1 . How a Teacher Can Change Your Life
Smiling with satisfaction, Karin Anderson continued to conduct while dozens of students were playing their instruments, and Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony® fills the hall. The emotional (感情的) drama of conducting an orchestra (乐团) of teenagers is part of a typical day’s teaching for Karin. “Teaching is like surfing,” she says. “You have no idea what’s going to happen and there’s no guarantee (保证) that things will go according to plan. You have to be on guard at all times.” But the unpredictability of her students doesn’t make her job hard, she says. In fact, working with sometimes difficult teenagers, which she says might exhaust other teachers, is what keeps her coming back day after day.
Karin believes music lessons may have unexpected benefits. Research has found that they improve a child’s language development, and the reasoning skills extremely important to maths and science. “We can’t be sure if music really makes kids perform better academically, or if smarter students just naturally become involved with music anyway, but there might be a connection. Certainly, schools need something for those brighter students. It’s not so much giving them a release from studying hard, but more that they need to be stretched, and pushed in a different direction.”
But the benefits of music education are for everyone, not just the clever kids. Karin points out that there are strong connections between music and the motivation to learn, the ability to focus, and even someone’s confidence and tolerance.
Music can also help to create a positive, supportive learning environment, which Karin always tries to create in her orchestra. Being grouped by age, not ability, makes everyone new feel welcome and part of a family. “In school you’re very aware of social classes — the rich kids and the poor kids — and all the little groups that gossip all the time,” says orchestra member Laura Greene. “But in the orchestra, everyone is part of the group, and equally important. We’re all trying to improve together. We’ve all got unique talents.”
In Karin’s classroom, there are no awards decorating the walls. She says this might put the orchestra under pressure or make them worry about competition, though in fact the school has won many prizes, which she is clearly proud of. “What’s most important to me is that everyone works as a team,” she says. “It’s a magic moment when there’s absolute unity.”
Karin wants the orchestra to widen the horizons of everyone who joins. When some parents weren’t able to afford certain trips of the orchestra, Karin surprised everyone by organizing what she called “scholarships”, with the school paying part of the money to students who had been positive and cooperative. They weren’t awarded on the basis of who had a special gift for music.
In her office, Karin proudly displays a picture of another student. Karin says, “Thomas was smart, but he hated school, and he seemed cut off from his peers, alone in a world of his own. The orchestra made him come out of his shell.” After graduating, Thomas wrote to Karin, “I’m so grateful to you for allowing me to play the most beautiful music in the world, even though I never took it up professionally. I understand now that music educates the mind and the heart, and helps you to connect with others.”
©The Fifth Symphony was composed by Gustav Mahler and is one of his well-known works. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was an Austrian composer and conductor.
1. What is Karin’s attitude to teaching music?| A．It is about controlling the class. | B．It requires careful preparation. |
| C．It gives wonderful surprises. | D．It is emotionally tiring. |
| A．Teamwork is important in music lessons. |
| B．It is not worth making efforts for prizes. |
| C．Teachers should not ignore social classes. |
| D．Gifted students should have more chances. |
| A．It reduces academic pressure. | B．It changes one’s attitude. |
| C．It builds up self-confidence. | D．It presents new challenges. |
Passenger ships, trade ships, and fishing boats are a normal part of life on the open sea. However, all their activity creates a great deal of noise underwater. Scientists from the United States and Canada recently reported their observations (观察) that the ocean is getting noisier.
Scientists at the University of Victoria have studied the recordings recorded with equipment placed underwater near the busy shipping lanes off Vancouver Island in Canada. They say engine(发动机) noise is continuous during the day, and a little less strong at night.
Scientists say it is likely that whales must call out more loudly to be heard over this noise. The noise could make it more difficult for orca whales to find food. The orcas find fish by producing clicking sounds and other noises. Loud engine noise could be interfering with their efforts.
Michael Jasny is a policy expert for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He says the rise of underwater noise is limiting the ability of whales to communicate.
Shipping noise falls across the same frequencies (频率) that these animals use for all their vital(重大的，紧要的) behaviors — for feeding, for finding mates, for avoiding predators (捕食者) and for going ahead.”
Mr. Jasny says sound travels very effectively underwater. And it is not just whales he is worried about.
