Many of us spend part of each day surrounded by strangers, whether on our daily commute (上下班往返), or sitting in park or cafe. But most of them remain just that-strangers. However, new evidence has shown that plucking up (鼓起) the courage to strike up conversation might be good for our health.

Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago and Juliana Schroeder from the University of California are behavioural scientists. They wanted to know whether solitude is a more positive experience than interacting with strangers, or if people misunderstand the consequences of distant social connections. They found that many people feel uncomfortable and frightened talking to others and their research suggested that when we make an initial conversation “we consistently underestimate (低估) how much a new person likes us.” It seems we think that all the things could go wrong and why someone wouldn’t want to talk with us.

Their research involved an experiment with a group of Chicago commuters and found that “every participant in our experiment who actually tried to talk to a stranger found the person sitting next to them was happy to chat.” From this and other research, the conclusion is that connecting with strangers is surprisingly pleasant and it has a positive impact on our wellbeing. It’s true that talking can make you feel happier and happiness can lead to better mental health.

However, if you’re’ an introvert (性格内向者), the thought of speaking to someone new might make you anxious. But the American research found “both extroverts (性格外向者) and introverts are happier when they are asked to behave in an extroverted manner.” So maybe, if you’re a loner, it’s time to come out of your shell and make some small talk with a stranger-it could be the beginning of a new friendship.

1.What does the underlined word“solitude”in paragraph 2 mean?

A.Being calm. B.Being pleasant. C.Being alone. D.Being healthy.

2.Why might we not want to speak to a stranger?

A.Because we don’t trust a new person.

B.Because we can’t find a common topic.

C.Because we like distant social connections.

D.Because we carry a negative voice in our head.

3.What could help start a new friendship?

A.Making a small talk. B.Sitting next to a stranger.

C.Sharing personal details. D.Behaving in polite manner.

4.Which of the following is the best title for the text?

A.How to be an extrovert. B.Talking to strangers.

C.How to speak to strangers. D.Making new friends.

    Growing up in Venezuela, there was never really much cause to learn English. For years I knew nothing but “hello,” until I started high school. For five years, I spent two hours a week in understanding the verb “to be”, numbers, colors and the difference between saying “good evening” and “good night”.

I thought two hours a week was enough time to invest in learning a foreign language. I would always get top marks, and my teachers would regularly praise me. Even as an adult, I still thought I spoke the language, just by understanding English menus or translating common phrases.

Yep, that used to be me, walking like a queen among everyday Spanish speakers.

“Bring it on, life,” I said. “I can handle whatever you’ve got; I’m a rock star.” But when I moved to Canada, life hit me so hard that it knocked me down. Years later, I am still recovering. Living in a new land, with different people, new rules, new weather, a new culture and language, I was no long a queen.

Did I speak English? No, not at all.

So, I went back to school, thinking that it was a challenge would conquer. But the reality was different. English was more like a solid wall in my path. Even after getting job, it took all my courage to stop myself from hiding in the washroom during my lunch break, crying, completely overwhelmed (不知所措的) and scared Learning English, speaking, listening-it hurt me. Not the language. Not the unkind people, it hurt because I wasn’t good, despite my efforts.

Now, after almost seven years in Canada I’ve decided not to apologize for my accent, grammar mistakes, or pronunciation. I’m going to chase my dreams and enjoy beautiful, rich, and fascinating language without being ashamed. Don’t get me wrong, my brain still screams “Give a break!” from time to time, but that’s completely natural. I know it’s going to take a while, but at least now I accept the person I am-not the perfect person I thought I was.

1.What do we learn about learning English in Venezuela?

A.Everyone invested a lot of time in it. B.It didn’t cost students much efforts.

C.The standard was very high in high school. D.It could bring lot of benefits to students.

2.What happened after the author moved to Canada?

A.She adjusted to the new environment. B.She regretted not working hard in English.

C.She put her language talent to use. D.She expected to improve her English.

3.What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A.The author has a realistic understanding of herself.

B.The author has conquered English eventually.

C.The author now can pass as a native speaker.

D.The author is disappointed with her English.

Towers Worth Visiting in Sanya

The sightseeing tower in East Coast Wetland Park in Sanya, South China’s Hainan province, boasts six floors and is 21 meters high, which is able to provide visitors a bird’s-eye view of the park. The tower’s walls are full of holes of various sizes, allowing visitors to enjoy different views of landscapes as they climb the staircase to the top of the tower.

