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Most students, when asked about their ideal graduation gift, would probably reply, “A car”, or “Money for a deposit on a house”. Cai Kaiyuan, 21, made a different choice. As a graduation gift to himself, he decided to work as a volunteer teacher in a remote village in Tibet.
Cai, a senior majoring in electrical engineering at Huan Railway Professional Technology College, originally planned to cycle from Sichuan to Tibet. During his journey, Cai’s idea for a different graduation gift to himself began to take shape. “I did not know beforehand what the journey would mean to me. I just want to gain a unique experience and have pleasure in appreciating the view there,” he said.
It turned out cycling on a plateau was extremely challenging. And it has kept changing his outlook on life. Cai’s fingers even became frostbitten while cycling up a 5008-meter-high mountain, where temperatures often dropped to 18 below zero. At night, the ice covered the road and he fell off his bike three times. The lack of oxygen made him feel dizzy and weak. “At the most serious moment, I felt that my life was on the line,” said Cai.
However, he also gained something unexpected. At Ya’an, a city in Sichuan, he met a group of tourists who are also university students. A girl called Wu Ling told him that she planned to work as a teacher in a primary school in Tibet after her journey. He was impressed by the idea as she looked slender and weak.
It was not until he reached a family-run hotel in Shigatse that Cai’s spirits began to rise. The hotel manager’s two daughters enjoyed talking with him. The kids asked about his experiences on his trip, and showed him the beautiful local lakes. “They told me that they always liked to talk to guests, as they wanted to improve their Mandarin,” he said, “Their parents and many locals can only speak Tibetan.”
Cai was touched by the girls’ story. Their situation is tough and the local people have little chance to learn Mandarin because the schools are short of teachers. “I want to do something to improve the situation for kids like them,” said Cai. His parents finally gave their agreement and his teachers also supported him.
1.According to the passage, Cai Kaiyuan’s graduation gift to himself is _________.
A. to have money for a deposit on a house
B. to travel by cycling from Sichuan to Tibet
C. to own a new car and marry a slender girl
D. to work as a volunteer teacher in Tibetan school
2.What words can be used to describe Cai’s journey to Tibet?
A. unique and pleasant B. challenging but rewarding
C. relaxing but unexpected D. freezing cold and boring
3.The underlined phrase “on the line” in the third paragraph means “ ____________”.
A. in a dilemma B. making a phone call
C. at risk D. very painful
4.The purpose of writing this passage is to ____________.
A. tell us about an unusual graduation gift
B. introduce a dangerous journey to us
C. give advice on how to travel to Tibet
D. encourage us to be a teacher in Tibet
5.Which of the followings is NOT the reason for Cai to make his decision?
A. He met Wu Ling and was impressed by her plan.
B. His parents and teachers persuaded him to go to Tibet.
C. He was moved by the kid’s desire to improve their Mandarin.
D. A lack of teachers makes the local people have little chance to learn.
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September is an exciting month in every college freshman’s life. For many, it’s the first time that they’ve left home to live in
a new environment. But after the hustle and bustle of a few weeks, excitement gives way to a less enjoyable emotion— homesickness.
Homesickness manifests itself in many ways. You may miss mum’s cooking, your pets, or even your old bed. All this becomes a fond memory of the past. Homesickness can be a bitter feeling for many students, especially when faced with the challenges of settling into an unfamiliar environment.
But remember, you’re not alone. According to a recent BBC article, 70 percent of British college students experience homesickness. In this increasingly globalized world in which people migrate to faraway places for a relationship, education or work, homesickness is a feeling shared by many adults.
Homesickness can have similar symptoms to depression and in extreme cases it can develop into a panic attack. As for the term, homesickness or nostalgia wasn’t invented until the 17th century. It was considered a disorder by a Swiss physician, who attributed soldiers’ mental and physical discomfort to their longing to return home, “nostos” from Greek, and the accompanying pain, “algos”.
Studies in recent years, however, have shown that nostalgia may have some benefits to our mental health. After a decade of surveys and researches, Constantine Sedikides, a US social psychologist, found that nostalgia is what makes us human. He explains that nostalgia can resist loneliness, boredom and anxiety. Therefore, it’s necessary for college students to learn some ways to overcome the uncomfortable feeling.
1. From the first two paragraphs, we can infer that __________.
A. homesickness means a fond memory of the past
B. only a few students will experience homesickness
C. homesickness is an enjoyable emotion among freshmen
D. college freshmen usually suffer from homesickness after weeks
2.According to the passage, we can know that _________.
A. homesickness may cause mental diseases
B. homesickness is a feeling only shared by adults
C. homesickness won’t do any good to our health
D. homesickness is also called nostalgia in Switzerland
3.What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows?
