These days, it is not unusual for 10-to 12-year-olds to publish their own websites or for second and third graders
The Digital World is a set of volumes
Trends popular among the youth such as “China chic” and the growing influence of young consumers have driven the development of hanfu industry in recent years. Among the various
The current popularity of hanfu in the country is believed
“I’ll bet Anjali knows. Right, Anjali? Why don’t you show us since you’re the star student,” Deepak taunted (奚落).
Anjali was confused. She wasn’t trying to show off. She was just playing tabla (印度塔不拉鼓), like everyone else. And why was Deepak being so mean lately? Is it because tabla is a boy’s thing? She didn’t care that people thought it was a boys’ instrument. Anjali knew there was no such thing. She danced her fingers across the tabla to perform the composition in confusion. “Ugh!” Anjali heard someone groan, and she stopped playing.
“I guess I don’t know it that well after all,” Anjali said sheepishly to the teacher, Mr. Zakir. Her stomach was doing flip-flops. That wasn’t true. Not even a little. Mr. Zakir’s eyes narrowed. He looked like he was about to say something, but changed his mind. “The recital (演奏会) is next week, everyone. Keep practicing. I will be announcing who will get to perform onstage with me at my next concert!” Anjali had dreamed of a moment like that. She wanted to win the opportunity, but she needed to sort things straight with Deepak first.
As the class was dismissed, Anjali hurried over to Deepak. When she finally made eye contact with him, he purposely looked away and walked off. The next day at school, Anjali overheard Deepak whispering to Mary. “People are only interested because she’s the only girl in tabla class and they want her to feel special. She’s not that good—” Anjali was furious. She excused herself and went to the bathroom. She took some deep breaths but couldn’t relax. Her heart was pounding:
“It’s not my fault that people make a big deal about a girl playing tabla. I make mistakes too, but I work really hard. Maybe he should too. He should be less mean and practice more.”
“If I play in this concert, no one will talk to me again. He will turn everyone against me.”
“I don’t want to see a tabla or hear a tabla or play a tabla EVER AGAIN!!” Anjali yelled at the mirror. It was quiet for a moment. She believed it was one of her darkest days ever.
注意：1.续写词数应为150个左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。
Stepping out of the bathroom, Anjali saw some inspiring posters on the wall.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After the recital, Deepak walked up to Anjali.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________4 . Around the globe, about 1 in 4 adults says they’re lonely. And the consequences of long-term social disconnection can be everything from an increased risk of heart attacks to dementia (痴呆). The following offers a road map to make connections.
Be curious. It’s easier to connect with people if you have shared interests or experiences, so start paying attention to what’s in your mind. What motivates you? What excites you?
Make something. When experts advise making something, people will say, “Well, I’m not Picasso. I don’t know how to do a fancy painting. ” Of course, you’re not!
Find a group that matches your interests. Whether it’s volunteering fora cause or playing frisbee (飞盘), try to find others who share your interests. There’s even an online group that has a quirky shared interest: a fascination with brown bears in Alaska, which led to Fat Bear Week. In interactions with others, you can begin to reveal yourself and share the unique things that matter to you.
Other people’s loneliness matters too.
| A．Pour out your hard feelings. |
| B．Loneliness can be infectious. |
| C．Take a risk by having conversations. |
| D．You should tolerate the risk of being lonely. |
| E．But the opportunities for creative expression are endless. |
| F．Knowing yourself can be a first step to bonding with others. |
| G．Then, other people recognize that and share their story in return. |
5 . In 1975, a San Diego homemaker named Marjorie Rice came across a column in Scientific American about tiling (瓷砖). There is a problem which has interested mathematicians since ancient Greek times. After Rice’s chance encounter with tiling, family members often saw her in the kitchen constantly drawing shapes. “I thought she was just drawing casually (随意),” her daughter Kathy said. But Rice who took only one year of math in high school, was actually discovering never-before-seen patterns.
Born in Florida, she loved learning and particularly her brief exposure to math, but tight budget and social culture prevented her family from even considering that she might attend college. “For Rice, math was a pleasure,” her son David once said.
Rice gave one of her sons a subscription to Scientific American partly because she could read it carefully while the children were at school. When she read Gardner’s column about tiling as she later recalled in an interview: “I thought it must be wonderful that someone could discover these beautiful patterns which no one had seen before.” She also wrote in an essay, “My interest was engaged by the subject and I wanted to understand every detail of it. Lacking a mathematical background, I developed my own symbol system and in a few months discovered a new type.”
Astonished and delighted, she sent her work to Gardner, who sent it to Doris, a tiling expert at Moravian College. Doris confirmed that Rice’s finding was correct.
