I sat in the breakfast corner with my four-year-old son, Matthew, trying to ignore the ache in my stomach. I was still recovering from a surgery. I hoped for strength and happiness. But the future seemed so hopeless.
Matthew jumped up from his spot on the kitchen floor. “Bird!” he shouted, rushing to the sliding door. Sure enough, there was a white dove seated on a rubber tree. It sat there a few moments, and then flew away. I’d never seen one in our neighborhood before.
When I dragged myself to the kitchen the next morning, the dove was back. This time it was with a mate carrying twigs (嫩枝), “Look, Matthew,” I said, pointing to the tree. “They’re going to make a nest.” The doves flew in and out of the courtyard all week, building on the top of the rubber tree. Matthew could hardly contain his excitement. Every morning, he’d run into the kitchen and take his spot by the sliding glass door, talking to the birds while they worked. As much as I was grieving (感到悲伤), I couldn’t help but look forward to the doves’ visits too. We watched their progress as if it were a real-life soap opera unfolding before us. Gradually, my pain disappeared, replaced by joy.
Then it all went wrong. The courtyard was a safe enough spot for a nest, but the rubber tree’s broad, thin leaves were far from stable. One night, a strong wind blew through, throwing the doves’ nest to the ground. I heard the twigs break apart. Nothing good ever lasts. I wouldn’t blame the doves if they never came back. But they returned. And they paid no attention to the pi le of sticks that had once been their nest. They started again from scratch, though the wind destroyed all their hard work. The next day, and the next, they renewed their efforts, as if nothing had happened.
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。
Paragraph 1: I knew I had to do something for the poor creatures.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2:“The birds were back!” Matthew announced.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________2 . The photographs that Scilla took as a 16-year-old girl on the streets of London in 1955 stayed largely in her album (相册) over the years. Scilla is now 83, and her self-developed black-and-white photos have been brought back to life after they were discovered by a teenage photographer.
Over the past year, Philip Loveday, 16, has been revisiting his grandmother’s path across the capital to carefully rephotograph the pictures. His journey through time with a camera has been especially moving, because his grandmother, Scilla, has Alzheimer’s disease (阿尔茨海默症) and has lost many of her memories.
Philip took new photos that looked like the ones Scilla took long ago, and put them in a new album. Each page of Scilla’s old album was copied and put in the new one, with Philip’s new photos on the opposite pages. Philip’s mother, Catherine Loveday, said Scilla had been happy with the new album, which had “put her back in her shoes” as a teenager.
Philip said his mother showed him the album she had found at her mother’s house. Greatly absorbed in how modern London would compare to the city photographed by his grandmother, Philip and his mother began to make trips into central London. During the trips, they had the idea of retaking the photos.
Some of the places are similar, like Big Ben. Others show how the city has modernized. Unlike Scilla’s view of St. Paul’s Cathedral from the Thames, Philip’s retake has the Millenium Bridge. When Scilla photographed the John Lewis store on Oxford Street, it was a one-storey building — now it has seven floors. Philip had to use his imagination to recreate other sights. Scilla has repeatedly returned to her new album since receiving it. Philip said: “It’s nice for her to see someone taking an interest in those photos and going back over them, and also good for her to connect her past to where we are now.”
1. What did Philip do for Scilla during the past year?| A．He taught her how to use a camera. |
| B．He took her to visit London streets. |
| C．He found a new way to treat her disease. |
| D．He recreated photos of London she had taken. |
| A．It inspired her to take photos. | B．It made her think of her teenage days. |
| C．It encouraged her to travel across London. | D．It raised her confidence to fight off illness. |
| A．Troubled. | B．Interested. | C．Experienced. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．A teenager sensed the great changes of London. |
| B．An old lady suffered a lot from Alzheimer’s disease. |
| C．A teenager and his mother travelled to London for fun. |
| D．A teenager’s photos helped recover his grandmother’s memory. |
3 . Hang your tongue out of your mouth while your eyes look upwards. Breathe loudly and use your hands to pull your head in every way. This is yoga (瑜伽) for your face.
Fumiko Takatsu, creator of the Face Yoga Method, has written six books on face yoga and has been practicing facial exercises for about 15 years. Takatsu, 50, said she came up with the idea of facial exercises after a car accident when she was 35 years old, which left her face out of its proper position. Around the same time, Takatsu said she began to notice signs of aging, but gave up using creams and beauty treatments after they became too expensive.
Koko Hayashi, 39, a face yoga instructor in Los Angeles, said she first heard of face yoga by discovering Takatsu’s work. Hayashi said she had a chin implant (下巴植入体) when she was 27 years old, but took it out because it misshaped her face. “That’s why I’m so interested in more natural beauty instead of plastic surgery (整形手术),” Hayashi said. Like others who practice facial exercises, Hayashi believes it can fix signs of aging and help reduce wrinkles (皱纹).
The question that often pops up when someone mentions face yoga is, “Does it actually work?” A study out of Northwestern University found that the exercises may help middle-aged women.
