1 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

For thousands of years, people have told fables (寓言)     1     (teach) a lesson or to pass on wisdom. Fables were part of the oral tradition of many early cultures, and the well-known Aesop’s fables date to the     2     (six) century, B. C. Yet, the form of the fable still has values today,     3     Rachel Carson says in “A Fable for Tomorrow.”

Carson uses a simple, direct style common to fable. In fact, her style and tone (口吻) are seemingly directed at children. “There was once a town in the heart of America,     4     all life seemed to enjoy peaceful existence with its surroundings,” her fable begins,     5     (borrow) some familiar words from many age-old fables. Behind the simple style, however, is a serious message     6     (intend) for everyone.

    7     (difference) from traditional fables, Carson’s story ends with an accusation instead of a moral. She warns of the environmental dangers facing society, and she teaches that people must take responsibility     8     saving their environment.

The themes of traditional fables often deal with simple truths about everyday life. However, Carson’s theme is a more weighty     9     (warn) about environmental destruction. Carson proves that a simple literal form that has been passed down through the ages can still     10     (employ) today to draw attention to important truths.

2 . With gas prices rising and airport security lines snaking longer than ever, why not book your next domestic vacation on a train? Compared to other alternatives, it’s comfortable and relaxing. Here is some advice on how to make a trip by rail as pleasant as possible.

Plan ahead. Most long-distance trains, especially the sleeping car accommodations, sell out very quickly.     1     But no matter when you travel, it’s a good idea to make your reservations at least 90 days in advance.

Use a travel agent. Consider turning your travel plan over to a travel agent and letting him double-check all the details, make suggestions, and then handle the actual reservations. A good one can sometimes find you discounted tickets.     2     Then you won’t have to walk through several cars on a moving train three times a day for your meals.

Bring a blanket. When you’re riding on trains, you won’t be provided with a blanket for free, even if your trip is an overnight one.     3     In the summer in particular, the air conditioning can make them quite cold.

Arrive early. Most trains operate just once a day and some run only three times a week, so missing yours can be a disaster.     4     Note: The times listed on the schedules are departure times, not arrival times.

Have fun.     5     Read a book, knit, do a crossword puzzle, or simply watch the world unfold outside the window. To calculate your speed as you do, divide 3,600(the number of seconds in an hour)by the number of seconds it takes you to travel one mile(the distance between two mileposts). If it takes the train 53 seconds to travel one mile, you’re going 67.92 mph.

A．Train trips aren’t for impatient types.

B．You’ll have views from both sides of the train.

C．The temperature on rail cars is often hard to control.

D．That’s particularly true during busy summer months.

E．You might have to wait longer than 24 hours to catch the next one.

F．Chances are the cost will be a lot less than the cost of one bedroom.

G．He may also book you in a sleeping car that’s right next to the diner.

3 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

A MOTHER’S DAY SURPRISE

The twins were filled with excitement as they thought of the surprise they were planning for Mother’s Day. How pleased and proud Mother would be when they brought her breakfast in bed. They planned to make French toast and chicken porridge. They had watched their mother in the kitchen. There was nothing to it. Jenna and Jeff knew exactly what to do.

The big day came at last. The alarm rang at 6 a.m. The pair went down the stairs quietly to the kitchen. They decided to boil the porridge first. They put some rice into a pot of water and left it to boil while they made the French toast. Jeff broke two eggs into a plate and added in some milk. Jenna found the bread and put two slices into the egg mixture. Next, Jeff turned on the second stove burner to heat up the frying pan. Everything was going smoothly until Jeff started frying the bread. The pan was too hot and the bread turned black within seconds. Jenna threw the burnt piece into the   sink and put in the other slice of bread. This time, she turned down the fire so it cooked nicely.

Then Jeff noticed steam shooting out of the pot and the lid starting to shake. The next minute, the porridge boiled over and put out the fire. Jenna panicked. Thankfully, Jeff stayed calm and turned off the gas quickly. But the stove was a mess now. Jenna told Jeff to clean it up so they could continue to cook the rest of the porridge. But Jeff’s hand touched the hot burner and he gave a cry of pain. Jenna made him put his hand in cold water. Then she caught the smell of burning. Oh dear! The piece of bread in the pan had turned black as well.