Later, Rice declined to lecture on her discoveries, citing shyness, but at Doris’s invitation, she attended a university mathematics meeting, where she was introduced to the audience. Rice still said nothing of her achievements to her children, but they eventually found out as the awards mounted.
1. Why did Rice often draw shapes in the kitchen?| A．To become a mathematician. | B．To explore the secret of tiling. |
| C．To fill her leisure time. | D．To show her passion for drawing. |
| A．She longed to start a column. | B．She was rejected from a college. |
| C．She was good at designing patterns. | D．She succeeded in developing a system. |
| A．The magic of math. | B．The efforts of Rice. |
| C．The humility of Rice. | D．The patterns of tiling. |
| A．Nothing is impossible to a willing mind. | B．Actions speak louder than words. |
| C．Every cloud has a silver lining. | D．Practice makes perfect. |
6 . Steven Stein likes to follow garbage trucks. His strange habit makes sense when you consider that he’s an environmental scientist who studies how to reduce litter, including things that fall off garbage trucks as they drive down the road. What is even more interesting is that one of Stein’s jobs is defending an industry behind the plastic shopping bags.
Americans use more than 100 billion thin film plastic bags every year. So many end up in tree branches or along highways that a growing number of cities do not allow them at checkouts(收银台). The bags are prohibited in some 90 cities in California, including Los Angeles. Eyeing these headwinds, plastic-bag makers are hiring scientists like Stein to make the case that their products are not as bad for the planet as most people assume.
Among the bag makers’ argument: many cities with bans still allow shoppers to purchase paper bags, which are easily recycled but require more energy to produce and transport. And while plastic bags may be ugly to look at, they represent a small percentage of all garbage on the ground today.
The industry has also taken aim at the product that has appeared as its replacement: reusable shopping bags. The stronger a reusable bag is, the longer its life and the more plastic-bag use it cancels out. However, longer-lasting reusable bags often require more energy to make. One study found that a cotton bag must be used at least 131 times to be better for the planet than plastic.
Environmentalists don’t dispute(质疑) these points. They hope paper bags will be banned someday too and want shoppers to use the same reusable bags for years.
1. What has Steven Stein been hired to do?| A．Help increase grocery sales. |
| B．Recycle the waste material. |
| C．Stop things falling off trucks. |
| D．Argue for the use of plastic bags. |
| A．Bans on plastic bags. |
| B．Effects of city development. |
| C．Headaches caused by garbage. |
| D．Plastic bags hung in trees. |
| A．They are quite expensive. |
| B．Replacing them can be difficult. |
| C．They are less strong than plastic bags. |
| D．Producing them requires more energy. |
| A．Plastic, Paper or Neither |
| B．Industry, Pollution and Environment |
| C．Recycle or Throw Away |
| D．Garbage Collection and Waste Control |
7 . In 1985, 16-year old Douglas Casa collapsed when running the championship 10,000 meter Face at the Empire State Games. With just 200 meters to go, he got up and then fell down again. his body temperature at dangerous levels.
How does an exertional heat stroke(劳力性热射病) come about? When you exercise, in normal circumstances, nearly 80% of the energy you use is transformed into heat.
The good news is that though this condition is one of the top three leading causes of death in sports, we can do something effective to save lives.
As far as treatment goes, the most important thing is to cool first, transport second. Because the human body can bear a core temperature above 40°C for about 30 minutes before cell damage sets in, it’s essential to initiate rapid cooling on site.
| A．It is definitely survivable with proper care |
| B．This is what is known as compensable heat stress. |
| C．So how do you recognize an exertional heat stroke? |
| D．So how do exertional heat strokes affect our health? |
| E．Exertional heat stroke has long been a serious concern. |
| F．He had suffered an exertional heat stroke, or sunstroke |
| G．But before you start anything, emergency services should be called. |
8 . Have you heard of these four monuments?
Carhenge. Floralis Genérica. Traffic Light Tree. Hand of the Desert — these are four unusual monuments from around the world you might like to visit.
• CarhengeCarhenge is in Alliance, Nebraska (USA). As the name suggests, it has a lot in common with Stonehenge, the famous stone circle on Salisbury Plain. But while Stonehenge was built with stones, Carhenge was created with cars. The monument was made in 1987 by a local artist Jim Reinders and his family. He used old cars and even an ambulance. At first, the people of Alliance didn’t like it, but they soon changed their minds after it became popular with tourists, who brought lots of money to the town.