“This is a pilot study that suggests that there might be some factors of face exercise that can be helpful to at least certain patients in improving certain signs of aging,” said Dr. Murad Alam from Northwestern University.” But we need more studies to better understand exactly how much exercise is necessary to have any benefit, whether it works for men and women of different ages, and then how much exercise is needed to keep that benefit.”
Medical reporter Dr. Jennifer Ashton said that she is not sure whether face yoga works and that any benefits are most likely going to be up to the person trying it. “If you feel better after trying face yoga, it may be something you should keep doing,” she said.
1. What made Takatsu decide to create the Face Yoga Method?| A．An unexpected car accident. | B．Great interest in doing yoga. |
| C．Unaffordable beauty treatments. | D．Unsatisfactory effects of creams. |
| A．She wrote a book about face yoga. | B．She followed in Takatsu’s footsteps. |
| C．She had a plastic surgery two years ago. | D．She had always admired natural beauty. |
| A．The study is helpful but more research is needed. |
| B．Face yoga is more suitable for women than men. |
| C．Face yoga needs much too exercise to bring benefits. |
| D．The study is well-designed but the findings are worthless. |
| A．Its key point is keeping exercising. |
| B．It can stop all kinds of signs of aging. |
| C．Its advantages outweigh its disadvantages. |
| D．Its effectiveness depends on personal feelings. |
6 . Challenges are part of life and something we can all expect to encounter at one point or another during our lifetime. We handle challenges differently;some of us choose to face them head-on, while others flee in uncertainty.
Educate ourselves. The reason why some issues prove challenging for us is that we aren’t familiar with them.
Be persistent. This is what is required to accomplish anything, especially when it comes to overcoming challenges. No matter how difficult our challenges might be, we must be willing to push through and try again and again until we achieve victory over them.
Ask for help. There are times when we can’t go it alone and need others to help us conquer whatever challenges we face.
| A．Meet them head-on. |
| B．Adapt a different strategy. |
| C．It is said that two heads are better than one. |
| D．If we give up, we allow the challenges to conquer us instead. |
| E．Therefore, our knowledge and ability to conquer them is limited. |
| F．Whatever our positions, we all wish to conquer them and move on. |
| G．Some challenges can be overwhelming, making us question our ability to overcome them. |
1. A stay in the country will be beneficial to his health.
2. Many of his songs drew inspiration from his experience as a farmer.
3. When Helen criticized (批评) me, Chris came to my defense.
4. It gives you a sense of achievement if you actually make it to the end of a very long book.
5. He was very angry with the man’s improper conduct.
6. Advertising and promotion are what this company does best.
7. She would only play a role if she could identify with the character.
8. The competition was extremely tough this year with 350 applicants applying for the five positions.
9. Some flats are being torn down to make room for a bank.
10. The retired man donated most of his savings to the school damaged by the earthquake.
1. [ˈænsestə(r)]
2. [ɪndɪˈvɪdʒuəl]
3. [kənˈfɜːm]
4. [ˈstrætədʒi]
5. [rɪˌspɒnsəˈbɪləti]
6. [ˈɡrædʒuət]
9 . Blind people have long desired for brightness, but scientists don’t have the technology. To bring that one step closer to reality, Zhiyong Fan, a materials scientist of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, developed a new artificial eye recently. The device, which is about as sensitive to light and has sharper vision and a faster reaction time than a real eyeball, may outperform human eyes.
The human eye owes its wide field of view and clear eyesight to the retina (视网膜) — an area at the back of the eyeball covered in light-detecting cells. The design for a new artificial eye is based on the structure of the human eye and uses a friendly light-sensitive material. At the back of the eyeball, an artificial retina is lined with Nan scale light sensors (纳米级光感器). Those sensors measure light that passes through the lens (晶状体) at the front of the eye. Wires attached to the back of the retina send signals from those sensors to the processor, similar to the way nerve networks connect the eyeball to the brain.
“In the future, we can use this to replace damaged human eyes,” says the lead designer. In theory, this artificial eye could see more clearly than the human eye, because the artificial retina contains about 460 million light sensors per square centimeter while a real retina has about 10 million light-detecting cells per square centimeter. Besides, the artificial eyeball records changes in lighting faster than human eyes can — within about 30 to 40 milliseconds, rather than 40 to 150 milliseconds. Although its 100-degree field of view isn’t as broad as the150 degrees a human eye can take in, the device can see as well as the human eye in poor light.
Hongrui Jiang, an electrical engineer at the University of Wisconsin, though, thinks engineers need a much more practical and efficient way to produce vast series of tiny wires on the back of the artificial eyeball to give it superhuman sight, which is super hard to achieve.
1. Why does Zhiyong Fan develop the artificial eye?| A．To replace people’s real eyeballs. | B．To gain a sharper vision. |
| C．To help the blind regain their eyesight. | D．To help normal eyes perform better. |
| A．The design of the artificial eye. | B．The structure of the human eye. |
| C．The advantages of the artificial eye. | D．The material used for the artificial eye. |
| A．They have the same structure. |
| B．The artificial eye may see more clearly. |
| C．The human eye sees better in weak light. |
| D．The artificial eye takes in a broader view. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Favorable. | C．Unconcerned. | D．Satisfied. |
