Ⅱ. Grammar and vocabulary Section A
Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
My head was so full of digital noise (21) _______ it felt like my brain was about to explode. I had no greater power of concentration than a goldfish and the lifeless stare of a goldfish as well. As a writer, I was ashamed to admit that my love of books had been weakened by a brain that simply could not sit still. So, at the start of this year I committed to restoring books to the place that they held in my life before the Internet broke my brain.
My goal was 52 books: It seemed like an impossible task. A 400-page book will take the average person around eight hours to read. Finding the time to read was a challenge but here’s how I did it. Firstly, I decided to treat my mind like a child (22) _______ (behave) badly and lay down some ground rules. Then I decided that I (23) _______ (read) for an hour or two at a time (24) _______ distraction each day. It was something I hadn’t done in years and it was scary (25) _______ difficult it was.
In his book, The Distracted Mind, Larry Rosen says that the more we practice spending time away from our electronic devices, the(26) _______ (calm) and more focused we become. And this is what I found. Again and again, I would gently bring myself back to the page, resisting the urge(27) _______ (reach ) for that screen. I took inspiration from Nikki Gemmell, who describes in On Quiet, how investing in a safe to lock away her family’s devices for long periods had opened up a space for deep reflection. For me, finding that quiet time meant finding time in my day just to read. It was a date between me and my book. And it meant actively choosing to read at times (28) _______ I ordinarily would reach for my phone.
I read on the tram, at the park, in red at night and on lunch breaks.
(29) _______ (renew) my love affair with books, I created a sacred space where I pressed pause and found inspiration, knowledge and reflection. In our modern world, reading for the sake of reading is not selfish. It is a powerful and beneficial way to slow down and be(30) _______.
III. Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.
A. intentions B. feature C. inviting D. conservation E. entertaining F. matched G. confused H. fascination I. survive J. defining K. evaluate
The odds are high that you’ve seen a beauty pageant（选美比赛）or two in your life. They are among the most attended and viewed events in the world. Despite numerous different opinions, beauty pageants continue to not only 31 but also become more popular.
Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss International and Miss Earth are known as the Big Four beauty pageants, and all of them continue to this day. These competitions 32 young women on their physical attractiveness, of course, but they also are judged on their personality, intelligence, talent, and responses to interview-based questions. The eventual winners receive prizes including cash, scholarships, clothes, beauty queen crowns, and of course, the title of the event for one year.
All these awards do not come cheap for the young ladies. They have duties to fulfill while holding their titles. Beauty queens often appear at functions to raise social awareness about environmental and social issues such as nature 33 , racial or gender discrimination, and disease prevention. By projecting the image of a well-educated, respectable character 34 with a successful personality,
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every beauty pageant winner is seen as a role model, and not just for young girls alone.
Some beauty contests 35 men rather than women. Similar to their feminine counterparts, men enter Mister Global, Mister International, and Mister World for their looks, style, and talent. These contests should not be 36 with the Mister Universe contest, which is an annual bodybuilding competition.
There are other strange and 37 pageants all over the world that celebrate everything from being old to being pregnant.
Beauty contests, whether organized with noble 38 or just for fun, have attracted criticism since they were first held. Some critics object to the focus on physical beauty, especially emphasis on a certain stature and body shape. Further, they point out that some participants will actually have themselves through dieting or plastic surgery to achieve the perfect appearance. Despite these complaints, beauty may be only skin deep, but 39 it and competing for the glory of being the fairest of them all holds a timeless and universal 40____.
Ⅲ. Reading Comprehension Section A
Directions: For each blank in the following passage there are four words or phrases marked A, B, C and D. Fill in each blank with the word or phrase that best fits the context.
China and India Dominate the Greening of Earth
Over the last two decades, the Earth has seen an increase in foliage（植物）around the planet, measured in average leaf area per year on plants and trees. Data from NASA satellites shows that China and India – two ___41___ economies with the world’s biggest populations – are ___42___ the increase in greening on land. The effect comes mostly from ___43___ tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.
Researchers from Boston University found that global green leaf area has increased by five percent since the early 2000s, an area ___44___ to the entire Amazon rainforest. The study was also published in the journal Nature Sustainability on February 11. It revealed that at least 25 percent of the global foliage ___45___ this century came in China.
“China and India ___46___ one-third of the greening, but contain only nice percent of the planet’s land area covered in vegetation,” said lead author Chi Chen of Boston University. “That is a surprising finding, considering the general idea of land degradation（退化）in populous countries from ___47____.” China’s ____48____ contribution to the global greening trend came in large part from programs to conserve and expand forest, accounting for about 42 percent of the greening contribution. These programs were developed in an effort to ____49____ the effects of air pollution, soil erosion and climate change. Another 32 percent of the greening change in China, and 82 percent in India, resulted from intensive ___50___ of food crops. The land area used to grow crops in China and India has not changed much since the early 2000s. Yet both countries have greatly increased annual total green leaf area and food production in order to ___51___ large populations.
