Jason was a 10-year-old football player who lacked a little speed, yet he made up for it through his good attitude. Jason never missed a practice, even though he was a substitute (替补队员) on my team and had few chances to attend the game. Even so, Jason was never discouraged, and always made a sincere effort.
One day, he didn’t come to practice. When he didn’t show up on the second day, as his coach, I called his home to check on him. One of his out-of-town family members informed me that Jason’s old grandfather had passed away and that the family was making funeral (葬礼) arrangements. When his grandfather was alive, he never could see Jason play; it made Jason feel bad. Now his grandfather had gone; I felt sorry for Jason.
Two weeks later, Jason returned to my team, ready for practice. Only three days of practice remained before our next game. This was an important game because we were against a very strong team. And we only had a one-game lead over them. This was a critical game at a key point in the season.
When the big day rolled around, my top players were ready to rush onto the field. It was a summer evening and the sky was filled with beautiful shiny stars. Before the game, Jason and other players lay on the grass to relax. Jason, who lay beside me, stared at the sky all the time. Suddenly, he whispered to me with excitement, “Coach, look at that shiniest star! My grandpa is on it. He said he would be on the shiniest star in the sky after he was gone.” Touched, I said, “Sure, boy!”
Minutes later, the game started and my top players ran to the field. Jason together with me and a few other substitutes watched on the bench. To my disappointment, my team didn’t perform well.
注意：1.续写词数应为 150 左右;
2.请按如下格式作答。
When the other team scored two goals while my team scored none, I was so anxious.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Motivated by Jason, my team played with more enthusiasm.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. Who first made the nickname “The Big Easy” popular in the early 1970s?
| A．A newspaper writer. | B．A crime novel writer. | C．A politician. |
| A．Gentle and slow. | B．Easy-going. | C．Quick and busy. |
| A．For its yearly music festival. |
| B．For its wild celebrations each year. |
| C．For its shape. |
| A．NOLA. |
| B．The Crescent City. |
| C．The Birthplace of Rock and Roll. |
1. When should you arrive when invited to a party at 8:00 in America?
| A．From 8:00 to 8:30. | B．From 8:30 to 9:00. | C．From 9:00 to 9:30. |
| A．Music. | B．Cigarettes. | C．Games. |
| A．Beer. | B．Wine. | C．Cookies. |
| A．He will attend a party. |
| B．He has never been to a party. |
| C．He is good at dancing. |
4 . Between the last application season and the current one, Swarthmore College, a school nationally renowned for its academic rigor, changed the requirements for students for admission into its next freshman class. It made filling out the proper forms easier.
Swarthmore is hardly alone in the desire to eliminate obstacles for a bounty of applicants. Over the last decade, many elite colleges have adjusted their applications in ways that remove disincentives and maximize the odds that the number of students contesting to get in remains robust — or, even better, grows larger.
In one sense, that’s an egalitarian (平等主义的) approach worth compliment and a sensible attempt to be sure that no qualified candidate is missed. But there’s often a less pure motive in play. In our increasingly status-oriented society, a school’s reputation is improved by a low acceptance rate, which can even influence how U. S. News & World Report ranks it. And unless a school is shrinking the size of its students body, the only way to bring its acceptance rate down is to get its number of applicants up. So, many colleges methodically generate interest only to frustrate it. They woo applicants for the purpose of turning them down.
And there can be other justifications for what looks like a loosening of application demands. Smith College and several other similarly prominent colleges no longer require the SAT or ACT, and Kathleen McCarney, the president of Smith College, said that that’s not a bid for more applicants. It’s a recognition that top scores on those tests correlate with high family income and may say more about an applicant’s economic advantages — including, say, private SAT tutoring — than about their academic potential.
Jim Bock, Swarthmore’s dean of admissions, said that by lightening the essay load for its current applicants, the college was less concerned about increasing its overall number of applicants than about making sure candidates of great merit didn’t miss out on Swarthmore and vice versa. He mentioned the hypothetical example of a high school student from a low-income family who works 10 or more hours a day and doesn’t have sufficient time to do different essays for different schools.
But will Swarthmore’s applicants this year give quite as much thought regarding whether it is suitable and the right home for them? I’m betting not.
When it’s very easy for a student to apply to yet one more college and each school is simply another desirable box of cereal on the top shelf that he or she is determined to reach, there’s inadequate thought to a tailored match, which is what the admission process should strive for. It’s what the measure of success should be.
