1 . Being a social butterfly just might change your brain: In people with a large network of friends and excellent social skills, certain brain regions are bigger and _______ connected than in people with fewer friends, a new study finds.

The research suggests a _______ between social interactions and brain structure. “We’re interested in how your brain is able to allow you to _______ the right way in complex social environments,” Mary Ann Noonan said, a neuroscientist (神经学家) at Oxford University. Studies in monkeys have shown that brain areas involved in face processing and in predicting the _______ of others are larger in animals living in large social groups than in ones living in smaller groups.

To investigate these brain _______ in humans, Noonan and her colleagues found 18 participants for a structural brain-imaging study. They asked people how many _______ they had experienced in the past month, in order to determine the size of their social networks. As was the case in monkeys, some brain areas were _______ and better connected in people with larger social networks. “These different brain regions are all singing _______ songs,” Noonan said. “ _______ areas are all singing the same song, and when they’re connected better, they’re singing more harmoniously with each other.”

The researchers also tested whether the size of a person’s social network was connected with ________ in white-matter pathways, the nerve fibers (纤维) that connect different brain regions. ________ , they found that white-matter pathways were better connected in people with bigger social networks. “The nerves were more like a Los Angeles freeway than a ________ road,” Noonan said.

The researchers couldn’t say whether social interaction ________ these changes in brain structure and connectivity, or whether the brain determined how social someone was. In the case of the monkeys, the researchers asked and wrote down the size of the animals’ social network, so they ________ that social-group size was causing the brain differences. It can be inferred that a similar process takes place in human brains, but to prove the ________ , long-term studies are needed, Noonan told Live Science.

1.

A．better

B．more directly

C．less closely

D．worse

2.

A．conflict

B．similarity

C．link

D．contrast

3.

A．tell

B．show

C．ask

D．find

4.

A．intentions

B．preferences

C．behaviors

D．habits

5.

A．structures

B．highlights

C．differences

D．origins

6.

A．academic difficulties

B．social interactions

C．personal problems

D．career advances

7.

A．removed

B．adapted

C．replaced

D．enlarged

8.

A．joyful

B．familiar

C．inspirational

D．distinct

9.

A．Networked

B．Remote

C．Respective

D．Functional

10.

A．positions

B．changes

C．roles

D．compositions

11.

A．However

B．Again

C．Therefore

D．Rather

12.

A．urban

B．smooth

C．twisty

D．country

13.

A．minimized

B．drove

C．eliminated

D．demonstrated

14.

A．assumed

B．rejected

C．concluded

D．announced

15.

A．causality

B．feasibility

C．productivity

D．effectiveness

2 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

Though I was nine, Mama let me ride the bus alone because I was careful and I didn’t do silly things.

A boy got on the bus at the trailer park. He was older than me. He had long yellow hair and untidy clothes. Hands were put into his jean jacket pockets. He didn’t bring them out to pay for his ticket. He spoke to the driver so low that I couldn’t hear. But riders up front were frowning (皱眉). The driver didn’t seem to like the boy either and then put up a thumb (拇指) to show he should go to sit down quickly.

Right behind me, a man whispered (低语) loud enough to be heard by all our ears. “Trailer park’s people never have the money. They always expect a free ride. And they always get it.” I didn’t understand what they meant about “trailer park’s people”. I liked the trailer park. Some of the trailer homes had gardens with lively flowers. It looked like a fun place to live in. I didn’t know why these adults frowned at it or a boy who lived there. But I knew that feeling being hurt with unkind words.

So I stood out of my seat and put the money into the machine to pay for the boy’s ticket. The driver looked at me and his look told me to go back to my seat. I didn’t look at anybody. When I sat down, I heard a whisper from the seat behind me. “Don’t expect him to be thankful.” That’s not why I did it. I wasn’t even thinking that. Didn’t they know how it felt to have empty pockets? My family used to have no money all the time till my father got a new job.

Just then, a different voice came from behind me as well. “We shouldn’t stop kindness. We should look at those around us with kindness. I don’t think he’s such a person.” After a short silence, everyone whispered their agreement. After I got off at my stop, I didn’t think about it anymore.

