1. Why did the speaker go on the tour?
| A．It was the prize of a competition. |
| B．John asked her to go with him. |
| C．It was her travel plan. |
| A．The drinks. | B．The food. | C．The waiters. |
| A．Disappointing. | B．Amazing. | C．Terrible. |
| A．She rode an elephant. |
| B．She went to the mountains. |
| C．She relaxed in the hotel. |
2 . There has been a recent wave in Hollywood where studios take popular animated (动画的) films and “improve” upon them by changing them into live-action remakes. The thought that live-action movies are better because they follow the laws of the natural world degrades the style of animation.
The beauty of animation is that its use of caricatures (漫画) and exaggerations (夸张) reflects an amazing amount of creative depth in characters stories that reality cannot. Looking at the bigger picture, it becomes clear that the true purpose of Disney’s ever growing list of live-action remakes is not to comment on the value of animation, although it indirectly does, but a quick way to take advantage of nostalgic (怀旧的) fans.
For evidence, look no further than Disney’s 2019 The Lion King live-action remake, a retelling of the 1994 animated classic. It broke several box office records, raking in a whopping $543.6 million globally in box office sales alone. However, in comparison to the original, the audience satisfaction with the remake decreased greatly on Rotten Tomatoes. This is similar to the the remakes of Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Dumbo, Aladdin, and the countless other live-action remakes Disney has produced within the last 5 years. This means that Disney no longer needs to come up with new and original content because they can make a big profit just by taking beloved stories and remaking them.
In fact, Disney looks at itself as a business, and therefore considers making a profit as one of their main aims.
The problem with this mentality (心态) is that, while Disney makes a huge profit, audiences, artists, and art suffer. They may no longer create new stories or art styles, but rather serve as money-making machines that require directors to produce the same stories with a fresh coat of paint every 10 years or so. If this cycle continues, artists will be held back from creating new lovable characters and stories full of creativity. The feeling of nostalgia when we see old Disney films could possibly never happen-to newer generations if this cycle does not stop.
1. What does the author think of live-action remakes?| A．They slow down Hollywood development. |
| B．They’ve failed to become a popular art form. |
| C．They are poor at showing the beauty of nature. |
| D．They destroy the artistic expression of animation. |
| A．It bases its stories on reality. | B．It uses many special effects. |
| C．It explores characters fully. | D．It brings back fans’ memories. |
| A．To tell us Disney has given up its originality. |
| B．To show Disney has focused more on making money. |
| C．To prove too many remakes have been produced. |
| D．To show audiences have high expectations of remakes. |
| A．It reduces Disney’s incomes. | B．It demands more from directors. |
| C．It hurts new-generation audiences. | D．It causes artists to be less creative. |
3 . The scent of hot bread drifting from the shops along the Street of Flour was sweeter than any perfume Arya had ever smelled. She took a deep breath and stepped closer to the pigeon. It was a plump one, speckled brown, busily pecking at a crust that had fallen between two cobblestones, but when Arya’s shadow touched it, it took to the air.
Her stick sword whistled out and caught it two feet off the ground, and it went down in a flurry of brown feathers. She was on it in the blink of an eye, grabbing a wing as the pigeon flapped and fluttered. It pecked at her hand. She grabbed its neck and twisted until she felt the bone snap.
Compared with catching cats, pigeons were easy.
She tied the pigeon to her belt and started down the street. A man was pushing a load of tarts by on a two-wheeled cart; the smells sang of blueberries and lemons and apricots. Her stomach made a hollow rumbly noise. “Could I have one?” she heard herself say. “A lemon, or…or any kind.”
The pushcart man looked her up and down. Plainly he did not like what he saw. “Three coppers.”
Arya tapped her wooden sword against the side of her boot. “I’ll trade you a fat pigeon,” she said.
“The Others take your pigeon,” the pushcart man said.