“The whole web of life in the oceans depends on sound. And as more and more research has been done, it’s been very clear that what we have on our hands is really a major problem. It’s a serious problem. It’s a global problem. Fortunately, in shipping we have a problem that has a solution.”
One answer is to design quieter ships. America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has four new ships that are made to be quieter. Michael Bahtiarian works for Noise Control Engineering, the company which helped design the boats.
Mr. Bahtiarian says the main source of noise pollution is the propeller(螺旋桨). Better shaped propellers and ship designs can help to reduce noise. NOAA’s ships also have costly engines, which produce less noise. Mr. Bahtiarian says the technology to make quieter ships does exist and has been used in the army for some time.
1. The underlined phrase “interfering with” in Paragraph 3 probably means ________.| A．controlling | B．troubling | C．encouraging | D．stopping |
| A．communicating with their mates | B．stopping predators from fishing |
| C．fighting against the shipping noise | D．telling the night time from the day |
| A．expensive engines produce less noise in the ocean |
| B．many animals in the ocean depend on sound for living |
| C．people should stop making big ships in order to save whales |
| D．it is difficult to find a way to stop noise pollution in the ocean |
| A．The Ocean is Getting Noisier. | B．Whales and Ships in the Ocean. |
| C．Whales are Facing a Serious Problem. | D．Quiet Ships are Needed in the Ocean. |
3 . See Through the News
①Mark Twain once said: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
②This is especially true when talking about news stories we read online every day. Have you ever noticed that some stories don’t seem true? These stories are known as “fake news”, and have become common on social media (社交媒体).
③In a new study, researchers from MIT found that lies and fake news spread faster and farther than true stories on social media.
④They analyzed (分析) more than 126,000 stories shared by 3 million users on Twitter. It turned out that fake stories often reached between 1,000 and 100,000 people, but true stories reached just a little over 1,000.
⑤This may be because fake news can easily catch people’s attention. Fake news stories often talk about widely-discussed topics which are easy for people to argue about. They also have new and surprising information. Fake news stories are more sensational (耸人听闻的) and might make people feel angry or surprised.
⑥In 2017, the Wenzhou Evening News reported that a girl was not allowed to take her college entrance exam because she showed up two minutes late. Many internet users became angry after hearing this, believing that the school was being unreasonable. But in fact, the girl was 17 minutes late. Students are usually allowed to take the exam as long as they arrive no later than 15 minutes after the exam starts. But the girl was two minutes later than allowed.
⑦Luckily, there are more and more programs to help stop fake news. Nearly one third of teenagers in the United States find many stories online are not true after taking a news literacy class. In Britain, several famous reporters will go to around 1,000 secondary schools. While there, the reporters will give students lessons on how to identify fake news. The best thing for us to do is to think critically (批判地) and check carefully before sharing a story.
1. What did the researchers from MIT find in their study?| A．People are more interested in reading real news than fake stories. |
| B．Fake news can reach more people than real news on social media. |
| C．There are more fake news stories than real stories on social media. |
| D．Social media will make it impossible to spread real news to others. |
| A．How fast fake news can spread. | B．What topics fake news is about. |
| C．Why fake news spreads so fast. | D．What people think of fake news. |
| A．To help readers be more careful with fake news. |
| B．To explain reasons behind people’s news sharing. |
| C．To introduce different ways to identify fake news. |
| D．To encourage readers to stop reading news online. |
4 . What Is Success The Oxford English Dictionary defines（定义） the word success as "the fact that you have achieved something that you want and have been trying to do or get; the fact of becoming rich or famous or of getting a high social position". Some rankings（排行榜） put Albert Einstein, Michael Jackson, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as among the most successful people in the world. What Michael Jackson did for music is the same as what Albert Einstein did for physics. All of them do have greatly influenced the industries or media to which they belonged. J.K.Rowling, the author of the famous Harry Potter novels. She created a magical world that sold more than 500 million books and became hit movies. With an estimated（估算的） net worth of ﹩650 million in 2017, she certainly goes for the dictionary definition of success, but for her it didn't come easy. Having no job, raising her child alone, she was refused by publishers about a dozen times before one took a chance on her. This is what people love: the rags-to-riches success story.
In comparison with Rowling, the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh practically suffered a lot in life to make ends meet. When he was alive, he only sold one painting even though he created more than 2,000 works of art. Van Gogh died when he was 37 years old and with very little money to his name. However, in 1990, his painting Portrait of Dr.Gachet sold for﹩82.5 million, which has a value today of around﹩137 million. So, the question is: Is Van Gogh considered successful even though he died poor?
