We had finally decided to skip our traditional family dinner and participate in Manhattan’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with our five-year-old daughter, Kerry. We never expected what Kerry would get from the experience, or how it would affect our lives for years to come.
We caught the early train from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central along with hundreds of other excited people. Like many other families, we packed a small backpack with sliced turkey sandwiches and juice boxes. Eating in New York City is expensive. Kerry was wide-eyed. This was not an ordinary outing with Mom and Dad.
As the train pulled into the station, everyone rose and anxiously waited to get off. We headed towards the parade route along Fifth Avenue. As we walked up to the entrance to the station, Kerry spotted a homeless woman sitting in the shadows. The woman was invisible to all except my curious daughter.
“What’s that?” she asked. Linda and I looked at each other, unable to know how to explain such an unexpected question, something very different from the happy scene that we were about to join. Before that, we had discussed how we would explain topics about love and death. But homelessness? We weren’t prepared. We gave a simple and honest explanation, so that we could continue going to the parade.
The following year, we decided to attend the parade again. So the night before Thanksgiving Day, we went to buy sliced turkey for sandwiches. Again, Kerry surprised us. “Can we bring some sandwiches for those people?” she asked. We knew immediately whom she meant. How could we refuse? More importantly, why would we refuse? This was a golden opportunity to honor Kerry’s sense of charity. Our six-year-old daughter was teaching us an important lesson.
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。
That night, we prepared and packed two-dozen sandwiches into our backpack.
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We were moved by Kerry’s action of kindness on Thanksgiving Day.
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When I think of the word perfect, I think of something only a few can achieve, like high beauty standards, the super-smart girl in my class, or anything that I can compare myself to.
For a few weeks now, I have been noticing this one girl who is in a few of my middle school classes. She has fabulous long dark brown hair, big eyes, and the most beautiful face. She always wears the prettiest outfits and seems to be the most popular girl in school, at least in my point of view. It seems like she has a perfect life, lots of friends, all As (全A), and everything anyone could ever want.
One day, I was in language arts talking to my teacher about one of the upcoming tests, when I saw the girl staring at me in this strange way. I immediately started to get panicked and think, “Why is she looking at me? Did I do something wrong? Is my hair messed up?”
When the class was dismissed and everyone was rushing to their next class, she caught up to me and said, “I just thought you should know, I think you are really pretty.” I replied, “Oh my god, thank you!” I then watched her as she walked away and thought, “She thinks I am pretty?”
The whole day, I ended up thinking about one thing. That was, “Why does she think that?” After thinking about that topic in my head through each second of the day, I met her again in the class.
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:
When I was considering whether to say hello with her, she
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Paragraph 2:
I looked at myself with a big smile.
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In 1940, I worked in the checkroom of the railway station. I saw everybody that came up the stairs.
Harry was a young man who came to the station and waited at the head of the stairs for the passengers from the 9:05 train.
I remembered seeing Harry that first evening. He wasn’t much more than a thin, anxious kid then. He was all dressed up and I knew he was meeting his sister, who he hadn’t seen for many years.
Well, the passengers came up and I had to get busy. I didn’t look toward the stairs again until nearly time for the 9:18 and I was very surprised to see that the Harry was still there. His sister didn’t come on the 9:18 either, nor on the 9:40, and when the passengers from the 10:02 had all arrived and left, Harry was looking pretty upset. Pretty soon he came close to my window so I called out and asked him what his sister looked like.
“She’s small and dark. She is nineteen years old and very neat in the way she walk,” he said. “She has a face that has lots of spirit. I mean she can get mad but she never stays mad for long, and her eyebrows come to a little point in the middle. She’s got a brown fur, but maybe she isn’t wearing it.”
“I couldn’t remember seeing anybody like that,” I told him.
He showed me the telegram he’d received: ARRIVE THURSDAY. MEET ME AT THE STATION. MAY. It was from Omaha, Nebraska. “Well,” I finally said, “why don’t you phone to your home? She’s probably called there if she got in ahead of you.”
He gave me a sick look. “I’ve only been in the town for two days. We were going to meet and then drive down to the south of the city where I’ve got a job. She doesn’t have my address.”
