1 . 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

2. In Paragraph 4, the writer describes ways in which the public can__________.

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

3. What pressure was given by big business in the case of the disease mentioned in Paragraph 5?

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.

4. What would be the best heading for this passage?

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?

2 . 阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

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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4 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

Tim Robinson, a former junior officer of the British Army, was on holiday in Bridport, Dorset, a town in England. While enjoying a walk down the beach, Tim slipped on a piece of seaweed lying in the sand and fell, breaking his leg.

Unfortunately, Tim did not bring his cell phone with him when he left for his walk. No one was in site, but as Tim lay helpless he remembered his military training and tried to think about what was around to help him. After struggling around on the beach, the pain became too much to handle. He stopped and thought about what to do.

With no phone and no one around, and with his leg hurting greatly, Tim had a decision to make. He could either continue this way in pain and hope that someone happened to see him, or he could try something else. It didn’t matter that his leg had made him partially immobile, Tim still had the ability to crawl (爬行), and so he did.

The choice was easy, but the crawl was tough. Tim told the Daily Mail, “After I crawled to about a mile-and-a-quarter away from the car park, I started flashing my torch in SOS and spinning it over my head to create a Buzz-Saw signal which is a way of attracting helicopters in the armed forces.”

No one seemed to be around. At least, no one could read Tim’s signals for help. Once again, he had to either stay where he was and wait for help or get moving. In his mind he had no choice. There was no response to begin with, so he crawled for five minutes and covered about 50 meters before making the same signal three times. Most people couldn’t imagine crawling for any distance with a broken leg, but Tim wasn’t about to give up.

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。

Tim finally got a response from the distance.

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Tim’s condition was worse than Mrs. Robinson thought.

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5 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

“Ugh, chicken rolls again? I hate chicken rolls!” Matt yelled. “I’m not eating this.” Matt’s mom and dad looked at each other. Matt’s outbursts had been happening at least once a week all summer long.

“You know what, Matt? We re going to let you take over dinnertime from now on. You can pick the meals and cook them, as long as they’re healthy,” Mom said.

“Good, we’re going to eat good food every night!” Matt answered.

The next day, Dad sat down with Matt to make the meal plan so he could go grocery shopping. Matt had already been thinking about his favorite dinners. “We’re going to have beef tonight, and spaghetti tomorrow, and macaroni (通心粉) and cheese the next day,” Matt started.

“Woah, hold on now,” Dad said. “What else are we going to have with the beef? We need to have at least one vegetable with each meal, and usually we have another side to go with it.”

“Oh, yeah. Um, we can have corn with the beef,” Matt said.

“Sophia does not like corn,” said Dad.

“Well, it’s my choice, so I’m going to make corn,” Matt replied.

“OK, but she might complain at dinner tonight. Are you ready for that?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, whatever,” Matt answered.

Matt and his dad spent the next hour figuring out the whole week’s meals and side dishes. It was a lot more work than Matt expected, and almost every time he picked something out, his dad would tell him that someone in the family wouldn’t like it. It was very frustrating. “This is impossible!” Matt said.

“Yes, it is hard. Your mother and I try very hard to make everyone happy, but everyone has different tastes, and sometimes, we just can’t please everyone.”

“Fine, we’ll have to just go with this plan this week. Next week I’ll try to make everyone happy,” replied Matt.

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 finishing grocery shopping, it was time for Matt to make his first meal.

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Two hours had passed by before the dishes were ready on the table.

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6 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

When my parents told me we’d be moving, I didn’t know what to think. I meant of course I’d hate to say goodbye to my friends, but recently we’ve been growing distant. A part of me said this could be a good thing, while the other was completely terrible. I’ve lived here in Savannah Georgia my entire life, how was I going to make it in Maine? I’d tried to stop thinking about ,everything, but I couldn’t. Classic Amber, the overthinker.

“Amber! Caleb! It’s time to go.” My mom called my brother and I.

“Coming.” I shouted back.

I took one last look at my room before leaving. It made me sad to see it so bare and tiring life. All of my photography and awards were taken down. By the time I left my room, Caleb was coming out as well. I knew this move would be a lot harder for my elder brother. He was the quarterback (前卫) for the football team and had a lot of friends. I looked over at him to see how he was doing. He’s grown tall and strong recently. He towers over me now. I was about to say something to him, but I noticed his Airpods (无线耳机). Ever since mom and dad said we were moving he’s been never coming out of his room and when he did, he was always wearing his headphones or Airpods. This move would be a whole lot better if I had him help me. The worst thing about all of this was watching what it was doing to him.

