1 . I was never very neat while my roommate Kate was extremely organized. Each of her objects had its place, but my always hid somewhere. She even labeled (贴标签) everything. I always looked for everything. Overtime, Kate got neater and I got my merriser. She moved to push my dirty clothing over and I would lay my books on her tidy desk. We both got tired of each other.
Who broke out one evening. Kate came into the room. Soon, I heard her screaming, “Take your shoes away! why under my bed!” Suddenly I saw my shoes flying at me. I jumped to my feet and started yelling. She yelled back louder.
The room was filled with anger. We could not have stayed together for a single minute but for a phone call. Kate answered it. From her end of the conversation, I could tell right away her grandma was seriously ill. When she hung up. She quickly crawled (爬) under her covers, crying. Obviously. that was something she could not go through alone. All of a sudden, a warm feeling of sympathy (同情) rose up in my heart.
Slowly, I collected the pencils, took back the books, made my bad. Cleaned the suckers and swept the floor even on her side. I got so absorbed into my work that I even didn’t notice Kate had sat up. She was watching. Her tears dried and her expression was such disbelief. Then, she reached out her hands to grasp mine. I looked up into her eyes. She smiled at me. “Thanks.”
Kate and I stayed roommates for the rest of the year. We didn’t always agree, but we learned the key to living together: giving in, cleaning up and holding on.
1. What made Kate so angry one evening?| A．She couldn’t find her books. |
| B．She heard the writer shouting loud. |
| C．She got the news that her grandma was ill. |
| D．She saw the writer’s shoes beneath her bed. |
| A．Because she was scared by Kate’s anger. |
| B．Because she hated herself for being so messy. |
| C．Because she wanted to show her care. |
| D．Because she was asked by Kate to do so. |
| A．By analyzing courses. |
| B．By showing differences. |
| C．By describing a process. |
| D．By following time order. |
| A．My Friend Kate. |
| B．Hard Work Pays off. |
| C．How to Be Organized? |
| D．Learning to Be Roommates. |
2 . There is nothing like travel when it comes to gaining perspectives and exposing yourself to other cultures. Here is a list of books that transport readers to another time and place.
ITALY: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
This book is written by the popular author Jess Walter. It is a love story that begins on the Italian Coast in the early 60s and eventually appears on the screen in Hollywood. As the settings shift from Italy to Edinburgh to Los Angeles, you will find yourself longing to go as well.
SEATTLE: Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Maria Semple’s first novel is not exactly a love story to Seattle, but if you read it, you just might want to come here to see if people are really as self-involved as the characters in her book. What really shines through is the strange storytelling and the laugh.
ENGLAND: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
You can’t travel to Thomas Cromwell’s England without a time machine, but reading Mantel’s prize-winning novel is the next best thing. It will make you long to see the ancient buildings and green grass of the English countryside, much of which is still there.
NANTUCKER: Here’s to Us Elin Hildebrand
Elin Hilderbrand has built a writing career about her hometown island of Nantucker. Her latest is Here’s to Us, which, perhaps not surprisingly, is a great beach read that will spice up your vacation. You won’t be able to put the page down and desire to get there.
1. Which book has been adapted for a film？| A．Here’s to Us. |
| B．Wolf Hall. |
| C．Beautiful Ruins. |
| D．Where’d You Go, Bernadette. |
| A．Its low price. |
| B．Its interesting characters. |
| C．Its content about love. |
| D．Its way of telling stories. |
| A．They inspire you to travel. |
| B．They are all about love stories. |
| C．They show the joy and sadness |
| D．They help you to be self-involved. |
3 . It's a pity that deaf people, or those who have hearing problems can't enjoy music. But now a vibrating（振动的） suit brings them hope — it can allow them to feel music through their skin, rather than hear it.
Designed by the US technology company, Not Impossible Labs, the suit consists of a body harness（全身式安全带） and wrist straps（腕带）.