The watchtower on the mountaintop of Linchunling Forest Park is an ideal place to get a bird’s-eye view of Sanya. It has five floors and is 195.6 meters high. Modeled like an ancient pavilion (亭), the tower is painted in red and has been praised for its beauty.

The Tower of the Silk Road in the fishing port in Sanya’s Yazhou district is the tallest lighthouse in China, with a height of 95 meters. Sanya had been an important part of the ancient Maritime (海洋) Silk Road. The tower was built in the shape of Zun, type of Chinese wine cup.

Built during the reign of Emperor Xianfeng (831-1861), Yingwang Tower in Sanya has seven floors and is about 15 meters high. Its name bears the meaning of talents thriving due to prosperous education. Located at the bank of the Ningyuan River,the tower is the only surviving ancient tower in the city.

1.Which tower provides the whole view of Sanya?

A.The tower in East Coast Wetland Park.

B.The Tower of the Silk Road.

C.The watchtower in Linchunling Forest Park.

D.Yingwang Tower.

2.What is special about The Tower of the Silk Road?

A.The tallest tower in Sanya. B.The function as lighthouse.

C.The only surviving ancient tower. D.The bird’s-eye view of the port.

3.Where is the text probably from?

A.A guidebook. B.A dictionary. C.A news report. D.A book review.

阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

Bobby had been in his backyard for about an hour already. The thin sneakers he wore had a few holes in them and they did a poor job of keeping out the cold. Try as he might, he could not come up with an idea for his mother’s Christmas gift.

Ever since his father passed away three years ago, the family of five could only live on his mother’s small wage.

What the family lacked in money and material things, they more than made up for in love and family unity. Bobby had three sisters to undertake all the household. All the sisters had already made beautiful gifts for their mother.

It was Christmas Eve already and he had nothing. Wiping a tear from his eye, Bobby kicked the snow and started to walk down to the street where the shops and stores were. It wasn’t easy being six without a father, especially when he needed man to talk to.

Bobby walked from shop to shop, looking into each decorated window. Everything seemed so beautiful and so out of reach. He knew it was time to head home when suddenly his eyes caught the glimmer of the setting sun’s rays reflecting off of something along the road. He reached down and discovered a shiny dime (10美分). Never before has anyone felt so wealthy as Bobby felt at that moment. As he held his new found treasure, a warmth spread throughout his entire body and he walked into the first store he saw.

His excitement quickly turned cold when salesperson after salesperson told him that he could not buy anything with only a dime. He saw a flower shop and went inside to wait in line. When the shop owner asked if he could help him, Bobby presented the dime and asked if he could buy one flower for his mother’s Christmas gift. The shop owner looked at Bobby and his ten cent offering. Then he put his hand on Bobby’s shoulder and said to him, “You just wait here and I’ll see what I can do for you.” leaving him waiting alone and afraid.

注意：

1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；

2. 应使用5个以上短文中标有下画线的关键词语；

3. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；

4. 续写完成后，请用下画线标出你所使用的关键词语。

Paragraph 1:

In a while, out came the shop owner.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Paragraph 2:

Just then, the shop keeper’s wife appeared.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

假设你是李华，你的外国朋友Bill初到中国，他看到中国人聚会时常会喝酒，对中国酒文化很感兴趣，写信给你，希望你给他介绍一下。请给他写一封回信，内容包括：

1. 写信目的；

2. 介绍中国的酒文化；

3. 你的建议：饮酒要适量。

注意：1. 词数80左右；

2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

Dear Bill,

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yours,

Li Hua

    In a couple of hours my son Daniel was flying out to France and to spend at least a year learning French in a different culture. It was a ________ for him.

When we were to say goodbye, I looked ________ at his face, attempting to give him good advice. But no sound came over my ________. I stood motionless and silent.

I knew that this wasn’t the ________ time I had let such an opportunity pass me by. On Daniel’s first day in preschool, I followed him to the bus. I hadn’t said a word before he ________ the bus and disappeared. Some ten ________ later, his mother and I drove Daniel to his university. He was ill in bed ________ I wanted to say goodbye. Again the ________ let me down. I only ________ words like “I hope you’re better. Dan.” Then I ________ and left.

