The Charm (魅力) of Schoolyard
In the charm of school life, where classrooms are seats of knowledge and the schoolyard becomes source of memory, there are a fund of stories mixed with humor, warmth, and teacher-student relationships.
Mr. Smith was a country teacher, but not an ordinary one; he was a storyteller, a mentor (人生导师) , and a friend to all his students. His classroom was a world of its own, full of colorful characters and brilliant ideas. One day, during the noon break, a student named Alice noticed a wandering kitten padding (潜行) through the familiar grounds where many schoolyard tales were born. Alice took her to Mr. Smith, who had magical Tricks for handling even the smallest things. With Mr. Smitt’s permission, Alice and her classmates built a shelter for the kitten in a corner of the campus.
The days turned into weeks, and the kitten grew under the tender care of Mr. Smith and his students. Once in a while, she became a temporary resident of the classroom, much to the delight of the whole class. They named her “Schoolyard”, a name that generalized the spirit of their school days.
As the year progressed, Schoolyard became not just a kitten, but a tie connecting each of them and a thread of continuity in their lives. She played on desks, slept in chairs, and hid in folders, thus becoming an unofficial mascot (吉祥物) of the classroom. The students found comfort in her presence, and Mr. Smith, joy in watching them grow through her company.
As graduation neared, Mr. Smith gathered his students for one last lesson. He told them that they would soon be exploring new horizons. He reminded them that life was full of unforeseeable twists and tums along with unexpected potentials, just like the appearance of a kitten in their schoolyard. At the moment, the students were greatly touched and deep down there arose a strong love for those memorable warmth and hearty laughter of their school days.
Thereafter, Mr. Smith and the students agreed to meet here once again in ten years.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式作答。
A decade later, Mr. Smith greeted his former students at the school gate.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Isn’t that our Schoolyard?” cried Alice, gazing at the classroom door.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After a long drive and precious little sleep, Todd left his Wisconsin motel around 5:30 a.m. to make it to a funeral near Green Bay. Not long after, he started to hear a grinding sound coming from his front tire, and it kept getting louder. He finally pulled into Lauritzens BP & Sports shop in Wild Rose,Wisconsin, hoping to find help. It was only 7 a.m., and he still had 75 miles to go.
As luck would have it, Todd found Glenn Geib putting oil on the shelves. The mechanic checked out the car and gave Todd some bad news: The wheel bearing was failing and needed to be repaired right away. Fixing it would take a few hours. Geib then looked Todd up and down and asked why he was so dressed up. Todd explained that he was going to the funeral of his boss’s wife.
Geib checked the only one rental car agency in town, but it was sold out. The next closest rental agency was 40 miles away. “I must have looked pretty stressed out at this time,” Todd wrote later on Facebook. Geib noticed, and he was determined to help.
With a population of 699, close-knit Wild Rose has a reputation in central Wisconsin for kindness. Seniors gather at the Wild Rose Community Center for free midday meals. The local Lions Club chapter collects used eyeglasses for folks who can’t afford them, part of the Lions Recycle for Sight program.
But kindness in Wild Rose doesn’t come just from organizations. Kent Barnard, the town library director, remembers a high school kid who walked into Patterson Memorial Library needing gas money. Barnard happily gave it to him, and the guy went on his way. A couple years later, that man came back. “You gave me $10 for gas when I was in high school,” he said, and Barnard was repaid.
“People are not well-off, but they’re taking care of each other,” says Jerry Apps, a local author who lets the library sell his books and DVDs and keep some of the proceeds to fund its programs.
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。
So, faced with a stranger in need at the service station, Glenn Geib did what came naturally.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Todd jumped into the car and made it to the funeral.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3 . Established earthquake warning systems provide at best just a minute or two of notice, leaving little time for preparedness. Decades of searching for a better warning sign-changes in the geochemistry of groundwater, electromagnetic effects in the upper atmosphere, and even changes in animal behavior-have failed. Many question whether such a precursor (先兆) even exists. This situation may change soon, as recent research is providing a glimmer of hope for improved earthquake prediction.
