1 . The English-language version of Wikipedia has almost six million articles. And if you’re a cheating student, that’s six million essays already written for you. But plagiarism isn’t really an effective way—just type the text into a search engine and the game is over. Then what about having a ghostwriter compose your final essay?
“Standard plagiarism software cannot detect this kind of cheating.” said Stephan Lorenzen, a data analyst at the University of Copenhagen. In Denmark, where he’s based, ghostwriting is a growing problem at high schools. So Lorenzen and his colleagues created a program called Ghostwriter that can detect the cheats.
At its central part is a neural network trained and tested on 130,000 real essays from 10,000 Danish students. After reading through tens of thousands of essays labeled as being written by the same author or not, the machine taught itself to possess the characteristics that might spot cheating. For example, did a student’s essays share the same styles of punctuation? The same spelling mistakes?
By examining inconsistencies like those, Ghostwriter was able to seek out a cheated essay nearly 90 percent of the time. The team presented the results at the European Meeting on Artificial Neural Networks, Computational Intelligence and Machine Learning. There’s one more aspect here that could help students. Your high school essays probably get better over time as you learn to write and the machine can detect that. The final idea is to detect students who are at risk because their development in writing style isn’t as you would expect. Teachers could thus give extra help to kids who really need it, while sniffing out the cheaters too.
1. When a student wants to cheat in writing an essay, ________.| A．his cheating may be detected in a certain way |
| B．essays offered by Wikipedia can’t be downloaded |
| C．he won’t hire a ghostwriter to write one for himself |
| D．ghostwriting can be detected by standard plagiarism software |
| A．Its components. | B．Its weaknesses. |
| C．Its influences. | D．Its working theory. |
| A．It never fails to find out a cheated essay. | B．It can detect a student’s progress in writing. |
| C．It can help a student to correct his pronunciation. | D．It can give extra help instead of teachers. |
| A．A guidebook. | B．A magazine. |
| C．A novel. | D．A diary. |
2 . Young trees don’t just grow; they develop a personality and learn more about their environment and how they should best behave in it. They also help each other out whenever there’s trouble.
Personality, just as among people, varies among trees. Some are anxious, some bold. On the author’s land, there are three oak trees growing close together. One of the oak trees always starts to shed its leaves two weeks earlier than the others. Since they all experience the same temperature, the same soil and the same length of day, such variables can’t be the explanation. So what’s happening? Well, this tree is simply more careful than the others. Whoever holds on to their leaves longer can do more photosynthesis(光合作用) and store more nutrients. However, the longer a tree keeps its leaves, the higher the risk of injury.
Not only do trees make their own decisions, they also learn from their mistakes. A tree, for example, keeping its leaves too long during one year will never make this mistake again. This leads to several other conclusions:trees must notice the temperature and the length of the day and be able to save their experiences somewhere. Obviously, trees don’t have brains, but it is thought that in the sensitive tips of their roots they keep track of information and experiences.
But trees aren’t only clever when it comes to caring for themselves. They also support each other whenever there’s trouble by giving warnings and even taking care of sick and weak conspecifics with nutrients. For example, one time the author found a very old tree stump. Its insides had rotted a long time ago to topsoil. But the wood on the outside of the stump was still living. How was this possible? Well, the stump was nourished by its neighbors with nutrients from the root system, and had been for at least 400 years!
Why do trees do such a thing？It’s simple: it’s better together. Trees need the forest; it protects them from storms, provides the right microclimate and warns them of attacks.
1. Why does the author mention the three oak trees?| A．To illustrate trees can learn from experiences. |
| B．To show trees can make independent decisions. |
| C．To explain trees are quite supportive to each other. |
| D．To prove trees have the same personalities as humans. |
| A．Anxious and bold. |
| B．Smart and adventurous. |
| C．Helpful and wellbehaved. |
| D．Adaptable and supportive. |
| A．Give warnings. | B．Offer assistance. |
| C．Depend on others. | D．Provide nutrients. |
| A．A public lecture. | B．A science book. |
| C．An experiment report. | D．A travel journal. |
3 . Need a Job This Summer?
