1 . Student Film Festival

Student Film Festival celebrates learning across the curriculum through the exciting and dynamic medium of short film.

Through film, students can tell stories, investigate ideas, document learning in any area of study and express the complexity of their thinking through a range of genres and technical approaches.

With the creative use of digital media, students can integrate their personal perspectives to explore the diverse and challenging issues of our time.

It’s open to all students, regardless of school. We are accepting submissions in the following categories:

Cartoon (up to 30 mins)

Documentary(纪录片)(up to 60 mins)

Music Video(under 10 mins)

Science Fiction Short (up to 25 mins)

Situational Comedy (under 10 mins)

Web Series(up to three episodes, no more than 30 mins each)

So far, more than 20 entries have been selected across all categories. We will gradually announce the chosen entries for each category, giving you a chance to watch all the films online and vote for your favourites. Winners in all categories will be announced on Wednesday, 27 December.

Over the years, our film festivals have attracted thousands of filmmakers from around the world. Each festival features live screenings in our own school theater. Our 80-seat theater is outfitted with a 4K projector and seven speakers throughout the venue, delivering high quality in a first-class screening environment. Filmmakers whose works are accepted into our festival will receive free passes to the school theater, invitations to film masterclasses, and are considered for awards.

1. Which of the following can be a suitable submission to the festival?

A．A 20-minute recording of a short play.

B．A two-hour film recording your daily routine.

C．A five-minute fun video about students’ dormitory life.

D．A 22-minute educational video explaining popular science.

2. What can filmmakers do if their works are accepted?

A．Receive a film award.

B．Watch films for free in the school theater.

C．Interview film masters.

D．Deliver a speech in the venue.

3 . The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place

Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet… We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically（身体上）.

Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale（秤）instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.

On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink, we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don’t have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.

The danger of diet products lies not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients(营养成分). Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products may not be nutritional, and the chemical that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.

Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological harm that comes from using them.

1. From Paragraph 1, we learn that ________.

A．diet products fail to bring out people’s potential

B．people have difficulty in choosing diet products

C．diet products are misleading people

D．people are fed up with diet products

2. One psychological effect of diet products is that people tend to _____.

A．try out a variety of diet foods	B．hesitate before they enjoy diet foods
C．pay attention to their own eating habits	D．watch their weight rather than their diet

3. In Paragraph 3, “gain comes without pain” probably means ______.

A．losing weight is effortless	B．it costs a lot to lose weight
C．diet products bring no pain	D．diet products are free from calories

4. Diet products indirectly harm people physically because such products ______.

A．are over-consumed	B．lack basic nutrients
C．are short of chemicals	D．provide too much energy

5. Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?

A．

B．

C．

D．

4 . Over the last seven years, most states have banned texting by drivers, and public service campaigns have tried a wide range of methods to persuade people to put down their phones when they are behind the wheel.

Yet the problem, by just about any measure, appears to be getting worse. Americans are still texting while driving, as well as using social networks and taking photos. Road accidents, which had fallen for years, are now rising sharply.

That is partly because people are driving more, but Mark Rosekind, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said distracted（分心）driving was "only increasing, unfortunately."

"Big change requires big ideas." he said in a speech last month, referring broadly to the need to improve road safety. So to try to change a distinctly modern behavior, lawmakers and public health experts are reaching back to an old approach: They want to treat distracted driving like drunk driving.

An idea from lawmakers in New York is to give police officers a new device called the Textalyzer. It would work like this: An officer arriving at the scene of a crash could ask for the phones of the drivers and use the Textalyzer to check in the operating system for recent activity. The technology could determine whether a driver had just texted, emailed or done anything else that is not allowed under New York's hands-free driving laws.

"We need something on the books that can change people's behavior,” said Félix W. Ortiz, who pushed for the state's 2001 ban on hand-held devices by drivers. If the Textalyzer bill becomes law, he said, "people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cell phone."

What can the Textalyzer help a police officer find out?

A．Where a driver came from.

B．Whether a driver used their phone.

C．How fast a driver was going.

D．When a driver arrived at the scene.

5 . Steven Stein likes to follow garbage trucks. His strange habit makes sense when you consider that he’s an environmental scientist who studies how to reduce litter, including things that fall off garbage trucks as they drive down the road. What is even more interesting is that one of Stein’s jobs is defending an industry behind the plastic shopping bags.

Americans use more than 100 billion thin film plastic bags every year. So many end up in tree branches or along highways that a growing number of cities do not allow them at checkouts (收银台). The bags are prohibited in some 90 cities in California, including Los Angeles. Eyeing these headwinds, plastic-bag makers are hiring scientists like Stein to make the case that their products are not as bad for the planet as most people assume.

