2 . At the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, halfway in the women’s slalom (障碍滑雪) race, 18-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin took a commanding lead over the greatest women’s slalom skiers in the world. On her final run, she burst from the start house at a breakneck speed, snaking around the poles in crazy rhythm.

Skiing has always been a significant part of Mikaela’s life. Her mom raced and coached skiing and her dad ski raced all through college. The Shiffrins taught Mikaela and her brother, Taylor, to ski at a very young age. At the age of two and a half, Mikaela made her first ski run on plastic skis. From ages 8 to 11, she worked hard, practicing hundreds of training runs on small hills repeatedly to develop the correct techniques of slalom skiing.

When Mikaela was 11, she attended the Burke Mountain Academy, a Vermont boarding school for skiers. She took classes, studied, and practiced her skiing crazily. According to Kirk Dwyer, Burke Mountain Academy headmaster, “It was the degree of Mikaela’s effort to be the best that distinguished her from others. Her commitment to conditioning, having proper sleep, eating correctly, doing the drills, and watching video was unusual for an 11 to 13-year-old. Mikaela practiced more than anyone and believed in herself then and now.”

By the time she was 17, she had already won her first World Cup race.

Working hard is a full-time job for Mikaela. Even her off-season is work time. In the summer, when Mikaela is off the ski slopes and in the gym, her daily training consists of six to seven hours of weight lifting, swimming, and biking to improve her core strength and flexibility. She does all of this so that she can dash down slopes at speeds topping 50 miles per hour while cutting back and forth around gates with astonishing precision.

“If you have passion for your targets, whatever they are,” she says, “the sky is the limit. Give it your all!”

1. What can we learn from paragraph 2?

A．Mikaela came from a skiing family.

B．Mikaela’s mother taught her to ski first.

C．Mikaela trained harder than her brother.

D．Mikaela’s father coached skiing in colleges.

2. Why were headmaster Kirk Dwyer’s words cited?

A．To stress Mikaela was a crazy teenager.

B．To show Mikaela’s distinct personality.

C．To praise the good students in his school.

D．To highlight Mikaela’s great devotion to training.

3. Which of the following words can best describe Mikaela?

A．Talented and wise.	B．Creative and determined.
C．Flexible and brave.	D．Determined and self-disciplined.

4. What does Mikaela Shiffrin’s story convey?

A．Practice makes perfect.

B．Not to advance is to go back.

C．He who laughs last laughs best.

D．Actions speak louder than words.

3 . Ross had serious health issues at birth and was given a less than 1% of living. Despite this, he _________ his first days of life, but the health _________ continued. Shortly after birth, doctors _________ that Ross had a brain injury.

_________ by his family, Ross continued to _________ his life. By the time Ross was only two months old, he had already had one heart surgery and three brain surgeries. Despite many _________, Ross made it through those early days and months. The key was his _________ attitude, faith, spirit and having a _________ that supported him in everything he wanted to do! His family _________ to never say “no” to things that Ross wanted to do or try.

And Ross wanted to do a lot! He wanted to be like everyone else and had a big influence on the people and world around him. Where others saw __________, he saw things they had in common.

Ross was also a __________ friend to many. He genuinely cared about other people and always tried to __________ his great attitude to those around him. When people were __________, he would encourage them.

Ross __________ a lot of his strength from his faith and his family. He once told his school nurse his __________ food was his family. They just filled him up with so much love.

1.

A．forgot

B．established

C．survived

D．overlooked

2.

A．problems

B．message

C．recovery

D．movement

3.

A．pretended

B．suggested

C．heard

D．learned

4.

A．Donated

B．Attracted

C．Supported

D．Promoted

5.

A．fight for

B．account for

C．look for

D．stand for

6.

A．benefits

B．protests

C．goals

D．challenges

7.

A．passive

B．amazing

C．selfish

D．professional

8.

A．belief

B．friend

C．family

D．doctor

9.

A．refused

B．hated

C．hesitated

D．agreed

10.

A．differences

B．disadvantages

C．possibilities

D．similarities

11.

A．mean

B．potential

C．great

D．strange

12.

A．report

B．spread

C．prove

D．contribute

13.

A．listening

B．competing

C．retiring

D．struggling

14.

A．lost

B．gained

C．regarded

D．controlled

15.

A．favorite

B．previous

C．confusing

D．traditional

5 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

As I worked as a sports journalist for my first 10 years with China Daily, I have     1     (close) followed how China has grown from a minor player in the international sports arena into a global sports power.

    2     it had a huge population, China was not much of a global force in sports until the1980s. However, it was very good at table tennis at that time. The first major international breakthrough for China came in 1981     3     its women’s volleyball team won the Women’s Volleyball World Cup. Understandably, sports fans went crazy. Parades celebrating the victory     4     (hold) on many university campuses     5     some students shouting slogans such as “revitalizing (振兴) China”, which has since become the goal of the nation.

    6     (motivate) by the victory, China invested more of the limited resources in training athletes. The investment paid off, as China got     7     (it) first Olympic gold medal in shooting in 1984. In all, Chinese athletes won 15 gold medals in the Los Angeles Olympics,    8     (set) the course to becoming a global sports power. In     9     past decade, Chinese athletes have been winning about 120 gold medals in international sports games every year.

As China invests more resources in the sports sector thanks to the fast-paced economic development and winning world titles becoming normal for Chinese athletes, the government started encouraging ordinary     10     (citizen) to play sports.

6 . When I stepped into the Samcheong Park Library in Seoul, I saw the future. The simple building had a nice selection of books and a cafe where readers could enjoy coffee while gazing at the leaves outside. It was specifically designed without any latest technology.

