loud cries of “Where’s the Doc?” flew about the district, sometimes in a real search for his master, it was funny.
Still funnier, but also remarkable from a scientific point of view, was the following performance of the bird. Papagallo feared nothing and nobody, with the exception of the chimney sweep. Birds are likely to fear things which are up above. And this tendency is associated with the natural fear of the bird of prey diving down from the heights. So everything that appears against the sky, has for them something of the meaning of “bird of prey”. As the chimney sweep in black stood up on the chimney and became outlined against the sky, Papagallo fell into a panic of fear and flew, loudly screaming, so far away that we feared he might not come back. Months later, when the chimney sweep came again, Papagallo was sitting on the weathercock, quarrelling with other birds who wanted to sit there too. All at once, I saw him stretch his neck and peer down anxiously into the village street; then he flew up and away, crying out in tough tones, “ The chimney sweep is- coming!” “The chimney sweep is coming! The next moment, the man in black walked through the doorway of the yard !
Unfortunately, I was unable to find out how often Papagallo had seen the chimney sweep before and how often he had heard the excited cry of our cook, which meant his approach. It was, without a doubt, the voice and intonation of this lady that the bird copied. But he had certainly not heard it more than three times at the most and, each time, only once and at an interval of months.
1.It can be inferred that the author_______.
A.might be a bird expert
B.must set a lot of parrots free
C.could talk with Papagallo
D.did have Papagallo look for his brother
2.What does the underlined words “bird of prey” in Paragraph 2 mean?
A.Bird flying up high.
B.Bird hunting animals.
C.Bird having black feathers.
D.Bird diving down from the sky.
3.What confused the author?
A.Why Papagallo feared the chimney sweep.
B.What the chimney sweep did to Papagallo.
C.How Papagallo had learnt to say the exact sentence.
D.How often Papagallo was seen by the chimney sweep.
4.Which of the following best describes Papagallo?
A.Gifted B.Caring.
C.Shy. D.Talkative.
There are plenty of things to do while at home, from watching heartwarming TV to indoor fitness, but if you want to do something with the whole family, a board game is the perfect activity.
Telestrations
It is like a combination of the whisper game Telephone and Pictionary. Players draw a word and pass their sketch to the player next to them, who writes down the word they think the first player draws. The next player draws the word the previous player writes down, and the game continues in this way until the final drawing or description comes out wildly different from the original one. It is most popular among kids.
Catan
A slightly more involved game than Risk or Monopoly, Catan, previouly known as Settlers of Catan or Settlers, has become popular in the past decade or so beyond board game enthusiasts. In the game, which has many expansions available if you get bored with the original, players become “settlers”, each trying to build up individual settlements while trading resources. The bigger your settlement, the more points, and the first to a set number wins.
Ticket to Ride
It is an easy-to-understand game that is about something as simple as trains. Players use colored train cars that they are able to obtain by collecting cards of the same color to create train routes across a map of the U. S. Expansion packs have many other maps to choose from. Bigger train routes give you more points, as do building the routes shown on the secret ticket cards you draw at the beginning of the game.
Lords of Waterdeep
This board game from the makers of Dungeons Dragons is definitely more complex but is one of the most enjoyable games once you understand all the rules. Beautifully designed in fantasy style, Waterdeep is a “worker placement game”, in which players use agents to gather resources to complete quests, which generate victory points. Whoever has the most at the end of the game wins.
1.In which of the following board games is drawing needed?
A.Telestrations.
B.Catan.
C.Ticket to Ride.
D.Lords of Waterdeep.
2.Who will be the winner in Catan?
A.The one becoming the first settler.
B.The one getting needed points first.
C.The one gathering the most resources.
D.The one creating the most train routes.
3.What do the four board games have in common?
A.They have many expansions.
B.They ask players to get points.
C.They involve more than one player.
D.They are easy to understand and play.
假定你是李华，在得知东京奥运会推迟至明年的消息后，需要将之前在Airbnb上预订的房间取消，并希望退回订金，请给你的房东Abe先生写一封邮件，要点如下:
1. 写信目的；
2. 表达歉意,解释原因；
3. 期待明年造访东京。
注意:1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节以使行文连贯。
参考词汇:东京奥运会the Tokyo Olympics 订金deposit
Dear Mr. Abe,
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
假定英语课上老师要求同学们交换修改作文,请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误,每句中最多有两处。错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加:在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧),并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除:把多余的词用斜线(＼)划掉。
修改:在错的词下划一横线。并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意:1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词;
2. 只允许修改10处,多者(从第11处起)不计分。
I used to go fishing with my father. Initially, I consider fishing is a piece of cake—sitting or waiting for fish to bite. I sat in there for almost one hour, yet I got nothing. Impatiently and annoyed, I intended to quit. “Be focused and wait.” said my father. Have nothing else to do, I followed his advise. I calmed down and concentrated on the fishing pole. Another two hour passed and I finally gained his reward. The experience has taught me what all things are difficult at beginning. As long as you make efforts and hang on, you'll succeed.
阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（1个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。
In the ongoing fight against COVID-19, gritting one’s teeth and carrying on has characterized much about life in Wuhan these past months. “Wuhan people experienced it first-hand.” said Hui Yan, a Wuhan native 1. recovered from the coronavirus. “Our friends got sick. Our friends and relatives died. Right before our eyes, one 2. one, they left us. They have a deeper understanding of this disaster in 3. (compare) with people in other cities.” In February, Ms. Yan 4. (spend) 15 days fighting the virus in Huoshenshan, one of the city's newly built coronavirus hospitals.
During the past two months, with the lockdown lifted, growing numbers of families 5. (be) out to take in the sunshine and fresh air in parks along the Yangtze River. Older residents have started gathering again in small groups 6. (chat) or play chess. Children are a rare sight and always appear to be under the careful watch of parents. More shops have reopened, often 7. (set) up street-front counters so that customers can buy vegetables, alcohol, and other goods without entering. Companies in Wuhan have been 8. (caution) about calling their 9. (employ) back to work, contributing to the revival of the city life. Yet there still remains 10. tough test for the city to balance pandemic (疫情) control and economic growth.
My father died when I was nine, and I remember doing the household chores to help my mother. I hated changing the vacuum cleaner(真空吸尘器) bag and ___________ things the machine did not suck up.
Twenty years later, in 1978, I was doing chores at home alongside my ___________. One day the vacuum cleaner was screaming away, and I had to ___________ the bag because I could not find a new one to replace it. With this lifelong hatred of the way the machine worked, I decided to make a ___________ vacuum cleaner.
Easier said than done, of course. I didn't ___________ that l would spend the next five years perfecting my design, a ___________ that resulted in 5,127 different prototypes(设计原型). By the time I made my 15th prototype, my third child was born. By 2,627, my wife and I were really counting our ___________. By 3,727, my wife was giving art lessons for some extra cash, and we were getting further and further into ___________. These were tough times, but each failure brought me closer to ___________ the problem.
I just had a passion for the vacuum cleaner as a product, but I ____________ thought of going into a business with it. In the early 1980 s, I started trying to ____________ licensing agreements for my technology. The reality was very different, ____________. The major vacuum makers had built a business model based on the ____________ from bags. No one would license my idea, not because it was a (an) ____________ one, but because it was bad for business.
That gave me the courage to keep going, but soon after, the companies that I had talked with started making machines ____________ mine. I had to fight legal battles to protect the patents on my vacuum cleaner. However, I was still in ____________ difficulties until 1993, when my bank manager personally ____________ Lloyds Bank to lend me $1 million. Then I was able to go into production. Within two years, the Dyson vacuum cleaner became a ____________ in Britain.
Today, I still embrace risk and the potential for failure as part of the process. Nothing ____________ the excitement of invention. Go out and brainstorm your ideas. You are not ____________ to any rules-in fact, the stranger and riskier your idea, the better.
1.A.making out B.picking up C.holding onto D.noting down
2.A.porter B.designer C.dad D.wife
3.A.desert B.empty C.fill D.pack
4.A.waterproof B.silent C.cheap D.bagless
5.A.realize B.regret C.doubt D.recall
6.A.compromise B.process C.bargain D.choice
7.A.babies B.bags C.sheep D.pennies
8.A.debt B.success C.quarrel D.wealth
9.A.facing B.settling C.raising D.avoiding
10.A.also B.occasionally C.nearly D.never
11.A.sell B.break C.get D.conclude
12.A.though B.instead C.as usual D.in theory
13.A.information B.sufferings C.profits D.lesson
14.A.new B.realistic C.illegal D.bad
15.A.above B.like C.without D.beside
16.A.financial B.household C.technological D.moral
17.A.forbade B.ordered C.helped D.persuaded
18.A.failure B.joke C.hit D.patent
19.A.recovers B.beats C.arouses D.adds
20.A.open B.accustomed C.bound D.opposed
