1 . Directions: Read the following passage. 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.

It's undeniable: Being among the first to try out a new piece of technology is cool. There's the excitement of doing what has never been done before-the feeling that you're living in the future. And when you're the sole member of your social circle with the latest hot gadget, people stare in fascination. They ask you questions. They see you as the holder of powerful, secret knowledge-for a little while, until the next big thing comes along. People tend to underestimate the costs of this temporary coolness, which they pay in more ways than one. Don't fall into the early adopter trap. Don't join the first wave of consumers who invest in the latest media-hyped hardware; instead, wait and see.

To put it frankly, early adoption is a bad investment. First, the earliest versions of devices are not only expensive, they are also the most expensive that those devices will ever be. Companies are presumably attempting to recover the cost of production as fast as they can, and they know that there are serious tech-lovers who will pay a great deal to be first. Once the revenues from early adopters' purchases are safely in their hands, they can cut the price and shift to the next marketing phase: selling the product to everyone else. This is why the cost of the original iPhone dropped about U. S. $200 only eight months after its release. Plus, electronics hardly ever become more expensive because intense competition in the industry puts downward pressure on prices over time. Prices of gadgets will fall shortly after release, and they will likely keep falling. Many new TV models drop significantly in price as little as ten days after hitting the market. Further, electronics rapidly depreciate because they become obsolete (废弃的)so quickly. This means that early adopters pay the maximum price for an item that does not hold onto its value. The resale price of a cell phone or laptop can drop by fifty percent within just a few months.

Speaking of becoming obsolete, those who are first to leap into a new technology risk (三野志) wasting money and time on something that will never catch on. Another good reason to resist the early-adoption temptation is that the first version of a product typically has defects that cost a lot in time and frustration. Such problems are so common with new technology that early adopters are basically unpaid beta testers and troubleshooters. Unless this sounds to you like a fun way to spend your time, don't be among the first users. If you wait to learn what the problems are with a new electronic gadget, you can look forward to a smoother experience—or choose a less troublesome product.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2 . 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 of your age could live to 150, so, at 40, you aren't old at all. And your parents just had an anti-aging(抗衰老）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. They can be programmed to change your clothes' color or pattern.

You walk into the kitchen. You pick up the milk from the fridge, but a voice says, “You shouldn't drink that!” Your fridge has read the smart 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 sleeves. Such＂smart technology" is all around you.

So will all these things come true?"For new technology to come early,"says scientist Andrew Zolli,“much has to be done so that new things will replace what we have today."The Internet is an example-what will be the next?

1. What is the theme of the text?

A．The Internet.	B．The future life.
C．The anti-aging technology.	D．The ways of transportation.

2. What does the underlined word"They" in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．Clothes.

B．Cells.

C．Colors.

D．Particles.

3. Which of the following is TRUE about the "smart car"?

A．It can change its color.	B．It can tell you where to go.
C．You can, just tell it where to go.	D．You can call your friend to drive it for you.

4. What does the last paragraph tell us?

A．Nothing is impossible.

B．Every coin has two·sides.

C．Where there is a will, there is a way.

D．Never count the chicken before they are hatched(孵化）。

5. In which section of a newspaper can you probably read the text?

A．Science.

B．Health.

C．Fashion.

D．Advertisement.

3 . In the future, when robots can be used both in homes and in other areas, they could improve the living standards of people.     1     When robots can complete such jobs, people can spend more time with their family and friends.

Experts believe robots can be used on certain jobs to avoid accidents caused by careless behavior of some people. When robots are used on such work, it does not risk any human life due to accidents at the workplace. Human resources can be efficiently used by performing tasks which demand human skills like critical thinking and problem solving.     2    

While some people talk about how robots can be useful to humans, others voice their concerns. When robots become cheaper to produce, employers may prefer to use more robots than humans. As the technology constantly improves the abilities of robots, it could weaken the value of humans.     3     Some may even develop the habit of using robots on tasks that they can easily do. This could create a lazy society.

