2 . When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, we had a milkman delivering milk to our doorstep. His name was Mr. Basille. He wore a white cap and drove a white truck. As a 5-year-old boy, I couldn’t take my eyes off the coin changer fixed to his belt. He noticed this one day during a delivery and gave me a quarter out of his coin changer.

Of course, he delivered more than milk. There was cheese, eggs and so on. If we needed to change our order, my mother would pen a note — “Please add a bottle of buttermilk next delivery” — and place it in the box along with the empty bottles. And then, the buttermilk would magically (魔术般) appear.

All of this was about more than convenience. There existed a close relationship between families and their milkmen. Mr. Basille even had a key to our house, for those times when it was so cold outside that we put the box indoors, so that the milk wouldn’t freeze. And I remember Mr. Basille from time to time taking a break at our kitchen table, having a cup of tea and telling stories about his delivery.

There is sadly no home milk delivery today. Big companies allowed the production of cheaper milk, thus making it difficult for milkmen to compete. Besides, milk is for sale everywhere, and it may just not have been practical to have a delivery service.

Recently, an old milk box in the countryside I saw brought back my childhood memories. I took it home and planted it on the back porch (门廊) . Every so often my son’s friends will ask what it is. So I start telling stories of my boyhood, and of the milkman who brought us friendship along with his milk.

1. Mr. Basille gave the boy a quarter out of his coin changer to __________.

A．show his magical power	B．pay for the delivery
C．satisfy his curiosity	D．please his mother

2. What can be inferred from the fact that the milkman had the key to the boy’s house?

A．He wanted to have tea there.	B．He was a respectable person.
C．He was treated as a family member.	D．He was fully trusted by the family.

3. Why does home milk delivery no longer exist?

A．Nobody wants to be a milkman now.	B．It has been driven out of the market.
C．Its service is getting poor.	D．It is not allowed by law.

4. Why did the author bring back home an old milk box?

A．He missed the good old days.	B．He wanted to tell interesting stories.
C．He needed it for his milk bottles.	D．He planted flowers in it.

4 . 一家英语报社向中学生征文，主题是“十年后的我”，请根据下列要点和你的畅想完成短文。
1.家庭：
2．工作：
3.业余生活。
注意：1.词数100左右：
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯：
3.开头语已为你写好。
I often imagine what my life will be like in the future._______________________________
__________________________________________________________________________

5 . With over 4.1 billion people, or around 55 percent of the world’s population, living in urban areas, cities and towns worldwide are getting increasingly jammed. In addition to spending hours stuck in traffic, residents are also exposed to high air pollution levels caused by   transportation emissions(排放). Now, Saudi Arabia hopes to overturn urban living with “The   Line”—a futuristic city designed around nature, without cars, roads and crowded places!       

The totally different city, announced on January 10, 2021, is the brainchild of Saudi Crown Prince(王储)Mohammed bin Salman(MBS).Located in Neom, a 10, 000-square-mile high-tech planned development on the Red Sea coast. The Line will be the base of MBS’s Saudi Vision 2030. The strategic plan aims to diversify Saudi Arabia’s oil-dependent economy into other fields, like                    tourism, and create exciting job opportunities for its citizens.

The 105-mile-long city, expected to cost between $100 billion and $200 billion, will be built along a straight line and comprise several self-sustaining communities. To ensure all services are within a short, five-minute walk, each community will feature a three-layer infrastructure(基础设施)．

There will be no cars or roads on the top “pedestrian layer”, so residents can freely walk and bike in the surrounding green spaces. The second “service layer”, will include all essential daily services, such as schools, medical clinics, leisure facilities, and grocery stores. The third “spine layer” will house ultra-high-speed transportation and autonomous vehicles transporting residents across communities in less than 20 minutes. The entire city will be powered with renewable clean energy sources such as solar and wind, and possibly even hydrogen．

If all goes according to the plan, construction of this groundbreaking, complex infrastructure project will start before the end of 2021. In addition to providing up to a million residents with a clean and stress-free living environment, the Line is expected to create 380, 000 new jobs, promote economic diversification, and contribute a shocking $48 billion to Saudi Arabia’s Gross Domestic Product(GDP)by 2030. More importantly, MBS believes it will provide governments worldwide a blueprint for how people and planet can co-exist in harmony.

1. Where can you purchase a bike if living in The Line?

A．Pedestrian layer.	B．Service layer.
C．Spine layer.	D．The green spaces.

2. Which of the following can best describe the project of The Line?

A．Widely-accepted.	B．Ill-considered.
C．Risk-taking.	D．Mind-blowing.

