Today my son didn’t feel well and came home from school early. I decided to take him to lunch. On the way, he saw a woman pushing her cart along the street. He said to me, “Ma, she’s wearing baseball cleats（夹板）as ________ I just wish I made enough money to be able to ________ a pair of comfortable shoes for ________ I see that doesn’t have shoes.”
We drove to a shopping center and he went inside. He ________ thought out what he’d get. He ________ the most comfortable and the longest lasting shoes that would keep her ________ too. He ________ two pairs: athlete shoes and also boots for the winter, along with a six pack of socks.
We drove back to find her and give her this ________. I had no intention of taking a ________ but I was holding my phone as I saw her reach up to ________ him. It choked me up and I couldn’t ________ that moment. I opened the camera as quickly as I could and ________ it. It brought tears to my eyes as he hugged her and then helped her ________ the tags and put them on. He quietly got back into the ________ and he sat there for a minute or so. When he looked over at me he said, “Ma, today is her birthday. She was so ________.”
He didn’t ask questions or talk ________ about her situation. He simply ________. He took basically one week of his pay and made this lady’s birthday ________. I challenge everyone to love a ________ with the ________ of a child. Show compassion and give what you can. It doesn’t have to be a lot.
1.A. sticks B. clothes C. bags D. shoes
2.A. buy B. sell C. grab D. make
3.A. someone B. everyone C. nobody D. her
4.A. roughly B. quickly C. carefully D. lately
5.A. wanted B. gained C. left D. guessed
6.A. cool B. warm C. pretty D. graceful
7.A. passed B. presented C. chose D. watched
8.A. goods B. gift C. decoration D. donation
9.A. seat B. place C. message D. picture
10.A. hug B. touch C. hold D. catch
11.A. notice B. record C. describe D. miss
12.A. aimed B. attracted C. captured D. fixed
13.A. take off B. take out C. take over D. take down
14.A. shop B. car C. station D. cinema
15.A. surprised B. interested C. pleased D. bored
16.A. positively B. pitifully C. honestly D. negatively
17.A. laughed B. wished C. cared D. worried
18.A. meaningless B. special C. true D. popular
19.A. stranger B. friend C. relative D. member
20.A. performance B. behavior C. innocence D. taste
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
The booking notes of the play “Sherlock”
Price: $10
BOOKING
There are four easy ways to book seats for the performance:
—in person
The Box Office is open from Monday to Saturday, 10 am—8 pm
—by telephone
Ring 01324976 to reserve your tickets or to pay by credit card (Visa and MasterCard).
—by post
Simply complete the booking form and return it to Box Office.
—online
Complete the online booking form at www.Satanfiedtheatre.com.
DISCOUNTS:
Saver: $2 off any seat booked any time in advance for performances from Monday to Thursday. Savers are available for children up to 16 years old, over 60s and full-time students.
Supersavers: half-price seats are available for people with disabilities and one companion. It is advisable to book in advance. There is a maximum of eight wheelchair spaces available and one wheelchair space will be held until an hour before the show.
Standby: best available seats are on sale for $6 from one hour before the performance for people suitable for Saver and Supersaver discounts and thirty minutes before for all other customers.
Group Booking: there is a ten percent discount for parties of twelve or more.
School: school parties of ten or more can book $6 standby tickets and will get every tenth ticket free.
Please note: we are unable to exchange tickets or refund money unless a performance is cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.
1.If you want to book a ticket of the play, you can ________.
A. complete a booking form and post it to the Box Office
B. go to the Box Office on Sundays
C. scan the website www.Boxoffice.com
D. ring the booking number and pay for the tickets by cash
2.According to the text, who can get $2 off?
A. A 50-year-old father.
B. A 13-year-old student.
C. The people who book the tickets on Fridays.
D. A 55-year-old woman.
3.If you make a group booking for a group of 20 adults, how much should you pay?
A. $200. B. $150.
C. $160. D. $180.
4.What do we know from the text?
A. A. A group of 10 persons can get 10 percent discount.
B. The audience can refund money if the performance is on show.
C. School parties of twelve can book $6 standby tickets.
D. There are only seven wheelchair spaces in the theatre.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Do you find it difficult to put down your mobile phone?
If yes, you’re not alone. These days, many people suffer from the stress of FOMO (fear of missing out). They reach of their mobile phones when they wake up in the morning, and for the rest of the day, they constantly check their social media apps for the latest updates.