Rama Nemani, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, saw a(n) ___52___ message in the new findings. “ One people realize there is a problem, they tend to fix it,” he said.” In the 1970s and 80s in India and China, the situation around vegetation loss was not good. In the 1990s, people realized it, and today things have improved. Humans are ___53___ resilient（复原快的，适应力强的）. That’s what we see in the satellite data.”
___54___, the researchers rang bells as well. They pointed out that the gain in global greenness did not ___55___ make up for the loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions like Brazil and Indonesia. 41. A. emerging B. declining C. stimulating D. intruding 42. A. imposing B. contributing C. leading D. creating
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43. A. fertile B. extreme C. harmonious D. ambitious 44. A. distant B. equivalent C. relevant D. resistant 45. A. expansion B. substitution C. innovation D. correction 46. A. account for B. take in C. stand for D. consist of 47. A. over-reaction B. over-exploitation C. over- generation D. over-explanation
48. A.considerate B. tremendous C. magnificent D.irregular 49. A. forbid B. investigate C. boost D. reduce 50. A. cultivation B. demand C. destruction D. supply 51. A. cut B. employ C. feed D. treat 52. A. secret B. brief C. urgent D. positive 53. A. continuously B. incredibly C. initially D. obviously 54. A. Moreover B. Meanwhile C. However D. Therefore 55. A. necessarily B. generally C. fortunately D. thoroughly Section B
Directions: Read the following three passages. Each passage is followed by several questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that fits best according to the information given in the passage you have just read.
(A)
The Life-changing Antique Navajo Blanket
A California man and his family went from rags to riches after discovering that the blanket given to him by his grandmother was worth a small fortune. Loren Krylzer was living in a small hut and barely getting by on his disability payments. One day, he happened to be watching Antiques Roadshow on TV when he learned that the forgotten old blanket in his closet might be valuable. The Krytzer family heirloom（传家宝） turned out to be an antique（古老的）Novajo weaving from the 19th century that fetched US $1.5 million at auction（拍卖会）。
Krytzer’s blanket was prized for much more than its antiquity. Among Native American tribes, The Navajo are recognized as the most skillful weavers of blankets and rugs. The weaving style is characterized by vivid, varied patterns and exceptional durability. From shearing the sheep, spinning, preparing, and dyeing the wool to the actual weaving process, it takes around 345 hours to create one blanket.
Women traditionally wove Navajo blankets while men built the weaving devices. To this day, Navajo people still make high quality blankets and rugs to sell. They believe that, since only God is perfect, their creations should have some imperfection. Another Navajo belief is that their souls are sewn into every weaving, so they intentionally include a hidden loose thread into each piece. This ensures that is isn’t too perfect, and their souls can still escape into the afterlife.
The Krylzers also had a loose thread on their road to riches that allowed them to escape the trap of financial ruin. In an unfortunate twist, the family’s life-changing windfall（意外之财） came with a huge tax bill from the government and a lot of imploring relatives. After taking a family vacation in Mexico, buying a new sports car and a couple of real estate purchases, Krytzer lost his disability payments and now get big bills for property taxes and insurance instead. Ironically, the family decided to relocate to a less expensive state to save money.
56. How did the Krytzer family go from rage to riches? A. A family member purchased a winning lottery ticket. B. Loren was invited to have an interview on a TV show.
C. Loren’s disability payments were unexpectedly increased. D. Loren auctioned off a blanket his grandmother gave him.
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57. A loose thread woven in a Navajo blanket indicates that _______. A. God’s creation is also imperfect
B. people can exit from horrible situations C. its owner is sure to have an everlasting life D. the blanket is really made by hand
58. Why did the family finally decide to move to another state? A. To reduce the cost of living.
B. To be hidden from their relatives. C. To change for a better environment. D. To apply for disability payments again.
59. According to the article, which of the following statement is TRUE? A. Navajo blankets have nice patterns but don’t last long. B. Loren Krytzer made millions of dollars from disability. C. Weaving a blanket involves many processes and skills.
D. Loren’s life went from bad to worse because of the windfall.
（B）
Recyclable items are waste materials that can be processed to make new products. The recycled materials go through an intense process of separating the materials and converting into reusable products. At Waste Control, we offer a suite of on-site and off-site recycling services to meet the needs of our residential and business customers.
