1 . There are some Christmas traditions between the United Kingdom and the United States.

Letters to Santa Claus

In the United States, kids usually write letters to Santa and put them in the mailbox. However, in England we throw them directly into the fire. We don't plan to make kids cry because burning the letters can send them to the North Pole where Santa can read your Christmas wishes in the smoke. It may seem strange but it does save on postage.

Hanging stocking

Traditionally, American kids hang stockings around the fireplace for Santa to fill with presents. But in the UK. we hang stockings around the bed; being surrounded by presents is a fantastic way to wake up on Christmas morning.

Christmas pudding

Americans prefer to have pumpkin and pecan pies for the Christmas dessert; while we British are fond of Christmas pudding. which is a cake flavored with dried fruits and spices.

Dealing with Christmas tree

We British chose to take down the Christmas trees and the decorations within 12 days of Christmas, because we hold the belief that keeping then beyond that time can bring bad luck. This is probably a tradition that Americans should consider adopting. I have seen people keep their old, brown, dry and withered Christmas trees until almost July 4.

1. How do the British people deal with "Letters to Father Christmas"?

A．Emailing them to Santa.	B．Hiding them in the mailbox.
C．Putting them in the stockings.	D．Throwing them straight into the fire.

2. Why do the British take down the Christmas tree as early as possible?

A．To stop it from drying	B．To expect good luck.
C．To save money.	D．To reuse it for the next year.

3. What do Christmas traditions between Britain and America have in common?

A．Writing letters to Santa.	B．Making pumpkin pudding.
C．Hanging stockings around the bed.	D．Keeping Christmas trees for months.

2 . Madagascar was not the paradise I expected. A reporter and I were ______ there to find out who was helping with drought relief and the prevention of famine(饥荒).

After a three-hour ride in a van, we ______ in the small town of Ambovombe.Peter immediately headed over to the hospital to speak with a local ______ on our topics of interest. Since I didn't need to photograph the background ______ with the doctor, I wandered out to the road.

I raised my ______ to get some images before the sun went down. I've ______ been to Madagascar before, and until you've actually photographed in a place, you don't know how people will ______ to the camera.

I ______ a handsome man who was leaning against a wall in the golden light of dusk. No reaction. I took a breath. After a while, everyone within a 20-yard radius had ______ me. Some called out to each other, playfully teasing those I'd ______ .

Soon after, a mother encouraged me to photograph her young children.I ______ a moment. They were dressed in ______ clothes. One of them may not have even had any pants on---not because her parents were neglectful, but because they couldn't ________ them.

Their mother really ______ me to photograph them. This happens everywhere I go. Parents, ______ of their children, ask me to take a photo. I'd taken this photo of cute smiling children over and over. I don't usually save ________ ，but I saved this one.

Why? The children's _________ .It's something so powerful yet so ______ that we sometimes miss it. This mom, despite all the ________ obvious to an outsider's eyes, found in her children something she wanted a photograph to remember. That's because she saw a(n) ______ picture: She saw them with a mother's heart. As should we all.

1.

A．expected

B．assigned

C．allowed

D．persuaded

2.

A．arrived

B．explored

C．searched

D．camped

3.

A．reporter

B．nurse

C．doctor

D．patient

4.

A．discussion

B．interview

C．program

D．practice

5.

A．paper

B．hand

C．head

D．camera

6.

A．just

B．seldom

C．never

D．already

7.

A．respond

B．adapt

C．return

D．contribute

8.

A．discovered

B．greeted

C．asked

D．photographed

9.

A．caught

B．noticed

C．found

D．suspected

10.

A．helped with

B．stared at

C．referred to

D．focused on

11.

A．watched

B．regretted

C．hesitated

D．choked

12.

A．beautiful

B．funny

C．dirty

D．colorful

13.

A．serve

B．afford

C．choose

D．bring

14.

A．wanted

B．informed

C．reminded

D．paid

15.

A．afraid

B．sure

C．aware

D．proud

16.

A．images

B．cards

C．gifts

D．words

17.

A．clothes

B．kindness

C．mother

D．expectation

18.

A．emotional

B．changeable

C．sensitive

D．common

19.

A．adventures

B．disadvantages

C．curiosity

D．support

20.

A．different

B．natural

C．broad

D．interesting

3 . Greenberg was a lucky guy to enter Columbia University on full scholarship. But just before junior year, Greenberg's____changed. One day his vision "____up" and later he was diagnosed (诊断)with glaucoma (青光眼). Then doctors operated on Greenberg's eyes. ____, the surgery didn't work. Greenberg was going blind. He was so____ that he refused to see anyone.

As Greenberg' s best friend, Arthur persuaded Greenberg to go back to Columbia and______to be his reader. Arthur read _____to him every day， taking time out from his own study, and Greenberg______scoring straight A's. Still, he was______about getting around alone and relied on his friend.

Then, one afternoon, Greenberg and Arthur went to Midtown Manhattan. When it was time to go back to campus, Arthur said he couldn’t_____him because of an appointment. Greenberg______They argued, and Arthur walked off, _____Greenberg alone in Grand Central Terminal.

