2 . Physical education, or PE, isn’t required for all high school students. In some schools, it isn’t offered for some different reasons. But should high school students have physical education? The answer is certainly “yes”.

Today many people don’t do sports. But as is known to all, doing sports is very important for an adult. Teaching teens the importance of a healthy lifestyle and making fitness plans now can help teens put exercise in the first place as an adult.

High school isn’t that easy. Many students are under a lot of stress. Stress can be harmful to a student’s study and life. Doing sports can help them deal with stress better, helping them live a happier life at school.

The American Heart Association says that 10 million kids and teens suffer from obesity (肥胖症). Teens should get 60 minutes of physical activity per day to control their weight and to help their bones get stronger. The increase in activities that don’t get teens to move around, such as video games and computer activities, means many teens don’t get their required exercise. PE classes act as a public health measure to encourage physical activities and help teens have healthy weights.

Not doing sports increases teens’ risk of developing many diseases. An active lifestyle offers a good way of protection from these health problems. As much as 75 percent of health-care spending goes toward treating medical conditions that can be hindered by lifestyle changes,according to the American College of Sports Medicine.

According to the President’s Council on Fitness,Sports and Nutrition (PCFSN), students who performed five hours of physical activity each week improved their academic (学业的) performance. Students from programs with no physical activity, who used the extra time for classroom study, did not perform better on tests than those who gave up some study time in support of physical education.

1. According to paragraph 2, what does physical education in high school mean?

A．Making teens attach importance to exercise later.

B．Removing the stress faced by teens at school.

C．Getting teens to encourage adults to exercise.

D．Helping teens learn to make good plans.

2. What does the underlined word “hindered” in paragraph 5 mean?

A．Measured.	B．Prevented.
C．Shown.	D．Caused.

3. According to the PCFSN, doing sports ________.

A．means making students choose between sports and studies

B．helps students make good use of all their time

C．means students adjust to their studies better

D．helps students do better in their studies

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．Why high school students should receive physical education.

B．Why some schools consider physical education important.

C．How schools can help students love doing sports.

D．How high school students can live a better life.

3 . My teacher held up a piece of broken glass and asked, “Who broke this window?”

Thirty boys tried to think about not only what they had done, but also what the teacher might have found out. She seldom became angry, but she was this time.

“Oh,” I thought. I was the one who broke the window. It was caused by a naughty throw of a baseball. If I admitted guilt, I would be in a lot of trouble. How would I be able to pay for a big window like that? I didn’t even get an allowance. “My father is going to have a fit as a result of it,” I thought. I didn’t want to raise my hand, but some force much stronger than I was pulled it skyward (朝向天空). I told the truth, “I did it.” It was hard enough to say what I had done.

My teacher took down a book from one of our library shelves and I had never known my teacher to strike a student, but I feared she was going to start with me.

“I know how much you like birds,” she said as she stood looking down at my guilt-ridden face. “Here is the field guide about birds that you are constantly checking out. It is yours now. It’s time we got a new one for the school anyway. You will not be punished, but remember that I am not rewarding you for your misdeed (恶行), but I am rewarding you for your truthfulness.”

I couldn’t believe it! I wasn’t being punished and I was getting my own bird field guide — the very one that I had been saving up money to buy.

The lesson my teacher taught me stays with me every day, and it will echo forever.

1. From the story, we can learn that the boy             .

A．didn’t break the window on purpose

B．lacked the courage to admit his guilt

C．tried to think about what he had done

D．didn’t know what the teacher had found out

2. If the boy admitted guilt, he thought he would NOT           .

A．be punished by the teacher

B．make his father angry

C．pay for the broken window

D．get a bird field guide

3. Which of the following best describes the changes in the boy’s feelings?

A．Afraid—Surprised—Thankful.

B．Frightened—Amazed—Proud.

C．Regretful—Guilty—Excited.

D．Nervous—Afraid—Satisfied.

4. What is the lesson the boy’s teacher taught him?

A．Every coin has two sides.

B．Honesty is always valued.

C．Bad luck never comes alone.

D．You can’t be too careful.

4 . China is recognized as a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition systems. A Chinese company says it has created a new facial recognition system that can identify people even if they are wearing masks (口罩). Engineers at the Beijing-based company say their system is the first to be created to effectively identify people wearing face masks.

The company told a news agency that a team of 20 people built the system in about a month. The system is based on existing technologies developed over the past 10 years. The process involved adding a collection of about 6 million unmasked faces and a much smaller collection of masked faces, the company said.