Music is sent to the suit wirelessly. Then the suit is able to translate it into a range of vibrating pulses, which can be felt at a total of 24 contact points all over the body. The users can adjust the intensity of the vibrations.
Chase Burton, 33, a deaf filmmaker from Texas, US, has been testing out the suit for four years. He understands that a deaf person's experience with music is very different. "When I was a kid, I'd lie on the floor above our garage so I could feel the vibrations from my brother's band rocking out below my body," Burton told CNN.
Now when he wears the vibrating suit, he says the sound hits different parts of his body. “Maybe it will strike me down in my ankles first. And then I will start to feel the vibrations in my back and then I will feel some pulsations in my wrist,” Burton said.
The designers have been working on extending the tactile(触觉的) musical experience to a large deaf community. In 2016, a dozen prototype(样品) suits were tested at a Lady Gaga concert in the US.
The suit was also tested at a different concert in Las Vegas in 2018. It was given to 150 audience members at the concert where half the audience members were deaf and a half could hear.
At the same time, the company has been improving the technology, saying it’s ready to go to market soon. The suit may be used in live sports broadcasts video games or theme parks. The ultimate goal is to make the technology available to all.
“We truly think that anything that has no audio element can also have a vibrational experience associated with it as well,” the company’s talent and business development director, Jordan Richardson, told CNN.
1. How does the vibrating suit help people with hearing problems?| A．It sends sounds to their ears through a wire. |
| B．It improves their contact points all over the body. |
| C．It turns music into vibrating pulses that can be felt. |
| D．It changes the intensity of sounds based on the users. |
| A．To show how difficult it is for a deaf person to enjoy music. |
| B．To tell readers different ways that people enjoy music. |
| C．To express regret for not having a technology earlier. |
| D．To ask designers to make user-friendly products for deaf people. |
| A．It is widely used at concerts. |
| B．It is well received by the market. |
| C．It is being improved to further its use. |
| D．It works better with people who can hear. |
| A．It has a bright future. |
| B．It costs too much. |
| C．It is the most advanced. |
| D．It is of little practical use. |
4 . There is a lot of losing in sports. Only one team can win at a time, and only one champion escapes the season without tears. But that doesn’t stop Americans from spending nearly $56 billion a year on sporting events. Is fandom(运动迷) worth it?
At first glance, the evidence isn’t encouraging. Following a loss, fans are more likely than usual to eat unhealthy food, be unproductive at work, and –in the case of the Super Bowl-die from heart disease. What about fans of the winning team? Well, they are more likely than other fans to suffer a postgame traffic fatality(死亡) if the score is close.
Rival(竞争的) fans’treatment of one another is hardly more encouraging. A recent study found that fans experienced greater pleasure when watching a rival team fail. Fans in another study reported schadenfreude, a feeling of satisfaction, when reading about the injury of a rival team’s player, and gluckschmerz or unhappiness when later reading about the player’s unexpectedly speedy recovery.
Yet a great deal of research shows that being a fan can also have positive effects. It can prevent depression and build a sense of belonging and self-worth---in case that the object of one’s devotion is a local team. Much of this is due to social bonds among fans, but not all--- sports worship also provides fans with a number of skills at dealing with life’s emotional challenges. A landmark 1976 study found that after a win,fans were more likely than usual to wear clothes connected with the winning teams, and to claim credit for the team’s success by describing the team as “we” instead of “they” in conversation.
Along with schadenfreude and gluckschmerz, being a fan seems more than anything else to be a matter of managing responses to things that cannot control. Sports fans tend to respond to reminders of death with optimism, and to remember victories much more clearly than defeats.
