1 . Distance or Face-to-Face Learning: What’s the Difference?

Although many people think it is a modern phenomenon, distance learning has been around for at least 200 years in one form or another.

When comparing the two systems, the first and most obvious area to focus on is the way that learning is delivered. Distance learning is heavily dependent on technology, particularly the internet.    1    In comparison, when learning remotely, technology is the principal means of communication. The flexibility this provides means that students may be better able to learn at their own pace, following their own timetable, but it may also mean that learners have to be well-organized and self-disciplined. They must therefore be highly motivated in order to do well on the distance-learning courses.

    2    . Namely, the teacher is the “knower”, and is responsible for helping students understand the key components of the course. However, the nature of the relationship may differ slightly within the two modes of delivery. With face-to-face learning, the teacher and student have the opportunity to develop a personal relationship through lectures, seminars and tutorials. This is different from a distance-learning course, where the teacher may seldom or indeed never actually meet the student. This may make it hard for teachers to understand their learners’ specific learning needs.

    3    . Generally, students like to meet regularly and talk to people on the same course. However, this kind of interaction on a distance-learning course is less common. Although people can increasingly interact through online conversations and message boards, there is a significant difference between virtual and real interaction. Time and geography must also be considered when contrasting these two types of learning. Face-to-face learning must take place in real time and in one location.    4    .

In conclusion, it is difficult to state whether one form of learning is better than another, as they cater for different audiences. What is important to understand is the different ways in which they operate, and that there are strong similarities between the two systems, which can both produce positive results.

A．Historical examples of long-distance learning include students being sent a series of weekly lessons by post.

B．On the contrary, distance learning can happen at any time and in any location, since the learning is not restricted by geography.

C．On a face-to-face course, students may only require a computer for the purpose of writing an essay.

D．The technological advances of the past 20 or so years have meant that distance learning is now able to rival face-to-face learning as a credible alternative.

E．For many students, interaction with their peers is one of the best aspects of university education.

F．In terms of the teacher-student relationship, the core principles remain the same.

2 . This Is How Scandinavia Got Great

Almost everybody admires the Nordic model. Countries like Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland have high economic productivity, high social equality, high social trust and high levels of personal happiness.

Nordic nations were ethnically homogeneous(同质的) in 1800, when they were dirt poor. Their economic growth took off just after 1870, way before their welfare states were established.     1    

The 19th-century Nordic elites did something we haven’t been able to do in our country recently. They realized that if their countries were to prosper they had to create truly successful “folk schools” for the least educated among them. They realized that they were going to have to make lifelong learning a part of the natural fabric of society.

    2     The German word they used to describe their approach, bildung, doesn’t even have an English equivalent. It means the complete moral, emotional, intellectual and civic transformation of the person. It was based on the idea that if people were going to be able to handle and contribute to an emerging industrial society, they would need more complex inner lives.

Today, Americans often think of schooling as the transmission of specialized skill sets — the student can read, do math and recite the facts of biology.     3     It is devised to help them understand complex systems and see the relations between things — between self and society, between a community of relationships in a family and a town.

The Nordic educators worked hard to cultivate each student’s sense of connection to the nation. Before the 19th century, most Europeans identified themselves in local and not national terms.     4     The idea was to create in the mind of the student a sense of wider circles of belonging — from family to town to nation — and an eagerness to assume shared responsibility for the whole.

That educational push seems to have had a lasting influence on the culture. Whether in Stockholm or Minneapolis, Scandinavians have a tendency to joke about the way their sense of responsibility is always nagging at them. They have the lowest rates of corruption in the world. They have a distinctive sense of the relationship between personal freedom and communal responsibility.

A．Bildung is the way that the individual matures and takes upon him or herself ever bigger academic responsibility.

B．What really launched the Nordic nations was generations of phenomenal educational policy.

C．Bildung is designed to change the way students see the world.

D．But the Nordic curriculum conveyed to students a pride in, say, their Danish history, folklore and heritage.

E．They look at education differently than we do.

F．The Nordic educators also worked hard to develop the student’s internal awareness.

