1 .    

About Old Faithful —The Most Famous Geyser (间歇性喷泉) in the World Discovered in 1870 by the Washburn Expedition, Old Faithful geyser was named for its frequent eruptions (喷发) — which number more than a million since Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in 1872. When does Old Faithful erupt? Basic prediction of Old Faithful is dependent upon the duration of the previous eruption. During visitor center hours, geyser statistics and predictions are maintained by the naturalist staff. People speak of the average time between eruptions. This is misleading. The mathematical average between eruptions of Old Faithful is currently 74 minutes, but it doesn’t like to act average! Intervals can range from 60-110 minutes. Visitors can check for posted prediction times in most buildings in the Old Faithful area. How high does Old Faithful erupt and how long will it last? Old Faithful can vary in height from 100–180 feet with an average near 130–140 feet. This has been the historical range of its recorded height. Eruptions normally last between 1.5 to 5 minutes. I heard Old Faithful isn’t as faithful as it used to be. Is it slowing down? It depends on what you call faithful. The famous geyser currently erupts around 20 times a day and can be predicted with a 90 percent confidence rate within a 10 minute variation. Prior to the 1959 earthquake, Old Faithful erupted 21 times per day. That’s a significant decrease in activity for geologists tracking each eruption, but to visitors seeing one or two eruptions…it looks just fine. How many gallons of water are expelled during an eruption? It depends on the duration of the eruption. Scientists estimate that the amount ranges from 3,700 gallons (for a short duration of 1.5 minutes) to 8,400 gallons (for a longer duration of 4.5 minutes). How hot is the water in Old Faithful? During an eruption, the water temperature at the vent has been measured at 204°F (95.6°C). The steam temperature has been measured above 350°F!

1. You and your friend just watched the eruption of Old Faithful at 12:26 p.m., at what time is it possible for you to enjoy the next one?

A．13:06

B．14:06

C．15:06

D．16:06

2. Which one of the following statement about Old Faithful is true?

A．The geyser’s name indicates that it always erupts regularly, 20 times a day, once every 74 minutes.

B．When it is erupting, people should keep a safe distance due to its freezing coldness.

C．Old Faithful is a well-known geyser which can expel at least 3700 gallons water each time.

D．To check the eruption time, visitors may refer to predictions on the posted timetables.

3. Where does the article most probably appear?

A．The Yellowstone official website.

B．Local travel pamphlets introducing Yellowstone.

C．A recently-issued guide book on Yellowstone.

D．A travel magazine column about Yellowstone.

2 . How does a word get into a Merriam-Webster dictionary? This is one of the questions editors are frequently asked. The answer is simple: usage.

Each day most Merriam-Webster editors devote an hour or two to reading a wide collection of_________ material, including books, newspapers, magazines and electronic publications. In our office this activity is called “reading and marking.” The editors read the texts _________ new words, new usages of existing words, different spellings, and inflected forms—_________, anything that might help in deciding if a word belongs in the dictionary, understanding what it means, and _________ typical usage. Any word of interest is marked, _________ surrounding context that offers insight into its form and use.

The marked passages are then input into a computer system and stored both in machine-readable form and on 3"×5" slips of paper to create citations. Each citation has the following elements: the word itself, an example of the word used in context, and bibliographic information about the _________ from which the word and example were taken.

Merriam-Webster’s citation files, which can be _________ the 1880s, now contain 15.7 million examples of words used in context and cover all aspects of the English vocabulary. Citations are also available to editors in a searchable text database — what _________ call a corpus — that includes more than 70 million words drawn from a great variety of sources.

Before a new word can be added to the dictionary, it must have enough citations to show that it is _________ used. But having a lot of citations is not enough. A word may be __________ for entry into a general dictionary if all of its citations come from a single source or if they are all from highly specialized publications that __________ the jargon of experts within a single field.

