1 . A study by University of Michigan researchers found that about mine out of ten people in New York City were exposed to noises that were high enough to harm their hearing. Some of the risk comes from traffic and other environmental sounds, but we suffer a lot of punishment on our ears by simply attending sports events and concerts. Listening to music through earphones and turning up the volume also do damage.
Hearing aids may have seemed not comfortable to wear for some people. But today, you might not even realize that the person next to you is wearing a pair of earphones so small and thin that they’re mostly hidden inside the ears. You might be even more surprised to discover that the person can adjust those hearing aids on a phone app — to make it easier to hear what you’re saying in a crowded, noisy environment.
“There’s a cool factor for hearing aids,” explains Dr. Hope Lanter. “They’re significantly (显著地) better and smaller.” Lanter is the lead audiologist (听力学家) for hear. com, an online source for hearing aids from various producers, which also offers access to a nationwide network of audiologists who can provide in-person testing and help.
Hear. com has started its own product, which is named the Horizon, together with engineers from hearing aid maker Signia, according to a news report. In addition to producing clear speech, the Horizon is also designed to interact with phones and other tools, make phone calls, stream podcasts, read e-books and so on.
Throughout the United States, the number of hearing aids and earphones is on the rapid increase. Though they have brought much benefit for those who have difficulty in hearing, they really do great harm to people with normal hearing when they listen to music or talk with others.
1. Why did the author mention the study in paragraph 1?| A．To introduce the topic of the text. | B．To show the number of deaf people. |
| C．To explain the importance of protecting hearing. | D．To tell us the wide use of earphones. |
| A．Many people feel it awkward to wear hearing aids. |
| B．More and more people are wearing hearing aids now. |
| C．Hearing aids are getting more and more advanced. |
| D．It’s easier to stay away from loud noises with hearing aids. |
| A．Unfavorable. | B．Supportive. | C．Confident. | D．Not mentioned. |
| A．Loud noises in the United States. | B．Different earphones producers. |
| C．The advantages of hearing aids. | D．The wide use of hearing aids and earphones. |
As Wale Ayeni once said, “Be thankful for what you have. Your life, no matter how bad you think it is, is someone else’s fairy tale (童话). ”
Often, I find myself wishing I was living other people’s lives. I’m sure many of us wish that we could step into a luxurious (豪华的) private plane and fly to a private island. However, I’m also sure that many of us wish to have a bigger house, or wish to be able to work fewer hours.
I’ve seen numerous homeless people on the street and in the subway.
When I was younger, I never understood the reality of their lives. I was just scared of them and walked on the opposite side of the street. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to consider how difficult and painful their lives must be and how much they struggle.
I take the subway home every day after school. One day, when I got off, I noticed a young man on the side of the road holding a sign asking for money. I had seen him a couple of times in that spot, and now I saw the sadness on his face. He looked upset. I immediately looked in my wallet to see if I had cash to give him, but I didn’t.
I finally realized that this guy’s wants are things that come to me so easily every day. He probably never gets to eat three meals in a day. He doesn’t have a home to live in. He doesn’t have a family to spend time with.
I went home and continued to think about that look on his face and knew that I had to bring cash with me the next day to give to him.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
The next afternoon, when I got off the subway to walk home, I hoped he would still be there, and he was.
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After that day, I began to reflect on the things I should be grateful for.
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Ramon was the school tough guy because his dad was a tough guy. If anyone dared (敢) to disobey him, they received a good beating.
It hadn’t changed until Victor arrived. No one would have said that Victor or his dad looked like tough guys: they were skinny and had no muscles. However, this was what Victor said to Ramon when Ramon went up to him to make him afraid.
“Hey new kid. You should know that I’m the leader, and I’m the toughest guy here.”
“You might be the leader but I am the toughest guy here.”
That was when Victor go this first beating. The second was the day Ramon tried to take a girl’s sandwich from her.