3 . If we look at education in our own society, we see two sharply different factors. First of all, there is the overwhelming majority of teachers, principals, curriculum planners, school superintendents, who are devoted to passing on the knowledge that children need in order to live in our industrialized society. Their chief concern is with efficiency, that is, with implanting the greatest number of facts into the greatest possible number of children, with a minimum of time, expense, and effort. Children in the usual classroom learn very quickly that creativity is not rewarded, while repeating a memorized response is, and then concentrate on what the teacher wants them to say, rather than understanding the problem.

The difference between the intrinsic (内在的) and the extrinsic aspects of a college education is illustrated by the following story about Upton Sinclair. When Sinclair was a young man, he found that he was unable to raise the tuition money needed to attend college. Upon careful reading of the college catalogue, however, he found that if a student failed a course, he received no credit for the course, but was obliged to take another course in its place. The college did not charge the student for the second course, reasoning that he had already paid once for his credit. Sinclair took advantage of this policy and not a free education by deliberately failing all his courses.

In the ideal college, there would be no credits, no degrees, and no required courses. A person would learn what he wanted to learn. A friend and I attempted to put this ideal into action by starting a serials of seminars at Brandeis called “Freshman Seminars Introduction to the Intellectual Life.” In the ideal college, intrinsic education would be available to anyone who just wanted it, and that should be enough — since anyone can improve and learn. The student body might include creative, intelligent children as well as adults; morons as well as geniuses(for even morons can learn emotionally and spiritually). The college would be ubiquitous — that is, not restricted to particular buildings at particular times, and teachers would be any human beings who had something that they wanted to share with others. The college would be lifelong, for learning can take place all through life. Even dying can be a philosophically illuminating, highly educative experience.

The ideal college would be a kind of education retreat in which you could try to find yourself; find out what you like and want; what you are and are not good at. The chief goals of the ideal college, in other words, would be the discovery of identity, and with it, the discovery of vocation.

1. In the author’s opinion, the majority of education workers________.

A．emphasize independent thought rather than well-memorized responses

B．tend to reward children with better understanding rather than with a goal for credits

C．implant children with a lot of facts at the expense of understanding the problem

D．are imaginative, creative and efficient in keeping up with our industrialized society

2. An extrinsically oriented education is one that________.

A．focuses on oriented education	B．lays emphases on earning a degree
C．takes students’need into account	D．emphasizes learning through discussion

3. To enter the author’s ideal college, a student________.

A．will enjoy learning all though his life	B．should be very intelligent and diligent
C．needn’t worry about the admission test	D．can be best stimulated for creative work

4. The author’s purpose of writing the article is________.

A．to publicize his views	B．to criticize college students
C．to stress self-teaching attitude	D．to advocate technological education

4 . On a September afternoon in 1940, four teenage boys made their way through the woods on a hill overlooking Montignac in southwestern France. They had come to explore a dark, deep hole said to be an underground passage to the nearby manor（庄园）of Lascaux. Squeezing through the entrance one by one, they soon saw wonderfully lifelike paintings of running horses, swimming deer, wounded wild oxen, and other beings—works of art that may be up to 20,000 years old.

The collection of paintings in Lascaux is among some 150 prehistoric sites dating from the Paleolithic period（旧石器时代）that have been documented in France's Vezere Valley. This corner of southwestern Europe seems to have been a hot spot for figurative art. The biggest discovery since Lascaux occurred in December 1994, when three cave explorers laid eyes on artworks that had not been seen since a rockslide 22,000 years ago closed off a large deep cave in southern France. Here, by unsteadily shining firelight, prehistoric artists drew outlines of cave lions, herds of rhinos（犀牛）and magnificent wild oxen, horses, cave bears. In all, the artists drew 442 animals over perhaps thousands of years, using nearly 400,000 square feet of cave surface as their canvas（画布）. The site, now known as Chauvet-Pont-1'Arc Cave, is sometimes considered the Sistine Chapel of prehistory.

For decades scholars had theorized that art had advanced in slow stages from ancient scratchings to lively, naturalistic interpretation. Surely the delicate shading and elegant lines of Chauvet's masterworks placed them at the top of that progression. Then carbon dates came in, and prehistorians felt shocked. At some 36,000 years old—nearly twice as old as those in Lascaux—Chauvet's images represented not the peak of prehistoric art but its earliest known beginnings.