1. What changes has Swarthmore College made in the application process?| A．It simplified its application procedure. | B．It lowered its requirements for admission. |
| C．It expanded the size of its next freshman class. | D．It eliminated obstacles for minority applicants. |
| A．respect | B．pursue | C．impose | D．cheat |
| A．should pay an essential role in the admissions process |
| B．conceal the uneven distribution of educational resources |
| C．reflect test-takers’ academic potential to a large extent |
| D．are closely related to test-takers’ family income levels |
| A．improving the school’s reputation nationwide |
| B．increasing the overall number of applicants for the school |
| C．recruiting as many genuine students as possible |
| D．making suitable matches between applicants and the school |
5 . For those who get angry when they miss out on lunch, it may be the perfect excuse: a lack of food makes bearable people “angry”.
In one of the first studies to explore how hunger affects emotions（情绪）as people go about their daily lives, psychologists found that the more hungry people felt, the more angry they became, which is called hangry.
The study came about after Prof. Viren Swami, a social psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University, was told, on more than one occasion, that he was hangry and should do something about it. The challenge left him wondering if being hangry was a real phenomenon(现象).
Working with researchers in Austria and Malaysia, Swami recruited（招募）64 adults aged 18 to 60 to record their emotions and feelings of hunger five times a day for three weeks. While the relationship between hunger and emotions has been studied in labs, the volunteers monitored their feelings as they went about their daily routines. Swami found being hangry is a real thing.
The study does not give any solutions, but Swami believes that being able to recognize the emotion can itself be of help. “Normally, we might be aware of what we are feeling but not understand the cause of it. But it doesn't matter at all. The study actually opens a door to further understand that.” he said.
Regardless of the mechanism, Swami believes the study raises a serious point: children who go hungry to school are less likely to learn effectively, and more likely to have behavioral problems, so ensuring pupils are properly fed must be a priority. “It's really important to be able to identify emotions like being hangry so we can reduce the negative effects,” he said.
1. What caused Prof. Viren Swami to do the study?| A．His competition with his colleagues. |
| B．His academic and research pursuits. |
| C．The biggest challenge in psychology. |
| D．The fact that he might suffer from hangry. |
| A．Its importance is beyond doubt. |
| B．It put forward some practical solutions. |
| C．Its participants included children and adults. |
| D．It explained why people could control their emotions. |
| A．We'd better encourage children to stay positive. |
| B．It's important to help children get rid of negative emotions. |
| C．Children going hungry to school are more likely to perform worse. |
| D．Educators should pay more attention to children's learning methods. |
| A．In a diary. | B．In a biology book. |
| C．In a novel. | D．In a science magazine. |
Both Lang Ping and Michael Jordan are living legends of sports as they not only are
Lang Ping is loved by fans at home and
Michael Jordan,
7 . As is the fate of anyone running a hotel in Kerala these days, Bijoy George is a man with too much to do. Before pandemic-caused lockdowns began in 2020, he managed 40 employees at the Eighth Bastion Hotel in the charming historic quarter of Kochi, a bustling coastal city. Now that business is back to pre-covid levels he needs the same number of staff again. But he has only 20 workers. His plight is shared with every other hotel, café and bar. It is a result of the state’s hospitality (招待) employees moving all together in large numbers to Qatar, not to watch football but to take up employment tied to the World Cup.
As the start of the competition approaches on November 20th, workers are quitting at a rate Mr. George says he has never seen in his 22 years in the business. Qatar, a country with a population of under 3m, will have welcomed more than 1.5m visitors before the matches conclude on December 18th. That means finding staff to run all the new hotels that have been built along with other venues that have been pressed into service to profit from the sports fans.
Kerala has long been a significant source of hospitality workers for Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries. Its state government provides good schools with English-language instruction but few jobs. More than 2m people, 17% of its working population, already work overseas, largely in the Gulf.
The appeal of Qatar is straightforward. Starting salaries approach $1,000 a month, more than six times the level for similar jobs in Kerala. To replace those who have left, Kerala’s employers have been casting their nets wider. Recruiters have been extending their searches to many other Indian cities. But that means the most common word on name-tags pinned to the breast pockets of workers is “trainee”.
Among the many skills that need to be taught, says Mr. George, is smiling at customers — the failure to do so a result of shyness among those new to the workforce. The danger is that after a week or so when confidence grows, even these employees may slip away to the Gulf.
Most contracts run for three months, concluding at the end of December, not long after the World Cup final. Returning workers will be welcomed back with open arms. Filling the gaps is even more important as Indian tourism and weddings have restarted. The reunions, though, may be short-lived. The game these workers will have learned from the World Cup is how to be paid better. That means leaving India.