Among the bag makers’ argument: many cities with bans still allow shoppers to purchase paper bags, which are easily recycled but require more energy to produce and transport. And while plastic bags may be ugly to look at, they represent a small percentage of all garbage on the ground today.

The industry has also taken aim at the product that has appeared as its replacement: reusable shopping bags. The stronger a reusable bag is, the longer its life and the more plastic-bag use it cancels out. However, longer-lasting reusable bags often require more energy to make. One study found that a cotton bag must be used at least 131 times to be better for the planet than plastic.

Environmentalists don’t dispute (质疑) these points. They hope paper bags will be banned someday too and want shoppers to use the same reusable bags for years.

What is a disadvantage of reusable bags according to plastic-bag makers?

A．They are quite expensive.

B．Replacing them can be difficult.

C．They are less strong than plastic bags.

D．Producing them requires more energy.

6 . Many parents of both boys and girls have witnessed striking differences in the way their kids use technology, with their sons generally gravitating to videogames and their daughters often spending more of their screen time scrolling through social media. Emerging research indicates that brain differences between males and females help account for the split.

Marc Potenza, a professor at Yale University, teamed up with researchers at universities in China to find out why. Using functional MRIs, which measure brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, the team studied neural responses in young male and female gamers, particularly in the parts of the brain associated with reward processing and craving --a motivating factor in addiction. When the men and women were shown photos of people playing videogames, those parts of the men’s brains showed higher levels of activation than those parts of the women’s brains.

Brain regions that have been implicated in drug-addiction studies also were shown to be more highly activated in the men after gaming. The researchers said the results suggest men could be more biologically prone (有倾向的) than women to developing internet gaming disorder.

But girls and women aren’t free from problems when it comes to digital media. Data from Pew shows that, in general, women use social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest far more than men. Many girls and women are drawn to those photo-sharing sites because they like to form bonds and find similarities, says Rosanna

Guadagno, a social psychologist at Stanford University. Some recent studies show that girls feel the ill effects of too much social media use, such as depression and anxiety, more than boys do.

Researchers at the University of Zurich looked at how differences in brain functioning can help explain why women tend to be more prosocial—that is, helpful, generous and cooperative—than men. In the 2017 study, they hypothesized that the areas of women’s brains related to reward processing are more active when they share rewards and that those areas in men are more active when receiving, selfish rewards. Brain scans conducted on men and women, in which they chose between receiving a monetary reward only for themselves or one that involved sharing money with others, supported their theory.

Scientists say understanding those differences is critical to parents’ ability to help kids navigate the fast-changing world of tech.

Which is true about Professor Potenza’s research?

A．The team conducted the research in Yale university.

B．There were no changes in blood flow in female games.

C．Women’s brains showed higher levels of activation than men’s.

D．They focused on the brain’s responses to the part related to addiction.

7 . During this tour you will discover the foundations of the modern science of medicine in two French cities: Paris and Montpellier. Besides, you will enjoy the beauty of the architecture and gardens of these two cities.

DAY 1: Welcome to Paris. There’re no planned activities until the evening. In the evening, Linda Geddes will give you a talk about the tour ahead.

DAY 2: This morning you’ll meet our expert local guide for a walking tour on the Left Bank, starting at the Musée Curie, a museum devoted to the history of radiation therapy. After lunch you’ll visit the Musée d’Histoire de la Médecine, which houses a large collection of rare surgical instruments from the 18th century onwards.

DAY 3: This morning you’ll visit the Musée des Arts et Métiers in the Marais district. It now houses a museum devoted to science and technology. You’ll also see the Musée des Moulages in the Hôpital Saint-Louis, where you’ll see a specialist hospital built for dealing with skin disease.

DAY 4: Take a train to Montpellier. You’ll check into a hotel just off the grand Place de la Comedie and the afternoon will be free to explore the city including the wonderful Musée Fabre, one of the best museums of French art in the country.

DAY 5: This morning you’ll visit the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montpellier, one of the oldest continually-operating medical schools in the world. After that you’ll continue to the Jardin des Plantes, one of the oldest gardens in the world and originally designed to produce herbs for medicinal use.

DAY 6: Return to Paris by train.

On which day will tourists view rare surgical instruments?

A．Day 2.

B．Day 3.

C．Day 4.

D．Day 5.

8 . Grizzly bears, which may grow to about 2.5 m long and weigh over 400 kg, occupy a conflicted corner of the American psyche — we revere (敬畏) them even as they give us frightening dreams. Ask the tourists from around the world that flood into Yellowstone National Park what they most hope to see, and their answer is often the same: a grizzly bear.

