1 . I’d been thinking of taking a course on scuba-diving(水肺潜水)for months, but wasn’t sure because I was afraid of snakes! Sea snakes. Just thinking about it made me sick.
But then, I wanted to know why people loved it so much. They all said that under the sea was like a totally different world, yet a beautiful one. And because of that, I decided to take the risk and try to face my fear.
So, after taking a private course from my diving instructor, Mbak Vita，I went to Sepa Island with her, to take the final exam.
First dive, 12 meters in depth. “What am I doing?” I asked myself. “What if something bad happened?” I tried hard not to panic and told myself to keep a good thought, “It’s gonna be a wonderful experience. Just do it!” Then I went down. My heart beat fast and my ears hurt as I went deeper. I followed Vita’s instructions closely until I felt comfortable to explore the sea.
Suddenly all around me was green. It felt like I was living in a green world! I saw some corals(珊瑚), big ones, and lots of beautiful fish hiding in the sand.
I was enjoying the beauty all around me when my instructor waved at me with her hand holding a pink flipper(橡胶蹼). “That flipper looks familiar,” I thought. Yes! That was my flipper! I didn’t realize that my right flipper had managed to get away from my right foot!
So, that was the first dive. In total，we dove 5 times in 2 days. We managed to dive up to 18 meters in depth. The next dives were smooth and for sure I didn’t lose my flipper! I was so happy to see different types of fish swimming in front of me as if I was invisible(不可见的).It was indeed so beautiful and peaceful down there. Now I can see why people love diving under the sea.
1. How did the author feel about learning scuba-diving at first?| A．Uncertain. | B．Excited |
| C．Comfortable. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Feel tired and sleepy. | B．Keep cool and relaxed. |
| C．Keep quiet and patient. | D．Feel nervous and worried. |
| A．She saw a sea snake. |
| B．A flipper fell off her foot. |
| C．The sea water turned green. |
| D．She lost her instructor in the sea. |
| A．A pleasant trip to the beach |
| B．My first experience with scuba-diving |
| C．Why a person starts scuba-diving |
| D．How scuba-diving affects my life |
2 . The end of the school year was in sight and spirits were high. I was back teaching after an absence of 15 years, dealing with the various kinds of "forbidden fruit" that come out of book bags. Now was the spring of the water pistol.
I decided to think up a method of dealing with forbidden fruit.
"Please bring that pistol to me," I said. "I'm going to put it in my Grandma's Box."
"What's that?" they asked.
"It's a large wooden chest full of toys for my grandchildren," I replied,
"You don't have grandchildren," someone said.
"I don't now." I replied. "But someday I will. When I do, my box will be full of wonderful things for them."
My imaginary Grandma's Box worked like magic that spring, and later. Sometimes. students would ask me to describe all the things I had in it. Then I would try to remember the different possessions I supposedly had taken away—since I seldom actually kept them. Usually the offender would appear at the end of the day, and I would return the belonging.
The-years went by, and my first grandchild Gordon was born. I shared my joy with that year's class. Then someone said, "Now you can use your Grandma's Box." From then on instead of coming to ask their possessions back, the students would say, "That's okay. Put it in your Grandma's Box for Gordon."
I loved talking about the imaginary box, not only with my students but also with my own children. They enjoyed hearing about all the forbidden fruit I had collected. Then one Christmas I received a surprise gift—a large, beautifully made wooden chest. My son Bruce had made my Grandma's Box a reality.
1. What was the author's purpose in having the conversation with the students?| A．To collect the water pistol. | B．To talk about her grandchildren. |
| C．To recommend some toys. | D．To explain her teaching method. |
| A．The student's parent. | B．The maker of the Grandma's Box. |
| C．The author's grandchild. | D．The owner of the forbidden fruit. |
| A．They went to play with the baby. | B．They asked to see the Grandma's Box. |
| C．They made a present for Gordon. | D．They stopped asking their toys back. |
| A．She enjoys telling jokes. | B．She is a strict and smart teacher. |
| C．She loves doing woodwork. | D．She is a responsible grandmother |
3 . Most kids can walk into a library or bookstore and find hundreds of books to read. But it’s not that simple for kids who are blind. They read in a different way. Jenny Lee and other braille (盲文) transcribers take the printed words of a book and change them into a code of raised dots. Blind people can read these dots with their fingers. To know what braille feels like, take a ballpoint pen and press hard onto a piece of paper. Now turn the paper over and touch the raised dot made by the pen point.
