No matter the time or place, sports fans love to debate. When the question popped up recently about
There’s just one problem. They and many other popular candidates, like Michael Jordan, Simone Biles, Usain Bolt, and Peléto
Take these two star athletes from 2,000 years ago: the charioteers Flavius Scorpus and Gaius Appuleius Diocles. Some quick stats (统计):
2 . They say once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget. Most of us learnt when we were kids, and many still put on our helmets, put our feet on the pedals, and shoot off for a ride around the streets.
First, let’s look at the health benefits. Cycling can improve cardiovascular (心血管的) health, burn excess body fat and strengthen your leg muscles.
Finally, cycling can also be good for the environment. It can help you to reduce your carbon footprint.
So, whether people wan to cycle for their health, getting about town, their wallet, the environment, or a combination of all of them — the popularity of cycling is on the rise.
| A．Cyclists face neither of these issues. |
| B．In recent times, cycling has seen a boost in popularity. |
| C．There are also some plus sides for your wallet’s health. |
| D．And cycling’s benefits aren’t just physical but mental as well. |
| E．Not pumping out fumes into the atmosphere is better for the planet. |
| F．Why are so many people still crazy about cycling when they grow up? |
| G．Cycling can be a great way to travel to and from work or get about town. |
3 . The Hay Festival (of Literature&Arts) is a book festival. It takes place in Hayon-Wya, a small town in Wales. The festival is held every year, and lasts for ten days between May and June. It attracts over 80,000 visitors and many important writers give readings or discuss their works. The festival started in 1988 and is sponsored by The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Glyndebourne is a festival of opera. It’s organized in a private house: Glyndebourne, which is on the south coast of England. The festival has been held there every summer since 1934. The operas are performed in a specially-designed theatre in the gardens. The festival specializes in the works of Mozart. Visitors to the festival listen to operas in the afternoon. Then, they have picnics in Glyndebourne’s beautiful gardens.
Cheltenham is a horse racing festival held in a town in western England. One of the days falls on St Patrick’s Day (on 17th March), Ireland’s national day. The biggest race of the four-day event is the Cheltenham Gold Cup, one of the most important races in the horse racing calendar. During the festival, hundreds of millions of pounds are gambled on the 28 races.
The Great British Beer Festival is a ...beer festival. It’s held in Olympia (an exhibition centre in London) for a week every August. Over 1,000 different British and foreign beers are served. There are lots of unusual drinks to taste, such as an Oscar Wilde, the Champion Beer of Britain 2011. But the festival isn’t only about beer. There’s live music, book signings and even tutorials on how to taste beer.
1. What do these festivals have in common?| A．They all can attract art. |
| B．They are all UK festivals. |
| C．They all date from the mid-20th century. |
| D．They are all held in private houses. |
| A．The Hay Festival. | B．Glyndebourne. |
| C．Cheltenham. | D．The Great British Beer Festival. |
| A．Learn how to make beer. |
| B．Perform live music on stage. |
| C．Sign their names on books. |
| D．Sample some unusual beers. |
4 . Many people may not find the idea of visiting Beijing's Forbidden City just to see its cultural relics(遗迹)very exciting. But what if you got to see deer there too? That certainly sounds like a better day out.
Nine deer were introduced into the Forbidden City, also known as the Palace Museum, on Sept. 26 and would make it their home until February. The beautiful animals are part of an exhibition on deer-related relics, including furniture, clothes and artworks. In ancient China, deer patterns(图案)could be seen on lots of items since lu—deer—were considered to be a lucky animal because the Chinese word shares the pronunciation(发音)of the character that means “official salary(俸禄)”.
The deer in the Palace Museum are not only to be part of the exhibition, but also to act as ambassadors(大使)to attract visitors. “It’s a better way to bring cultural relics closer to the people,”explained Wang Yamin, a deputy director at the Museum, according to ChinaDaily.
Turning itself into a zoo is the latest effort that the museum has made at introducing academic(学术的)art to ordinary people.
In 2014, for example, the museum’s online store started to offer products such as T-shirts featuring the pattern of an emperor's coat, and earphones looking like the necklaces worn by ancient officials. These products soon gained popularity on social media because they allowed people to wear a piece of history.