Besides the dictionary definitions, different people have competing ideas of what success really means. Often times the most agree on the same characteristics that make a person a success. A financial magazine named Inc. points to the following qualities that make a person successful: Drive, Confidence, Patience, Honesty, Passion…
Success isn't always about getting a lot of money or fans, even though those are the stories we see most often. There are other people who we may not know well, but who have achieved success in their own right. One perfect example is mothers. They spent days, months, and years teaching their children from birth to young adulthood. If a child grows up to be a kind, helpful, thoughtful and considerate adult, can the mother consider herself a success?
Perhaps success really is subjective, and it's up to people to define it for themselves. However, one thing seems to be in complete agreement when we search for the definition and can be best summed up by Steve Jobs, who said, "If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time."
1. The word " rags-to-riches" in Paragraph 2 probably means " ______ ".| A．winning success from luck |
| B．turning talent into treasure |
| C．gaining money from honor |
| D．rising from poorness to wealth |
| A．success is through loneliness |
| B．success is beyond time and space |
| C．success is to take the life-changing opportunity |
| D．success is to achieve something you want and try |
| A．Most successes happen overnight if we look closely. |
| B．What makes people successful is the strong mind and body. |
| C．A child growing to be a gentle adult can be the mother's success. |
| D．Albert Einstein makes greater achievement than Michael Jackson. |
| A．reorder the rankings of the world's most successful people |
| B．reach an agreement of what makes a person success |
| C．recognize and appreciate different kinds of success |
| D．drive themselves to set great goals for success |
5 . Are you often in mind-wandering, enjoying the state of having nothing to do, or just standing and staring? Did you dream to get good grades and devote yourself to the tasks for a few days, however, your dream fell to zero as a TV play attracted you some day?
Do we need to have a dream? The founder of Wal -Mart, Sam Walton, says high expectation is the key to everything. The important thing in life is to have a great aim and the determination to achieve it, J. W. Goethe, the famous German poet and dramatist says. Successful people suggest that those who believe in the beauty of their dreams tend to have more self-motivation (自我激励)to keep on trying and enjoying the beauty of life.
Thomas Edison dreamed to light the world by the power of electricity. He tried over 2,000 different materials before he was able to create a market light bulb. It’s hard for many of us to imagine spending so much time and energy in exploring a possibility, which is most likely to come to a dead end but for Edison, who sticked to his dream, it was just an enjoyable process. As Edison says, The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
Helena, a 17-year-old girl, dreamed to build the magnificent sculpture (雕塑) in the world. She devoted herself to observing faces around her and making sculptures. She was woken up by her dream every morning rather than her alarm clock. She said she became passionate (有热情的) out of her dream, which kept her going through any difficulties and found pleasure in it.
You can benefit a lot from your dream, but do you know the behavior that is necessary to fulfill your dream? You have a dream and you truthfully want good grades. However, you can’t help playing on the smart phone and let go your homework. Or you rush through it so that you can get back to the smart phone. This is the case when the present-desire to play on your smart phone beats the will to reach the future goal, which is called immediate gratification. If you always behave like this, you may lose the chance to meet with your dream.
Your dream can inspire you. It can give you motivation to work hard. It helps you to focus on a path so that you are moving forward. Meanwhile, you need to set a long-term goal and work for it. The key to dream is concentrating on small wins, which gradually lead to genuine confidence. You will enjoy the whole process of rea lizing your dream as well as involving yourself into the pa ssion of the coming life.
1. The writer talks about Helena and Edison to _____.| A．suggest good ways of realizing your dream |
| B．show effects of dream on self-motivation |
| C．stress the great differences between them |
| D．share the experiences of their success |
| A．enjoying pleasures here and now |
| B．following dreams without delay |
| C．becoming creative in a flash |
| D．avoiding failure all the time |
| A．it’s necessary for you to deal with difficulties quickly |
| B．it’s better for you to work hard than to have passion |
| C．setting big goals will make differences for your life |
| D．having your dream can help you take things light |
| A．Keep Calm and Dream On |
| B．Dream Bigger, Think Deeper |
| C．Dream a Dream and Step by Step |
| D．Follow Your Heart, Live Your Dream |