The provincial government and its partners offer many programs to help students find summer jobs. The deadlines and what you need to apply depend on the program. Not a student? Welcome to the government website and learn about programs and online tools available to help people under 30 build skills, find a job or start businesses all year round.
Jobs for Youth
If you are a teenager living in certain parts of the province,you could be eligible (符合条件) for this program, which provides eight weeks of paid employment along with training.
Who is eligible: Youth 15-18 years old in select communities (社区):
Summer Company
Summer Company provides students with hands-on business training and awards of up to$3,000 to start and run their own summer businesses.
Who is eligible: Students aged 15-29, returning to school in the fall.
Stewardship Youth Ranger Program
You could apply to be a Stewardship Youth Ranger and work on local natural resource management projects for eight weeks this summer.
Who is eligible: Students aged 16 or 17 at time of hire, but not turning 18 before December 31 this year.
Summer Employment Opportunities (机会)
Through the Summer Employment Opportunities program, students are hired each year in a variety of summer positions across the Provincial Public Service, its related agencies and community groups.
Who is eligible: Students aged 15 or older. Some positions require students to be 15 to 24 or up to 29 for persons with a disability.
1. If you are 15, which program can’t you apply to?| A．Jobs for Youth |
| B．Summer Company |
| C．Stewardship Youth Ranger Program |
| D．Summer Employment Opportunities |
| A．It requires training before employment. |
| B．It offers the disabled job opportunities. |
| C．It provides awards for running new businesses. |
| D．It allows one to work in the natural environment. |
| A．Magazine. | B．Textbook. |
| C．Newspaper. | D．Website. |
4 . Fantastic Magazines for Learning English
Digital Photogra pher
Perfect if you like: taking pictures with your camera or phone.
What you’ll find inside: This magazine is full of colorful photos and very pleasing to look at. There are many tips and guides on how to take great pictures, and they are written in simple and easy-to-understand English though there are some technical camera terms. You feel like the writers are tolking to you! You can impress your friends with your irnproved English and your new photography skills!
Fast Company
Perfect if you like: business and learning how successful companies work.
What you’ll find inside: Fast Company is one of the most approachable magazines about business and companies. It has many interviews of successful people, as well as general news about interesting new companics. It does use a higher level of writing than what is usual for magazines, so give it a try first to make sure you can understand the articles.
Cricket and Cicada
Perfect if you like: excellent literature and short stories.
What you’ll find inside: Cricket and Cicada are literary magazines aimed at teenagers. Each issue is full of wonderful short stories and poems, and beautiful illustrations. Even though these are technically children’s magazines, they are perfect for learning English because they have high quality writing.
Mental Floss
Perfect if you like: interesting trivia and facts.
What you’ll find inside: What does outer space smell like？ Why isn’t cat food mouse-flavored？ If you’re the kind of person who asks yourself these questions, you’ll love Meriful Floss, Each issue is full of bite-sized trivia and mostly short articles with really interesting facts that you’ll want to share with others.
While the print edition of the magazine stopped publishing in 2016, you can still read Mental Floss online. Click here to get more information.
1. Which magazine tells something about business and companies？| A．Digital Photographer. | B．Fast Company |
| C．Cricket. | D．Menial Floss. |
| A．They focus on drawing skills | B．They can only be bought online. |
| C．They are intended for teenagers. | D．They are full of colorful pictures. |
| A．On a website. | B．In a newspaper. |
| C．In an English textbook. | D．From a science magazine. |
5 . Designing a winter coat that transforms into a sleeping bag for people living on the streets would have been enough for most folks to sit back and revel（陶醉）in a kind deed done well. Others would call it good if they managed to take the attempt a step further by creating jobs for homeless people to sew the garments.
