Sally had trouble in speaking when she was in public. I'm a nurse and I love kids and dogs. I wanted to use my dog to bring her joy, comfort and confidence.
That morning in January, her teacher led us to a room by the school office. “Sally hasn't spoken outside her home for two years, "she told me. “Her parents have taken her to doctors, but nothing has worked." Sally stood shyly just inside the doorway. Her eyes brightened when she noticed my dog.
“It is my dog, Bella.” I said. “Would you like to play with her? Bella doesn't know anyone here and she'd like to meet you. She can understand my hand signals(手势). Would you like to see that?"
Sally nodded. I showed Bella some hand signals, then Bella lay down and then rolled over. Sally was cheered up. “She'll do it for you too. I can teach you." I said.
I could see that Sally treated Bella as her best friend and they were happy to stay with each other. Soon Bella was able to follow Sally's commands(指令). I could see something had been changed little by little.
One morning, when she was playing with Bella, I heard a low voice “Good dog”. I wanted to jump for joy. Sally spoke a little more each week, only to Bella at first, but then to me. Later, she started giving voice commands with her hand signals and her confidence rose. Still, she hadn't spoken in her classroom.
“Could you bring Bella to my class and show the other kids that she can understand your voice commands?” Sally asked me one day. An idea came to my mind. Then I said, “Why don't you do it yourself? I know you can." She agreed.
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Now, Sally stood nervously in front of her class, with Bella sitting by her side.
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The next week, she told me she wanted to try again, looking up at me with determination.
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It’s common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting seems to look back at observers, following them with her eyes no matter where they stand in the room. But this common knowledge turns out wrong.
A new study finds that the woman in the painting is actually looking out at an angle that’s 15. 4 degrees off to the observer’s right-well outside of the range that people normally believe when they think someone is looking right at them. In other words, said the study author, Horstmann, “She’s not looking at you. “ This is somewhat ironic, because the entire phenomenon of a person’s gaze (凝视) in a photograph or painting seeming to follow the viewer is called the “Mona Lisa effect” . That effect is absolutely real, Horstmann said. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person’s gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.
This is important for human interaction with on-screen characters. If you want someone off to the right side of a room to feel that a person on-screen is looking at him or her, you don’t cut the gaze of the character to that side-surprisingly, doing so would make an observer feel like the character isn’t looking at anyone in the room at all. Instead, you keep the gaze straight ahead.
Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars(虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long look at the “Mona Lisa” and realized she wasn’t looking at him.
To make sure it wasn’t just him, the researchers asked 24 people to view images of the “Mona Lisa” on a computer screen. They set a ruler between the viewer and the screen and asked the participants to note which number on the ruler intersected(和……相交) Mona Lisa’s gaze. To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze as she looked at the viewer, they moved the ruler farther from or closer to the screen during the study. Consistently, the researchers found, participants judged that the woman in the “Mona Lisa” portrait was not looking straight at them, but slightly off to their right.
So why do people repeat the belief that her eyes seem to follow the viewer? Horstmann isn’t sure. It’s possible, he said, that people have the desire to be looked at, so they think the woman is looking straight at them. Or maybe the people who first coined the term “Mona Lisa effect” just thought it was a cool name.
1. It is generally believed that the woman in the painting “Mona Lisa”___________.A.attracts the viewers to look back |
B.seems mysterious because of her eyes |
C.fixes her eyes on the back of the viewers |
D.looks at the viewers wherever they stand |
A. | B. | C. | D. |
A.confirm Horstmann’s belief |
B.create artificial-intelligence avatars |
C.calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze |
D.explain how the Mona Lisa effect can be applied |
A.Horstmann thinks it’s cool to coin the term “Mona Lisa effect”. |
B.The Mona Lisa effect contributes to the creation of artificial intelligence. |
C.Feeling being gazed at by Mona Lisa may be caused by the desire for attention. |
D.The position of the ruler in the experiment will influence the viewers’ judgement. |
3 . Experienced⁃Based Education
Everyone is familiar with traditional education. You sit in a class and a teacher teaches. This is an important part of development. But at some point, every individual has to take charge of their own education. To do this, one must look at the root of learning.
Basically, unfamiliar experiences usually add more value than experiences that are familiar.
High school is a new experience. College is a new experience. However, at some point traditional education becomes repetitive. It is not that you won’t learn anything else, but that the environment is so familiar.
