The Xi’an City Wall is the most complete city wall that has survived China’s long history. It
We accessed the wall through the South Gate. The wall is 12 meters high and from here you can see streams of people moving inside and outside the City Wall.
After
We
2 . You’ve got mail…and it’s a postcard
Paulo Magalhaes, a 34-year-old Portuguese computer engineer, loves to open his mailbox and find a brightly colored picture of Rome’s Colosseum. Or Africa’s Victoria Falls. Or China’s Great Wall.
“I often send postcards to family and friends.” he says to China Daily, “but you can imagine that after a while, you never receive as many as you send, and you realize that not everyone is into it.
Today his hobby has developed into the website postcrossing.com, a social network that has grown to 575,217 registered users in 214 countries and regions since he started it 10 years ago.
Language is certainly a barrier for many people. For postcrossing to work worldwide, a common communication language is needed so that everyone can understand each other. As cool as it may be to receive a postcard written in Chinese, the concept doesn’t work if one doesn’t understand it.
“Many people in China have limited exposure to English.
| A．And that’s totally fine. |
| B．That makes it extra hard to learn and practice it. |
| C．He likes to think of sending postcards as a family-friendly hobby. |
| D．Many love to make a connection with someone from across the world. |
| E．On August 5, the number of postcards exchanged by members topped 31 million. |
| F．Similarly, if you speak only Chinese, receiving a card in Swedish takes part of the fun away. |
| G．In short, he loves postcards, and the excitement of getting a hand-written note from someone far away. |
During this past year, I’ve had three instances of car trouble. Each time these things happened, I was sick of the way most people hadn’t bothered to help. One of those times, I was on the side of the road for close to three hours with my big Jeep. I put signs in the windows, big signs that said NEED A JACK (千斤顶), and offered money. Nothing. Right as I was about to give up, a Mexican family in a small truck pulled over, and the father bounded out.
He sized up the situation and called for his daughter, who spoke English. He conveyed through her that he had a jack but that it was too small for the Jeep, so we would need something to support it. Then he got a saw (锯子) from the truck and cut a section out of a big log on the side of the road. We rolled it over and put his jack on top, and we were in business.
I started taking the wheel off, and then, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. No worries: He handed it to his wife, and she was gone in a flash down the road to buy a new tire iron. She was back in 15 minutes. We finished the job, and I was a very happy man.
The two of us were dirty and sweaty. His wife prepared a pot of water for us to wash our hands. I tried to put a $20 bill in the man’s hand, but he wouldn’t take it, so instead I went up to the truck and gave it to his wife as quietly as I could. I asked the little girl where they lived. Mexico, she said. They were in Oregon so Mommy and Daddy could work on a fruit farm for the next few weeks. Then they would go home.
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 was about to say goodbye, the girl asked if I’d had lunch.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After they left, I got into my Jeep and opened the paper bag.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Litter is everywhere, doing great harm
The story began with his 6-year-old daughter. One day they were going on a hike when the girl noticed a broken plastic tub (浴盆) in a river. She said, “Daddy, that doesn't go there.”That took Kirschner by surprise. He, like many adults, had become so used to seeing the rubbish
Jeff started to take
Litterati is more than an app. It is highly
5 . As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remember less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.
In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.
In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder (文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location (位置) better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory (交互记忆)”
According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize huge quantities of information so that they are able to access it at a later date. This doesn’t mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.
1. The passage begins with two questions to ________.| A．introduce the main topic | B．show the author’s attitude |
| C．describe how to use the Internet | D．explain how to store information |
| A．Sparrow’s team typed the information into a computer. |
| B．The two groups remembered the information equally well. |
| C．The first group did not try to remember the formation. |
| D．The second group did not understand the information. |
| A．keep the information in mind |
| B．change the quantity of information |
| C．organize information like a computer |
| D．remember how to find the information |
| A．We are using memory differently. |
| B．We are becoming more intelligent. |
| C．We have poorer memories than before. |
| D．We need a better way to access information. |
6 . For most people, life has become a burden on their shoulders, and its weight is growing heavier and heavier, until one day they can’t carry it anymore. So how can we design a life that is less complex and more meaningful? With minimalism (极简主义).
Appreciate all the amazing things you already have. We constantly compare ourselves to others who seem happier, more beautiful and more important than us. We try our best to imitate those we envy.
Do one thing at a time. Minimalist living actually means making the most out of each and every moment. We’re usually carrying out different tasks at the same time. So whatever we are doing, our mind is partly wondering somewhere else.
Develop mindfulness.
| A．It is about enjoying life more with less. |
| B．Stop consuming products you don’t need. |
| C．Yet no matter how much we try, we always fail. |
| D．Get rid of things that don’t serve your happiness. |
| E．minimalist living requires a calm and undisturbed mind. |
| F．Stop multitasking and concentrate on a single thing at a time. |
| G．Unfortunately, our minds are filled with worries in our busy lives. |
7 . Artificial intelligence is one of the most concentrated industries in the world, which influences education, criminal justice, hiring and welfare, But so far the industry has escapedregulation (管理), despite affecting the lives of billions of people, even when its products are potentially harmful.
The COVID-19 pandemic has sped this up. Many Al companies are now promoting emotion recognition tools (ERTs) for monitoring remote workers. These systems map the “micro-expressions”in people’s faces from their video cameras. Then they predict internal emotional states drawn from a list of supposedly universal categories: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise and fear. However, there is scientific doubt whether emotional states are accurately detected at all. “It is not possible to confidently infer happiness from a smile, or sadness from a frown,” a 2019 review stated.
