There are lots of chances in front of us. Whether you can seize them or not depends on the choices you make. This reminds me of one choice I made during my childhood.
Two tickets. Only two tickets to the final basketball game.
Three pairs of eyes focused on the tickets in Dad’s out-stretched hand. Mike, the oldest, asked the question running through everyone’s mind, “Only one ticket for us three? But, Dad, which of us will go with you?” Avery, the youngest, repeated the question quietly. I asked Dad if there was any chance to get more tickets. I might be the middle sister, but I was just as eager as my basketball-crazy brothers for a night out with Dad. Dad said he’d got the tickets from a friend and there were only two available.
Seeing that none of us would give up the chance, Dad told us he would choose which of the three of us deserved to go by the following morning.
The next morning, we hurried into the kitchen and looked for Dad, only to find that he had gone out. We were told to get started on our Saturday cleanup as soon as we finished breakfast. Mike complained that he couldn’t concentrate on chores with the game a mere eleven hours away. He slurped the last of his milk, grabbed the basketball and headed towards the back door. Avery dashed after his brother. Before I realized it, the door snapped shut. I glanced out the window and saw Mike practicing his shot while Avery cheered him on.
Seeing the mess on the breakfast table—the leftovers on the sticky plates and dirty cups, I felt frustrated. I approached the window and knocked on it. When the boys looked at me, I held up a kitchen sponge and dishtowel. Mike casually nodded to me and held up five fingers. Sure, five more minutes! I didn’t believe they would return to do the cleanup in five minutes, especially in Dad’s absence. Apparently, they had made their choice.
注意：1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右;
2. 续写部分分两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1:
Anyway, I chose to do the Saturday morning chores on my own.
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Dad was happy to know I found the ticket he had hidden in the cupboard.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________2 . When it comes to black holes, we are caught between a rock and a hard place. In the 1970s, Stephen Hawking showed that all black holes give off thermal radiation(热辐射)and eventually evaporate(蒸发). In doing so, they seemed to be destroying information contained in the matter that fell into them, therefore going against a rule of quantum mechanics(量子力学): information cannot be created or destroyed.
Some argued that the outgoing “Hawking radiation” preserved the information. However, if this were the case, then given certain assumptions, the event horizon(视界)—— the black hole’s boundary of no return—— would become intensely energetic, forming a firewall. But such firewalls go against the theory of general relativity, which says that space-time near the event horizon should be smooth. The black hole firewall paradox was thus born.
Now, Sean Carroll at the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues have shown that the paradox disappears when the evolution of black holes is understood in the context of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
The quantum state of the universe is described by something called the global wave function(全局波函数). According to traditional quantum mechanics, whenever there are many possible outcomes for physical process, this wave function ”collapses“ to represent one outcome. But in the many-worlds Interpretation, the wave function doesn’t collapse-rather, it branches, with one branch for each outcome. The branches evolve independently of each other, as separate worlds.
In this way of thinking, the formation of a black hole and its evaporation due to Hawking radiation lead to multiple branches of the wave function. An observer monitoring a black hole also splits into multiple observers, one in each branch.
The new work shows that from the perspective of an observer in a given branch, space-time behaves as described by general relativity and the black hole has no firewall.
But does that imply loss of information? No, says team member Aidan Chatwin-Davies, also of Caltech. That is because the principle of preservation of information applies to the global wave function and not to its individual branches, he says. Information is preserved across all branches of the global wave function, but not necessarily in any one branch. Given this case, a black hole that doesn’t lose information and yet has a smooth, uneventful event horizon without a fire wall isn’t a contradiction.
Yasunori Nomura at the University of California at Berkeleyy has independently arrived at some similar conclusions in his work. He agrees that the many-worlds approach resolves the paradox around information loss from black holes. “Many worlds should be taken seriously,” he says.
1. Which word in the article is similar in meaning to the underlined word in Paragraph 2?| A．Assumption (Paragraph 2) | B．Interpretation (Paragraph 4) |
| C．Evaporation (Paragraph 5) | D．Contradiction (Paragraph 7) |
| A．There is a firewall. | B．No observer will split. |
| C．No information is lost. | D．The wave function collapses. |
| A．introduce an independent scientist |
| B．support the many-worlds interpretation |
| C．question whether many worlds really exist |
| D．argue against the information loss from black holes |
| A．Rules of quantum mechanics. |
| B．A new understanding of the black hole. |
| C．Hawking’s interpretation of the black hole. |
| D．The development of the global wave function. |
Global Cooperation
In the 21st century, we’ve seen a new trend that is pushing the boundaries of human invention and innovation—global cooperation. Scientific and technical research and development is now so complicated that no one scientist can know it all. So, increasingly, innovation is coming from the combining of cutting-edge expertise (专业知识) from different scientific fields.
