"When I was 16 years old, I was diving in Greece, but I was disappointed because I saw more plastic bags than fish.” These are the words of Boyan Slat, an engineer who designed the world's first ocean plastic cleanup system.

Every year, more than 8 million tons of plastics end up in our oceans, according to the UN Environment Programme. It is predicted that the weight of ocean plastics will match the weight of all the fish in our oceans by 2050. To prevent this from happening, in 2013 Slat created the Ocean Cleanup, an environmental non¬governmental organization, and put his plan for an ocean cleanup device into action.

After years of research and develop¬ment in the Netherlands, a device called System 001/B successfully started gathering plastics on October 2, 2019. The device uses a 600-meter-long C-shaped tube to gather all the floating rubbish. Unlike other cleanup methods, the system floats freely according to the direction of the waves, which allows waste to flow into and stay within the device. A sea anchor is attached to either end. This slows down the system as it floats through the water and allows the faster-moving rubbish, carried by the waves, to flow into its mouth. System 001/B can also collect waste below the surface using a 3-meter-deep skirt（挡板）attached to the end. After being gathered, the trash will be dragged back to shore by boat and recycled.

Right now, the system operates in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area that is 3 times the size of France. Once operational, the Ocean Cleanup expects a full fleet to be able to clear 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 5 years.

"It remains to be seen whether this dream will become a reality, but it is undeniable that humanity must work together to reduce our plastic use and repair the damage our waste has caused," Slat said. "We are starting to see a young generation that gets it and is excited about a sustainable （可持续的）future, but the question still comes down to: Are we going fast enough, and how much damage will have been done before we get there?"

1.The underlined word “match” in Paragraph 2 probably means “_________”.

A.compare B.equal

C.measure D.cover

2.Why did Boyan Slat create the Ocean Cleanup?

A.To collect ocean plastic waste.

B.To help to invent System 001/B.

C.To protect the living environment of fish.

D.To do research on the ocean environment.

3.What can we know about System 001/B?

A.It can collect and recycle garbage at the same time.

B.It can only gather ocean waste which floats on the water.

C.It aims to clear up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in five years.

D.It is an ocean-cleaning device which has already been put to use.

4.What does Slat want to tell us according to the last paragraph?

A.Young generations care less about the environment.

B.The future ecology of the oceans is deeply worrying.

C.People should work hard to decrease plastic pollution.

D.It's quite difficult to repair the damage to the environment.

    Last weekend in Washington, D.C. 30 young researchers from across the nation were preparing for a competition. In a sense, all were winners already. After all, each had to beat out hundreds of others for the chance to arrive in the final. But only one competitor would take home the top prize: an educational award worth $25,000. Finally, Alaina Gassler, 14, won the top prize.

Alaina was one of the 30 finalists from 13 states who competed in the ninth yearly Broadcom MASTERS competition. Alaina and the other finalists had to be in sixth, seventh or eighth grade to attend the competition. What’s more, their research had to be judged within the top 10 percent of all projects. As usual, those projects all fell within the fields of science, technology, engineering or mathematics. Fifteen of the finalists took home major awards. For the first time this year, 60g% of the finalists were women.

Alaina developed a system whose goal is to improve driving safety. “Congratulations to Alaina, whose project has the possibility of reducing the number of traffic accidents,” said Maya Ajmera, president of Science and the Public, the organization that created the competition.

Alaina goes to school in West Grove, Pennsylvania. “I didn’t think I’d win an award this big.” she said. For her project, Alaina developed a system that could reduce blind spots for drivers. Such areas can hide objects or other cars from a driver’s view, and thus easily lead to accidents.

Alaina’s system depends on a camera fixed on the front part of the passenger-side window. It can monitor (监视) things a driver can’t see. The camera records a video of what it’s seeing and at the same time sends it to a projector (投影仪) fixed over the driver’s head. That projector plays the video on a screen, which is fixed on the passenger-side roof support. In this way, the blind spots are decreased.

1.What do we know about the competition?

A.It encourages teamwork. B.It is meant for college students.

C.It encourages theory exploration. D.It is a fierce national competition.

2.What is special about this year’s competition?

A.More winners stand out. B.More girls perform better.

C.All of the projects are more useful. D.Half of the competitors are awarded.

3.How does Alaina Gassler feel about her prize?

A.Surprised. B.Satisfied. C.Encouraged. D.Puzzled.

4.What plays the biggest role in Alaina Gassler’s system?

A.The projector. B.The monitor. C.The camera. D.The screen.

    While waiting to pick up a friend at the airport in Portland, Oregon, I had one of those life-changing experiences. One man stopped right next to me to greet his family.