A. some benefits about homesickness
B. other problems in college freshmen’s life
C. how to make campus life more meaningful
D. some tips on how to cope with homesickness
4.The attitude of Sedikides towards homesickness is _________.
A. negative B. supportive C. skeptical D. critical
5.What is the best title for the passage?
A. Let’s embrace homesickness
B. How to fit into the college life
C. A harmful 
emotion—homesickness
D. The disadvantages of homesickness
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A board game is a game played on a pre-marked surface or “board” according to a set of rules. Board games have been played in most cultures and societies throughout history. Do you think of yourself as a bit of an expert at board games like chess or Go?
Maybe you’re not quite as good as you think. New research from the University of Manchester and Oxford suggests complex games like these are impossible to learn fully. They may even be too complex for the human mind to understand.
Researchers studied two-player games, to try and understand the strategies which people use to make decisions during the game. Some games with two players are simple, with only a small number of possible moves. Players can quickly work out the best strategy but that means the game soon becomes boring.
It gets more interesting when there are many possible moves. That’s why people are so fascinated by complex board games like chess or Go, or some card games. But what the researchers found was that with difficult games, players find it hard to work out the best strategy and their actions become less reasonable.
This research is part of the field called game theory: the study of human strategic decision-making. Much thinking on how people play complex games is based on something called “the balance point”, which is when players have a perfect knowledge of what they are going to do and of what their rivals are going to do.
When you add more than two players then of course the game becomes even harder to understand. Trading on the stock market is an example of a complex multi-player game.
1.Which of the following games belongs to board games?
A. football B. badminton C. swimming D. Mahjong
2.It can be inferred in the passage that _______.
A. the simpler the board game is, the better it is
B. people dislike board games for the complex moves
C. players are easy to lose patience when in difficult games
D. it’s possible for people to understand complex games thoroughly
3.If players want to get to the balance point, they should ______.
A. ask other players to work out the best strategy
B. have a good knowledge of the games they are playing
C. figure out the next actions of themselves and their opponents
D. come to a quick decision about what to do next by themselves
4.In which section can we read this passage in a newspaper?
A. Culture B. Discovery C. Career D. Campus
5.The author intends to tell us ___________.
A. a new research about board games
B. the importance of playing board games
C. how the players win board games
D. how to learn board games fully
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Taking a picture of your tongue with a mobile phone could soon instantly tell you how healthy you are. Researchers believe the images can reveal important information about a patient’s health and even give them early warning of serious illness.
A team at the University of Missouri is developing a system that can analyze pictures using a 5,000-year-old Chinese principle, which is based on the flow and balance of positive and negative energies in the body, and uses the tongue as a key to learning about a person’s physical health, or “zheng” according to Chinese medicine.
“Within a year, our goal is to create an application for smart phones that will allow anyone to take a photo of their tongue and learn the status of their zheng,” said Dong Xu, chair of MU’s Computer Science Department in the College of Engineering and the co-author of the latest study.
The software analyzes images based on the tongue’s color and coating to distinguish between tongues showing signs of “hot” or “cold” zheng. Shades of red and yellow are associated with hot zheng, whereas a white coating on the tongue is a sign of cold zheng.
“Hot and cold zheng doesn’t refer directly to body temperature,” said Xu, “Rather, it refers to a series of symptoms associated with the state of the body as a whole.”
For the study, 263 gastritis(胃炎) patients and 48 healthy volunteers had their tongues analyzed. The gastritis patients were classified by whether they showed infection by a certain bacteria as well as the intensity of their gastritis symptoms. In addition, most of the gastritis patients had been previously classified with either hot or cold zheng. This allowed the researchers to test the accuracy of the software’s analysis.
“Our software is able to classify people based on their zheng status. And as we continue to work on the software we hope to improve its ability,” said another co-author Ye Duan, “Eventually everyone will be able to use this tool at home using webcams or smart phone applications, which will allow them to monitor their zheng and get an early warning about possible ailments.”
1. The software mentioned in the passage is based on ________.
A. the latest development of smart phones
B. a traditional Chinese medical principle
C. the changes in one’s flow and energy
D. symptoms related with the state of the body
2.According to Chinese medicine, zheng refers to ________.
A. one’s body temperature B. the physical health of a person
C. the possible disease of a person D. the color and coating of one’s tongue
3.The study led by Dong Xu proves _________.
A. the effect of the software
B. the software’s great prospect
C. the advancement of smart phones
D. the greatness of Chinese medicine
4.The underlined word “ailments” can be replaced by _________.
A. analysis B. effects C. illnesses D. applications
5.It can be inferred from the passage that _________.
A. the software still needs improvement
B. the subjects in the study are all gastritis
C. the software has been in market for a year
D. the subjects in the study are classified by age
r face and looked at the
emotion—homesickness