【推荐1】Festivals in 2023

Roskilde Festival

With some of the biggest names in music, the Roskilde Festival in Denmark is preparing to bring fans an experience of a lifetime. Besides rock, electronic, and pop music, fans will also be treated to comedy, poetry, a carnival, and much more at this week-long festival. You can even rent a bike to get around the festival quickly.

Boomtown Fair

Boomtown is considered to be one of the wildest independent festivals in the world. Established in 2009 Winchester, United Kingdom, the fair takes place every summer, offering entertainment for visitors of all ages. Additionally, it specially conducts arts and crafts workshops for kids. Tracing its origin to its “underground” roots, Boomtown offers every type of music, from folk and jazz to disco and punk.

Impact Festival

The festival stays true to its name and truly impacts you through the experience you have while you attend the festival. You will spend your day meeting beautiful people, listening to some incredible live music, seeing an combination of fashionable costumes and clothing, freeing your mind and spirit and dancing the night away with a bunch of other people. You will be staying in Lodz, the third largest city in Poland, a beautiful city.

Wilderness Festival

The combination of fantastic music, amazing food, and a lovely atmosphere come together to give you the Wilderness Festival in Oxfordshire, UK. More than live music performances, the Oxfordshire Wilderness Festival also offers an environment for camping and enjoying the quiet backdrop of countryside.

1. Where should you go if you want to cycle around the festival?

A．To Denmark.

B．To Winchester.

C．To Lodz.

D．To Oxfordshire.

2. Which festival is the most suitable for children?

A．Roskilde Festival.

B．Boomtown Fair.

C．Impact Festival.

D．Wilderness Festival.

3. What can you do at the four festivals?

A．Enjoy music.

B．Taste food.

C．Buy clothes.

D．Draw pictures.

4. Where can you read this passage?

A．In a science report.	B．In a fashion magazine.
C．In a novel.	D．In a newspaper.

【推荐2】“What is the story of your piano?” A new friend asked over dinner. My piano stays in a corner of small living room. “All pianos have stories,” she said. Suddenly, my piano’s story came flooding out of me fully-formed as if I’d always had this tale to tell.

I loved music since childhood. I studied with the recorder and moved to the violin, trumpet and guitar. But playing the piano had always been my dream, a dream our family could not afford.

I grew up in an immigrant Chinese family in Toronto. My father waited tables in a Chinese restaurant, and my mother worked in a Chinese laundry. Despite our poor childhood, my siblings (兄弟姐妹) and I were always fed with love. I can’t remember which birthday it was when my mother spared the money to buy me a doll. Of course, by then I’d outgrown wanting dolls. But she worked too hard to know that and I never told her. I happily and gratefully accepted the doll because I loved the gift that was her loving me enough to buy it for me.

So it was eventually with my piano. It was in my last year of high school. I took piano lessons for about a year before university forced me to stop. I had to make a decision to continue the more practical goal of medical school or my love for music. The practical one in me won. But I also stopped piano lessons because as with my doll, it was too late to learn to play the way I wanted.

I moved that piano around with me over the next decade — until my son was born, he showed an early interest in music, so I put him in piano lessons.

I’ve come to realize that in pursuit of my career, I’ve let all personal pleasure fall away. Maybe it’s time to get that piano retuned (重新调音) again, this time for myself, before it’s too late to enjoy. Maybe that’s something we all should do right now.

Sometimes a single question can open whole paths of thinking and discovery. So, what is the story of your piano?

1. What do we know about the author from the first three paragraphs?

A．She was born in a musical family.	B．She refused to accept the doll as a gift.
C．She had a poor but happy childhood.	D．Her parents were too busy to care for her.

2. Why did the author stop learning the piano in her last year of high school?

A．Playing the piano was useless to her.	B．She couldn’t afford piano lessons.
C．Her parents forced her to stop.	D．She faced academic and career pressure.

3. What will the author probably do in the near future?

A．Ask her son to learn the piano.	B．Buy a new piano for herself.
C．Restart her piano dream.	D．Focus on her medical career.

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the article?

A．To share her story about an unrealized dream.	B．To show the advantage of medicine over music.
C．To recall her unfortunate childhood experience.	D．To encourage readers to play the piano.

【推荐3】Ticket Information

Due to extremely high demand, tickets for the three traditional end-of-year concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic are drawn(抽签)on the Vienna Philharmonic website. In this way, people worldwide have an equal chance to purchase these highly desired tickets.

Application Period: February 1-28, 2023

During this period, interested persons can apply on this website for tickets to the Preview Performance, the New Year’s Eve Concert, and the New Year’s Concert. The first step toward making an application for tickets is to register for the drawing. The registration is separate from your user account for the Webshop and is specifically for the drawing. Users can enter their ticket preferences for the upcoming concerts during the application period.

Price Categories

The number of tickets for the New Year’s Concert is limited to two, and the number of tickets for the Preview Performance and New Year’s Eve Concert can be up to four. The ticket prices range between 35€ and 1200 € for the New Year’s Concert, 25 € and 860 € for the New Year’s Eve Concert, and between 20€ and 495 € for the Preview Performance. If you wish to change your application, you may only do so during the application period. In March, you will know the results of the drawing.

When Should I Apply?

Within the one-month application period, the actual time of application is irrelevant. An application made on February 1 has the same chances as an application made on February 28. The only way to obtain tickets for these concerts is by taking part in the online drawing! Requests submitted through the postal system, by e-mail or by any other means will not be considered!

For more information, please click here.

1. How much should you pay at least for two tickets for the New Year’s Concert?

A．35€.

B．40€.

C．50€.

D．70€.

2. How do you get tickets for these concerts?

A．By applying on the website.

