1 . There’s no doubt that one of the greatest human achievements is the exploration of the space. Ever since astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to be sent into the orbit around the moon in 1961, scientists have been pushing the boundaries further and further. But until now the exploration into the unknown has been dominated (主导) by men.
Of course, in the past, women were also included in the space projects and played an active role on the ground and behind the scenes. For example, they worked as seamstresses (女裁缝师), sewing vital spaceflight components. In fact, many of NASA’s key works would never have been possible without them. Recently Hollywood produced a movie called Hidden Figures to focus on a group of American female mathematicians, especially the black women, who helped NASA send the first American into space. But this was not women’s only contribution. Back in 1963, Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to be sent into space. However, after that, space flight programs were slow to employ women. In the USA. NASA didn’t accept applications from women to become astronauts until 1978.
But attitudes have changed and leading officials at NASA say that the first person to set foot on Mars should be a woman. The space agency aims to have a sex-balanced workforce but can only achieve that if equal numbers of men and women are trained for science and technology jobs. As Allison McIntryre told the BBC, “My director is a woman. We have female astronauts. We haven’t put a woman on the moon yet. And I think that perhaps the first person to step on Mars should be a woman.”
1. What did Yuri Gagarin do in 1961?| A．He landed on the moon in success. |
| B．He discovered many new boundaries. |
| C．He led scientists to explore the moon. |
| D．He made the first journey into the space. |
| A．To show women are the true heroes of NASA’s first launch. |
| B．To stress that black people have won equal rights in NASA. |
| C．To prove women can do as well as men in NASA’ projects. |
| D．To present women’s contributions to NASA’s space programs. |
| A．Uncaring. | B．Disapproving. |
| C．Supportive. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Will the First Person to Step on Mars Be a Woman? |
| B．Great Achievements Have Been Made in Space Exploration? |
| C．Why Men Played an Important Role in Exploring the Unknown? |
| D．Men and Women Have Made Equal Contributions to NASA’s Projects? |
2 . I was in the seventh grade, and we had moved to New Jersey in November. By then, everyone already had had their own friends, and no one wanted to talk to a new girl. To make things worse, they put me in ''Section L''. I found out later that everyone called Section L ''Loserville''. It was sort of an open secret that it was the section for troublemakers and not-so-smart kids. When I found out, I wanted to scream. I had always been a good student and had amazing friends, and now everyone thought I was a loser!
I did text my friends in Illinois almost every night, especially my best friend, Ana. At first my friends wanted to hear all about it. But then some stopped texting back once I said something about how miserable I was. One night when I was texting with Ana, I complained about another friend who had just done that. Anas texts came really fast for the next few minutes and they surprised me. She said that she was tired of hearing about how bad everything was in New Jersey, too. She said she did not want to hurt my feelings but that I needed to stop feeling so sorry for myself all the time, and I had to try to make things better.
The next day, I thought a lot about what Ana had said. She was right!
I wish I could say that everything changed overnight after that, but it didn't, I was still stuck in ''Loserville'', and some people were still mean (苛刻) to me, even though I tried to just stay out of their way.
But what did change was me — I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and did something about making friends. I signed up to make sets for the school play. I met a lot of new people there, and suddenly I had friends to say hi to in the halls!
I still miss Illinois sometimes, but life in New Jersey isn't so hard anymore. Even though I couldn't change my situation, I could change my attitude — and that made all the difference.
1. ''Loserville'' is a section for ________.| A．smart students | B．low achievers |
| C．class leaders | D．new comers |
| A．Ana didn’t text back to her | B．she was a good student |
| C．her friends hurt her feelings | D．she was unfairly treated |
| A．She managed to go back to Illinois. | B．She ended the friendship with Ana. |
| C．She began to make friends with others. | D．She fought back with her classmates. |
| A．Everlasting Friendship | B．Say Goodbye to ''Loserville'' |
| C．An Incident at School | D．Unhappiness in ''Loserville'' |
3 . On a rainy winter day, several decades ago, a British artist named Christopher got on a train in Oxford to go to London. When he began his journey, he never knew that it was the beginning of almost 40 years of accidents and near death experiences.