Greenberg, who was completely______, stumbled (蹒珊)through the rush-hour crowd. He took a shuttle train west to Times Square, and then transferred to an uptown train. Four miles later, he _____at the Columbia University stop.

At the university's gates, someone______him. "Oops, excuse me, sir." Greenberg______the voice. It was Arthur's. Greenberg's first reaction was ___, but in the next second, he realized what he had just______-and realized, too, who had made it possible. _____, Arthur had been with him the whole way, using one of the most______strategies.

Blindness doesn't make Greenberg fail to appreciate the______of life. He always says he is the luckiest man in the world.

1.

A．faith

B．attitude

C．fortune

D．reputation

2.

A．lit

B．cleared

C．steamed

D．cheered

3.

A．However

B．Moreover

C．Therefore

D．Otherwise

4.

A．shy

B．selfish

C．desperate

D．nervous

5.

A．learned

B．pretended

C．happened

D．offered

6.

A．letters

B．textbooks

C．newspapers

D．magazines

7.

A．imagined

B．ended up

C．carried on

D．considered

8.

A．tentative

B．confident

C．excited

D．curious

9.

A．accompany

B．rescue

C．comfort

D．abandon

10.

A．explained

B．apologized

C．compromised

D．panicked

11.

A．consulting

B．finding

C．leaving

D．serving

12.

A．tired

B．amused

C．satisfied

D．confused

13.

A．got off

B．pulled over

C．looked around

D．ran away

14.

A．turned to

B．knocked into

C．shouted at

D．quarreled with

15.

A．raised

B．lost

C．controlled

D．recognized

16.

A．pleasure

B．anger

C．relief

D．sorrow

17.

A．achieved

B．questioned

C．ignored

D．missed

18.

A．Gradually

B．Finally

C．Obviously

D．Strangely

19.

A．complex

B．familiar

C．defensive

D．brilliant

20.

A．magic

B．truth

C．wisdom

D．beauty

4 .

News anchors(主播) must have been reluctant to read out the following news: Xin Xiaomeng began working as the world’s first female artificial(人工的) intelligence news anchor at Xinhua News Agency on Sunday, three months after a male robot joined the profession.

Unlike previous news robots though, Xin does not read news like a cold machine; she reads it almost like a human being. The muscles on her face stretch and relax-and her reactions change-as she continues reading. That’s why many news anchors were worried: Will AI replace us in the near future?

To find the answer, we have to analyse the technologies that support Xin at her job. Three key technologies are used to support Xin. First, samples of human voices are collected and synthesized (合成). This is followed by the collection and synthesis of human muscle movement samples. And third the voices and movements are married in a way that when the Al news anchor reads, the micro -electric motors behind her face move to make her expressions seem more human.

Yet we need a thorough knowledge of deep leaning technology to make a robot imitate a person’s voice. The developer needs to collect tens of thousands of pieces of pronunciations, input them Into the machine and match them with the text or the Al to lean and read. The process for imitating facial movements is similar. The developer has to analyse the movements of the 53 muscles in the human face, make a model set from the collected data for the AI news anchor to lean, and imitate the movements of facial muscles via programs

Both the technologies used to make Xin’s performance impressive are mature. The real difficulty lies in the third -the technology to match the pronunciations with facial movements so that Xin expressions vary according to the content of the news report. In fact, Xins expressions don' t always change according to the content. As a result, her expressions look anything but human. Actually. AI is still no match for human qualities.

1. What does the underlined word "reluctant "in the first paragraph mean?

A．Delighted.

B．Unwilling.

C．Confused.

D．Optimistic.

2. What can we infer about previous news robots?

A．They read news without expressions.	B．They looked like a human being
C．They could interview sports stars	D．They could interact with audience.

3. What do we know about the third technology?

A．This technology is very perfect so far

B．This technology is quite popular now

C．This technology remains at the theoretical stage

D．This technology is far from mature.

4. From the last paragraph, we can draw a conclusion that____.

A．human news anchors should learn from AT anchors to save their jobs

B．Al anchors perform much better than human news anchors at present

C．Al news anchors won 't replace human news anchors in the near future

D．Xin Xiaomeng s expressions vary so naturally that they are true to life

5 . As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remember less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.

In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.

In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder (文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location (位置) better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory (交互记忆)”

According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize huge quantities of information so that they are able to access it at a later date. This doesn’t mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.

1. The passage begins with two questions to ________.

A．introduce the main topic	B．show the author’s attitude
C．describe how to use the Internet	D．explain how to store information

2. What can we learn about the first experiment?

A．Sparrow’s team typed the information into a computer.

B．The two groups remembered the information equally well.

C．The first group did not try to remember the formation.

D．The second group did not understand the information.

3. In transactive memory, people ________.

A．keep the information in mind

B．change the quantity of information

C．organize information like a computer

D．remember how to find the information

4. What is the effect of the Internet according to Sparrow's research?

A．We are using memory differently.

B．We are becoming more intelligent.

C．We have poorer memories than before.

D．We need a better way to access information.