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。

Two weeks later, I got on the same bus again, but I felt different from before.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When I walked over to pay for my ticket, the driver looked at me with a kind smile.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3 . 阅读下面材料, 根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段, 使之构成一篇完整的短文。

I was eating breakfast at home in Hampshire in March this year, scrolling through social media on my phone, when a story caught my eye. It was about a nine-year-old dog, Charlie, dubbed (称为) the loneliest in Britain. He had been in a rescue centre in Somerset for more than 500 days.

For some reason, nobody wanted to adopt him. I clicked on the link and straight away these huge, sad eyes stared back at me. I was emotional. I turned to my husband, Sam, and said: "We’ve got to have him.” He read the article over my shoulder and felt exactly the same way. We wanted to give Charlie a happy home and a new lease of life.

Over the past few years we have tried to adopt a few different dogs, but we haven’ had any luck — we were never top of the list. Sam and I got used to filling in forms and not hearing anything. We’d almost given up hope.

But Charlie is an older dog and we felt we’d be suited — even older dogs have a lot of love left to offer. So we took our time with the application, sent photographs of our house and garden. We explained why Charlie would be happy with us, and then forgot all about it.

A few days later we received an email from Brent Knoll animal centre, saying we’d been shortlisted. We were thrilled. They asked us to visit Charlie to be interviewed and to see if he liked us.

When we arrived we were taken to the staff room. We didn’t know what to expect. We hadn’t been told much about Charlie’s circumstances, but as he had been given up for adoption and hadn’t been placed with a new owner for so long, we thought there might be issues. But the dog that bounded (蹦跳) in was full of joy and charisma.

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。

He came straight over to us.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We feel proud that we’ve given Charlie a new home and a second chance.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4 . Farmers and hunters are calling for an extension (延期) to the Victorian duck hunting season, saying certain species are doing great harm to crops and waterways and need to be controlled. This season runs from 8:00 am today and will end in 20 days, down from the usual 12 weeks, with a bag limit of five listed game ducks per day.

Wayne Shields grows leafy greens on the Mornington Peninsula and he said the decision to reduce the duck hunting season would take its toll on farmers. “The wood ducks are the ones causing all of the damage; the black ducks are no problem around here. The wood ducks come in at night and they just clean me out completely and they’ve done it a number of times over a number of years,” he said.

Mr. Shields and his wife, Natasha, run Peninsula Fresh Organics and he said there was nothing he could do to stop the invasion (入侵). “I nearly went broke a few years ago. Back then I was planting 10,000 lettuce (生菜) a week and they would quite happily eat 10,000 lettuce a week.” Due to the damage caused by the wood ducks, Mr. Shields said there should be a year-round open season on the wood ducks and farmers should be allowed to shoot birds.

Professor Richard Kingsford, Director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science at UNSW, said although the wood ducks ate crops, extending the duck season may not achieve what farmers wanted. He is calling on the government to invest more in research to address the threat certain species of waterbirds caused for some farmers, so other nonlethal (非致命的) ways to destroy the birds can be found.

1. How is this year’s duck hunting season different?

A．It is put off.	B．It is cut short.
C．It is about five species.	D．It takes place mainly on farms.

2. What does the underlined part “take its toll on” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Make way for.	B．Keep an eye on.
C．Cause damage to.	D．Take control of.

3. What did Mr. Shields experience several years ago?

A．The invasion of the black ducks.

B．The difficulty of keeping business.

C．The negative influence of the hunting season.

D．The daytime trouble caused by the wood ducks.

4. What does Richard Kingsford suggest concerning the wood ducks?

A．Scientifically managing them.

B．Encouraging hunters to catch them.

C．Extending the duck hunting season.

D．Using deadly ways to drive them away.

5 . Electronic timing is older than most people imagine and was used for the first time more than a hundred years ago at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Initially, the well-known company Ericsson was tasked with developing the technology, but it was the Swedish inventor Ragnar Carlstedt who eventually created the final product.