The search for the world's oldest cave paintings continues. On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, for example, scientists found a large room of paintings of part-human, part-animal beings that are estimated to be 44,000 years old, older than any figurative art seen in Europe.

Scholars don't know if art was invented many times over or if it was a skill developed early in our evolution. What we do know is that artistic expression runs deep in our ancestry.

1. According to the passage, where did the boys find the paintings?

A．In the woods on a hill	B．In a deep cave in France.
C．In a manor of Lascaux.	D．On an Indonesian island

2. According to the passage, figurative art in paragraph 2 is a form of art that_____________.

A．conveys concepts by using accurate numbers and forms

B．makes stories in contrast to scientific subjects

C．represents persons or things in a realistic way

D．expresses ideas or feelings by using shapes and patterns

3. It can be inferred from the passage that_____________.

A．the Chauvet's paintings had been sealed by a rockslide until 1994

B．the style of Chauvet's paintings is similar to that of the Sistine Chapel

C．Chauvet's images are the earliest figurative paintings that have been found

D．the main objects of Chauvet's images are part-human, part-animal beings

4. Which of the following is the best title of the passage?

A．Value of Paleolithic Artwork	B．Preservation of Figurative Art
C．Artistic Expressions of Nature	D．Searches for Cave Paintings

5 . Last year Miranda Lim found that taking care of three young children homebound by the pandemic meant she often had to work late into the evening to stay on top of her job. Concerned that the _________ hours were having a bad effect on her sleep, Lim started tracking her sleep time with an app on her mobile phone. She wasn’t quite _________ the results. “I saw my bedtime was _________ anywhere between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m.,” she says. “I was just horrified.” As a result, she immediately set up a daily alarm — not for waking up, but for _________ to bed at a reasonable hour.

It’s _________ why Lim would be a bit of an alarmist when threatened with a lack of a constant night’s sleep. As a sleep disorders physician at the VA Portland Health Care System, Lim is at the forefront of a global team of medical researchers who have in recent years been _________ the ways in which even moderate sleep shortage in middle age strongly link to Alzheimer’s disease later in life. She says, “Our big discovery was that the lack of sleep involves brain processes that may _________ into the disease.”

The finding that getting more and better sleep could offer the best, and _________ only, way to significantly reduce the risks of neuro-degeneration (神经退化) in older age is likely to further _________ an already hot sleep industry. Market research firm Infinium Global Research puts the current worldwide market for sleep __________ — including drugs, special bedding, and health care services — at an estimated $80 billion–plus, and predicts it will __________ to $114 billion over the next five years. Research firm BCC has been projecting a similar growth rate. Now Tim O’Brien, who heads life sciences content at BCC, says he’s watching for “a sudden leap”.

That leap would be driven not only by consumer’s __________ pursuit of better sleep-related health, but also by a stream of new __________ and technologies that are emerging to help achieve it, from sleep drugs to implantable medical devices to smart pillows. Fitbit’s companion app offers a range of insights and exercises aimed at __________ sleep, including sleep “scores” that break down different aspects of sleep, recommendations for when to get to bed and when to wake up, deep breathing and mindfulness exercises, and more. In addition, a big push into the market is being made by __________ a number of sleep-tracking and sleep-promoting features into the latest version of its “Nest Hub” smart speaker-and-screen device.

Nevertheless, some experts think the tech can help with slight pushes, but people still have to develop the healthy habits.

1.

A．uncertain

B．flexible

C．extended

D．fixed

2.

A．interested in

B．amazed at

C．replaced with

D．prepared for

3.

A．flying

B．bouncing

C．flashing

D．ringing

4.

A．heading off

B．paying off

C．putting off

D．giving off

5.

A．sensible

B．natural

C．understandable

D．surprising

6.

A．cutting down

B．comparing with

C．thinking about

D．figuring out

7.

A．transform

B．develop

C．explore

D．innovate

8.

A．ultimately

B．seemingly

C．possibly

D．slightly

9.

A．fuel

B．urge

C．peak

D．sue

10.

A．layers

B．trends

C．aids

D．tribes

11.

A．appeal

B．climb

C．resort

D．flow

12.

A．demanding

B．intensifying

C．foreseeing

D．existing

13.

