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

A. opportunity             B. invented       C. marking       D. exposed       E. celebrated       F. typically G. responsibility       H. valuing       I. represents       J. assigned       K. particularly

Celebrating Kwanzaa(宽扎节)

This past summer, I left home without my family for the first time to go to Ghana for two weeks in The Year of Return. The Year of Return is a year       1     400 years since enslaved Africans touched down on American soil.

I joined Pittsburgh Public School’s African American Center for advanced Studies Executive committee and was fully       2     to the tradition of Kwanzaa.

Much like a harvest festival, the holiday was       3     by the African-American professor Maulana Karenga with the purpose of celebrating,       4     and unifying the black community in the aftermath(余波) of the1965 Watts riots. It is       5     in the week of Dec 26 to Jan 1.

During the festival, we begin by reading up on the holiday, going through the seven principles       6     to the seven days of Kwanzaa. We then end the ceremony by pouring libation(祭酒) to those who have paved our way. During libation, we stand with our hands joined and our respects given. For the first time, the whole becomes one.

On each day of Kwanzaa, we light one of the seven candles. The candles come in three colors: black, red and green. We start with one black candle for the people. There are three red candles for their struggle and three green candles for their future. Each candle also       7     one of seven Swahili principles: Umoja, the first candle, stands for unity; Kujichagulia, self-determination; Ujima, collective work and       8    ; Ujamaa, cooperative economics; Nia, purpose; Kummba, creativity; and Imani, faith. After lighting each candle, we showcase our talents, whether they are spoken word, poetry, music, dance or performing a monologue.

Over the seven nights of Kwanzaa, people       9     tell stories. On the last night of Kwanzaa, following the candle-lighting, families give gifts to children and prepare a feast, ending the holiday as you begin a new year together.

For two continuous years, I’ve chosen Ujamaa as my principle of the day. It’s the principle of cooperative economics, and to me it means investing in and supporting black-owned businesses. My main reason for choosing Ujamaa is that it is also the name of the store in the Hill District that gave me the       10     to visit Ghana.

2 . Directions: Write an English composition in 120-150 words according to the instructions given below in Chinese.
李华的家乡是一个有着悠久历史和文化的古镇，但是近年来由于游客激增以及过度开发，古镇的人文环境与自然环境遭到了严重的破坏。目前地方政府正在征集各方建议以更好地保护古镇的自然与人文。
假设你是李华，请你给地方政府写一封信，谈谈你对保护家乡古镇的看法。你的信必须包括：
1、 简述你对保护古镇所选择的建议。
2、说明你的理由。（信中不能提到真实姓名和学校）
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3 . Directions: Write an English composition in 120-150 words according to the instructions given below in Chinese.
随着城市的发展，许多历史建筑被夷为平地。这些建筑所承载的文化和历史也随风而去。应该怎样对待这些历史建筑呢？请就此谈谈你的看法。

4 . That easterners and westerners think in different ways is not mere prejudice. Many psychological studies conducted over the past two decades suggest Westerners have a more individualistic, analytic and abstract mental life than do East Asians. Several hypotheses (假设) have been put forward to explain this.

One, that modernization promotes individualism, falls at the first hurdle: Japan, an ultra-modem country whose people have retained a collective outlook. A second, that a higher rate of infectious disease in a place makes contact with strangers more dangerous, and causes groups to turn inward, is hardly better. Europe has had its share of plagues; probably more than either Japan or Korea.

That led Thomas Talheim of the University of Virginia and his colleagues to look into a third suggestion: that the crucial difference is agricultural. The basic West crop is wheat; the East's rice. Before the mechanization of agriculture a farmer who grew rice had to spend twice as many hours doing so as one who grew wheat. To organize labour efficiently, especially at times of planting and harvesting, rice-growing societies as far apart as India, Malaysia and Japan all develop co-operative labour exchanges which let neighbors stagger their farms' schedules in order to assist each other during these crucial periods. Since, until recently almost everyone alive was a farmer, it is a reasonable hypothesis that such a collective outlook would dominate a society's culture and behaviour, and might prove so deep-rooted that even now, when most people earn their living in other ways, it helps to define their lives.

Mr. Talheim realized that this idea is testable. Large areas of Asia, particularly in the north, depend not on rice, but on wheat. That, as he explains in a paper in Science, let him and his team put some flesh on this theory's bones. The team gathered almost 1,200 volunteers from all over Asia and asked them questions to assess their individualism or collectivism. The answers bore little relation to the wealth of a volunteer's place of origin. There was a striking correlation, though, with whether it was a rice-growing or a wheat-growing area. This difference was marked even between people from neighbouring counties with different agricultural traditions.

