1 . All languages change over time, and there can be many different reasons for this. The English language is no different — but why has it changed over the decades? Some of the main influences on the evolution of languages include: The movement of people across the globe…
What changes has the English language seen?
As the English language has changed, it’s been easy to pick out words that pass into common usage. The rise in popularity of internet slang (俚语) has seen phrases such as “LOL” ( Laugh Out Loud ), “YOLO” ( You Only Live Once ) and “bae” (an abbreviated form of babe or baby ) become firmly rooted in the English language over the past ten years. Every decade sees new slang terms like these appearing in the English language. And while some words or abbreviations do come from the Internet or text conversations, others may appear as entirely new words, a new meaning for an existing word, or a word that becomes more generalized than its former meaning. Decades ago, “blimey” was a new expression of surprise, but more recently”woah” is the word in everyday usage.
Sentence structure is of course another change to English language. Decades ago, it would have been normal to ask “Have you a moment?” Now, you might say “D’you have a sec?” Similarly, “How do you do?” has become “How’s it going?” Not only have the sentences been shortened, but new words have been introduced to everyday questions.
Connected to this is the replacement of certain words with other, more-modern versions. It’s pretty noticeable that words like “shall” and “ought” are on the way out, but “will”, “should” and “can” are doing just fine. Other changes can be more subtle (微妙). A number of verbs can be followed by another verb in either the “-ing” form or the “to” form, for example “they liked painting / to paint”, “he didn’t bother calling / to call”. Both of these constructions are still used but there has been a steady shift over time from the “to” to the “-ing”.
What do the changes mean?
Most language experts accept that change in language, like change in society, is unavoidable. Some think that is regrettable, but others recognize it as a way to enrich the language, bringing alternatives that allow subtle differences of expression.
As with everything, change isn’t necessarily a bad thing and, as the needs of English language users continue to change, so will the language !
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．The main influence on the evolution of the English language. |
| B．The different opinions on the English language changes. |
| C．The English language has changed over the decades. |
| D．Why the English language has changed over the years. |
| A．Internet slang terms and new words’ meanings |
| B．words, expressions and sentence structures |
| C．text conversations and everyday questions |
| D．a few model verbs and gram mar |
| A．the fast-paced modern life |
| B．the worsening laziness of the youth |
| C．the English influence on technology |
| D．the rise in popularity of the Internet slang |
| A．Opposed. | B．Doubtful. |
| C．Approving. | D．Uncaring. |
2 . Welcome to your future life!
You get up in the morning and look into the mirror. Your face is firm and younglooking. In 2035, medical technology is better than ever. Many people at your age could live to 150, so at 40, you're not old at all. And your parents just had an antiaging (抗衰老的) treatment. Now, all three of you look the same age!
You say to your shirt, "Turn red." It changes from blue to red. In 2035, "smart clothes" contain particles (粒子) much smaller than the cells in your body. The particles can be programmed (编程) to change your clothes' color or pattern.
You walk into the kitchen. You pick up the milk, but a voice says, "You shouldn't drink that!" Your fridge has read the chip (芯片) that contains information about the milk, and it knows the milk is old. In 2035, every article of food in the grocery store has such a chip.
It's time to go to work. In 2035, cars drive themselves. Just tell your "smart car" where to go. On the way, you can call a friend using your jacket sleeve. Such “smart technology" is all around you.
So will all these things come true? "For new technology to succeed," says scientist Andrew Zolli, "It has to be so much better that it replaces what we have already." The Internet is one example—what will be the next?
