1 . The Music Educator Award, this year, went to Annie Ray, an orchestra(管弦乐队)director at Annandale High School.She was recognized for her efforts to make music accessible to all students, particularly those with disabilities.Ray got to attend the awards ceremony in Los Angeles and bring home a $10,000 prize.
Ray created the Crescendo Orchestra for students with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as a parent orchestra that teaches nearly 200 caregivers a year to play the same instrument as their child.Ray also works with a local charity to give damaged instruments a second life in her classroom.
The orchestra is about much more than just making music.The most important is to give students a chance to develop their cooperation skills, make mistakes and learn the art of refining something.Ray pushes her students to be brave, go outside their comfort zone and realize they have to learn how to make bad sounds before learning how to make good sounds.And they teach her a lot in return.” They changed my educational philosophy.I understand what it truly means to meet a student where they’re at and apply that elsewhere,” she said.
The warm reception on the ceremony was meaningful.Actually, not many people understand what exactly music educators do or how much their work matters.While her administration is supportive, that lack of understanding is a problem facing the profession in general.Another is resources.She says her school “desperately” needs new instruments.She will use some of her prize money to buy more.
Ray also plans to put some of the money towards an ongoing scholarship for students who want to pursue music when they graduate.She knows of several, those particularly interested in music, and aims to offer financial support needed to realize their musical dreams” It is hard but truly satisfying,” Ray said.“And there’s nothing else like it for them.”
1. What can we learn about Ray from the first two paragraphs?| A．She hosted the award ceremony. | B．She brought music to more people. |
| C．She gave away instruments to the poor. | D．She founded a local charity for children. |
| A．They acquire in-depth musical knowledge. | B．They make friends with the like-minded. |
| C．They gain personal growth from playing music. | D．They improve their connections with educators. |
| A．The reception on the ceremony. | B．Importance of music education. |
| C．Challenges for music educators. | D．Plans to obtain resources. |
| A．Winning a scholarship. | B．Developing interest in music. |
| C．Making musical achievements. | D．Transforming dreams into reality. |
2 . Mary Shelley bends over her latest creation. Although the carving is only half complete, the image of a waitress holding a plate of eggs comes out from the board. Of Shelley’s nearly seven hundred carvings, many show scenes with cows on farms and people in restaurants.
From memories to carvings
“My work is a visual diary, ” Shelley says. “The carvings describe things I have experienced and felt at different times in my life.”
Every one of her carvings tells a story. Many of the stories in Shelley’s woodcarvings come from memories of her childhood in a rural (乡村的) area outside of Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Shelley’s family managed a small farm. Mary was a serious girl who spent a lot of time raising animals, exploring outdoors, and reading. Although Shelley never felt especially artistic as a child, there was always an art project in the works in the Shelley household. Her grandmother painted. Her father was a commercial artist, who drew and wrote to make a living.
______
Shelley attended Cornell University and hoped to become a writer, but an unusual present took her in another direction. At age 23, she received a gift her father had made-a woodcarving of her as a girl on the farm. The gift caught her interest. After gathering boards from a building site where she worked as a carpenter, Shelley bought some tools and taught herself to carve.
Shelley soon realized that she loved the slow, thoughtful process of working with wood and painting. “A carving is like a jigsaw puzzle (拼图游戏),” she explains. “I didn’t know how it would all fit together, but the process of solving the puzzle kept me going.”
The Shelley style
Early in her career, people hired Shelley to carve special pieces that took four or five weeks to complete. The money she received motivated her to try more complicated scenes created by carving deeper in the wood. Over time, Shelley’s art began to have its own style. In a typical Shelley woodcarving, some objects seem to reach out of the frame while others drop back, creating a feeling of depth.
1. What can we infer from the “From memories to carvings” part?| A．Art is from but beyond life. | B．Life is short and art is long. |
| C．It is great art to laugh at your own misfortune. | D．Knowledge without practice makes but half an artist |
| A．Life in School | B．A Dream Come True |
| C．A Life-Changing Gift | D．Jigsaw Puzzles and Carving |
| A．The dream to be an artist in her childhood. | B．Her father’s low-relief carving for her. |
| C．The rugs hooked by her grandmother. | D．Her school life in Cornell University. |
| A．is very popular | B．is very expensive |
| C．has simple scenes | D．creates a feeling of depth |
3 . A working semiconductor (半导体) has been created from graphene(石墨烯), potentially laying the foundation for a new type of computer with greater speed and efficiency than today’s silicon chips(硅基芯片) allow.