The number and range of citations needed for a word’s __________ in the dictionary vary. In __________ cases, a word jumps onto the scene and is both instantly popular and likely to last, as was the __________ in the 1980s with AIDS. In such a situation, the editors determine that the word has become firmly established in a relatively short time and should be entered in the dictionary, __________ its citations may not span the wide range of years exhibited by other words.

1.

A．published

B．digitized

C．related

D．selected

2.

A．in line of

B．in terms of

C．in search of

D．in view of

3.

A．in short

B．but for

C．in addition

D．for instance

4.

A．locating

B．applying

C．entering

D．determining

5.

A．according to

B．along with

C．except for

D．based on

6.

A．Origin

B．basis

C．resource

D．source

7.

A．traced back to

B．originated from

C．begun with

D．introduced in

8.

A．dialectics

B．linguistics

C．gymnastics

D．statistics

9.

A．widely

B．frequently

C．often

D．greatly

10.

A．accepted

B．received

C．rejected

D．neglected

11.

A．reform

B．inform

C．reflect

D．inflect

12.

A．recognition

B．composition

C．revision

D．inclusion

13.

A．common

B．popular

C．rare

D．major

14.

A．time

B．matter

C．case

D．type

15.

A．even though

B．as though

C．so that

D．in case

3 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Loving Legacy

Magic wands, flying broomsticks, terrifying monsters... these are the features of the fantasy genre. And over the last few decades, Harry Potter has remained at the top of the list for     1     looking to journey into a magical world. Where many authors have tried, J. K. Rowling—with the help of numerous fans—has succeeded in bringing her characters to life     2     books, movies, theaters, theme parks and so much more.

Harry Potter might have started off as     3     book meant for young children to read and perhaps forget a few years down the line. Few expected that the young boy with messy jet-black hair, green eyes and a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead     4     (manage) to take us all along on an unforgettable journey. Critics of the series claim that certain characters do not have enough depth, or the writing cannot compare with the likes of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. However, they     5     hardly deny the massive impact of Harry Potter on the literary world.

I grew up reading Harry Potter. Like millions of other children, I waited on my eleventh birthday for an owl carrying a letter to inform me that I     6     (accept) into the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For the younger me, the wizarding world was so fantastic and attractive that I always wanted more. As a new book was only released every year or two, I had plenty of time     7     (explore) other worlds of fantasy. And I loved every moment of it.     8     I have not picked up a Harry Potter book in about a decade, I still make a beeline for (直奔) the fantasy section each time I am in a bookstore. Most importantly, I came to love the simple act of reading.

Some may think that fantasy or science fiction has no place in literature, as they corrupt the mind and provide no useful lessons. These people are wrong. Characters in popular fantasy or science fiction novels are not much different from those in classic literature novels. Each embodies the emotion, character and thought     9     the author is trying to convey. So,     10     unrealistic the plot may seem, good novels teach, and keen readers learn.

4 . The Clean Meat Revolution Is Coming

"If we can grow meat without the animal, why wouldn't we?"

This _______ wasn't from a science fiction writer or the head of The Humane Society of the United States. _______, this came from Tom Hayes toward the end of his tenure (任期) as the CEO of Tyson Foods. Yes, that Tyson. Synonymous with "chicken," Tyson is by far the largest producer of meat in the U. S.

Why would the CEO of Tyson want to _______ the animal from meat production? In part because meat production will be more _______ that way — by growing meat without bones, feathers, or hair, we can get more meat with the same resources. And good things too, as United Nations scientists say that raising and killing animals for food is "one of the major _______ of the world's most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity." With a growing world population, there are simply not enough resources to _______ current meat production to feed everyone.

Companies around the world are rapidly _______ the cost of animal-free meat — meat grown directly in facility _______ to a brewery (啤酒厂), rather than as part of an animal. This "cell-based meat" is the meat everyone is used to, right down to the DNA. In addition to being more efficient, there will be no waste pollution. And because the meat will be grown in clean conditions, it won't _______ the use of antibiotics.