At the same time, Carlstedt introduced another invention: the finish line camera. The 1, 500-meter Olympic final was extremely close with Arnold Jackson from Great Britain winning by only 0.1 seconds. But it was impossible to decide on the silver medal since the two Americans Abel Kiviat and Norman Taber finished side by side. For the first time in history, the outcome of an Olympic event had to be settled based on a photo finish when Kiviat was judged to be “slightly ahead”.

The significance of these two inventions led a major newspaper to write: “Electronic timing at the Olympic Games. Simultaneous (同时发生的) timing and photography of contestants. A brilliant idea!”

The next step in timekeeping was the photo-finish camera with a time stamp imprinted on each picture, which was introduced at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. The 1948 Olympics saw the introduction of another invention with the continuous slit camera (狭缝摄影机), where a film behind a narrow slit rolls (滚动) with the same speed as the runners. Four years later the clocks were connected to the slit camera giving a solution of 1/100 s. But it was not until 1972 that official times were recorded to the 100th of a second.

The next big step in the eighties was to make the camera digital to speed up the feedback (反馈). But the idea behind the slit camera was kept and is still the basis of all timing systems for athletics used today. The only difference is that now there is a very narrow sensor array ( 阵列传感器) instead of the moving film.

After a century technology has reached the point where the whole timing system can be stored in a smartphone. So in a way, the circle was closed when SprintTimer, a sports timer and photo finish app, was developed in the same place and precisely a hundred years after Ragnar Carlstedt.

1. What do we know about electronic timing?

A．It was created in recent years.

B．It was first introduced at the Olympics.

C．It was developed by the well-known company Ericsson.

D．It was perfected by the Swedish inventor Ragnar Carlstedt.

2. What does paragraph 2 focus on?

A．The increasing need for a finish line camera.

B．The excellent performance of Arnold Jackson.

C．The significant role of Carlstedt's another invention.

D．The intense competition of the 1,500-meter Olympic final.

3. How was the digital camera in the eighties different from the slit camera?

A．It avoided the use of a moving film.

B．It rolled with the same speed as the runners.

C．It made a 100th-of-a-second record possible.

D．It adopted a new idea for all timing systems used today.

4. What does the underlined part “the circle was closed” in the last paragraph mean?

A．Further improvement was discontinued.

B．The problem was back to the origin.

C．A new invention was created.

D．The issue was resolved.

6 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

The year 2013 marked a turning point in my life. In June, my husband was offered a new Job in Ghana. Feeling that I had hit a career bottleneck as a photographer and copywriter (广告文字撰写人), I, without any hesitation, made the decision to relocate with him.

While my husband engaged in work, my visa didn’t grant me the same privilege. But that’s okay. I didn’t know what to do anyway. I was left isolated, homesick and lacking purpose. Our new home was a bungalow near a river that cut across expansive grasslands. With few people around our home, I turned to nature, which had been a fondness of mine since childhood. Every day, I would take my camera and wander around, photographing aimlessly.

It wasn’t long before September arrived, bringing the full flow of the rainy season. After one particularly bad thunderstorm, I found a finch (雀) — a poor little thing barely a month old with one wing broken — on the ground. Evidently, he had been abandoned by his flock, his nest blown from a tree. The sight was heartbreaking. He was the size of my lite finger. His eyes were tightly shut and he was shuddering, too young to survive alone. I somehow felt a connection with it. Immediately I scooped him up and cautiously placed him in a cardboard box with towels, mimicking a nest, and stayed up all night researching how to care for him.

The next day, he seemed to regain some energy. He woke with his mouth open, though still too weak to let out a call. I fed him some food and chirped (叽喳) at him. To my amusement, he chirped back and even climbed into my hand. I affectionately gazed at this adorable creature, who was now boldly pecking (啄) my fingers now and then. A surge of warmth ran through me. Tenderly stroking his feathers, I chirped a lullaby, singing him to sleep. Gradually, his eyes drooped and he drifted off. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the scene — as far as he was concerned, I was his mother.