• Floralis GenéricaFloralis Genérica is a massive statue of a flower. It stands in a pool of water in front of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Eduardo Catalano, a native of Argentina, gave the statue as a gift to the city in 2002. Every morning, the flower opens. Ask anyone who has seen it and they’ll tell you that watching it open is an unforgettable sight. In fact, many people believe it is one of the most beautiful statues in the world.
• Traffic Light TreeThe Traffic Light Tree is situated at Heron Quay, in one of London’s financial districts. The tree has 75 sets of traffic lights. It was created by French artist, Pierre Vivant, and was installed in 1998. A computer controls the lights, which are turned on and off randomly. The roundabout where the tree is was voted the most popular roundabout in the UK in a recent survey.
• Mano del Desierto (Hand of the Desert)The Hand of the Desert is in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The sculpture was designed by the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrazabal. From a distance, it looks as if there’s a giant in the sand who has stuck his hand out of the ground.
If you’re looking for something new to see, you know where to go!
1. Why did the people of Alliance change their attitude toward Carhenge?| A．It reminded them of Stonehenge. | B．It brought them financial benefits. |
| C．It added beauty to their community. | D．It displayed the creativity of the designer. |
| A．Carhenge. | B．Floralis Genérica. |
| C．Traffic Light Tree. | D．Mano del Desierto. |
| A．A guide book. | B．A news report. |
| C．A science magazine. | D．An architecture advertisement. |
9 . For over a decade, Zubin Kanga, a pianist, composer and technologist, has changed the limits of the forms of musical performances. He has both organized and performed shows that have pushed barriers, with motion sensors, artificial intelligence (AI), live-generated 3D visuals and virtual reality among the technological advancements used to unlock new possibilities of music and performances.
Kanga’s approach to employing cutting-edge technology was first informed by the relative limitations of his chosen instrument. “The piano is a very accurate technology,” he says. “From the early 20th century till now it hasn’t really changed at all. It’s an amazing instrument, but it does have certain limitations in terms of the types of sound you can create.”
One of the early works is Steel on Bone, composed by Kanga himself. He performs the piece using MiMU multi-sensor gloves. “I can put up one finger, and that’ll produce a particular sound,” Kanga explains. “And then I can control that sound just by moving my wrist through the air — I can do that with lots of different gestures.”
“For Steel on Bone, I’m actually playing inside the piano with these steel knitting (编织) needles, and getting all these interesting effects on the strings. Then I’m using samples of them. Sometimes I’m using live delays and operating them. The sound can change depending on how my hands are moving. It allows me to make a very theatrical piece, and people can see this immediate connection between how I’m moving — these very big, almost conductor-like gestures through the air — and the way the sound is changing,” said Kanga.
This is just the start, and Kanga goes on to be enthused with the use of motion sensors to make music, the possibilities that AI offers composers as a tool, and how virtual reality could transform performances and more.
1. What do technological advancements do for music and performances?| A．Remove music barriers. |
| B．Bring new performance forms. |
| C．Popularize musical performances. |
| D．Make performances professional. |
| A．To indicate its stability. |
| B．To prove its rare accuracy. |
| C．To show it has a long history. |
| D．To clarify why he uses technology. |
| A．By moving his hands in the air. | B．By pressing the piano keys. |
| C．By beating the steel knitting needles. | D．By making very small gestures. |
| A．Technology: When It Replaces Music |
| B．Virtual Reality: Future of Performances |
| C．Zubin Kanga: When Music Meets Technology |
| D．AI Music: From Composing to Performing |
10 . A Maryland couple stranded (滞留) without food in the freezing cold on a Virginia highway. They were getting
After almost 21 hours of being
“I didn’t think it would
“It felt incredible just hearing people say thank you and hearing them so
| A．farther | B．hungrier | C．poorer | D．angrier |
| A．hit | B．rescued | C．stuck | D．fined |
| A．seeking | B．having | C．limiting | D．allowing |
| A．spotted | B．rented | C．searched | D．repaired |
| A．cheering | B．begging | C．joking | D．struggling |
| A．job | B．shelter | C．gift | D．bite |
| A．provide | B．prepare | C．store | D．select |
| A．occasionally | B．suddenly | C．actually | D．routinely |
| A．credit | B．amusement | C．surprise | D．honor |
| A．loan | B．call | C．request | D．visit |
| A．bread | B．cash | C．flyers | D．permits |
| A．bookings | B．comments | C．schedules | D．deliveries |
| A．put away | B．given out | C．cut up | D．hunted for |
| A．honored | B．concerned | C．generous | D．relieved |
| A．hardest | B．kindest | C．proudest | D．longest |