Undoubtedly, Talheim's hypothesis has pointed to a direction worth further exploration. Viewing the message from modernized countries such as Japan, Korea and Singapore, which still hold on to collectivism, perhaps we can say: Asian values-with their principles of mutual support and collective action-are only "Asian" because back in ancient times, farmers in many parts of that continent found rice a more suitable crop to grow than wheat.

1. According to the second paragraph, which statement does the author most probably agree with?

A．The first hypothesis fails to justify Japan's ever-keeping collectivism as well as the second.

B．The exposure to plague outbreaks increases the probability of the Europeans to turn back to individualism.

C．Modernized Japan stays close to collectivism as firmly as Europe maintains individualism in the times of plague.

D．Neither modernization, as with Europe, nor the once prevailing plague, as with Japan, gives any evidence that promotes individualism.

2. What does the underlined word “stagger” probably mean?

A．arrange events so that they do not happen at the same time

B．help something to develop more strongly because it's about to collapse

C．plan or organize something in advance to make it neat or attractive

D．offer something to somebody and receive something in return

3. Mr. Talheim studied the Asian volunteers growing wheat in order to find out                    .

A．whether growing wheat results in more sharing behavior.

B．whether growing wheat leads to more prosperous community.

C．whether the local crop affects the local economy positively.

D．whether the local crop is related to local people's mental life.

4. Which of the following can serve as the best title for this passage?

A．A good beginning makes a good ending.

B．The grass is greener on the other side.

C．As you sow, so you will reap.

D．You are what you eat.

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

A. stressed       B. exhibited       C. reveals       D. momentary       E. reluctance       F. unforgettable G. attaches        H. amusedly       I. understatement       J. confusedly       K. delivery

The Correct Answer to the Question

The usual answer to the greeting “How are you?” is generally “Not too bad.” Why? Because it’s all-purpose. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the conditions, “Not too bad” will get you through. On an average day it     1     a confusing modesty. In good times it implies a decent pessimism (悲观), a kind of     2     to express oneself. And when things are rough, really rough and annoying, it becomes a heroic     3    , as if everything goes well. Best of all, it gently prevents further inquiry with all three syllables (音节) equally     4    , because it is basically meaningless.

Americans are small-talk artists. They have to be. This is a wild country. The weakest agreement     5     one person to the next. So the “Have a nice day”, the “Hot enough for you”, and the “How about those guys” serve a vital purpose. Without these little commonly-used phrases and the     6     social contract that they represent, to calm people, the streets would be a free-for-all exhibition of disaster.

But that’s the negative view. Some of my happiest interactions with other human beings have been glancing moments of small talks. It’s an extraordinary thing. A person stands before you, a complete stranger, and the best everyday small talk can have his or her soul     7     in front of your eyes.

I was out walking the other day when a UPS truck pulled to the side of the road. As the driver leaped from his cab to make a     8    , I heard relaxing music coming out of the truck’s speakers -- a kind of familiar and weightless blues music, and it’s my favorite tune. “China Cat Sunflower?” I said to the UPS guy as he rushed back to his truck. He     9     showed a huge smile, “You got it, babe!”

The exchange of feelings, the perfect understanding, the simplest small talk that emerged instantly between us, and, most of all, the     10     “babe”—I was high as a kite for the next 10 minutes after such a pure small talk.

6 . In a recent meeting we attended, the word “culture” came up 27 times in 90 minutes. Business leaders all believe a strong organizational culture is ________ to success, yet culture tends to feel like some magic force that few know how to control. In our study, we find that answering the following three questions can help transform culture from a mystery to a(n) ________:

How does culture drive performance?

After analyzing 50 major companies, we came to one conclusion: ________ we work determines how well we work. The companies most famous for their cultures maximize the positive motives (动机), while minimizing the negative ones.

The six main reasons for which people work are “play, purpose, potential, emotional pressure, economic pressure, and inertia (惯性)”. The latter three motives tend to ________ performance. That is because those people are no longer thinking about work. They’re thinking about the disappointment, or the ________, or why they’re bothering to do it at all. They don’t ________ the quality of the work itself. By contrast, a high-performing ________ always maximizes the play, purpose, and potential, which is known as creating total motivation.

What is culture worth?