The company is now selling two main kinds of products that use the new technology. One performs “single channel” recognition, which is designed to be used at the entrances to buildings. The other product is a “multi-channel” recognition system that uses groups of surveillance (监视) cameras. It can identify individuals in a crowd of up to 30 people within a second.

“When people are wearing a mask that covers the mouth and the nose, the recognition rate can reach about 95%, which can ensure that most people can be identified,” said Huang, vice president of the company. He added that the system’s success rate for people not wearing a mask is about 99.5%.

However, the new system struggles to identify people wearing both a mask and sunglasses. “In this situation, all of the key facial information is lost. In such cases recognition is graunchy,” Huang said.

People react to the new technology differently. While some citizens have been against using such tools, the majority have accepted the technology as an effective way to reduce crime and catch criminals.

1. What did the company do to build the system?

A．It gathered many face images.	B．It used the latest technology.
C．It added a collection of masks.	D．It employed hundreds of people.

2. What can we know about the new system?

A．Its success rate is affected by cameras.

B．It recognizes groups of people in seconds.

C．Its performance changes with the location.

D．It does better in identifying unmasked faces.

3. What does the underlined word “graunchy” in paragragh 5 mean?

A．Tough.

B．Specific.

C．Normal.

D．Different.

4. What is most people’s attitude towards the new system?

A．Uncaring.

B．Doubtful.

C．Objective.

D．Supportive.

5 . What is the best sleep position for your health?

It’s difficult to control what sleeping position we naturally fall into, as our body will subconsciously all into the most comfortable position for us. However, some positions are better for you than others and come could hold back your health and wellbeing.     1     .

If you sleep on your side

More than 60 per cent of people sleep on their side. Often our body naturally moves to this position, which is linked to when we were in the womb in the foetal(胎儿的) position.    2    It offers a number of benefits to your body, from promoting healthy spine alignment(脊椎对齐) which can help to prevent back pain to reducing heartburn and snoring(打鼾).

If you sleep on your back

Lying on your back is the second most popular sleeping position and offers just as many benefits as side sleeping. When you’re sleeping on your back, it’s easy to keep alignment and to also evenly distribute your weight.     3    

If you sleep on your stomach

Sleeping on your stomach is the least common sleeping position.     4     . And those who sleep on their stomach could put themselves at risk of a less restful night’s sleep. The stomach offers the least amount of back support and can increase pressure on the spine which may cause pain once you wake up.

    5     You should consider various factors such as if you snore or suffer sleep problems, or if you often have back and neck pain. Side sleeping has been noted as the best position for the body, so this is probably one to try and get into the habit of trying, but again, it all depends on you.

A．This also helps to prevent any neck and back pain.

B．Sleeping on your side is probably the best position

C．Side sleeping would be particularly beneficial for older people.

D．There are more negatives to this position compared to positives.

E．Determining the sleeping position for you is personal preference.

F．Here, this article reveals exactly how your sleep position is affecting your health.

G．This is mostly likely because it is one of the most comfortable sleeping positions.

6 . Given how valuable intelligence and automation are, we will continue to improve our technology if we are at all able to. At a certain point, we will build machines that are smarter than we are. Once we have machines that are smarter than we are, they will begin to improve themselves. The concern is really that we will build machines that are much more competent than we are. And the slightest divergence (分歧) between their goals and our own could destroy us.

Just think about how we relate to ants. We don’t hate them. We don’t go out of our way to harm them. In fact, sometimes we take pains not to harm them. We step over them on the sidewalk. But whenever their presence seriously conflicts with one of our goals, we will kill them without hesitation. The concern is that we will one day build machines that, whether they’re conscious or not, could treat us with similar disregard.

The bare fact is that we will continue to improve our intelligent machines. We have problems that we desperately need to solve. So we will do this, if we can. The train is already out of the station, and there’s no brake to pull. If we build machines that are more intelligent than we are, they will very likely develop in ways that we can’t imagine, and transcend us in ways that we can’t imagine.

So imagine we hit upon a design of super intelligent AI that has no safety concerns. This machine would be the perfect labor-saving device. It can design the machine that can build the machine which can do any physical work, powered by sunlight, more or less for the cost of raw materials. So we’re talking bout the end of human labour. We’re also talking about the end of most intellectual work. So what would apes like ourselves do in these circumstances?

But the moment we admit that information processing is the source of intelligence, we have to admit that we are in the process of building some sort of god. Now would be a good time to make sure it’s a god we can live with.

1. Why does the author mention ants in Paragraph 2?

A．To compare intelligent machines to ants.

B．To show improved machines will get away from us.

C．To stress the presence of machines does conflict with our goals.