Two years later, the TV series MastersintheForbiddenCity(《我在故宫修文物》)lifted the mysterious veil(面纱)on the experts who work in the museum—people whose job is to repair the relics within it. And while many of us may have imagined these workers to be old and boring, they're actually quite young and interesting. Some are even in their 20s. They lead a peaceful career, although it can sometimes be dull. Workers aren't allowed to wear any make-up or do their nails(指甲)because the chemicals(化学物质)may damage the relics they're working on, for example.
Little by little, the Palace Museum is shaking off the stereotypes(刻板印象)of being an old-fashioned academic institution. As Shan Jixiang, the museum’s director, once said, “Academic research is not alien from the public’s interest. We’d like to make visiting the museum a part of people's daily lives. ”
It looks like the Forbidden City isn’t so forbidden after all.
1. What can be concluded about the deer in the Forbidden City?| A．They would stay in the museum for a whole year. |
| B．They are part of an exhibition as lucky animals. |
| C．They have been introduced to help attract visitors. |
| D．They were brought to the museum for an artwork study. |
| A．They were cheap and of high quality. |
| B．They combined culture with everyday items. |
| C．They featured mysterious patterns. |
| D．They were advertised on social media a lot. |
| A．think their job is boring | B．are mostly old but experienced |
| C．must be careful with their work | D．enjoy working on their own |
| A．An interesting exhibition on animal-related relics. |
| B．Popular products related to ancient Chinese culture. |
| C．What the Palace Museum does to protect cultural relics. |
| D．The Palace Museum’s efforts to change its image. |
5 . Experts say over half of the world’s seven thousand languages are in danger of disappearing. Every two weeks one language disappears.
Sometimes a language disappears immediately when the last person speaking it dies. Or, a local language might disappear more slowly. This happens when an official language is used more often and children stop learning the local language of their parents. Official languages often represent a form of control over a group of people.
Throughout history, the language spoken by a powerful group spreads across a civilization. The more powerful culture rarely respects the language and culture of smaller groups. Smaller cultures lose their local language as the language of the culture in power has a stronger influence.
Experts say protecting languages is very important for many reasons. Languages contain the histories, ideas and knowledge of a culture. Languages also contain valuable information about local medicines, plants and animals.
Many endangered languages are spoken by native cultures in close contact with the natural world. Their ancient languages contain a great deal of information about environmental systems and species of plants and animals that are unknown to scientists. As the last speakers of a language die off, the valuable information carried within a language also disappears. Language is, in many ways, a window to the mind and the world.
Any hope for protecting languages can be found in children and their willingness to learn. It is these young people who can keep this form of culture alive for future generations.
1. Which of the following is true?| A．There have existed 7,000 languages in history. |
| B．No one can prevent languages from disappearing. |
| C．There will not be any local languages left some day. |
| D．Half of the world’s languages will possibly disappear. |
| A．it represents the working of the human minds |
| B．local languages are more closely related to culture |
| C．ancient languages can reveal ancient people’s thoughts |
| D．it contains information about both culture and nature |
| A．children are interested in learning it | B．people are forced to speak it |
| C．it is linked to a powerful culture | D．it keeps pace with the times |
| A．local languages | B．language protection |
| C．the power of language | D．language and culture |
6 . Computers have become amazingly exact at translating spoken words to text messages and searching a large supply of valuable information for answers to difficult questions. At least, that is, so long as you speak English or other world's main languages. But try talking to your phone in Yoruba, Igbo or any number of widely spoken African languages and you'll find difficulty in accessing information, trade and other benefits of the global tech economy.
American tech giants don't have a long history of making their language technology work well outside the wealthiest markets, a problem that has also made it harder for them to discover dangerous misinformation on their platforms. Google, for instance, upset members of the Yoruba community when its language app mistranslated a nice African god as a devil. Part of the reason is that there's just not enough online data in those languages for the Al systems to effectively learn how to get better at understanding them.
“We are getting to the point where if a machine doesn't understand your language, it will be like it never existed,” said Vukosi Marivate, who has devoted some of his Al research to the southern African languages of Xitsonga and Setswana. “Considering our history, some of the bias (偏见) is intentional. The history of the African continent and in general in colonized (殖民化的) countries, is that when language had to be translated, it was translated in a very narrow way,” Marivate added.
