2 . Twelve-year-old Catherine has a lot of friends—632, actually, if you count up her online friends. And she spends a lot of time with them.
But is it possible that Catherine’s online friendships could be making her lonely? That’s what some experts believe. Connecting online is a great way to stay in touch, they say. However, some experts worry that many kids are so busy connecting online that they might be missing out on true friendships.
Could this be true? During your parents’ childhoods, connecting with friends usually meant spending time with them in the flesh. Kids played Scrabble around a table, not words with friends on their phones. When friends missed each other, they picked up the telephone. Friends might even write letters to each other.
Today, most communication takes place online. A typical teen sends 2,000 texts a month and spends more than 44 hours per week in front of a screen. Much of this time is spent on social media platform.
In fact, in many ways, online communication can make friendships stronger. “There’s definitely a positive influence. Kids can stay in constant contact, which means they can share more of their feelings with each other,” says Katie Davis, co-author of The App Generation.
Other experts, however, warn that too much online communication can get in the way of forming deep friendships. “If we are constantly checking in with our virtual world, we will have little time for our real-world friendships,” says Larry Rosen, a professor at California State University. Rosen also worries that today’s kids might mistake the “friends” on the social media for true friends in life. However, in tough times, you don’t need anyone to like your picture or share your blogs. You need someone who will keep your secrets and hold your hand. You would like to talk face to face.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To tell about true friends. | B．To start a discussion. |
| C．To encourage online friendships. | D．To summarize(总结) the text. |
| A．In any case. | B．In public. | C．In person. | D．In advance. |
| A．Unconcerned. | B．Positive. | C．Worried. | D．Confused. |
| A．Teenagers need to focus on real-world friendships. | B．It’s easier to develop friendships in real life. |
| C．It’s wise to turn to friends online. | D．Social media help people stay closely connected. |
3 . Last June, my sister, Katy, graduated from high school. I didn’t think much about it then because I was
At the end of August, my
As we were pulling out of the parking lot, we
Even now, I miss her and have to keep
So, to all those little brothers and sisters, treasure the time you have with your siblings (兄弟姐妹). They may be a pain sometimes but once they’re gone, you’ll almost wish you had that pain back.
1.| A．expecting | B．wasting | C．describing | D．measuring |
| A．semester | B．holiday | C．meeting | D．process |
| A．mention | B．regret | C．insist | D．realize |
| A．team | B．friends | C．family | D．teachers |
| A．college | B．workshop | C．house | D．company |
| A．flew | B．drove | C．cycled | D．walked |
| A．in sight | B．in control | C．in trouble | D．in place |
| A．beating | B．asking | C．hugging | D．praising |
| A．loved | B．ignored | C．forgave | D．harmed |
| A．crossed | B．waved | C．shook | D．exposed |
| A．argued | B．admitted | C．forgotten | D．guessed |
| A．ashamed | B．glad | C．unwilling | D．serious |
| A．nervous | B．certain | C．proud | D．curious |
| A．truly | B．hardly | C．roughly | D．nearly |
| A．agreeing | B．reminding | C．promising | D．confirming |
4 . On Saturday, Jacob Kohut finally had breaktime during his 12⁃hour standing guard outside the U.S. Capitol. He could have spent his break resting. Instead, he sat in the back of a Humvee, teaching students via his laptop how to play Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, which meant he was on double duty, as an active member of the National Guard and as a devoted school band teacher.
“I’m a soldier for the National Guard, but I’m as much a solider for music education,” he says.
When on duty, Kohut’s days began in the morning with teaching his elementary class remotely from the drill floor of DC Armory, finishing the lesson minutes before his Guard shift started at 10 a.m. Later in the day, during his break, he would go online to teach his middle school students from the back of a Humvee.
Music has always been a driving force in Kohut’s life. He was a saxophone player throughout high school, and finally earned his Doctor degree in music composition at George Mason University.
“What I really wanted was to teach,” says Kohut, who is married and has a three⁃year⁃old son. “My mom, who is a single mother, was a music teacher. That’s why I do what I do. She is such a good role model.”
Kohut’s double duty has caught the attention of parents at Canterbury Woods Elementary School.
“I just wanted to share how impressed I am with Dr. Kohut this week,” Susi Britain said. “This morning he taught the band online from DC Armory, in his tiredness — which just seems so beyond the expectations of a teacher in these circumstances.”
But during the long and sometimes stressful hours of standing guard, Kohut said his teaching time offered comfort. As the 11 instruments were played by his virtual students, the familiar melody of “Ode to Joy” rang through the Humvee. In that moment, Kohut realized there wasn’t a timelier tune to teach his students
“It’s a symbol of unity and peace,” he says. “And that’s what the world needs right now.”