During the journey, the train fell into an icy river, killing 12 passengers. Christopher managed to swim back to the river bank. He only had a broken leg.
Two years later, Christopher was on a plane from London to Manchester when a door suddenly opened and he fell out. A few minutes later, the plane crashed; 27 people were killed. Christopher was so lucky that he landed in a haystack (干草堆).
A few years later, he was hit by a bus, but again had no serious injuries. Then a year after that, he was driving on a mountain road when he saw a truck coming straight at him. He drove the car off the road, jumped out, landed in a tree — and watched his car fall 100 meters down the mountain.
''There are two ways you can look at it, '' Christopher said. ''I'm either the worlds unluckiest man, or the world's luckiest. '' When a reporter asked Christopher what he thought, he chose the ''luckiest'' one.
Two years ago, aged 71, Christopher bought his first lottery ticket (彩票) in 50 years and won more than 2 million. After this, a TV company in America said they wanted him to make an advertisement. At first he accepted, but then he changed his mind. Christopher said he would not fly to Los Angeles for the filming, because he did not want to push his luck. Who knows? If he had accepted the invitation, maybe he would have had another accident. But Mr. Christopher is a lucky man. If he had had another accident, he probably would have survived that too!
1. What happened in the plane accident from London to Manchester?| A．Christopher fell out of the plane. |
| B．Christopher fell into an icy water. |
| C．Christopher landed in a tree. |
| D．Christopher was the only passenger to survive |
| A．worried | B．confused |
| C．doubtful | D．fortunate |
| A．Because he was not good at filming. |
| B．Because he had enough money. |
| C．Because he was sure of another accident. |
| D．Because he didn't want to risk his life. |
| A．A man with nine lives |
| B．The unluckiest man in the world |
| C．A man who traveled around the world |
| D．A man who earned ￡2 million in a lottery |
4 . A few years ago, a doctor gave a wrong prescription to a 9-year-old boy because he had accidentally clicked the next medicine listed in the drop-down menu. Unfortunately, the boy died.
Dr. Gidi Stein heard the story and felt forced to do something. “It was like killing someone with a spelling error. He just clicked on the wrong button…Stein said. “One would have thought there’d be some kind of spell-checker to prevent these terrible things from happening. But apparently this is not the case.”
Several things were immediately obvious to the 54-year-old Stein, who had previously studied computer science. “If you look at this problem from a bird’s eye view, there were so many places down the line where this decision could have been stopped-from the physician to the pharmacy (药房) even to the mother. All of them had all the relevant information to have the judgment that this was just the wrong drug for the wrong patient. For Stein, it represented a systematic failure.
Stein compared this with credit cards. “If you use your credit card in the daily routine over time, a pattern emerges of how we use our cards : the grocery store, the gas station in our local town. If your credit card would appear tomorrow in Zimbabwe, it would be unusual. The credit card company would call you and say, “‘Hey, was that you?’”
But nothing like that existed in the field of prescription drugs. So Stein set up a company called MedAware. He came up with a machine learning outliner detection system. In other words, he trained the computers to realize if a doctor accidentally prescribed the wrong medicine.
The system is already used in hospitals and doctor5 s offices. To date, MedAware has used their technology to help nearly six million patients in the United States and Israel.
1. What caused the boy’s death?| A．The doctor’s carelessness. | B．The doctor’s poor medical skill. |
| C．The failure of the computer. | D．The incomplete health care system. |
| A．He was annoyed and put the blame on the doctor only. |
| B．He was regretful and tried to prevent similar accidents happening. |
| C．He was embarrassed and mistook it as a systematic failure. |
| D．He was confused and detected the mistakes in prescriptions himself. |
| A．Credit cards are available for doctors’ prescriptions. |
| B．Instructions in using credit cards are offered to users. |
| C．The boy might have been saved with the technology like credit cards. |
| D．MedAware’s technology will benefit the patients in Zimbabwe. |
| A．MedAware’s technology helps doctors choose right medicine |
| B．MedAware’s technology checks the prescriptions doctors make out |
| C．Medical industry worldwide has enjoyed MedAware’s technology |
| D．The boy? s mother was not to blame for his death during the accident |
5 . Technology is forever changing the way we get our news. Many people now get a lot of their news on electronic devices, instead of traditional media, such as newspapers, television or radio. Now, there is a new way we get the news: computer-created news readers.