Among all those________ there was one I didn’t miss, however. One day, I ________ Dan that he could have traveled around the ________ because I believed that was the best way to ________ a deeper insight into life. Dan thought about it and chose Paris. The night before his ________ for Paris, I lay twisting and turning in bed, ________ what to tell him. But in vain. Maybe, I thought, it wasn’t really ________ after all.

But when I stood ________ Dan, I knew that it really did mean something. My mouth was dry. “Dan,” finally stammered out (结结巴巴地说), “If I had the ________ myself, would have chosen you.” That was all I could say, ________ and commonplace. It was nothing, and yet it was everything.

1.A.holiday B.talent C.milestone D.risk

2.A.closely B.seriously C.elegantly D.dreadfully

3.A.head B.ears C.lips D.mind

4.A.last B.first C.right D.precise

5.A.missed B.braked C.dropped D.boarded

6.A.decades B.years C.days D.hours

7.A.when B.while C.because D.and

8.A.sounds B.words C.comfort D.advice

9.A.declared B.shouted C.interpreted D.uttered

10.A.came to B.rang off C.paid off D.turned around

11.A.opportunities B.assessments C.profits D.outcomes

12.A.reminded B.contradicted C.told D.informed

13.A.city B.world C.country D.countryside

14.A.obtain B.adore C.restore D.resist

15.A.decision B.application C.arrangement D.departure

16.A.leaving alone B.objecting to C.puzzling about D.adjusting to

17.A.practical B.messy C.disgusting D.necessary

18.A.in favor of B.in terms of C.in front of D.in need of

19.A.choice B.money C.status D.privilege

20.A.pure B.clumsy C.fulfilling D.fateful

    Before your feet hit the floor in the morning, think of something that you’re grateful for. Making this a focus for yourself and teaching your kids to do the same can have a significant impact on your emotional health during the COVID-19 Pandemic. 1. And if we begin our day with a feeling of hopeless and sadness, then we have let the negative feeling start going freely.

2. One way to counteract (消除) that feeling is by making regular schedule and sticking with it. When you organize and structure your life you know what to expect. Make sure you have a family routine. Remember, kids are used to routine and structure in schools. Many kids grow having consistency in their lives, which consequently helps them feel in control, something kids need now more than ever.

Not only will having plan help you stay centered, it will also keep you focused on the tasks at hand. A study published in the Annual Review of Psychology on psychological habits showed people rely on their routines and habits when they are stressed. 3. Establishing healthy routines could help with physical, emotional and mental health during difficult times like these.

4. The first item on the list should be to make your bed. According to a survey by OnePoll and Sleepopolis, which provides mattress reviews, people who make their beds regularly tend to report feeling happier and more productive. 5.

A.Go ahead and make a schedule.

B.Get up early and make your bed.

C.That helps them get through difficult times.

D.The heaviness of our current situation can quickly weigh us down.

E.Don’t forget, with COVID-19, you are not alone in how you are feeling.

F.Depression and anxiety can prevent you from feeling in control of your life.

G.Plus, if making your bed is on your list you can attain your first goal of the day.

    It can’t be easy playing the movie version of a noble real-life figure like Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN diplomat from Brazil who in career devoted to humanitarian (人道主义) efforts, died in the 2003 terrorist bombing of the Canal Hotel in Baghdad. But in Sergio, director Greg Barker’s drama about the last years of Sergio’s life, Wagner Moura (from Netflix’s Narcos) gives it his all.

Sergio was sent to Irag in 2003 as the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General to help the country move forward after the fall of Saddam Hussein. In an early scene, we see Moura’s Sergio and his small followers rolling up to the hotel that will serve as headquarters for what’s intended to be a four-month assignment. They’re greeted by U.S. troops who have been assigned to protect them, but whose every presence speaks of menace and mistrust, Sergio leaves his vehicle and approaches one of the soldiers for what looks like a friendly conversation but we don’t hear what he’s saying.

That moment will be vital, but we don’t understand its meaning until near the end of Sergio. This is a short description of one man’s life of service to the world. The film also covers Sergio’s time in East Timor, where, seemingly against all difficulties, he assisted with the country’s independence from Indonesia. And it’s there that he meets and falls in love with Carolina Larriera (Ana de Armas), who will accompany him to Bagdad on his last, fatal mission.

Sergio’s intentions are pure, and the movie is pleasingly old-school in the way it combines political drama—and tragedy—with romance. Moura makes us see the shining role model, but it’s much harder to see the man underneath—and you can’t leave a property without first having had a heartbreak.