Para 1. “I will take care of you.” I murmured, making my promise to him.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Para 2. At that moment I realized that as I dedicated myself to the finch’s care, something within me changed.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

Once there were two mice. They were friends. One mouse lived in the country; the other mouse lived in the city. After many years the Country mouse saw the City mouse; he said, “Do come and see me at my house in the country.” So the City mouse went. The City mouse said, “This food is not good, and your house is not good.Why do you live in a hole in the field? You should come and live in the city. You would live in a nice house made of stone. You would have nice food to eat. You must come and see me at my house in the city.”

注意：

1.续写词数应为150词左右；

2.开头已给出。

The Country mouse went to the house of the City mouse.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After some time they came out.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . A new citizen-science project will improve the chances of finding ET

Ever since 1993, when funding from America’s space agency, NASA, was cut, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, which scans the sky looking for radio signals from intelligent aliens, has been inventive in its methods. In particular, it was one of the pioneers of the field of citizen science.    1    

In 1999 it started SETI home, an application that uses spare processing power on volunteers’ computers to filter the information generated by its radio telescopes. These days, SETI home boasts more than one million users.

On February 29th the SETI Institute launched another citizen-science project. This time, though, its researchers are less interested in the digital computers on volunteers’ desks than in the biological ones between their ears.    2    It is expected to distinguish interesting signals from the noise of interference generated by the inhabitants of planet Earth—and to do so in real time.

    3    To do this, the SETI Institute use san instrument called the Allen Telescope Array—a group of 42 small radio-telescope dishes in California, partly paid for by the co-founder of Microsoft.

Unfortunately, some parts of the radio covering scope are full of signals created by Earthlings, rather than aliens. Everything from passing satellites and space junk to ground-based radar and even the starting systems of nearby cars can generate fake radio waves that confuse the software.    4    

But SETILive will bring them into play.    5    It is hoped that they will be able to filter out the noise and spot potentially interesting signals buried behind the radio mass from Earth. “Those interesting signals will not necessarily have come from alien civilisations.” says Chris Lintott, an astrophysicist at Oxford University who helps to run Zooniverse, a citizen-science website that manages several projects, including SETILive.

A．That’s where interested amateurs help professionals process data.

B．Rather than examining on stored data, aliens are hunted on the fly.

C．Volunteers working on SETIhome have found plenty of interesting signals.

D．It will do so by feeding data from these noisy parts of the scope to its users.

E．SETI is to detect distinctive radio-frequency emissions from advanced aliens.

F．Until now, the project has tackled it by ignoring the crowded bits of the scope.

G．SETI Live, as the project is called, uses brain capacity to solve a lingering headache.

9 . Driverless Automobiles-The Car That Parks Itself

Autonomous vehicles are arriving piecemeal, as more and more driving tasks are taken out of human hands. CARS that need no driver are just around the corner according to Google, which has been testing vehicles bristling with aerials and cameras on public roads in America. But Google does not make cars, so it will be up to firms that do to bring the _________ to market. And carmakers are a conservative bunch. Still, slowly and _________ the autonomous car will arrive, with the help of an increasing number of automated driving aids.

Volvo recently _________ one such feature: a car that really does park itself. Some cars already have systems that assist with parking, but these are not completely autonomous. They can _________ an empty parallel-parking space and steer into it while the driver uses the brake. The Volvo system, however, lets the driver get out and use a smartphone application to _________ the vehicle to park, then sends a message to the driver to inform him where it is. The driver can collect the car _________ or use his phone to call it back to where he dropped it off. Autonomous parking could thus be provided at places like shopping centres and airports, which are controlled areas in which automated vehicles can be _________ more easily than on open highways.

In the past, _________ for doing this have relied on car parks being fitted with buried guide wires that a vehicle can follow to an empty bay. That, _________, creates a chicken-and-egg problem: car-park operators will not invest in such infrastructure until there is a(an)__________ number of suitably equipped cars on the road. Drivers, conversely, will not want to buy self-parking cars if there is nowhere to use them. This means, as Mikael Thor, a Volvo safety engineer working on the project, __________, that for autonomous parking to work most of the technology will have to be in the car itself.

The Volvo test car, which looks like a(an) __________ car, therefore uses on-board GPS mapping, cameras with image-recognition software, and radar sensors to find its own way around a car park and __________ pedestrians and non-autonomous vehicles. Mr. Thor says the system is five to ten years from commercial deployment. If it proves a success then infrastructure might __________ it.