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。

As the twins looked around them in disappointment, their father appeared.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The twins carried the breakfast upstairs and woke their mother up.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4 . Rome can be pricey for travelers, which is why many choose to stay in a hostel (旅社). The hostels in Rome offer a bed in a dorm room for around $25 a night, and for that, you’ll often get to stay in a central location (位置) with security and comfort.

Yellow Hostel

If I had to make just one recommendation for where to stay in Rome, it would be Yellow Hostel. It’s one of the best-rated hostels in the city, and for good reason. It’s affordable, and it’s got a fun atmosphere without being too noisy. As an added bonus, it’s close to the main train station.

Hostel Alessandro Palace

If you love social hostels, this is the best hostel for you in Rome. Hostel Alessandro Palace is fun. Staff members hold plenty of bar events for guests like free shots, bar crawls and karaoke. There’s also an area on the rooftop for hanging out with other travelers during the summer.

Youth Station Hostel

If you’re looking for cleanliness and a modern hostel, look no further than Youth Station. It offers beautiful furnishings and beds. There are plenty of other benefits, too; it doesn’t charge city tax; it has both air conditioning and a heater for the rooms; it also has free Wi-Fi in every room.

Hotel and Hostel Des Artistes

Hotel and Hostel Des Artistes is located just a 10-minute walk from the central city station and it’s close to all of the city’s main attractions. The staff is friendly and helpful, providing you with a map of the city when you arrive, and offering advice if you require some. However, you need to pay 2 euros a day for Wi-Fi.

1. What is probably the major concern of travelers who choose to stay in a hostel?

A．Comfort.	B．Security.
C．Price.	D．Location.

2. Which hotel best suits people who enjoy an active social life?

A．Yellow Hostel.	B．Hostel Alessandro Palace.
C．Youth Station Hostel.	D．Hotel and Hostel Des Artistes.

3. What is the disadvantage of Hotel and Hostel Des Artistes?

A．It gets noisy at night.	B．Its staff is too talkative.
C．It charges for Wi-Fi.	D．It’s inconveniently located.

5 . By day, Robert Titterton is a lawyer. In his spare  time though he goes on stage beside pianist Maria Raspopova — not as a musician but as her page turner. “I’m not a trained musician, but I’ve learnt to read music so I can help Maria in her performance.”

Mr Titterton is chairman of the Omega Ensemble but has been the group’s official page turner for the past four years. His job is to sit beside   the pianist and turn the pages of the score so the musician doesn’t have to break the flow of sound by doing it themselves. He said he became just as nervous as those playing instruments on stage.

“A lot of skills are needed for the job. You have to make sure you don’t turn two pages at once and make sure you find the repeats in the music   when you have to go back to the right spot.” Mr Titterton explained.

Being a page turner requires plenty of practice. Some pieces of music can go for 40 minutes and require up to 50 page turns, including back turns for repeat passages. Silent onstage communication is key, and each pianist has their own style of “nodding” to indicate a page turn which they need to practise with their page turner.

But like all performances, there are moments when things go wrong. “I was turning the page to get ready for the next page, but the draft wind from the turn caused the spare pages to fall off the stand,” Mr Titterton said, “Luckily I was able to catch them and put them back.”

Most page turners are piano students or up-and-coming concert pianists, although Ms Raspopova has once asked her husband to   help her out on stage.

“My husband is the worst page turner,” she laughed. “He’s interested in the music, feeling every note, and I have to say: ‘Turn, turn!’ Robert is the best page turner I’ve had in my entire life.”

1. What should Titterton be able to do to be a page turner?

A．Read music.	B．Play the piano.
C．Sing songs.	D．Fix the instruments.

2. Which of the following best describes Titterton’s job on stage?

A．Boring.	B．Well-paid.
C．Demanding.	D．Dangerous.

3. What does Titterton need to practise?

A．Counting the pages.	B．Recognizing the “nodding”.
C．Catching falling objects.	D．Performing in his own style.