    4     Without them, the nation’s health care system will break down. There will simply be too many elderly people to care for as the nation faces a decreasing birth rate, an aging population, and the loosening of family ties.     5     Above all, Japan needs its dreams of robots in the home to come true because its immigration policy is anti-immigration.

A．Robots have been widely used in Japan.

B．Many people may rely on robots heavily.

C．They can free people from such tasks as cooking.

D．Most people believe robots have changed their life.

E．Japan sees it as a must to build robots to take care of the elderly.

F．Robots can be also used on low-end jobs like moving heavy things.

G．However, many elderly people would prefer human helpers to robots.

4 . 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。

Every new year of the last decade I set a personal challenge. My goal was       1       (grow) in new ways outside my day-to-day work running Facebook. These       2     (lead) me to learn Mandarin, code an AI assistant for my home, read more books, run a lot more, and get       3     (comfortable) with public speaking.

When I started these challenges, my life was almost all about building the Facebook website. Now there’s so much more to learn. At Facebook, we’re building lots of different apps and technology and we’re handling a lot more social       4     (responsible). And   outside Facebook, I’m a father now and I love spending time with my family, working on our charity and improving at the sports and hobbies I       5     (pick) up over the past years.

This decade I’m going to take       6     longer term focus. Rather than having year-to-year challenges, I’ve tried to think about       7     the world and my life will be like in 2030 so I can make sure I’m focusing       8       those things. By then, if things go well, my daughter Max will be in high school. We’ll have the technology to feel       9       (true) present with another person no matter where they are, and scientific research will have helped cure       10       prevent enough diseases to increase our average life expectancy(平均寿命) by another 2.5 years.

5 . 你们学校校报正在向学生征稿，稿件内容是关于未来的学校。请根据表格中记录的要点写一篇标题为“未来的学校（Future Schools）”的英语文章向校报投稿。
注意：1. 词数100左右；文章的开头已经为你写好，不计入总词数；
2. 可以适当增加细节，使行文连贯；
3. 文中不得透漏个人姓名和学校名称。

School Life: different activities; richer and more interesting; teachers and students get along well

Building and equipment: modern; easy to use; everything run by computer

Subjects: more subjects to choose from; most subjects offered on the Internet

Ways of learning: learn at school or at home; choose teachers

Future Schools

In the future, schools will be different in many ways from what they are now.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6 . 阅读下面短文,按照句子结构的语法性和上下文连贯的要求,霍空格处填入一个适当的词或使用括号中词语的正确形式填空。

Robots have been widely used in our daily life. They can be     1     (see) in many factories today and have gone to such far places as     2     moon. Some robots can” see"     3    ( clear). For they use TV cameras as their     4     (eye), Many robots have computer brains, Now they have even come into       5       (we) homes and work as       6     (help) at home , Not only can they do simple jobs for us ,such as     7       (put) things into boxes , but also they can look    8     babies Unlike human beings       9     needy sleep, robots can work 24 hours a day. In the future, with the aid of robots, our life will become much     10     (easy) than before.

7 .

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

8 . 下面文章中有3处需要添加小标题。请从以下选项（A、B、C和D）中选出符合各段意思的小标题，并在答题纸上将相应选项的标号涂黑。选项中有一项为多余选项。

Man has been interested in robots for quite some time. Scientists are always inventing new and good robots, which will play an important role in our future lives.

    1    

They will take over jobs such as preparing meals, washing dishes, and sweeping the floor, so that we will have more free time to have fun.

    2    

They will do all the heave and dangerous work, and be put in hospitals, schools and offices.

    3    

Whenever we feel sad, lonely or upset, we can have a chat with a robot. Robots will not only be good friends but they will also offer us good advice.

In conclusion, robots will be more and more intelligent and will benefit us in many ways.

A. Robots will be our friends.
B. Robots will help us with our work.
C. Robots will be of help in doing housework.
D. Robots will replace humans in many ways.