Despite the convenience smart phones bring, many people struggle with their digital habits. This is why Google introduced an app called Dashboard for Android operating system. This new app includes well-being functions that aim to help users manage the time they spend on their digital devices.
It all starts with a bird’s-eye view. Dashboard allows users to look at all the details of their phone habits. For example, a user can see how many times they’re unlocked their phone and how many times they’re checked their social media apps, as well as how much time they spend on each app every day.
Once the users see this information, they’ll be able to make some changes. With the App Timer function, users can set a time limit for how long they can use each app for every day.
But even if users become more mindful of their usage, they’re still likely to be drawn in by notification（通知）. Such feature automatically（自动地）silences incoming calls and notifications when a user puts their phone face down.
If people truly want to make full use of their free time instead of losing hours using their smart phones, these new functions are just one way of doing that.
The easiest answer would be just to use your willpower.
1.Who are the target users of Dashboard?
A. People who know little about smart phones.
B. People who have trouble dealing with stress.
C. People who are slow at researching of things online.
D. People who wish to manage the time they spend on their smart phones.
2.What can Dashboard do?
A. Lock the phone at a certain time.
B. Limit some apps to certain users.
C. Limit the time certain apps can be used.
D. Silence app notifications at night.
3.The underlined word “mindful” in Paragraph 6 is closest in meaning to ________.
A. serious B. careful
C. prepared D. creative
4.What does the author think of Dashboard?
A. It’s not very useful. B. It’s perfectly designed.
C. It should include more functions. D. It may be helpful to some people.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
The loud continuous noise of the cars or the sound of a plane can force its way into the deepest forest, yet it’s not only humans that are bothered by the noise.
Bioacoustician Bernie Krause has been studying the effect of noise pollution on wildlife, and has come across some interesting behaviors, especially among animals that communicate by vocalization（发声）, like humans. Birds use sound to communicate, but in noisy places, these animals have to shout over the natural noise to be heard.
Krause mentions a study of nightingales to clarify what he means. The birds responded to traffic noise by singing louder and louder until they actually went beyond noise pollution standards in the city. To belt out (sing loudly) their songs, they increased their lung pressure fivefold, but scientists state that this is not dangerous for the birds themselves.
Studies show that sudden noise can cause certain birds to leave their nests, exposing the young to their enemies. One study also showed that songbirds that nested close to busy motorways were much less productive than those that nested farther away. Mammals（哺乳动物）too are affected. A recent study showed that nursing caribou responded to plane noise by not producing enough milk to feed their young.
In some cases noise pollution can actually help some animals while harming others. Toads（蟾蜍）and frogs are known to vocalize in synchrony（同步；同步方式）so that no predator (their enemies) can zero in on them. Krause found that when planes flew overhead and disturbed the toad’s song, they lost their synchronicity, and it took them 45 minutes to get it back again. That gave their natural enemies plenty of time to find and catch individual toads by sound.
According to Kruse, “Not only will noise pollution bother wildlife, but it won’t help our lives either.”
1.How do young caribou suffer from aircraft noise?
A. They receive less food. B. They can’t sleep at night.
C. They are often displaced. D. They can’t hear their mothers.
2.What would happen if toads and frogs failed to sing in union?
A. They might become defenseless.
B. They would stop communicating.
C. They would soon regain their rhythm.
D. They might ne unable to hunt in groups.
3.What is the text mainly about?
A. The effects of noise pollution on wildlife.
B. The causes of noise pollution.
C. Animals’ reaction to noises.
D. The ways animals communicate with each other.
难度: 困难查看答案及解析
A team of UK researchers recently compared the performances of 120 women and 120 men in a computer test involving switching between tasks of counting and shape recognition.
Men and women were equally capable when tasks were handled one at a time. But when the tasks were mixed up, there was a clear difference. According to the paper published in the journal BMC Psychology, both women and men slowed down and made more mistakes as the switching became more rapid. But the men were slower, taking 77 percent longer to answer, whereas women took 69 percent longer.
To make the experiment more relevant to day-to-day life, researchers tried a second test. A group of women and men were given eight minutes to complete a series of everyday tasks, such as finding restaurants on a map, doing simple math problems, answering a phone call, or deciding how they would search for a lost key in a field. Once again, women outperformed men in the test, particularly in the key-searching task.
“It suggests that in a stressed and complex situation women are more able to stop and think about what’s going on in front of them,” researcher Keith Laws of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, told BBC News. “In contrast, men had a slight impulsiveness（冲动）, answering without giving much thought to their responses.”