Researchers Quentin Bletery and Jean-Mathieu Nocquet from Cote d’Azur University in France collected data from over 90 earthquakes with magnitudes larger than 7 that had occurred in the past two decades.They focused on GPS station records near these quakes, which accurately captured land movement every 5 minutes with millimeter precision. They analyzed more than 3,000 time series of motion in the 48 hours leading up to the main ruptures (断裂).
They noticed that, in the first 46 hours, the records showed no significant features. However, during the 2 hours before the earthquake, they noticed signs of increasing movement along the fault zones (断层带). Essentially, there’s a slip between plates causing the land above them to move in a measurable, horizontal direction.
Could this be just a coincidence? The probability of this increase happening just before the quake and being unrelated is extremely low, and the researchers confirmed this by analyzing 100,000 random time windows in non-earthquake GPS data. The pattern occurred only 0.03% of the time in non-earthquake data.
While this precursor signal won’t be used for warnings anytime soon, officials from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) admit that this new study provides valuable insights into how to improve their warning systems-GPS data can grease the wheels of early earthquake warnings.
The researchers admit they're still a number of steps away from putting this precursor signal into use, particularly since detecting subtle signals at individual faults requires more GPS stations. But the biggest problem is that many of the world’s earthquake regions have no instrumentation. “We can’t realize the detection at the scale of one earthquake, so we cannot make predictions,” Bletery said.
1. What remains a tough problem for scientists?| A．Determining the magnitude of an earthquake. |
| B．Finding a way to detect earthquakes in early stages. |
| C．Measuring atmospheric changes during earthquakes. |
| D．Identifying animals’ possible responses to earthquakes. |
| A．The chance of main ruptures occurring in fault zones. |
| B．The accuracy of GPS in recording land movement. |
| C．The existence of a two-hour precursory phase. |
| D．The horizontal slip within the first 46 hours. |
| A．Distinguish | B．Contradict | C．Overmatch | D．Facilitate |
| A．The inaccessibility of precursor signals. |
| B．The complexity of updating GPS equipment. |
| C．The challenge of identifying earthquake regions. |
| D．The inconsistent slip patterns of different earthquakes. |
4 . P. H. Hanes, founder of HanesBrands, came up with retail price in the 1920s. That allowed him to use ads in publications across America to discourage distributors from unfairly raising the price of his knitted underwear. Even today many American shopkeepers stick to manufacturers’ recommended prices, as much as they would love to raise them to offset the inflationary (通货膨胀) pressures on their other costs. A growing number, though, resort to more complicated pricing techniques.
Getting retail price right can be tricky. Set prices too high and you risk losing customers; set them too low and you leave money on the table. Retailers have historically used rules of thumb, such as adding a fixed margin (差额) on top of costs or matching what competitors charge. As energy, labour and other inputs go through the roof, they can no longer afford to treat pricing as an afterthought. To gain an edge, shopkeepers have been turning to price-optimisation systems.
At their core are mathematical models that use deal data to estimate price flexibility—how much demand increases as the price falls and vice versa—for thousands of products. Price-sensitive items can then be discounted and price-insensitive ones marked up. Merchants can fine-tune the algorithms (算法) to prevent undesirable outcomes.
These systems are becoming cleverer thanks to advances in artificial intelligence(AI). The latest crop of AI-powered ones can spot patterns and relationships between multiple items. Makers of pricing software are incorporating new data sources into their models, from customers’ tweets to online product reviews, says Doug Fuehne of Pricefx, one such firm. In February Starbucks, a chain of coffee shops, boasted about its use of analytics and AI to model pricing “on an ongoing basis”. US Foods, a food distributor, praised its pricing system’s ability to use “over a dozen different inputs” to boost sales and profits.