To solve this, an individual needs to introduce new experiences into their life. You may spend a summer in a different part of the country or learn a new language through trial and error. You can also go to a drive⁃in movie(or some other entertainment event that is new to you).
These types of experiences often result in very little“book knowledge”. Instead, they will often provide you with a better understanding of yourself as you experience your reaction to different situations.
A.Has education changed so much in the last decade? |
B.They will also provide you with a better understanding of others. |
C.Those new experiences may not lead to great personal development. |
D.These are all things that can stretch and expand your experience in life. |
E.This is because unfamiliar experiences require much more of our attention. |
F.As a result, you can easily become less aware of your experience and not learn as much. |
G.What makes some experiences add great value to our lives while other experiences do not? |
4 . Abraham Lincoln turns 200 this year, and he’s beginning to show his age. When his birthday arrives, on February 12, Congress will hold a special joint session in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall, a wreath (花环) will be laid at the great memorial in Washington, and a webcast will link school classrooms for a "teach-in" honoring his memory.
Admirable as they are, though, the events will strike many of us Lincoln fans as inadequate, even halfhearted — and another sign that our appreciation for the 16th president and his towering achievements is slipping away. And you don’t have to be a Lincoln enthusiast to believe that this is something we can’t afford to lose.
Compare this year’s celebration with the Lincoln centennial, in 1909. That year, Lincoln’s likeness made its debut on the penny, thanks to approval from the U. S. Secretary of the Treasury. Communities. and civic associations in every comer of the country erupted in parades, concerts, balls, lectures, and military displays. We still feel the effects today: The momentum unloosed in 1909 led to the Lincoln Memorial, opened in 1922, and the Lincoln Highway, the first paved transcontinental thoroughfare (大道) .
The celebrants in 1909 had a few inspirations we lack today. Lincoln’s presidency was still a living memory for countless Americans. In 2009 we are farther in time from the end of the Second World War than they were from the Civil War; families still felt the loss of loved ones from that awful national trauma (创伤) .
But Americans in 1909 had something more: an unembarrassed appreciation for heroes and an acute sense of the way that even long-dead historical figures press in on the present and make us who we are.
One story will illustrate what I’m talking about.
In 2003 a group of local citizens arranged to place a statue of Lincoln in Richmond, Virginia, former capital of the Confederacy (南方联邦). The idea touched off a firestorm of controversy. The Sons of Confederate Veterans held a public conference of carefully selected scholars to “reassess” the legacy of Lincoln. The verdict — no surprise — was negative: Lincoln was labeled everything from a racist totalitarian to a teller of dirty jokes.
I covered the conference as a reporter, but what really unnerved me was a counter-conference of scholars to refute the earlier one. These scholars drew a picture of Lincoln that only our touchy-feely age could recall. The man who oversaw the most savage war in our history was described — by his admirers, remember — as “nonjudgmental,” “unmoralistic,” “comfortable with ambiguity (模棱两可) .”
I felt the way a friend of mine felt as we later watched the unveiling of the Richmond statue in a subdued (征服) ceremony: “But he’s so small!”
The statue in Richmond was indeed small; like nearly every Lincoln statue put up in the past half century, it was life-size and was placed at ground level, a conscious rejection of the heroic — approachable and human, yes, but not something to look up to.
The Richmond episode taught me that Americans have lost the language to explain Lincoln’s greatness even to ourselves. Earlier generations said they wanted their children to be like Lincoln: principled, kind, compassionate, resolute. Today we want Lincoln to be like us.
“This helps to explain the long string of recent books in which writers have presented a Lincoln made after their own image. We’ve had Lincoln as humorist and Lincoln as manic-depressive, Lincoln the business sage, the conservative Lincoln and the liberal Lincoln, the emancipator and the racist, the stoic philosopher, the Christian, the atheist (无神论者) — Lincoln over easy (两面煎的) and Lincoln scrambled (把…搅乱) .
What’s often missing, though, is the timeless Lincoln, the Lincoln whom all generations, our own no less than that of 1909, can lay claim to. Lucky for us, those memorializers from a century ago — and, through them, Lincoln himself — have left us a hint of where to find him. The Lincoln Memorial is the most visited of our presidential monuments. Here is where we find the Lincoln who endures: in the words he left us, defining the country we’ve inherited. Here is the Lincoln who can be endlessly renewed and who, 200 years after his birth, retains the power to renew us.
