1 . Art Builds Understanding
Despite the long history of scholarship on experiences of art, researchers have yet to capture and understand the most meaningful aspects of such experiences, including the thoughts and insights we gain when we visit a museum, the sense of encounter after seeing a meaningful work of art, or the changed thinking after experiences with art. These powerful encounters can be inspiring, uplifting, and contribute to well-being and flourishing.
According to the mirror model of art developed by Pablo P. L. Tinio, aesthetic reception corresponds to artistic creation in a mirror-reversed fashion. Artists aim to express ideas and messages about the human condition or the world at large.
In addition, art making and art viewing are connected by creative thinking. Research in a lab at Yale University shows that an educational program that uses art appreciation activities builds creative thinking skills. It showed that the more time visitors spent engaging with art and the more they reflected on it, the greater the correspondence with the artists’ intentions and ideas.
Correspondence in feeling and thinking suggests a transfer — between creator and viewer — of ideas, concepts, and emotions contained in the works of art. Art has the potential to communicate across space and time.
| A．The viewers gain a new perspective on the story. |
| B．The theory of aesthetic cognitivism describes the value of art. |
| C．This helps to create connections and insights that otherwise would not happen. |
| D．To do so, they explore key ideas and continually expand them as they develop their work. |
| E．After spending more time with the work, the viewer begins to access the ideas of the artist. |
| F．For example, in one activity, people are asked to view a work of art from different perspectives. |
| G．Participants were more original in their thinking when compared to those who did not take part in the program. |
注意：1.词数100左右；
2.开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear editor,
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Sincerely yours,
Li Hua
要求：
1. 书写端正。
2. 字数 100 字左右。
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4 . It seems rather obvious that facial characteristics are determined by our genes. But until recently geneticists(遗传学家) had very little understanding of which parts of our DNA were linked to our facial appearance.
An international team of researchers identified more than 130 chromosomal(染色体的) regions associated with specific aspects of facial shape. This is a critical first step toward understanding how genetics impact our faces, Live Science noted.
Researchers scanned the DNA of more than 8,000 people and analyzed dozens of shape measurements from their 3D facial images to look at the statistical relationships between about 7 million genetic markers—known locations in the genetic code where humans vary—and the facial features.
“When we find a statistical relation between a facial feature and one or more genetic markers, it points us to a very precise region of DNA on a chromosome. The genes located around that region then become our prime candidates for facial features like nose or lip shape,” Seth Weinberg, co-author of the study, wrote on Live Science.
Researchers discovered some interesting patterns after looking at the implicated(牵涉其中) genes at these DNA regions. Your nose is the part that is most influenced by your genes. Areas like the cheeks, which are highly influenced by lifestyle factors like diet, showed the fewest genetic associations.
There is also a high degree of overlap(重合) between the genes involved in facial and limb development. This provides an important clue as to why many genetic syndromes(综合症) are characterized by both hand and facial malformations(畸形). Some genes involved in facial shape may be involved in cancer, too. It explains why people treated for pediatric(小儿科的) cancer show some distinctive facial features.
So, can someone take your DNA and construct an accurate image of your face? It’s unlikely. The 130-plus genetic regions that were identified explain less than 10 percent of the variation in facial shape. But even if we understood all of the genes impacting facial appearance, prediction would still be a big challenge. That’s because facial features are affected by other factors as well, such as age, diet, climate and sun exposure.
Still, the knowledge of patients’ genetic information can be an invaluable tool in creating personalized treatment plans in fields like orthodontics(畸齿矫正学) or reconstructive surgery. For example, if someday doctors can use genetics to predict when a child’s jaw will hit its growth peak, it will help them decide the best time to intervene.
1. What’s the main purpose of the research?| A．To explain why humans vary based on statistics. |
| B．To identify the factors impacting facial appearance. |
| C．To discover the link between genes and facial features. |
| D．To study the relationship between facial features and genetic markers. |
| A．The nose is most influenced by genes. |
| B．Facial malformations affect limb development. |
| C．The cheeks are most closely associated with age. |
| D．Facial shape and cancer are impacted by exactly the same genes. |
| A．It could improve orthodontic treatments. |
| B．It could be useful for changing facial shapes. |
| C．It could help recreate one’s jaw at an early age. |
| D．It could help predict facial appearance with ease. |
5 . The environmental practices of big businesses are shaped by a fundamental fact that offends our sense of justice. A business may maximize the amount of money it makes by damaging the environment and hurting people. When government regulation is effective, and the public is environmentally aware, environmentally clean big businesses may out-compete dirty ones, but the reverse is likely to be true if government regulation is ineffective and the public doesn’t care.
It is easy to blame a business for helping itself by hurting other people. But blaming alone is unlikely to produce change. It ignores the fact that businesses are not charities but profit-making companies, and they are under obligation to maximize profits for shareholders by legal means.
Our blaming of businesses also ignores the ultimate responsibility of the public for creating the conditions that let a business profit through destructive environmental policies. In the long run, it is the public, either directly or through its politicians, that has the power to make such destructive policies unprofitable and illegal, and to make sustainable environmental policies profitable.