3. What does MBS think is the most important effect of The Line?

A．To facilitate Saudi economic diversification.

B．To offer a model for nature-man integration.

C．To boost the government’s finances.

D．To create more job opportunities.

4. What might be the best title of the text?

A．Saudi Vision for Environmental Protection

B．The Construction of The Line Is Underway

C．MBS：An Influential Leader of Saudi Arabia

D．MBS’ Vision of a Futuristic Zero Carbon City

6 .

News anchors(主播) must have been reluctant to read out the following news: Xin Xiaomeng began working as the world’s first female artificial(人工的) intelligence news anchor at Xinhua News Agency on Sunday, three months after a male robot joined the profession.

Unlike previous news robots though, Xin does not read news like a cold machine; she reads it almost like a human being. The muscles on her face stretch and relax-and her reactions change-as she continues reading. That’s why many news anchors were worried: Will AI replace us in the near future?

To find the answer, we have to analyse the technologies that support Xin at her job. Three key technologies are used to support Xin. First, samples of human voices are collected and synthesized (合成). This is followed by the collection and synthesis of human muscle movement samples. And third the voices and movements are married in a way that when the Al news anchor reads, the micro -electric motors behind her face move to make her expressions seem more human.

Yet we need a thorough knowledge of deep leaning technology to make a robot imitate a person’s voice. The developer needs to collect tens of thousands of pieces of pronunciations, input them Into the machine and match them with the text or the Al to lean and read. The process for imitating facial movements is similar. The developer has to analyse the movements of the 53 muscles in the human face, make a model set from the collected data for the AI news anchor to lean, and imitate the movements of facial muscles via programs

Both the technologies used to make Xin’s performance impressive are mature. The real difficulty lies in the third -the technology to match the pronunciations with facial movements so that Xin expressions vary according to the content of the news report. In fact, Xins expressions don' t always change according to the content. As a result, her expressions look anything but human. Actually. AI is still no match for human qualities.

1. What does the underlined word "reluctant "in the first paragraph mean?

A．Delighted.

B．Unwilling.

C．Confused.

D．Optimistic.

2. What can we infer about previous news robots?

A．They read news without expressions.	B．They looked like a human being
C．They could interview sports stars	D．They could interact with audience.

3. What do we know about the third technology?

A．This technology is very perfect so far

B．This technology is quite popular now

C．This technology remains at the theoretical stage

D．This technology is far from mature.

4. From the last paragraph, we can draw a conclusion that____.

A．human news anchors should learn from AT anchors to save their jobs

B．Al anchors perform much better than human news anchors at present

C．Al news anchors won 't replace human news anchors in the near future

D．Xin Xiaomeng s expressions vary so naturally that they are true to life

7 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（1个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。

Science fiction     1    (regard) by many people as a mirror through which our future can be     2    (free) imagined and explored. The Three-Body Problem     3    (write) by Chinese writer Liu Cixin is one of those astonishing     4    (predict) about the future. The work was first published in a Chinese sci-fi magazine in 2006 and printed as a three-volume book in 2008. When the first volume was translated into English by Chinese-American author Ken Liu, it attracted attention around the world,     5    (become) the first Asian winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel. The book     6    (represent) many themes such as space exploration, alien contact, AI, and the future of humans.

The Three-Body Problem begins with the stories of two unrelated people, Ye Wenjie and Wang Miao. Ye is recruited to join     7     secret project in a remote area of China,     8     has been set up to contact alien life forms. In the other story, set 20 years later, Wang Miao gets caught up in a popular online game called “Three Body”, in which people live on an unknown planet     9     three suns. But Wang discovers it is more than a game — it uncovers a great danger threatening human existence. How are these two people’s stories connected? And how will their behaviour change Earth’s future and the civilisations of other planets? Answers to all these questions are waiting to     10    (discover) when you go on reading.

8 . What will the future school look like is difficult to make clear, but most experts agree that the school will be electronic in the future .

" Present-day schools will no longer exist in the next century," says a report in The Age. "At that time, future schools will become community-style centers, which run seven days a week,24 hours a day. ” At the same time, computers will surely become a central part of the school in the future.

According to The Age, the distant learning will be popular and students will listen to teachers on computers. Going into classrooms on their computers, students will study at any time, which is very easy for them. However, it is necessary for students to go to the actual school in order to develop some social skills.

The Seashore Primary School is an imaginary school in the future created by the Education Department of Australia. At this school, all the teachers and students have laptop computers . Teachers check messages and call students back on a special telephone system and students use telephones to search for information or speak to their experts who teach their lessons. Besides, all the lessons are related to all sorts of subjects and all the students have their own learning plans created by teachers .