“This girl is a friend of mine and I am the toughest guy in school. So she won’t give you her sandwich”— were Victor’s last words before the blows started raining down on him.
His third beating came when he didn’t want to hand over his own sandwich.
“Tough guys like my dad and me don’t steal from others, and you are supposed to be a tough guy too?” he replied.
Victor got hit regularly, but he never backed down. His bravery in defending those weaker than him began to impress the rest of his classmates, and he soon gained supporters. Lots of other children began to play with him, so Ramon had even fewer chances to hit Victor and his friends, and fewer and fewer children were scared of Ramon. New brave boys and girls appeared who copied Victor’s attitude, and the playground became a better place.
One day, at the school door, Ramon’s giant dad asked him who Victor was.
“That skinny boy is the tough guy who’s the new boss of the playground? You’re useless! I’m going to hit you and show you what a tough guy really is,” his dad said angrily.
注意: 1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
That wasn’t the first time that Ramon got hit, but it was the first time that Victor’s dad was there to stop it happening.
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That was when Ramon’s dad understood why Victor said that his own father was a tough guy.
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When my mom and dad said that we could adopt (收养) a couple of kittens (小猫), I jumped at the chance to have some soft, hairy animals around the house. So off we went to the Humane Society where there were a lot of animals up for adoption.
You just can’t imagine how excited I was when we entered the Humane Society. The first thing I noticed was that there was not a lot of room for the animals and not a lot of supplies to care for them. Even though they didn’t have much, the people who worked there cared about the animals more than anything, and they did their best for them. Still, it seemed that they didn’t have enough food and medicine to keep the animals healthy.
When we started looking around, I saw a lot of animals and fell in love with each of them. But my family and I finally settled on adopting two kittens and we named them Sox and Sierra. We went up to the front desk to sign the papers for them, and that’s when I noticed a box on the counter. The Humane Society was hoping to get enough donations (捐赠) to buy more supplies for the animals and also build a new building to help even more abandoned (被遗弃的) animals. We finished up and took our new kittens home, where they were sure to get a lot of love.
Later that day, my mom and I went shopping, and as we were walking through the parking lot at the store, I noticed a green piece of paper three spaces away from our car. It was kind of wet, but it looked like it could be a dollar bill, so I walked over and picked it up. Much to my surprise, it was a twenty-dollar bill. I looked around, trying to find out who had lost the bill, but in vain (徒劳地).
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式作答。
When I got home, I dried off the bill and thought about what to do with it.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The lady at the front desk smiled at us when we walked toward the donation box.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________At one time children made May Day baskets to celebrate spring and enjoy the rewards of giving surprising gifts to their beloved ones. When I was in perhaps the third grade, our class took on such an adventure. For several days, we worked on creating paper baskets. We cut colorful stripes of construction paper and wove them together, following our teacher, Miss Anderson. We cut and wove and glued. Then we decorated them with our crayons and more cutting and gluing. Finally, we fitted paper handles onto the tops so that we could secretly hang our creations on the doors of unsuspecting receivers: surely our mothers.
We were finished right on time. Miss Anderson brought armloads of flowers for us to use in stuffing our prizes. Lilacs and tulips and al the colorful flowers of spring. We had to wait until the day was nearly over before we were allowed to choose the flowers that were just right for our baskets. I chose the biggest, most beautiful blossoms, allowing myself to be selfish for the sake of my mother. Then we fidgeted (烦躁) away what remained of our day, waiting for the clock to tick down the minutes to our release.
Finally, mercifully, the bell rang! We threw on our coats, gathered our homework and our lunch boxes, tied on our scarves and then, carefully, we cradled our offerings of love and off we ran to our individual homes! I was so excited! I ran as fast as I could down the hill, across the street, up the block, heading home. I paused at the corner of my house, to catch my breath and savor the moment. Then I glanced down to admire my offering one last time before I hung it lovingly over the doorknob. Horrors! Shock, dread and depression! My flowers were gone! Apparently, bouncing out on my mad dash home, all that was left was a sad, messed-up, wrinkled little empty basket! I stood on the doorway and burst into mournful sobbing tears.
