| A．Exciting. | B．Funny. | C．Outdated. | D．Terrible. |
2 . Classics for Kids-A concert for kids but open to all
Our annual children’s concert is here again! Enjoy a delightful afternoon of light classical music by the Municipal Orchestra (MO) that is sure to impress the young ones and the adults as well.
1st to 3rd June 2 pm to 3:30 pm At the Esplanade
Ticket Prices!
$20 for standard seats
$30 for premium seats
Where to purchase your tickets?
Ticketing office at the Esplanade
Online purchase from our website: www.tickets-online.org
Download the MO from our website and purchase your tickets via your smartphone.
Early bird discount!
10% discount if you book online by 1st May and receive a free CD. “Pomp and Circumstance”, containing pieces that will not be played at the concert.
| The Municipal Orchestra The MO is an eighty member orchestra that was formed in 1988. It was first suggested by a businessman Mr. Soon. Mr. Soon felt that it was about time that the district had a formal orchestra. Together with well-known celebrities, he helped raise the funds and started the orchestra. The orchestra is fully committed to its mission of bringing classical music to the general public. It was MO’s conductor, who started the “Classics for Kids” concert. The conductor is a graduate of the London School of Music and is a champion of classical music. |
| What our fans have to say: “I simply adore the MO conductor who is simply masterful! The way he conducts the orchestra is a joy to behold! Thanks Mom and Dad for taking me!” Bermard Lee (12 years old) “The MO musicians are superbly talented and show a real desire to want to share good music with the audience. My two children simply lapped it up.” Mr. Peter Lim (a dedicated music lover) |
| A．The orchestra is only for children. |
| B．The orchestra has 82 members including the conductor. |
| C．The orchestra was started by the local government. |
| D．The orchestra’s main task is to make classical music acceptable to ordinary people. |
| A．$18 | B．$20 | C．$27 | D．$30 |
| A．To show the talent of the conductor. |
| B．To call on more audience to enjoy the concert. |
| C．To show the standards of concert hall. |
| D．To show the origin of the orchestra. |
3 . False medical news can lead to patients’ experiencing greater side effects through the “nocebo effect (反安慰剂效果)”. Sometimes patients benefit from an intervention simply because they believe they will- -that’s the placebo effect. The nocebo effect is the opposite: Patients can experience negative effects just because they expect them. This is very true of statins. In blinded trials, patients who get statins are no more likely to report feeling muscle aches than patients who get a placebo. Yet, in clinical practice, according to one study, almost a fifth of patients taking statins report side effects, leading many to discontinue the drugs.
What else is on the fake news hit list? As always, vaccines. False concerns that the vaccine for the virus called human papilloma virus causes seizures (癫痫) and other side effects reduced coverage rates in Japan from 10 percent to less than 1 percent in recent years.
Cancer is another big target for pushers of medical misinformation — many of whom are making money off alternative therapies. “Though most people think cancer tumors are bad, they’re actually the way your body attempts to contain the harmful cells,” one fake news story reads. It suggests that surgery increases the risk of spreading harmful cells.
Silicon Valley needs to own this problem. When human health is at risk, perhaps search engines, social media platforms and websites should be held responsible for promoting or hosting fake information. The scientific community needs to do its part to educate the public about key concepts in research, such as the difference between observational studies and higher quality randomized trials.
Finally, journalists can do a better job of spreading accurate information. News sites are more likely to cover catchy observational studies than randomized controlled trials, perhaps because the latter are less likely to produce surprising results. Such coverage can overstate benefits, claiming for example, that statins could cure cancer; it can unduly emphasize potential risks, such as suggesting a misleading connection with dementia, a serious mental disorder.
1. What does the writer imply about the side effects of statins?| A．They are common in certain patients. |
| B．They aren’t like those of placebos. |
| C．They don’t really exist. |
| D．They disappear very soon. |
| A．The public should put more trust in news coverage. |
| B．Silicon Valley ought to take the blame for the fake medicine. |
| C．The scientific community ought to involve the public in research. |
| D．Journalists should be objective while reporting medical news. |
| A．on a small scale | B．overly | C．as likely as not | D．universally |
| A．To warn readers against fake medical news on the Internet. |
| B．To encourage journalists to report more positive news events. |
| C．To tell readers what role the “nocebo effect” plays in treating disease. |
| D．To teach readers how to distinguish truths from fake news. |
How your unique story can get you hired?
You’re sitting at your computer to apply for your dream job, but suddenly you’re not confident enough to get it. So you don’t even submit the application. It is natural for you to experience self-doubt at such a crucial moment, especially if you’re people of color, first generation college student, or you don’t have a traditional background. The secret is to transform how you perceive your own story.