There are now over 8, 000 scientific journals worldwide and it is impossible to be an expert in all areas. Therefore, in this highly specialized world, scientists, medics and engineers have to cooperate in order to innovate. Professor Bob Langer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has made significant breakthroughs in the field of biomedical engineering. But he hasn’t done it on his own. He has invited experts from around the world in different fields to form a global team to design new substances which can go inside the body, deliver medicines and then dissolve. Also at MIT, when Cesar Harada heard about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, he quit his dream job there and tried to develop a more efficient way to remove the oil. But rather than focusing on profit, he decided to ‘open-source’ the design. He shared his own ideas on the web for free and then got experts from all around the world to contribute ideas and even donations. Thanks to this free, not-for-profit way of sharing ideas and intellectual property on the internet, a boat capable of cleaning oil quickly came into being. Obviously, international cooperation based on sharing information freely has produced innovative approaches to solving problems.
It appears that the days of brilliant individuals working in their garages on their own are over. Global teams with a united purpose building on everyone’s expertise can collectively do far more than one brilliant individual. Today’s world calls for global cooperators, sharers, and not protectors of ideas.
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4 . The environmental practices of big businesses are shaped by a fundamental fact that offends our sense of justice. A business may maximize the amount of money it makes by damaging the environment and hurting people. When government regulation is effective, and the public is environmentally aware, environmentally clean big businesses may out-compete dirty ones, but the reverse is likely to be true if government regulation is ineffective and the public doesn’t care.
It is easy to blame a business for helping itself by hurting other people. But blaming alone is unlikely to produce change. It ignores the fact that businesses are not charities but profit-making companies, and they are under obligation to maximize profits for shareholders by legal means.
Our blaming of businesses also ignores the ultimate responsibility of the public for creating the conditions that let a business profit through destructive environmental policies. In the long run, it is the public, either directly or through its politicians, that has the power to make such destructive policies unprofitable and illegal, and to make sustainable environmental policies profitable.
The public can do that by accusing businesses of harming them. The public may also make their opinion felt by choosing to buy sustainably harvested products; by preferring their governments to award valuable contracts to businesses with a good environmental track record; and by pressing their governments to pass and enforce laws and regulations requiring good environmental practices.
In turn, big businesses can exert powerful pressure on any suppliers that might ignore public or government pressure. For instance, after the US public became concerned about the spread of a disease, transmitted to humans through infected meat, the US government introduced rules demanding that the meat industry abandon practices associated with the risk of the disease spreading. But the meat packers refused to follow these, claiming that they would be too expensive to obey. However, when a fast-food company made the same demands after customer purchases of its hamburgers dropped, the meat industry followed immediately. The public’s task is therefore to identify which links in the supply chain are sensitive to public pressure.
Some readers may be disappointed or outraged that I place the ultimate responsibility for business practices harming the public on the public itself. I also believe that the public must accept the necessity for higher prices for products to cover the added costs of sound environmental practices. My views may seem to ignore the belief that businesses should act in accordance with moral principles even if this leads to a reduction in their profits. But I think we have to recognize that, throughout human history, government regulation has arisen precisely because it was found that not only did moral principles need to be made explicit, they also needed to be enforced.
My conclusion is not a moralistic one about who is right or wrong, admirable or selfish. I believe that changes in public attitudes are essential for changes in businesses’ environmental practices.
1. The main idea of Paragraph 3 is that environmental damage__________.| A．is the result of ignorance of the public |
| B．requires political action if it is to be stopped |
| C．can be prevented by the action of ordinary people |
| D．can only be stopped by educating business leaders |
| A．reduce their own individual impact on the environment |
| B．learn more about the impact of business on the environment |
| C．raise awareness of the effects of specific environmental disasters |
| D．influence the environmental policies of businesses and governments |
| A．Meat packers stopped supplying hamburgers to fast-food chains. |
| B．Meat packers persuaded the government to reduce their expenses. |
| C．A fast-food company forced their meat suppliers to follow the law. |
| D．A fast-food company encouraged the government to introduce regulations. |
| A．Will the world survive the threat caused by big businesses? |
| B．How can big businesses be encouraged to be less driven by profit? |
| C．What environmental dangers are caused by the greed of businesses? |
| D．Are big businesses to blame for the damage they cause to the environment? |
5 . The kids are hanging out. I pass small bands of students, on my way to work these mornings. They have become a familiar part of the summer landscape.
These kids are not old enough for jobs. Nor are they rich enough for camp. They are school children without school. The calendar called the school year ran out on them a few weeks ago. Once monitored by teachers and principals, they now appear to be “self care”.