1. We can learn from the text that in the future .| A．people will never get old | B．everyone will look the same |
| C．red will be the most popular color | D．clothes will be able to change their pattern |
| A．Milk will be harmful to health. |
| B．More drinks will be available for sale. |
| C．Food in the grocery store will carry electronic information. |
| D．Milk in the grocery store will stay fresh much longer. |
| A．Food and clothing in 2035. | B．Future technology in everyday life. |
| C．Medical treatments of the future. | D．The reason for the success of new technology. |
The director asked，“Who paid for your school fees?” John answered，“My
John felt
Next day，John went to the director’s office. Tears in eyes，John was asked to
The director smiled，“This is what I am
| A．farewell | B．job | C．interview | D．try |
| A．tutors | B．father | C．parents | D．mother |
| A．died away | B．passed away | C．died out | D．passed by |
| A．What | B．How | C．Who | D．Where |
| A．carpet | B．floor | C．clothes | D．window |
| A．turn | B．show | C．wave | D．shake |
| A．clumsy | B．dirty | C．strong | D．smooth |
| A．request | B．question | C．wish | D．choice |
| A．embarrassed | B．frightened | C．confused | D．inspired |
| A．before | B．as | C．since | D．until |
| A．slim | B．warm | C．soft | D．rough |
| A．realized | B．believed | C．insisted | D．wondered |
| A．sacrifice | B．serve | C．satisfy | D．support |
| A．modestly | B．secretly | C．quietly | D．gently |
| A．improve | B．describe | C．awaken | D．hide |
| A．appreciation | B．cooperation | C．qualification | D．communication |
| A．wealthy | B．famous | C．successful | D．humorous |
| A．firm | B．exciting | C．crazy | D．tough |
| A．looking through | B．looking for | C．looking at | D．looking into |
| A．shan’t | B．needn’t | C．won’t | D．can |
4 . The blue planet is going green. Since the 1980s, satellite images have shown that leafy cover across the globe has grown by 2.3 percent per decade. A new study, published on February 11 in Nature Sustainability, helps explain why. One main driver is the “fertilization (施肥) effect”, brought about by humans burning fossil fuels. As CO2 increases in the atmosphere, this increases photosynthesis (光合作用) — as long as water, light, and nutrients are not limited. When plants take up more of the gas, they produce more food and new leaves.
But researchers also found another cause for the change in color: planting more crops and trees. China and India, the two most populous countries on Earth, have contributed about a third of the greening seen since 2000, mainly in the form of forests and farms.
In this most recent paper, scientists at Boston University took a closerlook at this greening trend. They used data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (光谱辐射计), or MODIS, which uses advanced satellite technology to document the Earth’s surface on a near-daily basis. From 2000 to 2017, the researchers looked at the change in greenness in plant-covered regions, including croplands, forests, and grasslands.
The satellite data showed that globally, one-third of plant-covered areas are greening, while only five percent are browning. “Human land use management in many regions is more important than those indirect factors [ of climate change and CO2 fertilization ],” says Chi Chen, lead author of the study. “China and India, two developing countries, contribute the most in the increase in leaf area.” According to the study, the two nations contributed more greening relative to their plant-covered area than other countries.
While only 6.6 percent of the world’s vegetated area is in China, the country is responsible for 25 percent of the increase in global greening. The study found that most of China’s greening occurred in its forests, with croplands also contributing.
1. How is the text mainly organized?| A．By listing facts and data. | B．By making contrast. |
| C．By giving examples. | D．By displaying time order. |
| A．H umans burning fossilfuels. | B．Humans planting. |
| C．The CO2 fertilization. | D．The climate change. |
| A．China’s forests and grasslands. |
| B．India’s forests and farmlands. |
| C．China’s and India’s grasslands and croplands. |
| D．China’s and India’s forests and croplands. |
| A．A New Study on Earth |
| B．The Change in Greeeness on Earth |
| C．Why Our Blue Planet Is Getting Greener? |
| D．Who Is Responsible for the Increase in Global Greening? |
5 . National parks across the USA offer visitors more than just hiking paths and points of interests. Park guests can now get to know their beautiful landscapes and rich histories in a whole new way with these adventure ideas.
• Golfing in Death Valley National Park
You’ve played the world’s best golf courses, but have you played the world’s lowest? Put the ball at the Furnace Creek Golf Course located in California’s remote Death Valley National Park. In addition to golf, the course also sets the stage for a horse-drawn carriage sightseeing offered through the resort’s Furnace Creek Stables.
• Luxury Camping in Yellowstone National Park
Want to experience sleeping under the stars? Far and Away Adventures serves up luxury-camping trips into Yellowstone National Park, covering States of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, complete with comfortable bedding and tents, delicious meals, and backcountry adventures. Guests are guided to a remote campsite along Yellowstone Lake by boat, and spend several days boating along its shores, fishing, and hiking among some of the park’s most original landscapes.
• Dog sledge in Denali National Park
Experience a dog sledge trip through one of the last wild frontiers (边疆), Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. A team of dogs and experienced guides from EarthSong Lodge lead guests into the remote and calm land inside Alaska. Although day trips are available, multi-day sledge travels allow visitors to learn the art of dog dragging, not to mention enjoying grand views of Mt. McKinley.
• Canyon Vistas Mule Ride in Grand Canyon National Park
Take in the Grand Canyon, located in State of Arizona, by four-footed mule (骡子) for breathtaking views along the edge and into its depths. Mule rides have been offered at the Grand Canyon since 1887, and are a rich part of the canyon’s history. A new four-mile tour along the edge, the Canyon Mule Ride, takes approximately three hours to complete. Along the path, riders speak to the geologic shapes and human history of the area.
