1 . In 1921, Karel Čapek’s play R. U. R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots had its first public performance in Prague, and was translated into English the following year. He needed a name for the factory produced humanoid workers of the story, and was thinking of coining something based on the word “labour”. But his brother Josef suggested an old Czech word for “forced labour”, robota. And the word “robot” was born.

If the Čapeks had known English, they might have chosen one of the words with relevant senses that were already in the language. “Automaton” had been available since the 17th century and “android” since the 18th. But the clear sound of “robot” seemed to capture the public imagination, because within five years it was being used not only for intelligent artificial beings but for any machine capable of carrying out a complex set of movements.

In science fictions(小说), the word took on new life, with writers such as Isaac Asimov writing well-regarded novels in which robots played a central role. It was these writers who first shortened “robot”to“bot”, but none of them could have expected the explosion of usages which arrived in the 1990s, as the shortened word came to be adopted in computing. Today, a bot is any piece of software that runs an automated task, such as in searching the Internet or playing computer games. It has also become a suffix (后缀), with the function of the“bot”explained in the other part of the word, as in searchbot, infobot, spybot and warbot.

As early as 1923, George Bernard Shaw had applied the word “robot” to people who act automatically, without thinking or emotion, usually because of the repetitive work they have to do. Now anyone having automaton-like behaviour risks attracting the label. A movie star called Samantha who has taken on the same type of character too many times might have her roles described as “Samanthabots.” And in 2009 “Obamabots” arrived-people who support Barack Obama without really knowing anything about him.

1. What does the underlined word “coining” in paragraph 1 mean?

A．Delivering.

B．Predicting.

C．Inventing.

D．Recommending.

2. How did the word “robot” develop in the 1990s?

A．It was no longer linked with machines.	B．It was gradually replaced by “android”.
C．It was shortened and used in computing.	D．It was only adopted in well-regarded novels.

3. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A．The usage of “robot” in different situations.

B．The impact of “robot” on people’s behaviour.

C．The popularity of “robot” among movie stars.

D．The connection of “robot” with public figures.

4. Where is the text probably taken from?

A．A writer’s biography.	B．A science fiction.
C．A technology newspaper.	D．A language encyclopedia.

2 . California is home to some of the most beautiful botanical gardens in the country. Suppose you want to appreciate unique landscapes and native plants, this post has what you need to experience in the Golden State.

San Francisco Botanical Garden

Located in the Golden Gate Park, this garden is home to over 9,000 types of plants. It has 55acres of walking paths and streams where families, couples, and solo travelers can escape from the noise of the city. It offers attractive florals (植物群) during every season of the year.

California Botanic Garden

It’s the largest botanic garden devoted to California-native plants. As a living museum, the California Botanic Garden features over 22,000 California-native plant species, many of which are endangered species. The garden offers guided walks and tours for visitors who want a behind-the-scenes look at the garden and its many beautiful species.

UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley

This garden features the most diverse landscapes in the world. It has over 10,000 types of plants. The plant collections here are impressive; visitors can wander for hours and still find new plants to admire. Special events are hosted there throughout the year, including plant sales and summer camps for kids.

San Diego Botanic Garden

This coastal California botanic garden has 4 miles of trails and ocean views and features over 5,000 plant species. Among 29 uniquely themed gardens on-site, the bamboo garden collection is a must-see. With over 100 species within the living collection of bamboo, guests can experience many distinctive eco-friendly plants up close.

If exploring the botanical gardens in California is on your to-do list, don’t wait any longer! We’re confident this collection of must-see outdoor gardens will entertain, amaze, and inspire you.

1. Which botanical garden has the most types of plants?

A．San Francisco Botanical Garden.	B．California Botanic Garden.
C．UC Botanical Garden.	D．San Diego Botanic Garden.

2. What is special about San Diego Botanic Garden?

A．It holds different events regularly.	B．It has distinctive theme gardens.
C．It features California-native plants.	D．It shows various landscapes worldwide.

3. Who are the intended readers of the text?

A．Travellers.

B．Gardeners.

C．Researchers.

D．Guides.

3 . 阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

Miguel looked across the school campus. Why did the English teacher annoy the whole class with such a stupid topic, “The Most Courageous Person I’ve Known”? He groaned (呻吟) at the painful thought of writing two full pages about a person who didn’t exist. He just couldn’t think of anyone.

At twelve, Miguel just wanted to be a boy. He wanted to play, get his homework done as quickly as possible, and eat. He reached his pocket for a candy bar, tore open the wrapper with his teeth and headed home.

Passing an alley (胡同) , he spotted a white chicken poking at a dirty bag that lay on a pile of garbage. Then, like soup, an idea bubbled in his mind. He got the dirty bag, held it open and got close to the chicken slowly. It lifted its head, took a few slow steps and clucked (咯咯叫) . Miguel was quick. He caught it by the neck, pushed it in and tied the bag.

