1 . Many families take their children on vacation. They will usually travel for a few days or weeks during school breaks. But Julie and Tim Smith planned a longer vacation with their two children. The Smith family is on a one-year trip around the world. They plan to visit 30 countries in all. Right now, the four travelers are about halfway through their trip. Ms. Smith says they are trying to see as much of the world as they can.
Mr. Smith says one of the most interesting experiences of the trip has been meeting new people. He says people have been extremely friendly, very welcoming and love their kids. Eleven-year-old Tyler says he has enjoyed learning about the people they have met. He said, "I learned in Africa that people have very different lifestyles than in America." His sister, 9-year-old Kara, discovered that she liked Thai food. Ms. Smith says that the trip teaches the children a lot.
It took the family a year to prepare for the trip. They had to sell their house and cars. Ms. Smith left her job and her husband is using unpaid leave. They carry small bags filled with lightweight clothing and whatever else they need. Ms. Smith says she enjoys being able to carry everything she needs on her back. She says she does not miss the things she has back home. "What has become more important is making these memories as a family and taking those with us instead."
The Smiths will continue to head east for the next six months.
1. In what way is the Smith family's trip different from many others' according to paragraph 1?| A．They take their children on vacation. |
| B．They travel around the world for a year with children. |
| C．They travel during school breaks. |
| D．They travel for a few weeks with children. |
| A．Living in Africa. | B．Lifestyles in America |
| C．Having Thai food. | D．Learning about the people they have met. |
| A．They left their jobs. |
| B．It took the Smith family a year. |
| C．They sold their house and cars. |
| D．They put lightweight clothing in small bags. |
| A．The small bags they carry. | B．The memories of the family. |
| C．The things on her back. | D．The things back home. |
2 . It’s a really good idea to visit colleges before you apply because their websites can all look and sound the same. Nothing will give you the sense of what it will actually be like to live on a college campus (校园) like visiting and seeing for yourself the dorms, classrooms and athletic equipment (器材) and, of course, the students. It seems a little crazy once senior year hits to find the time to visit college campuses, and it can also be pricey if the schools you are applying to happen to be more than a car ride away. But keep in mind that you are making a decision about the next four years of your life, and do all the research you can to make sure you are making the right one.
There’s no excuse not to visit the schools in your local area. In fact, a lot of college applications even ask if you have visited campus, and obviously, if you live across the country that won’t be as much of a possibility, but if you live nearby, go check it out! If campus visits aren’t going to happen before you apply, at the very least you should find some time between applying and getting your acceptance letters to visit the schools you’d like to attend. It can save you a lot of heartache if you rule out now the things that you don’t like about certain campuses, things that you wouldn’t know unless you actually visit.
Now, if time and money are making it impossible, then check out the online college fairs at College Week Live. It’s a chance to chat online with admissions (招生) officers, students, and college counselors (倾问), and it won’t cost you a penny! You can register (注册) for its online college fair at collegeweeklive.com. While visiting an online college fair can’t take the place of an actual campus visit, it can be a very useful tool that along with all your other research will help you make a wise decision about which colleges you’d like to attend.
1. What does the writer intend to do by writing this text?| A．To call on students to visit colleges for pleasure. |
| B．To make people know how to apply for colleges. |
| C．To give advice to students who are to apply for colleges. |
| D．To explain what kind of colleges are good ones. |
| A．To live on college campuses. |
| B．To visit college campuses. |
| C．To find the time to visit college campuses. |
| D．To apply to schools on the websites. |
| A．Some colleges in local areas don’t allow students to visit. |
| B．It’s necessary for students to visit the colleges they apply to. |
| C．Students must visit the college campus before they apply. |
| D．You’re sure to get a heartache if you don’t visit the college campus. |
| A．needs neither time nor money |
| B．costs only a little money |
| C．is as useful as an actual campus visit |
| D．will be helpful in choosing colleges |
3 . The human face is a remarkable piece of work. The astonishing variety of facial features helps people recognize each other and is important to the formation of complex societies. So is the face’s ability to send emotional signals, whether through an unconscious reddening of face or a false smile. People spend much of their waking lives, in the office and the courtroom as well as the bar and the bedroom, reading faces, for signs of attraction, trust and cheat. They also spend plenty of time trying to dissimulate.
Technology is rapidly catching up with the human ability to read faces. In America, facial recognition is used by churches to track prayers’ attendance; in Britain, by shopkeepers to spot past thieves. This year Welsh police used it to arrest a suspect outside a football game. In China, it verifies the identities of ride-hailing (网约车) drivers, permits tourists to enter attractions and lets people pay for things with a smile. Apple’s new iPhone is expected to use it to unlock the home screen.
