by Mary Pope Osborne List price: $13. 99 | When Jack and Annie put on the magic baseball hats given to them by Morgan, they find themselves back in 1947 as batboys (球童) . There they learnt a lot about the game. |
by Debbi Michiko Florence List price: $15. 99 | Jasmine Toguchi wants to enter her school’s talent show, but what talent could she show? She knows when she is introduced to the traditional Japanese drums, where she finds a skill. |
by Graham Annable List price: $17. 99 | Peter and Ernesto are friends but are very different. Peter is a homeboy while Ernesto wants to explore. However, the separations make their reunion (团聚) all the better. |
by Patricia Valdez List price: $17. 99 | Unlike other girls her age, who prefer parties and such, Joan Procter is more than interested in visiting the Natural History Museum and enjoys talking about animals. |
1. Which book helps readers learn about a sport?
| A．A Big Day for Baseball. | B．Drummer Girl. |
| C．A Tale of Two Sloths. | D．Dragon Doctor. |
| A．$12. 59. | B．$9. 89. | C．$10. 48. | D．$10. 25. |
| A．Jack and Annie. | B．Jasmine Toguchi. | C．Joan Procter. | D．Peter and Ernesto. |
| A．Games. | B．A girl’s interest. | C．A talent show. | D．Friendship. |
2 . “If you could have any three things, what would you want?”
Eleven-year-old Ruby Kate Chitsey loves asking that question, but it’s not a game she plays at recess (课间). She asks it at nursing homes in the Harrison, Arkansas, where she lives. Even more amazing, she then sets out to make the residents’ wishes come true.
Ruby Kate often comes along with her mother, Amanda, who works at nursing home in the summer. “I’ve never found them scary at all, so I’m able to just go up to them and ask if they need anything,” she says.
Last May, Ruby Kate noticed a resident named Pearl staring out a window. She seemed sad. “What are you looking at?” Ruby Kate asked. Pearl said she was watching her dog being led away by his new owner after a visit. Pearl didn’t know when she would see her dog again. Pearl was a Medicaid recipient (医疗补助受益人), who got only$40 a month to spend on personal items. Ruby Kate and Amanda asked around and discovered that many residents are unable to afford even the smallest luxuries. So Ruby Kate decided to do something about it.
She started by asking residents what three things they wanted most. “That’s a lot simpler than going, ‘Hey, what do you want?” she explains. “They can understand you better.” Amanda worried that people would ask for things an 11-year-old wouldn’t be able to provide. Instead, they asked for chocolate bars, McDonald’s fries, and even just a prayer (祷告).
“It broke me as a human,” Amanda says with wet eyes. “We left the nursing home that day and went straight to a store and bought as many items as we could.”
Using their own money, the Chitseys made the wishes of about 100 people come true in three months. Then they started asking for donations. The good people of Harrison responded enthusiastically, and they raised $20,000 in 24 hours and more than $250,000 in five months.
1. Why does Ruby often ask the same question?| A．She likes hearing everyone’s stories. | B．She wants to help residents in nursing homes. |
| C．She finds it interesting to repeat the question. | D．It makes her famous in the community. |
| A．Pearl was in good health. | B．Pearl didn’t have enough money to keep her dog. |
| C．Pearl was too old to raise a dog. | D．Pearl sold her dog for small luxuries. |
| A．The simplicity and sincerity of the residents’ requests. |
| B．The popularity Ruby achieved for her kind behaviors. |
| C．The residents’ gratitude for Amanda’s assistance. |
| D．The generosity and enthusiasm of the good people of Harrison. |
| A．Action speak louder than words. | B．A friend in need is a friend indeed. |
| C．Nothing is difficult to a willing heart. | D．Kindness is the language of the heart. |
3 . When I think about ducks, I picture my mother’s pets. She saved Lucy and Fran from a very wet area when I was 16 years old. The little ducks were weak and sick. My mother helped them to get healthy.
Lucy and Fran lived in a large box in the garage. They became family pets. They were members of our family. Lucy followed me around. She quacked (嘎嘎叫) and quacked. She liked attention.