But Veronika Scott, the founder of the Empowerment Plan, wants those achievements to be just two of many stepping stones on the path to dreams fulfilled for single parents struggling to provide homes for their kids. Her vision has grown far beyond the design-school project thought up five years ago, when she was a 21-year-old student and people on the streets started calling her”the crazy coat lady”. Now The Empowerment Plan, is a fully developed business that has provided convertible（可变的）coats to more than 20,000 globally, given jobs and education to more than 40 parents, and helped move more than 80 children out of shelters.
Scott said she’s proud of the sleeping-bag coat she designed, but her main goal is getting people to the point where they and their families would never need one. That means locking past merely giving homeless parents jobs, but also helping them gain the education and skills needed to leave. The Empowerment Plan after a couple years and pursue their dreams.
Scott’s drive comes from her own upbringing as the scared child of parents who both struggled with unemployment and addiction. “The Empowerment Plan was a way of creating something I wish my own family had had growing up: an employment opportunity that would allow them to stabilize and get the financial stability they never had.”
Scott wanted to show parents and their kids “that living in a homeless shelter isn’t a defining （定义性的）characteristic, nor a life sentence.” Her employees all have been able to move into permanent housing with their children within the first four to six weeks of working for The Empowerment Plan, she said.
1. What is The Empowerment Plan's final aim?| A．More sleeping-bag cut can be produced. |
| B．The homeless can own a permanent house. |
| C．The project can cover all the homeless people. |
| D．Homeless families can stand on their own feet. |
| A．Homeless people's suffering. | B．Her enthusiasm for design. |
| C．Her background of growth. | D．Upsetting social problems. |
| A．Ambitious and earning. | B．Cooperative and generous. |
| C．Proud and patient. | D．Creative and demanding. |
| A．Fun lifestyles. | B．Latest News. |
| C．Diverse Cultures. | D．True Stories. |
6 . Organic food is very popular. It is also expensive. Some organic food costs twice as much as non-organic food, but new parents and pet owners are willing to pay up to 200% more for organic food. However, there are people who think it is a waste of money.
There is one main difference between organic and non-organic food. Organic farms do not use agricultural chemicals, such as pesticides. In many countries organic foods have special labels. These guarantee that the products are natural.
Some people think organic means locally grown. Originally this was true. Over time organic farming became more difficult. The demand for organic food grew larger than the supply. Small companies had to sell out to large companies. There weren't enough organic ingredients, such as grain and cattle. This made it difficult for many organic companies to stay in business. Today, many large companies have an organic line of products.
Is organic food more nutritious? This is part of the debate. Many farmers and consumers believe it is. They think agricultural chemicals cause health problems such as cancer. Many health professionals disagree. Few studies prove that organic foods prevent health problems. Health specialists worry more about bacteria, such as E.coli and salmonella. These can get into contact with organic and non- organic food. Doctors recommend washing produce very carefully. Handling meat carefully is important too.
Most people agree that naturally grown food tastes better. Is tastier food worth the extra money? This is a matter of opinion. Whether it is healthier or not may require more research. However, organic consumers argue it is better to be safe than sorry.
1. What is probably the major concern of organic food consumers?| A．Price. | B．Safety. |
| C．Freshness. | D．Variety. |
| A．Grow your own food. | B．Reduce the use of pesticides. |
| C．Make sure the food is clean. | D．Buy large companies’ products. |
| A．It tastes better. | B．It is easier to grow. |
| C．It contains more fat. | D．It is more nutritious. |
| A．A recipe book. | B．A chemistry paper. |
| C．A medical report. | D．A health magazine. |
7 . Almost everyone has heard the expression “the calm before the storm.” It is usually used to describe a peaceful period just before a very stressful situation or a tense argument.
British sailors coined the phrase in the late 1600s; they noted that before certain storms the seas would seem to become still and the winds would drop.