For a moment, he felt like a fox, the trickiest of all animals. Now, it was time to go to Mr. Shafer, who sold chickens. Luckily, Mr. Shafer was in his front yard. Miguel announced that he had a nice chicken for him because his grandma couldn’t eat chicken anymore. Mr. Shafer took the chicken out, examined it carefully and handed him two dollars.

The chicken looked up at him with kind of sad eyes. Miguel’s heart sank. Why could I become so unfeeling? What had I done? Miguel groaned to himself. Money in hand, he turned around quickly and ran toward his home, trying not to think of the defenseless chicken. Yet, those sad eyes of the chicken seemed to be staring at him all the way.

注意：
1. 续写词数应为100左右；
2. 续写部分为一段，请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

“I’ll save you,” he stopped and said to himself.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4 . Automation (自动化) certainly has its advantages. I am ______ for 24-hour ATMs, the convenience of the Internet, and a cellphone with various services.   ______ I also miss the face-to-face interactions with people that automation has replaced.

Thus, I recently decided to spend a day to achieve all of my goals in a (n) ______ manner. I began by going to the bank. On my arrival, I found I was the only customer. One of the three tellers ______ me from a long-ago visit and warmly greeted me. After I got my money, we talked for a few minutes, sharing ______ about our children. Then I moved on to the post office, where the letter I was sending to Iceland stirred up a (n) ______ comment by an employee, who longed to visit that country. I spent five minutes encouraging him. There followed a visit to the ______ , where I walked past the self-checkout and was welcomed by a cashier, who ______ that for only one penny more I could get an ______ carrot.

That evening I had dinner with a friend and reported my ______ to her. She listened attentively and ______ that I could have banked, ordered stamps, and shopped with my cellphone, and it would have taken ______ an hour. True, but I would have ______ all those kind words and friendly smiles. It was after ______ with the bank teller, the postal employee and the cashier that I felt better as someone took the time to ______ our meeting.

1.

A．eager

B．ready

C．thoughtful

D．thankful

2.

A．And

B．But

C．So

D．Or

3.

A．advanced

B．non-digital

C．informal

D．self-service

4.

A．appreciated

B．impressed

C．remembered

D．attracted

5.

A．schedules

B．tips

C．notes

D．news

6.

A．excited

B．confused

C．satisfied

D．annoyed

7.

A．apartment

B．bank

C．restaurant

D．supermarket

8.

A．demanded

B．admitted

C．suggested

D．applied

9.

A．extra

B．expensive

C．amazing

D．unusual

10.

A．affair

B．progress

C．experiment

D．behavior

11.

A．praised

B．commented

C．recommended

D．protested

12.

A．more than

B．less than

C．other than

D．rather than

13.

A．missed

B．reserved

C．preferred

D．suffered

14.

A．talking

B．dealing

C．meeting

D．comparing

15.

A．plan

B．identify

C．attend

D．warm

5 . Becoming a self-actualized person means becoming someone who has reached their full potential (潜力) .College is where you can explore and slowly build yourself into the kind of person you want to be. Here’s some advice that will make the journey easier for you.

Take care of yourself before anything. Reaching your full potential is the final level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs (马斯洛需层次理论) .     1     Things like eating healthy food and keeping yourself safe need to be taken care of before your exploration of personal growth.

Never stop learning. Learning doesn’t stop when you leave college. In fact, you should make it a point to keep learning as long as you’re alive. Whatever job you choose, there’s always going to be new knowledge.     2    

Find something fun in everything. It’s fine to admit that certain topics are difficult to understand immediately. But considering them as boring will only annoy you and make the learning process harder.     3     No topic will be boring if you treat it with the right attitude.

    4     Without organizational skills, you cannot make good arrangements and finish tasks on time. You need to learn how to manage your time because this will give you enough space to study for college, and then have enough free time for your own hobbies outside of school.

Reaching your full potential is an ongoing life-long process.     5     If you give yourself enough time and space, you’ll realize your full potential as you grow and learn.

A．Organize your time effectively.

B．Balance your study and hobbies.

C．The willingness to continue learning will take you far in life.

D．To really get pleasure from learning, you must keep an open mind.

E．With the idea that it’s boring, you’ll never find it any easier to learn.

F．It requires you to satisfy your needs for health, safety and new experiences.

G．This means you have to meet your basic needs first before you consider your dreams.

6 . 阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

December strode (阔步走) into the mountains of Colorado, shooting snowflakes and blowing them into a thick blanket of white. As Christmas approached, the farmers there closed down most wooden houses for a holiday cheer. Not all were closed, however. There was still work to be done, and someone had to stay. That someone was Slim Carter.