1. The author thinks that this year’s celebration inadequate and even halfhearted because ________.A.no Lincoln statue will be unveiled. |
B.no memorial coins will be issued. |
C.no similar appreciation of Lincoln will be seen. |
D.no activities can be compared to those in 1909. |
A.approved of the judgment by those carefully selected scholars. |
B.offered a brand new reassessment perspective. |
C.came up with somewhat favourable conclusions. |
D.resulted in similar critical remarks on Lincoln. |
A.conforms to traditional images. |
B.reflects the present-day tendency of worship. |
C.shows the present-day desire to match Lincoln. |
D.reveals the variety of current opinions on heroes. |
A.Lincoln’s greatness remains despite the passage of time. |
B.The memorial is symbolic of the great man’s achievements. |
C.Each generation has its own interpretation of Lincoln. |
D.People get to know Lincoln through memorializers. |
5 . Everyone knows that taxation is necessary in a modern state: without it , it would not be possible to pay the soldiers and policemen who protect us;
In most countries, a direct tax on
And countries with taxation nearly
Probably this last kind of indirect tax, together with a direct tax on incomes which is low for the poor and high for the rich, is the best arrangement.
1.A.nor | B.neither | C.never | D.not |
A.look into | B.look over | C.look after | D.look through |
A.In accordance with | B.By means of | C.With reference to | D.On account of |
A.If | B.When | C.Though | D.As |
A.when | B.how | C.why | D.which |
A.persons | B.sectors | C.communities | D.classes |
A.form | B.way | C.measure | D.method |
A.quicker | B.speedier | C.more | D.larger |
A.periodically | B.almost | C.often | D.always |
A.which | B.who | C.what | D.whom |
A.manner | B.form | C.means | D.way |
A.either | B.also | C.too | D.often |
A.lent | B.saved | C.borrowed | D.collected |
A.alike | B.like | C.as | D.for |
A.heavier | B.fairer | C.finer | D.better |
6 . The modern Olympic Games, founded in 1896, began as contests between individuals, rather than among nations, with the hope of promoting world peace through sportsmanship. In the beginning, the games were open only to
From the perspective of many athletes,
A slender and imprecise line separates what we call “financial support” from “earning money.” Do athletes “earn money” if they are reimbursed for travel expenses? What if they are paid for time lost at work or if they accept free clothing from a manufacturer or if they teach sports for a living? The runner Eric Liddell was the son of poor missionaries; in 1924 the British Olympic Committee
In 1971 the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
There are those who
A.amateurs | B.professionals | C.men | D.women |
A.survival | B.fame | C.profit | D.pleasure |
A.at all costs | B.by contrast | C.as a result | D.at first |
A.however | B.therefore | C.furthermore | D.instead |
A.punished | B.trained | C.unpaid | D.educated |
A.youngest | B.smartest | C.strongest | D.wealthiest |
A.booked | B.extended | C.financed | D.cancelled |
A.value | B.definition | C.origin | D.use |
A.balance | B.begin | C.change | D.restrict |
A.restored | B.created | C.removed | D.studied |
A.field | B.support | C.organization | D.team |
A.regret | B.investigate | C.explain | D.welcome |
A.displayed | B.carried | C.retain | D.lost |
A.reasonable | B.questionable | C.unbelievable | D.valuable |
A.debate | B.complaint | C.concern | D.inquiry |
7 . In 1965, 17-year-old high school student Randy Gardner stayed awake for 264 hours to see how he’d cope without sleep. On the second day, his eyes stopped focusing. Next, he lost the ability to
Sleep is
How can sleep
So, what's happening in our brain when we sleep, to prevent this? Scientists found something called the Lymphatic System, a clean-up mechanism(机能) that removes this build up and is much more
A.produce | B.identify | C.move | D.discover |
A.balancing | B.reminded | C.struggling | D.intended |
A.ability | B.outcome | C.response | D.damage |
A.essential | B.healthy | C.investigated | D.neglected |
A.scarcely | B.temporarily | C.regularly | D.hopefully |
A.occurred | B.linked | C.increased | D.developed |
A.deprivation | B.sufficiency | C.absence | D.pressure |
A.accumulation | B.discovery | C.resource | D.prevention |
A.symptom | B.power | C.difficulty | D.urge |
A.clearing | B.blocking | C.holding | D.assisting |
A.overload | B.pollute | C.protect | D.explore |
A.harmful | B.active | C.tense | D.necessary |
A.serve as | B.block up | C.tear down | D.point to |
A.analyzing | B.removing | C.following | D.dividing |
A.system | B.priority | C.opportunity | D.necessity |
8 . A true reality of retirement planning is that your future is riding on the quality of your assumptions. Humble