My brother Tim read everything he could find about ducks. He learned to care for our pets. He made sure that the box in the garage was fit for our pets. It had a heat lamp and a feeder. He gave them water and fresh straw each day. What a hit! Lucy and Fran loved their house. They quacked to say, “Thank you!”
On a rainy morning, Lucy walked near me to the mailbox. She walked so close that we knocked each other. I fell into a big mud hole. All the letters from the mailbox got wet. They were covered with muddy, brown water.
What’s worse, Tim watched from the window. When I got back into the house, he was on the kitchen floor holding the sides of his stomach. He laughed there.
I stomped (跺脚) my feet and threw up my arms. My mom calmly listened to me shout. “It’s okay, honey. If you prefer to, you can trade beds with the ducks!” she comforted.
With that in mind, I went to the garage and made my peace with the ducks. My own bed looked a lot better than their straw and heat lamp.
1. Where did Lucy and Fran live?| A．In the kitchen. | B．In the bedroom. |
| C．In the water. | D．In the garage. |
| A．To make a box for the ducks. | B．To choose a heat lamp for the ducks. |
| C．To learn to care for the ducks. | D．To read stories to the ducks. |
| A．The writer fell into a big mud hole. | B．The mailbox got lost. |
| C．The ducks both disappeared. | D．Tim picked up some letters. |
| A．Two Noisy Ducks for Sale | B．A Family’s Love for Ducks |
| C．A Family’s Photo with Ducks | D．Two Boys’ Fight with Ducks |
4 . This is something that all of us have noticed countless times in our daily lives. Whether you’re trying to read the fine print in a commercial or trying to make out a person’s face from a distance — it always helps to see better when you squint (眯起) your eyes.
There’s a common assumption that you’re adding much stress to your eyeballs by squeezing them to make them work better.
The act of squinting, quite obviously, alters the shape of the space through which light passes, which helps us form a clear image on the retina. What’s more, light from different directions enters and is subsequently perceived by the eye.
Squinting does not damage your eyesight.
| A．Actually, that’s not exactly the case. |
| B．Has it ever occurred to you why this happens? |
| C．Squinting does two major things to improve our vision. |
| D．However, doing it for long periods of time can lead to dry eyes. |
| E．Normally, this is a great thing, as it feeds your situational awareness. |
| F．A number of biological components actually constitute the human eye. |
| G．Before revealing the secret behind it, let’s learn about how we see things. |
5 . Mobile devices use facial recognition technology to help users quickly and securely unlock their phones, make a financial deal or access medical records. But facial recognition technologies that use a specific user-detection method are highly vulnerable (脆弱的) to deepfake (深度伪造) attacks.
Researchers found that most applications using facial liveness verification (活性验证) don’t always detect digitally processed photos or videos made to look like alive version of someone else, also known as deepfakes. Applications that do use these detection measures are also much less effective at identifying deepfakes than what the app provider has claimed.
“In recent years we have observed rapid development of facial verification technologies,” said TingWang, a principal investigator on the project. “Meanwhile, we have also seen significant advances in deepfake technologies, making it fairly easy to make live-looking facial images and videos at little cost. We thus ask the interesting question: Is it possible for attackers to misuse deepfakes to fool the facial verification systems?”
Wang’s research is the first systematic study on the security of facial liveness verification in real-world settings. Wang and his team developed a new deepfake-powered attack framework, called LiveBugger. They evaluated six leading commercial facial liveness verification applications. The researchers found that all four of the most common verification methods could be easily bypassed, which proved that the development of deepfake technologies raises a great threat to the commonly used technology. Thus Wang suggested matching lip movements with a user’s voice to analyze both audio and video instead of using a static image of a user’s face. “Facial liveness verification has been applied in many important situations, such as online payments, online banking and government services,” said Wang.
“Additionally, an increasing number of cloud platforms have begun to provide facial liveness verification, which significantly reduces the cost and lowers the barrier for companies to use the technology in their products. Therefore, the security of facial liveness verification is highly concerning.”