While it is ________ to measure whether someone is being creative, it’s relatively easy to calculate total motivation of an organization. Take for example the airline industry. All airline companies share the same terminals and use the same planes, but customer satisfaction ________ widely across airlines. When we measured the total motivation of employees of four major airlines, and compared the result with customer satisfaction, we saw that an airline’s culture closely ________ customer satisfaction. ________, cultures that inspired more play, purpose, and potential produced better customer outcomes, and in turn generated more profits.

What elements in an organization ________ motivation?

By surveying thousands of workers, we found the most sensitive element is whether an organization can allow an employee to ________ with its mission and behavioral code. For example, Medtronic enables its engineers to see how the medical devices they’ve designed are used in hospitals, so that they can see the purpose of their work. An executive of Walmart, the well-known supermarket, told us that in monthly meetings he always emphasized how much Walmart had saved for the ________—rather than how much money Walmart had made.

A great culture is not easy to build. Leaders have to treat culture building as an engineering project, not a ________ one.

1.

A．resistant

B．critical

C．inferior

D．subject

2.

A．science

B．restriction

C．tradition

D．instinct

3.

A．how

B．when

C．why

D．whether

4.

A．encourage

B．assess

C．distinguish

D．hurt

5.

A．display

B．reward

C．mystery

D．wit

6.

A．care about

B．make out

C．set aside

D．put up

7.

A．potential

B．technique

C．culture

D．reform

8.

A．essential

B．difficult

C．bold

D．valid

9.

A．functions

B．differs

C．revolves

D．pioneers

10.

A．resembled

B．justified

C．predicted

D．exploited

11.

A．By contrast

B．In the end

C．As usual

D．In other words

12.

A．protest

B．affect

C．lose

D．substitute

13.

A．identify

B．coincide

C．tremble

D．interact

14.

A．customers

B．employers

C．engineers

D．spectators

15.

A．mutual

B．delicate

C．magical

D．precise

7 . Directions: Write an English composition in 120-150 words according to the instructions given below in Chinese.
假设你是明启学校的高三年级学生李磊，史上最长的“寒假”结束后，校刊举办主题征文活动，内容是关于学生在这个“寒假”里发生的一个变化。请你结合自己的实际写一篇文章投稿。你的文章必须包括：
▪简述该变化的具体内容；
▪阐述该变化对你的意义。
(注：文中不得出现真实的姓名及学校名称。)

8 . Directions : After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage 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.

Time capsule is a container     1     (store) some objects chosen as being typical of the present time, buried for discovery in the future. But what was inside a 132-year-old time capsule? Just follow us to learn more.

A 132-year-old time capsule was found in Utah. It was first buried in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1887, after     2     (put) together by a school committee. When that school was pulled down in 1959, the time capsule was uncovered. Inside there was kind of a little bit of everything: photographs, a student autograph book, and newspapers.     3     the folded newspapers appeared to be in good condition, it was not possible to tell the dates. There were even small items like a button, ribbons and a pebble. “The capsule tells the story of early education in Utah, but it also goes     4     (deep), in showing the ways people want     5       and their work to be remembered. I think that's what time capsules are about. Those who buried the time capsule thought it     6     show their real life to people one day. It's a way of keeping the memory of     7     they felt really matters.” said Alan Barnett, the local government archivist who led the public unveiling.

The news     8    (report) throughout Utah now, and we will keep you updated.

9 . Culture can affect not just language and customs, but also how people experience the world on surprisingly basic levels.

Researchers, with the help of brain scans, have uncovered shocking differences in perception(感知) between Westerners and Asians, what they see when they look at a city street, for example, or even how they perceive a simple line in a square, according to findings published in a leading science journal

In western countries, culture makes people think of themselves as highly independent entities(实体) .When looking at scenes, Westerners tend to focus more on central objects than on their surroundings. East Asian cultures, however emphasize inter-dependence. When Easterners look at a scene, they tend to focus on surroundings as well as the object.

Using an experiment involving two tasks, Dr Hedden asked subjects to look at a line simply to estimate its length, a task that is played to American strengths. In another, they estimated the line's length relative to the size of a square, an easier task for the Asians.

The level of brain activity, by tracking blood flow, was then measured by Brain Scanners. The experiment found that although there was no difference in performance, and the tasks were very easy, the levels of activity in the subjects’ brains were different. For the Americans, areas linked to attention lit up more, when they worked on the task they tended to find more difficult--estimating the line's size relative to the square. For the Asians, the attention areas lit up more during the harder task also--estimating the line's length without comparing it to the square. The findings are a reflection of more than ten years of previous experimental research into east-west differences

In one study, for instance, researchers offered people a choice among five pens, four red and one green. Easterners were more likely to choose a red pen while Westerners were more likely to choose the green one.