ON-SITE RECYCLING SERVICES
At the Waste Control facility, we have Drop-off Recycling and Buy-back Recycling Centers. The drop-off recycling center is a free service and is located next to the Transfer Station Building entrance. The Buy-Back Recycling Center is located on the north end of the facility and is for customers wishing to be reimbursed（报销，偿还）for their recyclable materials at current market rates. OFF-SITE RECYCLING SERVICES
We also offer many off-site recycling services to meet your needs. We maintain free drop-off recycling sites throughout the community for common recyclable materials and residential waste oil and antifreeze. We also offer off-site residential roadside recycling and business recycling services.
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HOURS & DIRECTIONS
Waste Transfer Station, Drop-off Recycling Center, & Buy-back Recycling Center: 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ---7 days a week Business Office:
8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. --- Monday through Friday Holiday Hours:
The Business Office is closed on all major holidays ( New Year’s Day. July 4th, Memorial Day, Labor
Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas).
The Transfer Station is open for self-hauled waste, drop-off recycling, and buy-back recycling for
limited hours during holidays. The facility is closed Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and July 4th –if it falls on a weekend. The facility closes at 12 noon on Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and July 4th-if it falls on a weekday. The facility is open on all other holidays. Waste collection and roadside recycling services are uninterrupted during holidays, except for
Christmas Day and New Years Day. If Christmas Day or New Year’s Day fall on a weekday. there will be no pickup on the holiday and all garbage and recycling services will be moved one day forward from your regularly scheduled pickup for the remainder of the week. For example, if Christmas falls on a Wednesday, customers with regularly scheduled Wednesday service will be picked up on Thursday. Customers with regularly scheduled Thursday service will be picked up on Friday. Customers with regularly scheduled Friday service will be picked up on Saturday. Monday and Tuesday fall prior to the holiday and will be picked up as regularly scheduled. 60. If you wish to be paid back for the recyclable items, you should _______. A. check the current market rates first B. take them to the Waste Control facility C. put them into the roadside recycling sites D. separate them from waste oil and antifreeze
61. If Christmas Day falls on Tuesday, customers with regularly scheduled Tuesday service will be picked up on _______.
A. Off-site services are not offered to collect business recyclable materials. B. Waste Transfer Station is open on July 4th morning if it falls on a weekend. C. The drop-off recycling center is far away from the buy-back recycling center. D. There is no need for residents to pay for dropping off recyclable materials. 62. Which of the following statements is TRUE?
A. Off-site services are not offered to collect business recyclable materials. B. Waste Transfer Station is open on July 4th morning if it falls on a weekend. C. The drop-off recycling center is far away from the buy-back recycling center. D. There is no need for residents to pay for dropping off recyclable materials.
（C）
No one knows what the future will look like. New technology and climate change might make the world more different than we can possibly imagine. So we had better keep an open mind and hope for the best.
We have no idea what the job market will look like in 2050. It is generally agreed that machine learning and robotics will change almost every line of work—from producing yoghurt to teaching yoga. However, there are conflicting views about the nature of the change and its urgency. Some believe that within a mere decade or two, billions of people will become economically redundant（多余的）. Others maintain that even in the long run automation will keep creating new jobs and greater prosperity for all.
So are we on an edge of a terrifying sudden change, or are such forecasts yet another example of
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ill-founded Luddite hysteria（勒德分子的歇斯底里）? It is hard to say. Fears that automation will create massive unemployment go back to the nineteenth century, and so far they have never materialized. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, for every job lost to a machine at least one new job was created, and the average standard of living has increased dramatically.
Yet there are good reasons to think that this time it is different, and that machine learning will be a real game changer. Humans have two types of abilities—physical and cognitive（认知的）. In the past, machines competed with humans mainly in raw physical abilities, while humans still had a great advantage over machines in cognition. Hence as manual jobs in agriculture and industry were automated, new service jobs emerged that required the kind of cognitive skills only humans possessed: learning, analysing, communicating and above all understanding human emotions. However, AI is now beginning to outperform humans in more and more of these skills, including in the understanding of human emotions. We don’t know of any third field of activity—beyond the physical and the cognitive—where humans will always maintain a secure advantage. It is crucial to realize that the AI revolution is not just about computers getting faster and smarter. It is fueled by breakthroughs in the life sciences and the social sciences as well. The better we understand the biochemical mechanisms that support human emotions, desires and choices, the better computers can become in analyzing human behavior, predicting human decisions, and replacing human drivers, bankers and lawyers.
In the last few decades, research in neuroscience and behavioural economics allowed scientists to gain a much better understanding of how humans make decisions. It turned out that our choices of everything from food to mates result not from some mysterious free will, but rather from billions of neurons calculating probabilities within a split second. Boasting‘human intuition’（直觉）is actually pattern recognition.
