Traditional Chinese festivals are important part of Chinese culture, and it’s our
With a history of more than 2,600 years, Hanshi Festival is the only traditional one in China named
In most parts of China, fires might start easily in the dry early spring due to the flammable
During the gap days, fires
As the Hanshi Festival is one to two days ahead of the Qingming Festival,
2 . Sitting around doing nothing used to seem like one of the safest activities possible. Then a few years ago scientists discovered that sitting all day causes many metabolic(新陈代谢的) changes that together increase your odds of meeting an early end. Even regular workouts didn’t prevent the ill effects of having your bottom in a chair all workday. Suddenly, sitting became public health enemy number one.
New research offers a hopeful answer to this question, finding that tiny bursts of intense activity are enough to protect your body from the worst effects of your couch potato lifestyle. The study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin closely observed eight young, healthy volunteers as they sat around. On the first day of the experiment they simply sat for six hours. On the second day they got up from their lazing each hour and engaged in five rounds of four seconds of intense exercise on a specialized exercise bike.
Twenty seconds of total exercise an hour sounds like nothing, but the data showed it made a big difference to the subjects’ bodies. The next day they burned more fat and showed lower levels of triglycerides(甘油三酸酯) in their blood. In short, they didn’t exhibit the usual ill effects of having sat all day.
And while the research used a special type of bike developed by sports scientists, the researchers feel similar results are obtainable with everyday home exercise equipment. However, you may have to work for a few more seconds to reach the same level of intensity, depending on what type of exercise you choose.
The research still offers an actionable takeaway for business owners and others who are concerned about how much sitting they’ve been doing all day long. “When you find yourself sitting for most of the day, try to rise frequently and move, preferably intensely, as often during the day as possible and for as many seconds as you can manage,” explains wellness writer Gretchen Reynolds in The New York Times.
1. What was the focus of the discovery made a few years ago?| A．The causes of early death. | B．The safest modern-day activities. |
| C．The benefits of regular workouts. | D．The harmful effects of inactivity. |
| A．By observing their usual lifestyle. |
| B．By testing the triglycerides in their diets. |
| C．By comparing their physical conditions over two days. |
| D．By asking them to ride a specially-designed bike for two days. |
| A．The health benefits of biking have long been ignored. |
| B．Interrupting sitting with short intense exercise is helpful. |
| C．Everyday home exercise equipment is worth investing in. |
| D．Getting the heart pumping to its maximum quickly is bad. |
| A．To express a concern. | B．To provide a comment. |
| C．To offer an example. | D．To make a suggestion. |
3 . Cedar Creek Treehouse
Cedar Creek Treehouse is very high. About 15m above ground, it is wrapped around the trunk of an enormous 200-year-old red cedar tree. The treehouse is the brainchild of Bill Compher, who has created this special building at the border between Mount Rainier National Park and the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington.
Access is along a 25m-long suspension bridge, then up a five-story stairway whose fourth floor is a glass observation area, where you can swing in a hammock (吊床) and enjoy the mountain views. On the fifth floor, the treehouse is divided into two levels: from the entrance there’s a surprisingly spacious living room, kitchen, bathroom and sunroom, while upstairs there are two double beds and skylights so you can take in the night sky.
But if this isn’t enough of a bird’s-eye-view, you can climb up a separate 30m stairway, walk across another suspension bridge to a glass observatory and admire the 360-degree views of the forest. But this is not for everyone. “Climbing an 85-foot staircase, walking a 45-foot-long suspension bridge to a treehouse observatory 100 feet in the sky... that takes a special kind of person.” wrote Compher on his website.
Need to know: Kids under 7 are not allowed inside the treehouse. Rates are $250 for two people per night, and $25 for each additional guest.
1. What can a guest do on the fifth floor?| A．Cook some food. | B．Rest in a hammock. |
| C．Stay in a glass observatory. | D．Walk on a suspension bridge. |
| A．$275. | B．$300. | C．$500. | D．$550. |
| A．advertisement | B．guidebook | C．instruction | D．diary |
4 . In the world of online shopping, many online purchases are based on careful consideration of star ratings and product reviews left by complete strangers. But should you trust customer reviews when deciding what to purchase? And do these mysterious reviewers have your best interests in mind? Here’s what you need to know.