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。
When I came on duty the next day, Harry was still there and I asked more about his sister.
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One day, after about two weeks, I thought I could say something encouraging to him.
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An Unforgivable Mistake
A few years ago, the company I work for sent my wife and me to live in New York for a year. I’ve always loved jogging, so I was really happy when I found the apartment they had rented for us was next to Central Park. This meant that every morning I could go for a run before I went to work.
Because a lot of people had told me to be careful of muggers (行凶抢劫者) in the park, I didn’t usually take anything with me. How could they rob me if I didn’t have anything? But one morning my wife asked me to buy some bread on the way home, so I put a $10 bill in my back pocket.
It was a beautiful morning and the park was quiet with very few people walking or jogging around. While I was running, another jogger bumped (撞) into me. He apologized and continued running. For a while, I didn’t think too much of it. However, when I noticed the wide path where I was running, I thought it was kind of strange. The warning of muggers in the park occurred to me. It could have been a mugger! I suddenly became alarmed, so I checked my pocket. The money was missing! I immediately started to run after the jogger. I finally caught up with and grabbed him firmly by the arm. I started shouting and demanding that he give me the $10 bill. I’m not usually a hot-headed person, but I really lost my temper at that moment. I couldn’t believe the robbery was actually happening to me. Filled with anger, I shook my fist at him. This seemed to frighten him. He quickly put his hand in his pocket and gave me the money. Then he ran away as fast as he could.
I bought the bread and went home. As soon as I got home, I couldn’t wait to tell my wife the story. “You won’t believe what happened to me,” I started with pride. She immediately interrupted (插话), “I know, you left the money for the bread on the kitchen table.”
注意：续写词数应为150左右。Paragraph 1:
Looking at the money on the table, I stood there, shocked.
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For several days, I waited at the same place.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. What is Jennifer doing?
| A．Hosting a meeting | B．Serving a customer | C．Having an interview |
| A．Sales techniques | B．Interpersonal skills | C．Language knowledge |
| A．Dealing with a complaint. |
| B．Arguing with the manager. |
| C．Receiving an unreasonable phone call |
| A．Apply for the position | B．Make a decision | C．Wait for a call. |
Trevor, a thirteen-year-old boy who could read well. Yet, in spite of his reading skills, Trevor was failing. He had been failing exams since first grade, as he was passed on from Grade 1 to Grade 7. Trevor was a big boy, looking much bigger than a thirteen year old. However, Trevor went unnoticed… until Miss Brown.
Miss Brown was smiling, young, and Trevor was attracted! Yet, still he failed. He never did his homework, and he was always in trouble with Miss Brown. His heart would break under her sharp words! Still, he did not study.
One day, the entire grade was tested for basic skills. Trevor hurried through his tests, and continued to dream of other things. His heart was in the woods, where he often escaped alone. No one checked on him. No one knew he was gone. Strangely, Trevor never missed a day of school.
The next day, Miss Brown’s impatient voice broke into his daydreams.
“Trevor, pay attention!”
Trevor locked his look on Miss Brown as she began to go over the test results for the seventh grade.
“You all did pretty well,” she told the class, “except for one boy, and it breaks my heart to tell you this, but…the smartest boy is failing my class!”
She just stared at Trevor, as the class turned around for a good look. Trevor dropped his eyes and carefully examined his fingertips.
After that, it was war! Trevor still wouldn’t do his homework. Even as the punishments became more severe, he remained stubborn (固执的).
“Just try it! ONE WEEK!” Miss Brown shouted. But Trevor was unmoved.
“You’re smart enough! You’ll see a change!” Totally unmoved.
“Trevor! Please! I care about you!”
Suddenly, Trevor got it! Someone cared about him? Someone, CARED ABOUT HIM?!
Trevor went home from school, thoughtful, that afternoon. Walking into the house, he took one look around. He, for the first time ever, gathered up his schoolbooks and did his homework.
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。
The following Monday he arrived at school earlier, waiting for Miss Brown to enter the classroom.
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“The smartest boy in our class had just passed his first test on homework!” announced Miss Brown.