1. Where did the students study music from Kohut?| A．In the back of a Humvee. |
| B．At the drill floor of DC Armory. |
| C．In online courses. |
| D．Outside the U.S. Capitol. |
| A．Peace⁃loving and mild. |
| B．Enthusiastic and devoted. |
| C．Hopeful and positive. |
| D．Faithful and helpful. |
| A．He should teach the tune to his students earlier. |
| B．No tune was taught to students before. |
| C．It’s the time that he should teach the tune face to face. |
| D．The tune is the most suitable for students at that moment. |
| A．Jacob Kohut fights for the country and music. |
| B．Jacob Kohut wants to change his job. |
| C．Jacob Kohut has double duty at Canterbury Woods Elementary School. |
| D．Jacob Kohut is a virtual music teacher. |
“Multiple measures have been taken to stop the illegal use of farmland,” an official of the Ministry of Natural Resources
Together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the ministry released two notices in July. One banned the illegal use of farmland
Since the release of the two notices, several regions
Inspections and law enforcement (执行) have also been strengthened in recent months,with satellite remote sensing being introduced.
“The central government has attached great
China established
6 . Close to the North Pole, the remote and rocky plateau mountain in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard seems an unlikely spot for any global effort to safeguard agriculture. In this cold and deserted environment, there are no grains, no gardens and no trees. But at the end of a 130⁃meter⁃long tunnel is a room filled with humanity’s most precious treasure, the largest and most diverse seed collection — more than a half⁃billion seeds.
A quiet rescue mission is underway. With growing evidence that unchecked climate change will seriously affect food production and threaten the diversity of crops around the world, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault represents a major step towards ensuring the preservation of hundreds of thousands of crop varieties. This is a seed collection, but more importantly, it is a collection of the traits (特点) found within the seeds: the genes that give one variety resistance to a particular pest and another variety tolerance for hot, dry weather.
Few people will ever see or come into contact with the contents of this vault. In sealed (密封的) boxes, behind many locked doors, monitored by electronic security systems, enveloped in below⁃zero temperatures, and surrounded by tons of rocks, hundreds of millions of seeds are protected in their mountain fortress (堡垒). Frozen in such conditions inside the mountain, seeds of most major crops will remain viable for hundreds of years, or longer. Seeds of some are capable of keeping their ability to grow for thousands of years.
Everyone can look back now and say that the Seed Vault has been a good and obvious idea, and that of course the Norwegian government should have approved and funded it. But back in 2004, when the Seed Vault was first proposed, it was viewed as a crazy, impractical, and expensive idea.
We knew that nothing would provide a definite guarantee. But we were tired and frankly scared of the steady, greater losses of crop diversity. The Seed Vault was built by optimists who wanted to do something to preserve options so that humanity and the crops might be better prepared for change.
The Seed Vault is about hope and commitment — about what can be done if countries come together and work cooperatively to accomplish something significant, long⁃lasting, and worthy of who we are and wish to be.
1. According to the passage, what’s the Seed Vault?| A．It’s a tunnel where the collected seeds are displayed. |
| B．It’s a stone room that contains the seeds of endangered crops. |
| C．It’s a seed gene bank that stores diverse seeds for future agriculture. |
| D．It’s a lab where researchers study how to keep the diversity of crops. |
| A．Mature. | B．Clean. |
| C．Alive. | D．Valuable. |
| A．How the seeds are preserved. |
| B．Where people keep the seeds. |
| C．Why the seeds are protected. |
| D．What people do to study the seeds. |
| A．the Seed Vault offers a solution to climate change |
| B．the Seed Vault was built by many countries |
| C．the Seed Vault is sure to prevent the loss of crop diversity |
| D．many people considered building the Seed Vault unwise and crazy at first |
School mornings were always busy. The first sentence I usually heard was, “It's time to rise!” It was Mom's loudest voice, and there was no way I could pretend not to hear it or avoid it.
By then, I couldn't get to the kitchen fast enough. In fact, it was a race between my sister and me. We usually seated ourselves at the same time, sometimes knocking each other out of our places. After breakfast, we all rushed out to the bus stop as we took our lunch bags that contained a sandwich, fruit, and a dessert.
Then, one day, much to my surprise, there was no dessert in my lunch! What could have happened to it? Did Mom forget to make or buy it? Oh, well, I thought. It's only one time, so it's no big deal. But, for the next few days, my lunch contained no dessert! So one day, after school, as soon as I got home, I asked, “Mom! Why haven't you been putting a dessert in my school lunch?”
Mom answered, “Why, Eugene, I have been including a dessert in your lunch. If you're not getting it, then who is?”
So then we thought of my activities, and what I did with my lunch each day. As soon as I arrived at school, I always put my lunch in the classroom closet (储物间) along with all of the other lunches. And that brought us to Carl—the bad boy of the third-grade class. The teacher didn't like him in class and would send him to the closet, where he would spend most of his time each day.