The tarts were still warm from the oven. The smells were making her mouth water, but she did not have three coppers... or one. She gave the pushcart man a look, remembering what Syrio had told her about seeing. He was short, with a little round belly, and when he moved he seemed favor his left leg a little. She was just thinking that if she snatched a tart and ran he would never be able to catch her when he said, “You be keeping your filthy hands off. The gold cloaks know how to deal with thieving little gutter rats, that they do.”
Arya glanced warily behind her. Two of the City Watch were standing at the mouth of an alley. Their cloaks hung almost to the ground, the heavy wool dyed a rich gold; their mail and boots and gloves were black. One wore a long sword at his hip, the other an iron cudgel. With a last wistful glance at the tarts, Arya edged back from the cart and hurried off. The gold cloaks had not been paying her any special attention, but the sight of them tied her stomach in knots. Arya had been staying as far from the castle as she could get, yet even from a distance she could see the heads rotting atop the high red walls. Flocks of crows squabbled noisily over each head, thick as flies. The talk in Flea Bottom was that the gold cloaks had associated themselves with the Lannisters, their commander raised to a lord, with lands on the Trident and a seat on the king’s council.
1. The story is set in a place where ______.| A．people raised pigeons | B．only privileged people lived |
| C．people sold and bought food | D．the watchmen received training |
| A．metaphor | B．overstatement |
| C．personification (拟人) | D．rhetoric rhyme |
| A．Remembering people’s appearance so that you can recognize them. |
| B．Perceiving people’s intention so that you can properly talk to them. |
| C．Understanding people’s living conditions so that you can help them. |
| D．Knowing people’ strengths and weaknesses so that you can beat them |
| A．Arya was more hunger than terrified in the story. |
| B．The Lannisters was a big enemy of the gold cloaks. |
| C．The atmosphere of the castle was agreeable and welcome. |
| D．The authority treated the executed people’s dead bodies in a cruel way. |
| judge from, turn out , be responsible for, remind… of …, make every effort to |
1. The woman in the park
2.
3. It is reported that smoking
4. The government
5. This photo
Tomato Changed My Life
Doing things-without being planned was never my strength.
As a 14-year-old, I would refuse to go for walks around the block with my friends if I was the least bit behind in my schoolwork.
Unlike most teenagers, I lived not in my room, but in an unused kitchen upstairs where I spread my books and papers on a large round table. I spent considerable time there, working continuously for hours, and my mother worried. She would try to lure (引诱) me away. “Come and watch the parade!” she would call from downstairs. “All neighbors are out there!” She thought of all kinds of tricks-the swimming pool, ice cream, stray cats and turtles-to remove me from my -studies, but nothing ever worked.
Later, in college, the pattern continued. The library and my college dorm replaced the unused kitchen at home. When spring came along friends would stop by my dorm or peer into my library room to persuade me to play Frisbee on the lawn. “No, I would almost always say.” I have too much to do.
My college study days were gone, but not my need and love for schedules. My friends and sisters tried to keep me away from my plans, but they were hardly ever successful.
This summer, though, while house sitting for my parents, I was persuaded to change my plans in the most unexpected way. The sight of tomatoes growing in my mother’s garden lured me out of my tightly scheduled world. They drew me with the power of a lover’s gaze. Hundreds of them were turning ripe and red by the minute, decorating the garden like decorations on a Christmas tree.
“If I have time, I’ll make tomato sauce (番茄酱).” I told myself. But my long week in the house by myself was already filled with things to do: writing, and finishing a project that I brought home from the office.
Then, watching the fascinating tomatoes continuously falling to the ground in ever-greater numbers, again I mentally argued about all the things I had planned and needed to do.
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。
Finally, I gave in.
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A month later, my parents came back.
