2 . Eight months after my father died, I saw some letters on top of my mother’s coffee table. They were tied with a silk ribbon and addressed to her decades ago in my father’s neat handwriting. I couldn’t imagine my serious father ever writing anything like love letters.

“Would you like me to read them to you?” Mom asked with a hint of a smile.

The letters were written in 1974 over the course of a month when my father traveled to Italy to care for his beloved, sick mother, leaving his wife and me, their newborn daughter, behind in Toronto, the city my parents called home after immigrating to Canada from Italy in 1956.

Growing up, my father was my hero and protector, but he was also a man of few words, part of a generation of immigrant men who worked hard for a better life.

I sat back while my mother read his letters to me, and thought, “Who is this guy?” My father used endearing terms I had never heard him say. He referred to my mother as “my dearesr” and “my companion” who was always in his thoughts. In each letter, he enclosed a Canadian one-dollar bill for me and declared, “You and your mother are my life.”

As children, we assume we know everything about our parents. But, sometimes, we find out that they were and are people with various facets.

My father was proud and stubborn, and he married a woman who was his equal in that regard. During their 58-year marriage, their stubbornness often led to conflict. So it was bittersweet to hear my father’s youthful sentiments read aloud by my elderly mother with a wistful (留恋的) tone. I knew she was thinking about what could have been and what had been once upon a time. After she finished reading the letters, I held them in my hands and examined them like they were fossils. Although a man I knew as economical with his thoughts, he had filled the front and back of several pages.

These letters are only part of their correspondence. My mother wrote back to my father. One day she will read those letters to me, she’s assured me. And just as with my father, they might help me discover another dimension of a parent I never knew before.

1. What kind of person did the author think her father was?

A．Optimistic.

B．Reserved.

C．Sensitive.

D．Romantic.

2. What can we know about the author’s family?

A．Her mother was the family’s provider.

B．She didn’t get on well with her father.

C．Her parents were emigrants to Italy.

D．Her parents shared similar personalities.

3. What does the underlined word “facets” in paragraph 6 most probably mean?

A．Interests.

B．Ideas.

C．Sides.

D．Possibilities.

4. How did the author feel when she heard the words in the letters?

A．Surprised.

B．Awkward.

C．Thrilled.

D．Heartbroken.

5. What did the author find out about her father through the letters?

A．He was good at hiding his feelings.

B．He regretted not being with his family.

C．He was a loving husband and father.

D．He was stubborn from the inside out.

4 . You watch a sad film and get caught up in your emotions. You cry your eyes out at the dramatic plot — you feel sad for the characters if they suffer, or happy for them when they are successful. It is only when the movie is over that you realize that what you were watching is not real.

But why couldn’t you accept that when you were so absorbed in the movie? It was reported in Science Daily this week that scientists at Case Western Reserve University, US, discovered that people simply cannot think emotionally and logically at the same time.

It has long been known that something different goes on in our brain when we use logic, rather than responding to something emotionally. Thinking logically is a step-by-step process, in which people make decisions through reasoning and find answers rationally. When we think emotionally or empathize (有同感), we look at things from someone else’s point of view and try to feel their pain.

Now scientists have found that thinking logically and emotionally are like the two ends of a seesaw (跷跷板). When we’re busy empathizing, the part of the brain used for cold, hard analysis is suppressed. And it’s also true the other way round.

To come to this conclusion, scientists gathered 45 people — men and women — to take brain scans as they solved different kinds of puzzles. Some of the puzzles were tough and involved math and physics and others were social problems that required participants to put themselves in other people’s shoes.

Scientists found that when participants were doing a math problem, the region in their brain that is associated with logical thinking lit up, and when asked to make emotional decisions, the region for emotional thinking lit up. But the most interesting part is that when asked to solve problems that required both logical and emotional responses, the participants always used one of the regions at a time while the other one went dark.