Old Jake, another farmer there, had offered to keep him company, but Slim shook his head. “After all, a young man like me has got plenty of Christmases ahead,” Slim joked. Before Jake offered to stay again, Slim hurried on. “I’ll just have a private Christmas this year, and that’s the way I want it.” So he was left alone at the house. Alone, with his horse in the farm and the wolves roaring in the forest nearby.

Truth was, Slim had decided not to celebrate Christmas at all. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Christmas. In fact, his Christmas memories were good ones. His mother would fill their house with the light of candles and the smell of candy. His father would make their Christmas tree hunt an all-day, men-only affair. Slim smiled as he remembered sitting on the broad back of their horse with the freshly cut tree along behind. Back home, they would cover the tree with paper snowflakes and homemade decorations and sing all the Christmas songs they knew. And that’s the way he liked it. Those were the memories he pulled out on nights when he was working alone. Such memories warmed him inside, even if his outsides were aching with cold.

This was Slim’s first year away from home. “Christmas is nothing if not spent with family,” Slim declared to the empty house. That was the real reason he’d sent Jake away. He figured he would handle Christmas better if he just pretended it was an ordinary winter workday.

But on Christmas Eve, as Slim headed back with snow beneath his feet and stars overhead, his head hung low. It was Christmas, even without the tree and the gifts. Christmas, and he was all alone.

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。

Then he remembered decorating the tree with his family again.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

While singing to his decorated Christmas tree, Slim heard a knock on the door.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7 . We’ve all had them: “It’s been one of those days” days. It starts out ________, moves to worse and then gets horrible.   That’s what I was having. As the day wore on, I started ________ dinner. Midway through the recipe, I ________ I was out of salt. I jumped into my car, and ________ to a neighborhood grocery store. Along with the salt, I ________ a few extra things and headed for the checkout stand. At the register, I wrote the ________ for the required $12 51, and the clerk ________ my items.

Then I noticed the salt ________ in the shopping cart. I handed it to the cashier. She ________, “Why not just pay for it with cash? It’s only 35 cents.” I _______ I’d run out of the house with only a single check and my driver’s license. Then the cashier ________ a dollar bill from her pocket and rang up the salt. Then she ________ I take the change! She explained she always kept a few singles in her pocket for such emergencies. That ________ gesture turned my entire day from ______ to smiles. It’s little things like what she did for me that day that truly make this a brighter world, and I’ll always remember her ________.

1.

A．bad

B．early

C．new

D．gradual

2.

A．serving

B．preparing

C．enjoying

D．displaying

3.

A．realized

B．acknowledged

C．inferred

D．pretended

4.

A．walked

B．ran

C．drove

D．cycled

5.

A．handed in

B．picked up

C．put down

D．went through

6.

A．recipe

B．salt

C．cash

D．check

7.

A．bagged

B．estimated

C．obtained

D．purchased

8.

A．even

B．again

C．still

D．also

9.

A．argued

B．assumed

C．suggested

D．blamed

10.

A．complained

B．explained

C．suspected

D．found

11.

A．pulled

B．evaluated

C．spotted

D．switched

12.

A．persuaded

B．recommended

C．commanded

D．insisted

13.

A．unique

B．abnormal

C．identical

D．kind

14.

A．bows

B．frowns

C．shouts

D．nods

15.

A．incident

B．promise

C．example

D．emergency

8 . The road to a Nobel Prize, the most respected scientific award in the world, is growing ever longer, with almost half of winners now waiting more than 20 years from making a Nobel-worthy discovery to receiving the prize.

One analysis shows that the average time between publishing the work and receiving one of the science prizes has nearly doubled in the past 60 years. Across the three science prizes, chemistry now has the longest “Nobel lag”—an average of 30 years over the past decade—and physiology or medicine has the shortest, at 26 years.

Alfred Nobel’s will stated that the prizes should be awarded “to those who, during the previous year, shall have given the greatest benefit to mankind.” In reality this has only happened a few times. But in the first half of the twentieth century, it was common for Nobel prize winners to be in their 30s -and that is unheard of now, says Santo Fortunato, now a computational social scientist at Indiana University.

There are a number of possible reasons for this, says Yian Yin, a computational social scientist at Cornell University. It could be that the overall number of breakthroughs is increasing each year, so awards cannot keep up with the number of people who deserve to be recognized, he says. It is also the case that the importance of some works, which Yin describes as “sleeping beauties” are only realized years or decades later. Besides, the lengthening gap could be a sign that there has been a decrease in “disruptive” science - important studies or discoveries that change the paradigm (范式) of their field. This could be causing the Nobel committees to focus more on the past.

Fortunato points out that, if the gap continues to grow, outstanding scientists could miss out on the award owing to the Nobel Committee’s rule banning posthumous prizes (追授奖项). “It has to stop at some point,” he says, adding that a rethink of the posthumous-awarding ban would allow more people’s work to get the recognition that it deserves.