When Lee first saw the dots of the braille alphabet, she wondered if she’d ever be able to read and write them easily. She took a class and practised hard for about six months before she passed the final exam: she had to convert 35 pages of a book into braille. Today, Lee works for a publisher. One of her jobs is to change children’s books into braille.
To do this, Lee first types the story into a computer and then uses a computer program to translate it into the braille code. Next, she looks over the translation several times to make sure it’s mistake-free. After that, a copy of the braille story is printed with a special printer. Then Lee and a proofreader work together to find and correct any mistakes. When a book is ready, many copies of it are printed. Afterwards, some are sold through websites and others are sent to libraries.
Sometimes, going over a story again and again gets tiring. That’s when Lee takes a break. Several of Jenny Lee’s co-workers, who are blind, use guide dogs. When the animals aren’t working, Lee likes spending a few minutes with them. To her, playing with dogs “is always a pick-me-up in the middle of the day”.
“I love this mission,” Lee says. “Through my brain power and my fingers, I am putting the dots into some kid’s hands.”
1. How does the writer explain what braille feels like?| A．By explaining what braille words look like. |
| B．By describing how blind people read books. |
| C．By asking readers to experience it themselves. |
| D．By giving examples of different braille words. |
| A．She was excited to get a new skill. |
| B．She was amazed at the clever idea. |
| C．She realized she could teach it herself. |
| D．She believed it would be difficult to learn. |
| A．A discussion to release work stress. |
| B．Something to improve one’s appetite. |
| C．Something to help restore one’s spirit. |
| D．A free ride accompanied with a guide dog. |
| A．Profitable and hopeful. | B．Tiring but meaningful. |
| C．Relaxing and helpful. | D．Boring but challenging. |
4 . When school closes, poor pupils lose the last social institution-one that educates, feeds, and sometimes clothes them-whereas richer pupils are gaining relatively more advantages. Disruptions to schooling tend to lower achievement while increasing inequality.
A new industry of"Learning Pod", where a group of families pool cash to pay for an in-person tutor, is deepening that inequality. Scoot Education, whose normal business is providing substitute teachers for schools, quickly developed a sideline in learning pods in California. For younger pupils, the total cost of a pod, shared among all parents, is $349 a day, which is beyond what a poor family can afford.＂Rich families can always find a way to educate their children, even if COVID-19 pandemic had not started," says Sarah Cohodes, a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University.
Thus, if there would be no extraordinary interventions in the closing of schools, the long-run effects on those poor students are predictable.
A team of five education scholars recently calculated that American schoolchildren in 2020 learned 30% less reading and 50%less maths than they would in a typical year. Despite that, the top third of pupils posted gains in reading. Data from Opportunity Insights, an economic-research team at Harvard University, shows that after lockdowns began in March pupils from low-income neighbourhoods fell permanently behind on online maths coursework, while those from richer areas quickly rebounded.
Then there is the problem of access to online classes. Nearly half of native American pupils and 35% of black and Hispanic ones do not have access to either a computer or the internet at home, compared with 19%of whites. Worsening mental health among poorer families will also hurt achievement. Elizabeth Ananat of Barnard College and Anna Gassman-Pines of Duke University surveyed part-time workers in Philadelphia who had young children; half were showing their anxiety or depression for children's schooling.
1. What do we know about Learning Pod?| A．It was started as the key business by Scoot Education. |
| B．Families can afford this teaching model with$349 a day. |
| C．It is a long-existing method to find an in-person tutor. |
| D．It worsens educational inequality to some extent. |
| A．Learned maths in advance. | B．Performed poorly in maths. |
| C．Regained improvement in maths. | D．Showed permanent love to maths. |
| A．Effects of educational inequality. | B．Psychological problems of the pupils. |
| C．Opportunities to use online resources. | D．Low academic achievement of the poor. |
| A．a health magazine | B．an educational report |
| C．a science textbook | D．a learning guideline |
5 . We’ve known for years that plants can see, hear, smell and communicate with chemicals. Now, reported New Scientist, they have been recorded making sounds when stressed.