1. Which of the following statement is especially true as for the winning side’s fans?| A．They might die from heart disease. |
| B．They tend to live an unhealthy life. |
| C．They can have good work efficiency. |
| D．They might have a traffic accident. |
| A．Rival fans usually hold bad or even extreme attitude to each other. |
| B．Rival fans often fight with each other. |
| C．Fans can face their rival team bravely. |
| D．Fans never lose heart when facing their rival team. |
| A．Being a fan could show great devotion to study. |
| B．Being a fan could create a sense of belonging. |
| C．Being a fan could develop a spirit of optimism. |
| D．Being a fan could test social bonds. |
| A．How to be a fan |
| B．What it’s like to be fan |
| C．Being a fan can be good for you |
| D．A fan’s emotional challenges |
5 . Airports will soon add a new layer to their security procedures. Several airports in Europe will start giving lie detector tests to passengers. Special lie detector machines will use artificial intelligence to test travellers.
The lie detector machines are backed by a European Union project called iBorderCtrl. The first machines will be at border checkpoints in Hungary, Greece and Latvia. Airports in these countries will carry out tests on the lie detector machines this month.
Travelers from outside the EU countries will have to take the test. They will look into a webcam and answer questions from a computer-animated immigration official. The computer- produced animation will change to match the race and language of the traveler.
A European Union spokesperson said the virtual border guard will scan passengers' faces and analyze their micro expressions. They will use these expressions to find out if the passenger might be lying.
A human security guard will take over if the lie-detecting software detects a security risk. The procedure will firstly divide passengers into two types. Low-risk travelers will be asked basic information in the lie-detection process while high-risk passengers will get more detailed questions. A psychology expert doubted if the system would work. He said, “If you ask people to lie, they will do it differently and show very different behavioral cues than if they truly lie...This is a known problem in psychology.”
1. Where will you see this special lie detector machine?| A．At a border checkpoint in Italy | B．At Greece airports |
| C．In iBorderCtrl offices. | D．In Hungary security department |
| A．supported | B．produced | C．Tested | D．sold |
| A．By scanning passengers’ brain. | B．By looking into a webcam |
| C．By analyzing facial expressions. | D．By distinguishing abnormal mood. |
| A．indifferent | B．supportive | C．opposed | D．skeptical |
6 . Half decade ago, at the end of my first semester teaching at Wharton, my student Kevin stopped by for office hours. He sat down and burst into tears. My mind started cycling through a list of events that could make a college junior cry: His girlfriend had broken up with him; he had been accused of cheating in exams; he forgot to turn in papers before the deadline. “I just got my first A-minus(减),” he said with his voice shaking.
Year after year, I watch in depression as students are crazy about getting straight A's. Some sacrifice their health; a few have even tried to charge their school after falling short(倒挂). All hold the belief that top marks are a ticket to best graduate schools and rewarding job offers. I was one of them. I started college with the goal of graduating with a 4.0. It would be a reflection of my brainpower and willpower, showing that I had the right stuff to succeed. But I was wrong.
The evidence is clear: Academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence. Across industries, research shows that the connection between grades and job performance is modest in the first year after college and unimportant within a handful of years. Take Microsoft for example, once employees are two or three years out of college, their grades have no bearing on their performance. (Of course, it must be said that if you got D's, you probably didn't end up at Microsoft.)
Academic grades rarely assess qualities like creativity, leadership and teamwork skills, or social, emotional and political intelligence. Yes, straight A students master large amounts of information and reproduce it in exams. But career success is rarely about finding the right solution to a problem—it’s more about finding the right problem to solve. This might explain why Steve Jobs finished high school with a 2.65GPA, and Martin Luther King Jr. got only one A in his four years at Morehouse.
1. Why did the student Kevin feel sad?| A．He was caught cheating in exams. | B．His girlfriend abandoned him. |
| C．He didn’t hand in his papers before headline. | D．He failed to get straight A's. |
| A．Marks didn’t reflect willpower and brainpower. |
| B．Top marks meant well-paid job offers. |
| C．It was wrong to care too much about marks. |
| D．Straight A's don't bring creative performances. |
| A．To stress the company values employees with top marks. |
| B．To indicate academic performance is important. |
| C．To show academic excellence isn’t a strong predictor of career performance. |
| D．To introduce successful example in the technology industry. |
| A．How to be a creative leader. | B．What to do with detailed information. |
| C．How to solve a problem. | D．What problems to be solved. |
7 . Let us suppose it is now about A.D. 2060. Let’s make believe it is about 45 years from now. Of course, things have changed and life is very different.