As we stepped outside, I held my camera and took a picture of the house. I could almost hear the eye rolls from my family. Maybe it didn’t matter to them, but I didn’t want my childhood to disappear. I jumped into the backseat of our car and pulled out my phone.

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 Dad started the motor, we headed towards our new home.

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Five hours later, we finally arrived at our destination.

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8 . ‘Small Data’ Are Also Crucial for Machine Learning

Many people relate “artificial intelligence” with “big data.” There’s a reason for that: some of the most prominent AI breakthroughs in the past decade have relied on enormous data sets. Image _________ made great progress in the 2010s thanks to the development of ImageNet, a data set containing millions of images hand sorted into thousands of categories. More recently, GPT-3, a language model, was trained on _________ online texts to produce humanlike text in Jan, 2021. So it is not surprising to see AI being tightly connected with “big data” in the _________ imagination. But AI is not only about large data sets, and research in “small data” approaches has grown extensively over the past decade. The so-called transfer learning serves as an especially _________ example.

Also known as “fine-tuning,” transfer learning is helpful in settings where you have _________ data on the task of interest but abundant data on a related problem. You need to first train a model using a big data set and then retrain slightly using a smaller one related to your _________ problem. A research team working on German-language speech recognition, _________, showed that they could improve their results by starting with an English-language speech model trained on a larger data set. Then, they used transfer learning to _________ that model for a smaller data set of German-language audio.

Small data approaches such as transfer learning are more _________ than more data-intensive methods. They can promote progress in areas where little or no data exist, such as in forecasting natural hazards that occur relatively __________. In this context, small data approaches will become increasingly important as more organizations look to diversify AI application areas and invest in previously __________ fields.

Despite the progress in research, transfer learning has received relatively little __________. While many machine learning experts are likely familiar with it at this point, the existence of techniques such as transfer learning does not seem to have reached the awareness of the broader space of policymakers in positions of making important decisions about AI funding and __________.

As long as the success of small data technique like transfer learning is __________, resources can be allocated to support their widespread use. In that case, we can help correct the popular __________ regarding the role of data in AI and foster innovation in new directions.

1.

A．standard

B．classification

C．quality

D．acquisition

2.

A．written

B．limited

C．spoken

D．abundant

3.

A．moral

B．visual

C．literary

D．popular

4.

A．complicated

B．interesting

C．promising

D．distinguished

5.

A．extra

B．different

C．available

D．few

6.

A．personal

B．specific

C．technical

D．potential

7.

A．in addition

B．or rather

C．in particular

D．for example

8.

A．adjust

B．invent

C．follow

D．check

9.

A．definite

B．advantageous

C．complex

D．precise

10.

A．remotely

B．severely

C．ultimately

D．rarely

11.

A．underexplored

B．underestimated

C．underpopulated

D．underqualified

12.

A．guidance

B．respect

C．supervision

D．visibility

13.

A．publication

B．adoption

C．tracking

D．polishing

14.

A．celebrated

B．evaluated

C．recognized

D．diversified

15.

A．challenge

B．concern

C．fear

D．misunderstanding

9 . The “reading wars,” one of the most confusing and disabling conflicts in the history of education, went on heatedly in the 1980s and then peace came. Advocates of phonics (learning by being taught the sound of each letter group) seemed to defeat advocates of whole language (learning by using cues like context and being exposed to much good literature).

Recent events suggest the conflict of complicated concepts is far from over. Teachers, parents and experts appear to agree that phonics is crucial, but what is going on in classrooms is not in agreement with what research studies say is required, which has aroused a national debate over the meaning of the word “phonics.”

Lucy M. Calkins, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and a much-respected expert on how to teach reading, has drawn attention with an eight-page essay. Here is part of her argument: “The important thing is to teach kids that they needn’t freeze when they come to a hard word, nor skip past it. The important thing is to teach them that they have resources to draw upon, and to use those resources to develop endurance.”