In a yet-to-be-published study, Itzhak Khait and his team at Tel Aviv University, in Israel, found that tomato and tobacco (烟草) plants can make ultrasonic (超声的) noises. The plants “cry out” due to lack of water, or when their stems (茎) are cut. It’s just too high-pitched (音调高的) for humans to hear.
Microphones placed 10 centimeters away from the plants picked up sounds in the ultrasonic range of 20 to 100 kilohertz (千赫兹). Human hearing usually ranges from 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz. “These findings can change the way we think about the plant kingdom,” they wrote.
On average, “thirsty” tomato plants made 35 sounds an hour, while tobacco plants made 11. When plant stems were cut, tomato plants made an average of 25 sounds in the following hour, and tobacco plants 15. Unstressed plants produced fewer than one sound per hour, on average.
Perhaps most interestingly, different types of stress led to different sounds. The researchers trained a machine-learning model to separate the plants’ sounds from those of the wind, rain and other noises of the greenhouse. In most cases, it correctly identified (辨识) whether the stress was caused by dryness or a cut, based on a sound’s intensity(强度) and frequency. Water-hungry tobacco appears to make louder sounds than cut tobacco, for example. Although Khait and his colleagues only looked at tomato and tobacco plants, they think other plants also make sounds when stressed.
If farmers could hear these sounds, said the team, they could give water to the plants that need it most. As climate change causes more droughts (旱灾), they said this would be important information for farmers. “The sounds that drought-stressed plants make could be used in precision agriculture (精准农业),” said Anne Visscher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the UK.
Khait’s report also suggests that insects and mammals (哺乳动物) can hear the sounds up to 5 meters away and respond. For example, a moth (蛾子) may decide not to lay eggs on a water-stressed plant. Edward Farmer, at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, is doubtful. He said that the idea of moths listening to plants is “a little too speculative”.
If plants are screaming for fear of their survival, maybe we should be glad we can’t hear them.
1. What did Khait and his team find from their research?| A．Plants made low-pitched sounds when in danger. |
| B．Plants made ultrasonic noises to communicate with each other. |
| C．Plants picked up a wider range of sounds when stressed. |
| D．Plants were able to produce sounds in response to stresses. |
| A．A plant reacted to different stresses with the same sound. |
| B．Cut tomato plants produced more sounds per hour than water-hungry ones. |
| C．Cut tobacco plants seemed to make weaker sounds than drought-stressed ones. |
| D．Tobacco plants might make louder sounds than tomato plants when short of water. |
| A．Challenges faced by farmers in the future. |
| B．The potential applications of the research. |
| C．Farmers’ contributions to the research. |
| D．What the future agriculture will be like. |
| A．practical | B．unsupported |
| C．surprising | D．complicated |
6 . For the last six years, speed walking has now become part of my daily routine. I am always keen to do it regularly without a break. Even though I am neither a physician nor a specialist in medical science, I am fully aware that exercise, especially speed walking, helps maintain health and lowers the chance of falling ill.
I urge everybody to speed walk on a daily basis, with one day off a week, or at least to do it three times a week. I managed to burn around 17 kg of fat after taking up speed walking. This should also be accompanied with a change in diet. We need to reduce how much we eat and avoid junk food, sweets and carbonate drinks. Reducing the amount of food we eat in the evening by around 80 per cent and increasing how much water we drink are also good practice. Overeating should also be avoided.
I usually walk at a speed of 1 km per 8.5 minutes. It will initially make me tired. However, over time it will become a habit and an addiction.
This type of exercise will help you sleep and give you an appetite. It will make you physically fit and help burn fat and calories. Speed walking makes you healthy and everyone can find time to walk. The problem is that some people do not plan their days and do not, therefore, find time. We can gain health and social benefits from speed walking. It will help change our lifestyles, fight diabetes(糖尿病), and other illnesses.
Arguments such as “I am too old and obese to walk” do not hold water. People of any age who speed walk will see the benefits within a couple of months. Walking outdoors is ideal and it is best done in the company of friends.