1.Which of the following is true about the movie?

A.Sergio Vieira de Mello stars in the movie.

B.Greg Barker is the director of the movie.

C.The movie focuses on love and friendship

D.Wagner Moura is a man hard to understand.

2.What does the underlined word “menace” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A.Fear. B.Caution. C.Sympathy. D.Threat.

3.Where did Sergio meet Carolina Larriera?

A.In Indonesia. B.In Baghdad. C.In East Timor. D.In Brazil.

4.What is the best title for this passage?

A.A Noble Sergio. B.A Devoted Soldier.

C.A Movie Review. D.A Critical Moment.

    Problem-solving is part of everyone’s daily life. If you’re facing a tough problem at work, you truly are better off getting a good night’s sleep before making any decisions, as findings from a study at Northwestern University suggest.

Because many tricky problems are solved by thinking of them in a fresh way, Sanders and cognitive researchers Samuel Osburn, Ken A. Paller, and Mark Beeman assumed that processing unsolved problems during sleep would help people purify their memories of the problems, and improve their chances of solving them the next day.

To test that assumption, they used a technique known as targeted memory reactivation (TMR) with 61 study participants. In two evening laboratory sessions, the participants attempted to solve verbal, space, and other puzzles one at a time with the experimenters randomly pairing each puzzle with a musical sound. If the participants failed to solve a puzzle within 2 minutes, the corresponding sound played one more time. After failing to solve six puzzles each evening, they replayed the puzzle-sound pairings until they had them down.

After those sessions, participants took home technology that provided the sound cues while they slept.

Across the two mornings, they solved more cued puzzles than uncued puzzles. In fact, they solved 55 percent more puzzles when the corresponding sound had been played while they slept.

“While we use tricky puzzles in our study, the underlying cognitive processes could relate to solving any problem on which someone is stuck or blocked by an incorrect approach,” Sanders explains. “They advised, however, that the effect may only apply to situations in which an individual already has some background information to help solve a problem.” Beeman says.

Still, the study reveals important information about sleep, memory, and incubation (潜伏期) for problem-solving. The team plans to further study these processes, to further pin down the mechanisms and to see how it occurs in real-life problem-solving.

1.What is the assumption mainly about?

A.Sleep’s effect on problem-solving. B.Solving problems during sleep.

C.Memory’s impact on problem-solving. D.Improper ways of solving problems.

2.What can we learn about the experiments?

A.they set six puzzles for each participant. B.they had the puzzles solved in the evenings.

C.they applied matching sounds to puzzle-solving. D.they met with disapproval.

3.What’s the writer’s attitude towards the study?

A.Subjective. B.Objective. C.Indifferent D.Pessimistic

    While testing capacity is gaining ground, the road ahead remains long. The health system has never had to manage testing at the scale needed to control this pandemic, and doing so may require extraordinary solutions, expecting that the gap between testing need and testing capacity will only be wider as states reopen.

Health experts have called for testing well beyond current levels. But increasing capacity will be a challenge at every step in the process.

Step 1

A sample, such as saliva (唾液) or sample from the nose or throat, is collected.

Challenge:

Supplies such as swabs (拭子) and vials (瓶子) are specialized and controlled. This makes the supply chain weak to demand increases. In March, testing was held up by a shortage of swabs.

Step 2

The sample is placed in a solution and delivered to lab technologist.

Challenge:

Workforce is already an issue at many labs Hiring is difficult, as only certified technologists are trained to handle the patient samples.

Step 3

Chemical liquids called reagents (试剂) extract and strengthen the virus’s genetic material.

Challenge:

Labs have faced reagent shortages, and industry groups have already noted that a rise in testing demand has the potential to use up supplies.

Step 4

Machines detect the presence of the virus in a sample.

Challenge:

Dozens of test systems have been FDA approved, but many labs lack the up-front money to invest in the technology and growing up.

1.Which organ will we fail to get a testing sample from?

A.The mouth. B.The throat. C.The nose. D.The ears.

2.What is the challenge for Step 4?

A.Supply shortage. B.Workforce in demand.

C.Genetic substances. D.Financial support in advance.

3.What does the passage intend to tell us about?

A.Ways to fight pandemic. B.Testing capacity for viruses.

C.Roadblocks to testing goals. D.Efforts to test viruses.