With all these ________, the answer to "why wouldn't we?" becomes even more obvious. Although there are technical challenges to increase production to be cost-competitive with ________ meat, no scientific breakthroughs are necessary to bring meat without the animal to our plates.

Perhaps the main question now is which country will lead the way. The governments of Japan, the Netherlands and Israel have already invested in research and startups ________ producing this kind of meat. Given the magnitude of the global problems that clean meat can help address, those efforts abroad deserve to be ________.

And then just a few weeks ago, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration and the U. S. Department of Agriculture formally announced their plan for joint oversight of clean meat production within their current regulatory framework.

This announcement ended months of ________ and speculation (猜测), giving leading clean meat companies like Memphis Meats and JUST a clear signal that they will have a straightforward and fair path to market in the U. S. Given the many challenges humanity faces, it is, ________ to know we have an incredibly beneficial innovation within reach — one that won't require anyone to give up the foods they love.

1.

A．issue

B．question

C．comment

D．choice

2.

A．Rather

B．Besides

C．Moreover

D．Therefore

3.

A．remove

B．release

C．kill

D．protect

4.

A．beneficial

B．popular

C．common

D．efficient

5.

A．purposes

B．confusions

C．causes

D．consequences

6.

A．cease

B．increase

C．control

D．maintain

7.

A．refunding

B．sharing

C．lowering

D．splitting

8.

A．relative

B．superior

C．available

D．similar

9.

A．abandon

B．limit

C．involve

D．promote

10.

A．resources

B．benefits

C．efforts

D．duties

11.

A．raw

B．tender

C．fresh

D．conventional

12.

A．separated from

B．opposed to

C．focusing on

D．appealing to

13.

A．applauded

B．discouraged

C．planned

D．undermined

14.

A．ignorance

B．sympathy

C．uncertainty

D．practice

15.

A．relaxing

B．horrifying

C．surprising

D．thrilling

5 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Craftsmen enjoy their brush with success

NANCHANG — Zhou Pengcheng, 76, has dedicated his life       1     the centuries-old intangible cultural heritage of making writing brushes.

Zhou, who hails from Wengang township in East China's Jiangxi province, has been engaged in this ancient handicraft for more than six decades.

Wengang's long-standing tryst with brush pens dates back to 1979. Over the decades, the town has grown into one of the country's biggest brush-pen markets,     2     (attract) tens of thousands of buyers from across China.

In Chinese culture, writing brushes     3     (count) among the "four treasures of study", and Wengang is known as the "hometown of China's writing brush".

More than 400 brush-making enterprises and over 2,200 brush workshops are located in     4     township. And almost every family in the town makes     5     living through the brush manufacturing industry.

Zhou     6     (work) in the sector since he was 8 years old. "In the 1970s, writing brushes made in Jiangxi were not so well recognized by people in China and the rest of the world,     7     spurred me on to improve and adjust brush-making techniques according to the needs of customers," says Zhou, adding that he finally succeeded after about eight years of hard work.

The craft of making writing brushes in Wengang involves 128 steps. The local brushes have proved popular in overseas markets, such as Asia, Europe, and the United States, and particularly in Japan and the Republic of Korea.

"I found calligraphy     8     (fascinate), especially the power and visual impact of Chinese calligraphy," says Alister Inglis, professor of Chinese language and literature at Simmons University. The foreign teacher takes an interest in     9     the shape, length and bristles of the brush reflect the type of written characters.

In June, Wengang's brush-making skills were listed as a national intangible cultural heritage, says Wu Shaoyun, Party chief of the town.

"Since the beginning of this year, we have mainly focused on how     10     (transform) the brush-making industry into a cultural industry. We have been working hard to improve the techniques and further inherit this craft," says Wu.

Currently, the town is eyeing a new boom in the digital era. It has launched tailored services to better meet customer needs in areas of culture, tourism and e-commeice.