1. Which sentence is TRUE according to the passage?| A．Speed walking helps patients recover from illness. |
| B．The author thinks everybody should speed walk every day. |
| C．The author suggests reducing the amount of food we eat by around 80 per cent. |
| D．The author walks at a speed of more than 100 metres per minute. |
| A．speed walking possibly leads to an eating disorder |
| B．many people are too busy to have a fast walk every day |
| C．more calories and fat will result in some serious illness |
| D．speed walking can effectively cure kinds of diseases |
| A．Make sense. | B．Work out. | C．Have a drink. | D．Build up. |
7 . Certain forms of AI are indeed becoming ubiquitous. For example, algorithms (算法) carry out huge volumes of trading on our financial markets, self-driving cars are appearing on city streets, and our smartphones are translating from one language into another. These systems are sometimes faster and more perceptive than we humans are. But so far that is only true for the specific tasks for which the systems have been designed. That is something that some AI developers are now eager to change.
Some of today’s AI pioneers want to move on from today’s world of “weak” or “narrow” AI, to create “strong” or “full” AI, or what is often called artificial general intelligence (AGI). In some respects, today’s powerful computing machines already make our brains look weak. AGI could, its advocates say, work for us around the clock, and drawing on all available data, could suggest solutions to many problems. DM, a company focused on the development of AGI, has an ambition to “solve intelligence”. “If we’re successful,” their mission statement reads, “we believe this will be one of the most important and widely beneficial scientific advances ever made.”
Since the early days of AI, imagination has outpaced what is possible or even probable. In 1965, an imaginative mathematician called Irving Good predicted the eventual creation of an “ultra-intelligent machine…that can far surpass all the intellectual (智力的) activities of any man, however clever.” Good went on to suggest that “the first ultra-intelligent machine” could be “the last invention that man need ever make.”
Fears about the appearance of bad, powerful, man-made intelligent machines have been reinforced (强化) by many works of fiction — Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Terminator film series, for example. But if AI does eventually prove to be our downfall, it is unlikely to be at the hands of human-shaped forms like these, with recognisably human motivations such as aggression (敌对行为). Instead, I agree with Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom, who believes that the heaviest risks from AGI do not come from a decision to turn against mankind but rather from a dogged pursuit of set objectives at the expense of everything else.
The promise and danger of true AGI are great. But all of today’s excited discussion about these possibilities presupposes the fact that we will be able to build these systems. And, having spoken to many of the world’s foremost AI researchers, I believe there is good reason to doubt that we will see AGI any time soon, if ever.
1. What does the underlined word “ubiquitous” in Paragraph I probably mean?| A．Enormous in quantity. | B．Changeable daily. |
| C．Stable in quality. | D．Present everywhere. |
| A．Help to tackle problems. | B．Make brains more active. |
| C．Benefit ambitious people. | D．Set up powerful databases. |
| A．supportive | B．disapproving |
| C．fearful | D．uncertain |
| A．It may be only a dream. |
| B．It will come into being soon. |
| C．It will be controlled by humans. |
| D．It may be more dangerous than ever. |
8 . An elephant and a crocodile were once standing beside river. They were disputing which was the better animal.
“Look at my strength,” said the elephant. “I can pull up a tree, roots and all with my trunk”
“Ah! But your skin is not nearly so thick as mine,” replied the crocodile. “No knife or tooth can cut through it.”
Just as they were coming to blows, a lion happened to pass.
“My dear friends!” said the King of all animals, going up to them. “Let me know the cause of your disagreement.”
“Will you kindly tell us which is the better animal?” cried both at once.
“Certainly”, said the lion, pointing across the river. “Do you see the soldiers’ metal hat on that wall?”
“Yes!” replied the beasts.
“Well, then,” continued the lion, “go and get it, and bring it to me, and I shall be able then to decide between you.”
Upon hearing this, off they started. The crocodile, being used to the water, reached the opposite side of the river first, and was soon standing beside the wall.
Here he waited till the elephant came up. The elephant, seeing that the crocodile had no way of reaching their goal, raised his long trunk, and took down the hat quite easily.
They then made their way together back again across the river. The elephant was trying to keep up with the fast-moving crocodile in the water and became careless. When he was forced to turn sharply to avoid a floating tree branch, the elephant dropped the hat and it fell to the river bottom. The crocodile noticed the accident, so down he dived, and brought it up in his huge mouth. They then returned, and the crocodile laid the metal hat at the lion's feet. The King took it up, and turning to the elephant, said: “You, because of your size and trunk, were able to reach the hat on the wall but, having lost it, you were unable to get it back. And you,” said the lion to the crocodile, “although unable to reach the hat, were able to dive for it and save it. You are both wise and able in your own ways. One is no better than the other.”