Graphene, a material made from a single layer of carbon atoms, is a good electrical conductor resistant to heat and acids. But a working graphene semiconductor which can be controlled to conduct or separate electricity at will, has evaded scientists. Such semiconductors are key to creating the logic chips that power computers.
The problem has been the lack of what is known as a bandgap. Semiconductors have bands of higher and lower energies and a point—the bandgap—at which excited electrons can jump from one to the other. This effectively allows the flow of current to be switched on and off, so it is either conducting or not conducting, creating the binary system of zeroes and ones used in digital computers.
Now, Walter de Heer at the Georgia Institute of Technology and his colleagues have created graphene with a bandgap and demonstrated a working transistor, an on/off switch that either prevents or allows current to flow through it. De Heer said the electrical properties of a graphene semiconductor were far better than those of silicon chips. “It’s like driving on a rocky road versus driving on a freeway,” he said.
Silicon chips are cheap to make and backed by extensive production facilities, but we are reaching their limits. Moore’s law states the number of transistors in a circuit will double roughly every two years, but the rate of downsizing has slowed recently as engineers reach circuit concentration beyond which electrons can’t be reliably controlled.
“You can use all the technology the whole semiconductor industry is totally comfortable with to scale up this process,” says David Carey at the University of Surrey, UK. But he suspects the world will soon shift to graphene chips, because silicon has such a head start. “Most people working on silicon are bombed daily by new, wonderful materials that are about to replace it and none of it’s ever happened,” he says.
1. What does the underlined word “evaded” probably mean in paragraph 2?| A．Surprised. | B．Attracted. | C．Annoyed. | D．Puzzled. |
| A．It excites the jump of electrons. | B．It creates the system of zero s and ones. |
| C．It balances the higher and lower energies. | D．It allows the on and off of the current flow. |
| A．Superior electrical characteristics. | B．Stronger production support. |
| C．Lower development cost. | D．Slower downsizing rate. |
| A．Uncaring. | B．Favorable. | C．Doubtful. | D．Disapproving. |
Now, as drone (无人机) technology has advanced so rapidly, high-tech drone shows are more likely to replace fireworks to light up the sky during special events.
Picture yourself traveling along the ancient Silk Road. The air
Yuan Longping, known as the “father of hybrid rice”, is one of China’s most famous scientists. After overcoming numerous technical challenges, Yuan
7 . Although many of us may accept in theory that failure is a necessary component of all learning and growth, in practice,
There are various reasons why we may fear failure.
How, then, can we overcome our fear of failure so that we can truly benefit from what failing has to teach us?
Keep a little diary in which you record what your failures have taught you. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself when you fail, ask yourself: What can I learn from this experience? And remember:
| A．we can easily make the most of it |
| B．Look at your attitudes about failing |
| C．we often struggle greatly with failing |
| D．Build your failure muscle gently in a safe space |
| E．Fear may prevent you from seeking new experiences |
| F．While it is hard to fail, it is much worse never to have tried to succeed |
| G．Perhaps the most common is that our self-worth tends to be tied to success |
8 . The living room is cleared. The host taps a wine glass with a knife, and people file in, filling the sofas and chairs that are pushed up against the walls. Soon every seat in the house is taken, and a bottle of schnapps is passed around. Lyon Hansen, who minutes before was knocking about in the kitchen, walks over and picks up a guitar and starts to play. Hoyma has begun.
For one night, homeowners primarily in Sydrugota, a small town on the Faroe Islands, open their doors, inviting friends, family and tourists in to enjoy intimate (亲密的) concerts by local artists. The tradition dates back nearly 500 years to a time when Faroese life had to move underground due to Danish rule. The culture and the language was kept alive in people’s living rooms, where they gathered to sing and tell stories.
