2 . As French author Andre Maurois once said, “Without a family, man, alone in the world, shakes with the cold.” Indeed, families who give us love and________are an important part of our lives. But even in a loving family, ________can’t be avoided.

One day, I was doing my homework and my sister ________. Busy with homework, I didn’t talk to her and just kept working. But when I took a ________, I turned my head to the place where my sister was sitting. ________, I found my notebook had a lot of messy drawings on it.

At that time, I was full of________ and shouted at my sister, “You are really a ________and I hate you.” Hearing the words, my sister ________out crying and tried to explain her behavior. But I ________ since I didn’t want to hear a word from her. The ________ afterward lasted for a long time between us. To________the problem, my father brought me to the living room and asked: “Have you noticed what the drawing is on your notebook?”

I shook my head. Then, under the________ of my father, I looked at it carefully, it ________，“Happy birthday.” At that moment, I knew how ________I was. Though drawing on my notebook wasn’t right, my sister’s love and ________were sincere (真诚的). Feeling ashamed, I said sorry to her. Instead of staying angry, she smiled back at me.

1.

A．wisdom

B．truth

C．soul

D．warmth

2.

A．misunderstandings

B．expectations

C．competitions

D．dislikes

3.

A．left

B．entered

C．led

D．met

4.

A．test

B．task

C．text

D．rest

5.

A．Luckily

B．Disappointingly

C．Shockingly

D．Thankfully

6.

A．anger

B．hunger

C．anxiety

D．sadness

7.

A．storyteller

B．house-cleaner

C．troublemaker

D．performer

8.

A．burst

B．burnt

C．bore

D．beat

9.

A．greeted

B．refused

C．attempted

D．turned

10.

A．quarrel

B．fight

C．lecture

D．silence

11.

A．give up

B．focus on

C．refer to

D．work out

12.

A．requirement

B．response

C．reward

D．judgement

13.

A．spoke

B．told

C．said

D．talked

14.

A．inaccessible

B．inconsiderate

C．inactive

D．incapable

15.

A．reactions

B．intentions

C．awareness

D．admission

4 . China is one of the world’s ancient civilizations and has the earliest outstanding bronze casting technology. Here we’ve created a list of 4 museums where you can gain an in-depth understanding of Chinese bronze.

Sanxingdui Museum

Address: Sanxingdui Ruin Site, 133 Xian Road, Guanghan, Deyang, Sichuan province

Hours: Comprehensive Gallery (the first exhibition hall): 8:30-18:00; Bronze Gallery (the second exhibition hall): 8:30-18:30. Last tickets sold at 17:00. Closed on the morning of Chinese New Year’s Eve

Ticket booking: 0838-5651526

General admission: Gallery ticket 80 yuan

Note: Children shorter than 1.2m (including 1.2m) can visit the gallery free of charge. The ticket must be used on the day it is sold and authorizes one visit to each gallery.

National Museum of China

Address: East side of Tian’anmen Square, Dongcheng district, Beijing

Hours: 8:30-17:00 (no entry after 16:30)

General admission: Free (passport required for entry), Closed Mondays (except for national holidays)

E-mail: webmaster@chnmuseum.cn

Shanghai Museum

Address: 201 Renmin Avenue, Huangpu district, Shanghai

Hours: 9:00-17:00 (no entry after 16:00), Closed Mondays (except for national holidays)

E-mail: webmaster@shanghai-museum.org

General admission: free (a max of 8, 000 admitted daily)

Hunan Museum

Address: 50 Dongfeng Road, Changsha, Hunan province

Hours:   9:00-17:00 (no entry after 16:00), Closed Mondays (except for national holidays) and the eve of Chinese New Year

Tel: (+86-731) 8415833, 84475933

E-mail: web@hnmuseum.com

General admission: Free (passport required for entry)

1. Which museum should you choose for your family to visit next Monday?

A．Sanxingdui Museum	B．Hunan Museum
C．Shanghai Museum	D．National Museum of China

2. What do these museums in this passage have in common?

A．They are all free of charge.	B．They all set a deadline for entry.
C．They all lie in the south of China.	D．They can all be available through E-mail.

3. In which part of a newspaper can you most probably read this passage?

A．Science

B．Today’s News

C．Entertainment

D．History and Culture

5 . The following are newly released devices all designed to help make your life more convenient, beautiful and vivid.

Tonal

$2,995 AT TONAL.COM

Tonal makes lifting and resistance training truly easy and accessible from your own home. It is great because I hate any sort of public weight training. Tonal has a remarkably easy user interface and gives data and feedback in a helpful manner. It also makes you feel great by keeping track of clear improvements.