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7 . Arguably, the biggest science development of the year to date has been the images of the very depths of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Those images beg a comparison between the external and internal universes that science is bent on observing and understanding.
Decades ago, astrophysicist Carl Sagan famously said, “The universe is also within is. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. ” He was commenting then on the reality that our internal universe was as complex and as fantastic as the outer space.
There are many similarities between the progress we’ve made in understanding the universe and in piecing together life’s inner workings. Like the technological developments that took us from Galileo’s telescope to the Hubble to the JWST, life science tools have also improved rapidly. From early light microscopes to modern super-resolution ones, these developments have afforded researchers a deep look into biology’s infinitesimal (无限小的) landscape. Learning that living things were composed of cells was, not a terribly long time ago, a revolutionary observation. Since then, scientists have been able to dive ever deeper into the components of life.
Going beyond merely observing the complicated makeup of organisms, life scientists can now discover the workings of molecules (分子). And that is where scanning the universe differs from peering into biology. Understanding the universe, especially from a functional standpoint, is not necessarily an immediate urgency. Understanding biology on that level is. Simply observing the amazing internal structure of cells is not enough. Biologists must also characterize how all those parts interact and change in different environments and when faced with various challenges. Being able to image a virus or bacterium is nice at the level of basic science. But knowing how viruses gain entry into cells and spread, infect, and disable can literally save lives. Through time, biology has risen to this mechanistic challenge. Not only can life science tools produce images of cell components, even more importantly, they can help predict the effects of drugs on receptors, of immune cells on foreign invaders (入侵者), and of genetic perturbations (基因干扰) on development and aging.
This is not to belittle the work of scientists researching into universe. They should rightly be praised for delivering views of impossibly distant, impossibly massive phenomena. My aim is to celebrate these accomplishments while at the same time recognizing that science’s inward search for detail and insight is equally impressive and, in my view, more urgent. The output of both the outward and inward explorations should stimulate wonder in everyone. After all, it’s all star-stuff.
1. Why does the author quote Carl Sagan’s comment in Paragraph 2?| A．To introduce the background. | B．To prove an assumption. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To present an idea. |
| A．study approaches | B．system management |
| C．research facilities | D．technology integration |
| A．practical | B．risky | C．flexible | D．popular |
| A．It has received universal recognition. | B．It should enjoy priority in development. |
| C．It can be applied in the majority of areas. | D．It is more complicated than space science. |
8 . “You should get a cat, ”my therapist(治疗专家)said. “A cat?” I couldn’t even look after myself. . I took a deep breath and carefully considered the idea of welcoming a feline (猫科的)friend into my life. This seemed like too easy a fix for the fact that I couldn’t leave the house without bursting into tears.
When my partner and I found Cinnamon, her adoption profile made her out as the perfect kitten. We filled out the paperwork and prepared for her arrival.
When she came home, it became increasingly obvious that Cinnamon didn’t understand “no”, “stop it” or “don’t do that”. She was the worst cat I’ve ever owned. I was beginning to doubt my therapist’s advice.
After visiting our vet, she concluded that Cinnamon just wanted our attention. She fought tooth and nail to get a bite of our meals. She’d fearlessly lick sharp knives when left unattended for a split second. Cinnamon stole my heart with her bravery and kept me busier than I’d ever expected.
We decided to start taking her for walks. I could barely leave the house before, but my heart couldn’t say no to Cinnamon. Cinnamon showed me what bravery looked like. She didn’t stop to consider every possible outcome of a situation; she simply went for it. If there was a dog at a park, she would run toward it. She jumped without knowing where she would land. She loved adventure. I found myself mirroring her behavior after a while, jumping out of bed without a second thought. I began to find the motivation to get out of bed in the morning.
Cinnamon unfortunately passed away after a medical accident. I’m no stranger to sadness or grief, but losing my pet so suddenly was the most confusing emotional experience I’ve had to date. She no longer wakes me up at 5 am begging for breakfast, but she’s still the reason I get up every morning.
Our time is often cut unpredictably, unmistakably short. It would be a shame to live life being anything less than brave and adventurous.