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Para 1
By and by, my mom came to the door to discover the source of the sorrow.
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Para 2
Soon, my newly-decorated basket was ready to be offered again.
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Finally, I had done it. I had really done it. I played the drama successfully in the school hall. But a few months earlier, I would never have imagined acting in a play in front of hundreds of people. But when the time came, I got up on stage and faced one of my greatest fears and discovered I could do more than I ever thought. I found a new person inside me, a much more daring, outgoing person who had been hidden all along, just waiting for the opportunity to appear.
Without my teacher, Mrs. Green, I might never have found that opportunity. In the first grade, I was extremely shy. I had friends, but it just wasn’t in my personality to be very outgoing, even when I knew someone well. I was afraid I would do or say something wrong, so usually I just smiled and listened to other people’s conversations. I did well in school and I loved to write. However, I would escape into my writing, where I could be myself and never had to worry about what other people thought of me. In fact I was never shy in my stories.
My teacher, Mrs. Green, always encouraged me to write more. She told our class to go after our dreams and dig in with both hands. I think she was the first person to see my inner strength. One day, she announced that our class was going to perform a play she had written. “I’ll begin to invite everyone tomorrow,” she said. “I need someone who is not afraid to be on stage in front of a lot of people to play the lead part of Dorothy. Anybody wants to try?” Many excited hands shot up, and mine, of course, was not one of them. Mrs. Green smiled. “We’ll talk more about it tomorrow,” she said. Then the bell rang and my classmates slowly left the classroom.
注意:
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
When I was loading up my backpack, Mrs. Green invited me to her office.
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Hearing Mrs. Green’s words, I realized that it was time to made a change.
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14-year-old Joe was a lazy phubber (低头族) who always needed help from his mom for everything. His father, Jack, realized how serious his son’s problem was, so he decided to make some changes.
One day, Joe would be late for school, but he still focused on his phone. He was so concentrated that he had no time to put on his socks and shoes, so his mom helped him.
With everything ready, Joe was waiting for his father to drive him to school as usual. To Joe’s shock, his father should let him go to school on foot instead this time. “What? No! I can’t do it. Please, Dad, give me a ride,” Joe yelled. But Jack insisted, “You’re a big boy now, Joe! Just walk. Get used to it,” he said.
Joe had no way but to walk to school. After what seemed a century, he finally arrived at school, out of breath. Having struggled to move into the classroom, he threw himself on the chair. It was suffering even for a few minutes. How lazy and weak Joe was!
When Joe was having a break, a boy in a wheelchair (轮椅) entered the classroom following Miss Li. The boy was Paul, who was new to the class and happened to live in the same neighborhood as Joe. He moved here with his parents recently after he lost his legs because of an accident. Despite the horrible experience, Paul never gave in to the bad luck, but was always willing to accept challenges with courage, confidence and independence.
New as Paul was in class, he received warm welcome from classmates. Joe failed to make a single friend all these years. Nobody liked him for his laziness. What Paul got that day made him even more upset.
The next day, Jack still refused to drive Joe to school, ignoring his begging. Quite disappointed, Joe had to walk to school again.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
On the way to school, Joe met Paul in his wheelchair.
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In the following days, Joe seemed to change into a totally different boy.
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8 . What is the most shocking about the heatwave affecting the Pacific Northwest is not that it has hit a usually mild area, nor that so many long-standing temperature records are being broken. It is that those records are being broken by such large margins (幅度). In Portland, Oregon, temperature reached 46.6℃(116°F) — making it one of several cities in the region where former records have been beaten by a full 5℃(9°F). At the same time, heatwaves are also hitting central Europe and even Siberia.