1. Among the national parks mentioned above, how many of them offer animal service for guests to enjoy beautiful natural scenery?| A．One | B．Two |
| C．Three | D．Four |
| A．The four national parks are located in different states of the USA. |
| B．In Death Valley National Park, guests can play the world’s best golf courses. |
| C．Of the four national parks, Yellowstone National Park covers the largest area. |
| D．Park visitors have recently been offered mule rides in Grand Canyon National Park. |
| A．Death Valley National Park | B．Yellowstone National Park |
| C．Denali National Park | D．Grand Canyon National Park |
6 . Brown bears have stopped eating salmon（鲑鱼）in favor of elderberries after being forced to make a choice due to climate change. Warming temperatures mean that the berries are ripening earlier than usual, at exactly the same time as the freshwater streams on Alaska’s Kodiak Island are over flowing with salmon.
The island’s brown bears typically feed first on salmon in early summer, followed by elderberries later in the season, in late August and September.
“What you have is a scrambling of the schedule,” said William Deacy, a biologist at Oregon State University that studied the phenomenon.
“It’s essentially like if breakfast and lunch were served at the same time and then there is nothing to eat until dinner. You have to choose between breakfast and lunch because you can only eat so much at a time.”
The study found that during the unusually warm summer of 2014, the bears, which would traditionally kill up to 75 percent of the salmon, were nowhere to be seen near the streams. Instead, they were in the hills busy munching on berries, which contain less protein and therefore take less energy to break down, causing them to gain weight more quickly.
Biologists warned that changes caused by a warming planet were behind the bears’ unusual behavior and could affect the entire ecosystem.
The researchers found that the forests around the streams suffered because the bears’ fish carcasses（残骸）were no longer there to enrich the soil.
“Bears switched from eating salmon to elderberries, disturbing an ecological link that typically fertilizes the ecosystems and generates high death rates for salmon,” the study said. On average, red elderberries are said to be ripening two and a half days earlier every decade. If the pattern continues, they will regularly overlap（重叠）with the salmon by 2070.
1. Brown bears have begun to favor ________ because of the climate change.| A．salmon |
| B．elderberries |
| C．warm temperatures |
| D．fresh water |
| A．Brown bears eat their breakfast and lunch at the same time. |
| B．We’re facing a hard problem with choosing the meals. |
| C．Climate change is disturbing the bears’ eating habits. |
| D．People’s biological clocks are changing regularly. |
| A．Natural. | B．Unusual. |
| C．Amazing. | D．Typical. |
| A．brown bears may become bigger and bigger |
| B．there will be a higher death rate for the salmon |
| C．red elderberries will probably be ripening in summer |
| D．the changes of bears’ behavior could affect the entire ecosystem |
I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs. In their single-minded pursuit of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.
However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: "I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try." What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistake belief that—one's self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve (缓解) can we discover a new meaning in competition.
1. What does this text mainly talk about?
| A．Competition helps to set up self-respect. |
| B．People hold different opinions about competition. |
| C．Competition is harmful to personal quality development. |
| D．Failures are necessary experience in competition. |
| A．pushes society forward |
| B．builds up a sense of pride |
| C．improves social abilities |
| D．develops people's relationship |
| A．try their best to win |
| B．highly value competition |
| C．are strongly against competition |
| D．mostly rely on others for success |
| A．Self-worth relys on winning. |
| B．Competition leads to unfriendly relationship. |
| C．Winning should be a life-and-death matter. |
| D．Fear of failure should be removed in competition. |
8 . You’re in your office when you learn there’s someone with a gun wandering outside. You can hear gunshots and screams. What do you do?
That’s the challenge for users of a new virtual (虚拟)reality program called SurviVR, designed to train employees how to deal with an active shooter situation in the workplace. The program works with HTC Vive, the virtual reality headset released earlier this year.
An active shooter situation is when an armed person or people actively shoot in a small, populated area with the intention to kill. There were 20 such situations in the United States last year and 20 the year before, according to FBI statistics, resulting in a total of 231 deaths. This year saw the deadliest active shooter situation in US history, with 49 people killed in a nightclub in Orlando.
In the training situation, users have four choices. They can lock themselves in the office. They can hide, perhaps in the office closet. They can run for an exit. Or they can use something in the office—a computer or a cup a pair of scissors-as a weapon to fight the shooter. This is an improvement on standard active shooter training. Gallo says, which typically teachers people to lock themselves in place and hide. The ＂lock down＂ method is often ineffective, he says, and has resulted in many deaths in recent years.