Recently, China's Xinhua launched (推出) the world's first AI news presenters with the Chinese search engine Sogou. The news readers created by machine learning technology are based on two real-life newsmen. One is able to present newscasts in English; the other, in Mandarin Chinese.
One Xinhua's report said machine learning was used to examine video images and sounds of the two newsmen, which look and sound like real people.
Some machine learning experts said the system showed off China's latest progress in voice recognition, text-to-speech technology and data analysis. But several experts suggested that the term AI does not correctly describe abilities of the robotic news readers.
On social media, many Chinese noted that the AI presenters did not seem real. People blamed them for not being more lifelike. Others wondered about the effects robots might have on employment and workers. Some people argued that only low-level jobs requiring heavy labor will be easily replaced by robots. Others praised the technology as a way for companies to make money from low-cost labor machines.
Some businesses have experimented with similar technology for possible use in news operations. Britain's BBC recently released a video that used machine learning to make it look like one of its news readers speaking different languages. The London-based company that developed the system says its goal is to "remove the language barrier" for many different kinds of video across the Internet.
1. What does the author intend to do in Paragraph 1?| A．Introduce the topic of the text. |
| B．Summarize the different opinions. |
| C．Add some data about the AI presenters. |
| D．Compare different ways of getting news |
| A．To keep AI presenters from making any mistakes. |
| B．To make AI presenters speak more fluently. |
| C．To ensure images and sounds are like real persons. |
| D．To bring newscasts up to date every hour. |
| A．Robots will eventually replace human all over. |
| B．Robots may threaten some people's employment. |
| C．Robots may endanger most people's health. |
| D．Robots will rule over the world in the end. |
| A．BBC has removed the language barrier in newscasts |
| B．BBC's news readers can speak different languages |
| C．BBC shows interest in Xinhua's AI news presenters |
| D．BBC has done similar experiments as Xinhua does |
6 . As the world's resources become rarer because of continuing land development and the growing human population, the natural habitats of wild animals have continued to decrease. As a result, the survival of some species of wildlife is threatened. To help protect wildlife, a lot of practices should be carried out by environmentalist as well as the general public.
Create homes for species that are endangered because of losing their own natural habitats. Wildlife shelters should be developed, and habitats should be created in existing(现存的) national parks. Efforts(努力) should also be made to protect existing habits, such as providing food and water sources and limiting hunting. Breed(培育) endangered species in places such as zoos. Once the young animals grow up, they can be set free into the wild where they can continue to increase the population.
The general public may not realize that a species is endangered until it's too late. Educational programs making use of TV advertising and instructional meetings at national parks can be used to make the public know the situation.
The general public can help protect the wildlife by not hunting wild animals for sport or for a source of food. They should also stop supporting those who earn money from the illegal hunting of wild animals, such as hunters who kill animals for the only purpose of harvesting their body parts and selling them for money.
The public should avoid(避免) keeping wild animals as pets. This will limit the number of animals being tracked, trapped, sold and removed from their natural habitat.
1. Which of the following is not the measure of protecting animal habitats?| A．Developing wildlife shelters. |
| B．Creating new habitats. |
| C．Setting young animals free in the wild. |
| D．Protecting the existing habitats. |
| A．the general public may not know species are endangered. |
| B．many endangered species are facing the danger of extinction. |
| C．people can do much to protect the endangered species. |
| D．human activities can affect the existence of species. |
| A．some people hunt animals and sell them as pets |
| B．hunters get little money from hunting animals |
| C．general public do nothing about protecting the wildlife now |
| D．animal population becomes larger in the zoo |
| A．Environment. | B．Sports. |
| C．Technology. | D．Education. |
7 . I must have always known reading was very important because the first memories I have as a child deal with books. There was not one night that I don’t remember mom reading me a storybook by my bedside. I was extremely inspired by the wonderful way the words sounded.