“Empathetic and analytic thinking are mutually (相互之间地) exclusive (排斥的) in the brain,” said Anthony Jack, leader of the study. “You don't have to favor one, but cycle efficiently between them, and employ the right network at the right time.”

However, people sometimes ended up using the wrong one. This explains why some people are good at solving complex math problems but have poor social skills. And why even the smartest people get taken in by fake but touching stories.

1. Why does the author mention watching movies at the beginning of the article?

A．To show that we are easily moved by things that are not real.

B．To show that sometimes we only use emotional thinking.

C．To introduce the research based on this kind of experiences.

D．To prove emotional thinking is powerful.

2. Scientists at Case Western Reserve University, US proved ________ through their recent tests.

A．logical thinking works differently from emotional thinking

B．logical thinking is much more efficient than emotional thinking

C．logical thinking and emotional thinking take turns to function independently

D．logical thinking and emotional thinking could work together

3. The underlined word “suppressed” in Paragraph 4 means ________.

A．starting to react actively

B．being completely damaged

C．to prevent something from working effectively

D．to obtain an opposite function

4. We can conclude from the last two paragraphs that ________.

A．people have to frequently switch between different types of thinking

B．adopting the wrong thinking mode could have bad results

C．people could only either have excellent logical thinking or emotional thinking

D．people who think logically could easily be manipulated

5. What is probably the best title?

A．Movies and Your Emotions	B．Math and Physics
C．Your Heart vs Your Mind	D．Logical Thinking

5 . Alice is standing in front of me and crying. She looks so________. After a few seconds, she says, “Sorry, doctor, I shouldn’t be taking up your time like this.” Many of my patients are in desperate need, not just because of ill________ but because of their financial problems. Each week, after her rent and electricity bill are paid, she has just￡20________ to live on. From this she has to   buy food, clothes and pay all other________.

Sometimes Alice has to________ meals in order to pay for necessities. Her eight-year-old daughter excels at school. Alice believes her daughter will have every opportunity in life and________ charity shops for books for her daughter. Six months ago, however, Alice was________ in a road traffic accident. She________ depression. Although she continued to work, she________ that life was not worth living any more. She went to my ________ to see what help I could give. But it was sad that there was no pill that could make Alice’s ________ better.

But today Alice is sitting crying not because of her situation, but because she is moved by a stranger’s ________ . A girl won a￡20 Marks and Spencer voucher and________ it to Alice. This simple gesture has ________ Alice’s income for the week. She’s never even ________ in Marks and Spencer. I think of all the ￡20s that I have ________ on bottles of wine. I suddenly feel very ________. That sudden act of kindness and generosity from a stranger has made all the ________ to Alice.

It showed her that in a world that often seems ________ to her, there is still kindness. And there’s no ________ in the world that would give someone that feeling.

1.

A．satisfied

B．curious

C．confused

D．upset

2.

A．health

B．reputation

C．effects

D．intentions

3.

A．lost

B．afforded

C．left

D．passed

4.

A．medicines

B．goods

C．gifts

D．bills

5.

A．cover

B．skip

C．reject

D．replace

6.

A．processes

B．expects

C．meets

D．searches

7.

A．involved

B．experienced

C．absorbed

D．engaged

8.

A．knocked at

B．slid into

C．stared at

D．fit into

9.

A．argued

B．demanded

C．estimated

D．felt

10.

A．store

B．factory

C．clinic

D．school

11.

A．situation

B．consequence

C．occasion

D．environment

12.

A．kindness

B．worry

C．beauty

D．perfection

13.

A．told

B．gave

C．showed

D．returned

14.

A．faded

B．appeared

C．doubled

D．presented

15.

A．played

B．shopped

C．served

D．begged

16.

A．saved

B．celebrated

C．spent

D．shared

17.

A．painful

B．ashamed

C．nervous

D．disappointed

18.

A．thing

B．promise

C．interest

D．difference

19.

A．bright

B．polite

C．dark

D．quiet

20.