Compared with human skills, such applications might expand steadily in scale. Some breakthroughs, such as flight or the Internet, obviously transform human abilities; facial recognition seems merely to encode them. Although faces are peculiar to individuals, they are also public, so technology does not, at first sight, intrude on something that is private. And yet the ability to record, store and analyse images of faces cheaply, quickly and on a vast scale promises one day to bring about major changes to our understanding of privacy, fairness and trust.
Start with privacy. One big difference between faces and other biometric (计量生物学的) data, such as fingerprints, is that they work at a distance. Anyone with a phone can take a picture for facial-recognition programs to use. FindFace, an app in Russia, compares snaps of strangers with pictures on VKontakte, a social network, and can identify people with a 70% accuracy rate. Even if private firms are unable to join the dots between images and identity, the state often can. Photographs of half of America’s adult population are stored in databases that can be used by the FBI. Law-enforcement agencies now have a powerful weapon in their ability to track criminals, but at enormous potential cost to citizens’ privacy.
1. What does the underlined word “dissimulate” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Hide emotions from others. |
| B．Make known to the public. |
| C．Act in disregard of laws. |
| D．Become friends with others. |
| A．Applications. | B．Breakthroughs. | C．Human abilities. | D．Human skills. |
| A．Safety and first aid. |
| B．Social services. |
| C．Finance and trade. |
| D．Fairness and trust. |
| A．Benefits resulting from facial breakthrough |
| B．Facial Recognition: nowhere to hide |
| C．The power of human faces |
| D．Technologies concerning facial recognition |
4 . “I had no intention to adopt a cat that day. I just liked being around animals.” Miranda says. But when she saw Nala in her metal cage, “We made eye contact and I couldn't resist（抗拒）her big blue eyes.” At that point, “Nala was so small. I asked the shelter if I could hold her. Once had Nala in my arms, Nala looked up at me and licked（舔）my face.” And that was when she knew she had to take this kitty home.
Still, Miranda never imagined Nala would become an Insta-star. “I started Nala’s Instagram account in 2012 as a way to share photos with my close friends and family in Thailand,” she explained. The possibility of Nala gaining attention beyond that small group of people hadn’t occurred to her until it happened.
Miranda says, “Each time Nala’s photo was featured on Instagram’s popular page, her account would gain 1,000 new followers.” From there, Nala’s popularity snowballed. Large nationwide brands messaged Miranda about hiring Nala to do ads. “This took us by surprise because we couldn’t believe that a big brand wanted to pay them to take photos with their products next to Nala.”
Nala started life out in a shelter, just waiting to be loved like many other animals that were abandoned. Today that dream has surely come true. Nala has over 4 million followers on Instagram, which earned her the title “Guinness World Records Most Popular Cat on Instagram.”
In addition to managing her Insta fame, Nala is being asked to test various cat food brands. More importantly, “Nala is our chance to share the love to help create a better life for other animals, so they can grow well and bring joy to the world like Nala has.”
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．Visits to a shelter. | B．Love at first sight. |
| C．Power of blue eyes. | D．Duty to adopt cats. |
| A．To meet Nala’s needs. | B．To help Nala be a sta. |
| C．To share Nala’s pictures. | D．To attract public attention. |
| A．Satisfied | B．Amazed. | C．Upset. | D．Disappointed |
| A．Being well treated like many of her kind. | B．Starting life in the shelter. |
| C．Gaining chances to earn money. | D．Being raised by Instagram fans. |
5 . Sure, it’s good to get along well with your teacher because it makes the time you spend in the classroom more pleasant.
And yes, it’s good to get along well with your teacher because, in general, it’s smart to learn how to get along well with the different types of people you’ll meet throughout your life.
In fact, kids who get along well with their teachers not only learn more, but they’re more comfortable about asking questions and getting extra help. This makes it easier for them to understand new materials and do their best on tests. When you have this kind of relationship with a teacher, he or she can be someone to turn to with problems, such as problems with learning or school issues.
Here is a question: what if you don’t get along well with your teachers? In fact, teachers want to get along well with you and enjoy seeing you learn.But teachers and students sometimes have personality clashes (个性冲突), which can happen between any two people. If you show your teacher that you want to make the situation better, he or she will probably do everything possible to make that happen. By dealing with a problem like this, you learn something about how to get along with people who are different from you.
However, if a certain teacher isn’t your favorite, you can still have a successful relationship with him or her, especially if you fulfill your basic responsibilities as a student. Here are some of those responsibilities:
Attend class ready to learn.
Be prepared for class with the right pencils, books, and completed assignments.
Listen when your teacher is talking.
Do your best, whether it’s a classroom assignment, homework, or a test.
