Do you know Stephen Hawking? He’s one of the most well-known1.（scientist）on space and time in the world. He was born in England in 1942. Hawking is 2.（study）how the universe began and how it ends.
When he studied math and science at Oxford University, he fell3.(serious) ill, which made him unable to speak or breathe. Till now, he can’t move or feed4.(him). however, he has a wheelchair with 5. special computer, with which he can communicate with others.
6.he was facing all these difficulties, he refused to give up his hope of living. Because 7. his illness, it was difficult for him to draw diagrams or to write. So he started8.(think) in pictures. With this new way of thinking, he is respected by people in the world.
Once he9.(invite) to China to give lectures. His self-confidence and humorous conversations impressed us deeply.
He once said, “When something unfair happens, 10. is no need to worry about it! You just have to do the best in your own situation.”
Voluntourism is a new form of travel where tourists 1.（度过）vacations helping local communities in deed. Many people find it meaningful to do volunteer work 2.（在......期间）their travel. The host family will3.（欢迎）you into their home and help you become part of the community. They may share their4.（每天的）lives and customs with you. For example, some host families may ask you go for a5.（野餐）or go to the church.
Some volunteers provide environmental help like helping save6.（野生的）animals or planting trees. Others offer medical care in hospitals to 7.up（使高兴）sick kids. Voluntourism 8.（变得）popular. Now many travel organizations offer a lot of choices of volunteer vacations. But it’s important to9.（仔细）choose the organization you are considering traveling with.
Voluntourism is just a similar to volunteer travel vacation. Let 10.（我们）have a try.
①What does the city of the future look like? Flying cars? Robots? Or smog（烟雾）-eating buildings?
②Arconic, an American company, has made plans to build a 4.8-kilometer-high skyscraper（摩天大楼）. It says that the super tall building can clean not only itself but also the air around it by “eating” smog and pollutants（污染物）. But how is it done?
③Sherri McCleary, s scientist at Arconic, says they have introduced a new technology called EcoClean. It is a special coating that pulls pollutants out of the air. With a little help from sunlight and water vapour（水蒸气），the coating will produce atoms（原子能）called free radicals（自由基）. It is these free radicals that will take in air pollutants, break them down, and then leave the air cleaner.
④But “eating” smog and pollutants is not the only thing this skyscraper is able to do. In fact, thanks to 3D printing, the materials the building used will become even better and stronger---not only making the skyscraper look more modern, but also make it possible to stand strong winds and terrible weather.
⑤However, some people don’t think it will work out well. Air pollution has its own character and it harms lots of cities. Does the smog-eating building have such a magical ability to stop the pollution? It seems impossible to bring the pollution under control in a short time. We should prepare ourselves for a hard fight against the pollution.
⑥Sounds impossible? Anyway, Arconic believes a skyscraper of this kind will be built by 2062.
1.EcoClean works by___________.
A. standing terrible weather B. bowling out air pollutants
C. breaking down free radicals D. pulling pollutants out of the air
2.The fourth paragraph is mainly about_________.
A. what Arconic is B. how EcoClean works
C. what else this skyscraper can do D. why scientist want to build this skyscraper
3.Arconic’s attitude（态度）towards the skyscraper can best be described as __________.
A. hopeful B. regretful C. thankful D. unbelievable
4.The writer’s purpose of writing this article is to______________.
A. bring people some pleasure
B. introduce a wonderful technology
C. show how to build the tall building
D. tell us the importance of protecting the environment
A businessman was once deep in debt（债务）and could see no way out. He sat on a park bench, head in hands, wondering if anything could save his company.
Suddenly an old man appeared in front of him. “I can see that something is troubling you,” he said. After listening to the businessman’s trouble, the old man said, “I believe I can help you.”
He asked the man his name, wrote out a check（支票）and pushed it into his hand, saying, “Take this money. Meet me here exactly one year from today, and you can pay me back at that time.” Then he turned and disappeared.
The businessman saw his hand a check for $500,000, signed by John D. Rockefeller. One of the richest man in the world.
“It can solve my problem at once!” the businessman realized. But instead, he decided to put the check in his safe. Just knowing it was there that might give him the strength（力量）to work out a way to save his business, he thought.
With renewed optimism（乐观精神）, he did better in his business. Within a few months, he was out of debt and making money once again.
Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the check. At the agreed-upon（约定的）time, the old man appeared. But just as the businessman was about to hand back the check and share his successful story, a nurse came running up and caught the old man.
“I’m so glad I caught him!” she cried. “I hope he hasn’t been troubling you. He’s always escaping from the hospital and telling people he’s John D. Rockefeller.”