I always wanted to know what my mom was reading. Hearing mom say, “I can’t believe what’s printed in the newspaper this morning,” made me want to grab it out of her hands and read it myself. I wanted to be like my mom and know all of the things she knew. So I carried around a book, and each night, just to be like her, I would pretend to be reading.
This is how everyone learned to read. We would start off with sentences, then paragraphs, and then stories. It seemed an unending journey, but even as a six-year-old girl I realized that knowing how to read could open many doors. When mom said, “The C-A-N-D-Y is hidden on the top shelf,” I knew where the candy was. My progress in reading raised my curiosity, and I wanted to know everything. I often found myself telling my mom to drive more slowly, so that I could read all of the road signs we passed.
Most of my reading through primary, middle and high school was factual reading. I read for knowledge, and to make A’s on my tests. Sometimes, I would read a novel that was assigned, but I didn’t enjoy this type of reading. I liked facts, things that are concrete. I thought anything abstract left too much room for argument.
Now that I’m growing and the world I once knew as being so simple is becoming more complex, I find myself needing a way to escape. By opening a novel, I can leave behind my burdens and enter into a wonderful and mysterious world where I am now a new character. In these worlds I can become anyone. I don’t have to write down what happened or what technique the author was using when he or she wrote this. I just read to relax.
We’re taught to read because it’s necessary for much of human understanding. Reading is an important part of my life. Reading satisfies my desire to keep learning. And I’ve found that the possibilities that lie within books are limitless.
1. Why did the author want to grab the newspaper out of mom’s hands？| A．She wanted mom to read the news to her. |
| B．She couldn’t wait to tear the newspaper apart. |
| C．She couldn’t help but stop mom from reading. |
| D．She was eager to know what had happened. |
| A．her own way to find herself |
| B．her eagerness to develop her reading ability |
| C．her growing desire to know the world around her |
| D．her effort to remind mom to obey traffic rules |
| A．explore a mysterious land |
| B．develop an interest in learning |
| C．get away from a confusing world |
| D．learn about the adult world |
| A．The Pleasure of Reading | B．Growing Up with Reading |
| C．The Magic of Reading | D．Reading Makes a Full Man |
8 . Whenever I heard strangers singing out loud, whether it was in the supermarket or on the street, I used to think how annoying it was. That was until a few months ago.
Recently, my daughter Zoe started her second year of middle school with a new sense of awareness, asking me to fix the "little girl" pattern on her wheelchair seat. Not wanting her to stand out at school, I spent hours filling in pale yellow stars with a black marker, eager to erase whatever childish signs I could. Shortly after, Zoe got really sick and had to miss 20 days of school. This meant our days were filled with rushing between hospital appointments and meetings with the school, as we tried to make sure she didn't fall behind on her schoolwork.
I felt pulled back to a time when she was little and her sickness was a huge part of her life. Back then, it seemed like Zoe lived in hospitals, as she spent so much time in them. No matter how sick she got, however, she always had a positive attitude. But this was different: Zoe was no longer singing like she normally did. Zoe usually sings all the time, whether she's playing, riding in the car, or just doing her homework. There was no need for a radio in our house； Zoe provided the music for us. Consumed (被折磨)with my motherly worries, it was more concerning to me than her sickness.
One day, however, I heard her beautiful voice as I was cooking dinner. I stopped what I was doing and just smiled. “Pure delight. ’’ I thought to myself. Her voice slowly grew stronger, and soon, both the car and the house were filled with her music once more. How had I not noticed her singing had completely stopped, weeks and weeks ago? Now, thankfully, she's back in school, smiling and singing, and I'm thankful for each and every song she sings.
These days, whenever I hear a stranger singing a song to themselves, I don’t get mad. Instead, I smile, as I know that by singing out loud, they're simply sharing their happiness with the world.