6 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. contact；B. consulting；C. revealed；D. remove；E. based；F. professional G. launched；H. shivering；I. requesting；J. unwilling；K. reminded

Su Xiao, 49, and Xu Guangchun, 42, are like-minded souls on the streets of Beijing, checking surveillance cameras and     1     passersby, with a near-constant barrage of calls on their phones.

They are on the lookout for senior citizens with Alzheimer's disease, a hard-hitting disease that can easily     2     a patient's memory and other major mental functions.

Seven years ago, Su and Xu co-founded the Beijing Voluntary Emergency Rescue Service Center, which     3     a public welfare campaign to help families find their lost elders in 2016.

Su, an outdoor sports lover, is a seasoned mountain rescue     4    . On New Year's Day of 2016, he was on his way to a nearby ski resort where he ran into a listless and pale elderly woman who was holding a sack and     5     in the cold under a bridge.

She was mumbling, saying that she was about to buy noodles for her son, and this    6     Su of his grandmother, an Alzheimer's patient.

Su reported the situation to the police and they found a scrap of paper with a     7     number in her pocket. It turned out that days had passed since she lost contact with her her family and she had traveled more than 40 kilometers from her home in southwestern Beijing to an unfamiliar neighborhood in the east of the city.

According to statistics     8     by a white paper released in 2016 by the Zhongmin Social Assistance Institute, about 500,000 senior citizens get lost each year, with about 80 percent over the age of 65. Alzheimer's disease is one of the top reasons for them going missing.

Su and his rescue team watch surveillance videos first to sort out clues before further rescue efforts, and rely on the elderly person's experiences in their childhood and youth as clues when looking for them.

He once managed to find an 80-year-old along a river in a suburb of Beijing,     9     on the elderly person's childhood life experience of living on a riverboat.

The youngest person they have found was in their late 40s, Su said, adding that patients aged under 60 are difficult for family members and other people to spot, not to mention those who dismiss the illness as ominous and are     10     to confide in their neighbors, relatives or friends.

Su and Xu's "lost and found" service has sent more than 320 elderly back home safe and sound. More than 500 volunteers, including some family members of people they have found, have joined the rescue team.

"The farther we walk, the closer the lost elders get to their homes," Su said.

7 . Directions: Read the following three passages. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Back in January, the Chinese tech giant Huawei grabbed the world's attention at the Consumer Electronics Show 2017 in Las Vegas. Richard Yu, the chief of the company's consumer division, said that Huawei shipped 139 million smartphones in 2016, an amazing number, although still far less than Samsung and Apple. More than half of Huawei's revenues come from outside China, making it one of only a few Chinese companies to have made the transition from a local business to a global brand.

What makes Huawei so successful? As with many great companies, part of the solution to this puzzle lies in the values that define the culture of the Chinese giant.

Many companies take customer-focused attitudes, but few of them truly live by it. Huawei distinguishes itself from its competitors in this regard. In an interview, Ren Zhengfei, founder and president of Huawei, mentioned an early episode in the company's history. In rural areas in China, rats often bit the telecom wires, destroying customers' connections. Multinational telecommunications companies providing service at that time did not consider this to be their problem, but rather that of the customers. Huawei, by contrast, thought it was their responsibility to solve the problem. In doing so, they developed chew-proof equipment and materials. Later on, the experience helped it gain several big orders in the Middle East, where similar problems exist.

Huawei emphasizes that the only way to obtain opportunities is through hard work. In the early years of the company, every new employee was given a blanket and a mattress. Many of them would work late into the night and then sleep in their offices. As one Huawei employee said, "The pads were to us a representation of hard work in the old days. This idea has now evolved into the spirit of trying to be the best in anything we do."