However, Google and Microsoft are among the companies that say they are trying to improve technology for so-called "low-resource" languages that Al systems don't have enough data for. Computer scientists at Meta announced a breakthrough on the path to a "universal translator" that could translate multiple languages at once and work better with lower-resourced languages. Meanwhile, Marivate and other researchers have founded a research project across Africa. Increasingly, people are joining hands to develop a variety of language approaches.
1. What can we learn from Paragraphs 1 and 2?| A．Yoruba and Igbo are widely spoken in the world. |
| B．English speakers fail to access online information. |
| C．The online data of African languages is limited. |
| D．Computers can translate all text messages exactly. |
| A．To make a prediction. | B．To draw a comparison. |
| C．To reach a conclusion. | D．To give an example. |
| A．Friendly. | B．Unconcerned. | C．Dissatisfied. | D．Proud. |
| A．Joint Efforts to Improve AI in African Languages | B．Computers Good at Translating Spoken Language |
| C．US Tech Giants Misunderstand African Languages | D．African Researchers Exchange Ideas with Tech Giants |
7 . A young man was walking by the lakeside when he suddenly saw a piece of gold glittering in the lake. He was so happy that he jumped into the
Unexpectedly, after the water became
He jumped into it again,
At that moment, his father came to
His son answered, “I see a piece of gold coin in the water clearly, but I can't get it
His father looked into the water and it seemed that a gold coin was on the peaceful water. Then he looked up at the tree nearby and said to his son, “You are
Ordinary people are always busy
| A．forest | B．water | C．bank | D．air |
| A．search | B．pick | C．get | D．receive |
| A．change | B．start | C．sleep | D．rest |
| A．dirty | B．warm | C．calm | D．shallow |
| A．but | B．as | C．so | D．or |
| A．pool | B．lake | C．river | D．sea |
| A．cautiously | B．possibly | C．obviously | D．gracefully |
| A．interest | B．request | C．desire | D．value |
| A．in vain | B．on purpose | C．in progress | D．at peace |
| A．watch | B．understand | C．receive | D．accept |
| A．look into | B．look for | C．deal with | D．argue with |
| A．happened | B．changed | C．mattered | D．lost |
| A．embarrassed | B．excited | C．frightened | D．delighted |
| A．instead | B．meanwhile | C．anyway | D．otherwise |
| A．cute | B．wrong | C．wonderful | D．careful |
| A．lying | B．standing | C．growing | D．hanging |
| A．running after | B．looking after | C．running into | D．looking into |
| A．less | B．little | C．more | D．few |
| A．bring | B．tell | C．stop | D．benefit |
| A．sense | B．responsibility | C．role | D．direction |
Billy was 15 years old then. He grew up in a very poor neighborhood. No one in his family had gone to college before. Actually, few people around him had received higher education. They all struggled to live a good life. Therefore, Billy knew nothing about colleges or scholarships and he never thought he would go to college one day. Although he was a smart boy, he didn’t study hard al school and often got into trouble with other teenagers in his neighborhood.
One day, while Billy was walking on the playground, a boy of his age started making fun of him. Then that boy pushed him hard and Billy fell onto the ground. Billy became so angry that he stood up and beat that boy. So a fight began.
It happened that Billy’s English teacher Mr. Smith was walking nearby. He immediately ran to the boys to stop the fight. Billy was a bit worried because he knew his teacher was very strict with students. He was afraid his teacher would punish him. However, to his astonishment, his teacher didn’t do that.
“Billy, let’s have a talk,” said his teacher.
Billy, not knowing what his teacher wanted to do, was very worried. But he nodded. So they went to a bench nearby and sat down. After they sat down, Mr. Smith began, “Billy, I know you’re a smart boy, but you’re wasting your life now. Why don’t you study hard to go to college so that you can change your life and have a bright future?”
Hearing that, Billy didn’t know what to say. He had never thought about it. Billy was in silence. Mr. Smith continued, “I know you may have never thought about going to college. But everything is possible. When I was at your age, I was a troublemaker just like you and never thought I’d be able to go to college, either. It was all because of the support and encouragement of Mr. Howard, my math teacher in high school.”