Consumers today are skeptical, says Zach Pardes at review platform Trustpilot. “We live in a time when trust is completely under attack,” Pardes says. “So people are reading reviews and consuming them more than ever before, but I think there is a healthy skepticism at times of what they’re reading. Fake (假的) reviews do exist. Fake reviews include, but aren’t limited to, robot-generated reviews and reviews that are influenced by the seller.”
Of course, not all user reviews you read online are fake. High-quality reviews are a valuable tool when making a variety of purchases. Pardes says Trustpilot features a team in place to detect and remove fake reviews. Perhaps one of the best-known review websites is Yelp. Yelp takes measures to ensure “high-quality content,” says Kathleen Liu, a company spokesperson. That includes allowing Yelp’s community of business owners and users to flag content that may go against the site’s terms of service.
Since user reviews do provide helpful information, review as a whole shouldn’t be repudiated. But how can you tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not? It’s close to impossible for the everyday consumer. But if you conduct your investigation carefully, you can make an informed purchase.
Check more than one review source. Pardes advises consumers to read reviews on multiple platforms. “If you’re about to book a $10,000 vacation, you’d never rely only on the photos and the reviews posted by that hotel’s marketing team,” he says. “You are going to want to use a third-party independent resource.” Read more than a handful of reviews. Pardes says there is “safety in numbers.” Question perfection. Pardes says consumers shouldn’t trust reviews that show only five stars. “Nobody’s perfect so you can’t possibly have a perfect five-star review in every single category of your business.” he says.
1. What does Pardes imply about consumers in Paragraph2?| A．They are often influenced by sellers. |
| B．They must have long lost trust in sellers. |
| C．They often fail to recognize fake reviews. |
| D．They should be cautious of product reviews now. |
| A．Both aim to offer real user reviews. |
| B．Both produce robot-generated reviews. |
| C．Both hire professionals to rate companies. |
| D．Both serve mainly like-minded business owners. |
| A．Overestimated. | B．Dismissed. | C．Hidden. | D．Blamed. |
| A．How to get the most out of online reviews. | B．The significance of informed purchases. |
| C．Where to look for reliable reviews. | D．The truth behind five-star ratings. |
5 . One of the oldest metaphors (隐喻) for human interaction with technology is the relationship of master and slave. Aristotle imagined that technology could replace slavery if machine became automated. Marx and Engels saw things differently. “Masses of laborers are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine,” they wrote in the Communist Manifesto.
Today, computers often play both roles. Nicholas Carr, in his new book The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, takes a stand on whether such technology imprisons or liberates its users. We are increasingly engaged, he argues, but the invisibility of our high-tech traps gives us the ‘image of freedom’. He describes doctors who rely so much on decision-assistance software that they overlook signals that are not obvious from patients.
All of this has obvious implications for the use of technology in classrooms: When do technologies free students to think about more interesting and complex questions, and when do they destroy the very cognitive (认知) capacities that they are meant to improve? The effect of spell check and AutoCorrect software is an example. Psychologists have found the act of forming a word in your mind strengthens your capacity to remember it. When a computer automatically corrects a spelling mistake, we’re no longer forced to form the correct spelling in our minds.
This might not seem very important. The process of word formation is not just supplementing spelling skills, it’s also destroying students. When students find themselves without automated spelling assistance, they don’t face the prospect of freezing to death, as the Inuits did when their GPS malfunctioned, but they’re more likely to make errors. This creates a vicious cycle: The more we use the technology, the more we need to use it in all circumstances. Suddenly, our position as masters of technology starts to seem more insecure.