Ren and his company are also known for what they call "the power of thinking." Efforts are made to ensure regular intellectual exchanges. Executives are urged to read books outside their areas of expertise. Feedback is always invited across the company to improve ideas that will ultimately feed the vision of Huawei's future.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . In the idealized version of how science is done, facts about the world are waiting to be observed and collected by objective researchers who use the scientific method to carry out their work. But in the everyday practice of science, discovery frequently follows an ambiguous (模糊不清的) and complicated route. We aim to be objective, but we cannot escape the context of our unique life experience. Prior knowledge and interest influence what we experience, what we think our experiences mean, and the subsequent actions we take. Opportunities for misinterpretation, error, and self-deception are plentiful.

Consequently, discovery claims should be thought of as proto-science (原始科学). Similar to new mining claims, they are full of potential. But it takes collective examination and acceptance to transform a discovery claim into a mature discovery. This is the credibility process, through which the individual researcher's me, here, now becomes the community's anyone, anywhere, anytime. Objective knowledge is the goal, not the starting point.

Once a discovery claim becomes public, the discoverer receives intellectual credit. But, unlike with mining claims, the community takes control of what happens next. Within the complex social structure of the scientific community, researchers make discoveries; editors and reviewers act as gatekeepers by controlling the publication process; other scientists use the new finding to suit their own purposes; and finally, the public (including other scientists) receives the new discovery and possibly accompanying technology. As a discovery claim works it through the community, the interaction and confrontation between shared and competing beliefs about the science and the technology involved transforms an individual's discovery claim into the community's credible discovery.

Two paradoxes exist throughout this credibility process. First, scientific work tends to focus on some aspect of common knowledge that is viewed as incomplete or incorrect. Little reward accompanies the copying and confirmation of what is already known and believed. The goal is new-search not re-search. Not surprisingly, newly published discovery claims and credible discoveries that appear to be important and convincing will always be open to challenge and potential modification or refutation (驳斥) by future researchers. Second, novelty itself frequently provokes disbelief. Nobel Laureate and physiologist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi once described discovery as “seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought”. But thinking what nobody else has thought and telling others what they have missed may not change their views. Sometimes years are required for truly novel discovery claims to be accepted and appreciated.

In the end, credibility “happens” to a discovery claim — a process that corresponds to what philosopher Annette Baier has described as the commons of the mind. “We reason together, challenge, revise, and complete each other's reasoning and each other's conceptions of reasons.”

1. It can be inferred from Paragraph 2 that credibility process requires ________.

A．strict inspection	B．shared efforts
C．individual wisdom	D．persistent innovation

2. Paragraph 3 shows that a discovery claim becomes credible after it ________.

A．has attracted the attention of the general public

B．has been frequently quoted by peer scientists

C．has received recognition from editors and reviewers

D．has been examined by the scientific community

3. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi would most likely agree that ________.

A．scientific claims will survive challenges

B．scientific work calls for a critical mind

C．efforts to make discoveries are justified

D．discoveries today inspire future research

4. Which of the following would be the best title of the text?

A．Novelty as an Engine of Scientific Development.

B．Collective Examination in Scientific Discovery.

C．Evolution of Credibility in Doing Science.

D．Challenge to Credibility at the Gate to Science.

9 . Fait Diver: More Than Brief Stories

Every day, there are items in the news believed too minor to report at length. For these _________ stories, French newspapers of old had a solution: a section called fait divers: stories of a paragraph or a few   lines. These brief   stories were   typically   of some_________ or odd   occurrence: train accidents, lovers' quarrels, drownings, suicides. The fait divers remained a practical form, intended to convey a   story without _________ too much space, but it also developed into an art. In   French literature, it crossed the line from low to high culture and influenced the writing of _________ as varied as Stendha（司汤达）, Flauber（福楼拜）,     and Camus（加缪）, sometimes as the_________ inspiration for what later became a novel. _________ a version of it was present in American newspapers, it never quite caught on in the English press as a literary form.