Science has given us the reason. According to US website HowStuffWorks, a calm period occurs because many storms, tornadoes and hurricanes draw in all the warm and humid(湿热的) air from the surrounding area. As this air rises into the storm clouds, it cools and acts as “fuel for the storm, like petrol in a car”. Once the storm has taken all the energy it can from the air, it is pushed out from the top of the storm clouds and falls back down to ground level. As the air goes down, it becomes warm and dry. Warm and dry air is stable, so once it covers an area, it causes a calm period before the storm. This same process also causes the “eye of the storm” in hurricanes and tornadoes. In these conditions, the calm occurs in the center of the storm because of the strong rotating (旋转的) winds.
The Weather Network has a tip for working out how far away a storm is. First count how many seconds there are between a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, roughly three seconds equal one kilometer. So, for example, if you count nine seconds, the storm is about three kilometers away. A good method is that if your count is below 30 seconds, you should seek shelter straight away.
However, due to the complexity of storm system, not all storms take place after calm. Given the right conditions, some storms announce themselves with heavy rain and fierce winds.
So, your best bet is to keep yourself updated with weather reports for any predictions regarding a coming storm in your area. That's the most reliable way to predict the next display(展示) of nature's temper (脾气).
1. What is the function of Paragraph 3?| A．To describe how the eye of the storm comes into being. |
| B．To stress why tornadoes and hurricanes are destructive. |
| C．To explain why a peaceful period occurs before some storms. |
| D．To remind how dangerous a storm can be in certain situations. |
| A．one kilometer away | B．three kilometers away |
| C．four kilometers away | D．five kilometers away |
| A．Heavy storms don't usually last long. |
| B．It is not always quiet before a storm. |
| C．Storms have a big influence on our life. |
| D．Weather reports often fail to predict a storm. |
| A．A travel journal. | B．A science fiction. |
| C．A literature review. | D．A geography magazine. |
8 . A team of scientists says that playing sounds underwater can get fish to return to areas with severely damaged coral reefs(珊瑚礁).In an experiment, they found fish returned after hearing recordings of the sounds like a healthy ocean reef. The research results were reported in Nature Communications.
The scientists placed underwater speakers in areas where coral had been dying in Australia’s northern Great Barrier Reef. They played the sounds over a period of about six weeks in 2017 and studied the results. The team reported that twice as many fish arrived in the areas where the sounds of healthy coral were played. The sounds also led to a 50 percent increase in the number of species present in the area, the researchers found. The researchers noted the importance of having many different kinds of fish return to the area. Different species of fish perform many activities that support the ocean environment and sea life.
Steve Simpson is a professor at the University of Exeter who helped lead the research. He explained, “Healthy coral reefs are remarkably noisy places. They contain the sounds of many kinds of shrimp, fish and other sea creatures. Young fish listen to these sounds when they are looking for a place to settle. Reefs become extremely quiet when they suffer destruction that is usually related to human-caused pollution. Coral damage can drive shrimp and fish away. But the experiment suggested that the use of underwater loudspeakers was an effective way to get young fish to come back.”
Mark Meekan is a fish biologist. He said that the return of the fish is the first step towards seeing major improvements in reef health. “Recovery is underpinned (巩固) by fish that clean the reef and create space for corals to regrow,” he said. University of Bristol professor, Andy Radford, said the underwater sounds are a promising way to fight coral reef damage at the local community level. But he noted that other threats need to be reduced as well. These include climate change, pollution and over fishing.