D．To explain future intelligent machines could treat us without mercy

2. What does the underlined word “transcend” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．Disable.

B．Inspire.

C．Disappoint.

D．Outpace.

3. How is the passage mainly developed?

A．By making comparisons.

B．By giving assumptions.

C．By showing valid evidence.

D．By analyzing statistics

4. Which of the following statements can best summarize the author’s viewpoint towards Al?

A．Human beings will no doubt be destroyed by AI in the future

B．Super intelligent AI will put an end to human labour eventually.

C．We should keep the development of AI within humans’ control.

D．Human beings should stop the development of super intelligent AL.

8 . There are many ways to travel within a city. We can walk, cycle, or take a bus. But no matter which way we travel, we have to follow the route (线路) the city planners laid down for us.

Parkour practitioners (跑酷爱好者), however, see the city in a completely different way. To them, there are no designed routes. There are no walls and no stairs — they jump, climb, roll and crawl to move across, through, over and under anything that they find in their path. The city is their playground.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has noticed that this activity is drawing more and more people to it — there are 100, 000 people taking part in parkour today in the UK alone, according to The Guardian — and how it is helpful for people to be much stronger: It trains coordination and balance. So the FIG is thinking about recognizing parkour as a new sport and adding it to the Olympics by 2024.

But parkour practitioners themselves don’t seem to be happy with the idea. They see parkour as “a lifestyle”, wrote the website NextSportStar. “It’s a competition against the conditions rather than just a sport.”

Indeed, many do parkour just to “escape the daily routine and experience the city in different ways”, wrote reporter Oli Mould on The Conversation. They see parkour as a way to express themselves through relaxing moves and creative routes while freeing themselves from the pressure.

It’s great that the FIG wants to develop a new sport and stay close to a new cultural form. But it would be greater if they knew that not everything in life is a competition.

1. How do the parkour practitioners do parkour?

A．They plan the way themselves.

B．They move on as they wish.

C．They run faster than others.

D．They follow certain routes.

2. Why does the FIG want to add parkour to the Olympics?

A．It’s a special way of life.

B．It draws their attention.

C．It helps balance people’s life.

D．It’s good for people to keep healthy.

3. What is the author’s idea on parkour?

A．It is more exciting than other sports.

B．It is worth adding to the sporting event.

C．It is more a lifestyle than a competition.

D．It encourages people to challenge themselves.

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．Parkour practitioners

B．Making the city their own

C．Training in a different way

D．A new sports competition

9 . Humans evolved from apes. This is what we learned in biology class. But what came before apes? Chinese scientists have discovered fossils that could enrich the evolutionary story of how humans evolved from fish.

According to four articles published in the journal Nature in late September, Chinese researchers found fish fossils that provide the “missing link” about the origin of the jaw, a key feature that 99.8 percent of vertebrate (脊椎动物) species have.

Zhu Min, a lead researcher of the studies from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the findings drew a large amount of interest in the science world due to the importance of jaws in animal evolution.

However, the rise of the jaw had been a mystery due to a lack of sufficient fossil evidence to support that jawed vertebrates lived 450 million years ago.

The latest findings made by Zhu’s team presented a set of five surprisingly well-preserved fish fossils that included three whole-bodied fish, helping scientists paint a more accurate evolutionary picture of the origin of the jaw. The fish fossils were discovered at two sites in Chongqing and Guizhou, whose strata (岩层) date back to the Silurian Period that began around 440 million years ago.

These fossils show that jawed fish were already thriving (繁荣) in the world’s ancient oceans at that time. Later on, more diverse and larger jawed fish evolved and began to spread around the world, paving the way for some fish to eventually go on land and evolve into other animals — including humans.

“These fossils provide an unprecedented (前所未有的) opportunity to peek into the ‘dawn of fish’ and help scientists trace many human body structures back to these ancient fish thus filling some key gaps in the evolutionary history of how fish evolved into humans,” Zhu said.

1. In which column of a magazine will you most probably read the passage?

A．Your Voice.	B．Animals.
C．Science Study.	D．History.

2. Why did the findings draw a large amount of interest in the science world?

A．Because jaws are a key trait of all vertebrate species.

B．Because jaws are significant in animal evolution.

C．Because the rise of the jaw had been a mystery.

D．Because there is a lack of sufficient evidence.

3. What does the underlined phrase “at that time” refer to?

A．Around 440 million years ago.

B．Around 450 million years ago.

C．When jawed fish began to spread around the world.

D．When fish evolved into humans.

4. Which of the following is a suitable title for the text?

A．Who Are Our Ancestors?	B．What Came Before Apes?
C．The Origin of the Jaw	D．Key Gaps in Evolution