A．therapies

B．options

C．experiments

D．schedules

14.

A．monitoring

B．affecting

C．hanging

D．boosting

15.

A．packing

B．removing

C．contrasting

D．mixing

6 . ● The human population has never been bigger, but in some ways the planet seems to be     1         2         3    . In the past, travelers from     4         5         6     spent months at sea. Now you just have to sit on a plane for a few hours. When you arrived in another country a hundred years ago, you saw     7         8         9     of clothing and buildings and discovered a     10         11         12     culture.（Fill in each blank with the missing words according to the text.）

7 . Female penguins get stranded

Every year, thousands of Magellanic penguins (麦哲伦企鹅) get stranded along the coast of South America, but, _________ about 75% of those that get stuck are female. Now scientists say they have worked out what is behind the gender _________: the females migrate further north than males.

Magellanic penguins finish breeding in Patagonia in February, and, during the _________ winter months, head north, reaching as far as Brazil, in search of anchovies (风尾鱼). But every year thousands become stranded, with many _________ to safety on board military aircraft by human.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, researchers in Japan and Argentina report how they _________ tracking device to eight male and six female penguins in 2017 and tracked where the birds went after they left the breeding grounds of Cabo dos Bahfa in Argentina and began the migration north in April.

Previously it was unknown whether male and female’s took different paths or not. “Although some _________ are made, the exact reason for the _________ stranding has been unknown due to the lack of information on their behavior outside the breeding season.” said Takashi Yamamoto, a co-author of the report from the Institute of Statistical Mathematics in Japan.

The results from the study offer a clearer picture. _________ the authors note that only a small number of penguins were tracked, all the female’s generally traveled further north. The male, meanwhile, predominantly stuck to waters of the Argentinian coast. The study also found male _________ dived deeper than female’s: about 59 metres compared with about 35 metres.

The authors offer a number of reasons why males and females may head to different areas— including to avoid __________ for food—and why they dive to different __________ —the females’ smaller bodies may restrict the depths they can reach. They also suggest the different sexes may seek waters of different temperatures, with the __________ females preferring warmer, shallower surroundings.

While researchers are still trying to understand why penguins end up stranded, Yamamoto and colleague’s suggest those that end up further north may have used more energy swimming or catching __________ prey, leaving them exhausted. Climate change, pollution in the area or injury from fishing equipment could also play a role. Reports of standings have noted that many penguins are unwell or exhausted, with some even washing up dead.

“__________, plastic remains have been reported in the stomach of beach-washed Magellanic penguins,” said Yamamoto, adding that a stewed sex ratio could potentially lead to a population decline.

While the findings may not help prevent strandings, Yamamoto said it could help with __________ of the species. “If we do not consider any action, such as marine zoning, I expect that the number of stranding individuals will increase.”

1.

A．desperately

B．puzzlingly

C．obviously

D．undoubtedly

2.

A．combination

B．frustration

C．conflict

D．imbalance

3.

A．following

B．previous

C．starting

D．finished

4.

A．dismissed

B．withdrawn

C．airlifted

D．extended

5.

A．attached

B．equipped

C．lifted

D．injected

6.

A．evaluations

B．assumptions

C．descriptions

D．conclusions

7.

A．deep-rooted

B．ice-covered

C．storm-stricken

D．female-biased

8.

A．Because

B．While

C．After

D．When

9.

A．legally

B．physically

C．typically

D．simply

10.

A．searching

B．competing

C．asking

D．defending

11.

A．widths

B．levels

C．depths

D．rates

12.

A．lighter

B．heavier

C．rougher

D．smoother

13.

A．fixed

B．scared

C．deposited

D．scattered

14.

A．After all

B．In addition

C．However

D．For example

15.

A．perseverance

B．conversation

C．conservation

D．reservation

8 . Almost all animals sleep, but do they dream? We certainly can't ask animals if they dream, but we can at least ________ the evidence that they might. There are two ways in which scientists have gone about this seemingly ________ task. One is to look at their physical behaviour during the various stages of the sleep cycle. The second is to see whether their sleeping brains work similarly to our own sleeping brains.