1. The wide use of facial recognition technology is encouraged by all the facts EXCEPT _______ .| A．its convenience to unlock phones | B．its easy access to our medical records |
| C．its combination with deepfake technology | D．its security concerning our financial deals |
| A．It is a destructive computer virus. |
| B．It is a facial liveness verification application. |
| C．It creates popular live-looking facial images and videos. |
| D．It is a framework testing facial liveness verification applications. |
| A．Worried. | B．Negative. | C．Supportive. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．LiveBugger: an attack framework powered by deepfakes |
| B．A discovery that may cause panic in the world of technology |
| C．Deepfakes reveal vulnerabilities in facial recognition technology |
| D．Measures have to be taken to improve facial recognition technology |
6 . During a recent long international trip, my youngest daughter got airsick (晕机) again. We were
When we stood in the middle of the terminal (航站楼), not only
While he was
As he walked away, she smiled and said, “He
It’s often the horror stories that make the headlines, but small,
| A．doubting | B．selecting | C．making | D．exercising |
| A．quarrelling about | B．getting through | C．figuring out | D．breaking out |
| A．appreciated | B．ignored | C．approached | D．examined |
| A．embarrassed | B．sick | C．hungry | D．thirsty |
| A．inspired | B．advised | C．persuaded | D．allowed |
| A．Instead | B．Therefore | C．Otherwise | D．Besides |
| A．mentioning | B．recommending | C．describing | D．delivering |
| A．curious | B．confident | C．confused | D．nervous |
| A．refusing | B．promising | C．pretending | D．deciding |
| A．particularly | B．unwillingly | C．cheerfully | D．regretfully |
| A．thought | B．cared | C．inquired | D．complained |
| A．affected | B．ruined | C．saved | D．wasted |
| A．hair- raising | B．jaw- dropping | C．eye- opening | D．heart- warming |
| A．opposed | B．attracted | C．grateful | D．delighted |
| A．fortune | B．difference | C．wonder | D．commitment |
7 . We sometimes think that everything was much better and easier in the past. It’s one of the tricks our minds play on us, especially when we are in low spirits.
Actually, it’s unlikely that things were objectively better in the past. This form of thinking is called rosy retrospection, which is a well- studied cognitive (认知的) mistake. It happens because when we think about the past, we are more likely to focus on positive aspects than negative details.
If you think back to a holiday with your family five years ago, you’re likely to recall the beautiful views rather than the uncomfortable bed. In other words, the annoying details disappear from our memory over time while the positive ones remain.
Rosy retrospection can influence how we make decisions, and it’s one of the reasons why we easily return into problematic relationships. The longer it is since we experienced the negative influence of a relationship, the more likely we are to let the good memories outweigh the bad memories and to perhaps forgive unforgivable behavior. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to review our nostalgic (怀旧的) feelings with a healthy degree of doubt.
But rosy retrospection does serve an important purpose. It keeps us in a positive state of mind in the present and is important to our mental health. In fact, people who tend to remember negative experiences more than positive ones are likely to suffer psychological disease. Research generally suggests that our happiest days are still to come. And even if they're not, it’s still important to believe that they are. Don’t shy away from looking upon the past with a certain degree of nostalgia. But, for the same reason, don't use the past as an excuse to be unhappy in the present.
1. What does the underlined phrase “rosy retrospection” in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Concentrating on impossible things. | B．Thinking objectively about the past. |
| C．Having a preference for good memories. | D．Remembering exactly about the details. |
| A．Forgiving the unacceptable behavior generously. |
| B．Reviewing the nostalgic feelings critically. |
| C．Ignoring the nostalgic feelings absolutely. |
| D．Getting back to the problematic relationships bravely. |
| A．The importance of maintaining a positive mindset. | B．The good excuse for present happiness. |
| C．The accuracy of remembering past details. | D．The negative impact of recalling past experience. |
| A．Negative. | B．Cautious. | C．Subjective. | D．Objective. |