A．pill

B．example

C．order

D．instruction

6 . Our guided tours here at Shakespeare’s Globe are an experience 400 years in the making.

Heaven to hell tour

Our unique heaven to hell tour experience offers Globe members the opportunity to discover the backstage world of Shakespeare’s Globe.

Join us in the heavenly attic (阁楼) towering above the theater before going down into the depths of “hell” underneath the stage to discover the secrets behind how our productions are staged. You’ll have the opportunity to visit our backstage stores and see props and costumes from the famous Globe productions before experiencing the thrill our actors feel when they step out onto the stage.

Twilight walking tour

Be transported back to a time of late-night cakes and ales (麦芽酒), midnight revels (狂欢) and demons, and the “Kingdom of Night” on our Twilight walking tour around the Bankside area and beyond.

Imagine city life without streetlights and visit the locations of Shakespeare’s own night-time adventures across the River Thames on the Northbank, including the original site of his candlelit Blackfriars playhouse.

Festive family tour

Celebrate the holiday season on a festive family tour of the magical Globe Theatre. Hear how Christmas was observed in Shakespeare’s time and the folk traditions that people practiced to welcome in winter.

This family-friendly guided tour will fascinate and warm even in the coldest of weather. But do still wrap up well- don’t forget our playhouse is outdoor!

Globe Theatre guided tour

Our world-famous Globe Theatre is a faithful reconstruction of the open-air playhouse in which Shakespeare worked, and for which he wrote many of his most famous plays!

Our expert guide-storytellers will provide your group with a fascinating tour of the Globe Theatre auditorium (礼堂), colorful stories of the 1599 Globe Theatre, the reconstruction process in the 1990s.

Our guides will also bring the theater to life, exploring how the theater works today as an imaginative and experimental space for performance.

1. Which is an ideal tour for people who are fond of backstage stories of Shakespeare’s Globe?

A．Heaven to hell tour.	B．Twilight walking tour.
C．Festive family tour.	D．Globe Theatre guided tour.

2. Where does the twilight walking tour take place?

A．On the River Thames.

B．Around Bankside area and beyond.

C．In Shakespeare hotel.

D．At Shakespeare’s Globe.

3. What can people do if they take part in the festive family tour?

A．Go for a walk along the river.

B．Watch some plays on Christmas.

C．Explore how the theater works during the Christmas season.

D．Learn something about Christmas in Shakespeare’s time.

4. What is special about the Globe Theatre guided tour?

A．It shows what inspired Shakespeare to write his plays.

B．It is only available to Globe members.

C．Visitors can enjoy imaginative performance.

D．Visitors can hear the stories of the 1599 theatre.

5. What is not mentioned in the passage?

A．Today’s Globe Theatre is a reconstructed work of the open-air playhouse.

B．The experience will also bring the theater to life.

C．You’ll have the opportunity to visit our stage stores and see our customers.

D．The experience will help us hear how Christmas was observed in Shakespeare’s time.

7 . Sports and fitness can be regarded as a way to add spice to your life. The first time I realized that I had a _________ for sports competitions was during the Field Day in _________school.

Small for my age as a 9-year-old, and more of a bookworm than a _________ enthusiast, I had suffered that special _________ of being picked last for various gym teams. The Field Day, which focused on individual skills, was different.

In the Softball Throw event, I got my first taste of sporting victory. Credit goes to the _________of my first coach, my father. He_________weights every morning at home. He bought us all baseball gloves and hats, and in the warm months, we spent hours playing catch. With the fall coming, our backyard football games began with _________ practice.

My passion for sports got _________ after I transferred to a private school. When I was in sixth grade and my parents got me to _________ to the private school, our entire student body was assigned to either the Red or the White team. Throughout the year, we competed against each other in various games and exercises for__________. I__________became president of The Committee of Games ,encouraging my competitive __________. However, in girls’ sports at my school, I was no __________. I also played on the field hockey team and the basketball team.