To Calkins’s critics, it is cruel and wasteful to encourage 6-year-olds to look for clues if they don’t immediately know the correct sounds. They should work on decoding — knowing the pronunciation of every letter group — until they master it, say the critics, backed by much research.

Calkins’s approach “is a slow, unreliable way to read words and an inefficient way to develop word recognition skill,” Mark S. Seidenberg, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, said in a blog post. “Dr. Calkins treats word recognition as a reasoning problem — like solving a puzzle. She is committed to the educational principle that children learn best by discovering how systems work rather than being told.”

Many others share his view. “Children should learn to decode — i.e., go from print on the page to words in the mind — not by clever guesswork and inference, but by learning to decode,” Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, told me. He said the inferences Calkins applauds are “cognitively (认知地) demanding, and readers don’t have much endurance for it. … It disturbs the flow of what you’re reading, and doing a lot of it gets frustrating.”

Yet a recent survey found that only 22 percent of 670 early-reading teachers are using the approach of phonics and what they mean by phonics is often no more than marking up a worksheet.

Both sides agree that children need to acquire the vocabulary and background information that gives meaning to words. But first, they have to pronounce them correctly to connect the words they have learned to speak.

Calkins said in her essay: “Much of what the phonics people are saying is praiseworthy,” but it would be a mistake to teach phonics “at the expense of reading and writing.”

The two sides appear to agree with her on that.

1. Critics of phonics hold the opinion that ________.

A．children should be taught to use context

B．teaching phonics is both boring and useless

C．kids acquire vocabulary in hearing letter groups

D．pronunciation has nothing to do with meaning of words

2. Which of the following statements is Mark S. Seidenberg most likely to agree with?

A．Tell me and I will forget; show me and I will remember.

B．Skilled reading is fast and automatic but not deliberative.

C．Word recognition skill should be developed in problem reasoning.

D．Learning to make reasonable inferences is also a way of decoding.

3. It can be inferred from the passage that ________.

A．phonics approach has been proved to be successful

B．children don’t shy away from difficulties in reading

C．the two reading approaches might integrate with each other

D．reading and writing are much more important than phonics

4. Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A．An everlasting reading war among critics

B．From print on the page to words in the mind

C．A battle restarts between phonics, whole language

D．Decoding and inferring confuse early-reading teachers

10 . We’ve dug deep to find 4 of the most exciting documentary films coming to a screen near you in 2022.

Last Exit: Space

Last Exit: Space, narrated by Werner Herzog, explores the human potential for settling in space and sending people where they’ve never been before. Since planet Earth is possibly going to hell (地狱) in a handbasket, the film promises to ask the question: where else might we call home? Directed by his son Rudolph Herzog, Last Exit: Space will be available from March 10 on Discovery.

Gorbachev. Heaven

As leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev was once one of the most powerful people on the planet who governed a landmass so big that it covered 11 time zones. Gorbachev’s legacy is a complex one — he oversaw the end of the Cold War but many Russians blame him for the Soviet Union’s collapse. The BBC says this potentially fascinating look at one of the most significant figures from inside his own home will be airing in the very near future.

We Met In Virtual Reality

This film from director Joe Hunting beats fresh ground in that it is filmed entirely in virtual reality. Less about the technology itself, it is more an exploration of human connections and how these can develop in the 3D virtual world. Early reviews have been positive following its showing at Sundance. Expect a streaming release in late May this year.

2nd Chance

Hold your popcorn tightly when watching this. If the trailer (预告片) is anything to go by, there are going to be lots of near-death moments. 2nd Chance from Oscar-nominated director Ramin Bahrani tells the story of Richard Davis, the wild and odd inventor of the modern bullet-proof vest. “All will be revealed as soon as a release date is confirmed.” Ramin Bahrani promised on April 5^th.

1. What is probably the major concern in Last Exit: Space?

A．Space travel is difficult for people.

B．Human beings may go to hell after death.

C．Human beings can’t find their way back from space.

D．The earth will become unfit for human habitation.

2. Which documentary film suits people who are interested in studying history?

A．Last Exit: Space.	B．Gorbachev. Heaven.
C．We Met In Virtual Reality.	D．2nd Chance.

3. In which section of a magazine can you find this text?

A．Science & Technology.	B．Fashion & Beauty.
C．Culture & Entertainment.	D．Travel & Adventure.