63. The second paragraph tells us about ____.
A. predictions about the role of machine learning in future job market B. the speed at which robotics will take the place of human beings C. the urgency of creating new jobs with the help of automation D. the nature of applying new technology to every line of work
64. The underlined expression“ill-founded”in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ___. A. unidentified B. badly-managed C. unproven D. ill-intended 65. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
A. Lack of job security might force people to pick up machine learning.
B. There is possibility that AI can perform a consulting role as a psychologist. C. The use of automation will make humans more needed than ever before. D. A real game changer likes in making computers become faster and smarter. 66. What can be concluded from the passage?
A. At revolution is similar to the industrial revolution in causing unemployment. B. It’s crucial that humans maintain an advantage in the third field of activity. C. The process of human decision is controlled by free will rather than neurons. D. The nature of preference at first sight is the result of recognizing patterns.
Section C
Directions：Read the passage carefully. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need. A. However, mothers and fathers shouldn’t force their kids to go outside of use it as a type of punishment. 第 6 页/共 9 页
B. In turn, this aids in the development of confidence and overall good health. C. Recent studies focus not so much on what is lost when nature experience fades, but on what is gained through more exposure to natural settings. D. He acknowledges that NDD is mostly a metaphor for a lifestyle lacking in contact with nature. E. Schools that use outdoor classrooms and other forms of experiential education produce significant student gains in science, language and math. F. Experts believe that problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder（注意力缺乏多动症）can be relieved through contact with nature. Losing Touch with Nature May Make You Sick
For something that’s not actually a recognized medical condition. Nature-Deficit Disorder（NDD）has gotten a lot of attention since it was first coined in 2005. Writer Richard Louv came up with the term in his book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. ___67___ Louv explained that children who play outside often are less likely to become ill, stressed, or aggressive compared to those who watch a lot of television and spend most of their free time indoor. Indeed, studies appear to back up that claim by noting that children who spend a significant amount of time outdoors tend to have better mental and physical health. ___68___ Nevertheless, they may be worsened by staying inside watching TV, playing video games, or being glued to a smartphone. What’s more, research also suggests that getting a nature fix can help boost the immune system.
According to Louv, the effects of NDD can be lessened or even reversed by making sure parents encourage their kids to enjoy playing outdoors as much as they can. ___69___ Rather, they should lead by example, spending time with them in the park, at the beach, camping, and doing other activities, Louv said. He added that children learn many important and practical skills while interacting with nature, like risk-taking, independence, and decision-making ___70___.
Ⅳ. Summary Writing
Directions：Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.
After you have a long day at school or work, getting a bit of shut-eye on the way home is sometimes just what the doctor ordered. But sleeping too long and ending up way past your destination is a real possibility. According to research from sleep specialists in the US, there are several possible explanations for being able to nap during a train or bus ride and still get off at the right stop.
One theory states that some people have established sleep pattern that allow them to sleep and wake up at precisely the same time each day. That means their body knows when to wake up and get off the train. Another theory is that people are more likely to recognize the name of their stop, so their brain wakes them up when they hear it announced. Alternatively, those who can effectively sleep on the train might actually be waking up at every stop, but not long enough to become conscious until they know they’re reached the right place.
These short naps might work for those who are really exhausted, for even a brief rest has the benefit of reducing stress and helping you relax a little. But if you are travelling really far each day, chances are that you will reach rapid eye movement（REM）sleep cycles. According to Dr. Marc Leavey, who has studied this skill,“You’re more likely to be tried or disoriented when you wake up from these dreams, so if you’re sleeping for longer than 20 minutes, you may find it harder to wake up out of this dream state. If you’re in a deep REM sleep, you’re more likely to miss your stop or sleep through it.”Not everyone can do it, but some people can run their sleep cycle like clockwork and take a nap on public transportation.
Ⅴ. Translation
Directions：Translate the following sentences into English, using the words given in the brackets.
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72. 出乎我意料的是收纳盒可以这么方便地使东西变得井井有条。（keep）
73. 作为一名成年人，你一旦签下协议，就应该承担履行承诺的责任。（assume）
74. 学生在小组讨论中越投入就越有信心完成后续的高要求任务。（engage）
75. 不管意图如何，表扬对学生有着积极的影响，使他们能作出更多的努力并且更有信心地面对将
来的挑战。（regardless）
Ⅵ. Guided Writing
Directions：Write an English composition in 120-150 words according to the instructions given below in Chinese.
下图是关于高中生运动的原因。请描述图表所呈现的内容，介绍你开始运动的动机、所从事的运动项目及其带来的影响。
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