Hisense 75” U800GR 8K ULED Roku TV

$1,800 AT BEST BUY

8k sounded like a luxury, but now that brands like Hisense, which focus on a more affordable end of the spectrum, have gotten some time with the tech, you can finally bring the deep color output and stunning detail into your living room. Calling it “affordable” may be a stretch, but compared to most 8k TV’s which all run over $5,000, it’s the most cost-efficient version of the tech we’ve got. It gets your money worth best.

VIVE Goggle

$499 AT VIVE.COM

Vive goggles will bring an extremely accessible and refreshing approach to the VR world. They are a pair of goggles not unlike something you’d wear to snowboard. They’re extremely lightweight with a lightning fast set — that’s connected with things like watching Netflix. It’s the calmest headset I’ve ever worn and uses cameras to let you control everything with just your hands. This one’s for the not-gamers.

Dyson Purifier Humidify+Cool Formaldehyde

$920 AT WALMART

For people who easily sneeze because of dog hair or something like that outside, Dyson has created a machine that saves them for time at home. This new purifier doubles as a humidifier, plus it has a cooling function, making it the end all be all for stuffy, hot, dry apartments.

1. Which device will get your money worth best?

A．Tonal.	B．Dyson Purifier Humidify+Cool Formaldehyde.
C．VIVE Flow.	D．Hisense 75” U 800 GR 8K ULED Roku TV.

2. What statement of VIVE Goggles is TRUE?

A．They are user-friendly.

B．They help keep track of weight.

C．They appeal to gamers.

D．They are intended for who are allergic to dust.

3. Where is the text probably taken from?

A．A consumer review.	B．A magazine.
C．A novel.	D．A health report.

6 . My name is Jimmy. One Thursday afternoon, when I was in senior one, a new boy came into my classroom. He was short and thin. He walked up to the teacher and told her, very seriously, that he was new. His name was Christian. He sat down, took a look at me, and then looked away. I didn’t think he was very nice and I was sure he wasn’t the type I would like to become friends with.

During that year, I didn’t talk to him much, but he smiled at me when our eyes met, always shyly. He never ate lunch with anybody, and he never talked to anybody but me.

But one day I joined those unkind kids who were making fun of him. We made fun of him though I thought it was wrong.

“Haven’t you got any friends?” a kid asked Christian, who had walked past us alone, head down.

“No, he hasn’t got any friends. He’s too stupid and shy,” I said. Then Christian looked up at me with the saddest dog eyes I had ever seen. I felt very sorry at that moment.

That night, I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t get Christian’s face out of my mind. In the weeks that followed, he never met my eyes in class and never smiled at me. It was really hard for me to decide to write him a note asking him to forgive (原谅) me. But I thought I should.

The next day in class, I wrote him a note telling him how sorry I felt. About five minutes later, I turned and saw tears in his eyes. “You will never realize what your apology (道歉) has meant to me, Jimmy.” he said to me. “I hope we can become friends.”

We had lunch together that noon and we had the best talk I had ever had. Over the years at high school, we were close friends.

When I think back, I realize that, if I had not apologized, I would never have known what a lovely person Christian was.

Apologies can really change your life, so never miss the chance to tell somebody you are sorry.

1. What do we about know Christian from the passage?

A．He was tall and fat.	B．He was short and thin.
C．He was short and active.	D．He was lovely and fat.

2. Why didn’t Jimmy talk to Christian much at first?

A．He didn’t think Christian was the type he wanted to become friends with.

B．Christian wasn’t nice to people around him after he came to the new class.

C．Christian made friends with others.

D．Christian had the saddest dog eyes.

3. How did Jimmy feel after he made fun of Christian with other unkind kids?

A．Happy.

B．Interested.

C．Sorry.

D．Bored.

4. What is the purpose of this text?

A．To tell us it is important to make an apology when we hurt others.

B．To show Jimmy’s apology was unimportant to Christian.

C．To introduce Christian wasn’t lovely in fact.

D．To tell us it is unimportant to say sorry to others.

7 . Learning New Vocabulary During Deep Sleep

Sleeping time is sometimes considered unproductive time. This raises the question whether the time spent during sleeping could be used more productively, e. g. for learning a new language? Sleep research to date focused on the stabilization and strengthening of memories that had been formed during previous wakefulness. However, learning during sleep has rarely been examined.