Passing them is like passing through a time zone. For much of our history, after all, Americans arranged the school year around the needs of work and family. In 19th-century cities, schools were open seven or eight hours a day, 11 months a year. In rural America, the year was arranged around the growing season. Now, only 3 percent of families follow the agricultural model, but nearly all schools are scheduled as if our children went home early to milk the cows and took months off to work the crops. Now, three-quarters of the mothers of school-age children work, but the calendar is written as if they were home waiting for the school bus.
The six-hour day, the 180-day school year is regarded as something holy. But when parents work an eight-bour day and a 240-day year, it means something different. It means that many kids go home to empty houses. It means that, in the summer, they hang out.
“We have a huge mismatch between the school calendar and realities of family life,” says Dr. Ernest Boyer, head of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Dr. Boyer is one of many who believe that a radical revision of the school calendar is inevitable. “School, whether we like it or not, is educational. It always has been.”
His is not a popular idea. Schools are routinely burdened with the job of solving all our social problems. Can they be asked to meet the needs of our work and family lives?
It may be easier to promote a longer school year on its educational merits and, indeed, the educational case is convincing. Despite the complaints and studies about our kids lack of learning, the United State still has a shorter school year than any industrial nation. In most of Europe, the school year is 220 days. in Japan, it is 240 days long. While classroom time alone doesn’t produce a well-educated child, learning takes time and more learning takes more time. The long summers of forgetting take a toll.
The opposition to a longer school year comes from families that want to and can provide other experiences for their children. It comes from teachers. It comes from tradition. And surely from kids. But the most important part of the conflict has been over the money.
1. The current American school calendar was developed in the 19th century according to ______.| A．the growing season on nation’s farm |
| B．the labor demands of the industrial age |
| C．teachers’ demands for more vacation time |
| D．parents’ demands for other experiences for their kids |
| A．He thinks that school year and family life should be considered separately |
| B．He argues for the role of school in solving social problems. |
| C．He strongly believes in the educational role of school. |
| D．He supports the current school calendar. |
| A．long summer vacation changes the way of learning |
| B．long summer vacation has been abandoned in Europe |
| C．long summers result in less learning time |
| D．long summers are a result of tradition |
| A．is still appropriate | B．is out of date |
| C．is inevitable | D．cannot be revised |
I needed to do something in my community (社区) in order to complete the community service hours required to graduate from high school. Some of my friends had signed up to spend time at a soup kitchen, so I did, too. It seemed like a good thing to do.
I thought that we would just be passing out dinners to those in need, but I found out we would be doing everything from preparing to serving the dinner. We began preparing the food, from mixing salad dressing to separating frozen meat. Much still needed to be done before dinner was served, but already outside the building many homeless people were gathering. It wasn’t until a couple of hours later that we opened the doors and began serving dinner.
As the line of people came toward me, I got a little scared. I’d come face to face with the homeless: How should I act? How would they treat me? Would they hate me for having more than they did? While some of the people looked very friendly, some of them looked so dangerous. I didn’t have too much time to worry about it. I was assigned (分配) to serve the salad with the lady next to me. She smiled at me and said if I needed help, she’d be right there, which I found quite comforting.
I had never seen so many people wanting food. They were of all ages and nationalities. Most of them wore clothes that were torn and dirty. Some looked like they had tally given up on life, while others seemed to be making the best of the situation, smiling and joking. Some were better off than others, but they all needed a good meal and a warm place to eat. It saddened me to think of how many people there were who didn’t have a place to call home and the only food they got came from a soup kitchen.
注意：
1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
4. 续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1:
As they came in my direction, I put on my brightest and happiest smile.
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Paragraph 2:
I was so happy that I had earned my service hours in this way.
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From Tiger to Goldfish
Josh is my 10-year- old grandson. I love him so much that I find it very difficult to refuse any one of his requirements. Besides, he is good at persuading me. So, it’s really a big challenge to take him out sometimes. But now, I consider myself to be quite courageous. Perhaps that’s why I recently decided to take him to a fair.
At the first ringtoss booth, Josh was absolutely certain that he could win that five foot-tall tiger because he told me he was a real expert at tossing rings. They had such kind of game played at school and he practiced a lot at school. He told me that he was often the winner of the ringtoss. The guy in the booth said, “You could buy one ring for 50 cents, or three for $ 1. But if you wanted a real bargain, you could get 20 rings for $ 5.”
Of course, Josh said, “We should go for the bargain.” I thought about arguing with him by saying that an expert ringtosser like him would need only one ring. But I knew this was not an argument I was going to win. So I pulled out the $ 5 bill and placed it on the counter. Twenty rings later, he still didn’t have the tiger. “But now I see how to do this," Josh said. “Let’s buy another 20 rings, and I’ll get it this time.”
Well, he never did get the tiger, but there were plenty more places where we could spend our money. Josh was equally unsuccessful at the next several booths. My wallet was getting thinner. And then we spotted the booth that Josh positively could not miss: the goldfish booth, All you had to do was toss a ping- pong ball into just one of the many fishbowls, and you could go home with your very own goldfish.