Resistance to this highly controversial (有争议的) technology is growing; the influential.
Brookings Institute suggested ERTs be banned completely from use by law. The European Union becomes the first to attempt a proposal to regulate AI, but the draft AI act has its problems. It would ban most “real-time” biometric ID (生物识别) systems — but fails to define what exactly real-time means.
Clearly, we need far stronger protections and controls that address such harmful effects on society. However, too many policymakers fall into the trap of “enchanted determinism”: the belief that AI systems are magical and superhuman — beyond what we can understand or regulate, yet decisive and reliable enough to make predictions about life-changing decisions. This effect drives a kind of techno-optimism that can directly endanger people’s lives. For example, a review in the British Medical Journal looked at 232 machine-learning algorithms (算法) for predicting outcomes for COVID-19 patients. It found that none of them were fit for clinical use. “I fear that they may have harmed patients,” said one of the authors.
Many countries have strict regulations and thorough testing when developing medicines and vaccines. The same should be true for AI systems, especially those having a direct impact on people’s lives.
1. What can be inferred from paragraph 2?| A．The COVTD-19 pandemic has sped up the regulation of AI. |
| B．The internal emotional states are only limited to six basic categories. |
| C．There is no reliable link between facial expressions and true feelings. |
| D．People’s micro-expressions accurately reveal their internal emotions. |
| A．To show EU’s resistance to AI technology. |
| B．To show the difficulty in regulating AI. |
| C．To prove AI technology should be banned. |
| D．To prove the act is completely ineffective. |
| A．It shakes people’s confidence in technology. |
| B．It enables people to correctly predict future. |
| C．It misleads policymakers in making decisions. |
| D．It helps predict outcomes for COVID-19 patients. |
| A．AI: Products in Demand |
| B．AI: Strict Rules in Place |
| C．AI: Tight Control in Need |
| D．AI: Technology in Danger |
8 . A Welcome Gift
Dario and his mother loved their new apartment. The living room was large enough for their piano. That night, the two of them
The next morning,
“Maybe we could go and
“What if we invited them to come here for a
They both loved the
Finally, the day of the party
“I heard you playing the other night,” she said. “The sounds woke me out of bed. I
Dario’s mother smiled at Mrs. Gilbert. “I think maybe we
“You play, you play!” Mrs. Gilbert said. “I like what you play! Just not so loud at night.” She pointed to the book she had given them. “These songs are not such
“These songs are beautiful music.” Dario’s mother said. “We will be
“And we won’t play so loud or late!” Dario said. He was already looking forward to
| A．sat | B．stood | C．lay | D．walked |
| A．voice | B．ring | C．music | D．cry |
| A．therefore | B．however | C．otherwise | D．instead |
| A．note | B．poster | C．bill | D．report |
| A．proud | B．rich | C．lucky | D．nice |
| A．neighbors | B．friends | C．relatives | D．audience |
| A．blame | B．instruct | C．question | D．visit |
| A．party | B．concert | C．show | D．play |
| A．experience | B．idea | C．performance | D．action |
| A．to | B．with | C．for | D．from |
| A．continued | B．arrived | C．passed | D．finished |
| A．order | B．sell | C．share | D．advertise |
| A．treated | B．presented | C．helped | D．served |
| A．promised | B．admitted | C．agreed | D．worried |
| A．give | B．send | C．offer | D．owe |
| A．realize | B．remember | C．understand | D．accept |
| A．sweet | B．strange | C．funny | D．loud |
| A．brave | B．sorry | C．happy | D．afraid |
| A．changing | B．practicing | C．recording | D．writing |
| A．equality | B．freedom | C．warmth | D．sympathy |
1.写邮件的目的；
2.讲座的相关信息(时间、地点、主要内容等)；
3.期待回复。
注意：1.写作词数应为80左右；
2.可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Jack,
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
I was a single mother in my 30s who lived down and out with my daughter Peggy in a small apartment, struggling hard to make our needs meet.
One day, I headed to the downtown for an interview. I sat down in the streetcar, and there against the seat was a beautiful silk umbrella with a silver handle decorated with gold scrolls, among which there was a name carved.
On impulse(冲动) I determined to find the owner myself. I got off the streetcar in the heavy rain and thankfully opened the umbrella to protect myself. Then I searched a telephone book for the name, I found it immediately and called it, waiting patiently, and then a lady answered.
"Yes, “she said in surprise, with extreme excitement." It was my umbrella which had been stolen a year ago.”
So appealing was her pleasure that I forgot I was looking for a job and went directly to her small house. She took the umbrella, with teary eyes, explaining with choking voice that the umbrella was given by her parents, now dead, Her happiness at retrieving(找回)this special possession was such that to have accepted her reward would have spoiled something, so I refused her offer and left.
The following months were hard. I can only obtain temporary employment, for a small salary. What was worse, I had just lost my last job before Christmas, with only fifteen dollars left. Unless a miracle happened, I would be homeless in January, foodless and jobless. I had prayed steadily for weeks, and there had been no answer but this coldness and darkness.
The air was full of Christmas merriment, with the bells ringing and children shouting in the bitter dusk of the evening. But there should be no Christmas for me, I knew, no gifts, no remembrance whatsoever.
Thinking of this, I couldn’t control my tears on my way home, but I managed a smile so could greet my little daughter. She opened the door for me and threw herself in my arms, screaming joyously and demanding desirably for her Christmas gift. There I stood, frozen, overwhelmed by misery.
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Suddenly, the doorbell rang and Peggy rushed to answer it, calling that it must be Santa Claus.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Suddenly, a note attached to one package caught my eyes.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