1. Why can underwater speakers make fish return?| A．Because the fish prefer music around their habitats. |
| B．Because they play sounds as a healthy reef does. |
| C．Because the fish know the places with them become better. |
| D．Because they can drive the natural enemies of fishes away. |
| A．Keeping the ocean’s ecological balance. | B．Removing the remarkable noises. |
| C．Preventing the pollution caused by human. | D．Driving dangerous creatures away. |
| A．By quoting different authorities’ words. |
| B．By comparing the result with another study’s. |
| C．By offering many statistics. |
| D．By showing the detailed process of experiments. |
| A．Education. | B．Entertainment. |
| C．Environment. | D．Economy. |
9 . Germans have a word “wanderlust”, which translated into English would be the desire to wander. Nowadays the opportunity to travel is endless. Thanks to cheap air tickets, travelling all over the world is very accessible and sometimes it’s even cheaper to fly out of the country than to travel within your own．
I have always had this feeling of wanderlust. As a young girl it started from me wanting to explore my local woods at the back of my garden and as I have grown, so has my sense of adventure. And I found my local woods being replaced with the Brazil wetland, Pantanal, where I went last summer in search of jaguars, snakes and crocodiles.
The thing with travelling is always different. Even if you went to the same country, to the same town and stayed in the exact same house, it would be a completely different experience. The people you meet will be different, and they will tell you their own travelling stories; stories of holiday romances, holiday horrors and stories that appear so suspect that you can barely believe them until something ridiculous happens to you and you find yourself becoming one of those people telling your tales. Or maybe the difference is yourself.
When you travel you are forced to be in harmony with a new culture. Whether it’s eating guinea pig, or staying with a family, where neither of you speak a common language and you have to communicate through hand movements and smiles, the experience gives me itchy feet to do it all again. And although wanderlust is originally a German word, the English idiom reflects a similar idea. Someone with that needs to leave or travel. This desire to explore is found not only in language but in us．
1. Why is the Brazilian wetland mentioned in paragraph 2?| A．The author’s garden lies near it. | B．It’s similar to the author’s hometown. |
| C．It’s the desirable place for travel lovers. | D．The author intends to share her nature. |
| A．There are many ridiculous travel stories. |
| B．Travel can change the way people view things. |
| C．The author prefers to go to the same country. |
| D．It’s interesting to know local culture and people. |
| A．She feels the urge to take a tour once more. |
| B．The situation leaves her much discomfort. |
| C．Her feet feels too tired when she is abroad. |
| D．The experience makes her lose confidence. |
| A．Hobbies of the Germans | B．Life around the world |
| C．Fashion on the earth | D．City tours and tips |
10 . Working women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, and 51 percent of professional workers, like doctors, lawyers, nurses and accountants, are female. While climbing the career ladder can be rewarding, it often comes with one big downside: weight gain!
New research published this week in the International Journal of Obesity shows that working women are more likely to be overweight, and the more you work, the more pounds you're likely to pile on. Like many women, I work..., a lot! As a selfemployed nutrition communications specialist, I sit at my desk, in front of a computer, for hours on end. Sitting alone is one of the worst things you can do for your health, and it's directly linked to being overweight and increased fatness, so the fact that women in the workforce gain weight isn't that surprising. If you work, you have less time to move around. Obesity researchers are revealing many other ways that employment is harmful to your diet and waistline.
In the International Journal of Obesity study, some 9, 276 Australian women aged 45－50 had their body weight and employment status monitored for two years. Results? Those who worked more than 35 hours were likely to gain weight compared to those who worked fewer hours or were out of the workforce. What' s more, the more hours a woman worked in a week, the more weight she gained.
The authors of the Australian study attribute weight gain among working women to inactivity, lack of time for food preparation, more use of prepared foods, high levels of stress, lack of sleep and consuming more alcohol. I'll also add in travel，meals eaten out and working at night as other factors that I can find to make balancing work with a healthy diet a challenge.
1. The text above is probably taken from__________.| A．a sports report | B．a fashion journal |
| C．a health and fitness magazine | D．an advertisement post |
| A．gain more weight | B．have more time to move around |
| C．work a full time job | D．keep a balanced diet |
| A．Lacking time for food preparation. | B．Using more prepared food. |
| C．Consuming too much alcohol. | D．Taking part in more activities. |
| A．Less activity leads to fat. | B．Ways of gaining weight. |
| C．Effects of weight gaining. | D．Working women more likely pile on pounds. |