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
Then, Mr. Smith began to tell Billy his story.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2
Billy was greatly touched by Mr. Smith’s story.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9 . My father was born in a small town in the US. He wasn't sure what he wanted from
He began that adventure traveling to cities in the US before going on to Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. He took my mother and us three daughters with him and went wherever the road
It's easy to feel
Getting along well sometimes seemed
On occasions like that, we had to learn to let go of our anger because we were
This is why road trips were like
If we were
| A．move | B．life | C．experience | D．belief |
| A．live up | B．struggle on | C．get out | D．walk around |
| A．took | B．drove | C．served | D．controlled |
| A．anxious | B．upset | C．helpless | D．lonely |
| A．wasted | B．worked | C．spent | D．chatted |
| A．better | B．easier | C．safer | D．cleverer |
| A．break down | B．cool off | C．clear up | D．turn over |
| A．available | B．alternative | C．necessary | D．impossible |
| A．arguments | B．fights | C．embarrassments | D．amusements |
| A．settle | B．rest | C．sit | D．watch |
| A．sharing | B．respect | C．communication | D．tolerance |
| A．light | B．heavy | C．local | D．fast |
| A．suddenly | B．sensitively | C．calmly | D．slowly |
| A．silence | B．vain | C．panic | D．disappointment |
| A．buried | B．crazy | C．stuck | D．impatient |
| A．holiday | B．journey | C．exploration | D．march |
| A．dragging | B．pushing | C．helping | D．sending |
| A．unusual | B．common | C．free | D．mobile |
| A．earned | B．expected | C．missed | D．valued |
| A．somewhere | B．anytime | C．somehow | D．anyway |
10 . Moksh Jawa, 16, a student at Washington High School in the US, has already become a legend(传奇) among students. “Why not?” might be his favorite question to ask.
As a seventh-grader, he taught himself coding(编程) by studying on the Internet.
As a high school freshman, he passed the AP Computer Science A exam with a 5, the highest score possible.
As a sophomore (高中二年级学生), he developed his own online course and helped his classmates get through it because his high school didn't teach coding.
Everything he did came from his own interest. His father sent him a link to Codeacademy, an online coding training program, in middle school. He learned a programming(编程) language all by himself after signing up to the website.
“I just fell in love with computer science,” Jawa said. Along the way, he lit a fire of curiosity and passion among classmates to learn coding too.
“All of my friends, especially the girls, were really, really afraid of computer science,” he said. But the subject and exam weren't things to be feared, he said, “Computer science is all about logic(逻辑), not about how smart you are. ”
To make his knowledge available online, Jawa set about creating his own online course, with easy-to-follow lessons. He included quizzes and tests too.
The course has so far attracted 3, 200 students across the US and in 120 countries and regions, including China, Ukraine and Algeria. It shows, Jawa said, the huge need for coding lessons.
When video lecturing, “I deliver it like I'm talking from one high school student to another .” Jawa said.“ It's always great to make it as clear and fun as possible, and to try to keep my voice as energetic as possible. ”
He also does that, when teaching members of the computer science club he founded at his high school.
“His tutorials(辅导) were great, ”said Taj Shaik, the club's co-president, who took the whole course last year. “I'm definitely one of the early adopters(使用者) of Moksh. ”
“He's pretty amazing, ”said Bob Moran, principal of Washington High School, who saw him lead the club. “He was just a fantastic teacher—clear, organized and entertaining. When a student got the right answer, he would throw him a candy. ”
1. Which of the following probably made Moksh Jawa a legend among students?| A．He created his own online coding course. |
| B．He welcomes any kind of challenge by asking, “Why not?” |
| C．He learned an intermediate programming language. |
| D．He earns a lot of money by coding for companies. |
| A．You have to be smart to learn computer science well. |
| B．Interest is the most important when learning coding. |
| C．Computer science is not difficult to learn. |
| D．Coding is useful and everyone should know it. |
| A．is patient but strict with his students |
| B．likes to do things in a fixed order |
| C．usually applies unusual teaching methods |
| D．tries to make his classes simple yet interesting |