1. The underlined sentence in paragraph one implies that __________.| A．other hotels, cafes and bars will share Bijoy’s 20 employees |
| B．other hotels, cafes and bars will have to lay off some workers |
| C．other hotels, cafes and bars also send the workers to Qatar |
| D．other hotels, cafes and bars also find it hard to employ enough workers |
| A．Millions of tourists have to be served during the World Cup. |
| B．Hospitality workers are in high demand with new hotels and venues open for business in Qatar. |
| C．Qatar provides good education and English training for potential workers in Kerala. |
| D．The salaries of similar jobs in Kerala are much lower than those in Qatar. |
| A．Kerala’s employers have to take on new employees in Asian cities. |
| B．Many of the new employees will pin their name tags to their breast pockets. |
| C．The new employees will not greet the customers as a result of shyness. |
| D．The new employees may soon follow the trend of going to the Gulf. |
| A．Jobs outside India can provide Indian workers with a more decent life. |
| B．It will soon be the off season for Indian tourism and weddings. |
| C．Another grand occasion will soon begin in the Gulf. |
| D．The workers only sign short-term contracts with the employers in India. |
Mark grabbed his keys. He needed to get out of the house quickly. He had been trying to save as much money as possible from the government assistance he received due to his disability, but it was harder and harder with prices rising daily.
Unfortunately, he lost half his right arm in a car accident several years ago, and it was hard to find a new job in his town in Tampa, Florida. He lost his previous job recently when the company went bankrupt (破产). For now, he only had those government checks keeping him fed, but he was tapping into his savings for everything else, and they were running out fast.
One of his friends had gotten him an interview and he was on his way. But after closing and locking his door, Mark turned around and got the shock of his life. A pregnant (怀孕的) woman was lying on his lawn, and/he had no idea how long she had been there.
He grabbed his phone and called 911 quickly, and suddenly, it started to rain. Finally, it came, and he explained to the doctors that he had to move her because of the rain.
“Don’t worry, sir. She’s cold, so it was good that you moved her. Do you know this woman?” asked the doctor. Mark shook his head.
“Can I give you my phone number? If you don’t find her family or anyone, can you call me? My name is Mark Higgins.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” the doctor said, noting down his number and leaving with the woman.
Mark closed his door and sat down on his couch, hoping his heart would stop beating so fast. Suddenly, he remembered his interview and looked at the clock. He was late for it. He dashed to his car, praying they would wait for him.
注意: 1, 续写词数应为150左右；2, 请按如下格式作答。
He got no calls, which meant his interviewers probably didn’t like him due to his being late.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Seeing his lost right arm, David came up with an idea to reward Mark.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. 自我介绍；
2. 咨询相关情况(招募条件，有何类别志愿者，报名时间和方式等)；
3. 期待回复。
注意：1. 词数100词左右；
2. 可适当加入细节，以使内容充实、行文流畅；
3. 信的开头和结尾已经给出，不计入词数。
参考词汇：招募recruit
Dear Mr. Li,
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
10 . New research suggests that a gene that governs the body’s biological (circadian) clock acts differently in males versus females and may protect females from heart disease. The study is the first to analyse circadian blood pressure rhythms(节奏)in female mice.
The body’s circadian clock-the biological clock that organizes bodily activities over a 24-hour period—contributes to normal variations in blood pressure and heart function over the course of the day. In most healthy humans, blood pressure dips(下降)at night. People who do not experience this temporary drop, called “non-dippers”, are more likely to develop heart disease. The circadian clock is made up of four main proteins (encoded by “clock genes”) that regulate close to half of all genes in the body, including those important for blood pressure regulation.
Previous research has shown that male mice that are missing one of the four clock genes (PER1) become non-dippers and have a higher risk for heart and kidney disease. A research team studied the circadian response and blood pressure of female mice that lack PERI and compared them with a healthy female control group. On both low-and high-salt diets, both groups “kept an apparent circadian rhythm” of blood pressure, the researchers explained. Unlike the male mice in previous research, the females without PERI showed normal dips in blood pressure overnight.
These results suggest that the lack of PER1 acts differently in males and females. The findings are consistent with research showing that women are less likely to be non-dippers than men of the same age. “This study represents an important step in understanding sex differences in the regulation of cardiovascular(心血管的)function by the circadian clock,” the researchers wrote.
1. What does the new research find?| A．Biological clock may protect males from heart disease. |
| B．Biological blood pressure rhythms in female mice act normally. |
| C．Biological clock organizes bodily activities over a 24-hour period. |
| D．A gene controlling biological clock works differently between sexes. |
| A．Helping males cure heart disease. |
| B．Helping blood pressure vary normally. |
| C．Contributing to abnormal variations in blood pressure. |
| D．Making up four main proteins regulating almost half of all genes. |
| A．has the same impact on males and females |
| B．makes no difference to males |
| C．does harm to male’s health |
| D．is more likely to affect female’s health |
| A．One clock gene is important |
| B．Women may benefit from body clock |
| C．New study analyses blood pressure rhythms |
| D．Blood pressure of healthy humans dips at night |