“What’s so innovative about that?” a librarian in Toronto asked when I showed her pictures. Innovation to her meant digital technology, like 3D printers. “Why couldn’t they both be innovative?” I asked.

We are constantly told that innovation is the most important force in our economy, without which we would be left behind. But that fear of missing out has led us to fall into the false trappings of innovation over truly innovative ideas that may be simpler and more effective. This mindset implies that if you just buy the new thing, you have innovated! Each year, businesses and individuals run around like broken toy robots, trying to figure out their strategy for the latest buzzword equipment.

At best, this is a waste of resources. Devices are bought, used and abandoned, as the technology’s capabilities fall short of its promise. But at its worst, this approach can truly cause damage. Schools cut field trips to purchase tablets with few proven benefits. Companies that applied AI into hiring have actually strengthened gender and racial prejudices.

True innovation isn’t just some magic devices. It is a continuing process of reflection and reassessment, which often means adopting “old” ideas and tools in a new context, or even returning to methods that worked in the past. Adjusted properly, these rearview(后视的) innovations have proved as transformative as novel technologies.

Look no farther than the streets of New York, which have been redesigned recently to accommodate cyclists with car-free zones. The idea isn’t new. It was created half a century ago, with the aim of bringing cities back to their residents. And while e-reader sales have been exploding, Penguin just announced it would publish tiny printed books, an ideal solution for a market demanding both convenience and physicality.

1. Which of the following best describes Samcheong Park Library?

A．Dull but convenient.	B．Simple but refreshing.
C．Old-fashioned but cozy.	D．Unexceptional but spacious.

2. What can we learn about innovation from Paragraph 3?

A．Its true meaning is to buy new things.

B．It is important for the growth of economy.

C．It shouldn’t involve simple and effective ideas.

D．Its true meaning has been misread by the public.

3. Which statement will the author probably agree with?

A．Magic devices encourage innovation.

B．Innovation should be human-centered.

C．The power of technology is undervalued.

D．Wasting resources are a must for innovation.

4. What is the writing purpose of the text?

A．To introduce some best ideas about innovation.

B．To show that future lies in returning to the past.

C．To convince people of the true meaning of innovation.

D．To stress the important role innovation plays in economy.

7 . When Belquer first joined a team to make a better live music experience for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, he was struck by how they had developed more solutions to enjoy concerts. “What they were doing at the time was holding balloons to feel the vibrations (震动) through theirfingers,” Belquer said. He thought the team could make something to help hard-of-hearing people enjoy live music even more with the technology now available.

Belquer, who is also a musician and theater artist, is now the “Chief Vibration Officer” of Music: Not Impossible, which uses new technology to address social issues like poverty and disability access. His team started by tying different vibrating cell phone motors to bodies, but that didn’t quite work. The vibrations were all the same. Eventually, they worked with engineers to develop a light haptic (触觉的) suit with a total of 24 vibrating plates. There are 20 of them tied to a undershirt that fits tightly around the body like a hiking backpack, plus one that ties to each wrist and ankle. When you wear the suit, it’s surprising how it feels.

The vibrations are mixed by a haptic DJ who controls the location, frequency and intensity of feeling across the suits, just as a music DJ mixes sounds in an artful way. “What we’re doing is selecting and mixing what we want and send it to different parts of the body,” said the DJ. The haptic suits were just one component of the event. There were American Sign Language interpreters; the music was displayed on a screen on the stage.

The suits are the star attraction. Lily Lipman, who has auditory processing disorder, lit up when asked about her experience. “It’s cool, because I’m never quite sure if I’m hearing what other people are hearing, so it’s amazing to get the music in my body.”

1. What surprised Belquer about people with hearing problems?

A．The attitude they held to life.	B．The way they enjoyed music.
C．The love they had for balloons.	D．The frequency they vibrated fingers.

2. Why did the team’s initial attempt fail?

A．The vibrations lacked variety.	B．The vibrations were irregular.
C．The motors were the same.	D．The motors hardly worked.

3. What is paragraph 3 of the text mainly about?

A．Displaying music on the stage.

B．Selecting proper suits for participants.

C．Mixed methods helping people feel the music.

D．Interpreters with excellent sign language skills.

4. What does Lily Lipman think of the suit?

A．It’s comforting.

B．It’s challenging.

C．It’s satisfying.

D．It’s disturbing.

8 . People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.

Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly (均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.

“We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,” Jack said. “Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect (忽略) the mouth.”

According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.

The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.

It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than did Westerners. “The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions,” Jack said. “Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less.”

In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.

1. What were the people asked to do in the study?

A．To make a face at each other.	B．To get their faces impressive.
C．To classify some face pictures.	D．To observe the researchers’ faces.

2. What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 6 refer to?

A．The participants in the study.	B．The researchers of the study.
C．The errors made during the study.	D．The data collected from the study.

3. In comparison with Westerners, Easterners are likely to ______.

A．do translation more successfully	B．study the mouth more frequently
C．examine the eyes more attentively	D．read facial expressions more correctly

4. What can be the best title for the passage?

A．The Eye as the Window to the Soul

B．Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions

C．Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills

D．How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding

9 . 假如你正在为下周英语课上的“课前三分钟”做准备。你打算结合自己的经历，谈谈对中国传统节日的看法。内容包括：1.你的看法；2.你的经历；3.你的建议。
注意：词数100左右。开头和结尾已经给出。

Good morning, everyone!

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Thanks for listening.