In the training’s basic level, no one gets killed. But as the trainings become more advanced, players who make a wrong choice be shot. There’s no blood; the screen simply turns black slowly.
If this sounds terrifying, that’s the point, says Gallo. There are plenty of training programs to teach employees how to deal with workplace violence, sometimes involving role play with toy guns. But these trainings are basically games. Gallo says, with employees relaxed and even enjoying themselves. To teach people what they really need to know for an active shooter situation, they need to be scared.
＂SurviVR will take the fear and turn it into confidence.＂ Gallo says.
1. What’s the author’s purpose of describing a dangerous scene in Para. 1?| A．To attract the readers’ attention on the new virtual reality program. |
| B．To show the challenge that the readers are required to face. |
| C．To warn the readers of the possible dangers in the working place. |
| D．To inform the readers of the correct response in such a situation |
| A．Fighting the shooter |
| B．Running for the exit |
| C．Using a computer as a weapon |
| D．Locking down |
| A．Searing | B．Violent |
| C．Ineffective | D．Helpful |
| A．A New Virtual Reality Program on Active Shooter Training |
| B．What Should You Do When Meeting Gunshots in the Workplace? |
| C．How to Deal with an Active Shooter Situation? |
| D．Employees Need to Be Scared of the Workplace Violence. |
9 . I grew up in Trenton, a west Tennessee town of only 5 thousand people. I have
But my father was my hero. He taught me many things, but at the
I was
Many years have passed, but my father’s words are still
| A．early | B．bitter | C．wonderful | D．vague |
| A．annoying | B．interesting | C．simple | D．positive |
| A．importance | B．fun | C．pain | D．result |
| A．blessings | B．differences | C．inventions | D．valuables |
| A．bottom | B．top | C．edge | D．foot |
| A．attention | B．hope | C．soul | D．respect |
| A．teaching | B．getting | C．showing | D．understanding |
| A．see | B．push | C．dust | D．remove |
| A．kept | B．suggested | C．observed | D．left |
| A．closing | B．sleeping | C．cooking | D．speaking |
| A．happy | B．late | C．ready | D．likely |
| A．again | B．carefully | C．hard | D．surely |
| A．hopeless | B．wrong | C．confident | D．disappointed |
| A．collector | B．clock | C．furniture | D．stranger |
| A．angrily | B．coldly | C．kindly | D．calmly |
| A．but | B．so | C．as | D．or |
| A．agree | B．manage | C．leave | D．like |
| A．only | B．usually | C．possibly | D．slightly |
| A．useful | B．realistic | C．meaningful | D．challenging |
| A．doing | B．meeting | C．going | D．living |
Tears have played a surprisingly important part in the history of the novel. Readers have always asked about the role that emotion plays in reading: What does it mean to be deeply moved by a book? Which books are worthy objects of our feelings?
In different times, people answered those questions in different ways. In the early eighteenth century, when the novel was still a new form, crying was a sign of readers’ virtue. “Sentimental” novels, full of touching scenes, gave readers an occasion to exercise their “finer feelings.” Your tear proved that you were likely to feel the suffering of others.
At that time, sentimental novels were hugely popular, but also easy to attack. Tears, after all, had no necessary connection to actual virtue, and they could be not true. As the critic John Mullan points out, by the end of the eighteenth century, the word “sentimental” had acquired a new meaning - “addicted to low emotion” - bringing it closer to the meaning that it has for us today.
In the nineteenth century, the meaning of tears evolved in two different directions. Some writers sought to waken “higher” feelings in their readers: Victorian sentimentalists wrote touching scenes in an effort to inspire social and political reform. However, the “sensation” novel, a different type of Victorian best-seller, showed that tears could be enjoyable in themselves. Sensation novels were the leaders of the modern thriller and mystery. Heavy on secrets, and madness, they were known for creating physical “sensations” in their readers - trembling, a fast beating heart, and tears. But these were tears without moral purpose or effect.
Today’s debate about crying while reading looks back on all of this history. The debate, in fact, is about why books matter to us, and what reading is “for.” Talking about what makes us cry is a way of talking about ourselves.
1. What was people’s attitude towards crying over novels in the early 18th century?| A．Doubtful. | B．Positive. | C．Uncaring. | D．Worried. |
| A．aimed for social and political reform |
| B．helped understand others’ suffering |
| C．consisted of many touching scenes |
| D．tended to amuse the readers |
| A．by providing examples |
| B．by making comparisons |
| C．by following the order of time |
| D．by following the order of importance |
| A．Sentimental novels & sensation novels |
| B．Crying while reading through centuries |
| C．The history of the novel |
| D．Why books matter to us |