B．By posting requests through the postal system.

C．By making the application as early as possible.

D．By sending email to the Vienna Philharmonic website.

3. Where does this text probably come from?

A．A newspaper.	B．A webpage.
C．A music magazine.	D．A tourist brochure.

【推荐3】At the end of 2019, I learned that HereAfter AI, whose goal is to let the living communicate with the dead, was looking for applicants of its new AI project. Interested in what it was promising, I applied to experiment the software on my very-much-alive parents.

At first, I thought it would be just a fun project to see what was technologically possible. Then their health condition added some urgency to the experiment. I was frightened that my parents might die since my father had been diagnosed with cancer and my mother was recently developing symptoms of early Alzheimer’s disease, and that with the distance between us, I might never have the chance to say goodbye.

The first step was an interview. My parents were asked questions by a technician for hours — about everything from their earliest memories to what they believe will happen after they die. Whether through illness-generated concerns or a willingness to humor their daughter, my parents put up zero resistance. The company then took their responses and started to create the voice assistants. A few months later, my virtual parents arrived via email attachment.

When I communicated with them through the app on my phone, my hands were shaking. I hadn’t seen my actual, real parents for six months. They told me personal stories I’d never heard. They gave me life advice and told me things about their childhoods, as well as my own. It was mesmerizing.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about my experiment. I’m glad to have my virtual parents. They’ve enabled me to learn new things about my parents, and it’s comforting to think that those bots will be there even when my parents aren’t. On the other hand, I can’t help but find it sad that it took a stranger interviewing my parents for me to properly appreciate the complex people they are. But I feel lucky to have had the chance to grasp that — and to still have the precious opportunity to spend more time with them and learn more about them, face to face, no technology involved.

1. Why did the author initially join the AI project?

A．To preserve her parents’ voice.	B．To test out the new technology.
C．To learn more about her parents’ life.	D．To remove the worry about her parents’ health.

2. What can we learn about the author’s parents?

A．They liked talking a lot.	B．They died from the illnesses.
C．They provided data for the project.	D．They opposed joining the project at first.

3. What does the underlined word “mesmerizing” mean in paragraph 4?

A．Fascinating.

B．Alarming.

C．Inspiring.

D．Entertaining.

4. What does the author realize at last?

A．AI means never saying goodbye to our parents.

B．The real connection with our parents matters most.

C．The advances in AI technology have pros and cons.

D．AI allows us to learn more about our virtual parents.

【推荐1】One of the special features of English people is self-discipline (自律). Generally, English people are polite and always want to please others. On the other hand, they don’t like to show their emotions, even in dangerous situations. Imagine the scene! Some English people are caught in a violent storm in the forest. Anybody else would be anxious to run away. The English would just try to hide their emotions. Not a sign of fear would be seen on their faces.
We often hear of the English "reserve"(矜持). On a long railway journey, with four Englishmen sitting together, often there won’t be a single word spoken during the whole journey. The English think it is a bad manner to ask personal questions. That wouldn’t be the case in America. In a short ride in New York, a taxi driver will tell you about himself, his wife and his family, and probably the towns of England he has visited, too.
The English value privacy (隐私) very much. An Englishman’s house usually has a small garden with a fence all around to separate it from the neighbors’. An Englishman’s house is his castle.
Finally, we have to refer to the most special feature of the Scottish (苏格兰的) people —the Scottish dress. Scotland is probably best known to the world for its traditional costume —the kilt. This short, skirt-like piece of clothing is worn by men.
The kilt is made of a special type of colorful cloth called tartan, which is very special in Scotland.
1. When the English are in a dangerous situation they usually _______.

A．laugh at other people	B．behave very bravely
C．hide their emotions	D．run away immediately

2. In the second paragraph the author mentions a taxi driver in New York to ________.

A．explain what a personal question is

B．show the bad manners of Americans

C．show that English people are not very polite

D．show the reserve of the English

3. What do we know about the kilt in the last paragraph?

A．It’s long and just like a skirt.

B．It’s worn by both men and women.

C．It’s made of a special type of cloth in Scotland.

D．It’s a traditional costume all over Great Britain.

4. What can we learn about the English from the passage?

A．They are not very confident.

B．A house with a fence all around makes them feel safe.

C．They usually don’t respect others’ privacy.

D．They prefer a house with a garden to a flat.

【推荐3】If you are in town in a western country, you will often see people walking with their dogs. It is still true that a dog is the most useful animal in the world, but the reason why one keeps a dog has changed.

Once upon a time, a man met a dog and wanted it to help him in the fight against other animals, and he found that the dog listened to him and did what he told it to. Later people used dogs for the hunting of other animals, and the dogs didn’t eat what they got until their masters agreed. So dogs were used for driving sheep and guarding chickens.

But now the people in the towns and cities do not need dogs to hunt other animals. Of course they keep them to frighten thieves, but the most important reason is that people feel lonely in the city. For a child, a dog is his best friend when he has no friends to play with. For a young wife, a dog is her child when she doesn’t have her own. For old people, a dog is also a child when their real children have grown up and left. Now people do not have to use a dog but they keep it as a friend, just like a member of the family.

1. In town in a western country, dogs are often seen ________.

A．walking with hunters	B．playing with other animals
C．fighting against other animals	D．walking with their masters

2. In the past, dogs were used for ________.

A．keeping lonely people company	B．looking after their masters’ children
C．driving sheep and guarding chickens	D．frightening thieves

3. The underlined sentence “Now people do not have to use a dog” means ________.

A．dogs are seldom used as tools now	B．people don’t use dogs now
C．dogs are less useful than before	D．people don’t feel lonely now