School sports did not bleed into (渗透进) the weekends, __________ they do today, but at home, playing tennis, skating, skiing and biking were simply __________ things we did.

During downtime (休息), magazines were also quite __________ for us teens. These regularly featured articles on physical exercise. Somehow, my college roommates and I __________ the habit of competing Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) exercises every day, a practice that continued into my marriage, __________we had no spare funds to use to join a gym.

So, though it shocks some of our friends, that early foundation developed gradually in __________into a sports and fitness focus, considered essential even on vacation.

I still love __________ and the arts, too.

As far as I’m concerned, life is richest with my feet in both worlds.

1.

A．hate

B．love

C．anger

D．joy

2.

A．junior

B．kindergarten

C．elementary

D．high

3.

A．sports

B．motion

C．campaign

D．exercise

4.

A．harm

B．humor

C．hatred

D．humiliation

5.

A．example

B．instance

C．ideal

D．model

6.

A．lost

B．added

C．lifted

D．fell

7.

A．heading

B．receiving

C．tripping

D．passing

8.

A．more steady

B．stronger

C．more stable

D．sharper

9.

A．changed

B．twisted

C．transformed

D．switched

10.

A．budge

B．courage

C．points

D．profits

11.

A．eventually

B．partially

C．gradually

D．rapidly

12.

A．craze

B．hit

C．fever

D．emotion

13.

A．star

B．hero

C．exception

D．wonder

14.

A．though

B．as

C．while

D．when

15.

A．valid

B．used

C．normal

D．proper

16.

A．regular

B．popular

C．fascinated

D．addicted

17.

A．picked out

B．made out

C．brought on

D．took up

18.

A．if

B．while

C．when

D．until

19.

A．adulthood

B．brotherhood

C．boyhood

D．childhood

20.

A．sharing

B．competing

C．sporting

D．reading

8 . First the robots came for our jobs. Now they’re coming for our hobbies. Google’s DeepMind AI lab has been busy the past few years, creating programs to take on human players across a variety of games. In 2016 its AlphaGo beat the best Go player in the world. Earlier this year, its Alpha Star defeated two middle-tier players at the popular online game StarCraft II. Now it’s learning to win at multiplayer games.

“Artificially intelligent agents are getting better and better at two-player games, but most real-world endeavors require teamwork,” DeepMind’s researchers wrote in a paper published in Science in June.

To be sure, computers have been proving their dominance (优越) over humans in one-on-one turn-based games such as chess ever since IBM’s Deep Blue beat Russian chess master Garry Kasparov in 1997.

However, successfully using teamwork to win in multiplayer games with complex environments was difficult to achieve.

For this purpose, DeepMind’s researchers designed AI agents that taught themselves how to play first-person game Quake III Arena. The team, led by Max Jaderberg, worked on a modified (修改的) version of Quake III Arena.

The game mode they chose was “Capture (抢) the Flag”. All the players must work together to steal the other team’s flag while safeguarding their own.

The AI agents “trained” with 12 hours of game data, then matched up against professional game testers. The AI won 75 percent of the time, even when its reaction time artificially slowed down to human levels and when their aiming ability was similarly reduced.

And in order to make improvements, the programmers used various kinds of “rewards” to help the AI players weigh their goals and actions to help them cooperate in the teamwork. They also used randomized maps for each new match.

“That meant the solutions that the agents find have to be general –– they cannot just memorize a sequence (系列) of actions,” said co-author Wojciech Czarnecki.

The only time humans were able to beat the AI agents was when they teamed up together. A team consisting of one human and one AI agent had a five percent greater win probability than a team of just AI agents.

Ethan Gach said at the video game news website Kotaku, “It suggests that the AI program is able to adapt to playing with non-AI teammates.” In the near future, AI may cooperate with human beings in some other fields, such as medicine and other branches of science.

1. What might be the most difficult task for AI agents in multiplayer games?

A．Understanding the rules.