Heatwaves may become headlines, but less attention is paid to them. In 2018 about 300,000 people over the age of 65 died as a result of extreme heat, mainly in India, a 54% increase since 2000, according to a report in the Lancet, a medical journal. The report also shows that, unlike storms and floods, heat does not lead to dramatic before-and-after pictures or widespread damage to belongings. It is a silent killer. As many as 70,000 people died due to a heatwave in Europe in 2003.
Heat also kills by worsening health conditions such as heart problems, so not all the deaths it causes may be directly attributed (归因) to it. Climate change will make heatwaves more common and more extreme. Even if greenhouse-gas emissions (排放) are cut to zero by the middle of this century, temperatures will go on rising for decades. So other measures are needed to protect people against extreme heat.
Governments can set up early warning systems to alarm health workers, shut down schools and stop outdoor activities. They can provide the public with forecasts of coming heatwaves, explanations of the dangers and detailed advice on what to do. Improved facilities can also help. This includes providing shaded areas, water parks and “misting stations” to help people cool down, and get to airconditioned “cooling centers” where they can find shelter and sleep if necessary.
The world is, undoubtedly, facing a big health challenge right now. There is no excuse for ignoring heatwaves and their effects.
1. What shocks us most about the heatwave in the Pacific Northwest?| A．It has stricken a usually mild area. |
| B．It hits central Europe except Siberia. |
| C．Many temperature records are being broken. |
| D．Many records are being broken by large margins. |
| A．People have paid much attention to heatwaves. |
| B．Heat doesn’t cause widespread damage to belongings. |
| C．The damage of heat is as obvious as storms and floods. |
| D．About 300,000 middle-aged people died from extreme heat. |
| A．Provide some cool places. | B．Build nursing homes. |
| C．Organize outdoor activities. | D．Shelter the homeless. |
| A．Improving Public Facilities | B．Taking Heatwaves Seriously |
| C．Preventing Natural Disasters | D．Reducing Greenhouse-gas Emission |
I grew up in a large family of twelve siblings (兄弟姐妹). We weren’t poor by most standards, but things were definitely hard for us. My parents never shared their financial worries, choosing instead to let us have a carefree childhood. But I knew, as children often do, that there were times they went without and that certain things my friends had wouldn’t be available to me.
Back in those days, hot lunch was a luxury for the wealthier kids, and hot-lunch buyers sat separately from the students who brought cold lunch. My siblings and I brought lunch from home every day: thick slices of homemade bread, three cookies and a small apple. We would look on longingly as the rich kids proudly sat down with their steaming plates of fried chicken cold milk, peaches and a slice of cake.
I never said anything, but my first grade teacher, Mrs. Caruso, must have seen the desire in my eyes. One day she quietly pressed a note into my hand and whispered, “Give this to your mother.”
I hurried home and gave my mom the note. She read it and smiled. “Well, Mrs. Caruso said because of all your hard work, she wants to buy your lunch tomorrow.” The next day, I proudly carried my tray of chicken across the cafeteria and took my seat at the hot-lunch table. Honestly, the food wasn’t as great as I had imagined, but I was pleased to be there and felt honored to be a part of the group.
One rainy day, Mrs. Caruso asked me to stay after school. My stomach instantly dropped to the floor. Did she know I hadn’t finished my math sheet? After the other students had left, Mrs. Caruso said she was going to finish her work and then drive me home. It was raining, and she knew I had a long walk. We pulled up to my house and she got out, putting a few bags on the porch. “Tell your mom I had a few extra things she might want,” she said. Then she drove away. Inside the bags were clothes, toys, and books.
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
That summer day, Mrs. Caruso invited me and my siblings to her home.
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The experiences made a great difference in my life.
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1. What was the woman doing when she saw dolphins?
| A．Swimming. | B．Diving. | C．Sailing. |
| A．The weather was bad. | B．She felt quite tired. | C．She got frightened. |
| A．Hiking in the rainforest. | B．Exploring the old caves. | C．Climbing the mountains. |