“Grizzly bears are re-occupying large areas of their former range,” says bear biologist Chris Servheen. As grizzly bears expand their range into places where they haven’t been seen in a century or more, they’re increasingly being sighted by humans.

The western half of the US was full of grizzlies when Europeans came, with a rough number of 50,000 or more living alongside Native Americans. By the early 1970s, after centuries of cruel and continuous hunting by settlers, 600 to 800 grizzlies remained on a mere 2 percent of their former range in the Northern Rockies. In 1975, grizzlies were listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Today, there are about 2,000 or more grizzly bears in the US. Their recovery has been so successful that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has twice attempted to delist grizzlies, which would loosen legal protections and allow them to be hunted. Both efforts were overturned due to lawsuits from conservation groups. For now, grizzlies remain listed.

Obviously, if precautions (预防) aren’t taken, grizzlies can become troublesome, sometimes killing farm animals or walking through yards in search of food. If people remove food and attractants from their yards and campsites, grizzlies will typically pass by without trouble. Putting electric fencing around chicken houses and other farm animal quarters is also highly effective at getting grizzlies away. “Our hope is to have a clean, attractant-free place where bears can pass through without learning bad habits,” says James Jonkel, longtime biologist who manages bears in and around Missoula.

What has stopped the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service from delisting grizzlies?

A．The opposition of conservation groups.

B．The successful comeback of grizzlies.

C．The voice of the biologists.

D．The local farmers’ advocates.

9 . When the explorers first set foot upon the continent of North America, the skies and lands were alive with an astonishing variety of wildlife. Native Americans had taken care of these precious natural resources wisely. Unfortunately, it took the explorers and the settlers who followed only a few decades to decimate a large part of these resources. Millions of waterfowl (水禽) were killed at the hands of market hunters and a handful of overly ambitious sportsmen. Millions of acres of wetlands were dried to feed and house the ever-increasing populations, greatly reducing waterfowl habitat.

In 1934, with the passage of the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act (Act), an increasingly concerned nation took firm action to stop the destruction of migratory (迁徙的) waterfowl and the wetlands so vital to their survival. Under this Act, all waterfowl hunters 16 years of age and over must annually purchase and carry a Federal Duck Stamp. The very first Federal Duck Stamp was designed by J.N. “Ding” Darling, a political cartoonist from Des Moines, lowa, who at that time was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as Director of the Bureau of Biological Survey. Hunters willingly pay the stamp price to ensure the survival of our natural resources.

About 98 cents of every duck stamp dollar goes directly into the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund to purchase wetlands and wildlife habitat for inclusion into the National Wildlife Refuge System — a fact that ensures this land will be protected and available for all generations to come. Since 1934, better than half a billion dollars has gone into that Fund to purchase more than 5 million acres of habitat. Little wonder the Federal Duck Stamp Program has been called one of the most successful conservation programs ever initiated.

What was a cause of the waterfowl population decline in North America?

A．Loss of wetlands.

B．Popularity of water sports.

C．Pollution of rivers.

D．Arrival of other wild animals.

10 . Right at this moment, cockroaches (蟑螂) are doing more to save the environment than you are. A big overstatement? Not if you’ve ever thrown away leftovers from your plate or bought more food than you could manage to cook in a week. You’re part of the food waste problem. But just like cockroaches, you can also be part of the solution.

For example, some farmers in Asia and Africa collect tomatoes in big bags, which means that many of them get crushed out of shape and spoiled before they can be sold or eaten. Switching the bags for large wooden containers already lowers the amount of food lost. Similar successes can and have been achieved in various regions with weather-protected storage facilities.

Let’s focus on China for a second. It’s one of the few countries with an innovative approach to minimizing the environmental impact of food waste. How does it do it? Cockroaches. Millions of the tiny creatures are kept in farms in the suburban districts of big cities. Every morning, food waste is delivered by the tonnes and fed to the cockroaches. Just like tiny pigs, they’re not picky and devour everything quickly. After they die, they’re processed into protein-rich feed for animals such as cows or sheep, or used for cosmetic products and Chinese medicine. It’s an efficient and environmentally-friendly alternative to dumping leftover food in a landfill. Cockroaches aren’t going to solve the problem with food waste, but they can serve as an inspiration for finding other similar solutions on a wider scale.

To avoid food waste completely, improvements are needed at every step of the food supply chain, from production to retail. These take time and are often out of your hands as a consumer. But a meaningful reduction of food waste is definitely in your hands. You can not only buy less and shop more often, but also cut down on animal products.

What do we know about the practice of raising cockroaches in paragraph 3?

A．It is widely used around the world.

B．It solves the problem with food waste.

C．It lessens the environmental impact of pigs.

D．It inspires people to seek creative solutions.