Driverless cars would also need to communicate with one another, to __________ safety. That, too, is coming. A number of carmakers are developing wireless networking systems through which vehicles can exchange data, such as their speed, their steering angle and even their weight, to forewarn anti-collision systems and safety devices if an accident looks likely.

1.

A．benefit

B．technology

C．reality

D．priority

2.

A．steadily

B．suddenly

C．surprisingly

D．necessarily

3.

A．delivered

B．transported

C．demonstrated

D．eliminated

4.

A．appoint

B．purchase

C．exchange

D．identify

5.

A．expect

B．instruct

C．advise

D．forbid

6.

A．in person

B．in advance

C．in general

D．in all

7.

A．forced

B．possessed

C．launched

D．managed

8.

A．prices

B．locations

C．designs

D．figures

9.

A．besides

B．though

C．likewise

D．furthermore

10.

A．limited

B．different

C．unsustainable

D．sufficient

11.

A．observes

B．experiences

C．suspects

D．assumes

12.

A．unique

B．original

C．imaginary

D．normal

13.

A．appoint

B．avoid

C．appreciate

D．advocate

14.

A．object to

B．stick to

C．adapt to

D．apply to

15.

A．escape

B．exclude

C．enhance

D．engage

10 . The New Technology and Travel Revolution

Technological advances have changed the way we travel, and these new developments promise an even more _______ and exciting experience. Do you want to know what it has _______ for us in the not-too-distant future?

Today, nobody _______ that technology and travel are the perfect combination. This _______ force also plays a crucial role in the way we travel. According to a Google Travel study, it is so _______ that 74% of travelers plan their trips on the Internet, while only 13% still use travel agencies to prepare them.

The cell phone has become our tour guide, travel agency, best restaurant locator, map, and more. It’s _______ during the entire purchase journey. In fact, according to TripAdvisor, 45% of users use their smartphones for everything having to do with their vacations.

This is why there’s a need to _______ corporate services and communications to these devices. KLM, for example, has already created an information service for passengers using Facebook Messenger. This system, once someone has made a _______, sends the user information regarding their ticket through Facebook Messenger as well as their boarding pass or updates about the _______ of their flight. This way, the user has all the relevant information about their trip in the palm of their hand using an app that they already use, ________ the need to download anything else.

Augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) have also entered the travel world, and the truth is that it’s a trend ________ all the possibilities they can offer. More and more companies use it to show users a cabin on a cruise ship or transport them, for a few seconds, to the Great Wall of China.

In addition, we’re all familiar with Siri and Alexa, the ________ assistants that meet all our needs: what’s the weather like today in my city, turn the radio on, open my email, and more. Hotels are now starting to ________ this “help” thanks to the arrival of virtual assistants that are ________ designed for this environment. IBM recently ________ Watson Assistant, an AI-powered virtual assistant that creates an interactive and personalized experience for consumers. This is the open technology that firms can employ and adapt to their needs. This way, the virtual assistant won’t be called Watson but instead, have the name that the hotel chooses.

1.

A．relative

B．extensive

C．interactive

D．positive

2.

A．in trouble

B．in store

C．in a box

D．in the middle

3.

A．doubts

B．greets

C．concludes

D．reasons

4.

A．individual

B．joint

C．separate

D．independent

5.

A．innovative

B．peculiar

C．prevalent

D．initial

6.

A．from all sides

B．side by side

C．on your side

D．by our side

7.

A．place

B．devote

C．direct

D．adapt

8.

A．recognition

B．reservation

C．support

D．revision

9.

A．status

B．statue

C．environment

D．stair

10.

A．regulating

B．restoring

C．eliminating

D．storing

11.

A．instead of

B．due to

C．contrary to

D．along with

12.

A．visual

B．digital

C．actual

D．virtual

13.

A．enlist

B．participate

C．attach

D．resemble

14.

A．specifically

B．generally

C．specially

D．equally

15.

A．altered

B．performed

C．launched

D．imposed