The modern Hoyma concert series started as an offshoot (分支) of the G! Festival, an annual musical event on the beaches of Eysturoy every summer since 2002. Around 2007, G! Festival’s creator Jón Tyril, exhausted by all the red tape (繁文缛节) that came with putting on a big music festival, started to dream a little smaller. Specifically, he started to think about tiny concerts held in living rooms—no sound systems or spotlights, the audience made up of as many people as can fit inside a house. The idea resounded in his mind, not only because it didn’t involve any heavy lifting, physically or mentally, but also because it went back to the longstanding Faroese tradition.
Since 2007, Hoyma has featured 20 concerts in ten different family homes in Sydrugota. For Laksá, hosting the concerts is not only fun, but a way to give back, and to ensure the islands survive in the modern world. As in many families, her daughters grew up and left the Faroes. “They studied in the U. K. for nine years, but both came back,” she says. “I actually think that Hoyma is partly the reason why many children from this village that go abroad come back. They are proud of it.”
1. How does the author introduce the topic?| A．By presenting a scene. | B．By evaluating an argument. |
| C．By clarifying a concept. | D．By making an assumption. |
| A．A stage when the G! Festival was needed by the Faroese. |
| B．A period when only local artists were allowed to perform. |
| C．An occasion when people celebrated the encounters with tourists. |
| D．A time when freedom of the Faroese was limited because of Danish rule. |
| A．Economical and varied. | B．Convenient and entirely original. |
| C．Accessible and profitable. | D．Simple and culturally attached. |
| A．Hoyma contributes to the survival of the islands. |
| B．Hoyma reflects the affection between mother and children. |
| C．Hoyma is gaining popularity across the globe in modern times. |
| D．Hoyma becomes enter taining with the involvement of the young. |
9 . Food books can bring a culture to life. The following food books are bursting with delicious food, as well as entertaining and engaging storytelling.
 | Pierre Thiam’s latest book aims to share everyday, easy-to-cook recipes like baked ginger-chili plantain kelewele. He explains how so many dishes and ingredients from the American South and other regions can trace their origin to West Africa. The 80 recipes are accessible and present a range of traditional and modern takes on the cuisine. |
 | Fuchsia Dunlop’s book examines classic Chinese dishes, like mapo tofu, soup dumplings and Dongpo pork. This book includes history, philosophy, cooking techniques, and Dunlop’s on-the-ground research conducted over three decades to present a fascinating exploration of this ever-changing cuisine. |
 | Tamar Adler seeks to make leftovers more appealing and lower food waste in the process with her latest book, which contains around 1,500 recipes. This isn’t what you’d call a beautiful coffee table-style cookbook — it’s practical and the creative secrets within are truly mind-blowing. |
 | Natasha Pickowicz is an innovative chef. More Than Cake is her first cookbook, full of invaluable tips like how to build a layer (层) cake. Aside from great baking recipes, this cookbook tries to live up to its name by sharing how baking can provide so much more than just tasty sweets — it can give community, purpose, joy and love. |
1. Who explores Chinese food culture in the cookbook?
| A．Pierre Thiam. | B．Fuchsia Dunlop. |
| C．Tamar Adler. | D．Natasha Pickowicz. |
| A．They are the writers’ latest books. | B．They advocate lower food waste. |
| C．They have the same number of recipes. | D．They aim to share West African dishes. |
| A．Simply West African. | B．Invitation to a Banquet. |
| C．The Everlasting Meal Cookbook. | D．More Than Cake. |
10 . Here are some ways you can change your inner thoughts to stop stress having an effect on your mental and physical health.
ExerciseExercise can be used as a tool to enable you to deal with stress. The feel-good chemicals released(释放)by the brain when you exercise give a sense of well-being and calm.
Having some people who support you helps you to feel calm. When you meet with difficulties, there are people who will have your back. You feel much less stressed when you have friends and family on your side. Build your support network by giving to others when they need you.
Tiredness, the inability to think straight and sleep deprivation (缺乏) make you feel stressed. Improving sleep quality itself does a lot in reducing stress.
Make sure you are giving yourself some time in your week.
| A．Be really strict with work-life dividing line. |
| B．Don’t be afraid to ask for the same in return. |
| C．It’s of great importance to choose someone you trust. |
| D．Put aside some screen-free time before going to bed. |
| E．Be organized, prepared and on time for jobs that matter to you. |
| F．People often care about what doesn’t go right instead of what goes well. |
| G．Challenging yourself to keep working out can make you build self-respect. |