Voyages to the moon are being made every day. It is as easy to take a holiday on the moon today as it was for the people in 1960 to take a holiday in Europe. At a number of scenic spots on the moon, many hotels have been built. The hotels are airconditioned, naturally. In order that everyone can enjoy the beautiful scenery on the moon, every room has at least one picture window. Everything imaginable is provided for entertainment of young and old.
What are people eating now？People are still eating food. They haven’t yet started to take on heir (继承) supply of energy directly as electrical current or as nuclear power. They may some day. But many foods now come in pill form, and the food that goes into the pill continues to come mainly from green plants.
Since there are several times as many people in the world today as there were a hundred years ago, most of our planet’s surface has to be filled. The deserts are irrigated with water and crops are no longer destroyed by pests. The harvest is always good.
Farming, of course, is very highly developed. Very few people have to work on the farm. It is possible to run the farm by just pushing a few buttons now and then.
People are now largely vegetarians (素食者). You see, as the number of people increases, the number of animal decreases. Therefore, people have to be vegetarians and we are healthier both in our bodies and in our minds, and we know the causes and cure of disease and pain, and it is possible to get rid of diseases. No one has to be ill any more.
Such would be our life in 2060.
1. When was the passage written?| A．In about A. D. 2060. | B．In about 1960. |
| C．In about 2014. | D．In about 2015. |
| A．Many other animals. |
| B．Many tourists. |
| C．Many plants. |
| D．A sea. |
| A．Biscuits in pill form. | B．Foods in pill form. |
| C．Foods in liquid form. | D．Foods in gas form. |
8 . If you’re looking to buy a gift for your children, why not keep up with the trend and get the best hoverboard?
What is a Hoverboard?
A hoverboard is a two-wheeled personal transportation device. It’s electrical, portable and became highly popular in 2015. Typically, this self-balancing device operates like a powered skateboard.
How Does a Hoverboard Work?
The device may have many designs, but the mechanism itself isn’t complicated. Basically, a standard hoverboard contains:
•Battery: stores the electrical power. Almost all hoverboards use a high-watt lithium-ion battery.
•Gyroscope (one for each wheel): allows riders to tilt (倾斜) the hoverboard while maintaining balance and adjusting their direction.
•Motor (one in each wheel): provides the power to the wheels to keep the rider balanced and upright.
•Logic board: functions as the hoverboard brain. It processes data—your speed, tilt, etc.—and sends information to the motors. This unit controls the power of the board so riders can adjust their speed.
All the above components work together to control the power and tilt of the hoverboards so the rider is balanced, upright and moving at a controlled speed.
Why Buy a Hoverboard?
Undoubtedly, hoverboards are cool. You’ve probably seen kids riding one around the house. They’re a phenomenon and everybody wants in. So, why deny your kids and prevent them from being part of this trend?
Where is a hoverboard legal?
Despite their wild popularity, hoverboards have yet to become “street-legal”. Currently, some places prohibit anyone under 16 from using these devices, and hoverboards are banned in academic institutions and public places, like campus buildings, parks, shopping malls and subway stations. Some places have also put speed limits on the devices and restricted their use to bike paths. However, open areas—including your yard—are free of these restrictions.
1. The logic board of a hoverboard can ______.| A．store electricity | B．power the wheels |
| C．send information to the riders | D．receive data and give command |
| A．on campus | B．in parks |
| C．on bike paths | D．in shopping malls |
| A．To evaluate a gift’s quality. |
| B．To suggest a gift option. |
| C．To compare new hoverboard models. |
| D．To explain functions of the latest hoverboards. |
9 . Cursive（手写体）is about to become extinct. Do we raise the red flag？To teach or not to teach cursive is the question that several state education departments are struggling with.