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6 . There is growing interest in East Japan Railway Co. ltd, one of the six companies, created out of the privatized national railway system. In an industry lacking exciting growth
In a plan called “Station Renaissance” that it
The company also plans to introduce
| A．perspectives | B．outlooks | C．prospects | D．spectacles |
| A．creatively | B．originally | C．authentically | D．initially |
| A．displayed | B．demonstrated | C．embarked | D．unveiled |
| A．go beyond | B．set out | C．come around | D．spread over |
| A．applications | B．enterprises | C．functions | D．performances |
| A．districts | B．vicinities | C．resorts | D．locations |
| A．acquired | B．purchased | C．presided | D．attained |
| A．lodgers | B．tenants | C．dwellers | D．boarders |
| A．for | B．in | C．of | D．as |
| A．figures | B．exhibits | C．convinces | D．speculates |
| A．deprives | B．retrieves | C．spares | D．exempts |
| A．conjunction | B．convenience | C．department | D．ornament |
| A．delegated | B．designated | C．devoted | D．dedicated |
| A．clever | B．smart | C．ingenious | D．intelligent |
| A．checking | B．gathering | C．holding | D．accommodating |
| A．as | B．for | C．with | D．of |
| A．but for | B．as well as | C．instead of | D．more than |
| A．unique | B．single | C．unitary | D．only |
| A．devices | B．instruments | C．readers | D．examiners |
| A．reduce | B．narrow | C．dwarf | D．shrink |
8 . In this issue, as part of our ongoing Century of Science project, we dig deep into how the extraordinary advances in computing over the last 100 years have transformed our lives, and we ponder implications for the future. Who gets to decide how much control algorithms (算法) have over our lives? Will artificial intelligence learn how to really think like humans? What would ethical AI look like? And can we keep the robots from killing us?
That last question may sound imagined, but it’s not. As freelance science and technology writer Matthew Hutson reports, lethal autonomous drones (致命自动无人机) able to attack without human intervention already exist. And though killer drones may be the most dystopian (反乌托邦的) vision of a future controlled by AI, software is already making decisions about our lives every day, from the advertisements we see on Facebook to influencing who gets denied parole (假释) from prison.
Even something as basic to human life as our social interactions can be used by AI to identify individuals within supposedly anonymized data, as staff writer Nikk Ogasa reports. Researchers taught an artificial neural network to identify patterns in the date, time, direction and duration of weekly mobile phone calls and texts in a large anonymized dataset. The AI was able to identify individuals by the patterns of their behavior and that of their contacts.
Innovations in computing have come with astonishing speed, and we humans have adapted almost as quickly. I remember being thrilled with my first laptop, my first flip phone, my first BlackBerry. As we’ve welcomed each new wonder into our lives, we’ve bent our behavior. I could download a productivity app that promises to train me to stay focused, but using the phone to avoid the phone seems both too silly and too sad.
Not enough computer scientists and engineers have training in the social implications of their technologies, Hutson writes, including training in ethics. More importantly, they’re not having enough conversations about how the algorithms they write could affect people’s lives in unexpected ways, before the next big innovation gets sent out into the world. As the technology gets ever more powerful, those conversations need to happen long before the circuit is built or the code is written. How else will the robots know when they’ve gone too far?
1. Why does the author raise a series of questions in the first paragraph?| A．To stress the importance of AI ethic. |
| B．To comment on future AI implication. |
| C．To introduce the recent advances in computing. |
| D．To explain the significance of Century of Science project. |
| A．he has been able to concentrate on things better than before |
| B．some apps are indeed beneficial to people’s daily life |
| C．we are influenced by innovations around us unconsciously |
| D．software is already making decisions about our lives every day |
| A．Panicked. | B．Confused. | C．Disappointed. | D．Concerned. |
| A．Advertisements on Facebook revealed our personal information to AI. |
| B．What computing specialists lack is the training in the area of AI ethics. |
| C．AI is able to identify people based on the data collected from their conversations. |
| D．Autonomous drones’ offensiveness to human beings are under certain instructions. |
| A．Computer has changed everything. What’s next? |
| B．How can AI identify people even in anonymized datasets? |
| C．Why not embrace your robot, your next family member? |
| D．When it comes to lethal autonomous drones, what’s safe enough? |