The public can do that by accusing businesses of harming them. The public may also make their opinion felt by choosing to buy sustainably harvested products; by preferring their governments to award valuable contracts to businesses with a good environmental track record; and by pressing their governments to pass and enforce laws and regulations requiring good environmental practices.
In turn, big businesses can exert powerful pressure on any suppliers that might ignore public or government pressure. For instance, after the US public became concerned about the spread of a disease, transmitted to humans through infected meat, the US government introduced rules demanding that the meat industry abandon practices associated with the risk of the disease spreading. But the meat packers refused to follow these, claiming that they would be too expensive to obey. However, when a fast-food company made the same demands after customer purchases of its hamburgers dropped, the meat industry followed immediately. The public’s task is therefore to identify which links in the supply chain are sensitive to public pressure.
Some readers may be disappointed or outraged that I place the ultimate responsibility for business practices harming the public on the public itself. I also believe that the public must accept the necessity for higher prices for products to cover the added costs of sound environmental practices. My views may seem to ignore the belief that businesses should act in accordance with moral principles even if this leads to a reduction in their profits. But I think we have to recognize that, throughout human history, government regulation has arisen precisely because it was found that not only did moral principles need to be made explicit, they also needed to be enforced.
My conclusion is not a moralistic one about who is right or wrong, admirable or selfish. I believe that changes in public attitudes are essential for changes in businesses’ environmental practices.
1. The main idea of Paragraph 3 is that environmental damage__________.| A．is the result of ignorance of the public |
| B．requires political action if it is to be stopped |
| C．can be prevented by the action of ordinary people |
| D．can only be stopped by educating business leaders |
| A．reduce their own individual impact on the environment |
| B．learn more about the impact of business on the environment |
| C．raise awareness of the effects of specific environmental disasters |
| D．influence the environmental policies of businesses and governments |
| A．Meat packers stopped supplying hamburgers to fast-food chains. |
| B．Meat packers persuaded the government to reduce their expenses. |
| C．A fast-food company forced their meat suppliers to follow the law. |
| D．A fast-food company encouraged the government to introduce regulations. |
| A．Will the world survive the threat caused by big businesses? |
| B．How can big businesses be encouraged to be less driven by profit? |
| C．What environmental dangers are caused by the greed of businesses? |
| D．Are big businesses to blame for the damage they cause to the environment? |
请参考以下信息，完成你的个人简介，并说明你申请成为志愿者的目的。
参考词汇：volunteer 志愿者
| Name: Li Hua School: Evergreen High School Grade: Senior 1 |
| More information: a member of the school’s Water-Saving Club speak good English be in the habit of saving water be good at team work |
What may well be the oldest metal coins in the world have been identified at an ancient abandoned city known as Guanzhuang in China. Like many Bronze Age (青铜时代) coins from the region, they were cast in the shape of spades with finely carved handles. These ancient coins existed during an in-between period between barter (以物易物) and money, when coins were a novel concept, but everybody knew that agricultural tools were valuable.
Reading about this incredible discovery, I kept thinking about the way modern people represent computer networks by describing machines as having “addresses”, like a house. We also talk about one computer using a “port” to send information to another computer, as if the data were a floating boat with destination. It’s as if we are in the Bronze Age of information technology, grasping desperately for real-world reference to transform our civilization.
Now consider what happened to spade coins. Over centuries, metalworkers made these coins into more abstract shapes. Some became almost human figures. Others’ handles were reduced to small half-circles. As spade coins grew more abstract, people carved them with number values and the locations where they were made. They became more like modern coins, flat and covered in writing. Looking at one of these later pieces, you would have no idea that they were once intended to look like a spade.
This makes me wonder if we will develop an entirely new set of symbols that allow us to interact with our digital information more smoothly.
Taking spade coins as our guide, we can guess that far-future computer networks will no longer contain any recognizable references to houses. But they still might bring some of the ideas we associate with home to our mind. In fact, computer networks — if they still exist at all — are likely to be almost the indispensable part of our houses and cities, their sensors inset with walls and roads. Our network addresses might actually be the same as our street addresses. If climate change leads to floods, our mobile devices might look more like boats than phones, assisting us to land.
My point is that the metaphors of the information age aren’t random. Mobile devices do offer us comfort after a long day at work. In some sense, our desire to settle on the shores of data lakes could change the way we understand home, as well as how we build computers. So as we cast our minds forward, we have to think about what new abstractions will go along with our information technology. Perhaps the one thing we count on is that humans will still appreciate the comforts of home.