4. Why is Ms Raspopova’s husband “the worst page turner”?

A．He has very poor eyesight.	B．He ignores the audience.
C．He has no interest in music.	D．He forgets to do his job.

6 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

The Xi’an City Wall is the most complete city wall that has survived China’s long history. It     1     (build) originally to protect the city     2     the Tang dynasty and has now been completely restored (修复). It is possible       3     (walk) or bike the entire 14 kilometers.

We accessed the wall through the South Gate. The wall is 12 meters high and from here you can see streams of people moving inside and outside the City Wall.

After     4     (spend) some time looking at all the defensive equipment at the wall, we decided it was time for some action and what     5     (good) than to ride on a piece of history!

We     6     (hire) our bikes from the rental place at the South Gate. My bike was old and shaky     7     did the job. It took us about 3 hours to go all     8     way around the Xi’an City Wall. Supposedly you can do it in two hours, but we stopped at the different gates and     9     (watchtower) to take pictures or just to watch the local people going about their     10     (day) routines.

7 . According to Jessica Hagy, author of How to Be Interesting, it’s not difficult to make yourself interesting at a dinner party.

    1    , if you’re out of your comfort zone or if you’re wandering into somebody’s house for the first time. So the main thing is just to show up and be adventurous, trying different foods and talking to strangers.

People love to talk about themselves. If you can start the conversation with a question other than “What do you do for a living?”, you’ll be able to get a lot more interesting conversation out of whomever it is you’re talking to.     2    , it can bring in “I have this old, broken-down vehicle” or “I rode the bus with these crazy people who were laughing at silly jokes in the back.” It just opens up conversation.

    3    ? If you can’t take their wine away, you should certainly try to take away their soapbox (讲台). If you’re the host, you can ask them to help you in the kitchen with something and just remove them from the situation.    4    .

And what about that other dinner-party killer: awkward silence? If you’re faced with an awkward silence at a dinner party, the only thing that always gets everyone talking again is to give the host a compliment (赞扬).     5    . Just quickly turn around and say, “This cake is extremely delicious and you have to tell me all about it.”

So being interesting at a dinner party isn’t that hard.

A．How do you know the host

B．The first step is to go exploring

C．If you ask the question “How did you get here?”

D．Be prepared to have awkward conversations with strangers

E．Or turn the conversation into a topic where they have little to say

F．What about that person who had too much to drink or won’t stop talking

G．He or she is the person who is feeling the weight of that awkwardness the most

8 . 阅读下面材料, 在空白处填入适当的内容（一个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。

Kim Cobb, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, is one of a small but growing minority of academics     1     are cutting back on their air travel because of climate change. Travelling to conferences, lectures, workshops, and the like frequently by plane       2    （view） as important for scientists to get together and exchange information. But Cobb and others     3     （be） now questioning that idea pushing conferences to provide more chances to participate remotely, and     4    （change） their personal behavior to do their part in dealing with the climate change crisis. On a website called No Fly Climate Sci, for example,     5    （rough） 200 academics - many of them climate scientists     6     （promise） to fly as little as possible since the effort started two years ago.

Cobb, for her part, started to ask conference organizers who invited her to speak     7     she could do so remotely; about three-quarters of     8     time, they agreed. When the answer, was no, she, declined the     9     （invite）. That approach brought Cobb's air travel last year down by 75%, and she plans     10    （continue） the practice. "It has been fairly rewarding. ", she says, "a really positive change."

9 . Over the past 38 years, Mr. Wang has pretended to be someone else many times,and has even learned to ________ different dialects (方言), leading to him being described as an “Oscar-winning actor”.

The 60-year-old is not an actor, but a ________ However,he is more devoted to his “________ ” than any real actor.

In the 1990s, a group of thieves often sold stolen goods with the help of some beggars. To look into the ________, Wang disguised (伪装) himself and ________ the beggars. Dirty shorts and old shoes gave him the ________ of a real beggar and his convincing dialect soon won him the ________ of the beggars.

“I often ________ them to drink alcohol. Once they were ________,they began to talk a lot,"Wang said. “I'd then ________ myself to use the toilet, ________ what the beggars said, and send the ________ to my teammates.”