What pricing systems do not do is lead unavoidably to higher prices. Matt Pavich of Revionics, another pricing-software firm, calls this misconception “one of the biggest misunderstanding” about products like his. Sysco, a big food distributor which rolled out new pricing software last year, is a case in point. The firm says the system allows it to lower prices on “key value items”—as price-sensitive bestsellers are known in the trade—and raise them on other products. It can thus increase profits by expanding sales while maintaining margins.
1. What does the expression “leave money on the table” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Do not match the competitor’s prices. | B．Do not maintain a reasonable sales and profits. |
| C．Do not address the pressure on extra expenses. | D．Do not reach an agreement in price negotiation. |
| A．Setting fixed prices for all products. | B．Adjusting prices based on demands. |
| C．Constructing discount models by AI. | D．Capitalizing on customers’ social media data. |
| A．It hits the sweet point. | B．It cuts a long story short. |
| C．It runs counter to its target. | D．It compares apples and oranges. |
| A．Fair or Unfair Price: Not a Question for AI |
| B．Price Setting AI: Maintaining Great Balance |
| C．Retail Price Evolves: From Experience to Science |
| D．Technological Business: Companies Use AI to Set Prices |
In our family, we have a beloved pet named Max, a golden retriever (寻回犬) with a heart of gold. Max has been an integral part of our family for the past five years, bringing joy, laughter, and countless precious memories into our lives. His intelligence and adorable personality never fail to bring joy and laughter into our lives. Every day, when I come home from school, Max greets me at the door with his tail wagging and his eyes sparkling with excitement. He always seems to know when I need a comforting presence, and his playful bahavior never fails to cheer me up.
Max’s intelligence is truly remarkable. He has learned numerous tricks and commands over the years, and he never ceases to amaze us with his problem-solving skills. One time, I accidentally dropped his favorite toy behind the couch, and without any prompting (提示), Max fetched a stick and used it to fish the toy out. His creativity and resourcefulness never fail to impress us.
Max’s playful personality brings endless joy and laughter into our family. Whether we are flying disc in the backyard or going for walks in the park, Max is always ready for a good time. His boundless energy and enthusiasm are contagious (有感染力的), and he has a way of making even the simplest activity feel like an adventure. His playful barks and exaggerated jumps when he’s trying to catch a ball never fail to make us laugh.
Max’s ability to sense our emotions and respond with love and affection is truly remarkable. He seems to know when we are feeling down or stressed and always finds a way to comfort us. One warm summer evening, as the sun was beginning to set, I was sitting comfortably in my living room, buried in a captivating book. Max, my loyal golden retriever, was lying peacefully beside me, enjoying a well-deserved nap. However, as the day drew to a close, Max suddenly sprang to his feet, his ears got a lift, and his eyes fixed intently on something outside the window. Without warning, he let out a series of loud, urgent barks, as if trying to alert me to a potential threat or disturbance. Alarmed by his sudden outburst, I set my book aside and joined Max at the window, curious to see what had caught his attention.
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。
As I approached the window, I witnessed my elderly neighbor, Mr. Thompson, lying motionless in his backyard.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________In the days following Mr. Thompson’s accident, Max and I visited him at the hospital as often as we could.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. Who is Dave Godber?
| A．A manager. | B．A director. | C．A footballer. |
| A．Surprised. | B．Confident. | C．Upset. |
| A．Attend a match. | B．Take a holiday. | C．Look for another job. |
1. Why does the woman tell the man the story of Michaela?
| A．To persuade him. | B．To encourage him. | C．To give him advice. |
| A．A dress. | B．A picture. | C．A website. |
| A．In Philadelphia. | B．In Boston. | C．In Amsterdam. |
| A．Write a book. | B．Run an art school. | C．Create a magazine. |
Every October, my neighborhood has a Halloween costume contest, And every time, my neighbor Ollie and I would race to the announcement board in the park to find out the theme.