1. Why does the writer mention the numbers in the first two paragraphs?

A．To explain a rule.	B．To present a fact.
C．To clarify a concept.	D．To make a prediction.

2. What can we learn about the Nobel prize winners from the paragraph 3?

A．None of them are in their 30s nowadays.	B．Their names are unheard of by the public.
C．None of them receive the prizes several times.	D．They must make contributions the year before.

3. Why might be a cause of the Nobel lag?

A．The change in standards.	B．The requirement of the award.
C．The increase in breakthroughs.	D．The tradition of the committees.

4. What does Fortunato suggest in the last paragraph?

A．Reconsidering the current rule.	B．Establishing a better committee.
C．Stopping the award presentation.	D．Recognizing more people’s work.

9 . Sleep is so important that it has long interested scientists. Scientists have studied everything from mice to fruit flies in the lab to get a better understanding of what happens when animals sleep and why they do it. However, gathering data (数据) on how animals sleep in their natural habitat has always been hard to do.

But scientists did just that with wild chinstrap penguins in Antarctica. In doing so, researchers found the birds took over ten thousand microsleeps throughout the day — adding up to a 11-hour-long sleep.

To study the penguins, scientists put devices (设备) into a small group of penguins’ brain and neck muscles, which provided the brain wave and location data. The devices had never been used before, so this data collection was only supposed to be a test. However, the process went so well and the data was published in this study.

Researchers found that the microsleeps last only seconds. Researchers think that being able to sleep for such a short time might help the animals avoid predators (捕食者) that might more likely attack if the penguins were asleep for longer — especially when one parent goes out feeding in the ocean for days, leaving the other parent to protect the eggs from predatory birds.

The study is an early insight into a relatively large missing scientific knowledge about sleep.

“Almost every study on sleeping birds discovers something new, something we didn’t know about before,” says study co-author Paul-Antoine Libourel.

Vladyslav Vyazovskiy, a sleep neuroscientist at the University of Oxford who didn’t join in the study, is excited about this new data because “most of what we know about the animal sleep was gained in laboratory conditions, which are totally different from conditions where sleep developed”.

1. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The study method.	B．The device introduction.
C．The research purpose.	D．The background information.

2. What is a possible reason for penguins’ microsleeps?

A．Feeding baby birds.	B．Getting longer sleep.
C．Avoiding being hunted.	D．Attacking other birds.

3. What’s Vyazovskiy’s attitude towards the study?

A．Doubtful.

B．Positive.

C．Confused.

D．Objective.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Animal Sleep Is Researched in the Lab

B．Penguins Gain a Different Way of Sleep

C．Sleep Is of Great Importance to Penguins

D．Penguins Take Thousands of Microsleeps a Day

10 . San Francisco’s waterfront (海滨) is on the National Register of Historic Places for good reason.

Its beautiful old landmarks, like the Ferry Building and the Bay Bridge, have been seen in many books, TV shows and movies—from the stories and novels of Jack London to the 1970s TV series The Streets of San Francisco. The future of San Francisco’s waterfront, however, isn’t safe.

In 2016, the National Trust for Historic Preservation put part of the city’s shoreline on its list of the U. S.’s most endangered historic places, in part because of the threat of sea level rise. The waterfront landmarks of many cities are under increasing threat from floods and rising sea levels brought on by human-driven climate change. St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, Italy and the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles face similar challenges to San Francisco.

“The whole issue of climate change and historic preservation intersects (交织) right at the waterfront,” said Elaine Forbes, director of the Port of San Francisco. As she watched the boats come and go on a sunny afternoon, Forbes said, “Sea level rise hasn’t historically been as much of a threat to San Francisco as major earthquakes.” However, that’s changed. Parts of the main road that runs along the waterfront have flooded from heavy rains in recent years. The state estimates (预估) the water could rise up to about two and a half feet above its present level by 2060, and possibly up to seven feet by the turn of the century.

Now, San Francisco is considering measures to save its historic shoreline. But the growing magnitude and frequency of the climate-related threats, the high costs and effort needed in saving heritage sites, and competing ideas about what’s worth saving and what isn’t, can make it hard for cities to know what to do first.

1. What is San Francisco’s waterfront famous for?

A．Old landmarks.	B．Famous beaches.
C．Beautiful bridges.	D．Comfortable climate.

2. What challenge is the waterfront facing?

A．The loss of public support.	B．The threat from rising sea levels.
C．The influence of tourist activities.	D．The competition from other cities.

3. Why is the earthquake mentioned in paragraph 4?

A．To give an example of existing threats.	B．To stress the seriousness of sea level rise.
C．To compare different types of natural disasters.	D．To show the difficulty in the waterfront protection.

4. What can be learned from the text?

A．Heritage sites are in ruins.	B．Threats have been removed.
C．The shoreline has been flooded.	D．Solutions are under consideration.