1. Many Bronze Age coins were made into the shape of a spade because ___________.| A．a lot of emphasis was put on agriculture |
| B．this stylish design made the coins valuable |
| C．these coins also served as agricultural tools |
| D．the handles made the coins easily exchanged |
| A．To show they both used to be new concepts when first invented. |
| B．To explain abstract digital worlds are different from concrete coins. |
| C．To suggest computers will experience dramatic changes as coins did. |
| D．To highlight their same importance in our civilizational transformation. |
| A．Flexible. | B．Essential. | C．Wasteful. | D．Alternative. |
| A．What Coins and Computers Bring Us |
| B．How Agriculture Loses to Digital Industry |
| C．How Bronze Age Develops to Information Age |
| D．What Ancient Money Tells Us About the Future |
8 . If you’ re reaching for the last piece of pizza at a party, and meanwhile see another hand going for it, your next move probably depends on how you feel and whom the hand belongs to. Your little sister — you might just grab the pizza. Your boss — you probably will give up. But if you’re hungry and feeling particularly confident, you might go for it.
Now researchers have made progress in understanding how mammals’ brain encodes social rank and uses this information to shape behaviours — such as whether to fight for that last pizza slice. They discovered that an area of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) was responsible for representing social rank in mammals; changes to a mouse’s mPFC affect its dominance (支配) behaviour. But it was unknown how the mPFC represented this information and which neurons (神经元) were involved in changing dominance behaviour.
In the new study, Professor Kay Tye let groups of four mice share a cage, allowing a social hierarchy (等级) to naturally develop — some mice became more dominant and others more subordinate. As soon as the mice were paired up, he discovered, the activity of their mPFC neurons could predict — with 90 percent certainty — the rank of their opponent.
“We expected animals might only signal rank when they are in a competition,” says co-researcher Nancy. “But it turns out animals walk around with this representation of social rank all the time.”
When the researchers next asked whether the activity of the mPFC neurons was associated with behaviour, they found something surprising. The brain activity patterns were linked with slight changes in behaviour, such as how fast a mouse moved, and they also could predict — a full 30 seconds before the competition started — which mouse would win the food reward.
The winner was not always the more dominant, but the one engaged in a “winning mindset”. Just as you might sometimes be in a more competitive mood and be more likely to snatch that pizza slice before your boss, a subordinate mouse might be in a more “winning mindset” than a more dominant mouse and end up winning.
The areas of the mPFC associated with social rank and “winning mindset” are next to one another and highly connected. Signals on social rank impact the state of the brain involved in “winning mindset”. In other words, a subordinate mouse’s confidence and “winning mindset” may partially decrease when faced with a dominant one.
“This is further evidence to suggest that we are in different brain states when we are with others compared to when we’re alone,” says Tye. “Regardless of who you’re with, if you’re aware of other people around you, your brain is using different neurons.”
1. The author writes Paragraph 1 in order to ________.| A．tell an interesting story | B．present a typical example |
| C．introduce a major topic | D．provide a convincing proof |
| A．The mPFC neurons. | B．The researchers. |
| C．The brain activity patterns. | D．The changes in behaviour. |
| A．mPFC neurons change dominance behaviour. |
| B．Brain activities can influence social hierarchy. |
| C．Dominant opponents boost “winning mindset”. |
| D．Social rank and “winning mindset” affect behaviour. |
| A．Those eager to win may succeed. | B．When alone, we are more confident. |
| C．Social rank guides competitive behaviour. | D．“Winning mindset” establishes dominance. |
内容包括：
1. 比赛的时间和地点
2. 比赛的场景及结果
3. 活动的意义
注意：1.词数 100 左右；
2.题目自拟。
友好学校：sister school
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The Power of Determination
Your quest for success and happiness begins with right intentions. It culminates (达到顶点) when you reach your chosen goals. What sustains your effort in between is your determination. What carries you towards your goals is your determination. It means the firmness of purpose or intention.
If there is one gift that you can give to yourself in your life to be what you want to be, it is the power of determination. Without it you are a mere passive spectator in the drama of your life. If there is one quality that makes a difference between a winner and a loser or a leader and a follower, it is the power of determination. Without it, you may dream wild dreams, but you will not accomplish much in life. If you have determination, nothing can stop you and deter you from following your course of action to achieve your goals or realize your dreams.
Obstacles may arise and obstruct your progress. They may delay your success, disturb you temporarily, and may even mislead you, but they cannot withstand the power of determination. It is the power that you generate within yourself to remain committed to your path and conviction, and march towards your cherished goals. Before you take up any project or goal, you should know whether you have the determination to stick to your plans and reach your goals. Your determination has to arise from within and derive its reinforcement from your thinking and beliefs rather than circumstances. Only then will you be able to sustain your effort, even when the going gets tough. Determination is your inner strength. Like the hardwood inside a tree, it gives you the power to stand tall and face the winds of turmoil.
With determination, you can crush the mountains of fear and doubts in you. You can find your way through the most difficult situations. Determination does not mean you will be insensitive to the reality of the situation. A determined person is also an adaptable and flexible person. He is not interested in being tough for toughness sake, but to overcome obstacles and reach his goals. Hence, he remains open-minded about possibilities and opportunities, but firm in his commitment and convictions. Discipline and determination go together. If you have them, you become unstoppable.
1. According to the passage, what is determination?2. What would happen if one does not have determination?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
With determination, you can crush the mountains of fear and doubts in you, and you will not make changes.
4. How does being determined benefit you? (In about 40 words)