First the man walked up to his oldest son. He cupped his face in his hands and said, “You’re already quite a young man. I love you very much, Zach!”

Then he went to his youngest son. They gave each other a long, loving hug. Then I heard the father say, “It’s so good to see you, son. I missed you so much!” With his eyes turning away and his face becoming redder, his son replied softly, “Me, too, Dad!”

While this was happening, a baby girl was moving excitedly in her mother’s arms. The man said, “Hi, baby girl!” And then he gently took the child from her mother. He quickly kissed her face all over.

After several moments, he handed his daughter to his oldest son and said, “I’ve saved the best for the last!” He walked forward to give his wife the longest, most passionate kiss I ever remember seeing.

It seemed that they just got married, but I knew by the age of their kids that they had been married for long. I pondered it for a moment and couldn’t help asking. “Wow! How long have you two been married?”

“Been together fourteen years in total, and been married twelve of those.” he replied. “Well then, how long have you been separated?” I asked. The man smiled, “Two whole days!”

Two days? I was shocked. Judging from the greeting. I had thought they’d been separated for at least several months. I said almost immediately, “I hope my marriage is still that passionate after twelve years!”

The man suddenly stopped smiling. He said something that left me a different person. He told me, “Don’t hope, friend…decide!” Then he gave me his wonderful smile again. They left together happily.

1.How did the youngest son respond when his father said he missed him so much?

A.He seemed deeply touched. B.He looked extremely proud.

C.He was very excited. D.He got slightly shy.

2.What does the underlined word “pondered” in Paragraph 6 mean?

A.Considered B.Recorded C.Praised D.Admired

3.What made the author shocked?

A.That the father greeted each family member differently.

B.That the wife hadn’t seen her husband for just two days.

C.That the couple had been together for long.

D.That the father answered his question.

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

A.A Father’s Deep Love for His Children B.My First Impression of an Old Couple

C.A Life-changing Experience at the Airport D.My Experience of Picking up a Friend

Use vouchers (代金券) to get DANS dance classes cheaper

Want to improve your dancing skills? Join DAN’S, where the improved classes are designed to get you moving. Beginners and people who are skilled at dancing are all welcome, as long as you bring a fierce attitude and you’re happy to dance. It’s time to hit the dance floor.

Location:

DAN’S, Marylebone

Highlights (最好的部分):

●Take part in a single class for £10 (usually £23) or three classes for £29 (usually £69)

●Choose between three types: fitness, soul and technique

●Central London location--Westminster

Need to know:

●This voucher can be used for all of the three types of class at DAN’S.

●To redeem (兑换), open an account at DAN’S here. Then email hello@dans.co.uk with the name on your account, the number of classes you have bought and a copy of your voucher number.

●Available until December 22 on DAN’S Fitness, DAN’S Soul and DAN’S Technique.

●If you want to take only a type of the dance class, you must redeem by December 22, 2020.

●If you want to take all of the three types of the dance class, you must redeem by January 31, 2021.

●To view the timetable please click here. January’s timetable will be updated by mid-December.

●This voucher cannot be used with any other offer.

1.How much can you save at most by using the voucher?

A.£13 B.£23 C.£40 D.£53

2.What should you do first if you want to redeem the voucher?

A.Open an account at DAN’S.

B.Check the timetable of the class.

C.Send an email to hello@dans.co.uk

D.Send your voucher number to DAN’S

3.If you want to take DAN’S Fitness, you should redeem your voucher by

A.mid-December B.December 22, 2020

C.January 31, 2020 D.December 22, 2021

假定你是李华。近日收到美国朋友Nancy的邮件，说她下周六晚上7点在市图书馆报告厅作题为“美国风俗与文化”的讲座，邀请你来观摩。请给她写封回信，要点如下：

1．婉拒邀请；

2．陈述理由；

3．表达感谢。

注意：1.词数100左右；

2．可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

Dear Nancy，

I'm so glad to receive your invitation

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yours，

Li Hua

假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，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。每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 live in a typical Chinese family of four generations lived together under same roof. Everyone has funs with each other here. Every night, we will have dinner together, talking or laughing around the dinner table so that all the worries of the day will be swept away. At weekends, Dad will take Grandpa, that likes outdoor activities a lot, to the countryside to fish. Mom and Grandma will cook delicious food for ourselves. When the weather is fine, I will push my 95-year-old great grandmother in a wheelchair to sunbathe in the yard. My family is such harmonious that I have been grown up into a person with love and responsibility. I will definite teach what I had already learned to my future children.