So where do women get the ability to keep organized under pressure better than men? Researchers believe that it has its roots in evolution. In early human communities, women had to keep an eye on children while cooking meals. Meanwhile, men only needed to focus on hunting.
1.What did the UK researchers find in the first experiment?
A. Men were better at counting and shape recognition than women.
B. Women made more mistakes than men when multitasking.
C. Women were better at switching between tasks than men.
D. Men and women had equal multitasking abilities.
2.Why did the researchers carry out the second test?
A. To compare the results from different age groups.
B. To check the results with more difficult tasks.
C. To make the results more connected to people’s lives.
D. To check the results over a shorter period of time.
3.What is the main purpose of Paragraph 4 and 5?
A. To show how men and women think differently.
B. To give advice on how to multitask.
C. To compare the roles of men and women in human communities.
D. To explain why men and women perform differently.
4.What can we learn from this passage?
A. Men tend to give more thought to their responses when facing complex situations.
B. Every woman is born to be good at multitasking.
C. Men only need to focus on hunting.
D. Evolution leads to women’s outperforming men in multitasking.
难度: 困难查看答案及解析
Artificial intelligence（AI，人工智能）can help us make phone calls, guide us to where we want to go, or play games. 1. Researchers from Microsoft recently created the first machine translation system that can translate news articles from Chinese to English, Business Standard reported.
According to Microsoft’s official website, researchers tested the system by asking it to translate hundreds of sentences taken from news stories. 2. They concluded that the system’s translations were as good as the human translations. 3. This is partly because different words can be used to express the same meaning. It can be hard to say which word is more “correct”.
4. “Much of our research is really inspired by how we humans do things,” lead researcher Liu Tieyan said.
One method is called dual learning（对偶学习）. In this method, the system translates every sentence from Chinese to English, as well as translating the sentences back from English into Chinese. 5. This is similar to what humans do to make sure their translations are accurate.
Another method makes use of deliberation networks. This is when the system is made to translate the same sentence over and over. Gradually, the system improves the quality of its translation, like humans who would improve their own writing by going over it again and again.
A. Machine translation is always challenging.
B. However, experts used several methods to improve the system’s translation abilities.
C. Then, language experts compared the results to two translations that were done by humans.
D. Researchers collected a lot of data to help the system learn and improve.
E. And now, AI can do even more things.
F. Researchers have worked on machine translation for decades.
G. This way, the system can improve itself and learn from its own mistakes.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。
It seems that Chinese people have always loved to discuss 1. differences between northerners and southerners. Now, another difference has drawn wide attention: the way northerners and southerners shop 2. food at markets.
People from southern China normally buy 3. they need for just one or two meals at a time. It’s normal for them to buy just half a Chinese cabbage, two 4. (potato) and 25 grams of beef at a time. 5., a person may be laughed at if they do this in the north. Instead, buying enough vegetables and meat for a week 6. (be) normal.
The different could be because of the different climates. Food can 7. (keep) for a long time in the north, as it’s 8. (usual) cold and dry there. Many northerners have the habit of 9. (store) food for a long time. But due to the hot and wet weather in the south, southern Chinese people prefer 10. (buy) just enough food for one meal or one day. Otherwise, the food may go bad.
Maybe these debates about different customs help us to understand each other better.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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、删除和修改。
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. 每处错误及其修改仅限一词；
2. 只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
A young couple bought a big house from two sisters, whom bought it at low price. However, winter wasn’t far away at the time. The couple were a little bit worrying about how they would keep the house warm, though it didn’t have any fireplaces. But later, they thought that if the sisters were able to stay warm and comfortably in the house during the winter, so could they.
Winter arrived and temperatures soon drops below zero. The large house became freezing cold, with frost covered the walls. Finally, the husband couldn’t bear with it anymore. She called to ask the sisters how they managed to keep warm during the winter. “The cold weather never bothered us,” one of the sister told the husband. “We just went on vacation to Thailand every winter.”
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
假定你是李华，今年高二，你从报纸上获悉某大学有夏令营活动，想要申请参加。请你给该校写一封电子邮件进行申请。
内容包括：
1. 自我介绍；
2. 申请理由；
3. 随附个人简历(CV)；
注意：词数100左右；
Dear Madam or Sir,
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Li Hua
难度: 中等查看答案及解析