1. According to the passage, getting along well with your teachers will make you____.| A．get the best scores in the exams |
| B．have more pleasant time in the classroom |
| C．have no problems with study |
| D．get a better seat in the classroom |
| A．getting along very well with classmates |
| B．the disappearance of personality differences |
| C．a better relationship between you and your teacher |
| D．the happy time you have in the classroom |
| A．The importance of friendships in schools. |
| B．The importance of a good relationship with your teachers. |
| C．Studying skills for students. |
| D．Useful skills to get along well with your teachers. |
6 . On Monday, I stopped my car in front of my daughter Juliet’s middle school. She jumped in the front seat, feeling down. She asked me to help her study for her science test.
“Dad, I need to memorise a unit about the Reproductive Cycle of Plants. And I can hardly make it.”
“You know memorising seems like the best way to study, but in fact you can do better in tests if you work on trying to understand the material.”
Juliet was open to my advice. It was Monday afternoon and we had two nights to study before the test on Wednesday. I suggested a plan. “Tomorrow night, you are going to teach the material to me. Tonight, read the unit. Prepare to teach.”
Asking her to teach me was an unusual idea but I was determined to do it. Studies show teaching somebody else is a very useful way to learn. Even if you don’t do the teaching, the act of preparing to teach leads to more learning than just trying your best to memorise the material.
On Tuesday afternoon, Juliet sat down with her science book facing me and said, “Okay Dad, let’s study.” I wanted her to teach me. But false starts happened. I couldn’t be too hard on her. So instead we started with me asking her some simple questions. She knew some but not others. When she didn’t know the answers, I encouraged her to check the book.
She started checking things that didn’t make sense. And she was actively seeking to test her understanding. I was happy to see it. She wasn’t memorising; she was trying to make sense of things, which was exactly what I had hoped she would do.
1. Why did Juliet feel down?| A．Because she failed her science test. |
| B．Because she had trouble memorising a unit. |
| C．Because she knew nothing about planting. |
| D．Because she couldn’t follow her teacher. |
| A．Memorising. | B．Testing. |
| C．Questioning. | D．Understanding. |
| A．Making her check the book. |
| B．Using simple questions to test her. |
| C．Encouraging her to read the unit. |
| D．Asking her to teach me the unit. |
| A．A Creative Father |
| B．An Unexpected Test |
| C．Learning from Teaching |
| D．Preparing for Teaching |
7 . On Saturday 24 August 1918, it was raining cats and dogs and thundering over a city called Sunderland on the northeast coast of England. The storm lasted for only about ten minutes. People were surprised to see that it was not just rainwater falling from the sky. There were fish falling down, too! People came out to find out what was happening. They could not believe their own eyes. There were thousands of fish — sand eels— lying on the ground. They were about seven centimeters long, and all were frozen solid.
Sand eels swim together in large groups, often in sandy water, and are often found in large numbers in the North Sea, which reaches out to the east of Sunderland. How was it possible for these sand eels to fall from the sky and land on Sunderland?
Scientists believed the heavy thunderstorm that afternoon may have caused a waterspout. Waterspouts can be formed when strong winds move quickly in a circle over water. They are so powerful; anything less than one meter in length can be taken into them and forced into the clouds. The clouds carry whatever has been taken into them for long distances — sometimes over 150 kilometers. It’s very cold up there and everything soon freezes solid.
For hundreds of years there have been reports of small animals being taken into the sky through waterspouts. In 2009, dead tadpoles rained down on the city of Nanao in Japan. In 2012, fifty kilos of prawns fell from the sky over Sri Lanka. In 2017, fish fell on the coastal city of Tampico In Mexico.
It must be a very strange experience to see fish raining down on you. It would probably hurt if one fell on your head! With climate change, global warming and many reports of terrible natural disasters, will the time ever come when it may really begin to rain cats and dogs?
1. What was the rain like on 24 August 1918?| A．It was very heavy. | B．It fell around England. |
| C．It lasted quite a long time. | D．It caused many human deaths. |
| A．They were few in number. | B．They came in different sizes. |
| C．They were still alive when landing. | D．They probably came from the North Sea. |
| A．Clouds. | B．Waterspouts. | C．Strong winds. | D．The waters of the sea. |
| A．Our health. | B．Our environment. |
| C．The wild animals. | D．The news reports. |
8 . The Assassin's Creed series has been about building immersive （沉浸式的）and accurate historical worlds. As their newest game releases f Assassins Creed Origins, they have also released their Discovery Tours. These tours give players a chance to walk the streets of ancient Egypt, explore Alexandria and the pyramids, and learn about wildlife and geography. For students, experiencing the ancient world in this interactive way can be more interesting and effective than just reading a textbook or watching a documentary about what they are studying.