Perhaps the finest flowering of fait divers was in the reports filed by the art critic Felix Feneon 1906. He gave the   form more wit, more emotional _________ and formal perfection, than it     had had before. In his hands, it became ironic, dark, and very funny. His collected fait divers, published in English as Novels in Three Lines, was a(n) _________ to me. It inspired me to undertake _________ projects. One was a sequence of fait divers set in contemporary Nigeria and__________ from   the newspapers there. The other was based on stories from New York City's newspapers in 1912: the New-York Tribune, the New York Herald, the New York Times. I called my projects small fates."   an   acknowledgment   that   so   many   of   these   stories   are __________ about   the   strange   workings of chance.

One   can go days in New York   without really thinking about how __________ these   streets once were by crowds of people, all of whom are now dead. I found in writing the small fates that these long-gone New Yorkers suddenly came back to the__________ tense when you are not even ready for   it. The fine   details made   their lives vivid and __________. They were no longer__________, and at times seemed even more real to me than the latter-day outside my window.

1.

A．curious

B．tiny

C．ridiculous

D．detailed

2.

A．tragedy

B．coincidence

C．imagination

D．thriller

3.

A．turning up

B．putting up

C．showing up

D．taking up

4.

A．images

B．imagination

C．figures

D．portraits

5.

A．motivative

B．sudden

C．original

D．weak

6.

A．Though

B．When

C．Since

D．Before

7.

A．expression

B．peace

C．health

D．discomfort

8.

A．identification

B．secret

C．appeal

D．approach

9.

A．a series of

B．a pair of

C．a collection of

D．a set of

10.

A．received

B．inspired

C．eliminated

D．drawn

11.

A．finally

B．accidentally

C．previously

D．unexpectedly

12.

A．fascinating

B．populated

C．brilliant

D．sophisticated

13.

A．previous

B．future

C．present

D．past

14.

A．believable

B．considerable

C．understandable

D．approachable

15.

A．deadly

B．lonely

C．lively

D．ghostly

10 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. healing       B. prioritize       C. assigned       D. symbolizing E. secondary       F. peculiar G. featuring       H. engaged       I. patterned       J. followed K. embracing

The Healing Power of Art

Dreams have no age limit. A 79 year old lady who restarts her life by painting proves that it is never too late to     1     oneself.

Meeting the 77-year-old Li Yufeng at her workshop in the Lingang Special Area, I am soon infected by her energy and passion.     2     pumpkins, Hami melons, pebbles and playing cards, a number of her paintings hang on the walls. All her works are inspired by the everyday things in her life. As the Mid-Autumn Festival has just passed when we meet, Li's latest works portrays a moon-cake     3     with a dragon and phoenix.

Natural and peaceful, her paintings have     4     power.   They   enable   viewers to   feel the   beauty of small things, which we easily ignore in our daily lives. Last year, she was invited to hold a painting exhibition at the Xuhui Art Museum. To many people's surprise, Li     5     with art just three years ago.

Li spent her childhood in   the   confusion   of   civil   war.   Her father was     6     to Xinjiang   Uygur Autonomous Region as a teacher in a middle school, and Li and her mother     7     him to   the land of rugged mountains and vast desert basins.

"The green lawn and the camphor tree in front of our house in Human have always been impressed in my childhood memories," said Yin.

    8     prosperity and freshness, green is Li's favorite color, which she frequently uses in her paintings. She recalls that she wore a green tweed coat on her wedding day in 1963.

Li used to work as an electric welde（r   电焊工）. Lacking proper eye protection, the flash from the   welding equipment   eventually   damaged   her vision. However,   that   hasn't   stopped   her from     9     colors.

Li became fully engaged in painting after her husband's passing away in 2017. Painting brought her into the present moment and let her forget the pain of losing her husband and her diseases. In the flow of painting, it is hard to dwell on so many troubles. For Li, her improved painting skills are     10     to the joy that art brings her.