1. Why did the author’s therapist recommend that she get a cat?| A．To learn how to interact with animals. | B．To help the author fill up her spare time; |
| C．To solve the author’s fear of going out. | D．To distract the author’s attention from her pain. |
| A．Thrilled. | B．Amazed. | C．Pleased. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Walking Cinnamon outdoors became an adventure for the author. |
| B．The author was positively affected by Cinnamon’s courageous behavior. |
| C．Cinnamon loved going outside and took consequences into consideration. |
| D．The author decided to take Cinnamon outside as she was too troublesome to stay in. |
| A．Life is short and unpredictable. | B．The loss of a pet can be painful. |
| C．We should have the courage to take risks. | D．Animal-assisted therapy is the best cure for mental illness. |
9 . Reading people’s minds seems to be a superpower that only exists in movies. But scientists have now made it possible to translate people’s brain waves!
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco developed a new device. It can turn brain waves into words on a screen in front of the user. In the study, they tested it with a paralyzed (瘫痪) man.
“To our knowledge, this is the first successful demonstration of direct decoding of full words from the brain of someone who is paralyzed and cannot speak.” said Edward Chang, the senior author of the study. Each year, thousands of people lose the ability to speak due to accidents or diseases. With up to 93 percent accuracy, the new device shows “strong promise” to let these people fully communicate in the future.
One problem with such mind-reading machines, however, is that they have to put electrodes into people’s brains. It’s inconvenient and has health risks. But scientists from the University of Texas, US, have taken steps to change this. They tried to translate people’s thoughts without even touching their heads, reported Live Science.
The new brain scanning technique is called FMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging. It’s a safer way of “reading” brain activity. Active brain cells have more oxygen. By tracking this, scientists can translate brain activity.
The team asked participants to listen to 16 hours of radio shows while scanning their brains. Then they used a computer algorithm (算法) to create a story based on the FMRI recording. It matched the radio shows pretty well.
In other tests, the algorithm could basically explain the story of a silent movie that the participants watched. It could even retell a story that the participants imagined in their heads. Although it’s not a word-for-word translation, the technique provides many possibilities.
1. What do the words “strong promise” mean?| A．The device has high accuracy. | B．The device can make a promise. |
| C．The device makes no mistakes. | D．The device makes a paralyzed man speak. |
| A．It puts electrodes into people’s brains. |
| B．It tracks the oxygen of brain cells. |
| C．It makes predictions based on people’s habits. |
| D．It guesses people’s thoughts randomly. |
| A．It’s safer. | B．It’s cheaper. | C．It’s smaller in size. | D．It’s more accurate. |
| A．It can only record what participants hear. |
| B．It can record every detail of participants minds. |
| C．Its recordings can be used to retell what participants had seen and heard. |
| D．It is accurate because it can tell imagination from fact. |
10 . How perfect the wings of a bird are! However, they will never
I used to outdo my classmates
As I further accept new life skills, I realize how much remains
| A．assist | B．feed | C．follow | D．guide |
| A．musical | B．political | C．literary | D．economic |
| A．urgent | B．impossible | C．dangerous | D．particular |
| A．consider | B．understand | C．mention | D．remember |
| A．physically | B．emotionally | C．psychologically | D．academically |
| A．rejected | B．ignored | C．blamed | D．interrupted |
| A．attempt | B．mistake | C．decision | D．promise |
| A．words | B．borders | C．numbers | D．expectations |
| A．appreciated | B．reported | C．discovered | D．Recommended |
| A．fault | B．business | C．excuse | D．dream |
| A．admitted | B．needed | C．received | D．possessed |
| A．message | B．approach | C．program | D．campaign |
| A．offer | B．gain | C．order | D．select |
| A．as for | B．apart from | C．due to | D．instead of |
| A．learn | B．afford | C．demand | D．pretend |
| A．regret | B．delight | C．amusement | D．embarrassment |
| A．undone | B．unusual | C．unfortunate | D．uncertain |
| A．Surprisingly | B．Gradually | C．Hopefully | D．Suddenly |
| A．so | B．but | C．if | D．before |
| A．view | B．power | C．honor | D．faith |