Assassins Creed is not the only game series that can be educational either. What is important about the role of historical games is the level of choice. When watching a film, students are passive receivers of content. However, when playing a game students have an active role to play in history. A focus on choice and consequence is an important element of teaching and understanding history, so historical games can be a valuable teaching tool even if they aren't completely historically accurate. They have the power to immerse students in faraway worlds and allow them to think critically about cause and consequence, think about why historical events unfolded the way they did, and even think about possible alternative outcomes. All of these are critical for historical thinking processes. No longer do students need to rely only on reading textbooks or on instructors for knowledge.
When carrying this out in your class, remember that not all students enjoy playing video games, but they can still be a valuable learning tool. The instructor also needs to be an active facilitator and taking note of teachable moments. A video game is not going to teach a class ； it requires an awesome instructor to make everything come together. With the power of video games, ancient worlds no longer need to be limited to the pages of a textbook.
1. What does the underlined phrase “this interactive way“ in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Walking an ancient street. | B．Playing a new game. |
| C．Reading a textbook. | D．Watching a documentary. |
| A．Why it is different from the film. | B．Why it gains popularity. |
| C．How it benefits teaching. | D．How it came into being. |
| A．The teachers. | B．The players. |
| C．The designers. | D．The audiences. |
| A．A vivid description of ancient architecture. |
| B．An account of a new history learning method. |
| C．A detailed explanation of a social problem. |
| D．An online advertisement of a stylish trend. |
9 . You might be the apple of your mother’s eye, which could only be a good thing. But adults who believe they are their mother's favorite child are at an increasing risk of depression, according to a study.
“It is a huge cost for those who think they get closest to their mothers, and these children report higher depressive symptoms（症状）,” said Professor Jill Suitor from Purdue University in Indiana, who led the study.
The academics used date collected from 725 adult children with an average age of 49, analyzing levels of emotional closeness, conflict, pride and disappointment.
The researchers added that previous studies had found that those who were closer to their mothers experienced less closeness with their siblings (兄弟姐妹).
Though few mothers or fathers would admit that they have a favorite son or daughter, studies have suggested they often do.
One such piece of research, which was carried out by the University of California in 2005, found that 65 percent of mothers and 70 percent of fathers showed a preference for one of their children over their siblings.
A previous study carried out by Professor Suitor and Dr Gilligan found that mothers tended to favor an adult child who was similar to them, in terms of values and beliefs.
Arabella Russell, a professor in Dorking, Surrey, said family problems, such as the siblings cannot get along well with each other, can often spill over into our romantic relationships, by influencing how we relate to our partners.
1. What does the underlined word “It” refer to in the second paragraph?| A．More chances to suffer from depression. |
| B．More time spent staying with their mothers. |
| C．More money spent on their growing up. |
| D．The disability to get along well with others. |
| A．Because the child performs better. |
| B．Because they have similar attitudes. |
| C．Because the child is smarter. |
| D．Because they look similar. |
| A．The parents will be disliked. |
| B．The members will never make up again. |
| C．More members will have mental problems. |
| D．The children may have problems in their romantic relationships when growing up. |
| A．The children. | B．Parents |
| C．The researchers. | D．The adult children. |
10 . Many families take their children on vacation. They will usually travel for a few days or weeks during school breaks. But Julie and Tim Smith have planned a longer vacation with their two children. The Smith family is on a one-year trip around the world .They plan to visit 30 countries in all. Right now, the four travelers are about halfway through their trip.
Ms. Smith says they are trying to see as much of their world as they can. Mr. Smith says one of the most interesting experiences of the trip has been meeting new people. He says people have been extremely friendly, very welcoming and love their kids. Eleven-year-old Tyler says he has enjoyed learning about the people they have met. He says, “I learned in Africa that people have very different lifestyles than in America."His sister, 9.year-old Kara, discovers that she likes Thai food. Ms. Smith says that the trip teaches the children a lot.
It took the family a year to prepare for the trip. They had to sell their house and cars. Ms. Smith left her job and her husband is using unpaid leave. They carry small bags filled with lightweight clothing and whatever else they need. Ms. Smith says she enjoys being able to carry everything she needs on her back. .She says she does not miss the things she has back home. “What has become more important is making these memories as a family and taking ”those” with us instead.”
The Smiths will continue to head east for the next six months.
1. In what way is the Smith family’s trip different from many others’ according to Paragraph1?| A．They take their children on vacation. |
| B．They travel around the world for a year with children. |
| C．They travel during school breaks with children. |
| D．They travel for a few weeks with children. |
| A．Living in Africa. | B．learning different Lifestyles in America. |
| C．Having Thai food. | D．Learning about the people they have met. |
| A．They left their jobs. | B．It took the Smith family a year. |
| C．They sold their house and cars. | D．They put lightweight clothing in small bags. |
| A．The small bags they carry. | B．The memories of the family. |
| C．The things on her back. | D．The things back home. |