Before you read the following, do a simple exercise. Pick a pen and paper and start writing in cursive. Yes, that fancy handwriting that you learned in grade school. You may not have forgotten the good times you had while writing loopy Ps and Gs as well as curly Ms and Ns. However, the chances are that you won't be able to write it as excellently as you used to. Some people are good at making the perfect loops and curls, while some are bad. I am still terrible at it.
Cursive is hardly used by kids anymore as even adults don't write in this style, unless they are using it for their signature. Learning this handwriting was a usual practice in school for several decades. However, in 201l, the Indiana Department of Education made it optional for schools to teach cursive writing to the students. In fact, there were 46 more states who have done the same.
There are some who believe that it is high time for cursive to retire from school curriculum. After all, if we don't leave the past behind, we cannot make way for new things. If you walk into any classroom, you would find children using keyboards to communicate in written form. On the other hand, fans of this cursive insist on its usefulness. They remind us if we stop teaching and learning cursive in schools, very soon most of our historical documents will become hard to us.
Where do we stand on this subject？Is it the right time to erase an almost forgotten handwriting and live in the keyboarding world？Or can we do both without compromising on our school curriculum？Let me know your preference on this matter by leaving a comment in the section below.
1. People use cursive when they _________.| A．give their signature | B．are in Indiana |
| C．grow up as adults | D．are at school |
| A．must learn cursive | B．are interested in cursive |
| C．can choose to learn cursive | D．learn cursive every day |
| A．prefers to learn cursive |
| B．is a cursive teacher |
| C．is open to different views on cursive |
| D．is a very famous expert in education |
| A．Cursive Writing: Necessary or not？ | B．Is Keyboarding World Good？ |
| C．A Keyboarding World | D．Advantages of Cursive |
10 . Name-calling, teasing, pushing and fighting-whether you have gone through it or not, it is quite definite that these are the things that turn up in your mind when you hear the word "bullying". However, many of us know little about the serious, lasting harms bullying could cause.
If you've watched 13 Reasons Why, you'll understand the impacts that bullying can have. The second season of the popular US teenage drama was released on May 18. It tells the story of Hannah Baker, a high school student who takes her own life after she's picked on by fellow students, while others stand by and do nothing to help her.
One of the important messages audiences could get from the show is to treat people with kindness and respect. "It teaches us that every single thing we say and do has an impact on others, "news platform Odyssey concluded.
Some may think 13 Reasons Why exaggerates（夸大）the seriousness of school bullying, but according to the US National Center for Educational Statistics, more than 20 percent of US students were bullied in 2016, and only 36% of this group reported it.
NBA player Gerald Green opened up about being called "alien hands" during his teenage years due to his big hands. "Being bullied was embarrassing, " he said. "I still remember shying away from crowds and walking around with my hands in my pockets to evade the attention from my peers. "To get away with the teasing, he found his motivation by playing basketball and making a career out of it. But not everyone is so lucky to discover a release.
According to statistics released by the US government, if someone prevents a bully, there's a 57% chance that the bullying will stop within 10 seconds. So if you ever witness bullying, consider stepping up and supporting the victim. As US actor Brandon Flynn, who stars in 13 Reasons Why, said, "Just because you're not the one getting bullied, it doesn't mean it's not your problem. "
1. What is the purpose of the last paragraph？| A．To add more statistics. |
| B．To call on eyewitnesses to take action. |
| C．To introduce a new topic of the discussion. |
| D．To give people advice about dealing with bullying. |
| A．Bullying isn't a serious problem in many schools. |
| B．School bullying can't cause too much pain. |
| C．Only a few people are concerned about bullying. |
| D．Many people who're bullied choose not to seek help. |
| A．Attract. | B．Focus. | C．Avoid. | D．Keep. |
| A．It overstates school bullying. |
| B．It was first shown on May 18. |
| C．It is mainly about school bullying. |
| D．It shows few people can report bullying. |