1. What did Marx and Engels think of the machine?| A．It did the boring daily work for people. |
| B．It failed to free people from being enslaved. |
| C．It gave people more time to enjoy themselves. |
| D．It was the result of the development of technology. |
| A．Technology is a guarantee of freedom. |
| B．Doctors should stay away from technology. |
| C．Too much involvement with technology may be risky. |
| D．Some decision-assistance software needs improving. |
| A．Students being unable to spell words correctly. |
| B．Spell check helping students remember more words. |
| C．Students depending too much on spelling software. |
| D．Spellcheck destroying students’ cognitive capacities. |
| A．Is technology making people stupid or not? |
| B．Which areas are most affected by technology? |
| C．Are people satisfied with the advancement of technology? |
| D．Why shouldn’t technology be employed in the classroom? |
Young people spending hours
The authors examined more than 3, 000
Numerous studies have also suggested that number has
7 . We’re all born with a natural number sense. But some people’s number sense is better than others, and several studies published in 2013 suggest this inborn capacity, believed to be an essential building block for learning arithmetic (算术), can be improved with instruction.
In a study published in October, Brannon and colleagues from Johns Hopkins University showed 48 six-month-olds a series of dot arrays (点阵) ; the researchers inferred the babies’ ability to detect differences in the quantity of dots based on how long they spent looking at an array after it changed. As expected, some babies had a keener sense of quantity than others. Three years later, the researchers tested the same children’s math skills and found that those whose number sense at 6 months was keenest were most excellent at math at age 3, regardless of their overall intelligence.
But we’re not stuck with our inborn limitations. In a study published in August, Brannon and her colleague had 52 adult volunteers participate in a study examining whether improving number sense helps sharpen higher math skills. First, participants performed multi-digit arithmetic problems. Then half the group spent 10 hours estimating large quantities of dots in arrays; a control group had no such practice. Afterward, all participants completed arithmetic problems again. Researchers found that the math skills of volunteers who participated in the dots exercise improved significantly compared with those in the control group.
Other research, published in April, helps explain why some children respond to math tutoring better than others do. Stanford University scientists put 24 third-graders through an eight-week math-tutoring program. The kids’ math proficiency improvement ranged from8 to 198 percent, and was unrelated to IQ, memory and cognitive ability tests. But brain imaging showed that the children who benefited most had a larger hippocampus, a key memory area, and stronger neural (神经的) connections between the hippocampus and brain regions involved in long-term memory and habit-building.
“This gives us clues about the memory systems the brain uses to build knowledge,” says Stanford neuro-scientist Vinod Menon, the study’s senior author. The results, he says, could explain the origins of math learning disabilities and lead to improved educational programs for kids who struggle with math.
1. The statement that “Number sense is inborn capacity” can be supported by ________.| A．Paragraph 2. | B．Paragraph 3. |
| C．Paragraph 4. | D．Paragraph 5. |
| A．It benefits kids more than adults. |
| B．It produces the same effects on all kids. |
| C．It leads to high scores in memory tests. |
| D．It helps improve people’ math skills. |
| A．They enable researchers to track kids’ math improvement. |
| B．They encourage teaching kids math skills at an early age. |
| C．They may lead to better ways of helping kids learn math. |
| D．They offer a simple way to help kids solve math problems. |
| A．Number sense can be bettered through practice. |
| B．Number sense can be measured in young children. |
| C．Number sense has a close connection to kids’ IQ. |
| D．Number sense is an ability people are born with. |
8 . Margaret is like any other teenage girl today: she talks on the phone and deals with the stress of schoolwork. Unlike many of her peers, however, Margaret takes medication as part of her morning routine. She has spina bifida(脊柱裂伤), a condition in which one or more of her vertebrae did not form properly. Throughout all of these suffer, she has kept her outgoing personality and positive view of life.
The 14-year-old attends high school and is not in any special classes. She is allowed extra time to get to class when she needs it. She says, “I get laughed at a lot, but I do have a small group of friends who are great about everything.” Margaret has had the support of her parents as well, “I think that, growing up with a disability, the best thing that I have had is supportive parents; without them I don’t know where I would be.”
After school on most days, Margaret works at Able-Disabled Advocacy (A-DA), an organization that helps the disabled, alongside her mother, Cindy. On other days she plays wheelchair basketball and tennis, even though she is not wheelchair-bound herself. Her evenings are spent at A-DA and doing schoolwork. Margaret also volunteers in an inclusion program at a Jewish community center, helping other kids with disabilities.