    The passengers on the bus watched with sympathy as Susan made her way carefully up the steps. She paid the driver and then, using her hands to____the seats, settled in one of them.

It had been a year since Susan became blind. As the result of an accident she was suddenly thrown into a world of_____ Susan’s husband Mark watched her____into hopelessness and he was____to use every possible means to help his wife.

Finally, Susan felt ready to____to her job, but how would she get there? She used to take the bus, but she was now too____to get around the city by herself. Mark____to ride the bus with Susan each morning and evening____she could manage it by herself.

For two weeks, Mark____Susan to and from work each day. He taught her how to rely on her other____, specifically her hearing, to determine where she was and how to adapt to her new____.

At last, Susan decided that she was ready to try the trip____. Monday morning arrived.

Before she left, she hugged her husband____, her eyes filled with tears of gratitude. She said good-bye and, for the first time, they went their____ways. Each day went perfectly, and a wild excitement took____of Susan. She was doing it!

On Friday morning, Susan took the bus to work____. As she was getting off the bus, the driver said, “Miss, I sure____you.” Curious, Susan asked the driver____.

“You know, every morning for the____week, a fine-looking gentleman in a military uniform has been standing across the corner watching you until you enter your office building safely,” the bus driver said.

Tears of happiness poured down Susan’s cheeks. She was so lucky for he had given her a gift more powerful than____. That is the gift of love that can bring light where there is darkness.

1.A.touch B.feel C.count D.grab

2.A.weakness B.sickness C.darkness D.sadness

3.A.run B.step C.jump D.sink

4.A.determined B.inspired C.honored D.pleased

5.A.adjust B.return C.contribute D.stick

6.A.sacred B.astonished C.frightened D.depressed

7.A.struggled B.attempted C.continued D.volunteered

8.A.until B.as C.when D.after

9.A.drove B.accompanied C.directed D.sent

10.A.feelings B.organs C.senses D.skills

11.A.position B.role C.status D.environment

12.A.on her own B.in person C.to her benefit D.on foot

13.A.politely B.tightly C.briefly D.calmly

14.A.opposite B.fixed C.separate D.secure

15.A.charge B.place C.advantage D.hold

16.A.as usual B.as a consequenc e C.as a rule D.as well

17.A.respect B.envy C.defend D.support

18.A.what B.how C.why D.who

19.A.next B.same C.first D.past

20.A.sight B.virtue C.courage D.wisdom

    1. In fact, the idea of walking at least 10,000 steps a day for health goes back decades to a marketing (推销) campaign (计步器) launched in Japan to promote a pedometer. And, in subsequent years, it was adopted in the US as a goal to promote good health.2.

“The original basis of the number was not scientifically determined,” says researcher I-Min Lee of Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

She was curious to know how many steps you need to take a day to maintain good health and live a long life, so she and her colleagues designed a study that included about 17,000 older women. Their average age was 72.3.

It turns out that women who took about 4,000 steps per day got a boost in longevity(长寿), compared with women who took fewer steps.4.

In fact, women who took 4,400 steps per day, on average, were about 40 percent less likely to die during the follow-up period of about four years compared with women who took 2,700 steps. The findings were published Wednesday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Another surprise: The benefits of walking maxed out at about 7,500 steps.5.

A.The women all agreed to clip on wearable devices to track their steps as they went about their day-to-day activities.

B.Walking 10,000 steps a day can make a lot of people happy.

C.It’s nothing unusual to walk 10,000 steps a day.

D.“It was sort of surprising,” Lee says.

E.In other words, women who walked more than 7,500 steps per day saw no additional boost in longevity.

F.There is no direct relationship between life span and steps.

G.It’s often the default setting on fitness trackers, but what’s it really based on?

    Following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP), also named COVID-19 by WHO, there is a general fear of the unknown virus as its full effects remain to be seen. Fever, coughing, sore throat, difficulty breathing —the NCP’s symptoms are similar to the common cold or the flu, but it’s potentially more dangerous.

Viruses could be deadly, like HIV and Ebola. But what are viruses? How can they cause so much trouble?

Viruses are non-living organisms (有机体) approximately one-millionth of an inch long. Unlike human cells or bacteria, they can’t reproduce on their own. Instead, they invade the cells of living organisms to reproduce, spread and take over.

Viruses can infect every living thing – from plants and animals down to the smallest bacteria. For this reason, they always have the potential to be dangerous to human life. Sometimes a virus can cause a disease so serious that it is fatal. Other viral infections trigger no noticeable reaction.