1. When did the author feel bothered?| A．When hearing strangers singing. | B．When her daughter started middle school. |
| C．When fixing stars on the seat. | D．When her daughter became sensitive. |
| A．Considerate and helpful. | B．Competitive and hardworking. |
| C．Optimistic and strong-willed. | D．Self-aware and modest. |
| A．Zoe's love for music. | B．Zoe’s falling behind at school. |
| C．Zoe's silence during her sickness. | D．Zoe's slow recovery from her sickness. |
| A．A way to get rid of stress. | B．A way to express love to others. |
| C．A way to communicate with others. | D．A way to share joy. |
9 . Marian Wright Edelman, an American lawyer, educator and children’s rights activist, was born on June 6, 1939 in South Carolina, one of five children. Her father Arthur Wright was a preacher (牧师) who died when she was only 14 years old. In his last words to her, he advised her not to “let anything get in the way of your education.”
After high school, Edelman went on to study at Spelman College and later traveled to the Soviet Union. When she returned to Spelman in 1959, Edelman became involved in the civil rights movement. This work inspired her to drop her plans to enter the Foreign Service and study law instead. In 1973, Edelman set up the Children’s Defense Fund as a voice for poor and disabled children. She served as a public speaker on behalf of these children.
During a tour, Marian met Peter Edelman, an assistant to Kennedy, and the next year she moved to Washington, D. C. to marry him and to work for social justice in the center of America’s political scene. The couple had three sons: Joshua, Jonah and Ezra. Jonah is the founder of Stand for Children, a group that promotes children’s education, and Ezra is a documentary (记录片) filmmaker who won an Emmy for his film “O.J.: Made in America.”
Edelman is the author of many books for children and adults. Her titles for readers include I’m Your child, God: Prayers for Our Children, Guide My Feet: Prayers and Meditations for Our Children, Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors, and The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours, which was a surprising success.
1. What do we know about Edelman’s family?| A．She was the single child. |
| B．Her mother was a preacher. |
| C．They took education seriously. |
| D．The family had a poor life. |
| A．She wanted to study abroad. |
| B．She intended to be a lawyer. |
| C．She had little time for her work. |
| D．She was interested in civil rights. |
| A．In Washington D. C. | B．In the Soviet Union. |
| C．In South Carolina. | D．In Spelman. |
| A．They all worked for social justice. |
| B．They achieved something in career. |
| C．They won many awards in their lives. |
| D．They contributed to their mother’s books. |
The expensive trip to church was a surprise for Richard Albert, who lives right on the Canadian border. Like the other half-dozen people of Township 15, crossing the border is a daily occurrence for Albert. The nearby Quebec village of St. Pamphile is where they shop, eat and go to church.
There are many such situations in these areas along the largely unguarded 5,530-mile border between Canada and the US-which in some cases actually runs down the middle of streets or through buildings.
As a result, Albert says he did not expect any problems three weeks ago when he returned home to the US after attending church in Canada, as usual. The US customs（海关）station in this are is closed on Sundays, so be just drove around the locked gate, as he had done every weekend since the gate appeared last May, following a tightening of border security. Two days later. Albert was told to go to the customs office, where an officer told him be had been caught on camera crossing the border illegally（非法）.
Ottawa has given out special passes to some 300 US citizens in that area so they can enter the country when Canadian customs stations are closed, but the US stopped a similar program last May. That forces the people to a 200-miledetour along hilly roads to get home through another border checkpoint.
Albert has requested that the customs office change their decisions on the fine, but he has not attended a Sunday church since. “I feel like I’m living in a prison,” he said.
1. We learn from the text that Richard Albert is .
| A．an American living in Township 15 |
| B．a Canadian living in a Quebec village |
| C．a Canadian working in a customs station |
| D．an American working in a Canadian church |
| A．failed to obey traffic rules | B．broke the American security rules |
| C．worked in St. Pamphile without a pass | D．damaged the gate of the customs office |
| A．a drive through the town | B．a race across the fields |
| C．a roundabout way of travelling | D．a journey in the mountain area |
| A．A Cross-country Trip | B．A Special Border Pass |
| C．An Unguarded Border | D．An Expensive Church Visit |