For example, eight years into this bull market, expecting stocks to deliver as strong returns over the next decade is an uncertain proposition many are nonetheless
Another potential
"If you plan on working longer as a way to get by in retirement, you are going to be in trouble," says Craig Copeland, senior research associate at EBRI. "It should be a
It's simply too
Prudential estimates that on a company-wide level, delayed retirement can
Fewer than one-third of employees surveyed by TCRS report their employer has some sort of "transition" program such as flexible work schedules, reduced hours or
"Workers' vision of retirement is changing faster than employers' business
A.pessimism | B.optimism | C.concern | D.consideration |
A.relying on | B.holding back | C.accounting for | D.turning down |
A.reliable | B.possible | C.flawed | D.firm |
A.As a result | B.In addition | C.Needless to say | D.By comparison |
A.complement | B.composition | C.compliment | D.comprehension |
A.ridiculous | B.sensible | C.risky | D.logical |
A.extended | B.exited | C.existed | D.remained |
A.economically | B.mentally | C.financially | D.physically |
A.However | B.Therefore | C.Instead | D.Moreover |
A.delays | B.expects | C.gets | D.decides |
A.influence | B.decrease | C.increase | D.transform |
A.later | B.sooner | C.faster | D.slower |
A.shifting | B.altering | C.ranging | D.functioning |
A.deals | B.practices | C.customs | D.operations |
A.prospect | B.capabilities | C.odds | D.outputs |
9 . Examples of effective conservation of places matter to the world. They range from the 1960s Nubian campaign to safeguard Ancient Egyptian monuments from the waters of the Aswan Dam to the removal in 2018 of the Belize Barrier Reef from the List of World Heritage in Danger. Conservation is the core purpose of the World Heritage Convention and it may also be its biggest challenge.
The following example shows how successes at specific sites now serve as models for conservation and sustainable (可持续性) development. A year after Vienna was included on the World Heritage List in 2001, the World Heritage Committee (WHC) expressed concerns about the architectural solutions and height of four planned towers of the Wien-Mitte project. This development project, close to the Historic Centre of Vienna in the site’s buffer zone, the one that lies between two or more other areas, affected the urban scale (规模) and visual effects in and around the property (地产). As a result of the Committee’s concerns, Vienna changed its building codes and launched a new design competition for the Wien-Mitte project to work out architectural plans with reduced size in keeping with World Heritage protection.
The successful practice inspired the government of the city to invite over 600 experts and professionals from 55 countries to an international conference on World Heritage and contemporary architecture, held in Vienna in May 2005. The global discussion that followed, detailing an approach to managing conservation and development, was recorded in the UNESCO Recommendation in 2011.
The Recommendation put forwards an all-rounded and combined approach to balancing urban heritage (遗产) conservation and economic development, arguing that active protection and management of urban heritage supports the goal of sustainable development.
The Recommendation supports the harmonious combination of contemporary involvement into the historic urban framework while holding on to values linked to history, memory and the environment.
1. Why does the author mention the Belize Barrier Reef in Paragraph 1?A.To explain the goal of the organization. |
B.To encourage the public to protect the world. |
C.To show the positive effect of conservation. |
D.To remind people of the environmental problems. |
A.It took up too much public land of the city. |
B.It had a bad effect on the Historic Centre of Vienna. |
C.Its original designs were not environmentally friendly. |
D.Its architectural solutions couldn’t meet safety standards. |
A.The ways to combine conservation and development. |
B.The creation of the new UNESCO Recommendation. |
C.The international urban management and development. |
D.The styles of the contemporary architecture of Vienna. |
A.To examine the challenges faced by global urban planners. |
B.To introduce alternative ways of protecting the environment. |
C.To stress the importance of the value of history and memory. |
D.To promote active conservation and sustainable development. |
1. Who organizes the Winter Festival?
A.The businessmen. | B.Some volunteers. | C.The government. |
A.Friday. | B.Saturday. | C.Sunday. |
A.A fancy-dress show. | B.An art exhibition. | C.A sound of music. |
A.To compare the events of the festival. |
B.To inform people of the festival. |
C.To raise money for the festival. |