As one headmaster says, a laptop computer is students⁵ library, data storage （数据存储）as well as the bridge to a wider world. Technology has changed the emphasis of future learning. Thus, well pay more attention to the learning of kids rather than the teaching.

1. According to the report in The Age, students in future schools will _______.

A．have no teachers	B．study at a set time
C．mainly study online	D．never go to actual school

2. The example of the Seashore Primary School is given to show _______.

A．telephones are important in Australia

B．how future schools will work

C．every student needs a learning plan

D．students enjoy getting in touch with teachers

3. Which of the following is the best title of the text?

A．The Schools in the Future

B．Great Changes in Technology

C．The Seashore Primary School

D．Actual Schools to Be Replaced

9 . Futurologists predict that life will probably be very apparently distinct in 2050 in all the fields of activity, from entertainment to technology.

First of all, it seems that TV channels will have disappeared by 2050. Instead, people will choose a programme from a ”menu“ and a computer will send the programme directly to the television. Today, we can use the World Wide Web to read newspaper stories and see pictures on a computer thousands of kilometers away. By 2050, music, films, programmes, newspapers and books will come to us by computer. We will also be able to see, smell and touch the things that we see on television.

In transport, cars will run on new, clean ”gas“ and they will go very fast. Cars will have computers to control the speed of the car and there won’t be any accidents. Today, many cars have computers that tell drivers exactly where they are. By 2050, the computer will control the car and drive it to where you want to go. Space planes will fly all over the world and people will fly from Los Angeles to Tokyo in just two hours.

In technology, robots will have replaced people in factories. Many factories already use robots. Big companies prefer robots-they do not ask for pay rises or go on strike, and they work 24 hours a day. By 2050, we will see robots everywhere—in factories, schools, offices, hospitals, shops and homes.

Last but not least, medicine technology will have conquered many diseases. By 2050, we will be able to help blind and deaf people see again and hear again. Scientists will be able to produce clones of people and decide how they look, how they behave and how much intelligence they have.

1. What will happen to television by 2050 according to the passage?

A．It will completely disappear.

B．It will be mostly controlled by computers.

C．One can try the food one sees on television.

D．One can learn to switch on TV set from a ”menu“.

2. How does the transport benefit people most by 2050?

A．Cars will go at a very high speed on their own.

B．Computers will tell people where they are going.

C．There will be less pollution and no car accidents.

D．Space planes will fly all over the world in a short time.

3. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．People will live more healthily and longer by 2050.

B．There will be no people working in factories by 2050.

C．There will be cloned people coming to power by 2050.

D．People can read newspapers through a computer by 2050.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards people’s life in future?

A．Doubtful.	B．Objective.
C．Critical.	D．Positive.

10 . Welcome to your future life!

You get up in the morning and look into the mirror. Your face is firm and young-looking. In 2035, medical technology is better than ever. Many people at your age could live to be 150, so at 40, you’re not old at all. And your parents just had an anti-aging(抗衰老的) treatment. Now, all three of you look the same age!

You say to your shirt, “Turn red.” It changes from blue to red. In 2035, “smart clothes” contain particles(粒子) much smaller than the cells(细胞) in your body. The particles can be programmed to change your clothes’ color or pattern(样式).

You walk into the kitchen. You pick up the milk, but a voice says,“ You shouldn’t drink that!” Your fridge has read the chip (芯片) that contains information about the milk , and it knows the milk is old . In 2035, every article of food in the grocery store has such a chip.

It’s time to go to work. In 2035, cars drive themselves. Just tell your “smart car” where to go. On the way, you can call a friend using your jacket sleeve. Such “smart technology” is all around you.

So will all these things come true? “For new technology to succeed,” says scientist

Andrew Zolli ,“it has to be so much better that it replaces what we have already.” The Internet is one example—what will be the next?

1. We can learn from the text that in the future__________.

A．people will never get old

B．everyone will look the same

C．red will be the most popular color

D．clothes will be able to change their pattern

2. What can be inferred from Paragraph 3?

A．Food in the grocery store will carry electronic information.

B．More drinks will be given for sale.

C．Milk in the grocery store will stay fresh much longer.

D．Milk will be harmful to health.

3. Which of the following is mentioned in the text?

A．Cars will be able to drive automatically(自动地).

B．Fridges will know what people need.

C．Jacket sleeves can be used as a guide.

D．Nothing can replace the Internet.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．Food and clothing in 2035

B．The reason for the success of new technology.

C．Medical treatments of the future.

D．Future technology in everyday life.