And then she led the old man away by the arm. The businessman just stood there,________. Suddenly, he realized that it wasn’t the money, real or imagined, that had turned his life around. It was his newfound self-confidence（自信心）that gave him the strength to achieve anything he went after.
1.By saying “it can solve my problem at once”, the businessman wanted to show____________.
A. he didn’t need the check B. he didn’t need to work any more
C. he must put the check in a safe place D. he could pay off the debts with the check
2.__________ is the correct order in which these events happened.
a.The businessman did better in his business and was out of debt soon.
b.A nurse told the businessman the old man always ran away from the hospital.
c.An old man gave the businessman a check for $500,000.
d.The businessman went back to the park to meet the old man.
A. d-c-b-a B. c-a-b-d C. c-a-d-b D. d-a-c-b
3.Which word can be put in the blank____________ in the last paragraph?
A. sad B. pleased C. worried D. shocked
4.The best title（标题）of the passage is ____________.
A. A rich old man B. A terrible experience
C. A newfound self-confidence D. An unlucky businessman
“Chicken” idioms（习语）
The word “chicken” is used in so many English idioms. Do you know the following?
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
The expression“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch”means “Don’t expect that all your eggs, which have been laid, will hatch. “Hatch” is a verb, meaning the baby chicken breaks open the shell of the egg and comes out successfully. So the expression mainly means “Don’t depend on things working out just as you want them to.” this saying appears in the story The Milkmaid and Her Pail in Aesop’s Fables.
A chicken-and-egg situation
In history, philosophers（哲学家）and scientists have met this dilemma（困境）: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Aristotle thought that both the bird and the egg must have always been there. However, more recently, scientists such as Stephen Hawking have argued that the egg came before the chicken. In common speech, the term “a chicken-and-egg situation” means a situation where it is impossible to say which of two things appeared first and which caused the other one.
Don’t be such a chicken
There seems to be an idea in English, somehow, that a chicken is a scared bird. Maybe that’s not fair as most birds will probably fly away from you if you go towards them. But “Don’t be such a chicken” means “Don’t be so scared and get a bit more courage.” So if your friend fear to do something, you can say to him or her, “Don’t be such a chicken. Just have a try!”
1.The underlined word “hatch” means “_______” in Chinese.
A. 孵化 B. 长大 C. 破碎 D. 出售
2.While discussing the idiom “A chicken-and-egg situation”, the writer mentions Aristotle and Stephen Harking to show that_________.
A. Aristotle’s opinion was wrong
B. Stephen Hawking’s opinion is wrong
C. it’s impossible to find the right answer to this question
D. philosophers and scientists usually have the same answer to a question
3.We may use the idiom “Don’t be such a chicken” in the situation when someone_______.
A. is not brave enough B. enjoys counting his chickens
C. has difficulty making a choice D. hopes things will work out just as he wants
4.The writer probably appears in the __________ part of a magazine.
A. food B. culture C. travel D. sport
Here are two pieces of news from a newspaper.
Hong Kong’s first sightseeing restaurant bus went into service, offering tourists and locals a fresh experience of sightseeing and dinning. People now don’t need to plan where to go or worry about where to eat. The sightseeing restaurant bus has two floors with 47 seats. It tours around the city while serving food prepared by the famous Michelin restaurant there. Its service includes day and night tours, with day tour covering over 20 sights from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island or to the New Territories. The two-and-a-half-hour day tour costs each passenger 380 HK dollars（$48.9）。
Night tours are only for booking out the whole bus and guests can choose the route（路线）for themselves.
With no smile and only terrible teeth, two robot-like dinosaurs（恐龙）standing at the desk are always ready to
help customers check in. They are professional workers for Henn-na Hotel in China, Japan, the second robot-staffed hotel. Robots in this hotel can greet guests in English, Chinese and Japanese languages and every room has a doorkeeper robot called “Tapia”, who can talk to customers or can offer such services as turning on or off TV or providing weather news. The hotel opens on Wednesday and the price of the room starts from 170 dollars a night.
1.The robots in Henn-na Hotel can speak _________kinds of languages.
A. two B. three C. four D. five
2.From the passage, we learn the robots in Henn-na Hotel________.
A. have no teeth B. never talk to customers
C. don’t greet people with a smile D. refuse to turn off or on TV for guests
3.Which is NOT true about the sightseeing restaurant bus?
A. The price of the day tour is 380HK dollars.
B. Passengers can enjoy the food and sights at the same time.
C. Michelin restaurants provide food for the tourists on the bus.
D. Passengers can choose the route for day tour by themselves.