Ask yourself two questions. The first one: why do you want to do this work? Maybe you already know the kind of job or work environment that makes you happy, or maybe you haven’t quite figured that out yet. Usually, your personal experiences can help give you clues. For example, your brother had to overcome his dyslexia (诵读困难症), and you helped him with his reading. Gradually, you became interested in education. That motivated you to work as a teacher.
The second question you have to ask yourself: how can you tell your story to exhibit the unique qualities you have? For example, you undertook multiple jobs unrelated to your major while you were in college. When you’re in an interview, go ahead and talk about them, because it will show the employer that you have time management skills and a strong passion for work. Employers are looking for well-rounded individuals that are capable of accomplishing various job tasks.
Go back and reflect on those tough questions that you need to answer. The answers are what makes you you. Reframing your story can remake your confidence over and over again, but it takes time. It’s like running a marathon. You have to train and practice. When you learn to practice your story, tell it with assurance. You’re sure to stand out among all the candidates.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9 . Flamingos (火烈鸟) make long friendships
When it comes to making friends, humans often seek people with similar interests and personalities.
Scientist Dr Paul Rose had already spotted that flamingos seemed to form narrow exclusive circles.
Each bird wore a ring around one leg with a unique code to tell them apart. McCully spent months studying their behaviour and built a personality profile for each flamingo. She found that confident, aggressive flamingos walked proudly around in their friendship groups, while the quieter birds carefully avoid those individuals.
McCully and Rose found that for the Caribbean birds, personality seemed to matter more in friendships than it did for Chilean flamingos. Caribbean birds were more likely to defend their friends and the confident ones had much larger social groups than the quieter birds. The researchers found this surprising because in many ways, including body shape and how they search for food in the wild, the two species are very similar.
| A．Their long-lasting relationships are important for survival in the wild. |
| B．He teamed up with Fiona McCully, a scientist in animal behaviour. |
| C．The scientists conclude that it’s important to keep flamingos in a large flock. |
| D．According to a recent study, so do flamingos. |
| E．This avoidance may serve to prevent the fights. |
| F．New research shows that flamingos with brighter colors tend to be more aggressive. |
10 . My 21-year-old niece, a second-year undergraduate, mentioned that she watches video lectures offline at twice the normal speed. Struck by this, I asked some other students I know. Many now routinely speed up their lectures when learning offline — often by 1.5 times, sometimes by even more. Speed learning is not for everyone, but there are websites where students discuss how odd it will be once they return to the lecture theatre. One contributor wrote: “Normal speed now sounds like drunk speed.”
Education was adapting to the digital world long before Covid-19 but, as with so many other human activities, the pandemic has given learning a huge push towards the virtual. Overnight, schools and universities closed and teachers and students had to find ways to do what they do only via the internet. “This is a time for schools and systems to reimagine education without schooling or classrooms,” says Professor Yong Zhao. Dr Jim Watterston in Australia thinks that, while the traditional classroom is still alive and well, education needs to be more adventurous and flexible. Earlier this year, Zhao and Watterston co-authored a paper in which they identified some major changes that should happen in education post-lockdown.
The first concerns the content, which should emphasize such things as creativity, critical thinking and leadership, rather than the collection and storage of information. “For humans to progress in the age of smart machines, it is essential that they do not compete with machines.”, they wrote, “Instead, they need to be more human.”
The second is that students should have more control over their learning, with the teacher’s role shifting from instructor to supervisor of learning resources, advisor and motivator. This is where so-called “active learning” comes in with a growing body of research suggesting that comprehension and memory are better when students learn in a hands-on way — through discussion and interactive technologies, for example. It’s also where the concept of “productive failure” applies. Professor Manu Kapurin argues that students learn better from their own or others’ failed attempts to solve a problem before or even instead of being told how to solve it.
If the progress of the times is unable to hold back the coming revolution in education, it seems unlikely that the traditional classroom is going to have any luck in its attempts trying to turn back the clock. As Laurillard puts it, “It took a global pandemic to drive home what we’ve been saying for 20 years.”
1. By giving examples of “speed learning” in the first paragraph, the author wants to show that _________.| A．digital world is dramatically reforming the way of learning. |
| B．speed learning completely replaces normal speed learning. |
| C．returning to the lecture theatre is strange after speed learning. |
| D．education begins to adapt to digital world after Covid-19. |
| A．It is essential for smart machines to be more human. |
| B．Students should possess more information about creativity. |
| C．Students value others’ failure over their own failure. |
| D．“Active learning” calls for diverse ways of involvement. |
①learning mode ②learning motive ③learning attitude ④learning focus
| A．①④ | B．②③ | C．①③ | D．②④ |
| A．Speed learning harms students’ learning efficiency. |
| B．The coming revolution in education is irreversible. |
| C．Teachers will play a less important role in the future. |
| D．The traditional classrooms will eventually disappear. |