B．Cooperating with other players.

C．Memorizing complex actions.

D．Increasing reaction speed.

2. How did the researchers of Google’s DeepMind train AI agents?

A．They gave various “punishments” when AI agents lost the games.

B．They made AI agents team up with non-professional human players.

C．They limited the time for AI agents to complete difficult tasks.

D．They put them through thousands of games with different situations.

3. What does Gach mean in the last paragraph?

A．AI players perform better than humans in a team game.

B．AI programs should be offered more game data.

C．AI players are able to do well with human players.

D．AI programs have been successfully applied in the field of medicine.

4. The underlined word “randomized” in Paragraph 8 can be understood as________.

A．generalized

B．specialized

C．updated

D．memorized

5. What’s the best title of this passage?

A．Researches on DeepMind AI	B．Training AI Agents
C．Teaming up with AI	D．AI Competing with Human Beings

10 . Do you think cookies can tell stories? Jasmine Cho, 35, does.

A baker, artist, entrepreneur and activist, Cho tries to spread knowledge about social justice issues and diversity through the delicious medium of cookies.

It was in high school that she discovered her love of baking. At a sleepover a friend taught her how to make a dessert, “sort of demystifying baking and that whole process”.

Later, Cho realized her second passion: learning more about her Asian, American culture. An elective in college that taught Asian-American immigrant experiences brought an emotional moment for her. “So many emotions came up that I just couldn’t articulate. It was like this mix of anger, of relief, empowerment, sadness...” Cho said.

Cho realized she could combine these two passions to educate others about influential Asian American people and showcase matters that were important to her. With her online bakery, she designed cookie portraits about people she admired and posted the images on Instagram. “I don’t think I ever really knew how to communicate these stories until I found cookies,” Cho said. “Cookies are just so disarming. Who doesn’t like cookies?”

One cookie that Cho has identified with deeply is one she made of George Helm, a Hawaiian activist in the 1970s.

“It’s insane the amount of injustice that the native Hawaiian population has faced as well through the whole annexation (吞并) of the kingdom. There were so many horrific stories that I heard about nuclear testing and the fallout( 核爆炸后的沉降物)impacting native Hawaiian populations in all of this,” Cho said, “George Helm was one of those activists who really represented the spirituality of the native Hawaiians and the connection to their land, to nature.”

Among her amazing cookie art are other political figures such as Larry Itliong, a Filipino-American labor organizer, and pop culture figures such as Keanu Reeves, a Canadian actor.

Cho hopes her cookie art continues to inspire people to be creative and think positively.

“Instead of trying to think of something new and original, just look inward and see, maybe there’s already a passion or a love that you have,” Cho said. “Use that for something that will serve the world in a better way.”

1. What inspired Cho to take an interest in Asian-American culture?

A．One of her sleepover experiences.

B．One elective she took at college.

C．The process of learning baking from her friend.

D．A book she read about Asian-American immigrant experiences.

2. The underlined word “articulate” in Paragraph 4 probably mean       .

A．get rid of	B．put up with
C．express in words	D．stay focused

3. Why does Cho think cookies are a useful tool to promote Asian-American culture?

A．Cookies don’t cost much.	B．Cookies are easier to make.
C．Cookies have different images.	D．Cookies are liked by many people.

4. What is the author’s purpose in mentioning George Helm in the passage?

A．To inform the reader of Helm’s contributions to Hawaii.

B．To show what knowledge Cho focuses on with her cookies.

C．To introduce the spirituality of native Hawaiians.

D．To explain why Cho is interested in political activists.

5. What approach does Cho recommend to make a difference?

A．Making use of your passion.

B．Turning to political figures for help.

C．Trying to do something creative and special.

D．Asking people around to work along with you.

6. What can best summarize the message contained in the passage?

A．Think outside the box to break new ground.

B．Spread something original to one’s heart content.

C．Hold your horses for a better self.

D．Throw yourself into your inner world for a better one.