1. The underlined word "disputing" in Paragraph 1 means____.| A．playing | B．quarrelling | C．complaining | D．deciding |
| A．His big mouth | B．His strong skin | C．His swimming skill | D．His dangerous teeth |
| A．He ordered them to fight. | B．He made a quick decision. |
| C．He suggested a competition | D．He asked them to describe themselves |
| A．The hat got wet in the river. | B．He hit a floating tree |
| C．He was trying to swim too fast | D．He wanted to fight the crocodile |
| A．By working together | B．planning carefully |
| C．By sharing their ideas | D．By listening to the lion |
9 . With around 100 students scheduled to be in that 9:00 am Monday morning lecture, it is no surprise that almost 20 people actually make it to the class and only 10 of them are still awake after the first 15 minutes; it is not even a surprise that most of them are still in their pajama’s(睡衣). Obviously, students are terrible at adjusting their sleep cycles to their daily schedule.
All human beings possess a body clock. Along with other alerting systems, this governs the sleep/wake cycle and is therefore one of the main processes which govern sleep behaviour. Typically, the preferred sleep/wake cycle is delayed in adolescents, which leads to many students not feeling sleepy until much later in the evenings. This typical sleep pattern is usually referred to as the “night owl” schedule of sleep.
This is opposed to the “early bird” schedule, and is a kind of disorder where the individual tends to stay up much past midnight. Such a person has great difficulty in waking up in the mornings. Research suggests that night owls feel most alert and function best in the evenings and at night. Research findings have shown that about 20 percent of people can be classified as “night owls” and only 10 percent can be classified as “early birds” ------ the other 70 percent are in the middle. Although this is clearly not true for all students, for the ones who are true night owls, this gives them an excellent excuse for missing their lectures which unfortunately fall before midday.
1. What does the author stress in Paragraph 1?| A．Many students are absent from class. |
| B．Students are very tired on Monday mornings. |
| C．Students do not adjust their sleep patterns well. |
| D．Students are not well prepared for class on Mondays. |
| A．Most students prefer to get up late in the morning. |
| B．Students don’t sleep well because of alerting systems. |
| C．One’s body clock governs the sleep/wake cycle independently. |
| D．Adolescents’ delayed sleep/wake cycle isn’t the preferred pattern. |
| A．Criticized | B．Grouped | C．Organized | D．Named |
| A．Functions of the body clock. |
| B．The “night owl” phenomenon. |
| C．Human beings’ sleep behaviour. |
| D．The school schedule of “early birds”. |
10 . Time and how we experience it have always puzzled us. Physicists have created fascinating theories, but their time is measured by a pendulum (钟摆) and is not psychological time, which leaps with little regard to the clock or calendar. As someone who understood the distinction observed, ''When you sit with a nice girl for two hours it seems like a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove, a minute seems like two hours. ''
Psychologists have long noticed that larger units of time, such as months and years, fly on swifter wings as we age. They also note that the more time is structured with schedules and appointments, the more rapidly it seems to pass. For example, a day at the office flies compared with a day at the beach.
Expectation and familiarity also make time seem to flow more rapidly. Almost all of us have had the experience of driving somewhere we've never been before. Surrounded by unfamiliar scenery, with no real idea of when we’ll arrive, we experience the trip as lasing a long time. But the return trip, although exactly as long, seems to take far less time. The novelty of the outward journey has become routine.
When days become as identical as beads (小珠子)on a string, they mix together, and even months become a single day. To counter this, try to find ways to interrupt the structure of your day-- to stop time, so to speak.
Learning something new is one of the ways to slow the passage of time. One of the reasons the days of our youth seems to be full and long is that these are the days of learning and discovery. For many of us, learning ends when we leave school, but this doesn't have to be.
1. What is the underlined sentence in paragraph 1 used to show?| A．Psychological time is quite puzzling. |
| B．Time should not be measured by a pendulum. |
| C．Physical time is different from psychological time |
| D．Physical theory has nothing to do with the true sense of time |
| A．Our sense of time changes. |
| B．We spend less time at the beach |
| C．More time is structured and scheduled |
| D．Time is structured with too many appointments. |
| A．excitement | B．unfamiliarity | C．imagination | D．amusement |
| A．To give various explanations about time |
| B．To describe how we experience time physically |
| C．To show the differences of two kinds of time |
| D．To explain why time flies and how to slow it down |