One year, the theme was “Dress up as your favorite book character”. Another year, it was “Be something scary”. But this year, the theme was kind of, well, themeless. The board wrote “Be creative”. It was told that the judge would prefer something original. When I examined the paper on the announcement board, I was totally confused, since it was not really a theme. Ollie hopped off his skateboard to get a closer look. “You’re right,” he agreed.
“Since we don’t know exactly what we want to be yet, we should start by choosing some cool costume-making materials,” Ollie instantly scooped up a bunch of fallen leaves from the oak and proposed using leaves. It seemed impossible to make an entire costume out of leaves, Not to mention these terrible-looking yellow leaves. However, Ollie scooped up some more and try to persuade me, “They’re totally free and I can guarantee, no one will be a tree as great as me,” “Don’t you mean, a tree as great as we?” I grinned, We ended up filling two jumbo bags with different leaves. Ollie’s grandma, Abuela helped get us set up with tons of excellent costume-making supplies, We tried on part of our costumes, making the “branches” by gluing (粘) the leaves to our arms. We could tell the “trees” really would be tremendous, On the morning of the contest day, it took us hours to get ready, and we probably lost half our leaves shuffling over to the park. Still, when it was time for contestants (参赛者) to line up in the judging area, I felt pretty proud.
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。
Paragraph 1:
Except then, after a few minutes. I felt so itchy (发痒) that I just had to scratch.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2:
Just at that time, the judge called for everyone’s attention.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. Why do some American churches cancel (取消) Christmas Day services?
| A．To buy gifts and go to parties. |
| B．To celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ. |
| C．To let people gather with their families. |
| A．The name of an old man. |
| B．The name of traditional music. |
| C．The name of Christmas Day service. |
| A．All Americans. | B．Non-Christians. | C．Christians. |
| A．On Christmas Eve. | B．On Christmas noon. | C．On Christmas Day. |
Farah was checking the party list with her mother. The exams were over and Farah wanted to invite her special friends for a party.
“Farah, aren’t you going to invite Hafsa?” her mother asked. Hafsa had been her best friend who lived across the street but now Farah had made new friends. “Mother, I am now a part of Purple Girls Club and we have rules about friends,” Farah answered hesitantly. “What rules?” her mother asked sarcastically (讽刺地).
“Only very pretty girls can be in our group. Hafsa is ... dark. I can’t be seen with her. It’s bad for my image.” “Farah, I can’t believe you base your friendship on appearance rather than character. I had expected better judgment from you than this nonsense,” her mother retorted (反驳) angrily.
Farah sank into silence. In her heart she knew her mother was right. Sometimes she too felt uncomfortable with her “cool” friends.
Just then, her father called, “Farah, come here.” Farah went and paled when she saw the report card in his hands.
“Farah, how come you failed each subject? You were my pride.” Her father questioned.
She hated to see such look of disappointment in his eyes. The truth was that the Club left her with little time for studies. The girls got together almost daily for movies, shopping, and partying. It had seemed like so much fun but now it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
“Farah?” her father asked again , but Farah just hung her head in shame and did not answer.
“Farah, you shall take supplementary (补考) papers next month.”
Knowing how strict her father could be, Farah went to her room and opened her copies.
Seeing her homework filled with red crosses, Farah felt awfully terrible. How could she have neglected(忽视)her studies so much?
She called Gina, the leader of the Club. “Gina, can you lend me your copies? I need them to complete my notes for the exams.” Gina erupted into laughter. “Exams? Who cares? Farah. There are other ways of passing them.” Farah replaced the phone quickly. Even in desperation, she could never cheat.
One by one, she called her so-called friends but no one was willing to help.
注意：1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1: Farah sat dejected on her bed, searching hard in her mind for other names she could turn to.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2: Next Monday, as the two old friends entered the school together, Gina saw them and called out haughtily (傲慢地),
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