The story of how we ________ how to look into the minds of sleeping animals begins in the 1960s. Back then, reports began to appear in medical journals describing people acting out ________ in their dreams. This was curious, because during so-called REM sleep(rapid eye movement), our muscles are usually paralysed.

Researchers realised that causing a similar state in ________ could allow them to explore how they dream. In 1965, French scientists Michel Jouvet and J F Delorme found that removing a part of the brainstem, called the pons, from a cat's brain ________ it becoming paralysed when in REM. The researchers called the condition "REM without atonia" or REM-A. Instead of lying still, the cats walked around and behaved aggressively. This hinted they were dreaming of ________ from their waking hours.

________ movement is not the only way of looking into dreams, though. Researchers can now ________ look into the electrical and chemical activities of brain cells in animals while they sleep. In 2007, MIT scientists Kenway Louise and Matthew Wilson recorded the activity of neurons in a part of the rat brain called the hippocampus, a structure known to be involved in the formation and encoding of memories. They first recorded the activity of those brain cells while the rats ran in their mazes. Then they looked at the activity of the very same neurons while they slept. Louise and Wilson discovered similar patterns of firing during ________ and during REM. ________ , it was as if the rats were running the maze in their minds while they were sleeping. The results were so clear that the researchers could infer the rats' precise ________ within their mental dream mazes and map them to actual spots within the actual maze.

Does the behaviour of cats in science experiments actually ________ dreaming? Do rats have any subjective awareness that they' re running their mazes in their minds while they nap? We can say with a reasonable amount of ________ that the physiological and behavioural features of dreaming in humans have now been seen in cats, rats, and other animals. Yet what it's actually like to ________ a dream if you' re not human remains a mystery.

1.

A．foresee

B．cover

C．strengthen

D．observe

2.

A．disconnected

B．endless

C．uncomfortable

D．impossible

3.

A．made for

B．took over

C．worked out

D．turned down

4.

A．dialogues

B．ideals

C．movements

D．meanings

5.

A．animals

B．dreams

C．humans

D．changes

6.

A．imagined

B．prevented

C．appreciated

D．witnessed

7.

A．disasters

B．activities

C．successes

D．failures

8.

A．Physical

B．Accidental

C．Harmonious

D．Independent

9.

A．randomly

B．reluctantly

C．unconsciously

D．humanely

10.

A．sleeping

B．running

C．recording

D．studying

11.

A．To sum up

B．By comparison

C．For example

D．In other words

12.

A．location

B．prediction

C．moment

D．nature

13.

A．account for

B．rely on

C．qualify as

D．differ from

14.

A．doubt

B．certainty

C．specification

D．memory

15.

A．explain

B．explore

C．experience

D．experiment

9 . Explore some of New Zealand's best skiing & snowboarding field. Whatever your ability, Cardrona has the snow for you!

The 2018 winter season runs from June 16 — October 14,2018.

Half Day & 1 Day lift passes are split into Peak & Off Peak pricing:

Peak — July, August & September                    Off Peak — June & October

2018 Single Day Ski Passes	Half Day* Off Peak	Half Day* Peak	1 Day Off Peak	1 Day Peak	1 Day Learner	1 Lift
Adult	$80	$85	$99	$115	$65	$35
Child	$45	$50	$50	$60	$42	$25
Student	$70	$75	$85	$95	$65	$35
Senior	N/A	N/A	$75	$85	$65	$35

* Half day passes: 8.30am — 12.30pm morning, 12.30 — 4pm afternoon

* Rocky Mountain Super Pass holders must book lodging with Cardrona to be eligible for free day passes. Please email reservations@cardrona.com with an accommodation booking request & the lift ticket benefit request.

What pass am I eligible for? Read our lift pass age definitions below to find out.

* Multi passes are valid for both consecutive & non-consecutive days & can be used any time throughout the 2018 winter season at Cardrona only.

Your lift pass will be stored on an electronic RFID pass. To make the most of your clever pass, activate your personal profile online. Once you' re logged into your profile you can:

·Top up your card with lift passes, rental gear, lift & rental packages and lessons.

·Keep track of your on-slope stats at Cardrona (days spent, run count, activities taken, etc. )

Definitions for Lift Passes:

Student: 18+yrs enrolled full time (minimum 32 weeks in a calendar year)with a New Zealand or Australian tertiary institution. Student ID & proof of full time status (letter from institution) is required. ID card must be in English & include a valid expiry date.