Culture is not affecting how you see the world, but how you choose to understand and internalize(使内化) it. But such habits can be changed. Some psychological studies suggest that when an Easterner goes to the West or vice versa, habits of thought and perception also begin to change. Such research gives us clues on how our brain works and is hopeful for us to develop programs to improve our memory, memory techniques and enhance and accelerate our learning skills.

1. According to the passage, Chinese people are most likely to_________.

A．emphasize independent thinking more

B．always focus more on their surroundings

C．focus on the context as well as object

D．think of Westerners as highly independent entities

2. We know from the passage that people's brains will be more active when_________.

A．the task is much easier

B．the blood flow is tracked

C．people begin to choose colors

D．the task is more difficult

3. What do the findings of the experiments mentioned in the passage indicate?

A．They indicate that culture has a great impact on the way people talk and behave.

B．They show that Easterners and Westerners have great differences in perceiving the world

C．They suggest that people's habits of thought and perception can be changed in different cultures.

D．They make it clear that Easterners and Westerners lay emphasis on different things

4. It can be inferred from the passage that_________.

A．Easterners prefer collectivism to individualism

B．East Asian cultures lay more emphasis on independence

C．It took over ten years to find out how to improve our brainpower

D．Americans will change their habits of perception when they're in Britain

10 . As the world changes, our language changes with it. That's why Merriam-Webster recently added more than 250 new words to its online dictionary, ___________ changes in fields from lifestyle to politics and from business to technology.

“These new words have been added to the dictionary because they have___________ themselves in the English language, and are part of the current, active vocabulary of America.” Merriam- Webster associate editor Emily Brewster said in a press___________ .

Here our newspaper has chosen three of the dictionary’s new entries. Let’s take a look.

Froyo(冻酸奶)

While ice cream has been around for more than 100 years, froyo or frozen yogurt--is comparatively new. Even though it was first invented back in the 1970s, it only started to gain___________recently, which is why the shorter version"froyo"is entering people’s daily vocabulary.

Compared to ice cream, the main___________ point of froyo is that it's healthier. It takes away people's___________while still allowing them to have the satisfaction of eating something sweet. As The Huffington Post put it, froyo is"starting a___________ in the healthier dessert industry".

Word salad(文字沙拉)

It was first used to refer to a series of words said by people with mental illness. Just like the vegetables in a salad bowl, each word makes perfect sense by itself, but when put together, they become hard to ____"Dogs moon purple monkey dishwasher," for example.

Now the phrase is more often used to refer to the words of a politician, although this refers to the speaker's logic rather than their mental state. US President Donald Trump,'s interviews are often referred to as word salad.__________ , he told an AP reporter in April:"But he said, will be the greatest president but I would also accept the other. In other words, if you do your job, but I accept that.

Troll (网络喷子)

The __________meaning of "troll" (巨魔) is a mythical __________ that is huge, ugly and angry and lives in places like caves. Now it's also used to refer to the kind of Internet user who __________posts comments, some of which seem___________to hurt other people.

Other phrases and usage have also been__________from"troll" , including "Internet trolling" --the act of unleashing(发泄) unfriendly remarks online, and"being trolled"--which means to fall__________to a troll.

1.

A．overtaking

B．covering

C．engaging

D．experiencing

2.

A．enjoyed

B．polished

C．established

D．trapped

3.

A．release

B．congress

C．negotiation

D．demonstration

4.

A．permission

B．package

C．popularity

D．patent

5.

A．turning

B．cooling

C．starting

D．selling

6.

A．guilt

B．taste

C．appetite

D．diet

7.

A．resolution

B．revolution

C．recommendation

D．reservation

8.

A．interrupt

B．indicate

C．interact

D．interpret

9.

A．in a word

B．For instance

C．All in all

D．As a result

10.

A．cultural

B．obvious

C．original

D．hidden

11.

A．creature

B．giant

C．worm

D．ghost

12.

A．dramatically

B．delicately

C．disorderly

D．deliberately

13.

A．offensive

B．objective

C．progressive

D．productive

14.

A．evolved

B．invented

C．expanded

D．transformed

15.

A．civilian

B．fairy

C．victim

D．pedestrian