There is considerable evidence for wake-learned information undergoing revision by a replay in the sleeping brain. The replay during sleep strengthens the still weak memory traces and embeds (嵌入) the newly acquired information in the preexisting store of knowledge. If the replay during sleep improves the storage of wake-learned information, then first-play, i.e. the initial processing of new information,   should also be possible during sleep.

The research group of Katharina Henke examined whether a sleeping person is able to form new semantic associations between played foreign words and translation words during the brain cells’ active states, the so-called “Up-states”. It turned out to be that what they thought was reasonable. When we reach deep sleep stages, our brain cells progressively coordinate their activity. During deep sleep, the brain cells are commonly active for a brief period of time before they jointly enter into a state of brief inactivity. The active state is called “Up-state” and the inactive state “Down-state”. The two states alternate (交替) about every half-second.

New evidence for sleep-learning challenges current theories of sleep and theories of memory. The concept of sleep as an encapsulated (被概括的) mental state, in which we are separated from the physical environment is no longer reasonable. “We could disprove that complex learning be impossible during deep sleep,” says Simon Ruch, co-first-author. “In how far and with what consequences deep sleep can be applied to the acquisition of new information will be a topic of research in upcoming years, ” says Katharina Henke.

The research group of Katharina Henke is part of the Interfaculty Research Cooperation (IRC). Thirteen research groups in medicine, biology, psychology and information science are part of the IRC. The aim of these research groups is to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in sleep, consciousness and cognition.

1. What can be inferred from Paragraph 3?

A．“Up-state” and “Down-state” appear in turn during deep sleep.

B．“Up-states” is another name for the brain cells’ active states.

C．Semantic associations are important for language learning.

D．The brain cells’ active states are central for sleep-learning.

2. What will researchers do within several years according to the passage?

A．Make study in the following fields such as medicine and biology.

B．Separate us from the physical environment.

C．Apply deep sleep to information learning.

D．Discover the concept of sleep.

3. What is the main purpose of the passage?

A．To introduce a new way of vocabulary learning.

B．To gain a better understanding of the mechanisms.

C．To challenge current theories of sleep and theories of memory.

D．To explain the possibility of vocabulary learning during deep sleep.

4. Where is this text most likely from?

A．A novel.

B．A guidebook.

C．A scientific research website.

D．A diary.

8 . When I was in my college, I have a full class schedule and a part-time job. I ________ had time for exercise. On top of that, my lifestyle as a starving college student lent itself to many a fast-food run. Undoubtedly, I was ________.

After graduation, I decided to go to the ________.Together with a friend, I began to work out ________. I was very satisfied. My friend, however, became ________. One day, he suggested that we take up a sport.

Me? Sports? No way. I was not ________, and no one was going to change my mind. However, after a few weeks, I stepped onto an outdoor racquetball court (球场) unwillingly. I hit the ball, sending it flying in every direction (方向) except for the direction that I had ________.

But just as I was beginning to feel comfortable.my friend suggested we play tennis ________. Tennis? I can’t play tennis! I was ________ against his new suggestion. However, weeks later, I found myself standing on a tennis court.________.I ran after every ball that he served to me, completely ________ about ninety percent of them, and hitting the rest into the woods and the other court.

The first few months were quite ________. But one day, as the ball came flying toward me, my racket and the ball finally met in what tennis players consider as the “sweet spot”. I watched ________ as my return landed powerfully on the other side of the court, almost exactly where I had aimed. I had finally learned how to play tennis properly (正确的)!

Obviously, if I hadn’t stepped outside of my comfort zone (区域), I would have never ________how much I enjoyed tennis. I began to try new things willingly, with a sense of ________.

1.

A．seldom

B．always

C．finally

D．still

2.

A．lazy

B．overweight

C．diet

D．good

3.

A．woods

B．court

C．gym

D．zone

4.

A．often

B．independently

C．skillfully

D．properly

5.

A．calm

B．inspired

C．angry

D．bored

6.

A．relaxed

B．rich

C．afraid

D．athletic

7.

A．changed

B．expected

C．followed

D．traveled

8.

A．formally

B．normally

C．again

D．instead

9.

A．hardly

B．strongly

C．partly

D．strangely

10.

A．Awkwardly

B．Actively

C．Amazingly

D．Rudely

11.

A．carrying

B．missing

C．seeing

D．holding

12.

A．useful

B．sweet

C．satisfying

D．hard

13.

A．in peace

B．in person

C．in surprise

D．in a hurry

14.

A．questioned

B．wondered

C．discovered

D．remembered

15.