Carl lived in a foster home (寄养家庭). He was loud and somewhat of a thief. He would take just about anything that wasn't fastened (盖好), so he wasn't welcome at school. Mom and I decided that with nothing else to do Carl was probably going through the lunches and eating what he liked.
注意:续写词数应为150左右。Paragraph 1:
My mother and I talked about ways to solve this problem.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2:
Another day, Carl asked me if he could come to my house and meet my mother.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________8 . A work of art created by artificial intelligence (AI) has been sold by a major art seller for the first time. The print sold for an unexpectedly large amount of money, $432,500. The artwork was bought during an auction (拍卖) Thursday at Christie’s, an art auction house, in New York City. Officials had predicted it would sell for between $7,000 and $10,000.
In a website post, Christie’s said the AI-created work was the first ever sold by a major auction house. It praised the sale as a signal of “the arrival of AI art on the world auction stage”.
The artwork, called “Portrait (肖像) of Edmond Belamy”, was made by a machine having learnt the algorithm (算法). The AI system was created by members of an art group called “Obvious” in Paris, France. It shows the portrait of a man, looking similar to subjects shown in historical paintings. Christie’s described some differences between the AI-created work and other artworks it had sold. For example, it said some parts of the face were not drawn as clearly as those painted by artists. Also, some parts of the print were left empty. However, the sales organizer of Christie’s, Richard Lloyd, said the piece was very similar to many others sold over many years.
Three creators from the art group Obvious cooperated in the process of making the print. First, they put a collection of 15,000 portraits into a machine learning system. The portraits were painted by artists from the time period between the 14th and 20th centuries. Then a tool called the “Generator” made a new image based on the information entered into the system. After that, another tool, called the “Discriminator”, attempted to find differences between the human-made image and the one created by the Generator. Then the image was improved. “The aim is to fool the Discriminator into thinking that the new images are real-life portraits. Then we have a result,” Hugo Caselles-Dupré, a member of the Obvious group, said in a statement.
1. What can be inferred from the text?| A．The AI portrait received much recognition. |
| B．There is little true artistic value in the AI artwork. |
| C．Technology will one day replace human artists. |
| D．There is no similar AI system for art nowadays. |
| A．Artists. | B．Machines. | C．Figures. | D．Techniques. |
| A．To select useful information from real-life portraits. |
| B．To help the portrait look more like a human-made one. |
| C．To put human portraits into the machine learning system. |
| D．To create a portrait based on paintings by artists. |
| A．The Secrets of AI |
| B．An AI Portrait |
| C．Artworks and AI |
| D．AI Art at Christie's |
9 . Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center mapped brain changes after a year of aerobic workouts and uncovered a potentially significant process: Aerobic exercise increases blood flow into two key areas of the brain associated with memory.
The study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, showed this blood flow can help even older people with memory problems improve cognition, a finding that could guide future Alzheimer’s disease research, according to UT Southwestern Medical Center.
In the study, researchers followed 30 participants who were 60 or older and had memory problems. Half experienced a year of aerobic exercise while the other half did stretches. “We’ve shown that even when your memory starts to fade, you can still do something about it by adding aerobic exercise to your lifestyle,” said Binu Thomas, a senior research scientist of UT Southwestern Medical Center who led the study. “The aerobic exercise group showed a 47% improvement in some memory scores after a year; the other group showed slight change. Brain imaging of the aerobic exercise group, taken while at rest at the beginning and end of the study, showed increased blood flows into the specific brain areas that play important roles in memory function.”
Many teams across the world are trying to determine if aerobic exercise might fight memory loss. Evidence is growing that it could at least play a small role in delaying or reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. For example, a 2018 study showed that people with lower fitness levels experience faster retrogression of vital nerve fibers in the brain called white matter related to memory.
“Blood flow in the brain connected with memory improvement is still a part of the puzzle, and we need to continue piecing it together,” Thomas says. “But we’ve seen enough data to know that starting a fitness program can have lifelong benefits for our brains as well as our hearts.”
1. What is the study mainly about?| A．Old people have memory problems. | B．Aerobic exercise improves memory. |
| C．Aerobic workouts benefit physical health. | D．Alzheimer’s disease can be cured. |
| A．Earlier memories were refreshed. | B．Memory scores showed very small changes. |
| C．Brain imaging remained the same. | D．More blood flew into memory⁃related areas. |
| A．The memory problem. | B．One’s lifestyle. |
| C．Aerobic exercise. | D．Something useful. |
| A．Further research work requires doing. | B．More people experience memory loss. |
| C．The mystery of brain blood flow has been solved. | D．Signs of memory loss can be discovered earlier. |
1.写信目的；
2.节日简介；
3.希望对方回复。
注意:
1.词数80左右；
2.开头和结尾部分已经写好,不计入总词数；
3.可适当增加细节,以使行文连贯。
Dear John,
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