Wang, who is often in ________ situations, is also a judo (柔道) master.   “As long as I get close enough, no criminal can ________ from me,” he said.

Wang's ________ won him several honors, including a National May Day Labor Medal and 11 Citations of Merit.

1.

A．teach

B．compare

C．assess

D．speak

2.

A．lawyer

B．doctor

C．policeman

D．businessman

3.

A．role

B．study

C．family

D．audience

4.

A．minor

B．case

C．future

D．question

5.

A．interviewed

B．joined

C．arrested

D．assisted

6.

A．challenge

B．experience

C．appearance

D．freedom

7.

A．vote

B．sympathy

C．permission

D．trust

8.

A．invited

B．forced

C．helped

D．expected

9.

A．drunk

B．deserted

C．bored

D．lost

10.

A．guide

B．persuade

C．excuse

D．allow

11.

A．refer to

B．note down

C．ask about

D．miss out

12.

A．plan

B．agreement

C．direction

D．information

13.

A．awkward

B．dangerous

C．unfortunate

D．strange

14.

A．separate

B．recover

C．escape

D．hear

15.

A．courage

B．honesty

C．kindness

D．optimism

10 . What is life? Like most great questions, this one is easy to ask but difficult to answer. The reason is simple: we know of just one type of life and it’s challenging to do science with a sample size of one. The field of artificial life-called ALife for short — is the systematic attempt to spell out life’s fundamental principles. Many of these practitioners, so-called ALifers, think that somehow making life is the surest way to really understand what life is.

So far no one has convincingly made artificial life. This track record makes ALife a ripe target for criticism, such as declarations of the field’s doubtful scientific value. Alan Smith, a complexity scientist, is tired of such complaints. Asking about “the point” of ALife might be, well, missing the point entirely, he says. “The existence of a living system is not about the use of anything.” Alan says. “Some people ask me, ‘So what’s the worth of artificial life?’ Do you ever think, ‘What is the worth of your grandmother?’”

As much as many ALifers hate emphasizing their research’s applications, the attempts to create artificial life could have practical payoffs. Artificial intelligence may be considered ALife’s cousin in that researchers in both fields are enamored by a concept called open-ended evolution (演化). This is the capacity for a system to create essentially endless complexity, to be a sort of “novelty generator”. The only system known to exhibit this is Earth’s biosphere. If the field of ALife manages to reproduce life’s endless “creativity” in some virtual model, those same principles could give rise to truly inventive machines.

Compared with the developments of Al, advances in ALife are harder to recognize. One reason is that ALife is a field in which the central concept — life itself — is undefined. The lack of agreement among ALifers doesn’t help either. The result is a diverse line of projects that each advance along their unique paths. For better or worse, ALife mirrors the very subject it studies. Its muddled (混乱的) progression is a striking parallel (平行线) to the evolutionary struggles that have shaped Earth biosphere.

Undefined and uncontrolled, ALife drives its followers to repurpose old ideas and generated novelty. It may be, of course, that these characteristics aren’t in any way surprising or singular. They may apply universally to all acts of evolution. Ultimately ALife may be nothing special. But even this dismissal suggests something：perhaps, just like life itself throughout the universe, the rise of ALife will prove unavoidable.

1. Regarding Alan Smith’s defence of ALife, the author is      .

A．supportive

B．puzzled

C．unconcerned

D．doubtful

2. What does the word “enamored” underlined in Paragraph 3 most probably mean?

A．Shocked.

B．Protected.

C．Attracted.

D．Challenged.

3. What can we learn from this passage?

A．ALife holds the key to human future.	B．ALife and AI share a common feature.
C．AI mirrors the developments of ALife.	D．AI speeds up the process of human evolution.

4. Which would be the best title for the passage?

A．Life Is Undefined. Can AI Be a Way Out?

B．Life Evolves. Can AI Help ALife Evolve, Too?

C．Life Is Undefined. Can ALife Be Defined One Day?

D．Life Evolves. Can Attempts to Create ALife Evolve, Too?