A．excitement

B．fear

C．duty

D．pride

9 . Every year I’d read over 2,000 college applications from students all over the world. It is quite ______ to choose whom to admit. ______, in the chaos of SAT scores and recommendations, one ______ is always irresistible (无法抗拒的) in a candidate: kindness.

The most surprising ______ of kindness I’ve ever ______ came from a student who had excellent scores and a supportive recommendation from his college counselor (顾问). Even with these qualifications, he might not have ______. But one letter of recommendation caught my eye. It was from a school security ______. Actually, letters of recommendation are typically written by people like former presidents, celebrities, and Olympic athletes.

The security guard wrote that he supported this student’s admission because of his ______. This young man was the only person in the school who knew the names of every member of the guard staff. He turned off lights in empty rooms, consistently ______ the hallway monitor each morning and tidied up the classroom after his peers left school ______ nobody was watching. This student, the security guard wrote, had a(n) ______ respect for every person at the school, regardless of position, popularity or power.

It gave us a ______ onto a student’s life in the moments when nothing “counted”. That student was admitted by unanimous (一致的) vote of the admissions committee.

Next year there might be a flood of security guard recommendations ______ this essay. But if it means students will start paying as much ______ to the people who clean their classrooms as they do to their principals and teachers, I’m happy to help start that ______.

1.

A．easy

B．difficult

C．delicate

D．desperate

2.

A．However

B．Otherwise

C．Besides

D．Therefore

3.

A．ability

B．quality

C．limitation

D．assumption

4.

A．signal

B．image

C．appearance

D．indication

5.

A．come out

B．pick up

C．come across

D．bring up

6.

A．stood up

B．stood out

C．given up

D．given out

7.

A．guard

B．teacher

C．principal

D．counselor

8.

A．wisdom

B．bravery

C．encouragement

D．consideration

9.

A．bothered

B．answered

C．visited

D．thanked

10.

A．as if

B．now that

C．even if

D．in order that

11.

A．demanding

B．amusing

C．refreshing

D．puzzling

12.

A．passion

B．trouble

C．method

D．window

13.

A．due to

B．in need of

C．except for

D．along with

14.

A．money

B．price

C．attention

D．tax

15.

A．policy

B．trend

C．arrangement

D．career

10 . Recently, Google researchers published a paper describing results from an artificial intelligence (AI) tool, called MusicLM, built to create music. It is not the first AI music tool to launch. But the examples Google provides demonstrate musical creative ability based on a limited set of descriptive words. AI shows how complex computer systems have been trained to behave in human-like ways.

Google engineers explain the MusicLM system this way: First, a user comes up with a word or words that describe the kind of music they want the tool to create. For example, a user could enter this short phrase into the system: “a continuous calming violin backed by a soft guitar sound.” The descriptions entered can include different music styles, instruments or other existing sounds. Several different music examples produced by MusicLM were published online. Some of the generated music came from just one-or-two-word descriptions, such as “jazz”, or “techno”. The system created other examples from more detailed descriptions containing whole sentences. In the resulting recording, the music seems to keep very close to the description. The team said that the more detailed the description is, the better the system can attempt to produce it.

In addition to generating new music from written descriptions, the team said the system can also create examples based on a person’s own singing, whistling or playing an instrument. The researchers said the tool “produces high-quality music… over several minutes, while being faithful to the text conditioning signal”.

Although it hasn’t been released for public use, Google announced it was releasing a “high-quality dataset (数据集)” of more than 5,500 music-writing pairs prepared by professional musicians called MusicCaps. The researchers took that step to assist in the development of other AI music generators.

The MusicLM researchers said they believe they have designed a new tool to help anyone quickly and easily create high-quality music selections. However, the team said it also recognizes some risks linked to the machine learning process.

1. How does MusicLM work?

A．It adapts music from recordings.	B．It generates music from written descriptions.
C．It teaches users how to play a musical instrument.	D．It recommends songs based on a user’s listening history.

2. Why did Google release the MusicCaps dataset?

A．To display the capabilities of MusicLM.	B．To allow the public to use MusicLM.
C．To help develop other AI music generators.	D．To promote the MusicCaps service.

3. What might be an advantage of using MusicLM for music creation?

A．It can improve the overall quality of all music.	B．It can replace human musicians and composers.
C．It can produce music that is more complex.	D．It can create music quickly and efficiently.

4. What is the main idea of the article?

A．Google has developed MusicLM to create music.

B．MusicLM—an AI system can behave in human-like ways.

C．MusicLM can create music following written descriptions.

D．Google has released a dataset to help develop music generators.