Viruses lie around our environment all of the time, waiting for a host cell to come along. They can enter our bodies by the nose, mouth, eyes or breaks in the skin. Once inside, they try to find a host cell to infect. For example, HIV, which causes AIDS, attacks the T-cells of the immune system.

But the basic question is, where did viruses first come from? Until now, no clear explanation for their origin exists. “Tracing the origins of viruses is difficult”, Ed Rybicki, a virologist (病毒学家) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, told Scientific American, “because viruses don’t leave fossils and because of the tricks they use to make copies of themselves within the cells they’ve invaded”.

However, there are three main hypotheses (假说) to explain the origin of viruses. First, viruses started as independent organisms, then became parasites (寄生者). Second, viruses evolved from pieces of DNA or RNA that “escaped” from larger organisms. Third, viruses co-evolved with their host cells, which means they existed alongside these cells.

For the time being, these are only theories. The technology and evidence we have today cannot be used to test these theories and identify the most plausible explanation. Continuing studies may provide us with clearer answers. Or future studies may reveal that the answer is even murkier (含糊不清的) than it now appears.

1.What can we learn about viruses from the text?

A.Viruses have nothing to do with the common cold.

B.Viruses are really small living organisms.

C.Viruses can’t reproduce unless they find a host cell.

D.Viruses enter our bodies mainly through the mouth, nose and hair.

2.Which of the following might explain the origin of viruses?

A.They evolved from the fossils of large organisms.

B.They evolved from parasites into independent organisms.

C.They evolved from the T-cells in animals.

D.They evolved along with their host cells.

3.The underlined word “plausible” in the last paragraph probably means ________.

A.reasonable B.common

C.creative D.unbelievable

4.What can we conclude from the text?

A.Viruses live longer in human host cells than in animals’.

B.Viruses will become more like bacteria as they evolve.

C.It may take a long time to understand the origin of viruses.

D.The author is optimistic about future virus research.

    Low self-esteem makes us feel bad about ourselves. But did you know that over time it also can cause the development of serious mental conditions such as depression?

Self-esteem is, very simply, the set of feelings you have about yourself. It’s developed by your experiences, thoughts, feelings, and relationships.

Unlike self-knowledge, which refers to how much you know about yourself, the core of self-esteem is formed around whether you like yourself or not.

Depression is much more than just feeling sad. It consume your energy, makes everyday activities difficult and interferes with your eating and sleeping patterns. Psychotherapy and/or medication are highly effective in treating depression.

There are several types of depressive disorders, including major depression, persistent depressive disorder, psychotic depression, postpartum depression, and seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Clinicians use low self-esteem as one possible symptom when they diagnose the psychiatric condition of major depressive disorder. They don’t necessarily care whether low self-esteem causes the depression or vice versa.

However, personality researchers have long wondered about the chicken-and-egg problem of self-esteem and depression. Certainly, if you dislike yourself, you’ll be more likely to be depressed. Conversely, if you’re depressed, you’ll be more likely to feel bad about who you are as a person.

The only way to disentangle the highly related concepts of self-esteem and depression is through longitudinal research, in which people are followed up over time. A study on depression, conducted by University of Basel researchers Julia Sowislo and Ulrich Orth, contrasted the competing directions of self-esteem to depression vs depression to self-esteem.

The findings almost all overwhelmingly support the vulnerability model of self-esteem and depression. Over time, low self-esteem is a risk factor for depression, regardless of who is tested and how. The study indicated that low self-esteem causes depression but not vice versa.

Therefore, if a person has low self-esteem, there’s an increased risk of developing depression. This is a very important discovery because it shows that improving a person’s self-esteem can make him or her feel better.

1.According to the article, which of the following statements is true?

A.Self-esteem can make us feel bad about ourselves.

B.Low self-esteem is a series of feelings about yourself.

C.The core of self-knowledge is formed around whether you like yourself or not.

D.Depression consumes your energy and interferes with your daily life.

2.Which of the following words is closest to “the chicken and egg problem” mean?

A.Mother child relationship. B.Cooking relationship.

C.Causal relationship. D.Primary and secondary relations.

3.What can we infer from Julia Sowislo and Ulrich Orth’s research?

A.Clinicians don’t necessarily care whether low self-esteem causes the depression.

B.Low self-esteem must lead to depression.

C.Having a strong self-esteem is an important factor in avoiding depression.

D.There are many ways to improve one’s self-esteem.

4.If a person wants to get rid of the low self-esteem control, which of the following methods is wrong?

A.Establish the right mindset and believe that you can do it.

B.Compare yourself with someone who is much better than yourself all the time.

C.Establish the goal, step by step toward the goal.

D.Look at the world in your spare time and feel the beauty around you.