Child: Currently attending school, 6-17yrs inclusive. Kids under 6 ski for free in winter, & kids under 9 bike for free in summer! Photo ID will be required.

Senior: 65-74yrs of age. Photo ID will be required.

Under 6yrs &75 Years+: Under 6yrs & over 75yrs, as at June 1, 2018, ski for free. Please collect a complimentary lift pass from the ticket office. Photo ID will be required.

1. After activation of your online profile, what can you do to maximize the value of your pass?

A．You can open up the online account of your clever pass.

B．You can store your lift pass on an electronic RFID pass.

C．You can monitor what activities you have done at Cardrona.

D．You can participate in most tutor lessons without any charge.

2. Which of the following statement is true according to the passage?

A．Cardrona is only open to those who are skilled at snowing or skiing.

B．Anyone with Rocky Mountain Super Pass can have free access to Cardrona.

C．Those with 1 Day Off Peak pass are entitled to ski at Cardrona on Oct. 24th

D．One can get in Cardrona from 8.30 am to 4 pm with 1 Day Peak pass.

3. How much will the Half Day Peak passes cost for a family of two parents, one 12-year-old boy, one freshman at Auckland University, one 5 year old, and one grandmother of 76?

A．$295.

B．$275.

C．$320.

D．$270.

10 . “Is data the new oil?” asked advocates of big data back in 2012 in Forbes magazine. By 2016, with the rise of big data’s fast-growing cousin deep learning, we had become more certain: “Data is the new oil,” stated Fortune magazine.

Amazon’s Neil Lawrence has a slightly different comparison: Data is coal. Not coal today, though, but coal in the early days of the 18th century, when Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine. Newcomen built his device to pump water out of the southwest’s rich tin (锡) mines.

The problem, as Lawrence said, was that the pump was rather more useful to those who had a lot of coal than those who didn’t: it was good, but not good enough to be able to buy enough coal in to run it. That was so true that the first of Newcomen’s steam engines wasn’t built in a tin mine, but in coal works near Dudley.

So why is data coal? The problem is similar: there are a lot of Newcomen in the world of deep learning. New companies are coming up with revolutionary new ways to train machines to do impressive tasks, from reconstructing facial data from images to learning the writing style of an individual user to better predict which word they are going to type in a sentence. And yet, like Newcomen, their innovations are so much more useful to the people who actually have large amounts of raw material to work from.

But there is an ending to the story: 69 years later, James Watt made a nice change to the Newcomen steam engine, adding a condenser (冷凝器) to the design. That change, Lawrence said, “made the steam engine much more efficient, and that’s what triggered the industrial revolution.”

Whether data is oil or coal, then, there’s another way the comparison holds up: a lot of work is going into trying to make sure we can do more, with less.

“If you look at all the areas where deep learning is successful, they’re all areas where there’s lots of data,” points out Lawrence. That’s great if you want to classify images of cats, but less helpful if you want to use deep learning to diagnose rare illnesses. “It’s generally considered unacceptable to force people to become sick in order to acquire data.”

It’s not as impressive as teaching a computer to play a game better than any human alive, but “data efficiency” is a vital step if deep learning is to move away from simply taking in large amounts of data and giving out the best correlations (关联) possible.

1. The first of Newcomen’s steam engines wasn’t built in a tin mine because________.

A．its operation required a lot of coal	B．it would lose its function in a tin mine
C．it was in greater demand in coal works	D．the rich mines required more advanced aids

2. According to the passage, in which situation is deep learning the least successful?

A．Reconstructing facial data.	B．Predicting a word in a sentence.
C．Classifying images of cats.	D．Diagnosing rare diseases.

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Watt’s condenser helped the steam engine consume less coal.

B．Data involving patients is often collected through immoral ways.

C．Teaching machines to learn is a vital step towards data efficiency.

D．Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine had revolutionary applications.

4. Neil Lawrence compared data to coal to indicate that________.

A．acquiring data is as complex as mining for coal

B．a change is required to make more out of less data

C．data is the new fuel to start an information revolution

D．a larger amount of data is needed to accomplish something