注意:
1.续写的词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
As we got down to the last ball, I was secretly relieved that the goldfish would be staying at the fair.
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The look of pure happiness on Josh’s face made the entire fair experience one to treasure.
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1.你喜欢的科技产品；
2.喜欢的理由。
注意: 1.词数80左右；
2.开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Hello, everyone,
I’d like to make a speech with the title: My Favourite Invention.
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That’s all. Thank you.
Rebecca stretched her tired back. “That’s the last seedling (树苗), Pa. Have we planted enough?”
Pa walked to the end of the row of cottonwood seedlings. “No,” he said. “We have to plant trees all the way to that rock over there. We’ll need about twenty more seedlings.”
“I’ll get the seedlings,” offered Rebecca. She longed to cool her feet in the shallow river running through the cotton field.
“You’d better let me go, Miss Petticoats,” teased her twin brother, William. “There are dangers all over this prairie (草原).”
“You may both go,” said Pa. “But hurry back. I’d like to finish before sundown.”
They went across the shallow river to a sandbar where small cottonwood seedlings grew.
Gently, they pulled the seedlings from the sand.
“There! That’s twenty, with a few to spare,” said Rebecca.
“OK,” said William. He led the way to the riverbank, and then stopped. “Look! That’s the dugout (防空洞) we had lived in before we moved here last year,” he said, pointing to a hole on the grassy riverbank.
“Come on, let’s go inside.”
“No,” Rebecca said, “Pa is waiting. Besides, it’s hard to tell what’s in it.”
“Then you go back,” said William, handing the seedlings to Rebecca. I’ll catch up.” He ran to the dugout and stepped inside.
Rebecca wrapped the seedlings in her long apron (围裙) and began to walk. Suddenly she froze in her tracks.
A huge rattlesnake (响尾蛇) moved along the riverbank.
It stopped right in front of the dugout and lay still, coiling up on the warm sunny bank.
“William!” Rebecca shouted. “Don’t come out!”
“Huh?” William’s face appeared at a tiny window beside the door of the dugout.
Rebecca pointed at the rattler. William’s face paled when he saw the snake blocking the doorway. He turned desperate eyes toward Rebecca, and then he glanced behind himself. Rebecca knew what he was thinking: “Were there more snakes waiting in the shadowy corners of the dugout?”
Rebecca’s mind raced, trying to think of a way to get William out of there. An idea popped into her head. It was their only hope. It was risky, but it was the only hope.
“Don’t move,” she said to William in a soft voice. “When I say NOW, you run out of there as fast as you can.”
Rebecca removed the skirt-like petticoat (衬裙) from beneath her dress, and then dipped it into the river. She squeezed out some of the water, and then climbed to the top of the bank, directly above the dugout’s opening.
Paragraph 1:
“Get ready to run, William,” she said, keeping an eye on the motionless snake.
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Paragraph 2:
“Are you OK?” he asked, breathing heavily. Rebecca nodded.
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THE TEENAGE BRAIN
Parents, teachers, and anyone who regularly deals with teenagers knows how difficult the adolescent years can be. Adolescents have always been known to do wild — even dangerous — things. This was thought to be due to the foolishness of youth. Now, brain-imaging technology allows scientists to study the physical development of the brain in more detail than ever before. Their discoveries have led to a new theory of why teens act the way they do.
Recently, scientists discovered that though our brains are almost at their full size by the age of six, they are far from fully developed. Only during adolescence do our brains truly “grow up”. During this time, they go through great changes, like a computer system being upgraded. This “upgrade” was once thought to be finished by about age 12. Now, scientists have concluded that our brains continue to change until age 25. Such changes make us better at balancing our impulses with the need to follow rules. However, a still-developing brain does this clumsily. The result, scientists claim, is the unpredictable behavior seen in teenagers.
The studies confirm that teens are more likely to take risks and behave in extreme ways. Fortunately, the news isn’t all negative. As brain scientist B.J. Casey points out, the teen brain inspires such behavior in order to help teenagers prepare for adult life.
One way the brain does this is by changing the way teens measure risk and reward. Researchers found that when teens think about rewards, their brains release more of the chemicals that create pleasure than an adult brain would. Researchers believe this makes the rewards seem more important than the risks, and makes teens feel the excitement of new experiences more keenly than adults do.
Research into the structure of the teen brain also found that it makes social connections seem especially rewarding. As such, teens have an intense need to meet new people.
Scientists suggest this is because as teens, we begin to realize that our peers may one day control the world we live in. Because it is still developing, a teen brain can change to deal with new situations. It therefore connects social rewards with even more pleasure. In this way, the brain encourages teens to have a wide circle of friends, which is believed to make us more successful in life.
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