Margaret feels that, far from having limited her, her disability has allowed her to do things she might not have been able to do otherwise. She says that she would not have been involved in sports at all if it was not for wheelchair sports, and she would not have some of her current friendships. Rock climbing, cycling, and downhill racing are some of the other activities she is able to participate in. Thinking about the future, Margaret says, “I want to be a doctor of some kind, though I’m not sure what kind yet.”
1. What can we learn about Margaret from paragraph 2?| A．She was grateful to her parents. | B．She was placed to a special class. |
| C．She felt embarrassed to get to class. | D．She didn’t have friends in her class. |
| A．It prevents her from doing sports. | B．It has limited her life in many ways. |
| C．It allows her to try new things. | D．It helps her think about future careers. |
| A．Optimistic and creative. | B．Positive and sympathetic. |
| C．Energetic and imaginative. | D．Humorous and easy-going. |
| A．Nobody is good in everything. |
| B．The only way to have a friend is to be one. |
| C．Parents and children are forever linked together. |
| D．No obstacle is too hard for a fighter to overcome. |
In 2000, when I was around seven years old, my parents, sister, brother, and I were coming back from a T-ball game one late spring afternoon. That was our usual weekend adventure in suburban Pearl River, New York, about 25 miles from New York City. But unlike other weekends, on this day a surprise was waiting in our driveway: Two adult wild geese and a gosling (幼雁). The adults were frightened by us and flew away, but their baby was too young to fly and couldn’t follow. We are no strangers to the ways of wildlife, so we knew how to avoid contact with the gosling in case it came across us and was lost to its family forever.
Hours passed, and night fell. With it came a deep chill and a fear of watchful predators (捕猎者). The tiny little thing was wandering around on the road, unaware of what could happen. It was clear that the gosling needed protection, warmth, and food to make it to the morning, so we brought him onto our back yard and setup a temporary wire fence to enclose and protect him.
We all slept with one eye open till morning. And then another morning. And another. Each day, we would try to force the goose over to his parents, who kept coming back to our yard. He wouldn’t go to them, though, and they wouldn’t come close enough to claim him. We kept this up for five days, but no luck. By then, the young goose had clearly decided we were his new family, so we had to give him a name. My eight-year-old sister, Joanna, called the little guy Peeper because he would follow us around the yard making a peeping noise, nonstop. We also decided that Peeper was a boy. I don’t know why; it just felt right.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, until almost a year passed.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Everybody in my family thought Peeper would stay with us forever.
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Last year, it came as a shock when a familiar adult goose appeared at my yard.
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Emily White was born seventeen years ago with so many birth problems in her body. Some of her organs, bones and muscles were out of shape. No one expected her to survive. She did make it but with her strange body figure, everyone could recognize her, even from a distance.
In Emily White’s hometown, there was a yearly outdoor performance in the school auditorium (大礼堂). It had been performed for so many years and actually had become one of the most important events of the Christmas season for many of the town’s people.
Many people tried out each year for it, but so many were turned away. It can only include the most excellent people in the field.
Emily had a beautiful singing voice. Last year she went to Mrs. Owens — her music teacher to ask to join in the performance. Without letting her sing, Mrs. Owens took a look at Amy’s body and said, “Child, you just don’t fit. Everyone would stare at you and that would make you uncomfortable. It would make them uncomfortable, too.”
Without singing a single note, Emily was sent back through the door of the choral room. Hurt and upset, she decided never to try out again. But Mrs. Owens then retired.
This year, there came a new music teacher, Mr. Buttler. He heard about Emily and suggested that she have a try.
Emily didn’t want to be rejected again, so she hesitated a little about it. As Emily struggled, the door was pushed open and Mr. Buttler called, “Emily, you’re next.” Although kind of nervous, Emily did as Mr. Buttler told her to do. Mr. Buttler sat by the piano to keep Emily company. When Emily finished her testing performance, she thanked Mr. Buttler and knew the result would be posted on the door of the choral room the next day.
Emily couldn’t sleep that night. She was suffering from the feelings that she didn’t fit and the great need to be accepted. By the next morning, her stomach was even in pain because of stress.
注意：续写词数应为150左右Paragraph 1: The next day, Emily nervously glanced at the list on the door of the choral room.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2: Finally, the day of performance came.
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